Mike Donnelly (00:00):

Do you feel something? I think as marketers, I think wecan't only go to a data piece, but it's like do you feel something? Do you as ateam feel something? That's where I think even just trying to get some ideasoutside of your internal marketing team to get other people and then once theystart to I've felt something, it's like, that's what you want. And it's like ifyou don't have that, I think it's like go back to the drawing board.

Cole Heilborn (00:27):

On this podcast, we go behind the scenes with industryexperts 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 MikeDonnelly, the VP of marketing at Superfeet. Mike, welcome.

Mike Donnelly (00:47):

Thank you, Cole. Appreciate it. Excited to chat with youtoday.

Cole Heilborn (00:50):

Yeah, it's good to see you. Thanks for joining this show.So the episode that will have come out prior to this episode, we just did aninterview with Rell and they're going through a rebrand also, and so we dovedeep into the weeds and kind of broke that out, dissected it, and here we aretalking with you. That's exciting times. I'm excited to bring you on to chatabout everything you guys are working on, dig into the weeds as well into thisrebrand, and really just try to understand why the process, what you'rediscovering along the way, the challenges and break it all out for us. So tostart, how would you rate this rebrand experience? Has it been a plusexperience or a C or a D experience just based on the overall work and effortand mental fortitude that has taken to work through all this?

Mike Donnelly (01:40):

No, I think we're really excited in how it came to life. Ithink there's always trepidation going into these things of how are consumers,how how's media, how is our retail partners going to respond to this? Butcoming out of the rebrand, we had an event in New York City, the positiveresponse that we received from both consumers as well as our partners aroundthe industry had been really positive. So I guess I give ourselves an A on thisone just because I do think we've gotten some positive feedback always areas toimprove for sure. But overall, we're really, really, really excited about howit turned out.

Cole Heilborn (02:20):

Yeah, and can you kind of give us the high level overview?What elements of the brand have stayed the same and what's changed?

Mike Donnelly (02:28):

Quite a lot has changed, quite frankly. We basically tooka look at the brand and it's been around for a while and it's just like wehaven't really refreshed, I would say the brand in probably over 20 years,which is quite a long time. So what went into it is just like we changed thelogo, we changed the font, we changed the colors, we changed the look, thefeel, the tonality. So I think when you're looking at kind of all the brandelements that actually go into it, we changed quite a lot. So it was quite abig departure where we were and a lot of that goes into where we changed thepositioning, our consumer and so forth. But I would say a majority of thethings that we had and our brand is evolved and changed.

Cole Heilborn (03:20):

Can you walk us through what led to this rebrand? Why putin all this work to change it all up? What's the history and what wasn'tworking and what is working now with this new direction?

Mike Donnelly (03:32):

It's interesting. We've been super around for nearly 50years, 48 years, and we've always been one that really sets the pace for theindustry. And as you start to look at the insole industry right now, it iscompetitive. There is a lot of different competing brands that are coming intothe space and quite frankly, we actually see that as a positive. We actuallysee that that's actually just growing share and growing a conversation to howinsoles can not only be pain relief, but it also can be a performance enhanceras well. So we're looking at the competition that actually just puts us morecompetitive and it allows us to really dive into and take a deeper look atourselves. We were like, are we set the pace? Are we really actually going topushing ourselves forward? We took a really good look at ourselves and weactually took a step back and said, where did we start as an overall brand 48years ago?

(04:32):

Why did we start? And we started serving athletes and westarted on skis, skiers, and even to a lesser extent a couple years later,hockey players as well. So we started serving athletes at the highest level.Then that pinnacle innovation, that pinnacle performance obviously cascaded itdown to the masses. So we took a look a step and oh, we said, are we doing thattoday? And we said we were kind of serving a lot of different people, very kindof at a broad perspective. We always want to be inclusive, but we felt like welost the sharp point. Did we have a sharp point in the consumer? Do we have asharp point on a positioning as a brand? And actually those questions weanswered were no. So that is kind of the impetus of why we started and wereally kind of said where do we start and how do we actually get back to wherewe did and where we started? So that was the why, which basically beentransformed into all the things that we'll obviously get into and talk aboutand what you see as the brand today.

