
Sarah and Nate are back again for another episode of Brain Driven Brands where we break down the concept of a “brand within a brand”, and why thinking about the foundation of your strategy might be the key factor in your growth this year. ...
Loading summary
Nate Lagos
Welcome back to Brain Driven Brands, hosted by Sarah Levenger and Nate Lagos. We're back. I feel like we haven't recorded in a while.
Sarah Levenger
We're back, baby. This is the most interesting part about this. About this show is you never know who's gonna be hosting from week to week. It might be me, it might be Scotty. It might be Nate. We don't know.
Nate Lagos
What did you think of our Gut Driven Brands episode?
Sarah Levenger
Oh, my God. Let me just tell you, Okay. I was nervous. I'm not gonna lie. Mostly because I know you and Scotty, when you get together in a room, I'm like, this might be weird, but I listened to the whole thing. And this is the only episode that Scotty has not put any sound effects in, and that is saying something.
Nate Lagos
We're all business.
Sarah Levenger
He loves sound effects, and there was not one for the entire episode. And I got sucked in, first of all, because you have a skill set that Sarah does not have. I'm real good at empathy, super good at humans. I know exactly what makes people tick. I don't understand finance or business building or, like, understanding how you can marry together a CFO and, like, a cmo. Like, I don't understand the inner workings of that kind of stuff very well. Now I understand enough to be dangerous. But it was interesting to, like, listen to you talk about, here's the reason why marketing and finance should not be in different rooms. That was, like, a key takeaway.
Nate Lagos
Yeah. I was like, I think it's something that is, like, fundamentally broken in most E Com brands.
Sarah Levenger
Yes. Oh, my God. Yeah.
Nate Lagos
Everyone thinks ad spend is the enemy, and it's like, no, no, no. That's an investment in how we grow this thing.
Sarah Levenger
Like, oh, my gosh. It was such, like, a good, refreshing show. And I also love, like, Scotty has some good takes. Scotty, you don't give yourself enough credit. Like, you had an agency. Like, you understand where this is all coming from.
Nate Lagos
We've said it before. Producer Scotty is not just a podcast producer.
Sarah Levenger
Producer Scotty, he's the man. He's. He's the real. He's the real buying here. So, yes. I'm so glad you guys did it. And I might just take off more Fridays.
Nate Lagos
Yeah, let us know. We'll be here.
Sarah Levenger
Go record. Because Sarah's losing her mind, and I can't handle. Yeah, this was one of those weeks where everybody in the family got the stomach flu, so that was fun.
Nate Lagos
Nice.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah.
Nate Lagos
So this is also a first episode since bfcm.
Sarah Levenger
It is. I want to Hear. Let the people want to know, how'd your BFCM go? Because I heard mixed reviews. I even did a poll, and it was like, half the people were like, it was awful. And half of them are like, we are the best brand on the planet, and we did so amazing. So tell me.
Nate Lagos
Yeah, I didn't hear anyone that bucked the trend of how this year was going for them already. So, like, every brand that I. I know that's having a good year had a good bfcm. Every brand that was flat or shrinking year over year was flat or shrinking for bfcm. So I don't know that, like, anyone really bucked any trends now. We, you know, have been growing at like 90% year over year. BFCM was 116% here over year. So, like, we, you know, we're a little bit better than the trend.
Sarah Levenger
But geez, give yourself some credit, though. That's intense, man. That's a lot.
Nate Lagos
Yeah, it was a lot that went into it, but, yeah, we did it. And then I've never heard of a brand that had a killer November. Way above last year, way above forecast, and then didn't have a great December. So I'm pretty much on cruise control now, which is nice.
Sarah Levenger
Dang. Well. And that's where you want to be as a brand. You don't want to be flipping stuff on and off. Especially in Q4. At the end, people are just, like, continuing. Especially in the US People just continue that, like, gifting and buying behavior because this is like, the highest consumption period of the year. So, yeah, I'm kind of glad that you did. Did well, obviously, because, like, we're friends and I just want you to do well. But also because it's like, it's indicative of where your industry is headed. Jewelry is interesting. I've seen this from a lot of different jewelry brands right now that are talking about, man, we're growing a lot. Like, people in general are starting to do this, like, treat myself. Consumption behavior, specifically with jewelry.
