Marketing Happy Hour - How Strong Branding + Community Influences Retail Demand | Lauren Murphy of Fishwife

Starting point is 00:00:00 you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode.

Starting point is 00:00:56 Today, Erica is sitting down with Lauren Murphy, the brand marketing manager at Fishwife. Fishwife is a beautifully branded tinned fish company, all about the highest quality, responsibly sourced seafood that looks as good on your shelf as it tastes. Lauren shares about building a brand that resonates with our generation from creating killer collaborations to fostering a company culture that keeps talent long-term. In addition, get a glimpse into Lauren's journey to Fishwife and her day-to-day as brand marketing manager. Fishwife's most successful projects and collaborations, and tips for D2C brands looking to make the jump from online to IRL stores. Grab your favorite drink and maybe a tin of Fishwife and some crusty bread. Yum. And let's get into the conversation. Hi, Lauren. How are you? Hi, Erica. I'm doing well. How are you?

Starting point is 00:01:45 Doing so great. I'm so excited to chat with you today. But before we get started, I do have an important question that we ask all of our guests, and that is, what is in your glass this afternoon? It is marketing happy hour after all, and I think you might have something on your plate as well. I sure do. Okay, so right now I'm sipping on a lemon spin drift. I poured it into a fun little glass cause that always makes it more exciting. Um, and actually topped it with a shot of matcha. I love Rockies. Um, super refreshing, but just need a little extra boost to get me through the rest of the day. So it's very refreshing and delicious. And as far as on my plates, my go to lately is

Starting point is 00:02:27 has been a tin of our smoked trout. I wish I had smoked trout, but I'm sure we'll get into that. Which is a good piece of sourdough cultured butter, and a little squeeze of lemon. And it's truly just like my kryptonite. I don't know what I would do without it. Oh my gosh, you're making me hungry. I need to have that in front of me right now. But I am actually just sipping on a chocolate Negroni from my favorite bar in New York called Dante. They have these to-go Negronis.

Starting point is 00:02:56 And I got one when I was in New York like two weeks ago. And it's incredible. I always love to pick one of those up. So I could use some tin fish though. Well, we're so excited to chat with you. Like I mentioned about, you know, one of our favorite brands, fish wife, but first, could you just give us a bit about your background and how you landed at fish wife? I'm not really sure where to start. I feel like my journey to fish wife has definitely been quite unconventional. Um, my, teen years, I actually wanted to go into fashion,

Starting point is 00:03:27 more like into the business side. And out of high school, I didn't quite have the grades. So I went to a local community college, worked a ton, got my suits degree. And at this point, I started to feel like, oh my God, I actually don't want to work in fashion at all. So I took a year off. I got into a local university, ended up wanting to study marketing. I was there for only a semester before I decided it wasn't a

Starting point is 00:03:50 good fit for me. At this time, it was COVID too. So it just, there was a lot going on, but didn't end up going back. I eventually started using my Instagram as sort of the space to connect with founders. I was posting about brands that I loved all ironically in the CPG and food and beverage space. And that sort of jumpstarted my interest in this whole industry. It was also June of 2020. So there wasn't really much else to do besides posting on Instagram. But I ended up working for a better for you chocolate company called Jojo's Chocolate. I led the growth of their affiliate channel for about a year and a half, eventually moved into working for a local food and beverage agency where I ran all of our

Starting point is 00:04:30 clients social, did a lot of other like ops and then jobs, but eventually felt like I developed a network strong enough at the time. I thought it was strong looking back. It was not, but and then I went into consulting for two and a half years um and Fishwife was one of my clients um so I started working with them back in October of 2022 and just went full-time with them in January oh my gosh what a journey and I also I didn't know that you worked for Jojo's Chocolate I used to be like totally obsessed with that brand I haven't had it in a long time but um love that brand and love Fishwife. So working for such iconic brands can be really, really cool, I bet. And I think you alluded to it a little bit about like your network being

Starting point is 00:05:13 strong at the time or not strong at the time, but like you thought it was. What do you think makes that strong network? Yeah, that's a good question. I said I didn't think it was because it certainly wasn't. But at the time, I thought it was. I don't know. I think for me, I was just trying my hardest to show up in places that maybe I wasn't showing up before. I was really active on LinkedIn, posting a ton on Instagram. I was doing like a lot of unpaid internships, unfortunately. I think just like meeting as many people as I could and just like really building connections and yeah I attribute that to a lot of you know where I am today and um yeah it's been really really impactful for me for sure oh that's really really cool and we always encourage that be present on LinkedIn be reaching out to people that you aspire to

Starting point is 00:06:03 have a position similar to theirs and just like get to know the people that you aspire to have a position similar to theirs and just like, get to know the industry that you want to be in and who's in it. And you never know where that can lead you. So I definitely love hearing that from you. Well, I would also love to hear a little bit of a peek into your day to day responsibilities at the brand. What are you kind of currently working on? What does your team look like? All of that. Totally. Yeah. So as I mentioned before, I started consulting with Fishwife back in, I think it was like October of 2022.

