– Forget trying to fix that
funnel that is not performing. Stop stressing over the
metrics on your latest launch. Ignore what so and so did
in their recent promotion and watch this interview
from top to bottom. Because according to this
top brand strategist, you don't have a marketing problem. You have a messaging problem. And today you're going to find
out what you can do to fix it. So you can transform your business and get your dream clients obsessed with what you have to offer. Keep watching. Hey Posse, it's Alex and I am so excited to
introduce you to my friend and Posse Fest speaker, the
incredible Jen Kem, the woman who freaking Forbes named
as a top brand strategist. Jen is the founder of Master Brand Media, where she represents and advises influencers,
celebrities, CEOs, experts, specialists, authors and speakers. And you guys, she has worked with some huge brands like
Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, blue Cross, blue Shield, Verizon,
Coca-Cola, Nestle, Zappos, and Kellogg's, just to name a few.
And she has brought in billions. Yes, that's billions with a B for her clients over
her 25 plus year career. As you will hear in this
interview, Jen has a knack for smelling the money
and spotting the winners. Maybe that's why she's made billions of dollars for her clients. And she is going to tell you
exactly how she does it, and it is not what you think. In fact, I would bet good money that you are overthinking
your marketing in all the wrong ways. You're about to find out
the number one best strategy for getting seen, heard, and paid that most people
completely forget about. Here's my interview with the
amazing Jen Kem. Jen Kem. Welcome to my YouTube channel.
I am so excited you're here.
– Oh my gosh, I am super pumped. I've been waiting all day for this one, so thanks for inviting me. Alex, – We finally made it. I know we were texting
back and forth like we were scheduling around, you know, YouTube, video filming and all of that. But I'm so excited to be chatting with you and I, I feel like we have to start just by sharing a little bit
of the story of how Jen and Alex became friends,
you know, on the internet and in real life. I actually met you back in 2011. We were both speaking on
the same stage at an event. And I have to tell you,
this was like my first event I had ever spoken at.
I had just quit my job at Mindvalley and was like trying to be a
super professional businesswoman and got invited to speak
on stage at this event. I don't think I've ever
been so intimidated speaking on stage and meeting you there and just absolutely being one
blown away by your brilliance. Because as someone who's
been in this industry for a very long time, a lot of the people I had
seen on stages were men. And so right from the beginning
I just had like major girl crush on on you. And then later you ended
up coming to an event that I had produced as part of
my role still at Mindvalley, a fest in Hawaii in 2011.
And that was just sort of the beginning of our online friendship
and in real life friendship. And I just have to say, I've
always been such a huge fan of everything that you do. – Oh my gosh. And same, and for those of you
listening 2011, I mean, we are basically like
we're golden girls now because in internet years,
that's like what, like, or is it like dog years
in internet years, right? Like that's right when you've
known each other for real, for real for 13 years. That's pretty, that's a,
that's, that's something. So I'm, I'm, I'm grateful
and I'm, it's cool because it looks like we are still around. So that means we're pretty
durable too in the rocky road that is online and digital
marketing, right? So I was – Just going to say, it is so easy to be a flash in the
pan in online marketing and I think this is just such
a great lead into what it is that we're going to be talking
about today, which is, which is we branding and messaging and really what that means for lasting power on the internet
when literally people are distracted every 20 seconds and there's always something louder or always something vying for attention.
And this is just a little
teaser too, by the way, Posse, Jen Kem is going to be speaking
on stage at Posse Fest this October. Now I have to tell you, I
feel like a 13-year-old girl who invited all the coolest
kids to her birthday party. And they said yes. And they're coming. When I say our speakers are world class, I mean world class, I am bringing
you the best of the best.
And when it comes to branding, there was only one person I had in mind to bring into Posse Fest and it was Jen. And I'm just excited for you to hear a bit of her wisdom today because branding is sort
of, you know, it's a word that gets thrown around a lot and sometimes we almost
like say it so much, it loses its meaning. But I actually happen to think it's one of the most valuable assets and skills that we can
have in business today.
So Jen, let's just dive in. I first, before we get to your
genius, want to share with the Posse a little bit about how you got into this whole world. What were you doing before you started your, you know, Master Brand Media company
that you know is today? – Well, I mean, I'm an
accidental entrepreneur. I tell people that was not, you know, back when I was figuring
out what I wanted it to be, and I still think I'm figuring
out what I want to truly be. And I think that's life. Like
you're constantly evolving. And we'll talk more about that when we really get into brand. But really my first
pursuit in doing this work was in the corporate world.
So I spent 12 years first as a junior copywriter at Ogilvy and Mather, which is, have we heard of it? Yeah. They're like, you
know something, they're the, they're kinda like the godfather
of, of marketing really. And, and certainly still
Ogilvy's models are still used today by both humans and machine learning to
write persuasive messaging. And so I had the opportunity
right outta college to go work there as a junior copywriter. But the funny thing is, I
really didn't write anything. I mainly got coffee for
the ex account executives who were managing these billion
dollar marketing budgets. And I mean it like Coca-Cola was one of our clients back in the day. They still are, I believe,
a client of Ogilvy, but this is back. Okay. My son, who's nine years
old, calls me, she's like, he's like, mom, you were
born in the late 1900s.
