Brand & Marketing Expert: How Minor Figures Went to War with OATLY

55:30But I know that we love getting inspiration from non-food and beverage. Such, like what categories? Skateboarding brands are the coolest. And they've always been the coolest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, before, like in the 90s, like, you know, these brands doing crazy and cool shit. and just coming up with just swaggy ideas. I mean, just ideas that bring with them energy and weight. I think that the same could be said of liquid death these days. They don't exist in CPG. They exist as some other thing. And it's very evident in their media. Yeah. Also, what I love, mate, is your point of having brand as a way to solve a specific problem.

56:27Because I think, again, maybe I was probably thinking this, I was thinking, oh, my God, brand's this like thing that's just kind of this ethereal kind of totemic, you know, thing that kind of people are pulled to the tribes. And actually, it's like, yeah, you need that, but actually it needs to solve a problem, a commercial problem. so whether that's you know acid in coffees um and getting people to convert from oatly across are there any other examples of using the brand and the kind of the the you know the acid trip ideas that are coming into this kind of fucking like organism you know that's what i feel like that's what i always felt was like it's almost this creative organism that was in east london that was just like robbing yeah and then you basically say right this is a specific problem downstream let's go upstream to brand to this weird like and then like boom like like any examples on that like in retail maybe uh in retail because i've i i totally get how you do all those cool things in kind of the indies well i think that our you know i think that maybe not in retail specifically like in the channel of retail but um our approach to out at home advertising um was absolutely kind of this this process which was we fought quite hard you know not like we fought with each other but we we really kind of no we sometimes we did actually but um we would we would have these battles between the kind of the ideal ideological like what we want to do as a you know a creative brand you know the brand solving the problem thing with like the commercial team that wanted to put like um claims like product claims or like available in tesco's or either on at home actually and i'm also thinking that on the packaging as well um just to do this thing and it's like the more you do that yeah i get it like saying that it's you know vegan or gluten-free or you know whatever like no added sugar or whatever the thing is kind of useful and so on but it it if you've if you're building a brand like you know i'm not suggesting anyone actually tries to do this but if you build a brand that is supported off the kind of the dna and the crazy ideas of the people that were building minor figures, then you're going to dilute that.

58:57If you start acting all of a sudden in year eight or whatever, you're going to start putting these little packaging claims on. And no doubt we did actually do it at a certain point, but we kind of wrestled with that thing very hard. And a lot of our best at home campaigns to loop back around to that were these just nonsense art things. They didn't tell you what to do or even what the product was or where to get it. It was just like a cool thing. Didn't you have one that was just like completely white? Didn't even have a pack shot on it or anything and just said minor figures. It might have had like half the duck's head.

59:32Yeah, we had a whole load of campaigns that, again, executed by Joe and Toby who were, sorry, then the campaigns that were like. And, you know, we did like a warped thing where I think we did like a trade, maybe a coffee festival that you might have been to opposite store supply where we had these kind of hemispherical, like, you know, convex mirror balls on the wall. And it was like this crazy thing that you made, you know, it was like a hole in mirrors or whatever. But we built an entire campaign, like an out-home campaign that had this kind of hole in mirrors sort of energy to it as well. and it's just like on a bus stop and it has like a picture of the oat milk but the oat milk is like completely sort of distorted in a way which makes it unrecognizable apart from the fact there's enough like of the brand like the visual dna sort of apparent you kind of know what it is joe and toby had this idea of making the character on the front of the packaging is that penny that's penny penny yeah into a meme like propagate the meme let's just make that image like old school memes like you know just sort of i don't mean like the caption means but just literally just make it into an entity which is repeated repeated repeated like it shows up everywhere all the time stickers lapel pins on the packaging like whatever just like how just make it like a pop-up yeah yeah like token just something that just is everywhere because then then you can then you can distort it and then you can do like you know the wheat postings and all it is is just that one thing and it's not even people don't even know what the brand's called like they say which one minor figures is that the one yes yeah even even like when i was out here those bars because it's the but as soon as i showed people minor figures yeah i mean they've seen that thing they've seen it yeah yeah then then actually that's all you're doing then you're just trying to create this uh this like yeah kind of andy warhol sort of just mass-produced sort of art Yeah.

1:01:39Everywhere. And it happens to be oat milk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, mate. It's such a beautiful way of doing it. Take me into sort of the creative battles between, you know, yourself and Stu and not just Stu, but Johnny or any of the creative teams. I feel like as the brand scales, so I was speaking to Will about yesterday, scale kills magic. But as you get bigger, you know, you have to wrestle with those things. Like how did you talk me through some of those battles? or because there'll be a lot of people listening to this who like you may have a big wig in or someone on the board is like we need to do this because you know because it's the way that's done but ultimately if you do it that way it's just like walking across London Bridge yeah yeah yeah ultimately the the battle almost always boiled down to um ideas not being then they're like half-baked ideas skimmed milk ideas like they're not skimmed milk ideas yeah that's beautiful like any examples of that just well we tried not to have them we try not to ship them like things that wouldn't like you know execution ideas are not as you know don't don't land unless execution is world class that's john hegarty's thing it's ideas 90 uh no crazy was it it's like 90 ideas or 80 ideas 80 90 ideas 90 ideas 90 execution and that it's just a bit of thing is that you can have an idea but if you can't execute on it it's not an idea it's nothing yeah yeah it's just a dream um so the battles were about you know is it is it high enough like in terms of is it does it reach our like idea internally our ideas of what's good enough to do that's what i was going to ask you is like what would be your your litmus test we don't have would you well we'd kind of we had like we had you know as you asked me these questions i kind of remember that we did have little ideas about what the litmus test would be but it's like it was kind of gestural as well as much as it was gestural as in like it didn't it was these litmus tests it wasn't like codified yeah yeah but i don't mean i'm not asking for a thing i think was it was it would you have to be like that's a fuck yeah or no it's kind of like we We had this thing about vibrations.

