Purpose Meets Performance: How Brands Win Without Compromise

Welcome to AdSe Week's podcast about the business of marketing, media, and creativity. In this episode, we're sharing a conversation recorded live at one of AdWeek's events featuring leaders from across the industry discussing the ideas shaping brands right now. Let's get into it. >> Hey everyone, how's it going? Love that welcome. You got some really passionate fans in the crowd. I'm Audrey Kemp from AdWeek's AY's reporters. Today, we're exploring what happens when a 150-year-old institution and a startup candy brand chase the same goal to prove the purpose and performance do not have to be mutually exclusive. Please welcome Ethan Braden, CMO of Texas A&M University [screaming] >> and Tyler Merrick, founder and CEO of Joyide, now the number one selling candy at Target. Great dude. So, I'd love to kind of start with an origin story and set the scene for everyone. Essentially, how did each of you get here and how did the Aggie connection bring you together? And for anyone in the room, Aggie is the nickname for Texas&M alumni and students, a nod to the university's agricultural heritage. >> So, how we got here? Um, spent 20 years building brands and teams and marketing that people love and trust. and that's uh spanned Eli Lillian company and then Purdue University and Purdue Global were got to speak to you all two years ago on that front and then this last couple years at Texas&M University and I had an incredible boss at Lily who once told me only take roles where there's enough clay to mold something beautiful and that's what I saw when I came down and saw Texas A&M this incredible brand 150 years of history 80,000 students 600,000 former alumni or former students as we call them but also misinterpreted probably misunderstood and and not the best marketed at that point in time. And so there was tons of clay to do justice with our craft to that place and make sure that the world knows that the impact and the scale of which is there could be felt by more than just outside of Texas. So it's been an incredible journey going down there. Meeting Tyler has been amazing, an Aggie, a friend, a mentor, the coolest guy in the world. I mean, every kid loves Joy Ride Sweets. He's as popular as K-pop demon hunters these days. So he um has been a wonderful connection and we're just so proud of him. So, it's nice to be here and share the stage with him. >> Absolutely. And love to hear your story. >> Um, I I grew up in a small rural town in the Texas panel called Herford is actually named after a cow. Um, and so I grew up in a family uh business and a family pet food uh business. And so entrepreneurship had been birthed kind of in me for a long time. So my I went off to&m and while I was at school I was also doing a side business and um probably paying a little bit too much attention to that instead of my studies and so I funk out of the business school in my spring semester of my junior year and it really was like kind of those moments where you touched the rail and I was like do you really you want to make the most of this opportunity you know take it serious and so I really wanted to be an Aggie and it's something that's obviously in Texas It means a lot with ethan we're trying to expand that you know beyond and we have this thing called the Aggie ring that we all kind of wear as as a nod to one another postgraduate and I really wanted that and so I begged the college of agriculture and it was the only school that would take me in that late and I got and I finished it um and I tell that part of the story because it's how I got here is that really that I wear this every day as a reminder of coming over those times of adversity um in business and when you come up to a place that you can go hey you did that that was worth it. And so when I tie that into the Joyide story, we I like I said, I've made thousands of products over the years in just about every category you can imagine. And um I had this thesis for a candy brand to reinvent the next generation candy. Could we make a candy that had significantly less sugar, you know, without any of the artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, dyes, those kinds of things, uh that taste as good as the incumbents and the old guard that we knew. And then second, um, if we were going to do that, how we were going to get that story out? And I felt like that would things had changed quite a bit. So I started to study the creator universe. Came across this guy named Ryan Tran. He's the real reason why the candy's popular, not me. Um, he's this amazing creator and human being. And um, he was I really saw him on the comeoff and I I said, "Let's work on a partnership." He was a former college athlete and healthy and candy was really in his DNA. And so we we launched our partnership officially early with to the market early 2024 but we started in 2023. >> Oh it's amazing. You guys are both on really exciting trajectories very different but also you know similar routes. So I kind of want to talk about like where purpose meets performance essentially. Uh Ethan you said that while others are debating what's the best university in the world uh Texas&M is kind of focused on being the best university for the world. what does that mean internally and in the market and can you share some of your philosophy with us? >> Yeah, thank you for that. Um I think first it starts with understanding the external market and then also how we understand ourselves internally. And so if you want to show that that next slide here this was the first thing that I saw for 3 months as I came to campus um walking in and out of the host hotel and it's the Aggie