I'm like, yes. And I started my career in
the late 1900s too. And so I always tell
people I'm not a spring chicken, I'm a seasoned chicken. Yeah. And anyway, back then,
you know, in the mid nineties, imagine Coca-Cola having a
billion dollar advertising budget like in 1996. So, you know, anyway, I
was a junior copywriter, just really, really wanting
to learn how to write and really enthralled with just the way people made decisions. Yeah. My actual education is in both psychology and business. And so you could call me a
brand psychologist in a way. Like I was just so fascinated with why we make decisions to purchase things and to like be associated with things. And so that's kind of started my career. When I left the corporate world, I was living in Silicon Valley, 'cause I worked in the
San Francisco office back in the day of Ogilvy. I ended up moving into high tech because Silicon Valley
was where it was at.
This was the first Silicon Valley boom. And I got to work alongside
people like Tony Shea, who some of you may know. He founded zappos.com, which
got acquired by Amazon. He's now passed, but he's a
real big leader in innovation and how culture and and brand and, and he was literally my
neighbor in these tech incubators that we were in. Where then I moved from copywriting and advertising to actually go
to market product launching. So bringing products to market. And so my marketing career and my strategy career has really, I've gotten a really great
opportunity to work with all kinds of products, consumer
SaaS, big tech companies.
And the truth is, is that
it's one of my great loves. So when you ask about my
story, like there's only, I didn't want to leave
the corporate world, let's put it this way, because
I had learned like it's so exciting to bring a new
product to market, right? And the only reason I left Alex, and this is a whole nother
like YouTube video, but I left because I was passed up for a CMO position that I'd been promised after
I took one of the biggest and most, I'd say magnanimous ideas that affects us all
today, which is streaming, like basically online streaming a video. Back then old people used to call it internet
protocol television, right? – Yeah. Whatever. That was the
voice messaging. Yeah. That – Was one of the leaders. It was one of my last projects before I got passed up for this promotion and realized I had no autonomy.
I had like, I had all this skillset and I was always that go-to girl who was leading all these big projects, but I still didn't have
command over my future. And it was in that moment that
I realized, you know what, I have enough experience that maybe I could do this on my own. And I also had two young
daughters at the time who I felt needed more of my attention.
So I left the corporate world, but I did not leave excitedly,
let's just put it that way. I was nervous, I had all those things, but it's, what I did is I
jumped into entrepreneurship. And in 2008 when I, well 2006 I left and I didn't start a career
in this work right away. I thought like any new entrepreneur that I should start a
business in something else that I didn't know. – Right? Right.
– And bad mistake when people are like, well, if you did things
over, what'd you do? I'm like, I would actually
have become a consultant immediately in the work that
I already was known for. Right? But instead I started a retail in a real estate business.
And because I'm so good
at smelling the money and bringing products to
market, I picked a niche that I felt could really pay off. And it worked for two years. We did over $10 million in the two years that I started this company. And it was in underwear. Okay. It was wow. Women's underwear. Even
in the media I was known as the under Styler. It was crazy. You were a panty tycoon.
I was like all of that. And I, there's a whole story
there too. 'cause I love, I – Didn't know that. – Yeah. And so I always tell people, like when we talk about brand and everything, it's like
brands shape culture. And what I learned over
the course of my career and is that if you pick the right winners and there's ways to
pick those right winners and become a winner in
terms of your ideas, whether it's a personal brand
you're building, you know, a reputation for a
specialty like copywriting or you know, you have a
product that you want to bring to market all the rules apply.
The same rules apply. So anyway, the problem was that in 2008 there was a great recession and I was a small business that did not have a daddy war box. I was not Annie and had a daddy. I, you know, I didn't have any of that. So even though we were really successful in top line revenue, I
didn't have the cash reserves to see me through that dark period. Right. And so in 2008, I lost it all. I mean, and it was a big blow
falling from my pedestal, if you will, of like always
kind of ascending up. I never really had a struggle
and I'm just naming that because I was always like wanting, like, I was always excited about
what I was working on. But when I lost it all, it
was a really fateful moment.
Yeah. When I lost everything,
my house, my business, my marriage, I was functionally homeless. I had to go move back into the countryside and live in my grandma's one
bedroom house with my two kids. And it made me humble around
like, oh, what am I good at? And like, what, what can
I contribute to the world? 'cause I felt like a total failure. And so what happened was I
realized that to be successful, I should just go back to what I'm good at, which is smelling the
money, picking the winners, bringing products to market, and creating a lot of excitement around a product or a service. And so I went back to my
old employer who I left and said, would you like me
to come work for you again? And they were like, yes. And I was like, but I
don't want to be employee, I don't want to be an employee,
I want to be a consultant. And that's how Master Brand Media started. I, I switch, I, I flip
the switch, if you will, and they're still my client
to this day since 2008.
