When A Personal Pivot Requires Your Business To Pivot Too
In June 2014, Jordan Younger announced she was no longer vegan. For anyone else, this decision would be personal, but for Younger it was both personal and professional. Why? She was the face behind the wildly popular blog The Blonde Vegan.
In the digital influencer world, businesses are built on the personal ethos of individuals and their “humanism.” Younger knows better than anyone how a personal life transitions can dictate a pivot in a business. For her, that business pivot — although challenging — informed how she reestablished her brand into a more sustainable iteration that could change as she did.
Younger had built The Blonde Vegan around her personal pursuit of health and healing through veganism; her blogging prowess had grown her followers to 300,000 and allowed her to sell vegan cleanses and playful t-shirts, with quips like “Is Vodka Vegan?” Business was booming, but Younger was struggling.
The Blonde Vegan was diagnosed with orthorexia — a relatively unknown eating disorder where an obsession with healthy eating becomes debilitating— and her extreme pursuit of veganism “was a big trigger,” she said. As Younger made the decision to ditch the vegan label, friends told her The Blonde Vegan didn’t need to change: she could just omit the non-vegan aspects of her life. But Younger, who had built her following on authenticity, knew that despite the business risk, she had to be open about what she was going through.
That openness led to a complete pivot in her business. She rebranded, seemingly overnight, to The Balanced Blonde and Younger shifted from being an authority on the healing power of veganism to one that emphasized the pursuit of label-free wellness. Her business segments adjusted accordingly; the t-shirt line, previously The Blonde Vegan Apparel (TBV), became TBV: Truth, Balance, Virtue. But letting her personal pivot dictate a shift in her business was not a painless process.
Younger has weathered what seemed like a two-year storm of controversy and “hate” from the vegan community, losing many of her long-time followers.
Her transition away from veganism has become part of her brand. In November 2015, she published a memoir called “Breaking Vegan” and has now gained a completely new audience, many are young girls who have suffered from orthorexia and the pressure to be “healthy.” Her openness speaks to her followers and to brands.
Brand ambassadorship has become the livelihood of bloggers and digital influencers across the globe. This shift has happened in the last couple years, Younger explains: instead of making money from directly selling cleanses and t-shirts, she monetizes “more efficiently” by sponsorships from brands that she already uses, like CorePower Yoga and Sally Hansen. When she pivoted to The Balanced Blonde, this sector of the industry was just getting started and wasn’t yet a big part of Younger’s business model. It is unlikely that such a pivot would be possible today without damaging her partnerships.
A consistent message is important to brands who partner with digital influencers as part of their marketing strategies. “It signals the quality of their followers,” said Madeline Chambers, a Digital Influencer Manager based in New York. Quality is greater than quantity when it comes to converting followers to customers for brands. Younger, who has been The Balanced Blonde for almost two-and-a-half years now, is confident that she has positioned her brand to allow for more personal pivots.
Whether Younger decides to eat vegan for a couple weeks, take a 300 hour yoga teacher training course, take part in an Ayurvedic detox or eventually start a family — all of those things can fall under the business of The Balanced Blonde. And that positioning lends itself to a more sustainable business model.
This was the biggest lesson she learned from being The Blonde Vegan; when she pivoted she didn’t want to put herself “in a box” by how she framed her platform. She recalls having a fear of labels to the point where she almost considered taking “Blonde” out of The Balanced Blonde name, just in case.
Younger decided to keep it to maintain some continuity but also because, she — still blonde — laughs, “The Balanced Blonde not being blonde seemed a little less controversial than The Blonde Vegan not being vegan.”
