Full Transcript – Jess Weiner – Wild Business Growth Podcast #304

This is the full transcript for Episode #304 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring Jess Weiner – Cultural Expert for Brands, Talk to Jess Founder. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:00
We will screw up.

00:17
do not have a football limerick to read to you this week. Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning wild ideas into wild growth. I’m your host Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast producer at MaxPodcasting. And you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode 304. And today’s oh guest is some

00:47
it sounds like Irish when you say it that way, is Jess Weiner. Jess is the founder and CEO of Talk to Jess, and she is a cultural expert. She has advised and guided some of the biggest brands in the world and with some of the biggest campaigns you’ve ever heard of, including the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. She’s worked a lot with Barbie, many, many, many iconic, iconic brands.

01:16
And in this episode, we talk how she carved her own path, how to manage client relationships and work with big, big, big clients, how to approach topics that are sensitive from a cultural standpoint, and a bit of Broadway. Who’s that girl? It’s Jess. Enjoy the show.

01:43
Alrighty, we are here with Jess Weiner, one of my favorite Weiner, I’m just kidding. We were just talking about how many Weiner jokes you get and I lasted one second before we got there. You didn’t even hold out. We’ll get it out of our system first. Jess W., no, no, from Talk to Jess, it’s amazing expert on all things culture and a strategist and worked on some of the coolest campaigns and some of the coolest brands ever. So Jess, so excited to speak to you regardless of any last name.

02:13
Thanks so much for joining. How are you doing today? Thanks. I’m really good. I’m happy to be here with you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, same here. And we’re going to talk through a bunch of things in your career. But I think, of course, when people find out about you and read about your bio and some of the things you’ve done, one of the most iconic, I mean, I’ll just say iconic campaigns ever is, of course, the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. And

02:40
I still remember, I think it was my first corporate job out of college where we had a marketing lunch and learn type thing and they played the full extended video from that initial campaign. I think there were people in tears in the room. It was like, wow, this is really impactful. And still years, decades later, that is so iconic. Anyway, what’s something about the formation of that campaign that a lot of people would actually be surprised to hear?

03:07
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think you’re right. That campaign is and was really groundbreaking for the time in which we started a cultural conversation around beauty from a beauty brand taking on kind of things within the beauty industry. So it was pretty revolutionary. I would say there’s two things and just to share with your listeners too, you know, my connection to that campaign is probably fairly unique because I’m not an agency person. I didn’t come from an agency. I don’t come from a marketing.

03:36
background. What Dove did was reach out to me. I was an educator, a playwright at the time. I was writing social issue plays for kids around topics like body image and media literacy and was working my way almost school to school in these conversations. Dove reached out for me to be a part of building that campaign because it was the first time they were going to be in conversation with young people and they hadn’t really done that before because they don’t sell products at that time to young people. So-

04:06
Their voice wasn’t as strong in market as it was to the parents of these young people. So they requested my help as an expert. So I think that’s actually interesting to know because I think we see that more now, Max, with all these brands. But I think then 20 years ago, I didn’t know the word influencer. I didn’t even know the word brand back then. I was an entrepreneur doing my sort of social impact entrepreneurial stuff. So I think that’s number one. It’s just kind of who they invited in to build that campaign.

04:33
I think for two, this insight is really fascinating for me. Once I got in and we looked at this global research that Dove had done, it showed us that 2% of women worldwide would consider themselves beautiful, which is quite a staggering statistic, even to consider that in 20 years of doing this work with this brand, maybe that number has doubled, maybe tripled, but it really hasn’t increased as much as you would hope it would. But at the time, what it gave us was a 98% margin of people.

05:00
who we felt like, okay, well, we could change their minds. So how do we change their mind? How do you help women feel more beautiful in a world that was really developing and looking at Photoshop and retouching at the time? What was really an interesting opportunity of invitation was when we went back to these women who were part of the study who said, only 2% of them would feel beautiful. We said, what can we do to help you? And they said, forget about me. I’ve already decided my beliefs about myself, help my child.

05:28
help the next generation, help my daughter. And it was so eye-opening. Again, think back 20 years, right? They were really giving us permission to talk to their kids in a way that was so important and so necessary. And so it started with research, but that campaign was built on feedback from women directly impacted by this issue. And in the 20 years that I’ve continued to partner with Dove, that is a really key.

05:55
Secret and maybe not also secret ingredient of their work is that it’s not just created in a boardroom, it is really created in concert with their consumers. And I really appreciate the ingredient pun with a CPG brand, so very a beauty brand like that, but it’s so cool that you’re a part of that. How far in advance of when the campaign, when that like big video actually went live, how far in advance of that did you actually start to get involved?

