From Purpose to Presence: Building Brands That Mean Something with Eleazar Ruiz of Odd Notion

Kim Allchurch Flick: Hello everyone. Welcome to the podcast. This is Kim Allchurch Flick and today I am with Eleazar Ruiz, a wonderful human being who I met a few months ago. The business is odd notion and his the creator and director. Eleazar is a Dominican born award-winning brand strategist, creative director, and entrepreneur with almost two decades of experience in design teams, agencies, and startups.

Ruiz founded Odd Notion, a studio focused on brand development for business that benefits people and the planet. His approach centers on strategic clarity and visual storytelling guiding organizations from concept to confident brand launches. He has earned prestigious accolades, including Anthem Awards, brand new print, and the Webby Awards where he now serves as a judge.

Our topic today is from purpose to presence, how to build brands that mean something. 

Eleazar Ruiz: Thanks for having me. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Welcome. I am so glad to have you here. We met because of the. Basically the B Corps community in the Portland, Oregon area and beyond. And a lot of it is these brands were rebranding brands that I know, and when they were revealed, everyone said this was done by odd notion and what a great thing to do.

They were, they’re so unique. And then I got to meet you from Odd Notion and say, you’re the guy that did all that wonderful rebranding work. I’m excited to have you here. Welcome. And for the record, you also helped me with my rebrand, which will be announced later in the podcast series. 

Eleazar Ruiz: Awesome. Thanks for having me, and it was wonderful working with you. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: It’s been fun. What inspirations and values have come to light in your life journey to this point,

Eleazar Ruiz: Odd Notion got started. Because of a moment that all of us know and remember it wasn’t that long ago. It was 2020.

George Floyd I think for a yes, for a lot of people. That moment meant a lot of different things. For me was a moment of reflection into my own life and asking myself the question, have I done anything to, stop this from happening or have I done anything to yeah, help the problem get solved, and 

And the honest answer for me at the time was no I haven’t like actively served in my community in a way that I would feel proud of and in a way that would bring lasting change or a different outcome than what we saw and. That really was like a wake up call for me. And an inspiration.

I think most of the big moments in my life I have. They have been born out of pain. And odd notion. Odd notion was born out of pain out of seeing our world wrestle through that moment and feeling a bit powerless into what can I do to help. And yeah, our notion was born out of that urgency and feeling of.

Being, feeling paralyzed not feeling like we, I could do anything meaningful to prohibit that or to help that. And I’m like, I’m a graphic designer, like what can graphic design do? To change the world, I guess, and yeah. So I was like, I’m building, I was in the middle already of launching a studio with a different name and, and in the middle of that I was like, I feel like that moment was the, when the heart of a notion was implanted into the brand. Before it was just like, we’re just gonna help brands launch. Then that moment was like, no, no, no. We’re gonna launch these kinds of brands for this kind of purpose. And literally it was like a body with no heart.

And then that moment happened and the heart was implanted into it. And that’s where I felt the most passion about moving forward. Yeah. And that, so to me, everything’s built on this kind of urgency and. My selfish desire to do something and to show up and to feel good about showing up in a sense,

Kim Allchurch Flick: and 

Eleazar Ruiz: being present, I think that’s, I think that there’s three, three values that we run by now is presence, simplicity I forgot what the other one is, but, presence is about the idea that 

When big moments and big catastrophes happen in people’s lives, someone died and you showed up for them, you really didn’t fix the problem. That person’s still gone for them and they’re still suffering. And all you had to do was show up and be present and be there for them. And I think that concept translates to cultural moments where we’re like, well, I can’t change racism or I can’t change a lot of the problems that we’re seeing today as an individual, I cannot really do anything about it.

But collectively and with presence, I think we can do something. And really it requires just being present and being there and available to collectively with that group of people to do something about a problem. So I believe in presence. Like I may not have all the tools and all the things, but showing up goes a really, really long way.

Worst case scenario, I’ll learn something. Best case scenario, I link up with a group of people that want to do that and we’re able to to move the needle together. So that’s one value that has been really important for me and to remove the performance I would say Western mentality of like results.

And. I need to come, I need to go to this place. I need to get something out of it. And removing that mentality from my engagement with community is more about showing up whether I get something out of it or not. About showing up. So show up. It’s really the name of the valley is show up.

