Being a Midwest Marketer with Carisa Bartelt

[00:00:00] Discussion on Unique Beer Choices and Food Pairings

[00:00:00] Jess Bahr: Like they like it because they want to feel cool.
[00:00:02] Carisa Bartelt: One time I got a gummy bear jalapeno beer and took a great hoppiness, and I just thought it was really awesome.
[00:00:09] Jess Bahr: It pairs well with taco bell.
[00:00:11] Carisa Bartelt: So good.
[00:00:12] Carisa Bartelt: I love it.
[00:00:19] Midwest Marketers: Jess Bahr in Conversation with Carisa Bartelt

[00:00:19] Jess Bahr: Welcome to a very special midwest edition of marketers talking marketing today.
[00:00:23] Jess Bahr: I from Madison, Wisconsin, and joined with carissa from us.
[00:00:28] Jess Bahr: Tell us where you are in the midwest and a little bit about what you're currently up to.
[00:00:32] Carisa Bartelt: Of course.
[00:00:33] Carisa Bartelt: So I'm actually in Milwaukee, so not too far away.
[00:00:36] Carisa Bartelt: Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
[00:00:37] Carisa Bartelt: I think I'm about maybe an hour and a half away from you.
[00:00:40] Carisa Bartelt: I work at Cvent, which is based in headquarters in DC.
[00:00:45] Carisa Bartelt: We've got people kind of all over, though, and I am one of the leaders on the solutions industry marketing team there at Cvet.
[00:00:53] Jess Bahr: I feel like whenever I find midwesterners on calls, especially calls with east coast companies or clients, it's like I think I hear elongated vowel there.
[00:01:03] Jess Bahr: Am I hearing a long I'll maybe I'll drop a little oop in there.
[00:01:13] Jess Bahr: It's like the honing homing sound that bats make.
[00:01:17] Carisa Bartelt: Yeah.
[00:01:17] Carisa Bartelt: And you just attract the people that are around you, and then you just find yourself, like, slipping back into the yeah.
[00:01:23] Jess Bahr: You know, last night I was playing.
[00:01:25] Carisa Bartelt: Canasta, good old canasta and the cribbage.
[00:01:29] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:01:29] Jess Bahr: And then you see if they're like, what or if they get it.
[00:01:33] Jess Bahr: Yeah, I'm going to a meat.
[00:01:38] Jess Bahr: They're like, testing their midwest prow us be like, yeah, you're a midwesterner.
[00:01:42] Jess Bahr: Because I think it's so uncommon.
[00:01:45] Jess Bahr: So full caveat for those at home.
[00:01:48] Jess Bahr: I was in New York City for a long time after college, came back to the midwest before the pandemic.
[00:01:52] Jess Bahr: When the pandemic hit, I stayed here because I was in a house instead of a 400 square foot studio and kept working from Wisconsin, mainly with coastal companies now running the agency.
[00:02:05] Jess Bahr: A majority of my clients are either New York, San Francisco, or Austin.
[00:02:09] Jess Bahr: And so it's just not as common of a thing to run into midwesterners in marketing functions at these cities where pre pandemic, they almost only hired people in the just it's a special experience.
[00:02:24] Carisa Bartelt: 100%.
[00:02:25] Carisa Bartelt: I think we're just this untapped gold mine of talent and cheer.
[00:02:30] Jess Bahr: I didn't say are we a gold mine or a cheese mine?
[00:02:34] Jess Bahr: Cheese mine.
[00:02:35] Carisa Bartelt: Mine.
[00:02:36] Carisa Bartelt: Gold nuggets or cheese curds?
[00:02:38] Carisa Bartelt: Who knows?
[00:02:39] Jess Bahr: Oh, my god.
[00:02:39] Jess Bahr: If you don't know what cheese curds are, you're missing out.
[00:02:42] Jess Bahr: And don't say they're like poutine.
[00:02:44] Jess Bahr: They're just not the same.
[00:02:46] Carisa Bartelt: No, not the same.
[00:02:48] Exploring the Midwestern Approach to Effective Collaboration and Marketing

[00:02:48] Jess Bahr: What's your favorite part about being a midwesterner?
[00:02:52] Carisa Bartelt: I think it's just I mean, connecting with other midwesterners, for sure, and just like the overly friendliness that we all think, you know, I lived on the east coast or on the west coast for a little bit.
[00:03:04] Carisa Bartelt: I was in Seattle for two years, and then now I work so much with people on the east coast and it's just crazy to interact with them because they are so serious all the time.
[00:03:17] Carisa Bartelt: And being from the Midwest and just having that natural draw where you feel like you can drop into conversations with people or everybody around you is just so friendly.
[00:03:27] Carisa Bartelt: It just makes you proud and comfortable and happy to be anywhere.
[00:03:33] Jess Bahr: I remember when I probably like a year or two after I moved away, I came back and I was in the airport and I was like, why are these people smiling at me?
[00:03:42] Jess Bahr: Like, you want to fight?
[00:03:43] Jess Bahr: Like, what the fuck?
[00:03:44] Jess Bahr: And then I was like, oh my God, I'm an asshole.
[00:03:46] Jess Bahr: But I was at a conference, actually, and I know you go to conferences, you go to trade shows.
[00:03:51] Jess Bahr: And I found, though, that I think being from the Midwest and for those who are not lucky enough to be from here, you grow up talking to strangers all the time.
[00:04:01] Jess Bahr: Like, stranger danger.
[00:04:02] Jess Bahr: Yeah, it's a thing, but you talk to strangers all the time, and so you know how to stir up a conversation like, oh, man, like, look at the weather.
[00:04:09] Jess Bahr: It's weather.
[00:04:10] Jess Bahr: And then it goes into food and maybe it goes into the packers.