Cole Heilborn (05:43):

Yeah. I'm curious, so if the brand had lost its sharppoint as you said, was that reflective in the business and the revenue and themarket share amongst all the other competitors? Is that what also led to this?

Mike Donnelly (05:55):

We're still an industry leader, so I just think it's evenless about kind of revenue. I think we always look at ourselves of not justjudging ourselves of revenue, but where do we see we can go and we've alwaysbeen a growth company and we continue to grow, but I also think we have somepretty kind of big targets for ourselves, not only to grow our revenue ofcourse, but how do we actually just invite new consumers and help them? Weactually feel like we're actually a purpose driven brand. It's just like wehave insoles and they may just be in your shoes, but we feel like that's a hugeunlock for consumers to go out there and are we helping them, helping them movebetter and if you're moving better, you're going to actually have a healthierand happier life. So we actually feel like the more people we can get actuallyand help consumers, which is a bigger order or bigger kind of higher kind ofaspiration, of course the revenue is going to come along the way, but weactually feel like that is our first order, first priority, and then yes, allthe other stuff then comes as a secondary response to that.

Cole Heilborn (07:03):

I'm curious, let's back up a little bit. What's been yourhistory within the industry and how many rebrands have you been a part of?

Mike Donnelly (07:10):

Less rebrands, but I've been in marketing for over 20years. I started as we will get into athletes and in can ask me mindset. Istarted as an athlete, a long distance runner. I did that through college. Idid that professionally for a few years. It's just kind of going into what goesinto a mindset of an athlete and that really is just getting better. It doesn'thave to be super hardcore, it doesn't have to be intense. It just because doyou want to get better than the day before? And it doesn't have to be hugeincremental gains, but just small, incremental, consistent gains over time,time. And then I spent 20 years at Nike and was very fortunate to learn from alot of great marketing leaders. So I've taken that throughout the times andreally kind of used that to influence obviously wet into Superfeet and therebrand and just harken back some of those lessons and some of those kind ofsystematic approaches that I did in the past and now kind did it into thisSuperfeet brand.

Cole Heilborn (08:21):

Yeah, so if you had to look at branding as a wholethroughout the industry, and I'm curious, is it more or less important now thanit was? And I know that's a very vague generic question and maybe it's aleading question, but I'm curious to hear how you respond to that.

Mike Donnelly (08:41):

I think branding is obviously really important. It's likewhat your brand stands for. You have to have a mark that you feel conveys whatthe brand stands for. And I think when we went into a rebrand, it wasn't just alogo, but what does that logo kind of represent and what does that entail? Webelieve in movement, so we wanted that logo to feel like it actually conveyedmovement. We also wanted to go back and to felt like it, did it feel likeperformance? Did it feel really going to in that zone? Did it feel bold? Did itfeel confident? So I think it's just like a logo, could be a logo, but it'slike what goes behind it and the decisions and the filters that we went throughare really important. So I think it is important. It is always important and Ithink there's a lot of brands out there that hold a lot of equity within theirlogo, so I think it's important. I also think it's important of what are thethings that you do around that logo as well? How do you story tell? What do youconvey? What are your purpose? How do you actually live and breathe behind it?It's important but it's also all the things that go and surround it.

Cole Heilborn (09:53):

There's a lot of ways that people try to define brand. Oneway to define it is that I've heard that I like is it's not what you say aboutthe brand, it's what your audience or your customer says about you. I'mcurious, what has the audience been saying about Superfeet over the last 10, 20years and what do you hope for them to say about Superfeet moving forwards oncethis new rebrand is out into the world and there's been some reeducation?