06:22
I was a part of the group a year in advance of that development when the research was being conducted and the creative was being created with our agency partners. There was a pretty long, I think, buildup to that moment. Of course, look, I don’t think anybody ever expects and certainly shouldn’t expect their content to go viral. I think that was also a really…

06:45
like incredible moment in culture. Again, 20 years ago, we were a very loud voice in a very quiet canyon at the time. So I think we had a lot of tailwinds helping us get the attention that that campaign deserved. And speaking of that, what was the first moment that you and the Dove team realized like, holy cow, we’ve really created something here. There’s a little bit of buzz going on. Oh, I have such a great story about that. Well, I’ll tell you as a cultural expert now,

07:16
And I’ve been working in this field for 30 years. So Dove has been a part of my life for 20 of those years, which is wild. And that is a long time. But I will tell you the seminal moment that I knew this campaign had touched the third rail of a cultural conversation was I was in New York, we were doing press for the campaign. So there were billboards everywhere. And there were tons of billboards in Times Square. And if people…

07:37
aren’t familiar visually with this campaign. It was the original campaign for all beauty with women in their underwear. It was like in white underwear and there were all these different body types and ages and body sizes lined up. And it was visually very provoking for a time in which we had a very singular representation of beauty in our media. So I was in Times Square and I was walking behind a woman who…

07:59
I think May at that time may have been in her 50s and a younger woman who might’ve been in her 20s around that time. They could have been mother and daughter. I don’t know their relationship, but I did overhear their conversation and this was amazing. They both stopped in Times Square, looked up at this billboard and the older woman went, oh my God, like I can’t believe we can see the cellulite. And the younger woman went, oh my God, she looks amazing.

08:29
who had been indoctrinated with beauty stereotypes her whole life and had been so accustomed to seeing images of quote unquote perfection was really actually quite disturbed and taken back by seeing her body there, right? But the younger person who I think represents where this campaign has trended and kind of what we were trying to hit was wanting more representation, was excited by that diversification that they were seeing. And therein,

08:56
was that third rail moment where I thought, oh my gosh, generationally this is gonna hit differently between women because women are not a monolith to market to, there’s gonna be different points of view about this and those are all the right ingredients you want for a campaign that’s designed, I think, to stay for the ages. Look at us, we’re still talking about it 20 years later. We are and actually I’ve carved out the rest of this interview to keep talking about it. So we’re gonna, no, it’s truly iconic and I think that’s the sign of something that really deserves to go viral.

09:26
and buzzworthy is when there’s a little bit of tension between generations and it like opens the door for that conversation and starts to get people to think in a new ways. And also talk about it, you know, on podcast 20 years after so that’s probably the most important part of it.

09:45
So let’s switch gears and take a little bit of a step back because I’m just curious, like, I’m absolutely blown away by your story and I think you’ve carved such a, well, first of all, are you a niche or niche person? I’m a niche person. Perfect, so how you’ve carved your niche, no, I’m just kidding. No, so how you’ve carved your niche, becoming this cultural expert and being so in tune with especially women and brands and all the amazing brands that you’ve worked with, like,

10:14
Was there any sign from an early age that you’re kind of like, oh, I want to be this person? No, not at all. This is what I love to tell people when I share the origin story of my career. I went to college and majored in three things that guaranteed me to make no money in life. I was a theater major, so obviously performing and storytelling and…

10:36
Writing was always in my DNA. I was a women’s studies major, so I did care about the political and social implications of where women were in our culture and studied kind of where women were representation-wise around the world very early on. And then I was a classics major, which basically gave me permission to live in Greece for a year and study how cultural conversations are born in communities. I mean, separately, they’re all incredible fields. Together is what I think has been my secret sauce as an entrepreneur. I took…

11:04
the training that I had, the interest that I had. And I really have made this career up as I’ve gone along. And I think I, and the why I say that, in fact, so proudly is that I think this is really the calling card of this generation right now. I think so many people are recognizing there are ways to get to where you wanna go without sticking in a very binary path. I think for me growing up, I didn’t know what an entrepreneur was, although that’s what I was. I started my first business at 20. I’ve been an entrepreneur for 30 years. I’ve never worked.

11:32
technically for anybody else. And I think what I do know about myself as like young Jess, as far as what brought me to this work is like, I’ve lived a lot of the experiences that I wanted to go and speak about. I’ve lived within, you know, really hurtful and harmful beauty standards as a kid growing up. I felt certain ways about my appearance and my place in the world as a woman. So like, I personally experienced all those things, but for me, the secret sauce was I love, have always loved media and I’ve always loved advertising. Like I am a kid.

12:02
I was a kid who grew up, you know, pre-internet. So I only had four networks and I had to watch the commercials and I actually loved the commercials. Like I loved the way you could tell a short story in such a, you know, a tiny amount of time. And so I think I had a love of the medium. I had a desire to change the message because of what I was learning. And then I had this great liberal arts education, quite frankly, that kind of geared me up for some.

