The Brands That Printed Money in Q2 vs the Ones That Spent Millions Insulting Their Buyers

All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of Running with Wolves. And this week's episode is a little bit of a different one. We are going to do a what the fuck was that recap. And if you guys follow me on social media, you'll know that this is kind of my signature series where I basically will do different videos. And the way I describe it is where I from the most loving place roasts the absolute fuck out of your marketing. So today we're going to do a roundup episode as we head into Q3, which is actually insane to mention that we are now in Q3, as we kind of come out of Q2, as we go into Q3, interestingly enough, there weren't so many marketing fails. There were actually a lot of really fantastic marketing examples and campaigns. There are seven that went out in Q2 that I really primarily want to talk about. Five of them made their buyers feel so seen, but two of them interestingly enough from bigger brands might I add spent millions of dollars insulting the exact people who fund their payroll. So I want to kind of talk about these because the really uncomfortable part, honestly, is that the two that crashed and burned did $46 billion in revenue last year. I had to check to make sure that my notes were correct on that one, $46 billion in revenue last year. And the other one is one of the most trusted publications in the US. So if you are sitting there right now thinking, like, oh, my team's last campaign or our marketing strategy was fine. I need you to hear me when I say Nike thought that their campaign was fine as well. Wall Street Journal thought that their campaign on M Agreed was fine as well. Their article on M Agreed was fine as well. It went through many, many, many rounds of approvals to actually get published and yet still received massive backlash that will likely result in revenue dropping, subscriptions dropping, et cetera. So if you are sitting there thinking that your marketing is fine, I need you to still listen to this episode because even if you think it's fine, it could also mean disaster for your marketing, for your sales, for your revenue, or it could be the best thing that happens to your brand if you play your cards right. So let's kind of talk about the best of Q two as far as marketing campaigns, the worst of Q two, and by the end of this episode, you are going to know exactly which side of the line your last campaign landed on. So let's dig into it. All right. So here's kind of the overall patterns that I was seeing in Q two did the marketing speak to who the buyer is or did the marketing speak to what the buyer is actually living. That's quite literally it. That is the entire game when it comes to your marketing and your sales, your strategies, your campaigns, and it really sounds simple, I would say. Most people ask themselves like, okay, yeah, I need to speak to my target audience, but they don't ever actually speak to their target audiences, lived experiences, and that's what we want to talk about here, right? It really does, like I said, sound simple until every single brand on earth gets this one wrong, including the ones that have, you know, the nine figure marketing budgets, okay? Going to who your buyer is really sounds like, oh, women who are 28 to 45, you have a household income of six figures in your interested in wellness. Yes, that's your audience. Yes, that's your demographic. But that also just sounds like it could quite literally be like a screenshot that you pulled from your Instagram analytics, right? That's not marketing. That's who your audience is. That's not their lived experiences marketing to what your buyer is living sounds like this. Sounds like the moment, the exact thought in their head on Tuesday at 11 p.m., it's what they wrote in their notes app in between, you know, taking care of a bunch of different kids or in between running from meeting to meeting or their workout or any of those things, right? It's the thing that happened to them that they never told anyone, the fear that they have that they're embarrassed to say out loud. The five winners for campaigns in Q2 did that second thing. They talked to their audiences, lived experiences, and the people that actually lost as far as these campaigns talked to who they think their target audience is. So I kind of broke Q2 and the campaigns I was seeing into three patterns, three things that really separated the brands that absolutely rented money from their campaigns, and the ones that kind of like lit their brands on fire, okay? So pattern one, you're marketing to a demographic, not a lived experience that we just talked about. Q2 that I was seeing is you got so obsessed with one segment of your target audience that you insulted and alienated the other 90% of them. And then lastly, pattern three is that you're selling the product or your service when you should be selling the outcome or the mission or the conversation you're already in. So let's kind of talk about all three of those patterns and address each campaign, okay? So pattern one, like we talked about, the demographic versus the lived experience. The absolute winner of this pattern, this last quarter was figs, which is the scrub company. So they make scrubs primarily for women. They make scrubs that don't look fucking ugly, okay? They make scrubs that are actually cute, that empower