Brand Builder

Can you turn a commodity into a brand? How do you take something familiar, and build a story around it? How do you make something old new again?

Karma Nuts is doing exactly that. Founder and CEO Ganesh Nair has brought innovation and brand building to the common cashew.

The innovation is so simple, it's genius. Karma Nuts are wrapped, meaning they are presented with the skin on, which increases the flavor and provides as much antioxidants as blueberries and other superfoods.

We've seen this sort of innovation happen a few times with almonds, and to a lesser extent macadamia nuts, but never before in cashews, despite their popularity as a stand alone snack.

Why has this been so difficult? Part of the reason is the supply chain. Unlike many other popular nuts, cashews aren't grown in the U.S. - or even in the West for that matter. Virtually all of the cashew production takes place in the developing world, especially in India. Most of these are small, family run farms, and the supply chain is a collection of these smaller growers. The cashew industry lacks the monolithic, industrialized agribusinesses who are responsible for so much of the nut production - and brand and product creation - in the States.

It helps that Ganesh is also the CEO of Wenders Food and Western India Cashew Co, an 85 year old family-owned business.

Ganesh joined us this week to help us understand the ins and outs of this challenge, as well as talk to us about competitive moats, optimism, and why how much feedback you need before you can really invest in a brand building exercise like this.

I think it's fair to say that many entrepreneurs (or their investors) have an exit in mind as they're building their brand. It's a familiar trope - work like crazy for a few years, build some buzz and some momentum, and eventually a bigger fish is bound to snatch you up.

Of course, the reality of the experience is usually much different.

We wanted to know - why do companies consider mergers and acquisitions? How do you court a buyer? How do you reach a deal, and maybe more importantly, what happens next? Is it a matter of handing off the reigns to your new strategic partners, or is it something else? How do you merge your team?

To answer these questions, we've got Aihui Ong, the founder of EdgiLife and now the SVP of data and insights at SnackNation. This week on Brand Builder we bring you under the hood, going in depth on SnackNation's recent acquisition of EdgiLife and their marquee brand Love With Food. She tells us why she founded Love With Food, why she decided to merge with SnackNation, and what it's like to integrate her team into a brand new (albeit aligned) company culture.

We also speak to Aihui about data and insights, and how the best brands leverage data throughout their life cycle to get a step ahead of the competition.

Links

• SnackNation Acquires Love With Food (official press release)
• More on the Love With Food / EdgiLife acquisition
• Connect with Aihui on LinkedIn

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

To follow up our conversation with KNOW Foods co-CEO Yemeni Mesa, we're replaying this classic culture-focused interview with Tom Bilyeu.

Tom is the co-founder of Quest Nutrition and now leads Impact Theory, a first-of-its-kind company designed to facilitate global change through the incubation of mission-based businesses and the cultivation of empowering content. Their mission? To "free people from The Matrix," which he explains in this interview.

This week we have Josh Taekman, the founder of EBOOST.

EBOOST provides clean performance products that increase energy, focus, and all-around well-being. One of the coolest things about EBOOST - from the beginning Josh and his team decided to treat it more like a fashion brand, and really make a lifestyle play in the CPG space.

The company also recently went through a brand refresh that looks amazing, and launched an RTD (ready to drink) clean energy product - which you can see at their site eboost.com.

On top of all the brand building strategies, Josh had some amazing stories from his time in the music industry working with Sean Combs (yes, Puff Daddy himself) and coming this close to launching a massive joint venture with 50 Cent.

SnackNation CEO Sean Kelly conducted this interview, and since it was such a great conversation, we've decided to present this one pretty much straight up.

If you have an innovative or functional product, you know that one of the biggest challenges is spreading the word about its features and benefits.

One problem - people don't connect with information. Consumers connect more on an emotional level, with aspirational messages or lifestyle images. A dissertation on the metabolic integrity of non-GMO allulose… that just isn't going to land.

The KNOW Foods team have found a solution - unleash the power of influencers.