Starting point is 00:06:33 And at the time I was doing, I don't know, maybe five hours a week. And it was simply just like seeding to influencers or recipe developers, things of that nature. And as time went on, I feel like I certainly proved myself a little, at least in the sense of I really understood the brand and how to articulate it to our community. So at the time, our CEO, Becca, was running all things marketing and certainly needed some support and someone she could trust to do it as well as she did. So as time went on, I gradually took on more and more responsibility. And yeah, fast forward to today, I'm a brand marketing manager and I manage all things, social,

Starting point is 00:07:10 community, influencer, affiliates, partnerships, content creation, you know, basically that anything that falls under organic marketing, that's me. That's a ton of fun and I love it. And yeah, my day-to-day changes a lot, but as far as our team goes, we're still very, very small. We have a team, five of us are full-time. We have a lot of consultants that we work with, but very, very small and very close knit, which I've always loved. I've only ever worked for startups. So I thrive in situations like this for sure. Oh, that's awesome. And I'd love to hear just a little bit of like some of your favorite projects that you've been able to work on while you've been at the brand, whether it's been full time or when you were consulting. I know the

Starting point is 00:07:48 movement of like tin fish on TikTok, like probably took off while you were at the brand. So if you want to chat about that a little bit, any insight into like some of your favorite brand moments? Totally. Yeah, the tin fish movement certainly happened, I think, kind of right when I was starting. So it was really an exciting time to, I think, jump into the brand. I think what we've seen is this conservice culture of people enjoying tinfish. Certainly not how at least I grew up enjoying it, which is definitely the core of what we're trying to do. So it's been really exciting to see it show up in all of these beautiful places. But as far as some of my favorite projects, I mean, there's been so many. The thing about startup life is I feel like we're working on a million different things at once, and all of them are just so fun and exciting. But recently just did a tuna takeover at the iconic French bakery in Brooklyn called L'Apartment 4F. We had a limited edition sandwich during the bakery during the day, an entire menu takeover at night, and then at the upstairs wine bar. And then the end of the week was like a fun little Brooklyn street block party. And it was

Starting point is 00:08:57 just so, so wonderful. We were celebrating the launch of our two new tunas. And ironically, the bakery was also celebrating their two year anniversary. So it was just like a match made in heaven for celebrations. Yeah, it was just like a remarkable partnership to see, you know, they were just so wonderful to work with. Yeah, it was a lot, a lot of fun. Oh, wow, that is so cool. And I love that bakery there. I think it's their raspberry croissant. It's so good. But that's so cool. I wish I would have attended that because that's amazing. You mentioned that collaboration.

Starting point is 00:09:31 And I know that Fish Wife has been a part of a lot of different collaborations and brand moments like that, like the Fly By Jean collaboration and things like that. Something that we love to chat about on the show is the behind the scenes of something like that, because it does take a lot of work. And there is a lot of moving pieces to bring something like that a collaboration and activation and in real life event to life. And so anything that you would want to share about that process, or any advice that you would have for brands looking to kind of create something similar with their products and just like collaborating with similar brands? Totally. Yeah, it is a lot of work. And it's, yeah, it's a ton of fun. But as far as thinking

Starting point is 00:10:19 through the process, you know, we usually start pretty far in advance, they just like getting the conversation going. And depending on what the activation is, different things go into it, whether it's a physical product or in the event that I just mentioned, obviously that was in person. So depending on what the activation is, sort of what goes into it, changes a little bit, but I think at FishWise specifically, we really look at all of our brand moments, big and small,

Starting point is 00:10:44 like from a 360 point of view. So we're activating on social through content, really making sure that we're vetting our partners properly, making sure they're highly engaged on social, that they're aligned and have the same ethos. So doing a lot of due diligence there to make sure it makes a lot of sense. Looking into creators and influencers, you know, if it is an in-person event, we're on the ground creating content. And I think, yeah, to my point, I just looking at it from a 360 point of view

Starting point is 00:11:14 is where can we activate this in all the different areas? I think it's really important to your point because they take so much time that we're doing the best we can to really juice these opportunities for what they are. So we want them to be as impactful, you know, as possible. Yeah, absolutely. And then too, I noted in our pre-recording questions that we send over about transitioning from a D2C direct consumer brand to driving consumers in store and that kind of process.

