BevNET & NOSH Boot Camp 2021: Thinking Like a Branding Agency

Tasha Dockendorf [00:06] Hi, everyone. My name is Tasha Dockendorf. I am the owner and creative director of Pulp and Wire, and we're gonna be talking about food branding, packaging, and more today. I know you've been through a lot of these presentations already, so I'm hoping to make this one interesting and fun, and hopefully you'll learn something new. What we're gonna cover today, we're gonna go through an obligatory intro and backstory, some essentials on brand building, packaging trends, NFP compliance, why it's important and why you should just love it for what it is, some food brand case studies, and then a recap just to make sure you are paying attention. So, the obligatory backstory. I started the company in 2004 and Pulp and Wire has been building innovative CPG brands in the natural and organic space, looking at food, beverage, wellness, and cannabis. Um, came out of the agency side in Boston, New York as a designer and really learning that designers are also strategists, and strategists can be designers. So really culling a team of Amazing designers and strategists and account managers here in Portland, Maine, focused on growing brands, both small innovative startups to big corporate brands, they're the ones we love. We love putting together the strategy and helping them guide them, or looking at how we can reinvent the space for bigger brands who need help finding their proper trajectory. One interesting fact about PulpenWire is 100% female owned. And run, uh, which really does help with a lot of our brands who are focusing on a female-forward market. It is a rarity in the space. Uh, 0.1% are actually founded and owned by women, especially with so many creative designers. So a big part of what we do is helping to foster, um, females in the creative space outside of Pulp and Wire, but also in the field and help empowering brands who are almost already female-owned and run. What we do. So, everything from strategy through social and digital. Early on, creative was always very important to me as a designer, but I found that without proper strategy, creative was only as good as how it looked, and without being able to build it and grow it to market, you weren't gonna get anywhere. So at Pulp and Wire, we really take a full 360 look at the brand, helping with strategy from brand research, naming, positioning, copywriting through creative, through production, dialline creation, FDA compliance, why it is so important. Mechanicals, and then into web, UX, digital, e-commerce, and then growing brands to market within the social and digital space. So really looking at the brand, who you are, your audience, and how we're gonna grow you right from start to finish. And of course, brands jump in at all different times, which is wonderful, but really helping those emerging brands or existing brands that just need to reinvent themselves, find their way to market. All right, that's enough of the obligatory backstory. Let's look at some of the brands that we work with. So I'm sure you've seen some of these brands before, both big and small, emerging, maybe some of you haven't seen that you should go check out on Amazon or online, or in your store, if you're going back into stores, that's wonderful. And then some bigger brands we've helped innovate within their space. So branding essentials when starting out. I know we're talking about packaging, but branding is also such a huge part of your packaging, and the idea here is to create a product that has a unique spin or find an opportunity to upset a category. We'll talk about this a little bit more in some case studies, but this is where you can find your unique value proposition as a brand. So before you even get into packaging, really think about what you're putting inside that package and how you're gonna stand out. Another important fact is to know your audience. What are they buying? What else are they putting in their shopping cart? To know your audience knows their buying behavior, knows what they're driving, how many kids they have. If they've got parents that are dependent on them, these are all incredibly important pieces, especially their hobbies and where you're going to find them in-store, online, third-party vendors. These are all very important pieces to defining your brand, so that when you do get to packaging, it's very clear the audience in which you're speaking to. CPG packaging is a total experience. It needs to look unique and stand out and not be more of the same. So often we see clients that come to us and they say, I love this brand and I love that brand, I love what they're doing, and we do too. However, you don't want to be just like them because there's, there's already them in the market. So we want to create, and when you really think about your brand and packaging, you want to create a unique essence that, that you can own and that people will look at and admire by you being able to stand on your own. And again, pointing back to the having a unique spin on your product, having a space that you can own within brand and package, especially on the shelf when there is so much noise. To your research. Um, this is the first piece in which we do with a lot of our brands, market research. You need to know, again, who you're talking to, but also your competitors and what they're doing and who they're talking to, what's working for them, any data that you can compile, market test, create vision boards, if you're going to go at your, your own and create your own packaging and branding, Then creating vision boards so you can help define your vision is going to be incredibly important. If you're working with an agency or you're going to hire someone after you've brought together all this information, having a clear vision on what you want for your brand and also what you're thinking is going to help guide that team also. But that is the most important piece to being able to test it and help bring your vision to life. This last piece jumps ahead about 8000 steps, but it's incredibly important and one that I do talk to brands when I'm consulting from a strategic standpoint, is that, yes, our packaging and branding is incredibly important, and what you put in the bag and packaging and branding is incredibly important. However, the team you have pulling together your packaging and branding is paramount. So have 2 to 3 co-packers lined up. I learned this early on in working with brands, but also as an entrepreneur and a brand owner myself, you need to have a backup plan. So 2 to 3 co-packers, one might fail, and if it does, you don't want to be out of stock, you don't want to be out of inventory, you don't want to be out of bags for your packaging or labels. You want to be able to have a backup ready to go, so you do not have to lose market share. Um, have a brand motto. We have a lot of fun. We love what we do here at Pulp and Wire, and this just happens to be one of ours. If you're big fans of the 80s or John Carpenter's 1988 movie, They Live, um, we love to live by and hold our brands to that we came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and we're all out of bubble gum. So packaging trends and some compliance stuff that I wanna make sure you know. If you're not already working with an FDA compliance person, this will kind of just help you navigate a little bit of the nutritional facts panel and where to put things, specifically dealing with food packaging. So let's talk about trends. The first trend, and maybe you've seen these coming back, and I think it's really important as you start thinking about your own personal packaging, to look at what is resonating with your audience right now. So trends, comfort is craveable. We are seeing nostalgia that sparks joy, but in a modern way to evoke an emotional connection. So Burger King is a great example of bringing the 70s back, bold, bright, but it feels new. We're seeing this with the 70s and resurgence of the 80s and the 90s, and I do think it's really based on the past couple of years that we've seen. With COVID, with people being home, we have a craving to see things that were simpler, things that resonate with us that feel comfortable and warm, and in some ways evokes a simpler time. That is why this retroification is really an important trend that we're seeing cause we're bringing back a modern take on the things we love. Something to keep in, keep in mind for your brand, you might not be a retro brand at all and it might be a totally different direction like the next one we're going to see, but these are things we're seeing and you can really pull from any era. It does not just have to be the 70s, 80s, or 90s. Another trend is to go bold, and I work with brands who say they hate neons, and then other brands that say they hate pastels, and that is OK. I love that this is a mix of both. So bold and modern, um, mm, they do these beautiful flavor packets for cooking. And this is done in a strong, in your face way. So again, this is for the culinary curious, bold and unapologetic, and it's packaging as an adventure with a very strong visual voice. It's arresting in a lovely way. So when you start thinking about your brand online, social media, how your audience is going to react to it, and honestly, who your audience is, Is it Gen Z, millennials, Gen Xers, boomers, all of the above? How is that audience going to resonate with the look and feel of the packaging that you're creating, and know that in some ways you might also alienate a generation, but that's OK if that is part of your brand vision and mission and the overall look and tonality that you want to bring to your packaging. Next, surprise and delight. This is a fun brand um that I recently saw, and what I love about what they're doing is they're highlighting their unique ingredients. So they're bringing in ashwagandha and lion's mane and quarticps, so medicinal mushrooms are a huge trend that we're seeing pushed, but they're doing it with humor. Um, I think a lot of sometimes we get into these medicinals, they become very scientific, and what I loved about this brand is it's coffee, and they're taking a totally different spin on coffee, plus they're using technology in a way to reinvent a classic. It really helps them stand up from the pack. That's a text, right on their can. You text it, and they will get back to you and you are instantly involved in their community and their voice, and they've got a wonderful way to sell to you. So, although bold and very direct, once you text that number, you're in their lifeline. And I do love that they're taking a spin on that classic again. Um, coffee has always been focused on where it's been grown. Now it's about how coffee can make you feel, which I think is a wonderful spin from a messaging standpoint also, and something to think about with a surprise and delight might be unexpected for a coffee, but it gives you a whole new relationship with coffee as a functional beverage that maybe you hadn't seen before, or loops you into their text messaging and gets you right to their sales process. The last trend we're gonna talk about called special delivery is really Gen Z and branding and personalization. So this goes beyond just the Gen Z in a very inclusive brand as we start thinking about packaging. And branding, this brand in particular is meant to be for everyone, the name, not or, it's not for him or her, it's not for the snarky or the overly polite. The name is actually incredibly flexible, and it's meant to be flexible to morph with the emotion of the consumer. So really interesting um idea here where the name flexes dependent on The user audience, who's reading it across the brand, even on their website, the name evolves and changes depending upon who they're talking to or what the, um, the case need is for the product. So, they've also created a really fun unboxing experience. So, branding, packaging has to be storytelling. The inclusivity is key here, but when you get this in your home, you're unwrapping it and you're unwrapping this wonderful little carry kit that can hold all your skincare needs. You're creating an environment where you've got these little stickers and these icons and little pieces inside that box, because when you're in somebody's home, you have them captivated, and what a wonderful time to get them excited about your product, to reorder, to tell a friend, or to start Instagramming it, tweeting it, doing a TikTok with the product, all the important pieces you want for your brand. So you want it to be sticky, and it is that stickiness that an in-home experience can really help promote. Last one, I was joking about the uh timing on the trends. This last one is looking at brands um are looking to ditch the plastic. So as we start thinking towards the future, you're seeing a lot of brands who want to move away from their plastic bags. They want compostability and real quick on this slide, this is a paper that SAI is working on, and you can contact SAPI directly. I just learned about it. It's amazing. I want to be using it for my brands, but the idea