How To Revitalize Your Brand, with Allison Cullman, SVP of Marketing at Hint Water | Ep. 436

0:01Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray. And join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests, stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the f*** up. We are back with another episode of the Marketing Millennials Podcast. I am here with Allie Coleman, SAP and Marketing of Hintwater. I'm excited to chat about the cool things you're doing at Hintwater right now. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Daniel. Thanks for having me. And I have to point out your hat. Is this a matching Jalen Brunson cap?

0:47I'm trying to stay with culture right now. I've been very curious what the hat stands for. So can you enlighten me? It's just a brand that like Max, the founder started because his dad owns a staple and like a big New York thing. And my wife used to work in New York a lot because she works in e-com as well. And she just got me the hat. So it's like, so my wife helps me stay with culture. Got it. Now you just helped me stay with culture. So I'm going to try and... to keep up with the times. Yeah. Could you just walk me through how you got into marketing in the first place? And then we'll talk about the campaign you're running right now.

1:34Yeah. I think it was always the natural progression of my career. To be honest, I've always been a relatively creative person and a relatively detail-oriented person. I also have an anecdote to share from when I was younger that makes me look absolutely atrocious as an adult right now, but I remember being so, so brand loyal as a kid that when my mom would purchase something that was store label from the grocery store, I would absolutely erupt thinking that it wasn't acceptable. And I'd be like, I need my brand. I need my brand. So again, looking back, that makes me look like a huge brat. But I think just from an early age, I was very aware of how the branding of certain objects meant something to people.

2:17And that really resonated with me. So marketing was kind of the natural progression after college. I hear that loudly because my wife is way too brand loyal on everything. And she won't buy like this generic Tylenol will do the same exact thing. She's like, no, Tylenol. I know. That's how I've been my entire life. But after purchasing a home, my husband is now extremely excited when I come home with something that's store label. he's like please finally i've never loved you more like now i have a reason to i love that i want to i want to go into the inspiration for your like latest like campaign that is very different from what hemp waters used to do and it's very i would say like luxury fragrance vibes so where did that Where did the concept come from?

3:13What made you pivot to that type of aesthetic? Yeah. So I think I'll start from the top of how we aligned on or identified an insight that led us to that specific territory. And it really started with the consumer. So Hint launched 21 years ago, which is a fact that I think surprises most people. They don't realize that it's been around for 20 plus years. And back then, drinking water wasn't really on anyone's radar. The brand's original mission to help people fall in love with water and thus have a more delicious, better-for-you alternative to sugary sodas or sports drinks was really innovative and unique at the time.

3:52The product was actually tasty and had zero calories, zero sugar, zero sweeteners. So there wasn't anything like it. It was very disruptive. But a lot has changed in 20 years since Hint first launched. Over the course of those 20 years, 20 ,000 new beverage products have launched. And while that original mission of helping people fall in love with water is as relevant as ever, the brand didn't really elevate or adapt to keep up with the times to realize what was happening in health and wellness, what was happening with the consumer. So over that time, hydration has evolved from being really a functional need that no one was really talking about besides water brands to a cultural movement that has permeated many different industries in the US.

4:35Every single person or every single brand, I would say, is trying to capitalize on this movement of hydration. So through our research, when we were trying to figure out how can we re-energize this storied brand that's been around for 20 years, we really found that to the consumer, wellness has become a lot of work. It's become a full-time job. It's a lifestyle. It's really all-consuming. I can speak to this from my own personal experience. Every day there's a new trend, there's a new claim, there's new data that you need to come up with. You've never known more about your health through wearables and tracking devices.

5:10And it's really overwhelming. So I think we're trained to think that for things to be good for us, they require sacrifice. And we found that because of this, our target audience would rather not try than inevitably try and fail. What they really wanted was a wellness ritual that was effortless, that was achievable, and that was realistic. And for that to happen, it really has to be enjoyable. So that insight made us think about wellness a little differently, really wellness through the lens of emotion versus function. And that really opened up an entirely new avenue for how we could do that in an interesting, unexpected way.

