In short
How to grow revenue without diluting brand—using long-form storytelling, customer listening, and bold experiential/media bets tied to long-term lifetime value.
Guest backgrounds
Joe Prebich is VP of Benchmade (family-owned, American-made knives). He began as a teen in northern Minnesota, creating the snowboard/action-sports magazine “218” and sending it to Snowboarder Magazine at 16; editor Pat Bridges called and later paid him at 17. He studied journalism at University of Montana, then built a career blending storytelling with brand strategy. He previously worked at Red Bull (athlete manager for Shaun White), and on Fjällräven’s North America growth.
Key claims
Brands struggle when they only tell “headline” stories instead of the whole narrative. Revenue comes from customer-centric, multi-year storytelling that executive/board partners support with real metrics. Customers reveal brand drift and new use-cases; reviews are only the “knock on the door.”
Notable examples
Red Bull’s remote backcountry “Superpipe” halfpipe in Silverton with a foam pit (training led to Shaun White’s Vancouver gold). Fjällräven’s Times Square building wrap and airport takeovers (e.g., JFK, Boston Logan) to translate the brand beyond backpacks. Benchmade’s “LifeSharp” lifetime sharpening guarantee and factory-store/Oregon City manufacturing experience.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOJoe's Early Hustle in Snowboarding
1:07 to 1:49
Joe shares his journey starting a snowboard magazine at a young age.
“But tell us how your career kind of started.”
Building a Community Through Storytelling
1:49 to 4:23
Joe discusses his passion for storytelling and creating a magazine for local youth.
“It's always fun to be able to talk about marketing and marketing and building brands.”
From Magazine to Journalism
4:23 to 8:01
Transition from creating a magazine to becoming a journalist and his learning experiences.
“And it became a thing in our little local community.”
The Role of Story in Brand Marketing
8:01 to 10:44
Joe explains the importance of storytelling in brand marketing and consumer engagement.
“And storytelling, crafting story became something that I dedicated many years of my life to.”
Connecting Storytelling to Revenue
10:44 to 14:03
Discussion on how storytelling can drive loyalty and revenue for brands.
“Was it them going, hey, this is just marketing.”
The Power of Storytelling in Brand Marketing
14:03 to 16:40
Learn how storytelling shapes long-term brand strategies and engages customers.
“It is not just, please make this happen today for this month or this quarter.”
Experiential Marketing at Red Bull
16:41 to 19:28
Discover the journey of creating a groundbreaking experiential marketing initiative for Red Bull.
“That's a lot of what I do on a day-to-day basis is play that role of conversationalist with our consumers and our retailers.”
Navigating Skepticism and Stress in Marketing
19:29 to 22:54
Understand the challenges and pressure faced during high-stakes marketing projects.
“They expect a lot from legal to compliance to rolling out your marketing plans, getting everything.”
Transformative Ideas in Snowboarding
22:55 to 25:55
Explore the impact of innovative ideas in sports marketing and athlete development.
“It defined everything that I think that go be transformative in sport expectation was.”
Growing Fjällräven's Presence in North America
25:56 to 28:00
Learn about Fjällräven's strategy to establish its brand identity in the competitive North American market.
“You're like, oh, I know, I could just see a profile of it and go, I know what bag that is.”
Show all 19 chapters
Fjällräven's Bold Marketing Moves
28:00 to 29:40
Learn about Fjällräven's strategic marketing initiatives that boosted brand recognition.
“Well, the reality is for some brands, it does cost$100 million.”
Budgeting for Brand Growth
29:40 to 31:00
Discover how to approach marketing with limited budgets and still make an impact.
“We kind of beat them to the punch on being loud and proud about what our product was in front of a non-traditional outdoor customer who turned out to be the growth engine behind Felra for the next few years.”
Transitioning to Benchmade: A New Challenge
31:00 to 34:10
Explore Joe Prebich's approach to elevating the Benchmade brand.
“So you said you got to work with your budget you have to make the biggest, boldest moves you can make to be the loudest you can with the budget you have.”
Creating Emotional Connections with Customers
34:10 to 37:40
Understand how Benchmade connects with customers on a personal level.
“Like what was some of the things you're like, ah, here's how I'm looking at this?”
The Importance of Storytelling in Business
37:40 to 42:00
Learn why narrative-driven marketing is essential for brand success and customer retention.
“And so, you know, for us, that's a big part of our foundation is reminding people that that's a great thing to have in your life.”
Building a Consumer-Centric Culture
42:00 to 43:34
Learn how Benchmade fosters a brand culture focused on consumer engagement and storytelling.
“And creating a culture that is consumer centric and storytelling driven is about people all wanting to be a part of that narrative, to listen in and to know what the next chapter is going to be.”
Strategic Planning for Brand Success
43:34 to 45:40
Discover the importance of reflection and strategic planning in brand marketing.
“Because there's no guarantee with brand marketing and storytelling.”
Balancing Growth and Brand Integrity
45:40 to 48:26
Understand how Benchmade balances growth with maintaining brand essence and customer loyalty.
“So we do have a factory store at the headquarters.”
Engaging Customers Through Storytelling
48:26 to 51:06
Explore how Benchmade engages with customers and the adventures they share with the brand.
“what that lifetime loyalty value really feels like.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02Chris Cruz:At 16, Joe Prebich printed a snowboard magazine at school, then mailed it to Snowboard Magazine. Not as a pitch, as proof he was already doing the work. One afternoon, his mom called him to the phone. Hey Joe, someone's on the phone for you. Pat Bridges, editor of Snowboard Magazine, was on the line. That call turned into a paycheck at 17. Joe framed it and kept it as a reminder that story could become a career. Years later, Joe was at Red Bull managing Sean White. Snowboarding was evolving faster than safety allowed. Sean needed a way to train tricks that didn't yet exist. Joe proposed a radical idea.