Mike Donnelly (10:18):

Yeah, I think what consumers would say about the brandright now is we're trusted and I think it's like we have a great product thatthey believed him and they stick with. It's interesting, it's like we stillbelieve we have an opportunity to get more brand awareness out around, but whenyou say it's like, Hey, I work at Superfeet, you're like, oh, oh my gosh, it'sgreat. And it's like they literally on the street, they'll take off their shoesand be like, I got it. I share it. And it's just like they're proud and I thinkthat is a huge, huge testament of how proud they are to kind of like I've heardit, I know it and I believe in it. So we have a loyal following of consumers.So I do think it's a trusted product and it is at the top of the industry.

(11:08):

It's interesting, even when we went to the rebrand, it'slike we were working back with an agency partner as well and it was like one ofthe things was a hidden source of truth and that could be a campaign, thatcould be something that we could really lean into. And I think when we startedgoing back even through the visual explorations of just doing through an x-rayvision because it's like I do think the challenge and the opportunity, as youmentioned, it's unseen, it literally goes in your shoe and when you release upthe sheet you don't even know what's there. So I think that's the opportunityfor us to get superfeet more visible to more people and we have a few ideas upour sleeves in future seasons, bring that to life to let more people know thatthis is not a best kept secret, but this is something that you should put inyour shoe. It can allot quite a lot.

Cole Heilborn (12:07):

I wonder if that actually gives you freedom as a brandbecause a lot of brands, there's a lot of, at least in the circles that I runand a lot of people talk about, oh, how much do you show product? Is it veryproduct focused? Is it more brand focused? Almost by default unless if you'reshowing somehow the inside of the shoe or someone putting an insole into theirshoe, it's almost entirely brand focused because it's inherently can't befocused on product. How do you think through when it comes to your content andyour creative efforts, how do you think through that?

Mike Donnelly (12:39):

I think a differentiator in something that we really wantto lean into is more around that emotive inspiration storytelling. So think toyour point, it's just like, okay, let's start to show people in action, inmovement, in motion, really showing that emotive piece. If you can kind of sellthe dream of what a run could look like with Superfeet and soul, I'll walkaround New York City a 12 hour shift for the industrial athlete that we'velooked to. If you can show that more inspiring piece versus just trying to besuper transactional. One of the kind the from twos that we wanted fromtransactional to aspirational. We can actually talk about the insole, we cantalk about performance media marketing and so forth, but it is, it's just noisequite frankly to consumers and they have so many things coming up them. How dowe actually create a bit more inspiration aspiration, get them to stop in theirtracks like hey, that looks cool.

(13:38):

I would love to be part of that. How do I get some of thatdream? It only takes us into in your shoe was a little bit of the things thatwe'd want to try to connect back together to. You're right, I think it's likewhen you do product marketing, it's also interesting, we have some interestingways of how we could actually elevate product, but I do think there's a biggeropportunity to create that emotional aspirational connection into the brandthen yes, the insole is just the enabler versus trying to do it the flip wayaround.

Cole Heilborn (14:10):

So I just wrote down motion and emotion and I'm sureyou've realized this already, but there's something very well how can you showthe emotion in motion is what I'm thinking. That sounds like a really coolplatform to be able to jump off from

Mike Donnelly (14:24):

A hundred percent because I do believe, we believemovement is actually a huge unlock. So I think how do we actually just showcasethe more you move the better it gets. A little bit like that sentiment netidea.

Cole Heilborn (14:37):

So when you say you want to do more emotive storytellingwith the brand, what does that mean to you? I would have my own definition, butI'm curious how you would define that.

Mike Donnelly (14:45):

I think it's more tying back into I aspirationalstorytelling that gets you excited to go out and just do, I'm going to call itsport, I'm going to call sport very broad, but it's like that looks like thatrun looks just like something so amazing. I want to be a part of that, but Inever really could do that because I didn't feel like I could do it or I didn'thave the right kind of my ankle or Achilles. We believe that. It's like if wecan create that kind of emotional tug that says maybe I never thought aboutrunning but that just looks like I would want to do it. It looks fun, it looksenjoyable, it looks exciting. How do we actually just get them into the sportfirst and then second, how do we actually then get 'em into a product versusthe the reverse. Sometimes I think we can get into very tactical ways of theproduct. How does it bend? It just becomes less kind of emo connected to aconsumer.

