Brands we’re thankful for
These kinds of posts always feel a little performative, but I’m going to list here only brands that I personally use and rely on daily. Some of them have a mini brand-building lesson, but for the most part, this is a real, honest post of my gratitude - and not in a “not all brands!” way, I promise.
I thought I’d throw a brand up on social every day in the week leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday, here in the States, but sometimes you really just want to cut to the chase and skim a list. I’m not trying to be a recipe site that makes you read all the ways a soufflé changed my life, introduced me to my soul mate, and saved my children from a flood when you just want to know if you have enough flour in your house so you can make the damn thing or if you have to go to the store (or find another recipe if you’re as lazy as I am).
I digress. Here are the brands that have helped me, taught me a thing or two, and/or are doing good things for the world.
There are few moments more humbling than postpartum and 3 am shifts with newborns and sick kiddos. Frida Mom and Frida Baby saved me countless times.
This brand epitomizes living a promise.
Its products are named in a real, descriptive, but cheeky way. Copywriting is down to earth and makes you feel like you’re part of a club of every mom who’s ever cried on the toilet two days after giving birth or laughed with your partner at the joy of a successful snot sucking session.
Building a brand based on a human truth is the easy part. Living it every day in every way isn’t. Frida does. Thanks, Frida.
2. Advil
Maybe your comfort brand is Campbell’s soup or Schweppes ginger ale.
Everyone has one go-to that their mom handed them without fail when they really needed it back in the ‘90s.
Mine is Advil (though really a tie with CVS brand Starlight peppermints. My mom and grandmother, Ma, always had a few in their purse that had gone slightly chewy to perfection).
Anyway, yes, I know Tylenol is safer than Advil. I’m aware there’s a ton of junk like Red Dye #984594 or whatever inside these things. I have no idea the difference between a gel cap and a tablet or what the coating is made of. Yet, no brand has ever delivered for me year after year, migraine after migraine, child after child (and all the pain, er, joy they bring) like Advil has.
Is this a brand 101 lesson? Not really. Just remember that emotion is always tied to your brand. Thanks for the pain-free times, Advil.
3. Owala
Listen, I won’t knock Stanley, but I’m gonna knock Stanley. I’ve tried ‘em for years. I’ve tried to make Yeti work. I went back to ol’ Nalgene for awhile.
No water bottle has the versatility and reliability of Owala’s FreeSip.
It’s a straw and a tilt-back spout. It’s got a sturdy, thick straw that’s easy to clean. It’s dishwasher safe. It fits in cup holders. It has a handle that doubles as a lock. Its color combos range from unassuming to bold, depending on my personality of the moment. I’m thankful that their product delivers and serves my exact needs.
I’m thankful that the product name FreeSip is simple and just suggestive enough to feel different and benefit-focused but not too out there for a product name. I’m thankful for hydration and Owala.
4. Canva
There’s a reason Villain’s headline is “We use words to make brands better.” I’m not a designer. I partner with the best of ‘em, but our work centers on language.
When we introduce design into the picture, it’s often to sell-in brand ideas, messages, or voice, so that stakeholders can get a sense of what the work we’ve delivered will look like in the real world.
Canva makes design accessible. Is it as flexible for outputs as Adobe? No. Is the fidelity as high? No. Is it for print-based stuff? Not really (if you love your brand colors, don’t try it). But does it work for lowfi digital work? Absolutely.
This is a brand that knows their users. They’re not stealing designers from Adobe. True designers will use and need to use InDesign and Illustrator.
Canva democratizes design
That’s crucial for the rest of us. Thanks for helping us fake it til we make it, Canva.
5. Levitate
I don’t surf and I don’t skateboard. Yet, Levitate surf shop based in my little Massachusetts beach town is one of my very favorite businesses.
Originally founded 20 years ago by the late Bob Pollard and Amelia English, Levitate has been owned and managed by Dan and Jess Hassett since 2008. They’ve had a clear brand promise to deliver homegrown stoke to New England.
