Rachel Thompson

A really interesting case history on #brandstrategy. ““[Liquid Death] sees itself as a media company first and a product second,” observed Young. “The company’s CEO has said in multiple interviews that you can’t ‘own’ an ingredient like canned water, but it could own a unique brand, wrapped in a compelling package, with a bold point-of-view that speaks to a niche audience.” If this can not only be theorized but also successfully executed for a product most people would see as a commodity, how much more true this statement should be for categories with higher intangible value! #brandmanagement #branding #marketingstrategy https://lnkd.in/eaB8mMmw

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This restaurant review made me laugh out loud (no mean feat early in the morning midweek). Then, it made me sit back and contemplate on two points that are very much in my brand strategy wheelhouse. 1. Value propositions. Value props, in order to be, uhhh, valuable, need to state what you do that's different. More important, though, they need to state how that fulfills a critical need for a certain type of person. Clearly, this chef's value prop was 'innovation and pushing the food experience forward'... but what he appears to have forgotten is the 'needs to taste great so people actually want o eat it' bit. Captain Obvious? Yup. And yet, over and over again, investors tell me that entrepreneurs fail to consider if their value prop is actually looking at things from the suffering customer's perspective. 2. Writing. Great writing reminds us how awesome it is to be human. Information can be art. It can inspire us, pull every emotion imaginable out of us, and leave us wishing we could connect thoughts and express them that well. This writer is amazing. That's real human intelligence, not the artificial kind. #brandstrategy #brand #copywriting #valueproposition #brandsinvestorslove https://lnkd.in/gryFED5h

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Just wrapped up an intense and rewarding RFP process to find new PR agency partners for some of our standout brands. While I’m not usually a fan of the traditional RFP, this time it felt right given the circumstances—and the results didn’t disappoint. We met with phenomenal agencies, both virtually and in person, each bringing their A-game and making the decision incredibly tough. In the end, it was the smallest details that set the winners apart. For those navigating similar waters—whether on the client or agency side—here are five insights I took from the process. 1. Vibe Check – This is paramount. If we’ll be working together frequently, a good culture fit is crucial. The account lead should absolutely be part of all presentations and calls – after all, we’re looking for a partner, not just an agency. 2. Budget Adherence – Stick to the budget. We set it with intention, and while we’d all love more flexibility, it’s essential to stay within scope. Offering “good, better, best” options is fine, but at least one should align with the stated budget. 3. Ask Questions – Even with a detailed proposal, there’s always more to understand. We provided an optional Q&A session and welcomed additional questions, even via email. Don’t hesitate to dive deeper – it shows commitment. 4. Creativity & Strategy – While every agency impressed with creative ideas, what stood out were those who shared their strategic framework. The “how” behind the idea is just as important as the idea itself, showcasing depth in thought and approach. 5. Meaningful Measurement – PR success metrics are always evolving. Go beyond impressions. We want to see how your agency defines and tracks success in a way that aligns with our brand’s goals.

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When we speak of the advertising greats, so often it's the men. But today's NYTimes obituary was a great reminder of some of the trailblazing, talented and powerful women that have made their mark in our industry. Mary Wells Lawrence, who was the first woman to run and own a major national ad agency, Well Rich Greene, and first female chief executive of a company listed on the NY Stock exchange, died yesterday. Some parts of her story that struck me: 1. I didn't realize she created the 'I Love New York Campaign.' So often we speak to the very talented Milton Glaser and logo that has obviously endured, but not the campaign that also contributed to a renewed pride and shift in perspective to NYC. How we tell the story of our successes matters. Whose story is lost in favor of highlighting the contributions of a man or otherwise highly represented group? 2. She took risks and fought for herself, walking away from a corporation (now holding company) that didn't want to promote her as a woman or respect her gifts. How many great agencies have been built because talented people, along with their teams, bravely walked away from big behemoths of an agencies? What would happen if those bigger agencies took more risks with their existing people? How does leadership provide their talent with more opportunities to take risks? Where would our industry be today? 3. The work she ended up delivering for Braniff International Airways included transforming the planes themselves, the terminal and the flight attendant uniforms. Today, ad agencies are lucky if they get a chance to improve the digital experience of branded website. What would happen if agencies had more latitude to improve the brand experience or product itself, partnering more deeply with the client and design firm instead of just remitted to delivering a campaign? How much more effective would our partnership be, and even how much more fulfilling to those working on these projects? #advertising #womeninadvertising

