Creativity, Constraints and the Rebrand of Grado Labs

How to convince an old-school CEO (of a legacy brand) to push forward with a rebrand. We'll explore this and more in the latest episode of Exceptions.

Grado Labs is far from a fresh new startup. They've been around since 1953. They have an old-school CEO and a legacy brand to uphold. So how did their VP of Marketing convince his boss to push forward with a rebrand? What do they need to consider before changing anything? And how can they ensure they evolve while maintaining the serious customer love they already have from everyone ranging from the Average Joe to celebrities like Jimmy Fallon, John Mayer, Elijah Wood and Beatles producer George Martin? We'll find out in this episode of #Exceptions.

Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! You can find us on Twitter @jayacunzo, @grado, @jongrado and @seekingwisdomio.
In this episode:

0:35 Read Break the Wheel

1:01 Going inside a consumer company

2:17 Intro into Grado Labs- electronics made by hand

3:18 Time to refresh their brand

3:50 Jay interviews Jonathan

4:07 Who the Grado brand would be…

5:30 Cult following of Grado

7:00 B2B vs B2C

8:47 Jonathan creates a refreshed version of The Box.

9:54 Jonathan talks about his new vision for Grado.

10:30 In it to create

12:00 No cohesiveness to the brand

12:45 Young blood in the company

13:24 65 years perfecting sound- time to polish marketing

15:00 Jonathan is relentless to push forward

15:40 What “No” can really mean

16:30 Grado’s packaging design

18:17 Label Size

20:50 Freedom with creativity

21:00 Read  Creative Conspiracy: The New Rules of Breakthrough Collaboration

21:10 Knowing constraints bring more ideas and more effective ideas

21:40 Finding the carrots in the backyard experiment- Creative freedom doesn’t work.

23:15 Constraints are our strengths.

25:30 Adapting over the years