In this week’s episode, Eric speaks with Eddie Revis, CMO of Magnolia Bakery in NYC. Eddie is “on a mission to show the world that marketing doesn’t have to suck” and he is certainly doing that at Magnolia! He and the team have been launching some amazing campaigns that have been getting mainstream attention and going viral in the US. How does he do it? It’s all about plugging the brand into culture and never stopping at just a good idea, but always pushing towards a great idea.
Connect with Eddie on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardrevis/
And check out some of the recent campaigns from Magnolia
- https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/amp/food/story/viral-muffins-youtube-star-reprises-role-unveil-latest-86881947
- https://wwd.com/beauty-industry-news/beauty-features/tula-skincare-magnolia-bakery-1235307230/
- https://patch.com/new-york/parkslope/banana-pudding-beer-here
Smart link: https://link.chtbl.com/scratch
Transcript
Eddie: First thing that that we've had to really adjust in our mind here is why this idea of why be good and we can be great. And what I mean by that is always thinking about the next step or the next 10 steps of what you think you're supposed to do, and then take the 10 steps forward and just do that one instead.
Eric: I'm Eric Fulwiler. And this is scratch, bringing you marketing lessons from the leading brands and brains rewriting the rulebook from scratch for the world of today.
Hey, everyone, my guest today Eddie Revis, CMO of Magnolia Bakery, if you don't live in New York, East Coast of the US, you might not have heard of Magnolia Bakery. But as a marketer, this is a brand and this is a CMO that you absolutely need to know. So the business has been around for a while, but Edie has come on board relatively recently. And he and the team has just done some amazing things they are cranking out viral hit after viral hit, they are taking this brand and baking sorry about the pawn it back into current culture. People are talking about it. They got on the Good Morning America show recently from one of the campaigns that they did, bringing back an old YouTube star. They're doing so many fascinating things. And I loved hearing about Eddie's approach philosophy, how he's built the team and the culture, especially within the Magnolia marketing organisation to be able to do this. So it's a great one. I love I love how he talks about how he's on a mission to show the world and marketing doesn't have to suck. Eddie, we are all supporting you. Fantastic episode. Please enjoy. Eddie Rivas of Magnolia Bakery. Hey, Eddie, how you doing today?
Eddie: Good. Eric, how are you?
Eric: I am great. Apart from being stuck in this we work phone booths, because I didn't book a room ahead of time. And I didn't bring my mic. Apart from that. I'm doing great. Although I have to say I'm pretty hungry, prepping for this episode. And looking at all the stuff you're doing. And just thinking about how long it's been since I've been to Magnolia Bakery. So I have to ask, I mean, one of the best perks of the job must be all the food you get to eat? Or do you get to a point where you're kind of sick of it?
Eddie: You know, I used to work in a different food category of yoghurt. And there was definitely a plateau in that category of too many tastings and too many innovations. And like it all became the same thing. When I moved over to desserts, I can say after 18 months here, I have not gotten sick of it yet. It just really messes with your brain. Like we're trying Thanksgiving pies in July. We're trying to holiday items and in May. So it really just messes with you because we're constantly living in different times of the year with our food and our planning but no have not gotten sick of it yet. I think my friends have gotten sick of it because all they do is bring Magnolia Bakery to birthday parties and events now, but I haven't found the plateau yet. So I'm still in it.
Eric: What's your what's your order? What's your favourite thing? Because I'm definitely going to check it out when I'm in New York in a couple of weeks.
Eddie: Oh, man. In my everyday order, you can get off the menu is a chocolate pudding parfait that we do. It's not always there. But if you can snag it out of the icebox, definitely go for that. If you have the appetite to preorder preorder any cake with the chocolate, peanut butter, butter cream. Okay, it's it's another level. So we have a tradition Magnolia Bakery that on your birthday. You get whatever you want from bakery, you get a cake and you do whatever you want. And one year someone in the office got last year someone got a this peanut butter butter cream on their cake and everyone lost their mind. Because, you know, we have so many recipes and we have so many innovations and so many products we have like over 300 that you can that you can possibly make. We forget about our own stuff all the time. And we're like, Oh, we didn't even know that we still have this peanut butter butter cream sitting in the drawer somewhere like this recipe somewhere. So that's my ultimate favourite. But if you're just in the bakery, chocolate pudding parfait is one of ours is next level.
Eric: All right, I'm all over that. And a couple of weeks ago, I'm in New York. And I guess it's you know, I always say you should eat your own dog food as a business, right, like experience your own product. It's easier for some than others. Isn't that more enjoyable for some?
