Difference versus Distinction - Marketing by Indication – an Interview with Siena Dexter - Ep. 52

Foreign.

Welcome, everybody, to this edition of CPG Insiders. I'm your host, Dr. Mark Young. It just sounds weird when I say that. And Dr. Justin Gerard, my co host. I just gave you a doctorate.

Oh, okay. Honorary doctorate from our job.

It's an honorary doctor. Just take it, run with it.

Yeah, no problem.

Yeah.

Gotta change the email now.

Yeah, you gotta redo the email. But you do have an mba.

You have that.

So I mean, that's impressive.

Yeah.

So on today's show, folks, we're going to have a guest. And our guest today is Sienna Dexter. Now, s. Sienna is a partner at Smash brand and they work in the consumer packaged goods industry. And you guys do a lot in package design, but a lot in metrics and everything too. So how about if we start off by telling us what you do?

What do we do? So we are a branding agency with a difference. We work predominantly with FMCG brands. And what we do different is we have found a way to use data to help our clients understand the unpredictable, which is creative. So that's the biggest client challenges. You know, you've got, you've got, you know, you'll know kind of as the founder of a design agency, design, design and creativity is the most unpredictable force on earth. Right? And what is saying, you know, this looks good. This is fantastic. It reads well. It's very difficult to quantify. Is this going to perform on shelf? So we work specifically with brands that want to perform on shelf by helping them understand how their story is resonating with consumers through market testing.

So how do you do that?

In a nutshell, how do we do that? Yeah, well, it's not, it's not as simple as kind of which, you know, which design do you most like or which of these would you choose? Which I think, you know, anyone could very easily go online, get a survey, get a bunch of participants, and then go, okay, which do you prefer? The process is actually a lot more complicated and a lot more in depth. My colleague Michael actually runs the consumer data testing and he could certainly talk about that until. Until the cows come home. But what I can tell you and what kind of our clients and what you know. Well, I guess kind of your listeners will want to know is how we manage to get the idea, the story, the essence of a brand, and then test that. So that happens through putting together a test or consumer test. And it is quantifiable tests. They're not qualitative responses, but they are detailed quantitative responses, which means that we're able to test how well the story that we're telling on pac, our brief, our strategy, the message that we're trying to deliver to our customers, and also those metrics that we've identified at the beginning. For example, understanding what's important to our consumers, what really makes them tick. And I'm not going to say what keeps them up all night, because often that's not the thing that's going to make them buy your product, is it? It's that thing that they do want that they are missing is, you know, is their brand of mayonnaise boring them? Are they really bored of seltzer as like the everyday drink? What do they actually want? It's mapping out how that story transpires on pack and then testing. Are those metrics that we identified as important to our consumers? Are they working? By doing that, we help our clients understand which of a wide range of designs that we put forward towards testing is going to connect with the audience the most. Sometimes it doesn't go to plan, like sometimes our clients will want to go a different way, but it's our job to at least present the data to them and then let them make their minds up.

You know, we're always trying. We always want clients to understand that a compelling offer will always outperform a good argument. Yeah, and what's your help with that? Can you explain that we're better off to come up with a compelling reason why I should buy your product than a good argument of why you shouldn't buy somebody else's.

It's that heart over logic argument as well, isn't it? It's that how. How do we buy? Do we buy with our head or do we buy with our heart?

I mean, in our agency, we focus a lot on neuroscience and neuro linguistics programming.

Oh, interesting.

That's what my.

That's what I was talking to me. Oh, that is fascinating to me because I'm not going to make it about me, but I used to work in sales, so NLP is hugely fascinating to me. I never learned it myself because I just found I could talk people into a sale instead of tricking them into one.

NLP is far more prevalent and accepted in the UK than it is in the us. It's far more common in the UK and in Canada than it is in the us. And of course, anything that you say with a British accent just sounds more intelligent than anything we say.

That's really flattering. Thank you.

But at any rate, we try to focus on the fact that people don't make most of their buying decisions Based on their conscious mind. They make their decisions based on their unconscious mind. So much of what you're doing when you're helping companies come up with the right package or the right story is really trying to find out how do we tap into that unconscious behavior, because that's where the action is. Can you give us some examples, like some examples of where you may be took a product from X kind of design, made changes to the package design and. And then sales changed by. I'm curious to how impactful in your work, how impactful the. The package design or the creative can be. Just how. How big of an issue is that?

