Welcome to our live show!

Good morning, everybody, on a happy Saturday, 9:30 Central Standard Time. I got our guest Courtney O'Brien bright and early from the West Coast at 7:30. Welcome, Courtney.

Thanks.

And then my cohort Shane out of Pittsburgh, it's 10:30 his time, so he's bright and awake and ready to go. We invited Courtney O'Brien, expert in brand marketing, worked for companies like Coca-Cola, E&J Gallo Winery, because we wanted to talk about building the brand stories and the brand pitch. And we just asked Courtney to come on. We're gonna, we're gonna talk to her, fire a lot of questions at her. And if anybody joins us today anywhere in the globe, please just put your questions in the chat and we'll try to get back to you. And if we don't get back to you during the episode, we'll certainly respond at some point. But welcome, Courtney. Maybe tell a little bit about yourself, your background, and what you're all about. And And what you're doing nowadays.

Thanks. Yeah. Yeah, I have been in beverage marketing for my whole career. And if you told me that that was going to be the case, you know, 20 years ago, I would have thought you were crazy. But I wanted to start in food or beverage out of business school because I thought it provided the best background and the best training ground. And my first role was with Evian, actually part of Danone, which is a giant company globally also. And I said, if I can learn to market water, I can probably learn to market anything. And, you know, that was entirely based on branding. And I find that beverage is entirely based on branding. So it's a, it's an industry I've stuck with because of that. There's an endless amount of things to do. I went to Coca-Cola after that and had the good fortune to be there as Coke Zero was launching and took that role. And not many people know it, but 6 months into Coke Zero having been launched, it was losing distribution everywhere and falling like a rock. So I was told that's probably not one you want to take, Courtney. That might not have much longevity. But I did really wanted to work for Coke. So it was, it was a career-defining role. Turned that around, led it to 100 million cases in a couple years. So that was my big claim to fame. And then I followed my passion to the wine industry and ended up working for Gallo, kind of the most disciplined, I would say, giant building mega brands in wine. And was there for 15 years, led innovation for everything north of $10 in wine for a while, managed 25 brands portfolio by the end, took on the whole Constellation acquisition and launched Apothic Red. And that was my big claim to fame at Gallo. That was also kind of a small little side project, wasn't expected to be big. And ended up being the biggest red wine on the continent in a couple of years.

Wow.

So those are my babies. I'm sticking with it. Um, and now I'm doing my own thing. So I'm trying to channel what it was that led those to become so successful and help smaller businesses with great products, build them into great brands that can really break through in this crazy beverage market.

Well, that's awesome. We're excited to have you. So I thought we'd do this morning, we're just going to ask you some questions, maybe share Uh, from your point of view, if I'm a, if I'm a new brand and I'm going to market, you know, Shane and I, we talk about, hey, we can find you distributor. This is what distributors care about. We can help you find customers. Shane is an expert at like annual business planning and obviously a commercial planning. He ran and scaled a distributor himself and actually sold that. And now he's out, you know, helping other brands do the same thing, either find distribution or customers in the marketplace.

Yeah.

So with that being said is, how does one go about— so obviously they don't have the resources of Gallo or Coca-Cola, but how does one go about, uh, like I've developed this really cool cannabis brand as an example, and it's an RTD and it's, it's a Delta-9 product. I'm just gonna help you out a little bit here. And I'm gonna go to markets and I'm gonna compete in the RTD category. You know, how does one go about, like, what's the first step from a consumer or brand marketing, what they would take a look at?

