BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #133

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #133

Welcome to the Brand Secrets and Strategies podcast where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.

I’m your host Dan Lohman. This weekly show is dedicated to getting your brand on the shelf and keeping it there.

Get ready to learn actionable insights and strategic solutions to grow your brand and save you valuable time and money.

LETS ROLL UP OUR SLEEVES AND GET STARTED!

Dan: Welcome. Today's story is about you. Today's story is about helping to give you the strategies that you need to be successful in every aspect of your life, as well as running your business.

Let's face it, running a brand, growing a brand can be stressful. There are a lot of people pointing at you from all different directions. There are a lot of distractions. The only way that you can show up and be present with your brand, to be authentic, to have the confidence that you need to be successful grow and nurture your brand, is to make sure that you take care of yourself first. That's what today's show is about.

On today's podcast, if you don't know them already, I look forward to introducing you to Jason Wrobel and Whitney Lauritsen of Eco-Vegan Gal. They founded a company called Wellevatr, wellness elevated, something that you really want to check out. Their focus is on helping you be at your best 100% of the time. They help you sort through the things that cause you stress, to go beyond your game so that you can deliver the highest level all the time, this is what every brand leader needs.

I'm thrilled to have them on the show today and I'm also very thrilled to have them provide this resource to you to talk about Wellevatr. This will help you be your best each and every time you get in front of a retailer and will help you align your brand strategy with the message that you communicate with your customers.

Before I go any further, I'm going to give a quick shoutout to Michael J. ODonnell, who left an amazing review for me. Michael says, "Daniel is the foremost expert in brand building in today's market place. Daniel's common sense approach to helping all companies, from small to large, become successful in a sound process. Daniel provides passion and intelligence to ensure your success in every retail format. Daniel provides sound strategies to guide your brand for increasing profitable sales. I've been a follower of Daniel for years, I feel his process makes sense in today's competitive environment." I want to thank Michael for leaving a review, I really appreciate it. This is why I do this. If you want me to share your review on the podcast, leave a review on iTunes, send me an email, or comment on any of my social posts. Remember, this show is about you and for you.

Before I go any further, I also want to remind you that there's a free downloadable guide for you at the end of every episode. I always try to include one free downloadable guide that you can instantly adopt and make your own, a strategy that you can use to grow sustainable sales. Remember, the goal here is to get your product on more store shelves and into the hands of more shoppers.

Now for our guests, Jason and Whitney of Wellevatr.

Dan: Whitney and Jason, thank you for coming on today. I really appreciate you're making time for us. I'm really looking forward to getting to know you. Can you please start by sharing a little bit about yourselves and how you got to where you're at? How did you become an influencer? Did you decide to go down this path on your own or it just kind of fall into it? Whitney, do you want to go first?

Whitney: Sure. My name is Whitney Lauritsen. I've been creating content around the vegan lifestyle, plant-based eating and sustainability, health wellness all of that for over 10 years. I started at the end of 2008. I actually did fall into it. I started a blog just for fun. It was a little hobby that I had. I was pursuing a career in filmmaking. I just wanted to express myself and everything that I was learning and all the foods I was trying and all the information I was gathering about how to be more eco-friendly.

I started the blog, Eco-Vegan Gal. It actually became such a big passion that I decided to turn it into my full-time career. I got on social media. I started making videos on YouTube. Then, I found ways to monetize my work. Then about a year ago, about actually 10 years after I started that, Jason and I came together. We've been friends for many years. We started our business Wellevatr in 2018. It was a really great time because after 10 years of work on Eco-Vegan Gal, I was ready to step into something different. That's when Wellevatr came about.

Dan: Thank you so much for sharing. Jason, do you want to share your thoughts and share your story?

Jason: Yeah. I originally was pursuing a career as an actor and a musician which I still do part-time. I pivoted into the culinary industry in 2005. I went to culinary school. At that time, the only social media platform was Myspace. There wasn't what we have now in terms of social influence and the platforms we have now in 2019.

I started off in the restaurant world and had a catering business. I was doing some celebrity personal chef. Right around the same time as Whitney got her start with her brand, I started my YouTube account and Twitter and Facebook around 2009. I got serious about my YouTube channel in early 2011. Right around early 2011 is when things really started to pivot for me into focusing on food and wellness media as opposed to previously, it was either you're in a restaurant, you have a catering business, or you have private clients.

But social media and all the technology that's evolved in the last nine to 10 years gave certainly me, and I know Whitney as well, a greater platform for what we were doing and sharing and allowed us to trade our work from, say, dollars for hours working with clients or working for other people into having more avenues and platforms for us to share our work and to really take our entrepreneurship and our businesses to the next level.

Dan: Cool. Let me back up a little bit. Let's talk about the space that you play in because one of the questions that I get a lot is what does it mean to be vegan. How do I become vegan? Does it mean I have to give up protein, et cetera? Can you clear that up? You're laughing, but you know what I'm talking about. A lot of people really scratch our head at this. They don't understand it. It sounds scary to a lot of people, but it's not. Can you please help people or help the audience understand what does it mean to be vegan and what are some of the things that you look at? What are some of the things that are important to you?

Whitney: I want to offer some fresh perspectives because I'm sure your listeners have-

Dan: Please do.

Whitney: ... heard a lot of different perspectives on the plant-based diet and the vegan lifestyle. I've been being interviewed about that for 10 years. There's so much information now which is really wonderful. First of all, the first thing I would do, you can just go onto Instagram or your social media platform of choice and just look up #vegan. You will find recipes to choose from. You'll find all these people talking about their lives, talking about what they're trying. You can go on Google. Type vegan in. You'll probably come across a resource like PETA or one of these big organizations out there that has guides for how to go vegan.

We don't need to get into that today because there's just a plethora of information; blogs, social media, books, movies. There's great documentaries out there. There's so much. In terms of what I could add to that piece of the conversation is that I've been vegan since 2003. This year is my 16th year. A lot of people are surprised by that, right? Jason and I both adopted veganism into our lives before social media and before it became something that was really publicly discussed.

One is that it's a very sustainable lifestyle. I think some people might want to try it. Maybe, they want to lose weight or they're just curious about it, but I think one of the first things that each of us can say about it is that you can do it for a very long time and thrive. There's so much variety more and more. We have so many brands which I know you highlight so many of them on this podcast and just really being open to trying different types of food.