Eddie: Yeah,definitely. Definitely. All right. Well, thanks for making the time. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. You've been doing some really exciting stuff with the team over at Magnolia. But first let's start with tell us about a brand that you're obsessed with right now and why. Yeah, so this this is going to be maybe an unconventional answer because I They're not a, what I'm thinking of is not necessarily like branded a conventional sense, but because of the US Open happening right now and all the attention around it. Serena Williams branding as the goat and just the consistency of that message and market right now coming from different creators, different stakeholders, different companies, different campaigns. There's not one campaign that I'm like obsessed with, like Nike or a different partner, but Serena Williams as an idea and what she's about and what she stands for, is, is truly noteworthy and obsessive worthy, I would say. It's just been it's been everywhere, like I can't get on Tik Tok, without seeing a video from ESPN or the US Open. And I can't get on Twitter without seeing a post from a creator or an influencer or celebrity or a brand. And I think she's just doing a great job on her personal branding, and who she is, I'm gonna give it to I'm gonna give it to the goat right now. Because she's, she's been consistent, she's been progressive, she's been, she has a great point of view on the world and what she was stands for and what she's going to be about. And I think that that always makes a great brand, but um, I just can't get away from her right now. So I'm gonna give it to her.
Eric: Yeah, I really liked that answer. And it definitely is a brand new, you know, personal brands are as much a brand as product brands are. And the other thing is, you know, we say the best brand is a great product. And that certainly, you know, qualifies when it comes to Serena. But also, you know, it seems like she and her team have done a great job at executing this quote unquote, campaign of her kind of like last hurrah for US Open announcing, or it's not retirement, right. It's like, right. decoupling from the game or whatever. Yeah, exactly. So the execution has been pretty good as well.
Eddie: So she's magnetic, like, any brand is a brand that people want to be around. And like, there's very few brands like that in the world. And she's just, there's a magnetism about her that I think is so again, noteworthy, and just obsessive worthy. So I've been obsessed with her lately, and I don't even like tennis. And that's the craziest thing is I don't even like tennis. I can't stop reading the news and following her stories and watching her clips like, and I don't even like the sport.
Eric: All right, well, let's dive into the interview. So why don't we start with if you can just kind of give like a quick one to two minute overview of your background and marketing, how you ended up at Magnolia, maybe kind of a quick, I know, You've been there for 18 months, you'd have to go through everything that you've done, but just kind of like what those first 18 months has been like.
Eddie: Yeah, definitely. So I'm a I'm a unique CMO, I would say I don't have your traditional MBA background and upbringing. I cut my teeth at first on the agency side for many years, both in Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and internationally. And then on the agency side, I just realised I didn't want to be executing on other people's decisions, I want to dig into decisions and be as close as close to that decision making as possible. So I had an opportunity to jump over to the brand side at Chobani. And follow a couple mentors over there. It was there for about five years left leading the entire marketing organisation as the VP of brand and media, and then had an opportunity to step into a transformational role. Magnolia Vickery, a brand that's been around for 26 years. People love it, people know it, but wants to scale and wants to grow into new channels and growth and expansion, and what better opportunity for growth minded sort of GM minded cmo than that. And so for the last 18 months here, I've been really focused on a few key things. One is sort of upscaling and building out a marketing team and making sure that our resources and our time and our attention for the brand are put into the right places. I lead our DTC business. And so figure out how to scale shipping banana pudding nationwide shipping cakes, nationwide cupcakes nationwide product innovation, channel innovation channel growth. And then I'm also leading, not so top secret project, but can't really talk about it yet of where you'll be able to find Magnolia Bakery. Next. If you take a look at my background, it should be pretty easy to figure out where we're about to start
Eric: It's not London, is it?
Eddie: Not London? No. It's much more convenient and easy.
Eric: Put London on the roadmap for me if he can. Amazing so I actually jotted down three or four things within even just that quick overview that I'd love to dig into. Why don't we before getting into everything that we're doing in Magnolia. So first of all, in your background, you've mentioned that once in the interviewing once before we pressed record mentors. And so I just be curious to kind of get your perspective on, you know, clearly they've had a big impact on you in your career. For the marketers listening. How do you think about or how do you advise people to find and get value from mentors that maybe they don't feel You like they have found the right one for them yet?
