Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. This is one that Carol and
Speaker 1: I are fighting over to bring in. We're sort of
Speaker 1: go for it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it all right, Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1: Emily Hayward is with us. She's co founder, chief brand
Speaker 1: officer of Red Antler And if you look at the
Speaker 1: roster of the companies that they've worked with, you would
Speaker 1: get a sense of the tabs that go across my
Speaker 1: screen when I'm like doing some online shopping in between segments, Um,
Speaker 1: all Birds, Birch Box ever Lane will be, I mean,
Speaker 1: like so many, so many. She's also got a new book,
Speaker 1: Obsessed Building a brand people love from day one. She
Speaker 1: joins us on the phone from Southampton. So Emily, first
Speaker 1: of all, congrats on the book. Very exciting. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and thanks for having me on today.
Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, So why we want to talk so
Speaker 1: much about so many things? But why turn this into
Speaker 1: a book right now? Yeah? So I think that you know,
Speaker 1: to your point about sort of the brands that we've
Speaker 1: helped build and the entrepreneurs that we've partnered with, we've
Speaker 1: really seen a movement unfold over the past decade where
Speaker 1: category after category is being disrupted by startups and people
Speaker 1: are really rethinking the brands that they're loyal to, the
Speaker 1: everyday items that they buy, and who they really want
Speaker 1: to give their money to. And you know, over the years,
Speaker 1: I've seen what it takes to build a modern brand
Speaker 1: and how you can capture consumers hearts in whole new
Speaker 1: ways and really how you need to um. So the
Speaker 1: book is all about the new rules of branding and
Speaker 1: new ways to form connections with consumers or frankly get
Speaker 1: left behind. And you have to do it, Emily, from
Speaker 1: day one, right, you have to know your brand from
Speaker 1: the get go. Well, I think it certainly helps to
Speaker 1: do it from day one. You know, I would never
Speaker 1: want to tell an established company that it's too late
Speaker 1: for them. I also think it's never that's not good
Speaker 1: for business either, Emily, is it? Well, that's true. But
Speaker 1: I'm also an internal optimist and I think everybody has
Speaker 1: the chance to be relevant again. Um But I do
Speaker 1: think it certainly helps that so many of these companies
Speaker 1: are really able to build their meaning and their purpose
Speaker 1: into who they are from the very beginning. But you
Speaker 1: but you do talk about like you say that, you know,
Speaker 1: founders think that branding is something you think about once
Speaker 1: you figured out all the important stuff. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: reading from your book here, you know, but you say,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got to really be thinking about this
Speaker 1: early on. Yeah. Absolutely. When we started Ranntler in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, the ethos of the day was like
Speaker 1: the lean startup, you know, it was like, get out there,
Speaker 1: make sure you have product markets fitch pu't your way
Speaker 1: to success, and then worry about your brand. But our
Speaker 1: hypothesis was actually that the sooner you start thinking about brand,
Speaker 1: the more set up for success you'll be. And I
Speaker 1: think we see examples of businesses that really took an
Speaker 1: incredibly thoughtful approach to brand from the beginning, and we're
Speaker 1: able to just come out of the gates, you know,
Speaker 1: at full force and gained momentum and press and word
Speaker 1: of mouth, and ultimately we're able to sort of unseat
Speaker 1: the competition in a way that I don't think they
Speaker 1: ever would have been able to achieve if they had
Speaker 1: taken a halfway up. All right, So in a minute,
Speaker 1: in one minute, give us one example, and then we're
Speaker 1: going to continue the conversation after we do some news,
Speaker 1: but give us a one minute a case study. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I think Casper, which you brought up, is an excellent
Speaker 1: example of that because before Casper launched, nobody thought you
Speaker 1: could sell a mattress through e commerce. You know, it
Speaker 1: was impossible, right, people had to try it out. And
Speaker 1: if they had put up a sort of dinky website
Speaker 1: being like, hey, let's see if people are willing to
Speaker 1: make this eight hundred fifty dollar purchase online without ever
Speaker 1: sleeping on the bed, they would have gotten what I
Speaker 1: would call a false negative. You know, I don't think
Speaker 1: people would have fallen for that brand in the way
Speaker 1: they did. Now. Of course they've based out challenges since then,
Speaker 1: certainly because there's been hundreds of copycats because of what
Speaker 1: the fantastic and phenomenal job they did. But I do
Speaker 1: think it was brand that enabled them to build that trust,
Speaker 1: change consumer behavior and gets people to make a very
Speaker 1: high ticket, high stakes purchase site unseen from a brand
Speaker 1: that they had never heard of. Our guest that we're
Speaker 1: talking with right now, Emily Heyward. She's co founder chief
Speaker 1: brand officer at the Branding Company. Largely work with startups
Speaker 1: and new ventures read Antler, her new book out today,
Speaker 1: Obsessed Building a brand people love from day one. She's
Speaker 1: talking with us from South Hampton. You've worked with Alberts
Speaker 1: Casper Birch Box. One of the things Jason and I
Speaker 1: have been wondering Emily is, you know, with everything that's
Speaker 1: gone on over the past twelve weeks, with everything that's
Speaker 1: gone over the past two and a half weeks following
Speaker 1: what happened in Minneapolis, you know, I do wonder what
Speaker 1: impact that has on companies, on leaders, and you know,
Speaker 1: what it means to be a brand in our society
Speaker 1: today and will it matter to consumers ultimately going forward.
