Goodwipes' Meredith Diehn Sees Wellness Becoming More Social, Experiential and Fun

She tells the story behind her brand's collabs with Liquid Death

“Run clubs, wellness communities and smaller IRL experiences are exploding because people are craving more ways to spend quality time together,” Goodwipes SVP of marketing Meredith Diehn tells Muse. “Reach isn’t the only thing brands should be thinking about. Building community is just as important. Having one-to-one interactions with consumers and using these moments to educate them about your brand can be so much more valuable than a million ‘lower quality’ impressions.”

And that plays into a key trend fueling culture right now.

“Wellness—it’s stopped being something people do to be healthier and started becoming something people do to have a good time together,” she says. “As people find new ways to make wellness part of their social lives, we’re seeing these experiences move into the real world. So, there’s definitely a shift towards wellness becoming more social, experiential and fun.”

Earlier in her career, she served as head of brand for Mondelez’s Perfect Bar and spent over a decade at PepsiCo guiding marketing efforts for Tropicana and Quaker.

We spent a few minutes with Meredith to learn more about her background, inspirations and approach.

What’s your secret productivity habit?

Everything goes in my work calendar, including family events and school drop-off and pick-up. It’s easiest for me to manage just one calendar versus juggling multiples. 

What’s a non-advertising industry you learn from?

We borrow a lot of cues from beauty. People are used to talking about their hair and skincare routines, but nobody really wants to talk about their butt. We want to change that. We want to make “booty beauty” feel just as normal. We use education, culture and a bit of fun to make an unglamorous category impossible to ignore without resorting to bathroom humor as an attention tactic.

What presentation, planning or creative tool should more people know?

I’m blown away by a social media tool called Nectar. It’s truly a one-stop-shop for planning, listening, community correspondence and analysis, with an easy-to-use interface and sophisticated AI querying capabilities. I wish I had more hours in the day to play around with it.

Best podcast for smarter thinking?

I love How I Built This with Guy Raz. Beyond hearing the inspirational journeys from founders, it’s a masterclass in storytelling. As marketers, we’re charged with telling compelling stories to connect with consumers. The format is a brilliant storytelling playbook with tension and resolution that I come back to often.

What’s overrated in marketing right now?

Efficiency. We’re all so focused on making more content, faster and cheaper, but if everyone’s using the same tools, it will eventually all look the same. AI can absolutely help us execute. But it shouldn’t be deciding what a brand has to say. And it certainly can’t make someone care. 

Tell us about a recent project you’re proud of.

We collaborated with Liquid Death to create vanilla-scented flushable wipes made with real Liquid Death mountain water, and gave people the chance to win their own live-in “Buttler.” It wasn’t one of the ideas we initially planned on showing. But Liquid Death loved the absurdity of it. We worked hard to make sure it went beyond just slapping their logo on a pack. We wanted to create something where you’d know it could only have come from Goodwipes and Liquid Death.

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What would you be doing if you weren’t in advertising?

Music has always played a big part of my life. I’d want to be involved in the music industry in some capacity. 

You’ve got 2 minutes with the industry. What’s your hot take?

Stop collaborating just because you can. Having an overlapping audience or being able to make a partnership look good on paper isn’t enough. The best collaborations come when you find a partner who shares your values and personality, but brings something totally different to the table. Those are the partners you should work with because they’ll give consumers a reason to find you and give retailers a reason to put you there. And, added bonus, it can go beyond generating buzz and drive actual sales. Win win.

It’s better to do fewer collaborations that feel surprising and distinctive, but still be completely true to both sides. If you have to work too hard to explain why two brands belong together, they probably don’t.