Cristina Watson is aware of that sliced bread isn’t probably the most thrilling product on the planet.
“It’s not like we’re inventing Teslas or Apple iPhones or one thing,” the model supervisor for Dave’s Killer Bread mentioned with amusing.
However the brandhas a number of issues going for it, in response to Watson.
The primary is having a very good product.
“Bread was extra of like, an edible plate,” Watson advised PR Every day. “It was like a technique to get different issues into your mouth, like cheese, or avocado or peanut butter. The bread itself wasn’t essentially probably the most thrilling a part of the consuming expertise.” Dave’s aimed to make bread the star.
However the natural bread model additionally has one thing different organizations dream of: a compelling origin story and a driving goal.
Dave, you see, is an actual individual. Dave Dahl. He invented the dense, seedy loaf — after spending greater than 15 years in jail throughout 4 sentences.
When he’d served his time, he received a second likelihood when his brother provided him a job within the household bakery. He created his iconic loaf and commenced a brand new life, hiring a few of his previously incarcerated associates to assist with the enterprise.
For years, Dahl’s story appeared on the bundle of his bread, turning into integral to the model itself.
However now the story Dave’s Killer Bread seeks to inform is a lot greater than Dahl himself.
As we speak, one in three workers on the firm’s Oregon headquarters has a conviction historical past. Second Likelihood Employment, as DKB calls it, is an important a part of the corporate’s inside and exterior positioning. It requires “hiring the perfect individual for the job, no matter legal historical past.”
However DKB wished to increase their outreach efforts to encourage staff to search out their very own second probabilities and firms to rent them. Working with PR company Maxwell, it landed on a brand new TikTok marketing campaign that took benefit of the dialog round #JobTok, or movies about employment and work.
Highlight on employee-partners
Whereas Watson herself has appeared in a video, the actual stars are their employee-partners who’ve benefited from Second Likelihood Employment.
https://www.tiktok.com/@daveskillerbreadofficial/video/7278801458508713259?lang=en
Working with workers to inform their tales on such poignant, private subjects is one thing Watson takes critically.
“A very powerful factor for us on the model workforce is to be sure that they know we’re making an attempt to do that to open eyes and open hearts and open minds. It’s to not promote extra bread,” Watson mentioned.
The model workforce works with HR to establish staff who’ve been beforehand incarcerated — and who’re prepared to inform their story.
“Typically if it’s a bit bit too shut after re-entry, it may be typically triggering,” she defined. “We need to be certain we’re respectful as a result of we have now dozens and dozens of individuals that would doubtlessly be a topic for one thing like this. However we need to be certain it’s the proper individual in order that they really feel snug.”
And that consolation degree is a excessive precedence for Watson and her workforce. They conduct the interviews in a spot workers go every single day: the little retailer on the entrance of their headquarters. Acquainted territory helps put folks comfy.
“One thing we at all times make an effort to do is to begin off the dialog by saying, ‘Solely share as a lot as you need. And if at any level, you need to pull the plug, you’re completely welcome to try this,’” Watson mentioned.
Measuring success
As Watson mentioned, the purpose of this marketing campaign isn’t to promote extra loaves. It’s to vary hearts and minds. And whereas the marketing campaign is simply ramping up, views and shares aren’t the one metric of success both.
Certainly, Watson is trying most on the feedback part. The responses to their tales of Second Likelihood Employment are overwhelmingly constructive, she mentioned, and may flip informal purchasers into devoted “breadheads” for all times.
“We reside in a really black-and-white society relating to those that have been in jail and people who haven’t,” Watson mentioned. “And so I feel Dave’s is hopefully opening up folks’s eyes to there’s a variety of grey space in between those that have been in jail and haven’t been in jail. And that doesn’t imply that you simply’re simply broken items for the remainder of your life. So anytime that we see these sorts of feedback, that’s, that’s what actually issues.”
Allison Carter is government editor of PR Every day. Observe her on Twitter or LinkedIn.
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