Human centered marketing growth framework for conscious brands | Mack Rivkin from Iconic Bloom

Rick: Pathmonk is the AI for website conversions, but increasing online competition. Over 98% of website visitors don’t convert. The ability to successfully show you value proposition and support visitors in the buying journey separates you from the competition Online. Pathmonk qualifies and converts leads on your website by figuring out where they are in the buying journey and influencing them in key decision moments with relevant micro experiences like case studies, intro videos, and much more.
Stay relevant to you visitors and increase conversions by 50% by adding Pathmonk to your website in seconds. And in the ai, do all the work and increase conversions while you keep doing marketing as usual. Check us out on pathonk.com. Alright everyone, welcome to today’s episode of Pathmonk Presents. Today we are joined by Mack Rivkin. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show.

Mack Rivkin: Thanks for having me, Rick.

Rick: Of course. Excited to, to get into things. Mack Rivkin, we were talking about, Iconic bloom offline just a few seconds ago before we get getting into the recording of this. And, but I wanted to leave, what it, what the company is actually about to you.
So what’s the heart of what your company does and how would you describe it to someone new?

Mack Rivkin: Yeah. So marketing is extremely important for businesses to grow and has been for a very long time. People need to become aware of whatever products or services you’re selling, but we are in a new age.
We’re in an age where technology is advancing very rapidly. people are utilizing things like AI and automation in countless ways and. That is happening. But at the core of marketing strategy is the human experience. And while all of these technological innovations are happening and there’s so much excitement built up around that, so much hype, my feeling being a marketer for the last 10 years is that the human experience element of marketing.
Has been deprioritized, and that shows up in a number of ways. the most obvious way that it shows up is just the frequency of ads that we engage with as a consumer every single day. and oftentimes the, ads are not extremely high quality or relevant. but it also shows up in the way that brands engage with marketers, like in, in an internal team setting.
agencies have always had an issue with, turnover. just like high client churn. and, things are getting even more complicated as. ad networks like Google, ads, meta ads are, relying on AI even more in their algorithms. And a lot of brands just don’t even know where to turn anymore.
A lot of brands are opting to take their marketing in-house and, attempt to train, people to, to, do their marketing and have kind of ownership over that. But it’s a, it’s a complicated process and there’s a lot of chaos right now. and especially on the e-commerce side, things like tariffs are, causing, a lot of, a lot of ups and downs in businesses and, profitability is always in question.
And so what I really wanted to try to build, at Iconic Bloom is a. Alternative to the traditional marketing agency where we can come in and we can help clients grow. But the, there are two things that kind of set us apart. One, which I’ve already talked about is like that human experience element where there is a lot more focus and intention on what the.
Viewer is actually being exposed to, and there’s just a lot of care in terms of, how do we really walk someone through the story of the brand. so storytelling is a really big piece of this. as opposed to, hijacking their attention. like there are. A lot of marketing methodologies, which I would deem less than ethical or, unethical.
and, so we really try to operate in a way that really takes care of our, like potential customers or current customers and doesn’t, overload or annoy them. And then the other side of things is. Growth, but not just any growth, it’s sustainable growth. So oftentimes in marketing contexts, brands will want to grow at any cost and they want to, the, seeing, revenue double, in a year for example.
That might be a goal of a particular client and. And a lot of marketers will just listen to the client, say, okay, we’re, you wanna grow revenue, and by, the 2026 we can double it. I’m on this journey with you. And they’re just gonna sign on and say, we’re gonna, we’re gonna do this together.
And they’ll be in this, role for a year. And maybe it’ll happen and maybe it won’t. But that is the on, they’re just driving towards that. Not really looking at what else is happening in the business. So in that scenario, other things might be happening, like the customer experience might be getting worse, the the flow between.
Teams might be getting worse. there might be some additional friction. the quality of the website or creative cohesion between different elements of the brand story might be, can, might be becoming disjointed and they might hit that revenue number. They might not, but even if they do hit that number, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the brand is in a better place.
The brand might be in a worse place and. After that doubling of revenue, that company could be on the decline for the next three years because of their aggressive growth. So when we work with a any type of brand, we never want them to be in that type of position. We really prioritize sustainability, and that’s not just financial sustainability.
That’s also like emotional sustainability and. Dare I say it, spiritual sustainability. we, really get to know the, brand owner, at a very deep level. And we come on board as a growth partner, as a creative partner, and we listen to their desires and their hopes and their dreams, and we figure out a way to get there and we establish.
Reasonable timelines, and set reasonable expectations. and the ultimate goal for us is that we work with them for a short amount of time, and then they can let us go and then they can do their own thing. Like we’re not gonna set them up to be reliant on us. that’s a huge issue in the marketing space where agencies will.
create a sort of model where brands become dependent on them. and I believe that is, predatory. and we really do, this, we do want to operate with intention and care every step of the way.

