Cult Brand Secrets: Recent Episodes
Evergreen Podcasts | The Gathering
Each year, The Gathering brings together disruptors from around the globe to learn from, and celebrate, the leaders behind iconic brands like Marvel, Skittles, Beats by Dre, Yeti, and the Dallas Cowboys. For the first time ever, these unique and enlightening presentations can be heard any time and anywhere on this podcast.Cult Brand Secrets is an anthology of the greatest and most influential presentations The Gathering has to offer, featuring experts that transcend branding to build cult-like adoration of their work. Additionally, host Chris Kneeland uses his own experience in associating with these brand leaders to highlight key trends and help you identify the most worthwhile takeaways. Join our Premium Channel to hear full length presentations at cultbrandsecrets.com.
Herschel has primarily been a manufacturer and wholesaler selling through other retail outlets in over 40 countries, but in 2018 they opened their first store in Vancouver and have become a formidable retailer themselves. They now have locations in Hong Kong and Dubai and Paris and Slate magazine described the brand as "a global phenomenon, glimpsed wherever hipsters dare to tread.”
Co-founder Lyndon Cormack’s remarks should give every aspiring entrepreneur hope. While he and his brother had some relevant experience, they mostly had a dream and an unwavering ability to overcome obstacles and lack of information to eventually create a massive success story in under a decade. Theirs is a story of hope, and stick-to-it-ness and a reminder that most successful people aren’t born, they are made through daily decisions and courage and determination.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
In this episode, Morgan Flatley; Global Chief Marketing Officer at McDonalds, is joined by Alyssa Beutifkofer; who is the CMO of McDonalds Canada. Their presentation was Q&A style, and anyone listening who wants to improve how they can connect with customers and employees would do well to follow their advice and to mirror their character.
It’s probably best to consume this episode as a four course meal that takes place over 40 minutes. Course #1 is personal and gives us a glimpse at the women behind the brand. Both Morgan and Alyssa are working moms and thriving despite pandemics and the daily pressures of growing a cult brand. Course #2 sheds light into how McDonalds navigated Covid 19 and learned to make adjustments that allowed them to keep stores open, employees employed, and the world fed. Course #3 dives into details about one of their most successful campaigns of all time called Famous Orders. This was a gutsy call that spiked McDonalds relevance and reenergized the brand in meaningful ways. And Course #4 is advice. Morgan and Alyssa were kind enough to end their remarks with some practical tips for other marketers and brand builders who are keen to try and mimic a fraction of McDonald’s success.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
The NFL is the most popular sports league in America. The Super Bowl is among the biggest club sporting events in the world, with the individual games occupying all 5 of Nielsen's all-time most watched Top 5 US television broadcasts. The NFL is also the wealthiest professional sports league by revenue. Dealing with such a massive brand with such broad reach is crazy hard and Tim Ellis has to cater to die hard fans who want everything to stay the same, and attract new audiences who want some things to change.
Needless to say, Tim is more than qualified to provide a Master Class on marketing. Ad Age ranked the NFL as #1 on their 2021 Marketers of the Year list. In this episode, Tim shares the framework he uses to ensure professional football continues to thrive on and off the field.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
You don't become the King of Beers without first being a masterful marketer. Kyle Norrington is the current Chief Commercial Officer at Anheuser-Busch, was the former President of LaBatt Breweries of Canada, which makes and distributes Budweiser, and was also the previous VP Global Brands for Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois. Needless to say this guy knows a thing or two about about the beer business. If you are dealing with a global brand, or are hoping to grow their company by tapping into pop culture and becoming culturally significant, Budweiser is perhaps the best example on the planet. Sit back, and relax, but be prepared to take lots of notes about how to foster community and create irrational love for your products, and your brand. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Big Brothers Big Sisters exists to "create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth". It is one of the oldest and largest youth mentoring organizations in the United States, working with tens of thousands of volunteers and numerous local chapters. Artis Stevens is a dynamic leader and speaker who has devoted his life to worthy causes. Listen to Artis’ story and challenge yourself to find 2-3 things that he’s doing that would make your company or charity better.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
You will be hard pressed to find a more diverse and long-standing company than Kawasaki. This international mega brand joins a very short list of remarkable companies that have excelled for over a century.
Kawasaki is a true lifestyle brand. They don’t just sell power sports, they sell all the fun and emotion and community comes with thrill seeking. They refuse to rest on their laurels and they have demonstrated their commitment to product innovations and customer experiences that live up to their core audiences high expectations.
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MJ DePalma currently serves as the Director of Inclusive Marketing and Marketing Excellence at Microsoft. There she is pioneering Inclusive Marketing strategies within product and service development, as well as customer and employee experiences and multicultural advertising. She published the “Marketing with Purpose Course”, and a Playbook, to enable anyone, no matter what role you have in a company, to build more trusted customer experiences. She is a global speaker and guest lecturer redefining innovation to empower everyone to design our best collective future.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Tamir Bar-Haim explains Amazon’s mission to be the most customer obsessed company in the world. While most outsiders focus on their low prices, or their operational excellence, or perhaps their enviable relationship with Wall Street investors as the biggest contributors to their greatness, but in reality it’s Amazon’s unnatural commitment to meeting exceptionally high customer expectations that makes this company exceptional.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Land Rover is in a league of its own. Their impact on culture, and the way they cater to a legion of loyal followers, is worthy of emulation.
