LEVERAGING DR. BRONNER’S LEGENDARY LABEL & COSMIC CORPORATE PRINCIPLES TO TEACH PEACE / {Brand Extensions}
Hello good humans of Dr. Bronner’s (and other lifeforms reading this). We recently started Ideas for Animals with a mission to “ideate for kindness,” merging our professional skillsets as advertising creatives with our undeniable calling to help animals – human animals included (ALL-ONE!). Because we are such huge fans of your brand, below you’ll find seven “free ideas.” We obviously don’t know your internal marketing objectives, nor do we possess the insights that are crucial to collaboratively generating ideas that are on brand/tone/brief/etc. So there’s a big chance that the thoughts here may miss a strategic mark you’ve long identified as important, represent something you’ve already done, or perhaps just exist as examples of crap you’d never do in a billion years. But our intention here is to prove how much we dig what you’re about. And if it should lead to us getting to know each other better, we’d be honored. For now, we hope it’s fun to check this stuff out, and we’d love to hear from you.
WE’LL START BY SHARING A ROUGHCUT OF AN EARLY “ABOUT US” VIDEO THAT WE EVENTUALLY DECIDED TO SWAP. BUT IT STILL DOES A GOOD JOB OF EXPLAINING HOW WE THINK BRANDS CAN BECOME POP-CULTURE’S NEW “TEACHERS OF PEACE.” AND WE THOUGHT IT MIGHT JIVE.
Like we said, it’s rough. We made it back in February, a couple months prior to our official “launch” – before deciding we’d do better with something that more broadly explained what we’re about “with less woo woo.” Nonetheless, we still believe that brave and visionary people can teach peace through their brand platforms. And we thought it might resonate because we know it’s essentially what you’ve been doing since 1948!
MOVING ON: IN THINKING ABOUT YOUR BRAND A BIT, WE ASKED OURSELVES, “HOW MIGHT WE ‘CONTEMPORIZE THE DISSEMINATION’ OF THE DR. BRONNER’S LABEL, SO THAT IT ‘GETS THROUGH’ TO PEOPLE IN 2023, WITH 2023 HABITS, 2023 CONCERNS AND 2023 CONSUMPTION PATTERNS?” IN OTHER WORDS, “CAN WE HELP MAKE SURE THAT WHAT THE LABEL TEACHES IS HEARD AND CONTEMPLATED IN AN INCREASINGLY DISTRACTED AND DIVISIVE ERA WHERE WE’VE NEVER NEEDED THE LABEL’S TEACHINGS MORE?”
IDEA 1: LIKE-MINDED, ‘BRONNER-INNER-CIRCLE’ CELEBRITIES READ THE LABEL.
Maybe you guys have thought of this already. Or hell, maybe you’ve even done it! But here’s what we see: We round up “like-minded celebs” who we know are fans of Dr. Bronner’s, and who we know would be “right” as “label readers.” We build the right sort of simple set, with killer backdrop, etc - and film them reading the latest versions of full original label, the Heal Soul! label, etc. The celebs we use would obviously be amazing at such a task. And our simple direction, set design and treatment would ensure that these films are engaging, captivating, humorous and endearing. (We have director friends who would add much more to this basic idea than what’s being depicted here.) The best part is how much content you’ll get from these shoots. We can put out long-form edits, do mashup edits, very short :06 pre-roll cuts, 60-second vertical format cuts for Insta Reels and YouTube shorts, etc.
POSSIBLE “CELEBRITIES/EXPERTS”: BERNARDO KASTRUP / NATALIE PORTMAN / RUPERT SPIRA / ECKHART TOLLE / MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY / DONALD HOFFMAN / JEFF BRIDGES / SADHGURU / ETC ETC ETC
IDEA 2: COLLAB WITH B-CORP TO EXPAND REQUIREMENTS TO INCLUDE CONSIDERATIONS FOR ONENESS.
Dr. Bronner’s is a B-Corp and that’s of course very cool. As is the entire B-Corp idea. One thing that bothers us with the B-Corp standards, however, is their lack of focus on animal kindness. This is not to say that a company need be “vegan” to obtain the status. But what about a new dimension of the B-Corp requirement set that takes animal kindness into account? A new sort of “Oneness Mindset Metric,” perhaps? We could work with B-Corp to establish this new set of considerations. Perhaps such a suggestion to B-Corp might be what they need to make more of a statement on this incredibly important side of what it means to be a responsible company. You never know - of their own volition they might even call it “The Dr. Bronner Clause.”
IDEA 3: ON-STREET LABEL INTERVIEW SERIES: “HAVE YOU READ THIS LABEL?”
One (of many) themes we could use for a man-on-street interview production. We would have our charismatic “All-One!” interviewer ask willing folks if they’ve read the Dr. Bronner’s label. Imagine them handing a person a large bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castile Liquid soap, asking if they’ve ever read the label before (most won’t have, cuz, well, most haven’t!) and then film their reactions as they check it out. And read it out loud. As part of each interview, we could ask them to give a synopsis/paraphrase of what the label means to them. These interactions can be edited into a montage, finished as simple individual executions for social media, etc. The really good ones could be even shown in their entirety as YouTube videos, etc.
