On this 77th episode of The E-Comm Show, our host, and BlueTuskr CEO Andrew Maff is with Jenna Tannenbaum of Who Gives a Crap, a brand that sells good-looking, environmentally friendly toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues while also donating 50% of their profits to help build toilets for those in need.
During this episode, Jenna shares her experience as a growth marketer and how to successfully scale your marketing efforts using authenticity and a targeted brand story to navigate the new world of consumer-savvy buyers.
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Building a Successful Growth Marketing Strategy Using Authenticity - Who Gives a Crap
SPEAKER
Andrew Maff and Jenna Tanenbaum
CONNECT WITH OUR HOST: AndrewMaff.com | Twitter: @AndrewMaff | LinkedIn: @AndrewMaff
Jenna Tanenbaum
Jenna Tanenbaum is a seasoned brand & growth marketer, with deep experience in launching and growing e-commerce, direct-to-consumer, food tech, and subscription businesses from $5m-200m+ in sales annually. She deploys data-driven processes with an entrepreneurial spirit to create products people love and need, and strives to provide the best experience to customers through strong usability, communication, and brand.
She is passionate about helping business reach their potential, no matter their stage.
Currently, Jenna is the Head of Global DTC Commerce and Growth Marketing at Who Gives A Crap. Who Gives A Crap sells good-looking, environmentally friendly toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues and donates 50% of profits to help build toilets for those in need. She is responsible for all online sales in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe.
Transcript:
00:02
We're a profit-for-purpose business. We live in this capitalist society but how can we as participants in the society make it a better place? That's why we think through profit for purpose.
00:14
Hey everyone, this is Nezar Akeel from MaxPro. Hi I'm Linda and I'm Paul
00:20
and we're the Love and Pebble. Hi, this is mocha has been a drummer from rasa you listening and you're listening and you are listening to The E-Comm Show.
00:34
Welcome to the E-Comm Show, presented by BlueTuskr, the number one place to hear the inside scoop from other e-commerce experts. They share their secrets on how they scaled their business and are now living the dream. Now, here's your host, Andrew Maff.
00:52
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The E-Comm Show. I'm your host Andrew Maff and today I am here joined by the amazing Jenna Tanenbaum of Who Gives A Crap super excited for this one. I am a because I know Jen, I know you are very experienced in marketing. So we're gonna have a good old nerd out on marketing and who doesn't love a good poop joke every now and then that I'm sure we're gonna attempt every occasionally. But Jenna, how are you doing? Are you ready for a good show?
01:21
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much.
01:25
Beautiful, obviously, much appreciate it if you joined us today. I like to do the usual thing that pretty much every podcast doesn't we just pretend that no one knows who you are. And no one knows about Who Gives A Crap. And I'd love for you to give us a little bit of insight into your background and obviously, the business.
01:40
Sure, so I'm Jenna Tannenbaum just like you said, and I'm a growth marketer who's spent basically my entire career launching and growing e-commerce, D to C, food tech, and subscription businesses. I've worked with brands like Chartbeat ClassPass, I launched my own smoothie delivery company called Green blender. And now I'm the head of DTC commerce and growth, marketing, and Who Gives A Crap. If you don't know who Who Gives A Crap is, I think our name kind of speaks for itself. But we sell good looking environmentally friendly toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues. And we actually donate 50% of our profits to sanitation projects all over the world. I know at least obviously, we love toilet paper. We love making a good puns, obviously. But the main reason why we're in business is all about impact and the impact we're having on the people in this world and the planet. And so we actually donate, like I said, 50% of our profits, and to date, we've donated over $10 million to fund sanitary sanitation projects all over the world.
02:51
That is awesome. And what a very interesting category for this business to be in like, you think like, toilet paper is an incredibly competitive space. Most of the time, you've just got these companies that are in grocery stores that just own an entire aisle. And then like that's it, obviously, you being on the marketing side, you kind of know how this goes? How have you been able to really differentiate yourself from the other brands? I know it's the sustainability side, but it's also the giving back. But being able to portray that message online for a product that isn't typically purchased online is not easy, and you've obviously pulled it off. So what has your overall kind of approach been to doing that?