And I've made millions not to brag, but millions over the
course of over a decade of now supporting them in a different way. And that's just proof that
you can either choose to work for a company and learn a lot, or you can actually go
on your own and add value and create a different way of control, contribution with your skills. So – Do, yeah. – That's like kind of my,
that's my career story anyway. I – Love it. And I love that you share
the ups and downs too, because it's important for
people to know that, I mean, I can feel like that feeling
that you must have had when, you know, you had left your
position at this company, which was probably a very cushy, nice job. – Oh, oh girl. Let tell you, I
have no good reason to leave. I was making $400,000 a year.
This was in 2006, friends. – Yeah.
– I had a corner office with a view, with a disco ball in it. No joke. I had it installed that tracks and then the, the best thing I had besides those two things
was a parking spot and it had my name on it.
Yeah. Like Steve Jobs, – Like you made it. Yeah. – Oh yeah. It was like Jen
MF Kem that in my head that's what it was saying. It just said Jen Kem.
But MF was in the middle and I was like, I was like, I've made it. So back to like leaving was not easy because I had all these
trophies and these triumphs.
But I also realized that, gosh, like I had no freedom at all. Like I, I was a frankly
a servant to totally to my, to my work. I had to get two kids to school. I had to bring my dogs
to the doggy daycare, get to work, put mascara on
my eyes while I was driving work, get there by 8:00 AM you know? Yeah. Do all the things. And I was like this, I love my work, but I didn't love the
structure of my life. And so, you know, I'm glad
that they passed me up for that promotion.
And what I also realized
is like, you don't have to be the smartest and the best. Sometimes it's about who you're around. And in this case, I was so busy
bringing these big products to market that my counterpart
who was in consumer marketing, which by the way, consumer marketing, always the most flashy, the most sexy, but the lowest profit, right? Business marketing, way more profit. And I ran the business marketing group and he was busy playing golf with my boss. And I realized that, gosh, I should have played golf
more and worked less. And again, so when you
start to realize the rules of the game, you can start to
create whatever you want. So, – So many good lessons there. And I, and what a gift that, you know, you being passed up for that promotion.
Right. Because I, for me,
I had a, a similar story where I was the creative
director at Mindvalley. I was 25, you know, really making waves in this industry
as someone who's very young and – I'm good at it. 'cause I remember 25-year-old Alex, that's when I met her.
So I remember, yeah, – God, she was fun. You know, like, I need
to bring back, I need to bring back more of that girl. But I was really good at it. But I was ill, I mean, a lot
of people here know, I, I had to leave my job at Mindvalley
because it was in Malaysia. And I found out I was, well, I quit my job because of health reasons
and then later found out that I was celiac and just
couldn't live in Malaysia. It wasn't a place that catered to someone who couldn't have gluten.
And I just remember at first feeling like, oh my God, what have I done? And now I look back, I'm
like, what a gift that was. And so, you know, we could do a whole other
series on on life lessons and, and how to pivot. But really this belief, and I think this is sort
of a almost a mantra that all entrepreneurs need
to adopt, is that everything that happens to you is
the best possible thing that could happen to you,
even if you don't know it yet. Because rolling with the punches is sort
of the name of the game.
And I love that you,
I just love your story and how transparent you are about that because now you are leveraging your skills. You are working with, you
know, amazing clients, celebrities, CEOs, and truly impacting hundreds of thousands of business leaders. And I just think it's, it's
so epic to watch your story and you're a mom and I
mean, you're just amazing. And I, I want to, I mean, you talked about how your skillset is,
first of all, I love it. Smelling the money and
then picking winners.
And we're going to talk in just, you know, a little bit here really
about what that formula is, because I'm sure everyone
was like, how does she smell the money? Tell me how she smells the money. But first I want to talk a
little bit about branding in, in general, because again,
it's kind of this word that, I mean, I've always been
a fan, fan of branding. Back when I was the creative
director at Mindvalley, branding was the heart
of everything We did. Yes, we were a direct
response marketing company, but branding was, was the
thread through everything. And so I come from a
branding background like you, but when you go into the
marketing world, it's kind of this like fluffy word
that gets thrown out. And a lot of people are like,
ah, branding sch-manding. But you consider yourself
a brand futurist. And so I would just love to
ask you like Jen MF Kem, what is, what does brand mean to you and what do you see as
the future of branding? Like how is it shifting
right now in this landscape where marketing is evolving so fast? You, you mentioned,
you know, generative AI and all of that coming onto the scene.
What role does branding
play in all of this? – Well, it's exciting even more, 'cause I've always made
this my life's work. I feel grateful that I
became this instead of what I thought I was
going to be with Jeff. I thought I was going to
be like an an attorney. I thought I was going to pursue law and become a corporate lawyer.
Thanks. And I, I, yeah. And I accidentally fell into
this because of other reasons. Meaning it was about a
boy, let's just put it that way, when I was in college. And again, grateful for
that drama. Thank you boy. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. He was not good. But I also will say that
like, it ha it, it made me go, well if I'm not going to go do this, then I should pursue
something that fascinates me. And so brand, let's
just kind of define it. How I define brand is it's simply the art and science of persuasion ultimately in the form
of commerce usually.
