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Jenny Rooney
Did you know influencer marketing drives twice as many sales as display advertising with a 37% higher retention rate. AWIN helps brands unlock the full potential of the creator economy with their influencer management solutions. Utilize their robust discovery capabilities and creator management tools to build your perfect creator roster and track full funnel performance. Visit AWIN link Adweek today and start building high performing partnerships. That's a w I n.link adweek.
John Solomon
Many brands don't realize the importance of having a distinctive asset. You have to define distinct assets, you have to protect them and then you have to use them. What I want to make people if they don't remember theragun they should at least say I want the triangle one.
Jenny Rooney
Hi everyone and welcome to the Marketing Vanguard podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney with Adweek and and I'm thrilled today to be joined by John Solomon. He's the CMO of Therabody.
John Solomon
John, welcome Jenny. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
Jenny Rooney
It's great to have you here. I am excited to have this conversation with you because I feel like there's just so much going on at TheRabody right now and we're going to unpack all that. But before we get into it, I would love for you to just start by telling us a little bit about you. I always like to ask CMOs about their personal journeys and a little bit of career backstory so that everybody can have a good context for understanding what brought you to this place.
John Solomon
Great question. I mean I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. I was always very interested in technology kind of at the as I was like getting internships at in the dot com era and stuff like that. And so I think the through line has just always been very interested in how technology is changing things, changing society, culture. And so I thought I was going to be in as a political science major and I thought I was going to be in the CIA. And then they told me that I needed to speak Chinese, which I did not. And so I ended up kind of some of us do falling into marketing given kind of my back interest in kind of communications marketing culture and because of my interest in the digital side or technology side I really fell into kind of digital marketing in the very early days of that. So it was very, you know, came up through digital agencies at akqa, then had my first role on the brand side at Beats by Dream and was brought in that and helped really build the digital side of that. It was like early days of performance marketing. We did so many fun cultural marketing things so many great stunts and really cut my teeth in culture marketing. Right. Of really how to be a challenger brand and do things in non traditional way. Obviously Apple acquired Beats and so I eventually went on the Apple side and really got to understand how do you be a global brand that really is so careful and crafted with every touch point and how do you scale that around the world. Right. And obviously Apple's just amazing at that. So really kind of also cut my teeth in more traditional advertising. And then I had a huge cyclist and I was a big avid user of the Theragun and during COVID just reached out and there's an opportunity to, to really join as my first CMO role and that was always a goal of mine and I just love that it brought together my passion for technology and hardware but also my, my love for health and wellness and how much that whole sector was changing and so have been there therabody for four years now actually last month and has been amazing. You know, gone from a Covid kind of darling brand to everything that came after that with companies like ours or Peloton to then navigating tariffs this year. And so it's been a huge, you know, and great ride. But I learned so much and really have expanded the brand and you know, it's really what gets me excited is our vision and it's really empowering everybody to live better, longer, healthier lives through wellness technology.
Jenny Rooney
That'll be a great segue into now then talking about the company. But I am curious because you said two things in that one is. Well, three things really. You know, the pivot that you did early career and sort of the ability for you to then kind of translate your interest in communications and then the digital piece that you were starting to gain and AKQA and then moving into marketing. You also said you've been here now four years, which we all like to joke is you've gone over the traditional tenure stat in that regard. But that's something that's significant because I do think that at four year mark you're into a. Well you describe the zone as a CMO that you're into once you're into a four year. I'm just curious for everybody listening, on behalf of everybody listening, what does four years in what does that mean for you as a cmo? What's your environment like at that point? Just curious.
John Solomon
It's a great question because I was at Apple four years. I was at Beats by Dre four years. So I've been reflecting on it. I mean I think it takes a year to figure out what's going on and then I think it takes another year to get everyone bought on board with the strategy and start executing it. And I think by year three, you're kind of either proving that it's working or not. And then I think by year four you're kind of humming along. And I think what's really interesting that I've noticed with some of the work that we've just put out is we're now kind of making this pivot where so much of the foundations in place because great team, great processes, great go to market. Like all of that groundwork is there, which is now allowing us to kind of have these like plus up ideas. It's allowing us to say, let's try this, let's try that, let's test this, let's test that. And I think the one example of that, you know, is our internal creative team has just been coming out with these amazing ideas and our head of creative, he had this insight of walking through TSA about a wand product we had and kind of the cultural zeitgeist around Sailor Moon and nostalgia. And they made this completely incredible piece of creative that just spread virally, just posting on social organically. And it was one of those things that probably a couple years ago we would have not have green lit because there was so much foundational stuff and also probably not having the permission from the CEO and the board. So now it's like you get to do the fun stuff. It's like the work's been done, the having success. We have great romantic brand. So I think you could probably cut some time off of that. But I think that anything two years or under, I don't think you're really getting a, a fair shake as a cmo.