proverb and it's kind of the mindset that's been at Texas&M for a long time which has been wonderful and and sort of fat and happy but it says from the outside looking in you can't understand it and from the inside looking out we can't explain it. And I've presented that in probably every presentation I've given to the board and to the legislature, etc. And every time I I do that, I say, you know, with all due respect, that's bad marketing. If you want national reputation and you want to be a part of the national conversation, then we have to be able to export what is distinct and special about us without necessarily people coming down and feeling the spirit of 108,000 in Koffield. And so that's where it started. The the second piece was then looking out externally and saying, "Yes, in Texas, the ring and being an Aggie means so much. like you you've got it mate in many respects but outside it was misunderstood when I came down to campus you know I knew Johnny Manzel RC Sloum College Station and Maroon that was about it and so we actually went out into the American public and asked them that question we said what were the the five most common words that you associate with Texas A&M University so we're going to try that real quick we need some courage and some brave participation here but when I say Texas A&M University to this crowd what words come to mind keep going louder pride I didn't get that Oh, I'm sorry. C SEC. Okay, keep going. Gigum football. Keep going. >> Of course. >> Okay. Revy. Okay. When we ask the American public the five words, this 150year-old traditional military founded school, unbelievable astronaut, space, national security, climate, etc. We asked them, what are the five words that come to mind? They said five words. They said football, >> nothing or none. Aggies, [clears throat] sports, agriculture. My retort to that every single time since then has been what do you want those five words to be in 5 years because that's the distinctiveness that we have to have especially in a landscape of 6,000 universities in America where there's 250 universities alone just in Texas and what makes us different what makes us distinct and so that was really the first and then the second part was getting to know ourselves we um we ran a play that I've run at Lily that we ran at Pretty Global etc with a wonderful firm called Brand Trust out of Chicago doing their ethnographic kind of deep human truth and we got to this idea that this is such a place of duty this is such a place of impact. It's such a place of selfless service. So we landed on this idea with its magnitude and its momentum and its mission that the place really is and the people really are a force for good. And so then lastly, we're sitting in the right city for it. Jeff Henderson's got a great book called What are you for? And I was reading through it at one point in time and it just dawned on me. You you look at US News Report or you look at the Times Higher Ed or whatever you follow when it comes to to rankings for universities. We're all debating who's one, two, three, you know, why. And Jeff Celingo's got a new book out around Dream School that kind of tries to put that apart. And I sat back and said, you know, I don't really care about that. I think I'm at the place that again with its magnitude and its momentum and its mission can be the best university for the world. And that's where we've anchored our marketing. That's kind of been our rally cry of what we want to share with the world and the nation outside of Texas moving forward. >> Yeah, absolutely. And it seems to be really paying off for you guys. You know, look at there's the numbers right there on the screen. 80 million views last year. Incredible. >> Yeah. The commitment we made, I guess, is the other piece is just we made a a huge commitment to external marketing instead of being the short order cook to our colleges and and and individual, you know, internal clients, so to speak. But two, we really brought a spirit of video storytelling to the place. So, yeah, as that shows, when I got there the first year on YouTube, we were avoiding it. We were were scared of it, I suppose. We had one video in 13 years that had amassed a million views. We did 336,000 views on YouTube that year. This past year, we had 80 million views of our content at Texas&M University and 88% of those views are outside the state of Texas. So, we're sharing those stories across the myriad of what we are with Americans all across the nation and the world in that regard. And now 23 videos of our talented team that's here today, 23 videos last year in just the year alone amassed a million views or more. So that commitment to emotive storytelling has been really key of we don't want just the reach but we also want the recall and we want the relevance the salience of what we stand for and why and why people should care. Yeah, absolutely. And Tyler, with you being an Aggie yourself, you and Joy have proved that purpose scales. What's the operating system behind your brand's growth? >> I think, you know, we our host that was asking the question about sweeter sour candy is a really interesting one to segue into that. Um, the it's fascinating. Millennials were the first real generation that if you asked them what they wanted at night as a treat, it had been chocolate forever. And this was really the first one that said sour candy. Um and so then that started to be a really big shift and then that starts to get shared down home downstream in the home with kids. Um and so that's where we sit today. This category is around 11 billion. Um so it's it's a large space and how do you stand out in that crowded category? Um, I think