How big. So how big of an issue is it changing a few things on pack and then resonate. I mean, that's the entire reason why our clients come to us, is to help them perform better. Or on shelf. I can. And actually I was having this conversation with my colleague before about which projects I can actually talk about. And because there's such a long, I guess there's a long shelf life, you'd say to. To our projects from start to finish, from the moment we launch until the moment. And going through all of the consumer testing, it can be quite a long process. And until they're out in the market, there are very few that I can actually talk about. Also, I'm new to the team as well.

Yeah, don't worry about the name. Just give us some examples where, you know, have you been able to make a few changes to a package and double the sales or triple the sales? What kind of impact.

What's.

What's the level of impact that this can have?

Absolutely. I think making a few changes on pack and I think you'll know as well as kind of an owner of a branding agency, sometimes that just comes down to the narrative that you're saying. It could be the story that you're telling. So, for example, a brand that I know Smashbound worked on before I joined the agency, Tomato Love, they weren't selling so well on shelf and they weren't distinguishing themselves from the other brands because there was no compelling message. They were just, you know, it was a tomato brand. And what's exciting about chopped tomatoes, by creating a brand around the idea of tomato love and celebrating that idea of really loving that sauce. It's not just for those that need a chopped tomato, because who can be bothered to order a takeaway or any other reasons why you would, I don't know, use chopped tomatoes? I mean, sometimes there's a heart in it. There's a real love that goes into that last can of chopped tomatoes that you've got in your pantry. That is going to be the difference between having a dry cracker or having a delicious meal. They built this entire kind of new brand approach around that. And if you want to take a look at the metrics, you can go to our website. In terms of exactly how, how much in terms of percentage that rose off the top of my head, I can do a quick Google. But I know that the change was significant for this brand and they immediately started performing better on shelf, performing better than the competitors. And it made an incredible difference to how this brand is continuing to market themselves in terms of other examples. And I'd love to talk about some of the projects that we're working on. And I'm going to do it in a way that isn't, that isn't going to get me into any trouble. There's kind of a particular brand that we're working on that is in a pioneering category. And this category is one that perhaps audiences don't yet know about because of the tech that it uses, but it is surrounding kind of things that you would eat every day in your home. So we had to understand how to introduce this new technology, understanding the reservations that consumers would have on around that technology and then find a way to position it in such a way and tell that story on shelf in three or four words that literally just say, you're going to get this instantly. And what we've seen through rounds and rounds of testing, we were able to identify that exact formula, combination of words and visuals that helps consumers understand it instantly. And through those round of testings, we were able to help our board of directors, their board of directors launch more confidently into the market. That's all I can say about that.

Project that makes sense. So one question I have for you, Scenics. I think we're talking about this and in a conversation that we have with our clients a lot, I'm sure that you've dealt with the same thing is there's a big confusion between brand differentiation and brand distinction, right? Huge. Huge.

Huge.

Huge.

Of course.

So could you kind of help educate our audience and help them understand the difference between the two and the importance.

Between distinction and differentiation? Well, I mean, some brands are different and some brands aren't different. And if they're not different, then they've got to be distinct. So your difference is some brands, I mean, some, you know, chopped tomatoes, all.

The tomatoes or chopped tomatoes, I don't know.

But this is tomato love, you know, this is Stinks. So, you know, sometimes a brand will come to you and they've got, you know, something that is uniquely different. Actually, we're working on something at the moment in the DIY category that is completely uniquely different. There is nothing else like it on the market. And it is, it transforms the way both construction workers and home DIY ists do their work and helps them save time and really is something that is innovative. And then you can talk about the difference of the product. You can say this does XYZ and you want to really leverage that difference. So difference is what you do differently. Your unique selling point that nobody else does. If you can talk about that, then talk about that. If there is no difference, you're going to have to lean heavy on distinctiveness. So that's where your brand personality comes in. Are you the joker? Are you the outlaw? Are you, what do you do differently? Are you going to make people smile when they pick up your tub of sauce? So then you lean heavily into that and is that balance?

Yeah. So let's say, you know, as an example, you're selling aspirin. So 100 milligrams of aspirin is 100 milligrams of aspirin.

Is it though?

Exactly. That's the point.

