Bridget Noonan (00:00)

I’d be willing to make a bet that the majority of your audience is facing this question. So many of us in the business space are beholden to Google and Meta and the algorithm. Like many of us have experienced tremendous growth through the performance marketing engine. That can be a difficult needle to pull out. We've all seen sort of a place of diminishing returns and just like the sizable budget required to continue to invest in that engine. And I think we all find ourselves in this space of looking for a more durable, like sustainable way to grow that really builds brand over the long haul. Sometimes if you get too far into just the 100 % performance space, like that's really not the end goal. So we're looking for a balance, but I think it's sort of different with every brand. 

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Cole Heilborn (00:40)

On this podcast, we go behind the scenes with industry experts as they break down what it takes to produce creative work that works. If you're seeking insights from some of the sharpest minds of the industry, this is your guidebook to producing creative work that actually delivers. Welcome to the Backcountry Marketing Podcast. Today I'm sitting down with Greg Randolph, the VP of Marketing, and Bridget Noonan, the Senior Brand Director at DECKED. Welcome to the show, you both.

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Bridget Noonan (01:04)

Thank you for having us.

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Greg Randolph (01:05)

Yep, thanks for having us on.

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Cole Heilborn (01:06)

Thanks for making the time. I'm excited to chat with you today. I Dext is such a great company. You guys have such a great brand and I'm excited to talk about brand. We're gonna talk about performance. We're gonna talk about, you know, what's working in the brand landscape today and also kind of dive into some discussion around where your brand is at in this conversation around brand and performance. You know, what is too much? What is working well? What's the right mix between the both?

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And while there's no one answer to that question, because I feel like it's a question that every brand is asking themselves, we're going to kind of try to have a conversation about it. And at least, if not give some answers, ⁓ leave some questions for the audience to ask themselves as they're asking themselves similar questions. ⁓ So anyways, thank you both for joining. ⁓ I guess my first question is, let's talk about brand and performance. ⁓

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Why is this something that you feel like every brand is asking themselves? Can you kind of give us like a thesis statement or topic for this discussion?

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Greg Randolph (02:13)

Sure. You want to take this one?

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Bridget Noonan (02:14)

Yeah, we I mean I'll take it I'd be willing to make a bet that the majority of your audience is facing this question or has experienced this question because so many of us in the the business space are beholden to Google and Meta and the algorithm like capital a algorithm and many of us have experienced tremendous growth through the performance marketing engine and That can be a difficult needle to pull out. ⁓ think we've all seen

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sort of a place of diminishing returns and just like the sizeable budget required to continue to invest in that engine. I think we all find ourselves in this space of looking for a more durable, like sustainable way to grow that really builds brand over the long haul. And sometimes if you get too far into just the 100 % performance space, like that's really not the end goal. So we're looking for a balance and you we can speak a little bit to what we.

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how we define balance, what we're looking for at DECKED, but I think it's sort of different with every brand. And most of what we do and what we play in here at DECKEDht is brand marketing, so we're a little bit biased, but we've seen the results and are kind of seeing it live, live time happen and work. So it's something that we fundamentally believe in.

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Greg Randolph (03:30)

And I think it's a really good way of positioning and also to kind of explain, you know, if we were talking about marketing even 15 years ago, your CFO would probably say, I know the half our marketing is working. I just don't know which half I'd all saw. Right. We gave CFOs a way to measure things and they love numbers. And so they can see real time analytics or, you know, monthly or quarterly or whatever results of those efforts. So they can justify in their minds to spend. ⁓ And then they.

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they wake up one day like we all do and you realize your customer acquisition cost is rising at the same rate as revenue. So you haven't created any efficiency in your marketing. then everyone's doing the same thing, right? Like probably everyone listening to this has got some grudge against Meta or Google because they're being trapped in the CPC equation. They're measuring ROAS and

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their channel margin contribution is maybe something they're not really thinking about or measuring, but they haven't really seen metrics that would say this is sustainable growth that can scale beyond direct response marketing spans. so I everyone's trying to sort this out because it's kind of a new problem. And it happened with the iOS privacy changes a few years ago that killed everyone. And then here we are today and...

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You know, inventory is not growing, but certainly the number of people trying to compete for that inventory is growing and that is, and those platforms. So it's, it really makes you pause and try to think about what are people not doing or what are the things that are more durable and sustainable that will, will last longer than a, than a click.

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Cole Heilborn (05:08)

Yeah. Before we proceed, let's define some terms. How do you define brand marketing? How do you define performance?

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Bridget Noonan (05:16)

There may be some differences in how people approach this. think from a very dumbed down answer, would say performance marketing is paid ads, ⁓ prospecting and retargeting ads specifically, and tends to be fairly bottom of funnel, if you like talking about the funnel. ⁓ Brand marketing for DECKEDT, at least, we talk about from community, which is ambassadors, influencer marketing, social media, events.

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public relations in terms of earned media. ⁓ The customers, yeah, customer experience and really like doing right by the customer is a huge piece of this. It's really anything that is building your brand and brand storytelling ⁓ over the long haul.

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Greg Randolph (05:50)

customers.

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And I think maybe sometimes thinking about it, we're all communal species, right? Humans like to be part of groups or tribes or communities. And what are we doing that wants people to not just buy something, but buy into something or be a part of something, which is bigger than a product.

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Bridget Noonan (06:24)

creating a culture, not just a commodity or a transaction.

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Cole Heilborn (06:29)

Gotcha. So for the sake of this conversation, we oversimplify brand is culture and community, performances, paid ads, generally on the bottom of the funnel. Yeah.

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Bridget Noonan (06:40)

Yeah,

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and I think if you're doing it really well and you find that balance, you can infuse that community into your performance ads. You can still create consistency there, but inevitably you do have to speak to a transaction at the end of the day. It's a for-profit brand. that is a reality of performance marketing.

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Cole Heilborn (07:00)

Sure. So can you give us kind of like a brief overview or timeline of Dex history when it comes to brand and performance? Like when you guys were, when you first started, what was the focus and then how has that changed? And then where are you today ⁓ that kind of brings about this conversation?