1:03:53Like, does it - I was going to say, is it your excitement? Does it just, does it create vibrations? Like we, we - Sick. And what, how do you, how do you kind of measure that? Like when you're, when you do have a scaled business and you have, you know, regional, as we had UK, US, us were three kind of distinct teams of like, we had like over a hundred, you know, a hundred and something people when I left the business. And it's like, you know, you've got all these like marketing teams and people that need to sort of you know take the the the random abstract kind of the vibration kitchen like back and forth ideas that we were just having and you know the work that goes out there and actually deliver it on the other side of the world and um measuring ideas yeah so conversations we'd have with like um you know various sort of commercial teams on the other sides you know and other teams we're like well how do we how do we do it and it's like well we need to sort of try and work out we need to we need to like have ways of measuring vibration and um you know that's that's what i mean it's like it's a bit gestural it's kind of we had ways of doing it but it was more of a feel at times um so what'd be an example of a real great great vibrations idea and what'd be an example of like a meat vibrations idea i think that the best the best signal that you've hit vibrations is when people are getting your um brand tattooed on their bodies which happened i mean no exaggeration it probably happened like 500 times like we as in that we got sent in like either tagged in or whatever like people's yeah um ink of like whatever not even just like the penny thing but like all kind of different bits of the brand like sort of um people tagging themselves with it uh it's crazy to me i don't have any minor figures inc yeah but i mean but i mean i mean i mean i feel like that's a great way of having like knowing how the vibrations of the total brand but i mean specifically like if you go into the ideas room of like what's a high vibrations idea what's the kind of low vibrations idea because i think that will help people assessing

1:06:03don't know i think that like if you've ever spent any time in performance show business anything like that this is an instinct that you have to get very good at judging for yourself um because you'll be playing you know i'm speaking as someone who has prior to minor figures um earned a living playing music uh in all kind of different contexts but you know small stages big stages whatever like different things but um you have to have a sense of feeling and you have to ultimately develop a sense of taste in what you're doing that you think if this is working for me then it's working for them um djing is a lot like that what song are we going to play next um i know i would like to play next but is that going to clear the dance floor and over time you develop a sense for your taste being the the sort of the the instinct that you need to listen to like if if you know it could go that way i would i would you know you may be shortlist i've got this idea this idea and this idea but if i do that one then that's going to mean this if i do this one it's going to be something slightly different so we'll go with that because i know it's going to make me have the right response for this moment in the performance and so we'll do that um and that then becomes i think an instinct that you sort of dial in over years of doing whatever you're doing yeah to the extent that you can have the same sort of attitude towards a creative idea in brand building yeah brand it's nils leonard who runs on uncommon agency i don't know if you've seen all the um the you know that that ba campaign when it was just like through the window.

1:07:46You saw that he's, that's his agency. And Toby who, Toby Duncan, who's the brand strategist for Bold Binko. He's been working with me on where we're trying to take this fuck out. And it's really interesting. But he, one of Nils's things is taste can't be taught, but it can be kind of developed through obscurity of sources or like originality of sources. So it's kind of like, you know, looking at weird stuff, but you've got to, and again, that's what John Hanks was saying to me. is like taste and point of view really kind of have, it's kind of one of the intangible things, you know? That's super interesting.

1:08:22Because then the battle, just to answer your question, the battle is between that way of thinking and doing versus the sort of the data, which is what your classic and as they should, but your classic, you know, marketer or more so performance marketing. If you have someone in your team like that, then they need to be like just data like obsessed and maybe there's a way of kind of correlating the abstract with the data and giving you some do you guys have a performance marketer we didn't have like a proper like d2c performance marketer but we did have very like traditional you know trade marketers who who read you know spreadsheets for fucking fun was that was how did that tension manifest uh we just we just you know we'd scrap it out until we get to unity and sometimes you know it's always a give and take you can't do everything one way or the other what seems like what's the give and take on that well i don't know like if you're you know is is is the sort of is the purpose of this exercise to you know tell a story or is it to like win in tesco like for for a moment yeah it goes back to you saying demand to find what the problem is and then unleashing brand yeah yeah it's in service yeah so you know if it's like but that you know it's not clean though it's never just like sort of an easy if you if you know you turn it around you decide you've got a way of thinking about sort of decisions and problems by you know well what's what sort of outcome we aim before here or whatever and you can do that but ultimately there's no clean just every time approach we landed on and and i suppose that's what again it's this kind of un like like lightning in a bottle sort of component of the team the people the moment the product the category the sort of the wind in the sails or the lack of like what what is happening which helps you kind of decide any given moment that you're gonna draw the line here between data and abstract and you're gonna make a decision that's that one how do you know what are the hardest obstacles you faced on sort of that journey as you kind of say from sort of 2019 to 2023.

1:10:34You left in 23 or 24. Yeah. On that period, what were the biggest obstacles you faced? And again, I love this idea of brand is in service. How did you use brand as a kind of a, just a battery ram through that kind of boulder of obstacle? Do you know that book, The Obstacle is the Way? That's based on, the question's based on. Right, right, right. Actually, I asked it to Will Goddari yesterday, but I just wanted to have a different spin on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice. um i mean in terms of examples or just like yeah well because i totally get it at the beginning like the taste of the barista being sort of the milk being too acid so what do you call it again the acid trip thing or high on acids high on acids sick as you get bigger those challenges change but i still have think has almost like brand as a battering ram for problems or in service of i think it's like i never thought of it as a battering ram i do think of you know and this is not i'm not coining this by any means but people talk about brand as moat brand as the distinction um and you can you know when you look at your business and your product as a as a as in its entirety your product or products different skews different you know maybe buckets like different ranges within your your your offering will have some kind of i mean i do believe there's no ip in cpg there's nothing really to protect there might be some kind of method that you don't tell anyone about but like people catch up i think everyone started doing deep roast peanut butter like because we that was a mistake yeah yeah there you go but like everyone's talking things yeah yeah exactly so you know and you might be on the one under the spectrum where there's like a complicated you know um product or process or or ingredient panel which means mystifying that through you know comes not mystifying it through comes but like not revealing how you do that is one way of kind of putting yourself further down the spectrum of of of like simplicity there in a more complicated manner and then you've got other products you know through the single ingredient products like fucking sugar flour whatever you know butter which is like there's not many secrets there like i anyone could just pick up the pack and just retro retro engineer that product um and so what again it's a good brand in service like what are you trying to do um like what what does your brand have to do because of where you find yourself along that spectrum um yeah where are we going with that so isn't the obstacle is the way brands using brand and i said batting ram you said it's oh yeah more of a commote right so so wherever you find yourself on that spectrum between complicated and less easy to sort of retro engineer through to sort of completely obvious one one ingredient product yeah perhaps um brand is doing something there and you know it might be you know on this end of the spectrum it might be kind of a simpler storytelling methodology because the product is protecting a lot of the the outcome but over here and oat milk is much nearer that end there's no secrets and you know milk formulation really not least because it's on the back of the packaging but like um but the difference between all these barista oat milks is one percent of ingredients and so it's clearly not that the difference between the brands and the success of these products is clearly not that it's to do with sales how your you know go to market and your strategy and your aggression within sales and um in the minds and sort of you know more abstractly the brand is um this thing that if you do it well enough and distinctly enough then it becomes a moat it becomes it becomes a sort of a huge gap between you and the opposition or you and the competition, which means they can't do what you can do.