[00:04:13] Jess Bahr: I'm not a sports fan, so I try not to go there, but there's like a formula for it.
[00:04:18] Jess Bahr: And so when I would be at trade shows or conferences or networking events, I would just flourish because I know to talk to random people because I've been doing it since I could walk.
[00:04:27] Jess Bahr: And my coworkers who weren't as accustomed to that type of culture would be like, how do you just talk to someone?
[00:04:34] Jess Bahr: I don't know.
[00:04:35] Jess Bahr: I pick something out and go for it 100%.
[00:04:38] Carisa Bartelt: It's that nervousness I have of approaching people.
[00:04:41] Carisa Bartelt: And I do think too, part of the Midwestern vibe is finding way is like, you just naturally are more approachable because you're not worried or nervous to make eye contact with somebody or smile at them.
[00:04:53] Carisa Bartelt: So all of a sudden you guys are drawn to each other, coming to each other at a trade show or at a booth or at a networking event, and you're like, how did you you haven't even spoke.
[00:05:01] Carisa Bartelt: What is drawing you together?
[00:05:02] Carisa Bartelt: And you're like, my natural aura of not being afraid to connect with people.
[00:05:09] Carisa Bartelt: Feel it.
[00:05:10] Jess Bahr: It's like, I see you have a salad that's mainly cheese.
[00:05:14] Carisa Bartelt: You're from Wisconsin about it.
[00:05:17] Carisa Bartelt: As a Midwesterner, I can tell that you are way more fun because you're sitting here drinking old fashions at 04:00 p.m..
[00:05:24] Carisa Bartelt: Yeah.
[00:05:24] Jess Bahr: You look shocked that your Bloody Mary doesn't have a burger on top of it.
[00:05:28] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:05:29] Jess Bahr: You're from.
[00:05:33] Carisa Bartelt: Yeah, I think it's just so true.
[00:05:36] Carisa Bartelt: It's just such an innate thing.
[00:05:37] Carisa Bartelt: And especially when you are in marketing and you're working with a lot of companies or people or colleagues on each one of the coasts, your contributions to strategy and collaboration are so different because you're so much more open to having conversations, I think, and comfortable with having conversations than a lot of other marketers.
[00:05:57] Carisa Bartelt: So your marketing techniques and your strategies and the things that you do in your campaigns just are so much different because you are bringing people together and rallying people as this innate Midwestern talent.
[00:06:11] Jess Bahr: I think by nature we nurture more and not like motherly nurturing, but you don't just go in for a cold ask.
[00:06:20] Jess Bahr: So I'm thinking back to I've had clients in the past where their company culture was.
[00:06:24] Jess Bahr: When you have a meeting, let me take a step back.
[00:06:27] Jess Bahr: I was at a company like this for a short period of time, and they said, hey, there's too much.
[00:06:32] Jess Bahr: Like, we're burning so much time at the beginning of meetings talking to each other.
[00:06:36] Jess Bahr: So we're going to start every meeting at five minutes after, but we're going straight into the meeting agenda.
[00:06:40] Jess Bahr: No chitchat ahead of time.
[00:06:42] Jess Bahr: How do you get to know people?
[00:06:43] Jess Bahr: How do you get to know people like that?
[00:06:44] Jess Bahr: Because I can tell you what most companies I'm at, I know shit about people they don't know people know.
[00:06:50] Jess Bahr: I know that Fred has a couple kids and his daughter likes My Little Pony and he's annoyed because he can't find whatever collector one there is.
[00:06:58] Jess Bahr: And you know all this stuff.
[00:06:59] Jess Bahr: You know people.
[00:07:00] Jess Bahr: And so you have that different relationship where when you have an ask, they're ready for the ask because they know you and they know that you only come with valid asks.
[00:07:09] Jess Bahr: When you have these company cultures of not having that connection, I think it's a lot harder to get that bonding going.
[00:07:21] Jess Bahr: Like, how do you form psychological safety when you don't know your coworkers favorite show to binge?
[00:07:26] Jess Bahr: When they're sad 100%?
[00:07:28] Carisa Bartelt: How do you do that relationship building?
[00:07:32] Carisa Bartelt: Same thing on that meeting.
[00:07:33] Carisa Bartelt: Note when I first started at Cvent, it was like, we don't hold meetings unless there's an agenda.
[00:07:40] Carisa Bartelt: And I'm like, I'm definitely holding meetings just to talk.
[00:07:44] Carisa Bartelt: And I found that they're more productive as opposed to saying, we're doing a campaign kickoff.
[00:07:49] Carisa Bartelt: We're doing these things, and I'm going to sit here and talk at you and here are the agendas, and you're allotted time to speak.
[00:07:54] Carisa Bartelt: It becomes a lot of then pushback and questions and trying to get people on board, as opposed to, we're going to have a 30 minutes kickoff.
[00:08:02] Carisa Bartelt: We're all just going to talk openly.
[00:08:04] Carisa Bartelt: There's no agenda.
[00:08:06] Carisa Bartelt: It's thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, ideas, brainstorming.
[00:08:10] Carisa Bartelt: And you cut so much of that pushback, lack of buy in out of the process.
[00:08:16] Carisa Bartelt: So all of a sudden you're all motivated and excited to work together on something.
[00:08:20] Carisa Bartelt: It makes such a difference.
[00:08:22] Jess Bahr: I bet you in that situation too, that half the people went into that meeting knowing exactly what you're going to present because you're going through because you're talking to them.
[00:08:30] Jess Bahr: You're like, hey, Joe, how was your, you know, I was actually spent half time working on this proposal, but I'm super excited.
[00:08:36] Jess Bahr: And here's why.
[00:08:37] Jess Bahr: Can't wait to talk about the group meeting tomorrow.
