In the latest episode of the Interesting B2B Marketers Podcast, Steve sits down with Don Polite, a brand transformation executive with vast experience across various industries. Don shares insights from key projects, including rejuvenating a global food company's coffee brand by leveraging consumer insights to appeal to new generations and leading a digital-first, omnichannel marketing strategy for a tech company in healthcare, significantly boosting efficiency, brand awareness, and customer engagement.
The discussion further explores the intricate process of rebranding and integrating brands post-merger in a multi-industrial company, emphasizing the importance of customer-centric strategies and cross-functional collaboration. Highlighting the evolution of marketing, Don stresses intellectual curiosity, the embrace of failure as a learning opportunity, and the critical role of technology, particularly HubSpot, in achieving marketing and sales synergy.
Closing with his take on marketing myopia as his biggest pet peeve, Don advocates for empathy and understanding from the customer's perspective. This episode not only showcases strategic brand transformation efforts but also offers valuable lessons on adapting to the dynamic B2B marketing landscape, making it a must-listen for marketers seeking to drive growth and innovation.
Key learnings from this episode:
Connect with Donald Polite and Steve Goldhaber on LinkedIn.
With 25+ years of marketing experience, Steve Goldhaber is a former head of global digital marketing for two Fortune 500 companies and the current CEO of 26 Characters, a content marketing agency in Chicago.
Connect with Steve on LinkedIn.
Steve Goldhaber: Hey everybody. Welcome back to Studio 26 and the interesting B2B marketing podcast today. I'm excited to have Don polite on the show, Don. Welcome.
Donald Polite: Thank you, Steve. Great to be here.
Steve Goldhaber: All right. So as we always do, let's start with a 60 second intro about who you are and what you've been up to.
Donald Polite: Great. Again, it's really good to be here.
I am a brand transformation executive. I've been in the marketing space for really closing in on three decades, hard to believe, and I've been fortunate enough to help brands grow and transform across a multitude of industries currently in healthcare, but I've also worked in the multi industrial [00:01:00] space.
And then on the B2C side, I've worked in entertainment and food.
Steve Goldhaber: All right, nice. So we're going to jump into the case studies. The first one is all about you walking us through a global food company, tapping into some research and the effort to relaunch one of its flagship brands. So go ahead and take it away.
Case study number one.
Donald Polite: Yeah, great, Steve. So that was kind of early stage in my career. I had the chance to work for a global food company with leading brands across a multitude of segments within the food space, including the coffee space. So their brand was a global brand in the instant coffee space. So really sold at retail think grocery store.
And that's the good news. And I would say that to this day, they remain one of the leading brands globally and the instant coffee space. But if you think back a couple decades plus ago, a lot of transformation was going on in the coffee industry at that time, really kind of accelerated by the advent of Starbucks.
Starbucks is on the scene now, really transforming the space. Bringing a new, new generation of [00:02:00] coffee drinkers into the category. And there were others like Starbucks, both here in the U S think like a Pete's or Seattle's best, as well as around the world and really creating an experience with their coffee and their coffee shop.
The challenge for the company I worked for is. Those same brands started to infiltrate the coffee aisle and grocery and bring this new generation of coffee drinkers with it. At the same time, the folks that this company, you know, sold to from an instant coffee standpoint, it's an aging population. So there's a need to really refresh and bring new consumers in.
But there was a lack of connection from a brand and a product type with this new generation of coffee drinkers. So, and as, as such, as Starbucks started to show up and other brands started to show up in the coffee aisle. Grocery share was eroding pretty quickly. So that's the challenge and frankly, the opportunity.
So how did this company attack? It really started with research, right? And consumer insights. And that would be certainly you want to maintain their, their core, but they're [00:03:00] really needed to understand this new generation of coffee drinkers. So those insights started with. You know, brand awareness and perception of their brand.
What did this new generation think? What was their awareness? And then it cascaded to product type. What's most appealing to them. And as a coffee drinker, who's going to start making your own coffee at home, this new generation of drinkers was less interested in I'd say instant coffee and more things like whole bean, aroma based, certainly ground coffee, things of that nature.