1:14:39And the more that you build out ideas and programs and principles, like radio websites and the rest of it, the more the things that you do within your sort of moated area and become things that if, even if they were, could try and do it. Yeah. I mean, the, the, the, the most kind of top of mind example of that at the moment is, is Grazza olive oil. like every single olive oil that you can possibly imagine has has folded into at least squeezy bottles yeah no one gives a fuck right no one cares they don't want that one because good fats the og good fat is it good or not good fat good grasa grasa sorry is the og yeah no one gives a fuck about all of the other um squeezy bottle things unless you're not in america But like, if you're in America, yeah, of course.

1:15:29Is this the Graza dominates America? Dominates. Dominates. I've heard recently that they went from, they took the pantry staple right of sale per store per week, kind of exists within the one and a half to two. Mate, but that goes back. Sorry, sorry, you're gone. Sorry. One and a half to two units per store per week in pantry staple. And, you know, on the grapevine, but I've heard numbers up in the sort of 20s. but it also goes it goes back to your principle of like asking the question beyond the question so like again surface level olive oil is just olive oil like cooks use it at home do you know what i mean well actually like who's the home cook is probably their aspirations or the the real die-hard foodies this is when you're at the early adopter stage are people who like either worked in kitchens those are kind of your baristas or that they're they're watching cooking videos and squeeze olive oil and actually the the the feeling and again it's a real sort of just very small thing but i think all the small things will add up to the big things the feeling of squeezing olive oil into a into a pan you become have you read have you read the um story brand that book about becoming no about how the brand you great brands help you become the hero of your own story and so if you're trying to be an aspirational chef and suddenly you're like squeezing with that bottle like you feel i see you see what i'm saying it's a it's a really good book actually it's like it's joseph campbell's the hero's journey which is basically what every story is about it's about how yeah how how in every single story there's basically a hero who goes on this journey you have this fit like this aspiration this goal here this feeling of like doubt here and eventually you know you fucking come through the other side in story brand he basically says you need brands should act like um guides to help people achieve that so almost like a dumbledore or a gandalf figure yeah that help pulls people on this journey grouse has done that for like chefs or just home cooks who like loves things and they've just done that fucking spray thing yes and it's just like not you've become the hero of your well again it's the same don miller's the guy who wrote that book it's the um same point as the question like questioning the sort of automatic, like the question and the assumptions of, it goes the same thing as the website.

1:17:46I mean, our website sort of example is obviously very low impact comparison to what they've done with olive oil. But like, you know, you show up and you go, why the fuck is everyone doing it like this? Why does everyone put it in a glass bottle and make it look premium? Even the cheap ones try to look premium. And why don't you do the other thing? Why don't you just take the mid kind of olive oil? I don't think anyone would be offended if I said that. It's just like, it's not fancy. It's just like the basics, the same as the other one that costs$15. But, um, but the, but it's UX. It's like, uh, it's, it's improving the experience of using that product and it's understanding what people actually need it to do in the kitchen, which, um, I think is the key.

1:18:23But also the sizzle versus drizzle. If you've seen that, they, like the two skews is one sizzle. Yes. Which is fucking, and then one's drizzle. So one's for like dressing. That's right. Whether that's complete and utter bollocks. but you basically double the double the spend because you'll get one diehard fan is like well i need one for cooking i don't need one for salads and dressing well of course because the thing you don't double the spend per yeah this it's interesting man when you get into that because what you're what you're doing is you're trying to you're trying to recalibrate people's expectations and and sort of you know if they buy a a fancy you know 20 30 40 dollar bottle of olive oil it'll sit on the counter for a year before you finished it because it's like a special occasion so it doesn't work a scaling brand in in in staples like pantry staples um doesn't have the luxury of presenting themselves as a as a luxury because um because you write a sale so you need to make it a thing that people don't are not afraid to just pick up and use buckets of But anyway, I digress.

1:19:28I'm not sort of an expert within the Staples. No, no, no. But I think that's interesting is helping people go through usage occasions. So brand, so exactly. And then storytelling is how you do that. How do you latch on to what kind of story and people tribe out in the world, whether it's kind of, you know, influencer cooks and chefs and whatever. How do you do that in a way which means it supports the behavior trying to get out of your customers? How do you make it so that people go, oh, yeah, well, this is like, you know, I'd usually use the$7 olive oil, but I'm going to use my like, you know,$15 one, but I'm going to use it like on everything all the time, five times a day.

1:20:11Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then it's like you've done it, but how do you do that? Yeah. That's the cool kind of challenge. That's branding service to an outcome. Brands, yeah, brand service. So you talked about liquid death. Obviously, we're calling this in Nashville. I think you've got a really interesting perspective, mate, because you were in London for a long time, went to New York. You're now in Nashville. Being here for three days, I would say it's just a massive culture shock. It's the Oscar Wilde quote, which is, we're two nations divided by a common language. It's so fucking wildly different. And I feel like people have this misconception of America, and I certainly did before coming here of like, oh, it's just New York and LA is America.

1:20:54It's like, that's what you get on social media and it's so far from the truth. The guy, Ryan, you know the guy I was having a few pints with? The guy I'd like. Yeah. Yeah, that geezer. Yeah, yeah, that geezer. His jokes, yeah. Found his card. Yeah. Oh, really? Oh, he thought he put me like his credit card. Oh, yeah. He gave you his card. That even shows how American he is. Right, he gave me his card. He's like, hey, man, I'm going to give him my card kind of thing. You know what I mean? But it's just, he's such a cool guy. But he was like, New York is closer to London than it is to Nashville. Yeah.

1:21:24I mean, New York's not really America. So what would you, why do you think so many British brands just completely tank it over here? Love to explore that. Why did you think Liquid Death booted off here but completely bombed in the UK? Like, it's just, I don't understand. Because, again, it's like, on paper, it should. And maybe there's a misconception here with the fact that because our greatest export is creativity, and we have all these pop stars that make it big in America. Like we kind of think that we're just so similar, but like being here is very, very, very different. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the reason, I mean, there's no reason that brands do or don't make it over here.