Jenny Rooney
So, so interesting. And that completely makes sense. And you have to build that foundation, have to get the buy in, you have to build the trust. And then once on the other side of that, that's where you have as you said, permission to kind of go deeper and arguably take some risks and get innovative. The other thing you said, and I just want you to talk about this a little bit, is my mind went to the word healthcare and interestingly obviously health and wellness, slash healthcare that is obviously such a huge hot area right now, has been for arguably like honestly Covid put a lot of spotlight on healthcare for better or worse or health and wellness or taking care of yourself and having your own. I mean, well, you came out of this era but I even go back as far as The Nike Fuel band, when that whole concept of being able to sort of like, like monitor your own health through data was a really novel idea. And I think we've had iterations of that over the years. You know, Gatorade kind of went down that path for a bit with some of its bottle innovation. But I do think that now as we sit here in this era, we're, we're fully invested in healthcare. Obviously. There's just so much talk about Nutrition, wellness, supplements, GLP1s, like all the things. Fitness obviously never goes out of style. Where do you think about playing in that space? Because how deep do you go into positioning as health and wellness versus any other category?
John Solomon
It's a great question. I think that what we really look at is the trend around self care and I think that's the pivot our healthcare system. We don't need to get into it, but there's a lot of challenges and it's very like a break fix model. But there's not a lot about how do you do preventative, how do you do stuff at home? And so I think that's what really opened our eyes, right, with what's during COVID is that you had a huge rise in people wanting to build their home gyms. They wanted to, they didn't have the ability to see their practitioners. So they're really taking control of their health. And so that's the space that we're playing in. Right. And I think we have been pioneers in that and our whole thing is how do we take the technology that used to be either only for the best athletes in the world, or only for the best derms and estheticians, but make it available to be used safely and backed by research and science because I think that is really how we are distinguishing ourselves from what is now becoming. You know, I mean, if you go in your feed, you're going to get targeted by so many different latest gadgets and things that can solve whatever challenge you're looking for. And I think for us it's about the science side of it, that everything we do is backed by third party validation. We just launched our latest LED mask product and we conducted the largest clinical study ever done in that category because we wanted to set ourselves apart and say that the biggest question everyone has with an LED mask is does it work? So we wanted and there's a lot of competition, there's a lot of people that are claiming things that matter, which really don't matter. And so we really hold ourselves to that standard. So I think the Number one thing is what we invest in in science and research and how we work with the science team and how we become thought leaders. Just the. I was just looking at LinkedIn and we had just put out an article about demystifying exercise during pregnancy. And our science team went into it and really talked about some of the myths about how high your heart rate can be, how much exercise you can do, and how it can be so preventative to a lot of things. And again, it's not even necessarily pushing our products, but it's being thought leaders in that space. Then that's what we're trying to do over time and build that brand.
Jenny Rooney
It's such a good case study for other brand marketers that even in different categories, the way they're positioning this piece, because I love the thought leadership priority and even on your website you've got therabodies research and you borrow the equity of the firms or the organizations and the universities that you work with. I mean, you boldly sleep score labs University of Southern California. Like you're not in any way saying we can go this alone. We're actually purposefully connecting with other organizations that have the expertise and we're working collaboratively. And I just think that that's a really interesting strategy for putting your thought leadership out there in the world.
John Solomon
Yeah, it brings objectivity too. Right. Like, we can say that we do a lot of stuff internally, but if we're really going to launch a product, it's done through external validation. We might do early testing internally with our teams, our employees, but we will not go out with a product that does not have a third party validation. And that allows us to make the claims that we feel is important to make. Because I think that's essential to me. If you look at the front of the package of any of our products, it boldly states what the benefits are, whether it's relieving pain, helping with sleep, improving radiance of your skin. Like that's a big pivot we made too, because when I came in it was a lot of like speeds and feeds. We were talking to you about like the depth of massage we provide or the torque of the motor. And it's like you just need to know that this is going to help you recover faster, relieve pain, make you more flexible, whatever it is. Right. And so that was a big shift of being a lot more kind of consumer focused and making sure the benefits are very clear to the people, any consumer looking at our products, whether on shelf or online, in that purchase journey. And that really changed a lot. That whole evolution of the brand that we did rolled out starting a couple of years ago. Different colors, different fonts. We really brought it into the wellness space where we were started and really was more of this very stark techie brand. And where we wanted to evolve into is a bit more of that trusted lifestyle brand. Still obviously a device company, but we softened the brand a bit as well.
