From Commoditization to Connection: Mastering Brand Strategies for Revenue Growth

Welcome to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast, the ultimate resource for business leaders eager to skyrocket your company's growth!

In this episode, “From Commoditization to Connection: Mastering Brand Strategies for Revenue Growth,” host Kerry Curran is joined by Caleb Jacobson-Sive, Founder of Lattice Strategy and a seasoned expert in strategic planning and brand development. Caleb shares his invaluable insights on how to navigate the challenges of commoditization and build strong customer relationships that fuel revenue growth. Join us as we explore actionable strategies and real-world examples from brands like Zappos and Southwest Airlines, illustrating the power of internal brand alignment and emotional connection in driving business success.

Get ready to align your marketing strategy with your business growth goals. Let’s go!

Transcript

Podcast Guests: Caleb Jacobson-Sive
Host: Kerry Curran

Title: From Commoditization to Connection: Mastering Brand Strategies for Revenue Growth

Welcome to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast, the ultimate resource for business leaders eager to skyrocket your company's growth! 

I'm your host, Kerry Curran, and this episode is, “From Commoditization to Connection: Mastering Brand Strategies for Revenue Growth” With special guest Caleb Jacobsen-Sive, Founder of Lattice Strategy and a seasoned expert in strategic planning and brand development.

In this episode, Caleb and I discuss bridging the gap between customer insights and business growth. Caleb shares his invaluable insights on how to navigate the challenges of commoditization and build strong customer relationships that fuel revenue growth.Join us as we explore actionable strategies and real-world examples from brands like Zappos and Southwest Airlines, illustrating the power of internal brand alignment and emotional connection in driving business success. 

Get ready to align your marketing strategy with your business growth goals. Let’s go. 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:00.746)

Welcome Caleb. Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background and expertise.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (00:16.274)

Sure, of course. I am the child of immigrants, actually. So I've always been fascinated by culture, just because my parents had such a different culture than my friends and their parents. And that began a long journey that actually led me to Central America and to the study of anthropology. I was in history. I was in academia for many years. Yeah, that's right.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:42.67)

Thank you.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (00:44.306)

And ultimately decided that I wanted to work more in a team sport. And academia is very much a solitary sport. And I just love working and creating with other people. I find it motivating. And I love the kinds of conversations you have around solving a problem. And a friend of mine actually suggested, well, there's this thing called strategic planning and you can keep studying human nature, but add business, and actually make a living at it. 

And it's very much a team sport. So I actually sort of came back from Central America to New York and got a job at a Hispanic shop called the Vidal Partnership, which was this sort of juggernaut of an agency. And it was great. It was a great introduction to corporate life because it had very much this sort of Latin American feel and vibe but was tremendously sharp when it came to strategy and creativity. I mean, many of the people that work there have sort of gone on there to do, gone on from there and done some great things. So sort of began there and then moved on to financial services for a long time, worked with Bank of America. And then healthcare and medical devices and have done a range of spirits brands and beer brands. So that's one of the things I've loved about it too, is that you get to study people in sort of all their different habitats and get very rich insights. But also the other thing I've loved about it too, and one of the reasons why I've struck out on my own is that I love getting very close to the business.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (02:19.79)

Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (02:34.068)

Did very much when I was working in US Hispanic marketing, oftentimes because companies didn't really understand their Hispanic business. We really had to dig in and understand the business data, what the business opportunity was, what the business case was. And I found certainly with some of the longer relationships like Bank of America, you really get to do that. 

But you know, and I… where agencies are these days is they're continually being pushed downstream into selling, like how is this going to make me sell? Let's talk about where, how is this going to affect our sales? And they're not really thinking about the connection between customer insights that help build the product.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:07.022)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (03:24.69)

And how connected that is to ultimately the insights that are going to help sell it and change the behavior that will actually help build your business.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:35.95)

Yeah, definitely. And I love what you're saying about the getting close to the business case and the business data, because that's really where I believe marketing needs to play a stronger role as part of that, to your point, like the market, the product market research, the brand research, and how it's really going to the potential there to drive, to drive the business when you're really deep into it.

