Marketing Re-Imagined: Jeanne Carlier Of Spark & Bloom Studio On How We Can Re-Imagine The Marketing Industry To Make It More Authentic, Sustainable, And Promote More Satisfaction
An Interview With Drew Gerber
Knowing your audience and what they care for is essential to offer an impactful and authentic brand experience and running marketing campaigns. It will guide what to focus on and offer more customized experiences.
From an objective standpoint, we are living in an unprecedented era of abundance. Yet so many of us are feeling unsatisfied. Why are we seemingly so insatiable? Do you feel that marketing has led to people feeling unsatisfied and not having enough in life? If so, what actions can marketers take to create a world where people feel that they have enough, and they are enough? Can we re-imagine what marketing looks like and how it makes people feel?
In this interview series, we are talking to experts in marketing and branding to discuss how we might re-imagine marketing to make it more authentic, sustainable, and promote more satisfaction. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jeanne Carlier.
Jeanne is the founder of Spark & Bloom, a mindful brand strategy studio helping ethical entrepreneurs feel clear and grounded in their business. She provides her clients with strategies to integrate their environmentally conscious, sustainable, and compassionate values into their brand. She combines these same mindful principles during her process to create aligned and cohesive brand identities.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to know how you got from “there to here.” Inspire us with your backstory!
I started my career as a graphic designer working for companies in both the physical product industry and digital space. Though I loved the design work itself, I couldn’t reconcile the unsustainable and, at times, unethical practices of the systems these companies existed within. So, I exited the corporate world and launched my branding studio, Spark & Bloom, to build up the small businesses that do good.
What lessons would you share with yourself if you had the opportunity to meet your younger self?
I’d advise myself to be more patient with this dream of building a more compassionate world through business and design practices. There’s a lot to learn about politics and social and behavior change when working in the corporate world. I think they would have been valuable skills to nurture later. Plus, now I can see that changing corporations from within is one of the paths toward this dream.
None of us are able to experience success without support along the way. Is there a particular person for whom you are grateful for that support to grow you from “there to here?” Can you share that story and why you are grateful for him or her?
In my first design job, I had a teammate who had been in the company for decades. We didn’t get along personally, but we made it work at work. She taught me so much about the realities of design work within a team, how to organize files, name them, and explain your work and train of thought to someone else. Today, this helps me greatly in my work with my client.
What day-to-day structures do you have in place for you to experience a fulfilled life?
I make my personal life come first! An example is starting daily with what I need to do for myself. It’s mostly exercise and mindfulness meditation. But I sometimes cook, read or walk in the morning before work. I have low energy levels, so if I don’t do this in the morning, I know I won’t do it at night when I am depleted, which makes me unhappy.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think it might help people?
Yes! I’m working on making branding more accessible to small businesses, so I’m currently running my first round of branding workshops. It’s more affordable than working 1:1 with a strategist. It’s also great for new business owners who can start understanding the ins and out of branding and how it impacts the rest of a business. It’s an intimate group, so everyone is participating and collaborating, which is very inspiring.
Ok, thank you for sharing your inspired life. Now let’s discuss marketing. To begin, can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority on marketing?
While I started my career squarely as a graphic designer, I dipped my toes in branding right then. I either worked on my company’s branding or for our clients at each of my early jobs. This is now what I have specialized in since 2019. I’m a certified Brand Strategist from the Brand Master Academy, and I’m also in the Brand Strategy Bootcamp that Melinda Livsey runs.
Despite the fact that branding and marketing are two different things, they’re absolutely intertwined. Branding helps business owners and companies clearly understand their identity, giving them a sense of focus and direction. Branding is what nurtures connections, drive brand awareness, and builds brand loyalty. Whereas marketing helps reach and connect with people, it drives sales. Marketing efforts risk being skewed and less impactful without clear brand foundations and a clear brand strategy.
Throughout history, marketing has driven trade for humans. What role do you see that marketing played to get human societies where we are today?
Trade has been a fantastic way to spread goods and cultures worldwide. But it exists within oppressive systems: colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and the like. So it creates an economy where we mass-produce commodities and sell them at a low price. It contributes to social inequalities, fosters terrible labor conditions, and impacts the environment.