Eddie: Yeah, definitely, I have found most of my mentors and also unexpected places. And I would say the first, the first thing to be thinking about as you're thinking about, Oh, I really need a mentor or I'm being told consistently that having a mentor is a great idea. And I think for me in the business, or my marketing career, or just my career trajectory in general, typically, I say that your mentors probably right in front of you. And they're probably actually not doing what you figured they're doing. And so what I mean by that is I've had two incredible mentors in my career. And I, there have been moments, the highs of highs and the lows, lows of them, I've gotten along with them, great, I have not gotten along with them great. We've had different points of views on the world. But part of my objective of a mentorship is I want to grow, and I want to be pushed to grow. So it's, I can't just be around marketers who think like me, because you're all you're going to do is inflate yourself and actually not see different points of views on the world or how work is made or where we can go with it. So one of my mentors is actually an ex, she's not a CEO, but she's an ex account person from the agency side and strategy and account were never supposed to get along. And I found a great business acumen and her I found great mentorship and great personal growth from her and how to behave as a human being and how to behave as a leader. And I credit her a lot for my success as a team leader and a team builder. And on paper, it's like it has the agency, they'd be like, Oh, go get mentored by the CFO or go get mentored by this VP of strategy. And I was like, No, I like the managing director more I want to talk to. And so I've known her she she was the first woman to hire me in New York when I moved from Chicago. And we've been tight ever since. And then my other mentor is actually a designer, and has a design minded sensibility, and is one of those people that can talk talk about the craft of design and the world of art. For hours, I could fall asleep in a museum in two minutes, you don't think it should be the relationship that works. But by by having that person as a mentor, and asking them those tough questions and asking them for feedback, I myself was able to see the world through different point of view, especially as my growth as a marketer working with creatives, whether in house or with agencies, and understanding what they think about and how they think and what they need to do their best work, so that I could create that space. So I usually tell people, I'm like, look like you're gonna get pushed to be a mentor, you're gonna get pushed to be a mentee. If you don't feel like an authentic magnetic attraction to that person, whether it's because they're different, or because they're doing something that you're interested in. Don't force it, don't try to just get the mentor who's gonna help you get to your next step in your career. Both of my mentors that I've had, I've now known for over eight years each, consistently, and I, we talked all the time. So I think there's, there's something to be said, with your expectations going into mentorship that you really have to think about and understand what you want to get out of it. That's going to give you that navigation to who's the best mentor out there. Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And I agree in large part, by the way, actually, I've thought about it a little. Now I'm going to add a bit of how you think about it to how I think about it. But the way I hope how I've thought about it in the past is I think people's perspective on mentorship is way too narrow. But I've always thought about it more from everybody's looking for the capital I mentor, I call it that like one person that's like you in 20 years that you can learn everything from. And I've always said much like you like the mentors is around you, you just don't know it, there's so much you can learn from literally probably almost anyone that you come in, everybody has something to teach you. And so I've thought about it like that. But I actually really like that kind of what you're saying of like, hey, there are different dimensions of what people have done. That actually could be even more helpful as a mentor than someone that's exactly like you. Because if they're a major in this thing, and you're a minor in it, they could help make you a major in it. Like the design side, like the commercial side, which is certainly a red thread. You know, it's great having this podcast and do these interviews because you start to see consistencies with successful CMOS. And one of those consistencies is I see a lot of people that, you know, maybe they come from a creative background or a strategy, black background, but a lot of them have gotten some kind of commercial MDG admin experience or mentorship at some point. That's great. That's a nice, nice little tangent to get things started. I just be curious quickly. You know, when I think about Chobani, obviously a very successful challenger brand in the yoghurt space. And actually think about this until now. They were a client when I was at Milan low back in the day in Boston as well. And on the PR side, though, because that's back when I was doing quote unquote, social media, and they didn't. So it was in the PR department. Wow, that's funny. I didn't even think about that until now. You know, reading a little bit about what you did Giovanni I'm very interested in how you built the internal agency. So maybe you could talk about that for a second. But if you think there's something that was more important to, you know, how you how you did that role and how you built that brand, I'd be open to that as well.
