Launching a Bold Marketing Strategy for Post-COVID Life with Church + State's Robin Whalen

President & CEO of Church + State, Robin Whalen, joins Leon to talk about the past year in her business and how companies are differentiating themselves by moving past marketing cliches and offering their customers a clear vision and set of values.

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:08):
Thanks for having me, Leon.

Leon Goren (00:08):
Hi, I'm Leon Goren, CEO and president of PEO
leadership North America'spremier peer to peer network and
leadership advisory firm.
Welcome to our snippetspodcasts. Robin Whalen,
president CEO of church andstate teacher and speaker joins
us today. Church and State is astrategic creative agency
headquartered in Toronto doingwork for both SMEs, that small
medium enterprises for you thatdon't know and some very large

(00:32):
multinational and Canadianbrands. Robin is a partner
within the firm, and she joinedit back in 2016. She's also been
in the agency world for almost25 years. Robin, it's great to
have you with us today.
So Robin, I thoughtwe kick it off with something
that I read recently that you'veposted on LinkedIn. And I'm sure

(00:56):
there's a great story behind it.
And it's sort of I just grabbedit because everything's about
meaning and purpose these daysin terms of you know, what we've
come through. And your wordswere to walk with purpose, one
must wake with purpose. So tellus a little bit about the story
behind that.

Unknown (01:15):
Well, actually, they're not my words, they're my
business partner, Ron tite.
They're his words. And that'swhat he's a master of that we
were tasked with doing a secretsanta this just this past
holiday season. And he pulled myname. And his, his joke for me
was always that I'm a heavyWalker. And it kind of stems

(01:36):
back to this, the fact thateverything I do is, I'm a very
planned, very planned person.
And I'm always on a mission. AndI always have an agenda. So I
don't saunter into a kitchen, Imarch into a kitchen, I don't
walk into a boardroom, I kind ofexplode into a boardroom. So
with that comes very heavysteps. So he would hear me all

(02:00):
the time. And he'd say, there'swailing walks with purpose.
Because my the sound of my heelsin a pre COVID world, in an
office environment was reallyheavy. So he decided when he
pulled my name for a secretSanta, that he would come up
with this, this saying, to walkwith purpose, one must wake with

(02:20):
purpose. So it was very much aRon type metaphor for how I
operate day in and day out. And,again, not my words, but I would
say it's probably the perfectpersonification for how I
approach my day.

Leon Goren (02:35):
I think you deserve to steal those words. I think
they should be your words, hegave it to you as a gift.

Unknown (02:41):
And I gave it to me as a gift. He signed it with my
name, he printed it on a poster.
I've hung it on a wall, and Icould absolutely tell people
that those are my words. And youknow what, moving forward,
that's exactly what I'm going todo. So thanks. I'm there. Yeah,
so

Leon Goren (02:56):
there. So you know, I am browsing through your
website, and you guys just dosomething credible, creative.
We've had Ron talk aboutdifferent things. He's hosted
our conference and stuff. Butone thing really stuck with me
other than the Think, Do andsay, I'll come back to that. But
he had something to talk about.
People used to vote with theirwallets. And now they vote with
their time. And so as I wasreading that, and I was trying

(03:17):
to put it in perspective ofwhere we're at today. And, you
know, again, I bring stuff tothe pandemic, and now we're
marching out of it. Therelevance today and possibly, as
we emerge like the next sixmonths, do you think that's
going to change? Or are wereally we're sticking with that
in terms of how people arebehaving?

Unknown (03:39):
No, I don't think it will change it, if anything, I
think it will become, you know,more prevalent as we move
forward. Which is, is odd in oneway when you think about it,
because on one hand, we've gotmore free time than we've ever
had before. We're not goinganywhere, we're not commuting,
we have no pressures on ourschedule in terms of attending
events. So we should havearguably an abundance of time

(04:03):
yet what we're seeing from ourclients or our personal lives
from our friends is that it'sactually turning out to be the
the opposite. So that thatmetaphor of Have you used to
vote with your wallets and nowyou vote with your time is is
more the case than it's everbeen before. Probably because we
are hooked on our screens. Weare consuming news you know at

(04:28):
at a rate that far surpassesanything in the past with with
with past elections in the USwith upcoming elections
elections and in Ontario andCanada. And then you add on the
fact that business is explodingnow and everybody is preparing
to to exit COVID if you don't asa brand, as a marketing firm, if

(04:51):
you don't know how you're goingto capture the attention of your
consumer in the wake of all ofthe expand And accelerated forms
of media, you're just not goingto be seen. So I think if
anything, No, we didn't know itwhen when when we came up with
that phrase, but it isabsolutely more relevant now

(05:12):
than it's ever been before. AndI think it's just going to
continue to be the case brandshave to stand out, they have to
stand apart. And mostimportantly, kind of going back
to that purpose. They have tostand for something that is
about so much more than thething that they sell or the
product that they offer.