Okay. So, and then marketing is,
I define it as the way that you let people
know how you help them. And that means that both brand and marketing are technology agnostic. They are mechanism agnostic. Mm. They're really about the
strategy and the soul. And then you put the
right container around it and that's what gets
people to make decisions and purchase things. And brand has always been the heart of the greatest ideas that we all admire. Right? When you think
of the most obvious one, it's like Apple, it's such,
you know, it's iconic, right? Not just their logo, but
when Steve Jobs was ideating and envisioning Apple,
he thought of brand first before he even thought
about the technology.
I mean, he also was mad at Bill Gates or the Microsoft platform and he really wanted to like
create this special thing for creative people. But the point is, is that for him it was what he was always fighting for
inside of the Apple company. And so again, you're right
in digital marketing, it's been kind of annoying to
like for me, when I like kind of came into this world and
I'm like, branding is not just, and it definitely is not logo or Right.
The colors Yeah. And all that. That's just later actually
aesthetics are not the first thing you do with brand. The first thing you do with brand is who are you and what is the message? So it's identity and it's messaging. Ultimately it's strategy. And
strategy is fricking sexy. Like strategy turns me on because me too, we talk
so much about vision and execution, which of course
those are really important. Yeah. But strategy is the
reason I can smell the money. That's when people ask like,
how, how do you do that? I'm like, because strategy
is the connective tissue between vision and execution.
You can take action,
take action, take action. But if you're not taking the right action, the strategic action, it's not going to have the
potency that you want. And then if you have no vision and all you're doing is like
throwing spaghetti at the wall, that's execution, then
that doesn't work either. So, so strategy becomes
this beautiful glue that puts it all together
to make it function as this, this thing that people get
excited and rally around and, and get obsessed with, frankly.
And that's what brand is. Yes. You know, there are three types of brands. There are personal brands, product brands and company brands,
and they are different. And so in this world, back
to machine learning, ai, et cetera, what I'm really
excited about is now more than ever building your brand, which to me is a very creative opportunity. It's a way for you to express yourself, to evolve your identity, to again message how you want to be seen, heard, and paid. And I feel like now more
than ever, human beings get to really, I create
their, their identity, create their reputation,
which is your personal brand.
Everybody needs to do it whether
you're an executive. Yeah. Like when I was, you know, when I was in the corporate world, I had a personal brand
inside of the company. And now more than ever,
even to get like more money, more promotions, you need a
personal brand that says, oh, that person is the bomb. That person creates magic. That
person makes things happen. Yeah. So your personal brand's
not just about creating a social media avatar of yourself or being on social media,
it's really about like, who are you and how do
you want to be known? And then how do you want to be referred? How do you want people
to see you and trust you and all the things versus like, if you're a product brand,
that's the personal brand. So if you're a product brand,
you know it, it's like, it's the things that you sell. So obviously like if you
are selling expertise, like in the form of courses,
masterminds, blah, blah, blah, you know, that's your product. If you're selling luggage like away and you want to disrupt an industry that no one thought could
be disrupted, hello.
Yeah. Luggage Samsonite to me. Like why did anybody think
that they could do that? And yet the away girls did,
that's your product brand. So you make somebody
obsessed with the product. And then there's the company itself. If you want to build a company
brand like Apple, right? 'cause Apple has speed
jobs, it has the Mac and then it has Apple, the company, right? So those are kind of examples of the different ways you look at brand. Hmm. So yeah. And the future is, is that
it's so important for us now to even be more focused on
the identity of ourselves, of our products, of our companies. Yeah. That because those things cannot be innovated by machines. Right? In fact, machines
are not innovators, only humans can innovate. Right. Machines are the
innovations. So Right. More than ever, AI et cetera, they're, I look at those things
as productivity shortcuts or hacks so that we actually
get more space for creativity.
Yes. Right? We get more space to build our identity in our brand. So to me, the feature is human, so not the future is not ai. So I – Agree, I mean everyone here knows that. I agree. But I think it's
important to talk about, and, and this is, I mean this is
exactly why I had the vision for Posse Fest because
what I realized is there's so much noise right now online and you talk about the
difference between brand and marketing or messaging and marketing. And I love what you said when
we were chatting the other day where you said, most people
don't have a marketing problem, they have a messaging problem. And anybody who sees
those two things as one and the same are, are
completely missing the point.
Because marketing is like,
you'll hear people say, well I built a funnel just like so and so and it's not working. It's like the funnel is not the magic. The funnel is just putting
pages in a lot in a line. And having an opt-in and a buy button like that is not the magic, the
magic is in the messaging. And I see just so much
fear building right now where people are talking about AI or they're talking about, you know, how the market is saturated
or what's even the point, or I don't have anything
special to offer that that isn't already being offered. And what I'm seeing happening right now is that people are having like a
major identity crisis when it comes to who they are, how
they can solve problems, how they can guide their customers or clients, you know, across
this river of doubt or fear or whatever problem or challenge they're
having in their business.
