Marketing for Good with Elliot Midalia, Boody

Michelle Lomas: Commission Factory

Michelle Lomas: Hey there, Michelle Lomas here and welcome to Flex Your Hustle. Today's guest, Elliott Midalia, is no stranger to the hustle. In Elliott's early career, he joined the German venture capital firm, Rocket Internet, during its fledgling phase in Australia, where he was part of the team which conceived and built one of Rocket Internet's early startups, The Iconic.

Michelle Lomas: After Rocket, Elliot moved to New York, where he consulted on various brands and helped build one of the fastest growing e-com sites in the US, Jet.com, which after only two years in operation was acquired by none other than Walmart. In Elliot's return to Sydney, he wanted to use his experience in strategy at high growth companies to benefit a company that was very close to his heart: Boody.

Michelle Lomas: For the uninitiated Boody sells everyday fashion basics, which are crafted from organically grown bamboo. Boody was founded in Australia by Elliott's father, Neil Midalia and his best mate, David Greenblo who combined their backgrounds in fashion and pharmacy to create the Boody brand, now selling in over 16 countries worldwide with a newly minted B Corp certification and an iconic brand campaign featuring the legendary Jane Goodall.

Michelle Lomas: Boody have cemented themselves as one of the fastest growing names in sustainable fashion globally.

Michelle Lomas: Thank you for joining us really appreciate it. I think we are gonna have a great chat today, I'm really excited to talk about some of the things that you guys are doing from a marketing perspective. Love the Jane Goodall campaign that's just come out. I see it almost every day driving. There's a great billboard of her on Oxford street in Paddington. I love it, it's great, so really looking forward to talking about that, but before we do, let's get started a little bit about Boody and talking about the story. My guess is that most people listening would think that you guys are a bit of an overnight success, but that's definitely not the case as I discovered when we first spoke, so why don't you tell us a little bit about Boody.

Elliot Midalia: I love telling the story because it's definitely one that pulls on the heart strings, cause Boody did actually start out as a family business. And despite the fact that you said it's an overnight success, we've probably been in business for about 10 years.

Elliot Midalia: The origins are really interesting. My father was a pharmacist and owned a range of pharmacies around Sydney, and when he sold that chain, he went into the distribution side of things. And at the same time, his best friend had just gotten out of a clothing manufacturing business that he was in for 30 years.

Elliot Midalia: They're kind of very close mates and our families were very good friends and they got talking and it was like, look, why don't we distribute our own product? And so putting their heads together, one of the products that my dad's business at the time was distributing was socks. And they said, well, look, this essential thing such as a sock is doing so well in a place of essential purchasing, such as a pharmacy, why not underwear?

Elliot Midalia: Kind of had a light bulb moment "yep, let's do it. Let's try it." But my dad being the salesman that he is, said it [00:03:00] has to have a health angle, it has to have something special for the mindset of that pharmacy customer. So they did their research, took quite a bit of time and came up with the concept of bamboo as a fabric and bamboo has actually a lot of health qualities for the skin.

Elliot Midalia: It's antibacterial, it's antifungal, it's antimicrobial, so it speaks to that pharmacy customer. But at the same time, it has all these amazing sustainability benefits, which back then, was just starting to gain some steam. It didn't have the tailwind that it was today, but it was that choice in bamboo that was the seed for Boody's sustainability journey.

Elliot Midalia: So, they kind of put one style together, one color, couple sizes, and put it in, I think a hundred stores and it just started doing well and started growing on itself. So they expanded the assortment, into different cuts and different styles and different sizes.

Elliot Midalia: Then they expanded the channel, so not just pharmacies, but boutique supermarkets, health foods, stores, wellness studios, fitness places, hospitals, hotels, cruise ships, and I think it just grew in itself and it was really something that it was just one foot in front of the other blocking and tackling every day, growing a really healthy wholesale business with focus being product first, and it got to the place where you'd probably see it today in one of these types of stores, which is like a full blown stand. What then happened was with the growth of eCommerce, they kind of put a website together and this is when my co-managing director, my dad's business partner's son came into the business to help them build the website. And it was then with that concept of the endless aisle that they started seeing, well, we can actually start doing other products, because before any additional products meant one comes off the stand. Now the endless aisle concept says, okay, well, our customers are asking if we can make this fabric for their babies or for loungewear or for active.