03:34
Now? I mean, that's a great question. We really pride ourselves in taking something that's a commodity, elevating it, and making it more fun, more enjoyable to use. So our customers love our brand. And if you look even at our hashtags on social media, so many people talk about Who Gives A Crap and there are toilet paper delivery. And I don't think I've seen another brand like Charmin or Angel Soft kind of coming across my feed so randomly. And so what we really do elevate commodity products, is really to think about marrying the mission and the product and the aesthetic of what we're offering and making it have it have people feel good around there, their purchase. And so being a mission-driven business, we really were founded on this idea of donating 50% of our profits to sanitation projects. And so I think the brand authenticity really shows in everything that we do because it's not just kind of like slapped on the top of you know, the end of an email or oh shoot, we said we were going to do this we better get it done. No, this is everything that we do is all about our donations. Nearly every meeting we sit in, we think about what's this impact gonna have on our profits, and what's his impact going to have on the donations at the end of the year. And I think that the authenticity of the brand and that people are making this brand really shows through and then the consumer really resonates with it. I think the biggest thing, I mean, we kind of talked before the beginning of the show, but just the changes in the digital marketing landscape and how businesses are changing. I think one of the things that are happening even over the last decade is that consumers are becoming way savvier. And so you as a brand have to be very authentic. It doesn't matter if you're going to be mission-driven, or not mission-driven, or donate your profits or don't donate your profits. But whatever you're going to stand for, you have to stand for it. And you have to come across very authentically. And it can't I think consumers can sniff out a marketing campaign from a mile away, it has to be ingrained in who you are.
06:03
How do you, how do you keep that from happening? Right? Like, when you look at the charitable aspect, there's, that became, I mean, I hate to use the word trend, but it really did kind of become a trend, especially in E-commerce, probably about five or six years ago was like everyone was doing it, there were 500 apps where you could like all of a sudden sign-up and donate to whatever. But to your point, you know, really making sure that that is the forefront of the mission as opposed to just you know, making money. How do you actually make sure that that stands out as what is your end goal, as opposed to just you know, we just threw this on there? Because it's a marketing ploy.
06:42
Yeah. I mean, we're a profit-for-purpose business. And we really are trying to let you know, we live in this capitalist society, but how can we as participants in the society make it a better place? That's why we think through profit for purpose, honestly, I hope everybody copies that business for us. And this trendiness just becomes the status quo. And the only way that you can do business with consumers is if you are you have a kind of give-back clause. And you're thinking, beyond just the products that you sell, and how you have an impact in the world and how you show up in the world. I'm really pleased to see more and more businesses do this. And I think the biggest thing is really making sure that it's seeped into everything that you do, every conversation that you have, it really starts obviously, from the top and the founding story. And if it's not part of your founding story, really making sure that there's buy-in from the top, that if you are shifting into a profit-for-purpose business, you are understanding what that means. And you're talking about it, not just publicly but also internally, making sure that you're saying, you know, how you are progressing in your town halls, making sure that you're carving out specific projects, or every single project has some sort of angle to whatever your mission is. It's something that has to happen. In almost every conversation that you have for it to be an authentic piece of your business, it can't, it has to be the main part of the mechanics of your business.
08:24
I understand what you're saying. So as a growth marketer, obviously, I'm imagining that's a good chunk of your business, make sure that that message is still being portrayed. But what else is your day-to-day? Is your focus anywhere specific under marketing? Where are you overseeing a team? What is, your actual approach every day when you walk into the office? Or if you're remote? I don't even know.