Because now we think, oh
well AI is just going to do it. And it's like, no, AI is
a mechanism, it is a tool, it is a tech technology. But until you get clear on who
you are and and what you do and how you can serve and that identity piece
that you're talking about, then the messaging crystallizes, then you put marketing on
top of that to fuel this, you know, this fire. And no matter what is
happening in the, you know, the ecosystem or the marketing landscape, your brand becomes this like deep stake that you're putting in the
ground saying, yeah, okay, cool. Technology will come and go. Trends will come and go
like clubhouse and threads and like all of these
different marketing platforms that people like freak out
over when they come out because they think this is
the secret that's going to all of a sudden have me blow up.
It's like, no, no, it's about
getting clear on who you are. And I just freaking
love that you said that, and I'm so excited to chat more about all of this at Posse Fest, but I want to get into kind of that like smell the money
strategy part of it, because that might have to be
the title of this video too. Like here's how you smell money and then find the winners.
But I know you, you really
talk about what it takes to build a brand. And I know a lot of people
that are listening to this, I think it's easy to look
at like Coke or Starbucks or any of these big brands
that we think about are Apple. And we're like, okay, but like little old me, I'm
just starting my business. Or maybe I started my business recently and I kind of have a clear
idea of like who I serve and what I do, but I just, I really don't feel a strong
connection to my brand. I'd love for you to talk
a little bit about what, what are the components that, you know, that make up a a brand.
And I know, you know, we're
going to go deeper into this at Posse Fest, but to talk about that and, and why it's important. – I mean, you know, oh
my gosh, I can gee out of this all day long because I, I just want to amplify
one more thing that you said before I talk about the components because I think we're
forgetting that the fun and fundamentals like FUN, that's why it's called fundamentals. Like here's what's cool, it doesn't matter if it's a
new platform like Clubhouse or again new AI tools
popping up like feels like a million a day.
At the end of the day, what's
inside of those machines? 'cause they're all machines. I mean even Instagram is
a machine, it's a platform to put your ingredients in and your messaging are the ingredients. Think of it like, again, like think of it as like your computer. Right now you're looking at your computer and your computer does not work
without an operating system. Your messaging is the operating system so that the computer is the
platform by which this, the messaging can be
relayed to other people. Yeah. So, you know, thinking of messaging as the operating system and
understanding that your identity and the people that you serve, like getting clear on the
problem, you solve the person who has that problem and then why you are the person
to help solve that problem. Those are the basics of identity, right? Once you get clear on
that, then you go, okay, now I'm going to build my operating
system around those things. Those three things,
which is your messaging. And you know, as I mentioned
up at the top of this call, honestly building a brand
is really about psychology.
It's deep psychology work. And that's the fun part for me because I get to like not look
at any of the other platforms or machines first. I never look there first. I never look at a funnel
to solve my problems. I look at the fundamentals first, then the funnel comes second. Mm. So fundamentals before funnels, please just remember that because Exactly, yeah. If you want to smell the money,
that's the, you know, it's so easy for us to be knee jerk. We live again in a world now, not are we, are we getting pummeled with
thousands if not millions of marketing messages daily, right? We, because of that overwhelm, we tend to default to like what's
the easiest looking shortcut and in the real world. Yeah. Like the world where
commerce makes people lots of money, that's actually not
how people who make money, money think about things.
They really do think about
strategy, they think about brand, they think about how can
we get people obsessed with this particular product. Like even you think about
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, you
know, whatever you think of Mark Zuckerberg, his
whole thing is like, how can I make people
addicted to this thing? That's brand thing. Whether you like it or not, you can, right? The whole thing about
building a brand is you get to be either Luke Skywork or R Drop Vader.
You have both options and we're hopefully, hopefully like moving
towards the light side. But also I want to address when
you asked Alex about like, what if I'm new, right? Yeah. I'm new and I'm
thinking this through, and Jen, you're using some of these big companies as examples. So here's what I learned
when I worked at Ogilvy, like back in the day,
going back to that, is that it doesn't matter because every startup, whether
you are a person who wants to build a one person empathy empire, as Alex calls it, right? Like the Empathy Empire, or you actually have a vision
to maybe build an agency, maybe you're going to have a few
people working on your team or then maybe not an agency, but maybe, hey, I do have a
product that I want to bring to market or maybe even an
AI product that I want to bring to market that requires more investment, more people, more whatever.
Yeah. The cool thing is, is
that everything I'm teaching you today is even where you are in your season of entrepreneurship,
it's agnostic as well. That's what's exciting. It's technology messaging is technology agnostic and it's season agnostic,
meaning every single person who hasn't had a big idea and a big idea, just you
having the, making the decision that you want to start your own thing and you're in the early days
makes this work even more important, right? To not actually jump into like, should I like learn how to do a funnel? You should be really
asking yourself, who am I? How can I serve people? How can I create value
that people exchange for monetary currencies? And then pick the
platforms you want to be on.
You know what I mean? Like,
yeah, sometimes we pick the platforms first and I'm like,
that's not what I would do. I would go to strategy
first, which is who am I and what's my messaging for this season? And then I would pick the right platforms to broadcast those messages. Like in this case we're
on your YouTube channel and Alex, you've demonstrated, as you build copy Posse from
the ground up, you know, you decided, I know you've
told this story before. It's like you decided
that once you figured out who you wanted to help first and how you could help
them, then it was like, YouTube is the platform I'm
really going to go all in on to really like, just get
that message out there.
