The Virtual CMO Podcast
Season 5, Episode 13
Hosted By: Eric Dickmann
With Guests: Scott Goodson, Chip Walker
Our Featured Guests
Scott Goodson
Founder and CEO - StrawberryFrog
Scott Goodson is an entrepreneur, business mentor, award-winning author, and Founder and CEO of StrawberryFrog. StrawberryFrog is a full-funnel, marketing, advertising, and design company founded in Amsterdam in 1999 and New York in 2005.
Goodson's company has put together a new way to overcome the gap between purpose-based storytelling, data-led optimizations, and business transformation. For over 20 years, Scott, Chip, and their team at StrawberryFrog have continued to challenge the status quo and driven remarkable results for iconic clients worldwide, such as Walmart, P&G, Google, Emirates Airline, SunTrust, and Coca-Cola.
In his 25 years in the business, Scott Goodson has been helping business leaders galvanize people and organizations through "Movement Thinking" to help companies perform at their peak and gain a competitive advantage. Goodson's Movement Thinking is deeply emphasized in his best-selling book- Uprising, where he illustrates case studies from his interviews with 40 global business leaders.
Scott has lectured at Harvard Business School and appeared in the NY Times, The FT, and Harvard Business Review.His ideas will challenge your habits and the formulas of the past, provide new ways to think about insight, sources of growth, and sources of meaning for modern businesses and the people who run them.
Chip Walker
Head of Strategy - StrawberryFrog
Chip Walker is an entrepreneur, brand and business strategist, keynote speaker, author, and Head Strategist of StrawberryFrog. He has co-written Activate Brand Purpose with Scott Goodson.
He leads the strategy and research divisions at StrawberryFrog and is focused on taking the idea of a higher brand purpose and turning that purpose into a social movement that galvanizes people to action. Walker aims to help companies leverage their brand and create a positive impact in the midst of the pandemic.
With Chip's veteran leadership and unique approach, the team was able to generate tremendous awareness and engagement through the Live United Campaign together with Truist and the United Way, featuring National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman. Earlier this year, Strawberry Frog won Tearsheet's Agency of the Year Award for 2021. Over the years, Walker has been leading groundbreaking transformations and extensive market research for globally recognized institutions and brands, such as- Bank of America, Jim Beam, PepsiCo, Morgan Stanley, and Heineken.
What's Hot?
"A wake up call for leaders who want to change employee habits, transform the company, and grow their business."
Activate Brand Purpose: How to Harness the Power of Movements to Transform Your Company was written by Scott Goodson and Chip Walker. This is a wake-up call for leaders who want to change employee habits, transform their company, and grow their business.
Activate Brand Purpose shows readers what is wrong with purpose and lays out a pragmatic roadmap for how CEOs, CHROs, CMOs, CSOs, and CFOs can galvanize the people who matter inside the company and out. Here, Goodson and Walker reveal the process that leaders need in order to transform their culture and improve their business while making much-needed positive impacts in their communities. Scott Goodson and Chip Walker believe that companies that activate purpose thrive.
Scott Goodson
In Activate Brand Purpose, we talk about this idea of movement thinking and how it changes behavior and minds and has been doing this obviously for generations. You know, it's not in the last five years that movements have just risen out of the earth, movements have shaped human behavior for 10,000 years. But now's the time for startup founders and small business leaders to apply this to the core of their business, to drive tangible change."
Chip Walker
If the enemy's what you're against, the stand is what you're for. Well specifically, what is the standard you're going to take to overcome this enemy, to slay the dragon and achieve that important change that you've said you want to see in the world."
What We Discussed with Scott and Chip
On this episode, host Eric Dickmann interviews Scott Goodson and Chip Walker about activating your brand purpose. Here are some highlights of our conversation:
- [00:06:25] How do you separate movement from activism? - According to Scott, activism is an element of a movement, but it really doesn't have to be. Movement is basically a framework. He and Chip have studied what motivates people to participate in movements and how to engage prospects and customers of different ages and cultures. He also adds that movements do not necessarily have to be big because ideally, the goal of the activity is to mobilize people.
- [00:08:12] Purpose washing - The real problem today with companies standing behind or looking to stand behind an issue is that there is nothing in the company's culture that deeply involves them with the issue. Chip has seen many businesses jump on the purpose bandwagon, taking up some social issue just because it's hot. In reality, they never had any involvement with it in the past, and it's unclear to see how it's connected to what they do or make.
- [00:12:37] Movement Thinking - Movement Thinking is the concept that all movements start with a grievance or dissatisfaction that needs to be made right. It identifies problems in society that need to be solved.
- [00:15:46] What does dissatisfaction mean? - Many companies may be starting to activate their brand purpose and the first area of focus should be to identify areas of dissatisfaction. Walker explains that all movements start with a kind of grievance or dissatisfaction that needs to be made right. This dissatisfaction not only affects your company but is also shared with the people the company serves. Scott adds that movements have shaped human behavior for 10,000 years, and now may be the time for startup founders and small business leaders to apply this thinking to the core of their business to drive tangible change.
- [00:19:23] The desire change aspect - According to Chip Walker, the second step is desire change. That desire should be about the changing the world and impacting people's lives and culture. In this process, businesses should learn how to emotionally connect with people.
- [00:23:12] Who is the nemesis? - Now that businesses have established an emotional connection with their customers, they should focus on the third step in this process- defining the nemesis. Goodson points out that the business' nemesis doesn't always have to be a physical enemy; sometimes, it's in the form of psychological hindrances. For instance, the nemesis of SunTrust is financial stress and anxiety.
- [00:25:14] How do businesses take a stand? - If the enemy is what you are against, the stand is what you are for. Going back to the SunTrust example and the nemesis being financial instability, SunTrust takes a stand by helping people become financially confident.
- [00:27:36] How do you make people act on it? - Companies may be able to make a stand, but the question is how they will act on it. Scott and Chip's latest book- Activate Your Brand Purpose, focuses on taking reasonable action. Chip shares that if you want to inspire change, you have to reframe concepts to be easy to understand. SunTrust urged people to act by providing them with financial education.
- [00:29:10] Taking a proactive approach - Scott emphasizes that companies can take a stand on many social issues but without taking a proactive approach, it often doesn't amount to much action. Businesses can't just say that they support the Black Lives Matter movement by simply sticking a BLM sticker on their website. They need to honestly act on it and find ways to impact the movement.
- [00:32:24] How do you get employees to join your cause? - According to Scott Goodson, CEOs can't just sit in their office all day and expect their company to be recognized just because they have indicated they support a cause. Goodson encourages business leaders to start mandating change inside the organization by getting their employees' input and activating their strategy over a three or four-year span. This may include short-term projects, digital calls to action, or even ambassador programs, but hosting these activities can help companies bring their purpose to life throughout the company and its employees.
Resources Mentioned
- StrawberryFrog - Company Website
- Activate Brand Purpose - Amazon
- Activate Brand Purpose - Barnes&Noble
