Emily Heyward builds brands that inspire obsession

How Brands Are Built

Emily Heyward is co-founder and and Chief Brand Officer at Red Antler, the leading brand company for startups and new ventures. Red Antler is the branding firm behind brands like Casper, Allbirds, Keeps, and Burrow. They also work with established brands like American Express, HBO, Google, and Gap.

Emily was named among the Most Important Entrepreneurs of the Decade by Inc. Magazine, and has also been recognized as a Top Female Founder by Inc. and one of Entrepreneur's Most Powerful Women of 2019. She's also the author of a new book, Obsessed: Building a Brand People Love from Day One.

I asked Emily what makes Red Antler different from other branding firms and what makes it, in the words of a 2018 Adweek article, one of "the surprisingly small group of branding shops behind today's top challenger brands." She says Red Antler was "the first creative services company that was designed and built to work with startups" and, as a result, "we've thought about brand in an incredibly holistic way … with obviously a particular focus on digital."

Next, we turned to Emily's book, Obsessed.

"The book really came out of 12 years of running Red Antler, launching new, disruptive businesses into the world, and seeing the ways in which brands’ relationships with consumers are shifting. … The rules are not the same as they were, certainly 20 years ago, but even six years ago. Things keep changing.”

– Emily Heyward

Then we turned to the events of 2020, and I asked Emily for her take on how brands should respond to racial injustice, as well as the COVID pandemic. Lastly, I asked Emily some wrap-up questions, including a brand/initiative she recommends checking out (the 15 Percent Pledge), a book recommendation (On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous), and her advice to you people in the industry:

"Be curious. I think that so much of what we do is a response to the world around us—to culture and trends and what makes people tick. And when I meet with someone that doesn’t seem like they're passionate about what's happening in the world, and what businesses are out there, and what they're seeing, and what they're loving—for me, that's an immediate red flag."

– Emily Heyward

To learn more about Emily and Red Antler, visit redantler.com or emilyheyward.com. Obsessed is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.