I think the things that I observe a lot in people that aren't vegan when I have conversations with them is they might have had a bad experience with a vegan product expecting it to taste like a non-vegan product. A lot of people have assumptions about what a burger's going to taste like or a vegan cheese or whatever else out there. Sometimes, they have very pleasant experiences. Sometimes, they have bad experiences and think everything tastes like that, right?

My biggest tip is always have a variety of foods which is not only great for your palate, but it's really helpful for your overall health. The more that you can diversify what you're eating, packaged foods and unpackaged foods like fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, all those really pure single ingredient foods, that is one of the best things that you can do because that way, you get to try a lot of things. That's what Jason and I do. We love trying different foods. We really bond over that. We go to the trade shows. We go to the market as often as possible. There's always something new to try literally. Every single time I go into a grocery store, there is some new plant based product for me to try. Oftentimes, I'll give it a try just to experience it.

Dan: I appreciate your sharing that. I tease a lot about on this show. We're talking to the founders of various brands about when I started in this industry, the package usually tastes better than the stuff inside the package. To your point, there's so many great options now. I love watching you guys play of each other when you're going shopping and when you're going through the trade show because you guys are so interactive.

One of the things I wanted to ask you about is you talked about soy. Why is it that you pick on ... I don't want to say pick on, but why is that you identify soy as being something you're trying to stay away from? What's unique or different about that?

Jason: Soy has been categorically demonized as an ingredient more and more as we've gone on. I think that there's credibility to both sides of the conversation of whether soy is good or bad for you. To me, it's not a black or white issue. It comes down, I think, to a few things how the soy is grown and cultivated-

Dan: Makes sense.

Jason: ... the amount of soy a person is consuming, and what their hormonal health looks like. Let me break that down really quickly. If you have something like a genetically modified soy bean or a soy crop that has been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides, the quality of that product is dramatically different than you have a pristine heirloom non-genetically modified organic soy crop. The effects on the body and how it affects the body is vastly different based on how it's grown and cultivated.

Moreover, if you look at a lot of the centenarian cultures like you've seen in the Blue Zone diet book by Dan Buettner, in particular, the Okinawans and a lot of people in Asian cultures and centenarians are the people that are living healthfully to the age of 100 and beyond especially the Okinawans have soy as a part of their regular diet. They're not eating ton of every day, but if we look to the empirical evidence there of these centenarians consuming soy products, clearly, it's not affecting their long-term health and longevity.

I like soy products in moderation, but I noticed that for my body type, in particular my digestive health, fermented soy products, things like tempeh, things like me miso, things like natto which is an ultra-fermented soy product, not only biochemically are these different when you consume them in the body because of the probiotic content, but I find them much easier to digest in the body. Not all soy is created equal. What I'm trying to say is I don't believe in categorically demonizing it as a single entity.

Dan: I would just agree with Jason. For me, I love soy I love the way that a lot of soy products taste and especially just hearing him say natto, really, I'm starting to crave it right now. I love tempeh. Unfortunately, over the past almost 10 years, I discovered that I'm really sensitive to soy. I started to greatly reduced away from my diet around 2010 and noticed a drastic difference in my body.

I reduced inflammation. I had less digestive challenges. It's a little sad because I really enjoy it. But for me, it's just ... For example, yesterday, I had some, and I feel awful. It's really frustrating. Food sensitivity is something Jason and I talk a lot about. If you see any of us within our brand, Wellevatr, or our individual brands Eco-Vegan Gal and Jason Wrobel, we will often highlight if a product is soy-free simply because we identify with people that have digestive discomfort or allergies to things like that.

It's the same thing with gluten-free. We don't want to demonize gluten by any means, but both Jason and I feel sensitive to it. As Jason said, there are different types of gluten. There are different forms of ... or not different types of gluten, but they're within whatever it's within, it really depends on how it's processed, how that's grown. Is it sprayed with things? As a heirloom, is it sprouted? All these different factors to making these decisions.

Some people might want to say no gluten at all, and some people might want to inform themselves and test things out to figure out what works best for their bodies. Then, some people are really fortunate and don't really see a difference. They can eat gluten or not eat it. They feel fine. It's an interesting thing.

One thing that we're very passionate about is biohacking meaning we love to experiment. We love to see how foods affect our bodies as well as other wellness techniques. That's something we strive to share more about through Wellevatr.

Dan: I appreciate your sharing that. It's one of the reasons I wanted to have both of you on the podcast today because I believe that you are what you eat. What you matter matters. What I mean by that is that when you understand what's in the ingredients or where it came from the traceability, the authenticity of the product, that changes the conversation.

To your point, yeah, soy's had a really bad rep. A lot of people have digestive issues, but to your point, not everyone else does. I know a lot of people that try to be gluten-free and yet because of some of the choices out there, they struggle. Thank you for sharing it. I love the fact that you guys get into this so much in your podcast that ... in your YouTube channel all the content you have.

Food sensitivity is a big focus of mine. One of the other reasons why I so badly wanted to talk to both you about Wellevatr and the other things you're doing is that I told you as I shared with you, retail is expensive. It's pay to play. I believe that natural organic brands, vegan brands, et cetera, should not apologize for the quality ingredients they put in their products.

Part of this is about building awareness and helping to educate their community which you guys do so brilliantly. Can you talk a little bit about Wellevatr, what is it, why did you guys decide to go down this path, why did you decide to team up?

Whitney: It's Wellevatr, W-E-L-L-E-V-A-T-R. It's a combination between wellness and elevator or elevation. Initially, we wanted to call it Wellevation, but that wasn't available as a domain.

Dan: Got you.

Whitney: We settled on Wellevatr. It's actually, we think, a strong word to use because it's all about going upwards. We want everybody to feel like they can elevate their wellness. A lot of what we focus on is mental wellness. In fact, actually, I would say that's the majority. We don't talk about food in terms of like an educational side of it. Food becomes part of the subject matter, if you will. It'd be like a subtopic within whatever we're talking about because we know that food affects your well-being so much, but we see it very holistically, so that everything that you're doing in your life, everything that you're thinking and feeling, that's all part of wellness.

We talked about sleep. We talked about what your house is like. Are you using air filters and water filters? We talked about the type of people that you're spending time with. Are you moving your body? How are you moving it? But, again, we don't really approach it as much from an educational side unless we're teaching. We do coaching. We have an online course.

