Brand strategy lessons from Heidi Hackemer: how brands break through

23:05And I think a little bit of it is that fear, you know, whether it is the internal structures and the systems that they have in place, the way they're incentivized. But you can sense that fear as an agency. And then I think you pull back a little bit on the work and how you deliver it too.

23:20Heidi Hackemer:You do. You know, I think that's really stupid of CEOs to hack away at their CMOs so quickly. I think if I could talk to CEOs, stop doing that. You need to like invest in your CMO, give them a chance and realize that people don't turn that quickly. Like when it comes to their relationship with the brand, it takes a little bit more time. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. All right. Let's go back to the board. Okay. Let's do number 11. All right. Number 11. You've compared great pitch decks to classical music. What do you mean by that? And why does rhythm matter? Well, first I would say any deck, not a pitch deck.

24:08Heidi Hackemer:Okay. All right. Okay. So I'm a big believer in this. Okay. So I grew up, my mother was a classical musician. When I was in the womb, my little fetus was like being pushed up against a grand piano that she was rumbling and like the vibrations were definitely like part of my in utero development. I spent a lot of my childhood underneath a grand piano because when my mom went to practice and I had to go with her she'd be like just stay under the piano just play on like don't run off so I would sit under the piano and like the vibration I'd be like man this thing better not fall on me because like when you really start to play a piano it like it moves it like it really starts to move okay anyway that was a big no I love that I've got the picture I feel like I'm there with you under the piano yeah it was cool she also played like the really big pipe organs like you know like when you just like go on the register of the thing you hit it and the whole church just goes raw like you know she yeah she it was cool my mom was that was well she's still alive she's not dead we love you mom love you mom you're not dead anyway um okay so classical music so here's the thing like have you ever sat through a presentation where it's just like and you're just like i literally want to kill myself like i've been part of them yep we've done them we've done them i've i'm embarrassed to say i've probably contributed to it and it's like here's the oh and here's another headline at 32 font and another body copy at 14 and we're just banging through it and oh we put a picture on one slide you know it's just like literally kill me now kill me now and like we're doing such a disservice to the thinking when we don't actually understand that a deck in itself is a story and stories have rhythms to them.

26:00Heidi Hackemer:Stories like a great, even a great fairy tale, a children's story kind of like goes up and down and there's suspense and then there's big moments, then it gets quiet. And so I think classical music is a very good teacher for this because think about how our brains are wired right now. Most of the music we listen to is optimized for four minutes and it kind of follows a similar pattern, ABA, chorus, outro, intro, that kind of thing, right? What's the last time you gave a significant presentation that was four minutes long? Not really, yeah. Like if I have to go in there and like present the work, that is not a four minute conversation.

26:40Heidi Hackemer:And so I need to tell a story in an engaging way that lasts for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, right I'd say probably around 30s where it's capping these days when I was younger you would present for longer but say 30 right who are the masters of keeping attention for 30 minutes classical composers because when you are listening to a sonata a concerto a symphony or whatever like you're holding on for a long time a Beethoven symphony which I would really recommend if people want to feel this because they're very accessible right I don't know that's like 20 30 minutes long and there's surges and there's suspense and there's big moments and there's quiet moments.

27:20Heidi Hackemer:And if you think of your deck following the same sorts of rhythms, like we're going to build it up here and they're going to have a big pow. But if you have too many pow moments in a row, that wears people out too. You can't have like five slides in a row that are the big impact slides. You need to pull back and you need to offer up a different experience. So when I used to have my company and like heavily coach strategists all the time, I would say, I want you to listen to classical music and I want you to feel how these things flow around now if that's like making you want to vomit which first of all like get over yourself like Beethoven's a great for a reason just listen to the fifth come on like yeah you can listen to albums there's there's albums that are full albums where they they do the same sort of arcs but listen to these guys they knew what they were doing right and the other thing I would really recommend is pick one piece there's a few that I love I love I'll throw a few out right now Rachmaninoff's piano concerto number three in d minor it's so emo if you are an emo person like and you love the drama of emotion go do that one go do Beethoven's fifth or ninth you already know those two like you've got it right go listen to Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach cello suites like they're amazing just listen to it pick a piece and listen to it at least 10 times and like really really listen to it you don't have to do it while you're walking do it while you're on the train like you don't have to like focus in on it just like listen to it over and over again and you will start to feel how that the rhythms of that piece hold attention it'll start to like kind of soak into your marrow you'll understand it in a deeper way if you just kind of like begin to know that piece by heart and then the next time you write a deck, put it on in the background and think about, is there a rhythm to this deck?

29:08Heidi Hackemer:Is the rhythm interesting? Is the rhythm supporting the argument? And if not, how can I make this more rhythmic so that I can bring people along? That's great. What great questions to ask ourselves as we're creating these decks. I mean, I remember very, very, very early on in my career in business development, we were in a pitch. I tell this story quite frequently, and the lights are low in the room and we're in a long huge table and the CMO is sitting there and we come in with a long PowerPoint presentation and the amount of slides doesn't matter but that was exactly what we did and I looked over and he was asleep out cold shut up dead serious you put a client to sleep put him to sleep I actually not even a client I paid to fly everybody to his headquarters and pitch threw a lot of money into that yeah we didn't win um but yeah I went home and did a lot of like you know self-realization to figure out why why couldn't I change the room why was I too afraid to stop why didn't I ask him a question why didn't I pound on the table why didn't I like change up the rhythm and that actually was the spark that started my love for improv.

30:23I ended up going and studying with Second City for six months and getting much more comfortable dealing with situations like that. But this is incredible. I'm going to take a fresh look at even our presentations and how we do them with this rhythm. I like that.

30:39Heidi Hackemer:Great advice. Thank you. All right. Let's go back to the board. Let's go back. Let's do a small number. Let's go to three. Okay. All right. Tell us about the four C's and how does this approach show up when you're working with a challenger brand? Okay. First of all, I'm a big, four C's is probably the only thing that I literally use on every assignment. Like, and I do. And some people are like, poo-poo the four C's. I'm like, shut up. Shut up. I'm with you. I love the four C's. So let's just refresh what the four C's are. The four C's, it's basically, it's an investigative framework. it's basically saying make sure that when you are digging into this client and you're digging into this problem that you're trying to solve that you are checking the boxes off of these four areas and you are digging in from these four areas and the four areas are culture like the bigger movements that are happening in the world the second area or it doesn't matter what order you're doing and the second one is consumer like who are the people that you're trying to serve what is their relationship to you to the category to the world the third is the category who are your competitors what are you operating in and the fourth is the client or the brand like what is true about them both good and bad and what can you leverage right it's deadly simple it has saved me from so many mistakes like sometimes i'll be in the assignment and i'll just get like super obsessed with like culture and consumer and then i'm like oh yeah you gotta go check out the category you dumbass you know what i mean like it's like really important so i love the four c's and when you're using it on any brand and I use it on every single client brand organization that I work with every single one and I think it's important for challenger brands because one like challenger brands get are awesome and they can kind of get like really excited and it's kind of like what I was just talking about a second ago it's like okay just make sure you're like figuring it out from all the quadrants right and with a challenger brand it's kind of what we were talking about before with breakthrough and bravery like if you're going to be a challenger brand you've got to push it in those four C's and you have to really like dig into them and I think a way that's like a quick way to dig into the four C's go to your consumer C and think about two things think about what are these people in the context of what you're doing what do they really love like truly love as humans not as like toothpaste people like because who often like you're a toothpaste person because I'm selling you toothpaste nobody's a toothpaste person right So think about what does this person or this group of people really love and what do they really hate?

33:06Heidi Hackemer:And be honest about that. And don't try to put our own things on it. I have asked that question to clients before and I never had a toothpaste client. Let's pretend it is a toothpaste client. The wrong way to answer that question is to be like, oh, what do they really love? They really love the snap top versus the twisty top. It's like nobody is going to walk around and say, you know what I love? I love. I love how toothpaste now I can just flick the top up. My day is so much better. Nobody says that, right? But maybe there's something else in the realm of personal care or dental hygiene or something that they really truly do love.

33:45Heidi Hackemer:And there's other stuff that they really do hate. And you need to clock that. Clock that because then you can serve them better and be more brave and break through more. I'll tell you what. We just got toothpaste the other day that has a pump. Oh, a pump. A pump. okay does that work um I really enjoy my daughter was like can you get more of this okay well that's a love I was like okay this pump is like really paying off because honestly the all the other ones I feel like I just waste so much toothpaste it's like comes out it oozes out yeah but I honestly hadn't really thought about the pump until you said that so all right well maybe you maybe you are maybe you are like totally undoing what I just said that people no no I I love the toothpaste pump.

34:26We need more of them out there. No, but I think that's really good. And so are you usually breaking out the four C's like right away, like early on the engagement? Yeah.

34:34Heidi Hackemer:Right away. Yeah. And a lot of times what I do is I'll do a hypothesis four C's just based on my gut instinct as a human before I turn into a brand strategist investigator because I just kind of – I want to do that sense check. And, you know, sometimes I'm right. Sometimes I'm wrong. But I think it's important to even do a hypothesis one before you really get going. Yeah. Good. Is there a C that's harder than the others that you find or depends on the brand? I mean, sometimes the competitive C is harder because you just can't get into like, if I'm working on Ford who I've worked with, I can't just call up GM and tell me, hey, what are your sales numbers on Silverado?

35:11Heidi Hackemer:So that one can often take a bit of extrapolation, you know, because you're not getting primary data on that one. yeah um so you just got to kind of learn how to work around that and any specific tools you really like in pulling these together or is it mostly just manual i mean look reading i'm a huge believer when it comes to culture and consumer that you got to get your ass out into the world yes i mean that's a tool like yes the tool is get your butt out of new york city or wherever you are get out of an ad agency get out of a research firm and like go talk to people i think honestly of the four C's that is the, or any tool that is our most important tool is human contact.

35:50Um, and yeah,

35:51Heidi Hackemer:of course there's other tools and shit, but like, no human contact is the best tool. I love that. Highly underrated. We like get back to the basics. We're so obsessed with data and, you know, all of this. And it's like, actually, no, go talk to a few people. You can learn so much more. Yeah. And a trick for people. And, you know, cause when, when I, when I was a kid, we always talk to people on our assignments like there was never an assignment where you couldn't talk to people and if you had like a small client that really couldn't afford it didn't have the research budgets it was so common in the agency I remember this over and over again you just do a friends and family recruit where you just like blast and all to the agency be like I'm looking for four people that fit roughly fit this profile and it works it works so get back to basics people Come on.

36:36Heidi Hackemer:Come on. All right. Let's go back to the board. What do we got? Let's go with. Should I do a pattern? Yeah, let's do a pattern. Let's do nine. OK. What's the career moment you're most proud of? And is there one that you would redo if you could? I would say most proud of was when I was 31 years old. So this was 15, 16 years ago. and I dropped out of my career and I bought a truck, a Ford F-150, and I drove around the country for two years. And the reason I'm most proud of that was that was the first time, well, that was the time that I broke from this grip that like the machine and the ladder had on me where before I was like a good little soldier of advertising and there wasn't a plane or a pitch or a holiday that I would not get on or work or do.

37:39Heidi Hackemer:And it was fun, right? Like I don't want to disparage it. Like I had, those were great years. And I, so my dearest closest friends come from those years and the camaraderie and the, the fun was, I mean, look, I, there's a lot of love I have for those years. But it ultimately, I was never going to be a systems person like that. I was never going to be someone who could just lock in and kind of go in the dominant system. And doing the truck thing for me at the time, I mean, this was pre van life. So this wasn't cool. This was not aspirational. It's a risk. It was a risk. It was right when I was accelerating and I should have been like going for the next big job and you know I instead kind of just camp road rat and so but it set the tone for now and the tone is much more who I am which is I'm more of an explorer I'm an outside provocateur I'm somebody who likes to be in the world and had I not done that I don't think I would have ever like well maybe not ever that's the strong to say, but like it was a, it was a moment of claiming, no, this is who I really am.

38:54Heidi Hackemer:And I'm going to have the relationship with my work and the industry that is right for me and not the relationship with it. That is the standard machine relationship. I respect the hell out of that. That's awesome. What did you do next? So that was two years. What was then your next move? I started my own company because I'm like, I'm not going back into someone else's machine. And so I had my own company for a few years and it was, it was awesome. It was great. Um, so that was, you know, that was, that was great. Um, on, and I, I did go work for other people since then. And I'm not built for that.