[00:08:40] Discussion on Culver's Restaurant and Midwest Work Culture

[00:08:40] Jess Bahr: I think the people oh, sorry, that's.
[00:08:43] Carisa Bartelt: Meetings that should have been emailed then.
[00:08:44] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:08:45] Jess Bahr: I think a lot of people that are against this.
[00:08:48] Jess Bahr: Okay, let me take a step back because I'm going to sound like an asshole.
[00:08:51] Carisa Bartelt: We're making bold statements today.
[00:08:52] Jess Bahr: We're making bold statements.
[00:08:53] Jess Bahr: There's different cultures, right?
[00:08:55] Jess Bahr: There's low context culture.
[00:08:56] Jess Bahr: High context culture.
[00:08:57] Jess Bahr: But I think a lot of the people that push this idea that we don't want to get to know our coworkers in the personal level, we don't want to have that.
[00:09:04] Jess Bahr: Like, we don't have time for that.
[00:09:06] Jess Bahr: It's because they suck at it.
[00:09:08] Jess Bahr: They don't know how to talk to people.
[00:09:09] Jess Bahr: They don't have personalities, and so they suck at it.
[00:09:12] Jess Bahr: So they want everyone else just to stop doing it.
[00:09:15] Jess Bahr: But I think it's a superpower to be able to talk to anyone, and I think that superpower comes from being in the Midwest.
[00:09:22] Carisa Bartelt: I agree.
[00:09:22] Carisa Bartelt: I definitely think that, and I think we should be proud of it.
[00:09:25] Carisa Bartelt: And it's like we wear it with a badge of honor.
[00:09:28] Carisa Bartelt: This Midwestern superpower of collaboration and openness and friendliness and willingness to talk.
[00:09:36] Carisa Bartelt: I think that half the issues in the world and in the business world, in the corporate world, like in projects and working with other teams, is the lack of wanting to talk to each other or being okay with trying to talk to each other.
[00:09:47] Carisa Bartelt: People are so afraid of it.
[00:09:48] Carisa Bartelt: But we all want to work with people.
[00:09:51] Carisa Bartelt: Nobody wants to work with nobody and.
[00:09:53] Jess Bahr: Be at a no.
[00:09:54] Jess Bahr: Well, some people do.
[00:09:56] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:09:56] Jess Bahr: And they're probably developers.
[00:10:00] Jess Bahr: No offense, but I know if you're an introvert, it's a great spot to be.
[00:10:05] Jess Bahr: Yeah, I was laughing, though, because the badge of honoring think of actually ketchup stain from your burger.
[00:10:11] Jess Bahr: From your Culver's burger.
[00:10:12] Jess Bahr: Little ketchup.
[00:10:13] Jess Bahr: Got a little ketchup.
[00:10:15] Jess Bahr: We just got a Culver's.
[00:10:17] Jess Bahr: I just said ten words at once.
[00:10:18] Jess Bahr: We just got a Culver's in town.
[00:10:20] Carisa Bartelt: You didn't have one before?
[00:10:22] Jess Bahr: We didn't have a Culver's.
[00:10:23] Jess Bahr: So listen, we had a custard corner when I was in high school.
[00:10:27] Jess Bahr: I started my work there.
[00:10:28] Jess Bahr: Custard corner.
[00:10:29] Jess Bahr: We didn't have a Culver's, though, in town.
[00:10:31] Jess Bahr: The Culver's was a town over any direction you go, every town outside of my town has a Culver's.
[00:10:37] Jess Bahr: I'm in Oregon.
[00:10:38] Jess Bahr: Wisconsin?
[00:10:38] Jess Bahr: So I'm just south of Madison.
[00:10:39] Jess Bahr: Yeah, every town over had a Culver's.
[00:10:42] Jess Bahr: Now we have a Culver's.
[00:10:44] Jess Bahr: And that damn drive through has been packed for like a week and a half straight, and it takes 20 minutes to get through because everyone pulling up is like, how is business?
[00:10:52] Jess Bahr: You all just open?
[00:10:54] Jess Bahr: Oh, yeah, I'm going to get some custard.
[00:10:56] Jess Bahr: What do you write?
[00:10:57] Jess Bahr: They're like chitchatting at the drive through, and it's kind of annoying, but it's also just such a quintessential Midwest thing.
[00:11:05] Carisa Bartelt: So let me tell you, yours has been there for a month, he said, and there's a line.
[00:11:09] Jess Bahr: It's like two weeks.
[00:11:10] Carisa Bartelt: We have one.
[00:11:12] Carisa Bartelt: And I've lived in this neighborhood now for two and a half years.
[00:11:16] Carisa Bartelt: There is consistently a wrap.
[00:11:18] Carisa Bartelt: They've got a double drive through line.
[00:11:21] Carisa Bartelt: It is consistently wraparound.
[00:11:22] Carisa Bartelt: And on the street every day, even in, like, it's ten degrees, people still are like, I need my ButterBurger and my custard.
[00:11:31] Carisa Bartelt: But it doesn't deter people in Wisconsin.
[00:11:33] Carisa Bartelt: They're like, I still want to go through that line.
[00:11:35] Carisa Bartelt: I still love Culver's.
[00:11:36] Carisa Bartelt: I still support it.
[00:11:38] Carisa Bartelt: It's local.
[00:11:39] Carisa Bartelt: We just love it.
[00:11:40] Carisa Bartelt: And yes, I'm going to wait in this 40 minutes drive through line for this ButterBurger and their root beer.
[00:11:47] Jess Bahr: They have their own root beer.
[00:11:49] Carisa Bartelt: Yes.
[00:11:49] Carisa Bartelt: Root beer is good, too.
[00:11:51] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:11:51] Jess Bahr: I wonder if this is what it was like when A and W's first opened.