In this episode, Wolfgang Hoffmann explains how they’ve accomplished what they have. Wolfgang speaks to all aspects of the product, their accessories, their dealer network, and their marketing. Each must live up to their mission of making the most of our world, and do so in a super refined and luxurious way.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Ryan specializes in Courage. He understands how hard it is for people to live with courage, not just in their jobs, but in their lives. His talk provides us with invaluable advice on why and how we can overcome our fears and anxieties, and as leaders, he helps us have more empathy for the concerns and challenges people are wrestling with. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Rory Sutherland does not run a cult brand, nor does he even work for one. But he has worked with numerous cult brands, and it was our distinct honor to have him join us from the UK and present some of his latest research findings at The Gathering in Spring 2021. Rory is the vice chairman of the Ogilvy & Mather group of advertising companies. He has written several books, including Alchemy: The Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense.
Rory’s presentation is a must listen for any marketer. His examples about the relative perception of price could help reduce the rampant discounting that’s going on, and better appreciating business asymmetry will help marketers more successfully exchange ideas and influence how their organizations solve problems.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Barbie has transcended being a toy. She is an icon, and a symbol. Barbie is a doll that has remained top of its category for 60 years despite competitive threats and shifting consumer preferences. She has helped transform how kids play, and more importantly, how society thinks about women and empowering girls at a young age to dream bigger than they’ve ever dared to dream before.
Barbie’s history isn’t without controversy and periods of sales declines. Those are to be expected in a global behemoth, but what we found most impressive is how the Barbie team, led by Lisa McKnight since 2016, has responded, and rebounded, and made that business, and that brand, stronger today than it’s ever been.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
This 135 year old brand has been consistently ranked amongst the most valuable brands in the world for decades. Heck, they are so pervasive and so powerful even our modern day image of Santa Claus is thanks in large part to their marketing. So rather than talk about Coke, I want to take just a minute to talk about Geoff Cottrill, their brand leader who represented Coke at The Gathering.
Geoff is a who’s who in the marketing world. Throughout his career he’s held marketing roles at Proctor and Gamble, Starbucks, and Converse. He’s been the president of a large ad agency, Mullen Lowe. For 10 years he served as the Board Chair of the Grammys. And since giving this speech when he was the SVP of Strategic marketing at Coca Cola he has since moved on to become the CMO of Top Golf. Not many people can say they’ve seen or done it all, but Geoff can. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Tim was invited to speak at The Gathering, not as an honoree, but as a savvy brand leader who knows what good looks like and knows how hard it can be to properly engage external audiences AND get internal stakeholder buy in on a journey to become something more than just a transactional business that prioritizes price or convenience above all else. Tim's personal journey from a marketer to an operator to a business leader is indicative of our own growth as marketers where we need to evolve from communicating value to actually creating it. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
There is no doubt GoDaddy is successful. They have been growing year of year by double digits for as long as anyone can remember. But financial success is only part of a cult brand’s story. Cameron told The Gathering audience that GoDaddy’s problem isn’t market share, it’s indifference. They had become a pervasive domain utility but in reality they wanted to become an enabler of entrepreneurism. Strategically, the C-suite moved the goal posts and elevated their brand’s purpose, and then they began the hard work of developing an amazing suite of tools and services to help small businesses succeed. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
It's no exaggeration to refer to Laura Nestler as the Queen of Community Marketing. She is such an expert, and not just in theory, but in practical application. She cut her teeth in the space doing events and marketing for the Seattle Mariners. Then she went to Adidas. Then Yelp. And now she’s at Duolingo. For those who don’t know, Duolingo is a language-learning app that is accessible without charge. As of 10 February 2021, they offered 106 different courses in 38 languages. The app has over 300 million registered users across the world, is the most downloaded educational app ever in the app store, and the highest grossing education app given their freemium model. Interestingly, the majority of their content is created by volunteers, not employees. In that way it’s like Wikipedia and Reddit, where the content is crowdsourced. If you are keen to learn how to better mobilize your fan base so you reap rewards not only their transactions, but also their interactions, then you need to grab a pen and paper and take some notes because Laura breaks it down for you. Learn more about the podcast at CultBrandSecrets.com.
Hot Wheels is great because of the way they strive to remain relentlessly relevant. No one there is resting on their laurels. They push and challenge the status quo, and are constantly experimenting with how far and how fast they can take the brand. From celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2018, to celebrating becoming the #1 selling toy in the world, to sharing how they’ve extended the brand into events, collectables, and online videos and video games and creating this entire play ecosystem for kids and adults, Hot Wheels is truly inspiring. So have a listen and enjoy. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Brian Scudamore’s enthusiasm for business, and for life, is contagious. He’s one of those guys that makes me smile just by being in his presence. Sure, he’s a super successful entrepreneur, but he’s also just a really good guy who is naturally curious, has a tremendous work ethic, and most importantly for today’s episode, he has mastered a philosophy about failure that is very refreshing. In this presentation, Brian is going to share the origin story of 1-800 Got Junk, and that business is certainly a fascinating rags to riches story. But more than the company’s journey, I encourage you to pay attention to Brian’s entrepreneurial journey. He’s very candid, and has a lot to teach us about resilience, grit, optimism, and making tough choices. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Traeger is such a great example of a business that understands what business it is actually in. They make world-class smokers and wood pellet grills, but that's just what they do. That’s not what they are. They are community builders.