Rick: Very good. I love the, correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like it’s a much more holistic approach to marketing than what most agencies you’re, as you’re saying, have.
whether it’s not, by using those, those concepts of, whenever you said, whenever you measure predatory of, the marketing tactics that people, that a agencies use or marketers use, whether it’s, scarcity or urgency. They’re all human, they deeply rooted in us, right?
As humans. I think there are had ethical ways to use it, where whether it reflects, the truth at that point, whether it’s not false scar scarcity, false urgency, and unethical ways In most of the times, I think. I can see it too, as a consumer personally, and also by working with many marketers that don’t use it, in that ethical way.
So it sounds like you are trying to do something different. Mack Rivkin and, I really appreciate it. I think, it’s a breath of fresh air. I’m also curious, what type of businesses or, clients, tend to be around that, right? What, around that concept of being moralistic that makes sense.

Mack Rivkin: Yeah, totally. I think the brands that kind of come in already having this angle and like really understand are like wellness brands, yoga for or, fitness or things like that. I think that those brands tend to, Be more intentional, with their, with their marketing strategy, their communication with clients.
but I do think that my favorite brands to work with personally are actually brands that are not used to that approach. And I get to come in and. It becomes a teaching moment and we get to reshape the brand together, to create something that is, not only ethical, but also efficient. and so one of the industries that I love doing this with is fashion.
and so I just personally love. Fashion. I love clothing. it’s wearable art. but one of the huge issues with the fashion industry is that it’s the second most, polluting industry, in the world. massive, negative environmental impact. and so I really, love to engage with brands that.
Take a different approach that have an understanding of this and, want to be different, want to do, want to do better, want to be the change that the world needs. and then we take it to the next level with, okay, so you’re already making these shifts in terms of how you design and manufacture.
So like how can we be. how can we be better in terms of how we communicate with our customers? How can we be more intentional with how we operate as an internal team? How can we be more intentional with how we manage money? so we go over all of these things and, yeah, it’s just a, it is a, it’s a really lovely thing, to be, because fashion is such a huge.
Important part of our culture, and something that should be honored and preserved and, it should not be this like, destructive force that it has evolved to be. and so I really, love the opportunity to help create shifts even in small ways. I also really love working in entertainment, entertainment, similarly is like one of those things like that is, it’s art.
it’s cultural. It has cultural significance. It is human expression. But on the other side, a lot of entertainment companies, they’re just churning out, mindless, unintentional. games and shows and films, and it’s, just, there’s a good side to, entertainment and then there’s a bad side, it’s, there are two sides to anything, right?
And so I really love engaging with, brands that, have the desire to be different, have the desire to approach things in a more ethical way. I love engaging with, I’m working with a video game client right now that. understand the power of ai, but really does everything that they can to not use, it at all in their, in, in their development, and in their marketing.
there’s a focus on an analog and building things by hand. And I think that’s so beautiful. it’s like becoming a lost art now. And, It matters, and it matters. And like it matters even more now because there is such a drastic technological shift happening. So we really need to come together as a community to of, course, utilize ai, these powerful tools.
this is amazing. Like these, it is. A phenomenal tool, but we need to also work hard to, keep flexing that other muscle, which is the human muscle. And we need to gather in physical spaces and be together. And we need to, we need to not let the screens, come between us and, become proxies for actually interacting with people.
And because if we let that slip away, then. We’re, gonna, it’s not just, marketing that’s gonna be in a bad spot. it’s, our entire livelihood. and as a marketer, because this is what I do every day, I feel like it’s my responsibility as a marketer to, really hone in on that and focus on that while still using ai, while, definitely not neglecting that.
This is like an amazing. Amazing tools that we can use. And, on the AI side, for example, like utilizing AI to just do more and less time, like that is a beautiful thing. and, so, don’t get me wrong, I, do believe that everyone should, everyone in the marketing space especially should have a keen understanding of how to utilize these tools, but.
Also understand that it’s a slippery slope and an over reliance on these tools is a bad thing. Don’t outsource your brain.

