A Brand Empire ‘Built On Love’

Nicole Portwood at SXSW Texas A&M Power House — Nicole Portwood: “One of the challenges you get to a mass scale in a gigantic company which PepsiCo most certainly is, is to help people retrain their thinking on individual human beings. We have incredible tools, data and analytics that allow us to do that, but finding your way to the connection points is a harder part.”

Mark Guerrero/Texas A&M Marketing & Communications

Shane Hinckley, Texas A&M University vice president of brand development, introduces Nicole Portwood.

Mark Guerrero/Texas A&M Marketing & Communications

For Nicole Portwood, a brand built on a foundation of love can create the most meaningful human connections.

Portwood, vice president of marketing for Mountain Dew, Energy & Flavors at PepsiCo, shared how bonds created through genuine expressions of kindness and humanity toward fans creates a ripple effect that can sustain a successful and lasting business.

“What’s important to remember is that each one of the ripples that you put in the pond has an effect. If that ripple is 200 people or 200,000 people, it is still a ripple,” Portwood said. “The waves it generates radiate outward from person to person through real human communication…eventually all those waves collide, and that’s when the real magic starts to happen and people start to see in each other collective fandom.”