12:27
tools and techniques that have helped me be of service to the brand partners that I work with, be it Dove or Barbie or any of the others. It’s like, I’m able to bring this outside point of view no matter how inside I continue to get. What was your family’s reaction or like friends reaction when you picked a major that maybe, as you said, traditionally might not be the most lucrative right out of college? Oh, I have to say, I came from parents, when you go to have a theater degree, they always tell you,

12:56
98% of people will never work with this degree. And my parents were always the ones, especially my dad, who by the way, has become my CFO later in life. I hired him out of retirement and he now is the CFO of my business. He comes from a medical finance background. So no relationship to the arts at all. But thankfully I had a dad who recognized, I think for me, the aligned passion and spirit. And when he heard the 98% number from like the college recruiter, who’s like, oh, by the way,

13:23
You know, my dad said to me, I think you’re going to be one of the 2% who gets to use this degree. Like, I believe in that possibility. So truly, not to be super cliche, I didn’t have the limitations from within my family as far as the belief that I could do something with this. I will also tell you, I also like to talk about this, especially for female entrepreneurs, but for anybody. I did not come from money. I did not sit on a trust fund. I don’t have investors in my business. The reality for me was my dad gave me a wonderful, and I was privileged enough to go to a business

13:53
university. But my dad gave me a choice and he said, because he was first in his family to go to college and he was in a tremendous amount of student debt. And he basically said to me, you have all these great schools that have accepted you. You can go to any of them, but here are the ones that you can go to that I can help you with, you know, to a degree and you won’t graduate with debt. And here’s what you can do with that. And he explained to me, not just about what school to go to in that moment, but what the life was like after school.

14:21
And the reason why I say that is because I was able to become an entrepreneur because I was not, I was able to have an affordable education at that time. And I do think that’s important to state, because I think a lot of people want to take a path, maybe similar to mine and can’t for a variety of reasons. And I don’t want, I want to like delete the mystery of it. Like it was part happenstance. I had good luck with these parents and they were supportive and they understood the value of education, you know, and I’ve worked really hard, but I think those are important ingredients. Don’t you to like let people know.

14:51
the journeys to get to places don’t have to look the same everywhere. Yeah, almost as good ingredients as a dove. Sponsored, no. Yeah, I’m totally with you. I can’t speak enough about how much it means to have family that’s supportive, especially a dad that’s willing to become your CFO later in life. That’s a pretty nice perk as well. I mean, it works out. Listen, for me, it’s like I trust people in Hollywood with my money or I trust my father with my money. I trust my dad way more than people in Hollywood.

15:19
Right, yeah, same thing. So how did you start to fine tune your craft of really establishing yourself as an expert in these spaces? Yeah, I would say there’s three key ingredients to that outside of, for some industries, rigorous academic study, which I find is important for some of these capacities, but maybe not the most important ingredient for me in the work that I do. I think the first one is.

15:48
really cultivating strong and long lasting relationships. I believe relationships are the currency of business. And I have done a really good job building trust with action over time, building relationships with executives who then of course, you know, leave a certain industry, go to another and bring you with them. So I have a work, I have a business that is completely word of mouth. I do not pitch for business. I do not complete RFPs, knock wood, if anybody understands the hell that that could be, you know, it is.

16:17
It is a very important place. And again, it’s relationships at the center of that. So I think that’s an important piece. And then that leads me to number two, which is I also have relationships with the people on the ground doing the work. I have one set of lived experiences, right? And I’m constantly learning and unlearning so that I can be more inclusive and dynamic in the stories that I want other brands to tell, but I am one person with one lived experience. So.

16:39
I have very deep relationships in the communities of advocates and activists and experts and leaders in the other communities that we want to reach, and I bring them in constantly. So an open door policy and having voices, as many voices as I can, help to inform those conversations is really important. And then the third, I think, is just constantly in the learning of what is happening, not so that you have to be the expert all the time, but what I think I’m the expert of is bringing those resources together.

17:08
pulling the thread through or saying, you know, if a brand, oftentimes the company’s called talk to Jess because it literally was like this. I would get a call max and they’d be like, we have a problem with women. Somebody said I should talk to Jess or we have a problem with reaching young people. Somebody said I should talk to Jess. And I thought how interesting that like, I’m supposed to be like the Olivia Pope of this problem right now. Like I have to, you know, figure it out. And at the end of the day, what I realized was you can talk to me, but I’m going to be the filter of the bridge to the other people that can really help you in these areas. So

17:36
Some of it is knowing when to step in because you can really guide the way and when you wanna bring the collective in and the community in because you’re stronger together in that capacity. So I think those three elements like keep me on the leading edge of what’s happening for culture and brands. So before you were even more, even as leading edgy as you are now, if that’s a word, how did you get your first like major client? So.

18:04
Actually, my first major client was when I started a theater company when I was 21 years old. I started, I was living in Indianapolis and I started a theater company called the Act Out Ensemble and it was a social health and educational theater company. I had written a show.

18:21
that had gotten a lot of notoriety when I was in school and then out of school around eating disorders and body image for girls and young women. And I was looking to take it on the road and travel with it. And I never run a theater company before. I didn’t understand how to run a nonprofit but I did learn how to write a grant. And I went to community college class to learn how to write a grant, learned how to write a grant. My first grant that I got ever was from Eli Lilly. And I thought that was so odd but Eli Lilly makes Prozac.

