[00:00:00] Donny Dvorin: Modern marketing changes fast and great marketers needed edge marketers from challenger brands need to be especially brave this season. All our guests from challenger brands join us as they unveil the strategies and tactics behind the risks that they’ve taken. They’ll talk about the biggest coldest marketing campaigns that got their brand noticed and made an impact in the industry.

[00:00:29] Hosted. Brave software and me Donny Dearborn, head of sales. Upbraid join me to get fresh new perspectives and the inspiration to say yes to brave marketing moments.

[00:00:43] You’re listening to a new episode of the brave marketer podcast. And I’m really excited for you to listen to this one because I’m interviewing an old friend that I’ve known in the industry for a number of years. His name is Ian WISHIN grad. He’s the co-founder of three wishes serial. And he’s [00:01:00] also the founder of a branding and advertising agency called big guide wish.

[00:01:04] And then thirdly, he’s the host of I’m with the brand, which is a show on ad week before creating three wishes in was an ad man building his agency, working on clients like at and T Diageo, Nestle, and many. So I think you’re really going to like this episode with Ian, where we talk about three wishes and some trends that are going on in the industry right now and how the brand is a bit more important.

[00:01:28] Sometimes then the campaigns that they ran, especially for startups. But before we happen to today’s episode, we want to highlight our brave pick of the week. And so every episode we choose a brand that is running an ad campaign with Bray. And this week, we’re choosing Crocs shoes, many of you know, Crocs and oh, I can’t even count how many crux shoes that we have in our household because I have three young kids.

[00:01:48] And so, lots of Crocs in our house. So they ran a push notification ad unit with us, also a sponsored image, which is our big homepage takeover on the new tab.

[00:01:58] And they also ran a brand lift [00:02:00] survey and they were looking to increase sales and increase brand awareness and impressions and measure the impact of their brave. And

[00:02:07] since we don’t track our users, the folks at Crocs found the surveys really helpful to get more insights on their. And with no further ado, here’s today’s episode of the brave marketer.

[00:02:26] Hello, Ian. Welcome to the brave marketer podcast. How you doing today?

[00:02:30] Ian Wishingrad: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. I appreciate

[00:02:32] Donny Dvorin: it. Good. I’m excited about this interview because you are with me every single morning when I have my. every day I have one of three flavors of three wishes, cereal, and I add some almonds, some blueberries strawberries.

[00:02:48] Raisins. And sometimes I’ll add a little granola cereal from another brand,

[00:02:53] So thank you for making such an awesome.

[00:02:55] Ian Wishingrad: thank you for being such an awesome patron. I appreciate it.

[00:02:58] Donny Dvorin: So why don’t we start with [00:03:00] just telling the audience what’s the most exciting thing you’re working on right now in,

[00:03:03] Ian Wishingrad: well, at the current moment, the most exciting thing I’m working on is I just launched a campaign for a new client, like 30 minutes ago.

[00:03:10] So I’d say that’s most exciting. a former NFL athlete named Brad Pyatt, created, a line of a hundred percent plant-based proteins and supplements. That’s now going to be available in every single GNC. And he came to me looking to give his brand a voice is called plant fuel. And,there was like so many different things you could say, especially in the plant, like the supplement world.

[00:03:28] There’s so many words you could say. And I realized at the end of the day, my strategy was people don’t think plant-based supplements and proteins are up for the challenge. They’re used to using things from a dairy isolate called whey protein is the whole category. So if we want to really put a stake in the ground, I wrote a line and the line was no S.

[00:03:46] W H E Y. And we have a billboard running up right outside of GNC’s headquarters right now with the product. And it says no effing way with asterisks where the rest of it is. So I always think a good line has a smart double entendre. And [00:04:00] when you do something that kind of ballsy and you put it up in the public square, gets a lot of attention and that’s always my.

[00:04:06] Thinking about advertising is make sure if they pay attention, if they don’t pay attention, like who cares? The ad could be good, but it was boring. I didn’t listen to it. So I always want to make sure I turn heads with everything I do.