IDEA 4: TIMES SQUARE “SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE” BRAND PARTNERSHIP.
Many big brands spend big dollars buying digital outdoor boards in places like Times Square. For this idea, we would work with a brand doing such a thing - a brand with friendly ethos like ours and a good sense of humor (Netflix, perhaps?) - and ask them to allow us to insert subliminal “ALL ONE!” images into their moving digital footage. So just imagine this. We work out a deal behind-the-scenes with a such a brand, and then someone is hanging out in Times Square, looking up watching some Netflix ad, and then… “What?!” Did I just see that? Was that really a flash of a… Dr. Bronner’s thing? All-One!? End factory farming? Huh?” Fun. As far as we’re aware, this has never been done. The talk value here could be great. It would likely garner a little earned-media coverage too.
IDEA 5: TONIGHT SHOW PARTNERSHIP: “JUDGE A PEER, WASH IT OUT.”
Late night shows are always looking for ideas, and often they’re ideas that feature a brand partnership. So let’s contact The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with a fun idea (with a great All-One! message): If a guest Jimmy is interviewing slips in a judgment of a fellow celebrity in any way, Jimmy might gently interrupt, pull out a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap, and say “Oh, hey, was that a judgment of __(celeb name)__? I think it was! Hey I’m not tryin’ to shame ya here, but we’re doing a new bit with Dr. Bronner’s, and I think this is a great opportunity for you to wash that judgment of __(celeb name)__ out of your mouth. Let’s do it right now…” He then would squirt a bit of Dr. Bronner’s into a mouthwash cup and hand it to the celebrity. Crowd would cheer, laugh, etc – but before the judger could actually swish with it, he’d stop them, saying like “No way, ha ha, don’t drink that! It’s a joke! But how about this? (Hands celebrity a bar of Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One! Chocolate). How about you go hang out with them and share some Dr. Bronner’s chocolate instead?”
IDEA 6: THE ALL-ONE! “MESSENGERBASSADOR” PROGRAM
A fresh take on what it means to be a “brand ambassador,” the “All-One! Messengerbassador Program” would have us assemble a core group of talented, caring and engaging people of all ages – “sponsored” by Dr. Bronner’s – charged with literally “walking the earth” teaching (NOT PREACHING) the basic tenets and messages of what it is to be All-One or None! (Wow that was a long sentence!) We would obviously create the “parameters” and “expectations” for “Messengerbassadors,” but a key part of the deal would be that they use their own social feeds to share interviews with folks, ideas, messages, inspirations (their general life as a Dr. Bronner All-One! Messengerbassador, basically). We would encourage each individual Messengerbassador’s content and style to be highly individual. For some, it might include more polished content such as the kind of thing that Earthling Ed puts out on his Insta feeds. For others, it might be more free form and just be Selfie Stories. For others maybe it’s snippets of their Messengerbassador experiences as they work toward making a feature-length documentary.
IDEA 7: DR. BRONNER’S “SPONTANEOUS SIDEWALK WASHINGS” AND PORTABLE SHOWER TRUCKS SHOW UP AT URBAN CAMPS.
Don’t misunderstand. We would execute this idea so that it would NOT communicate that urban camps (the likes of which can be experienced around downtown LA) are “dirty.” Nor would the takeaway be that we’re coming in order to “clean them up.” It would instead broadcast that we simply care for our fellow humans and we’re using our core competency to help them where they are. In a way that’s respectful and helpful. Coming in with a team wearing Dr. Bronner’s T-Shirts, with buckets of clean water and doing some sidewalk cleanup - and handing out bars of Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One! Chocolate while we’re there. And parking portable shower trucks. And giving them soap and towels and toothpaste. Doing what we can to improve circumstances, even if only temporarily. IMPORTANT: *Not seeking the earned media – because that would be disingenuous and exhibit poor form. But if media attention were to come? We would absolutely use it as a “platform opportunity” to share our message of All-One!
OK. THAT’S IT FOR NOW. THANK YOU FOR CONSIDERING SOME OF THIS SURFACE-LEVEL IDEATION. IF YOU DIG ANY OF THIS AND WANT TO DEVELOP SOMETHING (ON YOUR OWN OR WITH OUR HELP) WE’D BE DELIGHTED. WE’D LOVE TO BE A PART OF YOUR CREATIVE TEAM. IF YOU’VE GOT ANY NEEDS, BIG OR SMALL, PLEASE LET US KNOW. WE DON’T HAVE TO BE “AD AGENCY OF RECORD,” WE DON’T HAVE TO LET THE PAST CREATE THE FUTURE. WHAT’S HERE IS JUST A GLIMPSE. WE’RE OPEN TO WHATEVER ARRANGEMENT MIGHT WORK BEST. WE JUST WANT TO WORK WITH BRANDS WE BELIEVE IN:
DR. BRONNER’S IS AT THE TIPPYTOP OF THAT LIST.
Regardless of how “this” goes: Thank you for being who you are, doing what you do. The world needs you.