Ginny Golden's Journey to YETI
This is Reina Moro's podcast, The Creative Mindset.
Hi everyone, welcome to The Creative Mindset, a podcast about what the future holds at the
intersection of creativity and technology. I'm Reina Moro, the founding partner of I&CO,
a global innovation firm based in New York and Tokyo. Today's guest, Ginny Golden, the Executive
Creative Director at YETI, a beloved outdoor gear company that made its name for creating
the sturdiest cooler box that even a bear couldn't break into. The reason I wanted to
talk to Ginny was because YETI has suddenly become a brand that everybody was talking
about in recent years, especially in the marketing and branding circle. In fact,
YETI has tripled its revenue in the last seven years from $500 million to over $1.5 billion.
I knew Ginny in my old job where I was the Chief Creative Officer and she was one of the rising
creative directors who was doing amazing award-winning work from the Washington DC office
of AKQA, a global agency network we both worked for. She spent the first 15 years of her career
in Washington DC before finding her way to Portland, Oregon where she worked for Wyden
Kennedy, a legendary creative advertising agency famous for its Nike work. She returned to AKQA
in Portland for several years before joining YETI in August of 2020, becoming an in-house
executive creative director to build a team for the brand that produces much talked about
marketing and advertising content over the last several years. She shares some of her secrets
behind growing an existing brand to a new height from within. So let's get started.
Building the In-House Agency at YETI
All right, Ginny, good to see you. Nice to see you, Ray. Always a pleasure. Where are you? I'm in
Austin, Texas. Yeah, and the reason why you're in Austin, Texas is? I work for YETI. Yes, and that's
where your company's headquarters is, right? That's correct, yeah. I joined YETI about three
years ago, but I've been living in Austin, Texas for two years now. Two years, yeah. You know,
you've spent a good chunk of time being a designer and then eventually a creative director and you
worked on some of the best brands when you and I were at AKQA together at the same company,
then eventually found your way into YETI. But what was the impetus for that transition
going from a design, digital, creative agency side to the brand side? Was it just the market?
Was it your curiosity? Was it necessity? What was the reason for transition? Well, I think,
being agency side, whether it's AKQA, which their focus is very heavy on digital or wide in,
which is coming from a more traditional space, you have these very almost narrow swim lanes
and I've operated in both. But what I wanted to do was get to a brand where I could play in the
whole pool. I didn't want to be in a swim lane. I wanted to be able to work across the entire
customer experience. And YETI was just that opportunity where it was really a Goldilocks
opportunity for me to be able to come in and blend my 2 passions of creativity in the outdoors
at the size that YETI is right now. Because we're not too small. We're not too big.
We built an in-house agency where we do everything inside. So that means I get to influence
the packaging that's on our products. I get to influence the stores that you walk into
and you immerse yourself with your brand, the website that you shop on, the campaigns
that try to reach our customers. So being inside an agency the size of YETI, you get to
influence and impact all of those touch points. Yeah, yeah. And when you joined, was there already
an in-house agency or was this something that you built when you joined? There were about 10
in-house creatives when I joined. But that was one of the reasons that they brought me in was
to help build the agency inside. So we've grown the last 3 years from about 10 people to about
50 people in the creative studio. Oh, wow. 5 times. Yeah.
Challenges and Onboarding at YETI
And that doesn't include our content team, which helps us produce all the photography,
all of our films, which is... And they have a very large team as well. And we partner very
closely together. But they were very... When I came in, it was very focused on serving the business,
on being very executional. And the transformation that I helped drive and others that have joined
me in this effort has really been to create an ideas-led culture. I guess having more lanes to
and not just to swimming, but to be able to oversee the entire pool and what's available
to you. What's been the most difficult aspect of that transition?
Probably the most difficult of the transition. It was really the onboarding, I think, of coming in.
And I'll just say the first year was probably the most difficult because coming into Yeti,
I'm like, I love the outdoors. They stand for the outdoors. They make outdoor products.