Eddie: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So building that team is going to be a highlight of my career. until I'm done with advertising and marketing and the side of the house. The first thing that I'll say that we did differently as a team building that team, there was a team effort to build that team out because we had creators coming on board, we had marketing strategists, we had internal transfers that were happening. I would say that one of the things as a leadership team that we decided there early on is we wanted to make sure that we basically built what we call like The Avengers, or the roundtable of a marketing team. Because when you're building an internal team, a creative team, there's two paths that you can go down, you can either go down, it's going to be a strategic partner in the business who are going to wield power, and we'll decision making and sit at the highest level of the of the table you can be at, or they're going to turn into an internal studio. And prior to a lot of us joining the Chobani team, that's what the company had turned the internal team into as a studio. And I think, Leland who really started who led that effort on building out the first round of us on the leadership team to come and help them build out this vision. It was, it was a it was an almost a mandatory to say we are going to hire different, we're going to hire people that scare us, we're going to hire people that think differently, we're going to hire people that are going to scare the people in the organisation. And we're going to hire people that have strong points of view. And we're going to hire those people. And we're going to give them and support them and put them at the best seat at the table that we can do. And it was a really incredible transformation. That was we went through it because we were really not thinking about the work other than it was the work that we knew we had to do and to create something amazing. And then all of a sudden, we started getting requests from retailers and from partners and from our agency partners and press that we're just like what's going on at Chobani because something is different something is something is happening. It's seen in the packaging, it's seen in the design, it's seen in the product innovation. And eventually we realised it was because we had taken this internal agency and broken up every silo that you possibly could imagine. We had creatives going to sales presentations, and top to top meetings, we had marketers sitting in customer meetings, presenting marketing plans with sales teams right next to them and being excited about it. We had internal meetings that had created on stage presenting followed by finance followed by marketing and we just we just had this group I would say that was unstoppable with with the type of people we were hiring. And it allowed us also to create a really magnetic environment that the best people wanted to come work at. And so I'd say the the first thing you have to do when you're thinking about building out a great internal team or you have this ambition to become an Aegis internal agency of the year is take a look at his your company now and then find as many people as you can that are going to complement them that look totally different. And I'll never forget I'd my favourite meetings were where we had this, you know, this designer had a master's and a BFA and, and new Matisse and knew all these, you know, the nuances of Craft and Design, talking to a sales team leader who has 20 years in the business of CPG sales, and there was a common thread, and there was unity, and there was you know, empathy and passion between the both of them for the work that we were doing. So I think that's like one of the most important principles of building out these internal teams is you have to, you know, we I could have said, like, I want marketing strategists that have MBA backgrounds, and I want to hire from the best schools. And that's a fine approach and you'll be successful. When I looked at my marketing strategy to make my marketing director came up through social I had an amazing team of marketing strategist that came from a consulting background and came from data houses and, and big brands and small brands. And we just built this this like strange group of people that you looked at us, and you're like, there's no way that you're all friends. And we all get along, and you all love the work you do. But we'd love to work super ourselves. And we were acknowledged for it and rewarded for it. And, and I think that's that was really a secret sauce of the team was the people we hired were not who you thought we should. And that was a bold decision, but it paid off in the long run.
Eric: So there must have been. And yeah, I'm a big believer. And I think that gets talked about a lot more now, though, should get talking and doing are two different things. I think there's a lot of businesses that talk about how diversity of thought leads to better and more creative, innovative outcomes, and there's fewer businesses that actually do it. But there has to also be kind of like a connective tissue or something at the core that brings all these diverse backgrounds and perspectives and personalities together in order for it to make in order to actually make it work. So how much do you intentionally think about that? and define that, because I guess what I'm getting at is a big, big job of the leader, whether you're, you know, the VP of marketing or the CMO or CEO, whatever it is, is clarity and alignment on what matters most vision, purpose, mission, all that stuff. So how did you define that at Chobani? And then maybe we can use that as a transition. Because I know a big part of what you've done over the last two months at Magnolia is building out the team. How have you defined that for Magnolia? Because it definitely seems in the output of the work, which of course, comes from the input of the people, that there is a consistency of vision, even if it comes from a diversity of talent and perspective.
Eddie: Yeah, so. So at Chobani, it came, it came through in three ways, I'll say, the most, the most practical and the easiest was the bonus system change to where everybody was bonused on the same thing. And so regardless, if you are a designer, regardless of your salesperson, regardless, if you are in finance, or you in legal, everybody got bonus on the same thing, so that immediately, and that's a big decision to make as a business and I credit, the, you know, the top guns at Chobani. At the time for making that decision. It created a level playing field in the room, when it came down to the work when it came down to the decision making when it came down to the why we are doing this and why we're going to do it. It was it was very clear to everybody that we all had the same objective and see an outcome, which was really exciting and then made for us to be able to move faster and think faster. So sort of like the easiest one.
Eric: Can you share what it was? Be really curious if you can?
Eddie: I'm not going to because I don't know if I can
Eric: Enough. Fair enough. But even that, so the sales people and like the marketing designer, were bonused on the same thing. Wow. Okay.