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Greg Randolph (07:19)

Oh, back in the good old days, Cole, is that what we're talking about here? If it could take you back to 2014. You know, was, we, started DECKEDked with a product like most companies do. And it was kind of like a, to me, like being the original marketing person here, it was an interesting proposition. Cause we had just a really dumb it down, like a black plastic box that was in the back of a pickup truck that you couldn't see.

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Cole Heilborn (07:22)

Yeah, take us back.

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Greg Randolph (07:48)

And you didn't know someone had, which then was kind of the one of the benefits of the product because it hid things and you would open it up. And then that was sort of the moment where you became like able to share your product experience, let's say, or get people aware. And I don't know what it was, but it just seemed like we needed something more than just a product. had to very naively to me, it was like, we need to find a way to make people remember this brand or this name.

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And to identify with it as, you know, kind of like holding a mirror up to the customer and being like, Hey, we're just like you. ⁓ and so that was sort of where brand voice became a part of our process. And we were really careful not to, you speak like a bunch of robots or layer things on, like, you know, marketing bullshit, like marketers like to do, but just tell it like it is and create a unique voice, create unique content and resonate with the customer. And the customer is awesome.

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Like our customers are definitionally like go getters. get after it. They do things. So they kind of all rally around that idea. And so, you know, we're swimming along. We've got this one product in the market and then we made two products and that was really exciting. And we were growing, you know, okay. ⁓ and then we kind of discovered the crack cocaine. guess you'd say of like the leverage we could get at a small scale with performance spend. ⁓

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In the evolution of the brand, never lost focus on the brand, but one of the theories that we really, I think was really right, and I think it's an important thing, is like you can't spend money in the market unless you have a really efficient conversion engine. And so we really worked on bringing in-house and building, not buying, you know, our e-commerce team, our web management, web development, know, conversion rate optimization, all those functions. And then that led to

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more performance marketing and getting really good performance marketers that worked for us so that the money we were spending, we were able to convert that traffic to revenue efficiently. And that was really smart ⁓ and still is today. Like it's a really important, I think foundational part of any company, but the brand itself, you know, was always there doing it saying we just weren't quite investing in the physical, you know, expressions of the brand. Like you might've wanted to do a few years ago. So.

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The world changes like, know, AI was not something we talked about five years ago. It's something that everyone talks about today. Privacy wasn't something in 15 years ago, like the platforms are all changed, how they approach things. Like if we were still swimming around in 2015, we'd probably have a different perspective, but those, those are businesses as well. And they've gotten better extracting every last dollar out of the customer, us. So here we are trying to figure out ways to, you know,

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expand beyond that, but keep that as a very important part of the conversion engine. Because it always will be, there'll be some digital measurable, know, real last component to every business that ⁓ that's important. But how can you layer on top of that? I think is where we are today.

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Cole Heilborn (10:55)

Yeah, you know I was just leaving space for Bridget if she had anything to add but

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Bridget Noonan (10:58)

You

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truly are the OG of Daxmore Uemployee.

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Greg Randolph (11:03)

Early days.

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Bridget Noonan (11:05)

⁓ I came in two years ago now, a little over two years ago, ⁓ really for this effort, like really to support this transition into finding balance from Brandon Performance and build out a team to help do that. And so I've seen it from the outside and now I'm seeing it from the inside. And I think we're in a good position to have, you know, a C-suite that really believes in something that is inherently less measurable, which is like a very scary thing for a CFO.

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wrap his head around or her head around. I think that that's one sort of obstacle you're up against in creating this balance. seems easy on paper if you believe in it. You're like, yeah, I'm going to go invest in brand. it actually comes to do it, there's realities over the short term impact and figuring out what is that right time frame that works for your company.

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Cole Heilborn (11:56)

So Greg, you mentioned that you discovered performance and you likened it to crack cocaine. was, I guess, what was it like then and what has changed today? you like, how would you compare it today? Is it still as sweet and as powerful as potent?

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Greg Randolph (12:14)

You know, I think we were a little bit naive. ⁓ but also I think, you know, the platforms have changed and the way they, you know, monetize, you know, the customer basically is their product. ⁓ has, know, it's shifted, but also like you can, you can grow so far as a business doing that. ⁓ and then you kind of get to a point where at the size and scale of a business, like that investment goes, it's almost like a linear graph with your revenue. So.

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You're just spending $4 to make one or $10 to make one. It doesn't create any leverage, um, beyond that. you're, you're asking this one place to be your awareness builder, your engagement builder and your conversion builder. so, um, it was really fun to like spend a dollar and make 10 and then spend a dollar and make eight and spend a dollar and make six. And then pretty senior like spending a dollar to make four, but that's always been.

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dollar for dollar investment, that's just where you're going. And no one was like probably smart enough or advocated enough to like, you know, kind of step back for a second and say, where is this leading? ⁓ Because you're doing so many things when you're building a business and that revenue is really important. And you're telling a story to the C-suite or the investors. And it, kind of times out at a certain scale. And then you, you have to look to other places to build mostly build the awareness, the engagement. ⁓

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At that same time, you know, you've got, we're an omnichannel business and we talk about community. We're really working, you know, I think this is, and this might be a little bit of annoying segwares sidebar, but like we're building, looking to build community in every single place. So our customer experience team that talks one-on-one with a customer on the phone, those guys are, they're a part of our brand marketing. Our sales team, we've got a dozen sales reps around the country selling and servicing.

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retail locations, they're community marketing members as well. They're a part of building community and building, you know, affinity and allegiance and trust with the dealer who's actually selling the product in the real world, you know, outside of DTC. So those are all functions that take time and money and energy, but they build like more momentum and more leverage for the business over the longterm, at least in our world, which is a real physical real world product than it is, you know, just on the internet.

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Cole Heilborn (14:42)

Yeah, yeah, No, that makes sense. So Bridget, you mentioned that you joined the team two years ago to kind of help bolster the brand team and bring more impact on that side of things. When you joined the company, what did you see from this balance equation, performance and brand? And what were your observations about ways to improve or I don't want to say improve, like dial up?