Just show up and see what happens. I think the other one values simplicity. I didn’t really reinvent myself and learned a whole new I didn’t learn a whole new skill. I didn’t learn a whole new set of anything to make an impact. I leveraged what I already knew to do something so that, I call that simplicity.

A lot of people get paralyzed by, oh man, I can’t change, I have to be a politician to move the needle. I have to learn social justice. I need to learn like all these laws. I need to learn. I, there’s so many hurdles that I have to jump over in order to do something, and I’m like, like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Actually, it could be very simple. You’re not, that people are not wrong in thinking, I need to be a politician to change something. They’re not wrong in thinking that, but I think they’re wrong in being paralyzed by not being a politician. And I would say, something that has helped me is what’s in my hand.

What’s currently in my hand that I can use to drive change. And so that has been, so for me is graphic design. I’m a strategist. I know marketing. I’m a brand person. Like I’m, I know how to influence culture through brand. And I know how to say things through the power of brand, and I use every single one of our engagements to say something about what they’re doing that I also want to say that I think is worth saying.

And brand is a great tool to say stuff. And some of it gets like culturally relevant and exposure. And that message spreads really big. And I would say simplicity is, I think, catalytic, to understanding like my role in the impact world, if you will if I wanna make an impact.

I think simplicity. Simplicity is huge. So show up. Use what you know, use what you know and do something with what you know. Yeah, man, I forgot what’s the, what the third value is. So I’ll revisit how important it is, but I re I remember it being very important. But those, I think simplicity and presence has been like the most impactful values in the last few years for me.

Kim Allchurch Flick: And I think being around you, I’ve also noticed that you exude the values even if they aren’t spoken and see that in the work. What do you see in the community and as your worldview as good in the, and what are some examples of how your work has inspired others?

Eleazar Ruiz: Man I’ve seen some folks have emailed me, especially when we launched our we, one of the ways that we show up is that we donate pro bono brand work to minority owned businesses. And 

Kim Allchurch Flick: yes, 

Eleazar Ruiz: Some folks have reached out to us saying, Hey. I was like, I think that’s really dope.

I’m like, like this is another like, service industry owner. Business type of person. And they’ll, they reach out like, Hey, that’s a great idea. You inspire me to do the same. So they like started to do pro bono work for causes and organizations and people that they’re passionate about.

So some folks have reached out and said thanks for the inspiration. That’s awesome. Yeah I think, I would love to think, I think one of my goals is to, mobilize through passion and inspiration. And I would like to think that whenever I, we engage with a client.

At least we definitely get that feedback is that, some folks come in and they’re like, they’re coming like, Hey, I need a new logo, I need a new website. And they come out feeling really like motivated and really inspired. And really moved. And I think that’s because, we really get to the heart of the thing that they’re doing that most of the time they forgot why.

We literally, first question we ask when we jump in a call in a three hour call, it’s like, why? Why should I care? Why do you wake up in the morning? Why should anybody care? I 

Kim Allchurch Flick: love it 

Eleazar Ruiz: about what you’re doing. That starts to like really dig about the thing to remind them, oh, I started this ’cause I’m so passionate about honey, or, I’m so passionate about whatever, and I’m so passionate about health.

I’m so passionate about this. I’m so passionate about kids, or, I’m so passionate about education. I’m so passionate about all these different stuff. And they just get going. And the kind of like, my job is almost kinda not done, but there’s the flame. Like whenever I can see the flame.

When I see the flame, I’m like, oh, okay. There it is. And I can always pinpoint it in a strategy call. I know I got something when I see the flame in the founders. Speed of speech, they talk to start fast and passionate or whatever or they get really angry or they get really riled up.

I was like, okay. I’m like, I’m up to something here. And so I’m looking, that’s what I’m digging for, and I think folks are, they need that reminder. And so our strategy sessions really help them be reminded of that. And then he hones them in and centers them. So now they can rebuild or continue to move in the direction that they started with, and be reminded of that.

And then we build a whole, we either rebrand or brand from the beginning and just like really energize, bring that into the energy of the brand and launch in the brand. Literally the call that I was in right before this one it was like someone that we’ve been helping for the last six months. And they’re about to launch this week.