So tell me a bit about your new consultancy and kind of what are the questions that your clients are asking you.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (04:10.578)

Yeah, sure. It's called Lattice Strategy. So it's really about the interconnectedness of things and making connections then, which is at the heart of getting to insights that are actually going to unlock some business and build relationships with customers and your employees.

And the kinds of questions that I'm really getting are, ok, for companies, and it's a range of questions depending on who we're talking to, right? So for smaller companies who are just coming into their own and growing very fast, some of the questions can be very internally motivated. I need to define my proposition so that my own employees understand it. And I need to define my proposition and who we are.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:56.494)

Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (04:59.154)

To keep the culture that I've built because obviously as companies expand very quickly, it's very easy for that culture, that really magic to be diluted.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:08.558)

Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (05:09.97)

And so there's as much a concern about sort of codifying that and making sure that stays solid as the company expands. And then of course, that also drives how people service customers and talk to customers as well. And then there are larger companies that are in a sort of a different state of play that ...

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:30.158)

Mm -hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (05:31.666)

You may find their businesses are slowly getting commoditized. And maybe I'll scratch that one. So they're larger companies whose businesses have become really commodities in a sense, like financial services. And they are concerned with how they build a relationship with their customers.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:39.598)

Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (05:57.329)

So there it's really understanding the insights and barriers to a relationship and what the right sort of language is as well. Because you don't build a relationship overnight. And so they're really interested in understanding, ok, well, how do I build a relationship with a customer? And providing that map, which has to do both with what the brand is and what the insight and the proposition is. But also, there's an etiquette to building it.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:08.43)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (06:27.122)

As well, like even you can say the right thing at the wrong time or you can say the right thing too quickly, right? We all know that right when you're in relationship building. And so what's the right cadence of unrolling that as well? And then there are also larger companies too that are trying to motivate or rejuvenate their workforce or bring new talent.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:32.302)

Mm-hmm. All right. Yeah. Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (06:56.722)

And so there again, the brand work is very much about how do I actually motivate my employees, but staying true to who we are externally. And so those are the kinds of questions that we've been getting.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:12.75)

Yeah. Well, it's so interesting to me too, because we so often focus on brand and marketing for revenue or customer acquisition, but you're able to expand it to more other business goals and results. Like you're saying, like branding for recruitment or retention. And so I just, it further reiterates the importance of why a solid brand is so important. And I think that's really interesting with the work you've been doing.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (07:49.298)

Yeah, no, it's critical because if you're making a promise externally that drives your sales, right? And that comes all the way from, if someone is even doing it, sort of awareness or favorability or kind of brand marketing to your sales messages, right? That sort of happened right at that moment that you're sort of driving, hopefully at the right time where you have a receptive customer.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:01.486)

Yeah. Mm-hmm

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (08:13.778)

But if they're really going to believe it and know you, then you have to be delivering it on some level. And that's where certainly helping ensure that your own internal systems are in place to deliver on that promise are critical. And it's all of a piece. It's all connected. So for the long term and short term, it's critical.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:24.178)

Right.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:31.822)

Yeah. Yeah. So talk a bit about brand as the internal engine for the organization.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (08:43.122)

Sure, I mean, there are a couple of examples. I mean, one very famous one, for example, is Zappos, right? Which, you know, who's really, you know, it's promised or positioning, however you want to call it, is, you know, about delivering happiness, right? And, you know,

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:54.126)

Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (09:04.85)

And so, but it also had a big challenge, right? Because it pioneered selling shoes on the internet, which was the exact opposite of how people think about buying shoes or thought about buying shoes. Now they're very used to it. Cause you've got to try it on and if it doesn't fit, what happens? I'm going to get screwed. You know, the screws are going to be sitting here and I will have wasted my money. And so they had to build, you know, an organization with customer service that was perfect. Yeah.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:23.918)

Yep. Mm -hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (09:34.834)

And so they had to basically create this enormous enthusiasm throughout their workforce to deliver on their brand promise to customers. And it's built off the same thing, right? It's delivering happiness. It's delivering happiness to customers, but also to employees. And it did a lot in terms of carrying through that in terms of parties, anything to benefits, but it really put its money where its mouth was.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:00.814)

Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (10:00.882)

