Full Transcript of Think Fresh - Episode 8
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;20;16
RYAN
We’re doing this.
JEN
All right. Hello and welcome to th – were you’re talking? Oh, my God. All right, we’ll try this again. Ryan, are you settled?
RYAN
I’m Settled.
JEN
Okay.
00;00;20;18 – 00;00;41;06
JEN
Hello, and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by de Novo Marketing’s Collective Creative. Coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing. Insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life – and whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de Novo CEO and your host.
00;00;41;08 – 00;01;04;03
RYAN
And I’m Ryan Shenefelt, account manager, innovation and education lead and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.
JEN
He is indeed very, very nosy.
RYAN
Today we’re going to talk about purpose driven marketing.
JAVIER
Hey. It’s me. Jav Ducker – multimedia specialist a de Novo Marketing. I am crashing the pod and stealing the spotlight because I have some exciting news to share.
00;01;04;04 – 00;01;27;11
JAVIER
So if you’re listening to this in early 2025, we have launched a very exciting new program called Fresh Impact. And this is aimed at helping local nonprofits in the corridor with marketing services. And for this first project, we’re kicking it off with a storytelling video. Applications are open through February 7th, 2025. If you are interested, you can find information and a link to apply in the show notes.
00;01;27;13 – 00;01;51;19
JAVIER
Okay. That’s it. I’m done. You can have your podcast back byeee.
JEN
To kick off season two of Think Fresh. We are bringing in an expert in this space, Laura Kuykendall. Laura is the senior vice president of marketing at Frontier Co-op and has more than 25 years of experience in the CPG space and has worked with companies like Snyder’s of Hanover, Annie’s Homegrown, Applegate Farms and Bolder Brands.
00;01;51;20 – 00;02;13;20
JEN
She is a big deal. Laura also serves as an advisor for the Gilliam Center for Entrepreneurship at James Madison University, where she earned her MBA. And locally, Laura is on the board of Matthew 25 and United Way of East Central Iowa. Laura, welcome to Think Fresh.
LAURA
Awesome. Excited to be here.
RYAN
Yes. And for our kickoff for season two. Season two.
00;02;13;21 – 00;02;34;01
JEN
Season two. So we’re we’re kind of just back in the saddle here and trying to remember how to do a podcast after a couple months off, but it’s been a really great – Is it good to say a great winter? I mean, it’s it’s snowy out sort of.
RYAN
Arguably arguably as as someone who likes snow. I have not gotten enough snow yet.
00;02;34;01 – 00;02;52;15
RYAN
I even with two sidewalks that I have to deal with, I still love the snow. And it’s it’s not. It’s not winter for me until I break my snow blower at least once. So a little bit more time, a little bit more time.
JEN
Anybody make any New Year’s resolutions?
LAURA
Oh, I started with the sugar thing.
00;02;52;18 – 00;03;10;25
JEN
But how’s that going for you?
LAURA
I had a little bag of M&Ms in my closet that I’ve already found and devoured, so.
JEN
it’s hard, like, you think that it’s not that big a deal until you go without it. And then the first thing you get is headaches.
LAURA
Correct.
JEN
It’s a real thing. So, I just tried to reduce the sugar.
00;03;10;26 – 00;03;35;04
JEN
I’m not really, probably going to be able to eliminate it completely.
RYAN
Laura, I love that you you set the, you set your own resolution, but you did have a little hide stash.
LAURA
Correct. Correct. Yeah, an emergency stash.
RYAN
I have given up on the, the health ones. They never work for me. But this year, I really want to,
00;03;35;05 – 00;03;51;13
RYAN
My goal is to be able to do a handstand, for at least three seconds. Otherwise, you’re just doing a cartwheel or a or around off. I want to be able to do a handstand and there’s no other reason for that other than I feel like if I can do a handstand, I can then do a pull up.
00;03;51;16 – 00;04;12;20
RYAN
And in the back of my head, I want to be able to pull myself up if I ever need to save my own life.
JEN
Like if you’re hanging off the edge of a building or cliff?
RYAN
Right.
LAURA
This is your survivor skill.
RYAN
Yes. Yes.
LAURA
Got it.
JEN
Well, I, I am not trying to undermine your efforts here, but every year, being able to do a yoga handstand or even a headstand is on my goal list.
00;04;12;20 – 00;04;30;28
JEN
And that’s been running for like 12 years, and I still have not achieved it. So, if you do that, you’re actually going to make me look like crap and
RYAN
You can do the splits. Jen, you can do the splits.
JEN
Sort of.
RYAN
I do want to, I like hiking and I want to go out to Colorado and visit some friends out there more.
00;04;30;28 – 00;04;49;09
RYAN
And there are cliffs there in the mountains. So I’m like, just thinking of that. I’m like, I need to be able to do this just in case. Just in case.
JEN
I mean, this will be reason to tune in all season just to report on the progress. I think we should. I think our producers should mark this down as a segment: how is Ryan doing on his handstand and his pull up goal?
00;04;49;09 – 00;05;08;09
RYAN
Oh crap.
JEN
And we will will be checking
LAURA
You’re obligated now.
JEN
Yeah this is your accountability. That was a great idea I love it.
RYAN
And speaking of Colorado, are you originally from, looking at your bio – are you originally from Virginia?
LAURA
I’m originally from Virginia, but my career has taken me all over the country, really mostly up and down the East Coast.
00;05;08;11 – 00;05;27;23
LAURA
But I lived a short while in Colorado. I might be the only person that ever left Colorado. It’s just so amazing. And this is my first stint in Iowa and the Midwest. And I’ve been here. It was four years this week that I moved to Iowa.
RYAN
How are you liking the Midwest in general?
LAURA
We’re so happy here.
00;05;27;26 – 00;05;51;06
LAURA
It’s just everything you hear about it is exactly true. The people, the geography. I’m a gardener. And so the best gardens of my life the past four years. The Iowa dirt is real, and very exciting. And then the sports scene. I’ve listened to previous podcasts and know that you have a new liking for sports, and, we’ve been all on board on Iowa sports.
00;05;51;08 – 00;06;15;17
RYAN
Yes, yes. All in on the sports started with, Iowa women’s basketball transition to the WNBA and, a newfound love of Iowa football. I went to school there. So, 15 years ago, it was all about tailgating, but now it’s about watching the games on TV and actually caring about, about the sports.
RYAN
So you said you were, kind of up and down the East Coast, going through the previous places you’ve worked.
00;06;15;17 – 00;06;33;00
RYAN
I think a lot of our listeners probably have many of these in their pantry, like the pretzels, the macaroni and cheese, all of the, the butter with Boulder Brands, Applegate’s their, their chicken nuggets, like you, not only your refrigerator, my freezer as well. What is it about the CPG space that that has really taken you?
00;06;33;06 – 00;07;00;16
LAURA
I think working in food and the opportunity to deliver really tangible, meaningful, consumer packaged goods to people’s table and, knowing that you’re impacting families, helping moms. I was at Annie’s Home Grown young in my career and young children, and it was really a day to day. We’ve all been there trying to feed our kids, and Annie’s just had that, ability to do that.
00;07;00;16 – 00;07;24;03
LAURA
And I’ve found that connection throughout my career with all of these brands. And really, our topic today, about purpose is all of these brands had some component of purpose and giving back and for me, that’s become, really, a pillar in my career, in my choices about brands to work with and work for that’s important to me.
00;07;24;09 – 00;07;43;00
JEN
Yeah. It is really interesting that you say that about Annie’s. So fun story. When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I told my mother my kids would never eat hot dogs or boxed macaroni and cheese. And my mom said, oh, that’s cute. Great, great. And so my compromise, once I learned how hard toddlers are to feed, was Annie’s.
00;07;43;02 – 00;07;59;24
JEN
I felt like I could trust that brand. And I think that has a lot to do with the the packaging and the messaging that goes into that and the values of that brand in general. Were the only thing that resonated with me on that shelf and made me feel like, okay, I can I can feed my kids this.
LAURA
Doing a little bit better.
00;07;59;24 – 00;08;19;21
LAURA
And, it’s funny that you should say that all moms must have mac and cheese and hot dogs on that original no-no list, and then it becomes the quickly, the acceptable list. But Applegate Farms, as you know, is also hot dogs, so I was able to give my kids mac and cheese and hot dogs that which felt a little bit better.
00;08;19;21 – 00;08;35;25
JEN
Best combination of foods in the world, really. But yeah, I think that was, that was on my, I can buy that at Target list. So yeah.
RYAN
Yeah, I like your note of a little bit better. That’s that’s what resolutions are all about. Kicking off the new year. It’s like let’s just be a little bit better, right?
00;08;35;27 – 00;08;52;21
JEN
New year, marginally better me.
RYAN
Exactly. So so today we’re going to be talking about purpose driven marketing. But but what is that? There might be some, people might have different, different things in their head about purpose driven marketing, but for, for the intent and purpose of a podcast about it, let’s define it.
00;08;52;26 – 00;09;12;05
RYAN
Purpose driven marketing is a strategy that aligns a company’s brand with its values. It goes beyond a campaign or a single messaging point. It really is the foundational part of the business. It lends itself to all aspects of the company, including marketing. It turns the transactional into the transformative. So, Laura, you’ve been at Frontier for four years now, right?
00;09;12;05 – 00;09;42;23
LAURA
Right.
RYAN
Tell us a little bit more about Frontier Co-op.
LAURA
Sure. Frontier Co-op is dedicated to sourcing and selling the highest quality spices, herbs and botanical products through our Frontier Co-op brands, which are Frontier Co-op, Simply Organic and Aura Cacia. We create life changing opportunities for our growers, employees and greater communities through selling of these products, and we deliver on our commitment to quality and sustainability through various programs.
00;09;42;28 – 00;10;08;02
LAURA
You can find our brands nationally in natural food stores and co-ops like New Pioneer here in Iowa and other natural food stores and in national natural food stores like Whole Foods and Sprouts, which is where we got our start. And we’re continuing to grow in mainstream grocery stores like Hy-Vee and Fareway, Wegmans, in the northeast, H-E-B in Texas, a real expansion plan across the country.
00;10;08;04 – 00;10;36;13
LAURA
And then you can find us now in some Walmarts and Target, which is really exciting. And of course on Amazon, Walmart.com and iHerb, to name a few of the e-commerce brands. We’re driven by a simple purpose: doing good works, and there’s a comma after doing good, and the comma matters because that’s what we’re going to talk about in terms of how it relates to business and how we do well in our business by doing good.
00;10;36;16 – 00;11;00;11
LAURA
And it means we’re committed to having a positive impact on the lives that we touch, not only the consumers buying our products, but on our employees, on the farmers where our herbs and spices come from and within the communities where we live and serve. So, it’s kind of a holistic approach. And I’m excited to talk more about specifically the doing good works and why it matters to Frontier.
00;11;00;13 – 00;11;18;22
RYAN
I like that you say the the comma matters. The comma matters because, yeah, it’s, not a play on words, but two meanings there. Right? Because this is the business side of of doing good. We are still businesses, right? We still have to bring in money in order to continue our mission and make sure that we can help as many people as possible.
