Bonfire Branding: How Solo Stove Sparked a Customer Movement with Liz Vanzura (Episode Two)

Hello listeners and viewers. Ron Stefanski here with the second episode with Liz Van Zura, the chief marketing officer for Solo Brands. And Liz, welcome back to episode two. This is where, truthfully, I kinda wanna geek out. So I told you, off camera that we moved back into a home recently this summer and we're doing a lot of things around the house. But the first thing, the absolute first thing I purchased for the house was a solo stove And my reasons for buying it were several. Number one, I'm a huge football fan, college football fan, Michigan football fan, and we won't talk about that on air today. But every time I go to a tailgate someone's got one or two of them. So that's kind of where it started, but this whole idea of the secondary burn eliminates the smoke. And so when you go to a camper, I'm a former Boy Scout, so I know how to build a fire without smoke. You place the wood in such a way that you let air, get in behind it and it, it disrupts the smoke. The smoke happens when you put too much wood on or too close together or it's wet, But people don't know that and so they build a fire, a campfire and then suddenly your clothes smell like smoke and everyone smells like smoke. So you guys have built that you started with this iconic engineering technology to build a stove that doesn't do that. So let's start there, but I have so many other questions for you. Yeah, so at its core, Solo Stove was built on our branded technology and our secondary burn and our air holes, the filtration holes that are on the bottom, which allows that air to burn and the temperature to go up very high and then for us to eliminate the smoke. And that technology, our proprietary technology has allowed us to become the world's most popular smokeless fire pits. At our core, our company is an engineering company. All of our technologies, not only in our fire pits, but now as we expand into griddles and we expand into coolers and other products, all have some kind of technology as well as design cues that are designed for that sort of wow and delight with customers. When I first started and I as we talked about, you know, with my engineering background, when I first started, I thought when I was looking at the products, you know, this is like Dyson, you know, it reminds me of like Apple where there's a technology behind it that just makes the product better. And our consumers, and you're one of them, tell us this, like we have the most amazing customer base. We have about three point eight million of them in our email database. We have one of the most largest Facebook fan communities. And they tell us this because what they wanted was an ability to connect outside a lot of our, you know, we're an outdoor brand. Folks like to camp, they like to hike, they like to make their backyard. They like to be hosts. We call them outdoor hosts. That's kind of our main target. They love, you know, the socialization of it. They like getting out with their family and friends, but they also like the fact the product is easy to use. It's easy to clean. They don't smell like smoke afterwards. They don't have to dodge like where the smoke is going. They can have like great conversations that can last all night. And they like the fact that it lasts forever. We offer lifetime warranties and all of that. And the product stainless steel, we use high quality materials. You know, all of that provides the consumer with a great experience because honestly, the end of a hard day or in this crazy world, the last thing you want is, are more problems when you get your downtime. You wanna be more relaxed. And I think our products evoke a lot of confidence with folks. They know we stand behind it. That's why Solo Stove is such a beloved brand. When I came on this brand, it was interesting because I knew it was really iconic when I would go to the airport and I was traveling somewhere and they overhear a conversation and say, Oh, do you work for Solo Stove? I have the bonfire. And they wanna tell you about it. Or I have the Mesa or my kids really like making s'mores on the Mesa and they just wanna tell you all about it. Know, oh, our kids love it. And Ron, I can't wait to hear about you guys when you start to use it with your family. It's just such a wonderful experience and when you asked me about commonalities in brands I've worked on, it was the same as like the Beetle when that came out. It's such a design and technology, such an amazing product, right? So distinctive. Hummers, same thing, so distinctive. Solo Stove, so distinctive. I'm just very fortunate in that my career has allowed me to work on these brands that have technology at its core, but a lifestyle component that is resulting from that. The emotional connection you get from using any of those products, experiencing any of those products makes it way more than a product. The ability to connect and ability to create memories that last a lifetime. And that's really what we're selling. Yeah, I think Solo Brands is a community. Just like Disrupt Ed, I like to say is a community and it's like minded people that wanna connect on something very similar. And I think you're right. I mean, what I'm curious about as a marketer is you've had some phenomenal, you know, knock it out of the park successes with Hummer, with Cadillac, with VW. You know, the one thing that I find so remarkable about solo brands as a brand is this fanaticism about it. I mean, I see your fan page. I see the, you know, and I listened to these stories from your social media. And what I always glean from it is these people are really checked in here. You know, they're really, you know, and who has time? You know, you were talking about people had a, you know, had a scheduled dinners and stuff, but here people have time to actually express a story about their stove, you know? It is really something. In fact, we've learned more and more about that. And I think the fanatics behind the products that love them, you know, whether it's a solo stove or like a Dyson or your Apple or whatever. It's because I think, you know, the product, our brand was based on of making the best one in the category. Our engineers, I believe, really took it to the, almost to like an exceptional level. Like we had done, we