275. Why Great Products Get Ignored: How CPG Brands Can Earn Attention and Drive Sales

0:00Duncan Alney: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.

0:18Duncan Alney:Welcome everyone to today's conversation. I am super excited for this one because I have on the myth, the legend, Duncan, who runs Firebelly Marketing. Duncan, welcome on to the show today, man.

0:31Startup To Scale Host:Man, Jordan, I love everything that you do and I love you. So I'm excited to be here, man. Thanks for having me.

0:37Duncan Alney:So you're used to being on the other side of things, interviewing other brands and telling their stories. But I wanted to flip the camera around and talk with you because you do some amazing things from traveling the world, helping CBG brands and others with their marketing and growing. And really just wanted to kind of download some things from your brand.

0:57Startup To Scale Host:Thank you. Yeah, that is true. And I'm very much an advocate for mission driven food and beverage brands. And that's one of my favorite things about my world. And so I'm excited to talk to you.

1:07Duncan Alney:So, you know, starting out, I actually just want to know what's been your favorite place to travel to this year so far?

1:15Startup To Scale Host:This year? Let's see. I haven't been that many places this year. You know, I went to the World of Coffee in San Diego earlier this year. I love San Diego. It's always, I mean, never enough time. San Diego is such a fun place. Last year, we were in Italy on the Adriatic, you know, near Amalfi. And that was pretty spectacular because we picked a small village. You walk down into the square, the restaurants are in there. And it's super old. We just really like old places. So the food was amazing. And, you know, we're not paying tourist prices either.

1:49Duncan Alney:Oh, that sounds beautiful. And I've definitely been issuing to do a little bit more traveling myself. But, you know, I'm curious because you've been seeing a lot of things around the world. You see things going on with CPG brands across the country. And I would love just to understand, you know, what you're seeing more broadly from like where CPG brands are going, kind of what's standing out in your mind that's kind of affecting businesses these days where it might be something new or different or things that brands need to keep an eye out on.

2:17Startup To Scale Host:Well, I mean, that's a big question. I'll try my best. I mean, I think that people's, you're dealing with a number of things, right? You're dealing with, in both the food and beverage space, you're seeing a changed environment. I mean, I think, you know, we've got some inflation, you know, the cost on the brand side, food, you know, ingredient costs are up. I think social media in general has created very fragmented attention spans. There's a lot of products, new products constantly coming out. And then we've also got this whole, you know, I don't know if we can call it post-GLP, but, you know, we're living in a GLP world where people are either post-GLP or mid-GLP.

2:56Startup To Scale Host:And so I think those people, there's millions of them now. They're being a little bit more thoughtful about what they want to eat and what they want to drink. And I think they're also consuming for different reasons. So I think that it's definitely a much more competitive space.

3:11Duncan Alney:And I think it's that competition. So I know like getting just like the share of attention is really tough, right? Like there's so many different options. There's all the short form video. So I kind of want to dive into like how brands really earn attention in today's consumer environment when there's so many things out there. So maybe let's start. You talked about it a little bit, but I'd love to dive deeper. What are some of the biggest problems that brands are facing in terms of like, how do I get my new product or new brand in front of the right consumer?

3:41Startup To Scale Host:Yeah, I mean, I made a video about this recently where I was talking as if I was, you know, I also have a tiny tea company. So I was just talking from that perspective. OK, I've come up with something really great. Now I'm going through compliance and I'm finding a manufacturer and I've got all my products ready. And guess what? Now the work has really begun because now I got to sell it. Right. And so I think that the piece that everyone thinks, a lot of people think is that I got to go retail, which we both know is super challenging and super competitive and super demanding. You know, just the capital requirements to go into retail are so high.

4:17Startup To Scale Host:Someone says, hey, you know, come on down to, you know, a thousand publics. And it's like, OK, well, now I got to have the inventory to go to a thousand publics and I got to pay slotting fees, you know, and there's all these, you know, and the risk of failing. and then I got to do all the reverse supply chain stuff. So I think it's very difficult. And I think that that choice that people make, whether they go into retail and e-commerce, you know, exclusively, and then all the alternate marketing channels, like, you know, our friend Mike Levinson talks about, you know, do I go, do I try to get into a convenience store?