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I guarantee I'be had some late night conversations with a pizza,but they really didn't lead to much insight - except that I need to eat less and exercise more. Now market research platform Vurvey have added 4 Chicago icons to their roster of consumer, assistant and brand AI-agents. It works as a fun demonstration of how their AI-agents can be trained on anything, they've launched Ai-agents for Chicago Deep Dish Pizza, Hot Dogs, the Bean or even Comiskey Park. I hope to get started with "Deep Dish" pizza soon. #marketreseeach #aiagents #chicago #generativeai #genAI

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Attended a very entertaining podcast recording of On Strategy Showcase last night with Lindsey N. at Wieden + Kennedy here in NYC, hosted by the brilliant Fergus O'Carroll. The panel had mostly pretty complimentary views on the future of where ideas will come from. A few of key sound bites I took as takeaways: - "Nothing defines an idea more than the energy and community it creates" Laura Rowan - "Selling ideas has become much more challenging than making ideas, we used to have decks which were 9 slides long, now they are 90 slides long, we've lost confidence and faith in our own work." Chris Beresford-Hill - "We used to be coming up with ideas for audiences, but now the audiences have their own audiences" Marques Gartrell It's an interesting time for ideas, there's such a craving for them, but perhaps in our world where we have become highly self-reflective, if not bordering self-obsessed I wonder if we are doing enough to really understand what it's like to be a human today. In my experience the ideas which are able to articulate to someone how or why they feel something, better than they can themselves are usually the ones which land the best. Loved the session, thanks Fergus O'Carroll! #marketing #ideas #advertising

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Oh boy, so a mysterious third-party is crawling and indexing your site and feeding that to Perplexity. How wonderful :) -> In response to plagiarism allegations, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas says the company “is not ignoring” robots.txt, but does rely on third-party web crawlers "Srinivas said the mysterious web crawler that Wired identified was not owned by Perplexity, but by a third-party provider of web crawling and indexing services. Srinivas would not say the name of the third-party provider, citing a NDA. Asked if Perplexity immediately called the third-party crawler to tell them to stop crawling Wired content, Srinivas was non-committal. “It’s complicated,” he said." #perplexity #google #seo #ai

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Brilliant analysis of the new in style and now out of style food packaging designs - going right along with societal and cultural shifts.

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Budtenders have major price sensitivity to premium products because they can’t afford them. So they often pass that bias on to consumers. They make recommendations based on their personal value equations and down-sell. Meaning, a Budtender thinks a product is expensive so they believe consumers can't afford it. But no one knows what is in anyone’s wallet and what they can/cannot afford or perceive as expensive.  Just because a Budtender thinks $45 is expensive for 3.5 grams doesn't mean a consumer does. So let's start teaching Budtenders how to sell premium. Because if this industry continues to focus solely on price, it’s a race to the bottom. No one wins. 

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I came into the outdoor industry knowing that I wanted to change the narrative about spending time outside to be something less exclusive, less achievement-oriented, and less rooted in hierarchy and power than what I'd historically seen. Over the last three and a half years, I've worked with some amazing people and organizations in my role at REI to tackle that very narrative and to shift it toward something more rooted in the beautiful and intrinsic relationship that *all* humans have with nature. What I didn't know back then was that I too had to confront some internal narratives about time outside. I'd personally written off many outdoor activities, categorizing them as "won't" or "can't", largely because of the ways in which they'd been portrayed. As with many things, whiteness, patriarchal norms, and elitism were some of the underpinnings that made me so averse to the very notion of "outdoorsy". I too needed to unlearn and relearn, and personally have been turning to new faces and communities who believe that time outside isn't about how fast you are or what mountain you've "conquered", but about joy, abundance, and feeling connected to yourself and your community. Anyway, I ran a 5K yesterday. My goal was to run the whole thing (I've never been able to before), and I did it! Turns out flipping a narrative can really have an impact. Here's to more.

