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TRANSCRIPT:
DOUG: Nandini is actually the first guest we’ve ever had in this specific line of business. So, I thought to start, why don’t you give us a little context about what you do?
NANDINI: Doug, thank you so much for having me on your show today. Again, I’m Nandini Sankara with Suburban Propane. So, I’m a marketer, I’m a storyteller. And let’s talk about propane. So, what you see behind me is a Suburban Propane yard. We call it our customer service center, circa 1930s. We’re the oldest standing propane retailer in the United States. I’m nearly 100 years incorporated in 1928. And let me just share a cool fact about propane. Most people think of grilling or oil and gas. Next time you think about propane, I highly, highly recommend you think beyond that. Think a glass of wine, a chilled rosé, whatever. Your choice of libation might be a juicy apple, farms, think NASCAR, propane powers all of them.
DOUG: Great. And can you also share the main reason why storytelling is so important in branding today?
NANDINI: My very simple rule, the philosophy that we talk about all the time, is make storytelling relevant and relatable. There is a lot about any brand or product. And listen, you think about Nike or Apple, iconic brands. I think if our brand is incredibly historic. How do we keep that legacy going? Also, how do we keep it relatable? So, in today’s day and age, keep your brand story authentic to the brand, make it relatable to the times, and honestly keep it simple and make it fun. Appeal to people’s emotional quotient. The EQ really matters. That’s how I think a brand can really separate its story from anyone else.
DOUG: So, I can’t speak to how many in our audience named chemistry as their favorite class in high school, but you’ve done a great job talking about the importance of knowing your brand, knowing your organization. But are there some common mistakes that people make that they need to avoid when storytelling?
NANDINI: Absolutely. So, I always say you have to be authentic to your brand, but people have preconceived notions. You think of propane, you think grilling, you think fossil fuel. Oh yeah, I know everything about propane. And honestly, I love talking in examples because I like to simplify things, right? It’s the kiss philosophy. Sweet and stupid, sweet and simple. You know, whichever analogy of choice, right? So, most of us love a good glass of wine. You don’t think of propane and vineyards in the same sentence, right? Propane is critical to vineyard management. Everything from pest control, frost protection for your generators to keep the vintage of that right temperature, 56°F or whatever might have you. I’ve spent a lot of time. I just came back from Sonoma, visiting customers. How critical propane is to a farmer, a winemaker, a farmer at the end of the day, right? And agriculture is the backbone of our economy in the United States, but basically every major economy in the world or every economy in the world. So, to me, a story needs to be simple, needs to be relatable. That’s why I like to lead with examples. Let’s simplify it. Let’s humanize it. Let’s showcase to people what it’s capable of doing. You know, you brought up chemistry. Chemistry sounds heck of a lot complicated, right? But what if we break it down? Hey, let’s talk about vineyards. Let’s talk about an, you know, an apple farm. People understand that a lot better. Most of us have had a glass of wine. Most of us have had an apple. So, now you know. Your entire harvest is going to go bad if there is a frost. And the weather’s been so unpredictable lately. Propane to the rescue. That’s how branded storytelling needs to be relatable. Needs to be simple and easy. Where you go, oh, propane. I run to an XYZ vineyard. Then I run to this farm via an apple picking. I saw a propane tank there. Now that makes a lot of sense. To me, make it simple. Make it relatable. That’s my first piece of advice to remove all those doubts, making it complicated, and also make it fun. People want, you know, a fun story. Something they can, you know, form those connections with.
DOUG: Given that there’s so much misunderstanding, you’ve just clearly made the point of the propane industry is quite misunderstood. Obviously, many industries are dealing with misunderstandings, whether they’re victims of disinformation or not. So can storytelling help bridge the gap and offer a level of protection from being misunderstood or being targeted with misinformation?