00;11;18;24 – 00;11;38;12
RYAN
And from what it sounds like, it’s not just your employees, but also the farmers. I think that there is a big, big gap in people. They just see spices or they see products on the shelves, and you’re not thinking about the people who are manufacturing them or even creating the, the raw materials that go into them. So I’m excited to hear more about your programs.
00;11;38;12 – 00;11;54;29
RYAN
Did a little research on it, but I’m excited to talk more about that side of things, too.
JEN
And I’m going to take us down another lane here and talk a little bit about the marketing side of that, because, most of our listeners, with the exception of Ryan’s mom, are marketing professionals, or have something to do with marketing in their companies.
00;11;54;29 – 00;12;20;13
JEN
And one of the things we talk about a lot is purpose driven marketing and being really authentic. So if I can just dig into Laura’s brain here, I want to start with what challenges you face when you’re balancing profit driven business goals and maintaining a purpose driven brand identity.
LAURA
Sure. So I would say this has been a challenge throughout my career with all of these great brands, is that at some point,
00;12;20;13 – 00;12;49;10
LAURA
it all sounds great and the work is wonderful, but it comes down to the balance between business and profitability. All of those brands that I’ve worked for previously have been, you know, private equity on some fast growth, a lot of change in ownership, which creates challenge, I will say, and I’m proud to say looking continuing to follow many of those brands that a lot of those purpose driven, tenets still remain with those brands.
00;12;49;16 – 00;13;21;11
LAURA
What’s different about Frontier is that we’re a co-op, and so we exist to serve our members, and there’s just a little less pressure and a longer term vision to these purpose driven. It is part of the business. That is what we exist to do. And so that’s what’s been fun for me. And I can honestly say there’s no tension between doing good in the world and growing a financially successful business at Frontier within our business structure model.
00;13;21;14 – 00;13;46;18
LAURA
And I’m really proud about that. And I’m also excited about that because it gives me lots of runway to dream and think and not worry about how are we going to sell this in or how are we going to pay for it. It just doesn’t exist. We know that having a positive impact on the world, it just makes sense and can actually have a direct positive benefit to the bottom line.
00;13;46;18 – 00;14;09;15
LAURA
Even on our business. Our CEO is, likes the saying that doing good works – it’s not a charitable proposition. We’re not a nonprofit, not for profit, but it’s something that actually makes our business stronger and better.
JEN
Yeah, you can do well and you can do good simultaneously. They’re not mutually exclusive.
LAURA
Correct. Now, I think within that, I’m not saying that it’s all like sunshine and roses.
00;14;09;15 – 00;14;34;03
LAURA
Every day people come to Frontier Co-op just like me, because they read about these things and they know this about us. And so they come here many people to make a difference, like, oh, here’s where I can go make a difference. And so really the challenge comes in is making sure that our planning is kind of staying true and responsible, and making sure that all of our good works are relevant to the business.
00;14;34;08 – 00;14;57;26
LAURA
So there’s so many good things going on, and we just have to be sure that we remain focused in our endeavor. And that is where the challenge comes in. We aren’t good at saying no sometimes, but offer good reason. And I don’t regret the yeses. But we also have to be mindful of kind of what we’re aiming for.
00;14;57;28 – 00;15;24;05
LAURA
And then another challenge I would just say is sourcing globally creates its own challenges. And part of our purpose driven work is trying to strengthen our global sourcing partners. But these are smallholder farmers with really small hectares of land, not massive farms like we know in the US. And so making sure that those are sustainable and giving them the tools they need, is a challenge.
00;15;24;07 – 00;15;47;20
LAURA
Every day there’s an email from our procurement team about, you know, a hurricane here. Certainly. You know, recently in the US, even the floods on the East coast and now the fires on the West coast, but globally, things like that are literally happening every day. And so that creates challenges in our sourcing, which is core to our purpose driven work.
00;15;47;23 – 00;16;16;02
JEN
So Laura, all marketing evolves, right. And every industry also evolves. And your industry is no stranger to that. So how do you navigate like consumer skepticism around purpose driven marketing, especially with terms like sustainability and organic, becoming way more mainstream and sometimes overused.
LAURA
So it’s certainly frustrating to see the proliferation and misuse of these words like sustainability.
00;16;16;02 – 00;16;39;27
LAURA
Regenerative is a new one that is now everywhere in the marketplace. I read an article recently that describes this consumer skepticism as purpose fatigue, which I think is really interesting. Like we’re interested in consumers, but we’re growing tired and weary of. Is that true? Do they mean it, what do they mean by that? And at Frontier, we know that words matter.
00;16;39;27 – 00;17;07;13
LAURA
We hold ourselves accountable, maybe to the fault, to a fault, to the words that we use. de Novo is a copywriting partner of ours. And they- your team can attest to how we debate literally words sometimes because we know that consumers care about this. And what I’m finding is that consumers not only want you to say what you’re doing, but they’re demanding evidence of how this impact is actually happening.
00;17;07;13 – 00;17;30;15
LAURA
So how are you measuring? It’s not enough, just a claim of purpose, but you got to show the results. And so, honestly, some of our recent investment has been in tools to help us better measure, you know, one of our programs, our goal is to, bring more organic food, to food deserts and, allow everyone to have access to organic food.
00;17;30;23 – 00;17;56;06
LAURA
So one of our measures will make an investment. And someone that’s helping us do that is like, how many meals are you serving? And it’s not whether it’s 10 or 100, but just that we know and we can say, here’s what we’re doing and here’s what it’s the results of it. And I think that builds some consumer confidence in us that, we’re putting we’re delivering the results and what we’re saying we’re doing.
00;17;56;09 – 00;18;15;26
LAURA
We also are publishing a sustainability report that’s not unique. A lot of main brands, major brands do that. We’ve been doing it for more than ten years just to have a public accountability to our work and, acknowledge what we’re doing well and also what we’re not doing well and how we might challenge ourselves to be better.
00;18;15;29 – 00;18;44;25
LAURA
And I think that kind of transparency and authenticity, I hope, over the long term, is what resonates with consumers and maybe sets us apart from those that are, you know, using the words for the use of sake of just selling a product.
JEN
I fully expect Frontier Co-op is going to outlive a lot of those brands.
LAURA
Yeah, 50 years next year, 1976, will be our, 50th anniversary next year.
00;18;44;25 – 00;19;08;05
LAURA
So lots to celebrate. And at the same time, we feel so like there’s so much work yet to be done and ways to explore.
RYAN
The fatigue part is, is something that does ring true to me, because greenwashing, that’s when you, you use these green words in order to hope that people are like, oh yeah, like that’s that’s a different brand, that’s different than, than another brand.
00;19;08;08 – 00;19;29;23
RYAN
When you actually live the brand and when you do good, truly do good, you want to be able to show it off like you said. So you want to be able to actually measure it and show people. But I think a part of it too, is on the consumers. If you are fatigued by seeing these words, look into the companies, truly look into them, because you guys do a great job of of talking about, the individual farms that you work with.
00;19;29;25 – 00;19;49;10
RYAN
You, you kind of can see through the, the people that aren’t really doing it, or who are just adding the word organic or sustainable to their products. You guys are walking the walk and and talking about it in a way. So you can – I guess I just want to put some work on the consumer, like, look into it.
00;19;49;10 – 00;20;16;15
RYAN
If you’re fatigued by these words, look into those brands and see if they actually are talking about the other side of it, too.
LAURA
And I’m a big fan. I mean, I was raised that actions speak louder than words, and I think that’s incredibly important. So I, we don’t do everything great and we make mistakes sometimes. And so I also want to be honest and transparent about that, because I do think consumers appreciate that no one’s perfect.
00;20;16;15 – 00;20;38;19
LAURA
And so just making sure that our actions are honest when we mess up, but also we’re, Frontier’s a true Iowa based company where we’re very humble and don’t like to brag about the work. And so I’ve been, encouraging us that we need to speak out more about the good things that we do.
JEN
You’re bringing in some of your East Coast flavor here.
00;20;38;19 – 00;21;02;22
LAURA
Yeah, yeah, because consumers want to know those and do it in a way that isn’t bragging, but getting credit for the work.
JEN
Well, Ryan brings up that, consumers should do it should be looking into it. But like from a behavioral design perspective, we know that they probably won’t. Like there are some you probably have a core group of, of target, the target audience that really does.
00;21;02;22 – 00;21;28;24
JEN
They, they read your sustainability report. Right. Like they’re reading every, every word in there, but not every consumer is going to do that. So that really kind of leads into that storytelling aspect of it, and that there’s an additional layer of complexity when you’re doing storytelling and you know, you’ve done some work with influencers, how do you make sure that that authenticity comes through in what others might be saying on your behalf?
00;21;28;26 – 00;21;50;17
LAURA
When we think about working with partners, we think about it as much from the qualitative standpoint as we do the quantitative. And I know that sounds trite and maybe a little bit cliche, but we really want to work with people that we like and that is like us and understands the debate that we will have in our doing good works process.
00;21;50;17 – 00;22;11;08
LAURA
So, you know, I put de Novo up there with a long time partner because we are like minded and we share a lot of the same values, and you’ve engaged in us and pushed us to be better. And I would say influencers are very similar. What we’ve learned is by channel, we have to think about our storytelling by channel.
00;22;11;08 – 00;22;38;25
LAURA
So on Instagram, it’s still very recipe driven. So we want really great recipe influencers, people that do creative work. But within that, we want them to be able to talk about where that Ceylon cinnamon came from and why it’s important to use Ceylon instead of something else. So I think that is where it brings it in storytelling and those shorter influencer type moments.
00;22;38;28 – 00;23;12;23
LAURA
And we also are trying to build longer term relationships with influencers specifically, I actually while, you know, mega influencer and micro, that is important and I do want – listen, I’m not going to turn down a mega influencer or somebody that wants to talk about us. Jerry Seinfeld did a little YouTube video, and he’s a fan of Simply Organic on his top ten things
JEN
Pretty big influencer.
LAURA
And that was exciting, but less important to me is the number and more just their, their relationship with us and how they want to talk about us and how we want to engage.
00;23;12;23 – 00;23;36;18
LAURA
I don’t want just one recipe and pay for one recipe post, but hopefully an engagement of a relationship over time. That’s like a TikTok and Instagram. On LinkedIn, the kind of influencers we look at are thought leaders in the space and other people that want the longer story, and that can endorse our story and tell why sourcing matters.
00;23;36;18 – 00;24;04;13
LAURA
So we’ve also gotten better I think by channel at storytelling of understanding what kind of information is important.
JEN
So overseeing a large marketing department, different products, a lot of different products. Things are busy, things are hectic. How do you, in the thick of things, keep your team focused on that authenticity and ensuring that the right messaging is getting out?
00;24;04;15 – 00;24;25;03
LAURA
So when I first started at Frontier Co-op, it felt like we were all over the place, and I can’t imagine being a partner of ours trying to figure out which direction to go. So kudos to de Novo to help try to navigate us and push us in good directions. We do lots of things. It’s impossible to tell the whole story effectively.