Cole Heilborn (15:52):

Yeah, so what does that look like? What plans do you havein place? What storytelling projects are you working on or do you hope to beworking on?

Mike Donnelly (16:01):

We have seasonal storytelling and we also have biggerproduct opportunities as well. So I think something that, I'll give you just anexample of what we're trying to do in the short term right now we're going backinto a back to school, back to sport. So what does that look like and how do weactually start to connect into that? So we have a bit of a creative briefaround this idea around new feels and we believe feels is something reallyemotive when you're getting back into, when you go back into sport and goingback into school, what the feels you get after coming out of the tunnel for thefirst time for a football game. What is the feel that you cross the finish linefor the first time? What is the feel that you put your fresh kicks on, youwalking back to school for the first time? It's like those emotive feels. Howdo we actually then translate that into a story and content and story? Webelieve that emotive feeling can actually then obviously connect back into aproduct and the feel can also be the feel underfoot as well. So I think thedouble entendre around feel is really important.

Cole Heilborn (17:13):

That word inspiration is such a common word that's used inthe outdoor athletic industry and I feel like very little of the work thatactually gets produced is actually truly inspirational where you're overwhelmedwith this feeling of I have to get outside and go on that run. As you'redeveloping creative briefs and as you are developing these campaigns, you couldgo 80% of the way there with the emotion or you could go a hundred percent ofthe way there. How do you ensure that you go past that 80% into that next levelwhere it's truly emotive and people truly feel, because I think it's reallyeasy to go out, shoot a commercial, put some epic music to it and be like, oh,people are going to love this, but it's another commercial in the sea ofsameness. How do you take that to the next level?

Mike Donnelly (18:02):

Well you said sea of sameness. I think that's a gridfilter and that's always what we did. It's like is it differentiated, is itdistinct and is it going to cut through the clutter I think is one filter thatwe have to look at. I do think there is a lot of stuff out there. It's not evenjust the insole because it's like consumers are not just having insole communication.It has a lot of, so how do we actually judge ourselves against that? It's atall order I think obviously a smaller brand and a bigger fish or a biggercity. But I do think it's like if we can go with that aspiration of can youfeel something and it's like if you're sitting in, we had creative reviewmeetings, do you feel something? Do you feel goosebumps? Do you feel likesometimes, and this is where it's the art and science, the data and so forth,but it's like I think as marketers I think we can't only go to a data piece,but it's like do you feel something?

(18:59):

Do you as a team feel something even? And that's where Ithink even just trying to get some ideas outside of your internal marketingteam to get other people and then once they start to I felt something, I feltit. That's what you want. And it's like if you don't have that and I think it'slike go back to the drawing board, go back into the creative room, continue topush it, it maybe will not always get there, but I think it's like are wegetting better? And I think that's the other day. It's like when we go intothis athlete mindset, it's around progress. Are we going to get to a hundredpercent? We're going to strive to get to a hundred percent of course. Are wegoing to get to 80% maybe, but we're going to always strive for a hundredpercent and it's like hopefully that 80% becomes 82%, 84% and that idea ofalways continuing to push.

Cole Heilborn (19:51):

Yeah, no, I love that. So let's talk about your audiencebecause obviously the audience is a big component of knowing when creativefeels right, right. Talk to me about how your audience, the understanding ofyour audience has changed. You've obviously talked a little bit about it, thisidea of performance and an athlete doesn't mean you're on a podium, but whathave you learned about your customer through this rebrand that you didn't knowabout them prior?

Mike Donnelly (20:17):

Yeah, I think if we even just take a step back, I justthink it's like who are we serving? Who's our target consumer at the end of theday and trying to get really sharp on who those consumers are.

