An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Create editorial authority. Your brand is bigger than your product. And the modern consumer wants more than a brand to like, they want a brand like them. They want to engage with brands that share similar beliefs and stand for something globally. What stories and content can your brand authentically take part in? If your brand was a magazine, what stories would you publish? Dame, who I mentioned earlier, leverages a strong authority around demystifying sexual health and empowers women every day with content and stories on their blog.
As part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Brentos Fernandez, Head of Creative at Listen.
Brentos Fernandez leads brand process as the Head of Creative at Listen. He began his career in communications over fifteen years ago as an Art Director, creating content-driven campaigns and advertising for global brands Jeep, Target and Marlboro. Working as a Creative Director, Brentos led creative teams at Leo Burnett, DDB and Barkley advertising agencies — working across strategy, visual design, interactive and social media.
Always drawn to the culture of a brand, Brentos has helped shape creative strategy and positioning for iconic brands like Ball, and Spirit Airlines. Of note, his brand work on Wingstop positioned the fast-casual restaurant for an impressive IPO, helping the cult-status chicken wing joint to expand their footprint and scale consistently.
If he’s not working, you’ll find him at a live music event or creating art with his 12-year-old son.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I’ve been a lifelong listener. Since I was a kid, I’ve enjoyed hearing stories in music; stories about places I’d never been, cultures different than my own. From Curtis Mayfield and a look into the civil rights of the ’60s and ’70s to contemporary hip-hop from the coasts, this was quite a different environment than growing up in the rural heartland. I turned this passion for stories into visual art, record covers, posters and eventually brand things, like logos and websites. My career has always been connected to music and building communities around an idea. Some call it ‘brand,’ but I think of it more as creating culture and content around a company, to make it relevant in a modern, social media-driven world.
I left the ad world to become a creative capitalist at Listen, where we back consumer-obsessed founders and build value through brand and creativity.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you started? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The biggest lesson from early on: remember who your audience is. I’ve always been a maker. So when the company I just started working at, ad agency Leo Burnett, asked its employees to make something to celebrate Leo’s birthday, I jumped at the opportunity to flex my skills. I spent 36 hours creating a whole microsite and music video. I packaged it in a pop-up book on one of those tiny CDs (this was 2003). So, I turned it in; a few senior art directors were in awe of the effort. Later that morning, I got a call at my desk thinking of accolades… but no. The person had jammed their computer with my micro cd and asked for a different format. In the end, I discovered my message had been lost in translation because I hadn’t thought through the audience and their tech prowess. It was a lesson in right-sizing (😏 heh) tech, user experience and message delivery.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Listen is built upon a single idea. Brands that listen to their consumers win. My background in advertising and brand building for giant companies taught me that it’s harder to innovate at a behemoth brand than create a relevant brand from the ground up. That’s because a young brand must listen to their consumer or they won’t be a business for long. At Listen, we help our consumer-obsessed founders create noise and activity in the market, which helps grow their audience and establish credibility in the world. Our brands aren’t just companies. They are communities of true believers that help guide the business to ongoing success.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
New investments are always fun because we’re just digging into their audiences and becoming experts in a particular field. We’re in the early re-branding stages with The Cumin Club, a 5-minute meal kit for authentic Indian cuisines. The flavors are really amazing, and the meals are super easy to make. The founders have built a platform that sources authentic ingredients and recipes from the many regions of India. All without the preservatives and blanding that is usually the case with Indian dishes in America. We see The Cumin Club as a champion for Indians living abroad, celebrating the incredible diversity of the Indian sub-continent and its food culture.
In contrast, we’re also working with the sexual wellness brand Dame to further refine its brand and expression in the world. For the past year or so, we’ve gone deep on ‘the pleasure gap’ (women are far less pleasured during sex than their male counterparts) and helped Al and her team raise brand awareness after a successful lawsuit against the Manhattan Transit Authority. Resulting in us running advertising in trains about the importance of female sexuality and getting in touch with yourself.
Never a dull moment in championing shifts in culture and building brands that meet consumers there.
Let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between branding and advertising? Can you explain?
Let’s start with Brand. Brand is more than a logo or catchy tv spot. Brand is a memory created by the sum of all the experiences a consumer has with a company. When you have a great brand, you have a lot of ways for the consumer to remember you. Great brands put content into the world that engages their community and allows them to participate beyond just buying a product or service.
Brand-ing is more superficial and helps ensure consistent delivery of your message. Think of this as a set of rules. The branding of Target is the Bullseye and that specific shade of red that wraps everything. The Target Brand is a company that brought forth the idea that great design is for all. Everything the brand does is to make you remember that quality and affordability can be equals, from their designer partnerships to their elevated in-house products, even their tv ads-turned-music videos — all of which speak to this idea.
Advertising’s role in Brand is about making noise. How does your brand tell folks that you’re different than the other guy? And “Hey! Come see me!” Advertising may have changed over the years, from jingles to one-for-one missions to thumb-stopping product demos in your feed, but one thing has remained consistent. Advertising is about broadcasting a message to potential consumers.
We’ve seen a shift with modern brands; more consumer participation in that message. The community helps drive awareness as much or more as the company broadcasts.
Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?
When you build a great brand, it future proofs your business. We often think of Brand as a lens by which a company makes decisions. When a crisis emerges, or your competitor knocks off your product, brand is that difference-maker. Brand helps early-stage companies manage a pivot, and later-stage companies drive value at IPO or create renewed excitement as more and more features are launched. Marketing and advertising are part of the brand, but sometimes, advertising and marketing can get off-tune without a strong, purposeful brand idea. A great brand is an orchestra, playing along in harmony of tactics.
Can you share five strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.