18:48
and Prozac is often prescribed in the treatment of bulimia and eating disorders. And back in the day, and this is like the early 90s, I had a chance with some of their funding to bring my show to schools. And what I learned was basically how to do branded content work back in the day, where Eli Lilly had a stake because they wanted people to know they could be a solution if your doctor prescribed that for you. And I wanted young women to know that this was a significant, you know, in eating disorders, a significant mental health issue and things to get.

19:18
treated for. So we kind of came together in this interesting, concentric circle that taught me how to walk a really fine line in getting big partners, which was certainly the money is intoxicating and they hold the key to platform and finance. But my goal and the people I still work for are the end consumers of these products and these messages. I’m trying to bring voices in there that don’t have a voice or voices that need to be heard. And so I learned at a very young age how to navigate.

19:46
a big client, like a pharmaceutical company like Eli Lilly, and this creative project that I wanted to do to talk about the issues that had nothing to do with their drug, had nothing to do with their company. And so I’ve learned how to navigate that. I would have never told you that I would be 20 years down the road now working with the largest Fortune 1 in 500 companies in the world doing the very same thing. But I’m so grateful that I got that grant. I’m so grateful Eli Lilly was even looking at small business owners at that time to support.

20:17
I think that was like my first like early stage big one before I started doing what I do. And then of course, I think Dove kicked it off and then Barbie took it to the next level. Yeah, exactly. And then you were ahead of your time with the Barbie movie, which took it like there’s never been so much nostalgia in world history. But shout out Indy, by the way, I went to IU for college. Oh, you did? Yeah. My dad’s side is from Indiana. I’m from Cleveland, Ohio originally. But anyway, very familiar with.

20:47
Indie and Bloomington area, obviously. I love it. Yeah, so lots of nostalgia there as well. But I have some friends that, because I was in business school there, Kelly, Eli Lilly recruited, I think some, like some business, like marketing people there, and like whoever got those jobs or internships, it was like, wow, you’re working with Lilly. Like that’s really cool. Well, they were the big, they were, and they’re still the big headquarters there. You know what’s interesting? So IU and Purdue, so IUPUI, it is an outlet. Yeah, ui pui, as they say.

21:16
We pooey that was my sponsor for my theater company. That’s where I was for a long time So we got lots of roads coming together here Yeah, yeah exactly and that literally that probably you know projected your career even further because you got two schools whose sports absolutely hate each other and you got to work together Yeah, although to be candid I didn’t really care about their sport. I wanted the outreach I stand by and I know there’s some rebranding now, I think there’s like IU Indy and

21:44
whatever the pretty words called but like there’s some rebranding going on but I still I stand by that Oowee Pooey is one of the best names for any sort of college or college. I mean incredible. Sadly think I never. Back to your point on like learning how to navigate clients and like especially big clients I think that’s so huge and like that’s something that I didn’t experience really firsthand until like I started my podcast production business and like now I’m like working with like the more clients you work with the more you learn of like just how much how every client’s

22:14
and how every client has preferences and how they like to operate. And sometimes it’s like you have one point of contact. Sometimes there’s a whole team involved. And I think that is like, that is such a valuable or invaluable, as the kids say, skill to have for your career, to like have a big client like that and be kind of thrown into the fight, well, thrown into the medical world, medical pharma world right away. And so you really got that under your belt. You got your, uh, you went through bootcamp.

22:42
quick in that world. I think as an entrepreneur, everybody goes through bootcamp in those first early stages because I was trying to figure out how to pay for this passion and pay for this product. And then what I think I’ve done, and I really do appreciate you saying, yeah, I think when you have big stakeholders that are supporting your business or you’re going out to work for them, you do have to learn, I think, two things. One is how does that business make money and then how do you fit into that business? And two, just who are the people there? And I think-

23:10
One of the things that has always, when I said relationships are the currency of business, I think the reason why I have an incoming book of business is because when I work with an organization, like yes, I work with big brands, but I work with the people who run those brands at that time and they’re just people. And they’re amazing executives and creatives and folks who are building their career. And I make sure that like, while we are working together, as best as I can, I’m of service to them too, in a way that I think kind of.

23:37
builds that relationship deeper and then perpetuates other business, but is a big important part, especially as a consultant. I mean, I think, you know, agency models have different dynamics to it, but for me, these relationships can be very intimate and important, not only in the continuation of my business, but in the continuation of their careers, because it’s people who are helping to make these incredible campaigns for scene too. I can’t resist. We have to talk some Barbie and for anybody who hasn’t seen the movie, I actually

24:05
beat out Ryan Gosling for the role of the lead Ken. So that’s me. That was so nice for you to turn it down for him. That guy needed work. Yeah, exactly. And there’s only one Ken in the movie. Well before the movie, Barbie, probably one of the most iconic brands, and whether you call it dolls or toys or just lifestyles in modern history, you.