08:46
Yeah, so Who Gives A Crap actually is a remote company. And we were a hybrid company before we, before the pandemic. And so we already had a lot of that setup. And my team is based all over the world. And I think that's a really big advantage for us, too. We, I personally am in charge of all of the online sales that happen in all of the countries that we operate in. So we're currently in Australia, the UK, Europe, in the US. And we really try to you know, the day-to-day work is really understanding our consumers and what they need, and making sure that we are meeting people where they are, we, you know, the bigger we become, the more impact we will have in this world. And so we're really our team, the marketing team is really driven by sharing and trying to reach people that would benefit. I think one of the cool things you know, I've worked in a lot of different industries all over and in my career and one of the fun things about Who Gives A Crap is that you don't actually have to Explain what toilet paper is to people, you're not you like the Uber of or whatever that essentially people get toilet paper. And I think that's, that's a pretty easy hurdle to get across when you're trying to have some marketing language and education. But you know, we are, that's probably where the simplicity of what we do stops because we sell eco-friendly toilet paper. So we have to tell people that are something different. And the current rolls of toilet paper that they use are actually made by cutting down trees to make, which I didn't really think about as a consumer, that toilet paper was made from trees. I mean, obviously, it is, but I didn't think about it. So you have to educate your you have to educate consumers, that their current toilet paper, you know, there's an issue with it, whether it's cutting down trees, and then you have to say, well, we make recycled or bamboo toilet paper. And the problem that we are, is no problem. But the challenge we have is that you can't actually touch it. And then you also have to buy in bulk. And so we have spent a lot of time, investing in the word of mouth and word of mouth, adjacent channels, so that people have the opportunity to hear and experience Who Gives A Crap in a non-creepy way, obviously. And so, you know, making encouraging our customers to share a roll of toilet paper with their friends and family is a great way to do it. We have people that have said they use this as a housewarming gift, or a host or hostess gift when they go over to people's houses because it's just really fun. And really, you know, kind of like an interesting party gift. And so my day-to-day really consists of thinking about how people are, how our consumers are talking about our product, and how we can kind of pour fuel on that fire, so to speak, I think the hardest part about being a marketer or being a growth marketer is that obviously, word of mouth is the best channel that you have. But you can't necessarily just add more money to that channel to grow it. And so you always have to think about these other auxiliary channels that encouraged people and have that same essence of word of mouth.
12:30
So one of the things you mentioned there, which is always one of the biggest challenges that most marketers have when you're working with a brand that is a consumable, right, like no one wants to be the first to try something that sometimes they're going to ingest. Obviously, in this case, that's not the case scenario. But in your case, you typically have to buy in bulk, you can't just get a roll and give it a shot. And so obviously, you mentioned you know, you kind of catered to the word of mouth side and you encourage people to, you know, gift a role or something like that for them to try it. But how are you portraying that message? Or is your approach like we have, you know, some automated emails that go out right after the purchase to encourage them to share it? Or is it just part of the overall marketing message? Like, how do you? How do you basically communicate that you're trying to get help from a word-of-mouth perspective?
13:21
Yeah, I think the biggest thing that you can do, or probably the lowest-hanging fruit as a brand that you can do is just ask your audience to share and make it very easy for them to do that. Up until really recently, we actually had a consumer-like purchase post-purchase email that was a poem that basically asked people to share or forward the email to their friends and family. I think that this is a moment where you can really talk about your brand values and what really inspires people to make a purchase and sign up for Who Gives A Crap. We actually just did an interesting test where we put postcards in people's boxes and encouraged a gift box in people's boxes. To encourage people to gift rolls of toilet paper, we've actually found that something like 60% of our customers has gifted a roll of toilet paper to their friends and family. And we thought you know what, why don't we what hap What about the other 40% Maybe it didn't even cross their mind that they could do this and it would be kind of fun, either a white elephant gift or something fun just a conversation starter. So we ended up putting, you know, a postcard and a flat pack of like a gift box that fits a roll of toilet paper into people's boxes and just said hey, this is a kind of a fun gift for people. And the more we can get people to use Who Gives A Crap you know, the easier, the fewer trees that get cut down to make toilet paper, the more money we can donate to sanitation projects. And we actually saw real success really successful. Not only was it a fun surprise and delight for our customers, but they were able to provide some sort of social currency to their friends where they could let them try a cool brand. Let them try something different educate them on something that they might not have known, like toilet paper is mainly made from cutting down trees, and provide a solution right off the bat. So we, we saw that as a really big success, our customers really loved it. And the people that got to try it again, like in a non-creepy way, because we do sell toilet paper. So it is can't have just like a street team, and a toilet around so that people can try your product. And so yeah, it was that those are the types of things that we like to think about is we like to go like when people say we like to zag. So we want to grab people's attention in a way that is very unique to Who Gives A Crap.