00;24;25;03 – 00;24;52;01
LAURA
And so when I came in, the thing I recognized is we have to figure out how to package this. If you were to ask three people at Frontier Co-op, what does doing good work mean, you would get three answers. Actually, you would get ten answers from three people, maybe more. And so I remember vividly in my office on a whiteboard with my team, I’m like, let’s just put everything on the board that we think is doing good works and that we do well.
00;24;52;03 – 00;25;17;08
LAURA
We did it. It was covered and it was amazing. I get chills when I talk about it. I was talking about this with one of my teammates and like she got teary. Like, I remember that day. It like fell really easily into three categories. I’m like, this is who we are. So we have three pillars. One is we do good works at source and that’s all of our, Well Earth programs and Fairtrade certification.
00;25;17;15 – 00;25;41;03
LAURA
We’re the first organic spice brand that’s all at Source. And we do really good work, all of our good works in our communities. And that’s our Simply Organic Giving Fund. It’s our positive change project for Acacia, where we’re helping women and children. It’s things that we do locally with Matthew 25 that’s all in our community. And the third pillar is within our own walls.
00;25;41;05 – 00;26;04;20
LAURA
And that’s the things like second chance hiring and subsidized childcare and transportation that we provide. And it all just fell neatly into those categories. And now I would hope, if you would ask really anybody, not just marketing at Frontier, they would have glimmers of these three categories that they would talk about. And it has made the storytelling easier.
00;26;04;20 – 00;26;25;24
LAURA
It’s gotten some enthusiasm, and it also creates a good roadmap for storytelling that if we’re going to do something or tell a story, which pillar does it fall into? And what are the messages about that pillar that are important. It’s it’s just made life feel easier. We haven’t taken away one single program, but everything feels now with some organization and structure.
00;26;25;24 – 00;26;45;21
JEN
When communication is organized in that way, it’s so much easier for a team to deliver on it and deliver on it consistently. And when you work with creatives and you’ve got a lot of really awesome creatives on your team, I’m sure you have to wrangle them every once in a while. But having that structure and having those three categories or buckets, is really probably super helpful to them.
00;26;45;21 – 00;27;11;10
JEN
It’s helpful to us too when when we’re working with you guys, helps us frame what we’re doing.
LAURA
And it seems so simple, but wow, it was just a big unlock. And then as we move that into storytelling or, just, living the mission has been really important. And what I mean by that is, making sure and our sourcing stories, it’s one thing to say we do really cool work in Guatemala.
00;27;11;10 – 00;27;31;14
LAURA
There’s a fellow, co-op cooperative there, a Fedecovera, that we love. They’re a tier one co-op that has multiple co-ops underneath them, working with something like 33,000 farmers. It’s like really big and I have to go, wow, that’s cool. I love to tell that story. I went to Guatemala and I lived it, and I visited those co-ops.
00;27;31;14 – 00;27;56;00
LAURA
I saw our health care facility there. I rode on the, mobile health truck, and it made it all the difference to actually live it. So we try to send people out on these sourcing trips and to these partners, and to see our projects firsthand, because I feel like that’s what makes storytelling come alive. My energy about Fedecovera is like I wanted, you know, I just need to be there.
00;27;56;00 – 00;28;19;18
LAURA
I love what’s going on there. So that and then we do volunteering in our community. I think we allow volunteer hours for all of our employees to go into the community again. And that middle pillar in our community. And then, you know, the work that we’re doing within our own walls. Also people living, breathing, we have a few people that have stepped forward from our second chance hiring.
00;28;19;20 – 00;28;49;00
LAURA
It’s an anonymous program that we don’t as a, even our management team unaware of who is a second chance employee. And that means just giving people that have been justice involved a chance to have a new life and a new beginning. We’ve had a couple of those folks step forward. And so again, that authentic storytelling to say what it’s meant and their lives and how it’s transformed and changed them has made again those pillars in the storytelling all the richer.
00;28;49;02 – 00;29;09;25
JEN
And I have to say, as as childcare needs have evolved in our state and it’s finally become a forefront in, in economic health of our communities, in our state. I mean, you guys were doing that before it was cool, right? You have been living that walk. And so you think about these different layers starting at that very micro level.
00;29;09;27 – 00;29;35;10
JEN
And leading up to, you know, farms in Guatemala and how that is authentic to your brand and how that bleeds through in your, in your communications and marketing. It’s really it’s it’s impactful.
LAURA
Yeah. The interesting thing is when we did those pillars, I was certain that the sourcing stories were going to be most relevant and important, which turned out to be the most interesting to folks and where we’ve gotten the most traction, like in earned media.
00;29;35;10 – 00;29;58;24
LAURA
And those sorts of things are the things happening within our walls. And it’s for the very reasons that you speak about it’s childcare is challenging. Even transportation and housing is hard for people. And if you aren’t addressing those basic needs and helping people address those needs, it’s difficult to hold a job and, you know, back to Tony’s point, our CEO, about doing good works is good business sense.
00;29;58;28 – 00;30;24;13
LAURA
We need employees. There’s an employee shortage. So if we can help make their life better and easier, then that’s good for us too. It’s doing good works and it’s the pillar that’s resonated the most recently.
JEN
That’s really interesting. When you think about communicating all of that to your audiences. You know, we talked about that earlier. And, you know, behavioral design will just tell you that people aren’t going to go searching for all of it.
00;30;24;15 – 00;30;53;20
JEN
How do you prioritize and organize that messaging into something that matters to your audiences? So we have three different brands and all of them have three very distinct, brand propositions. And so making sure that we’re staying true Simply Organic is more about just organic high quality products. So we’re going to choose messages around creating great recipes with good organic food.
00;30;53;20 – 00;31;19;14
LAURA
And so that’s really maybe a little bit of the sourcing story, but it’s more, the community access is important to that community. So that center pillar for that brand. For Aura Cacia the Positive Change Project has been really important. And so again, kind of that center pillar, but also quality and sourcing. I mean, there’s lots of, let’s say not great essential oil products on the market today.
00;31;19;14 – 00;31;41;18
LAURA
And so that sourcing pillar is really important to the Aura Cacia brand. The Frontier Co-op brand is all in on all of those things. They want to know the farmer. They want to know where it come from. So I think we have to be, you know, we’re, we’re organized by brand teams, and I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job at always pushing ourselves like that.
00;31;41;18 – 00;32;04;24
LAURA
More for Frontier brand. That’s really an Aura Cacia pillar. And Simply Organic is all about this. Yeah, I think I and I think you’ve really organized those teams well, and like I said, when you organize the information for people, they will understand it’s so much better in consistency.
JEN
Right? Like, we all know that consistency is actually one of the most important things when it comes to marketing, right?
00;32;04;27 – 00;32;31;12
LAURA
I mean, we’re it’s mattered the most. And where it’s been really important is as we’ve grown our retail distribution, we’re finding more, retailer accountability towards goals like this. And so at the very highest level, all three of these pillars, they want to know, what are you doing for sourcing and how you’re impacting climate change, because they’re also being measured on these goals as well to their constituents.
00;32;31;12 – 00;33;01;28
LAURA
So we found it to be really important to just getting us in the door of distribution across all of our brands.
JEN
So you’ve been with the brand for four years now, and in this space kind of for a lot of your career, how do you see this category evolving?
LAURA
Sure. Well, I’m happy to say, and for our brand and other purpose driven brands, there’s a lot of research to say that consumers are still willing and expecting to invest.
00;33;01;28 – 00;33;22;16
LAURA
They want to vote with their dollars. Gen Z especially so, they’re willing to make the sacrifice. I mean, my kids, the things they spend money on because it’s important to them, would be choices that I would not have made at their age, but they are willing to make the sacrifice to afford those things. So I see that becoming more and more important.
00;33;22;18 – 00;33;46;26
LAURA
It’s the accountability part to the brands on like, what are you doing to impact change? So I think that’s going to continue to grow. Our brands are all enjoying market share growth, which I’m really happy about, but we’ve only scratched the surface. While household penetration is still really low in organic spices. But to me that’s exciting. There’s a lot of runway and a lot of people that still need to learn about our brands.
00;33;46;29 – 00;34;07;03
JEN
Yeah. So Laura, having been in this space for a while, give our listeners your best advice. So for brands who are aiming to adopt a more purpose driven marketing approach, what are the biggest what are the biggest pitfalls to avoid?
LAURA
I think the biggest thing for me is we talk about marketing is really the driver around purpose driven work.
00;34;07;09 – 00;34;32;00
LAURA
But as much as you can take marketing out of it, avoid making it a marketing only program. Purpose really needs to sit at the center of any organization and operation to be effective. And so rather than just a one off purpose campaign, somehow get it in the center so that it permeates throughout. I know I keep referencing the pillars, but again, it’s been transformational for us.
00;34;32;02 – 00;34;56;23
LAURA
But in the sourcing pillar, our procurement team can look in that pillar and say, that is my job. I have to go find these smallholder farmers in these remote places and help them be successful. In our pillar about doing good works within our own walls, our HR department and our operations department looks at that and says, what can we do for our employees to make it better?
00;34;56;25 – 00;35;22;06
LAURA
So as much as you can make it permeate your entire organization, the more successful you’re going to be, it should resonate and be supported by the entire ecosystem. And I think you can’t ignore the expectations and the values of your consumers as well. What do they what’s interesting to them? Like I said, there’s a lot of good things that you can do, but what is going to resonate most with your consumer?
00;35;22;09 – 00;35;50;14
JEN
You know, you mentioned that, you started at Annie’s fairly early in your career. Any lessons that you learned early on in, in this space that you’re like, I’m going to log that for future use?
LAURA
I think one of the things that I learned at Annie’s, well, it actually started with a sticker. Ironically, we were, before the show talking about stickers and doing sticker exchange, but the whole program at Annie’s literally started with stickers that people wanted on the back of their cars.
00;35;50;16 – 00;36;13;07
LAURA
And so, in a very positive way, I logged that in my mind to say it’s really the simplest things we had, like, “mac and cheese for the world” or something, and we could not keep up with that sticker. Everybody wanted one. So don’t, like, overlook just the simple things, because we try to make these big programs or think it takes a lot of dollars.
00;36;13;14 – 00;36;34;08
LAURA
And it was it started as a sticker really at Annie’s Home Grown.
JEN
And I can’t even help but think like, that’s a behavioral signal right there. Like they’re showing people like I purchase and buy this for my family when they do it. I mean,” mac and cheese for the world” is a good slogan and motto to live by in general, but it’s interesting to think about the why they wanted that.
00;36;34;08 – 00;37;01;11
JEN
So it’s clever. I’m sure it was very on brand, but also like you’re signaling I don’t feed my kids Kraft Macaroni.
LAURA
But totally accidental. There was no plan like that they said, oh, people want to tell, you know, it was just accidental. So I encourage people look at what you’re already doing because you probably are doing things that could be magnified or that you could do more of, or that your consumers love and wish you would do more stickers.
