👋, I’m Kimberly. I’ve been creating obsession-worthy brands for the past fifteen years. And now, I’m giving away my secrets every week in this newsletter.
Welcome to the Secrets of… Series — in which I’ve carefully designed a series of thirteen thought-provoking questions to tease the most interesting and insightful information out of the best brand builders in the world.
This week, I sat down with Shiloh Uhlir — a heart-led marketing leader with a passion for innovation.
Shiloh helped pioneer ringtone adoption before cellphones were computers, connected people to brands when social media was still MySpace, and brought live music and Red Bull Stratos to living rooms at the birth of smartTV.
Today, she leads Wondermed, a new telemedicine platform on a mission to pioneer the gap between mental health and psychedelic medicine.
A creative scientist and radical forward-thinker, Shiloh led digital marketing verticals for AT&T, Dell, and Red Bull. After ten years in corporate America, entrepreneurship and a deep desire to contribute to raising the frequency of the collective led her to shift gears to zero to 1 marketing.
1. How would you explain what you do to someone who has no idea?
I connect people with brands they love and products they need.
I help people discover things they don’t know exist… that solve problems they do know exist.
2. One of my favorite quotes about branding is this one from Wally Olins:
Fundamentally, branding is a manifestation of the human condition. It is about belonging; belonging to a tribe, to a religion, to a family. Branding demonstrates that sense of belonging. It has this function for both people who are part of the same group and also for the people who don’t belong.
What brands have made you feel like you personally belong in your lifetime? These could be brands you belong with right now—or in the past (say, when you were a teenager).
One brand that comes immediately to mind for me is Dagne Dover, a handbag brand founded by three women from New York City.
When they first started, it really felt kind of like a cult. It was one of those brands you see people on the street wearing and comment on it.
And there was a “fist pump” type of energy to it — because they were a brand pushing the limits on organization and the fabrics they used and how ecological a brand could be.
It’s a very modern-day brand. You can buy a very expensive handbag or a very cheap handbag — and Dagne lives in between. It's a quality garment, but it’s not out of anybody's league.
The very first brand I remember being obsessed with was Adidas. I was a soccer player, and I remember feeling like Adidas was the OG European soccer brand that Pele and all of the original soccer players wore.
As a little kid, I aspired to be like them. At that time, there was more of a “soccer versus football” mentality in America, and I was proud of the fact that I was a soccer player. It made me feel like I was part of this global community that loved soccer versus just a US community. In my kindergarten year, I wore a lace dress and Adidas soccer cleats to my first day of school.
I also remember being in high school when Lucky brand jeans came out. When you pulled down the zipper on these jeans, it said “Lucky you.”
That small detail made it feel like you had a secret. You either knew, or you didn't know about the sexy message — so there was an element of belonging.
3. What event or interaction in your life has most shaped who you are today as a marketer?
Burning Man — for multiple reasons.
First, it taught me the value of input versus output. The real value of a product comes from what we put into it and what people get out of it.
Burning Man also taught me a lot about building teams. We all take more pride in what we're doing when we actually have to do something to get it.
And it’s shown me how much community matters. Burning Man is all about community, and burners understand the same language — which is the same thing you want to evoke in a brand.
4. What is the marketing-related book you would gift to someone who isn’t in marketing? And what is the non-marketing-related book that’s had the most impact on you as a marketer?
My Marketing-Related Book #1:
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
I've consulted. I've worked in corporate. I've done all kinds of different work. And one thing I’ve learned is that leadership is paramount to every business.
If everybody could try to be a good leader and a more self-aware leader, we would have a better world, a better culture… a better everything.
My Marketing-Related Book #2:
The Subtle Are of Not Giving a Fuck by Brené Brown
This book taught me to not try to do everything and be everything to everybody.
It helped me understand where to delegate and where to stay in your lane.
And it made me ok with the fact that not everybody is going like you — especially in the workplace.
My Non-Marketing-Related Book:
Being You, Changing the World by Dr. Dain Heer
This was the first spiritual book I ever read. It’s about playing with energy and understanding the power of energy.