Their explosive revenue growth is certainly worthy of our attention, having grown hundreds of millions in a few short years, but their impact on culture and on the BBQ community is even more impressive. Anyone curious how to transition their mediocre business into a cult brand would do well to study Traeger’s story.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Since the advent of TV advertising, marketers have been perfecting their storytelling - getting better and better at how they talk. But cult brands have also learned how to shut up and listen. They know they aren’t smarter than their customers, so they find clever ways to include the voice of their customer in their strategies and tactics.
You’re in for a treat as Rachel shares the story behind their famous ‘anti-ad’, which went against the advice of so-called experts, as well as her own legal team, but resulted in Doritos literally branding a shape - they now own our mindshare for the triangle. She also gives a great case study on their Cool Ranch campaign, which was really the first time in 20 years that brand got so much love and attention. I think Rachel gives us a masterclass on modern day marketing, so let’s dive in and learn from one of our industry’s best.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Tim Harris, the President of a multi-billion dollar brand, speaks to us about culture and shares the story of his mailroom guy. There is so much to be learned about how cult brand leaders emphasize culture and how they treat their people. The LA Lakers’ success teaches us the importance of catering to your current customers, as well as treating your people on staff. There are benefits to focusing more energy on those groups over prospects, but it is customers and staff who can evangelize your brand and bring other people into your fold. While Tim is exceptional, he is representative of the caliber of humans who run some of the most beloved brands on the planet. Their organizations are loved for a reason, and it’s because of the people like Tim who call the shots. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Lots of businesses can fake it for a while while riding some cultural fad, but you need real substance to be around for over 100 years. And A&W began as a simple root beer stand in 1919 following the end of WWI. I remember after evaluating A&W for That Gathering I would talk about them with people in my network and their familiarity with it varied wildly. Some never ate there, others raved about their burgers, others talked about their famous root beer floats and frosted mugs, and yet others know them simply as the best root beer to buy in a 2-liter bottle at the grocery store. Sarah will get into that, but what I came to appreciate most about the brand - besides the fact that they invented the bacon cheeseburger - is that A&W was the first restaurant to franchise in the US, which means they were really smart about their growth. So if you are interested in growing your business, listen to some tips and tricks from Sarah as she shares some of A&W’s secret sauce that has helped them achieve a level of status and success that few brands will ever achieve. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
IBM is a remarkable company, having masterfully pivoted over it’s century-old life to remain highly relevant in the B2B space. In fact, they are sort of the poster child of reinvention, having started in the hardware space and now are thriving in the professional services space. But IBM wasn’t at the 2019 Gathering as an honoree. Rather, we invited Nancy to come and present because of their proprietary research around the customer experience and how they are helping brands apply AI to improve how strategy, creativity and technology all commingle in hyper efficient ways to boost customer engagement. Have a listen, and just as importantly, download the IBM Brand Belonging research that Nancy references and see how well, and how quickly, your company can leverage its findings. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Cult Brand Secrets has researched brands like Harley Davidson, Apple, Nike, Starbucks and Lululemon to try and reverse engineer what they did to make them so iconic in their categories. But, thanks to The Gathering, we’ve been able to add other types of entities into our data set, such as cities or destinations and non-profits.
But we grew increasingly interested in people as well. Once we started researching iconic humans, like Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, and Gordon Ramsey, we stumbled upon a fascinating space of cult brand personalities. It was so intriguing to us that in 2019 we introduced a new category of recognition, and selected Tony Hawk as our inaugural honoree. It is impossible for me to think of a better first time recipient than Tony. His career and brand represent perfectly what we want people to understand about cult brand personalities - the mastery of a craft, the pursuit of passion over profit, the durability of staying relevant for decades, the ability to give back and contribute to a relevant cause, everything that Tony has done qualifies him for this recognition.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Shopify is a world class example that every single B2B marketing department - and probably even C-suite- should listen to, and then workshop together about how they can rise up and more meaningfully compete by employing some of the strategies and tactics that Amy will share.
While Fortune 1000 companies get all the headlines and media coverage, North America is built on the backs of small businesses. Small businesses account for two-thirds of all new jobs created annually. Shopfiy doesn’t just give lip service to empowering entrepreneurs, rather it’s their entire business model and brand ethos. They truly walk the walk.
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Janelle Shiplet titled her remarks, A Brand Best Experienced, and she lived up to that by giving away Sage essential oils to all the attendees, and started of her talk by having everyone rub on one of their Sage remedies and do some breath work. Cult has an adage that says, Don’t just get customers to buy, get them to buy in.” That is exactly what Sage has mastered. They don’t just seek transactional relationships, they earnestly invite people to be part of their community. Sage has about 70 retail locations now, but most of their growth has happened in just the past few years. Janelle’s talk will be highly valuable to any business owner seeking to initiate and enable growth. Have a listen… Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
While we usually feature cult brand leaders telling their tales of how their brand earned cult-like status, John Winsor is different. He’s an industry thought leader and a master of the cult-brand principle of co-creation. Most interesting, John is a pioneer, innovator and early adopter of crowdsourcing. We were thrilled to have John present at the 2020 Gathering because of his expertise helping brands become more successful by thinking differently about their talent management strategies. John reminds us that we will all be disrupted; personally and professionally. It’s unavoidable, so the only question is how well are we prepared for it? Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com.