Jenny Rooney
Well, and honestly, what you're doing is you're providing outcomes. You're providing KPIs for your consumers. Basically, you're reframing around what's the outcome for them. So. Which is super, super interesting. I think this would be a great point for you to just for people who aren't as familiar with TheRabody and its journey as a company, tell us a little bit about the history, the backstory, the origin story.
John Solomon
Yeah, I mean, TheRabody was. We created our first theragun, which is the first product of our company in 2008. So we've actually been around a lot longer than people think, or at least the product was developed. And it was where our founder, Dr. Jason, was in a motorcycle accident. He's a chiropractor, and he wanted a way to relieve the pain that he was going through. And he didn't want to turn to surgeries or pharmaceuticals. So he literally took a jigsaw power tool and put a tennis ball at the end of it and made the first theragun. And so we really say that we were born out of necessity and that kind of goes through really solving problems. Starting with our founder. He took many paths and went down many rows of multiple different versions and got it in front of athletes because they're the ones that really understood and gravitated towards first because they're always looking for the edge. Right. The latest thing. And so we really grew first with athletes and had a lot of success with that and acquired some companies, some other great technologies like our compression boots and our E stem product, Power Dot, and then really became Therabody. I really went from being a single product company, theragun pivoted to therabody. And that was about the point when I came on. So it was very. Just to kind of rebrand it or established the mother brand and wanted to go beyond a one product company and wanted to go beyond just serving the athlete, because some of the insights we got was like, you know, it's great that Ronaldo uses your product, but I'm not Ronaldo. Do I need that? And then as all the dupes came in, it Became challenge of like well can I just get that $60 knockoff on Amazon? And then it started to degrade the category because you had bad products that didn't last long that weren't helping people. And again that kind of goes back to our pivot to really doubling down on science, differentiating us with that, with things we done with our app and making a great experience through that. We've now added a AI coaching product that we announced at CS early this year in partnership with Garmin and kind of asked about what the larger sector ecosystem partnering with a wearable. And so now we are an ecosystem of products. We have three core areas. One is a sports side which we still very much invest in the best of the best with Josh Allen on as our performance advisor who's been a long time fan of the brand and investor and he's helping us to make sure that we're testing with us, we're making sure we're really thinking about that elite athlete. We now have a wellness side of it and really focusing on things like pain and sleep stress. We obviously just did on brand Jimmy Fallon and launched one of our new products there, the Sense two which is really focused on stress relief. And then we have our third area which is beauty now and that's been a big focus. We just launched our fourth product there and that's all about taking technologies we've used elsewhere and applying it we say above the shoulder. So helping a lot of anti aging. A lot of people are looking at skin damage. Myself who's been a cyclist and been exposed to the sun many, many, many hours, you know, and didn't always know to wear sunscreen like we know now starting to think about this, right? So it's really interesting that these all kind of play together too. But that's how we've kind of. I've organized the team as well. So we go to market in those three verticals and I kind of have brand leads for each of those three. We map everything in the business to that now and so that's really our strategy now as a brand and company.
Jenny Rooney
Did you know influencer marketing drives twice as many sales as display advertising with a 37% higher retention rate. AWIN helps brands unlock the full potential of the creator economy with their influencer management solutions, utilize their robust discovery capabilities and creator management tools to build your perfect creator roster and track full funnel performance. Visit AWIN Link Adweek today and start building high performing partnerships. That's AWIN Link Adweek. So interesting because again you have seemed to have Made very intentional choices with the other brands and businesses that you have partnered with to achieve your ends. And as the company expands, just side note, it's interesting that you don't, and I feel like this term is used almost too much, but you don't use the word lifestyle brand. Feels like you're more intentional around health and wellness, which to me is a unique. I'm just calling that out. Right. Like it seems like it's an intentional choice for you.
John Solomon
Yeah. At the end of the day, I mean we're dealing with people that have. Everyone has some sort of challenge. Right. Whether they're stress sleep ailment to remedy pain is really undefeated. So these are serious topics. So yeah, yeah. It's not something that we consider ourselves. Right. We're really a solutions focused company. Right.
Jenny Rooney
Going back to the outcomes and KPIs. And not that you use that terminology, but the way you sort of position it to consider the benefit.
