S6E7 'Strategic Story-telling and Building Brand Identity', with Emily & Kate from Sonder & Tell 🪄

As Change-makers and Entrepreneurs for Good, we want to tell our story to the world, and inspire others to join or create their own mission.

But when it comes to talking about Sustainability, or Ethical Capitalism, we live in constant fear of falling foul of the twin-evils of Greenwashing and Greenhushing.

Fortunately, today's guests are industry-experts in authentic story-telling, and building congruent Brand Identity.

Emily & Kate from Sonder Tell have worked with many household names, such as the likes of Mindful Chef, Katkin, and Liquid Death(!)

They know all the challenges of communicating about Sustainability and mission, and are experts in leveraging the power of story-telling for authentic communication, and customer retention.

If you're a Marketer or Business Leader, and you want to know how to communicate your mission in a way which avoids 'ick', then don't miss this episode 🙌

Kate & Emily joined James to chat about:

🇪🇸 How a meeting in Barcelona sparked a friendship which lead to their business partnership.
🙅‍♀️ Rejecting clients who don't meet their 'Greenlist' criteria.
🗣️ Why Brands MUST find their tone of voice.
💭 How to separate your comms from 'Corporate Fluff'.
🦸‍♀️ How to make your customer the Hero of your mission.
... and much more! ✨

Emily & Kate really lead the way in conscious communication and strategic storytelling. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did 💚

About Sonder & Tell:
Emily and Kate are co-founders of Sonder & Tell a brand strategy agency that uses stories to move people.

Further Resources from the episode:
Newsletter: sonderandtell.substack.com/subscribe
Emily on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-ames-5496ba82
Kate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-hamilton-72517873/?originalSubdomain=uk
Website: https://sonderandtell.com/

Music credit: bensound.com

https://ecosend.io

Creators & Guests

Host

James Gill

CEO of GoSquared

Guest

Emily Ames

Strategy Director co-founder at Sonder & Tell

Guest

Kate Hamilton

Strategy Director co-founder at Sonder & Tell

What is The EcoSend Podcast?

Our journey into the world of being a truly climate conscious business. Join us as we talk to fellow entrepreneurs, founders, marketing folks, and campaigners to help us build our new product, EcoSend: the climate conscious email marketing tool.

S6E7audio
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[00:00:00] Chris: Welcome to the EcoSend podcast. Be inspired, educated, and entertained by the world's most ambitious leaders putting climate at the top of their agenda. Welcome

[00:00:17] James Gill: to another episode of the EcoSend podcast. I'm your host, James. And for those of you new to the show, we we talk to wonderful, inspiring leaders every week about how they're making the world a little bit better on this show.

[00:00:30] And today I am thrilled to be joined by not one, but two amazing people. I have got Emily and Kate with me from Sonder Tel, and Sonder Tel is a brand strategy agency, and they use their stories to move people. They're a very inspiring company, very excited to be speaking with you both. So welcome to the show, and how are you both doing?

[00:00:54] Kate: Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you for having us.

[00:00:58] James Gill: Awesome. Awesome. I I'm thrilled to have you both on. So maybe in your own words, maybe starting with you, Kate tell us a bit about yourself and then we'll go on to you, Emily, if you like.

[00:01:09] Kate: Of course. I, we just did an intro on something else and we had to do like separate intros and I actually find it hard introducing ourselves separately.

[00:01:16] All right. for so long and I've obviously started this company together that we've got kind of interchangeable brains. But I will, I'll tell you kind of how we started working together and why we did, and then Emily can fill in any detail. So we both started working together while we were still at university.

[00:01:35] Actually, we both met in Barcelona when we were doing a year abroad, we both studied Spanish and started working for a magazine called Suitcase. And we shared a column on Spain. Emily was in. I then moved to Madrid and we kind of alternated weeks and wrote about, I don't know, it was like listicles, like the best burgers in Madrid and things like that.

[00:01:55] Yeah. And then when we graduated, we both got a job at. suitcase full time and stayed there for a few years. So we got kind of sent away on trips together, wrote about different countries, interviewed really interesting people. I ended up being editor in chief at Suitcase, and Emily opened their content agency which was great.