4:51Startup To Scale Host:Do I try to go to a travel center? Do I go to a university or a corporate campus? And there's people that are just exclusively focusing on corporate campuses. So I think that's a tough decision. But I think even once you're making those decisions, people still want to know more about you. And I think the playbook I recommend is a founder has to have a presence, assuming there is a founder and it isn't, you know, private equity. The founder has to have a presence. A founder is leading the story. I think the brand has to be very well aware of its story. Like, what is the story and how does the overall story trickle down into multiple smaller stories that support the overall story?

5:28Startup To Scale Host:And then you've got to know how to build awareness and familiarity. And then, of course, lastly, you've got to support wherever you're at. You've got to do sales support. So that's also coincidentally the Firebelly framework. So I think that is very difficult for people because they think that I'm here and my job is done. In fact, the hard work is just beginning in some ways. It may be actually easier to do all the other things than to actually sell. And I think, I don't know who it was that told me, and we were joking about this at one point, you and I were about how when you get excited about, oh my gosh, look at this new brand on the shelf.

6:03Startup To Scale Host:Like I'm one of those nerds that walks on the grocery store looking at the brands, right? And we always have to think about, well, for that brand to get on, someone had to get thrown off, right? And so I think that's, or they opted out, whatever it is, but that's the pin of the two sides to that coin. So I think it's a very challenging environment and the brands that are doing it, you know, are constantly looking for ways to be better and they're scaling up. But I think the opportunity in this all is that big brands are built for size and scale and small brands are agile and lean and mean. So hopefully, I think in the era that we're in today, you know, smaller brands actually can do some things better than many things better than big brands.

6:46Startup To Scale Host:And so while they may not have the shelf space or the share of voice or the share of mind, they can actually do some things quickly. So just like some people open restaurants to be open for five years and then, you know, they're going to milk it. They're going to do something else after that. You know, maybe we'll start seeing more of that. It's like, hey, this product is only coming out for a limited time. You know, we're going to build a brand around the product and we're going to launch something else.

7:08Duncan Alney:So I love that you kind of break down the framework of stories, familiarity and sales support. And I want to dive into there. But first, I want to go back. You say you mentioned you're starting a tea brand. Yeah. When you like just lie past that to get away with that.

7:25Startup To Scale Host:It's an homage to my father. So while my father was very sick and while we were going through his end of life, I was spending time with a friend who likes to go and drink, you know, like esoteric tea. And so you're drinking tea, you know, in little cups, just tasting it. You're not really drinking it. You're tasting it and sometimes spitting or not. And I was like, well, you know, my name is Duncan, which is a, you know, interesting name for an Indian guy, but it's a Scottish name. It means either brown head or brown warrior. And so I was like, well, you know, my dad is my brown warrior. So I'll just name the company brown warrior.

7:57Startup To Scale Host:And so there are actually like eight SKUs and this packaging. And I hate it all already. And it's only available for private sale at the moment. But I've got new things coming on there. But I think what I did it because I wanted to walk in the shoes. And it's incredible, you know, just to get off the ground to have a product that's ready to go to market. is Herculean task in many ways. And then, as I was saying, then you've got to sell it. So I think that I've learned a lot by doing it. And I still think that Round Warrior will get to market. It is tea, and it was originally tea coming from a very specific part of India, the Northeast, with small tea gardens that only produce less than two tons of tea a year.

8:39Startup To Scale Host:It turns out that that supply chain is very difficult to navigate and not consistent. And, you know, with all the kind of inconsistencies with importing things today, I decided to just partner with someone locally here. And they're already handling the import for their own tea brand. And, you know, so then I can focus on the marketing and even looking at a sparkling tea option. So that's what's going on with Brown Warrior.

9:04Duncan Alney:I mean, how powerful creating a brand through the inspiration from your father. I think that's incredibly powerful. And, you know, no matter what it becomes, whether private or a large company, I think even just that act alone is a huge testament. So I think that's amazing. And even you're getting the experience of all the behind the scenes of what it takes to build a brand so that that can inform also your process as you're working with founders and understanding those struggles and those experiences. And I like that you started talking about the story. I love to dive deep into is you mentioned like story being the first part of this framework of helping brands to grow.

