Ep 602: How Bobbie Won 91% of the Conversation With 4% Market Share | Building the Brand

0:00We are here to be the best infant formula company in the world. Right now in 2026, there has been a fundamental shift in how performance marketing teams are having to think about their day-to-day job and their spend. The way that people are shopping these days and how customer behavior has changed, it really is not just about, oh, what is Facebook ads driving? Oh, what is YouTube driving? It's like, if they're seeing this, where are they seeing this? What are they seeing in retail? Are they getting reserved by this? This QR code that takes them to this landing page is going to leave this. What are they going to see?

0:33Are they coming to the right LP if they search? Is what they're hearing and seeing across all of those touch points over time consistent, clear? And is it giving them a reason to come and purchase your product?

0:50Kim Chappell:Kim, I'm very excited to have you here on the D2C podcast. I've been following Bobby for a while. You guys have been making some major waves. I think you just won another award I was seeing on LinkedIn for your growth from Fast Company. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Most Innovative Companies, 2026. We'll take it. We're always excited for those awards that recognize the work. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much, Eric, for having me. And then you've also written a report. You co-authored with the founder of Poppy as well, which is really cool. Yes, Alison Ellsworth. Yes. Alison Ellsworth, exactly, about 2026 and the changing nature of the brand.

1:31Kim Chappell:What inspired you to write this piece? So Alison and I both live here in Austin. We both have three kids. We've both been in the thresholds of building brands for the past five plus years. Obviously, we all know her incredible exit with Poppy and PepsiCo for$1.9 billion. And I have so much respect for what she's built. and she is recognizing the work that we're doing at Bobby as a mom founded and led company. And the brands are not the same, but we see, we talk about these things when we go out for a glass of wine or our kids are in the pool together. We're like talking about all of the ways in which brands are shifting and changing into 2026.

2:11What we think is interesting, like what cool partnerships are happening, what trends are out. And so with South by Southwest happening in our backyard here in Austin. We teamed up with the Soul Comms group in Bruno and said, let's share these insights. Let's share what we think we're seeing as two people, again, in the middle of the mud of building brands. And let's put it together in a beautiful report. And so that's what we did for South by Southwest. And it was a fun thing to do with a friend and also hopefully insightful for those that got to take a look at it.

2:42Kim Chappell:It's always a hot topic on the D2C podcast D2C is a media company partnered with a performance marketing company. And we kind of have come up in this world of being able to hit the scale button on meta and have it work really well. And a lot of that has changed. And it sounds like you started with Bobby in 2020, around the same time I started with Pilot House. So you've really been there for its meteoric growth. Maybe talk to me a little bit about the Bobby brand and what made, I guess, where you guys started with it or when you entered the company and what made it such a successful brand. So what has been so magical about the Bobby brand and being a part of it is that I did not inherit someone else's brand.

3:24I got to build this brand from scratch, from the ground up, from the very first decision with our CEO and co-founder to a decision made two seconds ago before I got on this call. And there are so few opportunities that you have in your career journey to actually be a part of the build and the climb. And I think that's where I feel so lucky and so fortunate at times is that not only did I get to do that, but I'm still here. And I still get to be a part of the front lines of it six years into building Bobby. And I would say our brand has been built by the experience of myself and our founders, Laura and Sarah, which is being a mother in 2020 all the way through now.

4:09My youngest is four. And what was the experience – how was that experience not serving us by the brands that we were consuming? And for Infant Formula in particular, there really was no beloved brand in this space. It did not exist. People did not go around wearing merch from their formula company. They hid their formula in the bottom of their cart because they were embarrassed that they had to use it. There was no joy or pride in that experience. And so coming in, we decided that we wanted to flip the table on that, that formula feeding parents should know what's in their product. They should be proud of using that product.

4:44They should wear a sweatshirt with the name on it proudly, and they should be able to refer to friends and have a best in class, direct-to-consumer experience that you get to have with baby food pouches or diapers or your skincare line? Why could that not exist for something that is so repeatable, so predictable that parents, once you start formula, you're going to need it until your baby turns a year old? And so it was not just about doing fun marketing or telling great stories. It was really about a fundamental cultural shift in what it means to be a formula feeding parent in America and the support system and the experience that we felt they deserve.

5:25And I can say we have, I feel very confident saying this at this point, we have as a challenger brand in this space completely shifted that paradigm. So before Bobby, people were not sharing their unboxing on social media proudly. They were not tagging their friends. They were not wearing the hat. And that behavior shift that we have seen from our own customers because they love Bobby so much is shifting the culture. That is a culture shift in our space that didn't exist beforehand. And on the other side of it, we hope no matter what formula brand you're using, if you are a formula feeding parent, that you can feel joy and pride in that experience.

