June 25, 2024 • 30 mins
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Get ready to be amazed by the brilliance of a marketing genius!
WIldfang Founder & CEO Emma Mcilroy join Monica and Sejal to share her incredible journey from Cambridge University to establishing Wildfang, a groundbreaking gender-fluid clothing brand. They discuss how her experiences at Nike and Barclays shaped her vision for Wildfang, a company dedicated to inclusivity and sustainability. They also highlight Wildfang’s impressive achievements, including raising over a million dollars for various charities and earning the climate-neutral certification.
In this episode, they delve into the intricacies of brand marketing and examine how brands can genuinely engage with the Queer community beyond one month a year.
The episode ends with an incredible story of joy: a story that earned Emma and everyone who answered her call a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records and raised over three hundred thousand dollars for the Trevor Project.
Georgianna Moreland - Creator, Executive Producer & Managing Editor;
Matt Stoker - Editor
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Emma McIlroy (00:03):
It's a 24-7 thing, Monica.
It's a consumer group who areaffecting a broader zeitgeist
that, if we're going to bemarketers and consumer brands,
we need to deeply understand.
Georgianna Moreland (00:13):
Welcome to Masterstroke with Monica Enid
and Sejo Petrzak Conversationswith founders, ceos and
visionary leaders in tech andbeyond.
Monica Enand (00:33):
Emma is an incredibly impressive person.
She's a personal friend of mine, who I'm lucky to say, but
she's impressive in so many ways.
She graduated CambridgeUniversity with a degree in
natural science.
She's a marketing genius whohas done brand marketing at Nike
(00:54):
and Barclays before she startedWildfang.
She was named one of Inc'sfemale founder 100.
She was Oregon's Entrepreneurof the Year and Executive of the
Year by Portland BusinessJournal and her TED talk.
Sejal, I know you watched herTED talk.
Sejal Pietrzak (01:09):
I watched it, you know it has over 100,000
views.
Monica Enand (01:15):
It's amazing, it's a must see.
Emma McIlroy (01:16):
I'm going to take you everywhere, Monica.
You're going to do myintroduction everywhere from now
on.
That's it.
You're just coming in my backpocket.
Monica Enand (01:22):
I haven't even started telling them about how
amazing you are as a lifeguard,as a swimming coach or as a
kayaking coach all the thingsyou've done for me.
Emma McIlroy (01:30):
You're also.
You're very little, so Iprobably could put you in my
back pocket.
Sejal Pietrzak (01:37):
Well Emma, Monica, and I believe business
is a force for good and you havebeen an amazing role model for
that.
So, in addition to being aplace where women and non-binary
people can come to find amazinggender fluid clothing, wild
Fang has raised over a milliondollars for charities that focus
on racial justice, as well asqueer, immigrant and women's
(02:00):
rights.
It's incredible, emma.
So, before we get startedlearning all about these
exciting things you've beendoing, talk to us a little bit
about Wildfang.
And you just received theclimate neutral certification,
which you know obviously isincredible.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Emma McIlroy (02:21):
Yeah, that certification is actually pretty
tough to get, especially forsmall businesses like ours.
So, when you look at the topicof sustainability, which is a
really broad topic and Icertainly don't claim to be any
kind of guru or expert in thatarea, but what I do know is it
matters to our customers and itmatters to our audience and our
consumers a lot, and so weobviously have to have to ensure
(02:45):
that we're meeting their needs.
And so, for a business likeours, the truth is, you know, at
the end of the day, we send,sell apparel the truth is
there's two ways to do apparelreally sustainably One is naked,
so don't wear any, and then theother is shop vintage, so don't
buy any, right?
So if you're not going to doone of those two things, if
you're not going to be naked allthe time or you're not just
(03:05):
going to wear vintage, then youneed a third option.
And for a business like ours,where we you know I used to be
at Nike we don't have anenormous team of scientists and
people on the cutting edge,really the best thing you can do
is offset your impact and alsoreduce your impact.
Those are kind of the two bigfocuses.
So what you do when you workwith the climate neutral team to
(03:26):
gain your certification isfirst, you share all the details
of your business and theycalculate your impact on the
world, your carbon impact on theworld and your carbon footprint
, and the first thing they helpyou do is set an annual plan to
reduce that impact.
Sejal Pietrzak (03:42):
Yeah, it's such an important thing.
I mean learning about how muchof an impact the fashion
industry makes in a negative wayto our environment one of the
top few industries impacting ourenvironment and it's great to
see that you've gotten thatclimate neutral certification
for everything you're doing.
Emma McIlroy (04:02):
Yeah, I think we all have a responsibility to
leave less of a footprint onthis thing.
That supports us, right.
Monica Enand (04:07):
Absolutely.
And so tell us about Wildfang.
How did you get started with it?
You know you're talking aboutclearly.
You're talking about how yourun a business in a way that is
in concert with your values.
Talk to us about Wildfang andhow that works into your life
with your values.
Talk to us about Wildfang andhow that works into your life
and your values.
Emma McIlroy (04:29):
Well, wildfang is a mission-based company.
So, you know, I think actuallyyou and I have had this
conversation about I think thephraseology of work-life balance
is no longer relevant.
I think now we're in the age ofwork-life integration.
I don't think most people wantto turn a key and walk away from
a thing and pick it up again 12hours later, right, like I
think, especially when you lookat Gen Z and millennials, they
(04:51):
really want to have their valuesreflected in all that they do
include in their work, right?
So for me, wildfying is reallyat the core of who I am and I'm
at the core of who wildfying is,and I think true for most
founders.
So, yeah, it's a mission-basedbusiness.
It all started by, uh, walkinginto the men's department at
Urban Outfitters and realizingthat all of the really good
(05:12):
blazers, uh, for women, werethere, the ones with, like, the
real pockets that you can fitmore than just your fingernails,
you know, um, and the real, thereal buttons and the great
tailoring and the great liningand other silhouettes like
button-ups, all that greattailoring that for some reason
was reserved for men and hiddenfrom us as women.
So it really started by kind ofwalking through the men's
(05:32):
department and being like whyare these silhouettes
specifically reserved for folksof a certain gender identity?
That doesn't really make sense.
Our belief is that when you dothat and when you allow people
to show up exactly as they wantto show up, you release a ton of
potential, and you releasepotential from the human
population, and we think that'sa good thing for everyone, so
(05:53):
important.
Sejal Pietrzak (05:53):
So what kinds of challenges did you run into
when you were first startingyour company Wildfang?
Emma McIlroy (06:02):
I mean, I don't know that the podcast is long
enough for that.
Monica Enand (06:05):
Well, you started 10 years ago right Over 10 years
.
Emma McIlroy (06:09):
Yeah, 10 years, 10 years, I'm an old hand, I guess
now so, or or a stupid one.
Right, depends on how you thinkabout it.
Yeah, I mean, look, I think theobvious one is money and
funding.
I didn't take any money fromventure capital.
It certainly wasn't some sortof educated choice.
That's because most of themembarrassed me and laughed me
(06:29):
out of the room.
So, you know, I remember goingto some of my first.
I'm not going to put a name onit because it wouldn't be
professional, but I remembergoing to some of my first
venture capital meetings, and Iwas a kid fresh out of Nike.
You can probably tell that Idon't.