0:35Chris Cruz:A top-secret halfpipe in the backcountry of Silverton. A private training facility, a foam pit built to turn imagination into muscle memory. Today, Joe leads brand and storytelling at Benchmade, a company built on American manufacturing, generational tools. Joe believes customers tell you everything. When something works, when something fails, when a brand is drifting. Listen closely, and they'll take you somewhere unexpected. Here's the truth. The hardest part isn't making the bet. It's holding it when no one sees the alchemy in. This is Anatomy of a Brand, episode 25. I'm Chris Cruz, and I'm joined by Joe Previch, Vice President of Benchmade.
1:11Chris Cruz:Okay, Joe, you have spent your career at this interesting intersection of culture, revenue, working with some interesting and well-known brands, and then you started to do some really fun stuff Well, you have a history of doing some really cool, interesting things that we're going to dive into with brands like Red Bull and others. But tell us how your career kind of started. I know you have a history with some snowboarding stuff, some magazine stuff. And you had an interesting like how you got your career started there. Like this little bit of a hustle that I'm like, wow. Tell us that story of where you started with snowboarding.
1:48Yeah, I will for sure. And thanks for having me today. It's always fun to be able to talk about marketing and marketing and building brands. So, you know, my world really has been a story. And it's been fun to weave storytelling throughout my career. And it's incredible now, like, looking back on, you know, how I started as a kid. You know, I created a magazine in northern Minnesota. I grew up in northern Minnesota. And my passion was, you know, I was dreaming of leaving Minnesota and going to the mountains. and snowboarding was a passion of mine. Okay. A couple of buddies of I, we decided that, you know, we were just going to pretend like we had made it.
2:27And so we started a magazine. Let's go. We were 15, 16 years old and we were obsessed and we were playing the part. And so we created a magazine in our local community and, you know, we printed it on our home. A snowboard, skiing. It was like an action sports magazine. It was music, action sports. It was that whole thing that was, you know, a 16-year-old boy's dream. It was punk rock. It was late nights up at the mountain, have fun. And our heroes were these guys and girls who were professional snowboarders and skiers and wakeboarders and all that stuff. And so we started this magazine that just focused on our little local area.
3:07And I'm from just south of Canada at a part of northern Minnesota called the Iron Range. And it's an iron ore mining community. There's nothing really too special about it, except for the fact that the people who are there are hardworking. They've built their lives in a place that's extremely frigid, temperatures irregularly 30, 40 below zero. And so our world was about figuring out how to play outside. And there was a toughness. There was a grit to the people that I always saw around me. And there was no guarantee that I was ever going to leave that place. So we dreamt a lot, as 16-year-old kids do, about what it would be like to do that.
3:46And so that started this magazine. And, and I always had a passion for for storytelling, because I was never really good at snowboarding, or skateboarding, or any of those things. I love it. I loved it. And I wanted to be around it. And so I found out very quickly that my way, you know, kind of around these people that I love that were good at that stuff was through telling their story and taking photos. And I was kind of had this idea of, you know, building businesses. And, you know, this magazine, it was called 218, a magazine for misguided youth. And, you know, we really we really were a group of kids that built a scene together.
4:24And it became a thing in our little local community. I mean, I hustled selling magazines from my backpack in school. You know, my teacher, Miss Terrell, she used the word processing at our school to be able to build the layout of the first magazine. I started the school newspaper on it.
4:41Chris Cruz:Oh man. I still get that hustle. I had my first clothing line in high school. I was like, all right, I'm going to print some shirts. My dad found a French shop. I'm going to print these shirts that I designed. I'm going to do it. So everybody has a little bit of that high school, like what did you make then that you're like, I'm going to try to get out? One, it's interesting too. I look back on that passion and I feel so lucky because, you know a lot of people feel I think like they don't have passion for what their career is or how it became and I feel so lucky like my passions actually have always just like compounded into even more passionate pursuits and they've been able to become my career as well so I try to think on that a lot and and you know for me brand marketing was an unnatural transition from storytelling so you know I started this magazine and ultimately had this amazing experience where I had at 16 years old, I had sent my magazine to Snowboarder Magazine and I was just kind of trying to be like, hey, look at what we're doing.
5:35Chris Cruz:Pause right there. So you're 16. You create a snowboarding magazine with a snowboard music skiing magazine with your friends. You're like, all right, I've got this hustle. I'm going to put this stuff out. I'm going to make it at school. We're going to do all this stuff. And then at some point in your brain is like, you know what? Snowboard Magazine needs to actually, like what's that thought process of this 16 year old that's like, I'm going to send this to Snowboard Magazine. Like, was it like, hey, Elmer, I think this could happen? Or are you like, no, this is a, I just got to reach out and this is going to happen.
6:06Yeah, it was funny. They did a, in the back of Snowboarder Magazine at the time, they did this thing called the Media Militia. And it was these like local regional, like paragraphs about what the scene was like locally.
6:17Chris Cruz:Okay. And I was like, hey, I'm building something better than what you're writing. So I, I wanted to send it and say, I think I can do that. and uh you know lo and behold one day i was at home from school and i was i was sick for some you know kid thing and pat bridges who was the editor of snowboarder magazine legend in the industry um great mentor friend and he uh he called my house him and aaron draplin who was the creative director at the camera art director at the magazine and they were just dorking around you know they got a copy of this magazine and and pat called i think to just see what was on the other side of you know the phone and it was a 16 year old kid and i i was blown away for me that was like god calling and i was like oh my this is amazing and my mom tells me like hey joe pat bridges is on the line what and you know pat was pat was kind to a 16 year old kid who was extremely passionate about snowboarding and i asked him all these questions i remember i wrote his number down under P for Pat and B for Bridges and E for editor and S for snowboarder.
7:21Right. So I would never forget it. And he told me, you know, I said, well, how do I do what you do? And he said, become a snowboard journalist. And I was like, I don't even know what that is. Like, is that a job? So, you know, I kind of just let let that happen. I ended up writing that media militia column. I ended up getting the opportunity to write that for him. I got my first paycheck from Snowboarder magazine when I was 17 years old and framed that thing. still have it in my bedroom at my parents' house.
