infinite love and brand crushes

You know when you love someone. Really love them. And you think that your heart couldn’t possibly love them anymore than it already does and then they go and do something that makes you realize love is infinite and you should never doubt your ability to grow in love for this person?

That happened to me this week.

With Stacey Abrams.

And speaking of infinite love, LaTosha and Nse’ and every single amazing organizer and their teams - I have developed big time change-the-world crushes on all of you.

Thank you for the tactical elements of what you built and what you proved was possible. 

And for being badass bosses. 

And for the tireless, thankless work that took place before you got the credit that was owed to you. 

But mainly because you restored my faith that this effort was not hopeless. That even though the road is long and in many cases things are stacked against us - you proved something to me and this country in November and again this week. 

I can’t remember anything that has single handedly moved my cynicism dial so significantly than what you and your teams accomplished this election cycle.

You are a huge reason I’m motivated to participate.

What happened in Georgia was an awe inspiring combination of digital and analog efforts. I’ve listened to and read as much as possible about these amazing women and their teams and this is what I’ve come away with…

• They approached it as a math problem. They knew how many numbers they needed and where they needed them. Their efforts were unbelievably surgical in both the general and the runoffs.

  • Listening to Nse’ talk about the exact number of high schoolers that turned 18 between November 3rd and January 4th - and how they organized pep rallies with Killer Mike to get these kids signed up - is the stuff dreams are made of.

• They paired surgical precision with hand-to-hand combat. It wasn’t going to be enough to target social ads at these folks (they did that too) but they needed to look them in the eye, build trust and relationships and empower each individual to make a difference.

  • They did this unbelievably unscalable strategy at scale.

• Women get shit done and we should never, ever doubt them. 

Yes digital marketing is scalable and efficient but the beauty of their work was that they recognized it simply wasn’t enough. Paid spend could amplify their work, but it couldn’t replace it.

In my marketing world, brands are learning this lesson too. Companies like Away or Casper came on the scene and were like, “Fuck malls we have the internet. Buy our shit on your computer!”

And buy their shit we did. 

But over time as these brands scaled they realized that in order to keep growing they needed to diversify their approach, and for the couple of years before the pandemic they were like, “Hey malls, sorry we told you to fuck off, can we have some store fronts?”

And JCPenny’s and Sears, vindicated and sassy, dusted off their pleated khakis said only if you buy us an Auntie Annie’s pretzel.

These retail stores were built as much as brand touch points and content generation machines as they were selling devices - likely far more the former than the latter. Your ads can reach millions of eyeballs, your store can only hold 10 people at a time, but they realized there is something important about anchoring your product in something people feel is “real”. Even if you never step foot in an Away store, there is business value to knowing it exists.

So what am I advocating for here?

So we obviously need to learn everything we possibly can from the recipients of my undying love about organizing. That is not my area of expertise but clearly we need to give them whatever they need to do what they did every-fucking-where.

And yes we need to continue to spend on social. Many thoughts on how we can do that more effectively coming in another post.

I’m advocating for something additive in the middle. Something that adds some scalability to organizing, but is also not reliant on the evil empire’s algorithm.

A quick vignette to illustrate my point.

I am completely obsessed with Bumble. That’s right, this married lady has a serious thing for a dating app. 

In my opinion Bumble is best in class at knowing who they are, committing to that identity and relentlessly finding creative ways to reinforce their core brand.

Their brand? We empower women. 

Yes of course that exists in their “women make the first move” dating app, but it HARDLY stops there. They have supporting (and passed!) legislation in Texas that makes unwanted dick pics illegal. They created Bumble Bizz and Bumble BFF to help women make friends and network. They have a venture fund that invests in female entrepreneurs.

Their brand identity is exactly how we need to be thinking about our identity as a party. 

But guys, their marketing. Their marketing is the best there is.

And they thread the analog/digital needle better than anyone. 

My favorite recent example…

In March when everyone was forced into their homes, there was a very strong argument as a dating app to pull back marketing spend until the dust settled. No one was going on first dates and the collective vibe was “we are all going to die” - not really “I’m going to get back out there and find my soulmate” energy.

But not Bumble. They instead partnered with Babe wine to cover the moving costs of women who were stuck in a house with their ex during the pandemic! Freaking genius. They essentially made moving trucks mobile billboards, got a shitton of press, and used the moment to build brand affinity when literally no one was thinking about online dating. 

And guys, remember what I said about their discipline around identity? This screams “we empower women” and takes it from being a platitude to a physical proof point.

Did they measure this effort by number of app downloads? Of course not! This was an opportunistic, creative play for brand awareness and brand affinity.

God, I love Bumble. They are my marketing celebrity crush.

So what does this mean for us? 

• First and foremost, we are so fucking literal. Every single thing we do is when we want someone to do something for us - vote, donate, volunteer, etc. Those things are made more efficient if we start doing things that aren’t about taking action but are about making people feel connected to our brand/cause/policies. This type of initiative is more authentic, creative and memorable than our current strategies.

• People are digitally overloaded. That’s why DTC brands are moving to physical retail. And I don’t have to tell you that we are probably headed for a wild ride when it comes to changes on social media...between anti-trust, regulators finally paying attention and overall consumer behavior, we can’t expect to be able to rely on this channel the same way even in 2022.

• The beauty of the Bumble + Babe initiative was that it was timely, nimble and creative. It was literally impossible for it to have been on the 2020 marketing roadmap - it proved they were paying attention and fast to mobilize. Think about what a differentiator that would be for us! Government is known for being late to literally every party - what if we had a way to be creative and nimble too. That in and of itself is newsworthy...and would allow us to more directly and authentically connect with voters.

• We can be surgical and scalable. It could be something based on a hyper local level - an important district or a vulnerable senate race - and as long as it is freaking creative and remarkable, it will likely get picked up and tell a larger story. What is our brand message - the equivalent of “we empower women”? How do we find local ways to tell it where it impacts the brand sentiment of that community but also lets us use it as a more global proof point that we are what we say we are.

Okay, last Bumble fan girl anecdote…

Bumble realized that a lot of pandemic first dates were happening in parks. What did they do? They created an “out of home” (marketing speak for things like billboards or bus stop advertising) campaign where they branded park benches and created hand sanitizer stations. 

What if we had done that? Not just the predictable, boring, “wash your hands” PSA, but used outdoor public spaces - arguably more visited and trafficked now than ever - to create funny, timely touch points in the name of our party, policies or representatives. It’s amazing when Bumble does it - but think of how mind blowingly remarkable it would be if dusty ole political parties, in our pleated khakis from Sears, were able to move quickly and bring joy through messaging. These benches could exist in important districts, but you know that shit would get Instagrammed and shared - and the media would cover it too. 

I promise this type of coverage is more impactful than anything that gets churned out of your press release machine.

We can find people where they are. If we make it a priority we can move quickly to surprise and delight people - and people remember surprises. We can make our asks more effective if we interact with people more often without asking.

These brands don’t do this because it makes them look cool - they do it because it works. This wouldn’t be some sort of fluffy play to appeal to a younger demo, it would be a strategic initiative with measurable outcomes.

Let’s start finding ways to out delight the other side - and honestly, especially after this week - I feel like the delight bar is remarkably low.