We have a saying here on Marketing Trends, ‘marketing is meant to be remarkable.’ But what exactly does that mean? Does that mean marketing is great customer service? Or maybe remarkable marketing is advertising that sticks with you. Rob Willey, the CMO of Cheribundi, gave his take on what remarkable marketing actually is.

“The fastest way to make remarkable things is via innovation. Meaning identifying what consumers really want or need and catering to that in a meaningful and impactful way. Not every brand can do that, but I think if you start with the consumer, you’re headed very quickly in the right direction. I think the wrong direction, which you see a lot of larger companies do is innovate for the supply chain. What can we make more of? What can we make better of? Does anybody even want better of that thing? And what that makes for is a lot of unremarkable products.”

On this episode of Marketing Trends, Rob takes a stand on why marketers should stop focusing solely on ads, and instead start aligning themselves with their brand’s views. Rob also dives into how Cheribundi launched a rebrand of its product in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic by developing a better understanding of its power users and leaning into the strategies that separate Cheribundi from its competitors. Enjoy!

Main Takeaways:

• Best Brands Have an Interesting Point of View: While advertising is important from a brand awareness standpoint, the best brands have a distinct and clear focus on what their point of views are and they relay those points of view to their consumers through their channels. A great PR strategy starts with identifying influencers that consumers can not only trust, but build meaningful relationships with. Those brands then use those influencers to relay messages in a unique and ambitious way.
• Pivot! Pivot!: For startup marketers, digital channels used to be a cheap way to build brand awareness while also gathering valuable information on who your target audience is. But as paid social has increased in cost, marketers have had to pivot their strategies. One of those pivots has been to increase brand relationships with influences. While these relationships can help build authentic relationships with your consumers, it’s also important to have a clear understanding if that influencer is an actual partner who loves your product or service.
• Rebranding for the Lifestyle: Marketers are always trying to find a better way to understand who their users are, but when you’re going through a rebranding process it’s even more important to know who your power users are and why they love the product. Start by identifying your unfair advantage, what separates you from your competitors, and why your loyalists love your product. Then lean into your channels to test your messages and branding on them while gauging feedback as you rephrase the digital touchpoints of your brand.

Key Quotes:

“I have no desire to make advertising any longer in my career. And I’ve said this a number of times, this is my philosophy in general: the world does not need more ads. If you take a hard look at what the best brands are doing best right now, the brands we love, they don’t make ads very often. They’re great at PR. They have lots of interesting spokespeople. They have a certain point of view in the world. And all they do is find unique ways to say that.”

“We still see so much bad advertising. Marketers got lazy. There are more than enough influencers in this world. Everyone’s an influencer. Influencers are not the only option to make good content, but why can’t we hold ourselves to a higher standard? I learned inside of an advertising agency, how to make advertising and it’s very obvious to me why it still looks like it does. Marketers aren’t brave enough, brands don’t want to offend anyone, and co-creating with another person who has their own opinion and their own brand is hard. It takes time and there’s a risk associated with it.”

“Marketers can’t stand still. There’s this race, and it’s always a sprint, and it can seem exhausting. But change can’t be revolutionary in a startup, particularly in marketing. It has to be evolutionarily because you just have to keep publishing things and you have to keep testing and learning.”

“The thing that I asked a lot early on, and I think it’s an important question for entrepreneurs all over the place; What’s the occasion? What’s that moment that you want to create? Where can you identify and anchor yourself?”

“What I think makes every marketing plan look efficient is the value of PR because every brand can buy advertising. They can find influencers, they can buy ads, they can be on social media, but the best brands have an interesting point of view.”

Bio:

Rob Willey is a marketing genius who was formerly a marketing director at Method, helping that clean home product company grow exponentially, and then went on to Taskrabbit and Spring. Rob is now the CMO at Emil Capital Partners, a mid-size private equity firm focused on innovative late stage startups in the CPG, health, wellness and beauty space.

He is about to launch a totally new look and direction for leading tart cherry juice company Cheribundi, a brand that has been around for 15 years, is distributed in 50,000 stores, consumed by more than 300 pro and college teams regularly (for soreness, recovery, sleep) but, still…nobody knows about it.

So, he is working overtime to change that with a whole new look, feel and brand direction focused on proving performance beverages can and should be all natural (fighting against synthetic science) and that Cheribundi should have been in the performance aisle from day one.

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