[00:04:15] Donny Dvorin: Nice. You think this is going to get written up by Adweek?

[00:04:18] Ian Wishingrad: It’s funny enough.

[00:04:19] I don’t know. We’ll see.

[00:04:21] Donny Dvorin: Oh, that’s one of those, like when the actor says oh, it’s confidential. I can’t tell you the ending of the movie. cool. Sothis podcast is all about marketers telling us about their brief marketing moment. It’s a moment in time where they took a risk, and they were brave.

[00:04:35] They exhibited bravery and you have a funny story or interesting story with Whoopi Goldberg. Can you tell us about your brave marketing?

[00:04:42] Ian Wishingrad: Sure. to explain the bravery, I’ll give a little bit backstory. I came out of college. I was making fake ads like mini commercials when I was in high school not with an iMac on I’m movie.

[00:04:52] So I always knew I wanted to go into filmmaking or advertising. I intern at ad agencies. So I had a really good sense that I liked advertising [00:05:00] and big ideas. And when I was at my first advertising agency, I came up with a, I believe to be a big idea. It was called a no bitch. And the idea was that if you look at all the anti-smoking campaigns, they’re always scary.

[00:05:11] There’s like someone who like has their voice box removed, like very graphic. And I believe they’re effective. As someone who did smoke on and off,I wanted to find another way in as opposed to just scare the shit out of people. And so I had this idea called an obituary, and the idea was that you would get a loved one to go to no bituaries.com and they would fill out Donnie Devorah and born on this day.

[00:05:30] Wife’s name’s this, kid’s named this favorite place to take a vacation, like a Madlib, a web app map. And it would create an image that looks literally like it ran in the newspaper. Like it was an obituary, but it’s a Donnie Devor and alive at age 40 something on December 10th, 2015, Donnie quit smoking.

[00:05:48] After five years, he rejoined his wife, Liz and their three kids blah-blah-blah and life. He plans to take a vacation with the money he saved from not buying cigarettes. Hey Donnie, are you ready to quit? If so, click here. So I thought that was a very clever way. [00:06:00] Fearful scary. Like you’re seeing your own obituary, but it’s a no bituaries, it’s positive.

[00:06:05] And instead of trying to reach the smoker, what do we try to arm the loved ones, friends of smokers and give them a loving, but scary way to get through to them. Now I was very young and naive when I came up with this idea of thinking, oh my God, and I had sold some other big ideas to clients.

[00:06:21] I sold an app that cleaned up dirty Facebook photos to whisk laundry detergent. That was like clever and on brand, but all of a sudden this like kind of death life message. I tried to knock on doors and sell it and it never sold for years. I just couldn’t and it was just too unsafe or it also shows it’s really hard to just call brands with big ideas.

[00:06:40] That’s not a really successful tactic. So it was always just sitting in my backpack. And at the current time it was 2012. I was working for Vimeo and I went to advertising week at time square. And I happened to go to a panel discussion where Whoopi Goldberg was talking about a movie she was making or something. But then as a total aside, she mentioned that she quit. That [00:07:00] for decades, she was like a pack or two a day, Newport smoker.

[00:07:03] And she quit smoking. And I was like, oh my God. it felt like that scene in jaws where the camera moves in and tightens in. And it felt like this is my opportunity. I must pitch her this idea. So as she was leaving the neater Lander theater, I went up to her she was like walking out like celebrities do walking high smiling people, trying to take photos, but she’s still walking towards the end.

[00:07:24] And I pitched her and I started to take photos for people with her so she could keep pitching her the idea. And she goes, I love it so much email me. And she gave me her email. And then the next week I was in her dressing room at the view and I got will be on board. So I’d say that was my brave moment.

[00:07:39] Donny Dvorin: That’s amazing. And then what did we end up doing with.

[00:07:42] Ian Wishingrad: basically like anything you’re always trying to like attach things to get them going. I was still unable to sell it, but with Whoopi on board, I was able to bring partners that would do work for free web development, the charity, et cetera.