Because what feeling do I get when I pick up that aspirin? Does it tell me that it's going to be aspirin that is specifically made for women that, you know, will help me with my, with my menstrual problems? Is that something that speaks to me directly? Does it say this is aspirin for younger people that helps them with their hormonal migraines as they're going through their growing pains? Or is it aspirin that is really targeted to those people that burn the midnight oil? Those status, you know, high Rolex wearing people are probably working a bit too hard. So not all aspirants. Are you wearing a Rolex?

Actually I'm wearing a Breitling today.

I wasn't talking about you, but you were presenting the watch and it is. I did start to develop the burning the mid. I was like probably burn the midnight or probably worse as well.

Maybe worse than I do have a Rolex. You see me already wearing a bright one today.

I'm already kind of predefining you into my archetype right there. So no, the question was, you know, aspirin is aspirin or aspirin isn't. Isn't any aspirin. I think the value of brand over a product is so Immense in bringing a connection to people's lives. And I think, I mean, I would love to hear more about kind of the NLP and how that kind of neuro linguistic kind of programming. And it's the programming bit that almost like makes me go like, is it when, you know, I raise if you move your hand in a certain way, you make someone feel a certain way, or if you use a certain word, it triggers a certain reaction. And I think formulating that is something that marketing agencies have been trying to do for so long. I did actually an interview recently with the author of Surrounded by Idiots, Thomas Erickson. Do you know him? He's fantastic. He was his agent. Was actually my friend's agent. And yeah, so I got to do an interview with him. I'm talking about this because it's hugely fascinating to me, personality profiling and disc. And I wanted to understand how, whether you can break people down into red, yellow, green, green and blue. Obviously, blue being the techie, red being the CEO type, yellow being the creative, and then greens, which is everyone else. And I wanted to know how we can use that in branding because surely every new product, you'd be going after the yellows, right? You'd be wanting the early adopters that make decisions quickly. You're going off to red, you're going off to yellow. What I've found is that it's so much more complex than that. And kind of going back to what. What we're doing at Smash Brand is not just sticking a formula on. It's not a B split testing, even though there is split testing involved. It's taking that idea of resonating messages, identifying those resonating messages, understanding how consumers feel when they approach the aspirin aisle. Are they confused by navigation? Is there too much going on? Do they not know which ones? Everything's for me. Nothing's for me. How can we help them overcome those challenges that they're feeling when they've just got a headache or that their son's ill or their granny needs her aspirin for a heart condition? I'm kind of going off on a story.

You're driving a point. You're driving a great point that we always keep pushing with our clients. And what we refer to it as is marketing by indication.

Okay.

And you're describing our conversation that we have is marketing by indication, and that is that almost 80% of people who are buying CPG products, especially health, beauty, cosmetic, OTC, nutrition, are buying based on an indication. So as you said, it's granny's Heart condition, it's menstrual pain. The closer you can identify to that indication, the more that individual that will believe. This product is formulated for people just like me.

Exactly.

As opposed to everybody. Because I want to be special.

Yeah.

I don't want to be like everybody else. I'm unique. My problem is special. My issues are unique. And I want something that people make that is for people just like me. And that's kind of the point that you're driving. One of the things on nlp, people always get concerned about the word programming.

Yes. Tell me more about that.

And they have to understand neuro linguistics programming is not about the practitioner programming the patient or the client. It's about using the brain and linguistics to access the programming that you have already developed. Because your unconscious mind is a pattern recognition machine. So it has already developed programming. What I need to do as a marketer is I need to understand how can I talk to you within your frame of truth? Imagine there's a big frame, big portrait on the wall, and there's a big, beautiful frame around, and you can picture the frame however you'd like. It can be as ornate, or it could be wood. It could be met. And inside that frame is everything that you believe is this giant canvas with everything that you believe in it. If I can talk to you in terms that are inside that frame, that are in your portrait of belief, you and I will immediately have an ethos. You will trust me, you will now believe me, because you will say, okay, I know that to be a truth. This person is like me. I share something with this company or with this person that is talking to me. When I try to expose you to ideas that are outside of your framework of truth, which sometimes is necessary, but when I do that, it becomes much heavier lifting because now you are resistant to it. Now you're saying, wait a minute, I don't know that to be a fact. I don't know that to be true. If I was trying to expose you to, let's say I was trying to tell you about a new form of cancer treatment, and I have to get outside of your framework because you currently know about surgery and chemo and radiation. I all of a sudden want to talk to you about immunotherapy. That's outside of where your truth is. But I can still find your truth. I don't have to jump there. I can first say, well, it has become apparent to everyone that traditional allopathic medicine for cancer doesn't always work. That might fall into your truth. You Might say, yes, I know that to be true because I've known people with cancer and they didn't make it, even though they had all these treatments. I might be able to say to you, and traditional medicine does not offer everything that is available well, that might fall into a truth. So if I can keep finding these truths inside your frame, then I can take you outside of the frame, because I've built a trust with you, I've built rapport with you, and now I can expose you to something new. I think this is one of the problems that some brands have, especially those brands that have something that's really distinct and something that's really unique.