When you walk into the room, the energy in the room carries through everything that you do. It’s important to spend energy setting up the room and the space and the people. And it’s important to come in with your own energy projecting the outcome you want.
That is something I constantly channel in work. I make sure my energy is good before interacting with other people.
My Podcast:
Winds of Change
This is a podcast about the cold war and how it's hypothesized that the West used music to try to make Russians be anticommunist.
It's not proven, but the story is that the U.S. government worked with European bands to create the songs that made Russians want to go to concerts and feel free and understand the power of democracy. And then they support it with a bunch of other evidence about how the CIA uses culture to influence government.
As a marketer, you need to always be thinking about the power of story. This showed the power of story to influence what was happening from the CIA down. So, it's an interesting nugget.
5. You're getting put into the Marketers Hall of Fame. What campaign do you want to be remembered for? And what campaign do you wish would be forgotten?
My Campaign to Be Remembered For:
Wondermed
I'm currently working on a brand called Wondermed. We’re combining low-dose ketamine in conjunction with meditation, breathwork, and music to combat anxiety.
We’ve created a 30-day protocol where every seven days, you do a ketamine-enhanced sound meditation in conjunction with breathwork.
I would love for this to be in a branding hall of fame because it’s taking a more holistic approach to mental health. We’re breaking down the barriers of psychedelics and nontraditional medicine — and putting it in the home and changing mindsets about the power of those products.
Our whole brand identity is about the self healer. How do we give people tools to heal themselves?
If we can effectively launch a brand that lives in the medical space, uses psychedelics, and changes the conversation about mental health to be around holistic healing, that would be an incredible win in terms of helping people —and an incredible win from the marketing standpoint, knowing we were able to communicate all of that effectively.
I'm trying to find advisors in each of these verticals — the medical vertical, the therapy vertical, the holistic healing vertical, and the music vertical — who I’m calling “Knights of Wonder.” I want to have them bring their expertise as our content team.
The medical team will talk about what ketamine is, what it does to the brain, and how that impacts you. The therapy team will talk about integration and combining ketamine with the traditional talk therapies. The holistic healing will discuss meditation, yoga, and all of the things you can put around it. And then the music team will talk about the music that guides you in our sessions.
If we find the advisors in each of these verticals, they can start the conversations in a meaningful way with audiences that already understand those verticles and build from there.
Right now, we're in the throwing spaghetti and the walls phase — with the hope that we can get some traction with the self healer group, speaking to people who already understand the language of psychedelics and healing and meditation, and then expand into the more medically-inclined audience.
Nobody else in the market is taking that strategy with at-home ketamine treatment. Everybody else is going very pharmaceutical, while we want to heal the whole person.
My Campaign to Be Forgotten:
Typos of the Past
I started working right around the time that social media started.
I have these nightmares about an inevitable typo or something that went out in a social post that you couldn't edit — because on OG social, you couldn't edit. Once it was out there, it was out there.
6. What’s the most controversial thing a brand you work with has ever done — and how did it turn out for them?
I worked for Red Bull for seven years.
Red Bull's ethos was about finding people who are outside the norm — skaters, clubbers, anybody who was on the fringe — and giving wings to people and ideas.
When I was there, it was early in the social media days. We did a social post that shows a sleeping pill versus a Red Bull. It said, “Let the games begin!”
The post got tons of engagement and was really popular. And we thought we were so clever.
But about a year later, a gentleman got into serious health trouble from drinking a bunch of Monster energy drinks — and that particular social post was used in court to show that Red Bull was not safe.
Red Bull is the brand that it is because it's willing to take risks. It's willing to live on the edge. It's willing to be provocative.
As of late, they've gotten a lot more conservative, which is potentially hindering their brand.
I'm always a proponent of risk. But there’s always a conversation with legal. You have to look at what's the business risk versus the legal — and there’s often a gray area.
Looking back, I would say that I would run the post again. Luckily, the court case didn't happen until multiple years later — so it wasn't directly tied back to our team, but it was a big thing.