[00:07:55] So I pulled that together. And then we eventually launched it. It’s

[00:07:59] Donny Dvorin: amazing. [00:08:00] So let’s get now into three wishes. You’re the founder there, but I’m also thinking that you’re probably the senior brand manager and marketer. so before we get into all that, why don’t we just start with you telling our audience about three wishes, cereal, and maybe how you came up with the idea and what

[00:08:17] Ian Wishingrad: it is?

[00:08:17] Sure. Oh, three wishes. Serial is a new better for you breakfast. It’s called three wishes for two reasons. One is my last name is wishing grad. I have a wife and two kids at the time I had one kid. So the three wishes were Margaret Ian and Ellis wishing grad, and the other three wishes were high protein, low sugar, gluten and grain-free.

[00:08:38] And those are three attributes that are rarely found in the cereal aisle. And if they are they’re in one, a high protein cereal, but it’s not low sugar cereal, but it’s not high in protein or a gluten-free cereal. Tastes like a gluten-free cereal and there was maybe one other grain-free cereal.

[00:08:54] So that is the what three wishes is. basically the idea did not come to [00:09:00] me. It came to my wife. we were working together. We run an advertising agency called the guide wish, and I work for big clients. I work for small clients. And as you work for the more entrepreneurial clients, you start to like, get the bug yourself thinking, okay.

[00:09:13] I’m spending millions of dollars on behalf of other clients. I’m seeing what works and what doesn’t. Yeah. You start going to trade shows because your clients are at trade shows and you start to just kind of learn and immerse yourself in the CPG world, the better for you food world. And it just looks really cool.

[00:09:29] Interesting. So once I had seen something like Bonzo that blew my mind, okay, a pasta made of chickpeas that tastes pretty damn good with really good branding. That was very light bulb for me because. It was like, okay, someone’s done razors. Someone’s done shoes. Someone’s on mattresses. So when Margaret said cereal, I was like, oh yeah, and I also don’t like doing narrow categories.

[00:09:53] There’s a lot of niche brands out there. I come from advertising. So it would be your chips, broad fund, big American [00:10:00] mascot. And so serial had that opportunity to just be one of those like new cereals. And at the time it’s just Kellogg’s general mills, Pepsi. They own 80 to 90% of the entire cereal brands.

[00:10:12] So it had strategically the makings for one of those disruptive. And that’s why we went for it. So

[00:10:19] Donny Dvorin: three wishes is the first female founded cereal brand. and how does that impact your marketing and your branding and advertising?

[00:10:27] Ian Wishingrad: Not to shoot for our category? I mean, famously Sara Blakely from Spanx was also someone. Why are men making my hosiery? So, I mean, still for the most part, even in my household, as egalitarian as we are with my wife and I both working full time, there are still, as you’d say the food shopping food domain usually falls under the mom part of the section of household responsibilities.

[00:10:50] And so the fact that, when you’re trying to market, you’re trying to use all your unique selling propositions. What makes you do. And so when you make us different, not only is our product different, but the fact that we [00:11:00] have a 30 year old female millennial CEO, when all the others are either owned by big corporations and then any other startups, cereal is tends to be dudes.

[00:11:09] So it seems like something, from a computer marketing sense, sling, we leaned into I’d say, how does it affect things? As I think coming at it, there were some other cereals that have come out of the gate that are very keto focused and that tends to be more masculine Quito bros. That sort of things in peeing on sticks and finding out your ketones were, I think we went through the lens of, or a husband, wife.

[00:11:29] We made us for our children are the only new cereal brand as a family made for their kids. So it’s more about a clean ingredient deck generally better for you. As opposed to being for one hot trend

[00:11:40] Donny Dvorin: at the moment. So as we segue into marketing specifically, how many marketing campaigns have you done?

[00:11:47] I’m familiar with the Willy Wonka one. I saw one with a basketball player recently. How many kind of tent pole type events like that have you done?

[00:11:55] Ian Wishingrad: I’ve probably done four or five so far.

[00:11:59] Donny Dvorin: And what’s the one that [00:12:00] sticks out in your mind the most. So the most successful one, the biggest one.