7:48Chris Cruz:That's awesome. And that was a multi-year relationship of me looking to Snowboarder and to Pat for guidance on how to do this thing. I ended up becoming a journalist. I went to journalism school at the University of Montana in Missoula. And storytelling, crafting story became something that I dedicated many years of my life to. The journalism program in Missoula was awesome. It was a very traditional program. and that was great for me because, you know, I realized very quickly what I didn't want to do. I didn't want to be a traditional journalist. I didn't want to do any of the things that I was going to school to do.
8:25And it helped to open up my eyes to a fact that I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to tell stories, but I didn't want to write for a newspaper. I wanted to tell the thing I was passionate about. So, you know, my career started with story And today it very clearly has connected story is the most important part for our customer and how brands really, really lack the ability many do to tell stories very well. Why?
8:57Chris Cruz:Because you can see so many people like you can see these individuals who are these kind of content gurus, content strategists online. And you see these whole agencies built around story. And you're like, why do you think brands genuinely struggle with the idea of story? And what are you doing to get people to go like, this is powerful. What is it that's happening? You know, there's a lot of good people doing interesting things on this, you know, trying to tell story. I think where brands struggle is in a commitment to telling the whole story. Okay. Right. I'll say like brands oftentimes want a good headline of an initial chapter.
9:40And I think where, you know, I've been lucky in having leaders and brands who have a commitment to telling a much longer form narrative and where they, you know, maybe didn't know quite how to go and express that narrative. but they gave me the autonomy to say, go please build this story with our customers. And it's more than just one line. It's more than just one product. There's some deeper meaning or purpose to our business that we want them to understand. And that was a lot of fun to have some time.
10:15Chris Cruz:That's a dream to get that initiative from somebody to go, because there's so much of, even what we wrestle with as an agency is people trying to connect. How does this help me make revenue? How does this, and you have a bit of that intersection that you've understood how brand is leveraged and how story is leveraged towards that. But also it seems like you've been empowered at times at different stages to go tell this story because they saw it as meaningful. Like, was it for them like something they were saying, like, we want this purpose to be out there. Was it fluff? Was it them going, hey, this is just marketing.
10:46Chris Cruz:Just go out there and tell the story. Or was it like, was there some genuineness in there? Oh, I think there's a lot of genuineness. Okay. And I think at each and every brand that I've been able to be at, I found this, you know, incredible authenticity in the people who had built that spirit, you know, from Red Bull, that drive, that energy, that's so real. And that was so real when I was there at that time. The things that Red Bull became known for and the things that drive Red Bull as an energy drink and as a brand are really in the DNA of the people that are there pushing the envelope and making it so.
11:27And so there's this like kind of dipped in the brand essence that each one of them has, but it's different. And then when I went to Oakley, I was completely blown away by the tenacity with which people thought about that kind of steampunk origin, engineering, that unobtainium culture of recreating, you know, what is a pretty basic thing, you know, sunglasses. But it was more than sunglasses, right? This was about a revolution in engineering. And seeing that and hearing, okay, cool, wow, this is how people are living this brand. Then going to Maui Gym and seeing truly these people who have dedicated their entire essence to that aloha spirit.
12:14Fantastic to be able to watch and see how that brand came out. So I do think there's a lot of authenticity there. I think that many, many brands and executive teams and brand marketers get met with a hurry up and tell this story. right when you talk about meeting it at an intersection of revenue you know you got to be able to describe how telling a more complete story um bringing your customers in telling these you know long-form narratives that are met with short-form hits of really beautiful content how it makes any customer really engage and become happier with you as a brand like what's the point for them.
13:00And so, you know, I've spent a lot of my career thinking about being in the customer's shoes and how do I engage with any brand that I like? I'm a consumer. I love brands. There's lots of brands that I'm just still so aspirational that we can be like because they do such a good job. And then I see a lot of brands that just, you know, have a great story, but don't know how to bring it to life. So I find like that intersection of storytelling and revenue really comes down to a boldness and a commitment from those in the creative storytelling chair to be able to have and find partnership with their executive partners and ownership and boards to determine, you know, a real customer centric metric that helps them understand the KPI of really great, deep storytelling, driving loyalty over time and driving a commitment.
13:56Right. And many of the brands that I've been at have a long-term lifetime customer value expectation. It is not just, please make this happen today for this month or this quarter. It is, let's see ourselves. And Joe, can you be a partner to helping to plan this for the next one, three, five, 10 years? What is it going to look like? And how can you help describe those things? So I think that's where storytelling is a very powerful anecdote.
14:23Chris Cruz:And that long game allows you to tell a story because it's like when you're rushing and you're going like, hey, it's got to make an impact right now tomorrow, you're less inclined to tell a good story. You're more inclined to simply go like, all right, you know what I need to do is tell you all the features and hopefully that converts to a problem you're feeling right now in life. And let me just solve that problem. And what we do is just solve that problem only. And I understand that. I understand what you need to speak to like the problem that you're solving for the customer, I get that marketing, that way of understanding human psychology and going, you have a problem, we solve it.
15:00Chris Cruz:But then there's a reality of like, lots of people solve this problem and we could just claim, we solve it better. Or if we have a long-term view, like you're saying, there's a story we could tell that brings you in deeper. Totally. And I think customers are really curious and they're ultimately like interested to know who's already your ambassador and why are they there for you and who are already your customers and do they look like me and what's their narrative? What's their story? What are they all about? And so, you know, when you see like, you know, there's always ways to use like reviews to tell story, to drive revenue, to try to convince somebody to, you know, make a purchase and jump in with you.
