The Modern Retail Podcast

Even in states that have legalized marijuana, opening a business that sells it can be hard.Some of it, according to Kristi Knoblich Palmer, the co-founder of Kiva Confections, which makes edible THC products, is just down to people not wanting cannabis retail in their backyards.For a time, even Instagram was skeptical of letting Kiva's products -- mints, gummies, and chocolates -- show up on their platform. "Our account kept getting shut down," said Knoblich Palmer, even though they were "keeping it informative, all about education -- and then you'd look at other pages that weren't getting shut down and weren't getting flagged, and they were racy and inappropriate."Still, her company's answer was to keep graduating marijuana's image. "We really have to act professionally and go above and beyond to make ourselves look professional, to act professionally, and to help overturn that stigma," said Knoblich Palmer, who launched Kiva in 2010.That starts with the packaging, where 95% of Kiva's brand image happens. "Having a beautiful package was the front door for the consumer," said Knoblich Palmer. "It had to step up the edibles category as a whole and really let edibles finally sit in a different part of the mind for consumers." Beyond that, down-to-the-milligram precision in THC dosage ("everybody had those college experiences" of having a bit too much) goes a long way in building trust with consumers.On this week’s episode of Making Marketing, Knoblich Palmer talked about the responsibility she feels when marketing a product that some people still oppose, how the company started in her kitchen, and what her vision for the company in five years is.

Reddit bills itself as "the front page of the internet" with more than 300 million average monthly active users. But from a marketer's perspective, much of it represents an untapped audience"We're very lucky in that we have seen our top-line awareness continue to grow year over year, largely organically," said Roxy Young, vp of marketing at Reddit. Next comes bridging what she calls "the relevance gap" -- convincing people who know about Reddit to browse and join the website.On this week's episode of Making Marketing, Young talked about how the company aims to bring some gender balance to its user base, the technical features it's still catching up on after last year's website redesign, and her own favorite subreddits.

Gin Lane was the ad agency behind some of the most well-known digitally native brands that have sprung up in the past few years. And co-founder Emmett Shine helped create the look, feel, and digital interfaces of modern brands like Harry's, Recess, and Sweetgreen. But then he wanted more. This summer, Gin Lane shut up shop. In its next iteration -- under the new name of Pattern -- Shine wants to now create what he calls the next generation of brands: It's not just about transactions, but building a relationship with customers. And -- though he doesn't want to "sound too New Age, wellness-y" -- helping them cope with the alienation common to modern life. "We all live in cities, we don't as much go to church, we don't have as many organized, civic things that we do." Shine said on this week's episode of the Making Marketing podcast, adding that in this age, brands are poised, and have a responsibility, to have a purpose in their customers' lives.The company's first product is a line of high-quality cookware called Equal Parts, which customers can get extra use out of through content via the company's coaching program to help people cook. "It's something that is just inherently positive," he said. "It makes you feel good to cook for yourself or for someone else."

MetLife is as opposite to a start-up as any company you can imagine. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't think like one, says the company's U.S. CMO, Hugh Dineen. "How does a 150 year old company stay in the game? It's the same thing in terms of how you think about marketing. Our customer is dynamic, and so must we be."Hugh Dineen joined Shareen Pathak on this week’s episode of Making Marketing to discuss the digital side of best in class marketers, why advertising is overblown, and how enlisting mid-sized influencers ("not the Kardashians") is the way to go.

When's the last time a shoe company made you feel all warm inside? Atoms is looking to do that. Its two founders moved from Pakistan to the United States to craft shoes with a personal touch, not solely in their customization -- they come in quarter sizes, and you can get slightly different measurements for each foot since "most people have shoe size difference between their left and right foot," co-founder Waqas Ali says -- but in the hand-written notes and other inviting customer engagement methods.Sidra Qasim and Waqas Ali joined Shareen Pathak on this week’s episode of Making Marketing to discuss how the couple plans to keep that personal touch as their company grows (it scored $8.1 million in Series A funding earlier this year).

At any given moment, millions of articles of clothing are coursing through ThredUp's logistics behemoth. Founded 10 years ago, the company will send you an empty bag for you to fill with clothes that you want to cash in on. Then they'll take them off of your hands to photograph, price, and ultimately sell online -- after which, of course, you pocket some consignment money.“The source of all of that amazing product are the closets across America. It turns out that people buy a lot of stuff, and even when they don't need to buy more, they buy more," said Anthony Marino, ThredUp's president (and formerly its CMO). "If you look at some recent statistics, in the United States, people buy on average 65 to 70 new items every year, and they wear them maybe 6 or 7 times and then never again.”Selling stuff through ThredUp, Anthony says, users can both experience the "life-changing magic of tidying up" so astutely promoted by Marie Kondo -- and feel like they're doing their part to reduce waste.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more beautifully packaged product than The Laundress's detergents. The company, which was acquired by Unilever in January for a reported $100 million, started off as a special-care laundry brand, and now makes a line of detergents and cleaning products.“We've had, since early on, women and men contact us about how we've saved their christening gown that's been in their family, or we saved a quilt of their grandmother's,” said Lindsey Boyd, co-founder of The Laundress, on this week’s episode of Making Marketing.Lindsey joined Shareen Pathak on this week’s episode of Making Marketing to discuss how to balance a brand's growth ambitions with reality, why retention is more important than acquisition, and what it means to be direct to consumer.

Direct-to-consumer is coming to furniture. The Inside, a one-year-old startup, is going down the path of companies like Burrow, by selling furniture online. The twist: It's also customized.  

When Kara Goldin founded Hint in 2005, she was searching for a way to get herself to drink more water. Her solution: adding chopped fruit to pitchers of water, to offer flavor without the sweeteners of traditional flavored beverages. Thus, Hint was born. Now, almost 15 years later, Hint has become one of the largest independent, non-alcoholic drink companies in the U.S., boasting over $100 million in sales each year. The brand sells on Amazon and inside grocery stores, as well as through its own site. It's even launched new lines of products, such as kids' drinks and sunscreen. On this week's episode of Making Marketing, Shareen Pathak sits down with Goldin, to discuss turning a product into a company, avoiding too much reliance on a single platform and expanding the brand into new categories.

Amy Fuller, CMO of Accenture, is overseeing an expansive list of functions throughout the company, and she likes it that way.  For a company that seems to offer an endless list of services to its clients, this isn’t much of a surprise. Accenture hosts an expansive offering of services, which include everything from strategy, technology, consulting, operations, and with its recent acquisition of ad agency, Droga5, it now boasts a strong creative services offering as well. On this week’s episode of Making Marketing, Shareen Pathak sits down with Fuller to dig deep into why B2B marketing is converging with consumer, and how the company thinks of in-housing and the role agencies play in the industry.