I didn't grow up in the US.
My alumni, as you mentioned, isCambridge, it's not here.
I didn't have a huge supportsystem or a huge network in the
capital, and so I didn't reallyknow what I was doing.
(06:51):
And so I showed up with thisdeck and talked about what my
vision was for the brand and forthis future for women
everywhere, and people would hitme with well, what's your CAC?
What's your CAC lifetime valueratio?
Me with well, what's your CAC?
What's your CAC lifetime valueratio?
What's your first order?
You know economics.
What percentage of yourbusiness do you think is going
to come from outside of the US?
And I remember with a pen, thisparticular partner, a very, very
(07:12):
big consumer, consumer, venturecapital group in the US.
I remember just writing notesand and I remember saying what's
lifetime value and what's CAC,how do you spell CAC?
And I think I wrote C-A-C-K,which is pretty funny at the
time, right, but I tell you thatstory because I guess for two
reasons.
The first is I see a large partof my job in the world, you
(07:35):
know, for as long as I'm around,is to change that, and so I try
to welcome people into spaceswho don't know what all those
terms mean, to share with themeverything I know.
Because the reality is, youknow, it's funny you sign NDAs
all day long and stuff like that.
I mean, unless you're workingon some highly patented which
obviously, monica, you have alot of experience with but
unless you're working onsomething highly patented, any
(07:56):
idea has been had before.
You know it's all about greatexecution.
There's not really anythingparticularly unique or special
that most of us are doing.
It's about, about the team, theculture, the execution and the
ability to connect those ideaswith a consumer.
(08:16):
The biggest lesson for me in 10years is stick to your strength
and block out the noise, andit's taken me a long time to
learn that, and I think manywomen struggle with whether it's
imposter syndrome or just alack of confidence.
You know, I'm a very good brandmarketer.
That's what I'm world class at.
Everything else I'm either notvery good at or I'm average at.
And so when you are, I thinkmost women are aware of their
(08:40):
weaknesses.
Most women are aware of wherethey could do better and have
spent their whole life trying tobe better.
And so when you hear a reallygreat merchandising strategy
from another company or howanother company is really
winning through whitelisting inmeta or whatever the functional
tactic is, it takes a lot ofstrength to say that's great for
(09:02):
them, I'm so happy for them,that's awesome.
Monica Enand (09:14):
Emma, you said what your world-class, your
world-class marketing or brandmarketing.
What is that brand marketing?
Sometimes, for technical peoplelike me, I was like what does
that even mean?
And I mean I know what brandsare and I know that people
marketing.
Sometimes, for technical peoplelike me, I was like what does
that even mean?
And I I mean I know what brandsare and I know that people
market, but I and I watch MadMen but like, but I don't like.
(09:35):
What I realized when I met you10 years or so ago was it?
You're a visionary about trendsthat are happening in the world
and in people's lives is, Ithink it's important to people
to for people to know.
You started this in 2013,.
Right, when somebody saidnon-binary or gender fluid in
(09:56):
2013, I like I've learned and Ihope I think most of the world
has learned so much more aboutgender in the last 10 years, but
you were kind of on theforefront of all of that right
and understanding.
Can you tell us a little bitabout that?
Because you know, in PrideMonth actually I'm going to
compound this question, so thenyou can answer both, because
(10:19):
here I sit in Pride Month and weall see all the logos with
rainbows on them, and then wesee all the merchandising and
people trying to sell.
So like I'm trying tounderstand, like why are brands
doing that and how is how is itthat what?
Like, what were you seeing anddoing with Wild Fang?
That that you feel is kind ofdifferent?
(10:42):
I see it as very different.
I love that.
Emma McIlroy (10:45):
See, that's a classic CEO.
Right there, you were like I'mgoing to ask two questions.
You actually asked like six, soyou squeezed in the other four
for good measure.
I'm going to start in order.
What does a brand marketer do?
A brand marketer is someone whounderstands how a consumer
understands and can affect how aconsumer thinks and feels and
believes.
That's it.
(11:05):
And those things, if you dothem correctly, should change
buying habits and should changeinteraction with your product or
service.
Right, but thinking, feeling,believing and that requires
tremendous consumer insight tobe able to do that.
So you have to spend a lot oftime with your consumer.
You have to know themintimately, you have to love
them.
You have to love them becauseif you you have to love them.
You have to love them Becauseif you love them, then that
(11:27):
stuff comes easier.
So you know, that's what abrand marketer does.
Hopefully, on the other end ofit, you create really great
content, experiences thatconnect with your consumer
because of how well you knowthem In terms of you know.
It's funny.
You mentioned the language.
When Wildfang started 10 yearsago, it didn't look like this.
(11:51):
You know what we knew was thespace and what we knew, and I
really deeply appreciate yousaying we were ahead of the
curve.
I feel like we were ahead ofthe curve on a number of
conversations, but we didn't getthem all right.
You know.
I think that's a reallyimportant thing to point out,
because being a great brandmarketer means you can feel
(12:11):
where the zeitgeist is going.
It means you can feel how thezeitgeist is going.
It means you can feel how thezeitgeist is changing.
You can feel, like I said, howthey think and feel and believe
and what is changing about that.
It doesn't mean you get theperfect execution.
To get the perfect executionyou need a lot of trial and
error and you need to be brave,as with anything that you're at
the front of right.
So I would just caveat it thatjust because we think we're good
(12:32):
at it doesn't mean we've got itright all the time.
But the conversation aroundgender, gender expression,
gender identity has changed just.
I mean I couldn't havepredicted, I knew it was going
to change.
I didn't know it was going tochange at this rate.
It's been truly wild and youknow Gen Z has really pushed
(12:53):
that, you know.
But we simply put we celebrateyour mask, your fam and
everything in between.
And when we say mask and fam,it's just a more bite-sized
version of masculine andfeminine.
Those words have baggage.
(13:16):
The way that we've tried to stayahead of that conversation
curve is listen to the consumerand address their needs as those
needs change.
So if you're just listening tothis and you are a straight-up
capitalist who just wants tomake money, the audience is
growing every year.
If we're going to talk aboutPride Month, there is a benefit
to understanding that consumergroup 24-7.
Forget Pride Month, becausethey are going to have a lot of
(13:40):
spend and power and they aregoing to have a lot of wallet
share.
But, more importantly, they areshaping how their peers also
think, and I think you're seeingthat.
You're seeing that in sport,you're seeing it in fashion,
you're seeing it all over theplace, right.
And so, yes, I'll answer thequestion about Pride Month.
But it's a 24-7 thing, monica.
It's a consumer group who areaffecting a broader zeitgeist
(14:03):
that, if we're going to bemarketers and consumer brands,
we need to deeply understand.
We make sure that diversityshows up in the money that we
give back, in the money that wegive back, in the models that we
use, in the internal candidatesthat we hire, in our hiring
practices.
Right Like that's our point ofview Now.
Does that mean that I want tobe the Grinch and say that pride
should go away?
Absolutely not.
It's super important that werecognize and celebrate that
moment, but for us it's a 24-7practice.
Sejal Pietrzak (14:34):
You're a founder , you're a CEO and now you're a
Guinness Book of World Recordholder.
Talk a little bit about how youdid that and what inspired you
to break the Guinness record forthe longest drag show ever.