They’re gonna like launch at a conference. They, we did a booth for them and she’s like, oh, giddy. And like happy and stoked and and yeah, just feeling, seeing it all come together and her feeling really energized, like really gives me a lot of energy as well. But yeah, I think our impact’s really, it’s a great question.

I think our impact is really in like a. Encouraging the people that are already doing good work to keep doing that good work. And we use brand as a way to re-energize them. ’cause they’re the ones doing the work, we’re just here to let me equip you and help you do your work better, and more effectively and reach more people through brand.

But you’re the one doing the work up there. Out there doing it. We’re just trying to give you as many tools as possible for you to be effective at it. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And I’ve seen that being a part of that as well for my own brand, which will launch fairly soon. But the other one we’re in a group working together and it is inspiring and we do talk faster and we do get excited.

And for listeners, the, I’ve also noticed that the beautiful genius way you work is people don’t come in and say, I wanna rename my company to whatever. You’re not gonna let that happen. It’s much more experiential than that. And it, and I also love how you bring up, it’s good to take a left and have examples.

So what do you mean by take a left? 

Eleazar Ruiz: Yeah. If you’re doing any kind of a branding effort for yourself the. The goal should be differentiation. Everybody’s taking a right. You take a left. There is a book on branding called SIG Sag or it’s called sag, I think I’m actually looking at it right now. And that’s, it’s like literally the synonym of left, just take a left zag where everybody’s zigging, go to the other opposite direction.

It’s also if you are familiar with the ocean the blue ocean strategy, it’s the same concept of a red ocean is an ocean where there’s lots of sharks and they’re eating everything. And you don’t want to be in a red ocean. It is a lot of competition. You don’t want to be there.

You wanna go to a blue ocean, no blood, no one’s fighting, it’s open skies, like the, you want to go where nobody’s going. And that’s good for business. It gives you more opportunity, makes you stand out, all that stuff. But in branding, it’s also that same idea of just take a left, like really go completely the other.

The other direction within your industry in order to stand out in order to communicate your unique value proposition. And I use the analogy of my own experience as an immigrant to talk about this. We, our tagline as a brand is Embrace your difference. That is speaking to brands, telling brands, embrace your difference.

Take a left.

Your difference. It is the one predicator and there’s it’s so important, at least when it comes to branding to differentiate if you wanna win in business. There’s so many people solving that same problem. Why should I choose you? Why, how are you choosing that?

How are you solving that problem that I should choose you over the others? So it is very important. But I use the immigrant experience, which is an experience of assimilation. It’s an experience of trying to survive, brands are doing the same thing. So brands when I talk to a founder, they’re trying to launch, they have some ideas of what they’re gonna do or how they’re gonna look like, potentially because they are seeing other people do it. And so they’re like, oh, I think it’s gonna look like this. I think it’s gonna be named this, and here’s some references. Here’s some other folks that are doing it. And so if we don’t get involved, really they’re just going to look like them and do what those other businesses are doing.

Maybe slightly different, communicate a little bit differently, but at the end of the day. They’re gonna present themselves very similarly to how their competitors are presenting themselves. And that is a desire for lowering risk. 

A desire for Hey, if you work for them, you should work for me.

So why not just do what they’re doing? So lowering risk, survival, what immigrants do we assimilate, we try to imitate and become as much as the majority culture. To remove risk, lower risk we wanna be accepted, we want to get the jobs, we wanna do all that stuff. So we’re gonna remove risk by becoming like everybody else.

I people do that. Brands do that. Brands are run by people. That’s why the psychology works and lines up. And I think that’s the brand experience, that’s the immigrant experience. And so we’re like. My own journey was 10 years of assimilation, 10 years of fitting in, 10 years of dress, trying to dress like everybody else was dressing trying to get the same haircuts, the same facial, the same, trying to remove my accent, trying to like, just survive, trying to not stand out. But standing out is eventually what gave me freedom as a human being and the most happiness.

And I think in the business world, different freedom and difference and embracing your difference is what gives you the most business leverage. And so for a psychologically, for a person, it’s really healthy and really awesome. It feels great. And for a business. It just creates this like infusion of cash if you do it well, that allows you to be healthy as a business.