15:40But I found that like a review is only the like initial knock on the door because there's so much more behind that five star. Yeah, I love that knife because people are doing interesting things with brands on a day-to-day basis. And if you're bold enough to go out there and actually have conversation with them, you're going to be inspired and you're going to see your brand shift. And they're going to take you into different and new areas. And I think for great brand marketers and executives leading the charge and wanting to be a little bit more brand-centric and brand-forward, your customer is going to define some scary things for you that you can go and and probably create great revenue off of the question is are you willing to try are you willing to trust them because they're going to point at how they use your product probably differently than you thought right they go oh you know i actually use this this way and this is when it was really important for me it's like whoa maybe that's a story we could tell that would be so unique to our market and to our positioning about them.
16:41So yeah.
16:42Chris Cruz:That's insightful. That's a lot of what I do on a day-to-day basis is play that role of conversationalist with our consumers and our retailers. Learn, see if it can change my point of view, you know, open me up to something new. And that's a lot of fun for me. Okay. So let me back up a little bit in your story. So we're getting some hints where you are now with Vice President at Benchmade Knives. But before that, let's back up a couple steps. You did something really interesting with Red Bull, the super pipe experience, this experiential marketing thing. Take us into that and take us into this concept of experiential marketing.
17:24Chris Cruz:Was there skepticism? Was there resistance? Tell us about the idea and give us a little antidote around it and how that actually worked. Yeah, that was a really amazing time, especially looking back on it now. It's been a couple of decades and it feels still so very relevant. And it was a defining moment for me in my career. And also it was a really defining moment for Red Bull as a brand, which is really fun. But at that point in time, I was working as the athlete manager for Sean White at Red Bull. My role was to help him come from Mountain Dew and become a Red Bull guy. And we were trying to figure out how do we excel this performance.
18:05And there was this great performance initiative within Red Bull, which was, you know, not just putting can in hand, right? This was like actually being a vehicle for elevating athletes to the next level. And so we were committed to unlocking, you know, big ideas that could do transformative things and change sport forever.
18:21Chris Cruz:Big ideas that could do transformative things and change sports forever. Let's go. Yeah, I mean, and those were the words, right? And like that was the stuff that Red Bull was built off of, right? They set Mount Everest and said, like, that's where we want to be. Can you come up with a way to get there? And honestly, you know, this private halfpipe project really, really was that in space. And, you know, it was this incredible, if you've seen the trailer, the, you know, we were in the backcountry of Silverton. We created this first ever remote halfpipe. It was just a fantastic visual experience.
18:59It was also a top secret training facility With the first ever foam pit For learning these double corks And for Sean it was a safe way to be able to Take the tricks from his mind and into action And that ultimately led to him Going for the back to back gold medals And winning in Vancouver and setting a stage Of this kind of next level Of where snowboarding was gone to And now guys today They're taking it to such an insane level And seeing kind of how we opened up the door To that I'm extremely proud of And I had a ton of great people around me but this idea was met with extreme skepticism even at red bull was it yeah absolutely absolutely i mean it was a point in time it feels like a no-brainer now because it feels like a no-brainer totally it feels like a no-brainer but i think red bull does a good job of making all their big ideas seem simple uh but internally they've always and they taught me a ton about the rigor of risk assessment you know you have to be dialed you can't just be a crazy person and work for these companies especially red bull you have to have you know the the business acumen nailed you got to be able to find cross-functional partnerships.
20:01They expect a lot from legal to compliance to rolling out your marketing plans, getting everything. How did you pitch it? You know, I's got to tease cross.
20:07Chris Cruz:What was the thing that made them ultimately go like, yeah, this is a good, like what was something that you could pull on and say, here's an example of what I had to do to communicate this and make it work? Yeah. So the idea came to me when I was surfing with Sean and I talked to him. And we were in Japan on a trip and he was talking to me about how he just doesn't have any downtime. Didn't have any downtime because he couldn't get hurt. You know, he couldn't try any of these tricks because he couldn't afford to be hurt. And that got a kernel kind of working in my mind. And ultimately I was thinking about, you know, how could we give him a safe place to unlock?
20:41And we were surfing together and I pitched him this idea. I was like, hey, if I could create you this safe place where you could train alone, you know, be in your own space where nobody's looking at what you're doing. and we could build you this like foam pit idea and you could try all these tricks. Would you commit a lot of time to me? And he was like, yeah. He's like, I'd commit my whole winter. I was like, cool. Paddled right in, drove up to Santa Monica, wrote it down on a PowerPoint. We went through our business planning and I pitched it in business planning. And it started working its way through the Red Bull business planning process.
21:10And ultimately it got championed and it got the initial funding. And ultimately for me, it was met at a perfect time with an initial investment. And that initial investment, you know, wasn't, wasn't estimation from my side, it was nowhere near what it was actually going to end up costing. So some, some perfect storms happened that, you know, really were, were challenging this project, which was the 2008 housing crisis, you know, the economy really shuttered. So I was spending millions of dollars trying to create something that at that time kind of seemed frivolous, right? And it was a big bet that was then over budget and we were very pot committed and we weren't going to see this bet pay off until February.
21:55And there was a lot of stress, a lot of pressure. What was the bet payoff look like?
21:58Chris Cruz:What did that result look like that you were like, we won't see the bet payoff till then. What was the bet payoff in your mind? Gold medal, Vancouver. Got it. So that was, and we were talking, we were a year away from that, two year and a half. And so, you know, by the time we locked up our project, we were still a year away from the Olympics at around a year. And, you know, we were over budget. We had done a lot of things. Nobody had seen a single thing. Nobody had seen any footage. People were stressed. The business was stressed. Executives were stressed. And that stress came down to me. And ultimately, I learned a lot about holding your bet, you know, and being confident.
22:37I had to really be confident. And I got to thank, you know, Amy Taylor and Scotty Bradfield were huge advocates for me at Red Bull. They were senior executives, you know, in the business. They were trusting, you know, me. They also provided me great guidance and air cover to be able to see this thing through. And when it finally came out, we put that trailer out. It defined everything that I think that go be transformative in sport expectation was. And then the Red Bull machine just turned on. And it went from, I went from outsider over budget and at risk to insider elevated to, like he said, let's go.