24:34
kind of led the charge for something that probably a lot of people liked and probably a lot of people were like, well, what’s happening when you work with them about kind of, I’m not sure the right way to describe it, but I guess including more diversity. Yeah. Along Barbie and introducing sizes and all sorts of things. But you could tell I am not a cultural.

24:57
I’m not polished from a cultural words perspective. But obviously we know word of mouth is huge for you, relationships are huge for you. But when did this idea that like, Barbie could use a little bit of rebranding, a little bit of help here, how did that come across your desk? Again, from relationships, I was actually first approached, I’ve been working with Barbie and the Mattel Girls team since 2010, so the last 14 years at this point.

25:25
another really long-term special partner of mine. I came in to actually work on a different brand first. I worked with them on Monster High, which if you’re not familiar with that legend, it’s Daughters of Famous Monsters in high school and all of the things that they’re learning about being othered and being monster. It’s a great doll line and entertainment series and stuff. But I came in.

25:46
when they were having a little bit of trouble connecting at that time with parents, because it was like a very goth brand, much darker and different from Barbie, and it’s a completely different brand, different audience, but I think parents were having some initial hesitation and pushback, and so I worked with them on developing a strong social impact message and kind of just working like the magic that I do inside of brands, which is about cultural trends and helping them sort of translate them for business. I think from that, then the desire was for me to come over and take a look with them at Barbie, who at that point,

26:16
in 2010 was really suffering, if anybody can remember at this time. It wasn’t only Barbie and the crosshairs, the pink crosshairs. It was like Disney Princess and anything pink and like overly girly and frilly was sort of codified as frivolous, you know? And so parents and millennial parents in particular, you know, they were not interested in buying Barbie for their kids’ birthday parties and presents for their kids. And so…

26:42
we came in with talking about the inside of like, well, Barbie is really failing the birthday party test. She’s not signifying as a strong indicator of good parenting. Parents are like, I don’t want to buy a Barbie. That means I care about beauty and fitness and all these things I don’t want to signal that I care about. And so what began on a journey to try to unlock the relationship between kids and parents and their consumers at that time really led us to an understanding that there had to be some kind of brand sacrifice to bring this.

27:10
brand in this doll into the next generation of and back into the cultural zeitgeist in a good way. By the way, Barbie has like a 98% awareness rating around the world. You either love her or you hate her. You know, I think that there was an opportunity to be a part of culture without it being always a lightning rod for culture and in a negative way. And there are so many beautiful attributes to playing with Barbie, but we had stopped talking about that. So there were a number of different issues that we were trying to solve for the brand. They were financially down.

27:39
you know, nine straight quarters at the time that I had began working with them. There was a big job to be done. And we started with looking at, okay, what needs to be modernized and updated? And what are the things that are now non-negotiables for, especially for millennial audiences and body image and representation was one of them. And obviously because of the work I had done with Dove and shepherding some of those changes there, we began the journey of changing Barbie’s body, which culminated in on the cover of Time Magazine in 2016 and a whole new line of dolls that now have like 90 different.

28:08
hair textures and hairstyles and hundreds of different looks, including Barbie’s in a wheelchair, Barbie has prosthetic limbs, Barbie has vitiligo, just a really beautiful representation in a way that the kids today are playing and looking at the world that reflects the world around them. The movie took it to a completely other level, but what makes me very proud, Max, is that we wouldn’t have been able to, I don’t believe we would have been able to accomplish that movie if the brand hadn’t done the work they did the 10 years prior to that in really

28:38
bringing this to market and proving a financial case for it because the change in the dolls changed their revenue dramatically and changed the reputation that I think we’re able to have this amazing, you know, Barbie movie with Issa Rae as President Barbie. And that was realistic because you can go and pick up a, you know, President Barbie doll on the on the shelves. And so that has been, it’s a wild journey. And now I’m in a different place with the brand because we had this major cultural moment. And now what?

29:06
Like now you have to continue to build. So I love my career and the partners I work with because the journey really never ends. When your end game is more representation and more connection and ultimately more revenue, like you are constantly on that journey because you’re changing as culture changes. Well, if you had to like look back at that big Barbie change and think about, I mean, obviously it had amazing financial results as well. Like if you had to point back at like,

29:35
the one main thing that you and the team did that actually paid off and worked well, or like key decision that you made, what was it? What do you think drove that? I would take a playbook from what I did with Dove and I did, which is we brought outside voices in, that that was not completely made in a lab of creators or marketers or advertisers. It was informed by another group of individuals. We created a really cool Barbie Global Advisory Council and we brought in naysayers.

30:05
And we brought in parents who were not keen on the doll. We brought in voices that most brands don’t normally bring in to make the change. And I think that decision, that openness of my marketing partners then to sit down and go face to face with somebody who doesn’t like the work you’ve been doing or has their own opinion, that takes courage and bravery and then to invite them in and to say, tell us what you think we could be doing differently or better and really listening.