women and not has always been their mission. So this was actually a campaign that came out in the very early days of Q2. So I think it was like March or April, and they made an entire campaign for, I believe it was women, no, it wasn't women's history. Hold on one second, they made a campaign that was basically showcasing women's experiences in the medical field, whether they are practitioners, doctors, or patients, okay? If you go look at the comments of that campaign, people were literally commenting like, I haven't felt this way since I saw the Barbie movie. Like there were so many women feeling validated in those comments. That is like not a normal comment section. If you thought about a scrub's company or a scrub's brand, you don't think you would just be opening their comment section being like, oh my god, like this is incredible. I haven't felt this way since the Barbie movie, right? You would probably just be like, oh, this will be perfect when I'm like going in between patients and trying not to get like puke and blood all over me basically, right? That is an emotional reaction to a piece of clothing for nurses. So what did they actually do, right? They could have done the easy thing. They could have said we are fighting for sexism in medicine and medical gas lighting. That's the demographic version, okay? So that's like who they're trying to speak to is women who are experiencing these things in medicine, and it probably would have done nothing, okay? The one thing that I will say is that to make marketing come alive and actually move people to do something to take an action, whether that's to purchase a product to invest in a service, to join a community, to engage in a comment section, you have to make them feel something. It cannot just be so cut and dry as we're fighting against sexism in medicine or medical gas lighting, right? Instead, they showed that, they showed that reality. They showed the male doctor telling a woman, oh, your pain is normal or it's just something you have to grin and bear or take an extra ad bill, right? They showed women giving birth and the husband going, well, actually, we weren't planning on doing that. They showed women as the nurses, the doctors, the surgeons, living the exact thing that every single woman in their audience has lived. And every single woman, I watched this as a woman who has a hormonal imbalance. I have been medically gaslit in the past and I watched this and I was like, holy shit, that was my experience as well. And so every single person in that audience were like, yep, that's my experience. So they immediately feel seen and heard and understood, which creates more trust with a brand, which means you're more open to purchasing their product or investing in their service. And on top of that, they, you feel like they share the same mission as you. And so of course, you're going to want to support their brand. That word, that like, yep, that's me, that's the entire fucking point of the campaign. That is a sales psychology tactic called identity that I just explained, okay? So I want you to write down this like main takeaway. When you go to market your product or service, do not describe the problem or the goal. You recreate the moment the problem or that goal or that desire happens. You cannot just tell people you have to show them, okay? So an example of this would be on one side of things, if you did this, you know, incorrectly, you sell a skincare line for adult acne. The demographic version where you're talking about what the problem is is, oh, clinically proven to reduce breakouts from, for women from 25 to 35, that sounds like fucking proactive, right? Like, that sounds like a QVC infomercial versus if you are a service basis business, let's say, and you're a consultant selling like a positioning offer to founders, you instead would say the lived experiences like you've rewritten your offer page four different times this month. It's 11 p.m. And you still can't explain in one sentence why someone should pay you double what your competitor charges, okay? So that instead brings you into this moment where you realize you had this problem, which means you need a solution, okay? And this honestly kind of scales all the way up. This isn't just for, you know, solopreneurs. This can even be for, I've seen this happen with massive brands and the number one feedback that I have for them, even if they're, again, making eight, nine figures a year is you're telling me what the problem is, but it doesn't emotionally resonate for me because I can't see myself in your marketing. I can't see myself in the problems that you're talking about because you're just saying what the problem is instead of how I'm experiencing it. Those two things don't connect. There were a couple of other really quick wins. under this kind of same pattern, real active, which is a skincare brand founded by Alex Earl. She partnered with her dermatologist. They did founder forward marketing in such a fantastic way that it did this exact same thing of like this sales psychology pattern called identity, okay? So she, Alex Earl, has been coming up through the ranks as initially a content creator. Most of you guys would know her here. Recently went through, you know, a pretty public break-up with her boyfriend who played for the Miami dolphins. And she made a video that basically was her doing her nighttime skincare routine. She got back from