And they're pretty dumb products in a way. They're not complicated tech.
They're pretty analog products. I didn't think when I came in, I was going to be hit with this
firehose of information. And what I learned right off the bat was just how multi-dimensional
the brand is, and how much time it was going to take me to immerse myself in all those details
and get caught up. And the details, it was like drinking from a firehose of the breadth
and depth of the product portfolio and understanding all the specifics to the
diversity of all the communities that we stand for to the level of authenticity that we pride
ourselves on. And it's those details that really matter that make the brand what it is.
And when you're new to a brand and you're coming in, there's just... I just felt like there was
so much catch up to do. It was that proverbial, you got to build the plane as you're flying it.
So come in, create an in-house agency, get a grasp and become a master of the voice of the brand,
understand the full product portfolio.
And there's so much to absorb, I think, from a historical context of where the brand is coming
from. But then also, within 30, 60, 90 days, having to set a strategy of where you want to be
too. So it was... The most, I think, difficult part was... It wasn't just absorbing a new client
brief like you do at an agency. You're like, no, I am in this position to become a steward of this
brand. So I've got a lot of work to do. I got to get in fast. I got to get in deep and really
develop that depth of understanding. Yeah. You talked about just having to learn a lot of the
detail, a lot of information and a lot of the details. Was there any specific surprising detail
that you didn't know about the company or the brand that helped you understand the brand better
early on? I think I always point back to just how multi-dimensional Yeti is when you
come inside. And I think that surprises people because people's relationship with Yeti might
be like, well, I'm an angler. And so I have a relationship with Yeti about fishing or
I'm a hunter or I'm in the beer and barbecue space. But when I came in, I was like, oh,
oh, I see. I almost equate it to Nike in a way where Nike is like one swoosh and they have a
bunch of sport categories, like soccer, football, women's training and so on and so forth. Well,
so does Yeti. And I just think from the outside, I didn't realize the breadth and depth
in the communities that I'm going to have to get immersed in and learn about to show up
authentically with those details. Yeah. When you say multi-dimensional, do you mean
different types of activities, outdoor activities that Yeti is involved in?
That's right. So where we started, the core of our brand started in the hunting and fishing
community. And then where we've seen growth is those communities introducing Yeti to other
communities. So the growth has really been us following the tracks of our products, where they
go. And so the fish community introduced Yeti to the hunt community. The hunt community introduced
it to ranch and rodeo, ranch and rodeo, introduced it to beer and barbecue, beer and barbecue,
surf and skate. And we've just been picking up and adding these relationships in these communities.
And coming into the brand, the number of people relationships that are managed in those communities,
the amount of detail you need to know, even as a copywriter to create a campaign for one
of those communities. You want to show up in the most authentic way where that community
isn't going to read Yeti as a phony, right? We have to be just as knowledgeable the way we present
ourselves for that community. So I'll give you an example. So my first month at Yeti, I was writing
a treatment for a script. And it was about... I think we were launching a new category of bags.
And so it starts out with the bag going through the little conveyor belt and the flaps at the
airport. And we send it on like a wild, crazy journey in the outdoors from place to place to
place. And in one of the events, a cowboy rides up with a lasso. And then I'm in the middle of
reading this treatment, and I get stopped by the ranch and rodeo community member. And he's just
like, it's not a lasso, it's a rope. And it's like those details that matter. If we're talking about
a loadout bucket, and that it can hold fish, it doesn't hold fish. It can hold wherever you live
your daily limit of walleye, which is a type of fish. So it's really getting down to that
specificity that is part of the magic of the brand. But imagine just being a creative or
イエティの成長の秘密
a copywriter. And you come in and you might love to hike or fish on the weekends. But now all of a
sudden you have to be an expert in hunting, fishing, beer, barbecue, surf, skate. So that's
what I mean by the multi-dimensional. It's really broad and really deep, much deeper, I think, than
I knew from the outside. Yeah. Coming into Yeti and when you were making that transition,
and you said that you already loved the outdoors lifestyle. But in the language that you use,
the pursuit, was there a certain pursuit that you already had? Or you are a more casual
outdoors person? I'm definitely casual. In Yeti standards, I'm definitely casual. I mean, yeah.