Yeah, I mean, it's really, I think, category agnostic. I always start by understanding the marketplace. So my roles were not marketing only, but I was always in a general manager capacity. So I naturally kind of roll up my sleeves and get into the analytics and understand the competitive set and not just The immediate competitive set. Like, I'm working right now for a hydration mushroom-infused sparkling beverage. I'm not just looking at the hydration marketing or mushroom-infused sparkling beverage set, but why do consumers buy that? What are they getting out of that? And what are the other things they're considering? So what's the competitive set in their minds? Because it's not always the same as what we think the competitive set is. So within that competitive set, what are they doing? What are they selling, you know, on the can, for instance, and what are they kind of really selling? What's their positioning? What are they promising you? Because I believe consumers buy solutions to their problems and better versions of themselves more so than they buy a liquid in a can. And if you can get into that, you will win every time. So I roll up my sleeves and look at the category And figure out either where the white space is or where people aren't doing it very well. If there's a, you know, just because it's crowded doesn't mean it's doing well. And figure out where I want to be. That's the first stage. And, you know, having a lot of data is great, but it's also really easy to get lost in. And you can do that, you know, on the outside without a ton of syndicated data also.

Interesting. I don't know, Shane, if you had a question on that to expand on what she was saying.

No, I mean, I think that's great. There's so many brands on the small to midsize that go to at least come to distributors and don't really know how they're targeting that, who they're speaking to. I talked to a brand yesterday. Who's your target audience? Who are your competing brands? And what's your ideal shelf or retail account look like? Because if you can't answer those 3 questions, you can't do anything else.

Absolutely. Yeah. Consumers know that too. Like, who are you talking to is the next step. I totally get it.

Yeah. Well, you also, you said some of the resonating, we always We've been talking about it is when we go to a brand or around a distributor, I'm saying, who is your competitor? And you said it, competitive set. How does one identify like the competitive set? So if you're working with a brand, how do they know who their competitor is? I'm going through this with a brand. I'll remain nameless. We always try to keep brands, some brands nameless, sometimes we'll name 'em or whatever. But I'm working with a particular brand and it's a non-alcoholic product. And they said they were competing against, a particular brand, but that brand has a different size. It comes in 150ml cans. Their brand's in a 12-ounce can. Their brand— the brand they're saying they're competing against is more of like, it's a straight-up mixer, like a bartender would take it for.

Yeah.

And I discovered yesterday in a conversation, I don't think that that is their competitive set because it's the way they're labeling. And I actually identified another brand. I'm gonna go back to them and say, I think this is your competitor. But anyway, yeah, how does one go about and identify that?

Well, there's no, there's no black and white answer. The best way is to talk to consumers because we're all just trying to guess other than, you know, when you actually ask people.

Yeah.

And now we have access to people, you know, all you want online or in your local store or whatnot. But, but yeah, I think it's a combination of ingredients, definitely the occasion they're trying to notice. So, you know, for the sparkling mushroom beverage and adaptogenic category, Kin came up. K-I-N. I don't know if you're familiar with that brand, Kin Euphorics. Um, technically, maybe from an ingredient standpoint, but it's not something I'm going to focus on because they're positioning that as a non-alc alternative for when you want to kind of alter your mind state in the evening. So it's, it's occasion as much as it is ingredients. Um, and it could be packaging. It could be, you know, something that's meant to be a mixer is not going to be a direct competitor to something that they're showing being chugged in the morning as an alternative to coffee. So I always identify all of them. You know, I— for this client I did, it was crazy, like circles, overlapping circles.

Yes.

Okay, this is technically the overall functional hydration set, um, but this is really energy and this is really nighttime. And so you're here So who are you truly competing with as a consumer is making a decision? And like you said, Shane, where they're making the decision at a convenience store in the morning, like, who are they really considering and for what reason?

I think Heineken's done a great job. They're marketing their Heineken Zero towards young people who play video games. They've been on Twitch, Discord. They know what that occasion is and who that target audience is. Yeah, I think that just allows you to engage. You know, there's just— and I told a brand yesterday, when they're a newer brand, go in and talk to the buyers. It's been on the shelf for a while. Get their feedback because they're talking to the consumer. Oh yeah, that direct feedback.

You have to get out in the market. That's one of the things that I got hammered into me at Gallo. Gallo is— that's one of Ernest Gallo's original founding principles, is kind of be out there more than anybody else and have that competitive intelligence.