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the brand side of things maybe, maybe that's way to phrase it.

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Bridget Noonan (15:13)

Yeah. I think the thing that really convinced me to come on board was the people. when I say that, mean, even, you know, we're kind of talking about performance marketing. There's some very smart people in this building who run that. The fact that they were so bought in to this idea of finding balance and like think about the pressure on their shoulders to run this ship and want to share that love a little bit and find other ways to invest and build this business.

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Hearing from them where they saw the opportunity was a big sort of convincing point for me ⁓ So I was really excited to come on board and work sort of collaborative collaboratively with them What we'd started to do, you know taking baby steps was investing in that those like IRL is kind of a marketing buzzword But those IRL moments to really to meet the customer where they were and where they wanted to see us ⁓ So for me that that looked like community which

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was building ambassadors, building those credible third party resources and advocates of your brand that like to me as a customer means so much more hearing from someone like that than directly from a brand. And I think we're seeing that's how a lot of people want to interact with brands more and more these days. So community and then events and just these activations where the brand is actually showing up and surprising people because we were a

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black box in the back of your truck bed. And so it's constantly surprising and I see it and hear it from people when we meet them at shows or when we meet them out in the public that there's this human aspect of the brand. When they meet any DECKED’er in this office, whether they're in customer service or finance or sales or marketing, and immediately sort of like get that culture from them. And it's this aha moment that it's more than just a product that makes their life better. It's this like...

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constructs that it like feels really fun and really really cool to be a part of.

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Cole Heilborn (17:09)

If, so here's a hypothetical question that's very unlikely. If a company ignored brands and solely invested in performance, what is the end game for that company? Like where does that put them in the outdoor industry?

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Greg Randolph (17:25)

That's a great question. I here's an anecdote. I don't know if it matters or not, but it's kind of how I think about it is, ⁓ my wife bought me this dress shirt and on the dress shirt, there was a label of the brand name on it. Very easy to read prominent. And I'd seen, you know, this brand on the internet. I'd seen them on social media and I'd even seen some people wearing around, but I didn't really know what that brand stood for. And I'm getting ready to go out to a dinner party and I'm

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supposed to put this nice new shirt on and she finds me in the bathroom with like, you know, razor blade, taking the stitching out to remove the label from the pocket. And she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't know why, but I just don't feel like wearing this label around because they don't mean anything to me. And I, to me, that's like what brand is all about. If I, if that brand had meant something to me, if they'd like, if the guys and gals that I admire, maybe we're representing this brand or if they were

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involved in my local community or supporting an event or I've been to a show and met some employees or had some sort of like, you know, connection to them. I would wear that shirt with that label, probably proudly and feel like that was a, cause you're kind of identifying yourself as a part of a community or a tribe. Yeah. But they hadn't done that work. They had a really great performance marketing engine. had nice products they sold on the internet, but for me to wear a label on my shirt, I kind of needed a little bit more. And maybe that's sort of like the metaphor for like, why does brand matter? It matters because

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you're identifying with something like we're a communal species, like I said, we're kind of a species of like tribes and communities and you kind of need to earn my, and maybe I'm particular, you kind of need to earn me to wear your hat or your t-shirt or your sweatshirt, your logo. And I it really matters in the outdoor industry. Like in software, it probably doesn't matter that much. In tech, maybe it doesn't matter that much. You know, I don't know.

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Bridget Noonan (19:19)

I think that's a point. The outdoor industry is a very crowded space. And so it's become inherently competitive and that is a billboard and you've got to earn people's trust and like really do so with a why and with storytelling. Not gonna be hard to do with just performance marketing. It's really hard to tell a story with performance marketing solely.

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Cole Heilborn (19:41)

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because I have been in that exact situation where I've been like, I don't know if I want to wear this, this, whatever it is. And I don't know that I've ever gone to the length of cutting it off my wardrobe, but I've certainly like, I've obscured the logo.

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Greg Randolph (19:56)

I'm that guy. Did leave a funny like, you know, darker patch on the pocket that everyone knew.

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Bridget Noonan (19:56)

Electrical tape.

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Cole Heilborn (20:08)

So no one would dispute that brand isn't important. Like we talk so much about brand on this show. I think everyone understands and is a firm believer in brand, especially in the outdoor industry. But what does it mean to invest in brand? Like I think a lot of people would have a different reaction or a different response. If you're saying, you know, we want to invest more in brand and try to figure out this balance between performance and brand, what does that actually look like?

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in terms of percentages, help us understand the intentionality and the focus that you are giving to this. Because some people could say, ⁓ I invest in brand. I host an event every year and call it my brand community efforts. And that's good. I check the box. ⁓ Like how much focus are you putting towards this and intentionality?

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Bridget Noonan (20:57)

I mean, I think that example you just gave could work for a lot of people. Like if that is your goal, that's great. And maybe that works for the company and brand you're building. There's this space where like internally we all collectively talk about wanting to become an iconic brand. And what that means to us is like, we want to truly be like the best in the business, whatever industry or parameters you put around that to do that really well. And there's

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billion different brands out there that we can all collectively say do it really, really well in our best in class that we look at and talk about. But to do it really well in your space requires like being you and figuring out what that balance is. I think you may have a different answer. I bet a lot of people in this building would have a different answer. But for me, and I'm biased, I would put the majority of spend into brand marketing and a timeframe that works for your business, of course, but call it 60-40.

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brand performance so that you're truly investing in that long-term iconic space. ⁓ And again, that may look different for everyone. I think you've got to do all kinds of measuring and survey work to figure out what are your objectives as a brand. But as a company and a brand here at DECKEDT, we are in this for the long haul. We believe in being made in America, being customer first, being rugged and intuitive and no bullshit. And to do that does require

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majority spend in the storytelling, in the community, in the pieces that truly show up directly to the customer.