Yeah.

They want to jump to the uniqueness. And sometimes that leap is so big that you're outside of my frame and you're not talking to me in my world, in my truth, so I automatically put up a resistance to you.

That's such a good point. I actually want to talk to that point a little bit because I think there's a lot to unpack here. I think you're talking. We're talking about companies. Such a key point for companies or brands that have a lot to say about a product that is perhaps technologically complex or has. They've got a lot to talk about. Maybe their heritage is, you know, a big thing to them. They were founded in X and X time. They've had this whole journey. The process is different, their manufacturing is different. And they want to talk about this at length. I think something that they do need to understand is that customers don't. Don't care at all.

Exactly.

I'm kind of almost. I'm scared of, like. Can I say this? Can I say customers don't care. They do not care about your heritage. They do not care about your product. They do not care about anything unless you hook them immediately in three seconds. This is what you have. This is the problem in your life. Okay. You're struggling with X, Y, Z. Or this is something that does this and that hooks into something that they've been thinking already within that frame, like you said, within that frame of things that are going on in their head. And then you hook that in, and then you can kind of jump out of that, break out of the frame a little bit into. Let's tell you about us in relation to that problem, thus making them care about you.

Yeah. Because I don't care about your company. I don't care about your product. I care about me.

Right.

My only concern about your product is how does it relate to me?

Yes. What did it for me?

Because I'm the most important person in the world.

Yes.

And my name is the most beautiful word that you can use. And I don't mean that about me personally, folks. But what I'm saying is that's how the brain works. This is the reason why salespeople are trained to always use your name over and over. The reason that a salesperson goes to your name and repeatedly say your name back to you is because your name is a universal truth. And it is the most exciting word that you hear because it means you're being identified, you are being honored, you're being respected, that I know who you are. And the same holds true with the packaging everybody wants to be. If I had a dollar for every time somebody told me, just make us like Apple, I probably wouldn't even need to work anymore.

Or Nike. Do you get Nike as well?

Yeah. We want a website that looks like Apple. We want packaging that looks like Apple. We want to have a brand that looks like Apple.

It's like, yeah, can you make us a tagline that's like, just do it, but different, Right?

Yep.

And we're always trying to explain to people that there's one Apple, there is one Nike, there is one Harley Davidson. And if you decide that you're going to become Harley Davidson, you're never going to succeed. You need to be whoever it is you're going to be. But people also need to understand, and we need to understand this in marketing, folks. And that is. Let's look at Harley for a minute. Harley Davidson here in the US is, and around the world is a lifestyle brand. People tattoo the logo on their arms and people wear the clothes. In fact, I actually liken Harley Davidson to being the world's largest cosplay group, because if you think about it, they all dress up in the same costume. Right. It's actually a cosplay group, but Harley is a lifestyle, and no ad created that. One of the things that we try to tell our clients is that as an ad agency, we create communications. We create the look of a brand. We create how people will interact with your brand. But loyal consumers are not made by great advertising. They're made by great products and they're made by great service. Right. Because if I convince you to buy my diced tomatoes and you get them home and they're not good, then all the advertising world isn't going to help those tomatoes, is it? If you have a bad experience.

That's a really good point.

They can even be average. They can even Be on par and we can help push the emotions up higher. But if they're subpar, it doesn't matter what we do. You still need to make a good product. All the advertising world will not keep a bad product alive forever.

Well, and that's interesting. And so CN I'd love to pass this over to you, this question of what Mark just talked about, because I 100% agree with him that great products are really what's going to help build a brand. But, but we prime the experience. So what we do on our end with the packaging, with the messaging, we are priming that mind, that consumer or setting the tone for whatever experience they're going to have. So just out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on that concept and what role the branding does play in that final experience for the consumer?