Emma McIlroy (14:55):
What was that and how did all of that work?
Yeah, so that was last year.
It was an incredible,incredible effort from my team
and from very close friends ofthe brand Eden, dawn and Poison
Waters.
And so, really, what happenedwas some marketing campaigns you
like to set in advance and youlike to plan for, and those are
usually ones with productcollaborations and product
partnerships, because producttakes time to make.
But then sometimes you knowthat you just need to react to
(15:17):
what's happening in the world,and that tends to be some of the
most powerful zeitgeistmarketing that people you know
align it aligns well with viralmoments or virality, if you want
to use that term, but thingsthat catch fire because the
audience is thinking and feelingit right.
At that time, as we progressthrough 2023, feeling it right
at that time, as we progressthrough 2023, it became clear
(15:38):
that any LGBTQ legislation wasgiven traction.
So, year over year, there weretriple the number of pieces of
legislation introduced that insome way, shape or form,
attacked the queer community.
Do I have some level ofresponsibility to show up when
an important chunk of mycommunity is hurting and feeling
pain?
Yeah, I think I do, especiallyif I can be part of a solution
(16:03):
to that, and so those are themoments where you have to go
back to your brand values.
You have to go back to yourconsumer and decide what's right
for you individually to do as abrand, and for us it was right
to take a stand.
Now.
We didn't want to meet hit withhit, and a number of pieces of
this legislation were reallyaggressive and, frankly, I
struggled to find any.
(16:23):
I read the legislation indetail.
I read all of the draglegislation in detail from every
state and I struggled to seereally what it was that was
driving those from a commonsense perspective, and so we
didn't want to.
You know, we had a ton of ideasas a team on how to react to,
but anything that was driven byhate got kind of washed away or
(16:46):
thrown off the table.
We wanted to meet what we sawas hate in the legislation with
joy and celebration.
Depends on the day that youpick the three of us.
(17:06):
We could all technically be atfault on that.
On that claim Right, becausewhen you talk about
cross-dressing in some of thatlegislation, it means wearing a
piece of clothing that ismisaligned with your gender
identified at birth.
I mean, okay, so I wasidentified at birth female.
I mean, it's a pantsuit.
Am I crossing boundaries there?
Should I be arrested?
We felt like it wasconversation.
We wanted to take part and wefind this world record.
It was 36 hours for the world'slongest drag show in history.
(17:29):
And I phoned my friend, poisonwaters, um, who is one of the
longest serving uh drag hosts inamerica at darshels in portland
.
And then I phoned my otherfriend, uh, eden dawn, who is an
amazing event producer and alsoloves drag, and I said would
you all be stupid enough to tryto pull off this world record
with me?
And you know, I said to poisonif, do you think it's even
(17:53):
possible to do a drag show for48 hours?
And poison said, in true poisonfashion baby, I could do it by
myself in 48 hours.
It was just this crazy, crazyintense uh event.
And then, um, as I startedphoning people, uh, who
obviously had similar values tous, they stupidly said yes,
right.
So Cheryl Strayed said yes.
(18:14):
John Cameron Mitchell said yes.
Punky Jensen from SNL said yes.
Cameron Esposito said yes,right.
Like everybody we phoned waskind of like.
Fred Armisen said yes.
Kari Brownstein said yes.
Like everybody we phoned waslike I'll be involved.
How can I help?
Right?
Monica was stupid enough to sayyes, I'll do whatever I can to
support right.
Right Local business got behindit, mcs got behind it, drag
(18:37):
queens got behind it and so,yeah, it was 48 hours of nonstop
drag.
So I think I got about two and ahalf hours sleep over the 48
hours.
600 songs, 60 MCs, 60 plusqueens.
It was utterly bonkers.
We did raise $310,000 for theTrevor Project, which we're
super proud of.
That's an incredible charitythat provides literally
(18:59):
life-saving services for thequeer community.
And then, from a businessperspective because this is a
business podcast we saw ourlowest CAC in three years.
The sentiment that it createdmade all of our acquisition
channels significantly moreproductive.
We saw our highest press hitsin a given month.
I think we got 109 press hitsin that month and, by the way,
(19:21):
press is me at Wildfine inassociation to all the other
stuff I do.
We don't have a big fancyagency or anything else.
So, yeah, it was just kind of,you know, it was just kind of
this wild ride that ended upbeing really good for us.
And, and, if you'd asked me,when I pitched my leadership
team, I had this idea and Ipitched the leadership team and
I pitched the company.
By the way, my whole company,everybody at Wildfine worked
(19:42):
security or ushers or you know.
They did all these crazy jobsand stayed up overnight just to
pull this thing off on ashoestring budget.
You know, I said here's theidea, here's why we should do it
.
I'm not sure it's the rightdecision.
We could only do it if we allsay yes.
Everybody, the whole team, saidyes, the whole team, including
the CFO, including Karen Mollis,the CFO, you know, including
(20:06):
the person with the paybook.
She said yes, this is the rightthing to go and spend $125,000
on, because we believe in ourbrand and our community, right,
and so it was a really beautifulmoment for us.
I'm super proud of it.
But I do think we're in a timeand place where consumer brands
are going to be forced to decidewhere they stand on their
values.
Monica Enand (20:26):
Yeah Well, congratulations to you.
What an amazing accomplishment,you and Eden and Poison.
What an amazing accomplishmentyou and Eden and Poison.
I have to say it was such ajoyful story and a joyful time
and everybody who was part of it, I think, took so much joy from
it, and I think that's whatdrag brings a lot of people.
(20:46):
It's a form of entertainmentthat just brings a lot of joy to
anybody who's watching orparticipating.
Emma McIlroy (21:10):
What you think.
You have it tough in Oregon orCalifornia and then you hear
some of the conversations ofbeing in the queer community in
rural Tennessee.
That's like.
That's like the real, realright.
Like that's when you reallystart to understand the extent
of of the pain in the community.
They don't fight battlesthrough here because it's not
how they're wired and they don'tbelieve in it, you know.
(21:31):
And that's when you really lookat consumer brands the most
powerful, lasting consumerbrands have been built on
positivity, um, and so it's asuper important part of building
a brand right.
And so that was cool.
It's cool to see that in theface of the shit storm that
they're like I'm gonna go outthere and serve love, I'm gonna
go out there and do do me everyday, you know, um.
So so I think you know, I thinkthat's what you get from the
(21:53):
Queens, and they werespectacular.
I cannot, for every queen orking who performed for us at
that event, I can only say, fromthe bottom of my heart, thank
you.
So it's funny because you saymy names on it, but like it
doesn't feel like my record.
Like that record was Portland's, that record was all of those
Queens Like that's who made ithappen.
Sejal Pietrzak (22:10):
It's so interesting.
Congratulations I know Monicasaid it as well.
That's a really exciting andmemorable you know for the rest
of your life and everyone who isinvolved and everyone who got
to be a part of it A memory forforever.
If you take the business sideof it, you know there is this
(22:34):
large audience.
What do executives need to knowto be able to reach out in the
right way to the queer community, to be able to build business
with them?
Can you talk a?
Emma McIlroy (22:47):
little bit about that.
You know free advice is worthwhat you paid for it.
So let's see how this goes.