Oh yeah, I was, I was with Gallo in the early 1980s, so in Southern California when they were— we were just beginning. We didn't have anything other at Gallo other than things that were Gallo branded, by the way. And they was like, we'll never brand anything else other than Ernest and Julio on the product, but being in the market. So they definitely have evolved.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's an interesting journey. I'm, you know, I sit on a lot of bar stools. I talk about every week I go to accounts, I sit on a bar stool. When I sit on the bar stool, Courtney, I tell stories. I, you know, if it's a brand called Foursquare, I will tell the story of Foursquare and Richard Seal and what Foursquare is about. And, uh, and I'll, I'll quote like Fred Minnick, I'll talk about the founder of Altamar Brands, but I tell a story. And what's interesting is every influencer or mixologist or bartender I talk to They're interested because they're interested in that story. How does one go about— yeah, so, so, so how do you help develop that? So obviously Foursquare and Altamar has done some work to actually develop their story, right? And how do you do it where it comes across authentic? That is true. Like, what— how does one begin to do that?

Yeah, I was actually going to write a post on this this week about Can you create authenticity? I've been asked to do it many times for brands that will be named nameless. But if a brand is not authentic, how do you— you know, a lot of times, most of the time, people start brands because they want to make money. There's no bigger altruism in it than that, you know. And then you've got on the other side of the coin, the person who just has this amazing story. I'm working with a client right now that would fly off the shelves if you could sit there and he could tell that story and he's just in it for all the right feel-good reasons. I think in either case, if you could sit there and tell somebody about it, they'd probably buy it if you're a decent communicator. The problem is you can't be there on the shelf talking to every consumer.

Yeah.

So how do you not only create a story that's going to resonate, but have the package and product and, you know, in the beverage industry, however much money you have, the little bit of marketing you can do, tell that story for you because you just can't be there at all times. So that's, that's really the second part of the art. But that authenticity and how you build the story, I believe it starts with understanding what the consumer wants. It's not just a one-way story. People— I'm working with a Broadway actor right now. And I posted too about to learn myself. And it's not just about me telling my story. We all probably have five million stories from our lives, but it's about telling the right part of your story at the right time in a way that connects with what that person's mindset is at and what they want. So it's not chasing a consumer around and asking them what they want because they want. You know, they want you to be the guide. They want you— they want to know what you stand for. But also, it's not about just standing on a podium and telling them about you over and over. Like, imagine if you were at a cocktail party and you did that, your audience would go away. So how do you understand your consumer really well, find out what their insecurities are in addition to the occasion that we already talked about, and then figure out what part of your story can can help with that and play on that and where to tell it at what time.

Interesting. So you said something that just really resonated with me. You can't be there all the time. So literally, I can't sit on bar stools in thousands of accounts, right? Or if I'm a consumer walking the shelf—

Sounds like you're trying though.

Yeah, but if I'm a consumer walking the shelf, right, how do I get that story conveyed right there at the point of purchase? Within that, how does one go about doing, doing that? Because there's only so many seconds that we all have an attention span of a gnat, right? We're gonna walk by. And so how do we capture that? Like, when you're coaching brands and working with them and consulting with them, how do you, how do you get that conveyed when someone can't sit on the barstool and it's just literally, it's minutes or seconds?

I think it depends on— so this is kind of When I launched Apothic, even though we had a much bigger budget than most tiny startups, we still didn't have very much.

Yeah.

And you have to decide, you can't try to do a little bit of everything. What you're gonna do has to stem from your unique way that you're gonna, what are your unique points of difference that you've decided to lean in on as an answer to that competitive intelligence you've gathered and what you know about your consumer? For Apothic, it was the liquid. The liquid was so different at the time. Not all brands that's the case for. For Apothic, it was the liquid and it was the aesthetic and kind of the world we were asking people to walk into, this kind of disruptive, edgy world, which really did not exist. If you can remember back to 2009 in the category at that time. So what we decided to do, and the fact that when you can always add things too, when you see how things are doing in the market, what we also learned very quickly is that people wanted to own it for themselves. They didn't want to just discover it. They wanted to share it with the world. They wanted to order 250 cases for their high school reunion and personalize it from themselves.