Eddie: For the most part, for like the core of the bonus, I'm sure there were there were other incentives on on sales side, like for the core, the bonus pool, like it was the same thing. The second piece is we had such a clearly defined culture of our values and who we were as a company. And it started the moment that you were interviewing for a job there too, when you decided to leave. Everybody wanted the same thing in the world at the company, we all wanted to see the same thing happened. We all wanted to be a company that use food for force for good. So that when decisions came in that hey are you know, my policy team came to us and said, there's a school district in Rhode Island that's about to send a bill out to students for school lunch debt. And we can't believe that they're going to like penalise and punish kids, because they can't pay a school lunch debt. And we're a company that stands up for that. That doesn't seem right, what can we do about it? I can look at the policy board and say like, we're the same person, we want the same thing. And what do you need? How can I help? What can we do as a team to help make this thing happen? And so I think, because we all have the same set of values, well, you know, everyone dials up different ones. And everyone values the value a little bit differently depending on what you're doing and what you want out of your career. But I would say that we had a very clearly defined set of values. And it was defined for us to Giovanni's better food for more people. And that spoke to a democracy of food and spoke to the accessibility of food that there was never like, you know, I think I've seen sometimes it's on my organisation that my friends work in the marketing or the brand team will do something and everyone's kind of like, it's just the marketing team going off and doing something doesn't make last sense, like, let them go do it and have fun, like, it's not going to impact my work, versus at Chobani. What I saw was, we would take these actions as a brand, our communities, and they'd end up in top to top sales presentations. So the customers, because it's how we differentiated and it's how we were different than our competition and why we want that customer to take us and give us that distribution over somebody else. And so that that cycle of benefit to everybody in the company, regardless of your roll off the values was really important for us. And then I think the third thing is the company just constantly listened and evolved to the talent population and to the employee population. And we were really forced out of our comfort zones in a lot of ways I'll never forget. I was leaving our kids business at Jelani and Lisa, who was my creative partner on the business. We were told to go to Idaho and present the Kids campaign to all the plant workers in Idaho. And we had to do over four shift meetings. And it was like, you know, 4pm, shift meeting 11pm, shift me wake up at 5am to 5pm, shift change, really, and then the next day, and we did it because everyone working on the Kids campaign in New York and Soho was not apparent. We were We were hoping that the work was right. And then we're like, Wait, we have an entire population of parents in the plant, who have who loved this company as much as we do and love this business as much as we do. Put the work in front of them get their feedback doesn't make sense, are they excited about it? And that was really, to me that really tells them the culture and the idea of how we can all work together was you know, ECD at a brand stepping in front of 400 plant workers on a shift change meeting and saying I'm going to show you my work and I want your feedback. I would, I would argue that that probably doesn't happen a lot of places. And it's not pushed and encouraged in a lot of places. And so that's that's a lesson I've taken with me even now is is to be very open to feedback as a marketer, and that marketing and brand don't own the brand, which is like very antithesis to brand management, which is why it's not my style to go in that traditional route. But if you work at a company and you work at a strong brand, everybody is a brand manager, everybody loves the brand. And everyone should feel empowered to give feedback and to provide thought and provide input and provide ideas and all marketing and brand does is they facilitate it out into the world. And I think that that's, that's a powerful differentiator and brands that people love. And brands are just a sort of creating a thing, like a product that people love on the world.
Eric: Really like that. Actually just jotted that down. Because I'm I used that as the as the teaser for the episode. But the other thing that I remembered, as you were talking is I actually, I actually listened to you and really enjoyed the Chobani founder did an episode of masters of scale Reed Hastings podcast, if you listen to that a while back, so I'll find that and I'll put it in the show notes for people. But yeah, it's one of those brands that an often founder led brand, I don't know if he's still involved, but you know, founder brands were the founders have an outsized impact on the culture of the business often have that it's a bit of an advantage in a way, right. Whereas if you have to kind of create it amongst a bunch of people without someone being there, and literally embodying it and telling the story repeatedly, it's a little bit harder. But so let's use that. And let's jump into magnolia. So how have you thought about kind of that clarity and alignment for the marketing team that you're building out? And the work that you're doing there?
