On every episode of the Rebel Instinct, our team sits down with rebels from across the marketing landscape to share stories about bold moves they’ve taken as marketers. Subscribe for more.
Galen Ettlin:
You are listening to the Rebel Instinct Podcast by Act on software for all the marketing innovators living outside the box.
Galen Ettlin:
Hey everybody, let’s get rebellious, whether that’s a kickass marketing campaign or maybe you’re listening to this too loudly at your desk. Either way, I’m Galen Ettlin with Act-On Software, joined by my VP of Marketing, Casey Munck, and our guest today, Jorie Green Mark, a brand storyteller, content marketer, social media expert. Jorie’s currently the director of Content for Life Extension and has an illustrious career. I’m going to list off here, including head of social media at Kroger. We’ve also got head of marketing communications at Vitacost and the writer of the book Bride in Overdrive, A journey into Wedding Insanity and back. Glad that you’re back from that. Jorie, thank you for being here.
Jorie Green Mark:
Thank you for having me.
Casey Munck:
Jorie, it is so good to see you. It has been way too long. I mean, you and I go really way back to our days on the Marcom team at Amadeus and where we had so much fun. I remember your hilarious impressions of the old school travel agents. You were just a complete joy to be around. Tell us about your career journey. What have you been up to? What’s your story?
Jorie Green Mark:
Well, I think, so my Twitter handle is @storyjorie, and I’ve always, stories have been at the heart of everything I’ve done. I mean, my very first job out of college was working for a internet startup. I basically came of age around the time of the.com boom and managed to survive the.com burst, but just whether it started with pet like veterinary websites. And then I was writing about shoes for a bunch of different catalogs and was with them, helping them go online when they went from print to SEO generated product copy. And then of course, we had that fun time at always, whether I was talking about travel agents or wedges with a peekaboo toe or my own wedding, it’s always been about trying to connect with people and find a story in the marketing to maybe not necessarily be the direct seller of content, but to at least have that engagement. So you’re establishing a relationship with someone because people love a storyteller.
Casey Munck:
So what are you up to these days story?
Jorie Green Mark:
So I am working as the Director of Content and Life extension, which is a supplement brand. It’s actually really close to my heart because I am a little bit of a health nut I like. Yes, you are. Yeah, I mean, you probably remember I was always bringing little portion controlled nuts or I was limping around the office. I had just tried to run a half marathon way too faster than I should have tried to. I’ve always been really interested in health and I left Amadeus actually for an opportunity at vitacost.com, which is supplements in health foods, and really just found my own, I think voice there, trying to find ways to make health and wellness more user-friendly and a little bit less of a stuffy elitist thing. And I’ve continued that journey with some twists and turns along the way at Life Extension, really helping people find the science of a healthier life.
Casey Munck:
That’s great. Yeah, I’ve been seeing your content and it’s really good. And you’ve always been an inspiration to be on the fitness side and health side of the house and looking at your career, you’ve always been a rebellious content creator coming up with these out of the box campaigns. You’ve done some amazing stuff when you were at Kroger with Jeff Goldblum and Funny or Die.
How do you come up with those ideas and how do you get ’em across the finish line? Because I’m sure that probably took some conversations and some convincing with leadership.
Jorie Green Mark:
It definitely is. That’s the uphill battle is convincing leadership. Some of these ideas were giant, crazy brainstorms with a lot of people in the room coming up with off the wall ideas, and I always as a leader, encourage those off the wall ideas because sometimes even if you don’t use them, it gets you somewhere maybe to elevate what you might’ve been coming up with to make it a little bit more extraordinary and a little less ordinary, and really thinking what actual real world story will tell will get the message across in a way that will resonate with our customer. So with Jeff Goldblum and the Funny or Die collaboration, we were trying to show Ralph’s, which is a grocery store owned by Kroger, where I worked as being a place where you could find things that were interesting, accessible, healthy, and really showing that we had really spotlighting the grocery store salespeople as being really interesting and kind and caring people because that’s really what Kroger is about, is just they’re amazing people who work there.