were considering doing a program where we were asking consumers if they wanted to trade up to one of our new products we just launched, is the new Summit. It's the next generation of fire pits from solo brands that we just launched this year. It was one of several. Launched a griddle outside the category as we talked about, a cooler outside the category as we talked about, but we also launched our newest most advanced fire pit, most premier level called the Summit. But I think what was interesting about it is to answer your question, when we talked to lots of consumers of bonfires and Yukons and Ranger, our current lineup, they told us they loved it. They did not want a new one. They loved the one they had and we had to actually probe it out of them. Okay, if we made another one that was more premium, what are the one or two things that you would want different? What they told us is two things. They wanted it maybe a little easier to light. So for the female consumer, you know, we introduced this quick strike cone, which put a gel fuel on it. You you light it up in an instant fire. They didn't wanna necessarily build it. Now a lot of other consumers like you, if you were a boy scout, wanna build the fire. But there was a group that said we wanna make it easy. And then the second one was make it super easy to clean. So we always make ours really easy to clean. But they said other than that, hey, we love our fire pit. Don't don't be dissing what I have. I love my bod fire. I love my Yukon. We're like, okay. We get it. When consumers that we interviewed, when we you know, if we didn't quite get it right, they'll tell you. They're vocal. They're on Wikipedia. I mean, let's put it this way. They're on Reddit. They're on, you know, they're out there in our communities telling us what they think. And I think you got to be ready as a brand for the good and the bad. And when we've gone to, you know, if we've made something too heavy or this or whatnot, they tell us. And you know, think being good listeners, I think Solo Brands product design and product engineering group, they're both good designers and they're also good listeners. And I think that's what makes the difference. So it also sounds like, you know, the role you're playing in marketing is much more expansive than in a lot of companies in that you're informing people based on your own tech and engineering background. You're informing them about how the product needs ultimately to evolve and grow from a product itself, from a technology perspective. And I think that's, you know, that's an important part of the insight you're gathering that you were talking about in episode one. Yes, yes, definitely. You know, product and evolving. This year, one of the big missions for Solo Stove was to go beyond offering world class fire pits to owning the backyard. And that's where we went into new products that we haven't had before, a new griddle, a new cooler, and then another new advanced premium fire pit, as well as patio heaters, etcetera. Like we're starting to expand. We saw an opportunity to expand and go again from fire pits to owning the backyard and helping this host with other products very similar to that. So that is the direction the brand is headed and building off of our base. You know, well, I also think about it, and this is one of the reasons why I was geeking out about getting one immediately. And that is if you're having guests over for an entertainment, you know, for an evening or something, the one benefit of having a solo stope is if you want to build a fire, that's not an extensive, disruptive, get out of the conversation, go over there, you know, get some sticks together. You know, it can happen very quickly. I mean, ahead of time you can have the wood in there, you can have the starter and you know, suddenly your guests are arriving and there's a fire. I mean, it's almost like turning a switch. Yes. I think that's a fascinating part of the engineering behind it too, that kind of gets you It happens quickly and a lot of people like yourself, you're a techie guy, right? So you enjoy the process, which is great. We also just this year, and I don't know if you're aware of this Ron, we just introduced our first propane fire pit. So, and what went into that is there is this group of folks in kind of wood burning or burn ban states, right? That still wanna enjoy solo signature flame but can't make, you know, the fire or can't use wood. And so we offered our first propane, it's called Infinity Flame. And we spent a huge amount of time designing the flame, the ring of flame in a solo signature flame. So much so that this year we also patented our flame. We're the first fire pit company to patent our flame because it's taller, brighter, and more mesmerizing. So it's really interesting. Everything that we've done is product based, but this one was meant for people who could enjoy a fire that aren't in areas that you can use wood burning. Well, I just wanna point out, you know, when a company is obsessed about the quality of the flame, you know, that pretty mesmerizing in and of itself when you think about it, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, we can How bright is it? Are the forms of the Oh, our engineers and we have a patent on it it's our sold signature flame and people will tell So Liz, here's what I want you to do. I want you to promise me that when we come back and do a subsequent episode in the next few months or down the road, I want you to bring a product or engineering to geek out. Oh yes, I will. No problem. No, I think it'd be so fun for our audience to see what drives these people because, know, especially with the propane, flame, you've got to, you've got to work to make it a little bit more authentic and not look like you're standing behind it, you know, an oven, you know, oh, here we go. You know, or it's not fake, you know? And so I think that's a technological feat in and of itself. Happy to bring our product team or a product expert. That would be great. Well, I also think you've done a lot of lectures about the Yeah. And I think you've done such an amazing job of getting the story out there. And it is a story that I think many of us wanna hear. And I just wanna kind of, refrack back to that. I think we live in disrupted times and I think very oftentimes the amount of disruption