Eddie: Yeah, we're, we're building here. And it's probably one of the biggest challenges that I reflect on and face is, you know, we we have a company and a brand that employees love working at and people consumers love, they love, love, love. And that's a challenge, right? It's a double edged sword, because you're going to try new things you're gonna grow, you're gonna move into new channels, and you're gonna have more tension on those decisions than just again, a brand that exists that kind of just floats by. And so from a marketing perspective, what's that met, what that has meant is, I have been looking for confident leaders on the team. And I've been looking for, for a lot of those different perspectives and diversity of thought, to where if I look at my marketing team, now I'm actually looking at some of them now. I look around and I go, I have a marketing team a little mentally a big grey. That's why I say a little Magnolia Bakery. I now have a marketing team that is led by a creative who came from PepsiCo, I have someone here from kind snacks, we just hired someone from. She previously worked at Milk Bar many years ago, but a competitor, we just hired a person from Anheuser Busch, we have people from the agency side that have made the jump over the brand side. And so I think what what we're trying to build here is we're trying to build a company that is going to have people working at it that believe we're bigger than we are, I can do more than what we can do. And that's going to hopefully be our special sauce as we continue to scale is I just don't want the person that's worked at the local vape shop, I just don't want the person that has scaled the local New York brand. Because we want to be more than that. And we're going to be more than that. And so bringing this diversity of thought and through a very confident team that looks and acts bigger than we are is going to be something that I think a lot of brands and and the industry is going to be surprised on over the next 12 months and what we decide to do. But I want to have an out of the way because I want people to walk in and say like, yeah, we're little Magnolia Bakery. And we're about to take over the world and put ourselves back into culture and personal is back on the map. And that's a very difficult talent to find. But they exist usually at big companies. And they're people that want to do more of those big companies. And they can't because of the scale. So you bring them into a smaller one, and then boom, off they go. So it's been it's been a pretty wild ride on the talent pipeline and development here.
Eric: I love that. And I get it like I can see the authenticity in how you talk about it. I can kind of feel the energy and the excitement and yeah, like maybe I'll apply for -
Eddie: funding, of course, we got to do so come on over
Eric: The other like it appeals to the right person, I'm sure you know. The other thing and I'm smiling a little bit because actually so we do. We do our own research and kind of what drives the growth of Challenger brands. And it's like roughly each month we kind of do some primary research and secondary research and put out a report. And one of the ones that we did a few months ago was on what we called puffer fish challenger brands, which is exactly what you say how challenger brands are able to puff themselves up to make themselves seem bigger than they are and why Out of that is culture and creativity, a lot of it. And what we were looking at was specifically kind of media channels and how out of home makes you appear picker than if you just show up in a Facebook feed and things like that. So yeah, that's great. I'll send it over to you if you're interested in, please. I'm super excited about that.
Eddie: So I think we definitely probably played by that playbook a little bit. And the decision to make
Eric: Yeah, it's really cool. It's probably my favourite bit of research that we've done so far. And also just the image of like a puffer fish. Like a really good mascot for somebody.
Eddie: That's cool.
Eric: Cool. So take it take me 30 minutes to get to the big question that I actually wanted to ask you. And what I thought would be the meat of the conversation. But let's see how much we can cover on this. And I think we've already talked about a lot that ladders up to it. So I pulled the quote from something you posted a while back. And you said when I joined Magnolia Bakery, I told the people involved buckle up, because we were putting this brand back into culture. Now I will include some links in the show notes. And actually, if you're listening, just pause this for a second and Google Magnolia Bakery. And look at some of the recent campaigns and activations that Eddie and the team have done. But I'll include them in the show notes as well. It's It's really exciting. And I think if you've listened to the first 30 minutes of this interview, they make a lot more sense. Like there's context and you understand how the sausage was made in a way. But I just be curious for you to unpack that a little bit. And I think there's so many different directions. You know, you talked about building a brand that people love, of course, part of that is culture, you talked about Magnolia Bakery and having some nostalgic value that maybe could be revived. You talked about how you get the team energised, to bring exciting ideas to the table. So whatever direction you want to take that in. I guess my question is, how do you put an old brand back into culture?
