Whole Foods is an anomaly.  

On the one hand, they’re a $12.9 billion company.

On the other hand, they shun traditional marketing and advertising. (Oh, except for that little “Values Matter” campaign they launched, which was estimated to cost $15-20 million!)

The big question on many marketers’ minds is: Did the Values Matter campaign work, or was it a colossal waste of money?

Furthermore, will Whole Foods’ resistance to traditional marketing put their long-term fate in jeopardy?

I reached out to Joe Dobrow, who was head of marketing at Whole Foods in the late 1990s, to get his insights on the matter. In October 2014 Joe published an excellent article detailing “several inherent flaws” in the Values Matter campaign.

In the following interview, Joe shares his thoughts on why Whole Foods has been so successful, how they could have improved the Values Matter campaign, and what it was like being in charge of marketing at Whole Foods.

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