John Solomon
And as we have more and more data and why we partnered with Garmin was because they have so much data now. Right. And there's so much data about people and these companies have so much data, but they don't provide the solutions. That's just telling you like, hey, you slept bad, hey, you're stressed. It's like, great, but what do I do about that? So we want to bridge that and we're really excited about things like AI because like never before you can bring together all the data, you can make personalized recommendations, we can know that you went on your longest run you have in the last 30 days and you have a theragun and tell you exactly when to use it, how to use it, how long to use it. So a whole compliance is a big challenge. I always say, like our biggest enemy is the bedside table drawer. Because if your theragun is sitting in your drawer and it's not out there and you're not using it, that's a problem. Right. So making sure people are staying compliant, are using it, know how to use it, is a huge challenge for us.
Jenny Rooney
It's funny because I'm thinking I referenced the Nike fuel ban. I mean that came out in 2012 and that was very innovative. But that just delivered the data. It sort of like got people used this concept that, oh, I can actually see my numbers or I can see. But to your point, it wasn't yet that bridge to thinking about then what's the next step?
John Solomon
What do you do about it? Right. And then friend of mine from CAA who actually helped get do the deal and brought me onto the on brand. I sent his sons in a high school a football player and I sent him the jet boots. He'd been dealing with an injury and he said since he's been wearing these compression boots, not only he's got help gone over his injury, he's now been placed into a better position, he's performing well. So it's also this idea of like, how do we enhance your performance? So if we know your goals are I want to be a better runner, I want to be a better cyclist, or hey, I need help from pain or I'm having trouble sleeping. If we know what your goals are and we have that data, then we can provide the solutions. And now that we're able to connect that dot like never before is really exciting. So I'm really excited about the future with all this kind of innovation we're seeing in technology.
Jenny Rooney
Yeah. And just to add to the list of collabs, I know you did something with United for what their Polaris experience.
John Solomon
It's actually a funny story because back in the day we had a CBD line. Funny enough of different things we were into and they had approached us about working on a more something in their amenity kit, a CBD product. We were kind of getting out of the business of it because it's just there's so many challenges that federally just from a company perspective. But it started a conversation of how can we actually be your wellness partner? How can we go beyond amenity kits? So yes, there is a kit. There is in flight content. We created recovery spaces in their Polaris lounges. And it's so funny because the amount of people who have sent me a photo therabody I'm a United business. I see your stuff. And in a funny way, although it had nothing, it tied nothing to our actually our hardware. But it just kept such top of mind. It just kept the brand top of mind. Therabody bringing me wellness, helping me on the plane. We had this great campaign around arrive revived. And so this whole idea of like, how do we make the experience of traveling just a little bit better so you arrive feeling better. And so that alone is just brought us tons and tons of awareness and being really top of mind. Obviously the challenge is then to bring them down that funnel and get them to convert. But I had this idea of our second iteration with them is we actually made the amending kit in the shape of a theragun mini. And so you didn't get a mini, but when you opened it up, you actually there was a card in there and said, hey, perfect for your mini. Here, here's a code to get 10, 15% off whatever it was. You can put that in there in the future. And people love that. And they thought it was. I think at first they were bummed they weren't giving a mini but they saw the connection to the brand.
Jenny Rooney
It was just great branding because I experienced it firsthand on one of those fights and I was like, this is brilliant. It was just such a cool coming together of two amazing brands and selling you going into Ulta beauty stores this fall?
John Solomon
Yeah. Yes. We just started with them. We just launched with them in the summer. It was in online and then we just launched a few weeks ago in their stores. And what's interesting is that we approached them originally from a beauty perspective but they are excited about bringing beauty and wellness together. So if you go in the store you'll see that we actually have our co merchandise beauty products and wellness products because I think they see that those things are coming together, that they're no longer separate. Like having great skin means you also have to have great sleep, you know, not stressed. And so these things are very much coming together.
Jenny Rooney
You have spoken about avoiding, I think it's called the Kleenex problem. You've referred to it as how do you think about putting in brand guardrails to make sure that you're protecting your distinctive assets even as you're thinking about the expansion?
John Solomon
I think first of all, many brands don't realize the importance of having a distinctive asset. And so I think that one of the things that I did when I came in is that our shape of our theragun is unique. It's a triangle and there's a reason why Dr. Jason developed it that way and mainly so you can reach more of your body.
Jenny Rooney
Is that patented?