30:29
Like there was a lot of trust building that happened. So I think bringing outside voices in, much like what Dove did with me, paid off in dividends because you get out of your own echo chamber. And it helps, I think, with the tension as we talked about that’s kind of necessary to strike a cultural chord. Chords make me think of guitars, which make me think of guitar videos, of which there are many on YouTube, not by me, just in general. But that is how far I am willing to stretch this.

30:59
to hype my YouTube channel. YouTube at Max Brandstetter is where you’ll find word stumbles as well as full video interviews, full video episodes of the Wild Business Growth podcast like this one with Jess, and you can subscribe on YouTube at Max Brandstetter. That’s at Max Brandstetter. Hit me up if you need any help spelling the last name. I know it’s long, but it’s phonetic. All right. There are many

31:29
segue videos on YouTube as well, like the actual segue things. And on that note, let’s get to a terrible segue and dive into some culture.

31:42
So let’s strike a slight segue cord. And I wanna dive more into that. For any brand, what are some kind of like good, basic guardrails that you start out with when you’re working with the client about, like these are some big no-nos, like don’t do this with your brand, like make sure you’re doing these things the right way. Well, one of my biggest and most repeatable pieces of advice, and I keep repeating it because it has truth to it, is I do warn my…

32:11
client partners about what I’ll call SFSN. It sounds fabulous, it signifies nothing. It really means that you’re just playing in the pink washing space, the green washing space, the pride washing space. It’s when I know brands do have good intentions, and trust me, because again, there’s people behind the brands, right? So you’ve got a person who’s like, I wanna show up for our consumers in this awareness month.

32:35
or on this issue. And I think in that zealousness of wanting to connect, some big mistakes happen because you may be only doing it as a marketing effort. And that can be read a mile away from savvy consumers, especially Gen Zers, but mostly everybody, we all have a spidey sense now. We’re very, like we know when a brand is kind of giving us the S and when a brand is really doubling down on an issue or a topic. So.

33:00
Here’s what I’ll say to them, right? Obviously it’s avoid SFSN. So how do you do that? It’s you’ve got to know your why and you’ve got to know your who. So, okay, why? I want to make a difference around pride as an example. Okay, who is already making a difference on this issue? Because I’m guaranteeing you, brands are not creating cultural milestone moments, right? They’re a part of a cultural milestone moment. So I always say like, who’s doing that good work? Let’s partner with them because their work will live well beyond your campaign.

33:29
So how do you partner with them? How do you make meaningful impact? You’re a big multi-billion dollar multinational corporation. You know, you’re gonna shine your very powerful spotlight and maybe your dollar contribution to this issue. But when that goes away, what is this community left with? What are you really saying to them? Because you know, this is where I feel like we have a grave awesome opportunity.

33:53
to make change, truly to make change. I mean, my work with Dove in the Self Esteem Project Work, which is our self esteem curriculum, has reached over 200 million young people worldwide in the last 20 years in real time, not like 200 million downloads, like real time workshops. There’s such a power that brands can have, but they need to stay, they need to know the why and the who, and then they need to stay consistent. That’s the third piece of this. So what happens is somebody does something for an awareness month or somebody does something for a Super Bowl ad. I mean, we can all…

34:22
kind of take a look as armchair quarterbacks to Bud Light and their relationship with Dylan Mulvaney and wanting to take on a conversation they were not equipped to do and their community was not equipped to do and they actually put their spokesperson in a little bit of harm’s way in that sense. So what I would say is, why do you wanna do it? Who’s already doing it that you can partner with? And then how are you gonna consistently show up to make an impact if you’re gonna take on something like this, right? So that means like.

34:48
It can’t be a one and done. The change that you say you stand for as a brand, it has to be showing up consistently doing that. And that takes rigor inside, right? And that also takes the right people inside. You need the right mindset internally to an organization that understands the theory of cultural change and understands where marketing can play a great role and where they can actually be a detriment to the issues that you wanna take on.

35:11
And then certainly it goes without saying, we all know this, you need diversity in the room and you need decision makers to have different lived experiences or else you’re going to get all the things you’ve always gotten just with a little polish on it. And that in the end doesn’t help anybody. And then when brands get called out and then they call me, but when they get called out, it’s debilitating for a team. Nobody wants to operate creatively from a place of fear. And there’s a lot of fear about getting it wrong. But I’ll often say to my clients, if you know your why, you know your who and you’re consistent with it.

35:39
you’ll avoid SFSN because you’re already three steps ahead of most of the people who try to do kind of cultural impact campaigns. Yeah, it’s a really interesting and tricky point there because now we’re in the era of so many, especially celebrities and comedians, well, maybe comedians are a different story because maybe that works to their advantage, but so many people who are well known, I’m sure are scared of getting canceled and don’t want to cancel culture, everything there.