It was my favorite thing when I worked there was just going into the stores and talking to the people and the cheese guy, the cheese guy, and Jeff Goldblum really hit it off a couple times just talking about how to find the best cheese and what it takes to be a cheese monger. So that idea of just having a celebrity go into one of our grocery stores and experience it with their own unique take on things, that was really just a matter of, well, what story will tell this in a way that people will find relatable?
In terms of selling leadership, you really need to establish a steady bank of trust with them before they’ll buy into any kind of crazy idea. And that might be doing small, staying within the box at first and then saying, Hey, how about if we do a little patch test the way you would if you’re trying a new cleanser out you and just a little patch us on your wrist before you put it all over your face and proving value and proving success, and then they’re more likely to buy in for a bigger commitment.
Casey Munck:
That’s great. Thank you for sharing that story. I think that’s going to be so helpful for people that are a little bit scared to try a little bit of a risky move. That’s some good advice.
Galen Ettlin:
Well, then Jeff Goldblum too. He’s kind of by default outside the box, so that really fit the direction you’re trying to go anyway.
Jorie Green Mark:
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean he definitely elevated our storytelling and helped us reach. It’s funny, he’s older, but he reaches a much younger demo, and that was what we were really going for.
Galen Ettlin:
Yeah, yeah. The humor, the quirkiness.
Well, kind of along those lines, what would you say the most rebellious thing that you’ve tried in content marketing and how did it perform?
Jorie Green Mark:
Okay, so the most rebellious thing I did was probably also at Kroger and I basically, I joined there and had a lot of trust in me because I actually came from to Kroger, from Vita Kroger bought Vitacost, so I was already there and they trusted me and my boss had said to me, you can take a look at our current agency and what we’re currently doing, and if you want to try something totally different, I’m all ears. So I looked at the agency content they were producing, and it was very polished and pretty, but so not engaging on social media, and I’m all about engagement on social media. I know that there’s more uses for it now in marketing, and this was early days, this was like 2015, but I think that is really the best way to relate to customers. So we had, again, the patch tests.
We had a crazy thing happened at a Kroger grocery store where a woman walked in and gave birth right there in the middle of the entrance. I mean, it was her fourth baby, and she went into labor immediately and the pharmacist helped deliver it, and everybody in the store was customers and employees alike or bringing her towels and blankets and all kinds of things. And at the time when I first started, they were just sharing very polished stock images for recipes and things like dietician tips and things like that. So I said, can we please share this story? And it was like a rough image of a woman I’ve taken on her husband’s cell phone holding a baby, lying on the floor in the grocery store. Not polished at all, but I think very true to the brand. And that post just went viral. It was shared by so many places.
Our sentiment was off the charts, and I said, why don’t we try doing more of this? Why don’t we back away some of the dollars that we’re spending on the agency polish creative and instead invest more in gathering these UGC stories? And we did, and we ended up really giving birth to a UGC or engagement strategy. So I would say that was a pretty wild move on my part. I’m surprised I got away with it, but I think it did a lot to elevate the brand, even though the creative was by nature less elevated.
Casey Munck:
That is such a brilliant story. Wow. I love that. I mean, Kroger’s such a part of people’s lives. I remember back home we had the indie rock Kroger that was in a certain neighborhood, and then there was the nicer area of town, Kroger, I can’t remember what we called that Kroger, but that’s incredible Jorie. I love it.
Galen Ettlin:
What’s interesting about that story too, the Kroger of the Pacific Northwest is Fred Meyer, and about 70 years ago or so, I think before it was Kroger, they put an advertisement in the newspaper that just said, free baby, come to our grand opening free baby. And it was this outlandish advertising campaign that didn’t really make sense, but people were like, oh, what are you talking about? And it wasn’t actually a live baby. I think it was like a doll or something like that. I can’t remember. I’d have to look it up, but it kind of reminds me of that story. Obviously yours is a little bit more real and something that happened by some fluke, but that’s what it reminded me of.