[00:02:19] But I think we had a sense that journalism was shifting in certain ways. We weren't sure if we wanted to stay in that exact space for a long period of time. So we, we then started talking about setting up our own agency. And at the time, content was such a buzzword, but lots of brands were kind of sort of throwing things out into the ether and hoping that it would stick without necessarily thinking about the actual stories that they were crafting or the audience they were trying to capture.

[00:02:46] So we started Sondra Tell to help brands originally think more mindfully about the language that they were using. So how they could use words to capture attention and, and hook people in and communicate in interesting ways. And the initial briefs we got Or like, what we hounded people for. I'm just thinking about trying to get clients in the early, early days was very much just like knocking on everyone's door, but they were copywriting tone of voice.

[00:03:15] But over the, over time we've been Asked to tackle bigger and bigger problems than language and actually more sort of strategic problems. Like it's not just how you sound, but what you stand for, the role that you play for your customers, who you are as a business and a brand, which we'll talk more to you about during this, I'm sure.

[00:03:32] But that's the heart of what we do today is brand strategy and positioning. And we can still do the language and copywriting too. Is there anything else, Emily? I'm sure I've missed anything you want to add.

[00:03:44] Emily: So I guess, yeah, over time we've kind of developed our own process and have really tried to figure out like, how do we make strategy both exciting and interesting for the teams that are going to use it, but also then move people in the sense of the customers that you're talking to, the behavior change that you want to see for them.

[00:04:09] So. Sondra and Tal very much started as us, like, writing for brands and kind of delivering a story or a tone of voice and actually has developed into a lot more kind of training people on how to use strategy, thinking about, yeah, how can we get teams to understand strategy to be able to use the tone of voice?

[00:04:30] And I think that's been like a big part of, yeah, the journey for us as well. It's like, how do you make something? usable and useful to people. So yeah, and I guess we work across lots of different types of clients from we worked on Octopus Legacy, which was a death tech brand. I've not heard

[00:04:53] James Gill: the phrase death tech before, so that's a first for the podcast.

[00:04:56] Emily: Yeah. It was always interesting doing pitches around that time because we'd be like talking like, yeah, we're actually doing a death tech brand, but we'd be speaking to like, I don't know, a plant based snack brand. Yeah, quite different in terms of the topics. But yeah, from like. to cat food, to doing stuff in travel with Rabbies.

[00:05:19] So we, we have a really Interesting job in the sense that, like, we're always doing different projects, trying to get into different mindsets, trying to explore different categories. So, yeah, we're very lucky to be able to do such a wide range of clients.

[00:05:36] James Gill: No, no, that's incredible. Thank you both for your wonderful introductions.

[00:05:40] What a great double act you make, of course. It's almost like you work in communication. It's no, really, really, So wonderful to be speaking with you both because I know on this podcast, we've speak to a lot of people that have talked about the challenges of being in a world of sustainability and knowing what to say, what not to say knowing whether like how, how to communicate with our audiences being afraid of what to say.

[00:06:05] We've, we've talked a lot about green washing. We've talked about green hushing. But also I think on the The business aspect of this as well. There's a lot about communication. I'm just so, so excited to unpack with you both because I think, you know, so many businesses, so many teams sort of. Maybe have some sort of guidelines or document that sits dusty in a archive somewhere that actually doesn't get used.

[00:06:31] So I'm so excited to hear about more about this and how you're helping brands not just put together a document to figure out the right things to say, but actually change the way that they're communicating. As you say, we will get onto many of those things Before we do, I'm, I'm keen to hear about your journey into, I guess, the world of sustainability, better business because you've got the, the infamous B in a circle on, on your, on your site.

[00:06:58] So you're a B Corp. So very keen to hear about that side of things. And yeah, why that's so important to you both.

[00:07:05] Kate: Yeah, becoming a B Corp, which we officially became last year was something that we'd been thinking about for a while and we'd been interested in sustainability and better business and had done some work a few years ago with an impact strategist called Amira.

[00:07:21] So it was kind of on our radar and our customers or clients were, some of them had become B Corps and were asking, asked questions about how they could better communicate their impact to their customers or even to their internal teams. And then when we actually started the process, it's, so it's really hard for an agency to become a B Corp or to become, or any service based business, I think, because the way B Corp sort of, you know structures, the questionnaire for anyone who's gone through it, is that it only grades you positively.