Our communities, man, they are the tip of the spear. They are such badasses. We work with
the best climbers and anglers. I mean, just the best pros in the space.
Right, right, right. Yeah. I would definitely be considered a recreationalist.
Yeah, yeah. So now that you're deep on the inside of a fairly major brand, major corporation,
and your capacity as a leader and as a creative individual, I would assume that there may be
instances where there's a tension between what you think the work should be versus what a business
thinks it should prioritize. Are there any tensions that you sense or you have come across?
And can you talk about... I guess what I'm trying to get at is there's always this tension between
what I call creativity and capitalism. Do you come across any of those tensions within your company?
I guess how I might want to respond to that question is like, well, if capitalism equates
to commercial success, and creativity is really about the brand, I really do think at Yeti,
from the top down, it's really the brand that's driving the business.
And Matt Reintraust, like RC, he likes to talk a lot about the heart and soul of this company.
And the heartbeat is really the product that we make and create and bring to market.
And the soul is the brand. And that is really Yeti's power. But without a strong brand,
I don't think you have commercial success at all. You're just a commodity.
And then you're just competing with a numbers game, right? So it is really that heart and
soul that I think is Yeti's power. And it's what drives us. And it's what drives people to us.
So I guess from the top down, and I was reading a little bit about Yeti before this,
and it sounded like he came on as a CEO in 2015. And at that time, the commercial aspect of the
company was about $500 million of revenue. And in the seven to eight-year tenure that he's had,
it's now $1.5 billion in revenue. So it's three times in seven years. And I mean,
that's such a phenomenal growth. And based on what you have said,
yes, the business is important, but it's really the heart and soul
of what you do as a company that really drives commercial success.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah. In the case of Yeti, and this is before you had joined, so you may not have
the visibility into what had happened. But again, just having read about the company before,
it was started by two brothers about 17 plus years ago. And then it was sold to a private
equity company, and they went public. And I've seen companies go through a similar trajectory.
And especially when the founders leave the company, the soul of the company gets somewhat
gutted away with it. And it doesn't sound like that happened.
Not at all. I mean, Roy and Ryan Cedars, I feel like their spirit still occupies the halls
of Yeti every day.
イエティの起業者の精神
In what way?
We just have an incredible founder story. I mean, I know I've brought up Nike a couple of times,
but the same way that Bill Bowerman and the Waffle Iron are legendary in the halls of Nike,
we have a bear-proof cooler, Yeti. And it was that ethos of Roy and Ryan Cedars that
our products were born out of frustration. They wanted a superior product that they could go out
fishing with, stand on so they could do sightline fishing, and be able to keep that catch fresh
for days and coming back and extending their time in the wild. And that born from frustration
ethos is still alive and well in everything that we do here. And that's where the brand and the
purpose are so intertwined that it influences the products we make, it influences what we stand for,
it influences the communities that we support. But it all started with Roy and Ryan Cedars.
As you stated, we're only 15 years old as a company. We're in our adolescent years.
And 15 years ago, Roy and Ryan Cedars were selling coolers out of the trunk of their car.
