Episode 64
Brand Story Podcast

Mission-Driven Branding

featuring Kathryn Tuttle

Executive Advisor, CPG Brands

Kathryn Tuttle, Executive Advisor, CPG Brands, shares her experience building brands and scaling businesses with our president, Steve Gilman

Building a brand is all about balance. You have to balance your brand storytelling with your product marketing, your revenue and sales with general awareness. So how do you do it and where do you start? By meeting your audience where they’re at.

When you shift your focus to engaging your audience, you can show how you can integrate into their lives for the better. It all comes back to being human, something Kathryn Tuttle reinforces with every brand she works with. As an Executive Advisor for CPG brands, Kathryn’s approach has always been people-first – finding ways to build those relationships to help create success. 

In this episode, we talk to Kathryn about her experience in building brands and scaling businesses. We discuss the importance of flexibility in branding, the role of strategic planning, and the impact of competition and focus. The conversation highlights the importance of understanding the consumer’s perspective and the power of branding to make a positive impact on the world.

About the Guest

Kathryn Tuttle

Executive Advisor, CPG Brands

Kathryn is an executive advisor in the CPG space and specializes in helping founders create resilient, scalable brands. She has over 20 years of experience building brands and scaling businesses across the natural food and pet industries and began her career invigorating iconic brands like Snapple and Meow Mix. She was also part of the founding team at Freshpet, where she grew revenue from 2 million to 150 million by creating an innovative portfolio of products and was instrumental in redefining the pet category.

Quickfire Q&A

What was one of your major takeaways from working at Freshpet?

Kathryn: In a space where no one had a playbook, the biggest thing that it created was this mindset of not accepting the status quo and looking at “how do we do it differently” and “how do you pull different pieces from different methodologies to build up what’s right for you?”

When a brand has limited resources, where should they spend their time and money to have the most impact on growth?

Kathryn: The first place you need to look is your packaging. Your packaging is the one piece of advertising 100% of your consumers see. The second is taking the time to really understand what’s going on in store.

What's the best thing and what's the worst thing about being a CMO?

Kathryn: The worst is the FOMO and the fact that you never do it all. No matter how awesome the budget or how cool the activation – it was never feeling like you did it all and got it right. The best were the times when you really got to see the impact.

Related Links

Kathryn on LinkedIn

About The Host

Steve Gilman

As the President of Gravity Group, Steve is passionate about helping brands reach their goals through honest, creative marketing and powerful brand stories.

LinkedIn