[00:11:55] Carisa Bartelt: Like the mad dash of amazing.
[00:11:58] Jess Bahr: Yeah, because I've tried to explain, I have a client in Austin, Texas, and her and I were chatting about explaining we're on a call with someone who wasn't from the Midwest, and she's in Austin, but she's from Wisconsin originally.
[00:12:14] Carisa Bartelt: Yeah.
[00:12:14] Jess Bahr: And so we're explaining Culver's to them.
[00:12:16] Jess Bahr: We're like, yeah, no, it's a butter burger.
[00:12:18] Jess Bahr: So it's a burger, and it's like, fried in butter.
[00:12:21] Jess Bahr: And then you butter the bun, and you brown the bun in butter.
[00:12:25] Jess Bahr: And so it's like a butter burger.
[00:12:26] Jess Bahr: And they were just like, they look so disgusted.
[00:12:30] Jess Bahr: So it's butter.
[00:12:31] Jess Bahr: So it's meat fried in butter with cheese on it in a bun fried in butter.
[00:12:38] Carisa Bartelt: That's like 90.
[00:12:38] Jess Bahr: When you put it that way in the Midwest, though I know when you put it that way, it sounds unhealthy, but when you eat it, it tastes.
[00:12:44] Carisa Bartelt: Delicious healthy for my soul.
[00:12:46] Jess Bahr: Yeah, not it's getting that nice layer of warm, hearty hugging cholesterol building up around your heart that keeps it warm.
[00:12:57] Carisa Bartelt: That's what we need to survive the so it's so funny as you talk know, you mentioned someone that is in Austin that has moved, right?
[00:13:06] Discovering the Unseen Bonds among Midwestern Wisconsinites

[00:13:06] Carisa Bartelt: Like, I cannot go anywhere without bumping into Midwestern Wisconsin people.
[00:13:10] Jess Bahr: Oh, my God.
[00:13:11] Jess Bahr: We're everywhere.
[00:13:12] Carisa Bartelt: We're everywhere.
[00:13:12] Carisa Bartelt: But so here's the question.
[00:13:15] Carisa Bartelt: Are we everywhere, or are we just both so friendly in these settings that we're not in?
[00:13:22] Carisa Bartelt: So we just draw ourselves to each other.
[00:13:24] Jess Bahr: That's what it is.
[00:13:25] Carisa Bartelt: You're like, I actually ran into another Wisconsin person just because we are both willing to talk to people.
[00:13:31] Jess Bahr: Here's what it is.
[00:13:32] Jess Bahr: Because you see that yahoo who's not wearing a jacket when it's 55 degrees out in Vegas, and you're like, oh, yeah, that's a Midwesterner.
[00:13:40] Jess Bahr: Yeah, you see these people with these other traits, and you're like, oh, yeah, you're from the Midwest, clearly.
[00:13:49] Jess Bahr: You're ordering a burger for breakfast.
[00:13:52] Jess Bahr: You're ordering a Bloody Mary for breakfast, and you're yelling at the bartender because there's no meat on top of your Bloody mary.
[00:13:59] Carisa Bartelt: Vodka and tomato juice is not a Bloody Mary.
[00:14:01] Carisa Bartelt: You need some.
[00:14:01] Jess Bahr: You're ordering an old fashioned.
[00:14:05] Carisa Bartelt: And you're.
[00:14:06] Jess Bahr: Not like a 22 year old finance bro.
[00:14:10] Jess Bahr: I think we just see each other.
[00:14:12] Jess Bahr: We're traveling, we see each other, and there's, like, a vibe.
[00:14:15] Jess Bahr: There's, like a Midwest vibe, and you're like, oh, yeah.
[00:14:18] Jess Bahr: Just go like, hey, how about the packers?
[00:14:21] Jess Bahr: How about them packers?
[00:14:22] Carisa Bartelt: All of the accent.
[00:14:24] Carisa Bartelt: Where are you from?
[00:14:25] Carisa Bartelt: I'm from up there.
[00:14:28] Jess Bahr: Hey, friend, I hear your vowels are long.
[00:14:35] Jess Bahr: I love, though, being on calls with I have a client, and there's another agency.
[00:14:40] Jess Bahr: There's a contract consultant, and he is from Milwaukee.
[00:14:44] Jess Bahr: And we got on the first call, and he was like, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
[00:14:47] Jess Bahr: I was like and then we see each other on the call and the zoom, and then we're both, like, pinging on the side like, where are you from?
[00:14:54] Jess Bahr: Do we know the same people?
[00:14:55] Jess Bahr: Can I tell you the most Midwest thing that's happened to me recently?
[00:14:58] Carisa Bartelt: Yeah.
[00:14:59] Jess Bahr: I'm interviewing I'm actively hiring interviewing candidate.
[00:15:03] Jess Bahr: And he you know, we have one shared LinkedIn connection, wondering how you know so and so I went to school in River Falls, which is up by Minneapolis.
[00:15:14] Jess Bahr: His cousin is my college boyfriend.
[00:15:17] Jess Bahr: Like, my college it's like, oh.
[00:15:23] Carisa Bartelt: Mean, it's a double edged sword, because I feel like we all know each other somehow.
[00:15:27] Carisa Bartelt: It's always like second cousin always connected.
[00:15:29] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Carisa Bartelt: Which is great for business and networking and sales, if any of us were ever in sales.
[00:15:36] Carisa Bartelt: But it's just this innate, and we can also find talent or skills.
[00:15:40] Carisa Bartelt: I always know somebody that can do something for me.
[00:15:43] Carisa Bartelt: There is somebody that I can go to to ask a question about I don't know that I'm not quite sure I know exactly who to ask.