you have to be a you have to have challenger story, right? In the sense of why am I going to buy your product over the next that I've been buying. And so for us, we came in with the thesis of we want to be, you know, less sugar. So all of our recipes have anywhere from 50 to 70% less sugar than the average. Um, and then no artificial dyes, colors, preservatives. And then you take that with a really great storyteller like Ryan and things start to get really exciting. And now second, the product has to taste amazing. Um, and so that's the thing is that if you don't have that, then you don't have repeat purchase. And so one of the things that we did, if you go to the next slide to tell a little bit about um, Ryan is he's just this incredible storyteller um, that it was funny because I had to beg retailers to give us a chance when we first started. Really, they didn't really think Ryan was the guy. >> Um, and I remember Target going, "We don't really know." They just were like, "We're not sure." And I was like, "You want someone coming up, you don't want someone who's already peaked an eye or descent." And so Ryan had this really great idea that said, "Okay, we have the use case of a benefit product. We have a really great product we're proud of. We need a story to go with it and we need a challenge." And so we got this test in Target and they were going to give us two and a half months and,200 doors out of their,00 bottom shelf. I was so disappointed the day we found out and I was like, "No, this is like the worst lottery pick, you know, like we don't want this." And Ryan was so great, you know, youth is amazing. Um because he's like, "No, this is awesome. We'll make it turn into a challenge." His one idea of us doing knee pads to all his fans to to wear to use. I love that. >> Um on the on the floor when they were buying the candy got vetoed by Target, but it was that kind of spirit. And so he said, "We're going to do this thing called Joyide Day." And I was like, "What's Joy Ride Day?" And he was like, "We're going to, you know, on June 15th, we're going to invite all of the fans to come to Target and support this launch." And I was like, "I don't know, but okay." Like, I could trust you. I believe in you. >> That day we were sold out by early afternoon, almost every store that we were in. >> Amazing. >> Uh, and it became a family occasion, and it became this really fun thing. And that really goes to Ryan's credit. And so what he did was from there he said, "Okay, we're going to create this whole theme." um and it was around athletics and so the goal was to get on the platform and the platform was to medal first, second or third and so he wanted to publish sales rankings like show all of our competitors what we were doing in the set and I was like the old guy I was like you don't do that like that's not appropriate and he was like no we really need to bring people into the story and so I leaned in with them and I said let's do it we got in the top three and then it was okay guys let's get to number one and in September we got to number one. We got to number one across candy category which was amazing. Yes. >> Um and super fun and it's been sustained in that. And that's really just this the the combination of how you pull really great product and storytelling together. >> Right. And when you think that your competition or giants like Mars wrinkly in the candy aisle at Target, it's a huge feat. >> Yeah. We like to say that like we solved world peace in the home and in the grocery aisle for parents. They don't have to argue with their kids, you know? It's really good. and then they take some from their kids. So, it's a lot of fun versus some of those incumbents. >> Yeah. Amazing. Well, I want to pivot here and talk about creativity, specifically what it takes to bring bold Fortune 100 level marketing ideas to life inside an institution that's 150 years old. Ethan, how do you do that without alienating the old guard or those who don't want to see things change? >> Yeah, like you said, 150 years of tradition. Um, they've got a term for them. They're wonderful people. I need to make sure I say that so in case this gets tweeted, but we have what's called the old AGS, right? So, we've got the we've actually got an organization that you can only be in if you've graduated 50 years or more. So, 72 year olds and up are telling me what they they're educating me, so to speak, on the marketing and the telling the stories of Texas A&M. But, I think there's a couple things that come to mind. One, you know, I think about the Jobs quote where he says that, you know, even the biggest brands have to have caring and investment if they're going to remain relevant and timely. And that's what we're trying to give to the brand with understanding being able to go out into the market and say this is what we stand for and this is how it resonates or how it has to be presented to the world versus maybe the internal speak the the um inside jokes that we often talk about in this incredible place isn't going to convey what we're trying to do. So bringing them that sort of understanding. Two, you know, I've always got either the governor or my president on my shoulder in terms of what we're doing so I don't jump the shark. But Adam Grant's got this great quote where he says is, you know, be more concerned about being in character than strictly on brand. And so we're trying to always do is really understand what's in character for Texas A&M University in 2025 and moving forward. Again, that incredible 80,000 students, 600,000 alums and make sure that we make decisions based on that. Um, it's been a lot of fun. Uh, there's a book about our former president. In 1960, the university was called a sleeping giant with unlimited potential. It's funny how some things don't change. In many respects, that's us today or at least a year ago believing that we can take that now to the world. And that's critically important. We can't be in our bubble to have the impact that we can have nationally and worldwide. We have to again create that recall and that that relevance and that salience. Otherwise, you call MIT, otherwise you call Georgia Tech, etc. And I want you to call us. And so, we've been very focused on that. >> Amazing. I love it. And Tyler, your world is the opposite. 