Jorie Green Mark:
Well, I was wondering if they were missing the comma, like “free, baby!” That’s great. That’s great. Yeah, Fred Meyer is awesome and they sell clothes and I don’t know, refrigerators and things like that.
Galen Ettlin:
Yeah, everything.
Jorie Green Mark:
Yeah. Yeah.
Casey Munck:
You think so fast on your feet. That’s why you’re so good at your job, Jorie. Thank you. Yeah. So well, let’s talk about trends for a second. So obviously you have a core philosophy of storytelling, bringing some realness into the mix. How do you handle trends, knowing that’s sort of your approach, but we also have to pivot as people culturally find different things are more attractive to them?
Jorie Green Mark:
I mean, I think it’s two parts. One is sort of those micro trends of when people were sharing the little miss, I’m the little miss marketer with a little Miss Overslept or whatever. There’s that, and I tend to be a little bit more wary of that, really looking at the audience. Is the actual audience that’s in, whether it’s a client or it’s a brand, are they going to relate to that? Are they going to think it’s cute? Are they going to think that’s cheesy? But messaging pillars, how much do you wear your heart on your sleeve? How much humility is there in your language? I think it’s incredibly important to be very, very sensitive about those things and to be forward looking. So looking at the cutting edge, I’m currently at a brand that is a great brand with wonderful reputation. It’s not like a edgy supplement company.
It’s not something that you’d only hear of if you, I don’t know, red goop or something. It’s more of just a bread and butter one. But knowing what’s trending, what’s initially gathering interests, knowing what the people who are unquote influencers, what they’re gravitating towards is really important. Just so you’re prepared for it and you kind have an idea of what’s going on in the ether of marketing because it does change. I see big shifts in everything from creative choices, language that really going from, I remember when I first was in the supplement world in the early mid 2010s, right after I left Amadeus, there’s a lot of this kind of bro talk, be your best self, go into beast mode. And now it’s really softened and it’s much more, yeah, exactly. Better so than, sorry, hit the gym, then feed it to a pulp. All of this really charged hyper energetic, it doesn’t matter if you’re uncomfortable, sweat is your fat crying. I know them all. And now it’s much more about empowerment and accepting your body, optimizing your body. So seeing that happened a few years ago before it became the mainstream is really important to know that. So you can pivot to embrace that sort of trend as well.
Casey Munck:
That’s a great approach. I definitely am appreciating less extreme health content out there to be gentle with yourself. It’s okay if you don’t feel like going to the gym today. You will just take care of yourself, honey. Exactly.
Galen Ettlin:
It’ll be alright, bro.
Jorie Green Mark:
Yes.
Galen Ettlin:
So Jorie, what does it feel like, do you say, to take a chance, not knowing what the outcome’s going to be. How do you make a rebellious move while knowing that there could be consequences for it?
Jorie Green Mark:
Well, it’s all about how you sell it to your leadership. If you say, this is a great idea I have, and it’s definitely going to be awesome and people are going to love it and nobody’s going to complain, it’s a terrible idea. You don’t want to do that. You want to manage their expectations. So, hey, I have an idea. Let’s test it out. It’s possible that people may not like this. We may not get the engagement we want or whatever the goal is, but this could be a really great way to pivot our strategy. Here’s how this other brand did it. So going in with a lot of, first of all, just I guess disclaimers, but also research is great too. If you can say, this brand tried it, this brand tried it, this is their results. I think if we did it this way, it would really work as long as you’re going into it with a strategy as opposed to pie in the sky, usually, even if it’s a flop, there’s an understanding that hey, you’re just somebody who’s trying to optimize things and that involves risk.
Casey Munck:
Cool. So Jorie, I know a lot of these things about you personally, but for our listeners out there, how are you a rebel in your non-work life?
Jorie Green Mark:
Oh, but Casey, you must know I’m not. I’m so boring. I feel bad. I am like a suburban mom who goes to bed early.