a club in very typical Alex Earl fashion. It was very on brand for her. And she literally made a video of her getting unready and she's crying about running into her old boyfriend basically. And she's a 25, 26 year old girl. Like that's so relatable. But she also has acne. So like she's making sure she's like coming home, like drunk from the club ran into her ex boyfriend, taking her makeup off and using her skincare. So she still wakes up with good skin. Talking about a concept and a topic that's completely unrelated from skincare. But the product is still visible. And she's showcasing the solution with it going on to her face. IE, like I'm going to get rid of my acne. But let me share something that happened with you, right? Because the reality is that her buyer is a woman in her 20s or very early 30s with adult acne who is going through the exact same life events that she's going through. She's not marketing to women with acne. She's living the same Tuesday they're living. And that builds a level of trust that that product claim really could never buy. She's building in this like you can trust me because I live the same life that you do. These are the products that I use. You want my skin. Therefore, you should use these products as well. And then there's one other brand that's actually blowing up on TikTok right now. It's called Bronze Monarch. And it's founded by a woman named Bree. They're in New Jersey. I believe they're somewhere on the East Coast. But she owns a spray tanning business. And if you guys have ever seen a video on TikTok that is a spray tan consultation. And there's a woman who's blonde and the wall is purple behind her. That's exactly what I'm talking about. And she does these videos where she's doing this spray tan consultation, the clients not in the frame. But you can hear them telling her essentially what they want the spray tan for. And you get to hear out of their own mouth what they want and what they're scared of. A bad spray tan looking orange, streaking before their wedding. Why does this video work? Because every person in her audience watching that video is also considering a spray tan who has those exact same fears. So then when they watch that, their identity, that sales psychology tactic fires up again. She helps people like me. That is exactly what's resonating for them as they're watching this. And it's really cool because it kind of doubles as like objection handling content. It's really interesting because they're like, well, I don't want to streak before a wedding or I got a spray tan before and it was really patchy. So she asked them all these questions of like, well, why did that happen? Did you prep? Did you do this? Did you do that? Oh, well, this isn't going to do this because we're going to prep this way. We're going to use this formula, this solution, so on and so forth and then they leave looking gorgeous. So anyone who has those fears are watching this video and they're like, oh my God, amazing. If I go to Bronze Monarch, I'm not going to have a crappy spray tan and she's quite literally getting people traveling to her for this exact reason now, okay? So it's the exact same pattern done in very different ways. If you can describe your target audience's reality, bring them into that moment and present your product or services as a solution, you win the campaign, okay? Now, pattern number two, I'm calling this basically like the alienation tax. This is, and when I say this, I need you guys to really, truly listen to me, probably one of the more expensive mistakes that you can make as a brand in your marketing. And both of these brands are fucking massive brands, which is exactly why you need to pay attention because if you think that at an eight or nine or even 10 figure level as a company, you are immune from making marketing mistakes that can potentially cost you your brand or your credibility, you are mistaken. So I need you to listen up when I talk about this, okay? So disaster number one was Nike. This campaign, which was built around the Boston Marathon, they basically placed all of these graphics or like banners in a bunch of different windows around Boston, which says runners welcome walkers tolerated. Again, built around the Boston Marathon. And I understand the thinking that they had here as a marketer, they were speaking to the elite runners of the marathon in that moment, which is fine. I support brands focusing on a campaign, one target audience at a time, you know, things like that. But where it falls apart are the numbers, okay? Because they didn't just do this in person, they activated this across socials as well, which is something a lot of brands are doing right now in person experiences with social media marketing activation, okay? Nike's fiscal 2025 revenue was $46.3 billion. That's Nike's own stat, which they have quoted, is that nine out of 10 people wear athletic apparel for things other than exercise. And their own annual report admits that a huge percentage of their product is worn casually. If any of you are listening to this and you are like marathon runners that wear Nike, fantastic, but I know a lot of people who have run marathons, half marathons and they don't actually even wear Nike, they're gonna wear Nike to like go to the gym, go on a hot girl walk, whatever, right? So if we know that this is typically how a consumer looks at Nike and their own annual report admits that