5:48For people who haven't seen the commercial or the campaign you're running of making pretty much water very sexy. I mean, I get where it's coming for thirst trappy, playing on that word of thirst. Also for someone like me who I need a taste in my water to keep drinking. I can't. And I think it's an ADHD thing, too. I think you need some mental sensory stimulation. Yeah. Could you walk us through, okay, you needed to be more like a not functional, more like an emotional, seen as an emotional product. How did the idea to go the sexier angle? Yeah. So, again, going back to the consumer, we knew that wellness was starting to be perceived as a lot of work.

6:46And it was overwhelming for people. At the same time, we knew that people are wired to chase their desire, not discipline. So as humans, we are irrational. We run on want, not on need. So we found this interesting nugget for Hint, which was Hint takes something that is quite rational, drinking water, hydration, but makes it really enjoyable by adding flavor. So that kind of answered the question of how can we give someone a wellness habit or routine that will stick because it's enjoyable. And then at the same time, we were looking at what's happening in culture and we saw that our consumer was in this era of expressing their desires and temptations much more openly.

7:28Audio erotica apps like Quinn are growing significantly. You see, you know, romanticcy books like Fourth Wing topping the charts of the bestsellers list. And you see people just more openly expressing their sexualities. celebrities like Sabrina Carpenter making her sexuality part of her brand, Taylor Swift writing a song called Wood. I love to bring up these little nuggets so I can mention both of them in one sentence. And shows like Heated Rivalry and Off Campus absolutely dominating the cultural conversation. So we were like, we think that we have permission to take water somewhere it hasn't gone before because our water has flavor and that's a more emotionally driven item.

8:09And at the same time, something is happening in culture where people are thinking about thirst a little differently. So we decided to marry the two and really take water to a place that it hasn't been before using desire as a way to subvert your expectations about what water can be. And I think you, I mean, you went really, which is cool. And I think a lot of brands don't have that risk taking mode in them, but even when, even as far as to like make hint, like an only fans account as well so like you went so hard on on on this like sex here could you explain what it takes like internally to get approval for something that is like so different so out of the box i know obviously the you can explain it by like what's happening in culture but also yeah there's also internal roadblocks that would get over.

9:07Totally. I think one more point I'll say is we realize that this shift is happening where necessity was really secondary to desire in consumer goods that were growing. So I think we already had this appetite to really focus on how can we make people crave this product versus invest a lot of time and energy and money in making them rationally know they want it. People know that they should drink water, right? So we wanted to take a slight kind of circuitous way to shortcut that mental journey. So I think that from my perspective, like the risk is minimized when the work is rooted in a clear brand strategy and belief system.

9:48So we can launch something that feels risky because it's bold, because it's different, because if it's unexpected, but ultimately if it communicates the message that we want to relay and is true to our brand personality, we didn't feel like it was that big of a risk, right? Because we're like, the takeaway that you get from this work is, wow, that water must taste really good, not that is a really provocative brand that's trying to stir up chaos, you know? So I think in terms of the internal process, we were all really excited by the translation of our core creative idea into this more provocative territory and knew that for this brand to be successful and to get back on people's radars, we needed to take big, bold swings.

10:30We didn't want to be wallpaper. We felt like that was the biggest risk. So we felt the way to do that was to really play in the spaces where you wouldn't expect to see a water brand, but where there are audiences that are tapped into desire, tapped into lust, tapped into attraction. And that's what led us to the OnlyFans account and starting our first OnlyFans page. It's what led us to a sponsorship of Esther Perel's Where Should We Begin podcast, where she talks about desire and how to find and spark desire in your relationships. It's what led us to Love Island. It's what led us to trying to show up in spaces where the audience was already dialed in and where our work and our advertising would be more additive than it would be disruptive.

11:15And that makes sense because, I mean, you have to connect the emotions between two things those two things like i feel like when people are listening to the podcast or watching love island they already are like having emotion of like okay this is like romantically stimulating showing and people intend to buy with emotion and then justify later with logic and at least like water has the justification of logic like but a A lot of times they don't have the emotion. It's like some brands have it, not every, but a lot of times it doesn't have emotion. So like when you go into the store, like, oh, I felt this when I saw this, I'm going to buy it.