23:20And the business adapted around it and behind it. We began pushing this momentum with the full weight of what a global brand like Red Bull can do. And all of a sudden, a billion media impressions later and multiple millions of views and all these things started to come together and Sean wins the gold medal, it became a really great playbook for, you know, taking big bets requires, you know, guts and it's not always going to go right. And even though, you know, a lot of things challenged us, we stuck to our guns.
Read the full transcript
23:52Chris Cruz:It's like that same kid that sends that magazine, that same kid that goes like, Hey, I'm going to send my magazine in to snowboarder. I'm going to bet on myself, on my idea i'm gonna go if you had to think about it like you had this 16 year old kid who sends a magazine in fast forward working on one of the most innovative ideas in snowboarding with this foam pit this half pipe what do you like what do you think that kid like would it say like what would you even like that conversation between the two man like that must be wild i've had a lot of conversations and that kid was right there present.
24:26And honestly, up until the point of it really being, you know, a success, I was really nervous that I had lost my dream that I had, that I had and lost and that, you know, I had this great opportunity and overplayed my hand and I didn't get it right. And, um, I don't know if I've ever been so stressed in my life because I felt that I was about to lose something that I really wanted to be a part of. Um, and so I learned a ton about how pressure affects me and what what what business does to a person when stress is really high and when you really want something um and kind of the only way out was through and that's been something that i you know tried by fire feels very real you know and i feel like great people around me helped to reinforce don't worry we got it we're gonna get it we're gonna Now I hear those voices in my head as I lead teams and ask them to go do bold things.
25:29So, you know, I wouldn't change it, but it really did affect me. It took a good piece of the soul, moved it over there. Like, yeah, that was, you're never getting that, you know, positive youthful enthusiasm back, right?
25:43Chris Cruz:Yeah. So, okay. So, like, if we fast forward, you worked with, I asked you even before the show how to make sure I said it properly, Fjallraven, or is that right? okay so you worked with them you nailed it you did a times square piece so i want to spend just a little bit time talking about that and then i want to jump into benchmade i want to spend the rest of time talking about not diluting a brand as you're trying to expand it grow it scale it and then leveraging that in revenue conversations and strategy and how you're talking to executives so we'll talk about the times square piece and then we'll jump into benchmade cool yeah i mean fjallraven if you if you know about it it's a great swedish brand um their backpacks i see them on, you're so iconic.
26:23Chris Cruz:You're like, oh, I know, I could just see a profile of it and go, I know what bag that is. Yeah. The conking. There it is. Yeah. And, you know, we were, we were kind of midstream on a, on a multi-year journey of growing the brand in North America. And, and the team from Sweden had really struggled to find and, and take root in, in the North American market. The brand wasn't translating. Um, and I got the opportunity to join a great team of executives with, um, John Walbrecht, who was then at the time the CEO, and he was, you know, a really brand forward, brand minded individual who had big ideas, big goals and constantly pushed the envelope for people like myself around him to come with, you know, interesting ways to bring this brand to life.
27:07And translating that, you know, and being able to figure out a way for us as a small brand that was trying to create a foothold and act bigger was what my kind of like mission was. And I'm a pretty tenacious dude. And I think when it comes down to having a good idea and wanting to figure out how we can elbow out room for these brands to become challengers in the space, like, you know, Felraven wasn't the size of North Face, not the size of Patagonia, right? We were this tiny little business, but we were thinking about how do we translate our who we are to people who never knew who we were. And so we wanted to make some large media moments.
27:50And media has been something that I've done, I think, well in my career is bringing unique ways to have these brands show up where consumers go, doesn't it cost$100 million to do that? Well, the reality is for some brands, it does cost$100 million. For some brands, it doesn't. The real question is, how do you work with the budget you have to go and try to be as big as you can be and to show up in front of your consumer and be bold? And so this takeover of Times Square, we did this amazing wrap of this building, one Times Square, and these huge, beautiful billboards that expressed the Fjallraven purpose.
28:32And it was on the heels of really making a push for the transition from just backpacks to like our parka and our pants and kind of the broader collection for Fjallraven, which globally, you know, it was well known for. But in North America, it really hadn't taken root. And now today, you know, you walk around any cold city, you're seeing, you know, the fox on a beautiful jacket. Yeah. We had our down promise, that purpose of, you know, doing something more unique and sustainable. And so this big media moment became that launching pad for a multi-year initiative. And we tied it all together. So New York was the epicenter of it.
29:08But we also did, you know, takeovers of different airports across the eastern seaboard. So we had Boston, Logan. We had JFK, these big takeovers where we wanted holiday travelers, international travelers coming to the city to recognize the brand, to see the flowers was there, to plant our flag. And it worked. And it worked because it also turned the outdoor industry on to the momentum that this brand had. And it had done something bigger that those giant brands never did. So I'm proud of that. We kind of beat them to the punch on being loud and proud about what our product was in front of a non-traditional outdoor customer who turned out to be the growth engine behind Felra for the next few years.
29:55Chris Cruz:Why did you pick airports? Like what was the thing there in your mind, like with airports? We love travelers. We love people who travel. We love people who are looking and going on a destination and thinking about it for Fjallraven was, you know, your next trek, right? And where you are moving to. And so giving them a sense of nature in this in transit moment, you know, a lot of people are like, I think myself, when you're traveling, you think about, even if you're traveling for work, you think about where you're traveling for fun. And if you're traveling for fun, you think about where's the next place I'm going to go.
30:28And so it was a natural way for us to show up in front of people and meet that traveler at that moment and to remind them that we also like to live a global lifestyle and that you can find Fjallraven in all of these great places. And we hope that you can go somewhere interesting and have an adventure. And it was a fun, expansive media project that really became an engine for how that brand kind of grew itself and set its media planning up for the next few years within the American side.