Huge. Wow. This is such a big question to unpack. And there's actually a case study that I've been looking into recently. Lacroix, I still can't pronounce it. Lacroix, like what? It's like, isn't it? And I think, you know, part of that advertising genius or marketing genius is the fact that you can't pronounce the word. You need to be in the know to know how to pronounce this thing. That's literally just made it to the latest series of south park where they are absolutely ripping it apart. The fact that these city people are all after the Edamames and Lacroix, this brand that was consumed by Midwestern moms in kind of in the 80s, suddenly took off just as kind of the health. Well, health became more important to people and fizzy drinks became a no, no for everybody. But people still crave their fizz. They still want their carbonated drinks. And for some reason this brand became more than just fizzy, carbonated, good tasting water. And we talked about a good product as well. I've never tasted them myself, but my recent research tells me that it does actually taste pretty good. They are, they are very, very tasty. But I mean, it's, you know, it's sparkling water. It's not going to be, you know, it's not going to be manna from heaven. It's going to be, you know, it's going to be okay. The role of branding in that, in that specific. Well, in this case study did everything to launch this brand from sparkling water to lifestyle to a meme, to being featured on kind of south park, to almost being the thing that you have to have to show that you are a cool urban professional that's what you have in your fridge. It is as synonymous for that lifestyle as your Lululemons or your Tesla or your Edamame. And I think they tapped into something there and that happened through the creation of brands so visually bright and mess.

With people in restaurants. By the way, when you go to the restaurant and they have the, the hair cover, I always like to say, yeah, I'm going to just go with the green beans. If you have those.

You ever have. Do you ever have an amuse bouche?

Exactly.

Yeah, I've. And you know, they're not French, like Lacroix. They're not French. Not French. So.

And some of these things. Let me give you, let me give you an example on how we can set. How in advertising we can set the stage. I'm currently working on some new studies. I like to study things, new things all the time.

Amazing.

And one of the areas I'm studying right now is called psychoneuroimmunology. And psychoneuroimmunology is the study of how our mind can alter our immune system.

That's pretty fascinating stuff in light of the recent pandemic.

And it is very, very concrete and there is a lot of research to really back it up. So there was a. During World War I, there was a time when in a field hospital, and this is actually where AB or placebo studies came from. There was a field hospital where they ran out of morphine. So what they did, a nurse grabbed a syringe and filled the syringe with saline solution and told the soldier she was injecting him with morphine and he wouldn't feel any pain. In just a moment, as she gave him the saline solution, his pain went away. The doctor noticed this was working and they were on a morphine. So they started doing it on soldier after soldier after soldier in this particular field hospital. And everyone had relief from their pain. From Celi. That doctor after the war went on to create placebo double blind studies. It shows you. If I can give you an injection of water and convince you that it is a powerful painkiller, what can I do by setting the stage for your experience with my new product? How can I. Yes, how can I set this stage? And this is what I'm saying, that the product can be adequate and we can make the experience better. The only time to me that it becomes untenable is when the product is inferior.

Doesn't want it. Yeah, doesn't want it.

And there's even an exception to that. I know a lot of people who, who claim that Starbucks coffee is just overcooked beans, that the beans are burnt, it's not good, and that it's not good, but people will still go and pay ridiculous amounts of money to drink this coffee. And I'm not a coffee fan. You drink coffee, Justin? Don't you drink coffee?

Yeah, but I mean, I just drink black coffee, you know, Like, I'm not. I'm not a connoisseur of any sorts of.

So in America, you mainly have drip coffee, don't you? I was over there recently and I was like, can I have a flat white? And the lady was like, oh, we don't do speciality coffee. Can I have a Bloody Mary? Sure.

Now you.

Of course I can make you a Bloody Mary, not a flat white.

Well, you get a Bloody Mary here in the US and it pretty much comes with a tossed salad inside of it.

I love it.

Celery and bacon and olives and maybe a shrimp. And everything else is practically a meal inside of a. Inside of a drink.

Oh, breakfast, Mark.

I love that.

So how much. Let me ask a question. How much do you find color palette as having an impact on the brand?