In terms of supporting its employees as they're dealing with this sort of revolution in customer service that basically created a new category, which was sort of, you know, shoe buying on the internet, right? Which was counterintuitive to so many people. So that's one, you know, wonderful example. And then another is Southwest Airlines, which has run into a lot of trouble lately. It's been on the news for a lot of bad reasons.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:10.03)

Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (10:28.658)

But for a long time, it was revolutionary, right? In terms of its success as this low-cost airline that also felt incredibly warm, friendly, and customer first. People felt special on Southwest, even though they weren't paying very much for it.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:42.286)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (10:47.474)

And that had a lot to do with its positioning in terms of delivering a kind of a fun loving experience, but also, you know, it's what you might call a brand house. And one of its brand pillars of that house and one of those things holding up the house was a servant's heart, right? And which is sort of this kind of, you know, it's kind of a playful version of a brand pillar. Some brands can be very serious about it, right? But this was.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:59.438)

Yeah. Okay. Mm -hmm, mm -hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (11:15.09)

And that they drove throughout their organization, right? And so the employees bought into that, right? Into everything that meant, right? A servant's heart, but also a little fun loving. And the brand also then delivered it through its services as well. I don't know if you remember, bags fly free, right? So they took this terrible pain point in the airline industry that people seemingly couldn't get around, which was paying for your …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:19.758)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (11:42.162)

… checked luggage and said no. You're going with two checked bags for free. And so they eliminated that pain point. So you can see how it's all very synergistic. So those are.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:51.47)

Yeah, no, I remember flying Southwest once and when we landed, the stewardess got on and sang for the plane. And you're right, like it kind of carries that relationship building a little bit further. And the fact that they encouraged that was totally good.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (12:08.338)

Yeah, and you can, I mean, no one's going to sing on it. You know, no stewardess is going to sing on an airplane if they're not happy working there, right? Like that's just proof that they're enjoying where they work and they feel supported. Yeah.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:12.853)

Right. It's true.

Yeah. And so I know that I love those examples because it just reiterates how critical it is for the brand to be part of the culture and hit all of the touch points. And you talked a bit about how brands can also improve growth for companies and the consistencies and how they go to market. I want to talk a bit about the next phase after it's been established.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (12:50.482)

Yeah, sure. No, I mean, you know, obviously, you know, people talk about brand awareness, right? But you've heard, I mean, people, you know, for example, you know, there are some very famous marketers say like, you know, awareness, smearness, in a sense, it's really about favorability, but whatever it is, right, it's this combination of awareness and perception.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:08.11)

Yeah, yeah. Right. They have to be aware of you and they have to like you. Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (13:13.938)

And they have to like you, exactly. They have to be aware of you, and they have to like you. And that combination is absolutely critical in terms of sales. I mean, people have to trust you. And ultimately, people make decisions based on emotion. I mean, you need rational reasons to support that decision, but the decision is emotional, the people are making it. And their behaviors are sort of …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:22.766)

Mm-hmm, yep. Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (13:43.698)

… based on emotion, that's what makes humans interesting, right? And creative. But it also is the sort of the challenge of, you know, of marketing. And I think we're very much in a phase that's swinging towards the rational side because we have so many, you know, digital tools and we have so much data.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:46.542)

Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (14:07.186)

But it's been proven time and time again that when you actually create an emotional connection, you're much more likely to drive that behavior and you're much more likely to get repeat behavior. So.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:12.782)

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (14:22.546)

I think that's critical. And that's why brands, of course, exist. And it definitely changes. We've seen, for example, when looking at Bank of America, that as you improve favorability, which is a combination of ultimately awareness and perception, you get a lens that actually improves your sales across the board.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:28.594)

Right. Mm -hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (14:52.5)

So that your sales messages resonate more, right? And it also ultimately improves efficiency because if you have a brand, it actually helps your messages keep their coherence. Because if it's a sort of a scattershot set of messages, you know, that, this, that, wait a minute, what are they saying to me?

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:52.974)

Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (15:17.042)

Am I getting conflicting messages? Am I getting too many messages? But if you're thinking about the brand and what it means, it's another way of saying you're really thinking about the customer as well.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (15:20.622)

Mm-hmm.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (15:27.726)

Yeah, I love that because it's to your point, the branding and the awareness introduces the customer, the prospective customer to your brand or product or service, but it's that consistency of building that connection through that decision funnel or that customer journey purchase funnel, whatever you want to call it. 