1:22:05Like I don't think it's really sort of, I don't think it's got simply anything. I mean, maybe it's a mixed blend. You've got cultural literacy. You've got like the ability to communicate in ways that people are expecting to be spoken to, especially by a brand. Like Americans love a winner. They love a winner. And they're very sort of like dismissive on even the nice Americans. They don't understand people that are like, oh, just, you know, trying to do my best. It's very English energy. Like that doesn't work for American folks. They just don't know how to grasp it and hold it and make sense of it because they're so used to being bombarded by like the best.

1:22:48It's the best fucking, you know, whatever. It's the best, best, best. I get what you mean. And that doesn't mean you just got to show up and say, claim that you're the best. It just means you got to know that there are differences. And then probably that leads you to sort of asking a lot of questions about what that means for you in your own sort of journey with a brand, with a product, with a category. And the other thing which is just different in a way which I don't think you can understand until you come here. um so this maybe would be like sort of a little a little like calling card both in the brand sense but also in in in the other kind of components of what i do these days with brands because i've done had i've had various projects go to market projects with uk brands that are coming over um just to help them understand what the fuck's going on because the supply chain and like the just the size of it and the way that you unlock regions of of um of distribution is just like nothing doesn't work the same.

1:23:54Like in the UK, you have, you know, someone on the team has a direct relationship with the buyer at that supermarket. And that's just not how it works. How does it work here? They're in between. You've got brokers, you've got merchandisers, you've got all these, you know, various kind of tiers of distribution that all kind of, you know, are interfacing with each other as well. And it just means that what you're trying to do commercially is just much less straightforward. than folks in the UK who've done really well with, you know, retail. Maybe they're sort of a very well-established brand and people's like a household name brand.

1:24:31And if someone really is native to the system over here, and I would not call myself native to it, but I'm certainly kind of near enough to it to understand that, you know, certain things are going to get you into a bit of hot water. Yeah, yeah, just doing it differently. So what I do now, a little bit of that, but a lot of it is really kind of the brand sort of the brand sort of transition. So how does, if Mind of Figures is this cool, crazy, hypnotic, psychedelic brand, like I think if you were to bring that base of people I've met over here with this winner's mindset, I mean, I find it hilarious.

1:25:07Like we're driving along the road and everyone's got a picture in the cell that goes, don't sell without the intel. And I'm like, it's just, and even like, mate, when I went to the salesmanship or sales, yeah, the salesmanship here is so encouraged. Whereas if you did it in the UK, you'd be like, they'd be like, what the fuck are you doing, mate? Do you know what I mean? Like, if it's what I was speaking to, did you meet Nate, the English bro? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we went for, I went for lunch to Cafe Rose the other day, Bang Him, which is kind of a cool hipster, would fit in very well in East London.

1:25:41Sure would, yeah. And, but even then she's like, hello, sir, how are you? And then I'm like, yeah, I'm good. and she goes and she basically she was like you need to get this and then she gave this wonderful sales pitch poetic high energy and before I know it I spent 15 quid on a fucking lemongrass and turmeric bone broth I love it dude but it's a me I love being salty yeah yeah and then with the sandwich I was like you know hook line sinker you know but I love that I like sales I think it's beautiful they see it more like an art form here I think whereas in the UK we sort of see it as like a don't sell.

1:26:17Yeah, it's considered a little bit edgy to be like that in the UK. I think that Minor Figures was... Yeah, how did you, with that cultural backdrop, how did you kind of navigate that? We're not very, culturally, we're not very English. Like the individuals in the brand, like Stewie and Johnny are both Aussie. And so they've got, you know, similarities with the UK folks, but like not really. Like they've got a much more sort of, you know. uh but yeah would you say that the aussies like like winner brands uh don't know i'm not super sure but i just know that our energy as a and certainly the culture that we developed you know from the very beginning at minor figures through to you know now is one that takes selling to be very, you know, fundamental.

1:27:10Like the only, you know, you can't assign success, commercial success to social media. You can't, likes and follows and so on don't equal. I think this is fascinating. So I think there'll be, there's probably not a misconception, just a perception of the brand that it was this, which it is this wonderfully creative but i love the fact that there's actually behind that is this relentless like i think i would say foremost is this like just ravenous like you know disciplined um attitude towards getting the product out there and and it's not what was the what was the strategy like knocking on doors yeah just like it's not even clever it's just like getting especially when you're talking about coffee shops that they're all there and you're meeting pretty much what were you and do do what were you and shoe doing in that first six months talk to what was that riding my bike around the east end dropping off samples yeah and i mean it wasn't the first six months it was the first like four years um and you know yeah you can learn a lot of lessons about the people and the and the way that they make decisions and so on and so on but ultimately nothing about either retail or or coffee channels um there's no way there's no better way of selling than just rocking up and talking to them what are the other cultural so that so that without sales approach basically worked here because when you're going into commercial conversations they like that whole like kind of we're the winner like and stew's kind of he's a very impressive guy right you meet him he's very convincing like oh yeah he's a great set he could sell fucking ice to an escalator right like um seen him do it yeah yeah yeah yeah like and i'd back myself to that it'd give you something to sell i can like i'd be able to get to sell most things to pick most people right but like i feel like the um so he would have that energy going over over here like how would that so we got i'm just trying to really understand how the brands worked over here because it's it honestly like the the us team is amazing yeah um we've been you know on a journey like in terms of shaping it and and working out how to where is it based from New York or LA or well we satellite for the most part but the a lot of the the main sort of energy like leadership energy happens more on the west coast we have great team um over in California the wonderful Melissa Hauser president based in Colorado we have a lot of operations that happen up in Chicago because we have co-packing just over the border in Canada there um but then we have awesome sort of regional sales like everywhere we go but the thing is we don't have like yes field sales you know in certain kind of situations everyone's kind of out there knocking on doors and meeting people but because we rely so much on we can't have like the number of people that you would need to cover all the territories yeah so like how many how many states you went out of all of them all of them no so so like how many states are there like 50 to 50 they always say 50 states i think so yeah anyway 50 yeah so there's 50 50 and and a shout out to puerto rico yeah yeah yeah what so so how many would you say you're in now i mean i can't say for sure i mean i could i could call up geo on the west coast shout shout out geo and find out from him but um you know there's a there's a good chance we're in asca and idaho for all i know um i couldn't tell you for sure but yeah we're definitely like and do the regional managers understand the nuance of that because again like what nate was saying to me is like mate you you go from nashville to charlotte yeah which is kind of it goes that that they're both southern states but still very wildly different ways of viewing the world like this is what i can what's blowing my mind since being here is it's like i almost decompartmentalized like this america into like new york uh california like the east coast west coast and then kind of south but the nuance between each state what i'm learning from these guys who've you know bouncing around you know ali was saying he he's on a flight to a different i think the thing that matters the most is it is regional but it's not so much the nuance of the culture it's more so like selling is you know your success in selling is directly correlated with your, the depth of your network.