11:55And then I also know I need to hydrate. So it connects those two points together. What made you think about like, because I feel like this is also very, the aesthetic is very like luxurious, like$300 perfume. Five. So what made you lean into more of like that, like the luxury aesthetic versus like, cause you could have gone, there's different like layers of like that, like that emotion, emotion you can play with. And you went like more of like the higher end aesthetic. Yeah. I think we thought that the tension was so interesting between those two things, between luxury fragrance and fashion and water, something that you buy habitually versus something that you really is a luxurious good.

12:46So we really wanted to make water look like something that you crave, not something that you should drink, but something that you really want to drink. So the visual cues were, you know, slow motion, water pouring, overflowing from mouths, really elegant, but also really exaggerated. So you knew we were kind of parodying this space. We wanted to have the kind of imagery and motion that made you stop scrolling, that made water look irresistible for the first time. And the most important thing is we didn't want it to be wellness content. We wanted it to be desire content because we felt that in doing so, it was really fresh.

13:23It was differentiated and it would pique your curiosity. And ultimately, that's what we wanted to do is make people curious about Hint. What is this water brand that is trying to sell me something sexy? Yeah. And what is... When you've done the placements on like all these like spots have you seen like the uptech lead to like more people like going in store purchasing hand going online purchasing hand like have you seen like the brand recognition like start trending in the right direction after yeah it's too it's too early to tell from a full performance perspective but we're seeing some really positive early indicators that the work is being noticed and that the work is driving action.

14:10I think ultimately we wanted this work to be really memorable because we think that memorability and brand recall is going to be key when someone is standing in front of a very crowded shelf, both online and offline in the store. And they're trying to decide between hundreds of brands that are all competing for their attention, what they should spend their hard-earned dollars on, right? So we wanted to make sure that their impression of Hint was memorable, that it was unexpected, and that it ultimately changed their perception of this brand that maybe previously they weren't even thinking about.

14:45Or when they did think about it, it was, oh, my mom used to drink that. But now maybe it fits in my lifestyle. Yeah. I think that's... I mean, it's smart because you said it's like 21 years old. I remember like 10 years ago when I used to be... And I've had it over... I get it every time I go to Costco. So like that brings, like trending towards like healthy. It's also kind of like, kind of like paralyzing as a consumer to be like, okay, should I, should I even do like drink water or should I do electrolytes or should I get IVs or what, what am I, what I, what I, what should I do to stay hydrated?

15:25Cause I don't like everybody tells me a different thing every single week. It's, it's complicated. It's confusing. And I think ultimately the wellness products that are successful are those that create habitualness and routine and ritual. And the way that you do that is by something being achievable and attainable and enjoyable. And that's what we're trying to do because we talk a lot about how, you know, water is really the ultimate wellness beverage, right? Like there's a lot of discourse about, do you need all of these things, all these supplements, all these ingredients? Or do you just need to sleep eight hours a night, drink enough water during the day and eat whole foods, right?

16:08Like we live in a consumerist society. So we're all trying to sell you a million things at once. And our internal belief really is the way to make water functional is to make people want to drink it. And that's through flavor. So we really view Hint as a very functional drink, although we are delivering functionality with a nice bow versus something rational. So, I mean, I know it's like the start of the campaign, like results will trickle in and brand takes time and creating a new direction takes a lot of time. But what are some things you're thinking about like planning in the future that you think that this could pair with really well?

16:48What cultural moments or like tentpole moments are you really thinking about pairing Hint with? Great question. I think I want to be anywhere that our target audience, who we call the wellness curious, is spending their time or discovering new products. Music festivals, sporting events really runs the gamut. But what we're really thinking about right now is how can we continue to generate more momentum and keep up with this new sort of train that we've left out of the station, which is subverting expectations about what water can be. through the lens of advertising right now, but how can we do that with flavor too and with new products?

17:29So one example I'll give you, we launched a sparkling water product a couple of years ago, but we launched it with very expected common sparkling flavors, lime, grapefruit, tangerine. We just renovated the line to update the flavors to guava lychee, cherry vanilla, huckleberry and cream. And they taste so good. You taste it and you're like, how is this possible with just fruit essence and natural flavor? So in that way, flavor really becomes something that can draw people in and becomes part of the consumption experience. And ultimately we know that younger consumers want experience and sensoriality out of the beverages that they choose, not just refreshment.