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Cole Heilborn (22:31)

So you're saying generally you would like to see a 60 % brand, 40 % performance investment.

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Bridget Noonan (22:37)

Yep, would you go heavier?

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Greg Randolph (22:40)

I mean, I would, I think it really depends on what you're selling and the market you're trying to influence. And, you know, there's plenty of papers, you know, written by all kinds of smart people on this topic. And it's somewhere in that, in that ratio. ⁓ And I think Bridget's like spot on and like explaining how that matters. And I kind of go back another, you know, cocktail party metaphor is

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If you're just, you can talk about yourself for so long and people will buy into that. Right. Like, so if you go and we're talking and I'm just talking about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, it probably works as I work the room. And, but then at the, after the first, you know, outing, everyone's like, God, that guy just, all he does is talk about himself and like the community and the brand is where you're talking about the other people that are maybe like in a humble way, more important than you. And you're giving them airtime. You're telling their stories or your.

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showing up at their fundraiser or you're a part of their local community or you sponsored on another local hockey team or you're doing things that are giving more value to the community that give people on a broader basis, a one, like a way into recognition and whatever that costs for your brand. I think it's really important that you stop talking just about yourself and you start talking about the community around you. And for us, that's probably somewhere between 60, 40 and 50, 50 is what it's going to take. It's like massive market.

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⁓ it's not niche at all. try not to be niche. ⁓ so we don't try to make things specifically for this, you know, the fisherman or the hunter or the mountain biker or the climber. We try to make things that work for all those people broadly, but also service, like really the blue collar industrial worker or the service person or the tech, you know, that's using our product to, make a living. ⁓ so for us, it's like, how do we encapsulate that in a brand and tell that story rather than just talking about ourselves every day?

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Bridget Noonan (24:38)

It does mean a lot more when someone else tells you you're doing cool things than if I just tell you, cool, trust me. It's really cool.

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Cole Heilborn (24:49)

Yeah. Yeah, interesting. ⁓ If you had to take a guess, what's the average outdoor brand split between brand and performance?

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Bridget Noonan (24:59)

average outdoor brain.

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Greg Randolph (25:01)

I would really have to ask based on the size of the business. I think we've seen a lot of brands that have popped up because the supply chain and the ability to start a brand and generate revenue quickly because of the advertising platforms that are out there. So I'm guessing a brand in the outdoor space under 30 or $40 million is probably spending 80 % on performance. I think once you get past $150, $200 million in business, you have to pull other levers.

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Depending on your product portfolio, I don't know.

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Bridget Noonan (25:33)

I'd agree and like I think that just reminds me to say like it's not a bad thing. No, it totally it's part of your growth strategy and we don't we don't want to get to a place where that's not part of the mix. We just want to find the right balance and I think the the point you made about this size of your growth and where you're at in terms of maturity really matters.

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Greg Randolph (25:54)

Sure.

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Cole Heilborn (25:55)

Yeah, that makes sense. Talk to me about saturation of performance and perhaps the negative consequences that it can have on your customer. We've all been in this situation. It happened to me a week ago. I was watching some TV show with my wife on Hulu, and every 15 minutes there's a commercial break, and it's the same ad playing over and over. And we were both like, this is so annoying.

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What have you guys seen that like what's the the negative side of too much ad placement?

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Bridget Noonan (26:26)

Yeah, I I think the negative sentiment, which you can track a variety of ways, shows up and kind of tells you when you've pushed too hard on frequency. And it could be really hard to listen to that in a weird way because you're seeing it work at the same time. you're like, for us, ⁓ we see we have a pretty long timeline in terms of your decision to choose like what is a fairly expensive product for your, it's an aftermarket accessory. ⁓

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And so you kind of want to hang in there and say, well, we've seen it convert. You want to continue to hit people with messaging. And then you see it work and you're like, okay, let's do that again. so that's where, you know, behind the scenes, we're working really closely with the performance team to look at those numbers and say, like, where is too much? Where we are comfortable from like a brand experience standpoint, what makes sense there and what is the message you're hitting with someone when we always liken it to like going on a first date when that person didn't even say yes yet.

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Like it's just a weird experience to be like, why don't you come check out our cart experience? And like, it's a little soon. And so it's a little bit of an art form and not so much a science where it's easy to treat it like a science and just look at numbers and keep hammering people. And then you're turning people off in the long haul. You're getting people talking about how annoying your brand is. That's really hard to recover from. It's really hard to track, but it's really, really difficult to turn that.

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sentiment and do a positive thing if you're just hammering people over the head with something that they don't want to hear.

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Greg Randolph (27:56)

And I think that kind of goes back. It's a good way. it's the size of your brand, like how many customers do you need to find? And also you'll be successful if you have an innovative product. Like our product was very innovative. No one was really making this product. And so this, you know, the, the, they call it, the dilemma, the inventor's dilemma or the innovator's dilemma where you, you can get all those people early on the size of your business is small.

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You're not annoying because it's new, it's exciting, and you're getting these people that are kind your early adopters, your innovator mindset type people to buy into your product and your brand. And then as you grow to keep getting that same scale of customer growth, you can easily like, there's only so many people you can serve ads to that probably fit your products. You know, use case or, you know, archetype for a customer where you do become, you can start to be the person that won't stop talking about themselves. like we,

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It happens all the time. You open up your feed, you start scrolling, you're like, my God, this ad, and then you just tune them out. And that's, you know, almost as bad as like beating people are ahead. Your creative can be the most, I mean, we have great creative. think we have some of the best creative and some of the smartest like ad people out there, but that scale of business can only go so far on the scroll. And then you have to find other ways to engage with the, with your customer.

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Bridget Noonan (29:24)

Which is also why community is so important to balance that. Because I want to hear from someone I follow because I respect their opinion versus the brand telling me directly. There's just a different amount of trust in hearing from a credible resource that's used it and had that proving point already. That, to me again as a customer, just means so much more.

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Cole Heilborn (29:46)

Well, you brought up creative and I wanted to ask about that. If creative is good or great, however you define that, whatever that means, does that increase your ability, your frequency? Can you be more frequent if you have better creative?