1:31:35Like, and if you, and selling therefore is kind of this embedded, like, you know, feet on the ground thing where you have to have relationships with, maybe not lots of people, but certainly certain strategic people, you have to have them close by. So when you're hiring people in sales, that's the thing that you're expecting them to bring is like, not just, hey, sell me this pencil, but it's like who do you know like how are you going to how are you actually going to do this and we give you the materials and the samples and whatever and you're going to go out and start doing it what you're going to do who you're going to talk to when is it how long does that whole thing take and like you know when are we going to start i think commercially network is a moat like you know you're talking about brand as a moat right and so there's a really good book guy called david cleavely who owns bocca delupo um in soho like really successful guy and he's got a book called serendipity it doesn't happen by accident and this whole thing it was like talking about the the networks of during the industrial revolution like how that kicked off in the uk first so we had all these networks of linking things together and i feel like you know when i think it's interesting like networks always seem it's never really on the list you know with like things like i did this you know i don't think it's building out a network is so so so important you know what i mean and it's also a skill on its own like yeah you know it's not like about adding people on linkedin it's about having you know relevant experiences and also i think map over there this is what will goddard was saying to me yesterday is language no intention plus language equals culture and i'll explain because i was thinking oh what the fuck like I'm going to go to the bathroom.

1:33:19Yeah, yeah, go for it. But yeah, I like this little comment. Yeah, this is sick, mate, loving this.

1:33:28So intention plus language equals culture. What were we talking about before that bit? We were talking about how the regional nuances network. Yeah. How network is. Oh, sorry. So, sorry. I think the word, you were saying like networking is a hard thing to do. It's not just about having people on LinkedIn. It's certainly a skill, yeah. But also I think the word, basically what Will was saying, words really matter. And I think people don't have to give it, or he was saying a lot of businesses don't think about actually what the intention is of what X brand is trying to do. So whether it's be a winner or make people feel X creatively.

1:34:07But then the language you attach to that word is really, really important because that changes the behavior. And so he was saying, you know, for example, like artificial intelligence could do with a rebrand because artificial intent, we call it co-pilot or like save time, have more, like curiosity booster. Do you know what I mean? Like the intention plus the language equals the outcome. Basically, when he was running the restaurants, you know, he was working with Danny Mayer and stuff and it would be like slow, gentle pressure was one of the things. And like that as a slow, gentle pressure is very different from like that that behavior there and the kind of the the pace of the dining room is very different from like excellence yes you know and i think with networking a bit like how ai needs a rebrand is people think networking is this and that's why i think most people fuck it is as reason i go long on the podcast because you build depth with people yeah but it's like it's let's have loads of contacts that i kind of half know it's like no pick the three biggest dons that you need to know go out your way to get to know them very very very well and then and then oh actually become it should be called becoming mates like right right networking is just the wrong we've got we've got a proper name for that yeah yeah yeah it's just called like becoming mates and i think the world networking is let's go to a networking event like do an icebreaker like yeah fucking hell like networking is not about lanyards doesn't doesn't bring the best out in people yeah and i think it's really i think what you're saying there about when you're hiring people as having like an actual network.

1:35:39Yeah. Like an act, like actually, like, sorry, friends. Do you know what I mean? Because about people who come to job interviews probably go, oh yeah, I've got great networks. Well, I mean, it's so much easier to, people buy from people. Yeah. Right. And, you know, meaning humans, meaning people with actual experiences and lives, AKA friends and mates and so on. Yeah. I mean, it's so much easier or rather it's so much harder for someone to tell you no when they care about you and there's no doubt and this you know we had these experiences within you know sort of the the kind of the the ecosystem of london coffee shops which is where it's like you know that coffee shop is is like the guy that the individual not even the owner just like the one of the baristas is is like flatmates with the with the the Oatly rep or something.

1:36:31And it's like, that just means that's like locked. With stores, we used to work with Martin. Do you remember Martin, the guy with the covered in tattoos, really sound geezer, but he was a barista. And like again, I think the other thing with sales which is again what Mark Palmer at Corson Press taught me, is like hire for channel. So and the reason like, basically Martin walked in looking like he was a barista. Since he walked in, he's like, I speak barista. Yeah, I speak barista. Yeah, it's kind of a thing. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it's, whereas they sent in some sort of, I don't know, Norwell's marathon runner influencer, you know what I mean, which they could so many businesses, like, thinking about who is our customer, how do we mimetic that?

1:37:12Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. What else shocked you about or has shocked you about America? Like, I just think it's fascinating because I want to understand, And I think I've been really blown away in the most beautiful way since being here. But I'd love to get your perspective on it. I think that the feeling of being here is that people are trying. I think that the I think the ambition to achieve and to create is no different than it is here than it is in the UK but in the UK there are these like complicated like social layers of interaction where you know the

1:38:05you know the vicar I mean admittedly not an English reference but the um there's that yes yes yes yes yes yes no evic of dibley yeah that's my mate's great uncle that's so wild like yeah yeah he's dead that's the thing he's bare old he was bare old but like yeah super old but like that thing is like totally like in english what do you mean by that like the yes you're you're talking to someone yeah perhaps in a sales situation but not necessarily and there's like all this kind of yeah awesome yeah wicked you send me some information yeah yeah yeah yeah whatever and then it's like time to like close this down it's like nah and it's like they don't do that here it's like it's much more like yes usually means actually you know it's in the direct it's a constructive step in the direction of the solution or the resolution um and no means no and it's like i'm still confused about you know when i'm having those conversations with like um you know folks in the uk i'm like it's still like i just don't know how to fucking you know decipher it so doing business here is kind of a joy because um it's just like it's more literal it's just less coded and complicated and less kind of you know there's less kind of sarcasm and nuance and sort of you know all that stuff going on and And that's a good thing if what you're trying to do is just move in a direction, like execute on a plan and get it done.

1:39:37You know, yeah, I don't know. That's a real useful one to be aware of. But it also means that if you don't do that, then they're suspicious of you. That's the thing about the winners. It's like if you don't show up, of course you're going to back yourself. Why wouldn't you? Why would you come in here saying, oh, I'm just going to, you know, see what happens? Yeah. Very English. If you do that, then they're very suspicious of you. What other stuff would you say surprised you? surprises me. It's a little, I mean, I've been here long enough now that I don't really know if I sort of remember everything, but, or that is, and I don't know if I'm still surprised by it.

