The 12 Sharpest Lessons from Marketing Leaders at Fortune Media, Liquid Death, Oatly & More
By cdelprincipe@hubspot.com (Curt del Principe)
Each week, Laura, Caroline, and I get to sit and chat with some of today’s most innovative marketing masters. We’ve run down the rabbit hole with folks from Spotify, Liquid Death, Oatly, New Balance, Zapier, Hootsuite, the Brooklyn Nets, and even the makers of Chicago’s most beloved tirefire-flavored liquor.
If you could smoosh all of their combined wisdom into your head, it would be like getting your… well… master’s in marketing. (Oh, hey. I just got the name.)
Well, you can’t. Not until brain chips are a thing.
Until then, you can do the next best thing: Check out 12 of the most insightful, provocative, or just downright useful lessons our experts had to share.
Lesson 1: People aren’t brainless consumers.
Here‘s a fun fact: At Liquid Death, they don’t use the word consumer. Ever.
Instead, they have a team called “human insights.”
Greg Fass, Liquid Death’s VP of marketing, is proud to work against the mindset that people are just “brainless consumers” whose sole purpose on Earth is to consume products. (Yep – that’s a direct quote.)
Instead, he says, “At Liquid Death, I‘m proud that we think of our audiences as people. And when you think of them as humans, you understand they’ll get a piece of copy that isn‘t straightforward, or jokes other brands are afraid to make. They’re intelligent, and have a sense of humor.”
It’s a philosophy that has served them well. Just consider the commercial where Martha Stewart is a serial killer chopping off hands to make candles — not exactly something that would go over well in a standard marketing pitch.
Liquid Death has done more than reinvent the better-for-you beverage category — they’ve reinvented marketing, as well.
Embracing their anti-marketing approach can help you discover fresh and novel ways of connecting better with, well, other humans.
Lesson 2: “If you’re not risking your career on a bold marketing move, you’re not thinking big enough.”
Ron Goldenberg, VP of international marketing & innovation at BSE Global, got plenty of pushback when he pitched a Brooklyn Nets activation — in Paris, complete with an orchestral tribute to The Notorious B.I.G. and Brooklyn Nets-inspired pizzeria.
One colleague even said to him, “You really think Parisians are going to show up to a Brooklyn Nets pizzeria?” (I get the hesitation — don’t they live off of escargot and croissants?)
He knew there could be major ramifications if the event flopped. But he believed in the concept enough to risk it all.
“If I‘m going to get fired for anything, it’s worth [it] for an orchestral tribute to Biggie in Paris,” Goldenberg told me last week. “When your ideas are big enough and bold enough, and you believe in them to the degree that you‘re willing to take a reputational risk, that’s when you’re onto something.”
Playing it safe can be a risk …read more
Source:: HubSpot Blog