00;37;01;11 – 00;37;21;17
JEN
Yeah. Well, having having been in this industry for multiple decades at this point, it’s sometimes those things that surprise you and have legs that you had no idea, that turn out to be some of your most successful, accidental campaigns.
LAURA
That’s right.
JEN
That’s a great one. I appreciate that.
LAURA
Sandy Skees is someone that I really admire in the space.
00;37;21;17 – 00;37;55;10
LAURA
She sits on the Sustainable Brands Board. I brought a book that I want to share, and maybe we can reference out to folks that are listening called Purposeful Brands. It’s very practical. And also just gives you good guidelines. What I love about what she says is, when you think about competition and or being, differentiating, there’s so much work that needs to be done and that businesses need to do better, that we shouldn’t worry about being copied, it should be like if we make somebody else do a second chance hiring, that’s a really good thing.
00;37;55;10 – 00;38;18;25
LAURA
And so she’s just great about how she thinks about it and encourages brands to get involved. And just to take a leap. If I had one piece of advice, I would just say, get started, get started. I love the saying or the question, do you know the best way to plant a tree?
JEN
Today.
LAURA
YESTERDAY. But the next best day is today.
00;38;18;25 – 00;38;38;05
LAURA
And I think purpose driven marketing is just like that. Like start, you know, make the sticker, sell the sticker and give that money to something, you know, just find a place to get started.
JEN
That all resonates with me as a business owner and kind of our core values as our team. So, we will drop that book in the show notes.
00;38;38;08 – 00;38;54;13
JEN
And I will order it right after I leave.
LAURA
I’m going to leave this one with you guys, and it’s a little beat up, but it’s also signed by Sandy so you guys can have it.
JEN
Podcast Gift! Thank you, thank you. I am I will look forward to digging into that. That is the kind of stuff that I like.
00;38;54;13 – 00;39;27;16
JEN
Candy. So that’s my sugar, I guess for the month.
RYAN
Next it’s time for our segment called Creative Briefs. This is where we dig into one specific advertising campaign, or sometimes a broader trend, but today we’re doing it a little bit differently. This one – not the best. So we’re calling it “somebody approved that?” Today we spent a little bit of time talking about authenticity and but but are things getting too authentic when it comes to when it comes to marketing.
JEN
Or is it fake authentic?
00;39;27;19 – 00;39;51;02
RYAN
That might be the other piece of it, right?
JEN
There’s been an increase in like purposely amateurish ads popping up on feed. So, the one that we’re referring referencing here keeps, popping up in my Apple News feeds. Which is, you know, really full of, of what I’d call clickbait. But these articles or these advertisements in particular are incredibly amateurish.
00;39;51;02 – 00;40;17;02
JEN
And, and, you know, when you’re in the creative field, it feels just extra meaningful to you that people put time and effort into brand standards. So we realize that we’re a little bit more sensitive to this. But, when this ad with a pillow, popped up and then it had a post-it note, just kind of propped up in front of it, like maybe handwritten or possibly I generated.
00;40;17;02 – 00;40;44;29
JEN
It’s it’s hard to tell these days. It just it just struck me, as do we care about brand standards anymore? And to be honest, I don’t know the brand of this pillow, and I would not click on it to give them the satisfaction of me finding out. But it really strikes me as something that, we’re seeing a proliferation of this – just either the AI generation that’s really very fake or this kind of like we’re trying to get your attention by being really, really amateurish.
00;40;44;29 – 00;41;05;27
JEN
So, that that was my whole like, wow, somebody approved that and put that out there. Somebody is paying money to have this ad out there in the world. So I don’t know if, Laura, I’m sure you see, you see that pop up every once in a while. And as somebody who is also very experienced in the brand industry, what do you think is happening?
00;41;06;03 – 00;41;30;28
LAURA
Yeah. And I think it’s interesting when I think about my own brand team where we sometimes we feel compelled to sort of like step down to that, like, is that what people want to see? And I think we I keep reminding ourselves, no, no, no. Like ultimately sort of the, the brand tenets and the way we talk about our brands is really important and that we can’t lose sight of that.
00;41;31;00 – 00;41;51;18
LAURA
But it is super frustrating in this world to see that. And I always joke, my thing is, I’ll look at something and I’ll say out loud to whoever I happen to be with, can you imagine the marketing team that sat around and talked about this, and who said, that’s a great idea? I mean.
JEN
Who looked at that? Said, that’s great, right?
00;41;51;19 – 00;42;20;11
LAURA
Yeah. And I think that’s a caution to me as a brand builder and a marketer to always think about, like the groupthink idea and make sure we’re stepping outside and we’re asking ourselves some basic questions about what we’re putting out there to be sure that we don’t fall prey to some of these tactics.
JEN
You know, there are times when having a far less polished look can be important, especially in certain channels.
00;42;20;11 – 00;42;46;19
JEN
Like on TikTok, it’s not always about, you know, the most polished look that you can have. Sometimes even with influencers. Right. You don’t want something that looks like, oh, wow, they spent like 600,000
LAURA
Overly produced.
JEN
to get that overly produced. You want something that that looks like it is an everyday product, especially in some of those channels, but like, this felt like it crossed a line to me, where it was just like,
00;42;46;22 – 00;43;02;03
JEN
I mean, I’m reading a Wall Street Journal article, and this pops up.
RYAN
And you were talking about the team that sat around and said, yeah, let’s go ahead and do this. I don’t know if there is much of a team involved in this and just, just background. This is a picture of like a, memory foam style pillow.
00;43;02;03 – 00;43;26;04
RYAN
And and on it, the sticky note that Jen was mentioning. It says, “I wish I had discovered this pillow sooner. My REM sleep has increased from one hour and 25 minutes to 2 hours and 40 minutes after one week”. That’s what the post-it note says. But we still don’t know the brand. We don’t know the name of the pillow and Trusted Reports just wants you to click on this link where they are probably ad supported.
00;43;26;04 – 00;43;47;13
RYAN
They probably get a lot of, kickback dollars if you then purchase the product. It’s just very interesting, very interesting as to how I at the end of the day, I wonder, is it working for them? And I don’t have the metrics, I don’t have the metrics. But I am curious does this style work? And I hope that they’re looking at that if it’s working fine.
00;43;47;13 – 00;44;09;04
RYAN
Right. But if it’s not, know that it’s not working and pivot. I want to look in and see if I can find more ads about this pillow.
LAURA
Yeah, a little bit fine, but I mean, in my when I put my Frontier Co-op hat on, I mean, very good at making a claim of some promise that’s really unsubstantial, created, just feels really
JEN
Wrong
LAURA
and was so important to people.
00;44;09;04 – 00;44;33;04
LAURA
And so we would there are people that would do anything for better sleep. It feels like you’re just pandering in a very inappropriate and unproven way, is what? It’s the crossover that we talked about, about influencers and how maybe this is an influencer, I don’t know. And how do you make sure that they’re, true to kind of the brand?
00;44;33;07 – 00;44;51;17
RYAN
Is this the business trying to influencer wash, kind of going back to like, faking authenticity? Is that is that what’s happening here?
JEN
I think I think this is one of those things where, where time will tell. But really, I, I come back to that. What are you trying to communicate about your brand? If you are trying to communicate to you about your brand that you’re cheap.
00;44;51;17 – 00;45;12;07
JEN
I think that they got that, they nailed it, right? Like we’re cheap.
LAURA
We don’t spend money.
JEN
We don’t spend money on our on our advertising when we probably don’t. And we’re definitely not ethically sourcing memory foam at this point. If there is an ethically sourced memory foam, but it really does come down to like, what are your business goals?
00;45;12;07 – 00;45;31;09
JEN
And maybe for this particular business, this is meeting their goals. They just want to sell as many crappy pillows as they can, as fast as they can, and move on to the next thing. I think that ad says that, mission accomplished.
RYAN
What do you want to say? And like you said, like sleep is important and many people that don’t get good sleep, they want they want the answer.
00;45;31;11 – 00;45;53;05
RYAN
I bet this pillow is not cheap, right? Like these memory foam pillows. They can be expensive because yeah, people will do anything to get a good night’s sleep, including pay a lot.
JEN
So yeah, you do make a good point about when when people are desperate for sleep. Like you see that and you’re like, sold. Right? Like I’ll do anything because when you are, when you have a lack of sleep or pain.
00;45;53;07 – 00;46;15;23
JEN
Certainly. So it is it’s potentially predatory too. Yeah. So someone approved that.
LAURA
Someone did.
JEN
Well, that was episode one of season two. We woke our brains back up from our from our little, end of year siesta, and we are ready to bring more great topics. Laura, thank you so much for being here with us again.
00;46;15;23 – 00;46;36;08
JEN
It was great to have you on the podcast. Thank you for sharing your insights with us and with our listeners. It’s valuable. And I really think that, you know, you mentioned Gen Z in particular. As marketing evolves, this is something that brands have to think about and not just from a how do we layer it in if it’s not authentic to start with?
00;46;36;10 – 00;46;55;04
JEN
It’ll flop. I mean, that’s that’s the way it works. Like people can sniff out the BS for the most part.
LAURA
Yeah, I agree, I’ve really enjoyed the conversation. I could talk all day about it. So proud of the work at Frontier and excited to be able to tell the story and to encourage other people just to dive in.
00;46;55;08 – 00;47;12;23
JEN
Thank you. We have loved working with your team. You have an amazing, amazing team. So creative and so inspiring. So it’s really fun for our team to engage on this, and we just feel very close to the brand itself and the work that that gets done. So thank you so much for joining us. Laura, it was great having you today.
00;47;12;23 – 00;47;30;10
LAURA
Thank you I enjoyed it.
JEN
Thanks.
LAURA
I want to hear about the handstand too. You got to follow up.
RYAN
Oh yes oh yes now. But like you said it’s accountability I’ve got accountability. So I’m going to go home and maybe do some push ups. I actually I’m in a research how to do a handstand. Well like what muscles matter.
JEN
Or how to do a push up.
00;47;30;13 – 00;47;43;15
RYAN
Correct. Correct.
JEN
All right. That’s new segment on our podcast, Ryan’s accountability segment. So we’ll keep you posted on that.
LAURA
Thank you.
JEN
Thanks, Laura.
00;47;43;17 – 00;48;05;27
JEN
Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Think Fresh.
RYAN
And remember, the conversation does not have to end here. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Review our show on whatever you listen to your podcast on, or share all your marketing trials and triumphs by shooting us an email at info@thinkdenovo.com with the subject line Deer de Novo so we don’t miss it.
00;48;05;29 – 00;48;25;28
RYAN
And while you wait eagerly for our next episode, you can get your fix by checking out our blog, Fresh Thinking at blog.thinkdenovo.com. Stay tuned for more engaging conversations, laughs, and of course, marketing brilliance – and me making fun of Ryan – in the next episodes to come.
RYAN
Here’s to fresh thinking, sparking creativity, and never being boring.
00;48;26;01 – 00;48;31;17
RYAN
Bye friends.
JEN
Are we swearing on this or no?
RYAN
We’re doing this.
JEN
All right. Hello and welcome to th – were you’re talking? Oh, my God. All right, we’ll try this again. Ryan, are you settled?