Speaker 1: I actually think it's going to matter to consumers more
Speaker 1: and more and more. And I think at this movement
Speaker 1: towards brands taking accountability happened before the moment that we
Speaker 1: currently find ourselves in. You know, consumers have more choice,
Speaker 1: more information, and more power than ever before, and that's
Speaker 1: only getting greater and greater, and they're using that power
Speaker 1: to demand change and accountability and action. And I think
Speaker 1: it's phenomenal. And I said, brands to think they can
Speaker 1: just sort of like stay behind the curtain and not
Speaker 1: get engaged are going to find that their loyalty quickly.
Speaker 1: A wrote, so, Emily, help us understand through your work,
Speaker 1: you know, and some of the brands that you've worked with,
Speaker 1: what does the right consumer engagement look like? And I
Speaker 1: know authenticity and transparency are all key aspects of this,
Speaker 1: but you know, there are also a lot of brands
Speaker 1: going after the consumer right now, and and the Internet
Speaker 1: is a great equalizer in many ways, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are clever, and even a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are well funded. But I wonder,
Speaker 1: as you've tried to distill down that secret sauce, what
Speaker 1: do you find. I think it's recognizing that brand is
Speaker 1: not a layer that sits on top. It's not just
Speaker 1: having a cool logo or a great ad campaign or
Speaker 1: a socially conscious ad campaign. I think that brand needs
Speaker 1: to start from within. And the brands that are succeeding
Speaker 1: today have an incredibly clear idea of their purpose and
Speaker 1: of the problem involving for people. They have a baked
Speaker 1: in relevance that's about adding more value to people's lives,
Speaker 1: and then they can bring that to life through all
Speaker 1: the ways they tell their story. But if you don't
Speaker 1: start with that meaning, it's just gonna be shallow and
Speaker 1: people are going to see through it. So one thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you and Jason I talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot too. We both have teenagers, and you
Speaker 1: know both of our all of our teenagers. You know,
Speaker 1: look at a company what it stands for. We're looking
Speaker 1: at you know, where things are made, if it's a
Speaker 1: food product, you know, ingredients and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But I wonder, you know, in terms of brands, how
Speaker 1: much the consumer is responsible from moving the needle and
Speaker 1: in an environment where the virus has exposed it emily
Speaker 1: as well as you know what happened in Minneapolis. You
Speaker 1: know there are people who are just struggling to put
Speaker 1: food on their table and a roof over their heads,
Speaker 1: you know, who do a lot of purchasing as well. Though,
Speaker 1: you know, is it are we overstating the importance of
Speaker 1: kind of what a brand stands for, how they do things?
Speaker 1: So I guess to me, I don't think that there's
Speaker 1: any way to oversee the importance of doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: And I think that this moment is less about what
Speaker 1: you're posting on Instagram and more about sort of how
Speaker 1: you're looking at your own internal culture, and you're hiring
Speaker 1: practices and how you're promoting black voices within and without
Speaker 1: of your company, you know. So to me, like, it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily need to be about brands investing, you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars or is in ad campaigns
Speaker 1: about social justice. Frankly, I'd rather than put that money
Speaker 1: towards programs that help people then worry so much about
Speaker 1: their external reputation. And I think that if brands have
Speaker 1: that internal commitment and are doing the right thing, consumers
Speaker 1: are going to recognize that and support that more than that.