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Dan Kenger has helped create the look and feel of huge D2C brands like sweetgreen. Now, he's bringing his same design-forward thinking to healthcare marketing at hims & hers. His team gets that health issues affect how we show up in the world, whether it's weight loss, hair loss, or bedroom performance. By putting real, relatable people in their ads, folks feel a sense of comfort and support from the brand. If you want to see how design can make intimidating topics feel normal, watch the full episode to learn how Hims & Hers is making healthcare feel human for once: https://lnkd.in/djGMdcpU

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News flash in CPG branding world this week: a beloved household brand is going to rename itself. Campbell’s Soup Company is dropping the category from its name to become Campbell’s Company. It is not unheard of when a brand has outgrown its category (either as product or value/experience that the brand stands for); one of the most notable examples in recent history being Starbuck’s dropping “coffee” from its name. Does it really change the brand? I’d argue that it doesn’t, the equity is in the proper name part of the brand. The category reference is helpful when a brand is young and needs to create a familiar point of reference for the consumer. Will the change radically change the brand? I would also argue that most likely not, unless the name change comes with a bigger rebranding initiative, revisiting what the brand stands for and reflecting that in revised positioning and brand marketing. In other words, is it about a business entity changing its name, or is it about changing the brand? Does it impact brand Relevance, Authenticity, and Difference in the market? In other words, is Campbell’s pursuing a new RAD brand strategy? Boardroom brand strategy lesson: don’t anchor your brand in a category that you may outgrow. In the meantime, category name in your name doesn’t mean you’re stuck. After all, Apple does not sell apples. I’m curious what my brand strategy peers in corporate and CPG worlds think about this. #campbells #RADbrandstrategy

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This. This just makes me take a long deep worried breath. It's been ~5 years since a similar story was published about the perverted uses of YouTube to exploit the innocence of children. That story caused quite an uproar in its time. I was the global media director for Coca-Cola. It was the first time we paused media spend around the world on YouTube as we reviewed our own policies and principles. It led to publishing the company’s first Responsible Media Principles (https://lnkd.in/e8vUMWXS). I was proud of the work and actions we took as a company with industry partners as a result. The examples here are equally troubling. The explanation offered falls plenty short. It’s another example of what goes wrong if we put too much trust into algorithms. How vanity metrics lead us astray. How Marketers must pay closer attention to how campaigns are executed on these platforms. How our traditional definitions of “safe” or “suitable” don’t necessarily work in these environments. How the good work by Robert Rakowitz #GARM is just as important – if not even more so – today, as it was then.

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Wanna know why it's dangerous and irresponsible for industry stalwarts like WARC, Contagious, and Marketing Week to platform hyperbolic "anti-purpose" rhetoric from self-published books that have not been credibly vetted or fact checked? Look no further than this share from Nathan Jun Poekert. The unintended consequences of baseless fearmongering are just too costly... And the people who pay the price are people with whom the ivory tower elite will never have to cross paths. That kid in Alabama who can't buy a PRIDE shirt at Target this year will feel even less of a sense of belonging as a result of our corporate cowardice. I'll say it again. Not all perspectives are worth valuing. There is objective truth. It's why the NYT Opinion section doesn't accept the dear diary entries of anyone who feels like being heard. We look to journalists and trade organizations to find out what the truth is, and platform THAT. "Here's what everybody who our team is friendly with thinks" is not an appropriate editorial strategy. #thinkforyourself #pride #corporatecowardice #corporatefragility

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Behind the paywall there’s some great stuff here…. Gap has been all over my LinkedIn FYP these last few days which to me is an indication they are working there way back into the hunt. To Danny Weisman’s point - this isn’t always about “impressions” but rather impressions with purpose. I’m old enough to remember you went to GAP for quality clothing that felt great on and held up to weekly washing. Should be a great lesson in how brands & media now more than ever need to work in tandem. Something Steven M. and I with our consultancy Moy & Halter often are talking extensively to or are listening in on brand marketers with great insights like: Diana Haussling, Vinny Rinaldi, Alyson Griffin, Casey Hurbis, Dave Kersey and Sri Rajagopalan about. What’s your opinion on how creatives and media strategy teams can better align through the planning process? Leave an opinion below 👇