RYAN
I’m Settled.
JEN
Okay.
00;00;20;18 – 00;00;41;06
JEN
Hello, and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by de Novo Marketing’s Collective Creative. Coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing. Insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life – and whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de Novo CEO and your host.
00;00;41;08 – 00;01;04;03
RYAN
And I’m Ryan Shenefelt, account manager, innovation and education lead and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.
JEN
He is indeed very, very nosy.
RYAN
Today we’re going to talk about purpose driven marketing.
JAVIER
Hey. It’s me. Jav Ducker – multimedia specialist a de Novo Marketing. I am crashing the pod and stealing the spotlight because I have some exciting news to share.
00;01;04;04 – 00;01;27;11
JAVIER
So if you’re listening to this in early 2025, we have launched a very exciting new program called Fresh Impact. And this is aimed at helping local nonprofits in the corridor with marketing services. And for this first project, we’re kicking it off with a storytelling video. Applications are open through February 7th, 2025. If you are interested, you can find information and a link to apply in the show notes.
00;01;27;13 – 00;01;51;19
JAVIER
Okay. That’s it. I’m done. You can have your podcast back byeee.
JEN
To kick off season two of Think Fresh. We are bringing in an expert in this space, Laura Kuykendall. Laura is the senior vice president of marketing at Frontier Co-op and has more than 25 years of experience in the CPG space and has worked with companies like Snyder’s of Hanover, Annie’s Homegrown, Applegate Farms and Bolder Brands.
00;01;51;20 – 00;02;13;20
JEN
She is a big deal. Laura also serves as an advisor for the Gilliam Center for Entrepreneurship at James Madison University, where she earned her MBA. And locally, Laura is on the board of Matthew 25 and United Way of East Central Iowa. Laura, welcome to Think Fresh.
LAURA
Awesome. Excited to be here.
RYAN
Yes. And for our kickoff for season two. Season two.
00;02;13;21 – 00;02;34;01
JEN
Season two. So we’re we’re kind of just back in the saddle here and trying to remember how to do a podcast after a couple months off, but it’s been a really great – Is it good to say a great winter? I mean, it’s it’s snowy out sort of.
RYAN
Arguably arguably as as someone who likes snow. I have not gotten enough snow yet.
00;02;34;01 – 00;02;52;15
RYAN
I even with two sidewalks that I have to deal with, I still love the snow. And it’s it’s not. It’s not winter for me until I break my snow blower at least once. So a little bit more time, a little bit more time.
JEN
Anybody make any New Year’s resolutions?
LAURA
Oh, I started with the sugar thing.
00;02;52;18 – 00;03;10;25
JEN
But how’s that going for you?
LAURA
I had a little bag of M&Ms in my closet that I’ve already found and devoured, so.
JEN
it’s hard, like, you think that it’s not that big a deal until you go without it. And then the first thing you get is headaches.
LAURA
Correct.
JEN
It’s a real thing. So, I just tried to reduce the sugar.
00;03;10;26 – 00;03;35;04
JEN
I’m not really, probably going to be able to eliminate it completely.
RYAN
Laura, I love that you you set the, you set your own resolution, but you did have a little hide stash.
LAURA
Correct. Correct. Yeah, an emergency stash.
RYAN
I have given up on the, the health ones. They never work for me. But this year, I really want to,
00;03;35;05 – 00;03;51;13
RYAN
My goal is to be able to do a handstand, for at least three seconds. Otherwise, you’re just doing a cartwheel or a or around off. I want to be able to do a handstand and there’s no other reason for that other than I feel like if I can do a handstand, I can then do a pull up.
00;03;51;16 – 00;04;12;20
RYAN
And in the back of my head, I want to be able to pull myself up if I ever need to save my own life.
JEN
Like if you’re hanging off the edge of a building or cliff?
RYAN
Right.
LAURA
This is your survivor skill.
RYAN
Yes. Yes.
LAURA
Got it.
JEN
Well, I, I am not trying to undermine your efforts here, but every year, being able to do a yoga handstand or even a headstand is on my goal list.
00;04;12;20 – 00;04;30;28
JEN
And that’s been running for like 12 years, and I still have not achieved it. So, if you do that, you’re actually going to make me look like crap and
RYAN
You can do the splits. Jen, you can do the splits.
JEN
Sort of.
RYAN
I do want to, I like hiking and I want to go out to Colorado and visit some friends out there more.
00;04;30;28 – 00;04;49;09
RYAN
And there are cliffs there in the mountains. So I’m like, just thinking of that. I’m like, I need to be able to do this just in case. Just in case.
JEN
I mean, this will be reason to tune in all season just to report on the progress. I think we should. I think our producers should mark this down as a segment: how is Ryan doing on his handstand and his pull up goal?
00;04;49;09 – 00;05;08;09
RYAN
Oh crap.
JEN
And we will will be checking
LAURA
You’re obligated now.
JEN
Yeah this is your accountability. That was a great idea I love it.
RYAN
And speaking of Colorado, are you originally from, looking at your bio – are you originally from Virginia?
LAURA
I’m originally from Virginia, but my career has taken me all over the country, really mostly up and down the East Coast.
00;05;08;11 – 00;05;27;23
LAURA
But I lived a short while in Colorado. I might be the only person that ever left Colorado. It’s just so amazing. And this is my first stint in Iowa and the Midwest. And I’ve been here. It was four years this week that I moved to Iowa.
RYAN
How are you liking the Midwest in general?
LAURA
We’re so happy here.
00;05;27;26 – 00;05;51;06
LAURA
It’s just everything you hear about it is exactly true. The people, the geography. I’m a gardener. And so the best gardens of my life the past four years. The Iowa dirt is real, and very exciting. And then the sports scene. I’ve listened to previous podcasts and know that you have a new liking for sports, and, we’ve been all on board on Iowa sports.
00;05;51;08 – 00;06;15;17
RYAN
Yes, yes. All in on the sports started with, Iowa women’s basketball transition to the WNBA and, a newfound love of Iowa football. I went to school there. So, 15 years ago, it was all about tailgating, but now it’s about watching the games on TV and actually caring about, about the sports.
RYAN
So you said you were, kind of up and down the East Coast, going through the previous places you’ve worked.
00;06;15;17 – 00;06;33;00
RYAN
I think a lot of our listeners probably have many of these in their pantry, like the pretzels, the macaroni and cheese, all of the, the butter with Boulder Brands, Applegate’s their, their chicken nuggets, like you, not only your refrigerator, my freezer as well. What is it about the CPG space that that has really taken you?
00;06;33;06 – 00;07;00;16
LAURA
I think working in food and the opportunity to deliver really tangible, meaningful, consumer packaged goods to people’s table and, knowing that you’re impacting families, helping moms. I was at Annie’s Home Grown young in my career and young children, and it was really a day to day. We’ve all been there trying to feed our kids, and Annie’s just had that, ability to do that.
00;07;00;16 – 00;07;24;03
LAURA
And I’ve found that connection throughout my career with all of these brands. And really, our topic today, about purpose is all of these brands had some component of purpose and giving back and for me, that’s become, really, a pillar in my career, in my choices about brands to work with and work for that’s important to me.
00;07;24;09 – 00;07;43;00
JEN
Yeah. It is really interesting that you say that about Annie’s. So fun story. When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I told my mother my kids would never eat hot dogs or boxed macaroni and cheese. And my mom said, oh, that’s cute. Great, great. And so my compromise, once I learned how hard toddlers are to feed, was Annie’s.
00;07;43;02 – 00;07;59;24
JEN
I felt like I could trust that brand. And I think that has a lot to do with the the packaging and the messaging that goes into that and the values of that brand in general. Were the only thing that resonated with me on that shelf and made me feel like, okay, I can I can feed my kids this.
LAURA
Doing a little bit better.
00;07;59;24 – 00;08;19;21
LAURA
And, it’s funny that you should say that all moms must have mac and cheese and hot dogs on that original no-no list, and then it becomes the quickly, the acceptable list. But Applegate Farms, as you know, is also hot dogs, so I was able to give my kids mac and cheese and hot dogs that which felt a little bit better.
00;08;19;21 – 00;08;35;25
JEN
Best combination of foods in the world, really. But yeah, I think that was, that was on my, I can buy that at Target list. So yeah.
RYAN
Yeah, I like your note of a little bit better. That’s that’s what resolutions are all about. Kicking off the new year. It’s like let’s just be a little bit better, right?
00;08;35;27 – 00;08;52;21
JEN
New year, marginally better me.
RYAN
Exactly. So so today we’re going to be talking about purpose driven marketing. But but what is that? There might be some, people might have different, different things in their head about purpose driven marketing, but for, for the intent and purpose of a podcast about it, let’s define it.
00;08;52;26 – 00;09;12;05
RYAN
Purpose driven marketing is a strategy that aligns a company’s brand with its values. It goes beyond a campaign or a single messaging point. It really is the foundational part of the business. It lends itself to all aspects of the company, including marketing. It turns the transactional into the transformative. So, Laura, you’ve been at Frontier for four years now, right?
00;09;12;05 – 00;09;42;23
LAURA
Right.
RYAN
Tell us a little bit more about Frontier Co-op.
LAURA
Sure. Frontier Co-op is dedicated to sourcing and selling the highest quality spices, herbs and botanical products through our Frontier Co-op brands, which are Frontier Co-op, Simply Organic and Aura Cacia. We create life changing opportunities for our growers, employees and greater communities through selling of these products, and we deliver on our commitment to quality and sustainability through various programs.
00;09;42;28 – 00;10;08;02
LAURA
You can find our brands nationally in natural food stores and co-ops like New Pioneer here in Iowa and other natural food stores and in national natural food stores like Whole Foods and Sprouts, which is where we got our start. And we’re continuing to grow in mainstream grocery stores like Hy-Vee and Fareway, Wegmans, in the northeast, H-E-B in Texas, a real expansion plan across the country.
00;10;08;04 – 00;10;36;13
LAURA
And then you can find us now in some Walmarts and Target, which is really exciting. And of course on Amazon, Walmart.com and iHerb, to name a few of the e-commerce brands. We’re driven by a simple purpose: doing good works, and there’s a comma after doing good, and the comma matters because that’s what we’re going to talk about in terms of how it relates to business and how we do well in our business by doing good.
00;10;36;16 – 00;11;00;11
LAURA
And it means we’re committed to having a positive impact on the lives that we touch, not only the consumers buying our products, but on our employees, on the farmers where our herbs and spices come from and within the communities where we live and serve. So, it’s kind of a holistic approach. And I’m excited to talk more about specifically the doing good works and why it matters to Frontier.
00;11;00;13 – 00;11;18;22
RYAN
I like that you say the the comma matters. The comma matters because, yeah, it’s, not a play on words, but two meanings there. Right? Because this is the business side of of doing good. We are still businesses, right? We still have to bring in money in order to continue our mission and make sure that we can help as many people as possible.