30:56Chris Cruz:I got one question and something you said, and then we'll jump into Benchmade here. Yeah. So you said you got to work with your budget you have to make the biggest, boldest moves you can make to be the loudest you can with the budget you have. So you're dealing with large companies, large budgets. If you were to sit with somebody who had a rather small budget that wasn't at that scale, who's thinking like, oh, my gosh, I got to conserve my budget. I don't have X, Y and Z dollars like these companies do. What's some of the conversations or coaching you would give to some of these entrepreneurs and kind of founders or CMOs and builders of these companies that are don't have that budget, but have something, but it's not that big?
31:34Yeah. And I think, you know, I love what you said is like because we have such big budgets. We don't. I've never had that. I've never had the big budget. I've always operated on extraordinarily lean, scrappy, very slim, especially to those historical players type of media budgets and advertising budgets. So I think the greatest thing that I can say is like, I've already convinced you that you think I have a big budget, but we don't. We operate as if the budget we have is what we have. And then we begin having conversations with what we think we need. So number one, never apologize for your budget.
32:13Never apologize for your budget. It is what you have. Don't think that it needs to be bigger. It is what it is. And I hear this all the time from colleagues, friends. I see it in the industry. People are constantly complaining about the size of the budget. Get over it. It is what you have. Those are the tools at your disposal, right? Go work on how you can get more by growing sales. But in reality, if you have 100, 1 ,000, 100 ,000, or 100 million, That is what you have. Now, what do you want so bad that you're willing to just go and build off of that? And I've never apologized for the budget I have.
32:47And I've talked to a lot of people who say, you know what, we never do this, but you know what, we love the story. We love the idea. So we'll break you a rate. And I think that that's the most important thing for me is that everybody's looking to partner with great brands who want to do bold things, who can become multi-year partners. And launching brands isn't about one person. It's about a community of people who believe that this thing could be the next thing. And I think I've met that back to those that have taken a risk with me and met me where my budget was and helped me be more bold with multiple, multiple years of commitment and consistency of then we become true partners over time.
33:31And then the budgets, as they grow, they grow with the partners that have helped us get our foot in the door. So, again, back to like, what do you do with a small budget? Own it like it's the best budget you have and then go and communicate and negotiate and bring people along for the ride and help convince them to be a part of how you take your brand to the next level. But don't wish for some bigger budget. It isn't going to happen that way.
33:56Chris Cruz:Okay. So then how did you go? Now, what's the connection for you for Benchmade? How did that process go? What was some of your, tell me a little bit about the process, but then also tell me when you looked at Benchmade, what were you thinking about how this brand could grow? Like what was some of the things you're like, ah, here's how I'm looking at this? Yeah. I mean, Benchmade is a fantastic business. You know, it's a family owned business. It's an American made manufactured business. And it's one that has a lot of history, legacy and heritage, especially in the Pacific Northwest. And when I got approached for the role, it was a conversation with the CEO about his vision for how Benchmade can be a global brand.
34:43And, you know, Benchmade was at the time a great brand known for making great knives. How long ago was this? And still today. How long ago was this conversation?
34:51Chris Cruz:Five and a half years ago was when I joined. but the opportunity to go tell that story to more customers was what they were looking for and is what i ultimately felt like i could come in and be a part of which is elevating the great things that they had built into their foundation and then bringing the mechanism the brand architecture for what it's going to take to create marketing operations to build at scale And it takes that work and it's not sexy. It's not storytelling driven. It's like, let's assess the foundation of how we move projects through the business. Let's assess the foundation of how we want to grow as a team and make sure that we're ready so that when we go out and tell this amazing story, which we believe our customers will respond to, we're ready to satisfy their needs and have a great customer experience and make sure that we can, you know, have that type of, you know, elevated brand experience.
35:47that you would expect from the stories that we're about to tell. And that takes time. And so we've really been able to, as a group and as an executive team, partner up on what's the right pace that we want to grow at so that when our stories land in the market, we can welcome these new customers, bring them into our story, and create a customer for life. Because a Benchmade, it's a generational product. And I don't know if you're a nice guy, but most people who are, you know they think about their knife and they think about what it means to them and they think about who started their their journey down this knife path whether it is their dad or their grandpa you know and you find yourself connecting to these moments that are so outside of work like a knife is just such a great example of the you know reminding you of a fishing trip that you went on or a hunting trip with your dad or your buddies that go out every year on an elk hunt.
36:49And I think it's just a great reminder in your pocket every day that like, sure, many of us spend a lot of time in meetings and doing all this stuff, but working with your hands reminds you that you're a real person. You're a human, right? And you could do and build things. And, you know, today it's really interesting with everything that's changing from a digital side and AI and all this narrative and all this conversation, there's something so incredibly powerful about a real tool being built by real people in a place that you can go visit in Oregon City. You can see it happen and you can watch it come to life and then you can go take it into the real world, have a real experience, and you can create these memories that can't be mimicked online.
37:37They are yours. They live in your heart. They live in your mind. And so, you know, for us, that's a big part of our foundation is reminding people that that's a great thing to have in your life.
37:49Chris Cruz:Wow. So, yeah, it's a really fun business. Here's the thing about this conversation with you that I love so much is like, I love how, how with every brand that you've mentioned that you've worked on, how immediately this ideal customer, this person is not just talked about like a metric, but they're talked about like this real person that has this point of view in life. and this is where you find them in the story that they live in the elk hunts the different people that are traveling to the extreme sports person like there's there's such an awareness of who the person you are talking to is you have such that deep connection to them and i love seeing that over and over again and if people aren't connecting the dots it's what's driving so much of the story you understand the characters you like there's something that are happening that's not like cool we're just going to state our purpose and go let's make let's that's who we are but you're having less deep resonance with these people and i love it it's fun it's fun to do that too and also like that's the engine that drives me is kind of teasing those pieces out and learning like i said earlier i have learned so much my career has been lucky enough to really like challenge the dexterity of brands and product line offerings and things and learn different products and that's so much fun and i would encourage lots of people to try lots of things okay because And many things are applicable, but with greater, broader experience, you become better at understanding which ones for what brands and what purpose at what time.