[00:12:03] Ian Wishingrad: but.

[00:12:05] That is the most fun is not the most successful. The one that was most successful was right when COVID. We were just starting to get going and a huge tried and true method for sampling or I’m sorry for getting new customers. When your brand is the sample, go into the store, you go to whole foods, go to whatever, go to Costco, and everyone loves the free samples.

[00:12:23] And when you’re telling people you have a cereal that is a healthier, much healthier, only three grams of sugar, eight grams of protein. This is. Going to taste crappy. Oh, it’s made of chickpeas and pea protein and tapioca sounds nasty. So once you taste the cereal, you’re like, holy shit, that’s delicious.

[00:12:38] So it was an amazing way for us to get customers. when COVID hit, the last thing anyone’s doing is running into a store, walking around, taking their mask off. It was done. Sampling was dead. So I was like, okay, we gotta do something to get the cereal in people’s mouths. And at the time we didn’t have sample size, we still don’t have sample size.

[00:12:53] So to get someone to just try a new box of cereal, it’s really efficient to get them to sample. And, the news was [00:13:00] just like COVID COVID COVID COVID and they were doing through COVID tests. And I kept seeing these people driving up, roll the window down the Q-tip goes to their brain, comes back down.

[00:13:08] And I thought, what if I did a drive through taste test? And so I moved to the suburbs six months before COVID so like the, not the suburbs have written novel for me. And I’m used to being a city. And I have a U shaped driveway and I said, okay, what if we do a drive through taste tests? We put our mascot, put the gloves on.

[00:13:24] We recreate the whole scene, just like we were doing in the weekends before COVID and I filmed it like B roll because I understand how news works. So I kind of like recorded it and made my own like EPK, electronic press. Put it together. And we were on the cover of the local newspaper that got us on national news television.

[00:13:42] We did $20,000 in three minutes on live TV and we got so many other TV hits. And so that was like really successful. Really cool. And if you had a chance to ever know me or my brain or my portfolio, that’s like one-on-one Ian thing, like cheap, smart, buzzy newsworthy. So that to me, is that

[00:13:59] [00:14:00] And, the other one that I saw, which I mentioned earlier was the Willy Wonka with the chocolate. Tell us about that. Yeah. So we

[00:14:05] were launching chocolate once again, we’re in a pandemic. So I’m trying to think of some buzzy stuff.

[00:14:09] We’re always locked at home. I thought, oh my God, what if I grew up in Stanford, Connecticut and gene Wilder, the late grain gene Wilder, who was the original Willy Wonka grew up around the corner from me. So like,he was just always like a present celebrity in mind and who doesn’t love Willy Wonka. So I thought, he’s not alive, but what if I can get all the living cast members to like, try the serial, endorse it.

[00:14:32] That was really hard. I tried to reach out to so many of them hit walls so hard. It’s not easy to find these people. I had a friend who speaks German, reach out to Augustus gloop in Germany. I called his house line, spoke to his wife. He said, no, but I eventually got through to Veruca salt in London. And she said, yes.

[00:14:50] And then she gave me the way to get to Mike TV. Cause I got to him, but he didn’t get back to me. And she gave me like a code to get his attention, but I really wanted Charlie and Charlie. [00:15:00] Literally off the radar, he lives an hour and a half from a Wegman’s on the Canadian border. He is what’s called a farm vet.

[00:15:06] So he’s literally goes to farms and like shoves his hands and cows buts. And like that kind of off the radar, you cannot find Charlie. So he also gave me like a password to get Charlie’s attention. So I was able to get Mike TV, Veruca salt and Charlie, and they all loved it and I assembled it together and we got a ton of press and it was really cool.

[00:15:25] And so I basically, United the tasks of Willy Wonka to endorse my chocolate cereal, the casino’s chocolate better than Willy Wonka and the original cast. But, candidly as a marketer, it went, well, I thought it was going to be buzzier. So I’m a little disappointed candidly, but that one, but what’s it going to do?