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Yes, I've started adding the "award-winning" descriptor to every relevant mention of this amazing marketing team and yours truly. You know that feeling when you've just survived production hell, you step back and take in the totality of what you all have conceived and managed to bring to life. You think, "It's done. And it's good!" Then you see the results and think "It worked!" Your colleagues agree, and usually, that's enough to carry the momentum into the next thing. And the next thing. And so on. Therein lies the challenge for high-performance teams. We yearn for the recognition, but the production cycle keeps turning. So I'm incredibly grateful to Evi Loveres--truly one of the most talented creative professionals in the industry--for breaking the cycle and championing this opportunity. In case you don't feel like clicking the link, Fictiv's annual State of Manufacturing report is my favorite campaign (and a beast of a project.) "State of Manufacturing is an in-depth annual report published by Fictiv to demonstrate its leadership and expertise in the manufacturing industry. Last year's report was generated by surveying over 240 leaders in engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, and product development to identify developing trends and gather key insights. These insights were packaged as a landing page, ebook/printed piece and was supported with an integrated campaign consisting of email, webinar, live panel discussion at a trade show, PR, and various social media promotions." Go ahead and click that link for a selection of creative assets developed for this comprehensive campaign. Results (June 2023 - April 2024) - Potential reach: 209.4M - 688 backlinks from 46 referring domains - 7K website users (4.7K new) - 600+ e-book downloads - 375 webinar registrants This campaign would not have been possible without my award-winning 😉 colleagues: Christine Evans, Michael Gorman, Evi Loveres, Varun Mehta, John Honey, Jenn Miller, Kaitlyn Silva 🏆

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Open to challenge but with where things are going, Brand is absolutely everything. I wish “BrandFormance” sounded better because its truly the best way to survive. Think CPG/Retail narrative but it certainly applies broadly. Two biggest things are Influencer/Social/Affiliate trends and Retail Media but my biggest takeaway is that you should be spending every day thinking about what your brand means to as many consumers for as many reasons as possible.   With the TikTokification of Social and platforms optimizing to keep attention, competitive brands can come out of nowhere. Look at PRIME Hydration or Feastables. Personal brands from influencers like Logan Paul x KSI and MrBeast attached to products that compete with the largest CPGs seemingly overnight. These brands are built every single day, across multiple platforms with many audiences. There is a proven formula for talented folks monetizing their brand, now including CPG. Your brand’s competitive landscape is one post away from a seismic shift so you can’t sleep on brand. Keep adding value to consumers with the brand in new ways; let them vote with their wallets.   Retail Media has seen significant increases in spend but play it out further. RM is enhancing the dynamics (trading variables) between Retailers/Brands. With margin compression, RM is able to drive alt rev. RMNs will continue to grow in addressable channels, partners, 1P data, etc. and the asks to suppliers will grow too. This data can also be used to build private brands for retailers to test against less profitable/consumer valued brands. Look at Amazon, they have developed 100K private label products in some random categories! In a world where AI made buying approaches similar, retailers control what shows up and how the algorithm informs it. Whether in-store or online, eye level is buy level and retailers need to maximize platform retention and profit.   Future distribution decisions will be something like do I: maximize revenue/profit by putting a big national brand on shelf (low risk, pure profit, limited upside), identify categories that are weak to private label (low risk, lower profit, higher upside) or try to grow the category by replacing either with the next influencer attached brand?   Competitive pressures are growing and brand building continues to change with consumer attention. Need a better name for “BrandFormance” to stop internal created barriers like retail media vs. brand media, creative vs. media, etc. and start building brand as an org. To me, this means using social at the center to develop brands and leverage the quick feedback loops of RM to gain insights across creative, cohorts and commerce strategies. Use all of your platform partner’s data to generate insights that build a better brand and make it matter to as many people for as many reasons as possible. Then measure it with awesome sales data to make more informed investment decisions because Retail Media is the best! #brandbuilding #retailmedia

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A few very (very) early findings from the Mental Health in Creative and Advertising survey I launched last week: The average rating (1-10) of folks overall emotional and mental wellbeing is 4.2, below midrange, with the highest concentration of responses scoring themselves at a 2. 😬 46% of respondents RARELY feel as though their" workload is Goldilocks-style "just right" for their current role or level. And this isn't relegated to junior folks. This is with 72% of current respondents being Director level or above. Managers are at the brink. 😩 Which brings me to the next one... 73% agree that their stress levels have increased over the past year, with "the pressure of condensed project timelines," "navigating shrinking client budgets," and "overwhelmed or unsupportive managers" rounding out the top three reasons. 😭 I'm looking for a lot more folks to add their voices to the survey, so that we can shed more light on where our industry can do better.

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