Kat Vesse (3:30)

It's sort of interesting to think of Gen Z as like, this counterintuitive thing being what you have to achieve to really make it in their book. How do you think about that when it comes to branding? Because it's sort of, I imagine, a little bit of reverse engineering.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (3:49)

Yes, yes. So I think one of the pieces to build on that that we saw was this idea of chaos packaging, and I had never heard of that term before, but when you look at things like suntan lotion and an aerosol whipped cream package, for example, that was like a cult hit last summer, what we're finding is, to your point, it is so unexpected, but it's also the more unexpected and more kind of contradictory it is, the more they seem to love it. So the other thing about this generation, which I think might be part of your question too, is they're rejecting the picture perfect, polished marketing that I think we all grew up learning how to create. I mean, my first marketing plan was, here's your tv, here's your print, here's your out of home. And it was perfect. Right? Everything down to the last letter. For this brand and for this generation, it's all about the less perfect you are, the better. And also let them make it their own. So it's really hard for me as a marketer to kind of pull myself back and not want to control everything. And it's actually much more about getting as much out there as we can, because 10% might hit, the other 90% probably won't, and then let them take it and make it their own. And that's been a journey for me as a leader, but also certainly for the team. As we're just thinking about how do we continue to feed that content piece.

Kat Vesse (5:04)

It's so funny you're saying this because our editor in chief posted last night a video that went viral that says that it's been the death of the millennial brands. That clean aesthetic, the flat leg. He said any brand that came up from 2010 to 2020 that was once seen as the gold standard is now.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (5:20)

Kind of fading out 100%.

Kat Vesse (5:22)

And a lot are trying to have now having to reshape their plans or rethink their branding. So super interesting you guys are ahead of the curve on that.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (5:29)

We're trying. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you say that, because as we. The headlines all say Gen Z doesn't participate in the alcohol category. And, you know, we actually believe that they're just delaying everything a little bit. So what we're seeing is that they're getting their driver's license later. So, you know, they're getting Waymo accounts and Uber accounts instead of getting their driver's license. They are staying home. They're leaving their parents house a little bit later. So we think that they will participate in our category. To your point, though, when they look at the category now, it feels so millennial. You've got a lot of real clean packaging, a lot of white cuing, especially this part of the category. And I just think that they're saying nothing here is built for me. So I don't know that they're rejecting alcohol. I mean, certainly, you know, there's more health concerns than there have been with previous generations. As much as they're saying, this doesn't look like me, this doesn't connect with me.

Ilyce Lefring (6:21)

Yeah. Yeah. And I. I had never heard that term chaos packaging either, but I love that term.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (6:26)

It's so fun.

Kat Vesse (6:28)

And since we're going there, let's talk about light strike.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (6:30)

Yeah.

Kat Vesse (6:30)

How did you land on the branding and the name?

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (6:33)

Oh, man. Naming a brand is always a journey, isn't it?

Ilyce Lefring (6:39)

How long did it take?

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (6:42)

Longer than one might wish. But really, at the end of the day, we wanted something that wasn't so darn literal, like so many brand names have been. We didn't want something that said, you know, exactly what the product was. Because there's got to be some intrigue, some mystique, something that builds the brand. I'm a big believer in building the brand. And we kept talking about, you know, we really think with the liquid, with the packaging, with the whole proposition, we really think we've got lightning in a bottle. So that became a bit of an inspiration. We also did want to cue the juxtaposition, the contradiction of this product, which is it's something you don't expect and it's not something that you think of. When you think of a name, you're like, what is a light strike? So we had a lot of fun with it, but I think really we kept going back to we've got lightning in a bottle.

Ilyce Lefring (7:27)

What would it mean to successfully meet this target of becoming Gen Z'er's drink of choice?

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (7:34)

Yeah, this one is. It's a first world innovation. So it is something, you know, you don't see a lot of products in plastic packages, plastic bottles, for example, in this category. So for us it would be all about getting people to try it. And we know once they try it, they love it. So I think success would be for us being the Gen Z alcohol of choice. I also think that, as I was saying earlier, for us it's about letting them make it their own.

Ilyce Lefring (8:01)

And how are you guys doing that? Like, what are your campaign efforts looking like and what channels are you leaning into?