Rick: that’s a big one. And I was thinking exactly about that as soon as you mentioned that because, I can’t remember where I heard this the other day, but the, the fact that we’re relying more and more on AI just to even write a simple email that, I’m not talking about, I cannot say, or even there, you should do it and then maybe have AI help you out with like proofreading or whatever.
But, It’s making us dumb. unfortunately, whether you overly on, on something like that, that it comes at a cost, right? And so that really relates, and resonates with, with, what I’ve been thinking about it. And I think more and more people are thinking about it. They use it.
But I hope, there’s gonna be a shift in a sense that, we’re. More mindful about how we use it and, how we utilize AI for our everyday tasks.

Mack Rivkin: yeah. Yeah, nothing, is inherently good or bad. it’s, it really is all about balance.

Rick: Okay. Mack Rivkin, maybe, you just touched on it on your day-to-day, and you mentioned your day-to-day.
if we switch gears for a second and, talk about you right. On a typical day, what are the main things you focus on when you work with clients, and what does a day in your role look like?

Mack Rivkin: one of the reasons why I fell in love with marketing and I stuck with marketing is because no two days look the same.
So I, I am. The kind of person that loves variety. Variety is the spice of life. if I am doing the same thing day in and day out, I will get bored. honestly, day one, coming into, working at, a global agency, that’s about 10 years ago till now. it’s been quite a journey and, I’m, proud to say that.
every day has been quite different. Now what my days look like, are like, I’m at a stage now where I’ve soft launched, iconic bloom. we’re still working on website. We’re still working on, we social media presence. there’s a lot happening. Right now I am spending, I’d say 20 to 30% of my time on developing my own brands, things like logo and getting my project management systems in order and.
figuring out how I want to build my website and who I want to engage with to, support me in those tasks. So that’s a portion of my day right now. which is a really exciting time. like this is like one of the, one of the more fun aspects of starting your own business.
And then I spend, most of my time right now, actually working with clients. so I take quite a few, meetings each week, to talk to the, talk to each of my clients about what their goals are. any updates, track progress. I provide my, performance updates to. and, it varies depending on the client.
some, clients I work with are, I’m working with one, one fashion brand that’s like specifically econ I’m working with, the video game, brand that I was talking about. Like we, we just finished up a very successful Kickstarter. I’m working with, a yoga brand that is actually developing a, A television show for children, which is like amazing, and, so all these are like, so entirely different. And the, conversations I’m having with each of these founders and the tactics that I’m utilizing to help their brands grow are so entirely different as well. and Yeah. Honestly, the short answer is it depends,

Rick: right? Yeah. To wear many hats, right? And already as a marketer, that’s what you have to do, but even more so as a business owner. And when you do both yeah, it gets pretty wild. But, Mack Rivkin, I wanna thank you for being on the show with us today, and as we wrap things up, I also wanna, give you the last word.
So if someone forgets everything about the interview today. What is the one thing that you remember about iconic Bloom and, the work you are doing

Mack Rivkin: well, since this is the, last word? y yes, I iconic bloom. I’m super proud of it and I’m super proud of what it represents. But the main thing that I really wanna leave listeners with is, just.
Check in with yourself. Check in with yourself and think about what’s happening in the world and think about. What you are doing in your day-to-day to make a positive change in the world. especially, when you know we’re talking about these, huge technological advancements, we’re seeing a lot of things happen, economically, politically, in the world that, are leaving a lot of people hurting right now and.
The smallest thing can make a huge difference in the life, in your own life, in the life of your community. and so just regular check-ins with yourself. close your eyes, take a breath, and, see what comes up, naturally for you. and if you are a, a brand owner, of course, and, you.
our desiring to, to do, something a little bit differently. you can reach out to me, at Mack Rivkin, at iconic bloom.io. like I said, our website and our social media page is still in the works ’cause we’re so new. but I would love to have conversations with you, about how we can, help make your brand grow in a way that is.
Not just ethical, not just sustainable, but also authentic to you.

Rick: Awesome. Mack Rivkin, thank you so much. Again, we’ll leave your email in the show notes so people can reach out and hopefully, make more mindful choice when it comes to building a brand and a business that grows and it works. in the meantime, I wish you a wonderful day and, thank you again for being with us today.

Mack Rivkin: Thank you. Have a

Rick: good one. All right, bye everyone.