251. How Insurgent CPG Brands Stand Out in Crowded Categories

0:01John Ferrante:Welcome to Startup to Scale, a podcast by FoodBevy. I'm your host, Jordan Buckner. Join me as I talk to aspiring entrepreneurs, seasoned industry experts, and everyone in between as we unlock the keys to growing from startup to scale.

0:18John Ferrante:Do you find yourself getting asked how your product is different than everything else that's out there in the market? Today I'm talking with John from EO Space about how to find opportunity in the crowded consumer market so that you can actually build a standout business. John, I'm excited for this conversation because a lot of the brand teams that I talk to you feel like they're kind of stuck tweaking tactics, you know, ads, content, messaging. When the real issue is probably with like their product packaging and just like positioning in the market, like kind of figure out how they're creating that white space.

0:50John Ferrante:So today I want to kind of talk through some of those things that insurgent brands are doing across things like branding, packaging and marketing that are allowing them to stand out in the market today. And it was like constantly evolving. So we're all trying to figure out like what are those things that are resonating with customers right now. But we'd love to kind of jump into that. So to get started, I'd love for you just to talk through what kind of things you're in the team are seeing in the market out here. Yeah, well, just to provide a little bit of context, I'm the business director for EOSpace.

1:22We're a food and beverage design agency, brand strategy agency. We do a lot of work across food and beverage, CPG at large, but a lot of food and beverage, and talking about things like brand, package, getting into stores more effectively. Just got out of a conversation earlier today, and we're talking with a big retailer, and you could tell that to them they thought, brand innovation-wise, really strong. Disruption-wise, for the category, not there. A little stale. And so when we think about how to amount success, there's a lot of great case studies in CPG, especially food and beverage happening now.

1:55Over 4 ,000 VC-backed CPG startups since COVID. It's really changing the rules of competition. And what we're thinking about is what are insurgents doing, as you just asked. And before we dive into that, I do want to define insurgents and just understand what that really means. Because we see new brands all the time, and maybe they go viral, that doesn't necessarily mean they're successful long-term. We would define insurgents as brands generating 25 million plus in annual revenue, brands that are growing 10 times faster than their category average, and they're sustaining at least two consecutive years of positive growth, standalone or post-acquisition.

2:28And so what we're seeing is that insurgent brands across food and beverage CPG, although they amount for about 3 % of CPG's total market share across categories, they're responsible for 25 to 40 % of the growth. And so the reason I bring this up is just because when we're thinking about what these brands are doing, you know, it's not so much about like optimizing incrementally, you know, maybe adding a new skew, adding a new flavor, adding a new thing. What they're doing is they're treating brand, they're treating product, they're treating packaging. They're treating these things as competitive systems and they are taking them very seriously.

3:02And so as a team, we're trying to look closer at what some of those strategies are and trying to essentially carry that playbook and those strategies to some of the new players or existing brands that we're working with.

3:14John Ferrante:I love that. You know, it's interesting because I've been following a lot of brands like, you know, Alipop, Poppy, Ciete Foods, and some of these have recently been acquired, right? And they're becoming the gold standard just in terms of like how they were able to amount such growth in a relatively short term kind of in the market because they were able to grow like hundreds of millions of dollars in sales when they were acquired. So I think a lot of companies I've talked with are looking to those types of brands to say like, all right, how do I like what is it about them that made them successful?

3:44John Ferrante:It's like operations was about like their branding and how they're connecting with people. And so maybe to start like what are some of the initial things that you're seeing just in general insurgent brands are doing to like maximize their opportunities? Like how are they thinking about like product choice versus brand and like how that comes off and the meaning that they're building in the world? It's important to be able to establish a context. The biggest shift that we see is that insurgent brands are treating their product and their branding as a source of advantage, like I said. But a way that I'll often help clients think through it is if you imagine your positioning as three concentric circles.

