5 Marketing Lessons Bethenny Frankel Learned The Hard Way (So You Don’t Have to)

Seventeen years ago, a multi-million dollar brand was born before the eyes of 1.13 million viewers, and none of them knew it.

It started on the first season of The Real Housewives of New York. In episode six (“Girl’s Night Out”), Bethenny Frankel and Luann de Lesseps order cocktails. “I only drink one drink, and I call it the skinny girl’s margarita,” Frankel announces. “It’s Patron Silver on ice, fresh lime juice and a little triple sec.”

Within a year, Frankel launched the Skinnygirl brand, starting with a low-calorie, ready-to-drink cocktail. Three years later, spirits giant Beam Suntory acquired it for $120 million.

Of course, a brand doesn’t come to life through an offhand comment at a restaurant. Frankel is a born entrepreneur. In addition to growing Skinnygirl into an empire that includes dressings, jeans, and shapewear, Frankel is the author of several best-selling books, co-founded the Forever Young wine label, launched a podcast called Just B, and runs an organization to disaster relief nonprofit called B Strong.

But Frankel’s most powerful brand remains itself, or rather its innate marketer.

His hip style and outspoken opinions on almost every topic (handbags, divorce, government drone surveillance) have earned him a social media audience of 8.5 million, and growing by double digits. As Frankel transitioned from building brands to consulting, giants like L’Oréal and McCo Beauty sought her advice.

And what kind of advice does Frankel give? What has she learned in two decades of creating and promoting products? Frankel sat down with ADWEEK to talk branding and social media marketing. Obviously, not every brand can get away with the type of unfiltered content that Frankel offers, but there are many lessons a marketer can learn from his experiences. She shared five with us.

Always tell the truth

Frankel recalls the time a major beauty brand approached her to create a product, not because she was a makeup expert, but because she wasn’t afraid to tell it like it was. she saw it.

“I had compared a $2 drugstore cream to a $500 cream, and said they were basically the same except for one little ingredient,” Frankel recalls.

When creating content, whether it’s marketing or just riffing, “what works best is humorous chaos with takeaways,” she said.

But the common ingredient in everything? “Just the truth,” she said.

Rough and ready is good

Slick production values ​​define much of brand marketing, even on social media, but it’s not always what audiences care about and it’s not always necessary.

As Frankel grew her following on social media, she admits there was a “WTF factor” to her content. Its lighting was bad. Stains covered the camera lens. But in the end, it didn’t matter. “I was just playing…[but] I was getting views,” she said. “I was going completely viral.”

As long as the content is relevant, viewers will forgive a rough presentation.

“If someone drops a Cadillac in my driveway,” Frankel added, “I’ll go outside and, in five minutes, film something about what I honestly think about it and post it two seconds later, without any assembly.”

Talk to your audience, not at them

Frankel thinks back to filming a TV spot where a major brand hired a female director to make sure she touched on all the key attributes of the brand and said all the right things.

“He was a lovely person and he did his job, but he didn’t treat me the way I should be treated,” Frankel said.

After hours of supervised filming, the creative team took Frankel aside for five minutes before calling time and asked him to abandon the script and simply improvise in his own voice.

“They were like, ‘Can we just destabilize Bethenny for five minutes?’ “, she remembers.

The takeaway: Talk to people like they’re people, not just a target demographic.

Do your homework

When asked what her biggest business mistake was (and what it taught her), Frankel says it was a small mistake, but one she still thinks about.

“This social media person told me, way before [mega influencers like Charli] D’Amelio and Addison Rae — that Tiktok wouldn’t be for me because it was for people ages eight to 13,” said Frankel, who took the advice.

“I should have just picked up my phone and said, let me play with it,” she said.

As a result, Frankel started TikTok, where she has 2.4 million followers, later than she would have liked. “I talk about it more than I should, because we can’t go back,” she said. “But it annoys me.”

So don’t follow expert advice before testing a strategy yourself.

Your leaders may not be the best faces for your brand

In an age of executive biographies, TED talks, and founders-turned-pitchmen, it’s understandable that company leaders want to be in the spotlight.

Well, think twice.

“CEOs or founders want to be in front of the camera and want to be the face of the brand – and they often shouldn’t,” Frankel said. “They want to tell their story, and not everyone wants to hear it. [it]. People want to hear a business story at a business conference, not in infotainment.

And since relatively few leaders can be Dollar Shave Club’s Michael Dubin, Virgin’s Richard Branson, or Apple’s Tim Cook, Frankel warned, “find the person who talks, who’s funny and entertaining,” and hire them to represent your brand.