18:11Yeah. And I also think, I mean, this is like the perfect time of year where people are thinking about hydration when it's hotter than normal, when people are going outside, when people are attending certain events. I mean, there's those events like music festivals, you always are looking for your like hydration kick or how I'm going to stay hydrated. Only at least I am. I always like have a hydration plan when I'm like going to a music event or stuff like that. So I think like obviously summer is like the old, like one of the biggest moments to like be a part of, and then it carries on throughout the year.

18:51But just think about, think about beyond cultural events, how much water has become part of the conversation of like people knowing that they need to stay hydrated. I talk about this with my friends a lot. Now, when you go to the playground, I have two young kids. You go to the playground, all you see are moms chasing their kids around with these giant water bottles. And I talked to my mom. I'm like, when I was a kid, were you trying to get me to drink water? And she was like, hell no. I would be lucky if you drank a juice. It just has kind of moved down the funnel of every single person knows the importance of drinking water.

19:27How can we make get a more positive experience for people. Yeah. I love millennial moms and dads are just trying to over hydrate their kids. I mean, I don't think it's over hydrated. Yeah. It's just like, because we were like fear, not drinking enough water. It's super true. I mean, like the, you see it through the trends, like Stanley cups and then Stanley cups moved to like all like like IV packets and then IV packets become. So it definitely is part of we knowing that we need to do this, but we're overwhelmed and don't want to have like paradox of choice all the time. So I also want to go, I think like going behind the scenes and like, ask you like as a brand person like what is the best way to like write a brief to get something like this out i think like the art of a brief is very a really it's like an art and that needs to be like revived but like how what does it look like to brief a campaign like this like and make sure it turns out as you think, like feels the emotion, has a luxury aesthetic, feels sexy and matches like what culture is like feeling right now with the content they're consuming.

20:54Yeah. I think it's about being clear and single-minded and what you want the brief to accomplish. So it's really tempting as marketers, especially marketers working on brands that are relatively tight from an investment perspective. So we don't have Coke dollars. We don't have Pepsi dollars. I can't invest a hundred million dollars to do every single thing that I need to do across the funnel. So I need to be really choiceful with what I want the communications to do. And in this case, it was change people's expectations about what water can be. Make them think about water a little differently.

21:29Do that in an emotional way. And that led to what if water was something that you could desire versus something that you rationally knew you needed, you know, and that unlocked the territory of, okay, that's a clear path that we want to go. It can manifest in different directions. It can be done in a way that's a little bit more provocative and bold. And of the moment, culturally, it can be done in maybe a slightly dialed back away from that. But ultimately we knew that we wanted to make a bigger splash with this year one. because i feel like i mean good splash and then also like i feel like how did you think about changing messaging because i mean i mean for example like messaging that worked 10 years ago is you could just say like zero calories or like yeah yeah great taste zero calories but that's not going to work anymore and like because there's so many things that are low calorie and and taste decently great.

22:32So how do you think about the messaging for it as well? Yeah, that was a huge consideration. So before we even briefed this particular campaign, we did a lot of work on the brand strategy and brand foundations to really sharpen the articulation of what Hint was. Because for a very long time, we'd been communicating what we weren't. It was the package and zero calories, zero sugar, zero sweeteners. but that's not communicating to the consumer why you should drink this. It's kind of justifying our ingredient label. So we knew we wanted to flip that on its head. And we landed on this evergreen, let's say, communications platform that was water for people with taste buds, water for people who need something a little bit more than just plain water.

23:17People that know that they want to hydrate, but they simply don't drink enough because they don't like the taste of it. And from there, we wanted to find the more kind of culturally pointed articulation or translation, which led to which is the overarching idea behind the campaign. And we really liked that idea because of the tension that existed inherently in it. Desire and water, two words that typically don't belong in the same sentence, but in Hint's case, uniquely, they did. And we thought that was a really powerful direction. I also think what it's doing too is like shifting the narrative to like the people who actually like the wellness people who are just thinking about wellness ingredients to like shifting the narrative to people who like you're basically saying like if you have taste, you're drinking this water and people like that's like an emotional jab.