36:09
And you don’t think about it as much, but like brands are the same way. Like the same thing, like brands don’t want to be canceled or boycotted, whichever term you prefer. It’s such a fine line. It seems like if you look at, like I subscribe to like some smart, brief newsletters and like some, there’s plenty of newsletters like that, that like do like advertising recaps and like cool ads and dive into Superbowl ads and all that. And it’s like seemingly such a thin line between something being really like

36:39
culturally awesome and something being like, ooh, yeah, they can’t say that. So how do you advise brands on how to know for sure if this is the right way to go, even if it’s a risk willing to take? Yeah. I mean, we do all, depending on the brand and the team and the brand’s history with conversations like this, we’ll do some really important cultural conversations around.

37:03
risk mitigation and again, like kind of anchoring everybody in like the why you’re doing this. Because that’s usually honestly where campaigns will fall apart. Because if they’re not coordinated on the why they’re doing it, then they shouldn’t be doing it. We should be doing something else. But I think the other thing is, look, even the best intended brands and I’ve worked with them and I’ve lived through them, I’m 20 years with Dove, we’ve not hit it out of the park every time. There are definitely moments where…

37:26
things have gone awry and we’ve been in new cycles of boycotting or cancellation or pushback. That’s deeply painful to see, especially when you’ve done the things that I just said, like you’ve been consistent in the work. So the reality is I wanna say this to brands and I also wanna say this to the people behind the brands, we will screw up, full stop. There’s no way to do this work perfectly. If you’re talking, especially in the world that I work in with social impact, you’re talking about a moving target, you’re talking about complex, nuanced cultural issues, you’re talking about…

37:54
lived experiences probably beyond your own realm of the people creating it. Like there are so many factors and features to it that, you know, you will mess it up. I mess it up. My brands have messed it up. You know, I think it’s about how you rebound from that and how you unlearn from it and learn from it. And what I mean by that is a business has to create a culture where creativity can thrive because failure is possible and in some ways expected. Right. I think what happens is you get very stale campaigns out of out of cultures where

38:23
Failure is just not an option. So of course everybody’s gonna play it safe and they’re gonna do what they’ve always done. But what got us here won’t get us there. If you’re a brand that really wants to break through in the marketplace, if you’re a brand that really wants to break through with consumer, then you’re gonna have to take a risk and risks have inherent possibilities of failure in them. And so I think some of it is what’s the culture and the appetite. It is the why, why are you doing this? What’s online? And then it’s beginning to have really courageous conversations internally as you’re building something where

38:51
You might have had the best of intentions, but the impact did not land the way that you wanted to. That actually matters more than your intention is the impact you’ve had. And the best that you can say, okay, got it. Boy, did that suck. That is not great. And I know we’re going to have to redo it, but let’s do it because we’re all learning and we’re all growing. And I think the companies that I’ve worked with who can develop the best appetite for that can take the biggest risks and then live through moments of bumpiness.

39:20
It’s not comfortable. And I know it’s not, you know, you can say, gosh, I don’t want to, I’d rather have people, my clients dip a bit in performance in sales than face like a cultural cancellation in that way because they’ve taken a risk and they’ve learned from it and they’re growing versus trying to do something or doing something that’s just not very unique or original or helpful in that way. And one more thing on the cultural topics. It would help if I could pronounce the word.

39:50
cultural correctly to begin with. But for you personally, like what’s worked for you in terms of staying so up to date with like, pop culture and just culture in general, I guess culture in general is pop culture, trends in culture, like how do you stay so, you know, sharp with everything? Well, I have a great team around me and I work with other consultants that again, bring in their experience and their

40:17
expertise. I don’t think you can do this as a one person show. The other thing is, I think at the end of the day, if you look at social sciences, if you look at cultural trends over time, there are a lot of organizing themes and principles to all of it. And so I get maybe less ensconced in the momentary pop culture high points of what’s happening. And normally what I do is I look and pulse for…

40:45
What’s a repeated theme that I’ve seen over and over and over again, even if it’s through a meme or a song or a show or whatever it is. But what I try to do is reduce these down to our typal themes that are really based on changing human behavior. And so what I’ll do is I, in some ways we’re authenticity auditors more so than we are trend forecasters. I’m taking those trends and then I’m like distilling it into like, what’s the human truth? And then we know we can play with that in advertising and marketing.

41:13
And so in some ways we become trend agnostic, but because we’re really looking deeper than the trend and we’re saying, okay, what’s propelling this theme? What’s propelling that moment? And why is it resonating for people? When you start to study those things, then I think you can ride the wave of culture without feeling like you’ve got to understand and know everything. Because I understand and know people, and I’m looking for where humanity is happening in those moments. Even the silliest of those moments, even dance trends and you know.

41:43
Other trending sounds, like we’ll look at the end of like, why does this really work for everybody? And then we’ll try to extrapolate that for our clients. You hit the nail on the head with silly because we’re going to wrap up with some rapid fire Q&A. You ready for it? I’m down. Let’s do it. All right, let’s get wild and silly. And culturally, no, that’s me trying to intentionally mispronounce cultural. All right. What would be?

