How Frank Green answered this AI question before we even asked

Credit: Instagram: frankgreen_official

My 11-year old daughter Harriet is obsessed with Frank Green water bottles. Is that weird to you? It feels weird to me. I mean, it’s water. She’s 11. Who cares what vessel you carry it in, and why would you spend upward of $60 on one - and shouldn’t she be learning dance moves to a Taylor Swift song or something? 

But Frank Green has done a stellar job of promoting their water bottles, to the point that they’re now seen as a status symbol. 

Again, it’s just water.

Clearly Harriet is not the only one who is obsessed : Frank Green sells over $100 million worth of product each year, according to the Australian Financial Review. (Her pocket money isn’t THAT good.)

Will AI replace all our written content?

It’s what we’ve all been wondering, right? Writers everywhere have been worried about becoming as obsolete as beeper salesmen, and what marketing department hasn’t been experimenting with generating at least some of their content using ChatGPT?

What Frank Green founder Benjamin Young tapped into early - well before AI came along - was the power of social currency and genuine human connection.

Way back in a former life, before I began Stellar Content, I was a lifestyle blogger. I like to think I was a blogger when it was still cool, but I’ll let you decide about that one. Either way, it was a fun diversion while my kids were little, and one of the perks of having a decent readership was getting free stuff. 

I remember receiving a free Frank Green reusable coffee cup out of the blue one day. It was cute. I probably snapped a pic and shared it on Instagram, and then left it by the swings in one park or another. Now I wish I’d kept a closer eye on it - it must be worth a fortune by now. 

We’ll always crave human connection

Why am I telling you this? Because Frank Green is a great example of what can happen to a brand when they tap into the power of human connection. Clearly Frank Green is a well thought out, quality product, but as a small local business when they started out in 2013, they couldn’t compete with the big end of town on marketing spend. 

So they marketed smarter, not harder.

Frank Green tapped into influencer marketing at the right time but - more importantly - they effectively communicated their story and the ‘why’ behind the brand. Young worked at waste company Cleanaway before he went out to market with Frank Green, and the reusable coffee cups and drink bottles were his way of reducing waste and contributing to a greener planet - in a product that was also designed to be exactly what the consumer wanted: insulated, leak-proof, and with the option of personalisation, so they’re seen as higher value. 

It’s the ‘why’ that people connected with, and it’s the ‘why’ that Frank Green are still excellent at communicating. With the bonus now that they don’t need to give freebies to influencers any more - the social proof keeps on rolling in on its own, as people jump on the Frank Green bandwagon. 

Social proof is one of the greatest content marketing strategies of all, because it’s more believable, more relatable, and it’s totally free. But you have to get to the stage where people are talking about your brand first. 

How to be human while you’re drowning in robots

All of this in the context of a massive tidal wave of AI-generated content like nothing we’ve seen before (and we’ve lived through that era where SEO writers packed keywords until web copy made no sense at all). In fact, European law enforcement group Europol predicts that 90% of the world’s online content will be AI-generated by 2026. 

How do we compete with that? 

Here’s a hint: it’s not with volume. We market smarter, not harder.

We market with our humanity. We market by tapping into our organisation’s ‘why’ and showing our true selves. AI can’t do that - not yet, anyway. 

Frank Green knew that back in 2013, and it remains true today. While influencer marketing has evolved and has arguably, lost a fair amount of trust in the industry, real humans talking about why they love a brand remains the key to tugging on our heart strings, creating connection, and building brand loyalty. 

It’s why Harriet keeps telling me she wants a Frank Green water bottle for her 12th birthday. And it’s why (shhhhhhh!) I’ll probably get one for her, even though I think she’s a bit of a weirdo.

I might get one for myself while I’m at it.

Damn, they’re good.