Dancing

0:00Mother of Lauren Russell:Welcome to the Emerging Brands podcast. Sharing the stories behind brands you'll want to shop next. I'm your host, Kelly Bennett. I am a New York City-based brand strategist for CPG Food and Beverage Brands. In each episode, I'll take you behind the scenes of founders that are building better-for-you products and bringing them to market. it. Also, I talk to brand builders, retailers, industry experts, and tastemakers who help bring those cool products to your shopping cart. You will hear stories of real-life founders, their launch strategies, and practical advice you could use to grow your own brand or simply discover what's next on shelf.

0:42Mother of Lauren Russell:And the best part is you could shop all the brands featured on the show. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator-powered retail activations. They're connecting everyday creators with CPG brands to generate shelf-level awareness, drive in-store momentum, and generate authentic content in markets that matter the most. Go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know I sent you. This podcast is brought to you by Glimpse. Glimpse is an AI-powered deduction management tool that disputes and recovers invalid deductions, winning brands thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours back to founders so that they can focus on what really matters most.

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1:44Lauren Russell:and let them know I sent you.

1:47Mother of Lauren Russell:Now, let's dive into the new episode.

1:50Lauren Russell:Hi, everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett.

1:56Mother of Lauren Russell:Today, I have Lauren Russell. She is the co-founder of Dancing, which is a super cool and unique brand that is producing limited edition wines and fragrances, which totally piqued my interest and I'm really excited to dive into how they're doing it all. So Lauren, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

2:22Lauren Russell:Thank you for having me. Excited to be here and to have this conversation.

2:26Mother of Lauren Russell:Yes. So let's first dive into what is dancing. I was again intrigued with wine and fragrance and it's a mother-daughter brand. So can you walk us through the background of just how this brand started?

2:41Lauren Russell:Yeah, of course. So we are a mother-daughter sensory brand based out of our vineyard in Sonoma. We actually live on the East Coast the majority of the time, even though my mom grew up in Southern California. And we got the vineyard almost as a reaction to COVID. So we were all sequestered in our childhood home and really seeking a reconnection to the land and to one another. And so we acquired the property. It's a historic 12 acre Zinfandel vineyard in Dry Creek Valley. We didn't really have the intention of creating a wine brand, but it was so beautiful. And a former proprietor was kind of doing his own label and selling the grapes.

3:29And we just thought, let's try it.

3:31Lauren Russell:I had just graduated from business school and my mom was also at an inflection point in her career. And so it sort of began as a project and then evolved into a business quite quickly with the runaway success of our rosé in particular. So that's sort of the genesis of the property and the beginning of the brand.

3:55Mother of Lauren Russell:That is so cool. And I like how you explain it as a sensory brand. And what, how did you come up with that verbiage?

4:03Lauren Russell:Yeah, so we really don't want to be boxed in to any particular vertical product. I think what's interesting about my mom and my background is neither of us are winemakers. We're not perfumers. We're really approaching these products through the lens of consumers and people who love and appreciate both products, but, you know, have obviously enlisted help of amazing experts to bring these to life but I think that helps us sort of issue some of the maybe more like snobby or esoteric parts about wine and winemaking and invite people into just like a beautiful product and to revisit this area and this product and reintroduce it to younger people even who might be a little intimidated and I think the idea of the sensory brand really comes from the fact that yes we create wine which is a product that's you know directly derived from the vineyard but we also want to create products that transport people to the vineyard in different ways so we have practices and those are a different medium and a different experience and way to invite people into to that process and we're continuing to explore sort of other senses and other ways that people can experience sort of being there and in our experience with the vineyard.

5:28Mother of Lauren Russell:That's really cool, right? Because then you could taste the vineyard, you could smell the vineyard. I totally get that. Okay, cool. And what is your background? I know that you just touched upon business school, but I would love to hear more.

5:42Lauren Russell:Yeah, sure. So I was a creative writing major in college. I went to Dartmouth. And after that, I worked at many, many startups. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, but I think there was a natural connection for me to go into marketing, just based on my strong storytelling and writing background. So some of the startups I worked at were Uber Eats in the very, very early days, Refinery29, and Brand Strategy. and then I also worked for Anheuser-Busch and they had started an internal creative agency so also as a strategist there and very cool was exhausted by working at all these companies and I decided to go to business school and did my MBA internship at Amazon which was kind of the pinnacle of what I thought I was going to do in the startup realm and I was just realized that I you know, was fatigued by working for other people and wanted to try something on my own.