But I think there's a couple ofthings.
One is who is your audience andwho is your community and
understanding them really well,and where identity and
expression comes into that.
So I think that's the firstthing, because that'll tell you
how important this audience isfor your business's success.
(23:10):
I think the second thing isgoing back to your brand values,
which should be timeless, whichshould be true over time.
Hopefully, anyone running amajor consumer brand or a
consumer DTC company has thoseoutlined.
And so I think when you startto look at who is your consumer,
who are you here to serve, whatare you here to do for them and
what are your brand values, ie,how are you going to operate
(23:31):
and bring that mission to life?
I think that sort of frames upwhere these conversations fall
in terms of importance for you.
We had two moments last year,one with Anheuser-Busch and one
with Target, which I thinkscared the hell out of every
public company CEO in Americaand it's really unfortunate that
, a those happened and B thatthat was a reaction to it, and
(23:53):
I'm not going to go into detailbecause you can Google it, but
both brands saw financialperformance and share and
execution and they didn'tunderstand their consumer well
enough.
What you saw as a reaction fromthe market, particularly in
public companies, was everybodyran for the hills in terms of
(24:15):
working with the queer communityor supporting it, because they
didn't know how to do it in theright way.
Inverted commas mind peoplethat that could have happened
with any community where youdidn't do the appropriate amount
of insight work, you didn'ttake time to get to know the
community and and you didn't dothe correct market and planning.
Uh, that resulted in weakexecution, right, and so my
(24:35):
advice to you would be get toknow your consumer, spend time
with them.
I mean it's so funny becausepeople go out and hire like
insight agencies and that's notgreat and I've led that work.
But like I mean you can walkinto your store, you can get
into your customer service inbox, you can get onto your chat,
get on twitter, you can read thecomments on your paid ads like
it's not very hard to understandwhat your consumer wants or how
(24:57):
they feel outside of just thesemoments.
For sure, it's pretty obviousthat there are commercial
moments in the year that peoplecan capitalize on.
I would urge some cautionagainst that.
Not that you shouldn't show upin those moments, but Gen Z in
particular, and the latermillennials, the younger
millennials, are demanding amuch more authentic approach.
(25:19):
They are demanding integrity intheir spaces, and so that means
you don't just show up for amonth a year.
You think about who you'rehiring and your hiring practices
.
You think about who's in frontof the camera, who's behind the
camera, and again, it doesn'tneed to be perfect, but it does
need to acknowledge that thecommunity has value beyond their
(25:42):
wallet in one month a year,right, and so that'd be my
second thing.
And then my third thing, whichI've touched on, is is
imperfection.
Please don't be scared ofimperfection.
You know, monica mentionedlanguage earlier.
I've messed up so many times onlanguage.
I can't tell you right, but.
But the question is are youlistening and learning, you know
, or are you defensive and closeoff?
Right, and that's just aquestion of good marketing.
(26:03):
That's got nothing to do withthe queer community.
That's just a question of, whenyou mess up, do you own it, do
you take accountability for it?
Uh, do you listen and do youtry and do it better the next
time, like that's it, but Ithink the fear of perfection
leads people to not touch someof these topics at all, and
that's terribly sad because thequeer community in particular um
(26:24):
, I'm white, so I I can'tnecessarily speak on behalf of
some other communities, but thequeer community in particular is
under immense threat and Ithink it needs folks to show up
particularly allies.
Monica Enand (26:36):
I think that's really important advice and I
think you know some people couldlistening, and you know I'm
first of all the fear ofimperfection.
It's real.
I mean I understand we allunderstand Like we all are
scared to maybe get it wrong,and we've seen examples of
people getting it wrong andreally hurting.
You know harm coming from that,and so I think that's real.
(26:58):
But I don't think it's anoptional journey.
I think the way you're talkingabout it is very much if you're
a consumer brand, but the truthis, I think it's true for
everyone, because we're allgoing to have employees.
I mean, this community is goingto impact every aspect of life,
and so you're not going to beable to just pull a whatever
(27:19):
wool over your head or I don'tknow what it, stick your head in
the sand or something.
You can't just say like I'm notgoing to engage in this.
You're going to have to engagein this, and so you're going to
have to iterate and get better.
All executives, everybody inbusiness and everybody frankly
in their personal lives aregoing to have to do this.
So I think the quicker you getstarted and the quicker you stub
your toe and mess up and saygosh, I'm sorry, either help me
(27:43):
or let me do my own research tounderstand.
I think everyone has to be onthat journey.
So, emma, where do we go fromhere?
Sejal Pietrzak (27:52):
Where do you take Wildfang from here?
Emma McIlroy (27:55):
Brand-led is definitely where our focus is.
We are definitely turning downthe noise on some of the more
traditional paid digitalchannels.
And then on the wholesale front, wholesale really is a
marketing channel for us.
So it's eyeballs, not to say itdoesn't contribute dollars Of
course it does, but it's reallyby reaching a new consumer
without, again, thosetraditional paid channels.
(28:15):
So that's kind of where growthis coming from us strategically
right now.
They both also sit in ourwheelhouse and they allow us to
bring what we're good at toother partners right, which is
great sticky product that haslow returns, high frequency,
high lifetime value, goodconsumer behind it, and then a
differentiated brand that, towhat you've both been talking
about, is sometimes hard forthem to figure out what to do
(28:37):
with.
So they're like, hey, if Icould tap into Wildfang and
figure out how to do this stuff,maybe that's helpful for me to
grow the overall business.
So that's kind of what we'reexcited about is that brand-led
activity and partnerships andthen also our wholesale business
, which you'll see continue togrow back half of this year and
through 25.
Sejal Pietrzak (28:53):
That's really great.
Congratulations on everythingyou've done so far and your
success.
It's inspiring indeed.
Monica Enand (29:01):
Thank you as you are as a human inspiring.
I've always been inspired byyou since I met you, so which I
have known you probably a decade.
Emma McIlroy (29:12):
I appreciate that I will go down a stage five
rapid with Monica and any day ofthe week, thank you.
Monica Enand (29:14):
As long as you go first.
That's what we learned.
We kayak, whitewater kayak.
I, for my first time, sage Iwhitewater kayak and you went
down stage five rapids in yourfirst time, yeah she did and I
didn't go first, not many peopleknow about me but Emma does
know is that I never learned howto swim, so I don't know how to
(29:35):
swim.
Emma McIlroy (29:35):
Oh, my God, no, monica is just fierce, she's
just a baller.
And I said to her I said do youwant me to go first?
She's like no, I got this.
Monica Enand (29:44):
I was like her.
Emma McIlroy (29:46):
She didn't, she just crushed it.
She just went straight throughit crushed it.
So yeah, that's what it's liketo be Monica's friend.
Monica Enand (29:53):
She just jumps right in and crushes whatever's
in front of her and I say staybehind me and pick me up if I
fall, which you volunteered todo.
So thank you so much, emma.
We are so glad that you wereable to take the time to be here
.
We appreciate you so much toreally share your knowledge.
You've learned so much in thelast 10 years and sharing that
(30:15):
knowledge with everybodylistening I got so much out of
it.
So I know other people did.
Emma McIlroy (30:20):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Sejal Pietrzak (30:22):
I really appreciate it, totally agree.