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Bridget Noonan (30:02)

good way to ask that.

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Greg Randolph (30:02)

That's great question. ⁓ I mean, yes and no, obviously like good creative will get you a lot further than bad creative and bad creative is usually like, you know, you can define creative however you want. It's a very like, you know, foggy nebulous topic, but where you're adding value in the feed to the customer's life, where you're actually, you know, turning your creative into entertainment in some way, which we try to do, or at least something that's engaging and offering some value.

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You can go a lot further than that. ⁓ when you're creative is just annoying or you're beating me over the head with like, you know, a sale or an incentive or financing offer or something over and over and over again. Cause that's like the one that the algorithm knows converts and they're going to like serve that to everyone as much as they can. think you can really, you know, you can't go nearly as far in good creative. Like it's hard to scale enough ads ⁓ of value.

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in those platforms to keep that thing going because it'll pick it'll pick some winners. It'll pick some losers and your refresh rate on creative just like it's endless. So you can run like, and I think you're getting around to frequency and reach, you know, frequency can be, you know, 10 to 20, you know, impressions per person over the, over a period. Um, and you can do that like when you're watching connected television or a podcast, you know, read or something like that.

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⁓ at a broader scale, this may be not quite as, as annoying, like sometimes those creators will get like 15 to 20 per, you know, or whatever the number is. I think you can one stop run out of the budget and the time and the way to make good creative over and over and over again. ⁓ but also like, yeah, you can, you can create negative sentiment towards your brand.

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Cole Heilborn (31:59)

Yeah, interesting. ⁓ What about, you mentioned wanting to invest more and you are investing more in in-person events, ⁓ more community activations. What about the branded content? How are you thinking through that? Is that a priority? How does that compare in priorities compared to community events versus branded entertainment?

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Bridget Noonan (32:22)

I think it's critical. ⁓ And I think it's all part of this layered approach to infusing our performance marketing with these stories that hit on the true customer. You mentioned Blue Collar earlier. Creating stories that sometimes don't even feature product is so impactful, ⁓ again, to showcasing who you are as a brand. ⁓ So I think it's really important. I think the really, really difficult part of that is

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finding audience, finding distribution when you are not a media company by definition. You've got a lot of things working against you because of all of these platforms that treat brands a certain way and are used to sort of pushing the stuff that sells product. So I feel like a broken record, it always comes back to having the right partners to help you get more eyes on.

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One of the things we're not saying in terms of what ambassadors bring to the table is new audience, bigger audience, and just more people to reach when you create that branded content. ⁓ It can live with you. You can push it via all the different film festivals and different ways to reach eyes outside of just YouTube. But again, having people talk about it and sharing it on their platform is, think, what really makes a difference. What do you think?

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Greg Randolph (33:46)

That's pretty good. think that sums it up and I think that partner brands, ambassadors, other ways to, other ways in to the audience and even for us, honestly, some of the, because I think that the platforms really disincentivize brands from creating organic content, more and more pushing you towards

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Cole Heilborn (34:07)

And

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when you say platforms, are you talking about social or YouTube specific?

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Greg Randolph (34:11)

Social I think YouTube maybe functions it depends on the week probably with what you know is happening out there but yeah either you're known as a media company or you've invested like hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars and creating like this high-end beautiful content that you want to watch in lieu of a television program ⁓ which is a strategy that may you know may have changed you know over the last several years the way the whole thing works but finding ways to

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bring your community into your content. And for us, it can be as simple as using employees, doing a walkthrough on a product or being in a funny ad about something that we make. Because guess what? All those employees also have friends, and their friends, when they see them in an ad, they pile on the content in the comments. And then that makes that ad seem to the algorithm like, well, this is really interesting. This is a better.

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add them before or Ambassador has that same influence or even just pushing content through Ambassadors channels ⁓ and letting their audience react from a private individual is a way to broaden that reach. And the same goes with partner brands. Creating one plus one can equal three and finding new audiences. And we haven't really even talked about how you can acquire more data from other brands, followers, and collaborative marketing efforts and that kind of thing. ⁓

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Branded content can mean a lot of different things. And we're not a media company, so we're not making feature-like films right now. But there's a lot of other cool ways that you can tell your story and tell your customer story ⁓ through those pots.

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Cole Heilborn (35:52)

Do you feel like that's the future? Brands becoming media companies?

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Bridget Noonan (35:55)

Not necessarily. I do see more and more brands playing by the content to commerce model, leading audience growth through the media and then putting commerce in front of them. I think this goes back to Barstool is probably the greatest first example of creating commerce out of really popular media. But I do think that there is a way to

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do that on a smaller scale. mentioned feature length films. People's attention spans, as we know, are getting shorter and shorter. That's not changing because of the nature of social media. So creating brand content that's very consumable and digestible and short ⁓ does seem to be more and more of a trend. And it's something I enjoy as a customer seeing from brands that I dig. I want to see cool stories that I can watch in less than five minutes.

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that inherently costs a lot less than the films that we've seen from really awesome brands in the past like 10 years. So that does seem like a little bit of a feature and kind of like the now and where brands are really investing.

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Cole Heilborn (37:07)

Yeah, you bring up audience attention. Can I push back on that a little bit? I don't know if I entirely agree with this notion that people have shorter attention spans. Like, think maybe holistically, sure. But now more than ever, people binge four-hour podcasts because they're looking for depth. Everyone's looking for that. And, you know, we're not getting it in other places when maybe historically we have.

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So don't know if it's so much, think it's an attention span problem, sure, but I also feel like it's a quality problem that leads to short attention spans. I don't know, thoughts?

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Bridget Noonan (37:43)

would agree with that. also cannot think of an example off the top of my head at least of a four hour podcast from a brand that I want to listen to. I want to listen to your podcast because you're bringing a lot of different thought leaders and a diversity of experience. It can be really challenging to do that from a brand. Not impossible. There's certainly examples out there. But I think that's where this whole notion of ⁓ a media company versus a brand.

