What you need to know:

• AG1 CMO, Paulie Dery, is adamant strong brand work and bold creative are the keys to driving business growth and performance and it’s the combination of the two he’s now bringing to the task at hand at the US$600m supplement business.
• It’s a mantra he’s sticking to as AG1 transitions from a single SKU, D2C sales approach, cult following and committed influencers to introduce new commerce channels, partnerships and product portfolio expansion.
• He’s already got the career stripes to prove such an approach works through global brand roles with Yeti and Uber global brand marketer, where he helped both scale up and become “grown up brands” with US$1bn-plus annual turnover.
• Influencers and word-of-mouth have been crucial in all cases for Dery. However, he warns marketers against seeing influencers as the next mass media channel. Nor does he believe brands should cede creative control even as they build long-term creator relationships. Instead, Dery positions influencers as an organic community play for AG1 where it’s “following the tracks” to engagement, not forcing itself upon the community.
• Building premium brand positioning as a legitimate, lifestyle choice is even more critical for AG1 as more competitors come into the high growth health and wellbeing category, he says. 
• Dery’s pearls of brand wisdom also include the need for marketers to be more courageous in their storytelling and avoiding the middle. Per Dery: “I think we're all afraid of getting fired, and we just have to let that go. If people are going to fire you because you're being creative, interesting and pushing a brand forward, then shame on the person that fired you. I'll hire you.”

“The hill I will die on is that I believe strong brand work and strong creative will drive the business,” says Paulie Dery, CMO of the US$600m AG1 (formerly Athletic Greens) nutrition business, and former global brand leader at Yeti and Uber.

“I've had a pretty good career so far because that belief has actually been true. That’s not to say it's easy. The creative does have to be exceptional; you can't just spend into brand, you have to deliver. It's not just about good ads. The brand has to behave, turn up to things, react to the world. It's a living organism. It is my key tenet that a strong brand, and strong brand creative, will drive the performance of the business. My tip to marketers though, is you have to make sure the business is ready to play that game with you.”

The marketing leader, who is now based in Austin, Texas, caught up with Mi3 in advance of appearing at the upcoming ADMA Global Forum in Sydney to share how he’s been approaching brand storytelling over his career to date. A key focus of his presentation will be on what it takes for a business to build brand identity distinctively and at scale, while actively pursuing community-based authentic connection.

Having started his career at M&C Saatchi in Sydney, Dery spent a decade as group creative director at R/GA, before switching client-side to become global executive creative director at Uber as it transitioned from scale-up towards an IPO. He then joined outdoors brand, Yeti, as CMO, again during a period of rapid growth, helping the group become a billion-dollar business through a combination of emotive, cinematic lifestyle storytelling and community connection about being outdoors in the wild. In FY24, Yeti’s sales increased by 10 per cent to US$1.82bn.

In joining AG1 a year ago, Dery was once again confronted with a business ripe for the next stage of growth. Based around just one core nutritional SKU, its Daily Health Drink that combines a multivitamin, pro and prebiotics and nutrient whole foods, plus a cult following, strong emphasis on direct-to-consumer and subscription-based selling, AG1 has reached annual revenues of US$600 million.

But in the last year, AG1 has diversified its commerce play by striking distribution deals with Costco, Amazon and Bluestone Lane, and debuted new flavours. Next up: Launching a sleep product grounded in the brand’s promise of being in service of a better morning for consumers, rather than “build a portfolio that jumps the shark”, he says.

Creative control

Yet even as influencers feature heavily in his career history, this “proud to be an Aussie” marketer has been careful to avoid is handing over creative control to the creators. Yes, they arguably underpinned the billion-dollar growth of Yeti, and have been the shoulders on which AG1 has scaled to where it is right now. But Dery doesn’t plan on treating them like mainstream media channels, or set up "an influencer in every postcode", as Unilever is striving to do.

“I think that’s problematic for them – if you chase every influencer you can, you’re going to dilute your brand,” says Dery. “My word of caution to brands: Signing influencers like they're a media channel is very precarious. In the long run, your brand could take quite a hit if you don't do it well. What I never want to do is put my brand in their hands.”

Nor does Dery quite agree with the term “influencer”. “I think of them as people I trust. I turn to them because I like to listen to their podcast, or follow them for a host of reasons such as entertainment, or because it’s education. That’s really important. The notion of a kissy-faced influencer is not AG1,” he continues.

Instead, the brand-led marketer positions his influencer strategy as one driven by becoming part of select communities. For example, Dery has maintained an early and key focus on podcasts as a core longform media channel, partnering with neuroscientist and AG1 fan, Andrew Huberman, on his show.

“If you know that community, you know that person is really influential. What I mean by that is they are really trusted. They’re the climber’s climber, or the runner’s runner. And that community understands the brand understands them. It's not looking for a quick win. It's looking to work with the best people in that community to build up trust in that community. Then what happens? Let the community go to work for you. This is, I think, the big difference,” he says.

“What we're trying to do is build up through these communities, build a relationship, build partnerships. We turn up to events. We ask how we can support. We work with our other communities who introduce us to these communities.”