Eddie: Oh, man, I mean way more than 30 minutes for this? Yeah, I'll do my best to to unpack this. It's, it is one of the more challenging aspects I would say this job right now is it's the way to unpack it is to show up and watch us work every day. And see how we move and see how we think I'll be the first to say there's no, there's no deck that outlines this. There's no book being written about this. There's no lesson like I'm a teacher, I can put a lesson together. I can't even put a lesson together for this. Because it's I think it's so complex and nuanced. And with the people you have around you and the company, you're adding the energy that you have, but to put a brand back into culture, the first thing that that we've had to really adjust in our mind here is why this idea of why be good when we can be great. And what I mean by that is always thinking about the next step or the next 10 steps of what you think you're supposed to do. And then take the 10 steps forward and just do that one instead. And that comes down to how we plan our advertising campaigns. It's how we pick our partnerships. It's how we think about our channels, is we have this constant challenge or brand mentality in ourselves. Why be good, and we can be great. Why? And I'll give you a great example. We did a partnership, a local partnership in New York with Jake was pickles. If anyone listening has ever been to Jacob's pickles. It's like Max indulgence. It's the best brunch spot in New York City. It's an hour and a half wait on the weekends. And the team was ideating. And they were like, oh, wouldn't be funny for the April Fool's post on Instagram this year to do fried chicken stuffed with, or banana pudding pancakes stuffed with banana pudding and fried chicken. And everyone's laughing and we're having a good time. And then it took a push. And I took a push with him. And I said because what if we actually did, like Why stop it at a at a Instagram post for April Fool's. And let's scrap that because every brand is going to do it and we're not gonna get anything out of it. It's a waste of our time. I was like, take this amazing idea. Take this Genesis, I'm like, what if we actually did it, and the teeny bag like yet it will take us pickles at the end, they want to do it. And they want to do it for the whole summer. And we're gonna go to a tasting next week. And we're gonna try it. And we're gonna have this amazing menu placement all summer on their menu. So if you ever went to Davis pickles, we had a whole third of the menu with our logo and the dish on it. We sold over 1000 dishes in the first five days, partnership influences we're obsessed with the local community, our local forest community was obsessed with it. And I use that as like an example. Like, we've got put back in the New York City culture, right people, we reminded people that we are this desert authority where this indulgence authority in the city and we're just a few blocks away from Jacob's pickles on the Upper West Side, by the way. But it has to start with idea of like, why why take a good idea, why not make it great, and one that actually turn this crazy idea that we have for an April Fool's joke into something real and something impactful for the business. And so that's that's a key piece that I think about a lot with the team and we talk a lot about is how can we make this great? How can we really make this something that's going to be income accountable, whether it's for business outcome, whether it's for how we measure it, whether it's for what we're trying to get out of it in terms of an objective, and then just push the idea and go as far as we can. It's also the same thinking that drove the let's bring the comedian Liam Kelly back, who if you guys saw, we were in a product innovation meeting. off site we were talking about, we're going to launch breakfast Lowe's as a shipping channel on our site. And we were, it was like, a break during the meeting. And we're like, how we're going to launch this, like, I'm gonna make this interesting. And my marketing manager Adam, all credit data for this was like, wait a minute, guys do this on the muffins man, from the from that video from the early 2000s. Everyone's kind of like, ya know, depending how old you are, we kind of like not kind of remember it. And he's like, what if we just did loaves, and so the muffins, and it was like, yeah, like, that sounds like a crazy idea. Once you write it out, let's see it. Let's see, we start talking about and by the time you met with me, the next week, he had already got in touch with them, he had already figured out the rate and the sad stuff and the production. And he's like, I need to go to LA and in a month, and we're going to shoot this video, and we're gonna do a shot for shot like the original. And we're going to promote loaves. And I think one of the things is a leader in marketing, if you want to be put into the culture, and you want to be part of that conversation. And just part of the narrative of what's happening and creating it, is you have to trust your team. And you got to give them the space and the the trust to say you, you probably know, and you feel good about it. And intuition says yes, so go with it. And let's see what happens. And I'll be the first to admit, I was like, I don't really get this, but I'm gonna I trust my team, I trust to Adam. And it became one of the best impressions of our year in terms of stories and storytelling, the amount of credit we got from the culture and from just bringing something so the soldier back was incredible. And breakfast lows are now one of our top four selling categories on our website. And all the credit and attribution goes to launching it in the most creative and interesting way. And so I think that's, that's a big, you have to get out of your own way. Sometimes when you're thinking about culture, and especially as a marketing leader admitting to yourself, like you don't know it all, and you're never gonna know it all. But you have a team and a really especially good team, you have a really good team of creative thinkers and strategists and marketers who are going to bring you crazy ideas. Your job is to say, this is a good idea, and I'm gonna make it great. I don't kind of get it. But to make this a great idea. So I think those are just like two very, very small examples of stuff we've watched on last like six months where we wrote culture, we wrote the best brunch in New York City, we wrote this nostalgic comeback of a beloved character that people have forgotten about. And it was wild. I mean, I was like sitting with like my team, like refreshing tic TOCs, we posted like a behind the scenes video. And I was like 1,000,001 minute, 2 million, the next 3 million next minute. And I'm like brands would kill for this. They're their agency meetings that go on for weeks talking about the tic tac video, and we just were like, Let's just post this behind the scenes that we found, like put it out there as people seem to like it a lot. And so I think those are really big lessons. For me, as a leader, as I've been through this to say, if you want to write culture, and you want to be part of it, you've got to question yourself about how you can be great and not just good. And you've got to trust your team that you've built, and their ideas that they have, because they are just going to be bonkers. And like the stranger the idea. And the more specific the idea, the better it's probably going to be when he put it out into the world.