And then frankly, the, the flavor profiles, regular coffee's great. But if you think about some of the flavor profiles you get out of Starbucks, and now what's available in store, things like French vanilla, hazelnut, and go on and on, those are the types of things that were appealing. So this research kind of spilled into product concept testing as well in these new segments, and ultimately it led to this comprehensive, I'd say, restaging and relaunching of the brand, both in North America and around the world, but I'm going to be focused on North America because that's what I was working on.
So that led to things like really, it started at the top, [00:04:00] kind of refreshing the, the, the imagery kind of modernizing the logo, not getting too far away from the, the iconic logo, but modernizing it as well as the packaging to appeal to a new consumer, refreshing the messaging and positioning and the, you know, the, the, the advertising at the time to appeal to this new consumer.
And then obviously jumping in the news, new segments within coffee, like whole bean and bag, and even sort of an emerging category, which we refer to as ready to drink and iced coffee, which was frankly started by Starbucks. I'm sure you've seen it when you walk in the store. So kind of bringing that. You know, some offerings to that space as well, and then maybe the last thing they did was trying to create experiences around creating their own branded coffee shops and select malls and urban environments, metropolitan environments to kind of refresh the brand image.
And I think the end result, Steve. That's where all of this was to really stop the bleeding, kind of stabilize the business, gain a little bit of share in some of those new segments they jumped into like whole bean and bag, but really kind of stop the bleeding, kind of [00:05:00] refresh the brand and make it relevant for a broad audience going forward.
Steve Goldhaber: Yeah, I would imagine like that's. seems to be a challenge in a category like that. The brand probably had like 40, 50 years of just regular profits and like people didn't change their coffee. So why should we change anything? So that stop the hemorrhaging comment makes sense. Talk about how you have to also, there's two marketing games going on here.
I imagine the first is the B2C game, which you've articulated, right? Like who are we positioned at? Let's refresh the logo. The other is probably like the B2B distribution game. So how is it that you're also kind of like, as you're re imagining the brand? What are you doing to work with kind of retailers, distributors, so that they also kind of adopt that new vision?
Donald Polite: Yeah, I think a couple of things are important, you know, you're trying to get maybe I'd say early adopters to help you do things like get primary placement store or end of aisle placement, things like that. So you're creating different initiatives. Right. That may feel like exclusivity to certain retailers around whether it be certain flavor [00:06:00] profiles or offerings, maybe, you know, working with them on sort of that new age beverage category and giving them some exclusivity and some incentives to place your product.
And then you obviously have to, you know, create the awareness. So whether it be at that time, sort of the in store promotions and incentives that you provide to consumers or other orders type of space, if you will, that would incentivize them to push your product and. Maybe give them a bigger share of profits if you will versus what you would normally do for your regular placement in store so trying to create incentives and also showing them that you're gonna really promote the product especially around new launches to drive that traffic and engage
Steve Goldhaber: so you mentioned this was early on in your career so one of the funny things we can do now is look back at like.
Where is the brand today? So have they survived? Are they around? Do they, they manage through the shifting landscape?
Donald Polite: Yeah, it's funny because I knew when we were going to be speaking, I, you know, I'm in the grocery store all the time, like most of us, you know, I haven't really kind of paid attention to the coffee aisle in great detail, but I have the last couple of weeks and the product placement is there [00:07:00] across all the segments we talked about.
It is a crowded space. Now I look in that category and you have the additional things like Keurigs, right? So, but they have placement. I think their share again, it's very crowded. Yeah. I would not say they're sort of top two per se, but the fact that they have placement and a very crowded base, and there were a lot of brands I saw that weren't there that we know of, it tells me that they've been able to maintain their.
They're positioning and I have seen them jump into some other categories on TV. I can't give the names away, but think of other sort of flavored coffee type drinks that I see them doing television advertising behind. So I think it's fair to say they have kind of stabilized and maintained a rightful place and a very profitable lucrative category three decades later here in North America.
Steve Goldhaber: All right. That's your claim to fame. I remember I early on in my career, I worked with a couple of CPG brands, and it's funny how you kind of go to the grocery store and you're like, Oh my God, I can't believe it's still there. So always a good memory. All right, let's jump into case study number two. This is focused on a tech company, and this has to kind of do with a little bit of a re [00:08:00] imagination going digital first omni channel marketing.