39:18And that has been a great way for me to stay also really interested in continuing to evolve and learn about all the different products that are out there. And it's an exciting time because so many people are doing so many interesting product things right now. There's just so many creative minds trying to build businesses right now.
39:42Chris Cruz:Yeah, it's interesting. You're right. I want to ask you this. When you're at Benchmade and you have these ideas and you have a company that's behind the – has the belief in what your skill set is, like the things that you see and how you see brands leveraging story and helping it grow this brand on a true, like, not just – Um, we're talking and there's, there's media metrics, there's media. We see these numbers going up on all the stuff that's being watched, but you're, you know, how to talk in the language of, Hey, this is how this is going to make some real business sense too, for you guys. Sometimes you, I feel like we have these, these kind of conflicts of, I don't really trust how brand and marketing will help me outside of like, and I know they're like, I want customers.
40:33Chris Cruz:So, and customers leak equal more sales. So just go get me in front of more customers. But I feel like there's an approach you have that's like, no, let me show you why this is something. If you're not looking at it, you need to be looking at it. Like when they dismiss brand and marketing to be like, cool, it's the design and it's the ad spend. Yeah, it's interesting to hear that because that has been a real historical challenge for many, many businesses to get over the idea that it's just, hey, go spend money and some creative will make some pretty picture and maybe some customers will come. What I've tried to do is spend time, and I'm a coffee guy, right?
41:16I love having a cup of coffee with people and trying to sit with my executive partners, the board, investors, whomever it may be at any brand, and really help them understand how important it is to believe in your customers and to believe in the creative storytelling that's going to drive recurring revenue so that the customer wants to flip the page with you, right? It's just like watching a series. Everybody's obsessed with series and Landman. It's like, you want to watch the next episode. It's like the same thing with the brand is they want to pay attention to the next drop, the next story. But if there's not commitment that, you know, finance cares about the story, right?
41:56That the executive team cares about the story, that the board cares about the story, then it's going to show because it won't change your culture. And creating a culture that is consumer centric and storytelling driven is about people all wanting to be a part of that narrative, to listen in and to know what the next chapter is going to be. And to then know that their role is in helping to invest in making that next chapter, the most interesting one yet. And so for us at Benchmade, this hasn't been a fight. This has been a conversation. And walking them through the idea of how we can express what they saw as their purpose, value, and opportunity has been a multi-year commitment that continues to evolve.
42:39But we do it relatively dispassionately. We do it over a cup of coffee to talk about what concerns people have. And then obviously the marketing and brand teams need to show up and and do the numbers, right? Get it right. You know, you got to honestly hit your budgets. You got to know how it drives revenue. You got to know which ones are the bets on the campaign that you want to be able to champion. And, um, you gotta, you gotta show up organized. And so, you know, being as good in the boardroom as you are out in the kind of creative freedom world, it has been an extremely important characteristic that I've tried to live and embody, but also embody it within my team so That they feel, you know, if somebody said, hey, bring the creative person who makes the pretty pictures.
43:21It's like, yes, but they'll come in and they'll tell you the numbers and they'll tell you the how, the why, and they'll hit it. So, you know, it's having both of those things be in balance that you, I think, gain the respect of, you know, the broader organization when we try to go and do these things. Because there's no guarantee with brand marketing and storytelling. It won't always hit. But if everybody understands our why, then I think everybody can get behind trying. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Makes a ton of sense for me.
43:49Chris Cruz:Okay. So when you're thinking and you're looking at the year for Benchmade as a brand, what do brands need to be thinking about as they're looking out and planning how they're going to do their brand and marketing for the year? Are you thinking quarter by quarter? How are you looking at it for Benchmade and what you're building there? What's the way that you're approaching it? How do you look at that? Yeah. I mean, I think it's important for us. We've always got our eye on our big product initiatives. Of course, those are really important moments. We've got our seasonal themes that we think are, you know, the stories that we want to be weaving throughout.
44:26And I think I can say for most brands, the most important thing you can do is take a pause prior to setting any strategy and make sure that you've actually looked back at the year, had a group conversation, you know, fostered some ideas. What do you guys think the customers are telling us? Wow. Our most important things have been being able to take time to learn and truly think and, you know, put in that work that you're like going, oh, yeah, you know, I actually had time to read through 4000 comments on something. And I actually changed my opinion. And if you don't break away from your day to day ahead of any, you know, next year's planning, then you're really just running too fast to most likely see the big picture that might be in front of you.
45:13And I just encourage anybody who's going into this January and looking at the year and thinking about what they need to do, take a pause. Go take your crew out for a half of a day. Have good conversation. Then ultimately choose something, right? And then go full weight behind it. But I found a lot of people who have not taken those moments to kind of reflect, listen, plan. um so i would just encourage you to do that and make sure that you have a clear opportunity with your teams to to create a strong you know north star and then go after it and when you're now when
45:50Chris Cruz:you're when you pick that and you're in the journey that you're on have you ever had to wrestle with some of the like like what's been the thing that you're as a brand a direct because you guys don't have a retail space for bench media it's direct to consumer through there correct Well, we have a retail store at our flagship headquarters. So we do have a factory store at the headquarters. You can come in, which is really great. It's where the knives are made. So there's a factory store that's there in Oregon City. We have our e-commerce website. And then we are sold at fantastic retailers all across the world.
46:24Chris Cruz:Gotcha. So in the process of trying to expand this brand, do you ever have this conversation of like, are we losing something in this process? Are we diluting something? Are we growing at or pushing for growth in a way that we're losing some of that essence and soul? Does that ever happen in conversations? Is there anything that you're doing that you're like, hey, we're growing, but it's not growth at all costs? Or like, what's some of that wrestle? Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, I would say right now, we're not on this crazy growth platform. We're on this, customers are coming to us and that's a fantastic thing.