a huge percentage of their product is worn casually, their historic pitch was literally if you have a body, you're an athlete and our shoe or our apparel is for you. So like do the math with me, right? Like let's just reverse engineer this here. If nine out of 10 of their buyers wear their product casually, which is roughly, if we do the math, $41.7 billion of their revenue they made in 2025 is tied to people who are not running the Boston marathon. Those are walkers and Nike literally just put everywhere in their own marketing in person and online, runners are what they want and walkers are tolerated. You just spent millions of marketing dollars insulting the people responsible for about 90% of your revenue, make it make sense to me, please, I beg, okay? Those are walkers. And the Affleisure Market, the crazy part too, is actually projected to hit $892 billion over the next decade. Nike could own a giant slice of that. In my opinion, they're actually a brand that's falling behind when it comes to growth projections and taking up market share in their industry. And I think this is a big part of that and that's that alienation tax that we were talking about. If you target one segment of your target audience, it is not a license to insult the rest of your target audience. That would be like me basically saying to my corporate consulting clients in my marketing, there's seven to nine figures. Hey, if you guys are doing paid ads, here's the strategy you need to be leveraging and everyone else who's not doing paid ads is dumb. Okay, the way that my company scales, 'cause I only take four or five clients for consulting at any given time, the rest of them are brands and businesses that are not making a million a year, which means they're not good to use paid ads unless they have like very certain things set in place in their marketing. I am alienating all of those people and telling them that they're dumb because they're not doing ads. So the majority of my target audience that's responsible for the majority of my revenues can be like, what the house of Anna? Like how dare you say that to us? And my revenue is going to reflect those choices that came from my marketing. And the same goes for Wall Street Journal. This is the, I think in my opinion, I think Wall Street Journal and their article on Emma Greed when her book was coming out, I think this was probably the biggest marketing mistake, the biggest what the fuck was that campaign in Q2 because I'm like, how the hell did a brand like Wall Street Journal really, truly make this mistake? So if you don't know Emma, really quick recap, she built skims with Kim Kardashian into a multi billion dollar brand. Before that, she launched Good American with one of the biggest fashion debuts ever. She's one of the richest self-made women in America and she came out with a book called Start With Yourself. That's why Wall Street Journal did coverage on her. That's why they did this article is because she was in the middle of her book tour, okay? The Wall Street Journal headline, I'll just tell you, was Emma Greed, the Kardashian whisperer who only spends three hours with her kids. Please someone tell me, I literally just smacked my microphone 'cause I'm so mad about this. Like someone tell me how the hell you would write this about a man. Also how the hell did this get through so many rounds of approvals through Wall Street Journal because no one would ever write that headline about a man. And we'll set the sexism aside for a second because we just want to mostly focus on the marketing side of things. The irony is the actual fumble of this, okay? In trying to be polarizing, they basically proved the entire premise of her book. Her whole book is about dismantling the lie that women have been sold for decades, the lie that in order to have a home like you have to sacrifice your career. And deep in the article she jokes that she is a quote unquote three hours maximum and basically talks about filling up her own cup. And instead of telling this story of how she's built this kind of success while raising her kids, which actually would have been genuinely inspiring, The Wall Street Journal basics. fed into the exact sexist narrative that she's sitting here trying to fight, right? Here's why this is a marketing failure. And in my opinion, not just like a bad take, roughly 30% of the Wall Street Journal's readership is women. Ambitious, career-building women, women exactly like Emma, who are struggling with this dichotomy of balancing all the things, juggling all the plates. And the Wall Street Journal had a direct shot at speaking to their own target audience, making them feel seen, and making them alienated. Instead, okay? It's the same mistake as Nike. They described a segment of their target audience, and then basically insulted it. So here is kind of the teaching on pattern number two, with both examples, okay? What I want you to say is, and I want you to really repeat this to yourself, you can focus on one audience in your marketing. You cannot offend the other 90% by like focusing on one segment. And then the last pattern, which is sell the mission, the outcome, and the conversation, is in my opinion the one that actually separates brands. People are fucking obsessed with from brands. People really just buy from once. When you lead with the product and the price, price becomes the only conversation. When you lead with