6:04Kim Chappell:I'm looking and the total addressable market, according to Google for infant formula global, is about$100 billion. for 2026. And I think it's a real testament to your company that you're still winning most innovative. You're still having this incredible growth pace in your fifth or sixth year that you're in now. And I guess a lot of that is also the space that you chose to work in. I think that's such an interesting point is that there's all these incumbent brands that people are using out of necessity, but not out of any pride. And like you say, maybe they're even less than pride. And so there's just this continual opportunity to grow.

6:37Yeah. 50 % of parents in the U.S. actually lie about using infant formula is a research point that we found out through a third-party study. I think it's something like 70 % of them feel guilty for using formula. And why? Why are you feeling guilty about feeding your baby? You shouldn't. You should know exactly what's in it. You should be proud of those ingredients. You should be able to articulate them and understand them. And bringing that level of just trust and transparency to this space, I think that it has historically not served parents, has also been part of our brand as well. And then going back to the total addressable market, for us though, it's really – we're not a hyper growth, go, go, go, growth for the sake of growth company.

7:20We are trying to build this company very thoughtfully, very intentionally, and ensure that when we go to unlock a new retail partner, for example, that we have the resources, the dollars, the inventory, and can really nurture that relationship and show up in an unequivocally Bobby way. It has not been, let's just scale and go, go, go, go, go, because I feel like that's when brands can burn out and they lose their special sauce and they lose their way. And we're really trying to keep that Bobby-ness, and we call it the Bobby vibes, as we continue to grow and scale this company. It's incredibly important to us.

7:58Kim Chappell:It sounded like this must have happened fairly organically. When you came in with your first moves distributing and growing the brand, did you guys do a lot of research, obviously, into those psychological underpinnings, realizing that people were ashamed of their formula before? Talk a little bit maybe about that process of uncovering the aspects that you built the brand with. You know, no. And I think we did not do a ton of research. And I feel like there was probably opportunity to do more. But you have to remember, we were a bootstrapped pre-seed funding startup. There was not money to go do deep insights.

8:38And it was the middle of COVID. People were not gathering in spaces to give feedback on things. But this is how and where we are different. We are the customer. We were living and breathing the experience of having young babies in San Francisco. I had a six-month-old. Our CEO was pregnant. Our other co-founder had a four-year-old. Like, we were in the zone of our customers, and that was our research. We saw everything that was happening in our text groups, our friend groups, our Facebook groups, and we knew that there had to be a better option for parents who felt like the formula in America was not meeting their standards, so they were going as far as to import European formula through unregulated third-party websites.

9:20So you're basically jeopardizing safety for what you feel is nutritional superiority. That's quite a big trade-off that you're willing to make mentally. And we said, why does this have to happen? You should be able to get best-in-class, world-class infant formula that meets European nutritional standards that's made safely here in the US and is regulated by the FDA. And that was the positioning that we launched with to solve the problem that we were experiencing, but that we saw everybody else around us experiencing.

9:49Kim Chappell:What are some of the initiatives maybe that, I don't know, early on or even more recently that you feel have been really strong in establishing the brand? That's a great question. So recently, well, it's always been part of our ethos, but I think you've seen it come through a lot more recently is really around the transparency of our testing, our safety protocols, our manufacturing. And that is because our industry as a whole is in a deep state of distrust. In the past six months, there have been American brands recalled for botulism. There's been global recalls for celeride, a bacteria. And the industry and the category as a whole, it doesn't matter if your company is involved in that or not, it suffers.

10:32When one company has a recall, everybody feels the impact. And so we feel a responsibility to our community and our customers to say, although we were not impacted. We also want to lift the curtain and show you what it means to have a transparent supply chain, where our dairy comes from, why we put exactly this much DHA in our product. We brought cameras into our facility for the first time and showed and shared how this product is made so safely with 2 ,000 plus quality and safety checks right here in the US. We also built a new transparency tracker where you can actually take the lock code from the bottom of your can, go on our website, put your lock code in, and you can see all of the quality tests from heavy metals to pathogens to contaminants that your can of formula has passed before it made it to your door.

11:20So how are we building trust for not only the Bobby customer, but I would say for this category as a whole? We want people to know that safe, high-quality infant formula can be made and can be trusted here in the US.

11:32Kim Chappell:Have you ever, one of the things that, we don't talk about it as much anymore because I've had so many guests say what a false dichotomy it is. But there's this notion of brand versus performance. And having worked at an agency for a long time where we have our creative people pushing on different ways that we think we're going to get the algorithm to do what we want it to do. And there's been at times issues where someone who's got a much broader perspective on the brand is less than happy with what we've done on the performance side. So I'm curious, How do you think about brand and performance?