Casey Munck:
You’ll always be a rebel to me. I think with all the stuff you do with fit, you go so hard on your fitness. You’re got such a cool relationship with your kids. You and Jerry are just such an awesome couple, and I think you’re sort of a rebel within your own suburban community. You’re always yourself, you’re always authentic. And I think that’s really, that’s being a rebel and not following the sort of cookie cutter approach to that life.
Jorie Green Mark:
It just made me feel a lot better about myself.
Casey Munck:
The truth. It’s the truth.
Jorie Green Mark:
Thank you.
Galen Ettlin:
Yeah. Rebels support each other. Here we are.
Jorie Green Mark:
Yeah. Well, I’m all for the rebels. Rebels with a cause. Right.
Galen Ettlin:
There you go. Well, what rebel do you think in our culture needs to be celebrated and why?
Jorie Green Mark:
I dunno if this counts as American culture, but I’m sure you guys are about the Handmaid’s Tale. So I’ve been obsessed with Margaret Atwood since I think I read maybe the book Edible Woman, which she wrote in the seventies when I was in high school, about a woman who became just a piece of cake because she was so unimportant. Her soul was so unimportant in her patriarchal life, and I’ve just always been obsessed with her. And I think her ability to sort of unfortunately predict the future and write about it, I know she’s not a marketer, but I think she’s an incredible rebel just within her culture, within the literary community and huge, huge marketer Atwood fans.
Casey Munck:
Love that. I would totally agree with that statement
Galen Ettlin:
And getting the message out there that’s still marketing in its own, right. Right.
Jorie Green Mark:
Absolutely. Yeah, that’s a really good point. Yeah.
Casey Munck:
Okay, Jorie, so we’re going to finish it up with our ‘honey, I don’t think so’ segment talking about what’s been annoying you lately that needs to stop in marketing or in the MarTech space. You’ve got 60 seconds and Galen is going to be counting down to let you know how many seconds that you’ve got left, and we hold very firm to this timeframe. Okay, so are you ready, Jorie, for your ‘honey, I don’t think so?’
Jorie Green Mark:
Oh, this is going to be cathartic. Yes, I am. I think we can all agree we’re at a point where there are types of marketing that will engage customers. We should all be done with intrusive, irritating marketing. It is just too much, too much popup ads. You’re reading an article on Newsweek, and then there’s a picture of a rusty toilet with a cleanser ad pop up that all in the or crepey. I can’t tell you how many times I am offended by this. I’m reading something and I get a click bait to do you have crepey skin? It’s like, no. I mean, maybe I do, but that’s none of your business internet. I think all of that needs to stop. We should be at a point now where marketers are smart enough that they can figure out ways to appeal to a customer without driving them nuts and making them hate the brand.
Galen Ettlin:
45 seconds. She did it.
Casey Munck:
Alright, Jorie! That was brilliant. Amen to that. There has been this one that’s been coming up for a pest control company that shows a rodent. The grosses wrote it, and that is like, I’m like, honey, I don’t think so. Please stop. I’m trying to read the Bend Bulletin here. It’s disgusting. Well, Jorie, this has been a true delight to catch up with you. It’s awesome to hear about all the amazing things you have done and you will continue to do. Let’s stay in touch and thanks again for being on the show.
Jorie Green Mark:
Thank you so much for having me. It was so nice to meet you and Casey, it was so great to catch up with you, really appreciate it.
Casey Munck:
Cool. Let’s catch up again soon. Thanks, Jorie. Okay,
Galen Ettlin:
And our listeners, Jorie, how can they find you?
Jorie Green Mark:
@storyjorie on Instagram.
Galen Ettlin:
Perfect. All right. Well, Jorie, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
Jorie Green Mark:
Thank you for having me.
Galen Ettlin:
Thanks everyone for listening to the Rebel Instinct Podcast. Be sure to follow Act-On Software for updates in upcoming episodes, and remember to always act on your rebel instinct. Until next time.
Check out the next episode of the Rebel Instinct Podcast with Cody Putman, an experiential marketing manager at Afresh.