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Soulati-'TUDE!

Building Community One Spice At A Time

09/18/2018 By Jayme Soulati

ALT="Penzey's Logo"For those of you not familiar with Penzey’s, it is a growing, family-owned spice company that originated in Wisconsin. Even with the onset of the digital age (which have helped with building community and exponential sales), it’s the most fun to shop in the brick and mortar store. The customer experience is amazing, especially if you love to cook. Penzey’s says, that “cooking is kindness, and that kindness can change the world.” I have to agree!

My mom shares the writings and emails of Pennzey’s CEO, Bill Penzey. He is an extremely outspoken figure who expounds upon liberal politics and the crisis in American democracy under the Trump administration.

Brands have begun to show their colors, and why not? A human is behind every brand, no matter how old it is. Remember the recent experiences with Chick fil-A and Hobby Lobby? What about the Colorado baker who refused to make and sell a cake to a gay couple in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court? Nike actually chose to build a campaign around Colin Kaepernick, which is somewhat different than the previous examples.

Building Community With Controversy

When you serve people with your products there is a choice whether to wear your beliefs on your sleeves or keep them to yourself. Bill Penzey elects to build community using the former. His views are squarely on his sleeves, front and center.

From his vantage point, he’s building community one spice at a time. In fact, what speaks more loudly than his words are his company’s sales. Penzey’s sales have shot upward. Isn’t it interesting how politics and words can influence sales of spices? It’s obviously due to building community.

Look:

ALT="jar of Penzey's Arizona Dreaming spice"“Arizona Dreaming is one of our best blends, inspired by people very much like John McCain with the strength to fight the uphill battle for a more inclusive Arizona. Arizona Dreaming is a very tasty celebration of the coming together of cultures that so flavors the foods and the lives lived across America’s Southwest. Don’t miss this chance to get yours free.”

Did that blurb spark your interest in wanting to buy Arizona Dreaming in honor of Senator John McCain? (Or, maybe I’m sentimental!)

Who else do you know in the corner office who mixes spice with politics to earn sales, literally? You’ll see in Mr. Penzey’s recent email newsletter that his side of the aisle is very good for his business, and he encourages marketers to observe and embrace that.

Bill Penzey on Politics, Building Community And Spices

Below is a recent post from Bill Penzey I’d like to share with his permission to republish.

“We think we’ve discovered something. What we’ve discovered is that standing up against everything the Republican Party has become is really, really, really (+76 more reallys), really good for business. I understand how this can seem at odds with the image so popular right now that America is an evenly divided nation, but as we’ve learned this image does not reflect reality. And as much as it seems that the big issue right now is an out of control, possibly worse than racist presidency, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The real issue is the unlimited political spending that brought this President and so many other Republicans to power. Watching TV ads and reading comment sections, it can seem like Republicans actually have popular support, but these days ads and comments are simply part of the many things unlimited political spending can buy. Yet from our experience what we’ve found political spending can’t buy is popularity.

This chart is our weekly online sales this year vs last year starting with the week of April 1st. It mostly is the tale of just two offers. The first was calling out the President for claiming that he was above the law; he isn’t. This is America where no one is above the law. No one can pardALT="Penzey's sales graph showing spikes from campaigns and building community"on themselves.

The second came with us pointing out that the Russia probe has to happen because: Our President chose a campaign chairman who had accepted $17 Million from a pro-Russia political party. This chairman personally picked the vice president, who in turn went on to pick a literal Russian agent as our country’s top national security advisor, despite being clearly warned by our intelligence community about his past.

The first offer in the chart looks like two spikes because this is a weekly graph and that offer ran over a Saturday and Sunday. But that second offer, that big pyramid there, just ran for 18 hours over a Thursday night. With that offer we received an 80-fold increase in sales over the same time period last year. Along with the avalanche of orders we also got comments like: “Don’t mix business and politics, Bill. It’s bad for the bottom line.” “I was taught years ago, you don’t mix politics or religion with your business.”

Yet, look at the chart. This is not 80% growth, this is 80 times as much in sales!

In our experience we’ve found that when you honestly support and speak out for the values of your customers, your customers support you. Looking at how we evolved, humanity really is the gift of Cooks, and for people who cook to simply watch as Republicans use the power the money of unlimited spending has bought them to undermine education, attack the environment, take health insurance from the poor, dehumanize those deemed not white enough, and separate children from their parents simply for seeking asylum; these can be heartbreaking times. Speaking out now really matters.

If you are involved in a business that has been uncomfortable with the Republican attacks on human decency, there is really no better time to share those concerns with your customers than right now. Your country needs you to step up.

And if you are a marketer, please be aware that the times are changing. Maybe it’s time to stop saying young people can’t be reached and instead try to get your clients to look to the values young people hold dear. At some point some breakfast cereal maker is going to celebrate the bravery of Colin Kaepernick by having him taking a knee on the cover of their box. In that moment they will win all of the younger generations for all of the rest of their lives.

There’s talk right now about people no longer being interested in things but instead being interested in experiences. At Penzeys we sell Spices, the very things that have been selling continuously for longer than any other thing in human existence. I believe a big part of why Spices have the staying power they do is that they are experiences.