6:46Lauren Russell:And just a little bit of serendipity and just the right timing that this came along.

6:51Mother of Lauren Russell:And how did you and your mom decide on the taking this project as you framed it into a brand?

7:00Lauren Russell:yeah so I think for us the important part was the like early product market fit so you started really small with the wine production we're still very limited production but we took sort of a swath of grapes and just tried our hand at it and um what's amazing about wine is kind of the terroir obviously plays a huge role in the products that you end up getting and so amazingly we have this great property in this really storied area and our rosé our first vintage just sold out almost immediately and so that really gave us the confidence to say like hey this is we really have something here like we're bringing something new to this older industry in this area new and refreshing and people and thankfully the wine is also really good.

7:55Lauren Russell:So it just made us realize really early on that we could build something.

8:01Mother of Lauren Russell:You were onto something. Yeah.

8:04Lauren Russell:Yeah.

8:04Mother of Lauren Russell:And how did you first get the rosé out into people's hands? Yeah.

8:10Lauren Russell:So we still do a lot of direct consumer from our website. We spent a lot, a lot of time focusing on our branding and our labels to make sure that we um we're bringing like strong marketing to the game and I think that's been a big differentiator for us I would say also I was pleasantly surprised with how small and welcoming sort of the wine the wine growing in the wine community of Sonoma have been I think at the end of the day people in the industry just want to bring more people to the industry and for more people to find so when they write innovating trying to invite new people everyone was excited like there was this sort of non-competitive attitude towards it and so we've had a lot of local support in the community we're at a number of restaurants and retailers that has helped us grow tremendously and gain a lot of credibility through awards and other sort of festivals and things.

9:14Mother of Lauren Russell:Well, that's a huge advantage that people were open to it. The actual winemaking process, how did you all learn how to make wine?

9:25Lauren Russell:Yeah. So it was a little bit crazy. Like I said, we came in loving wine as a family, but with no formal background. One of the first steps we took, UC Davis has a very renowned winemaking program. And so we enrolled in a few of their courses there. And I did that remotely. One of the funniest parts of this experience was taking like a college level chemistry class with my mom. I was sort of used to Zoom school because I did a lot of my MBA that way. Right. It was hilarious just like having her do the same thing and taking these exams and learning organic chemistry and it was a really really funny process so we did a lot of a lot of studying and ultimately we hired a winemaker to help us to bring these products to life but I think as with anything you need your own sort of background education so we spent right time in the formal education piece and also just like with our farmer really just learning from the ground up from all of the experts.

10:34Mother of Lauren Russell:That sounds like a really cool adventure. And especially to have it with your mom, that just sounds really special too.

10:41Lauren Russell:Yeah, it is really special. It's definitely part of our story that resonates a lot with people. And you get so many different questions of like, oh my God, I could never work with my mom. How do you do it? Or like people just very enamored by the idea. And I think we work really well together. And I also think it's a kind of a core piece of the brand of like our belief is that wine and fragrance can really like build human connection and bring people together and so I think it's very warm and fuzzy that people that we do it together and we're sort of showcasing that through both our products and our relationship.

11:18Mother of Lauren Russell:Yeah so walk me through the fragrance that came after the wine right how did that start?

11:25Lauren Russell:Yeah so it came in pretty close succession after the wine I think we knew that wine would be a difficult product you get one you know one crack every year for harvett like it's it's difficult to manage um it's fickle and it's you know it's a blend of art and science but it's um some it's not a very stable product in a lot of ways so we knew we always knew we wanted to diversify and i think one of the most exciting parts of our process just learning and immersing ourselves there was this like very multi-sensory experience of being at the vineyard and the winemaking like every time we would go we would just be overwhelmed by like the smells and the sights and everything and we were like we really want to bottle this experience for people because we are not a commercial vineyard we do you know private tastings and events but it's not like you can just come stop by and we wanted to really share what this experience felt like for us and some of the smells and um I think obviously the connection between wine and fragrance is that um just the power of aroma and emotion um there's a lot of also like shared verbiage between the two which is very interesting like we talk a lot about top notes heart notes dry down and in wine that's true yeah in wine you're like okay what are you smelling initially and then you know you you taste it and then you experience something different and you feel lingering effects so there's there's this sort of holistic experience between how how an individual to how a person experiences both products like you could love one and hate another or taste something entirely different or smell something entirely different and we're really interested in just like how personal both products are and ultimately in the power of just like smell and how that transports people.

