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From Hooters to Building a Health Empire: Rewriting the Wellness Playbook with Kat Cole
Episode Description
Recorded on the sidelines of Brandweek, this episode of Adspeak by ADWEEK features Jenny Rooney in conversation with AG1 CEO Kat Cole. Kat shares her journey from a Hooters hostess to leading a global wellness brand, unpacking how resilience and intuition shape bold leadership decisions. She explains AG1’s evolution from a single-product DTC business to a multi-product, multi-channel brand, including its first global “Good Morning Moon” campaign created in-house with Rick Rubin. Cole also reveals why AG1 redirected marketing spend into $20M of clinical research, upgraded its core formula, and positioned a new sleep product to compete with Netflix, not supplements.
What You'll Learn:
- How to involve your CEO in creative development from concept to launch
- Why rebranding at $160M in revenue is worth the risk
- The power of listening to customers closest to the transaction
- How to redirect marketing spend toward clinical credibility in saturated categories
- Why reformulating a bestselling product is a calculated courage play
- The importance of knowing who you actually compete against
About the Guest:
Kat Cole is Chief Executive Officer of AG1, the leading daily health drink brand. With a distinctive career trajectory spanning restaurant franchising, brand turnarounds, and large-scale portfolio management at Focus Brands (overseeing $4B+ in annual revenue across nine brands), Kat brings operational excellence and entrepreneurial thinking to the health and wellness space. She transformed Cinnabon from a $300 million struggling brand to over $1 billion in revenue within two years and spearheaded the evolution of Carvel, Jamba Juice, and other iconic franchises.
Guest Resources:
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