[00:07:54] So it never, it will never take away points. You can only ever add points. So if you have a product, for example, you open up a whole other level of,

[00:08:02] Chris: of

[00:08:02] Kate: preference on your supply chain on, you know, manufacturing on who you're working with in that sense. So if you, but if you're an agency where your product is.

[00:08:10] your people, then you just, there are just fewer questions that you can answer, but the passing grade is the same. So it, it, it's, it's quite a tricky thing to do. And the way that we have to think about impact is a, within the team that we have, but also how we engage with our clients. And I think it's, it's just, Interesting and service based businesses that you're kind of almost a conduit to your clients impact and they are the ones often that are really they're creating products and you can help them maybe better that or better communicate that in our case we're not necessarily like.

[00:08:50] having the most impact ourselves as an agency, because we're so light hearted anyway, like we're not, we're not creating, we're not, you know, taking anything out of the earth. We're really minimal, minimalist in our approach to the office and things like that. So yeah, I think it's an interesting, It's an interesting thing to do as an agency and quite a tricky thing to do.

[00:09:09] And so the main way that we've been thinking about it has been, as I said, with our people, but then also the way that we assess clients that we work with and who's like a definite green light, what's a gray area for us and what's some, who is a business that perhaps we wouldn't ever work with and then making sure that we are really true.

[00:09:26] to that and carry that out

[00:09:28] James Gill: within our

[00:09:28] Kate: team.

[00:09:29] Emily: When it

[00:09:31] James Gill: is a grey

[00:09:33] Emily: area I think we put in like a policy that when it is a grey area, then we'll open it up to the team to discuss. So we've had a few instances where we were like, oh, it's this positive project, but it's backed by this person who, is not in line with our values and we've opened it up to the team and things like that.

[00:09:54] Which is always tricky because there's, Yeah, there's so much in terms of like what money has been invested into a business or and it's like how far back you can go, which I don't think, yeah, we're not, we, we don't necessarily go like the whole way back because but we try and make kind of considered decisions about the people we work with.

[00:10:16] And we have said no to a bunch of things that we didn't feel like. were in line with our values and, like, voted on it with the team. I was actually just thinking that agency recently got stripped of their Have Us. Yeah, Have Us. Right, yeah. Because, I think, I can't remember who it was. It

[00:10:36] Chris: was Rochelle.

[00:10:37] Yeah,

[00:10:37] Emily: So I guess, thinking about, yeah, agencies and how do you assess them if they're not actually making a product but they are part of marketing or, yeah, communicate. Yeah, and I

[00:10:50] Kate: think that's the correct thing to have taken that off, off of them because that is like, as, as we've just said, that's the only way you really do, can have a meaningful impact is through your clients.

[00:11:00] So if you're then saying one thing but working with Shell, I mean, the way our sort of criteria works is the green list would be. Any other, any other B Corp, for example, or someone who's who's driving forward positive environmental change, social change. The red areas are things like fossil fuels, tobacco, rambling anything that's backed by an organization that's got human rights abuses.

[00:11:26] So things that, you know, Yeah, they're not things that are pretty obviously to engage in if you're on the B Corp journey. And then the gray, the gray area, like another example, I guess is we, we did work with a fast fashion brand last year and we had the whole conversation with the team because, you know, there are certain associations with fast fashion that aren't positive for the environment, but actually it was a, it was a really interesting project and creatively the team were excited by it.

[00:11:53] So we said yes to that.

[00:11:55] Emily: It was a real, like, internal, training the internal team and working on a tone of voice. Yeah, it would get the internal team excited about copying content and things like that. And they, yeah, they actually really loved working on it. So yeah, there are definitely things that are gray areas for us, but we always try and open it up and discuss it.

[00:12:21] James Gill: Yeah, no, it's, it's such an interesting one. It's definitely a, Discussion we've had with many people on this podcast. We ourselves have been going through it as well, because we're, we're not yet to be caught, but we're, we're going through the process. And it's as you were saying, it's, it's no mean feat.

[00:12:36] It's, it's, it's, there's a lot of work that goes into it, but you know, having to not just decide on those policies going forward, but also for businesses that already have customers, there's these questions that come up of like, do we essentially fire existing customers? And how do we, how do we think about that?