[00:15:41] Donny Dvorin: Yeah. What was your measurement on the less buzzy? You just you started to pick up more like national news

[00:15:45] Ian Wishingrad: and yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:46] Donny Dvorin: So switching gears outside of three wishes, you’re also the host of I’m with the brand on ad week. And you highlight a lot of creative marketing and advertising campaigns that you come across.

[00:15:58] like what are some of the biggest trends you’re seeing in [00:16:00] advertising? What were some of the coolest campaigns, biggest opportunities?

[00:16:03] Ian Wishingrad: at my heart. I’m an advertising guy.

[00:16:05] I’m a bill Burton back campaign driven advertising guy, but advertising is not what it used to be. It is turned into targeted. Content marketing remarketing. And it’s just very hard. Campaigns are so ephemeral they’re out. The door CMOs are rotated like shoes and it is so hard to break through and I’ve become more fascinated with brands because new brands that have found a way to play

[00:16:33] the whole orchestra of marketing, they just break through. you don’t think about the campaign. You just hear the brand hymns. do you remember the hymns campaign? I don’t know. Do you remember any of these kinds of cool? It’s the only one I remember is the dollar shave club.

[00:16:46] So dollar shave club was like, come on a decade ago. So like that’s, that was amazing. That’s what I’m saying. That was great. I can’t tell you anything of recent history. And so basically my point. Yeah. Campaigns matter, they make noise, but [00:17:00] like a fart in the wind, like old spice guy, the most interesting man in the world, those less dove, real beauty, but they are so rare.

[00:17:08] they’re just so hard to come by. And but brands have found a way to make a lot of noise, but it’s not a campaign. It’s just like this brand gets out in front of you. It’s pre-roll, it’s influencer. It’s the whole thing you’re like, yeah. I’ve heard of them. Yeah. I’ve heard of them. yeah, I want to try them, but it wasn’t an epic campaign.

[00:17:24] So that’s why I’m with the brand is I’m not with the campaign it’s, I’m with the brand. And I actually focus on brands and businesses and how they build their brand and where they spend their money and what’s working for them. And it’s not fileting a campaign that one at

[00:17:38] Donny Dvorin: can enlist focusing on campaigns per specifically.

[00:17:42] Why don’t we talk about brands. So, you know, you’re the host of I’m with the brand on ad week. And you’ve interviewed a lot of great brands who go above and beyond in social media and in influencer marketing. What are some of the brands that really stick out for you and [00:18:00] how did they get, I don’t know.

[00:18:01] I don’t know if many of them are household names, but if they are how’d they get there. So

[00:18:04] Ian Wishingrad: the one I would, I might’ve called Amazon. It started by two south Asian sisters. Kim and Vanessa fam and they’re like yin yang with their skillsets. believe you have, Vanessa’s like Ivy league, Harvard, Boston consulting group, like super that.

[00:18:21] And then Kim is also brilliant, but like the creative, the marketer, fire and they have taken for all intents and purposes are basically. Recipe starters, essentially Asian recipe starters that you’d just put into a stir fry or some other things playing it down, but it’s really chef inspired, whatever in sick packaging with a great branding, with a great voice, with great excitement and enthusiasm have great partnerships with great PR.

[00:18:48] And it just I love it. I would watch them. I’d go to their Instagram. I’d see. They just keep gaining organic followers faster. I reached out to Kim I’m like, tell me what’s going on? How are you so good. And it’s just, I dunno, it’s one of those [00:19:00] brands that from everything has just makes me smile from end to end.

[00:19:03] And I think you’re doing such a good job and everything, and I love it. it gives me the fields and that’s my. Criteria for anything. It’s just like resonating. I asked people about how do you make sure your brand doesn’t just check boxes, but actually resonates. Yep.

[00:19:19] Donny Dvorin: How does it make the hair on your arms?

[00:19:21] Stand up a little bit when you go. Ooh, I like that. when you think about, more established brands that are not doing those cool ideas, are you seeing other trends and marketing?