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does come to conflict at some point in terms of what you as a customer want to hear from. You're asking for that brand to share stories, but I'm not sure if I want to sit down and watch a three-hour movie from that brand. feel differently?

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Greg Randolph (38:28)

I think it's, there's probably a delicate balance. I think we look to people like you yourself as a podcast or you're an editor, right? This is editorial content. You're a curating an audience. have messages. I want to hear those things. Um, I am also like probably not a great examples, but like if the podcast is only eight minutes long or 10 minutes long, I'm probably not going to listen to it. I'm, I want more depth. want an hour. I want two hours. I'll listen to four hours if the subject's really compelling.

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But it's like, where are you and what are you trying to do? If you're scrolling Instagram or TikTok X, you're there for quick hits, right? And maybe that's where our short attention span narrative comes from. To your point, you'll go on Netflix and easily download and watch four seasons of some show. So clearly you've got the time, but you're looking for something in particular. ⁓ You may not be looking for depth while you're on Instagram, for instance, or Facebook. ⁓

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Sure. So it is like platform specific and then what's the role of the brand? And if the brand can be very editorial in nature from a content perspective and usually that comes in the absence of the product because the more product you put into something that's supposed to be editorial, the more likely eventually people are like, this is just an ad. We've heard it before, right? So what are your real, what's your real goal? ⁓

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I think is always something you to keep in mind.

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Cole Heilborn (39:58)

Yeah, I feel like you're hitting on something that, and I'm going to have a hard time trying to pinpoint exactly what you're exposing here, but this difference between a brand and a media company and the role of the brand and the story, this question of, well, are we an editorial outlet? Are we a brand? And then how does that influence the type of content and what our audience can expect from us? Like, what is... ⁓

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I don't know if I'm saying that as well as I'd like to, but what is the question there that you feel like brands struggle with in this equation or in this struggle?

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Greg Randolph (40:40)

Well, I'll probably get slaughtered in the comments for this, but I think it's a balance of like, how impetuous and greedy are you as a brand? So in other words, how much money is really, I think it's really like, how much money can you invest in something that doesn't have a revenue outcome? A true ROI. And then I think you see it a lot and I could be mistaken, but most brands see this idea. Like this is a great idea. should.

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Bridget Noonan (40:59)

true.

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Cole Heilborn (40:59)

our

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life.

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Greg Randolph (41:09)

a bunch of money into becoming more of a media company because that will lead customers to our products. And I would guess that most of the time those efforts have a tendency to fail because they need to justify the investment ⁓ in that content. And there's a world for filmmakers and screenwriters and providing entertainment. ⁓ But from a brand that's trying to sell a product, there's like a tension there that I don't know ever like

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really goes away. I think if you're an early adopter to some new, and let's just be clear, like this is all new, right? Like we weren't talking about this 10 years ago and a couple of brands did it really well and led the way and everyone tried to do the same thing and follow and it didn't really work out for many of them.

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So there's like, what's the next thing that we can think of rather than doing what already was proven to work? Like, how do we innovate our marketing thinking to the next layer? It may have nothing to do with content. Like, it could be completely different. ⁓ I don't know what that is. If anyone has the answer, I'd love to know it.

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Bridget Noonan (42:18)

Well, and I think the question you have to ask is like, where does your customer want you to show up? I'm not hearing that the customer wants to see a feature length film and all movie theaters from us. Or that we'd host our own podcast or whatever it would be. Like you'd have to consistently check in with the customer and see where they want you to show up. And just stay true to like what's right for your brand. Cause it does work for some to be the content to commerce, but not for everybody.

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Cole Heilborn (42:45)

Yeah. Tell me more about Contra to Commerce. ⁓ What are the elements that are necessary for that model to work? And I guess an obvious example I'm thinking about is Huckberry. Yeah. You know, I know you guys just were recently on their show. And Kate West has been on this podcast before. She's And she talked all about, like, cutting the mechanics of dirt and how they're creating that. But what's different about their model versus a DECKEDked model? And what can you learn from them?

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but what doesn't apply to where you guys are at?

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Bridget Noonan (43:16)

This is like the most overused words, bear with me and I'll explain. like authenticity, I think, is the unlock there. If you are coming from a place, Huckberry is a good example, that your customer already wants to hear that from you. You're already creating content that they're consuming and you're already wearing the brands naturally, not in a way that's like hashtag paid. You know, I'm obviously clearly speaking a commercial at you, but in a way that's building

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lifestyle in their case, that works so naturally and seamlessly. It's like, you know, as that customer, you can go to Huckaberry and find new brands or like brands you trust and want to find and want to purchase through them and also create, like watch some really cool content. MeatEater is a good example in the hunting space, which I know a little bit, like I'm a little bit biased because I used to work in MeatEater, but that was an example of like the true influencer formula where like Steven Arnola was wearing these brands.

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before anyone asked him why or like that he was paid to do so. So was like very trustworthy to then create content and naturally be like, I wanna like try that gear that he's wearing. Cause I trust what he's saying. And he's not like showing a bunch of different brands to me every week. It's a really, really delicate formula to follow. And that's why to Chopper's point, not everybody can pull that off. And a lot of people fail trying. ⁓

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But I think that notion of authenticity and believability and trust is really what makes that work.

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Greg Randolph (44:49)

Yeah, think that's something Bridget's absolutely right. And there is, you know, light in a bottle. And I think Huckberry is a great example. Like it's, it works. I love that stuff. You know, the dirt, I'll watch all those things and I don't, I'm not even really a foodie, but it just, you know, it, some reason, there are content like that, you know, it resonates and I have never been a content to commerce marker. So I couldn't even give you a half qualified answer, but I think that it comes from trust.

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and not being tried to, not being sold something. And if you can figure that out and justify that expense, you'll probably be somewhat successful at it. But I think it does come back to your product portfolio. And it may work with Huckberry because the diversity of the brands, you know, they're not Huckberry brands. Even their house brand has a different name, right? ⁓

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Bridget Noonan (45:43)

You talk about knowing your customer. mean, that's so critical to get right and to curate brands or private labels that work for the customer and always come back to that. That ties in with how we started this conversation. Like being customer first, no matter what business model you choose, is really the only way you're going to find success. I can't think of a single company that wasn't customer first that's winning.