4:20So at the core, you have your product. Around that, you have things like your functional value, you have your benefits, performance, ingredients, your claims. And then you have around that the emotional value. So the identity, the meaning, the confidence and the belonging that comes to associating with that brand. And what's happening right now is that product and functional value are sort of becoming table stakes. you know they're where the competition is really happening now is in the emotional layer more and more products are entering into the market and they're competing on this basis of innovation but innovation doesn't mean disruption and where the disruption often happens is having that functional value but really being able to compete in that emotional layer and that's why you're seeing so many categories are saturated with things like you got clean ingredients you got better for you claim it's a sense of performance parity so insurgents are great at at earning attention emotionally than backing it up functionally.

5:09And so what we're seeing is that product and brand are often designed together. So not product first, not brand later, the product reinforces that story and the story sharpens how that product is perceived. And branding is treated as a growth layer. A lot of these brands are so exceptional at, one of the things that we're finding is just how they use the category here and how they take advantage of those. So every category has a sense of, I mean, if you think about something like olive oil, or you think about something like laundry detergent, there's probably certain visual images that pop in your mind.

5:41And those are kind of the main reference points for how you perceive that category. So there's certain colors, there's expected forms, there's certain typography. Insurgents are really good at strategically progressing them. And what we've kind of figured out as a team that there's a scale. So, you know, some of them will iterate that forward in very simple ways, ways that are sleek, but it really feels like it's category re-nested. Other players will lean heavily into moving away from those heuristics and kind of turning them upside down. But they're still lifting in these strongest cues. So new color, new form, new semiotics, new structure, and then they're pushing them into fresher design language.

6:20They're feeling more culturally current. We call it kind of a leapfrog effect. And so whenever we're talking to our clients, we want to leapfrog into that to something fresher. How much though is part of the strategy that we form. But nonetheless, insurgents are very good at understanding those category heuristics and then turning them inside of themselves and figuring out how they want to blend in. And that's why you see brands like Graza. You know, we kind of consider Graza to be something like a, they're kind of like progressively recoding the heuristics within olive oil. And they're really good at it, you know.

6:52And, you know, you see it on the aisle and it feels familiar. It feels like it belongs there. So it's not creating the strong sense of dissonance or confusion. but you can tell that it's actively pushing the design language forward a little bit. And so a lot, I consider Graza to be a really great hallmark example of that strategy. But a lot of insurgents are thinking about that, how they can bring that forward. Food and beverage, it's happening a lot, but now you're starting to see it happen more and more in non-food and beverage categories, whether that's laundry detergent or things like toilet paper.

7:22They're taking that design language, using it as a competitive advantage to leapfrog over those heuristics and create something really unique. but not too crazy either. You know, like, oh, that feels like it's generally in that world of things.

7:33John Ferrante:And so we're, for example, because you look at it and you're like, oh, that's a bottle of olive oil. But it's cool because when they first came out there, you know, one of the early ones to pioneer in the grocery store, the squeeze bottle to make it easy to actually use it, like while you're cooking every day. And then they have a really fun brand around it. And it's interesting as you're talking about the heuristics, because now we see a lot of other competitive brands and private label copying their bottle and the squeeze bottle at a lower price point. And I see them really rethinking as well, like, okay, if we are beyond just like the squeeze bottle, who are we beyond that, right?

8:10John Ferrante:And started to talk through the actual like product quality and they're just launched a lot of like new products and going into more, I think it was like mayonnaise products, which is really interesting. And so they're starting to expand to like build out that emotional connection that I think you mentioned as well. But it's interesting to see how like there then push the boundaries of the heuristics of the category and there's more squeeze bottles, but now they have to really go into the emotional layer, which is harder to replicate. Yeah. I mean, speaking of label, you know, a lot of retailers are expecting private label to be their number one growth lever.