we're seeing in our workplace, we're seeing in our schools, you know, disruption can be a good thing. It can be something that we have to put guardrails on, but at the end of the day, disruption without some level of certainty can also cause a lot of stress. And I think what, you know, successful brands do and I'd like to hear your take on this, but I think successful brands take us away from that stress. They create either an experience or a use case where, wow, I'm gonna go do this to escape from all the crap that I'm dealing with, know, and I think, I think of solos to, I mean, what I thought of it is I'm excited about a different lifestyle. My wife and I, Kate were on the river walk in Detroit for fifteen years in a condo, so no place to have a stove. And, we left home, you know, having a house because we had an acre property that we are no longer interested in working on constantly, you know, it was just too much and so we wanted to downsize and so we made it back to a house, but we wanted a house that had a yard, that had trees, but it also was manageable. So we have like a city backyard and it's just ripe for this and in our solo stove will be part of a patio I'm building myself this summer and you know it's just for people to sit around and make you know, and make an outdoor living room of the backyard. And I think, I think that's what people start thinking about. You know, I was thinking about really going crazy in my, and Kay is putting the brakes on this, but I was actually thinking, I read a story about in Texas, the garage has become the new porch. And so I thought about it, okay, we have a smaller footprint of our home and stuff and if we want, and then we have a small backyard now, if I would have more people or the weather changes, maybe I need to look at turning my garage into a porch. So I was reading up on this and now there's a whole community out there that is transforming their garages into outdoor living So I think, I think that's where solo fits in, you know, where, where I'll have a place for people to come in out of the rain. I'll have a place where there's a bar, but I'll also have my little solo stove where people don't need to leave my place smoky, but just enjoying, as you say, Yeah, have story on that. You're so right. In fact, one of the things we did this year that I thought was, it was just, we weren't sure how it was gonna turn out. It was sort of a swing and sometimes in marketing you take a swing and you miss, and sometimes you take it and you hit it. And in this case, we were thinking about how do we communicate to consumers that we offer a backyard kind of oasis. It's sort of a respite. You come home and your shoulders go down, you put your hair in a ponytail, a lot of women, you don't need to wear makeup, you just kind of chill, it's a chill zone. And you can be yourself, forget about the crazy. So we actually did an activation on National Family Day in September in New York City. So what we did is we had our agencies kind of help us brainstorm this. And what we ended up doing is we went in the craziest, most chaotic, nutso part of New York City, right outside of Grand Central Station. And we took an area and we transformed it into a backyard, put Adirondack. Oh, I saw this in the New York Times and lost the trainee. Yeah, Adderondo cheers there. We had a fire. We had a hedge that looked like your backyard, a picket fence. We made s'mores. We had a s'mores bar. And so it was in the middle of Nutsyville, New York, right outside of Grand Central Station, and we had people come by and they, you know, got a chance to see our products, they got a chance to make a pizza in our pizza oven, they got a chance to griddle on our griddle, They got it on our new griddle. They got a chance to see the new summit. They got a chance to, it was called the Backyard Summit, the Solo Backyard Summit. And actually Good Morning America ended up doing a segment on this because they were like, what are you guys doing? And I said, you know what? We are here to tell you that you don't need to have the fancy vacation. You don't need to spend all this money. You can have this oasis in your backyard. And a lot of people just loved it. Having the kids do s'mores, sitting around. We had people playing guitar, we had just guitars around and people would pick them up in the middle of New York City. And I think it just showed us, and when we talked about it that people are craving this, whether it's your garage that you were talking about making into a outdoor man cave, or your backyard patio. And people take a lot of pride in it. They took it. We had people who had never eaten a s'more before, trying different s'mores. It's like, I want to call it a step to like good old fashioned fun again, when we used to play in our backyards when we were kids, we didn't have to be on a computer game or a video game for entertainment. And it was just more about doing something in your backyard or visiting people or having a neighbor over. And that was our entire activation and it ended up being a hit. So we not only did it there, we're actually gonna continue that in twenty twenty six in different areas. You know, we love being like tailgate kind of centroid. That's all of the connection piece. And that's where we really start to, we get a lot of our insights and people just love it. Yeah, I mean, we tailgate it for thirty years on the golf course at the University of Michigan and we can't build a fire. You can't build a fire there, but you can have a solo stove there, you know, and I think that's what really brings your product to life is figuring out imaginative ways to enhance whatever you happen to be doing outside in community with your friends. To our listening and viewing audience out there, this is a Disrupt Ed with Liz Van Zura, the rockstar CMO at Solo Brands. And Liz, I haven't exhausted all my geek out questions with you. So I'd like to invite you back to episode three, where I want to talk more about the role of CMO and how technology is shaping all the work you're doing that makes this successful brand building look easy when it's not. So, listeners and viewers, do yourself a favor, get disrupted with us, give us your feedback, tell us what you think and come back for more on episode three. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you soon.