But our podcast specifically, it's very conversational. We aim to do the same thing with social media. We want to bring people into the conversation as equals as opposed to being in the role of teacher-student. Somebody wants us to be in the role of teachers will step into that, but ultimately, we want everybody to feel like they're together. We want that sense of community. We think that is actually a huge part of wellness is that when we feel connected to one another, our well-being increases. That can be a huge role in mental health as well.

Dan: I appreciate you sharing that. In fact, the way you guys defined community on your Wellevatr site, I love that. Everyone needs to go check it out. I'll certainly put a link to it in the show notes and on the podcast web page. One of the things I really enjoy watching you guys talk about is authenticity.

Jason, do you want to talk a little bit about that? What I'm getting at and the reason why this is so critically important is because brands need to have an authentic relationship with their consumers, one. Then, two, I believe that the opportunity is for brands to have an authentic relationship with the people that buy their product and be able to leverage that relationship with retailers, help educate retailers as to why their products matter, why their consumers matter. Jason, can you please talk about authenticity?

Jason: Absolutely. Thank you for asking that. I think that authenticity is one of the primary ways to build trust in a relationship, in any relationship, honestly. If we're talking about brand consumer, there's certainly no exception there. We're in the sense that the brands that I love the most are the ones that I do have a relationship with, but that relationship was built on knowing that, say, the brand values or the mission statement of that company are reflected in the sourcing, in the ingredients, in the labeling, in the transparency of what they're saying they're creating and putting out in the world is in alignment with those values and that mission.

I'm trying to think of an example off the top of my head, but there's certain brands ... Sorry. I have a sneeze coming. I'm trying not to sneeze on this podcast. Don’t sneeze on the podcast. Oh my god.

Whitney: While he's working on his sneeze, Jason, the brands that came to mind for me are One Degree Organic, speaking of sourcing, and also Oatly which I think has fantastic branding and really pulls you into the conversation to differentiate themselves from all the other oat milk companies out there.

Jason: Great examples, Whitney. We have a friend, a new friend, in our life who is an incredible legendary brand strategist. His name is Jerry Foster. One of the things he said to us recently, we were doing an event with him, he said, "A brand is a promise."

When I hear that, it means, again, that the ethos, the mission, the values, and the ethics of that brand is a promise to deliver a product or a line of products that are in alignment with that ethos and that mission. If there's anything that's out of alignment or, say, if they claim to be an organic company or a company that's doing things for the environment and there's something that's out of alignment ethically or they're putting a non-organic ingredient in or maybe they're not as environmentally or ethically aligned as they say they are, that's a break in trust. That affects the mentality and the trust in the consumer then.

I think it's critically important when we're talking about commerce, when we're talking about business, when we're talking about politics, when we're talking about anything that what you say you're going to do and what you say you are, you deliver that. You deliver it consistently. Consistently, not just once, not just twice. But the real key and how I think you scale a great business is you deliver on that promise. You deliver on it consistently. That is difficult work.

Dan: It is. Well said, and thank you for sharing that because this is something I talk about a lot. I am a huge proponent of branded products. Branded products, like you said, offer the trust, the authenticity. I know that if I go into one store and you'll be going to another store and get the same product, I can trust, I can expect an exceptional value from that product, but let me go one step further.

Because of the way the CPG industry works, it's pay to play. Brands play that delicate balance between Wall Street and Main Street. What I'm getting at. The reason why I love what you guys do is because, again, branch should not apologize for having those missions. If a brand can leverage their relationship with their consumer, with their authenticity, with their mission, with their commitment, their promises, as you said, thanks for sharing that, Jason, then that's, what's critically important to the brand story. As you're working with brands on Wellevatr-

Whitney: Another example of-

Dan: Go ahead. Please.

Whitney: Another example of that is Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, right now with the Impossible Burger, this is actually something that comes up so frequently in conversation. I don't know if this is true for any other of the vegan specialists out there, but I feel like it comes up at least weekly, if not several times a week, is that somebody's either asking me about the Impossible Burger. I get a lot of non-Vegans asking me about it.

What's interesting too is I've noticed it seems like more people are familiar with the Impossible Burger than the Beyond Burger. I see the two is very equal in a lot of ways even though they've got differentiation points. Then, the next question after they ask about one or the other or both is this really healthy.

The other night, somebody brought it up. She said she was afraid to try either of them because she didn't trust them. She said it feels like because they were grown in a lab or something. What it indicated to me is that one thing that the brands could do is to work on more of their transparency and authenticity and build more awareness for the average consumer around how they're made because Jason and I and you, Dan, like a lot ... We're studying this. We're in this. We know this world.

For any other brands listening, if you're going to the expos, you are so well versed in the ingredients and the processes. You're probably reading the articles. You're trying to really understand this, but what I know is time and time again is the "average consumer" knows very little and gets confused very easily. For example, with the Impossible and the Beyond where I find myself outlining the pros and cons of each and talking about my preferences and why I have those preferences, talking about what they taste like and what ingredients they're made with and how they're made and where they're available and all of these things.

Like I said, there's a lot of people that are curious about plant-based foods, but might feel unsure about them because we still have a long way to go in terms of education. What may seem obvious is often obvious to us who are very knowledgeable, but not as obvious or clear to people that are used to eating animal-based products, for instance, or maybe our newly vegan or something or just experimenting.

There's still a lot of overwhelm for them and just lack of clarity.

Jason: I want to interject on something really quick, if I may, while we're on this conversation because I think it's important as a springboard of Whitney brought up these two companies. I've noticed that when certain companies grow in scale, the visual I get is like a pyramid. There might be an avatar or a core market at the top of that pyramid. The tip of the pyramid that these brands appeal to at the very beginning.

In the example of Impossible Foods, that would be the vegetarians and vegans at the tip of that pyramid like we are going to get the influencers and the media attention through a captive audience who's already going to be on board for this product which are the vegetarians and vegans, but as they scale and grow, they funneled down to the larger part of the pyramid which is the mainstream, the non-vegans, the non-vegetarians.

Maybe, people want to do a Meatless Monday. Maybe, they just want to reduce their meat consumption, the bigger, bigger market, but I've noticed that certain brands like Impossible Foods right now are trying to scale so quickly and appeal to that bottom part of the pyramid that they appear in certain ways to be caring less or losing touch with that core market that championed them from the beginning.