Donald Polite: Yeah, absolutely. So just maybe a couple of things about the tech company. It's a SAS platform. They're supporting payers. So it's B to B and helping payers manage sort of their end to end benefits administration. So, you know, the payers customers obviously are members as part of insurance plans, but also the providers who support those members on those plans.
So the challenge in health care I think we're seeing a digital transformation happen in healthcare. It's accelerating. Some would say they were slow to the game compared to other industries. So as a tech company, we talk about transformation and disruption and it benefits, you know, benefits administration is huge.
It's a big piece of the business and it creates some costs, especially if there are a lack of efficiencies and how you. Process claims and make payments and develop networks and do authorizations and approval end to end. We have automated basically all those workflows to drive out waste and create efficiencies, eliminate errors in essence, drives down costs.
And [00:09:00] as you can imagine for insurance companies, that's an important component to main to maintain profitability and reallocate dollars towards. You know, enhancing member experiences and provider experiences. So that's who we are. And as a company, company was in essence, a combination of three or four separate companies that came together in about five years in to the job.
There was a need to kind of tell the new story of these combined companies, talk about this disruption and transformation. So really it was around brand awareness and thought leadership and reputation. And just, with a small company helping them. Take a digital first approach to brand elevation, brand reputation, and obviously also engagement with the target audience of payers that we're going after.
So really omni channel approach, want to create consistency and messaging across the various platforms. And you also want to be able to reach people where they're at, which is, you know, pretty interesting. It's not B2C, it's B2B. So how do you reach those folks from a digital first standpoint? So it starts with, our website really [00:10:00] optimizing our website to speak to the various personas within the insurance space.
And if you think about it, it's a technology solution. So it probably starts at the top with the chief information and the technology officer, it's a, you know, fairly costly solution. So there's a. Financial component, chief financial officer, and then other folks who manage operations, benefits administration, and then obviously folks who oversee insurance plans.
So multiple stakeholders, multiple personas. So really optimizing our, our website to address the needs of each and create a user friendly experience within our. Our website. Yep. So that's one thing and it starts there. The other piece is just our how we show up socially, you know, social media, how we tell our story and articulate that you know how we do advertising where we speak to folks and reach those professionals in a targeted way.
So we do a lot of LinkedIn campaigns in that regard with specific messaging around their pain points and the solutions we provide. I think we also, you know, taking a step back, I [00:11:00] talked a lot about the thought leadership component, really wanting to go at a high level around some of the pressing challenges in the industry for insurance companies, both for commercial plans and the government space.
We support a lot of them with Medicaid programs and Medicare. So speaking to our understanding of the challenges and then how technology enabled solutions that we provide can address those issues. So, you know, at the same time talking about our products, but, you know, speaking about thought leadership and how we address some of the most challenging issues for insurance companies.
Steve Goldhaber: Tell me about like the moment that you realized, okay, this is an omnichannel strategy. You inevitably get to this part, which is a tech audit to say, all right, we know we need to. To transform it, where are we at today? Do we have the tools? What was that like? Were you pretty well set or is this a Oh my God, we need we need new infrastructure.
Otherwise nothing can happen.
Donald Polite: Yeah, no, that's a great point, Steve. And I think the short answer is when I joined the organization, I think from a tech stack standpoint and a, you know, the ability to [00:12:00] reach those various channels, we weren't there. So we had to make some investments and some of the partners to get us there to enable us to execute, you know, the programs, you know, I guess.
Yeah. I spoke a lot about the consistency and messaging, but I also talked about wanting to reach them where they're at. And I think, you know, as part of that channel omni channel approach, we had to make some investments and commitment to the various channels to be able to articulate those messages. we weren't quite there, but I think we've gotten there pretty well now.
Steve Goldhaber: And then, you know, looking back,how do you feel like what was what was the outcome? Maybe it's still a work in progress, but what do you think, like the results of the impact were on this one?
Donald Polite: I think the results have been great. You know, a couple of things, you know, one from a brand reputation standpoint, we pulse our awareness and reputation levels through brand studies.