42:13
play, Broadway production that you would watch if you could only watch one for the rest of your life? Hamilton, Ham’s Down. Never heard of it. No, I’m sure that has a pretty high awareness rate as well. A little small off-Broadway show. Yes, exactly. What is your favorite memory from the year you spent in Greece? Oh my gosh. Getting stranded on-

42:39
the island of Crete for spring break because I misread the bus schedule and there was only one bus in and out every week, not every day. So I went for what I thought would be one or two days and I stayed for my whole spring break in an abandoned little town called Plakias at that time in Greece by myself and me and the geese and the beach had a spring break and it was at first terrifying because I didn’t know what I was going to do. And then also think, gosh, look, no internet, no cell phones.

43:07
People were really kind and I stayed for a week as a beach bum, unintentionally. Oh my God. That’s one of those accidental vacation moments that is just, you know, to last a lifetime. How in the world does a bus get to and from Crete? Oh, not, no, I meant like a ferry schedule. Sorry, thank you. Yeah, you can call on that. No question.

43:29
Is this an amphibious Greek bus here we got going on? No, the ferry schedule, not the bus schedule. Yeah, I misread that. So I came in on a ferry from Athens and then didn’t leave for another seven days. Oh my God. Wait, how long, that ferry has to be super long from Athens, right? Like that’s Crete’s pretty south. It’s an overnight, it’s like a 12 or 14 hour ferry, yeah. Oh my God, the ferry bus, we coined it here first. All right. The ferry bus, I know, good catch on that. Also, my pleasure. Also on the Greek note, I’m assuming you picked up

43:58
A little ironic because I can’t speak in English, but you picked up a little Greek language while you’re there, I would presume. A little bit. Very, very little. Enough that I can get around some Greek restaurants. There you go. What’s your favorite Greek saying? Efkaristo poli. Thank you very much. Oh, I remember. Okay. My wife Dana and I did a trip to Greece a year after we started dating and had never heard the term Efkaristo until we were there. Then we’re like, oh, it’s so fun.

44:27
It’s so fun. That and Yasu, Yasu is hello. So I love, I love being able to. And then, uh, it’s a Yamas is cheers, right? Something like that. I don’t know what you, I don’t, I’ve never said Yamas. I probably just said salud because I was a, you know, got it. Exactly. I learned that on the, uh, the ferry bus on the way back. All right. And the last one we started with it. We have to end with it. How do you deal with.

44:54
would probably happen to live especially growing up people making fun of wiener. Oh my god, I’ve heard every wiener joke I think known to mankind. I mean, you’re welcome to try me but I used to go on tour to middle schools back so I’ve had like middle school boys give me wiener jokes my whole life. Look, it’s a character building last name for a young girl for a woman but here’s the beautiful irony for my listeners, your listeners who have wonky last names. I married a Lopez my husband’s name is Felipe Lopez.

45:22
He ended up taking my last name, because I also married a forward thinking feminist man who became Felipe Wiener Lopez. So he has now willingly taken on that. And when, you know, my dad had two daughters, so the Wiener name was not going to live on with either one of them. And so when my husband called my dad and said, hey, I’m gonna take your last name, you know, whatever, and he was like, good luck. So for me, it stands out. It has been a part of my character building identity, no joke, and it makes you have a sense of humor.

45:52
Well, we’ve come full circle. We’ve come to the wiener circle. So thank you so much, Jess. This has been absolutely fantastic. Just a big fan of everything you’re doing and congrats on like just awesome career and like, I can’t wait to see what you come up with next and the awesome brands you partner with. Thank you. My pleasure. Where is the best place for people if they want to learn more about talk to Jess or just connect with you online? Where, where should we send them?

46:16
Yeah, I would say three things you can hit me up on LinkedIn. You can find me at Instagram, which is @ImJessWeiner Then I have a website, JessWeiner.com. If we’re still doing websites, I’ve got one and then there’s a way to contact me there. I’m happy to have this convo with you. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, of course. My pleasure. Yeah, the internet’s still a thing. It just will always look different. Last thing, final thoughts, it could be a quote. It could be your second and third favorite.

46:44
Greek sayings, whatever you want, just one line to send us home, stages yours. Well, I would say for those of you who are trying to do that social impact work, you can fully pick up our acronym of SFSN. It sounds fabulous and signifies nothing. It’s always a good way to have a barometer about whether you’re speaking and connecting truthfully to the people you’re trying to relate to.

47:09
TYSM JW for coming on the Wild Business Growth podcast and sharing your wild story. Jess Weiner. And thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning into another episode. If you wanna hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe on YouTube for the videos. YouTube is @MaxBranstetter. You can also find us on Goodpods, and for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com

47:38
and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That is short and sweet every Thursday where podcasting meets entrepreneurship meets awful puns. You can sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Until next time, let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!