Thanks, monica, and thanks toour executive producer,
georgiana Moreland.
And again thank you, emma.
And that's a wrap for thisepisode of Masterstroke.
Georgianna Moreland (30:34):
Thank you for listening today.
We would love for you to followand subscribe.
Monica and Sejo would love tohear from you.
You can text us directly fromthe link in the show notes of
this episode.
You can also find us on theLinkedIn page at Masterstroke
Podcast with Monica Enid andSejo Petrozak.
Until next time.
It's a 24-7 thing, Monica.
It's a consumer group who areaffecting a broader zeitgeist
that, if we're going to bemarketers and consumer brands,
we need to deeply understand.
Georgianna Moreland (00:13):
Welcome to Masterstroke with Monica Enid
and Sejo Petrzak Conversationswith founders, ceos and
visionary leaders in tech andbeyond.
Monica Enand (00:33):
Emma is an incredibly impressive person.
She's a personal friend of mine, who I'm lucky to say, but
she's impressive in so many ways.
She graduated CambridgeUniversity with a degree in
natural science.
She's a marketing genius whohas done brand marketing at Nike
(00:54):
and Barclays before she startedWildfang.
She was named one of Inc'sfemale founder 100.
She was Oregon's Entrepreneurof the Year and Executive of the
Year by Portland BusinessJournal and her TED talk.
Sejal, I know you watched herTED talk.
Sejal Pietrzak (01:09):
I watched it, you know it has over 100,000
views.
Monica Enand (01:15):
It's amazing, it's a must see.
Emma McIlroy (01:16):
I'm going to take you everywhere, Monica.
You're going to do myintroduction everywhere from now
on.
That's it.
You're just coming in my backpocket.
Monica Enand (01:22):
I haven't even started telling them about how
amazing you are as a lifeguard,as a swimming coach or as a
kayaking coach all the thingsyou've done for me.
Emma McIlroy (01:30):
You're also.
You're very little, so Iprobably could put you in my
back pocket.
Sejal Pietrzak (01:37):
Well Emma, Monica, and I believe business
is a force for good and you havebeen an amazing role model for
that.
So, in addition to being aplace where women and non-binary
people can come to find amazinggender fluid clothing, wild
Fang has raised over a milliondollars for charities that focus
on racial justice, as well asqueer, immigrant and women's
(02:00):
rights.
It's incredible, emma.
So, before we get startedlearning all about these
exciting things you've beendoing, talk to us a little bit
about Wildfang.
And you just received theclimate neutral certification,
which you know obviously isincredible.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Emma McIlroy (02:21):
Yeah, that certification is actually pretty
tough to get, especially forsmall businesses like ours.
So, when you look at the topicof sustainability, which is a
really broad topic and Icertainly don't claim to be any
kind of guru or expert in thatarea, but what I do know is it
matters to our customers and itmatters to our audience and our
consumers a lot, and so weobviously have to have to ensure
(02:45):
that we're meeting their needs.
And so, for a business likeours, the truth is, you know, at
the end of the day, we send,sell apparel the truth is
there's two ways to do apparelreally sustainably One is naked,
so don't wear any, and then theother is shop vintage, so don't
buy any, right?
So if you're not going to doone of those two things, if
you're not going to be naked allthe time or you're not just
(03:05):
going to wear vintage, then youneed a third option.
And for a business like ours,where we you know I used to be
at Nike we don't have anenormous team of scientists and
people on the cutting edge,really the best thing you can do
is offset your impact and alsoreduce your impact.
Those are kind of the two bigfocuses.
So what you do when you workwith the climate neutral team to
(03:26):
gain your certification isfirst, you share all the details
of your business and theycalculate your impact on the
world, your carbon impact on theworld and your carbon footprint
, and the first thing they helpyou do is set an annual plan to
reduce that impact.
Sejal Pietrzak (03:42):
Yeah, it's such an important thing.
I mean learning about how muchof an impact the fashion
industry makes in a negative wayto our environment one of the
top few industries impacting ourenvironment and it's great to
see that you've gotten thatclimate neutral certification
for everything you're doing.
Emma McIlroy (04:02):
Yeah, I think we all have a responsibility to
leave less of a footprint onthis thing.
That supports us, right.
Monica Enand (04:07):
Absolutely.
And so tell us about Wildfang.
How did you get started with it?
You know you're talking aboutclearly.
You're talking about how yourun a business in a way that is
in concert with your values.
Talk to us about Wildfang andhow that works into your life
with your values.
Talk to us about Wildfang andhow that works into your life
and your values.
Emma McIlroy (04:29):
Well, wildfang is a mission-based company.
So, you know, I think actuallyyou and I have had this
conversation about I think thephraseology of work-life balance
is no longer relevant.
I think now we're in the age ofwork-life integration.
I don't think most people wantto turn a key and walk away from
a thing and pick it up again 12hours later, right, like I
think, especially when you lookat Gen Z and millennials, they
(04:51):
really want to have their valuesreflected in all that they do
include in their work, right?
So for me, wildfying is reallyat the core of who I am and I'm
at the core of who wildfying is,and I think true for most
founders.
So, yeah, it's a mission-basedbusiness.
It all started by, uh, walkinginto the men's department at
Urban Outfitters and realizingthat all of the really good
(05:12):
blazers, uh, for women, werethere, the ones with, like, the
real pockets that you can fitmore than just your fingernails,
you know, um, and the real, thereal buttons and the great
tailoring and the great liningand other silhouettes like
button-ups, all that greattailoring that for some reason
was reserved for men and hiddenfrom us as women.
So it really started by kind ofwalking through the men's
(05:32):
department and being like whyare these silhouettes
specifically reserved for folksof a certain gender identity?
That doesn't really make sense.
Our belief is that when you dothat and when you allow people
to show up exactly as they wantto show up, you release a ton of
potential, and you releasepotential from the human
population, and we think that'sa good thing for everyone, so
(05:53):
important.
Sejal Pietrzak (05:53):
So what kinds of challenges did you run into
when you were first startingyour company Wildfang?
Emma McIlroy (06:02):
I mean, I don't know that the podcast is long
enough for that.
Monica Enand (06:05):
Well, you started 10 years ago right Over 10 years
.
Emma McIlroy (06:09):
Yeah, 10 years, 10 years, I'm an old hand, I guess
now so, or or a stupid one.
Right, depends on how you thinkabout it.
Yeah, I mean, look, I think theobvious one is money and
funding.
I didn't take any money fromventure capital.
It certainly wasn't some sortof educated choice.
That's because most of themembarrassed me and laughed me
(06:29):
out of the room.
So, you know, I remember goingto some of my first.
I'm not going to put a name onit because it wouldn't be
professional, but I remembergoing to some of my first
venture capital meetings, and Iwas a kid fresh out of Nike.
You can probably tell that Idon't.
I didn't grow up in the US.
My alumni, as you mentioned, isCambridge, it's not here.
I didn't have a huge supportsystem or a huge network in the
capital, and so I didn't reallyknow what I was doing.
(06:51):
And so I showed up with thisdeck and talked about what my
vision was for the brand and forthis future for women
everywhere, and people would hitme with well, what's your CAC?
What's your CAC lifetime valueratio?
Me with well, what's your CAC?
What's your CAC lifetime valueratio?