9:42Duncan Alney:I'm curious what makes for a really effective story versus a interesting story, but doesn't have kind of market legs to it.

9:52Startup To Scale Host:I mean, so we're just talking to a new client today and it's a salad dressing. And we're talking about, you know, how the ingredients are super clean. The ingredient panel is just, you know, like five or six ingredients is everything that you can pronounce. Nothing weird. And it's compelling. It tastes great. Now I'm like perking up like, oh, wow, it tastes great. I have tasted it. It's killer. And so we're going through the motions and I'm like just sitting there thinking like, man, I'm not getting the hook. You know, I'm not getting the hook. And then they said that they all come from a farming background.

10:27Startup To Scale Host:Some of them, you know, some of the founders are still active farmers and they're working very closely with the ingredients and they were looking for something that was next level. That's, you know, seed oil free. Now I'm starting to get an idea of the story. It's like this is the story. The story is that it's clean and it's coming from a family of farmers. Like, for example, this story has not been fully developed yet, but I think story is something that hooks you, you know. So I think that when you have a story, you've got an almost an unfair competitive advantage in a way, as opposed to someone who's selling olive oil.

11:02Startup To Scale Host:It's like, no, no, this olive oil, like, you know, it was these olives were grown in this part of California, you know, and, you know, the owner, it's a family that's been doing it for 100 years. and, you know, they advocate for the rights of the employees. And, you know, they do this. And then this is why it's better than the Spanish olives. It's like now you've got some like kind of compelling. It's like going to a debate, right? You can't walk up to the dais or the podium at a debate and say, this is better. It's like, oh, where's the evidence? Like, what's the stories? And so that's why I think, and maybe I didn't do, you know, we both know Arshad Bal, Amrita Foods, right?

11:39Startup To Scale Host:It's like he's been in the Food Bevy Insider Box. I mean, his story is his kid had terrible gut-related problems that were almost life-threatening. And so he was making food for his child. And that's how the product came to be. And that's, of course, you know, you hear that with a lot of founders that were solving a very specific problem. But that's the piece that's compelling. It's like this guy developed it specifically for his kid. And now he's bringing it to everyone. So I don't know if I answered the question, but I think that story is very powerful.

12:08Duncan Alney:You know, and I think that one thing that happens is like there's the a lot of times founders will tell the story of like, you know, so I had this experience and this is why I created the product for me. And so I want to bring the product for everyone else. And I think that's very much like a self-reflective story. I think there's others which can resonate with some people. I think there's other stories where it's about a vision of the world, a vision of yourself, of themselves that you want to achieve. Right. So you look at just even, as an example, like Nike, right? It's about selling that vision of having high performance elite athletes in the world.

12:47Duncan Alney:You're not putting on the pair, you know, and their market's kind of changed over time. But like, you know, in this heyday, you're putting on a pair of shoes because you could want it to be as close to that professional athlete as possible. And so that was like the really strong story. And that's really inspiring and something to be. And so I'm always just curious in terms of like how founders and brands are creating what I call like, quote, brand, like what are the values that you stand for? What are you trying to help people achieve before even kind of showing up in the world?

13:18Startup To Scale Host:Yeah, and I think that what makes it, that's why I said kind of the overarching story or the master story, what makes it more challenging is that the way people are finding you these days, yes, it's broadly word of mouth, but you've got some word of mouth like that's in real life. And then you've got a lot of spread on social, right? And the reality of social is it's not linear. It's fragmented. It's a mosaic. You might see one 30-second clip today. And, you know, you have to, we try to explain this to people. And people are thinking about this. They're like, well, I got to tell my whole story.

13:52Startup To Scale Host:It's like, well, you can't tell your whole story. Not only that, it's not going to go from one to two to three to four. So you have to tell it in a way that it hooks people with the part of the story that you're telling. And then the hope is that they'll see the rest of the story or they'll go find it. Rare that they'll go find it. They have to keep seeing it. So I think that that is the piece that makes it even more difficult, is that you have a limited amount of time to say something. But the benefit is, as opposed to in real life where you're limited to telling someone a story and, you know, with nonverbal and verbal cues, whereas on social, there's a visual story and an audio story.

