Archetypes: The Stories Brands Tell

What does it take to build a brand that stands out as a Hero? How does the Hero’s story inspire us and bring about positive impact in the world around us? Listen now as Ju Rhyu shares with Phillip some of her Hero’s journey in building Hero Cosmetics!

Standout Success

• {00:02:47} Ju knew that acne care is an emotional and sensitive area of the market, and she wanted the name of the product and of the brand to be positive and connect emotionally with consumers who needed the solution the product would provide
• {00:05:25} “When we started, even though we started on Amazon, I always knew this business would be an omnichannel business because when you have a pimple emergency, two day free shipping is great, but nothing sometimes is as good as being able to walk into a store and pick up a product that same day.” - Ju
• {00:06:00} Hero’s first in-store launch went so well that it went nationwide pretty quickly, and then two years later was in Target where one SKU became a mulit-million dollar SKU within one year
• {00:11:00} “I definitely have the philosophy that I'll always do what's right for the business. And if I'm no longer the right person, then I will gladly step aside and make room for a real professional.” - Ju
• {00:13:34} “I’m constantly amazed at people who are at the highest levels of success or fame or however we hold them, when asked about who their heroes are, they pull out a Tom Rinks or a Scott Norton who has never been mentioned on Twitter, not once. I think that that's really interesting.” - Phillip

Associated Links:

• Learn more about Ju Rhyu and Hero Cosmetics
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more of what we are witnessing in the commerce world!

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

When a brand discovers the needs of their consumers and then provides them with that well, that is magic. For Keely Copeland, Founder of Second Chance Initiative, building a brand was about solving a problem that was bigger than her. She saw a need, she dreamed of a different way to meet that need, and then she began to build a brand that would bring hope to not just consumers, but also the women involved with the creation of their products. Listen now to this episode of Archetypes!

Empty Vessel

• {00:04:27} “It was about how can we use commerce as a vehicle to create safe and secure jobs for women in recovery who are reentering the workforce so that they can come work in a healthy, secure environment for a few months, up to a year while they get back on their feet and then they can go back to either the career they used to have or something new altogether.” - Keely
• {00:07:48} “There's a tug of war of power between the brand and the consumer. And in this tug of war of power brands believe that they wield some power in the organization. In fact, what we're realizing is that consumers wield unlimited power over all of us. We are at their mercy and we adapt our businesses to their desires, not the other way around. You can't shape their needs. You can only find or discover the thing that they want from you.” - Phillip
• {00:10:08} “After Covid, there's a lot more alignment of priorities based on values that actually matter. I think for a long time we were trapped in junk values as a society, and when the world stopped for a few years, we got back to remembering what matters.” - Keely
• {00:14:39} “For every creator, I have come to believe that the emptying out is just as important as the taking in because there's no room for the new idea if your mind's already full, if you're thinking about what you have to do tomorrow and the paragraph that you want to write next or the podcast that you want to record next. And so an empty vessel is, in my mind, exclusively possibility. And it doesn't get much more optimistic than that.” - Keely

Associated Links:

• Learn more about Keely Copeland and Second Chance Initiative
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more of what we are witnessing in the commerce world!

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

The Lover is brave enough to go against convention, driven by the need to connect with another. They are positive and courageous, bringing out the best in others and seeing love as a universal force. The Lover creates meaning, passion, and connection.

Frownies has been building this way for over 130 years, and the Fifth-Generation Female Owner and Face of Frownies, Helen Morrison, gifted us with some incredible insight into what it looks like to be a Lover in the world of commerce.

Real Connection

• {00:03:43} “Jumping on board and getting involved with Frownies, what I wanted to do most of all was just connect with people. I love this version of business so much because it is so connected. It's all about just creating those relationships and reaching out to people and caring for people and supporting people on this skincare journey.” - Helen
• {00:10:23} “When you build that human connection and you create a culture of we connect with each other, we take care of each other, we support each other, then yes, the customers are doing that in the comments together for each other.” - Helen
• {00:13:16} “I think you see that or you see people, you see before and after photos or ads for people with skincare. And it's like, oh, come on, you did not achieve that with moisturizer, and I get that. And because I feel that way, I have leaned so far in the opposite direction when it comes to our content and what comes to the honesty surrounding Frownies. Now, I'll tell you, you can't take this approach if you don't have a good product. Frownies is a great product. It's been around for over 130 years.” - Helen
• {00:15:23} “We just want to say, "Here is this product and this is what it can do. And before you buy it, I'm going to set the expectation of all the weird things about it, of all the reasons you might not like it, so that when you start using it, your expectation is realistic and then you see the results and you're blown out of the water and it's like, "Wow, this is worth it.'" - Helen
• {00:18:28} “The way you handle that delicately is part of why people feel so connected to you. This through line of connection, connection, connection is really what is such an imperative part of The Lover archetype and why we need The Lover archetype in the landscape of commerce and in our lives.” - Kristen

Associated Links:

• Learn more about Helen Morrison and Frownies
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world!

