Strands of Genius: Elisabeth Bromberg + Influencer Trends You Should Care About 2023
featuring: an interview with our guest editor and a research report
Welcome to the Bonus edition of Strands of Genius! On Fridays, we’ll be publishing interviews from our guest editors, and sharing a research report. Thanks for being along for the ride. Oh and by the way, you look great today :)
:: STEAL THIS THINKING | RESEARCH REPORT ::
The takeaway from these trends is that influence now has a firm seat at the table. The reason influencer marketing works now is the reason I first believed in it: because people trust people more than brands. Influence allows brands to connect with audiences in a way no other marketing can –with authenticity.
:: DIVE IN | THE INTERVIEW ::
ELISABETH BROMBERG, FOUNDER & CHIEF STRATEGIST AT MILDRED MAE, AN EMPATHY-DRIVEN BRAND CONSULTANCY
>> Elisabeth Bromberg guest curated Strands on June 8th, 2023. Read it here.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what keeps you busy. How did you end up doing what you’re doing today?
I'm a brand strategist and am now trying to build my own brand consultancy, Mildred Mae, after working for 12+ years as a full-time strategist, both agency and client side. While I first formed my LLC in July 2021, I've only been pursuing it full-time with fervor since this past October, when I was sadly a part of layoffs at my agency. That unfortunate event forced my hand a bit to go hard into consulting and building Mildred Mae as a matter of survival. I'm lucky that I've had quite a range of experience in both strategy specialties (brand, creative, and engagement strategy) and categories (luxury, CPG, healthcare, beauty, tech, spirits), and that's reinforced that at the end of the day, a strategist's primary role is to be the champion of the audience - the human and ultimate end user - whether they're a caregiver of a breast cancer patient, a draft beer-drinking soccer fan, or a tech start-up founder looking for investors. And while Mildred Mae is not intended to be a generalist consultancy by any means, this commonality in my POV and approach has helped me recognize how I can bring my experience and passion to various projects.
How I became a strategist in the first place? Like many strategists, I think I found my way into this field due to a mix of luck and having people in my corner: my first mentor, Josh Hilliard, was then a Group Strategy Director at my first agency, where I worked in the social media department. He ultimately identified that strategy might be a good fit for me and was instrumental in paving the way to making that happen and bringing me into the strategy department. The rest is history!
What excites you most about what you do?
I'm fascinated by human behavior and psychology and why people act/think/feel the way they do. Maybe this stems from my parents being very pro-psychotherapy and sending me to my first therapist when I was four, for better or worse, but I find people's stories and how they shape who they become really compelling. You probably wouldn't think I'm an optimist by the links I shared as Guest Curator. Still, I like to think that marketing has a great capacity for good and that practicing empathy, both in how I work with clients and colleagues to how I try to advocate for my clients' audiences, can maybe, in some infinitesimally small way, positively impact people's lives.
What beliefs define your approach to work? How would you define your leadership style?
So, the term "empathy-driven" is literally in Mildred Mae's tagline. Mark Pollard asked me about that when he had me on his Sweathead podcast a little while ago (which I was quite flustered during, but it was nonetheless a critical learning opportunity for me, and Mark was very gracious about it.) When I say empathy-driven, I mean that I believe that success is keeping empathy at the center of everything you do and relentlessly pursuing truth to better understand people's real behaviors, motivations, values, and attitudes. If you can do that successfully, anything you put out there will have value.
When it comes to my leadership style, I practice the same thing. While I try not to define myself by the results of some of these self-assessment tests like Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, StrengthsFinders, etc., when I took StrengthsFinders years ago, one of the key strengths it identified has stayed with me: Individualization. IMO, it's kind of a dumb and misleading name, but basically, it means that people with this strength, according to the Clifton website, "are intrigued with the unique qualities of each person. They have a gift for figuring out how different people can work together productively." I like to think that's true for me - I genuinely enjoy getting to know the people I work with so I can be a better leader, manager, teacher, mentor, and mentee. I try to keep it real. We're all humans just trying to exist in an increasingly challenging world, and as someone who wouldn't have had the career I've had without the mentors and advocates I've had along the way - starting with Josh - the least I can do is pay it forward the best way I know how.
What has been the most rewarding project you’ve worked on and why?
You know, the first thing that popped into my head is a recent project that you won't find on the case studies section of my website (at least not yet!) and isn’t super flashy, award-winning work for some globally recognizable brand - not that I'm not grateful to have worked on those types of projects and for those types of clients! But while going freelance and building my own business has been (and continues to be) really, really hard, I've experienced surprising moments of delight working on projects and for clients I never would have had big agency-side.