13:26Mother of Lauren Russell:That's really cool. I didn't even think of it as the different notes and the layering of notes for both types of products. So that totally makes sense. Is it two different ways that you're approaching marketing of when you're going to retailers to carry fragrance or retailers to carry wine or are there some that carry both like how how are

13:48Lauren Russell:you doing it all yeah it's a great question we definitely took on a lot um they're two very separate businesses in a lot of ways um there aren't many people who are in both I mean wine is obviously like heavily um licensed there's a lot of logistics and operations right it's it's difficult. I mean, fragrance has some of that as well. But, you know, immediately we had access kind of just to sell fragrance all over the United States. Whereas in wine, we kind of go state by state. Some states you need a distributor, some not. I think we've been really lucky in that there have been places with interest in both.

14:30Lauren Russell:I think where we do really well are like sort of hotels or boutique experiences like in the Sonoma area where people really want that whole experience um but otherwise I think I mean both obviously are on our website as well and we've recently launched um pairings we're really playing with the idea of like experiencing these together or seeing how the notes contrast or bring each other out um but I would say there's there's actually like emerging different audiences for both too like my I would say my mom's demographic and generation still buys sort of in terms of quantity the most amount of wine um which makes sense and I would say the fragrance tends to have a little bit of a younger audience they're very playful modern fragrances um they're not like your typical kind of like Chance Chanel which my mom has been wearing forever.

15:30Lauren Russell:And I think the younger generation of consumers like are willing to experiment a bit more with fragrance and their habits and rituals. And so it's been fun to like kind of see, see where both land. But it is interesting because there are like some synergies, but they do have slightly different audiences. Sure.

15:50Mother of Lauren Russell:What is the strategy overall for the brand as far as where you are now and where you want to take it? Because it sounds like it's still fairly early on of experimenting and possibly having other product lines, like where would you love to see it all go?

16:07Lauren Russell:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there have been a few brands we've been really inspired by. I think one of them, a good example for us has been like Flamingo Estate. Yes. I think they've done such an amazing job of sort of creating this lore around their estate and having products that are directly derived and then extensions and brand partnerships and et cetera. And I think it's just a good example of taking a physical place and the idea of a place and getting people to - That's a great example. Yeah. And so I think that's our dream. I think the wine is a core product. I think we are never going to be mass producing wine.

16:49Lauren Russell:All of our wine comes from our estate. And that's a really key part of our story. And we will continue to do that. I think where we see more opportunity for growth is sort of in beauty and other products. So I would love to expand the fragrance line. We're talking now about doing candles and just kind of continue to see what's resonating with people. I'm also very interested in what aspects of like vineyard lifestyle and lifestyle brand people are curious about because I do find right now in the consumer sphere, like everyone loves this like farmy lifestyle, like vibe. And we're also in the middle of like designing with a handbag designer, like a very chic wine bag because I find all of them really like ugly and not like very useful.

17:39Lauren Russell:So we're kind of just like going by intuition and gut and seeing where things go. But I think like becoming sort of a vineyard lifestyle brand is the goal.

17:52Mother of Lauren Russell:Very cool. I think Flamingo Estate is a great example and how they have rooted in the estate, but then taken it so many different places. That's a great reference point of helping people understand what you're doing and how you're expanding and how it all connects and also the space that you're in of Sonoma and a vineyard like it's all very romantic too like the lifestyle and how products come to life it just all feels very dreamy and something that you would want a little piece of so I love how you are connecting

18:28Lauren Russell:those dots yeah it's definitely a very it's a very romantic lifestyle and I'm always encouraged to like do more like social content and things that are like a day in the life of, you know, building this, which I do intend to do because people are like very interested in the process, which is fun for us because it is incredibly unique business to build. I could totally see people scrolling all of your TikToks of just being like,