Wow.

Yeah, that was like month one that I got that call. So this was the beginning of social media, 2008, 2009. Premium wine brands were not on social media. It was not a thing that the premium luxury, you know, industry was doing, quote unquote. Um, so those were the 3 things I said we're gonna lean in on, and there's usually 3. So we wanted to get the liquid in people's mouths. We already had a very disruptive label, but we wanted to get, um, attention at retail, and we wanted to, uh, lean in on social media and use that social proof.

Those were the only things. Attention to detail and lean in on social media.

Those were the only 3 things. We were not getting distracted by PR, as fun as that sounded. We were not going to a bunch of events. You know, we knew we'd like to do all these things, but we really had to focus. And they would be different for a different brand.

Wow.

Well, that's what Shane and I do. I mean, Shane, I don't know if you have thoughts on that, but we talked about that liquid to lips, attention at retail, and going social media. You have any thoughts on that?

Yeah. I mean, you've got to be able to give your— you've got to have something that can scale because you can't talk to every customer. And that was a differentiator in distribution, is that if you had something that we could communicate to our sales team, When they have an account, they know how to sell your brand and how to tell your story. Yes. Then you're gonna be able to scale it. But the problem is, is that brands will use, well, I don't have a big budget, as an excuse.

Yes.

It doesn't matter if you don't have a big budget, because if you don't have anything to scale, you will just pour money down the drain.

Yes.

No matter how much money you have. So it's so empowering as a brand, because if you can put that in place, you can scale it and you'll get there. You don't need resources. Yes.

But if you have that in place, There's 2 things, 3 things you said that are super resonant there. One, people lean in on not having a big budget all the time as an excuse to not do the thinking. When, you know, Gallo is trying to decide, and I was never in the Gallo M&A department, but I do know a little bit about what they look for. They do not look for, is this brand huge?

Yeah.

They can make it huge. They look for, do you have those tight fundamentals and are you resonating with the consumers where you're at? Um, secondly, can the— I just wrote something on this last week. Can the distributor repeat your message? Again, it all comes down to making your message so crystal tight that people can repeat it in their own words. And I have thought I was tight until you try to describe it to a sales guy, and then they're like— you find yourself tripping over yourself.

And I'm like, oh my God, I gotta go back to the drawing board.

I— yeah.

Can the distributor repeat your message is probably the single most important thing we've said in the adult beverage business today because we have all these messages and sometimes we overcomplicate it as brands and brand owners. It's like they can't repeat it, the average Joe going out there, or Mary. I mean, they literally have to be able to repeat it.

Yes. And get it wrong a little bit, but it'd still be good enough. And kind of get on board, get it enough and believe in your story enough. And so that's also kind of what we try to bring to our clients, right, is an understanding of the 3-tier distribution system. And how you need to do internal marketing to motivate each tier.

This is a post that you're going to do today. I know you are. It's about, you know, you, you know, we're talking about Priscilla and, you know, Priscilla's out there visiting you, but this is why wine isn't selling right now because it just, it's overcomplicated it. The wine industry talks to itself.

Oh yeah.

So, so like, like the distributor Joe and Mary cannot repeat the message because it's overcomplicated.

No, no.

And then the consumer doesn't get it. They're walking the shelf like, I don't understand this.