8:43And so what do we, what does that mean for people who are launching these new brands or in a growth stage level that when you're in front of a buyer, they're trying to curate the perfect shelf. And they're asking, how is your brand going to lift the category? And now they're kind of gatekeepers too, because they're like, well, now we have private label too. So they have a lot of leverage in those conversations. And even a product that is superior innovation wise, they're seeing the grouses too. And they're thinking like, well, is this the next big hitter? Is this going to lift the category? I'm not saying all buyers are thinking from that perspective, but you can start to see that influence.

9:17And there's a great deal of scrutiny that they're putting towards the brands that they want in their in their shelf

9:23John Ferrante:like really yeah i mean this is like one question i think in there that i've always have i've always hated this question and like at the same time is i always get asked like you know where's the white space in the category right like how is your product different and i feel like that's easy and challenging as a founder because there are products in every single category right there's like a hundredths of olive oils in this case how do you create something that's different there's even probably there are some olive oils in a squeeze bottle. And so I'm kind of curious around just in general, like how do you think about white space in like product categories or in the market?

9:59John Ferrante:And as brands and new products are coming out, how you help kind of companies think about ways to differentiate? Yeah. I mean, a lot of the time we'll be brought a client or a new brand that hasn't gone to market yet, then their product, you know, they're kind of forming their market a hypothesis, like we want to increase this type of ingredient or something, and we think that's going to be successful. At the end of the day, white space simply refers to untapped opportunities, unmet needs where a brand can drive growth or innovation, right? And that can happen in a lot of different ways. I mean, it can happen from a geographic or demographic standpoint, you know?

10:33And so it could be that, you know, if there was no coffee shop in Kentucky, you know, you're like, okay, a white space is a coffee shop in Kentucky. So it doesn't always have to happen in like this, you know in a super innovative product layer there's a lot of different dimensions where white spaces can be detected but the way you organize your white space analysis as you think about or how we have approached it in the past is you think about what actually drives willingness to pay in a specific category and that is category specific there are certain things for example you know there's some there's some products you know that mostly people will just buy when they have to.

11:11Maybe they're just thinking, I just want this to be as least annoying as possible for me to buy and make it simple for me. Other categories are like, I want this to be sustainable. I'm investing in my wellness. And so you have to look at the category and think, what are the reasons that, what are the things that increase somebody's willingness to pay? And then you have to understand that those are the areas of competition for that. Now, the disruptors, sometimes they're ahead of the curve. Sometimes they're like, well, we don't know this yet, but we're going to introduce this new thing and now it's going to make, and we don't quite have the data and they're taking a risk.

11:42But for the most part, you can kind of study the market and see what is increasing the willingness to pay. And this can be levers like product attributes. It can be functional benefits, levels of emotional positioning, price tiers, usage occasions, you know, I mean, even Graz, it kind of has the sizzle and drizzle, you know, and maybe, you know, they just detected like, we want a level of our position to be how people use this and we'll have products that are very specific to how to use that. And maybe that's a, you can call that a potential white space or white space opportunity. But then what we do as a team is we'll analyze what legacy brands are doing, what newer and emergency brands are, new and emerging brands are doing, and how competitive they are in each of those levers.

12:24Sometimes this can look like something that are more qualitative. Other times it can look like, you know, looking at specific recipes across all the current brands and think like how much protein do they have? What are their sources of caffeine? Is it more natural or is it this? Trying to compare that to what the customer is really looking for and saying like, okay, do we compete in that level? And is that our primary focus? And then that will kind of inform maybe the brand and product positioning. I mean, how we approach the messaging or how we approach the front of package.