12:04That's a great question. And I think that this sort of tension exists at so many companies that I've worked at. And I don't think it's a unique experience, right? It's like you want the company to grow. You want to protect the brand. Those things don't always have to be in conflict, but sometimes they do. One of our core values at Bobby is actually nurturing the tension. So we have these conversations often. And I would say that I think right now in 2026, there has been a fundamental shift in how performance marketing teams are having to think about their day-to-day job and their spend. It's been a really hard pill for some of those teams to swallow that the traditional D2C playbook and the pay-to-play on Meta is not what it used to be.

12:54And running that playbook is going to get you nowhere fast and into a really expensive pit that you can't get out of. So what I like to think is how are we taking the best of the best for meta and making sure we're optimizing those dollars, but you're not getting into a place where you're just spewing out 80 different versions in this sort of – I feel like it's like a 2019 playbook of like, well, let's just put out as much as possible and let's put stuff behind it.

13:23Kim Chappell:Change the button color, change this, change that, you know. Change this headline, change that headline. I really do believe that it's about quality of what you're putting out. And are you able to say very clearly what you stand for, who you are, how you are different, or give somebody a first touch point memory about your brand through those performance ads. But the performance marketing alone, it's not a sustainable way to grow a brand into profitability. right? Like you have to have the organic growth. You have to have the brand engine. And investing in that and over-investing in performance will leave this part of the house dead.

14:04So how are they constantly coming together? And I will say it, Bobby, I'm so proud of how our team works together. Our performance marketing sits under brand, right next to creators, next to organic social, and next to life cycle marketing. Like we are one big cohesive team and not in competition for each other's dollars, but how are we actually serving each other's platforms with the right content that represents the brand? And you're not always gonna get it right. You know what I mean? Like we've learned along the way. And I would say what was working for us two years ago isn't working now. And we're constantly rebuilding and rethinking and trying to keep our marketing engine fresh.

14:40So I think it's okay to also not always have the answers and to take a pause and say, okay, this isn't working anymore. This isn't gonna get us where we need to go. Let's stop, let's rebuild. And that's kind of the place that we've been in. And now we're off into the rest of the year.

14:55Kim Chappell:I love that. And I think that's one of the ways that we've really evolved as a performance marketing agency is just going back to the roots of marketing and realizing even when you're doing performance marketing, it still has to be really informed by brand and customer strategy and your customer avatar and knowing what message they need to hear at different stages of their journey across multiple channels is one of the big channels now. We just released a podcast with Shireen Obear and she coined on our last podcast together. It's no longer a marketing funnel. It's a marketing tornado because it has all these different touch points and it's all.

15:27Kim Chappell:So I'm curious how you think about a brand in a fully omni-channel world. Yeah, I mean, I really do think it's the way that people are shopping these days and how customer behavior has changed. You have to evolve your marketing funnel and your tornado. I'd be like it's a category five hurricane at any given point. And it really is not just about, oh, what is Facebook ads driving? Oh, what is YouTube driving? I like to think about it as this linear customer journey. Okay, if they're seeing this, where are they seeing this? What are they seeing in retail? Are they getting reserved by this? This QR code that takes them to this landing page is going to leave this.

16:06And like, then do they come back to the page? Are they going to, if they search us, what are they going to see? Are they coming to the right LP if they search? And so no matter where they're experiencing your brand at any point in time, especially in something like Infant Formula, where someone may hear about us, but they may not need us for six months later, which is totally fine. But is what they're hearing and seeing across all of those touch points over time consistent? Is it clear? And is it giving them a reason to come and purchase your product or to just learn more about you? And I think the learn more sometimes is undervalued compared to the shop now.

16:42And I really believe that the learn more is the introduction. Think about it this way. When you have people over to your dinner party at your house and you're meeting them for the first time, you don't shove the steak down their face when they first walk in the door. You have a cocktail. You get to know each other. You have an appetizer. And you have to build that relationship over time with your customer. And so jumping straight into the shop now is not always the right move depending on your product. But for us, it's not the right move. We want to build a relationship. We want to introduce ourselves.

17:16We want to have an appetizer, which is maybe education. And then when the time is right, you can purchase formula if it's right for you.