How do brands find a community? Often, they find each other, according to Dery, who adds he looks for where the product is showing up organically. “Don't force yourself on a community; follow the tracks. Don’t create them,” he warns.

“The AG1 product was embraced by the endurance community. Great. That's our community. Let's go turn up at events. Let's go turn up at Iron Man. Let's go hang out, talk to some people, find out who really uses us, who loves us. Let's form a relationship, a partnership that over time that will evolve and we will meet new people in that community. The goal is you just build such a strong foundation that community, that you're now part of that community. Then what happens? You jump communities. You'll see another community has embraced the product, which is interesting, let's go talk to them. And the cycle begins again. What you then do as a marketer is, ask: how do I tell great stories about these communities? There are great people here, there's great events, there's great things to talk about. Let's do that. Use this relationship as a storytelling piece.

“It is this kind of wonderful flywheel of community building that finds you people that we sign as ambassadors – our ambassador program is really robust – we turn up to the events in these communities, and that's how we build the brand. Why is that important? It also means it's hard for competitors to move in on us. I mean, you're moving in on family, essentially, and people that have been committed to your community for a long time.”

Snake oil salesmen

That’s especially important as AG1 faces the onslaught of smaller brands entering its category and tapping into the wider global trend of health and wellbeing. Dery is keen to avoid playing into the tit-for-tat game and to position AG1 as the grown up, premium and legitimate version of nutrition.

“What we're really focused on is trying to mature the category as a whole, because there are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there. What we're trying to show is this can be done properly, with scientific rigour, and that this can be done at a mature level,” he says. “We want to be that shining light for the whole category. For me, you build it on top of your great community, but you also want to build a brand, and you want to tell people what you stand for. You want to play a bigger game. What I tell my team is, don't get pulled into that.

“It was the case at Yeti too: The minute you're a commodity, the minute someone is going to weigh these two supplements up against each other, that's the end. What you have to be is a way of life, and a lifestyle. If you pull a Yeti out at a camp that says something about you, just like if you don't pull a Yeti out that says something about you too. It’s the same with AG1: If you are taking AG1, you're pretty proud of that and it represents you. That's my job, making sure we represent those people really well as a brand. That is always what's front and centre for me, because the minute I'm not, then I actually open up to being a commodity, and people weighing up 'oh, which powder is better'.”

Tip of the spear advertising

Which is also why Dery has been acutely focusing his team on AG1’s target customer: '‘performance optimisers’.

“What that means is people that want to be fit and healthy, but also people that want to optimise what they do. That could be, for example, a lot of c-suite people and CEOs, because they want to be the best version of themselves to try and get the most out of their day. We find they are really great customers,” he says. “There are also people we always say are 'putting their oxygen mask on first' by taking AG1 in the morning to get themselves right, such as busy parents. Then they go and care for others.

“What we've really focused on is these people that really do care about their health. They're normally athletic. They do go the extra length, whether it's a workout in the morning, or they read up on their health, or they do take extra steps. And it's also okay if they stack their supplements, they're trying new things, but they start with AG1 and build upon that.”

What AG1’s advertising then does showcase their world. But that doesn’t mean holding up a mirror to the whole base.

“A lot of time, people treat their customers like idiots. They feel like they have to show a mirror reflection of their customer back to them. I don't know everyone one wants to see that, for one. And two, they're smarter than that,” per Dery.

“My time at Yeti really taught me this: You focus on the tip of the spear. We had this tagline, ‘built for the wild’. It was showing all the wild places the product was built for – bull riders, ranching and back country skiing and all these fabulous places. It doesn't mean that's the core customer. That was what we built the product for. The larger-scale customer sees that and appreciates that storytelling, and understands seeing that world is the quality and lifestyle the product represents, and that's what we do at AG1 with Iron Man or our endurance athletes. That is the tip of the spear. I think most customers and consumers understand it fills that world, but I can equate it to my world. I love giving customers and members the ability to see that and make that decision on their own.”

Enough of being boring or the fear of being fired

It isn’t surprising therefore that Dery isn’t much of a fan of staying safe when it comes to creative. “Don't be boring is always my advice – the world doesn't need more boring marketers – we are full,” he says.

“There are marketers out there I wouldn't call marketers, I would call them people that understand the game, that stay in the middle and get by. How boring. We are so lucky to do what we do. I always say be the best, be the worst, but never be the middle. If it's a failure, my goodness, you'll be respected. I think the brand actually gets more traction and more attention by trying to be the best. Where you run into trouble is the middle.

“Listen, if you're a brand that's got a tonne of money, go for it – be the middle. But not all of us are that lucky. For marketers, where the great joy should come from is the output. I always say the only thing that matters is what the customer says… Go put it out in the world and watch the reaction. There's nothing more enjoyable than putting something out in the world that really impacts people.

“I think we're all afraid of getting fired, and we just have to let that go. If people are going to fire you because you're being creative, interesting and pushing a brand forward, then shame on the person that fired you. I'll hire you.”