Brands today need to strike a balance between creative marketing and this cancel culture we live in — knowing that everything you put in the world can be scrutinized, and it will be.
This scrutiny is limiting our ability to make meaningful brands. You have to be willing to not please everybody.
7. In a world where consumers are more divided than ever, what do you think brands need to do to now engage them?
It's all about the story.
Almost every product right now is a commodity of some sort. So, how do you build the story around it and build personal relevance?
I recently bought a bra from a company called Pepper. It was a “small boob” bra.
I bought it because I identified with the fact that I have small boobs. But I never would have bought the bra if had they not told that story — the actual product is not that different.
It's really about the story you put around it — and being super clear on who you're talking to and being willing to not reach everybody and know that that's okay.
8. What marketing principle do you think great marketers overlook all the time?
The first is the power of repetition.
As marketers, we're constantly iterating — but we forget that the audience might not have seen any of the iterations. We need to make sure we're reinforcing the point multiple times, even to the point where we might be bored with it.
Know that people are freaking busy — and you have to keep saying, “Hey, we're still here! We're still here!"
The second is that the medium is the message.
The same message isn't going to land in a press release and in a social post and on your website. You need to think about where your content lives and look at the medium as the framework for your messaging.
7. What advice would you give your 26-year-old self—both career-related and not career-related?
Career-Related Advice:
Trust Your Intuition
The older I get, the more comfortable doing I’ve gotten at trusting my intuition.
But long ago, I can remember intuitive hits that I didn't listen to, so that. We're taught to stick it out or tough it out. For example, if you're only with a job for a short amount of time, you look like you're a quitter.
I've personally and professionally “stuck things out” for too long, because of a fear of quitting. But here it wasn't the right thing to stay in.
Non-Career-Related Advice
Be More Specialized
I started my career in mobile. And I've always sat in this world of brands, digital, and new categories.
I feel like I'm an inch deep in a million things — but I'm not an expert in any one thing. That's why I've found a niche in startups because it is valuable to have a full basket of hats to wear. But I wish that I could say, “Here's the thing that I specialize in.”
Understand what's your specialty and then build on that, versus trying to do it all.
8. What’s the most valuable positive advice feedback you’ve ever been given? And what’s the most valuable negative feedback you’ve ever been given?
Positive Advice:
Every time you commit to a task, you're putting a monkey on your back. So imagine that when you say, "Yes, I'll do it!"
This visualization has helped me be thoughtful about what I commit to!
Negative Feedback:
You’re valuing efficiency over relationships
I've always been very efficient and super productive. And in my early career, I was too hard on people who weren't delivering up to my expectation.
Over time, I've focused on the value of relationships and coming in soft to deliver hard messages. Now I always remind myself: relationships over efficiency.
9. What motivates you to get up and go every day?
My mantra is “Leave it better than you found it.”
That applies to work and life.
10. Who do you most admire—and what question would you most like to ask them?
I’d say I admire all women founders — because I’ve had so many ideas that I didn't have the guts to bring to life. The world is not set up for women founders; so many women have battled upstream their whole careers.
As for who I’d like to ask a question — I’d want to talk to Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos.
I’d ask her, “At what point in your journey did you realize that you were in over your head, or it was over, or your product was bullshit — but you chose to keep going? And how would you do it differently today?”
I would love to get into that woman's head and understand where she was during all of that. How do you maintain credibility and authenticity and integrity and still get what you need to get it done?
11. Last question—what's your secret?
Go South
We live “up here” in our heads most of the time. But if you “go south” into your body — your body usually knows where to find your joy and where you're stuck.
In a yoga practice, you can feel it in your body. If you're making a decision, you can go into your body and ask, “Is this light or heavy?” and feel the emotional response.
It's really easy. We just have to know how to do it.
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About Me
I help early-stage founders create the kind of brands that get customers so obsessed, they’ll do your advertising for you.
Based on my experience founding my own consumer brand, I developed The Branding Sprint—a uniquely collaborative, streamlined, and agile approach to brand creation.
Click here to learn more about The Branding Sprint, or schedule a call with me.