What's your first order?
You know economics.
What percentage of yourbusiness do you think is going
to come from outside of the US?
And I remember with a pen, thisparticular partner, a very, very
(07:12):
big consumer, consumer, venturecapital group in the US.
I remember just writing notesand and I remember saying what's
lifetime value and what's CAC,how do you spell CAC?
And I think I wrote C-A-C-K,which is pretty funny at the
time, right, but I tell you thatstory because I guess for two
reasons.
The first is I see a large partof my job in the world, you
(07:35):
know, for as long as I'm around,is to change that, and so I try
to welcome people into spaceswho don't know what all those
terms mean, to share with themeverything I know.
Because the reality is, youknow, it's funny you sign NDAs
all day long and stuff like that.
I mean, unless you're workingon some highly patented which
obviously, monica, you have alot of experience with but
unless you're working onsomething highly patented, any
(07:56):
idea has been had before.
You know it's all about greatexecution.
There's not really anythingparticularly unique or special
that most of us are doing.
It's about, about the team, theculture, the execution and the
ability to connect those ideaswith a consumer.
(08:16):
The biggest lesson for me in 10years is stick to your strength
and block out the noise, andit's taken me a long time to
learn that, and I think manywomen struggle with whether it's
imposter syndrome or just alack of confidence.
You know, I'm a very good brandmarketer.
That's what I'm world class at.
Everything else I'm either notvery good at or I'm average at.
And so when you are, I thinkmost women are aware of their
(08:40):
weaknesses.
Most women are aware of wherethey could do better and have
spent their whole life trying tobe better.
And so when you hear a reallygreat merchandising strategy
from another company or howanother company is really
winning through whitelisting inmeta or whatever the functional
tactic is, it takes a lot ofstrength to say that's great for
(09:02):
them, I'm so happy for them,that's awesome.
Monica Enand (09:14):
Emma, you said what your world-class, your
world-class marketing or brandmarketing.
What is that brand marketing?
Sometimes, for technical peoplelike me, I was like what does
that even mean?
And I mean I know what brandsare and I know that people
marketing.
Sometimes, for technical peoplelike me, I was like what does
that even mean?
And I I mean I know what brandsare and I know that people
market, but I and I watch MadMen but like, but I don't like.
(09:35):
What I realized when I met you10 years or so ago was it?
You're a visionary about trendsthat are happening in the world
and in people's lives is, Ithink it's important to people
to for people to know.
You started this in 2013,.
Right, when somebody saidnon-binary or gender fluid in
(09:56):
2013, I like I've learned and Ihope I think most of the world
has learned so much more aboutgender in the last 10 years, but
you were kind of on theforefront of all of that right
and understanding.
Can you tell us a little bitabout that?
Because you know, in PrideMonth actually I'm going to
compound this question, so thenyou can answer both, because
(10:19):
here I sit in Pride Month and weall see all the logos with
rainbows on them, and then wesee all the merchandising and
people trying to sell.
So like I'm trying tounderstand, like why are brands
doing that and how is how is itthat what?
Like, what were you seeing anddoing with Wild Fang?
That that you feel is kind ofdifferent?
(10:42):
I see it as very different.
I love that.
Emma McIlroy (10:45):
See, that's a classic CEO.
Right there, you were like I'mgoing to ask two questions.
You actually asked like six, soyou squeezed in the other four
for good measure.
I'm going to start in order.
What does a brand marketer do?
A brand marketer is someone whounderstands how a consumer
understands and can affect how aconsumer thinks and feels and
believes.
That's it.
(11:05):
And those things, if you dothem correctly, should change
buying habits and should changeinteraction with your product or
service.
Right, but thinking, feeling,believing and that requires
tremendous consumer insight tobe able to do that.
So you have to spend a lot oftime with your consumer.
You have to know themintimately, you have to love
them.
You have to love them becauseif you you have to love them.
You have to love them Becauseif you love them, then that
(11:27):
stuff comes easier.
So you know, that's what abrand marketer does.
Hopefully, on the other end ofit, you create really great
content, experiences thatconnect with your consumer
because of how well you knowthem In terms of you know.
It's funny.
You mentioned the language.
When Wildfang started 10 yearsago, it didn't look like this.
(11:51):
You know what we knew was thespace and what we knew, and I
really deeply appreciate yousaying we were ahead of the
curve.
I feel like we were ahead ofthe curve on a number of
conversations, but we didn't getthem all right.
You know.
I think that's a reallyimportant thing to point out,
because being a great brandmarketer means you can feel
(12:11):
where the zeitgeist is going.
It means you can feel how thezeitgeist is going.
It means you can feel how thezeitgeist is changing.
You can feel, like I said, howthey think and feel and believe
and what is changing about that.
It doesn't mean you get theperfect execution.
To get the perfect executionyou need a lot of trial and
error and you need to be brave,as with anything that you're at
the front of right.
So I would just caveat it thatjust because we think we're good
(12:32):
at it doesn't mean we've got itright all the time.
But the conversation aroundgender, gender expression,
gender identity has changed just.
I mean I couldn't havepredicted, I knew it was going
to change.
I didn't know it was going tochange at this rate.
It's been truly wild and youknow Gen Z has really pushed
(12:53):
that, you know.
But we simply put we celebrateyour mask, your fam and
everything in between.
And when we say mask and fam,it's just a more bite-sized
version of masculine andfeminine.
Those words have baggage.
(13:16):
The way that we've tried to stayahead of that conversation
curve is listen to the consumerand address their needs as those
needs change.
So if you're just listening tothis and you are a straight-up
capitalist who just wants tomake money, the audience is
growing every year.
If we're going to talk aboutPride Month, there is a benefit
to understanding that consumergroup 24-7.
Forget Pride Month, becausethey are going to have a lot of
(13:40):
spend and power and they aregoing to have a lot of wallet
share.
But, more importantly, they areshaping how their peers also
think, and I think you're seeingthat.
You're seeing that in sport,you're seeing it in fashion,
you're seeing it all over theplace, right.
And so, yes, I'll answer thequestion about Pride Month.
But it's a 24-7 thing, monica.
It's a consumer group who areaffecting a broader zeitgeist
(14:03):
that, if we're going to bemarketers and consumer brands,
we need to deeply understand.
We make sure that diversityshows up in the money that we
give back, in the money that wegive back, in the models that we
use, in the internal candidatesthat we hire, in our hiring
practices.
Right Like that's our point ofview Now.
Does that mean that I want tobe the Grinch and say that pride
should go away?
Absolutely not.
It's super important that werecognize and celebrate that
moment, but for us it's a 24-7practice.
Sejal Pietrzak (14:34):
You're a founder , you're a CEO and now you're a
Guinness Book of World Recordholder.
Talk a little bit about how youdid that and what inspired you
to break the Guinness record forthe longest drag show ever.
Emma McIlroy (14:55):
What was that and how did all of that work?
Yeah, so that was last year.
It was an incredible,incredible effort from my team
and from very close friends ofthe brand Eden, dawn and Poison
Waters.
And so, really, what happenedwas some marketing campaigns you
like to set in advance and youlike to plan for, and those are
usually ones with productcollaborations and product
partnerships, because producttakes time to make.