[00:12:52] But it's It's a, it is a difficult one to balance. And I agree that as an agency, it's, it's one of those big areas where you can have that impact. And I think it's an interesting one for B Corp as it progresses as well. I know they're changing the standards and how they do some of the measurement.

[00:13:08] But I think, There's also a huge impact that a company like yourselves is having on the wider world, you know, communication and, and how brands communicate with their customers is, is a hugely impactful thing. And I would say that, you know, I don't have any influence over what B Corp measure things on, but like, I think that's worth a heck of a lot.

[00:13:31] Like, you know, I, when you're not being rewarded for. production methods on a, in a factory, that like there should be ways that you can increase points from, from things like that. So I think yeah, it's it, it's an interesting one. I guess it's just, there's no perfect world where we can measure all business in the same way.

[00:13:51] And it's different trade offs, but yeah it's really cool to hear how, It has had tangible impact on on how you run run the business. Which

[00:14:00] Emily: is also cool to look back on I think once I know the process wasn't okay, okay, and some of other people kind of did that process and I know it's quite a difficult one like in terms of all the forms you've got to fill out and like Stats you need to know, but it's quite cool when you look back on what you have done.

[00:14:21] Like

[00:14:21] Chris: I think

[00:14:22] Emily: 47 percent of our customers were businesses founded by women or underrepresented communities and things like that, which actually you don't take stock of when you're doing but actually being able to look back on it and be like, Oh, that's a really cool stat that kind of encourages us in what we're doing.

[00:14:40] So it is good to get the results. Yeah.

[00:14:46] James Gill: Yeah, yeah. No, incredible. And, you know, I, I'm not sure if we would even necessarily be talking without you having the B Corp logo because I think it's just such a shortcut to like, knowing there's stuff we can talk about that is about doing good in the world and it, I think it helps bring companies together that maybe are not in the same industries on this shared kind of journey of like trying to do some, some good in the world.

[00:15:10] So, yeah, all in all, Great. Yeah, it is

[00:15:12] Kate: good in that community sense. We did an event earlier in the year. Well, I guess it was March. So it was be caught month with some of our clients. So my mindful chef where a client before. And so we're home things. We brought them together with Karma Cola, who are friends of ours.

[00:15:27] And, and Pip and not everyone was I guess having a conversation similar to what we, what we are having, or we'll have about how to communicate impact and what customers actually care about. And how much, to what extent B Corp is a kind of customer facing thing yet, or if it's just something you do as a business because it's, you want to, and it's a good thing to do.

[00:15:52] Yeah.

[00:15:52] James Gill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, that maybe takes us onto quite nicely some of our, some of our other topics then in terms of tone of voice and a lot of the work you do helping companies form their, find their voice, form their voice. Tell me why, why do brands need a tone of voice? Yeah,

[00:16:14] Emily: I think tone of voice is one of those things that people sometimes know that they should have from an internal perspective.

[00:16:22] So but Don't necessarily think about it as like a strategic tool as well, or some people think about it more as a strategic tool but then haven't actually trained their internal team. So I think there's like two sides of it. There's the communicating with your audience, a tone of voice is like one of the ways, along with visuals, along with content, all of that type of thing.

[00:16:45] But tone of voice is one of the ways in which you position yourself. with a customer, how you come across to them, building familiarity, trust it's all about building that emotional connection with your audience. You know, if you say something in a very dry fashion versus if you say it in, you know, fresh air.

[00:17:06] Maybe it's funny, maybe it's inspiring, maybe it's exciting. So it's all about building an emotional connection with your customer and also differentiating. So if there's like a hundred products that do what you do, which is often the case nowadays, even if you're the first, you've got someone 10 steps behind you.

[00:17:25] And having a tone of voice is something that yes, you can copy it, but if it's yours and you've crafted it, crafted it, and you've built that with your customers and they know who you are, then it's actually harder to copy your product in the same way that design or all of those other things help build.

[00:17:44] Yeah, build your position and differentiate for customers. But then on the internal side, it's also really important because it kind of often, especially with smaller businesses, the tone of voice or the way that you write comes from the founder, or it comes from someone specific in your team. And actually, as you begin to build out your team or more people start communicating as the brand, having a tone of voice and having guidelines and having a personality, the kind of hat that you can put on when you're writing as a brand is really useful because it just helps you write from that person.

[00:18:21] Right. better, write faster, come up with ideas yeah, so it's kind of, so you also don't have to go to the founder every time you want to write something or and also for people that are thinking about, we've had lots of clients where it's, there's a founder and they're actually They're planning to sell the business or they're planning to step back from the business and it's, they don't want to be the voice or the person that has to do all of the writing all of the time.

[00:18:49] So, it's important on a, You need to differentiate, connect with your customer, but it's also important in the sense of getting things done, being able to write a piece of content as a junior person within the team and knowing how to speak as the brand.

[00:19:07] James Gill: This resonates so much for me as a, as a founder trying to build a brand.

[00:19:13] Chris: Yeah.

[00:19:13] James Gill: So yeah, it, it makes so much sense. All of those challenges are so real. Like. You know, and if you're not careful, everything does just come back to like, one person and everyone needs to check one person. Or the other side is, you don't sound like one company, you sound like a collection of like 20 individual voices, which is a total diminishing of the brand voice itself, it's that makes so much, so much sense.

[00:19:40] So how, like, It'd be great to hear, I don't know, maybe I'm jumping around a little bit, but it'd be great to hear like what that work has looked like on your side for, I mean, any, any examples of where you've, you've really helped transform that for, for a business.

[00:19:54] Kate: One of the examples which we referenced briefly a minute ago is Mindful Chef,

[00:20:01] Chris: also at B

[00:20:01] Kate: Corp.

[00:20:01] So, they had an amazing visual identity and they were doing, there was a lot of good that they were. doing, but the challenge that they were having was that they had quite a sort of worthy image and when they came to communicate their sustainability credentials, it was quite, oh look at all the good we're doing.

[00:20:23] It was a little bit holier than thou and they had a perception that they wanted to, to shake essentially. So they, they came to us and I guess it was to make their sustainability cred more kind of exciting and appetizing. So we refreshed their tone of voice and made it a lot more joyful. I can't remember the role that we defined them.

[00:20:45] What was that?

[00:20:47] Emily: It was, I think it was, it was communicating the sustainability creds, but it was also how do we move from being a brand that is just about sustainability and actually feels basically, which I'm sure we'll come on to talk about a lot of the time when brands are just talking about sustainability.

[00:21:05] They'll have a really small customer base that really care about that, but actually when they want to go more mainstream, they need to speak more to the benefit that the customer is actually experiencing. So yes, you are more purposeful food because it's from these farmers or these small businesses.

[00:21:22] Yes, this food is much healthier, but actually customers want to know that it's delicious and that they're going to be able to make it. quickly and they're going to be able to do it. And they had come up with this positioning statement or this kind of identity, which was around like feel good food.

[00:21:42] But the voice, as Kate said, was still feeling very worthy, still feeling a bit too kind of. Not Waitrose esque, but you know what I mean, in that sense and so they wanted to make the voice feel more joyful, relatable, like a friend that's cooking beside you, so that it felt like something that more people could do, and it felt more delicious, it felt more yeah, just more like a food company and less like a Sustainability company.

[00:22:14] So that was one of them. Another one, which wasn't just tone of voice. We did a whole repositioning, which we always talk about, because it was a, it was a great project to work on was catkin who was a cat food brand. And they had built, they had, built a brand, they got funding and they wanted the brand to reflect that kind of mission and kind of.

[00:22:38] Ambition to change the cat industry, the cat category and one

[00:22:45] Chris: of

[00:22:47] Emily: them, I've never said that before. That's so funny. They, yeah. And one of the things was like, there were all these big corporate brands who were coming out with. Small, independent looking brands, but were actually filled

[00:23:04] Chris: with

[00:23:04] Emily: shit that all the other cat brands were filled with.

[00:23:07] So like, you know, 5 percent meat. And Catkin had this really great product which was 100 percent meat. It was, Really good for cats. They had great evidence for that. It had been, like, vet approved, all of this stuff. And so they needed a brand and a voice that would kind of wake people up to the kind of corporate fluff.

[00:23:27] And so we built this brand which was all around, like, hardcore cat parents. So, you know, cat parents bear scratches and accept mouse sacrifices at their door. And we were a brand that was really good at that. As willing to, or Catkin was a brand that was willing to go as hardcore for cats as their parents do and so the team and Ray, who's the creative lead on it, built this tone of voice, which was really like, kind of wry and confident, and it was, had this concept of a claws out tone, and it was quite activist in their in the tone of voice, and what that meant that they could do is kind of Yeah, wake people up to the other brands out there and the kind of fluff of the industry.