I don't want to get into specific examples, but there's been some trade show stuff that has happened with that company that caused a bit of an uproar with their original avatar target market. I think it's important as brands scale and grow to not lose that original rabid fan base that supported you from day one as you grow in scale. Some companies in their desire to scale in profit and get a return on investment, sometimes, lose sight of their core original audience. I think it's so important not to do that.

Dan: Thank you for saying that. That is so critically important. Again, this is why I wanted to have you guys on the podcast to talk about this kind of stuff. My point exactly. Consumers have a lot of choices. Now, consumers can go buy a product almost anywhere where they can choose where they want to spend their hard-earned money, where they would spend their hard-earned money on. Consumers want value versus price. I want to change that conversation.

Number two, consumers look beyond the four quarters of the package. This is something I've been saying for a long time. In other words, it's not the brown box or the blue box, but today's consumers especially with your help and thank you for being such advocates are going to pick up the package. They're going to go to the brand's website.

They're going to learn about the brand story. They're going to trace back the ingredients. They're going to understand why organic is better than GMO versus whatever. They're going to find the products that best meet their needs. The consumers that are following these trends are the consumers that are driving sales in every category. In other words, I did a project for ... a feature article, the 2016 Category Management Handbook.

I focus on organic plant-based gluten-free, et cetera. The gist of it is this. Every category is up slightly, but when you remove that small sliver of organic or plant-based, every category is flat or declining meaning that it's a small chunk of natural organic plant-based organic, et cetera, which is responsible for all the sustainable growth.

Again, I'm trying to change a conversation from this is a commodity Beyond Meat, Impossible Burgers, whatever. It's a commodity to this is something that consumers want. To your point, this is exactly why I developed my free Turnkey Sales Story Strategies course to teach brands how to back up and try to really understand who the core consumers that buys the product.

To your point, Jason, that avatar, what does that avatar look like, not female, head of household, 2.3 kids, but as I've heard, you guys both share where do they shop, where do they live. Are they into yoga? How committed to their community are they? That's again why I love the fact the way you guys describe community.

Being able to leverage that and then understand your competitors' customer and then bake that into your selling story. When you're talking about Wellevatr, are you focused ... When you say brands, are you focused on consumer packaged brands like I am or are you focused on brands meaning people like you that want to develop into the space of being an influencer or making a difference in our community? Whitney, can you take that?

Whitney: Sure. Well, we don't put a ton of focus on brands at the moment. We, each as individuals, have a lot of passion for it. In terms of Wellevatr though, it's something that is more some like again, the subcategory or recommendation.

A lot of times, our coaching clients or our students over online course or people that are subscribed to our newsletter, they're looking for product recommendations. Jason and I have like a backlog or ... not a backlog. We have like a running log of all of these brands off the top of our head all the time because, like I said earlier, we're always trying things.

We both find a lot of joy in packaged foods as much as we find joy in eating kale or broccoli or just our favorite vegetable or fruit or nuts or seeds and all that. We see them all as beneficial. A case-by-case basis too, when somebody's making a decision, the best thing is they have to figure out why they're making that decision. When you're going into the grocery store, are you buying the packaged food because you just want something convenient?

Are you buying it because it's inexpensive? Are you buying it because you're curious and you want to try something new? Are you buying it because of the nutrient levels of it? Is it something that your friend recommended? We have all these different reasons for why we make our purchases.

Our aim is to really support people in getting clear on their why so that they understand why they're putting something into their body, why they're spending their money on it, what is it doing for them? Is it pleasure or is it purpose or is it both? We're passionate about all of it. We get very excited about all the developments that are happening and seeing all the variety that we have now.

Dan: There's so much to choose from. I love the fact that there's so much coming out on a regular basis. In fact, on the podcast, I've had Beyond Meat. I've had Miyoko's Kitchen, a bunch of plant-based brands. The plant-based is the fastest growing trend. Honestly, it's great for the climate. There's so many reasons why it matters.

As people are looking to understand this to be able to have that conversation with their consumers, I love what you guys are doing with Wellevatr. I've watched your three videos waiting for the next content to come out, because I think it's so critically important that brands, and at this point, I'm talking about consumer packaged brands, have the confidence to have that authentic conversation with their consumer including, as you were saying Jason, the customer that's thinking about trying a meat substitute, but not really sure where they go or like you were saying, Whitney, the customer that says, "Well, I don't know if I really want to trust that product."

Do you have any thoughts around that? Anything you want to add around that? Jason, your thoughts?

Jason: Yeah. I want to talk about trust for a second and, please, then how that is synonymous ... Well, okay. There's two sides of this. There's truth in labeling which I think we can collectively, the industry can do a better job of. Here's why. When we go to these trade shows, I've commented on this a lot that when people see the word natural, when they see the word organic, when they see the word gluten-free, when they see the word vegan, there's an automatic assumption that those words mean healthy. That natural means healthy. Organic means healthy. Vegan means healthy. Gluten-free means healthy.

But to be a well-informed consumer to learn how to label read, not only the NFP, the Nutrition Fact Panel, and understand for your body, do you want higher fat, lower fat, higher carb, lower carb, but to look at the ingredient list on the NFP and realize that a lot of these natural organic vegan gluten-free products have a ton of sugar, a ton like it blows my mind when we go to these trade shows, when I turn around look at the NFP on these products, even savory foods, I'm like, "What is ..."

I know what the purposes of sneaking sugar in. I know what the purposes of putting cane sugar because it's addictive. You eat more chips. You buy more bags. I understand, but I think there can be more transparency in what manufacturers are putting into these foods like, "Yeah, natural, organic," but it doesn't mean healthy. Part of the responsibility is on the consumer educating ourselves and being wiser and more well-versed on how to read a label.

But I mean I would be all for as an example if I was in charge-

Dan: Go for it.

Jason: ... that if there was a certain amount of sugar, 15 grams or more maybe, I'm just throwing that out as an arbitrary measure that there would be a label on it that says this product is high in sugar. Sugar has been shown to have addictive qualities. It's like the first time I went to Europe. I remember at the airport seeing all of the cigarette boxes and how it literally, in Europe, said, "Cigarettes cause cancer," like on the smoking package.

For something like sugar, in particular, which I think has such deleterious rampant effects on human health, you have a certain number of grams of sugar per serving, I say slap a warning label on it like if I was in charge, I would do that. I really would. I really, really would. To have that obvious caveat on products, I think we can do a better job labeling. I really do.

