Product Branding Straight from the Heart, with Emily Soccorsy & Justin Foster

Product: Knowledge — the Product Marketing Podcast

Consumers have had enough of phony product brands. Fabricated figureheads like Betty Crocker and the Marlboro Man ruled the twentieth century, but social media and customer reviews have permanently altered the landscape. Not only can we handle the truth—we demand it.

While everyone talks ad nauseam about “authenticity,” it’s still much easier to fall back into the old-world playbook. Emily Soccorsy and Justin Foster created Root + River to help product makers succeed at branding from the heart and build an enduring culture of truth. Doing it right creates new levels of joy, satisfaction and loyalty, but requires a new and very deliberate way of thinking. When businesses brand from the heart, amazing things happen, particularly three invaluable breakthroughs that always do.

Emily and Justin join Graphos Product Principal Laurier Mandin to talk about their proven approach to intrinsic branding, and share insights that will help you find and articulate what’s at the heart of your own product brand.

Here are some key-takeaways from this informative and inspiring episode:

• Why today’s consumers refuse to buy falseness (1:45)
• How repelling the wrong buyers is as important as attracting the right ones (3:30)
• The “big gap” that causes branding failure, and how to close it (7:12)
• Why it’s smart to pause marketing to think about the brand (8:00)
• Why branding is a practice, not a department (10:19)
• The 3 amazing things that always happen when you brand from the heart (10:30)
• Why marketing is not the numbers game many CMOs think it is (14:35)
• How love is the reason products and teams succeed (17:00)
• Why you’re not looking for customers—you’re looking for believers (18:48)
• The real secret to creating emotion in your audience (20:00)
• How to build anticipation and demand before you even get to market (23:36)
• Why storytelling can make even “boring” brands thrill consumers (26:19)
• Finding and sharing YOUR belief system, whether your product is old or new (28:35)

Root + River: RootandRiver.com
The Product Launch & Marketing Agency: GraphosProduct.com