Nate Lagos
Yeah, I'm super interested to see what happens with it over the next four years. I don't have we recorded an episode since the election.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah, I don't think. Well, we did, but not specifically about the election.
Nate Lagos
Yeah, but, like, I like, I think the consumer has been really weak for the last couple of years. And we talk about, like, when people are struggling, they buy themselves treats.
Sarah Levenger
Yes.
Nate Lagos
It's gonna be super interesting to see. Like, all right, if the economy does turn around, if the dollar is stronger in the next couple of years, what does that do to These kind of hedonic brands.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah, I think it depends, and this is actually a good segue in today's topic. I think it depends on how you position your product. So for the most part, I'm. I'm hearing rumblings and this is something that Sarah's like bringing to the brands just to see. Sometimes I just like to come into the brands and be like, test this idea for me. I do that with you all the time. This new concept, though, is stem.
Nate Lagos
Hold on. I got to get you in our slack because I'm spending too much time copying and pasting messages from you to my team.
Sarah Levenger
That's amazing.
Nate Lagos
So let me just plug you in and Sarah, tell them what to do.
Sarah Levenger
I'll just write my tweets into the Slack.
Nate Lagos
Marketing team. Slack.
Sarah Levenger
A slack of tweets of Sarah. Yeah. You know, that's doable. Some of the brands that I've been working with recently though, we've been talking about this concept of a brand within a brand. And this is something that I posted after you sent me a DM that was like, look at how freaking amazing we're doing by segmenting out men and women to their own funnels this year demographically, now, that's one type of funneling. But for the bigger brands that I'm working with who are looking for like, forward ahead of 2025 into like 2030. Right. The five year plan, all of them have the same question, which is like, how on earth are we supposed to look at strategy? Where do we start? How do we build it? Who do we need to get involved in it? And where. Where do we put these pieces in place so that each piece of the brand continues to support the revenue? Because everybody's worried about profit and revenue this year, which you should be from this, though, stem this idea and I want to get your take on it. What do you think of this concept of brand within a brand?
Nate Lagos
Yeah, I love it. I think we have six under ours.
Sarah Levenger
Yes. Okay, so what are you building?
Nate Lagos
It matters.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah.
Nate Lagos
So for us, the two biggest groups are the men who wear our watches and the women who buy the watches for their men, husbands, brothers, dads, whatever. And we've talked at length about, like, how different those people are.
Sarah Levenger
Yes.
Nate Lagos
The wildly different worlds they live in, even though they live in the same house and sleep in the same bed. Like, me and my wife live in different worlds completely. And that's fine. We're great, by the way. That's not what I'm saying. But, like, we just have completely different experiences.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah.
Nate Lagos
And marketing to each of them individually has crushed for us. We've known it for a long time. We found a way to do it on our website now with intelligence and the early results are insane.
Sarah Levenger
Interesting.
Nate Lagos
So those are the biggest groups, but then under, under that we've got the guys that like whiskey and country music and football that we're building into for next year. I know you think we haven't done a great job building brand. I've got one country artist on the hook for a nice little collab next year. Working on three more, working on a couple NFL teams right now to do some more like brand activation stuff that we're pumped about. But then we've also got the environmental crew, the crew that is super pumped that we've planted 800,000 true trees and that all our stuff is sustainably sourced and reclaimed. So yeah, there's a, there's a whole lot of Personas that buy from us.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah.
Nate Lagos
And I think you're doing your brand a disservice if you're only focusing on one.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah, this is what I find interesting. So at one call out that you just said the whole brand is built on Personas, the people that are buying from you, which we talked about in a few episodes ago, to focus a little less on who and focus more on when.
Nate Lagos
Right.