Whitney: We that with alcohol too. I remember like years ago when they realized that kombucha was testing high for alcohol levels, they've had to change all the packaging to let consumers know that they may be consuming alcohol. I've actually never heard Jason say that before. I love it that he's saying, because my awareness about sugar has shifted a lot in the past year and drastically improved my health and just being aware of how much I'm having and what form. Is there fiber involved with the sugar? What form of sugar?

Jason and I spend a lot of time researching, reading. We read articles and watch videos and read books. I'll tell you that a great majority of the health books out there talk about sugar. They also talk about how it snuck in there. I mean it has all different names. A lot of people easily get confused. Then, we also wonder, as we said at the very beginning, not all sugar is bad. Sugar in its own is not bad necessarily. It really depends on the form. It depends on how much you're having and is it a daily thing. Is it a weekly, monthly thing? How many grams of sugar you having per day?

I think this is part of the reason that people get very frustrated and confused is because we're in this industry. The emphasis on the word industry brands are out there. They want to make money. They want to be successful, but coming back to this transparency thing is that there we believe there's a way for you to be profitable and transparent profitable and healthy.

When Jason and I are in the grocery store, when we're going to these trade shows, we're looking for that balance. How can something taste really wonderful, have great packaging, have wonderful ingredients and complement your health? Simultaneously, there are going to be brands that we know are not something we want to eat that frequently, but we'll indulge in every once in a while. It's really about understanding the difference between something that's supporting your overall health versus something that's again for pleasure and for an indulgence.

I just think that there's such a huge level of confusion in our society. I mean whether it's a US thing or North American thing or you think Europe can fall into this as well as a lot of people are just confused about what to buy. That confusion can lead to them just saying, "I give up. I'm just going to buy what I'm used to, or I'm going to buy what my parents bought or I'm going to buy what my friends buy or what's advertised to me."

It causes a lot of stress. Stress is something that we talk a lot about with Wellevatr is helping people find the sources of that stress and find ways to unravel and let go, release a lot of that stress. Whether it's related to food or not, stress is also something that can have really strong negative effects on your health. Who wants to feel stressed, right?

Dan: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. The first episode of this podcast, one of my first comments that I made was our food system is broken. To your point, there's so much confusion. I did a project in the soup category recently for a major soup brand. In that category, you have low sodium. You have lower sodium, but yet none of them really mean anything.

Lower sodium is less sodium that I had in my product last week which is probably much higher sodium than anything else. Trying teach the consumer that chicken has sodium in it naturally. Certain vegetables have sodium in it naturally whereas sodium that's actually added to the product for flavor, for taste, et cetera or for making sure that the product can last longer on a shelf and whatnot.

My point is this. What you're talking about makes so much sense. To be able to help the brands understand how to communicate this beyond the four corners of the package, again, the community. One of the things that I talk about a lot, and I'd love to give your opinion on this is that if I go into a store and I buy a product, the brand has no idea who I am, how I use the product, how I consume it, how I share it with my family.

I'm trying to encourage brands to follow your model and somehow figure out a way to get that customer to have a relationship with their brand outside of traditional retail including online where they can develop that relationship and have that one-on-one conversation so that they can have that talk that honest conversation about what is low sodium, what is sugar, what's good, what's bad to help educate the consumers about the way they should be eating to reduce the stress, to reduce the inflammation, to reduce a lot of the food allergies that you're talking about earlier. What are your thoughts about that?

Whitney: I think that video is one of the most effective ways. We have video that you can record and edit. We have live videos, so whichever works well. I think more and more people are getting on board with video. It's as easy as picking up your phone these days or using the webcam built on your computer. There's Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and Instagram.

They've all made it so easy to go live or to make a short clip or to post a video that a professional has edited, and get it out there to an audience. Now, you can use SEO and hashtags to really reach a bigger audience. That's a fantastic way to spread your message and to educate people. Coming back to the authenticity side of it, Jason and I actually have a video on our website about how to put more heart, not authenticity into your social media.

If you go to W-E-L-L-E-V-A-T-R.com, that's one of the first things that you'll see there. Our passion for that is we want to encourage people to be more authentic. Jason and I both have kind of like two different sides to us. We have like our on-camera personalities. Then, we have like our just "real-life personalities." We're trying to be more of the latter and less of the former because we haven't really felt like it's been extraordinarily beneficial for us to be this like perfect on-camera educator or an entertainer. It's appealing to some, but what we're drawn to and what we find is actually something that a lot of people are craving this, they want to feel like you're their friend, not their teacher.

I think, again as I said earlier, there's a place for both. Sometimes, finding the balance or just swinging back and forth between the two and depending on the context can be helpful, but we want to encourage brands instead of trying to make everything look polish is get the CEO or get somebody from the company that can speak to these things and have conversations.

I think live video is one of the best ways to go because, then, you can literally be live with your audience. They could write you comments. You can respond to them in real time. Then, turn that video into something permanent on your website or on your social media. It makes you more accessible. It brings people into the conversation. It really shows deep authenticity and transparency that you don't get with recorded edited videos that you're spending hours and thousands of dollars on. I think that's one of the top things that you can do.

Dan: As I mentioned here, I just launched my YouTube channel. I can talk to a group of a thousand people, not a problem in the world, but staring at that little camera, that freaks me. It's so weird. Yeah. Back to what you're saying-

Whitney: You're not alone with that.

Dan: I'm not? Well, that's good to hear. Thank you.

Whitney: It's just, honestly, the best tip I could say is it's just practice. Remember that Jason and I have been doing this for over 10 years each. We're constantly practicing, tweaking, talking to each other. Even before we came on with you, we had a quick conversation just reminding how do we want to show up for this-

Dan: Thank you for doing that.

Whitney: … just making sure that we're checking in with ourselves and being aware of how we're showing up. For anyone, Dan, I'm glad you said that because that's actually an extraordinarily common piece of feedback we get. We were just at this business event over last weekend. Everybody there wants to be doing more live video, but one of the main sources of resistance people face is that fear, the fear of the webcam, the fear of the little camera on their phone or the fear of having ... We have these little point-and-shoot cameras. We have all these different piece of technology we play around with.

