Why Brand Marketing Matters More Than Ever with Liz Vanzura

I think that most brands these days, in, in especially retail and consumer, you know, we're concerned about making sure that we're honing in on our, on the right audience, right? So, you know, with Solo Stove, Solo Stove was kind of born in COVID.

People were kind of stuck inside, and so what better than to have...

You know, it was really a camping stove product, so hiking and camping, and the founders were all about that, and it was portable and easy and, you know, when people were craving getting outside.

So that's where it was born, that technology of smokeless technology with 360-degree airflow and double wall construction where you really don't get smoke and you don't get, like, sort of the downsides of fires.

People really love that, and you can imagine during COVID, getting your neighbors around outside at that time was so popular.

So that's really when our company really started to take off.

And then it has evolved, different types, different sizes, you know, different accessories with them, et cetera, et cetera.

And I think, you know, we're at the point now where, you know, I like to say I sell the world's number one most popular smokeless fire pits, but really what we're trying to build is an outdoor lifestyle brand that helps bring people together.

So really what I sell is togetherness.

When I joined the board, you know, basically the challenge was how do we go from just smokeless fire pits, which we own that category, we're number one by a mile.

We have 238,000 five-star reviews.

We are a well-beloved brand.

I can't walk anywhere without people in the airport, they're like, "Oh, you work with Solo Stove? I have one.

I love it." And they immediately go into their story with their family or making s'mores together.

And so we want to own that, but when I joined the board and what we knew is we had a very robust product pipeline in the mix that needed to be introduced.

So in the last 18 months, I've basically launched 10 new products.

We have an absolute genius product team.

So the secret behind Solo is, I mean, we have an unbelievably high tech and wonderful, very creative product development team that came out with a new griddle called the Steel Fire Griddle.

That launched last year in two sizes.

We also had a new upscale, more premium line of fire pits, much like if you look at the car business, which I came from.

You know, when you have the, the M Series or you have, like, you know, the high-end series.

So we have a high-end series called the Summit Series that came out.

We also had a really innovative cooler that is also an AC and a mister, so it not just acts as a cooler, but also you can bring it on the beach and you can use misting for kids or you can use it as a little AC unit.

And so we have products that needed storytelling, needed to be introduced.

We needed audience identification.