Authentic Brands: Q&A with Creative Director Robin Lohkamp

With increased competition, what really showcases a company’s differentiators? This often leads to brands knowing they need to be transparent and authentic, but what does that look like? And is it truly possible for brands to achieve it?

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Robin Lohkamp: Let's have one more sip. Who knows what's in my mug? It's Friday.

Emma Alexander: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Emma. I'm a content strategist at Dixon Schwabl + Company, and I'm joined today by Robin Lohkamp, one of our creative directors.

Robin Lohkamp: Hey, Emma.

Emma Alexander: Hi. Thanks for joining. Today, we are having this little Q&A. We're talking about how can brands truly stand out in a saturated market? With increased competition, what really showcases a company's differentiator? This often leads to brands knowing they need to be transparent or authentic, right? But we're going to talk about that, and also what does that really mean? What does that look like, for a brand to be authentic? And is that really possible, because this reminds me of that saying “show your scars, not your wounds.” I think that kind of applies here. We're going to be talking about that today, but I want to preface this by saying this kind of topic came up at one of our meetings. We have some really cool meetings at DS+CO. We have a cross-departmental meeting where we have strategists, creative directors, sometimes copywriters or account leads all come together once a month to discuss trends and strategy and things like that.

This came up recently in one of those meetings, and I remember kind of thinking while we were all talking about it, this is great. This is really interesting. I wish we could bring our clients into this and our audience and they could just listen in or join in the conversation, because we share a lot of really interesting insights and observations in those meetings. I'm just really excited because I think everyone watching is going to really love hearing what we're talking about, and specifically the way that you talk about things, I think it's really elevated the way that you kind of describe things. That's why I'm really excited about this and getting to share this with people.

Robin Lohkamp: Thanks, Emma. I'll try to keep it very elevated then.

Emma Alexander: Got to be elevated or nothing. Yeah. Anything else you want to share there or are you ready to dive into our topic today?

Robin Lohkamp: No, I think as I was prepping a little bit for this conversation, I started thinking about how being a mom and being a working mom—a working single mom, if you want to layer in all the things—it's deepened, I think, my sense of empathy. And that's not to say that someone who's not a parent isn't deeply empathetic. Speaking purely from my experience and my life and the things that are around me all the time, I think that it is probably the thing that makes me most authentic in my work is the kind of day-to-day imperfections and struggles and wins. Talk about the scars and the wounds, I feel a little bit like I'm living in it all the time, literally from back in the days of kissing boo-boos to now where I'm watching my kids—I'm a die-hard lacrosse mom, and they're getting a little bit injured and getting a little bit tougher for it and becoming more empathetic people from that, as well. I think that's probably a thing that when we talk about authentic brands and how to be transparent and the importance of that, I very often draw from my own personal experience.

Emma Alexander: Right. Yeah. I feel like it's definitely more common these days for people to accept that you can't just be yourself in your personal life and totally compartmentalize. You do bring yourself to work, and that is actually a really good thing for the reasons you just said. It makes you more empathetic and therefore can make you a better marketer and creative director. I think it's definitely a good thing, for sure.

Robin Lohkamp: Yeah. I think just being a good human, right? If you're a brand who is also doing those things, you're being a little bit transparent, a little bit awkward, a little bit those things that make us human, that you're going to have a better relationship with your audience in the long run.

Emma Alexander: Right, right. Knowing our topic is about this—how brands can stand out against competition, how they can show who they really are and be authentic—I'm curious: Do you get this question a lot? How often does this idea come up before a campaign kicks off?

Robin Lohkamp: I think it starts even before the “How can we be authentic?” It starts often with just trying to find a brand's position in the market and within culture at large. So what is happening around us right now and where do they fit in? And then I think in order to get to that place, in order to figure that out, we then look to insights that are born from data or data, potato, potato. We have this debate all the time. And that’s where, when we unearth those big ahas, that's where we really start to have that big insight that leads to big amazing thinking. But in order to bring that to the world, to bring that message or that concept or whatever it is that we're work working towards, in order to bring that to the world, part of that strategy has to be, OK, we have to do this and we have to be authentic about it. And so we're going to have to show your—I kind of cringe a little bit—your most authentic self. But that's sort of what we have to do.

Emma Alexander: Do you get a lot of clients that might—say that you're talking to about this for the first time—that might say that they already know what their differentiator is and then you have to dig because the question is, “OK, great, what is it?” And then you have to figure out is that really it? And you need to get more data, more research on that to prove that, right? If you want to go into a little bit about what our process is like when we work with clients on this and how we help them figure this out, what exact data is needed from their target audience and things like that.

Robin Lohkamp: Yeah. For sure. I think we oftentimes will work with a client, a company, a brand that has already defined their unique value prop or their unique place in the world. And sometimes we get in there, we dig, we discover, and we say, wow, it truly is this thing or these things that make them stand out. But maybe more often, we end up uncovering that their value prop that they thought was this one thing is really something else entirely because what they thought was unique, it feels genuine. I think that I'm sensitive to a company of incredible people who've done a lot of deep diving and self-reflection and they come up with what they believe is a unique and differentiating position because they truly believe it.