1:40:14Not sure. I see. Yeah, no, it's interesting because it's even like the, just hanging out with these British guys who live here, just their perspective of, of, like, I don't know, how, I don't really know how to describe it. Just, for me it's the mindset is very very different even though the language is the same do you know i mean which has kind of a bit it's been a massive kind of not a head fuck for me but it's just been really interesting um i think when we when we called the other day for a beer you made a comment which i'd never i hadn't sort of thought about it the way that you described it which is that um um being being outside of you only realize the the the the weirdness and nuance and and sort of very specific details of your native culture.

1:41:04You only start really noticing that when you leave. Oh, yes. And it's not so much that I come here and I'm surprised by how it's here, but it's more like now I look at the UK and I'm like, whoa, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like there's, have you heard of, you know, David Foster Wallace? Yes. Yeah, the Infant Jess guy. He's got that commencement speech about called This Is Water. And it's the story, starts the speech. and there's two fishes swimming along and then they see this big fish. I'm kind of fucking this story up, but the point's true. There's these two fishes swimming along, two little fishies, a couple of fishies.

1:41:39My mate kept saying that in Thailand, a couple of fishies. And the big fish comes past and he goes, oh, to the little fishies. He goes, oh, how's the water? And they go, oh, what's water? And the whole point is the fish doesn't know it's in water. We don't know we're in culture until we're taken out of it. and I always seem like, say this trip, say I'm a fish in the UK in this blue water, right? And then the US is this green, another fishbowl in green water, Thailand's yellow water, whatever. Different, and the color dictates the culture. As soon as you plonk me out and put me in that one and then I look and I'm in the blue, sorry, out of the blue British water into the red US water or whatever color it is and you look back into that pool and you're like, fuck me, that water's blue.

1:42:22I'm now in red water. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had no idea. Yeah, because that's what I feel like. You get used to it pretty quickly. So when you look back at the UK, what do you think is good, bad, ugly? I mean, honestly, I could just sort of reinterpret some of the things that we've already covered. But, you know, I think that it gives – the way things are in any given place from a cultural perspective are like that for, you know, old and deep reasons mostly. But that doesn't mean you got to, you don't have to agree with it or play into it. And now there might be sort of clunky ways of getting around that, which, you know, we might say that, you know, being self-promoting or whatever in the uk might come across a little bit um undesirable from the ears of someone else but that just means you're doing it wrong so how do you how do you do it differently how do you how do you kind of get around that sort of that sort of stubborn nuance of uk culture by but without without stepping on people's toes and upsetting them how do you how do you sort of come at it from a third angle.

1:43:43It's not this. It's not this. Yeah, but I think it's really, I think it's really, my new sort of current obsession is culture. I'm reading a book called The Cultural Shooter about how brands interact and interface with it. Because some of the best brand people I've spoken to, and you guys are definitely in that category, is there is an understanding of cultural norms. I don't know, like some people like, you know, at first I thought it was such a wanky thing when people would say brand shape culture or brands can change culture, but I really now believe they can, but they have to understand it first.

1:44:16That's why I'm trying to get a real rich understanding of it because then you can kind of, Seth Godin's books on strategy is amazing at this. He says, we're in these systems. So the system could be, we're in actual physical systems. Like imagine that's like scaffolding and then we're in this blanket that we put around it or over it, which is culture, which is all the social stuff. So say with the example of minor figures, is like the physical infrastructure and systems here of the US with all the different fucking, it's not like you just go and sell into Tesco and then bish bash Bosch or in a 6 ,000, yeah, some way of the fucking number of stores.

1:44:50You've got all the actual physical system and then all the cultural stuff on top of it. And it's understanding those two things, I think is really important. Do you know what? The UK loves, it sort of has this way of being quite risk averse in the way that it buys. like the the the consumer is risk averse and you know everything's a chain i mean of course there's like a sort of a strong you know indie um sort of culture as well but like you know everyone just like you know we're not gonna you know i'll get i'll get my mns is mns is so good mns is great obviously but like you know i mean it's like we'll we'll get the thing we'll get it from that place um but also i think a way that that shows up in a different way which is kind of where i was trying to get to this get with this thing is that um you know what i fucking hate about being on the tube is see it say it sorted like and but it's like i hate it for two reasons one is like it's is see it say it sorted and they didn't do it right it should have been see it say it sorted it but also because it's just this thing which like makes me kind of go which is the the everything has to be turned into a little little bite-sized little token like digestible thing oh yeah it's the little song that i sing to myself and it's like so like specifically english and annoying and i think that i'm really interested yeah yeah yeah yeah like i don't know it's just you know like everything when you watch like uk adverts like for i don't know if you like if you're on like youtube and you get an advert for a brand or something and the equivalent brand over here they just have this completely different way of doing it but over there it's also i understand why americans go to the uk and they go it's really just like so cute yeah i'm like i'm like what do you mean it's like no no but it's fucking yeah but it's like every little helps test yeah totally dude every little helps whereas here but literally there's a sign i'm in fact i'm gonna take a picture I want to take a picture it's out there right because I've been every time I've been driving around Nashville I'm like this guy's cracking me up but it kind of typifies and it goes I think I've talked about already it's just this severely faked hand middle aged guy with like a red red on this one fucking I've seen it on about 15 yeah the size of a fucking tennis court yeah and he goes don't sell without the intel and then it's like then we've got every little helps like it's just financially it's so fascinating and it works and I'm not saying they should change.

1:47:26It's just knowing it. But to me, knowing the arena. Yeah, it's knowing the arena from a brand building perspective. And Mark Palmer, who was the marketing director at Green and Blacks, sorry, well, yeah, it was marketing director at Green and Blacks, but then was the marketing director at Pret. And Pret's a very, you know, safe brand. Not safe brand, that's the word. Cute, pretty brand. You know, fresh every day. And he was saying they launched the adverts into New York. And people were like, well, no, no, this needs to, You mean to say you're the best coffee? I think there was maybe a sort of an iteration on that, which I saw years and years ago, which was like they had this thing about being the best British invasion since the Beatles or something.