Speaker 1: Are just the loudest about talking to talk, So tell
Speaker 1: us something about putting this book together. I mean, we
Speaker 1: do wanna, you know, give some nice love to it
Speaker 1: because it's out today, obsessed building a brand people love
Speaker 1: from day one. I mean I wonder about I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a little different from what you do in your
Speaker 1: day job. Like what was fun about it? What was
Speaker 1: challenging about it? And maybe surprising? So the most challenging
Speaker 1: thing for me was that my day job is all
Speaker 1: about taking the most complicated thing you can imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: an entire business, and every feature and fund the piece
Speaker 1: of functionality and just throwing it into you know, four words,
Speaker 1: whereas when you're writing a book, it's almost the opposite
Speaker 1: skills that, you know, you really need to take an
Speaker 1: idea and expand on it, and bring an examples and
Speaker 1: make sure that people are understanding it from all angles.
Speaker 1: So just dealing with the blank page was incredibly daunting
Speaker 1: after spending a career of trying to be as absolutely
Speaker 1: sustinct as possible. Um, But it was also, you know,
Speaker 1: so much fun to really think that on all the
Speaker 1: amazing examples I have from companies that I've gotten to
Speaker 1: partner with and entrepreneurs I admire as well as just
Speaker 1: brands I admire as a consumer. You know, I bring
Speaker 1: up a lot of examples in the book that I
Speaker 1: didn't work on and got to sort of put on
Speaker 1: my consumer lens and think about what are the brands
Speaker 1: I love just being out there in the world and
Speaker 1: observing them and buying them. What brands do you love?
Speaker 1: Good question? Well, I'm very excited about a recent launch
Speaker 1: of hours. Um. That's a brand called Jos. It's a
Speaker 1: new at home coffee product, and it came just in time.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody was already in lockdown. We actually pushed
Speaker 1: the launch off a few weeks because it was supposed
Speaker 1: to launch like the weeks the pandemic hits um. But
Speaker 1: it really has been an incredible addition to my routine
Speaker 1: and I'm proud of the brand that we put together there.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things where the products great,
Speaker 1: the brand is great, the site is great. It all
Speaker 1: comes together, which again I think is table safe these days,
Speaker 1: Jason and I are both jo Jason and I are
Speaker 1: both googling it is there a brand? What about? What?
Speaker 1: Like the older? Is an older brand out there that
Speaker 1: you just are like? Man, they have just consistently continued
Speaker 1: to evolve and get it right. Yeah, I'll give a
Speaker 1: hat tip to Levies for that. They're a brand that
Speaker 1: continues to stay relevant. I think they've stayed true to
Speaker 1: who they are while also adapting to the changing times.
Speaker 1: And they've really leaned into the fact that heritage can
Speaker 1: be a badge of authenticity, which you know is a buzzword,
Speaker 1: but it's really important to people. Yeah. Interesting and ever
Speaker 1: Lane is that is that a company you've worked with? No, ever,
Speaker 1: Len is not a client um, but you know they're
Speaker 1: obviously one of I think the very in the director
Speaker 1: consumer movement, and it really sort of led the way
Speaker 1: and a lot of discussion around transparency, you making your
Speaker 1: labor practice is known, and sustainability and pricing. So I
Speaker 1: write about them in the book, and I admire a
Speaker 1: lot of things done. Yeah, we know that brand pretty
Speaker 1: well here at home. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I'd wear
Speaker 1: a ton of everle. Yeah, and I and I love
Speaker 1: the I love the idea of it and the transparency piece.
Speaker 1: All right, we're kind of obsessed with you. Emily Hayward's back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna have to come back and spend some
Speaker 1: time with us. Author of the brand new book Obsessed
Speaker 1: Building a brand people love from day one. Emily Hayward
Speaker 1: is the author. She's co founder and chief brand officer
Speaker 1: over at red Antler. A nice way to end the show.
Speaker 1: Um and and incredibly relevant, I think right now. Uh
Speaker 1: and you know, and we talked to a lot of
Speaker 1: these brands, you know, I think about the conversations we've
Speaker 1: had with the guys that written Adams, the creators of
Speaker 1: Adam's Great Husband and Wife Team. We're wearing their masks
Speaker 1: all the time now, it's a favorite mask were them.
Speaker 1: I know, we had to wait for them, and my
Speaker 1: family loves them. They are incredible and we need to
Speaker 1: catch up in the bombas you know, we had the
Speaker 1: counter bombas on to you know, this is something we
Speaker 1: think about a lot. Yeah, no doubt about it. All right. Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: of course, we've got the Fed meeting. They began today,
Speaker 1: they'll wrap it up tomorrow, we'll get a decision. We
Speaker 1: will cover that decision Jason and myself, and then of
Speaker 1: course cover j Powell's statement and the press conference for
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly. I'm Carol Masser. Have a safe evening every
Speaker 1: line of this as we were great yet