That's how it started. It started with a really heavy, handshaking ground game of going out and
アーティファクトと創業者のストーリー
telling the story of this amazing product. And we might have more scale and more budget now,
but the spirit has not changed one bit. When I worked on Nike, I worked on Nike probably
over the course of 15 years off and on. And looking back now, there were certain artifacts
that they preserved and they created and recreated over the years. And two things that stood out for
me. One is Nike Maxims. They had these sayings within Nike, and it was seven or eight statements
that capture the ethos of Nike as a company. And those Maxims became,
hey, this is the Nike way. And when you were questioning what should I do, if you went back
to one of those Maxims, it could help make a decision. So the Maxims
as one set of artifacts that I found very useful. The other thing, and I've seen multiple versions
of this, but the history of Nike. And oftentimes the history of Nike was told in small booklets,
starting with the Bill Bowman story, the waffle iron shoes, how he started selling, and he and
Phil Knight started selling those shoes out of a van for runners. So very similar origin story.
But there was always a booklet of the history of Nike that employees and outside partners,
like AKK was, and RGA when I was there, could read to really understand the history relatively
quickly. So those two artifacts that I noticed were, everybody knew about them, one way or another.
Are there certain, what I call artifacts within Yeti that you say, tell the story of the founders
and the heart and soul of the company, but what are the artifacts that you saw when you came in
and how are those stories preserved and told? We've just recently, over the past year,
really started to create those artifacts. And we really saw the need of it because of how quickly
we were growing with a creative studio that went from 10 people to 50 people. It's like,
you need those storytelling artifacts, right? But I think what Yeti has relied on
up until this past year, when we really started to try to put some of those tools together,
it's just being here together in Austin, Texas, in these halls and all sitting together,
all in the same place. So we are not a remote company. We are very much in-person where you
know who is designing the product, who is selling the product, who in the community is using the
product. And we're all just in one mixing bowl. So up until this date, it was really in-person
relationships, being immersed in the brand and having access to all of that information.
Wow. So just physically together in one place is a big factor.
Yes. Physically together. Yeah.
Yetiの知名度とブランド構築
From an outside perspective, being just a general consumer, I don't necessarily count myself as an
outdoors enthusiast by any means, but just in the last 12 to 18 months or so, I'm just hearing
and seeing Yeti's name way more than I ever had. I was aware of Yeti for the past 10 years,
but it's really within the past year to two years, which kind of coincides with the timing of your
Yeti as well. But is that my illusion or just in the last year to two years, the awareness and
the cultural relevance of Yeti has gotten so much higher than it was? From a marketing perspective,
from the branding and marketing perspective, I see Yeti's name mentioned way more in the marketing
professionals as a good example case study of a brand gaining relevance. So not too long ago,
there was a Fast Company article, an interview with the CEO and how he was, and I guess the
rest of the organization is not trying to hurry with the growth of the company and respecting
the slow nature of brand building. And it was so refreshing to hear from a CEO of a public company
because in the public business space, it's grow, grow, grow, faster, faster, faster. The faster
you grow, the better you are as a company or it seems like, whereas it was refreshing to hear
a deliberate approach to brand building and the storytelling of the brand as well as the product
and development of the brand. So my vantage point might be a little bit skewed in that I'm
looking at it from a marketing and creative lens. But also the fact that
in the last seven years, the company grew from 500 million to 1.5 billion three times,
and that's a pretty significant growth. What's the secret sauce?
Yetiの成功の秘訣
Well, I think it's secret sauce. I love that word because to have a really good sauce,
I think you need a couple of different ingredients. You need a couple of different
components to make it sing. And our sauce is named Built for the Wild. That's our tagline.
And what the wild means in that tagline is wild people, wild places, and wild products. And
believing the best of human nature can be found in nature. And I think that's what drives us.
It's what drives people to us. And that's what they feel. I think in terms of growth,
it's really important that we grow authentically. And when we're doing it in the right pace,
like Matt has said in some articles, and really just staying true to the brand.
But I think what is happening out there in culture is people are starting to discover
our superpower. And I think our superpower exists in the versatility of our products and the
durability of our products. I mean, we build products to last for generations.
They are very high quality. They last, they're super tough, they're durable. And what we found
in the diversity of our communities is that they can be used in a lot of different ways.