1:48:11Oh, really? Was that Pretz thing? Yeah. Oh. Pretty sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's probably them punching it up. I think they were trying, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty, yeah. Clearly didn't work. So why is Stu such a good leader? Talk to me. What's underrated about Stu? Do you think? obviously I've interviewed him I'm too far I'm going to need to get him back on the pod I love Letter to Stu yeah he's yeah there's no one like Stu there's no one like Stu how did you guys meet or where did you meet we met I was in about 2007 or 8 when I was I was working I was a barista speaking of which and I was whilst I was studying music at university there just in Barbican and there was a great coffee shop and Kiwi run coffee shop when when specialty coffee in the UK was like a very very sort of small deal um james phillips shout out james phillips uh yeah kiwi bloke he opened a great coffee shop still there by smithfield um called dose and i was like one of the sort of first three or four hires he had there and it coincided with stew and the awesome baja and both moving over baja That's his wife's name.

1:49:20Oh, sick. Yeah. What's that? Iranian, Persian. She's American. She grew up in Albuquerque. Where's that? New Mexico. Oh, sick. It's where Breaking Bad is based. Oh, sick. Meth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, she's amazing. But the two of them came over from us with Keep Cut, which was essentially the Forsyth family business, and one of them. And yeah, so Keep Cup, they wanted to sort of root down with the coffee community in the UK and London. And there weren't very many places to do that. So we met almost like pretty much the first week that they arrived and became good mates. So that's how we know each other.

1:50:03And what would you say from a business perspective is underrated about him? Underrated about Stu? Shit. Underrated. Well, I don't know. I think that he's, how's he a fucking animal? He's an animal. He's, he's a, he's absolutely a visionary. He's got the ability to set pace for, for an entire business, for an entire like life cycle for a decade. He's, he's the guy that runs the first, like whatever it is, 10 laps on the, on the 800 meters or, you know what I mean? On the, on the long mid distance race around the track, but he's never stopped being at the front he never stops like maintaining so what how to like go grinding on that like on a weekly basis like again i'm just trying to get into understanding what it takes to get to that level so he's in at what time again no it's not even that it's not about grind it's about it's about energy in the moments it's about like okay like he's not i mean yeah like he he's he's in office like he's not like um sort of dialing it in but it's like you You know, I'm pretty sure he'll still take like sales meetings.

1:51:15Like he'll still go do things like that. You know, if he's the guy to get the job done, he's got absolutely no like inhibition from doing something which maybe a CEO in another business or wherever might sort of think is like someone else's responsibility. And we've got that culture in the business. That was something that I think he kind of represented, represents, represented. but it was it was very it became like everybody did that everyone everyone sort of wore the sort of the responsibility of of what they were doing at minor figures with a lot of pride and i believe still do you know like you know much sort of later stage business than it used to be but um you know i think a lot of that stuff remains but yeah incredible leader he's the only person that i would sort of back to to get the job done at that at that sort of you know real well he's we talked about it when we're having smashing that chicken and that booze on saturday was you know there's two types of brand builders and this was what stew said to me is those who like push it or those who literally just pull it over grass and not grass that'd be quite easy glass yeah um that's interesting we don't have to go here but i'd love so you left in 2023 what was the why behind that yeah um I left the business on very good terms very friendly sort of exit um and not even an exit like in the sense of an exit just I resigned and um it was one of these things where where sort of you're sort of soul searching you're you know the the the what what am I good at what am I doing and and how does it all feel to be this experience it's all kind of um you know turning over a bit like a lot of it to do with kind of personal stuff with you know life in general and um but also as the scale as the business scaled um and working out where I would fit into that this is a really sort of

1:53:24um i don't know that i hear a lot of founders talking about this but the truth is it happens and i know that it happens to other people too because you see these businesses where you know the the founder who is the sort of automatic ceo or whatever gets to a point where it's like what the fuck like i'm basically employing everyone that i look at is better than me in a specialist sense at this thing founders have a very specific kind of um skill and you know it's it's it's not automatic that you will remain the best person for the job forever especially when businesses scale um and so there was a there was two things happening one of them was that I was, you know, constantly looking around me thinking that everyone here is like amazing.

1:54:19And I'm like, not that I'm not amazing, but I don't think that of myself at times, but like, I don't think that I'm doing it better than they could. So it's, and maybe there's a bit of, you know, maybe I should be on the couch for this one, but like, you know, there's a probably a bit of imposter syndrome in there as well, but like, that's one piece. But then it's also like, well what am i good at and is there is there a way that i can be that you know i think that i i have a feeling of wanting to be um uninhibited like i want to find myself in a situation where the work i'm doing you know lines up with the person that i am nicely like it's the same not like all kind of twisted and wrong and yes ill-fitting and um so it's like well Take the sob story off the table.

1:55:11What are you good at and what do you like doing? And can you do it here? And the answer was kind of no. So after 10 years, I was like, well, I'm. But what were you doing? Was it all the creativity stuff? Yeah, I mean, it was definitely, you know, I was, by the, you know, last few years, it was pure brand stuff. You know, running things like the sort of the music program with FM. And that had all kind of interesting, cool, different iterations too. And that lent itself into cool projects. We did like the Human Made collab and a bunch of really interesting sort of brand projects. But it's like the problem solving of early stage businesses when it's a bit more, you know, you're kind of a bit everywhere and you can move fast and you can come up with ideas and you can ship them quick.

1:56:05And I know that that's something that a lot of other businesses, like loads of businesses that are in that phase. so take an experience of founding and running or you know being part of this kind of leadership team of a brand that had a lot of like i'd say mainly sort of cultural sort of impact um meaning people know it and they and they and they typically like it which means you've done something not just to have people aware of it but people to go i fucking love that brand that's that's a big deal so So that's something that I feel very confident that I was sufficiently part of to be able to come and take that and, you know, bring knowledge and skill and wisdom to other folks.

1:56:52So it felt like and coincided with some other kind of family moves as well. So relocating and all this kind of other stuff. So being in the U.S., having the ability to meet and expand on sort of my personal network of people here now in New York and beyond to offer that kind of knowledge and skill and guidance to founders and sort of CPG marketers and so on who are in that sort of post-raise Series A, you know bringing up a sort of a culture or creative sort of aspirational brand that wants to do something cool and different and fun and impactful and sort of have that like you know drive commercial outcomes and so on and doing that and sort of and and and starting not necessarily from ground zero but like bringing that whole experience of you know coming from playing jazz trumpet doing 10 years of that and then doing something else it's like a pretty wild like yeah sort of contour but um yeah making it make sense for myself so that i can kind of bring the the whole thing that i've learned and bring make it make it make sense for other folks too so that's what i do now um and that shows up in all kind of different ways yeah yeah and so have you still got like shares in the business yes so you'd still benefit from the exit i still i still absolutely are cheering i'm cheering on minor figures partly you know that we've spoken about it for as long as we have already just now like i'm really kind of a huge fan of the onward success of that brand and i love what they're doing and i'm very friendly with the team still and i catch up with student but you know i'm not gonna say the brand but i went for dinner before i came out here with a big big brand uh the founder of him founder of it and um he was saying he's trying to extrapolate himself from the brand because it started off incredibly creative.