John Solomon
Yeah. So we patent that, we defend that. People have tried to copy us and we've gone out. We have a very aggressive IP portfolio and we go after people who violate those patents. So I think you have to define distinct assets, you have to protect them and, and then you have to use them. And so when we reimagined our packaging and our whole brand identity and we worked with Forestman and Bodens for incredible design practice outside within Sweden. They did all of the Oatley rebrand and they said the triangle is so important. So if you look at every one of our packaging and it doesn't matter if it's not a theragun, it will be in a triangle. So our triangle. So what I want to make people, if they don't remember theragun, they should at least say, I want the triangle one. And so if you search Amazon, if you search massage gun, you will see the sea of sameness and then you will see our theragon. And we've also started to do things like play with color. I mean no one ever did any, is always black. And last holiday we launched a whole line of limited edition minis and some really fun colors. And internally people are like, no one cares about colors. Like it's. No one cares. They sold out right away. People loved it. They loved the fact that they could personalize it. It was a bit different. It was a trick I learned at Beats. When we got purchased, acquired by Apple and slowed down our innovation pipeline, we had to turn to color and we had to do things like that. And so I think you have to be ahead of the competition because now they'll start doing color and you have to protect your ip and then I think you have to make sure you're super consistent. Right. So you have to be brand guidelines for each of our three areas I talked about, there's specific colors, specific fonts and ultimately my job because I see across it all is really ensuring that we have that consistency.
Jenny Rooney
You almost become symbolic or there's like icon status when you get that sort of like deliberate and consistent with the shape and everything else. Couple few last questions. I do want to go back to the on brand with Jimmy Fallon, obviously. Is this a departure for you? Was this the first time that you actually used sort of an high visibility entertainment format that for getting the brand?
John Solomon
Yes, and it's very different for the brand because we're a private equity backed company and it's not something I think that's in their toolbox. And so a lot of conversations.
Jenny Rooney
What kind of conversations had to happen behind the scenes to get.
John Solomon
Yeah, I mean it was a funny story that I remember I had to pitch this to the board and one board member specifically and he said, I'm starting with no, but I'm willing to hear you out. And what I learned in really kind of dealing working with private equity is it's really important to be very honest about the worst thing that could happen. Like speaking in their language, what is the downside risk? So that was what they wanted to understand. So if everything went south, what is the worst thing that could happen? And then if everything goes well, what is the potential upside that can happen? And I think being able to talk in those terms allowed me to kind of say that look, worst Thing that could happen is this. And best thing is we're going to reach a whole new audience in a creative new way. Because the biggest challenge with this is what if the show isn't successful, right? Because it's not been out. It's so funny now everyone's like, oh, all these brands. I was, you know, talking to CAA who works with Jimmy and helped bring all these brands on and I actually found out recently, I don't know if I'm supposed to say this, therabody was the first brand to sign on. And the reason is, and what I learned back in the day at Beats by Dre with our CMO at the time, Omar, is like, we had this thing of like never been done before. And it's always about finding the never been dones before every campaign, everything is like, what are we doing? That's never been done before. So the first time I heard the pitch on this was this has never been done before. The ability for a brand to have an episode about themselves. I mean, it's like any marketer's dream. And we're also not super precious. Apple probably never would do it because they're just so precious with their brand. And for many great reasons, you know, but you did see big Brands, Dunkin, Southwest, KitchenAid. But to me, it was a no brainer. It was, this is something we can do that's different, that is with two great people, Jimmy and Bose. And it's really just helped us to get our story out there more because that's what ultimately was the goal.
Jenny Rooney
A hundred percent. And honestly. And listen, Adweek had Jimmy on the COVID and we did the whole backstory on brand and sidebar. We as Adweek think about there's so much intersection of the advertising, marketing, brand world with the entertainment world and it's only getting closer and closer. And I just think that we're always regarding sort of those juxtapositions and those mashups, if you will, writ large. And they're not siloed industries. They all kind of work together. And I do think storytelling can work in so many different formats. And so it's exciting to see you taking that leap, right, and doing something that's. Well, I won't say off brand, but certainly something that's non traditional.
John Solomon
It's non traditional. But I think we're really excited how it turned out. The response from it and from what I hear there, a lot of brands are now lining up because now that they see the success of it and.
Jenny Rooney
Makes one and then everybody follows yeah.
John Solomon
It'S harder to be the first, but I always thought it was a great idea. For me, it was the internal sell, but everyone's been really excited about it. I mean, you have to take risks, too. And to your point, I don't think I could have sold this in it year one or two. Like, this is something where I had to feel the confidence that we had so many other things in place, that even if it was not successful, we had enough other things and momentum in the business that we're still going to do everything we needed to do as a business as wasn't creating undue risk on the business.