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (8:07)

Yeah, the magic of this product really is in trying it and experiencing it. So we have a really massive sampling push just getting people to try the product or what I'm calling reducing barriers to trial in other ways. So how do you make it really easy for them to try it? So lots of sampling all over. We're doing partnerships with things like the Diplo run club and just local run clubs. So something fascinating that our agency at Battery actually brought forth to us was that Gen Z is rejecting dating apps. And they're really all about the IRL moments. And run clubs have turned into crazy places for meeting your.

Ilyce Lefring (8:40)

You know, I have heard that. Yes.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (8:41)

Yeah, it was new to me. I was like, run clubs.

Kat Vesse (8:43)

Yeah, the Venice one is huge. Yeah, so.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (8:47)

So we're sponsoring local run clubs. We're having a big activation around spring break coming up here. Actually, I think it's happening as we speak. Doesn't feel like it in Austin. It's really cold right now. But certainly it is spring break around the country. And then we're just continuing to. We're really activating on TikTok Instagram places where they are finding the right influencers. We were just talking about how hard it is to find the right ones that really authentically love the brand. We are not interested in the kind of the pay to play space space for this. We want people who actually genuinely love the product. So that just takes a little bit of time to find the right ones, but really making sure we show up in that space.

Kat Vesse (9:23)

Let's double tap into the campaign, talk a bit about results in your efforts so far. How are you finding the product to appeal to Gen Z?

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (9:31)

How's it going? Yeah, you know, it's funny because it's exactly what we intended it to be, but yet at the same time we're not expecting it to be, if that makes any sense. So we knew it was a contradiction. We knew it was something super familiar yet completely unexpected. So it looks like what you think it is, but then you're like, but wait, there's alcohol in there. So one of my favorite posts so far was a post that my team did that just said it's exactly what you think it is, which was hysterical. But what we're finding is when people try it, they get it. So it takes a minute and then they love it. So I love to tell this story of I offered it to somebody at a bar and this person looked at me and said, no, no, no, no drink. And I said, no, no, no, no, this is a drink. And he looked at me and his head kind of like did the. Huh. He opened it, tried it, and he said, oh. And so that's what we're finding is that actually then they love it even more because they're like, oh, that's clever. That's interesting. That's something I wasn't expecting.

Kat Vesse (10:30)

A little a la liquidat, it feels like.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (10:33)

Yeah, exactly. Right.

Kat Vesse (10:34)

Okay, let's zoom out. We're gonna talk a bit about the big picture. In your opinion, why do you believe Gen Z'ers have been left out of the kitchen category? Up until this point, I think Gen.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (10:44)

Z feels really elusive to a lot of people. And as we went to go study this generation, what we quickly realized is social algorithms are so good that it's hard for us to really know what they're consuming. So if I didn't pay attention, I would think that everybody was all about, you know, Taylor Swift and beauty duperoonies and, you know, the people that I follow. But that's not necessarily what this generation has seen. So I think what's been really hard is to climb underneath how their culture is being built. So there are Finstagrams and Fiktoks, which is what we're calling them, where we actually groom them to be what Gen Z is consuming. I have some Gen Z folks on the team, of course, that are keeping us really honest about kind of what's trending there. So I think that's been a really hard thing, is if you're a marketer, you're used to being able to intuitively understand what's going on because we're all consuming roughly the same content. Algorithms have made that nearly impossible for us to be consuming the same content. So I think that's been part of it. I also think the market's just been so full of a lot of the same for so long. So this. We tend to see that when something's hot, everybody traces that and then that's what the shelves get full with for the next couple of months. So it's been really hard to find something to break through. And Light Strike, we do think is a breakthrough, but that's going to take us time. It's going to take time and education to build. So. And that's not something that the industry is really great at, is patience. So I think that's been really hard for folks to break through as well.

Kat Vesse (12:15)

We're talking a lot about Gen Z. Yeah. How did the other generations fair? I know we mentioned that today. What about Gen X?

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (12:21)

Nobody talks about Gen X. I know. Sweet Gen X. I know.

Kat Vesse (12:26)

And Millennials.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (12:27)

Yeah.