Starting point is 00:11:46 We have talked to quite a few CPG brands that are making those type of transitions. Is there anything that you have experienced or do you have any advice for those brands that are currently in this situation of like how to get the messaging across that you're now available in this retailer and this retailer and I'm sure there's a lot of different places that you're driving to um what is you know the priority there and um how can brands best uh communicate where they're available sure yeah it's funny you mentioned. We actually just announced a national retail expansion today. This year has been really exciting. This year has been really huge for us as far as transitioning from B2C to now pushing our customers to go and purchase the products in retail.

Starting point is 00:12:37 So it's certainly quite the journey, and I don't even think we've begun to fully understand it yet. But I do think something that we've gotten right is building a community and building excitement first. You know, I mean, we launched three and a half years ago now and only just started launching nationally into retailers, you know, about a month ago. I think Whole Foods, we launched nationally at the beginning of this month, actually. So I think for us, we really just took our time to make sure that we had such strong relationships. I mean, now to the point people are asking us, any plans for Target? When can I find you at Costco?

Starting point is 00:13:17 So I think just building excitement first, I think, and the demand in retail will follow. I see so many brands, I think, rushing getting onto retail shelves, which I think in the demand and retail will follow. I see so many brands, I think rushing getting onto retail shelves, which I think is awesome if you have the supply chain to do so. And I'm sure obviously really supports revenue, but it's like, you know, if you don't have the strong social community, you know, how are you driving people into stores? Like do customers even know about your products yet? So I think for us, it was really making sure we had a really, really strong network of people who really loved our products. your business, because those like loyal followers, those loyal customers will continue to, you know, refer their friends, share about you organically and naturally and, you know, have parties where you're present and people are discovering you that way. It's like the best way to increase your brand's discoverability,

Starting point is 00:14:24 I would say, is just through that community. And so I love that you touched on that. And you're right. Like, if you're in all these retailers, that's great. But who's going to go buy your products if you don't have, you know, fans of the brand. So love that you touched on that. I think another thing that I think through as well when thinking through like success on retail shelves I think another thing that comes to my mind is just packaging I think in fish wife's particular case so many people follow us for our packaging and haven't even necessarily purchased us yet so when they see us on shelves it's exciting for them to purchase it to finally see what the product is about and I mean a lot of people want it to keep the boxes of keepsake, but like for me personally, I have so many brands that I follow that I've never purchased.

Starting point is 00:15:10 But when I see them in person, I'm grabbing them because I'm excited about them already online. For me recently, I just purchased soft services after following them on social for like a year, it's that retail influence. So, but it's definitely a huge learning curve for us and something we definitely haven't fully grasped onto just yet. Oh, absolutely. You are speaking my language. That's my favorite thing is branding. And so people know this about me that listen to the podcast, but I will literally travel to go to something like a pop-up grocer in New York. That's my favorite type of store. I always love discovering new brands with really like cute, cool, innovative packaging. And I also loved,

Starting point is 00:15:52 what was that market? Foxtrot marketing before they shuttered their doors. And I guess they're reopening again in the future, which is great, but I am like such a big fan of that and just like experiencing brands, you know, in real life and wherever some really cool, innovative new brands are is where I want to be. So I definitely identify with that. And the exact same, no distance is too far if I'm going to a cool grocery store or a place where I can discover brands. So that's funny. Yep, absolutely. Well, let's pivot just a little bit into talking about social. We've noticed that Fishwife looks like an incredible company to work for and to be a part of, just from some of the posts that we've seen across social. And so was curious to hear your thoughts on what you would say makes a great company culture and how does your team kind of cultivate that?

Starting point is 00:16:48 Totally. Yeah. I mean, FishFive really is like an incredible company to work for. I mean, we're all very young. We swear during our meetings. It's just like so very casual and it's just always a good time. And plus, when they're working for a company that has such a strong mission, um, it makes everything a lot easier.