And then from there you're able to then create infinite
content from there. Like you can then put it on Instagram, you can put it in your email
sequences, you can like, you know, but a lot of
times you go, I need to like, do all of it. And because we're so
worried about the platform or the funnel or the AI or whatever, we're not
looking at the fundamentals, which is like the messaging piece. Yeah. – Or we're just looking at
what other people are doing and going, oh, I guess
that's what I need to do, so I'm just going to do that. And it's, it's, it's
completely missing the point. Yeah, absolutely. And, and you know, to piggyback on that, getting clear on on all of those things and how you want to show up in
your messaging is honestly so, so powerful. A lot of people, even
when they looked at me for starting when I started the Copy Posse and when I started my YouTube channel, the Copy Posse wasn't even an idea yet.
I was Alex Catone who had a bone to pick with the marketing industry and I knew I wanted to
kind of shake stuff up. I'm trying not to swear on YouTube because I don't think YouTube likes that, even though you guys
all know that I swear. And it, I was able to
just show up in this sort of like rebellious, sassy me and then really the, the idea for the Coffee Posse was born
out of that, out of that, that message outta that brand.
And I'm curious to hear you talk a little bit
about messaging archetypes, Jen, because I mean, if I had to sum up my messaging archetype, it
would definitely be, you know, some sort of rebellious outlaw. – Yeah, definitely the
Maverick brand for sure. – Yeah. And so yeah, tell me
about the messaging archetypes because I, it's such, I
think a powerful framework and that's what I love
about what, what about how you teach branding is because it can feel like
such a, who am like who am I, you know, type of question. Having a framework to give
people to really go, oh, okay, this is who I am and
how I want to show up. And, and you and you teach
this concept about messaging archetypes and I'd love to
just hear you chat a little bit about that and why it's so important to have that messaging archetype. Yeah. – Well I want to give you the
origin story of how I discovered how powerful using these
messaging brand archetypes are. Again, back to the Ogilvy days. So I learned about this first over there. I was in a room bringing coffee
to the account executives and they were dueling, they
used to do these brand duels.
It was super cool. And it was
basically the Pepsi challenge versus Coca-Cola. Oh my gosh. Which like, they
were doing this Coke versus Pepsi dual. And they were talking about how like Pepsi was really going
all in on their messaging brand archetype, which is
what we call the ruler. Okay. Pepsi's brand is based on celebrity. Like if you think about all of
the people they've ever hired for advertising, Britney
Spears, Michael Jackson, it's Cindy Crawford,
like they're all people who are all about like celebrity.
And look at me and like it's
cool to be with us. Right? Right. You are, you are
like elite if we're the best Pepsi, right? Yeah. And then Coca-Cola, it
was, which was our account, you know, it was Coca-Cola is
paying us a billion dollars to, to manage all their advertising and you know, Coca-Cola is what we call a muse archetype brand. Okay. And so there's nine archetypes, and I won't go through all of them here because we're going to give all of you listening a very cool way for you to just like learn it all in a minute. But Pepsi's the ruler,
Coca-Cola is the muse. And the muse archetype is
actually about nostalgia and childlike wonder and the ability to make
people harken to a time that makes them feel really good. Whereas Pepsi, again, ruler
archetypes about elitism, prestige, okay. Branding. And so right there,
Earl, I was 22 years old and was like, oh my God,
this is so fricking cool. Right? And then they would
call each other on it like, that's not Muse branding,
that's not Muse messaging, that's not ruler branding.
And it was so cool. And I was like, okay, I need to
know more about this. And so archetypes overall
were, you know, not invented by even David Ogilvy. And there's a lot of
different archetypal models. I know, yeah. Alex has
probably talked about this too. But I use, I use the messaging, my model is based on Carl
Young, the psychoanalyst, JUNG, who also is the heart of the Myers-Brigg assessment, et cetera. His work, it's basically the psychological symbology that we assign as a society and we decide that we
want to align with that. Let's say that symbolism. And so the cool thing about
your brand messaging archetype is that it's actually
based on the founder.
So again, if you're a party of one or you actually lead a team or whatever, the, the,
the archetype messaging for the brand is about
the founders' messaging. And it's, you know,
imagine, and I use Apple because it's a good, everyone
knows it is like when Steve Jobs died, apple still
retained its brand archetype. It didn't change just
because he was no longer CEO or he was no longer here. Right? So this messaging technology, I'll even call it, it's like, to me it's like a psychological
technology allows you to really like adopt a brand voice that feels authentic to you. Right? Yeah.
So – Personify it almost like
you said when exactly Steve, when Steve Jobs left Apple, it
wasn't like people were like, oh no, what do, what do we say now? It's like hit hit. Yes. It was based on him, but then because of the brand archetype,
it gave so much clarity to every single person working there, taking over future CEOs,
everything like that. – Exactly. 'cause that's why
I, that's why I say brands shape culture. Yeah. 'cause how you message your brand is what will shape the culture around it. Right? And so in giving you
guys the origin of actually how I learned about it and giving homage to like those early days,
then what happened was, as I, I used it a lot in my corporate career.
