Sheldon Baker08.24.12
Yadim Medore is principal and creative director of Pure Branding, Inc. Under Mr. Medore’s direction, Pure Branding’s work has been honored with numerous awards including a Rebrand 100® global award and two Webby Awards, and returned significant ROI to its clients. Prior to founding Pure Branding in 1999, Mr. Medore directed design at Disney Publishing, where his understanding of lifestyle branding increased circulation of FamilyFun magazine by 400%, and was honored by Adweek's 10 Hottest Magazines list three years running.As art director at New Age Journal (now Whole Living), Mr. Medore led the rebrand that laid the foundation for the magazine’s eventual sale to Martha Stewart Omnimedia. Bennington-educated, he has taught at Harvard, has been published in Organic Processing and Nutritional Outlook and is often invited to speak at industry conferences, including Natural Products Expo East and West, All Things Organic and LOHAS.
Health E-Insights:Tell me a little about Pure Branding.
Mr. Medore:Pure Branding builds leading brands for values-based companies in the natural products industry. We identify potential through research and analysis, and realize that potential through groundbreaking strategy and powerfully authentic creative. Based in Northampton, MA, we are a boutique consultancy who works with only a select handful of clients each year to ensure deep analysis, specialized insight and close partnership through the rebrand process. After more than 10 years, global clients include Gaia Herbs, Traditional Medicinals, Aura Cacia, Organic India, Vitamin Angels, Dr. Hauschka Skin Care, Boiron, Country Life, Vitasoy and MegaFood. Similar to an Ayurvedic practitioner, we have a holistic process where we look the organization’s values, its product offerings, its trade customers, the category in which it competes, and its participants. Our work is structured to assure that these five forces of branding are in balance to realize the branding objectives. We use “participant” instead of the label of “consumer.” Think about it. A consumer is ‘one who consumes.’ A participant is a part of a team. Who would you rather have pulling for you? The conventional marketing world is often driven by the objectification of people through nameless and faceless numbers and statistics. We don’t think of cows as production units, and we don’t think of people as consumers. It’s about creating relationships through invitation and collaboration. It’s about creating a real, person-to-person dialog that says, ‘come on in and join the movement.’ Conventional consumer product brands have typically been crafted to leverage the relationship between a target consumer and a product. For natural brands, we've found that equal consideration needs to be paid to the other forces at play, ensuring that the brand and its product offering is an authentic expression of the organization’s values and aspirations. The trade plays a pivotal role in validating and referring premium natural brands – our evangelistic partners – so aligning the brand to uniquely serve the needs of the brand’s retail partners is critical to success. We must also consider category dynamics, both the white space left by competitors and the trends in natural product categories that are less defined than their conventional counterparts. At Pure Branding, we build brands informed by the synergy of these five forces.
Health E-Insights:What do you consider a pure brand?
Mr. Medore:Pure brands change the world. A pure brand is a passionate expression of a belief. Our responsibility as branding consultants is to enable this passion to be scaled. A pure brand is authentic. Intuitively, people connect with it. They know it has meaning. Pure brands meet people on their terms, give them reason to believe, get invited into their lives.
Health E-Insights:Do you only work with natural and organic clients?
Mr. Medore:Yes. Since our inception we have consciously chosen only to work with clients in the natural products industry, including natural and organic food, dietary supplements and personal care. This has allowed us to establish a deep level of expertise which ultimately is reflected in the measurable ROI we provide to our clients. In addition, we find when working with natural brands that there is always a deeper mission at the center of their ‘Why.’ Sometimes this impulse has been covered over after 20 or 30 years of success and its part of the rebrand process to rediscover and celebrate it.
Health E-Insights:What words come to mind when you think of your brand?
Mr. Medore:Passionate. Deep. Specialized. Selective. Expertise.
Health E-Insights:What trends do you see in branding?
Mr. Medore:I see a trend in public awareness around purchasing decisions that’s driving a change in how organizations are representing themselves through trust and accountability. Ultimately this is creating a need for strategic storytelling, which is ultimately a ‘pull’ strategy, one that allows participants to be drawn into an experience because of shared beliefs, and allows them to engage in their own path of discovery and connection with something meaningful.
Health E-Insights:What is your proudest career achievement and why?
Mr. Medore:Choosing to leave my comfortable job at the Walt Disney Co. to found Pure Branding 13 years ago, in order to align my beliefs with my work. It was a decision that I didn’t make lightly, and have never looked back. Recently, I would say my proudest achievement has been how we helped Gaia Herbs dramatically increase both its relevancy and its market size due to our strategic rebrand.
Health E-Insights:Who has had the biggest influence in your life?