So I mentioned at the beginning of this journey, You know, five years in, we were telling the story of a combined new company. And at the same time, trying to elevate sort of the narrative around disruption and technology, and also establishing ourselves as a thought leader, so, you know, [00:13:00] taking a baseline of where our brand awareness was, you know, five years into where it was two to three years later, we saw nominal gains, you know, substantial gains in terms of.
You know, top 5 percent top 10 percent in terms of brand awareness amongst competitive set and similarly brand reputation. And then maybe last but not least, with existing clients, you know, we look at our NPS and our NPS scores have increased. So a lot of it is around executing and delivering on commitments.
But I think, you know, just to continue to awareness of our solutions and our capabilities certainly set into that as well.
Steve Goldhaber: All right, thanks for sharing case study number two. So the final case study, I'm going to paint a little bit of a picture that I've lived through a couple of times where everything seems normal, all the brand work is working, all the growth marketing is working.
And then all of a sudden there's a merger. It just opens up a new world of, Oh my, like everything's going to be different or not. It's a hard thing for a marketer to do because you've just kind of been locked into one way at looking at how to manage the brand. So take us through this third case study.
Donald Polite: Sure.This was one of the more challenging and yet [00:14:00] fulfilling experiences in my career, multi industrial company. And if you think about multi industrial as an example, folks, you know, maybe the most prominent one would be a general electric. So this company played in some of those spaces on multi industrial, but they decided that they wanted to be super focused, hyper focused on building infrastructure and building technology.
So they initially divested a big portion of their business, which included sort of the automotive parts business, nearly half the company divested that spun it off and stood up as its own company. So that was the first phase and there was some messaging around the new version of what remained as a company that had to happen and was part of that new narrative.
Both to investors, as well as to clients, prospects, and it touches all of our, our touch points from the website to all of our communication and our PR, but within a year, there was a desire to further their stranglehold, if you will, in the building technology and infrastructure space. So they went through a merger with another company who had a slightly different set of [00:15:00] offerings, more on the, I call it security systems.
So next abandoned portfolio that really justified. This company's right to be a leading global multi industrial company. So that's a new story that has to be told again, less than a year later. So as mergers go, there's really, bringing the best of the two companies together. And really in telling that story, you have to figure out strategically how you want to be organized.
So as part of the integration, I was on a team driving the branding and marketing components of that. And it really started with the brand architecture. You know, a decision was made at the top as to what the new company was going to be named already. But below the line there, there was a desire to understand what are our new capabilities combined?
How are we organized both from the visual level and then from the product portfolio level? And then how are we going to articulate, you know, our set of product offerings and capabilities? So led an effort to come up with the new brand architecture, including the names of the various divisions. And then what was the association to the new corporate brand with the product brands, [00:16:00] and actually some rationalization of names of old brands and maybe retiring products altogether.
Comprehensive effort led a team to do it, and it was really a cross functional team of marketing leaders across both legacy companies. And, you know, that's a challenging Exercise because of the attachment people have to their products that they worked on, especially in the cases where things may go away, but we didn't do it in a vacuum.
We worked with prospects and clients and got research and feedback on their thoughts around some of the concepts of how we were going to potentially name and organize. And ultimately, we came to a decision on that. And then, as you can imagine, Steve, from there, once you make some decisions on your brand architecture, you know, what are your physical and digital assets?
How do you. Rebrand those, you know, from your website to your collateral to service trucks for, for, you know, it's an equipment company. So we do a lot of service to the uniforms or to how we show up at trade shows and conferences. And then obviously I will communicate that out to the public. So really led that effort.
And then there's a timeline to. Maybe [00:17:00] transition phase, things out and move to that new world. And that takes some time too. And along the way you have to communicate to your, your clients and prospects, what that means for them. So let that effort, it was a great experience for me and proud to say it was part of that effort to kind of tell the new story of this, these two new, you know, merged this new company.
It's a tough assignment.
Steve Goldhaber: And I'm guessing based upon if it was a bigger the company, the harder to do, obviously, but like, this feels like a one to three year thing. What was the total effort when you started to when you actually said, All right, we've completed the transition?
Donald Polite: Well, that's in a perfect world, one to three years would be great.
