Wear Good with TOMS
TOMS’ deeply rooted philosophy and mission is to improve lives by helping fund access to mental health resources for the millions of people who need them. Their Wear Good ethos inspired their Spring collection, a representation of the beautiful ways people incorporate Wear Good into their lives. Their goal is that Wear Good will encourage unique style, bring comfort to people’s feet and souls, and shine a bright light on the conversation around mental health!
TOMS recently featured Tay for her work in the mental health space, so the Lemons team sat down with Chief Brand Officer Amy Smith to talk about her role at TOMS and her personal journey with mental health. We hope you enjoy reading our conversation with Amy!
What are tools you use when you're struggling?
“Our family has a set of mantras. We have a print-out list that we put on the kitchen counter, and every day we take turns choosing one. It really helps ground you with whatever is going on in your life. Even though we rotate, I might sometimes say “I need to go today because I know that I'm feeling really nervous about what's happening at work”. My daughter might have a test. I might have a presentation. It's all okay and we have these conversations to normalize anxiety.
I also talk to my friends and get a different perspective on what I'm struggling with. Being able to share it out loud makes it not feel so scary, because sometimes when you're in your own head feeling anxious or sad, your first reaction may be, “Keep it in. Don't talk about it”. I have a wonderful group of friends that I know love me and don't judge me when I'm struggling, and they are able to provide a different perspective, mentoring, and support.”
What has been your own personal experience with mental health?
“When I was growing up, mental health wasn't much of a conversation. It wasn't something we really talked about in our family. I grew up in a very loving family, but mental health wasn’t part of the dialogue and conversation.
I've been really conscious of that since I've had kids, especially because they’ve been exposed to COVID and everything else that's so hard for this next generation of kids growing up. I've been not only more aware of my own mental health, but also how I am showing up for them in their own mental health. So I’ve been doing my own homework, to 1: Be aware, 2: Normalize, and 3: Know that it's okay to talk about it and get support when you need it.
I’m a pretty busy person with kids and a job, so how I'm raising my kids and how I'm supporting myself is something that I really try to remember in the hardest moments.”
What is your favorite form of selfcare?
“Exercise is the most helpful form of self-care for me. I know everyone's like, “Oh, that's the one everyone says!”, but it really is super specific for me.
Walking and doing an indoor cycling class are the two that really allow me to let my mind go, let my responsibilities go, and do something 100% for myself. Indoor cycling is rhythmic, loud, in a dark room, and I don't have to be in charge. Somebody else is telling me what to do and I don't have a choice, I just have to keep taking deep breaths. I do that three or four times a week, then I try to walk almost every day. Sometimes I’ll walk while listening to a podcast, or sometimes I’ll be tackling a challenge at work, thinking through something that somebody else is going through, or just trying to be creative. I always feel better. Even if I get up early to work out and I feel like I'm too tired, I always feel better afterwards. I think without exercise, I would really, really struggle.”
What is your role at TOMS?
“I've been with TOMS for about seven years and I started as the Chief Giving Officer. When I joined, we were giving shoes One for One® and now we give a third of our profits to help support mental health. Now as the Chief Brand Officer, I'm responsible for all of the departments that touch on our brand, such as marketing, creative, impact, and toms.com business. I also oversee company-wide strategy…I have a deep passion for strategic thinking and big problem solving.
One of my favorite things is to get a really big problem and dissect it to figure out how to solve it. As the Chief Brand Officer with an incredibly amazing team, I get to be the brand ambassador and tackle the big challenges of the brand, helping to bring together our beautiful product to life with the incredible work that TOMS does.
Every day is different, which I also love. I always say to the team, “If it was easy, we wouldn't have chosen to work at TOMS because bringing impact and product together is tricky”. You want to put something beautiful forward that someone wants to wear, and you also want to remind them that every time they choose to purchase with TOMS, they're doing something really important in the world. That's a lot of messages to get across. So we're always trying to tackle that and work together as a team to bring the impact, the marketing, and the creative all together in a way that is easy for our community to digest and excites them to make them feel connected as part of the TOMS community.”
What made TOMS switch from their tagline?
“ It's something that has been a labor of love over a couple of years. When I joined the organization, I was their Chief Giving Officer and responsible for giving shoes. We were just coming up on a 100 million lives impacted which was a very proud moment for us. It was also a reflective moment, because I felt really responsible to ensure that we were making the greatest impact we could with our consumers' dollars. They were choosing to buy products from TOMS and trusting us to do great things in the world with it. We had certainly done that with One for One® and shoe giving, but we felt like we could do even more.
We felt that there were things that we wanted to take on around issues that were most prevalent in the United States, because that's where most of our consumers are. Shoe giving was really important, but we'd made great progress on shoes. We took our learnings from what we did One for One®, and applied it to what the biggest issues our communities were facing.
We came to the realization that we had some expertise in mental health because of the things we were able to accomplish by giving a child new, well fitted, and activity-appropriate pairs of shoes. Their confidence was boosted and they felt more brave to try new things. We wanted to apply that in a way that was a little more directed and grounded at the community of supporters that we had. So we chose to go down the path with mental health. This was actually before the pandemic, but our path was solidified during the pandemic with all of the implications it had on all of us.
Although the idea of buying something and then giving is still alive and well, the One for One® tagline didn't really seem to make as much sense anymore. We moved to giving a third of our profits to support mental health, which is really the same amount that we were doing with shoe giving.
Now we are giving grants to organizations focused on mental health. We needed to think about what that means to the consumer and what the consumer’s role is now. Their role really is to wear good. They're going to wear this beautiful product that TOMS puts out into the world, and that is going to trigger an action that supports mental health. By wearing beautiful TOMS products, you're living a joyful life, taking care of your mental health, and you're helping others all at the same time.
That's what we've been doing with the campaign - bringing awareness and meaning to wearing good. It’s the intersection of stylish comfort, great impact in the world, and how individual communities and individual consumers can make that come to life. You can still get all this new, beautiful product, and we're still giving…we're just giving in a new, really important and special way.”
What makes TOMS different?
“From an employee standpoint, what makes TOMS so different and so special is that this is a group of people who share a set of values and are so deeply passionate about making the world a better place.
What's also incredibly special is how we have figured out how to help people wear good. How we have brought beautiful products together with a really important issue in the world, that when they choose to purchase TOMS, they get to make an impact in that way. As the pioneer of profit and purpose, we're proud to be on the forefront of innovation in this space.
Another thing that differentiates TOMS is the way we partner with our impact partners. We have really deep partnerships with the nonprofits that we support. We try to support them with what they need most to be successful. Sometimes that's not always the way companies approach it. Sometimes they'll say to a nonprofit, “We really want to be able to tell this story…can you help us do that?”. Which is a fine way to go about it, we just don't choose to do that at TOMS.
We try to say, “What do you need, what are you trying to accomplish, what are your biggest challenges, and how can we help you tackle those?”. There are many different ways that we go about it…but it's not just a grant-based approach. It's a deep partnership to help support them and what they need most to support their community.”
We want to thank Amy Smith and TOMS for their important work and dedication to the mental health space! Be sure to check out Tay’s story and to shop the Wear Good collection!