14:28Startup To Scale Host:And so, you know, we've been doing some work with, you know, how can you intersect music, you know, in there and what kinds of music and what story does the music tell you if it's more for participatory purposes, but that's getting off tracks. I think the story piece, it's very difficult. It is also then there's a story like, OK, so I know the story that I want to tell my consumers, but I also now got to tell a story to the retailer. Why is my product important for you? And where should it go? So I think we both know, without mentioning any names, the Indian founder who has a good product. And instead of getting put in the general snack aisle at a retailer, she got put in the ethnic food aisle.

15:13Startup To Scale Host:It's like, well, that's death by the wrong category, right? And so I think there's so many stories. It's like, why does my product belong with you? And where should it go? And of course, how does it taste? But I think you have to tell that story because then people are kind of scratching their heads like, you know, what is this? And I think a lot of NA brands are dealing with that. Like, why should I buy this brand? Yes, it's NA, but I got 180 choices. Like, what am I going to buy?

15:38Duncan Alney:I do people buy NA drinks, right? A lot of brands are finding that a lot of people who drink NA beverages also are having alcoholic beverages certain times. And so it's not purely as a complete replacement. What are those use occasions? Why? And then how do you build that into the storytelling? Is it really just about non-alcoholic adult beverages and that like you're building this larger experience around drinking, whereas non-alcoholic could just be for the enjoyment, for flavor, for taste, for experience? Yeah.

16:05Startup To Scale Host:And I think you're absolutely right. I mean, there's that whole concept of zebra striping where I'm, you know, I'm not going to drink alcohol on Monday and Tuesday. And in fact, I may use my NA beverage and I'm going to, you know, add some tequila to it on Wednesday. And I think that a lot of the aspirations that NA founders have is not to preach to people that, hey, you should not drink alcohol. It's like, hey, have you tried an NA beverage? Because you may actually feel better and you could go to a cocktail party. You don't feel like drinking. You can still hold an NA beverage in your hand and feel included, right?

16:41Startup To Scale Host:So I think, I mean, back in the day, we used to work with Abbott's, you know, the plant-based meat. And that was the exact philosophy of the founder. was like, I'm not trying to get you to give up meat. I'm just trying to get you to include another choice, you know, one or two days a week.

16:55Duncan Alney:So let's talk about kind of building that awareness. So once you kind of have that really strong story, what are some of the mechanisms to build that familiarity so you're not getting lost in all the other noise?

17:06Startup To Scale Host:Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we used to, I used to think about it. I used to think that, you know, organic social, for example, did one thing or content did one thing and then paid did something else and UGC did something else. And as I was saying to you earlier, marketing agencies might think that way, you know, or marketing people might think that way. The reality is, is that consumers don't behave that way, right? Consumers will hear a story and they'll be like, oh, well, I need to think about that. Do I want that, you know? And then if they see it, like, let's say they're on YouTube, you know, and they see an ad for, let's say it's an NA beverage, right?

17:40Startup To Scale Host:Let's say it's a chai with THC in it. They see it, they'll be like, oh, wow, a chai with THC. And they're going to see it again. And again, they may see it six or eight or 10 or 12 times. But then when they're walking down the aisle and they see it, or maybe they'll see a link to click to buy it, then they will maybe act on it. They'll say, I'm going to click. How many times have you done it, right, Jordan? It's like, this sounds like a really great product. I'm going to go to the website. And either the website wasn't compelling or I'm at a traffic light and I'm like, the green light came on and my wife said, I have to go.

18:13Startup To Scale Host:So I am back with the transaction. Now, if they're retargeting me, they'll find me again, you know. But so I think that you've got to be on social and you've got to think about social in a way to tell the story, build familiarity and then support sales. So it's a full funnel. But as opposed to marketing speak and like making the client think about it like marketing people do, it's like, hey, we're thinking about it with the consumer, you know, behavior approach or the, you know, the customer journey. So I think that's a more interesting way to work because that's ultimately what we're trying to do.