I work in marketing so I’m very cognizant of this question. What role does marketing play in creating the human experience of “I don’t have enough” even when basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing are met?
This is such a vast subject with many intersectionalities! Before we start, though, it’s good to understand that this fear of “I don’t have enough” is one of our deepest fears that triggers an “emergency” mode. The reactions we might get from this fear are not here to sustain us for a while. They’re only a quick fix to survive right now. So now that we have this perspective, we can understand that any marketing campaign that taps into this fear is not looking to offer a sustainable solution. In a world with a dramatic climate crisis and deep social inequalities, it only perpetuates oppressive systems.
Marketing plays an essential role in our most potent fear of “I don’t have enough.” Branding started over 3000 years ago to differentiate products and producers from one another. But as the industrial revolution rendered products accessible to broader markets, competition grew. Companies have found new strategies to stand out: connecting emotionally with their audience by giving them human-like qualities and substantial brand foundations. So now, we associate products and companies with personalities, and their audience as a specific group of people. Just like a regional culture but for a brand. Some people buy Toyota, and some who buy Mercedes. People who buy Nike and those who buy Adidas.
As a result, although some of us have our basic needs met, we crave more because we’ve associated our identity with what we own since birth. So now, when a brand advertises to us a new product, it feels like we don’t have enough, but also that we’re not enough.
You also must consider that our overall health degrades under a capitalistic society. It becomes harder and harder to meet our basic needs, we all experience sustained high levels of stress, and health care is starting to become an expensive commodity (it already is in the US). That’s why it’s not surprising that “shopping (or retail) therapy” is a thing! We’re trying to find quick and easy relief from our misery because we have difficult access to our most basic need: mental health care.
Social media has become ubiquitous at an extraordinary pace. We’re still learning how to regulate it, so it doesn’t have such a dramatic impact on our mental health. It makes us addicted to the dopamine hit, compares each other’s lives, and lowers our attention span. Consequently, we’re more prone to make decisions based on emotions rather than rationally. This is like Disney Land for advertising! And because these platforms sell our data, ads can be so specific that we feel they’re talking to us directly. It becomes very enticing, and it’s easy to fall for it, even when we know exactly what’s happening.
What responsibility do marketers have when it comes to people feeling that they aren’t enough?
Marketers, but even before them, brands and companies are responsible for how people feel about themselves. Brands have a crucial economic, social, and political role. As we live in oppressive systems, they have incredible power. So if they don’t have a substantial purpose (like a global cause, for example) for existing, they’re more likely to use shady marketing tactics.
Companies and marketers perpetuate these oppressive systems (capitalism, patriarch, structural racism, environmental racism, etc.) by not taking responsibility. Like Alice Karolina, the founder of the Ethical Move, wrote, “Ethical marketing is about breaking the system. It’s about decolonization. Liberation. Intersectionality. Inclusion.”
Taking responsibility for a brand and marketers means showing real and diverse bodies and families. It means avoiding manipulative messages or prices (I see your $0.99 sign). It means avoiding aggravating pain-points and shaming your audience for not buying from you. It means avoiding sleazy tactics like fake scarcity, pressure, and FOMO.
It means treating your audience fairly and with dignity.
Many 21st-century marketing professionals in a capitalistic society will discuss solving human “pain points” as a way to sell products, services, and other wares successfully. In your opinion or experience, has aggravating pain points led to more pain?
We often discuss this in The Ethical Move Community because it is a complex subject for companies.
Of course, products offer solutions to problems so talking about these issues makes sense. But it has to be done with nuance, objectivity, and positivity so it doesn’t tap into people’s emotions, hence leading them to make an ill-informed decision.
Agitating pain-points often creates a shame response which can awake past trauma. But the thing is, people use pain-point because it works. Because people react more to negative emotions than positive ones. This is how we respond to stress and fear.
However, this is not how you build a long-term relationship with a loyal audience, or participate in building a better world.
Different cultures view trade/marketing differently. While some may focus on “pain-points” others may focus on “purpose-points”. How do other cultures differ in how they approach marketing? Please give examples or studies you may know about.