46:59We feel it's resonating with the story and that that story isn't necessarily alienating any of our existing or new customers. The goal has been to make sure that we have looked at our existing customers who over the nearly 40 years that we've been in business have been our honest weather vane on are we getting it right? Our customers love our product. They tell us when it's right. They tell us when it's wrong. I'd like to say that we listen. I love that right there.
47:28Chris Cruz:where people say they love our product and they only reinforce, they love our product. They tell us how much they like it. You're like, no, they love our product, which means they tell us when they like it and they tell us when they don't. That's when you have real love from your customer. Totally. And honestly, we are a company that is making knives by hand, by humans every day. And so we make mistakes. Things go wrong, right? We are trying our best to make it perfect, but we also know that we will always make it right if something slipped through the cracks and so when we think about like are is it growth at all costs not even close do we like growing sure right it's great but ultimately we believe that our our product that we put out there will find an audience if we can tell its story truly we can get it out there so people can understand it feel like it resonates for them awesome and ultimately when they're welcomed into the Benchmade family, you know, we really go to work to make sure that they understand what that means, what that lifetime loyalty value really feels like.
48:29And that, you know, we have a commitment to a lifetime guarantee sharpening forever. Our LifeSharp guarantee is, you know, best in the industry where forever you can send in your Benchmade knife as many times as you want, and we will always tune it up, sharpen it, get it right back out to you. And that commitment to any bench made that's ever been made, constantly updated and making sure that we are servicing it so that you have a quality tool in your pocket. You know, those are the things that hopefully help us understand we're on the same path that we set out 40 years ago when Lesteosis started the company and had a vision for making one knife differently than the entire industry had made it.
49:12So that challenger spirit still lives within us. And I think we look to, again, our customers to help us keep honest. And we do look at that on a daily basis.
49:21Chris Cruz:Man. All right. So give me a little bit of behind the curtain on, and we'll wrap up here in this part here, behind the curtain on how the story you're telling right now with Benchmade going forward. Like what's something you're like, all right, we're really thinking about this thing, this idea. Like what's something that you're, you're, you have your, your hands in at Benchmade right now that you're telling? Yeah, I think right now the most exciting thing that we're seeing is our customers talking to us about where they're going with our product. We're seeing this huge growth of customers having a dialogue with us, showing us wanting to engage.
49:58And we spent a ton of time on the road. We have a new events truck and team. So we have a trailer that travels around and goes to all these amazing events. And so what we've seen throughout that is that our customers have been having some wild adventures. Okay. And they have been taking Benchmates to places we never thought they would go. And they've been using our products to survive scary things, to feel confident, to celebrate those moments. And so I think, you know, where we're at is this, like, let's go be out there and be everywhere. And so we're expanding, you know, our ability to go and get with our customers and translate, you know, those stories into high fives and opportunities to learn a little bit more.
50:39I spend a ton of my time on the road in front of customers. So I think that's the most exciting thing is this dialogue has really started to grow from our customers. We want that to continue and we want to see where they're going to take us next.
50:53Chris Cruz:Wow. Bro, I love that. I love that listening. It just kind of echoes so many times throughout this conversation that posture you have of listening and learning to hear the story, to pull out the story. So I appreciate you spending time with us, man. I love it. Yeah, of course. Thank you for the time today. And it was a really fun conversation.
From the publisher
Episode 25 of Anatomy of a Brand -subscribe and join our community for operators, marketers, and builders shaping the future.Most brands don’t fail because they lack demand. They fail because growth pressures them into becoming something they’re not. In this episode, we sit down with a brand operator who’s been inside the room when the biggest bets were made -from Red Bull to Fjällräven to Benchmade.We unpack what actually drives revenue without diluting brand, why customers are the most underutilized growth lever, and how long-term storytelling beats short-term performance when the stakes are real.This isn’t a conversation about hacks or tactics.It’s about trust, patience, and the courage to make big bets, even when the payoff is years away. You’ll hear: • Why experiential marketing still outperforms performance at scale • How customer insight becomes a compass for growth • What it takes to scale legacy brands without losing their soul • Why most executives misunderstand the ROI of brand • How to operate with confidence when the bet hasn’t paid off yet If you’re a founder, CMO, or operator navigating growth pressure -this conversation is for you.Timestamps00:00:00 Trailer 00:01:10 From a teenage magazine to a career in brand storytelling 00:05:20 Why most brands struggle to tell real stories 00:09:40 The tension between brand, revenue, and executive pressure 00:13:45 Why customers are the most overlooked growth strategy 00:17:10 Inside Red Bull’s biggest experiential bet (and the risk behind it) 00:21:55 Holding your nerve when the bet is over budget 00:25:30 What big brand bets actually require from leadership 00:29:40 Scaling Fjällräven in North America without becoming “just another brand” 00:34:20 How to think big with a small budget 00:38:10 Why apologizing for your budget kills creativity 00:41:30 Entering Benchmade: legacy, trust, and long-term thinking 00:46:10 Growing without dilution — how Benchmade defines the line 00:50:40 Why growth at all costs destroys brand equity 00:54:10 Listening to customers as a strategic advantage 00:57:45 The role of culture in sustaining revenue over decades 01:01:30 How operators should plan brand bets year to year 01:05:10 What most brands miss when they chase performance metrics 01:09:30 The future of brand-led growth 01:12:45 Final reflections: trust, patience, and playing the long gameGuestJoe Prebich, Current Vice President of Benchmade knives and brand operator with experience spanning Red Bull, Fjällräven, Benchmade and more.Get in TouchInstagram: www.instagram.com/anatomyofabrandWebsite: www.anatomyofabrand.coEmail: micaela@harborandunion.com