1:58:47And his, what, it said the work's become drudgery because I'm now, basically the business has got to a certain level that he's now working in, he basically works in HR. And he goes, I don't do anything creative now. And he's like, I can't wait to kind of get rid of it, which I think they probably will do in a few years and make good money. Yeah, do you know what I mean? but um and it's like sometimes the thing you create becomes a prison yeah and it's like and that's kind of why i do this i don't want to raise a bit i just want to just be creative yeah i'm like anything else can fuck off basically i'd rather yeah do you know and it's and it takes balls to do that and um so i've got massive respect for you on that um final couple of things mate so jazz i love i love weird connections like carl young's fear of synchronicity learned from one thing you can learn anything um like jazz what are the lessons that you apply from jazz to brand building because you played what instrument trumpet still do yeah oh sorry yeah yeah no yeah is that your guitar as well no that's my wife's guitar oh sick i can't play the guitar okay um i don't know if it's like principles that sort of map onto brand in particular it could be very tenuous yeah but like certainly there are ways to there are things about sort of developing a sound on like a sort of an identity or personality because you know if we sort of not not we're not going to get on a music theory lesson but like jazz in the sense of improvising is basically the spontaneous kind of rearrangement of of vocabulary that you've learned with the injection of um spontaneous innovation so uh it's actually identical to what we all do all the time with language um meaning these are not new words right they're just words that i know that we're spontaneously kind of putting in this order in order to communicate as a way of inputting into the kind of collective sort of interest i mean we're having a conversation you know when it's time to listen and then at a certain moment there's a cadence there's a way of talking which will wrap up what we're doing and um what i'm saying and you'll know it's your time to start talking but what we're doing is we're building this thing together we're doing it here and the conduct the consequence of all that if done well musicianship is that you create music and music is the the consequence is the is is me to or people would rather jazz is people who are talking about a common interest who have different perspectives because you're on the bass and i'm on the trumpet and we're just like doing it together you know we're just like making up as we go along um but you have always got the limitations you've got the limitations of what you know and what they know you've got limitations like what is the you know the song that we're playing it can't be anything i mean maybe you can that's free jazz but like it's just the things that it is we've got these um inherent sort of limitations and you've got to improvise within them uh okay one of that we're talking in english for a start um so improvising collectively to achieve a goal within the common uh confines of um the given um limitations of the situation is exactly what you're doing you're running a business like you're you know what you're doing you've only got like the resources that you have and you're trying to you know get everyone to kind of move in the same direction um to achieve something and you know i've always been instinctively kind of a bit more gestural in that way a bit more improvisational with my kind of outlook and my life um but there's a way to do that in a way which is like effective for everyone even those that need the kind of the rigor and this discipline and then and the sort of the data and the and the sort of the understanding as a way of being effective despite you know you're not the fact that you're not being necessarily as everyone else would need you to be in an ideal world um yeah just to achieve the outcome so i think yeah that's a massive ramble i'm probably gonna need a huge edit but like no i totally get it and i get from a brand brewing perspective it's having the the vocabulary vocabulary vocabulary and then when we've all got that and then also you said like a sound i think i think if you could brands that can be defined as a sound but almost a new how you get that and the vocabulary of a brand is you know this is exactly what danny um sorry will goddara was saying yesterday became the best restaurant in the world that vocabulary and what we're saying about intention plus language equals culture intention plus language equals vocab vocabulary i think they're kind of the same kind of thing when you have this to build off it allows you to then then go and be fucking come up with some crazy idea like the acid tripping thing you know what i mean yeah and i think so that's and so when you're you build this deep deep deep understanding of jazz and not jazz but like music and chords and stuff that when you go up and play you can kind of be freestyle and me at the moment you know yeah i think that with from the brand perspective what the sound is is a it's a perspective it's a point of view like what do what does this brand think or do in that situation?

2:04:47How does this brand show up when it's like in packaging or social media or whatever it is? And having your perspective basically means what are all the brand touch points that orbit? All the brand touch points do essentially orbit this kind of nucleus. They're all kind of, they're not linked to each other as much as they're linked to something What would be some of those touch points? Say again? What would be some of those touch points? Anything. Literally every single thing that shows up in the world. Like the Wi-Fi password. For sure. Yeah. Your employee onboarding handbook. Yeah, there's a cafe in Lisbon, which is the Wi-Fi is like Wu-Tang Lan.

2:05:31Because you know like Lan, is it? Oh. You know like Lan's? Yeah. Yeah, like Lan or something like that. Local area network, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it was like, I just thought like, yeah, you can, yeah, that's right. You can do that. Everything that happens internally and externally in the business. And I mean, a lot of people think brand is sort of the very obvious things that it still is, but it's actually kind of, that's the tip of the iceberg. Like packaging and social media is the tip of the iceberg. Everything that shows up in, in the world, all the, all the details that you have an opportunity to sort of have an impact on how they look, feel, or read, like they will, like your you know email flow your like the the terms and conditions on your work on your thing or you know anything that's all a touch point but what what decisions are you making about how those touch points should live like how how how you anchoring them to something and ultimately they all come back to some kind of nucleus perspective and it's not a 10 commandments, like live and die by it.

2:06:34Like that's it. But it's some kind of principle that helps you kind of make decisions which are coherent and also kind of have the impact of being more than the sum of their parts. Brand vocabulary is a really nice way of putting it. Because that's why I love it. Because it's not, I think having brand values and principles is too reductive in summer sex because it's, I mean, that's great for galvanizing a team, but like in terms of that brand intuition, having actual vocabulary and like a deeper understanding when brand in service to problem, you can call upon that. And that's something you can get through, you know, through jazz, through all the long periods of doing it, of being out on the streets, of asking the questions, asking the question behind the question.

2:07:21Like that builds this kind of moving organism of brand vocabulary that when you go out to the real world to solve the problems, like it's all there. Yeah. sick mate let's wrap that up so we just get to the airport but that's been fucking sick man really pleasure thanks for having me I had a great time too and um yeah thank you so so much for listening to the podcast I really really do appreciate it if you liked that episode only if you liked it please do give it five stars subscribe tell all your friends families foes next door but one cat dog whatever please tell everyone about this podcast it means the world to me and i really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of challenger food and drink brands please do hit me up on linkedin search dan pope and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands thank you so much