Starting point is 00:17:07 Um, I think for me, when thinking about company culture, which we just had our company offsite in February, where we, as a team did like a whole deep dive into our core values, our culture, you know, our company as a whole and our plans for the future. And really got me thinking of what I think, what it comes down to when thinking about building a strong team culture and I think for me there are a couple things that come to mind I think communication is really important trust especially in my line of work you know I need a lot of autonomy to do what I need to do to get done on social so trust is super important collaboration is key and I think just the opportunity to always learn new things and make new connections is really important and um we do all of that and more at fishwife and um

Starting point is 00:17:52 yeah I feel like we're cultivating it every day just by always being in communication with each other where there's so much synergy um it makes all of that a lot easier yeah that's so important and we always talk about that, like, as much autonomy as you can give your marketing team, the better. You know, obviously, there are some like legal things that you sometimes have to, you know, navigate and all of that, but activating on trends or like doing certain things that maybe like leadership wouldn't necessarily understand, but really work on social or on some other platforms is, you know, always great, because you hire these people that are in these positions that want to do these really cool activations, or whatever it may be on social or

Starting point is 00:18:38 beyond, for a reason. And so you should always trust them. And I love that. Totally couldn't agree more. Yeah, absolutely. Well, sometimes we hear from brands that they're a little wary of employees or just like sharing things on social media about working at their company or brand. How do you think sharing a peek into company culture on social, um, really impacts the business positively and how can other brands listening kind of emulate that, you know, um, whether it's employees talking about their experience working at the company or going on podcasts like this or, um, anything like that, what do you, how do you think that impacts business positively?

Starting point is 00:19:22 Yeah, absolutely. I think even from like a brand side of things, I think this is a big content pillar that we're starting to see be shared a lot about. I think Poppy does a really amazing job. Set Active does an amazing job at really just like taking a peek behind the curtain and not necessarily pushing a product,

Starting point is 00:19:41 but just showing the day-to-day what the company looks like, what it's like to work there. And I think doing things like that make the company so much more approachable. I think this has been talked a bunch about on the show before, but people don't want to buy products anymore. They want to buy experiences. They want to make purchases from a company that they know the people who work there and I think at the Schweik we've tapped into this a little bit but we've barely I think scratched the surface and it's always something that I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate more of

Starting point is 00:20:15 because I think to your point like I fully believe the brands that do this like are the most successful and I think you just look at TikTok I feel like that's 90% of what the most successful brands are posting about. So it's definitely not something we do a ton because I'm remote and everybody's in California, but it's super, super impactful if you do have the opportunity to do it because it just makes the brand so much more friendly and approachable. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It definitely humanizes the brand. And I know that you guys have done a really good job just with that overall. I know that you shared some like behind the scenes of being on Shark Tank and all that kind of stuff over the years on social media. So I've been loving following that journey. And that's a big part of why, you know, Fish Wife is a brand that, you know, I love and will continue to purchase from is because I feel like I know the brand and, you know, I really identify with the brand. And so I think that is definitely really impactful when it comes down to like sharing that stuff on social and beyond for sure. I love to ask this

Starting point is 00:21:16 question on the show too. What do you know now that you wish you knew earlier on in your career? I'm sure there are a ton of answers to this that you could give, but any advice that you wish you could give your younger self? Yeah, I think by thinking back to when I was freelancing, that was very introspective experience. But I think the first thing that comes to mind is my worth. I was such imposter syndrome. And to my point, when I was freelancing, like my rates were so low, like I didn't know, I don't know why I paid my bills, but I feel like I never truly understood not only the value I can bring, but just the value of social media as a whole. A lot of the times I feel like I doubted myself, but it all works out in the end, especially if you surround yourself with people who remind you all the time, how

Starting point is 00:22:00 valuable you are, which your team and or, you know, supervisor should be doing, which shout out to our CEO, Becca, who never lets me forget it. Yeah, that's definitely one that it's been a huge learning curve, but grateful that I have a team that is so, so supportive. I love that so much. And yes, shout out to Becca. I feel like I know her just from social media and from like Shark Tank and all of the things. So shout out to her. But where can everybody find you follow along with what you're up to Lauren and keep up with the brand and all of those good things? Yeah, my Instagram is an abomination. So I would never send anybody that way. But my LinkedIn is just my first and last name, Lauren Murphy. And of course, if you want to hang with us over at Fishwife, our Instagram handle is just Fishwife. TikTok handle is at EatFishwife.

Starting point is 00:22:53 And our website is EatFishwife.com. But we're so much fun. You definitely wouldn't regret it. Amazing. Thank you so much, Lauren. This has been such a good conversation. It's been really cool to hear. Just a peek behind the curtain of what the brand is up

Starting point is 00:23:06 to and anything that you're looking forward to with the brand that you could speak to at the moment. Oh my gosh, this summer is going to be pretty big for us as far as brand partnerships. I can't dive into it too much, but July we have two pretty cool activations happening with two other brands. Yeah, and I'm really excited about those. So stay tuned for sure. That's so cool.

Starting point is 00:23:30 We will definitely keep our eyes peeled for that. And thank you again for joining us. It's been so great to chat with you. Okay. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your

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Marketing Happy Hour - How Strong Branding + Community Influences Retail Demand | Lauren Murphy of Fishwife

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