Whatever you're using, it's like a lot of people just feel awkward. They feel like they're talking to themselves or whatever. That's one of the reasons live video's so great because all you need is a couple people on there to interact with you. Once you realize that they're there cheering you on and they care about what you're saying, you'll start to feel more relaxed just like you would if you were on stage or just like you would if you were having a conversation. That's part of the reason live video is so helpful. It's because people are not expecting you to have the right words or to look perfect or to do anything perfect. They're just expecting to show up as a human being and give them some sort of value.

Dan: I appreciate your sharing that because watching your videos, I love the fact, for example, you guys are having a great conversation. Also, Jason, here's the fireworks go off. He completely lost his train of thought. You jump in. It saved the day, but everyone gets that. I think that that's fantastic.

Your podcast, let's talk a little bit about that. Did you get the artwork back? When is it going to be launched? When are we going to be able to see it?

Jason: We received several versions of the artwork. We are closer to a final version now than ever. Well, there's one in particular that we feel has a simplicity and boldness and minimalism that really resonates. We're really close to that. We're in the final stretch of getting our intro and audio recorded. If you're pressing me for it and I had the guess, I'd say probably mid-July, the middle of July feels like-

Whitney: 2019.

Jason: Yeah, like two to two and a half weeks from right now, I feel like that is when this baby is going to be launched. Absolutely.

Dan: I'm excited you guys are going down this path. I've had a great time with the podcast. What's neat about it is I get to share the stories from industry founders and thought leaders like you in helping brands out. I mean the reason I do this, my mission is to make our healthy way of life more accessible by helping healthy natural organic products, get our more store shelves including online and into the hands of shoppers, more shoppers.

It's all about that authenticity, that message helping them not be afraid of the camera when it's turn on and stuff like that. Thank you so much for doing that. We'll definitely be looking forward to that. If you've got some information that I can include in the podcast show notes, YouTube channel, et cetera, I'd love to be able to include that on your behalf.

Let's talk a little bit more about Wellevatr. Talk a little bit more about what it is. I know you've shared a little bit, but what are your goals? What is your intention? What are you trying to do with it? What kind of impact are you trying to make? I'll let whoever wants to go first.

Jason: With Wellevatr, I think that there seems to be, and Whitney and I, our perception that mental and emotional wellness is something that is not being fully served in our society in the sense that it seems to be everyone's approach of like, "Oh, maybe you just need a vacation or maybe you just need to take a pharmaceutical or maybe you just need to like it ..." There doesn't seem to me or us to be a trusted consistent sustainable source of resources and tools and conversations of examining what does it mean to be a raw open real human being in today's society.

How do we address in a holistic manner our personal struggles with business entrepreneurship, our relationships, our relationship to ourselves? For us, the mental emotional side of wellness is something that we really feel there's an opportunity to fill this niche and give people resources and products and tools and podcasts and courses and lecturing on a live stage and just having real conversations about not only our triumphs, yes, but more importantly our struggles and our challenges with relationships, our mental health, our emotional wellness.

That's the niche we're trying to fill and fill it ... As Whitney said with authenticity, with heart, with realness and just-

Whitney: Community too. That's really at the core of what we've been doing when we ... One of the very first things that we did last year ... Again, our Wellevatr as a brand started in early 2018. In mid-2018 is when we started to get things off track. We spend like five or six months developing our concepts and trying to figure out where we wanted to go with it.

One of the very first things that we did was bring together a group of wellness entrepreneurs that we knew in Los Angeles. We wanted to hear from them what they were struggling with because as Jason alluded to, one of the things that we do with Wellevatr is work with professionals. We have an online course. We have coaching programs specifically for professionals who want to increase their wellness because we believe and feel very confident that wellness is key to high performance in every aspect of your life.

If you're a professional and you're not focused on getting great sleep and eating well and moving your body and working through any emotional or mental challenges which most of us have, by the way, then it can actually cripple your ability to be successful however you define that. We brought together these wellness professionals last year summer 2018. That was the main thing we heard from them.

Even these people, we were not going to name any names, but these people who are very successful podcast, these people who have great brands, they're selling products on shelves or they have an online course or they have their successful book authors or event hosts, I mean we brought together this incredible group of people. The common thing that all of them said was that they wanted more community. They wanted to feel more support from that community. They wanted to be able to talk about their challenges, work through them together and find ways to thrive.

That just really became a huge part of our mission. Yes, we help people personally and professionally. We have elements to support people with both on our website. We have something called Wellness Warrior Training. We have a personal version like an overall umbrella version of that and all the different ways that you can tweak your life and feel an increased well-being. Then, we also have the professional version again which was really targeted to people that want to use that foundational wellness to become high performers and whatever way that means for their business.

Even talking about it, I get so excited because this is just my big passion and Jason's as well and ultimately comes down to our desire to reduce personal suffering. I think as Jason said as well, so many people are suffering. They either don't know how to get out of it and/or they feel alone.

They don't know who to turn to for support. That brings us a lot of pain when we learn that. Also, where we struggle with these things too, this is what part of being authentic and transparent is. We're not trying to say that we've got it all figured out. We're still tweaking our lives constantly. That's part of how we can help other people is sharing the things that are working for us either they worked for us last week or they worked for us years ago. We want to bring that all to the table and say like we're in the same boat and we're going to figure this out together.

Dan: I'm still thrilled you guys are doing that. Back in high school, I never shared this with anyone. I did a kind of a Vision Quest. I've seen Jason do make the triangle again. The strongest element, strongest shape is a triangle, mind, body, spirit. When those three things are in balance, your life is in balance. To your point back then, I was a high performance athlete. I did a lot of biathlons. I did a lot of serious race, a lot of serious running, unbelievably in great shape. I slept better. I felt better. I ate better, very into the natural thing. Before, natural was cool.

But the point is that this is a stressful difficult business. A lot of brands, a lot of people, myself included, we get distracted or we fall off of that. For the last several years, I'm trying to get back to that point. The fact that you guys have a community that you're working on to do that is so critically important because unless you've got that life balance and that ability to communicate, connect with, et cetera others, then we're lost.

Then, more importantly, not more importantly, but one of the key things I'm trying to do with my niche is I'm trying to help you help the brands that you might be working with to help them communicate that on their package, beyond the four corners of the package, leverage that relationship between your consumer, between your customer with the retailer. That's far more important to the retailer than slotting menu fees and some of the other things that small brands unfairly get burdened with.