Sarah Levenger
So I'm, I'm trying to build basically a new thought process around how should you silo your brands? Right. Within the overall arching brand. Should it be based on avatars? Should we be strategizing based on who buys from us? Or should it be something else? Right. So one of the concepts that I'm currently doing this year, so shout out to me, I'm Shameless Plug. Shameless Plug for Sarah. I just so excited. I can't get enough of this stuff. So I'm, I'm drafting something that's going to be like an incubator for brands. Now the incubator at the top of like my company is based on hand selected brands, one per industry. So I'm not gonna do agency model where we take like 15 fashion brands. That's a part of my business. Right. I have one layer of like product that, that runs to as many different brands as we can, mostly because it's helpful for them. But at the top, the incubator brands are hand selected one per industry specifically so that I can build out and draft basically weekly strategies that are based on time of year, aov, LTV data, when they're most likely to purchase, and specifically the age of who they are. So every single week I have 52 weeks of strategy, basically that says boomers are most likely to purchase in May for this specific product using this specific message with this specific emotion. That's what I'm kind of trying to build the silos off of. So it's not really built on a base of who, it's built on a base of when.
Nate Lagos
I think you gotta mesh the two though.
Sarah Levenger
You think so? Okay.
Nate Lagos
Yeah. Because for us, the, the when right now for us is pretty much the same for everyone. They're either expecting a gift for Christmas or they're shopping for a gift for, for Christmas. So I think the when seasonally can be applied across a lot of avatars. But for some of our collections, you know, we're saying that, you know, these watches are smooth and bold and complex, just like the men who wear them in the whiskey they drink. And for others, we're saying these watches are responsible just like the men who wear them and give back angles. So yeah, I think I, I think it's got to be some kind of mesh of who and when.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah, well, and that's why I'm, I'm, I'm layering on like identity on top of it. So I have these 52 weeks strategy that, that's basically built out on quarters. And then we'll, we'll pre plan it based on Shopify data because I don't think, I don't know if you guys have done this, but have you ever tracked to see which age groups shop at which time of the year? That'd be fascinating to pull that data out because you could get it in your post. You should be able to get it.
Nate Lagos
And I bet it would change drastically. Like because Christmas is everyone.
Sarah Levenger
Yes.
Nate Lagos
Father's Day. I wonder if it skews younger because people buying gifts for their dad and then evergreen periods. Who knows? But that'd be pretty interesting.
Sarah Levenger
It'd be. Well, and that's what I want to base it off of first is the core foundation is when. And then on top of that you layer in all of your identities. So if you have a 35 year old dude who shops primarily in May for his father or whoever is right, like for upcoming Father's Day. Then on top of it, we layer in. Here's all the messaging for the responsible guys. Here's the messaging for the guys who like the trees. Here's the messaging for the guys who like whiskey. That way you don't have to guess at what you should run and when. You just know. Every year we run these Messages.
Nate Lagos
So are we saying Simon Cynic is wrong and it start with when? Not the right way.
Sarah Levenger
Start with when. Start with when. So, again, write that book. This is a hypothesis. I want everybody to know. Like, this is. Again, it's Sarah's job just to throw random into the machine and be like, what happens when we do this? Mostly because this is how you. This is how you, like, innovate. Right? This is innovation marketing, where we're just trying to take concepts of what we know works and break it up. Just, like, disintegrate it and be a little bit more. I don't. Judgmental is the word that comes up. But, like, be a little bit more selective about, do we actually believe that this is a thing and can we prove that it still works? If we can't prove it still works, should we still be using it? Should we still be basing our entirety of our marketing on avatars, or should we be basing it on seasonality before everything else? I don't know.
Nate Lagos
I think it's really interesting because I think, like, our marketing, every econ brand's marketing needs to get more personal. And, like, it's been really interesting to see, like, how much bigger our peaks are these days relative to our evergreen period. So, like, obviously we're growing. So, like, everything is getting bigger, but, like, the ratio of, you know, Father's Day and Christmas revenue compared to the rest of the year is getting bigger. And I think it's because we figured out how to market to women.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah, I would agree.