Nils shares a bit about the product features themselves, as well as how it aspires to be relevant within culture - TV shows, music, the new. I encourage you to listen to him and make notes on how something that was birthed in 1941 as a candy designed for WWII soldiers transformed into the most popular candy in the world. To hear more about how Nils manages the complexity of the running world’s biggest candy brand while never losing sight of the individuals , like myself, who love to eat them, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com.
Christopher Heck is the President of the Sixers, and he did such a great job giving us a glimpse behind the scenes and showing us the robustness of the work his team has been up to the past seven years in an initiative that has come to be known as ‘trust the process.’
Very few people listening are in sports marketing, but that’s okay. Think about this basketball club just like any other business. They were struggling. Competition in the Philly market for an audience's attention is extreme. The Sixers were last in last place in the rankings, and in sales. But they preserved, took bold action, displayed ingenuity, boosted internal morale, and emerged victorious. Any business leader with enough imagination can see themselves in Christopher’s shoes, and can mimic elements of his success.
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Perhaps the greatest compliment I can give Scott Baker, and Porsche - the company he represents - is that I wasn’t a car person before their brand evaluation, and now I’m a big car fan. Particularly Porsche. This is one of the most remarkable companies and brands and I don’t think they get nearly the accolades and admiration they deserve within the marketing industry. If you boil marketing down to it’s core essence, there are two things that matter most: First, ask yourself if your product is as remarkable as you think it is, or as remarkable as it needs to be. If not, spend your time, talent, and money making it better. Porsche makes truly remarkable automobiles. Secondly, are you creating and nurturing a tribe of enthusiasts about your product or service. Porsche, like Harley Davidson, is masterfully at providing desirable experiences for the novice, and they allow die hard fans to have incredible access and the ability to associate with the brand, and with other Porsche fans. It really doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. Let’s hear how Scott does those two things at Porsche. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com.
So many remarkable success stories start out as seemingly bad ideas. But that’s what makes their success so much more noteworthy. Building an NHL franchise in the dessert, in a market not known for being very family friendly, a market with no other professional sport team, was viewed by many as a big mistake. But Brian was the right guy to rise to the challenge. He’s a tremendous marketing mind, In fact, I’ll go so far as to say Brian Killingsworth is one of the top sports marketing experts in the world. Brian’s success is making it so that regardless of win or lose, all the fans had a truly memorable experience. Let’s listen as Brian share a host of strategies and tactics he’s deploying to earn the success the Golden Knights are enjoying. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com.
More than 125 million people in 120 countries have seen a Globetrotters game, and countless more have seen them on Scooby Doo, Gillagan’s Island, TV gameshows, Reality TV, Guinness Book of World Records competitions, and Youtube videos. For over 95 years they have been providing family fun as well as breaking down barriers and teaching their fans how to be better versions of ourselves. Brent gives us the opportunity to sort of belly up to the buffet of proven brand principles and instead of diving deep into 1-2 big takeaways, he knocks us over the head with nearly a dozen different tips and tricks and solid advice to create something as beloved as what the Globetrotters have become. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Brandi’s speech at The Gathering 2019 is why I’m so excited about this podcast series. Her presentation was incredible. In 30 minutes she articulated the essence of why Lush is such an incredible brand, and frankly I don’t know why more people don’t put Lush in the same category as Ben & Jerry’s or Patagonia or Swell water bottles when they talk about brands that masterfully adopt social justice platforms and almost behave more like charities than corporations. We should all take more time to learn about Lush, and then apply what we learn to our own businesses. As she’ll share, she’s been so loyal to Lush because Lush is a values first brand, and their values align with Brandi’s personal values. When your company is that overt about who you are and what you stand for, you will attract a different type of employee, people who are not only qualified to do the job, but are brand ambassadors who contribute in unique ways to your business’s success. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Tom Herbst’s presentation at The Gathering 2019 ranks among one of my Top 10 all time favorites. I’d like you to listen to Tom speak, and ask yourself how much you believe in what he’s saying. You should use Tom’s remarks as a barometer of sorts to gauge your own passion and level of enthusiasm for cult branding. As a business, the North Face is wildly successful at manufacturing and selling products expertly designed to help people thrive in extremely cold weather. But as a brand, North Face was dangerously close to losing its way. As it got bigger, it was becoming less beloved. In pursuit of greater profits, they were losing touch with the people who made their company great - both the customers and the staff whose buy in is so critical. And that's when Tom came in to help save the day.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
In this talk, Bill will share a bit of his personal journey, where he spent some time at Under Armor, another fantastic Cult brand, and he’ll share three guiding principles that inform Yeti’s marketing mix. This is a great opportunity to experience Bill’s character and personality. He’s a rare individual in today’s marketing leadership landscape. Most of us pretend to have all the answers, all the time, to any question that is asked. But Bill doesn’t. He knows what he knows, and he knows what he doesn’t know, and his curiosity and enthusiasm for continued growth and learning is endearing, and hopefully it’s contagious, because the marketing industry would be a lot better off if there were more people like Bill in it. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