I came out to the entrepreneurial world and saw a lot of like personality
assessments and things. And I realized that no one
in my, that I could see, I'm sure there are, but I
just couldn't find any people who were talking about
brand archetypes in the way that I was talking about it. And its power, you know, people were like, oh, I just want to know what I am. It's like a Disney princess. Let me know what Disney princess I am. I'm like, no friends, this
is not how you use it. You actually use it to
understand the deep psychological motivations that you have Yeah. To serve the world. And then
it helps you direct the way that you message your brand.
Whether it's through copy, through voice, through speaking on stages,
through writing books or writing content, whatever it is. And so there are nine, I would say that definitely Alex is a
maverick dominant archetype. And the maverick is like that
rebel, that outlaw, the one that's willing to burn things down so that something new can emerge that's really exciting
and fresh and new.
Burn – It down baby,
– Burn it. Like it's, it's all good. Whereas I actually am a
ruler archetype brand. And to be honest with you, when I really started
building my own assessment for entrepreneurs and and innovators, I was like upset that I tested out as a ruler. Did you? Like I'm a Pepsi. I know. I'm like, I don't, first of all, again, my father told me when we were young that Pepsi is the devil. So I was like, I am not
a Pepsi brand, you know? But really I realized that no,
actually, like my people come to me because not just a because of like my longevity,
if you will, and my experience and my ability to evolve, but like I really focus on in my mind what is the highest possible
success rate, right? And rulers are all about
like, let's win results.
Yeah. Like let's win, win, win no
matter what kind of idea, right? Yeah. So when I weaken my messaging by using other archetypes to
describe my company, what I do, you can tell the difference in the energy and people respond. And this is not like
spiritual or anything. It's truly psych, it's psychology. It's like they respond to energy. And your messaging archetype is an energy that you are sharing. Absolutely. That people
are like, Ooh, I dig that. I want, I want some of
that energy. You know? So brand are really like cool.
'cause it's, it's all of it.
It's in the physical,
it's in the spiritual, and it's in the energetic. – I'll even, I'll even tell
you like when I first started, when I first started
my YouTube channel, I, I mean like anyone who's just starting to put themselves out there,
I felt like, I was like, what? Who, like, who am I? You know, like, am I a
a nice quiet girl? No. Do I want the internet to
think? So maybe, I don't know.
Like it was, I was like
really trying to like, I was struggling with like,
like who is Alex Online? Like, and my best friends
knew who, who I am. And by the way, it's such a
compliment when people say like, you're exactly who you are
online as you are in real life. And, and I really realized
like, why am I so afraid to show like my sassy
side to like all of you And one day, and this is kind of how I
feel like my brand archetype really emerged and it was part of myself, like giving me permission to lean into it. Because I think so many business owners and entrepreneurs, copywriter,
service providers were afraid to like really own who we are because we're afraid that it'll polarize and push people away. And guess what? It absolutely will. But to Jen's point, the flip
side of that is like, holy cow. I mean, once I really leaned
in to my maverick, you know, we'll call it maverick archetype, and I was like, this whole
world opened up where I was able to say the things I really wanted to say.
I was wearing the things
I really wanted to wear. You know, I can, I can
act dress, be who I am, and fully own it because I'm like, this is who
I am and this is my brand. And I remember one time
I was on a training with students and I was really fired up. And anyone who's in my programs know that sometimes I'm just like ranting and I'm like getting
really fired up about some BS I was seeing online. And I was like, you know, it's my mission to just like deify the internet
and it fell out of my mouth and I'm watching the chat
on this zoom just freak out because everyone was like, oh my God.
And I realized that I had hit a nerve and I was like, oh, wow. Like that is my brand archetype
personified in a saying. And I won't lie, it took me
a long time to even be able to confidently say that. Like I would be at a
stage on stage at an event and I would be like, oh, there's a lot of people in the room who don't know me. And if I say that I might offend people. And the more I just had
the courage to say it, the more people started
being like, oh my god. Yeah. Did you hear Alex?
Like she's on a mission to du by the internet.
And then people started
literally rallying around me. And so I, I love that you said that because it's been completely my experience and sometimes it is
like dipping your toe in and just waiting for the
response until you have to, until you can give
yourself full permission. But I encourage all of you to
really play around with that because we don't all want to be the same.
Like talk about boring and, and you know, talk about ai, like all AI is doing is
literally regenerating and regurgitating all of the same so that everyone's messaging is this kind of, this flat no man's land
of like, who even are you? I don't know. It's,
you're not standing out one or the other. And this is such an opportunity
for us right now to get so clear on that and lean into it and then watch what happens. 'cause it's, it's truly magic
when you can figure that out for your, for your business. – Totally. And, and here's
the other thing that's cool is that in my model for brown archetypes and messaging, there are
actually two, what I call salt and pepper archetypes, if you will.