Leon Goren (05:30):
Going back to your purpose message really at the
beginning. Right meaning Yeah,this is really important. Do you
think, you know, over the lastseveral months, a lot of leaders
have been somewhat cautiousmarketing, as always, you know,
back March 2020, everybodypulled back on everything.
Nobody was writing checks foranything. We now sort of feel

(05:51):
the momentum, right? We werewe've talked with a lot of
members months ago aboutpivoting, thinking about the
future strategizing timing rightnow, from a marketing
perspective, are we at the pointin time right now where these
leaders should be thinking aboutreally investing in their
messaging and in theirmarketing, as we sort of come
out of this. And I reallybelieve we are coming out of

(06:12):
this because US economy isroaring back, and we'll be
behind them. So I guess twoquestions. One is your own
personal perspectives, in termsof brand, even your own
organizing? Should we bespending money on this right now
in terms of the marketing,putting us out there? And to
what do you see in your, withyour clients? Are they actually
going ahead and doing this? AndI starting to get results?

Unknown (06:33):
Yeah, I would say, I hesitate to say it's, it's too
late. But not only should westart thinking about it, we
should have started thinkingabout it a long time ago. And we
we you know, we use this, thismetaphor that in the sport of
car racing, the people thinkthat races are one in the
straightaways, but they'reactually, they're not one on one

(06:56):
in the straightaways. It's abouthow you actually go into into
the corners and how you come outof it, that determines who wins
the race. And as you said, Iagree, we are coming out of
this. We absolutely are. And inthe context of time, it's not
that far ahead. So the time tostart thinking about it was
eight, nine months ago, andwe're absolutely seeing that

(07:18):
reflected in the business thatwe do. And we work on with our
clients. So we're, we're wellpast the stage of Okay, what do
we do, and we're in the stage ofhaving these plans implemented
and put in place and if for noother reason, than brands need
to meet consumers, where theyare and where they are, is
thinking about what's next inlife, we're all ready to come

(07:41):
out of this healthier andstronger, and that's where
brands need to meet us is in thefuture state, not in the past
and not in the current. So we'reseeing a lot of talk. And we
certainly recommend this to ourclients to really start going
back to maybe some old notionsof customer relationship
management, how do you nurturethose relations, relationships
with your customers and build onthe moving forward from a

(08:04):
loyalty perspective? How do youas a brand stand out? I think
the the days of leaning onadvertising tropes and cliches
like vicey one more commercialabout I'm not wearing pants and
my Xoom call, like we're tiredof that we don't need to be
confronted with with thereality. We need to not rely on

(08:24):
cliches and have a purposebehind our message and know what
we we stand for. And for brandsto constantly be learning and be
curious and think about thefuture and the future state a
year, two years, five years downthe road. I don't think I think
the time to think about likehow, you know, how are we going

(08:45):
to manage through COVID We'redone. Now we're thinking about
how do we how do we plan for apost COVID reality? So we're
absolutely seeing that from oursmaller clients to our, you
know, the National retailers.
It's all about the movingforward.

Leon Goren (09:03):
Yeah. So I think that it's important, I think the
listeners should you know, it'snever too late right? But what I
getting from you is the urgencyif you didn't react and start
many of them have thought aboutit they just haven't executed on
a bunch of this stuff. There isstill time to execute you just
got to get moving on this stuffright now.

Unknown (09:20):
Absolutely. And unit the rat reality is when we look
back a year Yes, business haltedwhen this started, everything
halted. But not for long. byabout three months in to our
initial lockdown. Our clientsstarted you know, very
tentatively putting messages outthere that were sensitive to the
times and sensitive to theenvironments. But business went

(09:44):
on and what they found was thatpeople were buying people were
investing, people were dippingtheir toe back into the market
and in various in differentcategories and in different
ways. So now if we even look attoday's news was about how
Toronto and Vancouver realestate markets are absolutely
exploding. Even if you use thatas a gauge for what's happening

(10:07):
in other categories, if youhaven't started, you know, now
is the time and i think it'sit's a test, learn apply kind of
methodology. If you haven't doneanything, you need to start
doing it now and do it fast,learn from the mistakes, learn
from the success and adaptmoving forward.