You’re in for a treat because Douglas Atkin is the OG of cult branding. He literally wrote the book on the subject. Back in 2005 he published a book called The Culting of Brands and he was first the first person I know who compared the beliefs and behaviors of actual cults - the creepy kind - with enviable organizations, like fraternities, fast growing religions, and brands. Douglas’ work led him to interesting marketing roles within professional service firms and the social gathering site MeetUp, but his career went to a whole new level when he was hired in the early days of AirBNB and deployed his thinking on cult brands to that business and contributed to their meteoric rise. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Jane Hwang is the former Global Vice President over Fruit Confections at Mars, which includes Skittles. She has a manner that helped her organization be comfortable with being uncomfortable, which is perfect for such an offbeat brand. Skittles is the #1 globally selling non-chocolate candy. 200 million individual skittles are produced daily. Obviously when you’re that big so much of the brand’s success is based on manufacturing consistency and supply chain, and distribution within multiple countries. But Jane didn’t talk about any of that. Instead, she talks about consistent disruption in regards to consumer expectations, their storytelling, and the causes Skittles supports. She elaborates on the discipline to stick with something, like Taste the Rainbow has been a work in progress for nearly 30 years. With how transient the CMO position is, it seems like mediocre, or immature brands are reimagining their identity and value propositions every couple years. That’s the wrong way to do it. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Mindy is the Senior Vice President over Global Marketing Partnerships for Marvel Studios, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. She’s a horse lovin’ southern gal, now living in the glam and glitz of Hollywood, and applying her formidable experience with entertainment properties and big brands to the different Marvel franchises. As you listen to Mindy speak, you’ll note two things in particular. First, Marvel isn’t about superheroes. They have transcended beyond their characters and are really about epic storytelling and the power of the human spirit. Those are two things we need better represented in more brands and categories. Secondly, Mindy references the need to “Interact instead of transact''. To build a cult brand, you need to transcend the typical business to consumer relationship. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Spotify is a remarkable company and an amazing Cult brand. Birthed in 2008 as a viable alternative to music piracy, Spotify has always upheld the importance of properly compensating creators. In this episode, we hear Alex recount his personal journey and share how the Creative team at Spotify uses data to inform campaigns, Alex will share several examples of how marketing worked with the product, and the data, to create greater fan engagement. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
This 135 year old brand has been consistently ranked amongst the most valuable brands in the world for decades. Heck, they are so pervasive and so powerful even our modern day image of Santa Claus is thanks in large part to their marketing. So rather than talk about Coke, I want to take just a minute to talk about Geoff Cottrill, their brand leader who represented Coke at The Gathering.
Geoff is a who’s who in the marketing world. Throughout his career he’s held marketing roles at Proctor and Gamble, Starbucks, and Converse. He’s been the president of a large ad agency, Mullen Lowe. For 10 years he served as the Board Chair of the Grammys. And since giving this speech when he was the SVP of Strategic marketing at Coca Cola he has since moved on to become the CMO of Top Golf.
Not many people can say they’ve seen or done it all, but Geoff can.
This is a condensed version of Geoff’s 40 minute presentation at the Gathering. To better understand the type of thinking that keeps a company like Coca Cola, which is over a century old, as prevalent as ever, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Tim was invited to speak at The Gathering, not as an honoree, but as a savvy brand leader who knows what good looks like and knows how hard it can be to properly engage external audiences AND get internal stakeholder buy in on a journey to become something more than just a transactional business that prioritizes price or convenience above all else.
Tim's personal journey from a marketer to an operator to a business leader is indicative of our own growth as marketers where we need to evolve from communicating value to actually creating it.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
There is no doubt GoDaddy is successful. They have been growing year of year by double digits for as long as anyone can remember. But financial success is only part of a cult brand’s story. Cameron told The Gathering audience that GoDaddy’s problem isn’t market share, it’s indifference.
They had become a pervasive domain utility but in reality they wanted to become an enabler of entrepreneurism. Strategically, the C-suite moved the goal posts and elevated their brand’s purpose, and then they began the hard work of developing an amazing suite of tools and services to help small businesses succeed.
This is a condensed version of Cameron’s 40 minute presentation at the Gathering. To better understand the ambition and commitment to disruption that becoming a Cult Brand requires, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
It's no exaggeration to refer to Laura Nestler as the Queen of Community Marketing. She is such an expert, and not just in theory, but in practical application. She cut her teeth in the space doing events and marketing for the Seattle Mariners. Then she went to Adidas. Then Yelp. And now she’s at Duolingo.
For those who don’t know, Duolingo is a language-learning app that is accessible without charge. As of 10 February 2021, they offered 106 different courses in 38 languages. The app has over 300 million registered users across the world, is the most downloaded educational app ever in the app store, and the highest grossing education app given their freemium model. Interestingly, the majority of their content is created by volunteers, not employees. In that way it’s like Wikipedia and Reddit, where the content is crowdsourced. If you are keen to learn how to better mobilize your fan base so you reap rewards not only their transactions, but also their interactions, then you need to grab a pen and paper and take some notes because Laura breaks it down for you.
This is a condensed version of Laura’s 40 minute presentation at the Gathering. To hear more, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more about the podcast at CultBrandSecrets.com.
Hot Wheels is great because of the way they strive to remain relentlessly relevant. No one there is resting on their laurels. They push and challenge the status quo, and are constantly experimenting with how far and how fast they can take the brand.
From celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2018, to celebrating becoming the #1 selling toy in the world, to sharing how they’ve extended the brand into events, collectables, and online videos and video games and creating this entire play ecosystem for kids and adults, Hot Wheels is truly inspiring. So have a listen and enjoy.