12:52John Ferrante:And so, yeah, you know, there's a lot of different ways people approach these things, but we want to be figuring out in that specific category, what drives willingness to pay and where's the overlap with the competition and what are we superior in? Yeah, you know, one thing that's so interesting, I feel like that a lot of people in the industry from my experience think about opportunity in terms of what's there and what's not there versus what consumers and people are actually looking for. And I remember in one of my early jobs, we did a lot of new product innovation work and we'd often go to blogs at the time to see like what people were doing, like how people are talking about products like you know now you can look in tiktok videos and reels right like what are people using are they using you know i could imagine a situation you know not just stay on grasa but you know someone's like using a you know generic bottle to pour olive oil into things that wasn't from the store because they want their own squeeze bottles like hey this is something that people are actually doing already if there's an opportunity or if they're like hey there's a protein powder but i'm mixing in this other ingredient because there's no products out there so I'm doing it myself right like there's an opportunity where people are like oh they're actually creating products like this or a lot of the like alternative oils or seed butters and so I always recommend right really looking into what are consumers doing a lot of times it might start with like the founder themselves like oh hey I'm doing this or I know like my community or other people are doing something similar and there's no products that are meeting that to really kind of find those opportunities but it's also hard to do because you can't talk to everyone before you launch a product.

14:29Yeah, I know you got to, I mean, you got to go in there with some intuition too, you know, I mean, you got to kind of have a hypothesis on what it is and be willing to adjust that, you know? And so like whenever, even whenever I'm forming our strategies or I'm thinking about my own business, I'm always approaching it in the form of a hypothesis and they want to pressure test that, see what the market reveals and then try to refine that as you go. you know it's yeah there's a lot of intuition and you know gut calls that go into building a business naturally i mean the data can only point you so far um or you finally have to make a decision and decide where to where to put the money you know and so you know that's part of

15:05John Ferrante:the fun of business though and that's okay yeah definitely is you know once brands kind of get their kind of positioning out there and what they stand for what role is packaging playing as a marketing asset now because you know it used to be like all right you have your packaging for retail then e-commerce was really big in terms of brands launching they're almost designed packaging specifically for e-commerce and now then it kind of moved to this combo of like all right has to do well on retail shelf and e-commerce and then i think a new thing which we've talked about before is the with kind of short form video from reels tiktok like people need your brand to be recognizable in the background of a video clip, right?

15:47John Ferrante:Like if someone's doing a cooking video, can you see and recognize a product when they open the fridge and it's in there quickly or when it's on the counter? So I'm curious around like, you know, the role of the packaging is now playing in this short attention span environment. Yeah, I mean, every chance you get, you want to show your packaging and every time you show your packaging, you want it to create an impression because packaging is no longer just living, you know, at the point of purchase. You know, it becomes a primary subject for the content. for it really becomes the kind of the emblematic visual of, oh, this is what this brand is.

16:19You know, if you think of a brand, you might not think of their last campaign, et cetera. You think of just that product and then the ecosystem of things that happen around that product, you know? And so the product is the pillar, you know? And when you're thinking about packaging, you want to design it from those two perspectives where it's like, okay, this has to be a machine at getting attention and creating an impression. And it has to be a machine at converting. And so whether you're talking e-commerce or you're talking in-store, we don't really associate our packaging strategy around that channel strategy.

16:49We just think of it as fundamentally people decide twice when they look at a package. They decide they want to pick it up, aka just like focus in on it, and they decide they want to buy it. And so good packaging can map to that instinctive, fast decision of what is this? Do I want to look at that? Is that what I'm looking for right now? And then can more focus on those like slower confirmatory elements where now they're examining it. And now they're asking themselves, well, how do I use this? Who is this brand? What is it made of? And so it needs to be able to work on the shelf, of course. But it needs to be able to work, you know, at a thumbnail size as well.

17:29And so there are certain guidelines that we'll adhere to when we're thinking about like, for example, front of package. You know, brands do a lot of different things. We're seeing a lot of the rules are breaking. but you know we still kind of commit to our methodology as like the way to drive conversion as well as balance the brand you know brand we believe for example should be a certain proportion no matter what maybe it can be smaller but you know it has to be a certain proportion there's certain font sizes we never want to go below because at the end of the day legibility has to be you know a big priority whether it's at a thumbnail view or in stores and you know there's certain visual guardrails that will adhere to and that doesn't really change whether we're talking about, you know, e-commerce or not.