[00:24:12] So it was really good because it kind of was different in the category as well, which I don't think is always necessarily needs to be the case. But in this case, it was really good to help them stand out.

[00:24:27] James Gill: That's absolutely fascinating. I, I have a dog rather than a cat, but I still am fascinated by this brand now.

[00:24:32] And I also was going to say, if there's going to be any industry with a lot of fluff in it, then it would be the cat, cat food industry. But anyway, uh, that, that is, that is actually so inspiring though, hearing that because I, you know, I think anyone in whatever business they're running, it's like, sometimes you kind of can feel like you're stuck.

[00:24:49] And you can kind of not knowing where to turn to like differentiate in a crowded. Space and it feels like no matter what business you're running you're in a crowded space today Like there's so many people starting so many things all the time But it's just so inspiring hearing you both talk about how how the right communication plan the right tone of voice can can just transform how you're positioned in the market.

[00:25:15] It's You know so much that resonates for us with where we're at as well And I think it's sort of coming back to some of the sustainability pieces actually really interesting what you were starting to touch on there around Businesses that like they start because they they see an opportunity to do something better from a sustainability perspective You know often if you're doing that You're surrounded by lots of other people people that care deeply about sustainability, but that difficulty in transitioning from selling to other people that also care as much as you about sustainability to finding that wider market and, and often trying to maybe like almost sneak your way into like getting people to buy something more sustainable without necessarily leading with that is, is just a, such a fascinating like challenge I think for a lot of brands.

[00:26:03] So I'm really keen to hear you, you know, share a little bit more about that, maybe some of the challenges you've seen and how you've kind of overcome some of that. I'd, I'd just love to hear more.

[00:26:13] Kate: Yeah, I mean, we've spoken Tone of voice so far, but I think tone of voice is just kind of one aspect of Sure.

[00:26:20] brand strategy. And we get so, we get quite a lot of sort of tone of voice briefs that are actually kind of Trojan horses for bigger brand strategy or positioning questions and people think they're struggling with, oh, we don't know what to say, but it's actually

[00:26:34] Chris: that

[00:26:34] Kate: question of, oh, you don't know What what you stand for, or what you stand against, or what your point of view is on a certain

[00:26:42] Chris: issue.

[00:26:42] Kate: And I think defining that, like actually who you are for your audience, your point of view, as much as how to express all of that, is the challenge. And I think a voice also should give you a kind of lens, or a good brand strategy should give you a lens for how you present yourself. how you view the world how you engage with customers and how you make people feel as well as just the words that you're using as well.

[00:27:05] So it's always keeping those two things in common in, in sort of tandem. And I think brands, yeah, like, like you said, I think the brands that are exciting at the moment in the kind of quote unquote sustainability space are those that don't necessarily talk about sustainability in such an on the nose way.

[00:27:23] So one we reference all the time is liquid death. So it's canned water huge in the Huge in the US. And because they've kind of flipped the category conventions of water, which is to bottle it in plastic, they're bottling it in aluminium cans. They've also kind of flipped all the conventions of what you associate with water.

[00:27:42] So, Volvic, Evian, all kind of, Vital, beautiful. Like you remember those ads with the babies in the water is like punk rock death, death metal. And they've got this amazing creative platform, which is like murder your thirst and death, death to plastic, which they're amazing at, at activating and really creative ways and doing really kind of offbeat brand partnerships.

[00:28:06] And that's a really extreme example. I mean, the, the, the. guy who's in charge of the brand that is x advertising not every brand needs to Needs to be that creative or that extreme about it, but it is just An interesting case study for the communicating or like having a business that is quite sustainable, but yeah, wrapping it up in a creative idea that can cut through and interesting ways and make customers kind of look up and take notice.

[00:28:31] We worked with a business called home things pre launch. They came to us when they were still an idea and they create sustainable cleaning products. So their launch product was. A set of bottles that you get through the post and you keep forever and then they have tabletized the actual cleaning chemicals.