This is a condensed version of Jason’s 40 minute presentation at the Gathering. To hear more from Jason about how you can convert passion and authenticity into an iconic brand image that spans decades, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Brian Scudamore’s enthusiasm for business, and for life, is contagious. He’s one of those guys that makes me smile just by being in his presence. Sure, he’s a super successful entrepreneur, but he’s also just a really good guy who is naturally curious, has a tremendous work ethic, and most importantly for today’s episode, he has mastered a philosophy about failure that is very refreshing.
In this presentation, Brian is going to share the origin story of 1-800 Got Junk, and that business is certainly a fascinating rags to riches story. But more than the company’s journey, I encourage you to pay attention to Brian’s entrepreneurial journey. He’s very candid, and has a lot to teach us about resilience, grit, optimism, and making tough choices.
This is a condensed version of Brian’s 40 minute presentation at the Gathering. To hear more of the insights Brian gained on his entrepreneurial journey and how they may be applicable to yourself, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Since the advent of TV advertising, marketers have been perfecting their storytelling - getting better and better at how they talk. But cult brands have also learned how to shut up and listen. They know they aren’t smarter than their customers, so they find clever ways to include the voice of their customer in their strategies and tactics.
You’re in for a treat as Rachel shares the story behind their famous ‘anti-ad’, which went against the advice of so-called experts, as well as her own legal team, but resulted in Doritos literally branding a shape - they now own our mindshare for the triangle. She also gives a great case study on their Cool Ranch campaign, which was really the first time in 20 years that brand got so much love and attention. I think Rachel gives us a masterclass on modern day marketing, so let’s dive in and learn from one of our industry’s best.
This short episode features some excerpts from Rachel’s 40 minute talk at the Gathering, which I highly suggest to those who want to know how they can embrace their relationship with their target audience and operate in a more constant state of adaptation, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Tim Harris, the President of a multi-billion dollar brand, speaks to us about culture and shares the story of his mailroom guy. There is so much to be learned about how cult brand leaders emphasize culture and how they treat their people. The LA Lakers’ success teaches us the importance of catering to your current customers, as well as treating your people on staff. There are benefits to focusing more energy on those groups over prospects, but it is customers and staff who can evangelize your brand and bring other people into your fold.
While Tim is exceptional, he is representative of the caliber of humans who run some of the most beloved brands on the planet. Their organizations are loved for a reason, and it’s because of the people like Tim who call the shots.
This short episode features some of our favorite excerpts from Tim's 40 minute presentation at the 2019 Gathering. To hear more, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Lots of businesses can fake it for a while while riding some cultural fad, but you need real substance to be around for over 100 years. And A&W began as a simple root beer stand in 1919 following the end of WWI.
I remember after evaluating A&W for That Gathering I would talk about them with people in my network and their familiarity with it varied wildly. Some never ate there, others raved about their burgers, others talked about their famous root beer floats and frosted mugs, and yet others know them simply as the best root beer to buy in a 2-liter bottle at the grocery store. Sarah will get into that, but what I came to appreciate most about the brand - besides the fact that they invented the bacon cheeseburger - is that A&W was the first restaurant to franchise in the US, which means they were really smart about their growth. So if you are interested in growing your business, listen to some tips and tricks from Sarah as she shares some of A&W’s secret sauce that has helped them achieve a level of status and success that few brands will ever achieve.
This short episode features some excerpts from Sarah’s 40 minute talk at the Gathering 2020.To hear more of Sarah’s insights, that are as delicious as a cheeseburger combo and a cool root beer, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
IBM is a remarkable company, having masterfully pivoted over it’s century-old life to remain highly relevant in the B2B space. In fact, they are sort of the poster child of reinvention, having started in the hardware space and now are thriving in the professional services space.
But IBM wasn’t at the 2019 Gathering as an honoree. Rather, we invited Nancy to come and present because of their proprietary research around the customer experience and how they are helping brands apply AI to improve how strategy, creativity and technology all commingle in hyper efficient ways to boost customer engagement.
Have a listen, and just as importantly, download the IBM Brand Belonging research that Nancy references and see how well, and how quickly, your company can leverage its findings.
This is a condensed version of Nancy’s 40 minute presentation at the Gathering, in this shortened episode you can hear a handful of Nancy’s insight on the powerful tools that are now at the disposal of brand leaders and forward thinkers. To hear more of this technology, and how you can better utilize it, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Cult Brand Secrets has researched brands like Harley Davidson, Apple, Nike, Starbucks and Lululemon to try and reverse engineer what they did to make them so iconic in their categories. But, thanks to The Gathering, we’ve been able to add other types of entities into our data set, such as cities or destinations and non-profits.
But we grew increasingly interested in people as well. Once we started researching iconic humans, like Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, and Gordon Ramsey, we stumbled upon a fascinating space of cult brand personalities. It was so intriguing to us that in 2019 we introduced a new category of recognition, and selected Tony Hawk as our inaugural honoree. It is impossible for me to think of a better first time recipient than Tony. His career and brand represent perfectly what we want people to understand about cult brand personalities - the mastery of a craft, the pursuit of passion over profit, the durability of staying relevant for decades, the ability to give back and contribute to a relevant cause, everything that Tony has done qualifies him for this recognition.
This short episode features some of our favorite excerpts from Tony’s 40 minute presentation at the 2020 Gathering. To learn more about Tony’s journey in harnessing his passion to establish himself as a force for good for decades to follow, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Janelle Shiplet titled her remarks, A Brand Best Experienced, and she lived up to that by giving away Sage essential oils to all the attendees, and started of her talk by having everyone rub on one of their Sage remedies and do some breath work.