Jenny Rooney
Yep. Last two questions for you, John and I asked this of everybody. How would your team describe you as a leader?
John Solomon
I think they describe me as both being super hands off and super hands off on both. At the same time, I think that I really believe in hiring amazing people and letting them run. But at the same time, I will be in the details of every email or color or photo or casting. And I really think as a CMO today, you have to be. And I really took that from Apple. The leadership is not outsourcing this. Right. They're not outsourcing anything that goes out the door. They're not delegating that. And so I think that that's really, really important, which I'm sure drives them crazy that I'm like, oh, is that the right color? Or that word is dangling by itself on a headline, but it's a bunch of small things that make up a brand. And so I think that's really, really important. But I do believe in really empowering great people and just supporting them to be successful. So I hope that's what they say.
Jenny Rooney
That's awesome. And I appreciate that tremendously as somebody who devils in the details. Right. Like it all matters. Last question. Who's next? Who's somebody who I should invite onto the podcast? A CMO that you know really well and have worked with in the past, or somebody who you don't know personally, but you admire them from afar and you think the work they're doing is pretty extraordinary.
John Solomon
I'm sure you've had them, but maybe not. But I had the opportunity. Even though we've kind of connected circles and been circled for a while with Nick Tran. Has he been on?
Jenny Rooney
I haven't had him on the show yet. No.
John Solomon
I think when we talked about what he's doing, he's actually funny. I found out too, he was an investor in Therabody what he's doing. I think with a brand that talk about a turnaround with Ciroc and all the baggage of that brand. And I think what he's trying to do and how he's thinking about it is really interesting and conversations I've had there and just really smart, really interesting, huge challenge. But I think he's really starting with strategy, which I think is really important. You always start with kind of that bigger strategy of what you're trying to do and how you're trying to do things a bit differently. And so I found it really fascinating listening to some of the stories and some of the how he's approaching. It took a lot of inspiration from that. So that's who I would put forward.
Jenny Rooney
I'll get him on the show. So thank you so much. And John, thank you so much for joining me. This has been a really, really fascinating conversation and it's just been great getting to know more about you and your work. So thank you so much.
John Solomon
Really enjoyed the conversation and happy to chat anytime.
Jenny Rooney
Awesome.
Marketing Vanguard Podcast Host
Thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the Adweek Podcast Network and Acast Creator Network. You can listen and subscribe to all of Adweek's podcasts by visiting adweek.com podcasts. Stay updated on all things Adweek Podcast Network by following us on Twitter dweek Podcasts, and if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an email@podcastdweek.com thanks for listening.
Date: December 16, 2025
Host: Jenny Rooney (Adweek)
Guest: John Solomon (CMO, Therabody)
This episode spotlights John Solomon, CMO of Therabody, as he shares insights into building distinctive brand assets, evolving Therabody from a single-product challenger into a multifaceted wellness tech leader, and the strategic thinking behind innovation, partnerships, and marketing risks. The conversation weaves through John’s career journey, lessons in leadership, Therabody’s emphasis on science-backed wellness, and what it takes to thrive in a competitive and rapidly evolving industry.
Key Discussion:
Solomon describes his non-linear route to marketing leadership and philosophies shaped by stints at AKQA, Beats by Dre, and Apple.
Key Discussion:
What does it mean to be four years into a CMO role, and how do teams and strategies evolve over that time?
Key Discussion:
Therabody’s mission goes beyond gadgets and tech—it's a move toward accessible, science-based self-care.
Key Discussion:
Therabody’s journey from a single-product company to a multi-vertical brand rooted in outcomes and accessible innovation.
Key Discussion:
Strategic partnership examples illustrate how Therabody leverages ecosystem collaborations for reach, data, and consumer solutions.
Key Discussion:
Solomon’s approach to building, protecting, and activating "distinctive assets," chiefly Therabody’s unique triangle-shaped Theragun.
Key Discussion:
The strategic, at times unconventional, approach to high-visibility moves—specifically, the "On Brand" show with Jimmy Fallon.
How John Solomon Wants to Be Described:
Who’s Next on Marketing Vanguard?
This episode offers a masterclass in modern brand-building, demonstrating that differentiation is not just about patents or colorways, but about operationalizing science, building real outcomes for consumers, and thoughtful—but bold—marketing innovation. John Solomon’s experience reveals both the meticulousness and daring required to keep a brand not just relevant, but revered.