Again, that's a really, really interesting question, I think. How far do I find it has an impact on the brand? I would say if you're taking away everything el and just saying, is color palette going to be effective? I would say 100%. This method of communication will have an impact on the brand. If you take color palette and then you layer on design, and then you layer on the shape of your substrate, and then you layer on your communication, your tagline, and the brand experience and perceptions of consumers outside that, I would say color palette plays a part in how your brand is perceived and the experience. For example, a lot of health food brands over the last kind of, let's say 10 years are going for bright block color palettes almost reminiscent of a childhood sweet shop. Because in the mind, you want sweets, but you can't have sweets because you're in Whole Foods and you're told that you now need to eat a protein bar. But when it's packaged up to look like a sweet, suddenly your brain's going tasty stuff. So that already primes you to enjoying that in a different way. So if we look at it in that way, and yes, color palette plays a huge role, we know that children gravitate towards bright things. Bright things. We usually also bring out the more childish, playful aspect of a person's personality. So if that's not present at all, they might not reach for that product.

So you use a lot more neuro linguistics programming than you give yourself credit for.

I was just going to say that.

Well, I, but perhaps, I mean I come at it from an. My background, kind of educational background is anthropology, so kind of studying, studying humans, studying human behavior. And also I, you know, I'm fascinated by kind of personality profiling as well. I was not a good salesperson. However, it seems to have helped me in as a brand strategist. That's all paid off, but it's interesting. So you're saying this is actually neuro linguistic programming. This is nlp.

Yes, it is. When we look at, when you're talking about packaging the health food to look like candy, what you're accessing is you're accessing the unconscious patterns that that person has programmed in their head from their past. So you are actually lifting unconscious memories that are bringing up a good feeling. Yeah, you're doing the opposite by the way. When we look at things like ptsd, PTSD is nothing more than a traumatic memory that is secured in the brain and has been joined by the chemical adrenaline. So when the body sees a stimulus that reminds them of the event. Let's say you're three years old and you had a car crash turning left and now you're an adult. Every time you go to make a left hand turn, you get nervous and you don't know why you're nervous. It's because your unconscious mind says, oh, I know what this is. This is when we get hit by another car, let's brace for the impact. So your body dumps in the adrenaline to prepare for the impact, except there's no impact. So you're just left there with sweaty palms and elevated heart rate and you have no idea why you're doing the opposite of that, which works just as well. How do I tap into those good feelings, those good memories that are buried deep inside that unconscious brain? And that again goes to show how people don't make purchases at a conscious level. People on this show heard me describe before, when we look at the conscious mind, the conscious mind can process seven bits of information plus or minus two. And this is the reason phone numbers are seven digits. Because that's pretty much the maximum amount of numbers that somebody could remember. For me telling you my phone number is 292-12-3345. If I give you one more number, it will become difficult. And at one point France tried to go to an 8 digit phone number and the people were revolting because of it. The French like to revolt Anyway, so, I mean, it's like a hobby there.

But love, Viva la revolution.

But they were revolting because they wanted an eight digit phone number. So think about the conscious brain as a grape. Now think of the unconscious mind as a beach ball. The grape can process 7 bits of information per second, plus or minus 2. The beach ball can do 5 to 10,000 bits of information per second. This is what we think we're talking in. We think we're operating in the conscious mind. When we go shopping and we pull out our shopping list and we look at the shopping list, that is conscious thinking. When we go to the store shelf and we see 60 different soup options, unless we're there because we're making a recipe that requires a soup, I'm making something that requires mushroom soup, then yes, I'm going to buy mushroom soup. But if I'm there and I'm looking at all the selection, that unconscious mind, that beach ball, is what's going to.

Make the decision so accurate.

And it's all going to come out of what are the memories I have? Did I have a good experience with mushroom soup when my mom made me mushroom soup when I came home, home from school as a child or something of that nature? How do we dig these feelings back up in people? And the example we give everybody is if everyone made their buying decisions consciously, we would all be driving a Smart Car or a little Chevy Spark or a little Fiat 500, because those little economy cars will all take us from point A to point B. I don't need a Rolls Royce or a Ferrari to go from point A to point B. So why do I buy a Rolls Royce? I buy it because of how it makes me look. I buy it because of how it makes me feel.

Ew.

I buy it because I want the world to have a certain perception of me when I pull up in my car. And pulling up in my little Le Car isn't going to send the message that I want people to have about me.

So.

And yet, if I was to speak to a Rolls Royce owner and I was to say, so do you buy your Rolls Royce because you have an uncontrollable ego? No, of course not. I don't have an uncontrollable ego. I couldn't care less about what people think of me. Why did you buy this? Why did you spend a half a million dollars for a sedan? There's an unconscious driver behind it.