24:15Yeah, but I would say in a good way, like if you have taste, you're drinking this water. If you don't have taste, okay, go drink something else. It's very interesting you bring that up because I remember one specific piece of feedback, which was like, is this going to be insulting to people who don't drink the brand by implying that they don't have taste buds? And my perspective was no, because if you see yourself that way, then the product's not for you, right? I think one additional shift that we had in the way that we decided to market this brand moving forward is we can't be everything to everyone, right?

24:54So we are saying for people who are wellness curious, who let's call them wellness dabblers, not disciples, who care about doing things that are good for them, but are not going to do them at the expense of enjoying that. this is for you. If you're good with plain water, if you're good with other options, then that's okay too. I mean, that's how, I mean, shifting the narrative to fashion, like desired things are, like desired things are like you either have taste to buy the row or you have taste to buy something else and you have taste to it. Like in culture, like that's how you signal taste is like by product you buy and water naturally besides like i would say like like maybe like the only brand i could think that kind of added desires like fiji water back in the day and i think it's kind of lost its essence too of like being that like luxury like desirable place that people thought of i don't think anybody's really leaning on emotion in that space anymore.

26:05But I don't think marketing in general has kind of done that for a long time. A lot of brands aren't doing that, except the luxury brands. Yeah. We just thought it was so fresh and entertaining, to be honest, especially when you started to see this misdirect of like, you are watching this commercial where you think these two people, these two insanely attractive people are coming together to hook up. And then all of a sudden they really just want to drink more water. They're lusting after the water and not each other. And we just frankly found that to be funny and refreshing and entertaining to watch.

26:43And ultimately that's what we're trying to do with our content, right? We're competing with trillions of pieces of content. So if we can do something that is entertaining and exciting and fun to watch, then that's a win from an advertising perspective. I also want to ask you, what do you think most people in a CPG marketer are doing wrong now? You've seen all these brands in the shop. As a marketer giving advice to other people in CPG, what do you recommend they should do to think about as a CPG marketer? That's a tough question. What are they doing wrong? I can say what I think people are doing right and should do more of is really understanding the entire consumer journey and marrying your content strategy to where someone is in that consumer journey.

27:38So you can't expect every single piece of content or work that you put out to do everything and accomplish everything. But it all builds, right? There's no, except for maybe a viral video that is lightning in a bottle. every single impression counts. So make sure that you are thinking about where your consumer is, where they're at in the shopping journey, and how can you just expose them more times and more times and more times so that when they are in a shopper mindset, they're primed to purchase. I want to also ask you, in the space in general, what do you think are the most overrated claims in wellness right now?

28:19I mean, there's so many of them. It's hard to pinpoint one. I think it's just overwhelming that it is permeating every single product. Like, do you need to drink your protein or should you eat a steak, right? Do you need to get fiber through your seltzer or should you eat a piece of whole wheat bread? So I think it's just, it is frustrating as a consumer of a lot of these products to see it influencing, I think, the amount of shelf space that they get to and the direction that the retailer is going when you know rationally, like, we don't need that stuff, right? I mean, that's very Bethany Frankel vibes too.

29:09Bethany Frankel would say exactly the same thing of like, just go eat protein, eat a piece of bread. And she's like, but she is one of those people who is always severely dehydrated too. So she needs more water. The thing is like for Hint, I feel like there's so much noise in health and wellness, but there is a real consumer need. 85 % of people agree that hydration is a top health priority and that water is by far and away the healthiest beverage. 40 % of people say they don't drink enough water because they don't like the taste. Hint is water that has taste in it, you know, and a range of flavors based on what your flavor preferences are, but it doesn't have anything bad in it.

29:55And it's so simple, right? So that's where it frustrates me when it's like this with protein, this with fiber, this with electrolytes, this with alkaline, like all these things that are not really answering the the main brief i'd say yeah i i totally understand that i also understand there that's a difference between like following like these are a lot of these stuff are trends that are gonna happen flow like protein is a trend now like fiber is becoming the next trend and then like glp one friendly is a trend and like all these are just like trend but like water is like a very everybody knows you need water everybody knows you need sleep but it's also like Like water is the type of thing where it's like, you don't know you're not drinking enough water until you start like you go to the doctor, get checked on.