[00:15:50] Carisa Bartelt: I got people for that.
[00:15:52] Jess Bahr: I know someone, and it's probably someone that you met at, like, a meat raffle or the gun range.
[00:16:01] Carisa Bartelt: They took a rack of bowling at the meat raffle?
[00:16:03] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:16:04] Jess Bahr: Or at the curling curling club.
[00:16:06] Carisa Bartelt: Yeah, we have the Wisconsin curling club headquarters is a couple blocks away.
[00:16:11] Jess Bahr: I think the global curling headquarters is in either Wisconsin or, like, Caledonia, Minnesota.
[00:16:20] Carisa Bartelt: That's both those track.
[00:16:21] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:16:22] Jess Bahr: You know what's bad, though?
[00:16:24] Jess Bahr: When I was in New York City, I took a bunch of diction courses to try and speak more.
[00:16:31] Jess Bahr: When I'm around Wisconsinites, though, my Wisconsin accent slips in so strong.
[00:16:36] Jess Bahr: And so when I was living in New York City and I would come back home, sometimes I'd go up north and my mouth would physically hurt from picking up the northern accent.
[00:16:47] Carisa Bartelt: Oh, yeah, right.
[00:16:52] Carisa Bartelt: I know, right?
[00:16:57] Jess Bahr: We can have a whole conversation just doing that.
[00:17:00] Carisa Bartelt: It just happens.
[00:17:01] Carisa Bartelt: And I think even our filler words are so different.
[00:17:03] Carisa Bartelt: It's just, you know, you bump into the airport or in the line wisconsin people are always, like, apologizing for hitting you.
[00:17:15] Carisa Bartelt: Oh, sorry.
[00:17:16] Carisa Bartelt: Tell me about your grandma.
[00:17:18] Carisa Bartelt: Now we're having this whole conversation.
[00:17:19] Carisa Bartelt: I want to know your whole life.
[00:17:21] Carisa Bartelt: How did I?
[00:17:22] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:17:22] Jess Bahr: Oh, what's your last name?
[00:17:23] Jess Bahr: Yeah, you know Edna and them.
[00:17:25] Jess Bahr: Yeah, Edna and the boys over there.
[00:17:27] Carisa Bartelt: Where are you going?
[00:17:28] Carisa Bartelt: You're bumping to somebody at the airport?
[00:17:29] Carisa Bartelt: Oh, sorry I hit you.
[00:17:31] Carisa Bartelt: Where are you traveling?
[00:17:33] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:17:33] Jess Bahr: How was your oh, you got a jacket when you get there, it might be chilly layers.
[00:17:41] Jess Bahr: Oh, my God.
[00:17:42] The Art of Midwestern Marketing

[00:17:42] Jess Bahr: So many of I feel bad for anyone who's like the sole coastal marketer on a team of Wisconsinites, because it's just a bunch of vowels put together.
[00:17:54] Carisa Bartelt: Oh, yeah.
[00:17:57] Jess Bahr: Imagine you're pulling up creative.
[00:17:59] Jess Bahr: Oh, yeah, I like that.
[00:18:03] Jess Bahr: No, that's not going to work now, is it?
[00:18:07] Jess Bahr: Yeah, no, I think that was literally.
[00:18:11] Carisa Bartelt: Me in a meeting this morning.
[00:18:12] Carisa Bartelt: We're looking at some specs of a new campaign.
[00:18:15] Carisa Bartelt: And I was like, man.
[00:18:18] Jess Bahr: Yeah, no, that's not yeah, that's not going to fly.
[00:18:22] Carisa Bartelt: I don't hate that.
[00:18:23] Carisa Bartelt: And they're like, do you like it?
[00:18:25] Carisa Bartelt: I don't know.
[00:18:26] Jess Bahr: Well, I don't hate it.
[00:18:30] Jess Bahr: I had a moment the other day.
[00:18:33] Jess Bahr: We're working on a new logo for some stuff, and I felt really good about what we got to and then I sent it to my team, and everyone hates it.
[00:18:41] Jess Bahr: And then they had different feed.
[00:18:43] Jess Bahr: I sent, like, three options, and I was like, option A is the winner.
[00:18:47] Jess Bahr: And then they're like, B and C are great.
[00:18:48] Jess Bahr: I was like, Why?
[00:18:50] Jess Bahr: And so we talked through.
[00:18:51] Jess Bahr: I'm like, okay, so I got another revision.
[00:18:53] Jess Bahr: And then it came back.
[00:18:53] Jess Bahr: It's like, oh, yeah, this is it.
[00:18:55] Jess Bahr: And then they're like, oh, that's horrible.
[00:18:56] Jess Bahr: What about Blah?
[00:18:57] Jess Bahr: And I'm the only one who feels that way, so I must be wrong with it.
[00:19:02] Jess Bahr: But I was just sitting there.
[00:19:04] Jess Bahr: I just totally lost myself in where I was going in this story.
[00:19:09] Jess Bahr: The logo, I don't remember.
[00:19:18] Carisa Bartelt: Oh, well, that's okay.
[00:19:20] Jess Bahr: It's gone.
[00:19:21] Carisa Bartelt: We ran.
[00:19:24] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:19:24] Jess Bahr: So I feel like I've been seeing more and more Wisconsinites, though, who are in marketing functions at these larger companies.
[00:19:34] Jess Bahr: And it feels like mainly because remote work is now normal, companies are now experiencing the joy and benefit of Midwest marketers.
[00:19:45] Jess Bahr: Midwest marketers.
[00:19:48] Jess Bahr: Alliteration is a struggle today.
[00:19:51] Carisa Bartelt: Yeah, I think we're such breaths of.
[00:19:55] Jess Bahr: Fresh air for breaths of a different air.