I think there were some commitments to Wall Street around, you know, day one. And as you know, there's day one in terms of day one readiness to get some of the baseline, you know, components of the integration into place. But as I said, there's sort of a phase out, let's say of assets of old materials or things of that nature that you earn the right to, you know, do post day one.
Right. So I think we had a, I'm going to [00:18:00] call it about a 12 month window to get ready and to execute at a, at a base level for day one integration. But the phased in approach of eliminating certain assets with old branding and getting those components to the sort of the new look and feel going forward, that did probably go on for, I'd say, about another year.
So I think our end to end timeline was more like two years.
Steve Goldhaber: Thanks for sharing the case with us. We're going to jump into the Q& A section of the podcast. So tell me about your first. Job and marketing. It was a little, you know, we've talked about coffee, but I imagine before the coffee stint, you know, tell me about that first internship or that first real job where you knew that marketing was interesting.
Donald Polite: You know, it's funny because my, my first job actually as an intern during the summer in college was in a sales environment. And in that environment, I recognized that I didn't have the makeup for sales because part of sales requires the ability to, you know, you're not going to win every time, right?
Success rate is whatever it is, 25%, 35%. Some may say more, but that means there's some failure or short term failure, right? Don't know if I was made for that, but [00:19:00] what I did glean in that experience is working with the, you know, field marketing folks, even some of the corporate marketing folks around the messaging, the narrative around our products and solutions, and you know, what that unique value proposition was and.
Supporting sales and they're selling efforts i thought i like that that's why i'm good at communication and connection and engagement not good at failure in terms of asking for the business but i'm good on all those other things and i like the strategic side that marketing brought to the table of telling the story of the company's capabilities and offerings and how to dress down pain points for people you know the outcome so i knew then that marketing something i wanted to experience so subsequently.
You know, my next college internship was with a food company. And in essence, it wasn't the food company I went to work for, but it felt like a good sit when I had that opportunity coming out of business school from the first marketing job.
Steve Goldhaber: Let's take a look at like one thing that you and I can relate to on is just how much marketing has changed over the years.
You know, I I've been doing it for about 25 years. [00:20:00] Take a look at today. So let's say someone just graduates college. Like the skill sets today are vastly different. From when we started, what are some of those things that you look for in someone who is, who wants to commit to a career in marketing? What would you say besides the obvious of like, you know, well, we've got to know the product, you have to know the customer, you have to bridge the middle, like what are some ways that just marketing feels very different going forward?
Donald Polite: Yeah, I think, you know, a couple of things, you know, the utilization of technology obviously is so key. What we're learning more and more about that. I think from a characteristic standpoint, you know, someone, creativity is always important. Never want to, you know, bury that in sort of the profile, but I look for a sort of intellectual curiosity because the willingness to want to go deeper and understand customer and understand their motivations and what drives them is, I think, so critical to kind of how you differentiate yourself in the market versus.
Your competitors, you know, that deep intuition and understanding of customers. And that requires someone who's just intellectually curious. He's going to ask the right [00:21:00] questions is going to ask the additional questions and go as deep as they can to get at what the persons are, that the customer's motivations are.
So that probably is one thing, someone who obviously is strong analytically. And then again, like I said, the creativity piece is still important to me in my mind. So those would be sort of the three characteristics that I look for.
Steve Goldhaber: I'll ask kind of another looking back question since you've been doing marketing while what are some things like you look back on your own career and you realize you know what i would have done that differently or that wasn't the best approach what are some things that you could share with the listeners this may sound weird but i think as i explain it'll make sense.
Donald Polite: Not be afraid to fail and actually fail more because to me, in terms of failing more, that means I was willing to try and I was willing to put myself out there that I, you know, I have an idea, I have an opinion, I'm going to put it out there and I'm going to stand behind it and when it doesn't work, that's okay because I was aggressive, I was assertive, I was proactive.
I took ownership, you know, another term I use with some of the folks [00:22:00] on my team is there's always ambiguity in jobs in terms of who's supposed to take what. And I always use the term, when in doubt, do, which is different from when in doubt, don't bring your ideas to the table, take ownership and things.