[00:28:48] So you get a tablet, put it in the bottle, add water at home and clean your home that way. And the landscape. Of that they were kind of dealing in was lots of sort of pictures of plastic bottles on beaches. And, you know, very kind of earnest calls to customers to to recycle and things like that. And we took when we built that brand, we named them as well.

[00:29:11] We took inspiration from Oatly at the time and kind of more maverick identities in in food, food businesses and gave them this. Brand platform, which is the world is bonkers and home things make sense. So they have this quite kind of dry tone of voice But the brand world is quite bonkers And it meant that they could pull on all this all this stuff that was sort of happening on the internet and have an opinion On it and also kind of entertain people as well as educate them on on the plastic problem and make them make customers feel like they actually wanted to take part in the solution of it.

[00:29:44] So those are two quite sort of creative examples.

[00:29:48] James Gill: I love that. I'm, I'm coming out of this session already with like so many ideas. It's so, it's so cool. Like, so they've kind of, the The world is bonkers. That's such a kind of almost like positioning the rest of the world is like crazy and we're the sensible ones.

[00:30:04] I love that kind of approach. I also, hearing you both speak, it reminded me of, I forget who it was now, but someone was someone in the world of advertising marketing was like, you cannot bore your customers into buying from you. And I just think both of these like, just so. So accurately, like, that, that, you know, you may not love it, but you're definitely gonna pay attention and it's gonna turn some heads.

[00:30:26] I love it. I think

[00:30:28] Emily: the thing is, like, one of the lines that we used with Mindful Chef was like, just because you have a mission doesn't mean you're a missionary. So it's like, Just because you're a mission, just because you're this mission driven business doesn't mean that you have to play into the tropes of like lecturing people on how to do things, making it.

[00:30:47] And some brands, it is actually better. Like we're not saying don't be the activist brand in the space or don't be the missionary brand in the space. But it's just having that lens to think about, okay, what are people like with the home things thing? home things thing. We were thinking, okay, people are overwhelmed by the amount of like, news cycle all the kind of things about the climate crisis, all the things about plastic.

[00:31:15] So how do you actually not go down the path of kind of lecturing them about their plastic use and how do you make it feel fun and entertaining as kids? So I think understanding, yeah, what's going on for your audience. Like, and what they might be used to experiencing or used to hearing. I think the other challenge which we briefly spoke about with Mindful Chef is mistaking your internal mission as like, the benefit for the audience.

[00:31:46] So,

[00:31:47] Chris: I

[00:31:48] Emily: always think like, wild refill is a really good example of a brand that at the beginning, I'm sure their core audience were people that, you know, did want to stop using plastic, were the more sustainable, more eco people, but as they've become more mainstream. Like I really do associate them with like incredible scents and like the different, they really play up the like different scent pairings.

[00:32:15] And like, I really look forward to getting my you know, choosing which scents I'm going to have for my body wash. And it's like, actually, they've used that as a way to kind of Get that wider audience who still feel good about the, still feel good about, you know, doing the refill. And that's, but actually they've kind of built it around a bigger benefit as well for the customer.

[00:32:40] So I think thinking about, and that was the same for mindful chef. It's like, yes, people like that. It's, you know, small farms and British fed cows and all of that stuff, but actually, is it enough to, like, they want them to, they want to know that it's delicious. They want to know that it's easy for them to do.

[00:33:01] So how do you, how do you kind of, yeah, create that benefit? And sometimes I think, especially for like very mission driven companies, that's hard for them to get their head around. So the question is like, how do you get your customer to care? Yeah. about your mission. And sometimes it is for that small audience and that's great.

[00:33:20] And that is but sometimes it's like, okay, do we actually wrap it up in this bigger brand positioning? That actually, oh, sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no,

[00:33:31] Kate: just off. Basically off the back of that, back to Mindful Chef, I remember Vinita who looks after marketing there, mentioned that they don't hook customers in necessarily with sustainability.

[00:33:45] It's much more about the health and the flavor. So it's not necessarily a tool for acquisition, but it is a really good tool for retention. And that they find that when customers are in and they start loving the meals, They the sustainability is often something that they really like because they've made the customers feel part of it as well.

[00:34:01] So I think when you're, when you're a customer, you can log on and see how many free school meals you personally have contributed to by being a customer. So I think it's also important from a sustainability point of view to think about how you make the customer, the hero of that story and make them feel like they're playing a role in it and that they're actively contributing to the good that you're doing versus just.