00;11;18;24 – 00;11;38;12
RYAN
And from what it sounds like, it’s not just your employees, but also the farmers. I think that there is a big, big gap in people. They just see spices or they see products on the shelves, and you’re not thinking about the people who are manufacturing them or even creating the, the raw materials that go into them. So I’m excited to hear more about your programs.
00;11;38;12 – 00;11;54;29
RYAN
Did a little research on it, but I’m excited to talk more about that side of things, too.
JEN
And I’m going to take us down another lane here and talk a little bit about the marketing side of that, because, most of our listeners, with the exception of Ryan’s mom, are marketing professionals, or have something to do with marketing in their companies.
00;11;54;29 – 00;12;20;13
JEN
And one of the things we talk about a lot is purpose driven marketing and being really authentic. So if I can just dig into Laura’s brain here, I want to start with what challenges you face when you’re balancing profit driven business goals and maintaining a purpose driven brand identity.
LAURA
Sure. So I would say this has been a challenge throughout my career with all of these great brands, is that at some point,
00;12;20;13 – 00;12;49;10
LAURA
it all sounds great and the work is wonderful, but it comes down to the balance between business and profitability. All of those brands that I’ve worked for previously have been, you know, private equity on some fast growth, a lot of change in ownership, which creates challenge, I will say, and I’m proud to say looking continuing to follow many of those brands that a lot of those purpose driven, tenets still remain with those brands.
00;12;49;16 – 00;13;21;11
LAURA
What’s different about Frontier is that we’re a co-op, and so we exist to serve our members, and there’s just a little less pressure and a longer term vision to these purpose driven. It is part of the business. That is what we exist to do. And so that’s what’s been fun for me. And I can honestly say there’s no tension between doing good in the world and growing a financially successful business at Frontier within our business structure model.
00;13;21;14 – 00;13;46;18
LAURA
And I’m really proud about that. And I’m also excited about that because it gives me lots of runway to dream and think and not worry about how are we going to sell this in or how are we going to pay for it. It just doesn’t exist. We know that having a positive impact on the world, it just makes sense and can actually have a direct positive benefit to the bottom line.
00;13;46;18 – 00;14;09;15
LAURA
Even on our business. Our CEO is, likes the saying that doing good works – it’s not a charitable proposition. We’re not a nonprofit, not for profit, but it’s something that actually makes our business stronger and better.
JEN
Yeah, you can do well and you can do good simultaneously. They’re not mutually exclusive.
LAURA
Correct. Now, I think within that, I’m not saying that it’s all like sunshine and roses.
00;14;09;15 – 00;14;34;03
LAURA
Every day people come to Frontier Co-op just like me, because they read about these things and they know this about us. And so they come here many people to make a difference, like, oh, here’s where I can go make a difference. And so really the challenge comes in is making sure that our planning is kind of staying true and responsible, and making sure that all of our good works are relevant to the business.
00;14;34;08 – 00;14;57;26
LAURA
So there’s so many good things going on, and we just have to be sure that we remain focused in our endeavor. And that is where the challenge comes in. We aren’t good at saying no sometimes, but offer good reason. And I don’t regret the yeses. But we also have to be mindful of kind of what we’re aiming for.
00;14;57;28 – 00;15;24;05
LAURA
And then another challenge I would just say is sourcing globally creates its own challenges. And part of our purpose driven work is trying to strengthen our global sourcing partners. But these are smallholder farmers with really small hectares of land, not massive farms like we know in the US. And so making sure that those are sustainable and giving them the tools they need, is a challenge.
00;15;24;07 – 00;15;47;20
LAURA
Every day there’s an email from our procurement team about, you know, a hurricane here. Certainly. You know, recently in the US, even the floods on the East coast and now the fires on the West coast, but globally, things like that are literally happening every day. And so that creates challenges in our sourcing, which is core to our purpose driven work.
00;15;47;23 – 00;16;16;02
JEN
So Laura, all marketing evolves, right. And every industry also evolves. And your industry is no stranger to that. So how do you navigate like consumer skepticism around purpose driven marketing, especially with terms like sustainability and organic, becoming way more mainstream and sometimes overused.
LAURA
So it’s certainly frustrating to see the proliferation and misuse of these words like sustainability.
00;16;16;02 – 00;16;39;27
LAURA
Regenerative is a new one that is now everywhere in the marketplace. I read an article recently that describes this consumer skepticism as purpose fatigue, which I think is really interesting. Like we’re interested in consumers, but we’re growing tired and weary of. Is that true? Do they mean it, what do they mean by that? And at Frontier, we know that words matter.
00;16;39;27 – 00;17;07;13
LAURA
We hold ourselves accountable, maybe to the fault, to a fault, to the words that we use. de Novo is a copywriting partner of ours. And they- your team can attest to how we debate literally words sometimes because we know that consumers care about this. And what I’m finding is that consumers not only want you to say what you’re doing, but they’re demanding evidence of how this impact is actually happening.
00;17;07;13 – 00;17;30;15
LAURA
So how are you measuring? It’s not enough, just a claim of purpose, but you got to show the results. And so, honestly, some of our recent investment has been in tools to help us better measure, you know, one of our programs, our goal is to, bring more organic food, to food deserts and, allow everyone to have access to organic food.
00;17;30;23 – 00;17;56;06
LAURA
So one of our measures will make an investment. And someone that’s helping us do that is like, how many meals are you serving? And it’s not whether it’s 10 or 100, but just that we know and we can say, here’s what we’re doing and here’s what it’s the results of it. And I think that builds some consumer confidence in us that, we’re putting we’re delivering the results and what we’re saying we’re doing.
00;17;56;09 – 00;18;15;26
LAURA
We also are publishing a sustainability report that’s not unique. A lot of main brands, major brands do that. We’ve been doing it for more than ten years just to have a public accountability to our work and, acknowledge what we’re doing well and also what we’re not doing well and how we might challenge ourselves to be better.
00;18;15;29 – 00;18;44;25
LAURA
And I think that kind of transparency and authenticity, I hope, over the long term, is what resonates with consumers and maybe sets us apart from those that are, you know, using the words for the use of sake of just selling a product.
JEN
I fully expect Frontier Co-op is going to outlive a lot of those brands.
LAURA
Yeah, 50 years next year, 1976, will be our, 50th anniversary next year.
00;18;44;25 – 00;19;08;05
LAURA
So lots to celebrate. And at the same time, we feel so like there’s so much work yet to be done and ways to explore.
RYAN
The fatigue part is, is something that does ring true to me, because greenwashing, that’s when you, you use these green words in order to hope that people are like, oh yeah, like that’s that’s a different brand, that’s different than, than another brand.
00;19;08;08 – 00;19;29;23
RYAN
When you actually live the brand and when you do good, truly do good, you want to be able to show it off like you said. So you want to be able to actually measure it and show people. But I think a part of it too, is on the consumers. If you are fatigued by seeing these words, look into the companies, truly look into them, because you guys do a great job of of talking about, the individual farms that you work with.
00;19;29;25 – 00;19;49;10
RYAN
You, you kind of can see through the, the people that aren’t really doing it, or who are just adding the word organic or sustainable to their products. You guys are walking the walk and and talking about it in a way. So you can – I guess I just want to put some work on the consumer, like, look into it.
00;19;49;10 – 00;20;16;15
RYAN
If you’re fatigued by these words, look into those brands and see if they actually are talking about the other side of it, too.
LAURA
And I’m a big fan. I mean, I was raised that actions speak louder than words, and I think that’s incredibly important. So I, we don’t do everything great and we make mistakes sometimes. And so I also want to be honest and transparent about that, because I do think consumers appreciate that no one’s perfect.
00;20;16;15 – 00;20;38;19
LAURA
And so just making sure that our actions are honest when we mess up, but also we’re, Frontier’s a true Iowa based company where we’re very humble and don’t like to brag about the work. And so I’ve been, encouraging us that we need to speak out more about the good things that we do.
JEN
You’re bringing in some of your East Coast flavor here.
00;20;38;19 – 00;21;02;22
LAURA
Yeah, yeah, because consumers want to know those and do it in a way that isn’t bragging, but getting credit for the work.
JEN
Well, Ryan brings up that, consumers should do it should be looking into it. But like from a behavioral design perspective, we know that they probably won’t. Like there are some you probably have a core group of, of target, the target audience that really does.
00;21;02;22 – 00;21;28;24
JEN
They, they read your sustainability report. Right. Like they’re reading every, every word in there, but not every consumer is going to do that. So that really kind of leads into that storytelling aspect of it, and that there’s an additional layer of complexity when you’re doing storytelling and you know, you’ve done some work with influencers, how do you make sure that that authenticity comes through in what others might be saying on your behalf?
00;21;28;26 – 00;21;50;17
LAURA
When we think about working with partners, we think about it as much from the qualitative standpoint as we do the quantitative. And I know that sounds trite and maybe a little bit cliche, but we really want to work with people that we like and that is like us and understands the debate that we will have in our doing good works process.
00;21;50;17 – 00;22;11;08
LAURA
So, you know, I put de Novo up there with a long time partner because we are like minded and we share a lot of the same values, and you’ve engaged in us and pushed us to be better. And I would say influencers are very similar. What we’ve learned is by channel, we have to think about our storytelling by channel.
00;22;11;08 – 00;22;38;25
LAURA
So on Instagram, it’s still very recipe driven. So we want really great recipe influencers, people that do creative work. But within that, we want them to be able to talk about where that Ceylon cinnamon came from and why it’s important to use Ceylon instead of something else. So I think that is where it brings it in storytelling and those shorter influencer type moments.
00;22;38;28 – 00;23;12;23
LAURA
And we also are trying to build longer term relationships with influencers specifically, I actually while, you know, mega influencer and micro, that is important and I do want – listen, I’m not going to turn down a mega influencer or somebody that wants to talk about us. Jerry Seinfeld did a little YouTube video, and he’s a fan of Simply Organic on his top ten things
JEN
Pretty big influencer.
LAURA
And that was exciting, but less important to me is the number and more just their, their relationship with us and how they want to talk about us and how we want to engage.
00;23;12;23 – 00;23;36;18
LAURA
I don’t want just one recipe and pay for one recipe post, but hopefully an engagement of a relationship over time. That’s like a TikTok and Instagram. On LinkedIn, the kind of influencers we look at are thought leaders in the space and other people that want the longer story, and that can endorse our story and tell why sourcing matters.
00;23;36;18 – 00;24;04;13
LAURA
So we’ve also gotten better I think by channel at storytelling of understanding what kind of information is important.
JEN
So overseeing a large marketing department, different products, a lot of different products. Things are busy, things are hectic. How do you, in the thick of things, keep your team focused on that authenticity and ensuring that the right messaging is getting out?
00;24;04;15 – 00;24;25;03
LAURA
So when I first started at Frontier Co-op, it felt like we were all over the place, and I can’t imagine being a partner of ours trying to figure out which direction to go. So kudos to de Novo to help try to navigate us and push us in good directions. We do lots of things. It’s impossible to tell the whole story effectively.