And they show up in different places, but we are always the same. So whether it's in a
hob hunt in the South or a happy hour in the Hamptons, you're going to find Yeti in both of
those places and both of those communities and embrace Yeti and welcome people in.
YETIのブランド構築
Yeah. What the company has been doing hasn't changed actually all that much.
Stay true to the core, stay true to the core, know who you are, having a conviction,
having a strong belief about what makes your brand. But it sounds like the culture,
the geist, if I may say so, has finally caught up and has discovered Yeti. And yeah, of course,
it might be for the hunters and the fly fisher people, but I can actually use this for something
else. And to your point, the versatility and the durability, while those things are specific to
a pretty niche audience, it's actually applicable to a wider range of people.
That's right. That's right. I would say over the 15 years, it started with a very, very
core outdoor audience with fish and hunt. And the aperture, I think, especially over the last
five years has really just busted open where people have discovered our products and found
a use for them in their lives. Yeah. But there must be, say, in the past five years,
and when it comes to, say, quote, unquote, brand building, there must be new things that you have
done. So give me an example of things that you know that Yeti started in the past five years that
have served the brand well. And also, and I think this would be great for us to uncover,
maybe some of the things that didn't work out as well as you thought.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I think going back to what we've been trying to build here
with our creative studio, our agency inside is in moving to a more ideas led culture in trying to
come up with different unique ways that we can connect with our audiences.
You know, and we've, we've talked a lot in this conversation about, you know,
is there a tension between commercial and creativity and creativity and capitalism?
Like, you know, we're a business and we have challenges just like any other business. Like
sometimes for campaigns, we have generous budgets. And sometimes for campaigns for
we have really scrappy budgets, but we don't, I think, necessarily have a rule book of, you know,
how we try to harness creativity to connect with our customers.
And, you know, there's, there's been like two pieces of work that I think
illustrate that over the last year that we've done. Where one is, it's gotten some recognition
in the marketing and advertising industry. It was called Year in Preview. And we launched it
at a time. It was the end of the year. And it's when, you know, most brands like Spotify or Google
do a year in review and they look backwards, but Yeti wanted to buck the status quo.
And we wanted to look forward. We wanted to do the year in preview. And, you know,
one of the insights that we have at Yeti is like going back to that multi-dimensional brand,
it's like we stand for and support so many communities and we want people to get outside
and enjoy the wild. But sometimes that's, you know, intimidating and it's like, where do I start?
So we created a digital experience where you can come in and answer a couple, you know,
short questions about like what you're interested in. And then we generate a personalized curated
calendar for you of over 130 events of everything that you could do in the next year with your
Yeti products and within the Yeti communities. And you can download that right to your phone.
And so for us, it's just saying like, Hey, you're going to get a lot of use out of all of your
Yeti gear. Like here's what you can do to get after it in the next year. So instead of looking
back, like we wanted you to look forward and plan your wildest year yet. And, you know, that was
ヤエティのコミュニティマーケティングチーム
something that really we sourced from our community marketing team. We pulled the best
events together. That was like a lot of work on our part. And we identified like, this is going to
be one of our big swings for the year. Like this is something that I think has a lot of utility,
but it has a lot of value and can really inspire people to get outside more.
So that got a lot more investment from us. But on the flip side, you know, we have a very
dedicated community that goes out into the wild and they lose a lot of gear apparently.
And we learned that over 14,000 items are lost in national parks like every year.
And when we were launching our cargo gear boxes, we came up with the idea that we were going to go
to Craigslist where most of those items are posted, lost. It's like the world's biggest
lost and found. And we were going to go in and turn those gear losers into gear winners.
And this was something that was so scrappy and more of a surprise and delight thing where
we worked with some of our best ambassadors to take these gear boxes and kit them up with
whatever people lost, which is whether it's their ice picks or their tackle boxes.
