Scratch: CMO Interviews

How Who Gives A Crap Disrupted The $31bn Toilet Paper Industry

Episode Summary

In this episode of Scratch, the Chief Brand Officer of Who Gives A Crap, Ronalee Zarate-Bayani, joins us to uncover exactly how Who Gives A Crap are taking on industry behemoths in the $31bn toilet paper segment and kicking a**! You’ve probably seen Who Gives a Crap, you know, the colourful wrapped toilet rolls that decorate your cool friend's toilet? Well, you’ll be surprised to hear that Who Gives a Crap is leading the charge when it comes to disrupting and dominating the $31bn toilet paper segment. Ronalee talks about the importance of outstanding creativity and finding ways to not compete directly with incumbents but instead find a path which will inspire advocacy. Who Gives a crap also has a much bigger mission, donating 60% of profits to environmental causes. She also delves into the unique challenges and strategies of maintaining the balancing act between profit and purpose, and discusses the critical role of customer advocacy in building a brand that's not just profitable but also purposeful.

Episode Notes

In this episode of Scratch, the Chief Brand Officer of Who Gives A Crap 🧻, Ronalee Zarate-Bayani, joins us to share how they've turned their unique brand identity and commitment to purpose into their superpower. You’ve probably seen Who Gives a Crap, you know, the colourful wrapped toilet rolls that decorate your cool friend's toilet? Well, you’ll be surprised to hear that Who Gives a Crap is leading the charge when it comes to disrupting and dominating the $31bn toilet paper segment. In this episode, Ronalee talks about the importance of understanding what makes your brand special and using that to stand out instead of focusing too much on the competition. She explains Who Gives A Crap’s business model of donating 60% of their profits to eco-friendly causes and how they navigate the challenges of balancing profit with purpose. She also tells us about the benefits of being a smaller, agile company that can quickly adapt and test new ideas in the market.

In the second half, she emphasizes the significance of not just winning customers, but turning them into advocates for the brand 🔈. We learned from her how it's okay for some marketing initiatives to fail, as these are opportunities for learning and growth. She demonstrates how embracing the company's unique strengths and values fosters creativity and innovation through examples. Additionally, she discusses how to strengthen the marketing function by being deliberate about distinguishing short-term from long-term revenues and plans. This episode provides valuable insights into building a profit-first yet purpose-driven brand ♻️.

Watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube 📺: https://youtu.be/UIaMkxgsOCc

🖊️Mentioned in the show: 

📕 Chapters:

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:03:50) - Favorite Challenger Brand 😊

(00:07:40) - What is Who Gives A Crap? 🚽

(00:09:40) - What is the difference between a Chief Brand Officer and Chief Marketing Officer?

(00:11:00) - Rules & Principles to Build a Profit-First Brand (Who Gives A Crap’s Edition) 💼

(00:16:20) - Leading with a Proposition that Customers Care About 💡

(00:20:30) - How do you Balance Messaging & Comms? 📣

(00:33:04) - How Constraints Drive Creativity for Who Gives a Crap 🤔

(00:35:52) - How does Marketing Drive Product Innovation? 🚀

(00:40:10) - Biggest Win Recently 🏆

(00:40:35) - Recent Struggle

(00:41:46) - The Best Marketing Resource 📚

(00:42:51) - Biggest Lesson You’ve Learnt in Your Career 🎓

(00:43:50) - One Thing People Should Do Differently ✨

Scratch is a production of Rival, a marketing innovation consultancy that develops strategies and capabilities that help businesses grow faster. Scratch is hosted by Eric Fulwiler, and he’s joined by Ronalee Zarate-Bayani of Who Gives A Crap in this episode. Past guests include CMOs from Mastercard, GE, Shell, Hyperloop, Adobe, PepsiCo, and Papa Johns.

Find Rival online at www.wearerival.com, LinkedIn, Twitter

Find Ronalee on LinkedIn.

Find Eric on LinkedIn and tweet him @efulwiler - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericfulwiler/

Say hi at media@wearerival.com, we’d love to hear from you.