And so I just see that correlation and that’s why, that’s our tagline. And that’s what we mean by take a left, embrace your difference. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I love that. And also your company notion is a B Corps as is mine. And this community is important. And with that. What obstacles and challenges do you see along the way?

Eleazar Ruiz: Yeah I’m actually experiencing it right now. I think, the B Corp community, anybody who’s doing, like a lot of the folks that are doing like, good through their business and try to make an impact and are very intentional about that. We all have kinda I noticed just in the room there’s an energy of a lot of optimism for sure.

But I think at least in the conversations that I’m a part of this feels just to be like let’s do good. And sometimes the real, the realistic expectations of what a business needs to be. Kind of get forgotten, we’re so focused and so energized by doing good that we don’t do a good job at running our business.

In order for you to do an, to make, to be impactful, you also have to run a healthy business to do that. You wouldn’t, you couldn’t do it without it. And so running a healthy business is just as important. I think because we’re such typically our community, we’re givers, we’re very generous. We’re willing to take LS even when they don’t make any sense financially.

We’re just willing to do it ’cause we’re, we are passionate about making an impact. And I think the side of the coin that’s not great is that we sacrifice the livelihood of our business to do that. And I think the challenge is running a healthy business. That’s fiscally responsible and is doing really well while also care caring about the community and being impactful in that front as well.

I think doing both of those with the right amount of tension is really challenging. And so I’m notion ourselves, we’re in this for the last maybe nine months year, we’re like balancing ourselves a little bit. ’cause we started with this, we’re. Trying to show up, this conviction that we need to show up, we need to do right by our community.

We need to do all this stuff. And because we’re, we were so focused on that, I think some of the bi more of the business metrics things start to not really work out the way that we wanted to for them to work. And so we’re like in this, trying to like fine tune and. Create the right amount of tension between the business side and the purpose side and have more of a balance there.

And so I think the challenge is just like, how do you make money and also show off for your community and have time to do it all and do it all responsibly and with the right amount of tension, i’m a very intense. Like I’m a one track runner I’m a sprinter, and so doing multiple things and doing it well and the balance act is really challenging.

So that has been probably, I think what I see other people cha wrestling with and what I’m wrestling with myself. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Indeed and Sprints, that’s how you run rebranding and doing the work is in sprints and they are fast and they are informative and they are so amazing. I wanna speak to you about this as well because I heard a quote that values should be marketed like a product and I know in my work and just observations, being a business coach and I’ve seen extremes.

Like companies that are really good at marketing their product or services, but their values are nowhere to be seen. And I’ve also seen front page values all over the place. But you have to look and see what are they selling? What did they do? And somewhere in between you meet this sweet spot.

And we also know from Nielsen studies. That back to 20 14, 20 17, there’s several studies pointing in the same direction. I’d say that, and I’m paraphrasing, but two thirds of consumers globally are willing to pay more for products and services when they know a company has good values. 

And my question and what I work on is, okay, fine, they’re looking and you have values, or this company has values.

Where’s that straight line between finding. And between wanting good values and finding, and granted certifications do give directories and there’s some Google searching that can happen. But in between that, in my experience, if I’m looking for something and I use words like eco-friendly or sustainable or impact, or it’s a sea of mess to try and really pinpoint, I love what you say about, the being so values driven and the right amount of tension. What could you speak to that a bit about? You gotta make money, sell your product and service and be found for those values as well. Because if you can express values, people should know. 

Eleazar Ruiz: Yeah, I think we have a when it comes to marketing, we have a more we go with where the customer is.

We’re not like sitting around. Waiting to be found where at least ourselves. Like the way I run marketing for that notion, it’s very we’re gonna go to them and we’re gonna so we, if you follow us or if you know anything about us, we have a podcast as well. We have video content, we have video content on LinkedIn.

And that’s our way of we’re gonna get in front of you. We’re not gonna rely purely on, SEO or like being found on Google. We’re gonna no, no, no, we’re gonna, we’re gonna get in front of you and we’re gonna be talking about this stuff. And, we’re in the middle of, we’re gonna release some content that we recorded over the summer last year.