This week, KNOW Foods Co-CEO Yemeni Mesa joins us to talk about the influencer strategy that's changing the game for the rapidly growing, keto-friendly baked goods brand.

Additionally, Yemeni and Jordan geek out on keto topics, and Yemeni shares the top three lessons learned from scaling Quest, one of the true unicorns in CPG.

Links

• KNOW Foods (use the code BrandBuilder20 for 20% everything on the site)
• Follow Yemeni on Instagram @keto_head
• Connect with Yemeni on LinkedIn
• Peter Attia
• Dominic D'Agostino
• More on the Stanford "Marshmallow Experiment"

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

There are certain guests for whom there's just no denying - this person is a bonafide Brand Builder.

But Gigi Lee Chang, she's something else. When you look at her body of work thus far, she's not just a Brand Builder, she's more like a Brand Renaissance Woman.

Don't believe us? Just look at what Gigi Lee has done thus far in her career:

• Bootstrapped Plum Organics, a pioneering organic baby food brand that was eventually acquired by Campbell's;
• served as the CEO of the non profit Healthy Child Healthy World;
• She ran the food accelerator FoodFutureCo;
• and today she's a Managing Partner at BFY Capital, an investment group focused on providing venture debt to "better for you" consumer brands

By the way, that was after she was already a successful marketing and advertising exec.

This week, Gigi Lee joins SnackNation CEO Sean Kelly to discuss this remarkable trajectory, and to share her lessons learned along the way. The pair discuss the packaging innovation that helped make Plum Organics a hit, the BFY model and why it's important to fuel growth without dilution, and the somewhat unexpected mindset you need to position your company for an exit.

Links

• BFY Capital
• Plum Organics
• Healthy Child Healthy World
• FoodFutureCo
• Connect with Gigi on LinkedIn
• Reach out to Gigi directly via email: [email protected]

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

We're back with another "Culture Builder" edition of the podcast, where we focus on how to build great teams and become the leader your brand needs to reach that next level.

This week's guest is someone who - it might be argued - represents the very embodiment of success.

We're talking about Scott Painter, probably best known as the founder and CEO of both True Car and Cars Direct. He's made a name for himself by launching and leading disruptive companies that anticipate consumer behavior and capture huge markets.

But as is usually the case, its' rarely ever that simple. In this fireside chat with SnackNation CEO Sean Kelly, Scott reveals that while he has climbed to the heights of success multiple times… he's also lost it all just as many times. We mean really lost it all. As in lost his home, lost relationships, you name it.

Scott's newest venture is Fair.com, an innovative app that offers an alternative to traditional car ownership, and that lets you shop, get approved and pay for your next car — all on your phone.

This time out, Scott isn't creating a hard charging team full of "brilliant jerks" (his words). The brand is all about fairness, and that requires a culture to match.

Scott discusses how to make fairness a cornerstone of your culture - and how doing so helped him raise a billion (with a B!) dollars.

Links

• Fair.com
• Connect with Scott on LinkedIn

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

A logo that you designed yourself on a cross country flight. Packaging you slapped together in powerpoint minutes before the first production run. A brand name that you landed on because, well, the URL was available.

In the startup world, there's no shortage of accidentally, stumbled upon, or just plain DIY brands. But why have an accidental brand when you can have a strategic one? A well-thought out brand might just be the one thing holding you back from your next big growth phase.

This week on brand builder we talk about the rebrand, and how refreshing your brand can position you for massive growth.

To help us out we enlisted two people who have been there before - Amir Haque and Alysse Burroni.

Amir is a 16-year vet of the advertising business, and a partner at Mistress, an internationally awarded, full-service creative agency based in Santa Monica. Mistress has done work for tons of brands, including Coca-Cola, Sambazon, Campbell's, American Apparel, and more.

Alysse - aka ABB - is the Director of Brand Marketing at SnackNation. She's worked for famed branding house Ogilvy & Mather, and now leads brand marketing efforts in-house at SnackNation as the company looks towards the next phase of its growth.