But then sometimes you knowthat you just need to react to
(15:17):
what's happening in the world,and that tends to be some of the
most powerful zeitgeistmarketing that people you know
align it aligns well with viralmoments or virality, if you want
to use that term, but thingsthat catch fire because the
audience is thinking and feelingit right.
At that time, as we progressthrough 2023, feeling it right
at that time, as we progressthrough 2023, it became clear
(15:38):
that any LGBTQ legislation wasgiven traction.
So, year over year, there weretriple the number of pieces of
legislation introduced that insome way, shape or form,
attacked the queer community.
Do I have some level ofresponsibility to show up when
an important chunk of mycommunity is hurting and feeling
pain?
Yeah, I think I do, especiallyif I can be part of a solution
(16:03):
to that, and so those are themoments where you have to go
back to your brand values.
You have to go back to yourconsumer and decide what's right
for you individually to do as abrand, and for us it was right
to take a stand.
Now.
We didn't want to meet hit withhit, and a number of pieces of
this legislation were reallyaggressive and, frankly, I
struggled to find any.
(16:23):
I read the legislation indetail.
I read all of the draglegislation in detail from every
state and I struggled to seereally what it was that was
driving those from a commonsense perspective, and so we
didn't want to.
You know, we had a ton of ideasas a team on how to react to,
but anything that was driven byhate got kind of washed away or
(16:46):
thrown off the table.
We wanted to meet what we sawas hate in the legislation with
joy and celebration.
Depends on the day that youpick the three of us.
(17:06):
We could all technically be atfault on that.
On that claim Right, becausewhen you talk about
cross-dressing in some of thatlegislation, it means wearing a
piece of clothing that ismisaligned with your gender
identified at birth.
I mean, okay, so I wasidentified at birth female.
I mean, it's a pantsuit.
Am I crossing boundaries there?
Should I be arrested?
We felt like it wasconversation.
We wanted to take part and wefind this world record.
It was 36 hours for the world'slongest drag show in history.
(17:29):
And I phoned my friend, poisonwaters, um, who is one of the
longest serving uh drag hosts inamerica at darshels in portland
.
And then I phoned my otherfriend, uh, eden dawn, who is an
amazing event producer and alsoloves drag, and I said would
you all be stupid enough to tryto pull off this world record
with me?
And you know, I said to poisonif, do you think it's even
(17:53):
possible to do a drag show for48 hours?
And poison said, in true poisonfashion baby, I could do it by
myself in 48 hours.
It was just this crazy, crazyintense uh event.
And then, um, as I startedphoning people, uh, who
obviously had similar values tous, they stupidly said yes,
right.
So Cheryl Strayed said yes.
(18:14):
John Cameron Mitchell said yes.
Punky Jensen from SNL said yes.
Cameron Esposito said yes,right.
Like everybody we phoned waskind of like.
Fred Armisen said yes.
Kari Brownstein said yes.
Like everybody we phoned waslike I'll be involved.
How can I help?
Right?
Monica was stupid enough to sayyes, I'll do whatever I can to
support right.
Right Local business got behindit, mcs got behind it, drag
(18:37):
queens got behind it and so,yeah, it was 48 hours of nonstop
drag.
So I think I got about two and ahalf hours sleep over the 48
hours.
600 songs, 60 MCs, 60 plusqueens.
It was utterly bonkers.
We did raise $310,000 for theTrevor Project, which we're
super proud of.
That's an incredible charitythat provides literally
(18:59):
life-saving services for thequeer community.
And then, from a businessperspective because this is a
business podcast we saw ourlowest CAC in three years.
The sentiment that it createdmade all of our acquisition
channels significantly moreproductive.
We saw our highest press hitsin a given month.
I think we got 109 press hitsin that month and, by the way,
(19:21):
press is me at Wildfine inassociation to all the other
stuff I do.
We don't have a big fancyagency or anything else.
So, yeah, it was just kind of,you know, it was just kind of
this wild ride that ended upbeing really good for us.
And, and, if you'd asked me,when I pitched my leadership
team, I had this idea and Ipitched the leadership team and
I pitched the company.
By the way, my whole company,everybody at Wildfine worked
(19:42):
security or ushers or you know.
They did all these crazy jobsand stayed up overnight just to
pull this thing off on ashoestring budget.
You know, I said here's theidea, here's why we should do it
.
I'm not sure it's the rightdecision.
We could only do it if we allsay yes.
Everybody, the whole team, saidyes, the whole team, including
the CFO, including Karen Mollis,the CFO, you know, including
(20:06):
the person with the paybook.
She said yes, this is the rightthing to go and spend $125,000
on, because we believe in ourbrand and our community, right,
and so it was a really beautifulmoment for us.
I'm super proud of it.
But I do think we're in a timeand place where consumer brands
are going to be forced to decidewhere they stand on their
values.
Monica Enand (20:26):
Yeah Well, congratulations to you.
What an amazing accomplishment,you and Eden and Poison.
What an amazing accomplishmentyou and Eden and Poison.
I have to say it was such ajoyful story and a joyful time
and everybody who was part of it, I think, took so much joy from
it, and I think that's whatdrag brings a lot of people.
(20:46):
It's a form of entertainmentthat just brings a lot of joy to
anybody who's watching orparticipating.
Emma McIlroy (21:10):
What you think.
You have it tough in Oregon orCalifornia and then you hear
some of the conversations ofbeing in the queer community in
rural Tennessee.
That's like.
That's like the real, realright.
Like that's when you reallystart to understand the extent
of of the pain in the community.
They don't fight battlesthrough here because it's not
how they're wired and they don'tbelieve in it, you know.
(21:31):
And that's when you really lookat consumer brands the most
powerful, lasting consumerbrands have been built on
positivity, um, and so it's asuper important part of building
a brand right.
And so that was cool.
It's cool to see that in theface of the shit storm that
they're like I'm gonna go outthere and serve love, I'm gonna
go out there and do do me everyday, you know, um.
So so I think you know, I thinkthat's what you get from the
(21:53):
Queens, and they werespectacular.
I cannot, for every queen orking who performed for us at
that event, I can only say, fromthe bottom of my heart, thank
you.
So it's funny because you saymy names on it, but like it
doesn't feel like my record.
Like that record was Portland's, that record was all of those
Queens Like that's who made ithappen.
Sejal Pietrzak (22:10):
It's so interesting.
Congratulations I know Monicasaid it as well.
That's a really exciting andmemorable you know for the rest
of your life and everyone who isinvolved and everyone who got
to be a part of it A memory forforever.
If you take the business sideof it, you know there is this
(22:34):
large audience.
What do executives need to knowto be able to reach out in the
right way to the queer community, to be able to build business
with them?
Can you talk a?
Emma McIlroy (22:47):
little bit about that.
You know free advice is worthwhat you paid for it.
So let's see how this goes.
But I think there's a couple ofthings.
One is who is your audience andwho is your community and
understanding them really well,and where identity and
expression comes into that.
So I think that's the firstthing, because that'll tell you
how important this audience isfor your business's success.
(23:10):
I think the second thing isgoing back to your brand values,
which should be timeless, whichshould be true over time.
Hopefully, anyone running amajor consumer brand or a
consumer DTC company has thoseoutlined.