Thank you so much for what you're doing. I'm a huge fan. I've just gotten to know you guys a little bit. I'm loving digging into your YouTube channels. Again, you guys are so much fun to watch. You play off each other and try different foods and, oh, what's in this.

I mean you guys are a blast to watch. I love the authenticity. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on. Any last thoughts? Anything else that you want to share?

Jason: This is always the toughest question of how to wrap up. I think I was talking about this earlier today with a friend. It's so important to focus on all the good things that are happening and all the great products and all the great brands that are out there. We hear so much news every day about the climate crisis and about the human rights violations and certainly all of the really concerning, heartbreaking things that are happening on this planet. There's no shortage of that.

I think it's important where we put our focus. In terms of not only the food space, but so many tremendous brands that are out there, that are capitalist ventures, that are doing good in the world, Tesla immediately comes to mind. There's a company that's 3D printing hemp plastics that I read about earlier today like 3D printing stuff made out of hemp fibers.

There's so many natural organic businesses. We mentioned Beyond Meat earlier going public and how the stock price of this company is soaring. We have a fully vegan plant-based company crushing it in the stock market. Amidst all the challenges and heartbreak and the things that we're facing as a global community, I think it is so important to focus on the winds and to focus on the good things that are happening to balance out the things that break our hearts each day.

I'm just really saying that to remind myself too to focus on the good things each day because they are happening. There's a lot of positive progress being made in the world and in the marketplace right now.

Dan: Well said. Thank you, Whitney. Do you have any thoughts?

Whitney: Since a big part of your demographic are brand owners, first of all, we want to say thank you because as we've said many times throughout this talk today, we love products. That's something that I get so excited about. I genuinely love going the grocery store. This is one my favorite pastimes. I love experiencing something new. I love the innovation. I love also the products that I've enjoyed for many years.

I mean we brought up Beyond Burger because that's a brand that I get really excited to have. I have it in my version of moderation. Every time I get to have a Beyond Burger, I feel excited. Every time I see it in the grocery store ... or I'm sorry, in a new restaurant, I'm just thrilled. A restaurant right down the street from me just started carrying it on their menu. I can't wait to go try it.

I've already had to Beyond Burger many times, but going to try it at a restaurant that I haven't been to before is still exciting for me. The same thing goes ... We brought up Oatly before. I mean the joy that I felt discovering this new type of plant-based milk every time I would go in a café and I saw it on their menu, I was thrilled. The ripple effect that Oatly has had on the non-dairy industry is immense.

Now, they have so many other brands that have become competitors and oat milk as a category has just exploded over the past few years. I can go on and on. There's just like ... Jason and I have such a deep, deep passion for this innovation, for these products. We just want to give that gratitude speaking of which focusing on the positive because we know it can be a hard road.

We know the countless people behind the brands like you brought up Miyoko earlier who we've known for many years before she even started her cheese line. In fact, we on a cruise with her, I think in 2014. Jason, if I recall like Miyoko was like … Was it even out at that point?

Jason: No.

Whitney: Either was not or was so brand new that she didn't have her butter. She didn't have the cream cheese. It's like we've been following Miyoko's journey for years and years and years. It's amazing. We've talked to her. We've heard the times that she's struggling. We've heard the times that she's had massive successes. It's just been wonderful to see that she has persevered through whatever challenges she's come across.

We know that people at Good Catch Foods which is another great brand. They make plant-based tuna products and seafood. We've been following their journey from the very beginning. We've known pretty much everyone on the team since before they were part of it. It's taken them years to get this off the ground. Now, they're finally in stores. It's just like absolutely thrilling.

We want to encourage everyone to just stick with it. As Jason said, focus on the good. Know that we're cheering for you. We'll do whatever we can to help spread the word. Whether it's anybody that wants to work with us privately about how we can support you and increasing your brand, we're here for you, but if you ever just shoot us an email, we're happy to give you our perspective on things. We're happy to try your products and maybe share with our audiences.

Dan: That'd be great.

Whitney: We are genuinely here to support these brands because, without them, the movement couldn't have grown so much at this point.

Dan: I want to go one step further. If we can help these brands out, then these brands that are so committed to the things that are important to us, they can do more good. I'm all for it. Jason, did you want to say something?

Jason: Yeah. Just really quickly. She brought up Miyoko who's a great friend. It's important to remember that we can always reinvent ourselves and improve things as we go. Miyoko as an example with her incredible creamery right now in the 90s and early 2000s, she had a brand called Now and Zen that made the UnTurkey. It was the competitor to the Tofurky.

She closed that brand and focused on cookbooks and doing other things. It was probably a good 13, 14 years-ish between her Now and Zen brand and Miyoko's Kitchen. Taking that time off to focus on other things, reformulate and create a whole new venture, it's never too late to reinvent oneself and also align with what the marketplace wants.

In her estimation, it was, "Okay. The marketplace doesn't really need another turkey alternative per se, but what they do need is an incredible artisan high quality vegan cheese, butter, non-dairy products." It's just been interesting at her as a case study to see how she's had multiple brands and evolved to meet consumer demand in different categories over the years.

Whitney: We could see the same thing about Dave Anderson and Chad and Derek Sarno. I would go back to Dave Anderson, for example, because his newest venture is Outstanding Foods which again I've tried I tried years ago before they even had packaging.

Dave was known as this incredible restaurant owner and chef. Then, he closed down his restaurant and disappeared for a little while. He was involved ... or at least from the public eye. Then, he got involved with Beyond Meat. He's actually part of creating the Beyond Burger which you talked so much about today. Now, he's moved on to his own business. It's such a great point, Jason.

I mean there are countless examples of people that we've seen shift in this movement and re-establish who they are, what they do and how they can add value based on how things are changing. To Jason's point, like you might create something and maybe there's just too many competitors like I don't even know how any of these oat milk brands are surviving. I mean Oatly I thought was going to be the only one. Now, it's like a new oat milk product is popping up all over the place.

Maybe, there's room for them all or maybe some of them are going to have to think of something different to do in the future. I don't know. Yet, it remains to be seen.

Dan: Well, into that point, that's why I do what I do because the strategies that are out there today, you got to raise money. Then, you got to go raise money. Then you got to go raise more money. Then, you got to go raise more money. When you finally get in front of a retail, shut up, sit down and get out your checkbook. Now, I'm being a little bit facetious. However, it's about teaching the brands and strategies that they need so that they can be more competitive, so they can get our more retailer shelves.

The reality is that big brands rely heavily on category management. Category management came about to help weed out some of the inefficiencies in the costs in consumer packaged goods. What I'm trying to do is teach small brands, the strategies that the big brands use and help them utilize those in their strategies as they go to market. Thank you for sharing it because that is so critically important.

To answer your question, there's always room for more innovation. Yeah, there are a lot of me-toos, et cetera, but you know what? There's always room for innovation and more importantly that authenticity being able to communicate with your ... have a community, able to communicate the value of your product. What's in your product well beyond the four corners your package is the way that these brands could differentiate themselves.

Yeah. There are a lot of oat brands in the category. That's a tough category to play in, but one of the challenges is that the strategies that brands are using today just specifically in that category are not helping them get in front of customers. Using what your guys are talking about that authenticity, understanding the consumer, understanding the products, back to your comment, Jason, about the consumer avatar. If brands can focus on that, that's how you get to that point. Thank you again for sharing that.

By the way, Beyond Meet, they've been on the podcast twice. Have you tried their sausages? I haven't had a chance to them, but they're supposed to be out this month.

Whitney: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. I hear they're great.

Whitney: They're so good. We're lucky to live in Los Angeles. We get access to a lot of things pretty early on. We also visit New York which also gets access to a lot of things early on. We go the trade shows. We try pretty much everything as soon as we possibly can. It's so exciting. There's one more thing I would actually say based on what you brought up.

When we talk about the mental well-being, one thing that causes a lot of people stress actually, probably one of the biggest factors of stress is money. So many people are struggling in their minds maybe not even literally struggling, but they are in that state of struggle with their finances more often than not. We've seen this so much in the vegan world, in the wellness natural products world.

There's this idea that, "Well, I'm a wellness brand. I'm not going to make money. I'm always struggling. I don't have a budget." That's an ongoing myth in my opinion. I think it's not about the category of veganism or natural products. This idea that we're less than the non-natural and the non-vegan product that as we've seen over the years, consumers do enjoy natural plant-based products.

They aren't more interested in organic. I think that, yes, we might be fighting against the big industries out there and the political sides of things. That's the hardest part, but there's certainly an increasing demand for plant-based and for natural and organic.

One big thing that we recommend for everybody whether you own a brand or your consumer is to find ways to get out of the negative relationship with money and because it limits you in so many ways. Unless you're facing a literal obstacle, it does not serve you to think I can't do this because I don't have the money or I can't do this because I can't make money from this.

I'm not going to create this product because nobody wants it or I'm not going to start this business because other businesses that started didn't do well. If you work with the right coach strategist out there, if you create a team around you and you are dedicated to it, then we believe where there's a will, there's a way. You just have to find the right strategy.

I think actually in a way, Dan's work and our work complement each other because we're all about putting you in that right frame of mind. Dan, it sounds like you're so much about the strategy side of it and implementation, but both have to happen. You have to be open to the idea that you can make money and committed to it. Then, you got to build upon those strategies to make it happen.

I think one the biggest disservices we see in this wellness world is people that put a cap on themselves financially or give up because they haven't made money yet or think that they're not worth it all of these money challenges that people face. That's actually a huge element of the work we do with Wellevatr especially when we work professionals, helping people break through the financial resistance.

Dan: So very important. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for the kind words. I agree with you completely. That's why I do what I do. That's why there are now 133 podcast episodes and 400 articles published. My point is that its content and its content to help these brands. In fact, by the way, I just recently partnered with the organic trade association to help teach their members, the stuff, so how they can compete focusing on what you're talking about, what's unique about that brand, that avatar, that consumer not being, and not having to teaching brands that they don't need to apologize for having healthy quality ingredients.

Consumers are willing to pay a premium, a super-premium for products that meet their needs. It's not all about price, and so definitely changing the conversation. Going back to my first podcast, our food system is broken.

This is the first thing that I'm trying to fix is again trying to, with your help thank you, help brands understand that they have so much value to bring to this industry and so much value, so much good that they can do for others. Thank you so much for sharing that. How can people get a hold of you individually and through Wellevatr?

Whitney: We prefer that you reach out to us together. That's our big focus right now. You can go to our website W-E-L-L-E-V-A-T-R, you'll find social media. You can reach us through our Facebook page. You can reach us through our Instagram account. We also have our email on there which is hello@wellevatr.com. You can sign up for one of our free video trainings or our free workbook we have on there.

We're just trying to provide as much value. We have the blogs. You could sign up for our newsletter. Every week, we'll e-mail you something that is aimed to support you in elevating your wellness in one way or another.

Dan: I appreciate that. I'm having fun learning more about you. I'm on your email list. I highly recommend it to everyone. Thank you again for coming on. I really appreciate your time. Go ahead.

Whitney: We appreciate you too.

Dan: I want to thank Jason and Whitney for coming on today and for sharing their insights. It's always great to hear from industry thought leaders about the trends, what's driving sale across every category. More importantly, I really appreciate the fact that they're working hard to give you the strategies that you need so that you can be your best every single day. This is so critically important. Again, retail is difficult, it can be very stressful, and to be able to have those strategies, those resources, can make a big difference in your business. I'll be starting to put a link to Wellevatr in the podcast show notes and on this podcast webpage.

Today's free downloadable guide is the new essential item checklist, The Recipe for Success. I feel like this would be perfect because this is the foundation that you should be using to be building your brand on, these are the strategies that you need to have in place to add rocket fuel to your growth. Anyhow, you can download it and learn more about Jason and Whitney and Wellevatr on the podcast webpage, as well as in the podcast shown notes. You can get there by going to BrandSeekersAndStrategies.com/session133.

I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

WELLEVATR https://www.wellevatr.com

Whitney Lauritsen http://whitneylauritsen.com

Eco-Vegan Gal EcoVeganGal.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/EcoVeganGal

Jason Wrobel http://jasonwrobel.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/JasonWrobelTV

This episode's FREE downloadable guide

New product innovation is the lifeblood of every brand. New products fuel sustainable growth, attracts new shoppers, and increases brand awareness. Know the critical steps to get your product on more retailer’s shelves and into the hands of more shoppers.

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Until next time, this is Dan Lohman with Brand Secrets and Strategies where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.