In the latest episodes of MarCast, host Dave Jackson sat down with Sarah Prescott of Thankyou, to discuss the brand’s origins, social movements and the tension between brand and product. 

Earlier this year, Sarah Prescott, head brand and marketing strategist at Thankyou sat down in the MarCast studio to fill us in on all things marketing at the pioneering purpose brand.

On risk and naivety in marketing and start-ups

“Naivety has been a real strength in some ways because it has allowed us to make those risks. To take those risks that all knowledge would tell you ‘don’t do it’. At the same time, there are also a lot of great lessons we’ve learned along the way. With naivety comes great strength but also, learning lessons which have helped us create new strengths in the business, and pivot and work out how we do things differently.”

On momentum and effect

“One thing that we’ve found with what we call our ‘breakthrough campaigns’ – which are our big campaigns like moving into new markets – is that momentum is really important. If people can see that we’re not just saying we’re going to do something, but we’re doing it, and we’re showing wins along the way, that shows that there’s momentum behind the campaign, then they’re more likely to back it. There has to be an element of credibility to what we’re doing.”

On the tension between brand and product

“Over time the marketing team grew as we figured out what we needed and the gaps that we had. A really interesting challenge for us along the way was the tension between brand and product. The tension between building the brand, building the movement – I would say a lot of us were more brand thinkers and that was our thing, building the brand, building the movement, the comms, that side more like a brand marketing focus – but at the same time we’d gone from being a bottled water company, but all of a sudden we’re in all these categories that are very complex… here we are with all these categories going ‘we need to get some expertise in FMCG product marketing to make sure we’re winning’.”

On disruption

“Disruption is an interesting one. Everyone talks about disruption and being disruptive and it’s sort of a buzzword. [It] has been for the last five years. I think, for us, we have learned to be disruptive or unconventional in our our approach. Not because we want the attention or because we want to look disruptive, but we’ve actually had to, to get cut through. Because if we just try and do things the way that everyone else does, we don’t have the resources for that. So we have to try and do things that get consumers’ attention in another way.”

Wrap your ears around it today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play.

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