Kat Vesse (12:27)

I want to hear how, how this product's landing with among those.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (12:31)

Yeah. So Millennials really gave birth to craft beer. If we think about why millennials loved craft beer so much, that was a generation that loved ingredients and artisan and locality and farmer's markets and Whole Foods and so they really gave birth to the movement of craft beer. So there's still a lot of volume in our craft beer portfolio. Voodoo Ranger is the largest craft beer, not just in America, but it would be the largest craft brewery in the world. And that's only part of our portfolio. So we've got a lot of volume with our millennial consumer. And yes, I saw that same article. It was fascinating. Boomers are drinking a lot, so we certainly have a lot. We talk about it as a twin engine approach where it's having the right product, the right distribution strategy for different folks with different need states. That said, some of our biggest fans are actually some of our distributors who are definitely not necessarily in Gen Z and they love it for golfing they love it for different occasions in different need. So while it might not be necessarily tailored for them, we do know that there's a lot of volume to be had with other generations. And I think what we're also learning just to kind of double click on generational things is that it's almost more of a mindset than it is an age. So you said Gen X, and I'm like, yeah, I'm Gen X. But I like to pretend that I'm still the young, cool person, although I'm not. And I love light strike. I mean, I love to drink it. And I don't just say that. So I do think that it's also finding those folks who appreciate, you know, what the brand is and appreciate the, you know, kind of the tone and personality. And that could be somebody who's 55 or somebody who's 22.

Ilyce Lefring (14:07)

So let's move now into our rapid fire Q and A questions. And these are all female focused because we're here honoring and celebrating women for International Women's Day and Women's Month. So first of all, what do you think are the qualities that women in leadership should possess?

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (14:26)

My hope is that one day we don't have to qualify somebody as a female leader and that we just call them a great leader. So I like to think of myself as a great leader. I like to think of all my females around me as great leaders. That said, we're not there today. So I do think what's super important for female leaders is to find work that's meaningful to them, to find work that makes their heart sing, and to do work that's important for them. And I think all leaders are really successful, whether they're male or female, when they find that work that connects so closely with things that are just inherent to them. So I am a very curious person. I have always been curious. You can ask my mom. I was the child that never stopped asking why. I read the backs of shampoo bottles. I watched commercials. I was just inquisitive as all can be. And that's led me to have so much fun and success in marketing. So for me, marketing is all about figuring it out. One of my old favorite podcasts somebody talked about, everything is figureoutable. And I live by that because it is. And in marketing, the beauty is you don't have to get it right. You just have to figure out how to get it more right the next time. Right? So it's never going to be perfect. Everybody knows that. There's that old phrase that 50% of your marketing doesn't work. If you knew which 50% you, you know, we'd all be billionaires. But for me, I think it's about finding those qualities that so connect intuitively to you. So a marketer is always going to be successful if they're curious. They're always going to be successful if they're really concerned about how they drive the business. What I'm seeing more and more is that marketing has actually been asked to take a much larger role for commercial leadership overall, which is awesome because marketers are so close to the consumer typically. And what I think will make a really successful marketer, again, male or female, but obviously we're talking about Women's Day. So women are also really good at asking questions, is really thinking through how do you take in all pieces of information. So how do you process a lot of information really quickly and make a best recommendation that you can with information you have and not be second guessing yourself and be afraid, which is actually something that we as women tend to do. We second guess ourselves a lot. And so one thing that I just really encourage our female leaders to do is just put it out there. And then how do we create teams where it's safe to do that? How do we create teams and cultures where it's safe to try things? And again, it doesn't have to be perfect, but we have to always be asking, okay, why wasn't that perfect? And then how can we make it better the next time? And then how can we make it better the next time? Which I do think is a trait that most women possess because we're always trying to get better every single day.

Kat Vesse (17:04)

So looking at your career path, I would have to guess that you were oftentimes finding yourself to be the only woman in the room.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (17:11)

Yes.

Kat Vesse (17:12)

How have you transcended throughout your career? What tips and best practices have you taken with you as you've moved up the ladder?