But there is that… between learning about the brand and driving the conversion. And, you know, I keep thinking about the stronger the marketing message can be and the more consistent and more present, the easier it is going to be for the salesperson that takes that meeting or call because your audience is already very familiar with kind of ideally, like what you have to offer and why they should care. 

So… no, that makes so much sense. And I think that's what you were saying at the beginning. It's as brands are and marketers are, just like companies are so hard focused on the sales part of it. We can't forget about the importance of that brand story strategy kind of carrying the customer to that point of sale.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (16:45.458)

Yeah, no, it's it. Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's funny, literally 10 minutes before we got on together, I got a phone call from a number I didn't know, which I ordinarily ignore. But then it said healthcare. I was like, and then it said Walgreens, right? And I have a loyalty program with Walgreens. You know, I sort of divide my business probably between Walgreens and CVS. I've had a good experience. I mean, I know Walgreens. I've had a good experience there.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:51.214)

Yeah. Mmm-mm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (17:15.346)

They've been successful creating somewhat of a relationship with me, so I answered. They were trying to sell me a vaccine of some kind. But nevertheless, I answered versus if Walgreens hadn't built a relationship with me, I never would have answered that call.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:25.806)

Yeah.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:31.598)

Yeah, no, I agree and it does help when it tells you who it is. No, this is great. And so I know you have some key tenets or principles that you follow when you're working with your clients for branding. Do you wanna kind of talk through those or the most important aspects?

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (17:33.842)

Yeah. It's really a process in a sense, right? Like I said, and so for me, obviously, you need to get to know the business as much as you can, right? And sometimes with clients, that can be a challenge because to them, they've been like, okay, we figured out the business and now here's a marketing need that I have, right?

Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:53.038)

Mm -hmm. Your framework. Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (18:18.482)

You know, what actually happens is, you know, if you sort of understand a little bit more of the business, sometimes you can even, because you start to know the customer, unlock an opportunity you never thought of, right? Something that you hadn't considered. And the other is that you start to, then everything you deliver moving forward, even the, you know, sort of the channel considerations that you might offer.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (18:29.998)

Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (18:44.754)

You are much more grounded. So you begin with the business. And one example of that is we were immersed in the IRI data for Tylenol, so OTC pain relief. And one of the things that we ended up finding was that Tylenol 8 -hour did very well with US Hispanics. And there were all kinds of theories about it, but a lot of it had to do with

Kerry Curran, RBMA (18:56.398)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (19:14.258)

A lot of the physical labor that Hispanics were doing, right? And needing that long-term pain relief. And that's something that if we hadn't had access to that data, if, you know, Tal and I have been just treating us as sort of a downstream agency and not saying, okay, you know, play with our business a little bit and see what you can find, that never would have been discovered. So that was, you know, that's one example of knowing the business. And then, of course,

Kerry Curran, RBMA (19:17.445)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (19:44.626)

Understanding what we need to know about the customer, right?

Kerry Curran, RBMA (19:48.974)

Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (19:49.522)

Right. And so that's critical. And so there you do an audit, you know, kind of what we know already, right. You don't repeat the research and of course what the brand has been. Right. And it depends, it depends very much on the stage of the business. It could be a business that has just begun to sketch out who they are and what their brand is, especially with the smaller companies that are just growing. And there it becomes a really interesting process of just interviews and getting to know them.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (19:59.374)

Right.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (20:19.476)

Company and interviewing the founders, interviewing some of the sort of downstream employees, if you ever want you to kind of decide who the right people are and you can tease out a lot and there you start to think through, okay, what are the values? And some of those values, it doesn't really matter what the customer thinks in a sense, right? Because that's who the company is and if they're growing, they're doing something right for the customer and it's really about … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (20:35.598)

Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (20:47.282)

Sort of defining that so that you can sustain it through growth. And then the customer research, which can be fascinating where you're really trying to get an insight and understanding what the challenge or issue is. For example, for Home Depot, B2B marketing with the professionals. We were going through a set of research where we ...

