Humanistic marketing & Brand activism — Justin Foster & Emily Soccorsy // Root + River

Quotes

• “We believe that all great brands are spiritual experiences. What’s missing from a lot of brands is what you can find right between your shoulders which is heart and courage. When brands have the courage to tell who they are, they transform their brand into this mission. That’s where we cross paths with these clients. We help mission-driven leaders who are intent in making an impact in their industry to uncover and articulate the words that they need to attract and repel the audiences that are either seeking them or are not fit for them.” - Emily“We help and guide them, working typically with the CMO or the director of marketing to roll the brand out. Internally first and then externally in the world using the practice we call, Intrinsic Branding.” - Emily “We are an alchemic mixture of spiritual and practical which all of us are created, ultimately. From a utilitarian or practical standpoint, we tell our clients are struggling generally with three common things. It depends on the maturity of the business but certainly, the number one struggle they have is they do not know how to articulate what makes them different and why they exist in the world. We’re not telling them what to say, we’re guiding them to say what’s in their heart to the world.” - Justin “The second is differentiation around category design. That’s another area that we really specialize in as far as what conversation do you want to own in the marketplace. Instead of the classic positioning model, we very much believe in category design as the way to do that. If you can’t be number one or number two in your category, you create a new one and talk about the category.” - Justin “The third is the overall language component. Everything from what we call brand narrative which is like the sourdough starter or the source code for the language of the brand, all the way out to the river of the brand that goes out. That could be a web copy or upgrading proposal copy. We believe that your brand runs on language first. Before you get into tactics, infrastructure, and amplification, you get the language right first.” - Justin “Spirit is what moves business. It’s what creates business. It’s your energy, your passion, emotion, and feelings. Whether or not from a business perspective you like that, it is the truth. As human beings, we pour ourselves into our work, our roles, and the businesses that we create, and that all comes from a place of emotion. We’re all driven by motivators.” - Emily“When we say spirituality, it is about how you show up in the world and that emanates from you. You as a person with your business are one and the same. It is dovetailed inherently with who you are.” - Emily“The approach that we take is actually ancient. Part of why we have the name Root + River is this organic, naturally occurring, or natural law behind this. The best way to describe this is to look at it as a flower or a tree. That, beneath the surfaces of the branch, is the root system. In what you said about interviewing people, you were getting the perceptions of the people that were part of the root system with how they felt about the brand. The root systems of the brand are made up of beliefs. Beliefs inform behaviors, mindset.” - Justin “So the top root of it is the Mission, you include in that what you believe in and then you get Standards out of it which is often overlooked in branding. Eventually, that pokes to the ground and now you start to have the brand experience. The two main components of brand experience are the language and the visuals and then the feeling.” - Justin “Ultimately, the fruit of the brand is they talk about the feeling that the brand gave them. So when we say a brand is a spiritual experience, your brand should feel like, wow - I just had this happen to me. Experience mapping has been around for 20 years but they are doing it from the wrong end of the tree. We always say everybody is in the branding department in the company.” - Justin “I appreciate the metaphor of growing a plant and a tree and how you have to start below the soil so the seeds can get it to grow and your brand is essentially the public face in part and it’s above the earth. But really there is an equal amount of effort and cellular structure that is below the ground. I always use the metaphor of building a house. To me, the brand is the foundation. Understanding who you are, who your customers are, and articulating what you are about to them is the base from which all of your marketing activity is generated from. Without that, nothing else stands up. It is putting sticks in the mud.” - Ben “Nobody has to buy anything from anyone anymore. Anyone can buy anything from anybody. We are living at a time where the marketplace is very crowded. It’s a complete cacophony of noise. You will never be able to differentiate on your product or your service unless it is truly revolutionary but most of us are not there.” - Emily “The most effective way to stand out is to speak a bold truth that is rooted in that system of belief and tell the world what you believe and the change you want to create. It is inviting them into the mission, the experience of working with you to achieve that end.” - Emily “I think many leaders, whether corporate leaders or an entrepreneur are suffering from an identity crisis. They do not know who they really are, and therefore that natural flow or state of not knowing who you really are is to become something that is acceptable. This is why we see businesses and leaders saying things like, ‘we’re like the Apple of toothbrushes, or the Uber of slippers’, or whatever. There’s the struggle to articulate who they really are.” - Justin“That identity crisis produces a language crisis or behavior crisis that people in our industry for the last 50 to 70 years, have said, well you have a marketing problem. While that may also be true, it is also very likely that you may have an existential crisis problem. You do not know who you are so you keep hiring ad agencies to tell you who you are with a slogan.” - Justin “Your brand is already inside of you. These are the things that you believe, it is the why of doing the whole venture, and if you know what that is and you can attach it there is some congruence that comes out of that, and out of that comes confidence. Confidence is the ultimate attractor. It is the ultimate pheromone in branding.” -- Justin “One of the things that really matter today when you’re trying to figure out what your marketing tactic, what your strategy should be. It has to come from an authentic place. Today, it is easier to launch a brand than it has ever been. It is easier to produce products. Marketing channels are more accessible. It’s even easier to get capital. So the problem is because there is so much saturation and because we are so oversaturated with advertising and demands for our attention, it is really important for consumers to have their guard up and to honestly smell the bullshit meter.” - Ben