Partner Q&A.
Adrian Power and Aimee Kilmer put the “partners” in Good Stuff Partners. They first met when they were watching a Human League concert at the Sausalito Art Festival in 2011. But they didn’t launch their company until 2013, when they realized that his brand management skills were the perfect compliment to her strategy and design skills. Since then, they’ve helped their clients make things better for people, the planet and animals.
Interview by Scott Kirkwood
Your agency is really defined by your clients. How do you choose them?
ADRIAN: When Aimee and I started talking about launching our own agency, we decided we’d only work with people who are like-minded, who share the same values—something that very few agencies were doing. We didn’t know if we’d end up turning down 99% of the work that came our way, or if we might not get any interest at all. But we knew there was no point giving in the first time a client didn’t match our criteria. We’ve never taken work from a client that we weren’t excited about, and we have in fact, turned down a lot of work. And we’ve learned that if you stick to your guns you always feel better about the work you’re doing—That in turn gives you extra motivation to really make everything we do as good as we possibly can. Plus our clients are just awesome people to work with.
AIMEE: In the beginning, we were definitely white-knuckling it, working out of a tiny spare bedroom in our house—there were lean months where we didn’t know if we’d be able to make it. One of the big turning points came about two years in, when we started working with Global Fund for Women. Up to then, we had never done any work for a nonprofit, and we had a ton to learn about international human rights, so it was a bit intimidating to be honest. But we discovered that they actually liked the fact that we weren’t narrowly focused on nonprofits—they’d seen our branding for Ritual Coffee, and their team of 13 people chose us unanimously. We were able to do more work for them than we’d done for any other client to that point—on a global scale—and as a result, we got a lot more confident in our skills.
We’re finding that our nonprofit clients don’t want to be treated like a nonprofit, and in many ways, our goal with a for-profit or a nonprofit is the same: We want to do work that makes life better for people, the planet, or animals, whether the client is a government agency, a credit union, a community organization or make vegan dog food. It’s all about the purpose behind the organization.
Have you ever started an engagement, only to find out an organization wasn’t aligned with your values?
AIMEE: We’ve started talks with a few universities and hospitals only to find out that their research arms have animal-testing programs, which we’re completely against. One random example is when were approached by the country’s biggest organic fertilizer manufacturer and discovered that some of their soils contain blood from cattle. Even though I probably eat salads that are grown in their fertilizers, I can’t wholeheartedly promote their products—how would it make me feel and what would I tell our vegan clients? That’s where things get a little muddy so to speak, because these decisions are never black and white. When it comes down to it, if it just doesn't feel good to us or if it’s a product or a mission we can’t get behind 100%, then we’re not going to take the job.
ADRIAN: We were approached by an independent TV production company that was hoping to work with FOX Business, and I wanted nothing to do with it. It just comes down to respecting each other’s perspectives: For Aimee, animal advocacy is one of the most important issues, and for me, it’s human rights and political rights.
Many nonprofit organizations play it safe in their branding efforts. How do you persuade clients to be a little bolder?
AIMEE: Our clients are always trying to expand their audience, and they won’t survive unless they take a stand and put themselves out there. There’s just so much competition for people’s attention—if you aren’t bold, you’ll get drowned out.
Sometimes, clients are a little scared—they may know what they want, but they may not be able to convince their coworkers, leadership team or their board of directors. That’s why we work so hard in the positioning phase, to get to the essence of the brand; if you get that wrong, you can’t do anything else right. For us, that means reflecting back what we’re hearing, and filtering through everything to find that little gold nugget that’s critical to their DNA. At that point, it’s easier for them to buy into something that’s bold, because it reflects the foundation that we’ve all agreed on.
ADRIAN: People’s resistance to a bold brand expression often comes out of fear—maybe they’ve never been through the process before or they had a really bad experience with an agency doing a superficial job. No one wants to be the first person in the room to put their head above the parapet.
AIMEE: When we were pitching Global Fund for Women, one of the questions we asked was, “What excites you most about the prospect of working with us, and what terrifies you the most?” and they seemed to really appreciate the acknowledgment of those fears. We know it’s not easy and fully appreciate the responsibility our clients give us, always thinking about what it would be like to be in their shoes. We try to acknowledge that this work can be scary, that it can cost a lot of money, and that you don’t always know if it’s going to work. We want clients to know that we’re going to take care of them and make a daunting process as painless as possible, and hopefully even turn it into something they enjoy. Often times, the work they’re doing is challenging and taxing, so engaging in a creative process can provide some relief and hopefully some laughs along the way.
Most agency clients measure impact with sales or brand-recognition data, but it’s harder when the goal is “having a bigger impact.” Have you been able to measure your clients’ impact?
AIMEE: Absolutely. It’s actually a bit of a myth that nonprofits can’t measure their brand impact. You’ve got to remember that the brand impacts every single piece of communication going out the door for an organization. So when you create a really authentic, powerful brand that connects with audiences, the impact can be huge. We’ve seen that impact in development dollars, campaign reach and engagement, staff recruitment, new partnerships, and team morale. That’s one that always surprises clients. They didn’t anticipate how much the brand would change the way their own employees thought about where they worked. That sense of pride helps not only retain great talent, but attract it too.
From a development perspective, one of our clients recently received a $1.25 million grant shortly after their brand re-launch, an amount that was matched by one of their board members, for a total of $2.5 million. Then a few months later, three different corporate foundations reached out to them ready to write them a check. They’d found them online and were convinced they were the nonprofit they wanted to back because their brand communications were clear about who they were, what they were doing and what impact they were having. Each of those checks were $125,000 so it came to $450,000 in total. Now the brand certainly can’t take credit for all of that, but their communications were so convoluted before the rebranding process, I don’t believe they would have received that level of investment without the change. Their VP was the one to deliver the good news and she’s convinced it wouldn’t have happened with their old brand.
But some of the best stuff goes beyond metrics. Our contact at Pivotal recently told us how surprised she was by the rebrand’s impact on the staff—those are the moments when it’s all worth it. When clients trust us enough to push them out of their comfort zone and they reap the rewards. When we see how much value the clients get out of the work, and that they’re happy they made the investment.
ADRIAN: We just kicked off our first project with the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability, and during our discovery session in their offices, a member of the client team walked in and said “We really need what you’ve got.” Hearing that makes it all worth it and keeps us going.
It sounds like you made some breakthroughs for Pivotal. Can you talk more about that project, and its impact?
AIMEE: Before we rebranded Pivotal, the organization was called Silicon Valley Children’s Fund, which didn’t fit them at all and didn’t appeal to all of their audiences. We changed their name to Pivotal, because they’re pivotal to the young people they serve, and it’s a pivotal time in their lives, and because one-word names are more powerful and prevalent in Silicon Valley. It also prevents them from reducing their name to an acronym, which is so common with nonprofits. The CEO recently told us that she now talks about the organization in a much more powerful way, because the brand finally lives up to their work.
ADRIAN: And Pivotal’s website now reflects the young people that they serve. Although they’d had two Pivotal scholars serving on their board of directors and students working in their offices, their communication didn’t feel that relevant to them. Now, if you look at their digital presence, their language, their tone—it all feels appropriate. And the young people in foster care openly talk about Pivotal as part of their lives, even mentioning it to their friends and sporting their branded hoodies. When the organization’s brand expression goes that deep, you know you’re doing something right.