00;24;25;03 – 00;24;52;01
LAURA
And so when I came in, the thing I recognized is we have to figure out how to package this. If you were to ask three people at Frontier Co-op, what does doing good work mean, you would get three answers. Actually, you would get ten answers from three people, maybe more. And so I remember vividly in my office on a whiteboard with my team, I’m like, let’s just put everything on the board that we think is doing good works and that we do well.
00;24;52;03 – 00;25;17;08
LAURA
We did it. It was covered and it was amazing. I get chills when I talk about it. I was talking about this with one of my teammates and like she got teary. Like, I remember that day. It like fell really easily into three categories. I’m like, this is who we are. So we have three pillars. One is we do good works at source and that’s all of our, Well Earth programs and Fairtrade certification.
00;25;17;15 – 00;25;41;03
LAURA
We’re the first organic spice brand that’s all at Source. And we do really good work, all of our good works in our communities. And that’s our Simply Organic Giving Fund. It’s our positive change project for Acacia, where we’re helping women and children. It’s things that we do locally with Matthew 25 that’s all in our community. And the third pillar is within our own walls.
00;25;41;05 – 00;26;04;20
LAURA
And that’s the things like second chance hiring and subsidized childcare and transportation that we provide. And it all just fell neatly into those categories. And now I would hope, if you would ask really anybody, not just marketing at Frontier, they would have glimmers of these three categories that they would talk about. And it has made the storytelling easier.
00;26;04;20 – 00;26;25;24
LAURA
It’s gotten some enthusiasm, and it also creates a good roadmap for storytelling that if we’re going to do something or tell a story, which pillar does it fall into? And what are the messages about that pillar that are important. It’s it’s just made life feel easier. We haven’t taken away one single program, but everything feels now with some organization and structure.
00;26;25;24 – 00;26;45;21
JEN
When communication is organized in that way, it’s so much easier for a team to deliver on it and deliver on it consistently. And when you work with creatives and you’ve got a lot of really awesome creatives on your team, I’m sure you have to wrangle them every once in a while. But having that structure and having those three categories or buckets, is really probably super helpful to them.
00;26;45;21 – 00;27;11;10
JEN
It’s helpful to us too when when we’re working with you guys, helps us frame what we’re doing.
LAURA
And it seems so simple, but wow, it was just a big unlock. And then as we move that into storytelling or, just, living the mission has been really important. And what I mean by that is, making sure and our sourcing stories, it’s one thing to say we do really cool work in Guatemala.
00;27;11;10 – 00;27;31;14
LAURA
There’s a fellow, co-op cooperative there, a Fedecovera, that we love. They’re a tier one co-op that has multiple co-ops underneath them, working with something like 33,000 farmers. It’s like really big and I have to go, wow, that’s cool. I love to tell that story. I went to Guatemala and I lived it, and I visited those co-ops.
00;27;31;14 – 00;27;56;00
LAURA
I saw our health care facility there. I rode on the, mobile health truck, and it made it all the difference to actually live it. So we try to send people out on these sourcing trips and to these partners, and to see our projects firsthand, because I feel like that’s what makes storytelling come alive. My energy about Fedecovera is like I wanted, you know, I just need to be there.
00;27;56;00 – 00;28;19;18
LAURA
I love what’s going on there. So that and then we do volunteering in our community. I think we allow volunteer hours for all of our employees to go into the community again. And that middle pillar in our community. And then, you know, the work that we’re doing within our own walls. Also people living, breathing, we have a few people that have stepped forward from our second chance hiring.
00;28;19;20 – 00;28;49;00
LAURA
It’s an anonymous program that we don’t as a, even our management team unaware of who is a second chance employee. And that means just giving people that have been justice involved a chance to have a new life and a new beginning. We’ve had a couple of those folks step forward. And so again, that authentic storytelling to say what it’s meant and their lives and how it’s transformed and changed them has made again those pillars in the storytelling all the richer.
00;28;49;02 – 00;29;09;25
JEN
And I have to say, as as childcare needs have evolved in our state and it’s finally become a forefront in, in economic health of our communities, in our state. I mean, you guys were doing that before it was cool, right? You have been living that walk. And so you think about these different layers starting at that very micro level.
00;29;09;27 – 00;29;35;10
JEN
And leading up to, you know, farms in Guatemala and how that is authentic to your brand and how that bleeds through in your, in your communications and marketing. It’s really it’s it’s impactful.
LAURA
Yeah. The interesting thing is when we did those pillars, I was certain that the sourcing stories were going to be most relevant and important, which turned out to be the most interesting to folks and where we’ve gotten the most traction, like in earned media.
00;29;35;10 – 00;29;58;24
LAURA
And those sorts of things are the things happening within our walls. And it’s for the very reasons that you speak about it’s childcare is challenging. Even transportation and housing is hard for people. And if you aren’t addressing those basic needs and helping people address those needs, it’s difficult to hold a job and, you know, back to Tony’s point, our CEO, about doing good works is good business sense.
00;29;58;28 – 00;30;24;13
LAURA
We need employees. There’s an employee shortage. So if we can help make their life better and easier, then that’s good for us too. It’s doing good works and it’s the pillar that’s resonated the most recently.
JEN
That’s really interesting. When you think about communicating all of that to your audiences. You know, we talked about that earlier. And, you know, behavioral design will just tell you that people aren’t going to go searching for all of it.
00;30;24;15 – 00;30;53;20
JEN
How do you prioritize and organize that messaging into something that matters to your audiences? So we have three different brands and all of them have three very distinct, brand propositions. And so making sure that we’re staying true Simply Organic is more about just organic high quality products. So we’re going to choose messages around creating great recipes with good organic food.
00;30;53;20 – 00;31;19;14
LAURA
And so that’s really maybe a little bit of the sourcing story, but it’s more, the community access is important to that community. So that center pillar for that brand. For Aura Cacia the Positive Change Project has been really important. And so again, kind of that center pillar, but also quality and sourcing. I mean, there’s lots of, let’s say not great essential oil products on the market today.
00;31;19;14 – 00;31;41;18
LAURA
And so that sourcing pillar is really important to the Aura Cacia brand. The Frontier Co-op brand is all in on all of those things. They want to know the farmer. They want to know where it come from. So I think we have to be, you know, we’re, we’re organized by brand teams, and I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job at always pushing ourselves like that.
00;31;41;18 – 00;32;04;24
LAURA
More for Frontier brand. That’s really an Aura Cacia pillar. And Simply Organic is all about this. Yeah, I think I and I think you’ve really organized those teams well, and like I said, when you organize the information for people, they will understand it’s so much better in consistency.
JEN
Right? Like, we all know that consistency is actually one of the most important things when it comes to marketing, right?
00;32;04;27 – 00;32;31;12
LAURA
I mean, we’re it’s mattered the most. And where it’s been really important is as we’ve grown our retail distribution, we’re finding more, retailer accountability towards goals like this. And so at the very highest level, all three of these pillars, they want to know, what are you doing for sourcing and how you’re impacting climate change, because they’re also being measured on these goals as well to their constituents.
00;32;31;12 – 00;33;01;28
LAURA
So we found it to be really important to just getting us in the door of distribution across all of our brands.
JEN
So you’ve been with the brand for four years now, and in this space kind of for a lot of your career, how do you see this category evolving?
LAURA
Sure. Well, I’m happy to say, and for our brand and other purpose driven brands, there’s a lot of research to say that consumers are still willing and expecting to invest.
00;33;01;28 – 00;33;22;16
LAURA
They want to vote with their dollars. Gen Z especially so, they’re willing to make the sacrifice. I mean, my kids, the things they spend money on because it’s important to them, would be choices that I would not have made at their age, but they are willing to make the sacrifice to afford those things. So I see that becoming more and more important.
00;33;22;18 – 00;33;46;26
LAURA
It’s the accountability part to the brands on like, what are you doing to impact change? So I think that’s going to continue to grow. Our brands are all enjoying market share growth, which I’m really happy about, but we’ve only scratched the surface. While household penetration is still really low in organic spices. But to me that’s exciting. There’s a lot of runway and a lot of people that still need to learn about our brands.
00;33;46;29 – 00;34;07;03
JEN
Yeah. So Laura, having been in this space for a while, give our listeners your best advice. So for brands who are aiming to adopt a more purpose driven marketing approach, what are the biggest what are the biggest pitfalls to avoid?
LAURA
I think the biggest thing for me is we talk about marketing is really the driver around purpose driven work.
00;34;07;09 – 00;34;32;00
LAURA
But as much as you can take marketing out of it, avoid making it a marketing only program. Purpose really needs to sit at the center of any organization and operation to be effective. And so rather than just a one off purpose campaign, somehow get it in the center so that it permeates throughout. I know I keep referencing the pillars, but again, it’s been transformational for us.
00;34;32;02 – 00;34;56;23
LAURA
But in the sourcing pillar, our procurement team can look in that pillar and say, that is my job. I have to go find these smallholder farmers in these remote places and help them be successful. In our pillar about doing good works within our own walls, our HR department and our operations department looks at that and says, what can we do for our employees to make it better?
00;34;56;25 – 00;35;22;06
LAURA
So as much as you can make it permeate your entire organization, the more successful you’re going to be, it should resonate and be supported by the entire ecosystem. And I think you can’t ignore the expectations and the values of your consumers as well. What do they what’s interesting to them? Like I said, there’s a lot of good things that you can do, but what is going to resonate most with your consumer?
00;35;22;09 – 00;35;50;14
JEN
You know, you mentioned that, you started at Annie’s fairly early in your career. Any lessons that you learned early on in, in this space that you’re like, I’m going to log that for future use?
LAURA
I think one of the things that I learned at Annie’s, well, it actually started with a sticker. Ironically, we were, before the show talking about stickers and doing sticker exchange, but the whole program at Annie’s literally started with stickers that people wanted on the back of their cars.
00;35;50;16 – 00;36;13;07
LAURA
And so, in a very positive way, I logged that in my mind to say it’s really the simplest things we had, like, “mac and cheese for the world” or something, and we could not keep up with that sticker. Everybody wanted one. So don’t, like, overlook just the simple things, because we try to make these big programs or think it takes a lot of dollars.
00;36;13;14 – 00;36;34;08
LAURA
And it was it started as a sticker really at Annie’s Home Grown.
JEN
And I can’t even help but think like, that’s a behavioral signal right there. Like they’re showing people like I purchase and buy this for my family when they do it. I mean,” mac and cheese for the world” is a good slogan and motto to live by in general, but it’s interesting to think about the why they wanted that.
00;36;34;08 – 00;37;01;11
JEN
So it’s clever. I’m sure it was very on brand, but also like you’re signaling I don’t feed my kids Kraft Macaroni.
LAURA
But totally accidental. There was no plan like that they said, oh, people want to tell, you know, it was just accidental. So I encourage people look at what you’re already doing because you probably are doing things that could be magnified or that you could do more of, or that your consumers love and wish you would do more stickers.
00;37;01;11 – 00;37;21;17
JEN
Yeah. Well, having having been in this industry for multiple decades at this point, it’s sometimes those things that surprise you and have legs that you had no idea, that turn out to be some of your most successful, accidental campaigns.