150 no 150 years of tradition uh to protect you're building Doyride from scratch competing with giants like we mentioned uh what's the playbook legacy brand sweet what is the playbook that legacy brands can borrow from a challenger like you >> um well I should say you know that is a that that is a a really a fair question because I think sometimes the especially in this in vogue state we're in where people think creators they can pair a creator with a brand or an influencer and it's going to be instant. Uh Ryan is a one in a billion. You know, he is a unicorn. I'm so fortunate to be, you know, partnered with him and a co-founder. So, with that being said, I would say you you need to be really thoughtful about what kind of partnership you think about if you do pursue that route. Um if it's just hiring an agency to pair you and hatch you, it's going to come across as inauthentic, right? Um, second thing is the just I think the being grassroots and what I mean by that is also in the content that you produce. So if you look at our Instagram account um this is you know tribute to Ryan and his team. They've now it's now become the number one followed candy brand um on Instagram. So it's like 2.1 million you know followers but heavily engaged followers. And the thing that's really important there is all of Ryan's content there and everything we do looks very granola organic. It's not We do one really big budget um trailer a year and kind of to announce new candies, but people love it cuz it's disarming. It looks like you shot it yourself and he's disarming and so that feels very authentic to the brand. So it needs to be authentic. And then transparency, I think, in the sense of like we'll admit Ryan has done videos where we've showed our first iteration of a candy to then mistakes we made and learnings of ones that we, you know, did since then and made it better. That builds trust and it builds this kind of transparency with your customer. It goes, look, we're not happy where it's at. Thank you for giving us a chance. Give us another one. Here's what we're doing to fix it. So those things are universal for big brand or little, but you do have to be willing to take a risk. For me, I was going to bet on a creator more than a Super Bowl ad. So, that felt more to me what was what a challenger can think of, what what a legacy can think of as a challenger is to think a little bit outside of that box. It's always cliche to say. >> Yeah, absolutely. And I think it kind of speaks to your your convictions, right? Um, every bold brand has one moment uh a point where you stick to your gut when everyone else tells you to pull back. Ethan, do you have one of those moments? Yeah, I think a year ago we had one that that catalyzed what we were going to be about and just the mojo and the evangelism that I wanted to bring to our marketing and that was that we had a previous commercial on air. It was very again the internal joke the the the giggums and things that the average viewer would see and say I don't know what you guys are talking about it and that doesn't invite me in. It actually makes me think you're weird in a cult etc. And so this ad was not performing terribly well. We'd spent a ton of money on it apparently and it wasn't very wellliked. Um, but it was our ad, right? It was it was on TV and it was on on YouTube, etc. We made the decision to pull it down and go dark for a couple of months. Prompted the team to quickly spin something up with the view of we need to tell the nation, we need to tell the state even at that point in time politically who are we, what we stand for, and why they should care. And so we created our stand commercial. Uh, it was right down the middle. And I think one of the learnings of that is if you don't fill the void of your brand, others will and you may not like what they have to say about you. And so we filled it very uniquely with our values. But the other part that I've got people in the crowd today that remember this well, you know that that previous ad at that point in time had done 31,000 views on YouTube. And when we launched it, I said we're going to launch it on the opening weekend of college football. We're going to launch it Texas A&M versus Notre Dame on at Kyle Field on ABC. 8 and a half million viewers. and when we launch it by Tuesday I want a million views. And they just about freaked out and said, "You're crazy." Said, "No, I'm not. We can do this. We work with YouTube and we get the ABCDS right. We get the reach tracker right, etc." And within a couple of weeks, the budget that we had for a million views, we had we were at about 6 and a half million. >> Wow. >> And so it taught us how big we could go. It taught us about espousing our values. It taught us about maybe breaking from the past or those sunk costs and being uniquely us to the nation and being proud about it. >> Yeah. Amazing. And Tyler, was there a moment when you doubled down on what you believed in and ended up paying off? Yeah, I mean I think it really goes back to the point about um you know you have this weather