Yeah, One of the questions I had for you, Sienna, was, yeah, I've heard you talk about that. There is this There is this equation to help brands sell better, which is the equation logic and consumer insights. Right. Like this combination of magic logic and consumer insights really was how brands.

Oh, I like this. An equation.

I, I, so I didn't make up that magic and logic. I think I should. Yeah, I, I that, that came from the author as a. Martin Heidegger wrote the Brand Gap, which is an amazing book. And he often says, well, he says in the book that he talks a lot about strategy and he talks about creative. And the entire book is about how you can bridge those two in order to understand how consumers think and feel. And a lot of the time at design agencies, strategy is separated out from the creative. Well, the creative table, really. You've got the creatives at one end doing their magic, and then you've got the thinkers that are at the other end of the agency. You know, they're the brains and the.

Two media departments and the media departments in another room.

Yes.

Yeah.

Most agencies, they're not even at the table.

Yeah, completely.

The absolute sense. Absolutely. And I think, yeah, so, I mean, we do things slightly different. Well, we do things completely differently. And even before reading that book, so I'm, you know, I actually joined the agency as a, as a copywriter, but copywriting and strategy for me has always been intertwined. You cannot tell a brand story through words. A brand narrative, understand kind of, you know, the story you're going to tell the world without having a strategy of what, you know, your audience wants to hear. So the two have always gone together for me, and that's something that we continue to develop at Smash Brand. So kind of our latest copywriter is also a strategist. So the two are very much connected. And we bring that collaboration to the design team as well, inviting them to understand the strategy and really dig into those emotional hooks that we're talking about, those triggers, those draws, and helping them understand how to unpack those visually. So if a brand is meant like a Rolls Royce is meant to give you status, it's made to make you feel like, like the big guy or the big girl. When you're pulling up, you know, how is that logo going to look? You know, what does it mean? Like, what does that feel like? What does it sound like? What does it look like? What does it sound like? And I think understanding all of those elements connects those two together. And yes, you mentioned the consumer insight. 100% that helps us make sure that we haven't gone wrong along the process. And I think that every creative design process, you know, that's why we whittle it down from a number of routes to one route. Sometimes, you know, without consumer testing, we're going in blind. So what we're doing is mitigating that risk and ensuring that it's tested with a sample audience before it goes to shelves, in a nutshell.

Absolutely, absolutely. So one last question I had for, you know, was especially because of our audience, so our audience and a lot of our clients are the challenger brands, smaller brands in the world. So we've got, you know, the David's going against Goliaths. What are the things that our Davids can do to really help compete? What are the things they can do to help stand out? But again, not just stand out. Again, not just be different. Right. What can they do to really complete in the. Compete in the marketplace against those, you know, those big Goliaths of the world and gain market share?

Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I actually love working with challenger brands. I think launching a brand from, like, it's the epitome of creation for me to launch something, something from nothing. Kind of almost like birthing this new brand into the world. It's hugely exciting. How to stand out against big challenger brands. I mean, the thing that big brands, the thing that challenger brands have the advantage of at the moment is the market doesn't like big food, it doesn't like big brands. It's going very much against big everything and it's going small, it's going independent, it's going local. I think in terms of consumer trends, consumers are preferring the underdog. So if you are the underdog, it's very easy to tip brands like Lacroix at the point where they're sailing high and forgetting about connecting with their audience and kind of resting on their laurels. It's very easy to go in there with a compelling message for that audience. And the biggest advice I would give your Challenger brands is understand what your consumers are thinking. Take the time to speak to them if you need to. I mean, and I think that you should. Every brand should know if you're a food brand. Get out there and do some taste testing. Get out there and see what you know, how your consumers feel when they hold your product in their hand, when they taste it, when they experience it, and then find how to speak to them in a way that resonates. I would also say that a lot goes for distinctiveness. You can be the rebel when you're the underdog and you have a lot of potential there because nothing really matters. You're not kind of there at the top. You can say whatever you like. So you've got an amazing opportunity where you don't have a board of directors and naysayers telling you what you can and can't say. Just do what you like, be a bit bright, be a pirate, and kind of just go out there and. And be true to yourself. So I would say sometimes that experience.

Is painful too, by the way, because when you go out and you really find out how people are interacting with your product, sometimes it's disappointing and sometimes you're surprised to find out that you're not as important as you thought you were.