Leon Goren (10:25):
That's great. So I wanted to ask you one more
question before in this is awant to get the perspective of
yourself. You're working inagency, I've never worked in
agencies by worked inprofessional services for I
think agency work is sodemanding. Like you're dealing
with clients, you're alwaysfacing your client, they need

(10:46):
stuff very quickly. There's alot of pressure. And you and I
talk really quickly about thebusiness perspective, I get it.
But there's been a lot oftalking in the community about
the mental element, right. Andthe challenges of post pandemic
is the number of cases coming upand people really fatigued,
stressed, and in your world,because you have to be so

(11:08):
responsive, it's probably adouble whammy. So I'm curious,
in your room, what do you arethere ideas that you guys are
looking at? No, you're a smallfirm, so you're probably agile
and able to adapt? But how areyou guys dealing with this? In
terms of

Unknown (11:22):
Yeah, I want to completely agree with your, you
know, your interpretation of ourbusiness, it is very demanding
from a timing perspective. Andagain, what's this odd dynamic
as well, we don't have acommute. And you think we have
more time, the pressures on ourtime have actually increased,
because everybody's working outof their basement or out of

(11:44):
their living room or out oftheir kitchen, it has put an
absolute pressure on this worklife balance. So we have seen
one year in the dynamic has haschanged. It ebbs and flows like
everything else. But mostcertainly we are having more
discussions than ever beforeabout mental health, feeling

(12:06):
that people have a separationbetween work and home. And as an
agency. We don't we don't make aproduct and we don't sell
widgets. So our product is ourintellectual property. And our
intellectual property is at thehands of our people. So how they
feel about work is incrediblyimportant. They're our most

(12:26):
valuable asset. So we have seenan absolute increased need for
support, and for balance, and Iwould be lying if I said we have
all of the solutions. But we aretrying. So from looking at our
very traditional benefitspackage and seeing how we can
augment it with additionalmental health services. You

(12:46):
know, we have looked intoprograms, the Ontario government
has actually recognized thatthis is a real need. And there
are free services for therapyand counseling through the
Ontario government. So we'redoing a bit of a hybrid, looking
at augmenting our plans, makingsure that our employees know
what services are available tothem. Because sometimes that is

(13:07):
buried in BenefitsAdministration, you don't
necessarily know to alsoincreasing the amount of time
just to talk to check in to seehow people are feeling to have
regular meetings where we're nottalking about work at all, and
then trying to force some kindof separation between work and

(13:30):
home so that we cut off the dayon a Friday early if we can we
you know, make sure that weimplement a bit more free time
and insist on people takingvacation, because we're seeing
that without us insisting it'svery easy to just stay on the
computer and work. So again, noreal solutions, but this,

(13:51):
how's our solutions? Those areideas. And I mean, those are our
words. I hope they I hope theyhelp. But at the very least
making sure that we stay intouch with every person that
works with us to see how arethey feeling? Is there something
that we can do, we're actuallyeven looking into a guided
virtual meditation session, notmandatory, but anyone that wants

(14:15):
to join, and we make it duringthe day during the work day. So
that people feel like they cankick back and take their mind
off of work. It's more importantthan it was last February
because the lack of separation.

Leon Goren (14:32):
Robin, thank you so much. We are so lucky to have
you as a PEO member you joinedit a year ago just to be able to
share some of your insights yourenergy and your passion and and
learn from you. So thank you somuch for joining us today.

Unknown (14:46):
Well thank you and thank you for having me. It's
It's an honor just to be a partof the group.

Leon Goren (14:51):
That's great. If you're interested in our live
webcast, the way forward liveand or any other snippets please
take a moment and visit us atpod family Leadership calm
you'll find on our site variousprevious recorded webcasts and
snippets. These include guestssuch as Professor Janice Stein,
Harvard's Rosabeth Cantor,Michael beer, Rob chestnut, Dr.

(15:11):
Greg wells, Dr. Jason So,Mitchell goldheart and many
others as we cover such topicsas Mental Health Leadership,
world reset and a host ofothers. Thank you for joining us
today and we look forward toseeing you again shortly.