39:32Heidi Hackemer:I say this all the time to people. Um, cause I love my clients for the most part. Like I have great client relationships and every once in a while they're like, why don't you come work for us? And I always tell them, I'm like, I, first of all, I will not serve you nearly as well if I'm on the inside as I am on the outside. Like I'm much more valuable to your business on the outside because I'm an outdoor cat. Like, and if you put an outdoor cat inside someone else's organization, they start to tear apart the furniture. And, you know, since I started my own company, I did go into other people's organizations twice and it wasn't, it wasn't great.

40:03Heidi Hackemer:It was not a great experience for me at all. It wasn't a great experience for them. I can pretty confidently say, and it's, there's a real power in knowing, okay, this is actually who I am. And I think the thing why I was tempted to go into other people's organizations is because when you go into other organizations, you're given access to levers of power. You are building teams, you have reports, you have big budgets, and it makes you feel, at least it made me feel like this was a real avenue to make impact in the world. Like I'm going to corral these resources and I'm going to help the world.

40:43Heidi Hackemer:I'm going to make impact in the world. And that is a viable path. And I do think that like if you're somebody that wants to make impact and that's the way that it works for you, great. Go for it. It was not my best path of impact. And I had to realize that just because I'm a solo consultant now and I don't have teams and I don't have big budgets, I'm actually making more impact now than I would if I were inside of an organization. Yeah. So that was reframing that. Yeah. It's a reframe it. Yeah. And just be okay with, I mean, I'm, I, I, I try not to use words like ever, never, always that kind of thing, but I don't think I'll ever have a big job again.

41:27Heidi Hackemer:I don't, I don't. That definition. Yeah. You do have a big job. Yeah. Yeah, I just I don't think I'll ever have like that job where you put up on LinkedIn. People are like, whoa, congratulations. Hey, I mean, I just it's very difficult for me to imagine that we'll have one of those again. Yeah. Yeah. What would I redo? Oh, my God. I mean, listen, no matter how shiny somebody looks on the outside, they have fucked up left and right. OK, so like for all you all that are like, and I'm going to go LinkedIn to see only social network I'm on anymore. but like if you're going to LinkedIn and you're looking at people posting and you're being like oh my god like this person's amazing and they like have it all figured out they don't like they really really don't especially if they're trying like if they're if they're trying things they're fucking up right so there's a lot of things that I have fucked up um I hate it when people answer this question this way but I really believe it is true and I understand why people answer the question this way I don't know if there's much that I would redo because it's all the journey and I learned from every single one, right?

42:33Heidi Hackemer:But it actually is kind of true. Like, you know, like, I, I think I, there's not a lot that I would, I don't know, I can't point to it. I mean, I have fucked up, but like, but I kind of had to, like the universe was like, you got to learn this way. You know, I mean, the only thing I've ever thought about if I could redo it, maybe never entering the industry in the first place. That might be the one thing that I would redo. But on the other hand, I'm like, whatever. I like my life. Fuck it. I don't. It's great. Fine. Yeah. Just put on some classical music and chill. Yeah. It's fine. I love that.

43:09Heidi Hackemer:It's fine. All right. Let's go back to the board. I think we have time for one more. Okay. All right. Let's go. Oh, gosh. One more. Let's go with four. All right. Okay. What brands have recently lost their way and what do they need for a comeback? okay i think a lot of brands have lost their way i think like all the dbc brands of like 2015 2016 have lost their way i think all of like most of our pandemic brands that were amazing in like 2020 are kind of like all over the place um but i kind of want to talk about one that hasn't recently lost away but i have a lot of heart for which is harley which i said on the up front um This is not a recent losing of way.

43:50Heidi Hackemer:This is a slow slide. And it drives me crazy because I'm a rider. I have two Harleys right now. I love riding. I ride cross-country solo with a tent on the back of my bike. Like riding is a big part of my life. And Harley is a big part of my life. Like I go to my local Harley dealership. They are my booze. Like I walk in, we hug. and like, oh my God, like we're talking, you know, like they're my people and I love them. So I have a lot of heart for this brand. And this is why it drives me crazy. Because Harley's completely lost its way. And I think there's, there's two reasons or there's two things driving it.

44:33Heidi Hackemer:One is when you have this aging market that they continue to serve and they are not figuring out how to serve the younger market better. And part of it isn't their fault because, you know, Riding takes a lot of disposable income. And it's almost like a luxury hobby. You know what I mean? Like motorcycling is not cheap hobby. It's not. And so in a market where people are like, I can't afford shit. They're not like, oh, I'm going to ride a motorcycle. You know what I mean? And also, I hate to say this and I say this with love. As a Gen Xer who was completely abandoned and abused by my family in the 80s and 90s.