[00:19:58] Carisa Bartelt: Of a different air, for sure.
[00:20:00] Carisa Bartelt: Cold, cheesy air.
[00:20:02] Jess Bahr: How did you end up at a coastal company?
[00:20:05] Carisa Bartelt: I was kind of, like, recruited there because I had touched them in the past.
[00:20:10] Carisa Bartelt: I use their product a lot, and honestly, because I'm loud.
[00:20:14] Carisa Bartelt: So I was loud about liking their product.
[00:20:17] Carisa Bartelt: I was about what I thought about it.
[00:20:20] Carisa Bartelt: They recognized me, the Advocate, I think even on the first call, I was like, oh, hey, we're going to do this together.
[00:20:25] Carisa Bartelt: You don't even have to talk it to anybody else.
[00:20:28] Jess Bahr: We're done.
[00:20:29] Carisa Bartelt: This is going to work out.
[00:20:32] Carisa Bartelt: And I do know, although everybody says the coastal people have this confidence and energy.
[00:20:38] Carisa Bartelt: I just don't think they're as open about it as us.
[00:20:42] Carisa Bartelt: In the Midwest, we're willing to be vulnerable.
[00:20:43] Carisa Bartelt: We're willing to express ourselves in different ways, which is super helpful in marketing.
[00:20:50] Carisa Bartelt: And that connection with not being afraid to be a little bit feelingy helps us identify and connect with customers so much easier.
[00:21:00] Carisa Bartelt: So when we bring some human to our marketing, our campaigns, to our content, to our verbiage, to the strategy, we're always there to shake it up.
[00:21:10] Carisa Bartelt: Like, yes, we want the data, yes, we want the reasons why, but also where's the underlying human aspect and the contentment with being approachable or the goal of being approachable with whatever that is.
[00:21:22] Carisa Bartelt: And I think Midwestern marketers innately build that into and have that built into them so when they make decisions, their stuff just comes out so much like more genuine.
[00:21:33] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:21:33] Jess Bahr: Anytime someone tries to tell me that in the Midwest, marketing is behind and I will say I think oftentimes they're thinking of marketing firms that may specialize in small business, which there also exists in the cities, like those exist in other places.
[00:21:49] Jess Bahr: But anytime someone is trying to tell me midwesterners don't know how to market, I send them Duluth Trading Company advertisements for their ballroom jeans and for everything they have because you can't tell me that's not golden.
[00:22:04] Jess Bahr: They have a commercial for jeans that have extra space in the crotch for when men bend over and they call them ballroom.
[00:22:13] Carisa Bartelt: Like they're the Midwestern people they are okay to be human.
[00:22:19] Carisa Bartelt: We have this argument all the time at Cvent and at work right now where it's like we're selling to accounting firms or we're selling to finance places, we're selling to Finserv and this is what they are.
[00:22:31] Carisa Bartelt: And it's like, that's what they sell.
[00:22:33] Carisa Bartelt: That's where they work, but that's not who the person is.
[00:22:36] Carisa Bartelt: And even especially in B to B marketing, for so long, it's been translating much more leaning how B to C is right.
[00:22:49] Carisa Bartelt: That style of connecting with the person.
[00:22:51] Carisa Bartelt: And that's why I think so many B, two B SaaS companies, too, are finding more Midwesterners, more valuable because they take that human approach as opposed to so much of the like, what does your organization do?
[00:23:05] Jess Bahr: Great.
[00:23:06] Jess Bahr: We help reduce security costs.
[00:23:08] Carisa Bartelt: You must love security.
[00:23:10] Carisa Bartelt: No, I don't love security.
[00:23:12] Carisa Bartelt: It's just where I work.
[00:23:15] Jess Bahr: I love getting paid to do my job well.
[00:23:20] Carisa Bartelt: I just think that's key and people just lose sight of it.
[00:23:23] Carisa Bartelt: And that's one things as Midwesterners we can cut through quicker.
[00:23:26] Jess Bahr and Carisa Bartelt Talk About Midwestern Food Staples

[00:23:26] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:23:27] Jess Bahr: We're going to show up with a casserole with a hot dish and is hot dish actually, I think hot dish is like a Southern term.
[00:23:34] Jess Bahr: I heard the other day someone told me hot dish, tater Tot casserole.
[00:23:38] Jess Bahr: You got a top plate, though.
[00:23:39] Jess Bahr: You got some tater tote, crock pot.
[00:23:42] Jess Bahr: Yeah, it's Tater Tot with a Tater tot with a cheese and a whole slew of options for the rest of it.
[00:23:48] Jess Bahr: But it's a tater Tot casserole.
[00:23:50] Carisa Bartelt: What is it?
[00:23:51] Carisa Bartelt: It's crumbled with like cornflakes and butter.
[00:23:53] Carisa Bartelt: Oh, yeah.
[00:23:54] Jess Bahr: Fritos.
[00:23:54] Jess Bahr: Just roll up those fritos fritos on there.
[00:23:59] Jess Bahr: You want to kick your tater Tot casserole up a notch.
[00:24:01] Jess Bahr: Get some fritos, get some Jalapeno cheddar in there, some gelapinos, get a little spicy jalapenos.
[00:24:10] Carisa Bartelt: Any of the cheese.
[00:24:11] Carisa Bartelt: What kind of cheese do you have?
[00:24:12] Carisa Bartelt: That's another thing.
[00:24:12] Carisa Bartelt: How many cheese oh my God.
[00:24:14] Jess Bahr: Well, okay, hold on.
[00:24:15] Jess Bahr: How many cheese drawers do you have in your fridge?
[00:24:18] Carisa Bartelt: The whole bottom drawer is dedicated to.
[00:24:22] Jess Bahr: Yeah, I got that middle drawer between the fridge and the freezer.