And so I think when you startto look at who is your consumer,
who are you here to serve, whatare you here to do for them and
what are your brand values, ie,how are you going to operate
(23:31):
and bring that mission to life?
I think that sort of frames upwhere these conversations fall
in terms of importance for you.
We had two moments last year,one with Anheuser-Busch and one
with Target, which I thinkscared the hell out of every
public company CEO in Americaand it's really unfortunate that
, a those happened and B thatthat was a reaction to it, and
(23:53):
I'm not going to go into detailbecause you can Google it, but
both brands saw financialperformance and share and
execution and they didn'tunderstand their consumer well
enough.
What you saw as a reaction fromthe market, particularly in
public companies, was everybodyran for the hills in terms of
(24:15):
working with the queer communityor supporting it, because they
didn't know how to do it in theright way.
Inverted commas mind peoplethat that could have happened
with any community where youdidn't do the appropriate amount
of insight work, you didn'ttake time to get to know the
community and and you didn't dothe correct market and planning.
Uh, that resulted in weakexecution, right, and so my
(24:35):
advice to you would be get toknow your consumer, spend time
with them.
I mean it's so funny becausepeople go out and hire like
insight agencies and that's notgreat and I've led that work.
But like I mean you can walkinto your store, you can get
into your customer service inbox, you can get onto your chat,
get on twitter, you can read thecomments on your paid ads like
it's not very hard to understandwhat your consumer wants or how
(24:57):
they feel outside of just thesemoments.
For sure, it's pretty obviousthat there are commercial
moments in the year that peoplecan capitalize on.
I would urge some cautionagainst that.
Not that you shouldn't show upin those moments, but Gen Z in
particular, and the latermillennials, the younger
millennials, are demanding amuch more authentic approach.
(25:19):
They are demanding integrity intheir spaces, and so that means
you don't just show up for amonth a year.
You think about who you'rehiring and your hiring practices
.
You think about who's in frontof the camera, who's behind the
camera, and again, it doesn'tneed to be perfect, but it does
need to acknowledge that thecommunity has value beyond their
(25:42):
wallet in one month a year,right, and so that'd be my
second thing.
And then my third thing, whichI've touched on, is is
imperfection.
Please don't be scared ofimperfection.
You know, monica mentionedlanguage earlier.
I've messed up so many times onlanguage.
I can't tell you right, but.
But the question is are youlistening and learning, you know
, or are you defensive and closeoff?
Right, and that's just aquestion of good marketing.
(26:03):
That's got nothing to do withthe queer community.
That's just a question of, whenyou mess up, do you own it, do
you take accountability for it?
Uh, do you listen and do youtry and do it better the next
time, like that's it, but Ithink the fear of perfection
leads people to not touch someof these topics at all, and
that's terribly sad because thequeer community in particular um
(26:24):
, I'm white, so I I can'tnecessarily speak on behalf of
some other communities, but thequeer community in particular is
under immense threat and Ithink it needs folks to show up
particularly allies.
Monica Enand (26:36):
I think that's really important advice and I
think you know some people couldlistening, and you know I'm
first of all the fear ofimperfection.
It's real.
I mean I understand we allunderstand Like we all are
scared to maybe get it wrong,and we've seen examples of
people getting it wrong andreally hurting.
You know harm coming from that,and so I think that's real.
(26:58):
But I don't think it's anoptional journey.
I think the way you're talkingabout it is very much if you're
a consumer brand, but the truthis, I think it's true for
everyone, because we're allgoing to have employees.
I mean, this community is goingto impact every aspect of life,
and so you're not going to beable to just pull a whatever
(27:19):
wool over your head or I don'tknow what it, stick your head in
the sand or something.
You can't just say like I'm notgoing to engage in this.
You're going to have to engagein this, and so you're going to
have to iterate and get better.
All executives, everybody inbusiness and everybody frankly
in their personal lives aregoing to have to do this.
So I think the quicker you getstarted and the quicker you stub
your toe and mess up and saygosh, I'm sorry, either help me
(27:43):
or let me do my own research tounderstand.
I think everyone has to be onthat journey.
So, emma, where do we go fromhere?
Sejal Pietrzak (27:52):
Where do you take Wildfang from here?
Emma McIlroy (27:55):
Brand-led is definitely where our focus is.
We are definitely turning downthe noise on some of the more
traditional paid digitalchannels.
And then on the wholesale front, wholesale really is a
marketing channel for us.
So it's eyeballs, not to say itdoesn't contribute dollars Of
course it does, but it's reallyby reaching a new consumer
without, again, thosetraditional paid channels.
(28:15):
So that's kind of where growthis coming from us strategically
right now.
They both also sit in ourwheelhouse and they allow us to
bring what we're good at toother partners right, which is
great sticky product that haslow returns, high frequency,
high lifetime value, goodconsumer behind it, and then a
differentiated brand that, towhat you've both been talking
about, is sometimes hard forthem to figure out what to do
(28:37):
with.
So they're like, hey, if Icould tap into Wildfang and
figure out how to do this stuff,maybe that's helpful for me to
grow the overall business.
So that's kind of what we'reexcited about is that brand-led
activity and partnerships andthen also our wholesale business
, which you'll see continue togrow back half of this year and
through 25.
Sejal Pietrzak (28:53):
That's really great.
Congratulations on everythingyou've done so far and your
success.
It's inspiring indeed.
Monica Enand (29:01):
Thank you as you are as a human inspiring.
I've always been inspired byyou since I met you, so which I
have known you probably a decade.
Emma McIlroy (29:12):
I appreciate that I will go down a stage five
rapid with Monica and any day ofthe week, thank you.
Monica Enand (29:14):
As long as you go first.
That's what we learned.
We kayak, whitewater kayak.
I, for my first time, sage Iwhitewater kayak and you went
down stage five rapids in yourfirst time, yeah she did and I
didn't go first, not many peopleknow about me but Emma does
know is that I never learned howto swim, so I don't know how to
(29:35):
swim.
Emma McIlroy (29:35):
Oh, my God, no, monica is just fierce, she's
just a baller.
And I said to her I said do youwant me to go first?
She's like no, I got this.
Monica Enand (29:44):
I was like her.
Emma McIlroy (29:46):
She didn't, she just crushed it.
She just went straight throughit crushed it.
So yeah, that's what it's liketo be Monica's friend.
Monica Enand (29:53):
She just jumps right in and crushes whatever's
in front of her and I say staybehind me and pick me up if I
fall, which you volunteered todo.
So thank you so much, emma.
We are so glad that you wereable to take the time to be here
.
We appreciate you so much toreally share your knowledge.
You've learned so much in thelast 10 years and sharing that
(30:15):
knowledge with everybodylistening I got so much out of
it.
So I know other people did.
Emma McIlroy (30:20):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Sejal Pietrzak (30:22):
I really appreciate it, totally agree.
Thanks, monica, and thanks toour executive producer,
georgiana Moreland.
And again thank you, emma.
And that's a wrap for thisepisode of Masterstroke.
Georgianna Moreland (30:34):
Thank you for listening today.
We would love for you to followand subscribe.
Monica and Sejo would love tohear from you.
You can text us directly fromthe link in the show notes of
this episode.
You can also find us on theLinkedIn page at Masterstroke
Podcast with Monica Enid andSejo Petrozak.
Until next time.
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