NANDINI: I look at it two ways. You already have a story, how do you keep building on that story to continue that message? Because we’re all telling a story. Maybe you’re selling a car. Maybe you’re selling a shirt, a bar of soap, or propane. There are misconceptions, and we live in a very polarized environment, and it doesn’t matter what brand. I’m not even going to get into examples. Negative advertising is a thing, and everyone has an opinion. You go on TikTok, you go on your social media choice, look up anything. You’re going to get it. Now with AI taking over, how many summaries do you get? And not all AI summaries are accurate. So, what storytelling does, it puts you in a unique position as a marketer. Every marketer is a storyteller. If you don’t think you are, you are. You help you help control that narrative, if you will. You have that opportunity to change that narrative. Okay, so people think of propane, they think of growth, they think of fossil fuels. Okay. Who’s my audience, my generic audience? Okay, let’s make propane more relatable. Just using propane as an example. What about suburban propane? Hey, you may or may not have seen a truck. I had never seen a suburban propane truck or a propane truck, period, until I started here. Now I can’t stop unseeing propane trucks. So subconsciously, I’m looking for propane trucks. I was in Canada recently. I was counting propane trucks, and my sister’s like, what are you doing? I’m like, that’s our eighth propane truck we passed by today. It’s in the back of my mind constantly So, you have that opportunity to control that message, change that narrative, because you will have a lot of noise out there, a lot of misconceptions, even misinformation, right? How do you change that? Also, our product is unique. It’s highly combustible. You have the whole safety elements come in, right? And that’s where. But we’re also an essential commodity. You need oil and gas to heat your home. Many a fossil and I live in Jersey. I know you live in Manhattan. It gets cold in the winter. You want to be warm? It’s an essential commodity. Everybody remembers propane from the times of Covid. Eating outside and propane lamps for heating. Again, taking an existing product, building on the narrative, and making it evolve with the times. That’s very critical for the story. Storytelling gives you an opportunity to keep changing it, evolving, building with the times.
DOUG: One of the things we like to do is let people get to know you a little bit. You’re not just a one-track mind propane person. Is there something about you that people might not necessarily be aware of?
NANDINI: Okay, this is funny. I’m a city dweller. My childhood was in Bombay, India. I like to say my entire adult lives been in a 40 mile radius in the Tri-State area, southern Connecticut, North Jersey, and Manhattan. And with 18 million people, I think, give or take, the greater New York City area, I cannot ride a bicycle.
DOUG: It’s never too late to learn. And once you learn, you’re not going to forget it.
NANDINI: I can ride a Peloton. I’m not sure if that helped or an exercise bike, so I’m not. I’m brand agnostic. It’s just that it moves, I haven’t gotten that far.
DOUG: Well, I think that might be some preparation for a four-wheeler, so that could be pretty good as you get started on that, but you know, given that the world is so saturated with content as we all know, how do you separate noise from the signals that you want to get out there?
NANDINI: I love the term signals from the noise, and I actually added that to my LinkedIn profile years ago. I didn’t come up with this. I read this in the New York Times. I’d like to say maybe 15 years or so years ago. It really caught my attention. At that point, I was still in the insurance industry again, a very highly polarized industry. And everyone has an opinion on insurance. Everybody has an opinion on oil and gas, right? And my whole thing is information. You get a lot of information coming your way. You go on social media. We all have our different channels of, you know, getting our sources of information. There’s a lot of noise out there in today’s climate environment. No pun intended. Climate and oil and gas go hand in hand, but that being said, there’s a lot of noise to me. As a brand owner, as a storyteller. I become a main character in my own comic book, right? So, if I were my own, I don’t know, my own movie. What do I do? I become the narrator, I become the emcee, and I have this opportunity to set the stage and start leading with those signals. And the signals have to be simple, easy to understand, and very short because people forget, and also make it relevant and relatable to what we’re talking about. Fact-based. And I think that really separates the noise. You can never completely get rid of noise. Be good reviews, be it opinions. Polarization is going to keep happening. And with AI, you’re just pulling information out of so many different sources. The way you can come about. You can rise above the rest of that noise. Stay authentic to your brand. Stay authentic to who you are as a brand. The way I always look at it is somebody ask me this and just really said, what’s the one thing that you want to make sure the legacy you’re leaving behind with your brand? I’m running. I am lucky enough to have the responsibility to run marketing and brand for a nearly a century-old American iconic brand, in my opinion. Heck, I don’t want to be the marketer who ruined the story for the next 100 years. That’s the way I look at this. So, I lead with signals. I lead with data. Noise is going to happen.
DOUG: Yeah. And Nandini, myself, and my audience are lucky enough to have been able to have this conversation with you. Thanks so much for being with us.
NANDINI: Thank you Doug, I really appreciate it.