16:10
How are you? What approach are you selling? Who gives a crap? You obviously have everyone's website. I know you mentioned you're in Australia, the UK, Europe, the US, and Canada. Are you in Canada?
16:23
We're not in Canada? No.
16:25
Non-Canada's good. They'll get it one day. How? What channels are you selling on? Obviously, you have your own site. But are you on any major marketplaces like, I know you're overseeing the whole DTC side? So where What channels do you kind of cater to?
16:39
Well, we're mainly catering to our website. But depending on the country, kind of dictates where we sell, we have a very large b2b team, that again, is all about word of thinking about word of mouth, word of mouth, and adjacent channels, we work with a lot of cafes and local restaurants and businesses offices to supply their toilet paper. So that you know you go to your local cafe, you get a coffee, use the bathroom, and you see who gives a crap in there. I mean, that's another opportunity to try the product without having to buy 48 rolls without knowing whether you like it or not. So we do a lot of wholesale with corporate businesses. And we are in some retail in Australia in the UK to
17:33
beautiful. Do you have any trouble? I know, you know, do you think Australia, the UK, your us like pretty similar cultures? But do you have any issue with the marketing message that you're giving out? Whether it's like a certain joke or something like that, that you publish on social or through email or anything like that, that isn't that you kind of have to be careful based on who's getting it depending on where they're at in the world?
17:59
Yes, of course, just because everybody speaks English, or predominantly speaks English in these countries doesn't mean that everything's going to land or something is going to convey the same meaning specified in the US. So who gives a crap is an Australian brand to start with. And in the US, I mean, I think the word crap in the US is a little bit jarring. I feel totally desensitized to that because I just say the word crap probably 100 times a day. Plus, I have two kids that think crap is like the funniest word in the whole world. And so I am a little desensitized to it. But I do remember starting at who gives a crap and kind of having a feeling a little jarring to hear the word crap kind of like tossed around. And I think that specifically in the US is a thing that we have to overcome. And that's through brand, repetition, and making sure that we are consistently showing up in interesting ways that educate and entertain our audience. So that people kind of become a little more desensitized to that word crap. But yes, we definitely think about the nuances of every country, and depending on the channel, we have to modify our language based on you know what people say.
19:29
Yeah, are you finding out we don't need to get the show too political? But are you finding that in the US it is slightly more difficult with the brand name than it is in UK and Australia?
19:42
It certainly is. I think people even though we are a profit-for-purpose business, and we honestly could not be any more kind of family-friendly. Just having the word crap in your name. Pete some people are hesitant or Round. And I think, you know, all we have to do though is just consistently show up in the channels and a regular basis, and people will stop, people will start, not equating who gives a crap with kind of, like, vulgar, which is kind of funny that people would. But remember, I remember when the iPad came out, right, and I remember all of these news articles coming out and people being like, what there wasn't a single woman in the room when we named iPad and they couldn't, they had, they were equating pad with like menstruation, and then people like being like jarred around that, but then, you know, over the last how many years 20 years of the iPad came out, you kind of are no longer making that equation. So that's kind of the strategy here at who gives a crap. I'm really just showing up as we are as a brand. And seeing you know, making sure that people know that we stand for incredibly amazing value props, and we're a very authentic brand that really does care about improving the world.