These two branding experts got together to break down the elements of brand, and explained exactly how a strategic rebrand can position you for success, using the recent SnackNation rebrand as a case study.

Here's a cheat sheet of some of the concepts Amir and Alysse cover in this episode.

The Rebrand Process

(1) Buy-in: A critical first step is to make sure internal stakeholders understand and are invested in a rebrand or brand-refresh.

Why is it important? For starters, going with a branding agency can get expensive, and strict ROI is hard to track.

The key is painting a vivid picture not of what the brand will be, but of what the brand will do - that might be retaining customers (and increasing revenue), communicating your value proposition more efficiently (and increasing sales), or attracting the talent you need to grow.

(2) Strategy: This is where the work truly begins. Now is the time for stakeholder interviews, customer research, customer avatar creation, and coming up with your "beacon brands." The brand architectures comes together during this phase.

(3) Creative: Now the task is translating the ideas from the strategy phase into creative assets - logos, colors, aesthetics, packaging, etc. You really need expertise here, and that's where a good agency becomes invaluable.

Speaking of brand architecture, there are several misnomers when it comes down to the taxonomy of branding. Amir did a great job clarifying.

Brand Architecture

• Brand Vision - what's the big picture vision for the customer? For the world?
• Mission - how do we actually make this vision real?
• Positioning - how do you articulate the benefit to the consumer in a competitive context?
• Message - what are we actually saying to the consumer? What is the language, tone, and tenor?

Our guests this week are Eugene Kang and Mathew Thalakotur, the CEO and Marketing Director at Country Archer Jerky Co.

Under their leadership, the brand has seen exponential growth, doubling sales each year for four years, and landing in more than 16k stores.

Eugene and Mathew joined us in studio to talk about the origins (and accidental rediscovery) of Country Archer, the challenges and advantages of reinvigorating a heritage brand, hiring, and the right way to launch your next product.

Have an idea for the show? Drop us a line! [email protected].

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

We're back with another culture-focused episode. This time we bring you a conversation with Honest Company co-founder and CPO (that's Chief Purpose Officer) Christopher Gavigan.

Believe it or not, Christopher doesn't run a CPG brand.

That's because the energetic co-founder considers Honest – the makers of beautifully designed, environmentally friendly, and unquestionably safe household products for parents and kids – to be a "portfolio of trust" rather than a typical consumer goods label.

Nomenclature aside, there's no denying that the company has experienced an astounding trajectory.

Christopher and partners Jessica Alba and Brian Lee launched the company in in 2011 with just 17 products that were all geared toward the young mother. Today, the company sells more than 100 products covering all aspects of the home – all of which are free from toxic ingredients and harsh chemicals.

Meanwhile, the company grew from three employees to more than 500 in less than four years. Christopher talked to us about what this rocket ship ride has been like, and how they've managed to scale so quickly without compromising their culture or core values.

Note - this interview was conducted by SnackNation CEO Sean Kelly and originally aired in 2015.

Key Takeaways

• Christopher tells us how his Master's in psychology helped him build the Honest brand.
• Christopher explains why he believes it's better to change behavior through knowledge and good news rather than through fear.
• Christopher reveals why he considers The Honest Company to be a "portfolio of trust" rather than a CPG brand.
• Christopher shares the two things that keep him up at night.
• Christopher describes what was like to scale Honest from three to 500 employees in under 4 years, and sheds light on the biggest challenges in that process.
• Christopher explains why he still chooses to take 30-50 customer service calls per week.
• Finally, Christopher tells us why he gets all his work done between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

Links

• Christopher on Instagram @christopher_gav
• Christopher on Twitter @christopher_gav
• Christopher's email [email protected] (note: Christopher enjoys hearing from people and answers all emails personally)
• Healthy Child Healthy World Foundation
• Jeff Dunn, Bolthouse Farms

Recommended Reading

• Healthy Child Healthy World by Christopher Gavigan
• Christopher's articles on The Huffington Post

Have an idea for the show? Drop us a line! [email protected].

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.