And it’s all about putting, creating the conversation on social, at least for us on LinkedIn, creating that conversation around. The values creating around how the values and the bridge between the values and the work and brand and that sort of thing, and really bridging that gap.

But I think, yeah, I think something that has also been super helpful for us in bridging the gap between business and impact is we have higher the Impact Collective, which they’re like another consulting firm in town. And they help folks like us figure out and figure out how to line up the business outcomes with the strategy and that sort of thing.

And yeah, we, they helped us a lot with connecting these are our three values. And I found my third one. My third one is actually the most important one is hope.

Kim Allchurch Flick: Oh, beautiful. 

Eleazar Ruiz: So it’s hope, simplicity, and presence. I can do neither simplicity or presence without hope. ’cause hope is the idea that I believe that showing up works.

I believe that I can make, I can move the needle if I show up and if I use my skills. I gotta have hope first before I can do those things. And so we literally created a framework for the business that Hope is our business line, is our purpose line. And that thing shows up in many, many ways, in different ways throughout the business and throughout our purpose.

And we’re delivering on both. Profit planet and people we’re delivering all three of them at each column on simplicity. How are we doing simplicity? How are we doing hope, and how are we doing presence? And so presence for us is like events. We put events together. We talk about those subjects.

Sometimes we charge for them, sometimes we don’t charge for them. So that’s where like the profit part of it, like how do we make sense? How well do we make that sustainable from a business standpoint? Sometimes we get a sponsor so we have somebody else pay for it, and just figure out the business of it.

You can’t do it all for free, simplicity is a lot of what we do with. Dream Night, which is our pro bono initiative. Simplicity because is our, we’re using our own skills, like we’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re using our skills, we grabbing underserved community, and we’re saying, we’re gonna help you with our skills.

So that’s simplicity. We’re not changing. We’re delivering to them exactly the same service as we deliver our pay clients. We’re not rewiring that. We’re not, it’s based similar to like when you have a product company like Tom’s, these shoes, it’s the same shoe. You’re making the same shoes, the same factor, it’s the same process is the same, everything.

You’re just shipping it to a different place. It’s that same idea. How do you, 

How do you not reinvent the wheel in order to deliver impact? And so because it doesn’t make sense to, to which is a business problem, like it doesn’t make sense to reinvent the wheel for something you’re gonna do for free.

So how do you make the business work? How do you keep the tension between the business, the needs of the business and the needs of your community? And so I’m like, okay, well, we can fix that by just using the same business, with the same people, with the same skills, with the same process, with the same deliverables that we use on the business.

And we let’s just repurpose it and do it for people that need it. And so it’s always finding that oh, how can we. Use our business structure to deliver on this thing. So yeah I think it’s always, I think that’s always the challenging part. I think it’s very easy to do purpose with no business and to do business with no purpose.

But it’s really hard. It’s, it can be very hard to do bo both with tension and delivering on bo on both fronts. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Indeed. And do you see, or do you experience and observe businesses as a force for good? Do you think that’s possible? 

Eleazar Ruiz: We believe that we wouldn’t, yes. We wouldn’t do what we do without that notion.

I think it’s our responsibility. I think especially the bigger guys, I think start small. But I think the bigger guys have even more of a responsibility just because they have more access to the we wealth and marketing. And people. And users, and they have a bigger microphone. They have. They just have more responsibilities like the Spider-Man line, with more responsibility, it comes with great power, comes great responsibility. And so it’s, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: yes, 

Eleazar Ruiz: the more power you have, you need more responsibility. But I don’t believe that that’s only reserved for the big guys, we mostly serve small businesses and so I think while it’s hard for us to do it because we’re smaller and we don’t have as much margin and all this different stuff, I think if you don’t start small, there’s a risk that you may never start at all. It’s harder to do when you’re bigger but if you started with those values and you built your business with those values it’s hard to get away from them too. I think. I think the best place to start with those values is at the beginning is the easiest.

It’s easiest to become a B Corp when you’re small is easiest. Like it’s just easier all around. And then you just build on top of that. And even, yeah, so I would say, I forgot what the question was, but I hopefully I answered it. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I think you did. Absolutely. And what makes you optimistic? 

Eleazar Ruiz: The collective really, there’s so many people in Portland and beyond, but I’m connected to the Portland community.