And if you fail, that's okay. What's more important is that you learn from the failure, but you're showing the proactiveness, the ownership, the willingness to try to be creative, right? To be intellectually curious. So those are sort of aspects of being, you know, putting yourself out there and being, not being afraid to say it's great advice.
Steve Goldhaber: I think one thing I've realized in trying to embrace what you're saying is not putting the pressure on myself that if it's something new, something that I want to champion, it's a hundred percent chance of success, right? Like it has to succeed. I think sometimes going into it. And also as part of how you get by and to do something new is just disclosing like, I think this is a 50, 50 shot.
I don't know if it's going to work. And in my early career, I felt like everything I touched had to be perfect. You know, like had to be flawlessly executed. The numbers relating to growth had to tell a great story. And it was just, sometimes you just have to experiment and let people know [00:23:00] that like, this is an experiment.
We don't know how it's going to turn out.
Donald Polite:And that's why we're doing it because I do think a lot of people are afraid to fail because it's just, they're used to wanting to win all the time, but that's a cultural thing that if you're in an environment like that, that's also really bad because then people just.
Steve Goldhaber: I agree. And the one thing I would add is you need leadership. You need a boss, you need a organization that culturally enables that intellectual curiosity, that individualism, that ownership, and that allows you to kind of be innovative and be, you know, and to experiment and allows you to fail and fail fast.
And, you know, the reality is there could be certain environments where that's just not the case. So you need the support to be able to bring those behaviors forward. I think is, is critical also.
Steve Goldhaber: All right, two final questions. First question is going to be your favorite piece of technology. This could be something big or small, but what's something that you realize, hey, every week this is the one piece of tech that I just, I love.
Donald Polite: Yeah, from a professional or personal standpoint or both? Either one, you choose. Yeah, professionally, you know, our CRM platform is [00:24:00] our holy grail. We're a small organization. We leverage HubSpot. It enables marketing automation, certainly our sales, force management and the connectivity between the two, and that's critical.
That's flexible enough for us because we are, we're a small organization. And I think that sort of engagement and enables us to optimize what we do in marketing to support the needs of. To say of our sales team and frankly, make pivots, um, in real time to create programs that are going to help them win well with their prospects.
So I'd say upspot is the platform that I'm most beholden to at this point in my career. No, I've been to that platform. It,
Steve Goldhaber: I do like it. I think also what people don't often appreciate as much as the customer service is, is really strong. There are some moments when I was using that platform and just pick up a phone.
And every time that person on the phone was super knowledgeable. Always a great experience.All right, final question.
Donald Polite: I could use that. I just wanted to add to that, you know, with a lot of organizations, the technology is only as good as, as the people using it. So the ability to onboard people and to [00:25:00] get support real time is critical.
And I would, I would agree with your statement. Um, we've got great accounts for it and they really enabled us to get the most out of it, especially related to our needs.
Steve Goldhaber: Final question. Tell us your biggest pet peeve when it relates to marketing. This could be relating to salespeople doing outreach or marketing campaigns that are created.
What's one thing that when you just experience it, you're like, ah, stop doing this. Stop driving me crazy.
Donald Polite: I think like anything being myopic. Right. I think everything starts with the customer and it goes back to that intellectual curiosity and having a deep understanding of the customer. And I think it's probably permeates every function, not just marketing.
So the sanity check before you activate or implement a program, whether it be a campaign or A sales program or something we do from a customer service standpoint, you know, the importance to really take that step back and do the sanity check and put yourself in the shoes of the customer and say, does this make sense from their strengths, [00:26:00] their standpoint, do we have empathy for their current situation?
And does the, you know, how, how does this look? When I'm sitting in their chair versus I think this is a good program or this is a good, you know, way to engage with that client or prospect. So to me, that's probably the biggest pet peeve if we like it, but it really doesn't make sense from the vantage point of a customer or prospect.
Steve Goldhaber: Love it. All right. Awesome. Don, thanks for joining us on the show today. And for all of our listeners out there, thank you again. You can go to any of the previous interesting B2B marketers podcast on Apple, on Spotify, or you can even go to the 26 characters website there. So Don, thank you again for joining us today.
Donald Polite: Thanks for having me, Steve. All right, everyone.
Steve Goldhaber: Take care until next time. Bye bye.