For all things digital, trendy, and up to date, follow Lindsay at Piquant. Just do it.
Lindsay O’Donnell and I go WAY back from what we do today. When I ran Conscious PR, she was one of the few (maybe the only) vegan bloggers in town I pitched events and select clients to. Now, she’s the Founder and Marketing Director of Vancouver-based digital marketing agency Piquant Marketing, which has worked with over 100 brands, mostly in the plant-based CPG and wellness space.
Since starting my biz 3 years ago, I’ve been following her content online, which is equal parts entertaining as it is educational. The best mix of good content! Let’s learn about Lindsay.
When and how did you go vegan?
I went vegan when I was 26 (13 years ago!). I originally went vegetarian because I was an environmental and animal activist when I was 16 and I always knew I’d go vegan too. It’s so wildly different being a vegan/vegetarian now! I’m constantly in wonder of how many options we have now.
How did you get into marketing, and what kind of marketing you do now?
I went into marketing because I loved the creative aspect of it. Marketing allowed me to support and grow the causes we care about.
We recently interviewed Lindsay at VEG Networking Canada (below) which I co-host, and she gave so many awesome nuggets about her journey and marketing. That’s how a pro speaker does it, folks!
What kind of work fires you up right now?
Food brands with a purpose have always fired me up, because brands do have the ability to change the world. But right now I’m feeling like I need to infuse more love into what I do. I’m launching a membership to support marketers and entrepreneurs, which is a mix of trainings, coaching, but also moral support.
Share your best marketing win, and one marketing horror story.
This one is both. But for Planted Expo, every year, we like to take at least one risk. The first year, we ran ads which were meant to “wink” at vegan audiences and poke fun at stereotypes. The idea being that they were so ridiculous that vegans could have a sense of humour about it. The ads had taglines like: “Don’t worry, you don’t have to wear your Birkenstocks here,” but some people got really fired up. Every day I was getting notifications of people trashing the ads in vegan online groups. People said the marketer should be fired and that it was a slap in the face to vegans…but they were our best converting ads! So the lesson is to stay calm and look at the data and not the loudest voices.
Who or what vegan company do you think is crushing in marketing right now?
Mid-Day Squares (I agree!)
You can contact Lindsay and find out more about the membership she’s launching this fall at PiquantMarketing.com.