balloon that you test when you share a creator partnership behind closed doors with retailers and I know a lot of those retailers and have those conversations and when I wasn't getting the kind of feedback that I thought around was this Ryan kid you know and I don't know if he's big enough for us to lean in with you in my gut I knew that he was like I was like there's no question about this and if you don't take us, we'll prove you offline, literally online, but we'll prove you outside of the store and and show you why. Um because there was just too much there where you go, this guy is the real deal. He'll outwork anybody in the gym and he's authentic and wholesome. And so that's something that we leaned in and and as a result, I think this is an important thing to call out too. People will be like, "Oh, this is overnight success story." And and it's not. Um, and part that I say that's so tough for brands to do is that catch lightning in a bottle. Really, what happened was three things. It's three-legged stool. One, you had the right product fit at the right time, which none of us can really ever get right all the time. >> Um, and then two, you had the you had the ability that there was no fresh brand that had been for this generation in the candy space >> that was their brand that was relevant. Nerds had been the last thing that had been repurposed, but aside from that, it was just trying to make Skittles again or Starburst. You take Ryan with that and an incredible marketing and he made a brand that was cool. So all the stuff can taste really good, but if it doesn't have high lunchroom currency for trading and it's not a cool brand, then it doesn't stick. And so that that's a really big part of it as well. >> That's so funny. I totally forgot about the anarchic bartering system that happens amongst elementary school students. [laughter] And you know, we've talked about both purpose and creativity. I would love to connect that to results because purpose only matters, you know, if it moves people and the business. Uh, Joy Rides built on really clear principles, right? Like as you mentioned, clean ingredients, no artificial colors or flavors, 50% less sugar. Can you give us a concrete example of how those values translate directly into growth or measurable business outcome? >> The big question then is like, okay, can you do it outside of Target, right? like so like that that's one use case and so we were a little bit scared to step outside of that into some other places and one of those examples were like 7-Eleven. So that's a really scary place for brands that are better for you because like an indulgent world, right? You're just gas station snacks. And we had this partnership with 7-Eleven. We're like, we think there's something here. We've got to win a convenience store if we're going to scale a brand. So we launched a unique flavor that was exclusive to them. Ryan has this drink that he makes where he takes like three or four different from the fountain, like a Chipotle, and he calls it a fun drink. Um, and so we made a fun drink flavor. We launched at 7-Eleven and all of a sudden we became like in the top in the top rankings across the board inside of 7-Eleven as well. And then that's happened at HB and that's happened you know and so what we've done we've had parents that will say I haven't been to 7-Eleven in 10 years but we went because my kids are like we have to go to 7-Eleven and get this. Um, and so I do think that's a part of showing the proof in the pudding in that regard of outside of Target and then having people go to other destinations and buy the product and it perform well in those as well. >> That's amazing. Makes me want to make a pit stop to settle in and get a fun drink. >> That's so fun. >> And uh, Ethan, Texas&M also lives and breathes its core values. Things like leadership, loyalty, integrity, and respect. How do those values show up not just on campus but in how you market and serve the world? >> Yeah, they do show up on campus. They've been around for a long time but really only etched into the buildings and into our ethos since the early 2000s and and now the even the acronym of our our core values which is Relis is our defense center on campus. Respect, excellence, leadership, loyalty, uh integrity and selfless service. So they're everywhere but all of our storytelling our our content pillars bring them forward. Our commercial brings that forward. We want to be um taking values and creating value. When it comes to the story that we tell the nation, again, believing that if you're the best for the world, it's got to be founded on something. And for us, it's these key core values that we rest on when we have hard times. They they help us drive that in character decision. They help us make the decisions that we make. And it's what we want to be known for, especially in a day and age right now where maybe they're not as popular or maybe it's trit to talk about them, but it's something we need. We think we can be a big vitamin C to the nation society. loneliness, belonging, etc. We're going to stand up and step forward as to who we are in that respect. If we live those values, we think we can be very inspirational and very impactful in doing so. >> Nice. And unfortunately, looks like we're out of time, but thank you both. Uh, thanks y'all for joining us for a conversation on sweetening the future. >> Thank you. >> That was a conversation recorded live at an AdWeek event. You can find more coverage, analysis, and interviews from across the marketing and media world at adweek.com. Thanks for listening to Adspeak. If you like the show, be sure to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.