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

The Creator naturally tears down and rebuilds, moving toward positive change. A tenacious visionary and a dreamer who pursues their goals with unwavering dedication, confidence, and willingness to take risks. The Creator has a strong sense of vision, sometimes restructuring traditional forms.

When it comes to brands that exhibit this archetype, Só Dança is an easy choice. Helena Hines, Chief Operating Officer at Só Dança, shares what it's like to be a Creator in a space that's needed some restructuring for a very long time.

A Vision That Delivers

• {00:04:32} “There was one sentence here in the definition, which is "a strong sense of vision and an ability to take ideas from nothing into reality." And I love to do that. Whenever an idea is dead, whenever a concept is dead or people consider it gone, I like to bring it back and say, "But is it? Can we challenge that? How can we bring it back?’" - Helena
• {00:06:58} “Really understanding the tools you have to work with and who's in the room is something that maybe comes naturally to a Creator, to see what I have to work with here to make something.” - Kristen
• {00:09:15} “From the beginning, we were innovators and we were creating things that made sense for the brand and made sense for the dance world, even if the dance world didn't even know it yet.” - Helena
• {00:12:10} “{During the pandemic} I thought, "Is this the right move for us to continue to bet on ourselves?" because we don't know how long this will take. We don't know how long this will be. The whole time everybody in leadership said, "We move forward. We don't stop. We don't halt because we believe in our people and we believe in this company. And we know we need to be reliable. We need to invest in ourselves because when the consumer needs it, we need to be able to deliver.’" - Helena
• {00:14:46} “It's about following through with who you say you are. Staying true to the message that you're sending out there for your internal team and external as well. Are you going to deliver what you said you're going to deliver through the good times, but most importantly through the hard times? And that takes vision.” - Helena

Associated Links:

• Learn more about Helena Hines and Só Dança
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world!

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Everyman brands may have amazing stories, great products, and incredible people behind them, but they aren't trendy. We do tend to forget how important they are and how different life would be without them. The Everyman is always within reach, always there for us. But this wasn't everyone's favorite result when taking the Archetypes quiz.

Jesse Lazarus, Orchid Bertelsen, and Kris Gösser explain why their initial reaction to the Archetypes quiz result of “The Everyman” left them less than impressed and what they’ve come to think of themselves and brands in The Everyman category since then.

Not Just Ordinary

• {00:04:18} “To find out that you are "ordinary," if you think about it in our society, it is frowned upon to be basic, but I think what it negates is the fact that there are some things that are so universally loved and useful that of course everybody gravitates towards it. It is the fabric on which communities are woven.” - Orchid
• {00:06:19} “The Everyman can relate in some respect to everyone in the most basic human sense of what it means to be human, the basic necessities that we need to live, but also the basic things that we need in order to start to become more of ourselves in order to flourish.” - Orchid
• {00:07:50} “Brands that want to scale, that want to have longevity, that want to address a large audience or a varying marketplace, the core of that build has to be from the largest applicable perspective, and that is going to be The Everyman concept. There's a time for trendiness, for innovation, for pushing the envelope, but at a certain point when you are proving to enough of a varied audience, that has to be one tool in the kit, not the only tool.” - Jesse
• {00:10:32} “I've actually started to now think even more aggressively than I was prior about who are the actual people behind the brands that are building these things. And I think Archetypes overall has been interesting and helpful in that way. I've actually started to see more businesses that I think are The Everyman.” - Kris
• {00:14:06} “Going to Safeway or the grocery store every week is essentially my weekly Everyman journey. And you can always depend on the prices. You can depend on the products, you can depend on them solving a need for you without ever really kind of grandstanding about it.” - Kris
• {00:15:40} “One, if your name is synonymous with the category, that's a good indicator of an Everyman brand. And second, anything that you have on subscription because you simply cannot live without.” - Orchid
• {00:17:23} “In the end, you couldn't do it only as an Everyman. You have to have a mix of all of those attitudes and approaches, and brands that can effectively inhabit a majority of those things I think are the most successful that are in the market.” - Jesse

Associated Links:

• Learn more about Jesse Lazarus and Kravet
• Learn more about Orchid Bertelsen and Common Thread Collective
• Learn more about Kris Gösser and Shipium
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world!

‍Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!