[00:24:25] Jess Bahr: That whole thing is cheese.
[00:24:26] Carisa Bartelt: Me too.
[00:24:26] Carisa Bartelt: That's it.
[00:24:27] Carisa Bartelt: That's cheese drawer, I think between actually.
[00:24:29] Carisa Bartelt: So I don't know if this is Midwestern between cheese and mustard.
[00:24:34] Jess Bahr: Oh my God.
[00:24:35] Carisa Bartelt: Probably twelve different mustards in the door.
[00:24:37] Jess Bahr: Well, have you dedicated have you been to the Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin?
[00:24:42] Carisa Bartelt: No, that exists.
[00:24:44] Jess Bahr: Oh my God.
[00:24:45] Jess Bahr: Does it ever exist?
[00:24:46] Jess Bahr: It's not open on Tuesdays though.
[00:24:48] Jess Bahr: Don't ask me why they take Tuesdays off.
[00:24:50] Jess Bahr: I think Southern Minnesota is the mustard capital of the world.
[00:24:55] Jess Bahr: Or it's Middleton, but there's a mustard museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.
[00:24:59] Carisa Bartelt: Cheese and mustard.
[00:25:01] Jess Bahr: Here's why mustard is great.
[00:25:02] Carisa Bartelt: Okay.
[00:25:03] Jess Bahr: You got no sugar.
[00:25:04] Jess Bahr: It's just mustard.
[00:25:06] Jess Bahr: It's mustard and water and spices.
[00:25:07] Jess Bahr: You got ketchup.
[00:25:09] Jess Bahr: Ketchup is 90% sugar.
[00:25:11] Carisa Bartelt: Yeah, it's too sweet.
[00:25:13] Carisa Bartelt: I want a honey mustard, a Dijon mustard, stone ground mustard.
[00:25:18] Jess Bahr: Get a beer.
[00:25:19] Jess Bahr: Mustard, beer, cheese, beer, cheese.
[00:25:22] Jess Bahr: Oh my God.
[00:25:23] Carisa Bartelt: Three things that everybody I'm just getting hungry now.
[00:25:25] Carisa Bartelt: I know.
[00:25:26] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:25:27] Jess Bahr: Welcome to the Cheesecast well, it's Friday.
[00:25:29] Carisa Bartelt: So it's fish fry Friday, so I got to go out.
[00:25:31] Jess Bahr: Oh my God.
[00:25:31] Carisa Bartelt: It is fish fry Friday.
[00:25:32] Carisa Bartelt: Old fashioned.
[00:25:33] Jess Bahr: Got to go fish fry old fashioned deep fried cheese curds that I'm going.
[00:25:38] Carisa Bartelt: To be asleep by 08:00.
[00:25:39] Jess Bahr: P.m..
[00:25:42] Jess Bahr: But you wake up Saturday morning and do it all over well, not do it all over again, but.
[00:25:50] Carisa Bartelt: Start the process.
[00:25:51] Midwest Traditions and the Marketing of Microbreweries

[00:25:51] Carisa Bartelt: Do you think that people in the Midwest, they have a different appreciation and commitment to tradition?
[00:25:59] Jess Bahr: I don't know if it's to traditions.
[00:26:04] Jess Bahr: I think that our traditions are very societal.
[00:26:07] Jess Bahr: Like going to the bowling alley for a meat raffle.
[00:26:10] Carisa Bartelt: Yes.
[00:26:12] Jess Bahr: You go there for the meat.
[00:26:13] Jess Bahr: There's so many times I have one good meat.
[00:26:16] Jess Bahr: But you go to the bowling alley for the meat raffle, you go for the fish fry.
[00:26:19] Jess Bahr: And where do you go for a fish fry?
[00:26:20] Jess Bahr: There's a good chance you go to a church for a fish fry.
[00:26:23] Jess Bahr: You go for the fish fry getting yeah.
[00:26:28] Jess Bahr: I feel like the traditions are unique, but I think every culture has unique traditions.
[00:26:33] Jess Bahr: But it's definitely like there's things also that I think we do that are a little wacky.
[00:26:38] Jess Bahr: I'm not going to say we put too much cheese on things, but I will say when you get a salad in Chicago, that salad in Chicago is structured very differently than a salad in Madison, Wisconsin.
[00:26:49] Carisa Bartelt: Oh, 100%.
[00:26:52] Carisa Bartelt: Our traditions aren't always right, but at least we're, like, committed, I think.
[00:26:55] Jess Bahr: Yeah, flip that cheese and lettuce ratio that's your Wisconsin, I think.
[00:27:02] Jess Bahr: Yeah, it's things, too, that are like I've also realized a lot of the stuff that our traditions I didn't realize were unique to Wisconsin.
[00:27:10] Jess Bahr: Like old fashions.
[00:27:12] Jess Bahr: I just thought everyone had old fashions.
[00:27:14] Jess Bahr: And I've ordered them a couple of times at various points in my adult life and underage life, and they were like, what?
[00:27:20] Jess Bahr: And someone would be like, some one old timer be like, oh, I know what that is.
[00:27:26] Carisa Bartelt: Yeah.
[00:27:26] Jess Bahr: Let me take this.
[00:27:28] Jess Bahr: This is a lunch drink.
[00:27:33] Carisa Bartelt: I was at a conference in Vegas last week, and I had, like a down ten the day I got in.
[00:27:38] Carisa Bartelt: And I was like, oh, I'm going to go out and have grab some appetizers instead of the bar and have a drink.
[00:27:44] Carisa Bartelt: And I was like, I just want a cocktail right now.
[00:27:46] Carisa Bartelt: Do you have anything to recommend?
[00:27:46] Carisa Bartelt: He's like, I'm going to tell you something, like, really unique and really good here.