Cole Heilborn (20:31):

So there's kind of a few different ways you can betterunderstand your audience. There's the persona route, there's the jobs to bedone, there's a muse. How did you choose the persona route versus some of theother options out there?

Mike Donnelly (20:44):

We had different, obviously we had the target consumergroups and then we also, we had personas that fit within them. We called themoptimizer. Those are the ones that are really, really want to get better fortheir sport. The preventer is a little bit more of those that just want toprevent getting injured. So there's different personas that fit within theseconsumer target groups. So it helps us when we say what is the persona of thesport athlete, we then look at the optimizer. Why the optimizer? They aresitting at the top but they are the most discerning. They are the ones thatinfluence all the way down. So I think it's really important, the sport athleteor the industrial athlete, it's still very broad, but how do we actually get tothe most discerning the ones that kind of influenced the rest of everyone else?Really, really important when we're starting to put together a creative filter.Does this feel right are who we talking to obviously into that broader macrogroup

Cole Heilborn (21:48):

And as you've been building out and getting to betterunderstand your customer base, what have you learned about them that gives youemotion, the clues into their emotional state things, triggers, levers that youcan then use to pair that with great creative that speaks to 'em emotionally?

Mike Donnelly (22:05):

It's interesting. I think right now it's like who do wehave and who do we want? I think who do we have is we have a very loyal base,like I mentioned before, super loyal base that is really passionate aboutsuperfeet, willing to take off the shoes in the street to go shows. We want tokeep that. That is something magical and we want to continue to serve them. Thebigger opportunity is how do we actually get more people into the brand? How dowe invite new consumers in? So I don't want to, the emotion connection I thinkwe have with our consumers and a lot of that emotional connection comes back tothey like the data, they love our product, they like what we stand for as anoverall brand and we want to keep that. We just want to add on and making surethat we can invite new consumers into the brand, not only serving those thatmay have pain relief or like those, but also how do we actually open theaperture up and just like how do we invite new ones into the brand that may notknow that we have a performance product that can actually help them perform onthe pitch, on the field, on the road, et cetera.

Cole Heilborn (23:18):

So what I'm hearing then is maybe to extrapolate thatfurther is if there's people out there who dunno, your product exists andthey're the type of people who maybe have an injury and don't know that, heymaybe actually I can go for a run. Maybe that emotional component that you cantie into is this idea of pursuing something that you once thought you couldn'tdo. That's a really powerful emotive idea.

Mike Donnelly (23:44):

That's exactly right. That's our thought and that's ourkind of process going in. And I also think there's a lot of people don't knowthe power of insoles. It's like many people. Again, I think that's the biggeropportunity. That's why I mentioned this, even competitors in this space, themore we can actually have a conversation that these insoles can really help youperform better I think is a huge unlock. There's very, very little awarenessthat actually is a thing. So I think we have a huge hurdle, not a huge hurdle,but a huge opportunity. The marketplace in the market, total adjust of marketis massive. How do we then start to chip away at that to at least get thosepeople into insoles and Superfeet insoles more specifically,

Cole Heilborn (24:37):

Talk to me about the idea of patients. This is somethingyou discussed in our intro call, the idea of we want to do so much, butobviously we can only do so much. What role does patients play as the leader ofthis whole rebrand?

Mike Donnelly (24:51):

I'm always going to go back to the athlete and kind ofanalogies that around athletes. So I think it's like athletes always have goalsand it's like they want goals and they want to achieve those goals fast. Ithink the thing that we always need to be kind of cognizant around of how do webe consistent? And again, going back to one eighth of 1%, I think sometimes wehave aspirations to just go quicker and faster. We have some big aspirationsand we talked about this, it's like how do we create emotion? How do we createinspiration? You can't do that overnight. How do we build a community? How dowe build relationships? Relationships take time. You can't do that overnight.So I think when we start to look back to how do we recreate the category, howdo we actually invite new people into the sport?