Nate Lagos
And, like, it's something that, like, might sound a little fluffy to be like, oh, we got to figure out which age and gender we got to market to. But it's like, no, no, you can unlock essentially more tam, like, essentially more market that you can, you know, target if you can figure out how to market to these kind of individual. Yeah, non Personas, identities, whatever you want to call it. But I think it can be, like, a big unlock for a lot of brands.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah, I agree. Especially if you can identify the specific identity of the person that you're going towards. So, again, Sarah, like, caveat to the when you still need the who. I'm not saying we should just, like, get rid of the who. I want to build more strategies based on the when first and then layer the who on top. But the interesting part is people know the who only as a use case. Right. So she's buying it for her husband to show appreciation to her husband, but that has nothing to do with her identity. Why would she buy a watch for him because it says something about her just as much as it says something about him. She could buy him gloves, she could buy him a drill. Yeah, she could buy him all kinds of stuff.
Nate Lagos
Yeah, she's a shitty gift giver.
Sarah Levenger
Exactly. She believes I'm the type of person that gives high quality sentimental gifts in particular. Like, that's the belief. I think that's probably stemming. Most of that is like, I'm a sentimental gift giver and I want to give him something that he can use on the daily. It's a daily reminder of our connection with each other. There's so many pieces of her identity that are wrapped into that purchase. It's bonkers. So I'd be interested to see. I just want to take your data.
Nate Lagos
Like, hey, give me my data can at all.
Sarah Levenger
And I want to see what time of the year the different age groups are buying because I guarantee you we can get that correlation. And then we can also start drafting a little bit more because you guys did an NLP with me, so you know which emotions are going to work, you know, primarily for the evergreen stuff. Then we could start drafting different segmented messages depending on the time of the year that you're going to purchase most. So fascinating.
Nate Lagos
There any. Are there any interesting trends coming out of that? You mentioned boomers in May, but was there anything else that jumped out on you that you don't think people are conscious of?
Sarah Levenger
I. I don't know.
Nate Lagos
For 45 minutes now.
Sarah Levenger
100. We gotta cut this off eventually. I love these philosophical conversations though, because we talk so much about tactics and AOV and like, you know, we're working at CAC and we're looking at like volume. Like there's plenty of podcasts out there that talk about the tactical.
Nate Lagos
Yeah, everything's turned into a CAC and I'm real sick of it.
Sarah Levenger
Your podcast is fantastic. I listen to yours every week, so go listen to his podcast. Tactical, Practical, Shameless Plug.
Nate Lagos
Look at that. I don't even know I have to plug it this time.
Sarah Levenger
Hey, I'm really bad about remembering to like, market stuff anyways. I know. Isn't this is a first? Scotty, I feel bad I haven't really plugged your pod. Well, you do it for me so I never have to like come in.
Nate Lagos
Whatever. It's a one sided friendship. It's fine.
Sarah Levenger
Now. I lost my train of thought. Oh, okay. So what am I noticing that people are missing? I don't talk about the politics a lot, but I do think the economy. Right. Economics play heavily into how Consumers purchase things. Culture plays heavily into how people's purchasing thing. A lot of the country singers that I find now and the ones that I follow, I find on Tick Tock. I don't find them on tv. I don't. Like mtv isn't even a thing anymore.
Nate Lagos
Tick Tock is the music.
Sarah Levenger
Exactly. I find music on Tick Tock now. And I'm a millennial and, like, that's where I go. So if you're involved in a watch company that's like pairing with country singers, maybe you should go to TikTok.
Nate Lagos
So let's put a pin in this. I'll come right back to it. You're a millennial. How old are you?
Sarah Levenger
I'm a millennial. I'm an old millennial. I was born in 88. I'm like, in the crack. I'm in the crack of, like, society.
Nate Lagos
So you're 36.
Sarah Levenger
36.
Nate Lagos
Do you know that I'm 28 and everyone on Twitter thinks I'm 35.
Sarah Levenger
You're a baby. I saw that.
Nate Lagos
I was like, I'm pissed.
Sarah Levenger
I don't. I want to know how old people think I am now. Now I need.
Nate Lagos
Well, everyone knows you're 36 because I tell them all the time. But when anyone asks me, hey, have you worked with Sarah? And I say the 36 year old? And they go, yeah, I guess I'll go, yeah, I have.
Sarah Levenger
What, the 36 year old Sarah? Is that who you're talking about? Oh, I know exactly which Sarah that is. Wow. First of all.
Nate Lagos
All right, coming back to it. So we're both kind of. We're bookends to the millennial bracket here.
Sarah Levenger
All right.