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Greg Randolph (46:05)

out.

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Cole Heilborn (46:08)

You bring up authenticity. that's, mean, you know, ask any outdoor marketer and like, yeah, everyone believes in authenticity.

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Greg Randolph (46:19)

How many people can actually...

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Cole Heilborn (46:23)

So this was my question is like, if everyone believes in it, but how many of us are actually doing it well? And what does well even mean? How do you think through that? Like what is true authenticity? Maybe that's my question.

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Bridget Noonan (46:39)

I mean, I think where brands as they grow start to diverge from that is because of a need for the ROI and the results. that's why there is a really healthy tension to have with, I'm just going to put finance as this other side, there's a healthy tension to have with finance, but there's also, we become the chief of police as brand marketers.

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to make sure you're constantly advocating for that to maintain the authenticity and to maintain that original objective and the customer first notion. It can be really easy to stray from that when you see this shiny object that happens to be driving a lot of money that maybe just isn't right for your brand. There's a billion examples where we can go out today and make a million dollars doing something that literally doesn't fit in our product portfolio because it's not what we're here to do or it's not what our customer is asking of us. There's no demand for that. ⁓

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And I think that's my answer. It's really nebulous and really hard to do, but kind of every day you have to show up as that chief of police and be like, no, that's not right.

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Greg Randolph (47:41)

Yeah, I think that's right. I think you need to really know who you are as a brand, kind like a person. You got to know who you are to be the best version of yourself. And really, I think that's what, you know, knowing that your customer, who they are, what they're asking of you and not overselling. It probably like takes an attitude of like, I don't care if this makes any money.

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we're just going to do this because we believe in it and we believe it's right. And there's examples of, you know, brands that are able to do that, you know, taking their foot off the revenue expectations, the EBITDA expectations, gas and, you know, reinvest wholeheartedly in brand and take a year of hard knocks. And usually if you can do that, like, and you're good at it, you can come out the other end bigger and stronger than you were. If you have a really good strategy for how you're going to activate the brand, you know.

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wherever your customer is and people can smell a rat from a while away, know, it's, and your customer is so important. I can't say it enough. And like, I think if that's at the heart of your decisions, like we literally start every meeting or conversation, like it's a customer conversation. It's easy for us to, it's happened here before, you you get in deep conversations about doing something and you realize at the end, like you're just trying to do something that's good for you.

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you're not really thinking about what's right for the customer. And you've got to be willing to give up a little bit of revenue or a little bit of profit or a little bit of upside for the customer to win the long game, which is, I know that's not exactly the question you're answering, but I think if you enter it through that lens, those decisions become a lot easier.

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Cole Heilborn (49:28)

Yeah, interesting. So as you are going through this transition, if that's what we want to call it, as you're trying to figure out this balance between brand and performance, what metrics are you tracking to try and have some quantifiable data to report back with? What are you watching? What are you looking for?

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Bridget Noonan (49:48)

I think from an annual perspective, tracking brand awareness in terms of growth is really important. It's a good benchmark for this is working, people know you. Alongside brand favorability scores, make sure it's a positive reason that they know you, to your point earlier about like, are people just annoyed because we're hitting them over the head or is this working? And then, you know, I think there's the less tangible of a very real like branded search increase, social media engagements. What am I forgetting?

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Greg Randolph (50:18)

Well, you can measure those things. there are good signals. I think, you know, the revenue that you're generating through your own channels versus paid. ⁓ you can match that with market data for your, if you're on a channel like we are, like, what are we seeing if we're spending big for a period of time in a certain market? How is that affecting retail sales in addition to online sales and online signals? ⁓ and that's where, you know, like having test markets to get started is really helpful.

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and then having a really good data partner. Because we might say like, oh, know, like measurements really hard, but like at the end of the day, you got to measure something of what you're doing. So you have some indication of success, but I think those are probably the the top indicators that you can look at.

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Cole Heilborn (51:04)

Greg, you mentioned, you know, is there a future where content is just like, it's not in the equation at all. And I've wondered this sometimes. I'd have to find a new job, but ⁓ like what would happen if social just disappeared and YouTube disappeared? You know, how would brands go back to like the very basics of how to show up?

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Part of me is like, think you could do it. I think if you were really creative and you had the right team, you could probably pull something together that would be so new and different ⁓ that you might actually come out ahead. But I guess I'm making light of the risk involved.

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Greg Randolph (51:51)

We don't want to see you go out of business. Look, we've got five senses. And seeing and hearing are two pretty important ones. I don't know that you could ever imagine a world where, just to get really weird about it in the middle of the morning, but I don't know that you can imagine a world where seeing and hearing things wouldn't be a part of what, I don't imagine like scratch and sniff ads are coming out anytime soon. But it would be very powerful. The sense of smell is incredibly powerful. ⁓

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I don't know. Like I think that the real world expression of the brand, like not on a surface or not on a digital screen or, you know, coming to your ear would be an interesting challenge. and I think there are examples of brands that have done very well by never investing in performance. ⁓ there are brands that have never invested in content. It'd be really hard to say, like, what is the product that you're selling and how do people need to interact with it to understand why it adds value to their life?

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And I think that's a real case by case, but that's a crazy thought experiment. don't know, even though I said it, I'm getting myself.

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Bridget Noonan (52:55)

in my brain of what that would look like right now.

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Cole Heilborn (52:58)

Well, you mentioned scratch the sniff. I'm wondering, like, does a DECKEDked box have like a new, a new car smell to it that you could send out in mailers?

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Greg Randolph (53:06)

We just

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like create a gas that makes everyone want to go and buy our product and release it into major metropolitan areas. That's a different thing.

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Cole Heilborn (53:16)

Yeah, there will be a feature like MovieMaid about that at some point later on.