Elliot Midalia: And so that was the next frontier was creating these other categories. Then at the same time, there was a realization that, "Hey, this has some global legs. So let's see what we can do there." The founders recognise that they weren't the ones to do it, so they partnered with some top distributors around the world at that point, some we're still working with today.

Elliot Midalia: Then that was really where we started growing international. And then, you know, over time, the growth happened in different directions, but COVID gave that eCommerce side a boost, we started dipping into certain marketplaces that were aligned with us. I came into the business about four years ago, help putting in strategies structure, and we've grown the team, we've grown the brand and we're doing cool things all around. There's been challenges. There's been fun times. There's been low times, all the trials and tribulations, but at the heart of it, it is really two dads and two sons, which is awesome.

Michelle Lomas: That's lovely. Keeping it in the family. How's it been?

Elliot Midalia: It's been great. it's had its challenges. I think that, we've dealt with it as well as you could deal with it in this situation, it's never gonna be easy. I think the concept of succession is a tough one, especially when it is still a young business, the founders, they're not done, they're loving it, they want to be there every day, and it's what keeps them engaged and keeps them young, and it's beautiful. At the same time, we want to create the organisation of the future that we want, and so I think it's about having that healthy respect, that healthy balance, those boundaries, everyone needs to have their roles, everyone needs to understand where we all play and have the respect for each other, but at the same time, we have a very healthy level of understanding that the founders have their special source in the business. For as long as we can, we want them to have that involvement.

Michelle Lomas: And so what do you guys manage and what do your dads manage?

Elliot Midalia: Yeah, so Shaun and myself are really the co-managing Directors. So we manage everything from the staff, building the strategy, managing the board. We have our individual areas, so I'm more front of house, brand marketing, parts of product strategy, sales, whereas Shaun's more back-of-house operations, finance, processesing systems, technology, but we have so much overlap.

Elliot Midalia: We have a very healthy way of working as well, where we're bouncing things off each other daily.

Michelle Lomas: Probably a lot of listeners want to know more about how to do sustainability marketing better. You guys are really in my eyes, leading the pack here. I wanna make sure everyone listening fully understands what you guys have done to build the credentials that you have to be able to say the things that you say.

Michelle Lomas: Your products are made from organically grown bamboo with no pesticides or fertilisers, you use rain water to grow the bamboo and all water used in the production process is recycled and reused, and your factories use state of the art computer knitting machines to create seamless garments meaning fabric wastage is minimal. Great. Your yarn is certified by Eco Cert, all bamboo comes from FSC Certified forests that follow FSC defined best practice, you've partnered with non-profit organisation Canopy through their Canopy Style and Pack For Good initiative, you are Peta vegan approved, you also partnered with Upparel to launch the Goodness Loop, which is an easy way to recycle old, ready to retire apparel and be rewarded for it. In fact, you give everyone a $25 voucher and that's all in an effort to reduce landfill.

Michelle Lomas: You're a proud member of the 1% For the Planet, and finally, you became a B Corp Certified business in late 2021 and have been heralded as one of the top five percent of B Corp brands in the world in regards to environmental impact. You are also Australia's very first B Corp certified underwear brand.

Michelle Lomas: Did I get it all?

Elliot Midalia: Yes, it's nice to hear all those things played back. That is a good summary of the credentials. So I guess you asked about the sustainability journey.

Michelle Lomas: Yeah it sounds like your dad very much with his pharmacy background wanted to build something that was healthy and sustainable.

Michelle Lomas: But was it that four years ago when you guys started to join and go, "okay, what's next for this business? Was that the decision to start really going hard from a messaging perspective?"

Elliot Midalia: I think it was something that gained steam on itself, the bamboo was the seed that started the sustainability journey.

Elliot Midalia: What we then saw was that we had a really strong interest from the customer that was interested in sustainability, and at the same time, we knew that we were onto something special and we had the collective passion to be involved in the sustainability movement. There was also this concept of slow fashion starting to gain steam, which we are doing, you know, it's very much every day essentials that are built to last. For us, I think it was just something that we decided very early on, that this is a key thing that we're gonna double down and get into. You're right, like it really happened around probably four years ago. I think it was the recognition then that this is a journey and there is no end point.