Each Spice, every Seasoning connects us to a place, a time, an event that has at its heart our humanity — how we take care of each other. Make your product an experience, make your experience in some way radiate decency, compassion, and kindness and get ready to be busy.

Right now those on the frontlines of challenging what the Republican Party has become are being rewarded, and that’s a good thing. Unlimited political spending has taken away the vote from individuals and given it to corporations that seek profit from undermining the public good. It’s time for Americans to vote with our spending. My advice is to be a company worth voting for.

I believe what we’ve been experiencing is only the start of something much bigger. Business is an evolutionary process where the new things that work very quickly become what everyone needs simply to survive. This is not the time to be left behind. Spend every day like it’s November 6th.
Bill | bill@penzeys.com”

Find Your Kin As Your Next Customer

So, marketers, brands and the humans behind them, take note. If you speak your mind in a calm and intelligent fashion with logic, you can find your kin who will also become a worthy customer of your products, services and brand. Will this happen overnight? No, but with consistency comes success for the long haul.

Let’s wear our perspective on our sleeve and sell spices, shall we?

Filed Under: Branding, Public Relations Tagged With: build community, Community, democracy, Penzey's, Selling, Senator John McCain, spices

Sara Soulati Recognized As 2016 Woman Of The Year

02/03/2017 By Jayme Soulati

ALT="Sara Soulati, CEO, Global Cardio Care"Sara Soulati is CEO of Global Cardio Care in Los Angeles. She has been in her field of EECP since 1996 and is one of the world’s foremost authorities.

But that’s really not why I am recognizing her as 2016 Woman of the Year (even though we’re into month two of 2017).

There is no one I know more selfless. She holds the weight of the world on her shoulders and still she saves lives with the Sara Soulati Health for Life Program.

Her lifestyle modification program helps reverse and prevent heart disease. She is a devout vegan and wants everyone with a heart to eat plant-based nutrition. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Branding Tagged With: EECP, EECP method, entrepreneurs, global cardio care, Health for Peace, Los Angeles, sara soulati, Sara Soulati Health for Life Program, saving lives

IDG Uses Brand Ambassadors To Align Culture To Brand

08/09/2016 By Jayme Soulati

ALT="brand ambassadors, IDG story, Soulati Media"IDG is a HUUUUGE company; in fact, it states on its website that it is the world’s largest media tech company. That’s nothing to sneeze at, and you know what else? IDG also had a brand culture problem. It was so big that the individual business units were silos. We’ve heard about silos before, right? Apparently, IDG had never hired a chief marketing officer which is highly interesting for such a massive global corporation.

The company decided to relaunch the brand to better inform customers about what else was available throughout the company, and in order to do so, it had to align its brand culture with all internal stakeholders.

The very first step taken by IDG was to research. This is ALWAYS the first step to take to find all of the problems and to then apply strategy to solve them.

Brand Ambassadors Are Employees

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Branding, Heart Of Marketing Podcast Tagged With: brand ambassadors, Branding, Business, culture, culture branding, culture shift, employee stakeholders, IDG, Jayme Soulati, marketing podcast, Public Relations

Branding And Helpfulness Begin With Culture

07/01/2016 By Jayme Soulati

Helpfulness is akin to giving, giving back and paying it forward. When someone deigns to be helpful, they are thinking not first of themselves, but of another who is more in need.

What does that ‘need’ look like? Down and out, a home crushed from a natural disaster, job loss, medical matter, need for information, an elderly person unable to drive for the groceries or change the light bulb, or someone just plain depressed over the loss of a loved one.

There are many reasons why someone needs to receive an act of helpfulness or kindness, but this is not about challenging you to do more of that. Person-to-person helpfulness is simpler to ascertain, isn’t it?

When you put helpfulness into the same discussion with branding, then the understanding is somewhat blurred. Humanity is helpful; is a brand?

. Within you as a human, is a desire to be kind, genuine and helpful. It forms your person, it becomes your personality, and it is visible in your aura. What’s also apparent is whether this helpfulness philosophy is genuine, or not.

Helpfulness in Branding

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Branding, Thinking Tagged With: Branding, Business, culture, culture in business, Foot Locker, heart core, heart of marketing, helpfulness, helpfulness and branding, Jayme Soulati, marketing podcast, Radio Flyer, TOMS, Zenefits

BASF Love In Business Campaign

11/13/2015 By Jayme Soulati

ALT="BASF Ad for Create Chemistry"Is there love in business? BASF, the 150-year-old conglomerate, thinks so.

In my hunt for good podcasting fodder, I was leafing through Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s The Year Ahead 2016 issue. When I landed on a full-page spread by BASF, which I thought made audio and stereo equipment, I came across this tagline:

We create chemistry that makes more power love a cleaner drive.

Eh? I read it again and again and still could not decipher whether it was referring to computer hard drives (as the left vertical image was of a super highway often depicted as the speeding Ethernet), or whether it was the clean fuel as depicted on the right vertical image in the ad. The blue heart conjoining the two images then made me wonder if ‘chemistry’ was the entendre for ‘love.’ [Read more…]

Filed Under: Branding, Marketing Tagged With: BASF, Branding, Get Heart Marketing, heart marketing, John Gregory Olson, love in business, message mapping, The Heart of Marketing podcast, we create chemistry

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ALT="Jayme Soulati"

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