The Brand Shepherd Podcast Brand Shepherd

Let’s connect some dots about the role of world-changing, altruistic purpose in product branding and positioning.

First, let’s hear from the new CEO of Unilever, who recently announced that they will stop ‘for fitting purpose’ into their brands:

“But we will not force fit this [purpose] across the entire portfolio, for some brands it simply won’t be relevant and that’s okay,” he added.

Now let’s connect Unilever’s decision to the likely reason why they don’t see ROI in force-fitting purpose to products: GenX women.

In a piece from 2021 titled, “Why GenX Women Will Not Be Aging Quietly,” which I have shared a few times for the wealth of info within, we learn about the powerhouse demographic that GenX women compose.

More specifically, “40 million 50+ American women represent over $15 trillion dollars in purchasing power and are the healthiest, wealthiest, and most active generation in history.”

The last connection I want to make is how these two are connected: GenX is not out to change the world.

Among the generations alive today, Boomers, Millennials, and GenZ share one - and maybe only one - belief: to change the world into a better place than they found it. They embrace big concepts that they see as world-changing actions and ideas.

See, if we go back to when GenX were youngsters, it was the Greatest and Silent Generations that were the elder adults and while GenX’s Boomer parents were out of the home chasing careers and wealth, it was the Greatest and Silent Generations who co-parented GenX kids.

And the one attribute Greatest and Silent Generations shared was that they did not set out to change the world.

The Greatest Generation is called so because they answered the call to enter a war they didn’t want to be part of. When WWII ended, the headlines read of how the war was over, not of how they won. They were happy to just get back to the quiet life they wanted in the first place.

And the Silents were the logical outcome or next step from the Greatest, in that they just wanted to live a quiet/silent life that was enjoyable for their little sphere of the world.

I’m a visual guy so I see visual patterns when I learn stuff like this.

If Greatest/Silent/X = 🟠

and Boomers/Millennials/Zoomers = 🔵,

then the pattern would look like this: 🟠 🟠 🔵 🟠 🔵 🔵

Greatest / Silent / Boomers / X / Millennials / Z

Half do not want to change the world, half do.

(GenAlpha is TBD. They’re too young.)

So if the “the healthiest, wealthiest, and most active generation in history,” GenX Women, are not out to change the world, then it makes sense that force-fitting purpose to brands won’t work.

In short, the demographic with the most power and wealth doesn’t care about the world-changing, altruistic purpose of brands.

Enjoy this short break because while GenX is currently powerful, it’s also very small and with Millennials already in their early 40s, they will be bringing a strong interest in purpose to brands back in force in just a few years.

You can use this time to strengthen your brand and the value it offers its customers so that when adding purpose to brands is back in favor, adding it to your brand won’t diminish its core value.

We can also see this as a strong reason why paying attention to broader generational preferences is vital to reading the room and gaining a basic understanding of what your customers want, especially if you struggle to gain clarity about customer wants in this current confusing era of economic chaos.

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Sources:

https://www.marketingweek.com/unilever-ceo-stop-force-fitting-purpose-brands/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyschoenberger/2021/10/07/why-gen-x-women-will-not-be-aging-quietly/?sh=3c29a7d02b6b

Not GenX. Definitely not GenX Women.What can we learn and use from this?

Brand Shepherd is happy to announce a new spin-off business called shepx.

shepx makes better websites for your customers than they’ve experienced before, and gives you a better experience creating it. 

Listen to the episode to learn what caused shepx to start, how it is tied to Brand Shepherd, and what shepx believes to be true about the massive change in the role of websites in the web3 era.

Visit shepx.us to learn more.

Video became most businesses' default media during the COVID-19 pandemic years of 2020-2021, and in 2022 video continued to dominate how both B2B and B2C consumers get valuable information when they are seeking an experience.

With that context in mind, Les Fultz joins the Brand Shepherd Podcast to talk about what he anticipates for video in 2023.

Les is the founder of Valere Studios, a corporate video production agency in Cincinnati.

Whenever Brand Shepherd needs to know the pulse of video as a medium, or where video as content is headed, Les is the guy we call on. A trusted peer and partner for many years, Les is a well-established expert trusted by B2B and B2C brands nationwide, and even news sources like ABC News and Fox News.

We normally do not produce dated content like this. The shelf life of this content's relevancy is likely just 9 months, max. Yet as we head into what should be the first full calendar year with no lockdowns within the American economy, we believe sharing this timely guidance serves our clients and listeners very well.

In this episode, the core Brand Shepherd team of Daniel, John, and David sit down to have a casual conversation around this question:

What are the best practices of creativity?

Hear what we came up with and how our answers evolved in this no-filter conversation about what to do and what not to do in order to get the best results from creativity.

What comes to mind when you hear about PR?

You know, Public Relations. What is your vibe check on the role of PR in today's landscape of brand marketing options?

Whatever you thought, this episode of the Brand Shepherd Podcast will be super informative because we get to hear from Julie Simon, Senior VP with Orca PR.

What makes this even better is Orca PR is all about product people!

As "America's PR Firm for Inventors and Entrepreneurs," Orca is constantly at work for that "Shark Tank" demographic, the product inventors and entrepreneurs we love to hear about – and Brand Shepherd loves to work with.

So this is a natural fit and we took our sweet time covering a lot of ground about the power of PR for products.

Dolly Parton is America's most beloved artist, and each year, millions of people flock to East Tennessee's Smoky Mountains to make new memories at her Dollywood theme park and resorts.

In this episode of the podcast, we get to hear from The Dollywood Company's Director of Financial Planning & Analysis, Melissa Walker.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode:


What was the Dollywood strategic plan's role in response to COVID lockdowns in 2020-2021.
How is Dollywood handling the post-COVID brand experience now?
The Dollywood brand experience is cherished by generations -- how does strategic planning handle the demand for tradition and innovation?

Melissa was very generous with her time and gave us a practical look into how strategic planning guides, grows, and protects the Dollywood brand.

You do not want to miss this episode.