45:05Heidi Hackemer:Because that's how we were raised. It was like, go away and don't come back until the sun sets. I don't care. something has to be hanging off your body in the wrong way for you to come home right um i do think that that made us more prime for motorcycling whereas when you have generations that are so fucking coddled and so like you know just everything is just taken care of like motorcycling takes a a risk an appetite for risk an appetite for like it's okay if you can't if everything's not perfect because it's never gonna be perfect on a bike right so i think they have big cultural forces working against them.

45:40Heidi Hackemer:But I also think that they haven't made product that is accessible. Harleys are very expensive bikes for the most part. And secondarily, they haven't really figured out how to connect with these younger markets. And if I were working with them, the first thing I would say is, look, at the heart, your brand is about rebellion. Rebellion and freedom are probably like the two things that your brand's about which is great and there's a lot that people want to rebel against right now I mean my god how many of us are just like I want to throw my phone in the toilet and my computer out the window and like god damn it these goddamn algorithms and now AI like fuck like there's and then people just being pissed about society and everything like there's so much rebellion energy in the world right now and there is so much freedom desire Like I want to be, I want to be free of this.

46:36Heidi Hackemer:This is driving me crazy. I want to be free. That's my dog. So anyway, so take those two deep, deep DNA threads that you have, that you have so much authenticity in and figure out how to modernize it. And that's what legacy brands have to do most of the time. They have to find that thing in them that is so true, but they have to figure out how it applies today and let go of where it feels safe for them to apply it and known. and Harley has not had the bravery to say, we need to move into today's definition of freedom, today's definition of rebellion. And I really do think there are ways of doing that where you're not going to alienate the old timers and you can bring in the fresh generation.

47:22Heidi Hackemer:I really think it's possible. So that's my rant on Harley. I love that. I mean, I hope Harley's listening. You ID. Maybe we'll tag them in the post and make sure they contact you. It's fine. You know what? I've actually kind of knocked on their door a few times and I was pissed the first time. I was like, why aren't you hiring me? And now I'm just like, whatever. Good luck. Yeah, good luck. Well, I feel like that example is just like a great culmination of everything that we've talked to. A little bit of the four C's, the bravery. Yeah, even like what they've stood for and impressive. Love that.

47:57Thank you.

47:58Heidi Hackemer:Thank you. All right, my friend. I hate that our time's come to an end. I've really enjoyed this. So we'd love to end with a little this or that just to get to know you a little bit better. So don't overthink it. I don't think you will. But first one that comes to mind. All right. OK. All right. Here we go. All right. Road miles or sky miles? Actually, this one's hard because I'm so Core Delta person. And it's road miles. Road miles are soul miles. And like that's your soul. Road miles. Road miles. Okay. Pigeons or wolves? Seriously? Okay. For those of you that don't know why this is hard for me, let me just say really quickly, and I know I'm supposed to do gut instinct, but this is kind of funny.

48:41Heidi Hackemer:All right. Well, my mom, classical musician, my dad was a professional pigeon racer, and I grew up on a pigeon racing farm. So this is why you are putting these two in front of me, and wolves are like my thing. So I'm going to go with me. Dad, I'm going to choose me. Wolves. We love you too, Dad. yeah and he's hearing because he's dead so he's listening to all of it but he hears like my mom who's gonna have to watch the recording dad dad already heard it okay all right white house or in-house oh white house definitely in-house i die i die i feel like i could answer that one for you like like maybe maybe a different white maybe not but yes yes we could have a whole nother podcast just to get your take on what's not working there um okay oat milk or whole milk um i'm gonna go with my roots i grew up in wisconsin so i'm gonna go with whole milk okay all right i thought that'd be hard for you thank you all right motorcycle or shoe collection motorcycle for sure motorcycle amazing awesome this was so fun thank you thanks for having me yeah absolutely what's the best way for folks like Harley to get ahold of you.

49:55Heidi Hackemer:You can, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm active there. I also have a sub stack, which you can find on my LinkedIn, but if you like messaging LinkedIn. Awesome. We'll link to all of that in the show notes. All right. Well, thank you for coming on. I had a great time. Thanks so much.