Elliot Midalia: So we built an impact roadmap and we're in the process of putting it into a consumer friendly format so they can see kind of where we're at and what we wanna keep doing every quarter, every year, et cetera. But for all brands, it is something that's a journey. What's the next step to continue doing better?

Elliot Midalia: For people listening that want to look into sustainability marketing, we don't think about it as sustainability marketing, and I actually think that if you were to look at studies, sustainability marketing doesn't necessarily work. To really build a brand, you can't necessarily do it with only eco warriors.

Elliot Midalia: Our kind of goal is to speak to the big range of consumers that we call eco interested, and so they want to always make the sustainability or eco decision. They won't necessarily do it at the sacrifice of price or quality, and so it's about being there and having something that is a shoo-in for what they want and we're sustainable, and it's like, oh, perfect.

Elliot Midalia: For a company that has sustainability at the core, it's table stakes, and therefore in your messaging, it doesn't need to be something that is throwing in your face too much. It's very much like, "Hey, this is what we do. We are sustainable, but we also have incredibly comfortable clothing that you can get not at a premium price."

Elliot Midalia: For the consumer, it's not necessarily leading with sustainability in the marketing.

Michelle Lomas: It's almost like it's just woven into the fabric. Pardon the pun. Of your brand story, right?

Elliot Midalia: Totally.

Michelle Lomas: And we're seeing so, so many brands, not just within the textile industries, but beyond that where they're trying to do that, but they're coming up with these one off campaigns.

Michelle Lomas: Instead of like what you guys have done, which is just part of your brand DNA, it's part of your story. If you're considering buying our product, you need to know these things. And as we've seen 67% of consumers now, they want to understand what the brand is all about, what they stand for before they buy.

Michelle Lomas: They are more conscious about that, so it's great how you guys have really managed to just so authentically bring that into your story, but it helps that you actually live and breathe the story that you're telling, you're doing the work.

Elliot Midalia: Yeah, appreciate that.

Michelle Lomas: It's a good segue because I do wanna talk a little bit more about how this is helping you with sales.

Michelle Lomas: I saw this great study and it said that two and five Aussie consumers would be willing to pay more for sustainable products, and are staggering 87% of shoppers are more likely to purchase products that are ethically and sustainably produced. So there's definitely this mental shift, I think, to the conscious consumerism, but I'm a little bit cynical of that stat, which I wanna talk to you about.

Michelle Lomas: And that's only coming from, you know, years of doing strategy where what people say they want to do versus what they actually do is very different. So how is it working for you?

Elliot Midalia: Look, I think we've kind of grown really healthily and conservatively year on year. And it's really only recently that we've screamed from the hilltops with this above the line campaign, featuring Jane Goodall that you mentioned.

Elliot Midalia: That was actually the first time that we've led with sustainability messaging as well, and the reason why is because this campaign was purely for awareness. So everything we've done to date has been very much middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, below the line marketing that's performance-based or other type of programmatic marketing, we haven't ever done anything that's purely for awareness.

Elliot Midalia: I think in working with the agency and putting our heads together, if the goal is for awareness and not necessarily to get purchases in the door straight away, then how do you get the consumer to raise their eyebrows, look up and say like, oh, this is a new brand that's doing something different. Because the last thing that we wanted to do was create a campaign that you could interchange out with a logo of another underwear brand and be like, okay, that just looks like another underwear campaign. Because we didn't have the budget that other underwear brands have we needed to do something that had really strong cut through, and also got that earned media engine going. For us using someone incredible like Jane as an ambassador and having a statement, which was the official underwear of the entire planet, that is the awareness plate to get people to recognise us.

Elliot Midalia: But then we know that we're not necessarily going to get the purchases through that same messaging, because then you need to start working. Your unique selling propositions that consumers really care about, which is what is the product? What is the price? What are the benefits, all that type of stuff.

Elliot Midalia: So I think we're seeing a lot of brand uplift. We're seeing obviously increase in traffic from this, but it's hard to say, do we see a lot of conversion from sustainability messaging? I think for us, it's part of the whole funnel of messaging and communications that we are doing that we're always trying to refine to best talk to the consumer and our community.

Michelle Lomas: So maybe driving consideration, definitely awareness. You can't miss it with good old Jane Goodall. So let's talk about the brand campaign then. Very cool. Very impactful and noticeable. How did you get Jane to agree?