LAURA
That’s right.
JEN
That’s a great one. I appreciate that.
LAURA
Sandy Skees is someone that I really admire in the space.
00;37;21;17 – 00;37;55;10
LAURA
She sits on the Sustainable Brands Board. I brought a book that I want to share, and maybe we can reference out to folks that are listening called Purposeful Brands. It’s very practical. And also just gives you good guidelines. What I love about what she says is, when you think about competition and or being, differentiating, there’s so much work that needs to be done and that businesses need to do better, that we shouldn’t worry about being copied, it should be like if we make somebody else do a second chance hiring, that’s a really good thing.
00;37;55;10 – 00;38;18;25
LAURA
And so she’s just great about how she thinks about it and encourages brands to get involved. And just to take a leap. If I had one piece of advice, I would just say, get started, get started. I love the saying or the question, do you know the best way to plant a tree?
JEN
Today.
LAURA
YESTERDAY. But the next best day is today.
00;38;18;25 – 00;38;38;05
LAURA
And I think purpose driven marketing is just like that. Like start, you know, make the sticker, sell the sticker and give that money to something, you know, just find a place to get started.
JEN
That all resonates with me as a business owner and kind of our core values as our team. So, we will drop that book in the show notes.
00;38;38;08 – 00;38;54;13
JEN
And I will order it right after I leave.
LAURA
I’m going to leave this one with you guys, and it’s a little beat up, but it’s also signed by Sandy so you guys can have it.
JEN
Podcast Gift! Thank you, thank you. I am I will look forward to digging into that. That is the kind of stuff that I like.
00;38;54;13 – 00;39;27;16
JEN
Candy. So that’s my sugar, I guess for the month.
RYAN
Next it’s time for our segment called Creative Briefs. This is where we dig into one specific advertising campaign, or sometimes a broader trend, but today we’re doing it a little bit differently. This one – not the best. So we’re calling it “somebody approved that?” Today we spent a little bit of time talking about authenticity and but but are things getting too authentic when it comes to when it comes to marketing.
JEN
Or is it fake authentic?
00;39;27;19 – 00;39;51;02
RYAN
That might be the other piece of it, right?
JEN
There’s been an increase in like purposely amateurish ads popping up on feed. So, the one that we’re referring referencing here keeps, popping up in my Apple News feeds. Which is, you know, really full of, of what I’d call clickbait. But these articles or these advertisements in particular are incredibly amateurish.
00;39;51;02 – 00;40;17;02
JEN
And, and, you know, when you’re in the creative field, it feels just extra meaningful to you that people put time and effort into brand standards. So we realize that we’re a little bit more sensitive to this. But, when this ad with a pillow, popped up and then it had a post-it note, just kind of propped up in front of it, like maybe handwritten or possibly I generated.
00;40;17;02 – 00;40;44;29
JEN
It’s it’s hard to tell these days. It just it just struck me, as do we care about brand standards anymore? And to be honest, I don’t know the brand of this pillow, and I would not click on it to give them the satisfaction of me finding out. But it really strikes me as something that, we’re seeing a proliferation of this – just either the AI generation that’s really very fake or this kind of like we’re trying to get your attention by being really, really amateurish.
00;40;44;29 – 00;41;05;27
JEN
So, that that was my whole like, wow, somebody approved that and put that out there. Somebody is paying money to have this ad out there in the world. So I don’t know if, Laura, I’m sure you see, you see that pop up every once in a while. And as somebody who is also very experienced in the brand industry, what do you think is happening?
00;41;06;03 – 00;41;30;28
LAURA
Yeah. And I think it’s interesting when I think about my own brand team where we sometimes we feel compelled to sort of like step down to that, like, is that what people want to see? And I think we I keep reminding ourselves, no, no, no. Like ultimately sort of the, the brand tenets and the way we talk about our brands is really important and that we can’t lose sight of that.
00;41;31;00 – 00;41;51;18
LAURA
But it is super frustrating in this world to see that. And I always joke, my thing is, I’ll look at something and I’ll say out loud to whoever I happen to be with, can you imagine the marketing team that sat around and talked about this, and who said, that’s a great idea? I mean.
JEN
Who looked at that? Said, that’s great, right?
00;41;51;19 – 00;42;20;11
LAURA
Yeah. And I think that’s a caution to me as a brand builder and a marketer to always think about, like the groupthink idea and make sure we’re stepping outside and we’re asking ourselves some basic questions about what we’re putting out there to be sure that we don’t fall prey to some of these tactics.
JEN
You know, there are times when having a far less polished look can be important, especially in certain channels.
00;42;20;11 – 00;42;46;19
JEN
Like on TikTok, it’s not always about, you know, the most polished look that you can have. Sometimes even with influencers. Right. You don’t want something that looks like, oh, wow, they spent like 600,000
LAURA
Overly produced.
JEN
to get that overly produced. You want something that that looks like it is an everyday product, especially in some of those channels, but like, this felt like it crossed a line to me, where it was just like,
00;42;46;22 – 00;43;02;03
JEN
I mean, I’m reading a Wall Street Journal article, and this pops up.
RYAN
And you were talking about the team that sat around and said, yeah, let’s go ahead and do this. I don’t know if there is much of a team involved in this and just, just background. This is a picture of like a, memory foam style pillow.
00;43;02;03 – 00;43;26;04
RYAN
And and on it, the sticky note that Jen was mentioning. It says, “I wish I had discovered this pillow sooner. My REM sleep has increased from one hour and 25 minutes to 2 hours and 40 minutes after one week”. That’s what the post-it note says. But we still don’t know the brand. We don’t know the name of the pillow and Trusted Reports just wants you to click on this link where they are probably ad supported.
00;43;26;04 – 00;43;47;13
RYAN
They probably get a lot of, kickback dollars if you then purchase the product. It’s just very interesting, very interesting as to how I at the end of the day, I wonder, is it working for them? And I don’t have the metrics, I don’t have the metrics. But I am curious does this style work? And I hope that they’re looking at that if it’s working fine.
00;43;47;13 – 00;44;09;04
RYAN
Right. But if it’s not, know that it’s not working and pivot. I want to look in and see if I can find more ads about this pillow.
LAURA
Yeah, a little bit fine, but I mean, in my when I put my Frontier Co-op hat on, I mean, very good at making a claim of some promise that’s really unsubstantial, created, just feels really
JEN
Wrong
LAURA
and was so important to people.
00;44;09;04 – 00;44;33;04
LAURA
And so we would there are people that would do anything for better sleep. It feels like you’re just pandering in a very inappropriate and unproven way, is what? It’s the crossover that we talked about, about influencers and how maybe this is an influencer, I don’t know. And how do you make sure that they’re, true to kind of the brand?
00;44;33;07 – 00;44;51;17
RYAN
Is this the business trying to influencer wash, kind of going back to like, faking authenticity? Is that is that what’s happening here?
JEN
I think I think this is one of those things where, where time will tell. But really, I, I come back to that. What are you trying to communicate about your brand? If you are trying to communicate to you about your brand that you’re cheap.
00;44;51;17 – 00;45;12;07
JEN
I think that they got that, they nailed it, right? Like we’re cheap.
LAURA
We don’t spend money.
JEN
We don’t spend money on our on our advertising when we probably don’t. And we’re definitely not ethically sourcing memory foam at this point. If there is an ethically sourced memory foam, but it really does come down to like, what are your business goals?
00;45;12;07 – 00;45;31;09
JEN
And maybe for this particular business, this is meeting their goals. They just want to sell as many crappy pillows as they can, as fast as they can, and move on to the next thing. I think that ad says that, mission accomplished.
RYAN
What do you want to say? And like you said, like sleep is important and many people that don’t get good sleep, they want they want the answer.
00;45;31;11 – 00;45;53;05
RYAN
I bet this pillow is not cheap, right? Like these memory foam pillows. They can be expensive because yeah, people will do anything to get a good night’s sleep, including pay a lot.
JEN
So yeah, you do make a good point about when when people are desperate for sleep. Like you see that and you’re like, sold. Right? Like I’ll do anything because when you are, when you have a lack of sleep or pain.
00;45;53;07 – 00;46;15;23
JEN
Certainly. So it is it’s potentially predatory too. Yeah. So someone approved that.
LAURA
Someone did.
JEN
Well, that was episode one of season two. We woke our brains back up from our from our little, end of year siesta, and we are ready to bring more great topics. Laura, thank you so much for being here with us again.
00;46;15;23 – 00;46;36;08
JEN
It was great to have you on the podcast. Thank you for sharing your insights with us and with our listeners. It’s valuable. And I really think that, you know, you mentioned Gen Z in particular. As marketing evolves, this is something that brands have to think about and not just from a how do we layer it in if it’s not authentic to start with?
00;46;36;10 – 00;46;55;04
JEN
It’ll flop. I mean, that’s that’s the way it works. Like people can sniff out the BS for the most part.
LAURA
Yeah, I agree, I’ve really enjoyed the conversation. I could talk all day about it. So proud of the work at Frontier and excited to be able to tell the story and to encourage other people just to dive in.
00;46;55;08 – 00;47;12;23
JEN
Thank you. We have loved working with your team. You have an amazing, amazing team. So creative and so inspiring. So it’s really fun for our team to engage on this, and we just feel very close to the brand itself and the work that that gets done. So thank you so much for joining us. Laura, it was great having you today.
00;47;12;23 – 00;47;30;10
LAURA
Thank you I enjoyed it.
JEN
Thanks.
LAURA
I want to hear about the handstand too. You got to follow up.
RYAN
Oh yes oh yes now. But like you said it’s accountability I’ve got accountability. So I’m going to go home and maybe do some push ups. I actually I’m in a research how to do a handstand. Well like what muscles matter.
JEN
Or how to do a push up.
00;47;30;13 – 00;47;43;15
RYAN
Correct. Correct.
JEN
All right. That’s new segment on our podcast, Ryan’s accountability segment. So we’ll keep you posted on that.
LAURA
Thank you.
JEN
Thanks, Laura.
00;47;43;17 – 00;48;05;27
JEN
Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Think Fresh.
RYAN
And remember, the conversation does not have to end here. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Review our show on whatever you listen to your podcast on, or share all your marketing trials and triumphs by shooting us an email at info@thinkdenovo.com with the subject line Deer de Novo so we don’t miss it.
00;48;05;29 – 00;48;25;28
RYAN
And while you wait eagerly for our next episode, you can get your fix by checking out our blog, Fresh Thinking at blog.thinkdenovo.com. Stay tuned for more engaging conversations, laughs, and of course, marketing brilliance – and me making fun of Ryan – in the next episodes to come.
RYAN
Here’s to fresh thinking, sparking creativity, and never being boring.
00;48;26;01 – 00;48;31;17
RYAN
Bye friends.
JEN
Are we swearing on this or no?
Creative Briefs:
Fresh Impact
Applications for our Fresh Impact program are open until February 7, 2025!
Purpose Driven Marketing
Learn more about Frontier Co-Op
Sandy Skees – Purposeful Brands
Creative Briefs / “Someone Approved That?”
Pillow Ad