Nate Lagos
No, 100%. And, like, it's something that we are working on. I mentioned we have a couple country artists on the hook already for a deal.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah.
Nate Lagos
Next year. One of them was a pure Tick Tock discovery.
Sarah Levenger
You found them on Tick Tock. Okay, see, yes. Like, you gotta know. You gotta pay attention 100%.
Nate Lagos
I'm like, I. I heard clips of his songs for probably two months on TikTok before I ever went to SP. Spotify to find them. But then I went to Spotify and added him to my.
Sarah Levenger
Yeah, Long ass country music playlist. Is it. Is the guy that sings. I needed a woman to show me that one. Oh, come on. That guy is so good. I can't remember his name, but he's so, so good. Okay. This is interesting though, that you found him on Tick Tock, because Scotty says that's every country song it 100 is.
Nate Lagos
We should do more segments where you sing.
Sarah Levenger
By the way, I'm such a good singer. I'm a shameless country fan. Like, I just am. I don't look like I should be welcome to it. I. I really love country and have since the 90s. Anyways, we're gonna wrap it up, Scotty, I promise. One thing though, that I want to end with is if you're gonna do. If you're gonna build good strategy for your brand based on when, based on who, based on identities, all this stuff that we talk about constantly. One of the things that I would just push you people to remember is you gotta pay attention. Nate is paying attention to where people go to find their country music. He could have just tried to go get any country singer, contact freaking Nashville and say, which one you got? Send me one. But that's not where his audience is finding their people. So one, pay attention. And two, you got to track it. You got to be involved in what's happening in the economics of this country, the politics in this country and the culture. Those are the things that are going to affect your growth more than anything else, 100%. Where can people find you at Nate?
Nate Lagos
Legos? Pretty much everywhere. The Tactical Impractical podcast, as Sarah mentioned, is the best new hot marketing podcast.
Sarah Levenger
The best. Really?
Nate Lagos
Yep. That's. That's what people around my house have been saying. Sarah, where can people find you?
Sarah Levenger
Go follow me at Sarah Levenger. Anywhere that you can consume content. And please go check out what we're doing at Tether Insights. I got a lot of really cool stuff. We are currently studying the psychology of humors, emotions that come out of your reviews. And we're also using pictorial surveys, something new that I'm testing out, picture based surveys to basically answer any question that you need to know about your consumers, what they like most and what drives them to buy. So yeah, please go check us out.
Nate Lagos
The Brain Driven Brands podcast is part of the Learn and Laugh series on the Quickfire Podcast Network.
Sarah Levenger
I need it now. Need a beat me release. Need a laugh.
Nate Lagos
Fire seat.
Sarah Levenger
Sit back fire.
Podcast Summary: Brain Driven Brands – Episode: "Why Your Strategy is Doomed to Fail (and How to Fix It)"
Release Date: December 10, 2024
Host: Sarah Levinger and Nate Lagos
In the episode titled "Why Your Strategy is Doomed to Fail (and How to Fix It)", hosts Sarah Levinger and Nate Lagos delve deep into the intricacies of effective brand strategy, emphasizing the critical elements that can make or break an e-commerce brand. Drawing from their extensive experience and recent successes, they explore innovative approaches to marketing, particularly focusing on the concept of "brand within a brand" and the importance of timing in strategy execution.
The episode kicks off with Sarah and Nate catching up after a hiatus, expressing excitement about returning to the podcast. They reflect on their previous episode, "Gut Driven Brands", highlighting the unique dynamic when Nate and Scotty are co-hosting without Scotty’s usual sound effects.
Sarah Levenger [00:46]: "He loves sound effects, and there was not one for the entire episode. And I got sucked in..."
Nate Lagos [00:48]: "We're all business."
This segment underscores the hosts' camaraderie and sets a relaxed tone for the episode.
Sarah and Nate shift focus to discussing their brands' performances during the BFCM period. Nate shares impressive growth metrics, noting:
Nate Lagos [02:36]: "We have been growing at like 90% year over year. BFCM was 116% here over year."
Sarah acknowledges the hard work behind these numbers and relates it to broader industry trends, particularly in the jewelry sector where brands are experiencing significant growth as consumers embrace self-treatment and increased consumption during peak seasons.