Then when you put that up against what is really out there, what is the noise in the market and in the world, and you say, you know what? Actually you're not in the space you thought you were in. This isn't where you're truly going to stand out. Where you're truly going to stand out is in this other place, because this is what you're genuinely doing differently or this is how you can genuinely solve a challenge for your audience that you didn't even realize you were solving, this very human problem. We often have a UVP, that unique value proposition. It's very businessy, and I think there's ... A business strategist is probably going to cringe on this or a business development person, but ...

Emma Alexander: To all the business strategists out there, don't watch this part. Just walk away or get a cup of coffee or something.

Robin Lohkamp: Or lean in. Because listen, it's also ... The kind of magic happens where you have your business goal and you're solving a real human emotional, not solving emotional challenges. I don't mean to say that, but you're solving a real human challenge.

Emma Alexander: It's where that empathy comes back in, right? Because people take action and they buy not just because you're solving a problem, but thinking about it deeper than that, it’s the problem that they're having. It causes some sort of emotional distress, and that's where the marketing comes in and where that understanding and just being authentic should come in.

Robin Lohkamp: Yeah. And I think, too, you asked me how do we get to that place of finding that unique position? And it goes back to, we have clients who come to us with a lot of their own research and a lot of their own understanding and data, but then when we apply our own, when we look at things through a different lens or through our unique perspective, I think that’s where we get to the truly differentiating space that the client or that company, that brand can exist in.

Emma Alexander: Right. The types of clients that we work with almost always have some kind of audience, brand research and data of insight. They always have it, but us being able to complete our own research and look at those insights from the data adds a whole other layer and perspective that's needed. Because sometimes you don't always word things the right way if you're doing a survey or things like that. Our process is kind of sometimes filling those gaps or kind of leading them into a different direction that they wouldn't have seen before.

Robin Lohkamp: Absolutely. And one of the things I love most about what I get to do at DS and the way that we, I think fairly uniquely work having had some experience over the years in this industry, is that we have an incredible research team, we have an incredible strategy team, and we have strategically minded creative directors and creative team members all together. So we get this data, we collaborate with the strategists to pull out the insight. It's not just “Here are the facts.” It's like the, so what, what does that mean?

Emma Alexander: Right.

Robin Lohkamp: And it's from that place that the biggest and best and most authentic and often simplest, but it takes a lot of doing to get to the simple. But that's where those ideas and that work is born from, and that's why it feels true. That's why it doesn't land as inauthentic. It feels like, oh wow, this brand really gets me. Or if a brand has to come out and say, share the scar a little bit, right, there's owning your entire story, not just the positive, shiny, happy parts of it. All the things that make you who and what you are as a brand. That's really going to resonate with an audience.

Emma Alexander: Yeah, I love that. I love how you said that. And the way that we work together is, our departments are not siloed, because I think a lot of companies are pretty siloed. They have no idea what is going on over here in this area and the same company that they work with. But we are always like, OK, well where's the data? I'm a content strategist, you're a creative director. We're always like, where's the data before I answer that question or before I go creating a deck about the brand or anything like that? We always ask for the data first, and we always communicate, like you said, I need a strategist in here to discuss what this means. And then you come in, you're like, well, let's make the target audience really love this.

Robin Lohkamp: Yeah.

Emma Alexander: We just mesh really well together and the outcome, is always really remarkable, I think sometimes.

Robin Lohkamp: It's so much richer. People don't live their lives siloed, and it goes, I think maybe back to how we show up at work is who we are at home, as well. Those are not mutually exclusive. And so when you put those things together, we ask a lot of questions of each other. We have a lot of healthy debate, I will say, and there can be tension. There can even be tension, not just among our team, but with our clients. I think when we bring clients along into those conversations and we have those healthy, sometimes uncomfortable discussions that may warrant a pivot or a change in direction or a little bit more self-reflection, a little bit more research, that ultimately benefits everyone involved.

Emma Alexander: Exactly. Well, I think that is such a great place to wrap up this Q&A on. Thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. I think it's really important and insightful. If anyone wants to connect with us a little bit more, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of this page. Contact us at dixonschwabl.com/contact if you're ready to work with us. And yeah, I hope that we continue to do more of these and kind of give everyone a quick sneak peek behind the scenes of what kind of things we talk about.

Robin Lohkamp: And Emma, just for the record, I also love talking with you. I also feel like you have a really elevated way and a point of view, and I love collaborating with you and being around you when you talk content strategy, but also strategy at large.

Emma Alexander: Thank you.

Robin Lohkamp: You have such a great perspective and I appreciate you, as well.

Emma Alexander: Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Until next time.

Robin Lohkamp: All right, see ya. Bye.