something bigger, you build trust and belonging before you ever make this ask to purchase your product or invest in your service. And there's kind of three campaigns that really nailed this. Number one is Figs. We've already kind of covered what the campaign was. But the reality is they weren't just selling scrubs. They were selling a mission. They're saying, hey, women make up the majority of this workforce. Comfortable scrubs are not changing. Women in leadership is not changing. And we are on the cutting edge of changing women's experience in medicine. For a product brand, like that is genuinely everything. And it's not a solution to ugly scrubs, but it's a movement that you get to be a part of. People don't get obsessed by a product. They get obsessed with belonging to something. And that is something that they tie to then purchasing a product from a brand. There are a lot of changes that are happening in the way that consumers are purchasing from brands and purchasing from brands specifically for millennial and Gen Z buyers and consumers. They are exclusively looking to purchase from brands who they feel that they are on the same page with or agree with when it comes to morals and ethics and values and a shared mission. So Figs did that so well. Second of all, 437, which is another act of wear brand. This is my favorite example of building what I like to call brand piranhas. Okay, so I'm literally talking about building a brand that people could sink their teeth into. They're fucking obsessed. Okay, it's like a cult like following. So 437 is doing something that's really interesting with their campaigns where they are showing the process behind designing the clothes, the first fitting, the second fitting, the moment that like the bear onesies became a little more bear. Okay, the team's snipping pieces and reacting. All of it is actually tied back to what their audience wants. Okay, that is warming marketing and it's genuinely genius. Okay, because I've been buying Lululemon Dupes for like 30 bucks and loving them. Let me tell you. Okay, as someone who works out every single day. So why would I spend my very real money on a 437 set? Because when they show me the obsessive attention to detail, the fittings, the fabrics, the decisions, the fact that they're actually listening to what their audience wants. They'll say in those videos, oh, well, our audience loves it when we do X, Y, Z. So we're going to do this. That tells me they actually listen. And I want to give my money to an athletic wearer company that actually listens to their consumers. And then lastly, going back to the bronzed monarch example, she's selling the outcome. So she goes, okay, instead of saying like today, you're getting a spray tan. She's saying, okay, what are we getting a spray tan for? A wedding, a birthday, a baby shower, doesn't matter. This is the trial for it. Here's what we're going to do. You're going to feel confident. You're going to feel excited, right? Here's exactly how I'm going to get you to look the way you want to look. Here's how I'm going to do this. Here's how it's going to last all the time. Here's basically how I'm going to make your spray tan dreams come true for whatever event you're going to. She's not selling the spray tan formula. She's selling how you're going to look and feel at whatever event you're going to. Because again, people want the outcome way more than they want to purchase the thing. Okay. So if you are able to capture that in your marketing, the pattern is the same on both sides. If you sell the belonging, the outcome, and the conversation, the product is proof at the end, not the actual opener to the marketing conversation. Okay. So number one, I know that that was like a fast and furious recap of all of the marketing campaigns. But I do want you guys to understand one thing. And the kind of like overarching theme here is that in order in 2026 for you guys to be a brand that not only sky rockets and goes viral in terms of getting people's attention and visibility, but also creates this obsession and cult like following and sells out on its products and services. You have to bring your actual target audience into their current reality and show your product or service as that solution. The more vivid you can paint it, the easier the sale is going to be. Number two, just because you are focusing on one segment of your target audience does not give you the liberty to alienate and insult the rest. And if you do, please understand there will be revenue repercussions that come from it. And number three, make sure you are selling the transformation or the outcome they'll get from your product or service, not the product or service itself. As far as sales psychology, that's going to light up the parts of their brain that say, oh my god, I have to have this product or service now. I don't care about timing, finance is nothing. And if you can do that in your marketing, you hopefully will be on the next, what the fuck was that episode so that I can talk about how your brand is absolutely killing the marketing game. So hopefully you guys love to this. If there was one campaign you were obsessed with in Q2 or even if you see any of them in Q3 where you're like Savannah, I loved this campaign. Send it to me on my Instagram DMs. And if you have any questions about this episode, let me know. But thanks for listening. And I'll see you in the next one. Bye guys.