[00:27:50] Carisa Bartelt: It's an old fashioned And I was like, what?
[00:27:53] Jess Bahr: I definitely don't it's like when you see them charging like, five or $6 for PBR or hams.
[00:28:02] Jess Bahr: Back in my day, when I was in college, you would buy a we get a half gallon of hams for was your that was your dime night.
[00:28:14] Jess Bahr: Your dime night beer was PBR.
[00:28:17] Jess Bahr: And they act like that's premium.
[00:28:20] Carisa Bartelt: It's like, cool.
[00:28:21] Carisa Bartelt: Now it's like hipster because it's like.
[00:28:23] Jess Bahr: Yeah, it doesn't taste good.
[00:28:24] Jess Bahr: You drink it because it's cheap.
[00:28:26] Carisa Bartelt: Correct.
[00:28:26] Carisa Bartelt: It's that cool.
[00:28:27] Carisa Bartelt: And just to be clear, everybody that's not from Wisconsin, we don't think PBR is good.
[00:28:32] Carisa Bartelt: We don't think ham it's cheap.
[00:28:35] Jess Bahr: PBR is like the old Natty of Wisconsin or old Milwaukee.
[00:28:40] Carisa Bartelt: Old Milwaukee?
[00:28:41] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:28:42] Jess Bahr: No, but you get these yahoos over there who drink it like it's.
[00:28:49] Carisa Bartelt: No, no.
[00:28:50] Carisa Bartelt: Also so interesting about the Midwest and Wisconsin in general, from marketing perspective, how many breweries we have, and you think about they have to name each beer.
[00:29:06] Carisa Bartelt: They come up with a new logo for each beer.
[00:29:08] Carisa Bartelt: I want that to be my job as a marketer.
[00:29:10] Carisa Bartelt: What do you want to call this beer?
[00:29:11] Carisa Bartelt: I don't know.
[00:29:12] Carisa Bartelt: Candy cane Lane.
[00:29:15] Jess Bahr: They're just so and there's a backstory for every single this is there's one I saw a bit ago, and I can't remember what it was.
[00:29:26] Jess Bahr: Something with Jerry Garcia in the name.
[00:29:28] Jess Bahr: And it was a gummy bear infused IPA with a hint of blah, blah, blah.
[00:29:37] Jess Bahr: It has a whole backstory.
[00:29:39] Jess Bahr: And then you drink it, and it tastes like shit.
[00:29:41] Carisa Bartelt: I know.
[00:29:42] Carisa Bartelt: But that doesn't matter.
[00:29:43] Carisa Bartelt: People still I've got to check.
[00:29:45] Jess Bahr: Marketing can't fix everything.
[00:29:47] Jess Bahr: Marketing can't fix your IPA tasting like.
[00:29:50] Carisa Bartelt: Ass, but they can make people buy it.
[00:29:52] Jess Bahr: People will.
[00:29:53] Jess Bahr: Buy it and they'll keep it in the fridge and then it'll go bad.
[00:29:56] Jess Bahr: But they'll serve it to their hipster friends who are going to act like they like it because they want to feel cool.
[00:30:00] Carisa Bartelt: One time I got a gummy bear jalapeno beer and took a great hoppiness and I just thought it was really awesome.
[00:30:07] Jess Bahr: It pairs well with Taco bell.
[00:30:09] Carisa Bartelt: So good.
[00:30:11] Carisa Bartelt: Love it.
[00:30:17] Jess Bahr: Yeah.
[00:30:17] Midwestern Marketers: An Untapped Marketing Treasure

[00:30:17] Jess Bahr: We are actually at time because I do have a hard stop.
[00:30:21] Jess Bahr: If you're in the midwest, leave a comment below and let us know because we want to start a little midwest party here.
[00:30:28] Carisa Bartelt: Absolutely.
[00:30:29] Jess Bahr: We want a midwest party.
[00:30:30] Carisa Bartelt: Want to hear what your thoughts?
[00:30:31] Jess Bahr: We probably already know you listen.
[00:30:33] Jess Bahr: We probably got two or three friends in common, if we're being honest with each.
[00:30:37] Jess Bahr: Probably if you go look at LinkedIn, we probably got some shared connections.
[00:30:40] Carisa Bartelt: You're probably my second cousin.
[00:30:41] Carisa Bartelt: It'll be great.
[00:30:42] Jess Bahr: Also that yeah, we might be related.
[00:30:48] Carisa Bartelt: Let's band together.
[00:30:49] Jess Bahr: US.
[00:30:49] Carisa Bartelt: Midwestern marketers our untapped marketing treasure.
[00:30:55] Jess Bahr: Stay tuned for more.
[00:30:56] Jess Bahr: Actually, if we launch our thing, we'll put the link in the description.
[00:31:00] Carisa Bartelt: Absolutely.
[00:31:01] Jess Bahr: You know, depending when this episode airs.
[00:31:03] Jess Bahr: If you're not from the midwest and you listened, this wasn't for you.
[00:31:06] Jess Bahr: You shouldn't have.
[00:31:07] Jess Bahr: Please don't.
[00:31:08] Carisa Bartelt: We're not our target audience.
[00:31:10] Jess Bahr: It's not you, it's us.
[00:31:12] Jess Bahr: That we're from the midwest.
[00:31:15] Jess Bahr: That note, see you all in the next episode.
[00:31:18] Jess Bahr: That was a great episode, right?
[00:31:20] Jess Bahr: Thanks for joining us for it.
[00:31:21] Jess Bahr: If you want to make sure that you don't miss out on any future content, make sure you hit that subscribe button below, click the bell to turn notifications.
[00:31:29] Jess Bahr: And if you have any requests for content or guests you'd love to see on the show, leave them in the comments below.