[00:19:31] I

[00:19:31] Ian Wishingrad: mean, the trend is tick-tock obviously, I’d say that is just like far and away. I thought it was a bunch of dancing videos. I keep hearing it, but I dove into Tik TOK as a user maybe a month ago and spent hours. And I think it’s magical and I think it’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen.

[00:19:50] To scroll like TV. They used to just click through the channels. You’d be like a thousand channels, just like TV, whatever channel surf, it nails. It. It’s just I love it. It just keeps giving me, I don’t know [00:20:00] what it is. They talk about the algorithm it’s magical and it’s, it’s great. I find that to be great.

[00:20:06] And that’s like to me, that the way Facebook had its moment in Instagram, and these are all established and obviously still great places to spend your money, but everyone still wants the shiny new object. And I never got on board with Snapchat and Snapchat has found their way, but this is like truly television in your hand or whatever that means.

[00:20:25] So I find Tik TOK to be fascinating.

[00:20:27] Donny Dvorin: Yeah. I remember like two years ago, my daughter’s 13 now. she’s been into Tik TOK. And then before that musically, that’s what it was originally called. Yeah. Yeah. they rebranded and, she was showing me Charlie Demilio and I was like, what are you doing?

[00:20:42] Spending so many hours. And then no joke, like three hours later, I’m like knee deep and Charlie Demilio videos. And I’m like, what am I

[00:20:50] Ian Wishingrad: doing? so that’s what I thought Tik TOK was. So that’s Tik TOK was just that I would not be on it. What I find is there’s all these [00:21:00] people.

[00:21:00] what I love about it is like I’m so ADHD and all over the place. And I think the algorithm and reflects that for me. But I see dudes that are like installing Verizon 5g towers that are thousands of feet in the air shooting selfies. there’s a cop that shows you how the radar detector works.

[00:21:15] there’s so much. Interesting. Never before seen that everyone with a cell phone, it’s really interesting, like truckers, just worlds that I would never experience are there. It’s not just fail videos and synchronized dancing. And just the insanity of the range of content is so satisfying for my ADHD.

[00:21:35] Endorphin

[00:21:35] Donny Dvorin: brain son watches one where it’s one guy and he plays the mom, the grandmother, the kid. Please all the characters of the house and he dresses himself up and he talks to himself and edits it perfectly. It’s great. Now you can only watch that for about 10 minutes and

[00:21:50] Ian Wishingrad: then you’re done. That’s okay.

[00:21:51] You don’t need to watch the next one. It’s just like then another video that’s totally different. And that’s, what’s so amazing about it because I see Instagram trying so hard with [00:22:00] reels. there’s shoving reels down our throat. It’s like typical Facebook stuff is like quickly copy it. Like Snapchat stories that was easy.

[00:22:07] They killed Snapchat at the time. This is irreplicable, they’re just like, they can’t do anything about it. And it’s just like, all they’re trying to do is get the people that had influenced, had Instagram followings to start making reels and people republishing them. But this is just one that they cannot just go copy and it’s just embarrassing watching them try to do it.

[00:22:26] Yeah. Yep.

[00:22:27] Donny Dvorin: So, final question. Can you nominate another brave marketer that we should have on this show why

[00:22:32] Ian Wishingrad: then a hundred percent, my friend, Eric. He’s got his own ad agency. He’s the guy that created the old spice guy. I call him like the top three living creatives in advertising today is like a modern day bill burn back.

[00:22:45] He’s a better creative than I ever will be. And I knew I had to do something else cause I could do the big ideas, but this guy could do the big ideas and write his ass off. So well, I rather, go into my own. Wage asymmetrical warfare than try to compete with talent like that.

[00:22:59] [00:23:00] So he’s become a great friend. He’s incredible. He’d be perfect. Great.

[00:23:03] Donny Dvorin: Thank you so much. We’ll definitely reach out to him, Ian. Thank you so much for being on the brave marketer podcast. We love having you on really.

[00:23:11] Ian Wishingrad: Thanks for having me, Don. I appreciate it. It was fun.

[00:23:14] Donny Dvorin: If you like what you heard today and found it valuable, it would be super helpful.

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