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (17:20)

Yeah, great question. I will say I haven't always gotten it right. And the times that are probably easier for me to talk about are the times I didn't always get it right. And that's when I try to play the game that I thought was being played instead of leading how I wanted to lead or when I tried to answer the question or be the person that I thought was wanted in the room instead of being myself or saying what I thought was right. So what I learned really early on, it was actually from a male mentor of mine is he told this story at a team off site up in the mountains One time about how he tried to emulate somebody else and how he never felt worse about himself, and he never felt worse about his performance. And I remember sitting there and I felt like, oh, my gosh, I think I'm doing that sometimes. And this is when I was one of the few females in the room, and it was a journey over time. I'm not gonna say I woke up the next day and I just was authentically myself 100% of the time every day. But what I've learned is that I have to be who I am, because when I go home to my family or to my friends or sleep at night, I have to feel good about what I did that day and that I was myself. And I still find myself trying to play the game or trying to answer the question or trying to be the person that maybe I think they want. And then I think there's also just some wisdom with having really great people around me saying, hey, people hired you for you, so don't be afraid to do that. You have a gift. We all have gifts. You bring that into the room, and nobody wants a room full of people saying the same things. So have that confidence to say, hey, that's a little bit different than maybe everybody's saying, that's really hard. So I also will say that I have had the good fortune of having some really strong females in my life. My mom is not a corporate woman, but, my God, she is a force of nature. But also, I've just been surrounded by both really strong men who have been willing to coach me as a female, but also strong women who have been willing to coach me as a female. I think there's just some beauty in us all being able to say, hey, this is getting really hard, and how do we figure it out? And what I love about where I've landed at New Belgium is we actually have a really strong female leadership team. Our executive team is half female, which was one of the reasons I was so attracted to the company. And what we see is New Belgium. We have probably better female leadership than most in the industry. So I have always felt very warm welcome and at home. And I'd like to say that we're making really great decisions because that. I mean, I think we've read all the statistics, right? Leadership teams that have more female representation, you know, closer to 50, 50, make better decisions overall. So I do think that I landed in a great place. But I do know it is when you're the only woman in a room, it's hard. And so what I Just encourage myself and people to do is. When you're in those situations, just really dig down and be true to yourself. Because it's worse to go home and feel like you were inauthentic than to suffer through that kind of discomfort in the moment. I'd rather be uncomfortable in a moment being myself and go home and feel good than act like something that I think is the right answer and then feel like crap the rest of the day.

Ilyce Lefring (20:36)

What's one thing you wish more women in marketing knew about negotiating salaries and promotions?

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (20:43)

Great question. I will never forget a time I negotiated really, really hard. I was with another female, and I almost apologized. And before I got the apology out, she started talking, and I was like, oh, my gosh, what is she gonna say? I asked for too much. And she said, thank you for asking for what you deserve. And I know if you negotiate for yourself this hard, you're going to negotiate for my business this hard. And I got the job and I got the salary that I felt like I deserved. So what I would say is that we're all afraid to ask for it because we don't want to be told no. But ask for what you know you're worth. Do your research first. Make sure that you know what it's worth, but ask for it. The worst that can happen is someone says no, but it is so terrifying to ask for it. When I have a female in particular ask me for something I learn from that moment, the very first thing I say is thank you. Thank you for asking for. On behalf of you. Thank you for advocating for yourself. I can't always deliver every single thing that that person wants. But the very first thing I do is reinforce. Thank you. Because that was a turning point for me. So I would also encourage women who are on the other side of the table of the negotiation to support when women ask and advocate for themselves, because we all know how terrifying it is. So I would advocate for both sides. And then I think the other part is that sometimes you do have to take something that feels a little bit lateral to learn. I've got a firm belief. I know we've all talked about it, right? Your career is a jungle gym, not a ladder. And get that breath. So there are times, too, when to get that move up, you need to go across. So you need to broaden your perspective. So there are times when up, up, up, and asking for promotions and asking for salary increases is actually maybe not the right move at that moment. And it's really kind of knowing when you need to learn a New skill that then sets you up for the next move in a better way than it might have if you hadn't done kind of that lateral ladder move on paper at least.

Kat Vesse (22:52)

That was awesome.

Ilyce Lefring (22:53)

That was great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (22:55)

Yeah.

Kat Vesse (22:56)

We so enjoyed this conversation.

Ilyce Lefring (22:57)

So much wisdom.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (22:58)

Thanks so much for having me.

Kat Vesse (23:00)

This is great.

Rebecca Di Yanishanis (23:00)

I hope you get a chance to go try lightstrike. It's amazing.

Kat Vesse (23:04)

Honestly, you'll love it.

Ilyce Lefring (23:05)

I'm very excited.