21:12
One of the other things I wanted to touch on is the marketing channels. So obviously, we talked about you know, word of mouth, we talked a little bit on like email marketing side like there's all the standard stuff. There's the one thing I know that who gives a crap is very good at and that's the social side. So what has your social media and or influencer marketing approach been that has allowed you to help the brand stand out? And obviously all these different crowded social platforms?
21:38
Yes, so I love talking about ads, ad assets, how to get that, and specifically for whoever is, you know, listening to the podcast, how you can again, think about applying all of this to your own brands. So I, we create a lot of ads, and I think a lot of brands do I think that's just kind of the nature of digital marketing, as it is. And I think it's only going to get more intense on how many assets you need every month, just the tick-tock of vacation of the internet. Where have you been thinking about yourself personally, as a consumer, and how much time? Or how many videos did you watch, you know, five years ago? versus how many videos are you watching now? And the tolerance you have as a consumer to see the same ad more than once just continues to decline. So I don't necessarily need to see only one like the brand once but I want to be in my ads, I want to be entertained, just like I'm being entertained, you know, scrolling through Tik Tok, or scrolling through Instagram. And so we as a brand, really think about making sure we diversify our creative content sources so that we're giving our consumers or the people that are consuming our ads, something that's interesting and varied and on-trend, and educational or entertaining or something like that. And so I think about kind of just the creative content sources in like five different spaces, right? You have if you're so lucky, you have you are in house creative team. And so will what kind of ads do they make that will make a big impact? Or what can they do that nobody else can do without thinking about looking out for content from your super fans? So make sure you're doing social listening, and you're constantly kind of combing through all of your social feeds to see if there's something good that you can repost or share, working with creative agencies so that you can get a different type of asset, going through user-generated content or UGC and then also tapping into the creativeness of your existing team. Maybe not just on your creative team, but anywhere. Anyone in you know anyone in your company, many of them spend time on the internet, many of them make content and whether they are in marketing or on the creative team or not. And so providing opportunities to your existing team to do some sort of hackathon or social media hackathon, where they're making content that they think is interesting, also provides a wide variety of interesting things that you may not have thought about yourself.
24:35
Yeah. I love the idea of doing an internal hackathon. That sounds actually very interesting because you also involve people that maybe aren't traditionally on the marketing side. They come in with like a fresh pair of eyes. But either way, it is very refreshing to hear you basically say everything you just said because way too many times I have conversations with other e-commerce sellers that have the same piece of ad creative they've been running for a year and I Half and back then, you know, you'd think it used to do okay because you used to benefit from the social proof it would gain more likes and more comments and like, Oh, this must be a really viral video but now with you know, Tik Tok, and with Instagram, you're not really seeing all of that information like you once did. So. Love it. Jenna, thank you so much. I don't want to take up any more of your time. I really appreciate it. Have you been to the show? I would love to give the opportunity here to let people know where they can find out more about you and obviously more about who gives a crap?
25:28
Yeah, of course. So I'm on LinkedIn as Jenna Tanenbaum. So I'd love to connect with anyone there. And you can learn more about Who Gives A Crap at whogivesacrap.org
25:39
Perfect Jenna, thank you so much for being on the show. Obviously, everyone who tuned in thanks you as well please make sure you do the usual rate review, subscribe, blah, blah, whichever platform you want YouTube, or head over the comm show.com to check out our past episodes, but as usual, thank you all so much for joining us and we will see you all next time.
25:57
Thank you for tuning in to The E-Comm Show so head over to ecommshow.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or on the BlueTuskr YouTube channel. The E-Comm Show is brought to you by BlueTuskr, a full-service digital marketing company specifically for e-commerce sellers looking to accelerate their growth. Go to BlueTuskr.com Now for more information says, Make sure to tune in next week for another amazing episode of The E-Comm Show.
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