Cult has an adage that says, Don’t just get customers to buy, get them to buy in.” That is exactly what Sage has mastered. They don’t just seek transactional relationships, they earnestly invite people to be part of their community.
Sage has about 70 retail locations now, but most of their growth has happened in just the past few years. Janelle’s talk will be highly valuable to any business owner seeking to initiate and enable growth. Have a listen…
To hear more about how Janelle and Saje manage the complexity of running such a rapidly developing brand while maintaining their basic brand goals and intentions, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
While we usually feature cult brand leaders telling their tales of how their brand earned cult-like status, John Winsor is different. He’s an industry thought leader and a master of the cult-brand principle of co-creation. Most interesting, John is a pioneer, innovator and early adopter of crowdsourcing. We were thrilled to have John present at the 2020 Gathering because of his expertise helping brands become more successful by thinking differently about their talent management strategies.
John reminds us that we will all be disrupted; personally and professionally. It’s unavoidable, so the only question is how well are we prepared for it?
This short episode features some excerpts from John’s 50 minute talk at the Gathering, which I highly suggest to those who want to know how they can rethink what it means to collaborate and create great products and experiences in tandem with others. To hear more from John, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com.
Nils shares a bit about the product features themselves, as well as how it aspires to be relevant within culture - TV shows, music, the new. I encourage you to listen to him and make notes on how something that was birthed in 1941 as a candy designed for WWII soldiers transformed into the most popular candy in the world.
To hear more about how Nils manages the complexity of the running world’s biggest candy brand while never losing sight of the individuals , like myself, who love to eat them, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com.
Perhaps the greatest compliment I can give Scott Baker, and Porsche - the company he represents - is that I wasn’t a car person before their brand evaluation, and now I’m a big car fan. Particularly Porsche. This is one of the most remarkable companies and brands and I don’t think they get nearly the accolades and admiration they deserve within the marketing industry.
If you boil marketing down to it’s core essence, there are two things that matter most:
First, ask yourself if your product is as remarkable as you think it is, or as remarkable as it needs to be. If not, spend your time, talent, and money making it better. Porsche makes truly remarkable automobiles.
Secondly, are you creating and nurturing a tribe of enthusiasts about your product or service. Porsche, like Harley Davidson, is masterfully at providing desirable experiences for the novice, and they allow die hard fans to have incredible access and the ability to associate with the brand, and with other Porsche fans. It really doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. Let’s hear how Scott does those two things at Porsche.
This short episode features some excerpts from Scott’s 40 minute talk at the Gathering, which I highly suggest to those who want to know how they can better utilize the foundations of the brands they have created to improve the experiences of their customer. To hear more about Scott’s personal journey and lessons, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com.
So many remarkable success stories start out as seemingly bad ideas. But that’s what makes their success so much more noteworthy.
Building an NHL franchise in the dessert, in a market not known for being very family friendly, a market with no other professional sport team, was viewed by many as a big mistake. But Brian was the right guy to rise to the challenge. He’s a tremendous marketing mind, In fact, I’ll go so far as to say Brian Killingsworth is one of the top sports marketing experts in the world.
Brian’s success is making it so that regardless of win or lose, all the fans had a truly memorable experience. Let’s listen as Brian share a host of strategies and tactics he’s deploying to earn the success the Golden Knights are enjoying.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com.
More than 125 million people in 120 countries have seen a Globetrotters game, and countless more have seen them on Scooby Doo, Gillagan’s Island, TV gameshows, Reality TV, Guinness Book of World Records competitions, and Youtube videos. For over 95 years they have been providing family fun as well as breaking down barriers and teaching their fans how to be better versions of ourselves.
Brent gives us the opportunity to sort of belly up to the buffet of proven brand principles and instead of diving deep into 1-2 big takeaways, he knocks us over the head with nearly a dozen different tips and tricks and solid advice to create something as beloved as what the Globetrotters have become.
This is a condensed version of Brent’s 40 minute presentation at the Gathering, in this shortened episode you can hear a handful of Brent’s many tips on how the Globetrotter’s dominate as a cultural powerhouse.. To hear more of his stellar advice, and how you can better emulate the Globetrotters’ success as an institution, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Brandi’s speech at The Gathering 2019 is why I’m so excited about this podcast series. Her presentation was incredible. In 30 minutes she articulated the essence of why Lush is such an incredible brand, and frankly I don’t know why more people don’t put Lush in the same category as Ben & Jerry’s or Patagonia or Swell water bottles when they talk about brands that masterfully adopt social justice platforms and almost behave more like charities than corporations. We should all take more time to learn about Lush, and then apply what we learn to our own businesses.
As she’ll share, she’s been so loyal to Lush because Lush is a values first brand, and their values align with Brandi’s personal values. When your company is that overt about who you are and what you stand for, you will attract a different type of employee, people who are not only qualified to do the job, but are brand ambassadors who contribute in unique ways to your business’s success.
This short episode features some excerpts from Brandi’s 40 minute talk at the Gathering, which I highly suggest to those who want to know how they can turn their brand into a powerful community. To hear more about Brandi’s values and passion that fuel Lush’s culture of support and care, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events.
Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Tom Herbst’s presentation at The Gathering 2019 ranks among one of my Top 10 all time favorites. I’d like you to listen to Tom speak, and ask yourself how much you believe in what he’s saying. You should use Tom’s remarks as a barometer of sorts to gauge your own passion and level of enthusiasm for cult branding.
As a business, the North Face is wildly successful at manufacturing and selling products expertly designed to help people thrive in extremely cold weather. But as a brand, North Face was dangerously close to losing its way. As it got bigger, it was becoming less beloved. In pursuit of greater profits, they were losing touch with the people who made their company great - both the customers and the staff whose buy in is so critical. And that's when Tom came in to help save the day.
In this talk, Bill will share a bit of his personal journey, where he spent some time at Under Armor, another fantastic Cult brand, and he’ll share three guiding principles that inform Yeti’s marketing mix. This is a great opportunity to experience Bill’s character and personality. He’s a rare individual in today’s marketing leadership landscape.
Most of us pretend to have all the answers, all the time, to any question that is asked. But Bill doesn’t. He knows what he knows, and he knows what he doesn’t know, and his curiosity and enthusiasm for continued growth and learning is endearing, and hopefully it’s contagious, because the marketing industry would be a lot better off if there were more people like Bill in it.
This short episode features some of our favorite excerpts from Bill’s 40 minute presentation at the 2020 Gathering. To get an additional fix of Bill’s infectious energy, and how you can build an identity as iconic as Yeti’s, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world, like Yeti, as presented from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
You’re in for a treat because Douglas Atkin is the OG of cult branding. He literally wrote the book on the subject. Back in 2005 he published a book called The Culting of Brands and he was first the first person I know who compared the beliefs and behaviors of actual cults - the creepy kind - with enviable organizations, like fraternities, fast growing religions, and brands.
Douglas’ work led him to interesting marketing roles within professional service firms and the social gathering site MeetUp, but his career went to a whole new level when he was hired in the early days of AirBNB and deployed his thinking on cult brands to that business and contributed to their meteoric rise.
This is a condensed version of Douglas’ 40 minute presentation at the Gathering, in this shortened episode you can hear about Douglas’ work connecting the cults that make you shudder, to the brands you love. To hear more about Douglas’ personal journey and how you can better apply his findings to your endeavors, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Jane Hwang is the former Global Vice President over Fruit Confections at Mars, which includes Skittles. She has a manner that helped her organization be comfortable with being uncomfortable, which is perfect for such an offbeat brand.
Skittles is the #1 globally selling non-chocolate candy. 200 million individual skittles are produced daily. Obviously when you’re that big so much of the brand’s success is based on manufacturing consistency and supply chain, and distribution within multiple countries. But Jane didn’t talk about any of that. Instead, she talks about consistent disruption in regards to consumer expectations, their storytelling, and the causes Skittles supports. She elaborates on the discipline to stick with something, like Taste the Rainbow has been a work in progress for nearly 30 years. With how transient the CMO position is, it seems like mediocre, or immature brands are reimagining their identity and value propositions every couple years. That’s the wrong way to do it.
This short episode features some of our favorite excerpts from Jane’s full length presentation from The Gathering in 2020. To hear more about Jane’s personal and professional journey and how you can utilize her lessons in your own brand, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world, like Skittles, as presented from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Mindy is the Senior Vice President over Global Marketing Partnerships for Marvel Studios, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. She’s a horse lovin’ southern gal, now living in the glam and glitz of Hollywood, and applying her formidable experience with entertainment properties and big brands to the different Marvel franchises.
As you listen to Mindy speak, you’ll note two things in particular. First, Marvel isn’t about superheroes. They have transcended beyond their characters and are really about epic storytelling and the power of the human spirit. Those are two things we need better represented in more brands and categories. Secondly, Mindy references the need to “Interact instead of transact''. To build a cult brand, you need to transcend the typical business to consumer relationship.
This short episode features some excerpts from Mindy’s full presentation at the Gathering that provide only a taste of the potent information she shared. To hear more about Mindy’s insight and the genius behind Marvel’s storytelling check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most well-known brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Spotify is a remarkable company and an amazing Cult brand. Birthed in 2008 as a viable alternative to music piracy, Spotify has always upheld the importance of properly compensating creators.
In this episode, we hear Alex recount his personal journey and share how the Creative team at Spotify uses data to inform campaigns, Alex will share several examples of how marketing worked with the product, and the data, to create greater fan engagement.
This short episode features some of our favorite excerpts from Alex’s 40 minute presentation at the 2020 Gathering. To hear more about Alex and some of Spotify’s most ingenious and unique campaigns, check out Cult Brand Secrets Premium. By subscribing to our Premium Plan, you’ll gain access to full presentations by the most beloved brands in the world from The Gathering’s past events. Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com
Each year, The Gathering brings together disruptors from around the globe to learn from, and celebrate, the leaders behind iconic brands like Marvel, Skittles, Beats by Dre, Yeti, and the Dallas Cowboys. For the first time ever, these unique and enlightening presentations can be heard any time and anywhere on this podcast.
Cult Brand Secrets is an anthology of the greatest and most influential presentations The Gathering has to offer, featuring experts that transcend branding to build cult-like adoration of their work. Additionally, host Chris Kneeland uses his own experience in associating with these brand leaders to highlight key trends and help you identify the most worthwhile takeaways. Join our Premium Channel to hear full length presentations at cultbrandsecrets.com.