Elliot Midalia: It was a journey that we went on when we decided, okay, let's do a brand campaign because we did a study and while our awareness against other underwear brands was quite low, but those who knew of us really loved us, had strong consideration, had strong conversion, so we need to start lifting our awareness of Boody. Let's do a brand campaign, and this is going back already, you know, 18 months.

Elliot Midalia: Then you just start the process of, we obviously need an agency so we did the whole RFP process and spoke to a bunch and decided on the one that worked best for us and aligned strategically. And then, it was really about, how much do we wanna invest in this campaign and what do we wanna achieve?

Elliot Midalia: And to what I was saying before, we wanted something that had that really strong cut through. For us being a new brand, a challenger on the market, we wanted something that gave us that credibility as well. That we actually are this official underwear of the entire planet that we are calling ourselves.

Michelle Lomas: If you see her putting a stamp on this. You know she's not doing it for the money she's doing it because it means something.

Elliot Midalia: The beautiful thing is the money goes to her Institute as well. So that, you know, that's a good feeling when you're paying someone, knowing that it's going to more good causes.

Elliot Midalia: So when we decided on having that ambassador, was who do we want to go after? And there was only a few names that really kind of came to came top of mind, and so grateful that she said yes.

Michelle Lomas: Did you have to do a lot of work? I wanna see what you guys are doing.

Elliot Midalia: I wish I could say yes that, you know, it was this whole series of hustling

Michelle Lomas: But it was easy?

Elliot Midalia: It, wasn't not easy, but it, wasn't not hard. We worked with the agency to put together a pitch, that summarised what we do, why we do it and what we want to do and why we wanna work with her in the most considered way.

Elliot Midalia: That's what worked. She has a team that obviously look at things and ascertain whether these brands are legit or not. Jane hasn't done a lot of work with other brands.

Elliot Midalia: So it was a process that went probably as smooth as possible. And I think the fact that it wasn't such a hard thing to sell was credibility, I guess, to us as well and what we had built.

Michelle Lomas: I mean, it's really a beautiful campaign. I also really have to applaud you on, across the board, your diversity in marketing as well. Different bodies, ages, faces. It just feels very authentic, and if we're talking about human and earth and real, it feels very real too. So, you know, it's a shame that we still think about that from a brand perspective as brave when it should just be natural in what we do. But I liked seeing some different faces in your marketing too.

Elliot Midalia: Yeah, and actually the people that were in that campaign weren't even models. They were essentially real people and it was their first time doing modeling gigs. They all have their own jobs and it's really cool to hear their stories and we've done some pieces, actually detailing them, but diversity and inclusion, another strong brand pillar of ours.

Again, something that I think is becoming table stakes.

Michelle Lomas: It is isn't it.

Elliot Midalia: And should be.

Michelle Lomas: I just love how you guys just do it. There's so many brands who will do it, but then make a statement that they're doing it. You don't need to make a statement. Yeah, you should just do it.

Elliot Midalia: Exactly. I think that that is like so fast, the world is changing in their approach to that, and it's very much the brands that aren't doing it are being left behind and it's hard for brands that haven't done it to date as well, because they do have to work a bit harder to educate the consumer and why they're doing it without just being seen as someone that's box checking.

Michelle Lomas: I don't know. I mean, this is my marketing background, but I feel like we were always taught that the people that you feature in your advertising should be aspirational. Remember, you know, they all should be aspirate. Who's the aspirational consumer that you want to purchase your product because the ordinary person is gonna look up to that person who's purchasing that product and wanna be like them. But we are living in an entirely different culture now where I wanna be like me. There's no one like me and I want to see people who are different and from all walks of life. So I feel like it's also like educating the consumer, cause I feel like the consumer's already there mostly it's actually like us marketers who have to move away from what we've been told and drummed into us for decades about marketing and having that sort of aspirational consumer and everything and just getting real.

Elliot Midalia: I think it comes back to, I guess, to beauty and to widening the scope of what beautiful is. And because all parts of diversity can be beautiful and so you can still have marketing that is aspirational in its own way, but still does very much lean into diversity and inclusion. So I think it's just about generally consumers in their minds widening what can beautiful look like? And I think it's a really healthy way that the world's going.