Kerry Curran, RBMA (20:48.434)

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (21:16.562)

We did quant first and found your price was the big thing, right? We're like, okay. And we went and did qual just to fill it out. And it turned out it wasn't really the price that sort of built into the price. First for these pros was time. Like time really did equal money. I mean, it's a cliche, but they're answering these quant surveys saying, okay, price matters. But it was, you know, collapsed in their head with time.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (21:21.133)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (21:46.098)

And so you could balance that. And that was sort of a big insight that then helped us understand how we were going to position a whole set of products and services to pros at Home Depot.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (21:49.326)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

No, that's so interesting. And I know you're talking about how you kind of take that and make a hypothesis of what can either prove or prove correct or prove wrong. Is that kind of aligned with the data analysis?

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (22:08.626)

Yeah, that's, yeah, absolutely. I think, and maybe you found this too, is that if you go into research, if you go into a problem, but certainly with a hypothesis, whether it's right or wrong, that often helps you learn way more than if you just kind of go in, you know, tra la la. Like, what are we going to find here? Right? It becomes almost sort of...

Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:26.446)

Mm -hmm. Right.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (22:30.482)

The knife edge that allows you to sort of cut a little bit deeper and understand more deeply who your customer is, what's happening in your category, and ultimately what is that tension that you're looking for that the brand can help solve.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:33.421)

Mm -hmm. You're right.

Yeah, no, this is great. And Caleb, so much good information here. Do you have a last kind of nugget or insight to share with businesses that maybe need to look at their brand again or have a business challenge that could be solved by branding?

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (23:09.842)

Give me a second here for the final thing.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (23:13.582)

Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (23:20.018)

I would say that we're at a time where there's so much to manage when it comes to marketing, advertising, and even never mind all of the product development. There's so much data. We're not even often scratching the surface of the data.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (23:29.55)

Yeah. Alright.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (23:47.122)

And so it then becomes critical just to create a very clear set of tools to really understand who your customer is, some simple ways of understanding, you know, the various contexts in which you want to reach them. And it, you know, and then really figuring out, okay, what is that relationship I want with my customer defining that like it sounds kind of

Kerry Curran, RBMA (23:56.334)

Mm-hmm.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (24:17.906)

Perhaps obvious, but if you actually take the time to define what kind of relationship you want with your customer and then think it through, okay, how do we build that? And it's not going to be through some little email asking them to do something. It's got to start earlier like that. You're talking about people and imagine the way one would react in a party. If someone sort of got down to come over to my house, right? Like you need to think about how you're introducing yourself.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (24:32.846)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (24:42.126)

Yeah, yeah, you gotta warm them up first. Yeah, get them to laugh at your jokes first. Yeah. Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (24:47.538)

You know, what you're really offering. Yeah, of course. So, I think what's critical is that, you know, if you're interested in building relations with your customers, just think about it in some ways, how you might think about it as you sort of meet people. Because your customers are real people. And sometimes you can forget that because you have to think about them abstractly if you're building a business. So yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (25:22.066)

Yeah, no, I would love to. And I just have one question for you, just as you've been talking to people, how has sort of brand and sort of brand connections come through? Because I know you've been talking to many different disciplines, but is there anything you've been hearing consistently that you think needs to be known?

Kerry Curran, RBMA (25:31.854)

Mm-hmm.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (25:49.166)

Yeah, no, that's a thank you. That's a really good question. And I think what's consistent right now these days is that the brand needs to be reprioritized and to be, once again, a very important investment in the marketing strategy. And so recommendations on how to make that business case, how to tie branding to the sales performance, and how to convince the C -suite to invest in branding. And I think the more stories we're bringing forward to your point and like what you're talking about today of the importance of that customer connection and relationship, whether it's a longer term B2B purchase or a shorter term kind of D2C engagement is

It's just making sure that you're connecting all of that. And you talked about consistency, you talked about the narrative. It's so important that it's recognized as part of what's going to propel the customer through that purchase funnel. So yeah, a lot of it's just reminding us of the importance and how critical it is to invest. So it's a good question. Yeah.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (27:10.61)

Yeah, it's fun as we're hanging onto that pendulum and trying to drag it back, but it is a pendulum that will go back. It's interesting how people work.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (27:14.478)

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Well, great. Well, thank you so much, Caleb.

Caleb Jacobson-Sive (27:50.998)

Thanks, Kerry.