Mr. Medore:My spiritual teacher of 20 years. She’s been the guiding force in my life and allowed me to realize that all of life is sacred, that there is no separation between how we live our lives at work, with our families, and with the larger world. We are all connected.
Sheldon Baker is well-known for creating nutraceutical brand marketing and public relations campaigns. For Health E-Insights interview consideration, contact him at Baker@CentralValleyTalk.com. And follow him on Twitter @NutraInk.
Health E-Insights:Tell me a little about Pure Branding.
Mr. Medore:Pure Branding builds leading brands for values-based companies in the natural products industry. We identify potential through research and analysis, and realize that potential through groundbreaking strategy and powerfully authentic creative. Based in Northampton, MA, we are a boutique consultancy who works with only a select handful of clients each year to ensure deep analysis, specialized insight and close partnership through the rebrand process. After more than 10 years, global clients include Gaia Herbs, Traditional Medicinals, Aura Cacia, Organic India, Vitamin Angels, Dr. Hauschka Skin Care, Boiron, Country Life, Vitasoy and MegaFood. Similar to an Ayurvedic practitioner, we have a holistic process where we look the organization’s values, its product offerings, its trade customers, the category in which it competes, and its participants. Our work is structured to assure that these five forces of branding are in balance to realize the branding objectives. We use “participant” instead of the label of “consumer.” Think about it. A consumer is ‘one who consumes.’ A participant is a part of a team. Who would you rather have pulling for you? The conventional marketing world is often driven by the objectification of people through nameless and faceless numbers and statistics. We don’t think of cows as production units, and we don’t think of people as consumers. It’s about creating relationships through invitation and collaboration. It’s about creating a real, person-to-person dialog that says, ‘come on in and join the movement.’ Conventional consumer product brands have typically been crafted to leverage the relationship between a target consumer and a product. For natural brands, we've found that equal consideration needs to be paid to the other forces at play, ensuring that the brand and its product offering is an authentic expression of the organization’s values and aspirations. The trade plays a pivotal role in validating and referring premium natural brands – our evangelistic partners – so aligning the brand to uniquely serve the needs of the brand’s retail partners is critical to success. We must also consider category dynamics, both the white space left by competitors and the trends in natural product categories that are less defined than their conventional counterparts. At Pure Branding, we build brands informed by the synergy of these five forces.
Health E-Insights:What do you consider a pure brand?
Mr. Medore:Pure brands change the world. A pure brand is a passionate expression of a belief. Our responsibility as branding consultants is to enable this passion to be scaled. A pure brand is authentic. Intuitively, people connect with it. They know it has meaning. Pure brands meet people on their terms, give them reason to believe, get invited into their lives.
Health E-Insights:Do you only work with natural and organic clients?
Mr. Medore:Yes. Since our inception we have consciously chosen only to work with clients in the natural products industry, including natural and organic food, dietary supplements and personal care. This has allowed us to establish a deep level of expertise which ultimately is reflected in the measurable ROI we provide to our clients. In addition, we find when working with natural brands that there is always a deeper mission at the center of their ‘Why.’ Sometimes this impulse has been covered over after 20 or 30 years of success and its part of the rebrand process to rediscover and celebrate it.
Health E-Insights:What words come to mind when you think of your brand?
Mr. Medore:Passionate. Deep. Specialized. Selective. Expertise.
Health E-Insights:What trends do you see in branding?
Mr. Medore:I see a trend in public awareness around purchasing decisions that’s driving a change in how organizations are representing themselves through trust and accountability. Ultimately this is creating a need for strategic storytelling, which is ultimately a ‘pull’ strategy, one that allows participants to be drawn into an experience because of shared beliefs, and allows them to engage in their own path of discovery and connection with something meaningful.
Health E-Insights:What is your proudest career achievement and why?
Mr. Medore:Choosing to leave my comfortable job at the Walt Disney Co. to found Pure Branding 13 years ago, in order to align my beliefs with my work. It was a decision that I didn’t make lightly, and have never looked back. Recently, I would say my proudest achievement has been how we helped Gaia Herbs dramatically increase both its relevancy and its market size due to our strategic rebrand.
Health E-Insights:Who has had the biggest influence in your life?
Mr. Medore:My spiritual teacher of 20 years. She’s been the guiding force in my life and allowed me to realize that all of life is sacred, that there is no separation between how we live our lives at work, with our families, and with the larger world. We are all connected.
Sheldon Baker is well-known for creating nutraceutical brand marketing and public relations campaigns. For Health E-Insights interview consideration, contact him at Baker@CentralValleyTalk.com. And follow him on Twitter @NutraInk.