(25:40):

How do we actually put performance at the center? Thoseare big tasks and those are big ideas. Can that happen? It's like, oh in Q1 didwe do it? We have to just, and that's the patience, which I think it's likeathletes don't have a lot of patience, but I think that's where it's just as ateam of like, okay, can we take a step back and be like, did we get better thanlast quarter? And if we got better then great. Then we're moving in the righttrajectory in the right path. And the next one is just consistency. I thinkit's hard to have consistency sometimes. I think we always look to start what'sthe shiny object, what's the thing over here? But if we're really consistentweek over week, day over day, quarter over quarter, I think then over timewe'll see some big gains. But I think instead of having those big gains of intwo months and three months, and I think we do a rebrand of we just rebrandwhat's happening, what's next? It is just going to take a bit of time. Justbecause we did a rebrand doesn't mean the whole world's going to change andeveryone's going to start to flood to Superfeet. We just need to be incrementalin small gains over time.

Cole Heilborn (26:52):

There's an episode we did a couple of years ago withJordan Williams and he talked about he's had a bunch of different roles, redBull, smart Wool, REI believe, and he talked about patience being one of themost powerful tools that a marketer has because one, it forces you to think inthe long term and two, it's kind of like compound interest. If you play thelong game, it slowly builds over time. And this is I think in part where someof that tension between brand and performance marketing lies. And I'm curiousif you could speak to how you think about brand and performance or brandperformance, the fusion of the two as you're moving forward in this rebrand?

Mike Donnelly (27:35):

Well, this is the million dollar question today. It's justlike how do you do both? And it's like you have to do both, but I think theyhave to be balanced. If it goes one way or the other, then I think it breaksthe equilibrium. I strongly believe that you have to create a brand and youhave to create some of that storytelling, that inspirational storytelling. Ifyou just go all performance, you're not building a brand. And if you're notbuilding a brand, you're not creating an emotional connection with consumers,then it's just transactional. And it's like consumers will not stay with you.They will not follow you. They will not feel your values, they won't not feellike you as an individual, as a person so strongly believe that you need to doboth. But it has to be equal waiting. But I do so strongly believe on the brandbuilding piece and that's another one.

(28:29):

It's just like how do we actually do brand marketingstorytelling Typically a lot of, in this space there's not a lot of brandbuilding. We believe Superfeet has been around for 48 years. There is a brandwe actually feel like we need to accelerate and take what we've had in the pastand just amplify it, put it on steroids, really kind of move that one forward.So brand building is really where we want to put our energy and focus over thenext, it's not quarters, but it is to your point, it's over time because it'sreally important.

Cole Heilborn (29:06):

You talked about campaigns and commercials that you'reworking on. Are you paying attention or investing at all into branded contentspecifically with this emphasis placed on brand?

Mike Donnelly (29:17):

Yeah, for sure. Yes. And I think even some of the thingsthat we did around the rebrand itself and kind of just like what does Superfeetstand for? What is it? Who are we? What does performance, what does it mean? SoI do think that's really important and it's just like, yes, we have contentthere and how do we actually show that tangible, digestible, emotive way. Wedid a 62nd piece of content that came out and it's just content, but it also,it helped us define a north star where we're trying to go. That's where we wantto try to go. So then that is just just a piece of content, but it was also agood filter for us to how does all that start to add? How does that add intoour social storytelling? What's really important? How do we continue to connectwith our consumers on a daily basis? How do we connect with our retailers whoare going to a stores, how do we connect with athletes, sponsored athletes ofourselves? How do we connect with people on the field? But it was just a goodlitmus test for us of like that is who we are and that's how we should act andhow we should behave. And it was a really good kind of a litmus test foreveryone on our team. That's who we are and that's what we want. That's how weshould be showing up every day.

Cole Heilborn (30:42):

What about any sort of branded storytelling pieces? You'vementioned that being an emphasis. I guess I'm thinking about that in terms ofthe typical three to 10 minute short on athletes and ambassadors and you dothat a handful of times gets thrown up on YouTube. I have a lot of opinions onthe success of those and how to really make those things pop. But is thatsomething that you guys are interested in? Have you considered serial contentproducing your own podcast? Anything along those types of lines?

Mike Donnelly (31:12):

We're still working through a lot of the mediums that we'dlove to come back into. Right now we're really focused on building our socialstorytelling and our community, how we're really going back into how do westory tell at retail, how are we showing up at the consumer's path in the rightway, at the right time, at the right moment. And then we'll then start to addon some of those other elements a little bit later. But we'll really go back towhat's the foundation? How are we actually being under consumer's path at theright moments, at the right moment at the time and being awesome at foundationand then we can start adding on other elements as we go forward.

Cole Heilborn (32:01):

What's something that you've learned throughout thisrebrand that you weren't expecting you would learn?

Mike Donnelly (32:08):

I still think when you go back into a rebrand like this,we believe it's the biggest thing. It is we believe in a rebrand and everythingis like it's really important when you start to communicate to retailers andmedia, it's like, yeah, it's important, but it's like sometimes it may not beas important to them as it is to us. When we went into the media event, wealways went in there with the hypothesis. We get a lot more coverage aroundjust the rebrand fortuitously. We also coupled that with new innovativeproducts, the new innovative products is really what consumers really want toget and digest and this new innovative product as well. I think the greatlearning coming out of that was product is king and product. It really is. Whenyou have innovative product that's actually going to get people excited aboutthat, that's what really kind of carried it over the top. I think coupling themtogether was great, but I just think the product piece of it and the energy andthe excitement that consumers, retailers, our partners got from the product wasawesome. I think the rebrand itself, it's like I think did we get as excited? Ithink yes to some degree, but maybe not as much as we potentially thought goingin.

Cole Heilborn (33:46):

Interesting. I mean I can think I can answer the questionwhy that might be. It's like it is something we talk about here at Poor Side iswhen it comes to content, when it comes to brands, the audience doesn't caregenerally. They don't care what you have to say and so you have to show up in away that's interesting and worth their time. And a rebrand doesn't meananything to them until you prove that it means something to them. Product onthe other hand is like, oh, this is for me. I get it, people are selfish. But arebrand obviously it sets you up with the right foundation to then go out andprove to the audience why it matters. But that's interesting you saw that inyour release and having that comparison between the product release and thebrand release that's intriguing.

Mike Donnelly (34:33):

It helps us internally and I think it's just to yourpoint, it's just consumers. So what, show me me that show me, it's like if youreally believe the athlete, you believe in performance, you believe in athletestorytelling. Okay, tell me. And I think, and that's the consistency piece.It's right. It's like, Hey, we did rebrand. It's like is the job done? And wesaid it's like no. Is that the finish line? No, no, no, no. That's the startingline that literally got to the line. Now is the time to really start to put ourmoney where our mouth is so to speak. So a hundred percent agree with you

Cole Heilborn (35:13):

In a really cliche way. You have now found the perfectinsoles to put into your shoes to then start the race with

Mike Donnelly (35:19):

Exactly a hundred percent. So it's like the analogies fromthese athletes and stuff like that and sports, they're endless for sure.

Cole Heilborn (35:28):

I can come up with a lot of bad puns and dad jokes. I'msure if you gave me more time. But Mike, we are running out of time andsomething that we like to do is end each episode on failures. It doesn't haveto be specific to this rebrand, but what are failures that you have experiencedor that you have committed over your 20 years in the industry and what have youlearned from them?

Mike Donnelly (35:54):

I think, well I think there's small ones. I think evenjust with this rebrand, I think we started to go in and I think sometimes yougo in there with some ideas that may just not pan out. And I think when westarted looking at our consumer segmentation, we did, this is a tactical one,but it just went to a photo shoot. We did a photo shoot that was in studio andit really worked well for the sport athlete. It worked well ish for the cityathlete, but it did not work well for the industrial athlete. The industrialathlete. It needs to be authentic, it needs to be, you can't fake it. You can'tfake a staged someone working in an environment. So it's like when we came outof that we're like, we just didn't feel right. So I think that's where it'slike we didn't use some of that content and we had to go back into some other.So I think that whether there's a failure, it's just a good kind litmus test.It's like you always have to be authentic and you always have to connect backinto who you're trying to serve at the end of the day. So I think that was atactical one for the rebrand itself I think. And then bigger learnings andopportunities along the way.