[00:34:23] Hearing about it from you and that there are always calls that you have to make, like if every business spoke about everything that they were doing positive, then, you know, you'd be reading about the quality of the soil that the crops are grown grown. And so it's like making calls on what people care about.

[00:34:42] And as much as you can being in communication with your customers on that, too is important.

[00:34:48] Emily: I was going to say I think is the other challenge that people often have which is less tone of voice and is more just from a content copywriting perspective is like how specific do you get with your audience about what you're doing and the impact that you're having.

[00:35:04] And I don't think there's like one size fits all answer to that. You, you really just have to understand, like, who's your audience? How much do they understand and care? Like, what are the, what language are they used to? How do you then wrap it up? If it's, if it's an audience that doesn't understand and doesn't care about the I don't know, soil that you're growing the crops on, then how do you kind of, as Kate said, make it about something else, but then you can put that somewhere else.

[00:35:35] So I think people are always confused, especially now as people are getting more you know, critical of greenwashing. There's like this weird kind of, you don't want to go too much like, we do good for the planet.

[00:35:50] Chris: It's

[00:35:50] Emily: not specific enough, but you don't want to go too granular that you kind of bore people with what you're doing.

[00:35:56] So I think that's always a question that people are asking is just how do you, yeah, how do you know what detail to give people?

[00:36:04] James Gill: Yeah, yeah. Which

[00:36:05] Emily: is really hard to know.

[00:36:08] James Gill: Absolutely, absolutely. And I, I, back to your point, Kate, about the Mindful Chef showing you which school meals you've been donating.

[00:36:17] I can't think of a, a better thing to guilt trip me into continuing to, to use my Mindful Chef subscription forever if I saw that in my account. So yeah, no, I mean, honestly, I, I know we've probably, I've lost track of the time. So it's just been so wonderful talking to you both about, about this. I, I I wouldn't be surprised if everyone listening, well, I, I know that I am coming away from this absolutely buzzing with ideas and inspiration for ways I want to change up so much within our own business at EcoSend.

[00:36:48] So thank you so much both of you for an incredibly inspiring conversation today. I, I absolutely loved it. I'm sure there are many people listening slash watching who would be like, I want to learn more. I want to hear more. I believe you might have a newsletter. It's not on Ecosend, but I won't take it personally.

[00:37:05] You've got a lovely newsletter. I follow it religiously. So it's yeah, please do tell us where, where can we find you and hear more from both of you.

[00:37:13] Kate: So you can, as of this week, find us on Substack. We've recently made the move after a very long time. It's okay,

[00:37:19] James Gill: it's okay, don't worry, it's fine. It's a free country.

[00:37:23] Emily: It's quite a good example, because Substack is like, positioned for writers and Yeah,

[00:37:28] James Gill: yeah, yeah.

[00:37:30] Emily: And that's the Sondring term, like, we are writers and readers and thinkers, so it felt like, yeah, so we're on Substack. Substack, the word. Yep. By Sondra and Tal, and then you can also follow us on Instagram, Sondra and Tal, we're not that active on there, but yeah, the newsletter is the best place to follow us.

[00:37:50] And

[00:37:50] Kate: it's not a sustainability newsletter, it's a deep dive, but it's a deep dive into brand thinking, strategy, tone of voice. We have interviews with really interesting brand leads and marketing directors. And we also have a hefty archive, which are in the process of moving over for anyone that's interested in brands.

[00:38:07] So, yeah, we'd

[00:38:09] James Gill: Even though it's not on Ecosend, I would highly recommend it and say do check it out because it's absolutely truly very entertaining, very inspiring. And yeah, we'll make sure we link to all of those in the show notes. So thank you, Emily. Thank you, Kate, for joining me today.

[00:38:26] Kate: for loving us.

[00:38:28] It's been fun.

[00:38:30] James Gill: Cheers. Thank you both. And thank you for listening and tuning in today. Really hope you've enjoyed the show. Would love to hear what you think. If you're going to change anything in your own business or your own organisation, do tell and we'll let Emily and Kate know too. And thank you for tuning in and we'll catch you next time.

[00:38:49] Cheers.

[00:38:50] Chris: Bye.