Michelle Lomas: Let's take a step back, great campaign, but you also have found success over the last 10 years without it. So what are some of the marketing efforts that you've been doing to scale?

Elliot Midalia: Good question. A lot of the early days of what you call marketing was actually just grassroots through distribution. Most brands start today and will probably put eCommerce first. The fact that we had essentially our distribution channels first was actually a really strong piece in our toolkit because it allowed those points of distribution, those stands to act as our own form of marketing and education about the brand, there's pamphlets on the stand, there's nicely designed panels with what Boody is, what it does, what the benefits of the product are. So I think people were just naturally seeing that over the years, trying it, act as a form of marketing then as we started saying what else can we do? This is going back many years, the pay-performance marketing of Facebook and Instagram, of course, then Google, was really, really effective. And I think that there was those heyday years of when it was-

Michelle Lomas: Before it was really expensive and hard to target.

Elliot Midalia: Exactly. Yeah. So it's become as you said, more expensive and less effective, but, at the same time we also started building this storyteller community.

Elliot Midalia: So it's pretty much grassroot influencers and they are those that come to us or engage with us in some way that probably have a lower amount of followers than your big paid influencers and just seeding them product and saying like, enjoy it, wear it, tag it if you can, and if you have anyone else that you think would be kind of fit for this, come to us and let us know.

Elliot Midalia: We've probably got a network of about 500 now, and it's just amazing grassroot community of influencers.

Michelle Lomas: How do you manage that?

Elliot Midalia: My amazing team do that part. Yeah. They're they're on top of all of that. It's not easy, but I think it's something that you do wanna foster as a brand, especially as you get bigger cause it does feel like that community aspect. We've also done PR of course, other influencer work with some paid influencers to get some more of that credibility. Then there's just what we've done recently with the above the line work to get that awareness out.

Elliot Midalia: It's a suite of products and a suite of tools in the toolbox, of course affiliates as well. So that's always been something that's been running in the background and been that healthy conversion for us.

Michelle Lomas: How long have you been doing affiliate marketing?

Elliot Midalia: We've been working with Commission Factory for years. I want to say the better part of five years already, always just been running in the background, healthy source of traffic conversion and ultimately revenue.

Michelle Lomas: You use affiliates a little differently, right? You don't price discount, so you are using it in a different way potentially to what other people might be using it for.

Elliot Midalia: We're a bit more selective with who we partner with on the affiliate front. Obviously we are selective about which affiliate sites we accept versus don't accept. Bit more strategic, for example, the Qantas Loyalty Program, a bit less of the discounting, more of the points based system with whoever it is that we're gonna be working with on the affiliates front, anywhere that we can get retention and referral for us is key. And then of course, huge channel for us is our own email marketing, because we have a beautiful brand because the product has always been the focus that we know majority of the time when someone tries a product they're gonna come back for more because they love it so much, because what do you do when you find a new pair of underwear? You're probably gonna replace all your existing ones for every day of the week.

Michelle Lomas: Especially if there's comfortable and delightful as Boody.

Elliot Midalia: Thank you. So I think that the hardest thing is getting someone to try it. That really is our challenge, but we know that once we do get it in the hands of the consumer, they are kind of obsessed.

Michelle Lomas: Once you have actually nice underwear, you'll notice a difference.

Elliot Midalia: You know, I do have it as something on my to-do list of, I think we can optimise it further and I think we can do more in the affiliates channel. But we've almost taken it for granted up until now, cause it's just such a healthy background running source of traffic for us.

Michelle Lomas: Yeah, and it's interesting, you said that you only select certain partners like Qantas Rewards. Do you consider it as a bit of a brand play as well? Like aligning with certain brands just sort of lifts the credibility of the brand itself?

Elliot Midalia: Definitely. I think you can tell really quickly as well, if the destination is somewhere where you wanna your brand or not, and I think that we're all pretty aligned on that internally. So I kind of trust the team as well [00:24:00] to make that call.

Michelle Lomas: You've got a lot on that's working well. What are some of the things that you've done over time that haven't worked quite so well?

Elliot Midalia: Good question. What comes to mind is as I've gone through the journey, it's been this amazing build on itself story where you have distribution and then online start, so you have that lower customer acquisition cost because people are already being seen trialing, using your product. We then went a year ago and started Boody.eu and thought, okay, well, we know what we're doing on the D to C eCommerce front. We haven't tapped into the Europe market yet. We've got Boody.au, let's do it.