17:22Kim Chappell:To the report, you talk about how brands need cultural relevance across social, creators, partnership, community, AI, media, sometimes even political moments, which must be extremely a fraught issue. How do you determine what actually deserves attention and what's noise? It's a great question. And I think I always say this and I firmly believe this to be true. It's like no one, no one is asking for another brand to get loud about something on social. Like, please don't. So what we have figured out is that we are in a politicized space. Infant formula is inherently political. We're registered with the FDA.

17:59We're a regulated product by HHS. There is a long history of politics involved in this product. We just went through a nationwide infant formula shortage where the president was talking about infant formula every day for a year. And to pretend like that's not a part of our space I think is a disservice to parents and disservice to our community and our ability to potentially make change for the better in this space. So we decided what are our lanes that we're going to show up for that are political because we have the right to and because we have a responsibility to. So for us, that looks like fighting for paid leave for parents in this country because we are the only industrialized nation without paid leave for parents, which is a shame.

18:40And it impacts not only our team. It impacts all of our customers. And it's just a fundamental human right that we feel like should exist for parents here. So we are going to use our resources and our platform to push for that. And that's been our bread and butter since day one. And we're going to continue to make that fight. Then our second lane is maternal mortality crisis in this country. Unfortunately, the U.S. is also not a safe place to give birth in this country. We have the most maternal deaths out of any developed country in the world. And so what can we do and what are the nonprofits that we can support to help eradicate that process?

19:16What are the bills that we can get behind that would make it safer for mothers to give birth in this country? And the last lane is around breast cancer survivors here in the U.S. who have had a mastectomy due to breast cancer. And we found out that they can get free breast pumps through insurance, but they can't get coverage for formula to feed their babies. So what is a woman without breasts going to do with a breast pump? Not really very helpful. So we are committed to every year sponsoring a group of breast cancer survivors called our Bobby Breasties with a free full year of Bobby. And we are also working with that group of women to get legislation introduced that would help get them insurance coverage for formula.

19:55And I'm so proud because to date, we've done this over the last five years, we now have had more than 500 moms sponsored for a full year of their feeding journey on Bobby, which is incredible. And that's work that I'm incredibly proud of. That's how we get into the political sandbox. And those are our lanes. But there's always something going on. You know, there's wars and school shootings and tragedies. And, you know, the news is the news. and you can't stick your neck out for every single thing that happens. And it's not your place to as well. So figuring out what is your place, where can you actually make a change, where can you tie your product or your beliefs to action, and then continuing to show up for those things over and over and over and over again.

20:39Kim Chappell:Does it come down to, like you mentioned, your initiative there specifically for moms, the 500 moms there. And then, but when you've got someone, you've got like infant shortage formulas in the news all the time, how do things like that play does that show up in your marketing in your email or like within your other lanes what are some other maybe initiatives or ways that you sort of reference your lanes in your in your marketing or in your brand comms yes i think this is the power of building a community and galvanizing your community alongside of the polls that you're putting in the ground that is something that we do we have petitions that we get people to sign on change.org.

21:17In our every single subscriber box that gets shipped out, there's usually a QR code that's going to some kind of CTA around write a letter to a congressman around paid leave. And we built the infrastructure to make that super easy to do. Or we have them sign the petition. Or we say, can you donate a can for a wildfire victim in LA? There's ways in which people, once you start doing that, and once your community starts to understand what you stand for and that they can be a part of it too, they come to us. This is the best thing about it. Like they will come to us and be like, I have a shelter in my community that is desperate for infant formula.

21:56I just thought I would ask like, can Bobby donate? And you're like, yeah, we absolutely will. Because when you come to us and you're in our community, we're going to ride for you too. People, when we, when the wildfires happened last year, we realized very quickly that there was a huge number of subscribers who were impacted that lost their homes. So we sponsored all those people for the rest of their feeding journey for free. And then we went and sponsored any parent, customer or not, who lost their home. They would get free formula from us for a year. But the reason why we were able to do that and expand that program was because we put out on organic social, donate a can to a fire victim and their family.

22:33And we had thousands of people that donated. And it allowed us to unlock more give back to more parents. So when you ask and you build that community around that shared ethos, people will show up alongside you. And it also gives them the ability to know that they're supporting a brand that does more than just sell you product that we are trying to do right, you know, in the communities that we serve. And they also want to be a part of that as well.

22:57Kim Chappell:One of the things we talk a lot about on the podcast these days is just top of funnel and really just generating brand awareness and how for years you could, like I said earlier, hit the scale button on Facebook and you have a full funnel marketing experience. But for a brand like you guys that is going up against these sort of known incumbents for so long, how do you think about like what have been maybe some of your most successful initiatives at generating overall awareness for the Bobby brand? So I think about awareness around, you know, we have such a small total addressable market and, you know.