So like there's the main dish. So in your case, Alex, I'm pretty sure you're a maverick, okay. Dominant. We call it
the dominant archetype. And for me it's the ruler. And I call it like the
protein of the messaging. Like it's the, it's,
it's, it's, it's the meat. So like, it's like that's the heart and you really want to get
good, as Alex just said, at really just trying to
try it on, like try it on, let it come through. Don't be literal about your archetype. More like embody the
energy of like the maverick or energy of the ruler. 'cause that's the protein, right? It's like that's the chicken, right? Yeah. But in order for protein to
taste good, you need two things. You need, well you need
seasoning. Okay, I'm Filipino. So we put seasoning on everything. And you know, salt's job is to
actually bring the flavor out of food And Pepper's job
is to spice it up, right? It's to make it like Z right? So what's different also about
my model is actually looking at the, the, the secondary
and the tertiary archetypes.
Your salt and your pepper, and
how do they play a role in, in creating this crescendo
about your brand when it comes to the mess, how you message your brand. So for example, I am a ruler dominant and then I'm an explorer and a lover, salt and pepper, if you will. And so the Explorer
brand is about, you know, obviously freedom and no boundaries, but even more so it's about,
there's a map to get there and here's how you can follow it.
You know, that kind of like feeling. And then the lover brand
is about not just passion and intimacy, but it's about
like no matter where I am, even if I'm speaking to you in a Zoom room or I'm in in a room with you in person, like we're going to be
in Posse Fest together that you feel like I'm talking to you like the lover brand is about, I see you no matter where you are. And so I work really
hard on in my messaging and my team and everybody
who's like supporting that on like, how are we making sure that we are really ultimately speaking through the ruler voice, but we're not forgetting
the salt and the pepper.
Because then now we become
this full bodied meal Yeah. This messaging meal that
people can go, I want to eat more of that, right? Yeah. And so I'm really excited because not only am I going to
be sharing all this stuff at Posse Fest, like we're also going to give it to everybody who's listening. So whether or not you come to Posse Fest or not, like maybe you're
listening to this a year after Posse Fest or whatever,
you're going to be able to find out your dominant and your – Yes.
– your secondary.
– I love that you said that. 'cause I I, I teach the concept of brand archetypes in my brand program. And a, a big question that I get is like, do I just have to be one? And you explained it like so brilliantly. It's like there's a dominant, but I already know too that
I definitely have a bit of like the, the best friend. I don't know if that's an archetype, but like the best sort of that,
that best friend archetype where it's like, hey,
we're all in this together. Like, we're the Posse advocate, you know, like advocate Advocate, you belong here. Yeah. So I I I love the seasoning and for everyone who's, who's listening, you can click the link in
the description below and go and take Jen's assessment to find out what your dominant messaging
archetype is and what your salt and your pepper archetype is. And, and try it on for size.
Like, like play around with it. And for those of you who, you know, don't have giant businesses or you're just getting started,
let's say as a copywriter or another service-based business, this trickles into everything you do.
As Jen said, it's not just in how you're showing up on social media. 'cause I, I feel like that's
what people tend to think of when they think of, of branding. It is in how you communicate it is in, in truly everything that you do. So try it on for size and just, yeah, let us know how it goes. Tell us what you get
in the comments below. And then as Jen said at Posse Fest, she is going to be going deep into who her unique messaging model because archetypes is just
one piece of that kind of branding puzzle.
And Jen, I am so freaking
excited for you to sprinkle your, your Filipino seasoning
on everybody in the room at Posse Fest. And we'll put a link
to Posse Fest below so that you can grab your seat. And if you're watching
this after Posse vest, I'm so sorry you missed it, but there will be one again in the future and you can click below
to learn more about that. Jen, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your wisdom. I, I'm honestly so fired up right now. I feel like this, this
ignited something in me and I I can't wait to explore this conversation further with you.
– Oh my God, we're going
to have so much fun and I can't wait to meet so
many of you at Posse Fest. I love Vancouver. I'm so glad that Alex is
gathering us over there 'cause it's quite beautiful,
especially at the fall. And again, like if you like
to geek out on all this stuff or now you're realizing
this stuff is super geeky and fun, you're going to be
right with the right folks. So I can't wait. And I am so like, me too. I'm like all lit up. I feel
like I need to go for a run after this conversation
'cause I'm so lit up.
– I love it. And if you
enjoyed this interview, give us a thumbs up below. Tell Jen how much you enjoyed her wisdom. Definitely go take her assessment,
let us know what you got and I will see all of you next
week with a brand new video. And of course, those of you
coming to Posse Fest, Jen and I cannot wait to see you there. Enjoy the rest of your week,
everybody. Ciao for now. All right guys. If you
enjoyed that video, make sure to check out the next
one for me right here.
And you can click right
here to get a free gift. How is branding shifting now
that AI is hot on the scene? Does even really matter anymore? Should you be building a personal brand or a corporate brand? How does your messaging and your content come into play when it comes to your branding? And what should you be focusing
on most when you're in the beginning stages of building your brand? Listen, you guys, this
interview was so freaking good. I sat down with Dain
Walker, the CEO of rivyl Australia's fastest growing
branding agency to answer all of these questions and so much more.
It is a juicy interview, so keep watching..