How to Build & Market a Brand that Resonates with Your Audience
Today’s Listen isn’t just any ol’ podcast, it’s our podcast! Cue the fanfare! The Carnage Podcast is here! So many exclamation points! Anyway, we’re very excited.
The guest on our first episode is Georgina Gooley, the co-founder of a female-first shaving subscription service, called Billie. She’s also a former advertising ace who has always been obsessed with the branding process.
If you haven’t heard about Billie yet, you better hold onto hearts, you just might fall in love.
When developing her brand, Georgina set out to create a shaving experience the way women would want it. Affordable, inclusive, positive, real…. It’s about celebrating womankind in a male-dominated industry. And the payoff is powerful. Not even a year old and Billie has a following of loyal fans and customers. Talk about a strong emotional connection between brand and consumer.
Georgina shares insights on all this and more, from her branding strategy to the positive impact she hopes to make on women worldwide.
In this 13-minute podcast we talk about:
- (02:00) The genesis of Billie and what Georgina was doing before
- (04:20) Georgina’s ideal work day (and what usually gets in the way from that “perfect” day)
- (05:35) Challenges you face as a company founder
- (06:10) A road bump along the way that later became an opportunity
- (06:50) The history behind the name Billie and its significance to the brand itself
- (08:35) What keeps Georgina inspired and motivated
- (09:05) The Pink Tax
- (10:10) How Georgina measures success and the impact she hopes to have the world
- (11:05) One tactic she recommends to fellow founders and marketers
- (11:35) The importance of cultural awareness when developing and marketing a new brand
8 Old School Marketing Tactics That Work for Social Media
You’ve probably noticed—we’re suckers for vintage advertisements. So when we ran across a blog post that had a ton of vintage ads AND Mad Men references, we knew it had to be today’s Read. It helped that the content is good too.
It may be 2018, and digital media might rule marketing, but there’s still a TON we can learn from old-school marketing tactics. Like what? Try these on for size:
- Do smart, thorough research. Believe it or not, the Father of Advertising, David Ogilvy, was a strong believer in using data and research to influence his copywriting. These days, a lot of marketers claim to use data, but sometimes that just means they look at the data and come to their own conclusions anyway. That’s not how data and research works.
- Learn the rules, then break them. An old-school example of this is VW’s “Think Small” ad. At a time when car ads were big and brash, VW went the complete opposite direction. You can do this by bucking trends, stop blindly following best practices, do your own research, and come to your own conclusions.
- Avoid sleazy bait-and-switch tactics. In 1910, the world’s first female copywriter, Helen Lansdowne, wrote an ad for soap that used the tagline “A skin you love to touch.” Notice that she didn’t make any outrageous claims or use bait-y tactics. It was just believable and performed so well that they used it for decades. These days, Millennials and Gen Z-ers are supremely skeptical when it comes to trusting brands. Be honest, or if you’re going to exaggerate, own it (see today’s Watch).
- Get right to the heart of things. Attention spans were short back in the day and they’re even shorter now. Advertising pro, Jane Maas, once wrote, “Attention does not build. Your audience can only become less interested, never more.” Write that one down.
- Ditch the one-size-fits-all approach. Ad execs started tailoring their messages for different audiences in the ’70s. If you’re still writing one message for every audience, you’re likely not connecting with anyone. If you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one.
Couldn’t cover everything. Keep on readin’…
Only Slightly Exaggerated
Hayao Miyazaki (shout out Spirited Away) didn’t have a hand in animating today’s Watch, but he certainly inspired it.
Travel Oregon’s latest ad is a freewheeling, fanciful, colorful exploration of all Oregon has to offer. A seamless journey through lakesides, cityscapes, forests, waterfalls, past happy campers friendly giant rabbits, smiling cycling caterpillars… Wait.
A state with this much imagination and creativity must be worth the visit. We think so.
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”
Stephen Hawking
Ads from the Past
