Espresso: "Your Brand is NOTHING Without These" BOTIVO's 4 Essential Pillars of Brand Story

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0:24I mean, there's kind of four areas to it that I always would tell a story around a brand about. And there's four, I guess, tensions that you need to play to when you want to create a brand that has longevity and that is really resonant. And the first one is, what's the cultural tension that it's playing to? You know, what is going on and why do you have longevity in terms of where culture is heading? The second thing is, what's going on in the category and what kind of white spaces or what tensions can you rub up against? Yeah. The third one is, who's your consumer? What makes them different? And the fourth one is, what makes your brand and your product, like, you know, what's in its DNA?

0:56You know, what can you do that no one else can do? And I sort of took those four elements. and for Bativo what that was was in culture it was the tension was life is fucking shit basically yeah at the moment like you know no one can buy houses like COVID's going on the economy's going to shit like everything feels really heavy and really overwhelming and yet then what drinks in the category what people to then do is oh then also by the way moderate and don't drink so life's rubbish anyway and I'm now going to come to you and I'm going to say also you can't drink anymore and you can't do this and this is no you can't do that no you can't do this and so the cultural tension was actually welfare feels really heavy so we're going to play a role in culture which is really delightful and pleasurable and light that was kind of that fed into it yeah and the tension in terms of the category was at the time and you know i think even now to be honest so with the category sorry so just so you're looking at the alcohol were you looking at i'm looking at anything which doesn't have alcohol in it so i'm looking at soft drinks looking at health drinks i'm looking at um okay not not just kind of the aperitivo vibe no no no you weren't looking at seed lip and and fill in the blank but you're looking at the full spectrum yeah and you're and you're going what is the you know what's the tension here and actually when it came to non-alcoholic the tension was it's all about moderation it's all about what you can't do and actually um the tension that we were how we wanted to rub up against that was we're not about moderation we're about the opposite that were about hedonism and pleasure.

2:21So that was kind of what fed into that. So tension one is culture. We're going to rough. Yeah, okay. So tension one is we're going to bring delight to people when things are really rubbish. Tension number two is we're going to bring pleasure to a category that's all about holding back in moderation. And then the consumer one was actually we're not going to talk to people that are, let's say, really health conscious or are doing stuff to cut back on calories. It was actually about kind of hedonistic pleasure seekers who love food and drink, who love how things are made, who love the quality of ingredients like foodies effectively yep um and actually at the time and even now i think a lot of the narratives around the non-oncolic space are like sober curious or holding back or health and actually we don't ever talk about health even though we're really healthy because our strategy is to go like really big on like pleasure and like deliciousness and foodies and we're promising them taste and an experience not um a moderation thing and the fourth one um which was less of a tension actually, but is the brand one is more, you know, what can you do authentically to tell that story, which no one else can.

3:23And, you know, we are the only brand has no flavorings or preservatives in our, in our category, you know, in the kind of spirits category. We were the only one that took a year to make with anyone that had a maker at the heart of it in, I guess, in spirits, not in, you know, wine alternatives, et cetera. So the reason why we could claim, you know, this idea of sort of being artisanal, but also being quite hedonistic was because it was an artisanal process. But the liquid itself was so punchy and so powerful and strong and not watered down. And it could sort of talk the talk that we were kind of promising people.

3:56So that was the kind of whole strategy behind it. Yeah, that tension thing is really interesting. Alex Smith has the whole thing of don't, unique selling points are kind of, like so many people talk about features, not benefits, when they're kind of that you know with less less more probiotic less calories more protein it's kind of just stuff that's very conscious and it's like oh every fucker out there saying the same thing do you know what i mean it's and actually what he said and that's almost like kind of conscious unique selling points are kind of conscious but actually going deeper um is unique points of disagreement and that's where you can hit people subconsciously it's like how do you and i suppose emma your thing of saying this is that those tensions it's like what do you push against what do you disagree with someone on because that's how you find as you say that kind of white space in the category i think it's really interesting what you're saying yeah because as i would like consuming the brand looking at the brand the activations is it is not it's it's the anesthetist to that kind of moderation kind of walk down not not enjoyable delicious indulgent experience uh and that's your interest where did you learn those four kind of tenants I worked in sort of brand building for, you know, on the agency side for like years.

5:09And actually that was like an iteration of that was what we were sort of taught in terms of like where to do brand positionings, basically. It was always like, look at those four areas. What were some of the brands you did? I worked for like Adidas, like Nike, Indiagio, Heineken, Grey Goose, like just a whole range. So would Adidas create like a, like how the Adidas would have that kind of thinking with the product? Yeah, so it would be like, I'd work on like brand architecture stuff, for example, where it'd be like, what is the Adidas master brand? And then what are the sub-brands? And how do they all live together as a family?

5:41And how do we identify and really clarify their different personalities and how they all sit together as a... That's sick. Is that, there's no example of that? I mean, it changes literally every like two years. That's the thing. When I did that, I was consulting. I was in the agency for seven years. Then I was consulting directly for brands for like eight years. and I'd say that I probably worked on the same brands like three or four times and every time it would evolve interesting yeah because that's another thing we're talking about with Mark this morning is this evolution piece of brands it's like how you have to evolve um I talk about this well I've been writing about this like the champagne versus cocoa pop problem so the champagne is like kind of when you've got your early adopters and it's kind of so many founders of middle class create middle class products for middle class people middle class branding real-class price points that's great but if you want to come to the cocoa pop shopper which isn't an audi shopper it's someone who probably shops in sainsbury's um and it's it's cognizant of the price of cocoa pops right so how do you go from champagne this is niche this is mass market and i think as you said at the beginning with these lavish parties it was quite old cottage i think you said brand um and now you've kind of ballooned it into this petivo and it's like we're not we're not trying to suppress people from having fun i think that's how you move from champagne to cocoa a bop.

6:58Thank you so much for listening to that espresso. I hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and are ready for the day. Let's be having you, boy. And please do subscribe, follow the podcast, share this espresso on WhatsApp if you liked it. And also there's a link to our newsletter in the show description. I spend 15 hours toiling and writing this bad boy. It's full of wonderful wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. You're not going to get these in a business book, so please subscribe and thank me later.