Sarah Levenger [03:28]: "At the end, people are just continuing. Especially in the US People just continue that, like, gifting and buying behavior because this is like, the highest consumption period of the year."
This discussion highlights the importance of strategic planning during high-stakes sales periods and the correlation between sustained annual growth and successful BFCM campaigns.
The core of the episode revolves around the innovative concept of "brand within a brand." Sarah introduces this idea as a strategic approach that prioritizes when to market over who to market to.
Sarah Levenger [04:59]: "Every single week I have 52 weeks of strategy, basically that says boomers are most likely to purchase in May for this specific product using this specific message with this specific emotion."
Nate supports this by elaborating on how their brand segments audiences not just demographically but also based on behavioral identities. He explains the segmentation strategy that differentiates between men who wear their watches for various reasons, such as whiskey enthusiasts or environmentally conscious consumers.
Nate Lagos [07:08]: "We've got the environmental crew, the crew that is super pumped that we've planted 800,000 true trees and that all our stuff is sustainably sourced and reclaimed."
While Sarah advocates for a timing-first approach, Nate emphasizes the necessity of integrating both timing and audience identity for a comprehensive strategy.
Nate Lagos [10:24]: "I think it's got to be some kind of mesh of who and when."
Sarah clarifies her stance by proposing a layered strategy where when serves as the foundational element, and who (identity) is overlaid to tailor specific messages.
Sarah Levenger [11:04]: "The core foundation is when. And then on top of that you layer in all of your identities."
This balanced perspective ensures that marketing efforts are both timely and personally relevant, maximizing engagement and conversion rates.
Sarah introduces her incubator model designed to create data-driven, seasonally optimized strategies for brands. This model leverages extensive planning based on consumer behavior data, such as average order value (AOV) and lifetime value (LTV), aligned with specific times of the year when different demographics are most likely to purchase.
Sarah Levenger [09:39]: "Every single week I have 52 weeks of strategy... built out on quarters."
This approach allows brands to anticipate market trends and consumer needs proactively, ensuring that marketing messages resonate at the right moments.
A significant takeaway from the episode is the emphasis on understanding where target audiences engage, particularly in the rapidly evolving cultural landscape. Sarah and Nate discuss the shift in how consumers discover music and trends, highlighting platforms like TikTok as pivotal in reaching younger demographics.
Sarah Levenger [16:16]: "A lot of the country singers that I find now and the ones that I follow, I find on TikTok. I don't find them on TV."
Nate Lagos [17:54]: "He could have just tried to go get any country singer... But that's not where his audience is finding their people."
This insight stresses the importance of brands staying attuned to cultural shifts and leveraging the right platforms to connect with their audiences effectively.
Throughout the episode, Sarah and Nate intersperse personal anecdotes, such as their experiences with podcast promotions and interactions with their listeners. These moments add a relatable and personable dimension to the discussion, fostering a sense of community among listeners.
Nate Lagos [15:02]: "We've got to cut this off eventually. I love these philosophical conversations though..."
Sarah Levenger [19:42]: "Please go check out what we're doing at Tether Insights."
As the episode wraps up, Sarah underscores the critical importance of brands staying vigilant and adaptive to external factors like economics, politics, and cultural trends. She advocates for:
Sarah Levenger [20:09]: "We are currently studying the psychology of humors, emotions that come out of your reviews... we are using pictorial surveys."
These strategies collectively empower brands to build resilient and effective marketing plans that anticipate and respond to changing consumer behaviors and market conditions.
Notable Quotes:
This episode of Brain Driven Brands offers invaluable insights into modern marketing strategies, particularly emphasizing the synchronization of timing and audience identities. By adopting a strategic approach that prioritizes when to engage alongside a deep understanding of who the target audience is, brands can navigate the complexities of the e-commerce landscape with greater precision and effectiveness. Sarah and Nate's conversation not only highlights their expertise but also provides actionable strategies that listeners can implement to avoid the pitfalls of failed marketing strategies.
Connect with the Hosts:
Podcast Availability: Brain Driven Brands is part of the Learn and Laugh series on the Quickfire Podcast Network.