I only know the Global North marketing culture, which is relatively similar from one country to another, so I can’t speak for other parts of the world.
In addition to aggravating pain-points, one thing that is incredibly prevalent in our Global North culture is how we center white and privileged experiences in marketing, which miss-represents our diverse population.
However, there are many ways to market products and services differently than focusing on pain-points. This becomes clearer and easier to do when the brand strategy is defined and aligned with the company values.
I have an excellent example of this. During our brand strategy project, a client of mine discovered that they had 2 audiences instead of one: their shop customers but also their suppliers. They discovered this because we worked on what made them different from their competitors: they care and respect their suppliers, which is often not the case in their specific industry. They also serve underrepresented people with limited access to resources. Without good suppliers, they wouldn’t have good quality products, so they wouldn’t have as many repeat clients. We were able to brainstorm ways to market to suppliers through educational content, resources in exchange for their emails, and public shoutouts to their community. Without the brand strategy, they would have only marketed to their retail customers. They would have missed out on a big part of their audience and on a significant opportunity to raise brand awareness through how they treat their suppliers differently while actually helping them.
One of the most important things to remember is that people need to feel safe for them to trust us and build a long-term relationship with us.
Okay, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview: It seems as if we have never stopped to question marketing. In your opinion, how can marketing professionals be more responsible for how their advertising shapes our human experience of feeling safe, secure, and knowing that we matter? Based on your experience or research can you please share “Five Ways We Can Re-Imagine The Marketing Industry To Make It More Authentic, Sustainable, And Promote More Satisfaction”?
- Knowing your audience and what they care for is essential to offer an impactful and authentic brand experience and running marketing campaigns. It will guide what to focus on and offer more customized experiences.
- Here are a few ideas to make people feel safe with marketing (I’m sorry, I can’t just stop at 5…):
- Asking your audience for consent (how do you use their data, did you ask if you can record this call?).
- Being able to accommodate different disabilities.
- Listening and adjusting when someone calls you out and sharing about the experience.
- Walking your talk.
- Being able to share your sources and data to back up your claim when someone is asking.
- Being transparent about what you can and can’t do at the moment.
- Offering payment options that don’t discriminate against people who can’t pay in full.
- Sharing real testimonials and showing people the possibility to reach out so they can check the referral for themselves.
- Focusing on the desired outcome rather than what would happen if they didn’t buy.
- Going through a certification process like B-Corp
- Taking a pledge like the one from The Ethical Move
For you personally, if you have all your basic needs met, do you feel you have enough in life?
I do my best to work on this, but unfortunately, I live in a big city with billboards, and I use social media. I’m aware of unethical marketing practices, but it doesn’t mean I don’t fall for them sometimes…
But I’m very fortunate and was born with many privileges, so my basic needs and beyond are met every day.
Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources that have inspired you to live with more joy in life?
The Book Of Joy from the Dalaï Lama and Desmond Tutu is fantastic. I recommend listening to it because it’s them talking, and they crack each other up throughout the book. You can’t listen without having a smile on your face.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start 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. 🙂
I’m already in one! It’s called The Ethical Move, and we just opened our community called The Ethical Move Community. We discuss all of this openly to understand the underlying power structures we live in and find new ways to market our business, so they become forces of good.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
You can subscribe to my newsletter, where I share about mindful branding, the twist and turns of being an entrepreneur, and the occasional studio news.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
About The Interviewer: For 30 years, Drew Gerber has been inspiring those who want to change the world. Drew is the CEO of Wasabi Publicity, Inc., a full-service PR agency lauded by PR Week and Good Morning America. Wasabi Publicity, Inc. is a global marketing company that supports industry leaders, change agents, unconventional thinkers, companies and organizations that strive to make a difference. Whether it’s branding, traditional PR or social media marketing, every campaign is instilled with passion, creativity and brilliance to powerfully tell their clients’ story and amplify their intentions in the world. Schedule a free consultation at WasabiPublicity.com/Choosing-Publicity
Marketing Re-Imagined: Jeanne Carlier Of Spark & Bloom Studio On How We Can Re-Imagine The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.