- Listen to your customer. Feedback is a gift. Sometimes, we shy away from opinions that are out of line with our assumptions. As a brand, you must validate your intuitions and hear what’s working or not. Know who your customers are (and who they aren’t). One of our investments, Slumberkins, a social, emotional learning platform for kids, uses a private Facebook group to pull insights and test new product ideas before launch.
- Fail your way to success. I learned very quickly that this idea connects design and business. In design, you are constantly testing small decisions to see what happens if… In business, every decision feels precious. That’s the thing. They aren’t. And if one failure tanks your company, you waited too long to test it. How might you create a safe place to fail? Is that a prototype sent to select early adopters? Or maybe a monthly internal meeting for moonshot ideas based on a hunch. Factor our investment in fitness focused meal kits leveraged this construct in every growth stage. From the early days of showing up at gyms to find consumers to give honest feedback on meals to Mike, the CEO, making weekly calls to consumers who’ve canceled their subscription. It’s essential to understand what you can learn when your brand has missed the mark.
- Have an enemy. I’m a nice dude. I guess because I’m a Libra and all the right planets were in place for pleasing people. I love this aspect in human relationships, but in Brand, you NEED to have enemies. You need to know what you are fighting for and who you’re against. I use this exercise in our workshops with new investments to understand the passion behind an idea. We live in an era with a plethora of choices. And if your brand tries to be all things to all people. You’ll fail. Our investment, OROS, a future-forward outdoor company, finds its enemy in the traditional puffer jacket. The team uses NASA-backed science to rethink how to keep warm in the elements.
- Create editorial authority. Your brand is bigger than your product. And the modern consumer wants more than a brand to like, they want a brand like them. They want to engage with brands that share similar beliefs and stand for something globally. What stories and content can your brand authentically take part in? If your brand was a magazine, what stories would you publish? Dame, who I mentioned earlier, leverages a strong authority around demystifying sexual health and empowers women every day with content and stories on their blog.
- Get credit for your idea. ‘Get credit’ means make sure your consumer knows what your idea is and never miss an opportunity to bring a tactic back to it. When you find that core, purpose-driven brand idea, it’s your job to prove it to the world. A social post turns into a movement if it’s led with a sharp idea borne from the brand.
In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand? What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?
Every year at Listen, we write down our top 5 brands and why. Then we share them as a group. It’s always a fun exercise as we usually see how our picks mirror our personalities. So, it’s no surprise that one of my favorite brands is and will always be IKEA. Sure, there are the haters, but IKEA has built an epic community around access to living better through design. From stupid simple space saving products to their Space10 innovation lab fostering new thinking for future problems, they’ve done an amazing job in creating a belief system around the brand. There is no shortage of cheap furniture shops but few that put clever, human-centric design at the core of their offering. The page that I steal from IKEA is the focus on relationship building with the customer. What does the customer need, how do you meet them and what can be eliminated? When you pull it back to the essentials, you can find simple, value-add ideas along the way to plus-up the experience (meatballs!?). In the end, everyone might not love IKEA, but the brand has cemented a firm place in the world’s mind for making everyday living a bit more sensible.
In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of brand-building? Is it similar, is it different?
There are a number of brand scorecard ideas out there. At Listen, we receive hundreds of business pitches a year, and part of our process is a brand evaluation that looks at some of the more qualitative and creative aspects of a company. We get excited about companies that have found their consumer and whose consumers are already rallying behind a need or want. While quantitative sales are important to business building, tapping into consumer mindshare is where brand building exists. A successful year of brand building means you’re succeeding in your consumer’s understanding of what the brand stands for and they are able to tell the world what makes your brand special. This starts as a tribe of true believers and when successful, grows into an almost zeitgeist movement that defines the culture around your brand.
What role does social media play in your branding efforts?
Social media (and emerging media) is critical as consumers are their own media channels. While display and outreach to consumers on social media are table stakes, the real magic is stoking the conversation around your brand in the channels where your consumers are already. No one goes looking for ads but sharing what you love helps people define their personal brand. This gives your customers a chance to participate beyond the product. This participation is key in brand building, and I’m not talking about likes and follows. Who’s hacking your product features to better suit their needs? What subReddit is sharing honest reviews and recommendations with potential new customers?
What advice would you give to other business leaders to thrive and avoid burnout?
What can you do to make fewer decisions every day? If you put robust frameworks in place and empower creative thinkers (everyone can be creative), you set yourself up for less decisions but more of a hive-mind. The lens in which you make decisions should live within the company culture and not with a single gatekeeper. It’s simple advice but often tough to implement. It doesn’t mean you are hands-off, it just means everyone knows how to make the best decisions. And bonus points, it feels great when your empowered co-worker makes a decision you would have made. Win, win.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Everyone is creative. Not a new idea by any means, but now more than ever, we need our kids to be creative thinkers, not memory banks. One of our investments, Codeverse, a kid’s coding platform, is a champion of this very idea. It’s a fact that the jobs available for your children probably don’t exist yet. So how do we prepare for an uncertain world? With strong skills in creative thinking and problem-solving.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“You are only as original as your sources are obscure” or something like that. This quote hit me like a brick when my painting instructor said it to me. For me, I understood the freedom that it lets you have as a thinker and creator. Sometimes the blank page is scary but understanding how to build a new idea from past experiences gives you a superpower. Virgil Abloh was the king of this.
We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have lunch or breakfast? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them.
Seth Godin. We keep ‘What Does it Sound Like When You Change Your Mind’ on the coffee table at Listen. Each day I open a spread for passers-by. I love Seth’s way with words.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
@brentosfernandez IG, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, Spotify
You can also keep up with Listen on LinkedIn and Twitter!
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Brentos Fernandez of Listen: Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