Levitate may have started as a surf shop but following their brand promise, it’s developed into surf, skate and lifestyle cantina-based apparel shops, arts, music, camp, restaurant, coffee shop, and philanthropic foundation.
Perhaps most importantly, Levitate has stayed true to its Marshfield roots, keeping its marquee event, Levitate Music Festival, on the old Marshfield Fairgrounds. It may seem like a small thing, but this event each summer (and its traveling fall music and shopping festival Flannel Jam) generates millions for local businesses and the surrounding community.
Thanks for supporting us all, Levitate.
6. Mill
Kids = trash. They generate so much wasted food scraps from bread crusts to over-ripe berries deemed “yucky” today. We’d tried composting a million different ways but it was generally a smelly pain that resulted in us scrapping (no pun intended) it for another six months, promising to try again in the spring. Then we found Mill.
Mill delivers you a fancy looking trash bin and a list of what you can put inside (basically anything you can compost) and it runs each night to ground and dry up the food scraps (no smell, at all, truly, it’s magic), so they look a bit like coffee grounds the next morning. When the bin is full after a month or two, depending on how many kids, er, waste you have, you can ship the bucket of food grounds in a box (they provide it, literally everything you need) to a farm for their chickens.
We, however, have a few bins of red wiggler worms, so we share the food grounds with them to turn into vermicompost for our veggie garden. (I know I really glossed over that one. Our worms are for an entirely different post…)
What’s so great about this brand instead of, you know, a compost bucket? It’s technology that delivers on a promise. That’s it. That simple.
They minimize food waste by a crazy amount, they make it insanely convenient and easy for busy people to do, and it just works. Every time. Sometimes consistency and credibility are the most important things you can deliver. Thanks for being consistent, Mill.
7. Feather + Finn
Transparency is hyper important in the world we’re living in. There’s not much we can trust and that becomes especially important for the foods and drinks we ingest, the products we put in our body, and those we breathe through the air.
Feather + Finn is a local (to me) soy-based candle company owned by two friends and moms Catherine and Jackie.
Their candles smell insanely amazing, but most importantly, they’re clean burning and USA-made. Front and center in their communications is their brand promise of transparency.
They’ll never create a product with ingredients that are unsafe like toxins, phthalates, mutagens, or carcinogens.
Their products are hand-poured (right?!) so you know you’re getting a little extra love in each one.
Sometimes I talk with larger brands about broken promises, and they will fight back that they only have this challenge because they are so big. But I couldn’t disagree more. Breaking your promise, small or large brand, is a deal breaker for consumers – especially our millennials and gen-z friends who’ve been burned by false promises and broken loyalty throughout their lives. And arguably even more deadly to small businesses given the tighter market. So businesses big and small, don’t commit to something you can’t truly live.
Speak what you do. Be truthful not just in your words but in every single action you take. This isn’t marketing. This is brand.
Thanks for the reminder, Feather + Finn.
8. DOVE
Not the soap. Not the candy.
Those of you who know me personally, know that I care incredibly deeply about women’s, children’s and family rights. I served on the Board of DOVE, a local non-profit organization whose mission is to end domestic violence, and support its victims and survivors.
I had the pleasure of working with DOVE on its brand and marketing over the years, and there’s one amazing metric of success for this local non-profit: how immediately and often DOVE is brought up when someone needs help when living in an unsafe home.
That’s what brand is. The relationship people have with you, what they say when you’re not in the room, what they feel when they think of you.
Even with limited staff, funding, resources, support, all the things that most local non-profits battle, they get it done. They are there during periods of partner violence with everything one could need from shelter to resources to legal aid to translation services to therapy for the littlest survivors.
Thanks for supporting all of us, DOVE. We love you but hope we don’t need you for much longer.
So what do you think? Love these brands? Hate them? Thankful this article is over? Share with us the brands you’re most grateful for. We’d love to add to our list.