One of those clients is an incredible woman named Laura Khoudari, whom I was lucky enough to connect with through a former colleague. Laura is a trauma-informed wellness author, speaker, and practitioner who wrote a powerful book about trauma-informed weight training, Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep At a Time. She was looking to expand from her specialty in trauma-informed movement to broader trauma-informed wellness, and was taking classes to help her accomplish this, but she wanted to figure out how to reflect that evolution in her overall brand. Listen, I could give you an entire interview just on how awesome Laura is as a person and as a client, how our work together evolved from defining the role of social channels to a fully redesigned brand identity and website, how the multifaceted nature of the project allowed me to stretch myself both creatively and strategically, or how it even gave me the opportunity to partner with my sister-in-law, Leah Thomason Bromberg, a multi-talented artist with an MFA in painting and a burgeoning graphic and website design side hustle. All of those elements have made my work with Laura powerfully rewarding. But most of all, this project was rewarding because I was able to work with a client whose values aligned with my own and help her bring something good and necessary into the world in a bigger way.
We are big believers in diversity -- Not only because we believe in equality, but because we also think it’s better for business. The Black Lives Matter movement has shaped industry conversations around both global injustice, and also lack of representation in our industry. How do you frame these kinds of conversations, both internally and with clients? Is there an emphasis on action, or are the conversations really more about communication?
My capes deck for Mildred Mae has gone through many iterations as I've worked to find the best language to articulate who the brand is and what it stands for. In one of those iterations, I wrote out two of our brand values as "We give a shit, and we never bullshit." While I'm still second-guessing that tone (thanks, Mom), it accurately portrays where I refuse to compromise. I am not afraid to be direct with clients about "hard" topics like diversity, equity, or justice because I guess I just fundamentally don't believe that these topics should be "hard" to begin with. Inequality, inequity, and injustice exist and are often exacerbated in our industry, and they shouldn't be. And I won't work with a client who will willfully ignore, cover up, or behave in a way that prioritizes profit over people, transparency, and doing what's right. I know that might sound overly idealistic or naive in this industry, but I've also seen from experience that it is possible and easy to be ethical and act with integrity and empathy as a company. So my approach to those issues is firm but kind: I do my best to help clients see how, where, and why they can and should actively infuse empathy into their brands, campaigns, and user experiences. And if they're ultimately unwilling or afraid to do so, it won't be a good fit.
Switching gears a bit, how do you find time to balance personal interests with your career? Do you believe work/life balance is possible? Anything you’ve implemented that you recommend that others try?
Ugh, I wish I could achieve a better work-life balance, but because I love what I do so much and am passionate about it, even when I'm working (LOL) on the life part of things, I find myself thinking about work. I'll find myself "insight hunting" when doing my favorite life activities, like dining solo at a bar and having deep conversations with strangers, getting lost in the bowels of Wikipedia, or when I’m watching TV and hear a particularly poignant piece of dialogue. I collect these nuggets in Evernote with the tag "Unexpected Insights" (not coincidentally, the name of my Substack) or by bookmarking social posts. They're basically just provocative observations that make me go "huh" and reveal or clarify something painstakingly real and human. They're everywhere! Most of the time, they have nothing to do with any current project. However, I'll still categorize them and revisit them later when considering a particular topic or looking for inspiration. I don't see it as super problematic, though - being curious is part of who I am, and it just so happens to be, luckily, a helpful quality for a strategist to have.
What’s your media diet? Where do you find inspiration?
Everywhere. Too many places. There's just too much content! I oversubscribe to newsletters and podcasts and then feel guilty because I can't keep up with them. But I've found that the best inspiration often comes from digging into what people I like to follow are following, reading, watching, and listening to themselves. I'm a bit of a stalker like that. If I find myself loving the articles you tweet or the people whose posts you share to your IG Stories or recommend on your own blog, I'll often discover cool new sources of inspiration from those. I just realized that's part of what Genius Steals means, huh?
What’s the best piece of advice/knowledge you’ve stolen, and who/where’d you steal it from?
I have three brothers and am the only girl, so my relationship with my mother - the only woman in my immediate family - was always important to me. When I was younger, we had a special tradition of taking the train to NYC from where we lived in Connecticut to get our hair done and go shopping. Things are different now, but back then, we had a lot of economic privilege, and my Mom had pretty expensive taste and a good amount of recognizable designer brands in her closet. But her wardrobe was classic - she took excellent care of her things and bought items that she loved wearing for decades without ever going out of style. She taught me that the wisest investments are in the things that will not only endure in their intrinsic value but their emotional value as well. In this case, it was about fashion, but I've found it's true for everything, from personal beliefs to relationships and even tattoos!
What superpower would you choose?
A while ago, someone on Twitter asked what superpower people would want if they could have one. I thought a lot about it (probably too much) and decided that if I could have any superpower, I'd want to be fluent in every language and in every sense of the word - including math, coding, music, and of course, all animal languages. How cool would it be to experience the world like that?
You can keep in touch with Elisabeth on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co
@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed