Paulie Dery, chief marketing officer at AG1, believes that creative can connect people and change people’s perception of how they feel about a product.
Growing up as a creative in ad agencies including R/GA and M&C Saatchi Australia, Dery has always believed that great creativity is the soul for product education and understanding.
“The reason I found myself on the other side of the fence was, what if I could remove those barriers that seemed to get in the way of really good creative and facilitate a way for great ideas to get out into the world,” says Dery. “That’s my role as a CMO. I always say the only thing that matters is what the customer sees.”
AG1 daily supplement drink that is designed to support brain, immune, and digestive health with a mix of vitamins, minerals and good bacteria. Dery is inspired to work for a brand that he says is bringing health benefits to millions of consumers.
“Health in America is expensive. I grew up in Australia where it’s government subsidized. Here, if you get sick, it’s a big problem,” he explains. “Our diets aren’t great. The source of our produce isn’t great. So the thought of giving people a really easy solution to start their day and put their bodies in a great spot, it is pretty exciting to get behind. There is a health revolution going on in the country, and it’s exciting to be part of it.”
Prior to joining AG1 in August, Dery was CMO of the high end cooler brand Yeti and has also held senior roles at Uber. Brand Innovators caught up with Dery from his home office in Austin to talk about brand building, showing up in the community and educating consumers with entertaining content. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you talk about what your approach is to storytelling and creative and how you bring the story to life for the brand?
The other thing is the power of the community. Both during my time at Yeti and here at AG1, the product lives in a really interesting world. It powers these high-performance people, whether they’re iron men, women, triathletes, people climbing Everest, and really putting focus into being part of their world and community and helping those communities wherever possible. To build trust in those communities.
Those communities trust our product. Let’s build a great relationship. There’s an ability to tell stories about these people and allow people who aren’t climbing Everest right now or running triathlons to understand that the product has a role in their world.
How do you authentically build a brand through community and then tell stories of the community to be your advertising?
It’s a really powerful tool that keeps you authentic and also keeps the core customer feeling immense pride that this is a product for them.
The biggest problem brands and products have is when it becomes a commodity. I never want people to think of us as a green powder. I want people to think about us as, hey, this really fuels the life I want to live and that is a pretty fundamental shift in how you think about marketing. The brand has to be more than just the product itself. It has to be meaningful to me as someone who takes it.
Can you talk about how you’re bringing this lifestyle story to life on the ground?
We are showing up for the community when they need us. We’re not sponsoring a community, we’re supporting the community. That means working with the people on the ground who we support and work together. What does the community need? Whether that’s financial support, whether it’s us throwing weight behind a subject or supporting a youth movement. It’s really about getting on the ground and working with our people on what the community needs.
And then there’s an element of showing up at these events to show that we’re committed to them. As you grow, there’s a temptation to move on to other things. We always made sure that we stay true to the communities that help build this brand and stay with them because they’re our people.
Showing up to Iron Man and these events is super important but it’s also important to help fund expeditions or fuel crazy adventures because without that world, AG1 loses something. It’s these people from a product level to a lifestyle that we really celebrate and love. The more people out there doing that, the better we are as a human race. That’s the exciting part and that’s why we show up. I love our marathon activations. They’re just like cheer squads. They’re just celebrating people who are out there doing it because we think they make the world a better place.
Can you talk about how you are educating the consumer on how to consume AG1?
There’s a couple of things. How do you educate people on two things? One, the lifestyle that the brand represents and two, the actual product benefits. What I would say is it’s important to be scientific because certainly in our industry there’s a lot of snake oil. We do a lot of work. We spend a lot of money, a lot of time on testing, getting accreditations, sourcing the best products. But there are a lot of copycats out there who don’t.
We really do have to spend a fair bit of time talking about quality and educating people on the benefits of the product. What is important there is that it doesn’t have to be boring. That can be entertaining. In fact, people want to be entertained.
I always say to our social team, we’re not competing against other health brands. We’re competing against Mr. Beast. You’re competing against Game of Thrones. You’re competing against the most entertaining, interesting pieces of content on the planet. And that’s how we have to think about educating people.
That’s been the journey. We’re currently working on some great stories about our farmers. I don’t think people understand that AG1 is full of real produce, fruits, and vegetables grown by real farmers who care about what they grow. That’s interesting to me. I want to hear their stories.
It’s about delivering that information in the most entertaining yet educational way possible. The other side of that is showing where the product shows up. That is with high-performance people at Iron Man, doing explorations, or people who wake up and go to the gym every morning. Those people are our people, and we power their day. It’s important for people to see that and understand that.
