The ONE Thing Stopping You from Becoming a Household Brand (avoid this non-obvious mistake)- Lessons from Green & Blacks

Voluptuous verdant vistas melted away the metropolis, smoothed the stress-soaked-suburbia.

Here everything is different.

Apples and pears beam like freshly-opened tennis balls.

Tomatoes and aubergines and strawberries and raspberries the colour of polished shiny-show-room Ferraris.

Free Range Hens bounce around in a hacienda-liberated joy.

Seas thrash like hungry ghosts rolling and screa along the coast.

Old foggies potter and mooch.

Suffolk.

Just been here recording two podcasts

1. George Pell, founder The Suffolk

2. William Kendall, who sold New Covent Garden Soup, Green & Blacks and is building Cawston Press, LA Brewery.

One morning, I went to a Cake Shop.

The cafe was filled with archetypal hikers ready for adventure.

You know the drill.

The Usual Hiking Suscpects

The Forced-Fun Fuck-Hounds

1. Wears Purple

2. Vortex of Gortex

3. Loves Wooly Everything (hats, gloves, socks, knickers)

4. Has a lisp

5. She ver uses the word “poppet”

6. He’s curmudgeon and Crossword

7. Half-Pint Shandy-Shenanigans

I ordered Red Velvet Cake and Tea.

A hunk of wonderfulness arrived.

Red and Velvet-smooth like Royal plumped-up pillows, fudged in between Swiss Alp Snow white cream.

The colour of Red-Hellish curdled blood, married with angelic Heaven white.

A spoonful went straight down my gob-sarnie

The delicious delinquents danced along my tongue, haughty little jaunts, taunting with my taste buds.

Orchestra of orgasmic joy.

As I my poached in a pantomime of pleasure, everything became clear.

Don’t Forget The Cake is The Cake

In brand building,

Never Forget The Cake, is The Cake.

The Icing is Not The Cake

Founders, like me, often, obsess with the icing.

Sometimes they obsess so much with the icing, they forget the cake is the cake.

This STOPS them becoming house hold brands.

Icing is B Corp

Icing is Fair Trade

Icing is Organic

Icing is more fibre.

Icing is Shoreditch Office

Icing is better we donate 1% of our profits to charity, and the better news, we’ll be in profit in 2050!!

Icing is important. Incredibly important. BUT IT’S NOT THE CAKE

What’s the Cake?

Very simple.

TASTE.

NEVER FORGET we are in the business of selling food and drink.

Your product HAS TO TASTE AMAZING.

Let’s get out of myopic melting pot of Shoreditch House and LinkedIn.

Hard Truth:

If you’re trying to build a house hold challenger brand.

99.999999% of people purchase AND repeat because of the TASTE (the cake).

B Corp means little in Bangor or Bolton.

B-Corp sounds great to your mate in SOHO House, but will do fuck all to drive rate of sale.

The icing is important.

But it’s not the Cake

If you’re trying to build a hipster niche brand, go ahead, knock yourself off, be my guest, focus on the icing.

But don’t get upset when you can’t get further than Planet Organic, Selfridges, Whole Foods.

To become a household brand… Never Forget The Cake is The Cake

Green and Blacks is a great example.

When William Kendall purchased Green and Blacks, they were focusing too much on the icing.

Green and Blacks are Vegan - Icing.

Green and Blacks are Organic - Icing.

Green and Blacks are Fair Trade - Icing.

Green and Blacks Soil Association - Icing.

In the early days, Mark and William asked their ideal consumers, 35 -45 year old healthy Mums

“WHY do you buy Green and Blacks?”

They believed the purchasing decision would be the Icing. The Vegan, Fair Trade, Organic.

Nope.

It was the Cake.

Consumers bought Green and Blacks because of the TASTE.

Green and Blacks repositioned.

Leading with the TASTE (CAKE) and let the ICING (Vegan, Organic, Fair Trade) sing in the background.
All their comms focused on TASTE.

With inherent warmth from crystallised ginger = TASTE

DEEP = TASTE

UNION Coffee another example.

UNION have SOOOOO many different icing toppings, they could lead with.

Icing - Sustainability piece, fixing supply chain in Gutamala, Colombia etc. ,

I asked Steve when I interviewed him…

He said, none of these things, REALLY moved the needle.

What moved the needle?

Taste. The Cake. The Treacle, Dark Chocolate, Cinnamon

Taste = Foundation.

Icing = Decoration.

Taste 1st. Everything else second.

Cake 1st. Icing second.

Never Forget the Cake is the Cake.

** of course, there’s some exceptions like Vegan Meat.

FUN FACT: did you know, Pigs can ACTUALLY fly?

“But Pigs can’t fly, Dan?”

How dare YOU!!!

THESE AREN’T PIGS. THEY’RE VEGAN PIGS!!!!!

DIDN’T YOU KNOW YOU DUMB FUCK… VEGAN PIGS CAN FLY!!!

THEY CAN EVEN FLY TO THE MOON!!!!

Am thinking of launching a Vegetable-Alternative brand for those on the Carnivore Diet.

Don’t @ me brooooo

THAT’S A CARROT

“Dan, you’ve just got a sausage and painted it orange. I promise you mate, it’s a Carrot. It’s even orange and everything.”

THAT’S A BROCCOLI

Dan, you’ve just got a cheese string and spray painted it Green. Yeah but if you just close your eyes really tight and pretend it’s broccoli, it’s broccoli. You dumb fuck.

Taste = Foundation.

Icing = Decoration.

Taste 1st. Everything else second.

Cake 1st. Icing second.

Your Most Important Employee Is Your Newest Employee

Another piece of wisdom from William Kendall.

Your Most Employee is Your Newest Employee.

Why?

• they possess a unique pair of eyes NO ONE ELSE sees

• they joined your company for a reason? Why? What are you doing right?

• What are you doing wrong? They’ll offer a new perspective.

• What are they seeing that you’re not seeing?

Cultures are like bands, they must reinvent and evolve or die.

The newest employee is the freshest way to reinvent your culture and brand.

If you’re reading this, maybe call or have a coffee with your our newest employee today.

1. Why did you join this company?

2. What are we doing wrong, that could be drastically improved?

3. Where do you see the direction of the company?

Fresh eyes = fresh ideas = fresh ways to evolve your culture.

As always, huge thank you for reading!!!

Popey xx

Please forward onto friends, families and foes…

Still Hungry? Course you are…

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