18:08It's really just about understanding people decide twice whether to pick it up or whether and whether to buy it, you know, and we have specific guidelines for how we approach that front of package and then how we approach the remaining package to guide people through that conversation. And so we kind of call it system one and system two thinking and insurgents are exceptional at that. They're exceptional at standing out on the shelf. and then as you move through the package, having really unique kind of brand moments that feel really authentic, tells you exactly how to use it in ways that are easy and digestible, tells you what pillars the brand stands on and what the brand and product means to the founders.

18:47I mean, they're so great at capturing that attention and then driving that conversion. And you see a lot of, me and my team spend a lot of time talking about packaging, man. And a lot of teams just go to market and maybe it's a successful brand and it breaks all the rules, that's fine. But when you're developing a brand, you wanna stick to some of those best practices and think people decide twice. How is my package optimized for each of those decisions?

19:12John Ferrante:You know, I think that's a really good way of approaching it. And I see a lot of founders, I went through this as well, struggling with balancing the emotional impact of the packaging on a shelf with clarity, right? Like making something that's eye-catching, And maybe it's like a cool front logo with the brand name and it's large so you can see it. But then maybe you're sacrificing space and for call outs in terms of protein, sugar levels, whatever, depending on the macros, depending on what the product is. And so where are you kind of working between like finding that balance between those two?

19:47We spend a lot of time walking brands through that conversation. I mean, we're talking about something deep, you know, not just what should be on the front of package. You know, we're talking about what is the elevator pitch of this brand and why somebody should buy it very fast. You know, like what is the main differentiator? You kind of want to figure out, I mean, right now we're working with a brand that is competing on so many different levels. It's like, it's a beverage brand. And I mean, they got the sustainability aspect. They got the clean health aspect. They got the taste and the variance.

20:18And they're asking us like, well, how are we going to balance all this in the conversation that the brand is having? And so we work through them to iterate that. But one of the ways we'll approach it is like, what is that one unmistakable anchor? And this is often the main thing that if you talk to a group of investors and then they hear your pitch for an hour, but then they go talk amongst themselves, what's the main thing that they need to know about this brand that makes it different? you know and so they can at least rest on and digest and then you know it becomes more comprehensive as you talk to the brand you know i mean and people have to also understand that you know the context in retail oftentimes that's just one point in the conversation you're really having a conversation and having it over time so you don't need to you know force everything into that one moment it's like being on a date and they're just talking too much you know what's the one thing that you know what's your one intention that you want from this you know and What is the main thing they should see, even if they don't buy it, that they should say, okay, that's what that brand uniquely does.

21:18At least I know that. And then you can learn more as you go. But one unmistakable anchor, this can be a usage case. It can be a friction point that you remove. It can be a core emotional promise. Maybe you're the only Mediterranean brand that, you know, is releasing this certain type of snack, you know, figuring out what that core promise is and, you know, then trying to draw them into that and balance that for all the goals. Sorry.

21:44John Ferrante:Yeah, you have to have a point of view like a product out there in the market and I feel like that. So it's hard to do because you want to want to add all these layers to it as you mentioned. But just having like we are this. I'm like there's all these other things that if you want to learn about we do too because we're just a real rounded brand. But like this is the one thing to know us for and make sure like that just hits every time because that's how you're going to stand out. That's what you want people to talk You want people to be able to pick up your product, tell it to a friend like, I drink this because of this and have that word of mouth element be so clear that it resonates with everyone else.

22:18John Ferrante:Exactly. I mean, people aren't spending that much time. You know, like you don't have as much time as you want to make that impression to attention spans, you know, these things. And so, you know, it's good to just understand that and know that your window of opportunities may be more limited, at least in the context of in store than it typically would be. Yeah, I think that's totally right. John, thanks so much for being on and talking about all this. I think there's so much here that's important for brands to really know and think about, especially as, you know, maybe your brand's in the market for a couple of years.