Right, right. So I didn't really answer your question earlier. I went into the 3 things you really want to lean in on. That depends on your brand story, but also how do you stand out on shelf was one of your real questions too. In wine, and I know we're talking about beverages in general, but in wine, it's just so much harder because we've made this world that we are now living in. There's one facing each times 1,000 SKUs in any given category. I mean, when I worked at Coke, we had the entire aisle. So it's harder, but your package has to be so incredibly thoughtful. And it can't just be something you think is pretty. It has to do all the heavy lifting of all that work that you've done to figure out who you're talking to, what occasion, what's different about you. It has to be legible from, from 3 feet away. And at the same time, people are looking for simplicity, right? So it's like an oxymoron. You can't, you can't put a whole creative brief on the front of it. So yes, it is an art and it's also science. It's not just the founder kind of designing something he thinks looks DIY and different. There's different, but yet there's antis that consumers expect to even consider it.

I love that Shane does this pyramid that he does in his developing like the annual business plan and he really simplified it and I love how he goes to market. Do you have something like that for branding, like a simple one-pager that explains everything that you've shared with us this morning?

I don't. You want me to—

I think it can help you. He's like an expert in that space.

One page, but it's just you got to start with your brand calendar. How does that start? You know, I mean, you have to have a brand identity, but you build your brand calendar around that. So many brands don't see the connection between the two, how your calendar is communicating what your brand is, you build your brand strategy around that, you have a distribution blueprint, right? You know, if—

Yeah. And even— and you should review it on a regular basis, on an annual basis. So it's like, yeah, I mean, we even struggled to communicate this, um, at some of the biggest companies, like this brand ID stuff. And I was often getting stuff dumped on my plate that was in various stages of not being right, either distressed acquisitions or down 30 or, you know, just not doing well. So I, I pretty much redid everything. Everything that got handed to me from an identity and branding and story point of view. You can't always redo packaging. You gotta, you know, play it tight with that. But, um, but then the annual— that's agnostic. Then that should last, right? And then you've got your annual calendar that we all know in the beverage industry starts so early in figuring out, you know, really the channel strategy and the innovation strategy. And then when it gets closer, like the actual marketing pillar strategy. Yes, I kind of just take that for granted. But yeah, that's, that's what comes next.

Well, that's how we, as, you know, street, street guys here, and we can like, you know, the, you're like the strategy and marketing is how you pull it all together at the end of the day. But if you don't have the pitch down, if you don't know who your competitive set is, if you don't know who your target is, and you don't have the solution, as you say, the solution that you're gonna— like, I'm a consumer, I can pick up the can, I can pick up the bottle and say, yeah, this, this is a solution for me. I'm gonna have this. Or I resonate with this because this story is exactly what I'm about. And I want to wear this as a badge. At the end of the day.

Yeah.

And I think there's such a mess. Everybody tries to be me too out there. They just say, well, because Gallo's doing it, or Mondavi's doing it, or Diageo, I'm going to do it too. And they're not being innovative. And they're not thinking out of the box.

Well, Liquid Death is the one that I get constantly now. If every single day somebody, somebody mentions Liquid Death, you know, I am a super fan of Liquid Death, so don't get me wrong. Like, I mean, it is a marketer's dream. Like, it is marketing all day long. That's all it is. Um, so I've been rooting for them for a while, and I love some of their marketing, but the reason they can do that fun marketing is because it's very, very tight. The fundamentals are very tight. And then you can have fun with it because all the reason we all love their marketing, well, the reason the marketers love their marketing, I feel like half the time they're talking to the marketers, is because they're, they're what they want the consumer to get out of it is so tight and you get it out of it that they can have fun and poke fun because, because part of their identity is fun and humor and wit. But brands should not just be out there aiming to be Liquid Death. Like, they are being themselves, and that's why you're attracted to them. You need to figure out what yourself is and then do that in an incredibly tight and disruptive— if that's part of your brand, but it's not part of everybody's brand.

Yeah.

Either way, you need to get people's attention of your target segment, right? You need to do that in your way.