And we would fill them up, send them to the people that had posted that they lost the gear
with a personalized message from our ambassadors. And that's not something that got a big media
spend. It was just something that we wanted to do to support those communities in a surprise
and delight way. You mentioned throughout this conversation the word community quite a bit.
And you said that there's a dedicated community marketing team, which is a separate
team from a creative team. Is that right? That's right.
Yeah. And again, just to break it down for the audience here, the listeners here,
can you be a bit more specific about what it is that they do on a day-to-day and how does that
work? Building a community sounds like a simple thing, but actually building a community takes a
lot of time. Yeah.
Right? Yeah. So how do they make that happen?
What our community marketing team does is they nurture and cultivate and strengthen
the relationships of those communities. So we have on our staff at Yeti Inside,
the best experts and pros. So in the ranch and rodeo space, we have a great woman
who has been in that space and has ridden and competed and just knows the community inside and
out and has been a part of this community and has those relationships, which helps us get those
insights, get access to what they care about, their voices, what they need from Yeti, to be
ヤエティのコミュニティビルディング
quite honest. And the community marketing team helps facilitate a lot. They bring in people from
those communities to consult with the people in Yeti that are designing our products to hear
what they need out of our products. Anytime we do a production shoot or a campaign,
we don't use models. We don't use influencers. We use real people, like real people from our
communities. So we're always going to our community marketing team saying like,
Hey, we've got this moment coming up. We think we really want to lean into the CERC community.
Who do we want to pull together to be working with? And a lot of the magic, I think that I feel,
especially working at Yeti, it's when those communities cross paths. We recently did
a story for our printed magazine. It's like a magalog, if you will, where we took a CERC ambassador,
a barbecue pitmaster, and a professional skateboard. And we took them out and let
them experience an old world hog hunt where the pitmaster got to beat everybody with what
they hunted, which was the hog at the end of the day. And it was seeing the surfer, the skater,
and the pitmaster all mixing and all interacting with each other that I think just really
becomes the essence of this brand and the power of this brand and how those communities
cross paths, open minds, and inspire each other. Yeah. Wow. I mean, another word that you may not
have mentioned in this conversation much, but what I'm taking away, and I hesitate to
use this word just because it becomes such a cliche word, but being authentic is so
easy to say, but at the same time, there's power in that authenticity. And the fact that
what you just mentioned, that you don't use models, but you use real people in those communities
to highlight whatever that they might be into. Yeah. That's such a, in a way, a simple thing
ヤエティのオーセンティシティ
to do, but at the same time, it may be difficult for some companies to stick to.
I mean, it is. And I love that you picked up on that word because when I was in Portland and we
were always working for Nike, it's like, if I had a dollar for every time I heard the word premium,
it would be a very rich one. And for us at Yeti, the word is authentic. Like it comes up a lot.
It is a defining characteristic of this brand. It helps us stay true to the brand. I mean,
it really is our truth. And it is something that takes a little while for new creatives coming
into the brand to learn. Like we don't rely on gimmicks, tricks, actors, a lot of contrived
settings, performative, all the tricks you've learned at your agency. Like you come here
and there's like a bootcamp and a time where it's like, you have to learn the difference of
what is a good idea and what is a good Yeti idea. And those things are very different.
Yeah. Because you might come up with an amazing concept that's like,
oh, that's a can winning award idea right there. But you start circulating it in the halls of
Yeti and you go to our community marketing team and they're just like, what is that?
Like that's for advertising people. That's not authentic. That's not for our community.
And so we... And that's what I mean by staying true to the brand. We're not going to chase
trends. We're not going to chase gimmicks. And that's true on both the marketing advertising
side and that's true on the business side as well. No, that's super, super fascinating. And
some of the things that you've said make total sense. And at the same time, like I said earlier,
just because I work with quite a few clients and how difficult it is to execute on those
beliefs and promises, because especially like if you're in the retail business,
you know, it's a quarterly seasonal business. And if you're not making the numbers this quarter,
you have to make up for the loss the next quarter and so forth. It is a brutal cycle and it's easy
to lose sight of the basic foundational beliefs that you have as a brand.
