insight

For all you marketers of dietary supplements in the natural channel, here are five personality characteristics you should know about the natural supplement shopper — and how she differs from the general population.

We love Vitamin Angels — the great work they do in the world and the people making it happen — and are proud to be sponsoring their third annual Expo West event at (where else?) Angel Stadium. Join us for this lively cocktail event from 6 to 8:30 pm on Thursday, March 7, and step up to the plate! Vitamin Angels is committed to connecting essential nutrients to children in need worldwide, so that they may enjoy a healthy and fulfilling life. We invite you to join our team and rally with us on March 7th for a winning cause! Complimentary round-trip shuttle service from the Hilton/Convention Center will be provided. Sign up for event tickets here. Questions? Please contact Megan MacKay, mmackay@vitaminangels.org or (805) 564-8400.

The following first appeared on newhope360.com:

1. Your passion is what sells. Your brand is what scales.

Above everything, your passion is what people respond to. Effective branding should be focused on scaling that passion. When we rebranded Organic India, we focused on the founders' passion to create a new business model of healing at every touch point. Create experiences that give participants the opportunity to share in what you value, know and love. By scaling passion, you create committed participants who will share your passion with others.

When it comes to iconic global brands that are known throughout the universe for their strong and confident use of a single color, which brands come to mind? Tiffany or Facebook for blue? Starbucks or John Deere for green? Red for Coca-cola or Target? These brands, like countless others, have built a presence and following with their loyalists around one unified and recognizable color that, through years of exposure and great branding efforts, has turned something as simple as color, into their brand’s most valuable equity element second only to their logo. There’s nothing more powerful than establishing a unified brand presence around one consistently branded color, especially in terms of product recognition in the marketplace.

Having just returned from The Natural Products Expo in Baltimore, meticulously walking isle after isle, I can honestly say that there wasn’t a booth (or tasty treat!) that I missed. Upon my return, I couldn’t help but reflect upon a couple of the brands that stood out among the rest due to their frivolity and the lightness of their message, where celebrating personal experience and evoking a sense of spirit and personality seemed to trump a more genuine health, sustainability or social message.

We’ve just come back from this year’s Natural Products Expo East in Baltimore - four days of seminars, client meetings, trade show gawking and general immersion into all things “natural”, and if there’s one word that still rings in my ears, it’s the word “-free.”

Food Processing magazine is featuring a story on Pure Branding's recent packaging rebrand of GoPicnic ready-to-eat meals.

There is a crisis among many well-established natural products brands – their carefully cultivated brand identities are under siege, and it all has to do with GMOs.

Sustainable Brands has just posted a video of Kevin Williams's recent plenary session from Sustainable Brands '12 in San Diego on the opportunity for brands to help shift societal values toward health and sustainability. View it here.

As we head into the fall, and the upcoming presidential election, more will be written about how our nation is bitterly divided – between the red and blue states, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, the pro- and anti-gay activists, Fox News and MSNBC and so on. The list goes on, to the point when I wonder, is there anything that can bring us together? This summer, I found a potential answer – natural and organic foods.