Elliot Midalia: So we poured a bunch of stock in the 3PL in Europe and started the website and put a bunch of money behind performance marketing to get that engine going. I think there's just been challenges there because expectations versus reality has been a little bit far off and have left us scratching our head a bit, but almost come full circle and put our marketing hats back on and say, no, this isn't a plug and play, this is something where you have to go back to the starting line and say, okay, firstly, Europe's huge, a lot of different countries. And they're so unique, it's not one size if it's all.

Elliot Midalia: So which countries do we wanna target, how do you speak to the consumers in that country? How do you market to them? What feels authentic, what is just off and might not resonate with them because it's resonated in your home country, and rebuilding a marketing plan, which is where we're up to now. I think that also happened at the same time where performance marketing got less effective because of all the privacy changes that came in, which in Europe is even stronger, and it got more expensive. So for us, I can definitely say it hasn't worked yet, but I'm confident that we can get there. For me, I'm just so grateful that the founders created a product that is so loved because I've got that confidence when I go to a new market.

Elliot Midalia: I know if I don't get it on swing one, I'll get it on two, three or four.

Michelle Lomas: I think that's a great learning too. Everyone is so keen, particularly Australian founders, to crack the global market. You spent almost a decade trying to get that product right before you felt it was time and you were ready to get there.

Michelle Lomas: So it's a really good lesson, I think for any founder out there, who's "I just wanna get into the US. That's where I'm gonna make my cash." And it's like, just hold up because it's a really difficult market, it's a cluttered market and consumers are completely different. What they care about, your competition is completely different. And so take the time, get the product right, figure out your story.

Michelle Lomas: So what's the plans for Boody?

Elliot Midalia: Look, I think it is going back to that continuously building the brand in the right way and honing in on that consumer messaging that does speak to our desired consumer in the best way and we're constantly refining that. I think it is refining our marketing channel because we're just seeing so much change in the market and so much more competition. I think COVID brought a lot of like retail incumbents online and made them better. So now it's a pretty level playing field, like a few years ago, it was a bit of cowboy territory online. Now everyone's there, everyone's good. You know, there's not much variation, so it's become a very competitive space. So I think for us, it's like we need to get sharper in our marketing, because we obviously wanna be effective with our spend and speak to the consumers in the right way.

Elliot Midalia: That's a big focus. It is focusing on that global landscape. For us, the US is gonna be a big focus. EU is gonna continue to be a focus, we wanna roll out offline in Europe more. Our Head of Sales and Distribution is in Europe now meeting with different partners at a trade show in Germany as well, just kind of really exploring the landscape there to see what we might be able to do more of.

Elliot Midalia: Then product, it's building our call it big, hairy, audacious goal is to become the most loved everyday sustainable basics brand globally, and we have a number tied to that, so we can track it every quarter.

Elliot Midalia: And so for that, it's really what else do we need to do? What space are we not in, in terms of product to get there, while always focusing on that product.

Michelle Lomas: What a massive journey from where you are right now from 10 years ago where your dad was like hustling with pharmacies to put a stand up, what a difference, hey.

Elliot Midalia: Absolutely.

Michelle Lomas: Yeah, it's great. Congratulations. It's a really exciting story for you guys.

Michelle Lomas: Thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing your story. I do wanna give a especially for everybody listening, a plug to the Goodness Loop, everyone should go to the website, check it out very easy way if you're doing a wardrobe refresh, which we're probably about to cause spring's on the way. Very easy to recycle clothing and you give a $25 gift voucher at the same time.

Elliot Midalia: That's right.

Michelle Lomas: You get something special. So, you know, everybody head to Boody.com.au and check that out and thank you.

Elliot Midalia: Thanks for having me.

Michelle Lomas: So inspiring to hear from a brand that is truly living the values of their business. Just goes to show, when you really believe in what you're building, you can achieve really authentic marketing. If you've been enjoying listening to Flex Your Hustle, please follow it wherever you get your podcast.

Michelle Lomas: And if you're feeling extra inspired, please drop us a rating on your favorite podcast app. This has been Flex Your Hustle, a show produced by Commission Factory and Ampel. I'm Michelle Lomas, bye for now and keep hustling.