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Greg Randolph (53:21)

⁓ Yeah, I think that content's always a part of every brand's conversation because you've got to express who you are and who the customer is and paint a picture for them. But platforms will change, I think, over time. Yeah.

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Cole Heilborn (53:39)

Yeah. So obviously we can't solve this question today. It would be foolish if we thought we could. But as we start to wrap up, what are questions that you two are asking yourselves and asking the team as you're kind of wading through this multi-year journey?

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Bridget Noonan (54:01)

There's a laundry list of them.

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Greg Randolph (54:02)

Why

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me? No. You're gonna take a stab at this?

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Bridget Noonan (54:09)

My mind kind of immediately went to fairly tactical in terms of this like world of social we've talked about and do engagements really matter? What does that mean? Is that one of the KPIs that we're really going to hang our hat on? Or are there different ways to look at it in terms of how people consume that and watch that and how they talk about it? You know, kind of alluding to what you were talking about specifically with content, but like...

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this reliance on social media or really any of the channels if you want to plug in any of these is like, how reliant do we want to be on those KPIs or should we be thinking outside the box in terms of how people want to see your brand? As long as they're showing up and opting in and ultimately converting, I hesitate to be so married to those KPIs that are really outside of your control at the end of the day, besides making badass content, curating a cool voice that people want to hear.

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A lot of that is outside of your control. So I tend to be a little bit skeptical of some of those metrics.

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Greg Randolph (55:13)

Yeah. And I think for my seat, it's, I'm just always thinking about what's next. Like what is the next, what are people not doing that maybe they used to do in the past or people being brands or where opportunities or is it just a twist on an old theme or is there some entirely new opportunity that we're just not, we're not finding. And I don't have any

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get answers for that, but I think that that's what makes iconic brands is brands that do things that you're just, you're kind of surprised, you know, that they did this and you fall in love with it. And obviously there's a lot of risk involved with trying to break a mold. ⁓ you can waste a lot of money or you could piss off a lot of people as well. If you weren't right. I think we've seen that plenty of times. So everyone does the same thing. and

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what is the thing that we can do that no one else is doing or hasn't done or a way to do something that would be a new twist. And I think that's where you can become a way to stand out, not try to fit in.

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Cole Heilborn (56:17)

Yeah. There's an answer for sure. There's definitely an answer to that question. How about this then for folks that are listening, like I said at the beginning, I think most people are going to very much empathize with where you guys are at and be like, me too. ⁓ What questions would you encourage people who are in a similar position trying to find this balance? What questions would you suggest they ask themselves to try and help them find some clarity or some peace of mind through this?

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Greg Randolph (56:46)

I mean, I guess speaking from my like worst set of skills is really looking at the financials of the business and understanding where your revenue is coming from and being very impartial to the data and like taking a hard look and seeing where, know, if your revenue is coming from these places now, where can it come from when you double the size of your business or triple the size of your business? And can you see a path to get there? Where does it break? ⁓

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I think that's a really interesting question to ask yourself. think that's where you, and there's plenty of like white papers been written about this. It's kind of, not even like anecdotal at this point, but I think that's really where it all starts is where are you in the business trajectory? What's your plan for five years? Where are you today? Can you scale what you're doing for five years? What's your, it probably comes down to your, what's your customer acquisition cost? And can you keep attracting customers at that price or does it just grow?

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Does it grow with the revenue of the brand? It's probably like the first place to look.

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Bridget Noonan (57:52)

And I think being, listening to what your customer is saying, what they're asking for, with whatever resources you have to do that, showing up where they are and actually talking to customers so that you don't get in this mindset where you're in an echo chamber and believing your own bullshit about who you are and what you're doing. It's really easy to do that when you're just talking to, like, high-fiving about this cool content we put out or this new product. Like, hear it from the customer so that you actually know where you're headed.

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Cole Heilborn (58:19)

Yeah, phenomenal. ⁓ Anything else you want to add before we wrap up?

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Bridget Noonan (58:24)

Let us know when you figure out the answer to this question for TopP.

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Greg Randolph (58:29)

want

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the big secret.

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Cole Heilborn (58:32)

I mean, yeah, I'll do my best. I have a feeling the answer is out there. That might be really naive of me to say, it like business isn't, I mean, it's complicated, no doubt, but it's also really simple. But I actually, I was just thinking about this. I just read this quote. I was watching this interview. Who was it? It was Jimmy Chin. He was talking about, he interviewed Yvonne Chouinard for something and Yvonne told him, you know, it's really difficult to make things simple. ⁓

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We make things so complicated so many times, but simplicity is actually quite difficult to obtain. And I think there's some lessons there for sure in all of us who are in these marketing content roles. ⁓

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Bridget Noonan (59:12)

Don't overcomplicate it. He's a wise man.

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Greg Randolph (59:15)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think we'll find out you know have us back in a year if we still have jobs and we can let you know if this worked or yeah

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Cole Heilborn (59:23)

Fair enough.

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Bridget Noonan (59:24)

Yeah, there is an answer out there. It's just different for everyone. It depends on your brand and what you're trying to do.

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Cole Heilborn (59:31)

Yeah. Well, Greg, ⁓ thank you for the time, Bridget. Thank you for the time. ⁓ Yeah, let's check back in in a year or six months and see how it's going. But thank you for the conversation. Thanks for the thoughts. I think this has been really helpful. I know it's been really helpful for a lot of folks who are out there ⁓ beating their heads against the wall, also trying to figure it out. So I appreciate it.

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Greg Randolph (59:51)

It was fun to talk to you about it and it's given us all some things to think about here too. So sometimes talking about your problems make them simpler.

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Cole Heilborn (59:59)

What is that? Yeah, that's a new concept.

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Greg Randolph (1:00:03)

Have a good day. Thanks Paul. See ya.

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Cole Heilborn (1:00:05)

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it with a friend or leaving us a review on Apple. And remember, as you're working on that next piece of creative, the difference between creative that works and doesn't work often comes down to the hard questions that you ask while you're shaping.

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