Courtney, I've been talking to a lot of brands the last couple weeks about when you innovate, you need to do it in something that aligns with your core identity. And especially when you're chasing— you shouldn't be chasing trends. You can try and capitalize on opportunities, but too many brands stray from who they are. And if they're a high-end craft beer, they come out with a hard seltzer, or they go into straight—

Right.

And it doesn't align with their brand. Hurts more than it helps.

Absolutely. And I mean, those trends and the wine industry seeing it now, you know, with alcohol in general, with moderation, those trends and cultural shifts and really, you know, things that come out of culture, if you've got that strong core, those are all things that you should take into account on a regular basis and figure out how you're going to deal with and if you're going to deal with any of them, if you want to take advantage of them, if you want to ignore them, if you want to integrate them. But if you don't know who you are, then you're just reactive. Like, we all know people like that too, right? Like, you can think of people that do this well versus not.

Yeah. And it just, it takes away from your brand. People, it's hard for the consumer to know who you are or what you stand for.

Yes. And if you don't stick with it, you lose everything. So when I talk to clients about, you know, I give them what looks like a simple one-pager with kind of like the distillation of their brand universe with their values, their mission. And the mission is a mission that you should get excited to get out of bed every day. And their core type positioning and their aha consumer insight they're playing with. And whenever they're like, okay, it looks good. I'm like, no, no, no. This, you're saying this is your flight plan and not just for this year. Like you're going to make decisions based on this.

Yeah.

If costs go up and one of your core values is Transparency, which we all love to say nowadays. Are you prepared to put that front and center in your decision-making process of how you're going to deal with that external factor you're just faced with? Because you can't just say that if you're not going to do it.

Interesting.

And I think staying aligned with that, consumers notice it because there's a trust in your brand. They know who you are, they know what you stand for, they can trust it as opposed to chasing trends. That's— this just doesn't align with who you are.

Confused consumers don't buy. Like, think about, think about public figures and political candidates, or even the animal world— wolves. If the leader— if what somebody's following appears to be unpredictable or confused or erratic, or you don't know what they're going to do, people are not going to follow them. That is certain death. It goes back to biology. Like, you have to be consistent and predictable.

Wow, I love that. Well, Courtney, I know you have a— I think you have a hard stop because you have a class or something you're taking. So I want to at least give you the floor here in the remaining minutes that you're going to be with us to, in closing, what you would want to leave the audience with around the brand pitch, the experience, you know, What are the 3 or 4 things you want people to leave from this discussion today?

Sure. Yeah, I think, and this is what I've kind of gotten passionate about, I think there's a lot that smaller companies can learn and just don't ever find out about, about what we kind of take for granted at the bigger companies full of, you know, MBAs and marketers. And I also think there's a lot that the big companies can learn from what the smaller companies are doing, because The big companies keep a tight eye on the smaller upstarts, and they're the ones that are less burdened by process and so many priorities and so many decision makers. And they're doing some really cool stuff. And I think that's where the big ideas are coming from and in the future. So I really am trying to bridge the gap, helping smaller companies bring some of these more, you know, things that you wouldn't necessarily think about to their products so that they can break through and so that our shelves aren't just dominated by the large conglomerates. I think it's going to benefit everybody. And also kind of, I mean, the things that the smaller companies are doing, I think the larger companies would really like to know and don't feel like they can really penetrate. So I'm trying to bridge that gap. I'm really excited to bring the thinking and work with these really passionate founders and smaller companies and And yeah, that, that's what I'm doing. And this, this half an hour flew by. This was so much fun.

Yeah, well, you're welcome to stay, but it sounds like you're— you have some type of class.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, uh, but we, we certainly appreciate it, and you're always welcome if you want to join us every week, Courtney. Uh, we'd love that, love to have you. But thank you so much for your time. Shane, I don't know if you have any questions of Courtney before she leaves in the remaining minute from her.

No, I thought it was great. Great insights. Like I said, it flew by. It was a great conversation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Thank you very much, everybody. We'll see y'all next week.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Nice.

So yep, that's, that's it. So