Buckeye to Buckeye: How an EMBA connection sparked a nationwide brand experience

Rhonda Hoffman remembers the speaker’s words: “Believe in the power of place.”

She was enrolled in Fisher’s Executive MBA program at the time, and the guest lecturer in her Thursday evening entrepreneurship class, Rachel Friedman, made a lasting impression. So much so that nearly a decade later, Hoffman contacted Friedman ― one EMBA grad to another — with a business proposal.

“I was really inspired by a strong female leader who was clearly in touch with people and knew how to connect with them in a very intentional, strategic way,” said Hoffman. “Her work is so inspiring because it really galvanizes people around a company’s core purpose and vision.” 

Friedman (EMBA ’02) has spent her career building and showcasing brands. She was on the verge of launching her own brand consulting and creative firm, TENFOLD, when she spoke to Hoffman’s class in 2013.  In 2021, Friedman added TENSPACE, an experiential brick-and-mortar retail space for online brands.

Hoffman (EMBA ’13) is the chief growth officer for Pharmavite, the company that oversees vitamin and dietary supplement giant Nature Made. In her role, Hoffman directs the brand’s enterprise strategy, including research and development, marketing, innovation and consumer experience.

When Pharmavite announced plans to expand Nature Made’s production of gummy vitamins through the construction of a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in the Columbus, Ohio, suburb of New Albany, Hoffman remembered Friedman, their Ohio State connection and those words about place.

“We wanted to introduce our company and the brand to the people of the greater Columbus region, so they can learn more and share in our pride that Nature Made vitamins are now made in Ohio,” Hoffman said. “It is part of our core values that when we operate in a community, we strive to become a part of the fabric of that community.”

Interaction with Nature Made products typically happens in stores, where consumers find shelves of vitamin options and competitive brands.

“I thought, we really need to be face-to-face with the consumer to take away that sometimes-overwhelming shopping experience at the shelf, and to engage with them in unique and meaningful ways,” Hoffman said.

That’s when she called Friedman. Hoffman had followed Friedman’s career on LinkedIn and saw her work promoting online brands at TENSPACE. She wondered if Friedman could do the same with Nature Made.

While TENSPACE was created to feature innovative and online-exclusive products, Friedman was impressed by Hoffman’s desire and willingness to showcase the 54-year-old Nature Made brand in a new and creative way.

“I would describe Rhonda as having bold visionary leadership to lean into something unique like TENSPACE and to see the value in it,” said Friedman. “We are a full turn-key solution for a brand. They provide us with the inventory and permissions to bring the brand to life through experience. Brands like Nature Made have a very clear idea what their brand stands for, but they don’t know how their brand would live in the physical environment.”

In the case of Nature Made, TENSPACE’s creative designers asked, “If Nature Made was a place, what would it look like?”

Ultimately, Friedman and her team took Nature Made’s values, along with the brand’s identifiers — self-care, pharmacist-recommended and optimism and joy — and incorporated them into an interactive consumer experience in the 1,700-square-foot TENSPACE retail space located in Columbus’ Short North.

For three months last spring, visitors to TENSPACE x Nature Made could walk into a storefront awash in Nature Made yellow, write their personal wellness goals on paper butterflies, spin the wheel of health to win prizes, visit designated stations to learn about the impact of different nutrients on the body and engage with their health in a joyful way.

“They took all the core elements associated with our brand and connected them back to this experience,” said Hoffman.

The Columbus pop-up was so successful that Nature Made hired TENSPACE to create a similar experience in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, where TENSPACE was able to secure a short-term lease on a space three times the size of the Short North location. 

“We built the muscle [in Columbus], we prototyped, we learned, we knew what to do, and it gave us a lot of confidence going into New York City to say, ‘Yeah, we’ve done this; let’s go do it,’” said Friedman.   

The Manhattan pop-up debuted on October 7 with a spectacular grand opening featuring expanded displays and a celebrity guest, actress Mindy Kaling. It will continue to offer consumers a unique immersive wellness experience through January 2026.

“We had a brand that wanted to do something bigger, and we had the opportunity to take it to the biggest market in the world,” said Friedman. 

The engagement with the Nature Made brand has grown exponentially in New York, with about 15,000 people walking through the 5,000-square-foot retail space within the first month. Many of those people posted their experiences to social media. In fact, Friedman and her team calculated more than 4.2 billion impressions online in the first four weeks they were open.

Like Columbus, visitors to the New York pop-up engage with the product through an array of activities and displays, many of those replicated on a larger scale, including the three 13-foot trees adorned with hand-painted leaves — another Nature Made identifier. 

“Whether you know about the brand or not, we’re creating inspired and emotionally connected experiences that will educate and inform and uplift,” said Friedman. “People are inspired. People are touched. One woman said, ‘This isn’t a store; this is a story.’”

Friedman remembers standing with Hoffman during a press event in the New York space and taking in the building’s transformation, Kaling and the many media representatives in attendance. 

“I said, ‘This all started because of a conversation between you and me, and look what we did,’” said Friedman. “My relationship with Rhonda has reminded me that a casual conversation can lead to something life changing.”

“There is a ripple effect that happens when you get two Buckeyes together. There is a quick level of trust that you build when you have that bond.” 

Friedman was part of the first EMBA cohort. Hoffman was a member of the 12^th. Both made strategy — in leadership and business — the focus of their degrees.

“The strategy that was taught at Fisher was a huge unlock for me, as a professional and as an employee. It is what led to me starting my own business,” said Friedman, who now serves on Fisher’s Alumni Advisory Board and is board director of The Ohio State University Alumni Association.

Hoffman credits the EMBA curriculum for giving her a well-rounded understanding of the key aspects of running a successful business.

“At the core of that was deep strategic capability, and I think that’s what brought Rachel and I together for this experience,” said Hoffman. “She has a great strategic view on how you use the power of place to connect people with brands. I saw that as well and connected to her, and that’s where the magic really happened.”

Friedman’s company, TENFOLD, eventually trademarked the “believe in the power of place” tagline. 

“The idea is that space is a message, space has meaning, space can be leveraged to communicate your brand and your culture,” said Friedman. “And today, it is so much more than that. It is the place where extraordinary experiences can be created.”

It may also be the place where alumni connections take root and generate possibilities.

“This was a great reminder to me that when I have something I need to solve, look to Ohio State and the network of alumni first,” said Hoffman. “It is just such a vast network of people who I know are smart, capable and willing.”

Photos courtesy of Nature Made