Barbie has transcended being a toy. She is an icon, and a symbol. Barbie is a doll that has remained top of its category for 60 years despite competitive threats and shifting consumer preferences. She has helped transform how kids play, and more importantly, how society thinks about women and empowering girls at a young age to dream bigger than they’ve ever dared to dream before.

Barbie’s history isn’t without controversy and periods of sales declines. Those are to be expected in a global behemoth, but what we found most impressive is how the Barbie team, led by Lisa McKnight since 2016, has responded, and rebounded, and made that business, and that brand, stronger today than it’s ever been.

Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com

Shopify is a world class example that every single B2B marketing department - and probably even C-suite- should listen to, and then workshop together about how they can rise up and more meaningfully compete by employing some of the strategies and tactics that Amy will share.

While Fortune 1000 companies get all the headlines and media coverage, North America is built on the backs of small businesses. Small businesses account for two-thirds of all new jobs created annually. Shopfiy doesn’t just give lip service to empowering entrepreneurs, rather it’s their entire business model and brand ethos. They truly walk the walk.

Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com

Christopher Heck is the President of the Sixers, and he did such a great job giving us a glimpse behind the scenes and showing us the robustness of the work his team has been up to the past seven years in an initiative that has come to be known as ‘trust the process.’

Very few people listening are in sports marketing, but that’s okay. Think about this basketball club just like any other business. They were struggling. Competition in the Philly market for an audience's attention is extreme. The Sixers were last in last place in the rankings, and in sales. But they preserved, took bold action, displayed ingenuity, boosted internal morale, and emerged victorious. Any business leader with enough imagination can see themselves in Christopher’s shoes, and can mimic elements of his success.

Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com

Traeger is such a great example of a business that understands what business it is actually in. They make world-class smokers and wood pellet grills, but that's just what they do. That’s not what they are. They are community builders.

Their explosive revenue growth is certainly worthy of our attention, having grown hundreds of millions in a few short years, but their impact on culture and on the BBQ community is even more impressive. Anyone curious how to transition their mediocre business into a cult brand would do well to study Traeger’s story.

Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com

This 135 year old brand has been consistently ranked amongst the most valuable brands in the world for decades. Heck, they are so pervasive and so powerful even our modern day image of Santa Claus is thanks in large part to their marketing. So rather than talk about Coke, I want to take just a minute to talk about Geoff Cottrill, their brand leader who represented Coke at The Gathering. 

Geoff is a who’s who in the marketing world. Throughout his career he’s held marketing roles at Proctor and Gamble, Starbucks, and Converse. He’s been the president of a large ad agency, Mullen Lowe. For 10 years he served as the Board Chair of the Grammys. And since giving this speech when he was the SVP of Strategic marketing at Coca Cola he has since moved on to become the CMO of Top Golf. 

Not many people can say they’ve seen or done it all, but Geoff can.

Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com

Tim was invited to speak at The Gathering, not as an honoree, but as a savvy brand leader who knows what good looks like and knows how hard it can be to properly engage external audiences AND get internal stakeholder buy in on a journey to become something more than just a transactional business that prioritizes price or convenience above all else. 

Tim's personal journey from a marketer to an operator to a business leader is indicative of our own growth as marketers where we need to evolve from communicating value to actually creating it.

Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com

There is no doubt GoDaddy is successful. They have been growing year of year by double digits for as long as anyone can remember. But financial success is only part of a cult brand’s story. Cameron told The Gathering audience that GoDaddy’s problem isn’t market share, it’s indifference. 

They had become a pervasive domain utility but in reality they wanted to become an enabler of entrepreneurism. Strategically, the C-suite moved the goal posts and elevated their brand’s purpose, and then they began the hard work of developing an amazing suite of tools and services to help small businesses succeed.

Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com

It's no exaggeration to refer to Laura Nestler as the Queen of Community Marketing. She is such an expert, and not just in theory, but in practical application. She cut her teeth in the space doing events and marketing for the Seattle Mariners. Then she went to Adidas. Then Yelp. And now she’s at Duolingo.

For those who don’t know, Duolingo is a language-learning app that is accessible without charge. As of 10 February 2021, they offered 106 different courses in 38 languages. The app has over 300 million registered users across the world, is the most downloaded educational app ever in the app store, and the highest grossing education app given their freemium model. Interestingly, the majority of their content is created by volunteers, not employees. In that way it’s like Wikipedia and Reddit, where the content is crowdsourced. If you are keen to learn how to better mobilize your fan base so you reap rewards not only their transactions, but also their interactions, then you need to grab a pen and paper and take some notes because Laura breaks it down for you.

Learn more about the podcast at CultBrandSecrets.com.

Hot Wheels is great because of the way they strive to remain relentlessly relevant. No one there is resting on their laurels. They push and challenge the status quo, and are constantly experimenting with how far and how fast they can take the brand.

From celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2018, to celebrating becoming the #1 selling toy in the world, to sharing how they’ve extended the brand into events, collectables, and online videos and video games and creating this entire play ecosystem for kids and adults, Hot Wheels is truly inspiring. So have a listen and enjoy.

Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com

Brian Scudamore’s enthusiasm for business, and for life, is contagious. He’s one of those guys that makes me smile just by being in his presence. Sure, he’s a super successful entrepreneur, but he’s also just a really good guy who is naturally curious, has a tremendous work ethic, and most importantly for today’s episode, he has mastered a philosophy about failure that is very refreshing. 

In this presentation, Brian is going to share the origin story of 1-800 Got Junk, and that business is certainly a fascinating rags to riches story. But more than the company’s journey, I encourage you to pay attention to Brian’s entrepreneurial journey. He’s very candid, and has a lot to teach us about resilience, grit, optimism, and making tough choices.

Learn more at CultBrandSecrets.com