Yeah. If there's one thing I've learned coming into brand side is you really do have to
operate in 2 speeds. You're always going to have those daily, weekly demands, but you also
need to be thinking about the long term and what your strategy is for the future. And how to start
making movements and putting a plan together to get there.
インタビューの素早い質問
Lightning questions.
During the interview, we dig deep into different topics surrounding creativity.
On the contrary, with this section, we ask the same questions to the guests to react on the spot,
and we don't let them see the questions in advance.
Question number one, if you weren't doing this, what else would you be doing?
Oh, scuba diving in Bali.
Question number two, if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
Bali.
Question number three, and this might be the same answer,
where is the next place you'd like to travel to?
Well, okay, this could be a little bit different. I really want to get up to Canada, probably like
the Banff area. And it's because we have some amazing photographers all over the world. And
I recently saw a photo shoot up there and I'm ready to go. I want to go there.
Question number four, your favorite food?
I argue with my kids about this all the time because they don't like it,
but I love a good chicken pot pie. Can you believe it?
Five-year-old that doesn't like chicken pot pie.
What?
I know. It's insane.
Yeah. Question number five, what's your favorite song or favorite type of music?
I've been really into some retro new wave music. I think my team's going to kill me because I'm
putting it on Spotify in the studio all the time, but I just am really in a 90s phase right now.
What was the biggest turning point in your life?
Well, I think it's going back to American University and meeting Professor Graham
and him giving me the opportunity and the invitation to interview for my job at AKQA.
Wow. Well, so the follow-up question would be,
so after that, any additional turning point during your professional career?
Yeah. I would say it was probably my move to Portland, Oregon. I think everyone anticipated
me going to a bigger market. The move from DC would have either been New York City or San Francisco
where there are creative hubs for advertising, and I chose Portland, a smaller market in Wyden
Kennedy.
What would be your advice to a 23-year-old, 22-year-old genie, but in 2023, 2024?
If I was going to give advice to young people, I would be, just make sure you're presenting
yourself, I think, with what I call the three H's.
Okay. Do tell.
And I talk a lot about this. It's what I look for in every recruit that I interview. It's like,
マスメディアの終焉
you have to be hungry. You have to have hustle. You have to be hardworking. And oh my Lord,
you got to be a little bit humble because for every 100 ideas that you pitch, you might get
one made. But ego does not work for me, especially with collaboration in that space.
So I really look for those characteristics. And I think if creatives really focus on
those aspects in their career, they will rise. They will do well.
You said three H's, but I think I heard four, right? So it was hungry, hustle, hardworking,
and humble.
Yeah, four. Sorry, the four H's.
Four H's. What is your superpower?
Well, I love, I think, building teams and bringing people together to solve problems.
My style of leadership, I think, is a style of bringing service to the role where it doesn't
always have to be my idea, but I like pulling the best minds together to solve the idea.
Last question. What is creativity to you?
Oh, it's my lifeblood. I think it's what gets me out of bed every morning and coming into this job.
I see creativity everywhere. I think it's solving problems in an unexpected way and
the old-fashioned dot connecting, I'd say.
Excellent.
That was my conversation with Ginny Golden, the Executive Creative Director at Yeti,
a much-beloved outdoor brand that has grown tremendously in the last several years.
So here are my three key takeaways from the chat.
Key takeaway number one, trying to appeal to everyone appeals to no one.
Key takeaway number two, relentlessly pursue what you love.
And number three, sincerity is the new creativity.
So the first point, trying to appeal to everyone appeals to no one.
In the old world, say before the smartphones around 2008, mass media reigned supreme.
And it was important for brands to create awareness about the brand among as many people
as possible by relying on mass media, such as TV, maybe radio, magazines, newspapers,
what people assumed was mass.
But after the introduction and the proliferation of smartphones and over 90% of the Western
countries and cultures have adopted these devices that can deliver different types of information,
different types of content, video, sound, what have you, there's no such thing as mass media
anymore.
Even though everybody has a device that can access this piece of information, media has
become so fragmented that it's really micro media.
全員にアピールしようとしない
And that gets to key takeaway number two, relentlessly pursue what you love.
So since there is no such thing as mass media anymore, trying to reach as many people as
possible or appeal to as many people as possible is a fruitless and futile exercise.
But by focusing on a niche topic, an interest, or even the market, we can still create an
audience that's big enough to build a business and build a brand.
Yeti is an excellent case study to illustrate this point of not trying to appeal to everyone
and relentlessly pursuing what you love.
Yeti was founded by Roy and Ryan Cedars in 2006, and I'm reading this from a Wikipedia
entry.
The brothers grew up in Texas and spent a large portion of their childhood outdoors.
Their father, Roger Cedars, was an entrepreneur that designed a fishing rod epoxy.
In 2006, Ryan started Waterloo Rods and sold the company nine years later.
Roy, an angler and hunter, began his career making custom boats that were designed for
fishing in shallow depth areas in the Texas Gulf Coast.
The avid outdoorsman became frustrated with the quality of the coolers available and founded
Yeti in response.
So as you can see, this is such a specific point of view, specific interest that they
had and started making a very specific thing.
I'm not sure if Roy and Ryan Cedars did enough market research to have the conviction that
there would be enough audience who would buy a cooler that would cost $275 at least.
I mean, I've bought a cooler, maybe one, maybe two in my lifetime, and each one costs
barely $50.
So for me to spend more than $250 on a cooler was not really a need that I would have.
But it turned out, as you can see, enough people were interested in buying a $250 plus
cooler to use outdoors and have the kind of quality that would make that product durable
for tough use outside over and over and over.
So these points, trying to appeal to everyone appeals to no one and relentlessly pursue what
you love, Roy and Ryan proved that point.
And what I do wonder, going to my earlier point about the end of mass media, I wonder
if a brand such as Yeti, which caters to a specific niche market succeeded primarily
not only because there was a big enough need, but because in that age of micromedia, the
人々の心をとらえるために
audience was able to find a specific thing for this specific interest.
And they were able to reach a brand like Yeti to purchase such a specific and expensive
product.
By pursuing what you love relentlessly, that allows us to capture people's hearts and
minds.
And that also leads to a product that is truly good and truly meets and serves the interest
of that specific audience.
Key takeaway number three, sincerity is the new creativity.
When thinking about the takeaways, one of the words that came to my mind was authenticity.
But I feel like authenticity is such an overused term in marketing these days that it's
starting to lose its meaning.
Instead, I specifically chose the word sincerity because the approach that these brothers took,
as well as the marketing and the creative approach that Genie's team takes, is to be
as sincere as possible.
Having a point of view that is not reactive to what's happening around us or what is just
trendy or trying to create a buzz is not really the motive behind the recent work that
Genie's team has done that speaks to this specific niche audience.
They're not trying to be trendy to them, but they're trying to be sincere to them.
And that is what's working for the brand and for the marketing approach that they take.
重要な要点のまとめ
So to summarize the three key takeaways from the conversation with Genie, number one, trying
to appeal to everyone appeals to no one.
Key takeaway number two, relentlessly pursue what you love.
And number three, sincerity is the new creativity.
So this was my conversation with Genie Golden, the Executive Creative Director at Yeti.
I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did and that these key takeaways can be useful
for whatever endeavor you might pursue.
If you're listening to this on Spotify, there is a Q&A input, so please do send your
questions and comments.
If you like our podcast, please leave us a 5-star rating.
We'll be so grateful.
I'm Reina Moto, and this is The Creative Mindset.
See you next time.