Eric: I really liked that. I really, really liked that that whole thing. And I think I know that we're running out of time. So I guess I mean, there's so many more questions, I want to ask you about that. But I guess the one question if I have to choose one is, I think everything comes from principles and process, right. And so I think the principle of why stop at good when you can be great, trust your team, give them autonomy, and that delivers more creativity. And also speed, which I know we were talking about before we press record, but didn't really get into here is like the ability to move quickly, to figure out whether you want to do something to come up with a new idea. You even said in that example, like he turned around that whole thing in a week. That really matters. And that's a huge part of what I think drives the growth of Challenger brands. But if you had to pick just one, because there must be some process to this too. You know, whether it's like how you how you allocate budgets, or if there's like a rolling brief internally or a weekly meeting where you you know, do a brainstorm like what do you think is the most important process element in bringing a brand back into culture or what you've done at Magnolia so far?
Eddie: There's not like, there's there's almost secret sauce. I'm not going to give it away yet. But there is a little something that we could talk about. But I will say it's not a weekly meeting. It's not a Slack channel. It's not a job title for anybody. I would say that I think what the the secret sauce is is that we have a culture if you here where it's about over communication. And it's about full context for everything. And what I mean by that is when, when your team has all the information in front of them from finance, from the business, from product from production, from fulfilment from supply chain, when they have all that context, and when they are when they've done the work of spending a shift packing and spending a shift working in a bakery, when you empower people with that context, the process becomes so innate to them to say, Oh, here's an idea to solve this problem, or, like, here's a really interesting thing that we could do. And I know it's gonna work because of XYZ, I saw that happen. That is a part of the process, I would say that is a differentiator for us. You can ask my creative director, you could ask one of our associate designers, you could ask our marketing analytics, what's going on in the business right now. And they'll be like kindergarten business here. 10 ideas that I think we could start to do around it. They might be super commercial and tactical, they might be big picture and wild and out there. But I think part of what fuels our processes this over communication in this context that we encourage people to have in the company. So that when they do have that idea that like crazy spark on a city bike, or that weird, you know, wake up on the weekend, you're like, it's such a, I can't say how many videos came from like, oh, I had this idea over the weekend. But they had the idea, because they're thinking about the business. And they're thinking about the company and where we want to go with it and the brand. And so I think that's a that's a pretty important part of our process, is we spend a lot of time educating and ensuring that our teams have context, at least, the marketing team hasn't had a lot of context.
Eric: Great. All right, I think we're gonna have to leave it there. I know that we're up on time. And last quick question is, what is one thing that people should do differently after listening to this episode?
Eddie: The one thing people should do differently? Some crazy, it's gonna sound strange. But I think the one thing that people need to do differently is the next time you're working on a campaign or a launch. Take the plan that you think should do and then pretend like none of that stuff exists. And how would you do it? So because of Magnolia Bakery, we're scaling. We don't have $20 million TV budgets, we don't have $10 million to throw out of home. Those plans come up. We say love the idea. Pretend out of home doesn't exist as a channel, pretend TV doesn't exist as a channel, pretend Instagram doesn't exist as a channel? How would you launch this? How would you talk about it? That's my favourite question to bring up in planning and creative session. So I would encourage people to do that a little bit differently next time. They're looking at a plan of not just over interrogate the impression and the media plan and the strategy, but say, hey, great strategy. What if none of this existed? What would we do? And I guarantee you that you'll come up with something cool, and something interesting, and something that achieves the same objective.
Eric: I'm smiling because you know why this podcast is called Scratch?
Eddie: No, I don't actually.
Eric: Because I believe the same thing. I think that like true innovation to creativity comes from thinking about things from scratch for the world of today as if you knew nothing about how they've been done in the past. Yeah. So I think that is a very, very good place. I didn't even know that so much that I go. Thank you so much again, where can people connect with you or find out more about what you're doing at Magnolia?
Eddie: It's my favourite thing to answer. LinkedIn is my favourite social network. It is like my number one. So just find me on LinkedIn, because it's, I think it's a great place to be right now.
Eric: Great, well, we'll link to in the show notes for sure. already. I will let you go. I'm looking forward to to coming back to Magnolia.
Eddie: Awesome. Yeah, we're looking forward to having you back.
Eric: Scratch is a production of rival. We are a marketing innovation consultancy that helps businesses develop strategies and capabilities to grow faster. If you want to learn more about us check out wearerival.com If you want to connect with me, email me at eric@wearerival.com or find me on LinkedIn. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, share with anyone you think might enjoy it. And please do leave us a review. Thanks for listening and see you next week.