I think that that's the lesson that I would suggest all Challenger brands embrace humbly. I think finding out that, that you know nothing will make you know more. The less you know, the more you can know, the more you know, the less you probably do know. So I think going out there humbly, understanding what consumers really feel will help you create a product and an experience on brand and in the product that will sell.

This is all. This has been really fun. This has all been great stuff.

It's been amazing. It's been so great chatting to you folks.

We also need to keep in mind not only does the world not care about us because they only care about themselves. We have to keep that in mind. But we also just need to understand, as Sienna is saying, we need to understand who they are and what's motivating them, what's important to them. Too many brands come in to see us and they immediately tell us what's important to them. What's important to us is because we've spent five years in development and we created this specific molecule and we can do this and we can do that. And it's like, okay, we get you're in love with your technology, but what's your consumer in love with? Because they may not care that you spent five years in research to make a different molecule. They may only care that it does something. And they may be perfectly happy to just know it does something without you having to make my eyes roll back in my head telling me how it something and my. In my proof of that to give to people when they want us. You probably see this too. We really need to explain our science. People need to understand our science. And I will always go back to people and say, okay, have you ever taken Motrin? Yes, I've taken Motrin. Okay, great. Tell me how it works. How does, how does Motrin biologically work in your body and Most people have no idea. So if you have no idea how Motrin works and Motrin is the behemoth brand that they are, well, how did they become that? Because they said it takes pain away. That's really what I needed to know. It reduces inflammation and reduces pain. And at that point, if I'm a patient in pain for the most part, I don't really care about anything else. I want to stop hurting right now. I don't really need to know how this chemical is going to work. I want you to take the pain away. So there's always. Not always, but there's often a tendency on the part of entrepreneurial companies especially to want to over explain what they're doing.

I actually have a point to speak to that as well.

Please.

A story I read recently about Steve Jobs and when he first came out with the first Apple, when, you know, before he got fired and he wrote a seven page spread and I forget what, what newspaper it was explaining in over seven pages in detail why this computer was good and it didn't sell, it didn't get any interest and he got sacked and then he joined Pixar and then he learned how to tell a story and then he came back to Apple and then he came out with his tagline, think different. And those two words are what sold the product. That idea that it's for creatives that think different, not the same thing.

And he took a bunch of boring white computers and put them in clear colored cases.

Yeah, that sold me, right?

Look at this.

I can have a lime green computer instead of this boring off white one.

It's as simple as that. That is why I've literally upgraded my Mac just now. Because I wanted a rose pink one and I paid. I paid, I paid for it, right?

Yeah, exactly.

And therein lies, I think, like a child.

I shouldn't say that is, that's what.

It comes down to. Again, this has been amazing, Sienna. So what I would say, one last question for me is, is there anything else you would like our audience to know about branding, about how to build their business? Is there any other last message you would have for them?

Oh, gosh. I would say listen to your customers and listen to, listen to your heart. I would say as well, I think stay true, away from, you know, the, you know, thinking about numbers and formulas and metrics and testing and consumer testing and yes, that is all absolutely important and imperative, but make sure that you understand what's at the essence of your brand and what's at the essence of your consumer needs before you go to testing. And then you've got the formula for success. And if you're interested in learning more about it, please head over to our website if I can say that@smashbrand.com and check out some of our projects.

So folks, if you go to the show notes cpginsiders.com with the episode with Sienna Dexter, you'll find links to her website where you can look at all of this wonderful work. And if you enjoyed today's podcast, please go to wherever you get your podcast, itun, I Heart Stitcher, wherever it is you get it and leave us a five star review. If you're going to leave us a one star review, don't bother. It's okay. Don't, you don't need to do that. But we do appreciate the five star reviews. It helps us get the message out to more people. And again, I want to thank our audience and thanks Sienna. We have such a surprisingly large audience on this show. It is such a specific show, but we have such a large group of people to listen to it. And I'm always just in awe and grateful of them giving us their time. We take that, we take that commitment very seriously that we don't want to waste that time. So, folks, we'll see you on the next episode of CPG Insiders. If you're looking to greatly increase sales on your CPG product, don't hesitate to contact us at Jekyll and Hyde Advertising and Marketing. By the way, the only advertising agency with a guaranteed result. Just go to jekyllheidagency.com or feel free to give us a call at 800-500-4210.