Kat Vesse (23:08)

Well, at least we wrapped another great conversation with an inspiring cmo. We just talked to Rebecca Dye Janoszanis, Chief marketing officer of New Belgium Brewery, and I don't know if it's being in Austin and this spirit of keeping it weird, but I think these are getting more fun and more inspiring every time we. We sit down with someone new. What was your biggest takeaway from. From what we just talked about.

Ilyce Lefring (23:35)

So in the spirit of keeping it weird and unconventionalness, I really liked how they're going after Gen Zers with their new product, lightstrike, and especially like the. The trends that Gen zers tend to like and the quirkiness that kind of goes along with their generation. I'm thinking of chaos packaging that you brought up, which is.

Kat Vesse (24:02)

I love that term. I've never heard of that before neither.

Ilyce Lefring (24:05)

It's really cool.

Kat Vesse (24:06)

I also love that she was leading all of their strategy with insights on the. On the generation, which is not something that we don't see all the time. I think a lot of brands try to do that, but the fact that they were really trying to show up in an authentic way with Gen Z, which is elusive. They can sniff out bs. They know when you're trying to be something that you're not. And the fact that New Belgium Brewery, which already has a portfolio of many, many products that cater to many different types of drinkers, is going for something really different and taking a bold move, capturing that trend into more non alcoholic drinks or, you know, non carbonated. She mentioned that Gen z doesn't like 60, 40, don't like carbonated drinks. I didn't know that.

Ilyce Lefring (24:53)

Yeah. Today learned a lot.

Kat Vesse (24:55)

Whereas millennials seem to love carbonation.

Ilyce Lefring (24:58)

Yeah.

Kat Vesse (24:59)

Also just, you know, a funny tidbit to learn.

Ilyce Lefring (25:03)

And it does seem like it's a really unique product in that a lot of the other alcoholic companies, they don't seem to be going after Gen Zers as much yet. And, you know, it's more and more they're tiptoeing across that 21 age plus line.

Kat Vesse (25:21)

Yeah. The moment is right. And maybe even Lightstrike's getting ahead in some ways. Another thing I loved about our conversation is as we're shifting into some of those more, you know, female leadership questions, being that we're celebrating International Women's Day and Women's Month. I loved her. Her stories around negotiating and just the push to always ask for what you want and to then on the other side, come from a place of accepting that. And as a manager, even if you can't give it to just commend someone for.

Ilyce Lefring (25:55)

For going forward. Thank you. Thank you for coming to me and, you know, actually telling me what you want, you know, which is a hard thing for especially women to do sometimes.

Kat Vesse (26:05)

Yeah. I think it's. It was just a nice reminder of what it means to be an empathetic leader and to appreciate someone asking for what they're worth, even if you're not able to make it happen in that exact moment. Just reminding what it's like to be in those shoes and saying thank you for, you know, coming and asking for that.

Ilyce Lefring (26:26)

Yeah.

Kat Vesse (26:26)

So I just. I just love that. I also loved how she was talking through being her. Her whole. The only way to really succeed is when she's being her whole authentic self. You know, we've been hearing that a lot.

Ilyce Lefring (26:42)

Yes.

Kat Vesse (26:42)

I think this week, which is just refreshing to see that you don't have to have like a work self and a life self. Those can be integrated. And I think that, you know, we know from our company, that really contributes to a feeling of belonging.

Ilyce Lefring (26:57)

Yep. Along those lines, what I found particularly inspiring was that you would imagine that at a brewery the leadership would be male dominated, but actually at New belgium, it was 50. 50.

Kat Vesse (27:12)

Yeah. Across their C suite. I think that's incredible. And a good signal we're making some progress.

Ilyce Lefring (27:18)

Yeah, I think so.

Kat Vesse (27:20)

It's like a positive thing to hear when you recognize that a typically male dominated category, like beer, has some women at the table too, because women are beer drinkers.

Ilyce Lefring (27:33)

Yeah. Like she said, like, women have opinions, they have, you know, ideas. And when you don't have that in the room, then you lose out on a lot of creativity and a lot of inspiration.

Kat Vesse (27:45)

We need everybody, diversity of thought. And that's it for this edition of the current podcast. Be sure to tune in this whole month as we release all the recordings from south by Southwest. See you next time.