They’re doing so much awesome work out there. And I don’t think we speak about it enough. There’s so many amazing things that are in the works right now, like the 1803 fund stuff that’s happening locally. There’s. Ibin trust. There’s so many amazing, inspiring things that are happening around us that gives me a lot of optimism.

Doesn’t make me feel as alone. I’m not the only one who’s seeing the problems. Other folks are seeing those same problems. And they’re getting to it, and so we’re not passive, we’re I think a lot of us are moving forward and we’re pushing. So that makes me really optimistic.

We’re not being passive in our work. Yeah the collective is really, I think I’m also like super optimistic about this sounds as a creative, probably super nerdy, but the power of creativity continues to be a very powerful force. I think there are, I think there’s something about creativity similar to comedians.

Comedians can get away with saying a lot of crazy stuff in the middle of their show. And a lot of the times get away with it, and. I think it’s because comedy kind of lowers the walls, it opens people up to a new form of communication that has a wink to it that 

Just allows for the message to land in a less confronting way. I think creativity is just the same. Comedy is creativity, but visual arts. Art in general brands really employ to do their, to do, deliver their message is really powerful. You can create cultural moments around that stuff and and so I’m always optimistic about the power of art.

I think there’s something about art that, what art can do that politics cannot do. There are arguments that there’s arguments that art can have with people that politicians cannot have with people and win. And so like their election or whatever. But art can have that kind of conversation in a way that people are willing to engage with it.

So I’m always optimistic about my craft and the power that my craft has to deliver that message,

Kim Allchurch Flick: and you are very artistic and branding is such an art form as well. It’s incredible. I will put in the show notes the Albin Trust in 1803 links, so listeners can see that this is about formerly and currently displaced communities over the past 70.

Even more recent years and starting to reverse those trends, but understanding history brings us to a place where it’s important to make amends. And there’s some great things happening in the area and I really appreciate that. Is there anything else you’d like to add and how can people reach you?

Eleazar Ruiz: No, I think that, thank you for all the wonderful questions. This was super fun. Yeah, I, you can find us on Instagram, at LinkedIn odd Notion Studio. And we have a podcast called Sony Brands. You can listen to that. A lot of conversations like this one where we kinda, we dissect different brands.

And we figure out like. How are they doing it? What can we learn from the way that they’re doing it? So we cover any, we cover like Lego, we cover Patagonia of course, and we cover several brands there that we try to learn how are they integrating purpose into their massive business. Yes, we cover a few smaller folks as well, and we wanna continue to do that.

And then our website is@notion.com. You can find us there. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I love the Sunny Brands Podcast and I have learned so much. And there’s also the term social enterprise, like define it. Some companies are created or there’s an innovation where the product or service itself is the innovation is the doing good in the world.

And then there are other companies in two I Portland come to mind. One does oil changes and one does trash and recycling on a commercial scale. And they’re both B cores and part of that is some innovation in that space. Which is still a space that it has trash and recycle or oil changes can have some ne negative impact.

And yet they’ve found innovative ways to do it and it’s the way they treat their employees, run the company, work with their communities that make them that social enterprise. And I love so brands for bringing up topics like that saying, is this product really a social enterprise? Probably not, but the way they’re running the companies and doing things for the community really is, so, I highly recommend everybody go to Sunny Brands as well, so thank you for that.

Of course. Last question. If you could have dinner with anyone living or deceased up to one, one person, or up to a table of four, including you who would those people be and why? 

Eleazar Ruiz: Man. Yeah, that’s so tough. For selfish reasons. I would probably want to have a long conversation with my grandparents on both sides, so that kind of fills the room already.

There’s just a lot That’s 

Kim Allchurch Flick: so beautiful though. 

Eleazar Ruiz: There’s a lot about my background that I don’t know. And I just wanna know more. Yeah. And, I’m also, religious and I obviously would love to have a conversation with Jesus and see what all of this stuff is all about. So that, that would be really interesting for me as well.

Kim Allchurch Flick: That would be incredible. Thank you so much. You are such a joy to spend time with, every moment is creativity like possibility. Fast-paced often and truly Wonderful. 

Eleazar Ruiz: Amazing. Thanks so much. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Take care everyone. Have a good day.