(37:16):

I think a big learning is you always need to bring teamsalong the way. I just think sometimes it's like you can't force something thatis not kind of team built along the way and it's learnings from the past, whichwe haven't done that you haven't actually brought a team and collectively goneinto this one at Superfeet it was really important to do that. I do think itwas such a big shift if you just, and I was new to the team, I've only been at Superfeetfor six months, so it's when we started to make this massive shift, you neededthe collective team that had been around and I really leveraged the team inthere. They've been around the brand, they know what it stands for and I thinkit's really important. You can't have an outsider coming in of like, okay, thisis it.

(38:09):

This is what we're going to try to do. It's like why isthe brand here? Why did the brand set? So it was really helpful for me to comein, leverage the team, what does the brand stand for, where did we start from?And I was like, I just asked questions and Nate basically filled them the blankand then that led us into this. So I think kind of key learnings in the past isif you're trying to force something and you're going to basically like this isit, and then you tell the team this is what we're going to do, they reject it.And I think that's always kind of like a force feeding is never helpful. Sothat was the learning that I came in, especially coming in new to a brand forover six months. I leveraged the team, I asked dumb questions, I really kind ofleveraged the team and basically I just asked questions and they basically arethe ones that really built this and built the proposition, the positioning andthe athletes, the consumer targets. So

Cole Heilborn (39:12):

That's cool. I mean sometimes that's what it takes is afresh perspective of someone coming in asking new questions or old questionsand then just we're looking at it from a different perspective, which seemslike is kind of the dynamic you had coming into the brand and then working withthe team there.

Mike Donnelly (39:27):

Just curiosity. And I think it's just like, and sometimesthe questions are just prompt questions and think, and it is to your point,it's a fresh perspective, but I think a fresh perspective. But you have tolisten and that's where I really wanted to come in here and listen first askquestions versus having a preconceived point of view heading into it. If you dothat, then you need the team to be a hundred percent bought in on this. This isthe brand. I mean they need to be bought in and not only did they buy in, theywere the authors of it, which I think is even more important.

Cole Heilborn (40:12):

Yeah, that's powerful. Mike, as we wrap things up, if youhad to kind of summarize everything we've talked about today and for folks whoare maybe in the middle of a rebrand themselves or anticipating a rebrand onthe horizon, what sort of practical kind of next steps or advice would you giveto folks? Sounds like asking questions, being curious. Listening is a big one.What else would you want to leave folks with before we sign off?

Mike Donnelly (40:36):

I think it's like ask the questions for sure. I alsothink, who are you serving at the end of the day? And it's like if you don'tknow who you're serving, it's sounds simple and it sounds easy, but reallydecide and define who you're serving. At the end of the day, if you're notsharp on your target and you're not sharp on your consumer, it's really,really, really hard to make decisions along the way. We spend a lot of time onthat one and we continue to do that. It's not like we define a consumer, butthat consumer evolves really, really quickly. So we continue to really makesure that we're listened to the consumer, what are the things that they want todefine that. So I think consumer, consumer, consumer is really the sharp pointof a lot of our decision making down the process.

Cole Heilborn (41:26):

Awesome. Well Mike, I appreciate you taking the time tosit down and share with us. Give us a peek behind the hood. Sounds like weshould all stay for the next year or so. We should check in here and now withthe brand and see how things are evolving. But I'm excited for you guys. Itsounds like you've got a great foundation and things are just getting started.

Mike Donnelly (41:45):

I appreciate your time and yeah, excited to talk to youtoday. Thank you. Have a good day. Alright, chat soon.

Cole Heilborn (41:52):

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

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