here is that this is a fully recyclable paper stock. That uses a mineral-based barrier, so it can be converted into a bag and it can be put right into your recycling bin. So, really removing any kind of plastic but still keeping in the gussetted pouch that brands are favoring because just ease of use these days. Compliance. Now, we talked about this one that not the most fun but really important and I'll go through this a little bit quickly. It's just understanding where your NFP goes. So your NFP goes directly to the right of your PDP which is your primary display panel. The ingredient list, um, then follows name and address of the distributor, and then organic certifier. There are multiple different ways that you can do an NFP or nutritional facts panel, and there are some helpful links here that you can hopefully download and click on, just to be aware of the different versions. Some of the key versions are your full standard vertical, the condensed vertical, which is the one that we love when we have enough vertical space for the full NFP, and then the tabular formats, as you saw in the prior slide. Knowing to lay these out the correct way is incredibly important, but also knowing where they sit and how your information flows. If you have a full vertical format, all your information goes right to the right of that panel for your ingredients so that it follows that format. And then we get into these smaller formats, the linear formats, and for smaller packages, under 40 square inches or less than 12 square inches of space. This is when they get very condensed, but it's knowing where they go and knowing which one to use, where and when. We see this incorrectly used on a lot of packaging, so I encourage you to go to the store and start looking at where people have actually put their NFPs or their following information because it's very telling and want to make sure that when you are doing your packaging, that things are in the right place. And I do think there might be some great other um boot camps on compliance, but I wanted to touch on this because this is one of the biggest, um, issues that we see in packaging as we're helping brands reinvent or clean up their packaging. Next, we're gonna talk case studies. Here, it's defining a food brand online and retail. Some key things to think about as we go through these studies is that we really want to tell the right message to the right people at the right time with the right look to innovate and drive sales. With all these upcoming brands, it really is about understanding who the target audience was and how we're going to reach them within their buying behavior, within their buying process, and either on shelf or online. All right, let's get into some case studies. So the first one we're gonna talk about is rind. With rind, they were innovating for the product that is inside the bag. All the dried fruit has the rind on the fruit. This is a very, it was a kind of a, a sleepy category, which is always a wonderful way to innovate innovate is to look at the categories that maybe haven't been reinvented in a while. Rind did just that. Their target audience is health-focused, female-forward, family decision makers. And for us, we help them everything from branding and strategy through web and now social and helping to build their following and audience. Social media is also meant to be fun and bright and colorful, and that is really where we drove this brand. And of course, they're in a pouch, but I also want to show you, um, variations on iterative changes. The top row is where we started. The second row is where we are right now. So small changes in your packaging, they don't have to be fundamental. But as you go, you can look to see where we need to ideate and what small little changes do need to be made so that you can help strengthen your packaging over time. Packaging should always be looked at on a consistent basis to make sure that you are making small, thoughtful changes that help your consumers navigate your product and brand. So as we see at the bottom, cleaning up some of the messaging hierarchy, some of the fonts, and bringing in the fact that this is in fact their chewy fruit rind on, uh, product. Our next client is Wild Willet Foods. So this is a family-friendly focused beef jerky meets fruit packaging. It was meant to look warm and inviting and fun. But also introduce a whole new idea of fruit flavored jerky to a consumer audience. So using a bit more um hand-drawn, slightly retro illustrations mixed with a clean grid system really helped drive this brand to both be playful, but also grab your attention, which was the goal. Fruit flavored fruit beef jerky is not the norm, but we want it to be fun and playful so that it's something you might pick up for your kids or wanna try and then fall in love with. So while not a food brand, definitely packaging focused. And the reason I wanted to show you this packaging was our focus is a little bit different. It is really to tourists and hospitality, uh, who are looking for, or those who love a handmade natural soap. What is fun about this packaging are the details and every single box is different. Each has a different illustrative approach, speaking directly to a main base location and the scent. What is fun about these boxes is not only beautiful photography to help bring them to life, but dye cuts, and this is something to think about too with your product packaging. Does it need to be fully contained, or is there an opportunity to have this show and reveal moment for your product? In this case, a dye cut on the side of the box to bring a little bit of unexpected whimsy to the packaging, but also gives the consumer a chance to interact with the product and smell it. Going in a different direction, daily crunch. So, this product is um highly addictive. If you have not tried it, I highly recommend you go seek them out. There is a pop and a crunch to each one of these nuts, unlike anything I've ever had, and that playful and that fun, and that vitality needed to come out in the packaging. And it came out in a very clean way where we didn't want it to be overly produced or overly photographic when it came to the imagery. We want it to look everyday and easy, and something that you would grab for like your kid's snack or just to throw in your bag or to take on a trail. The way that we played it up is with some of these fun little characters who come to life on social media, they come to life on the website, and they come to life on different moments within the packaging as well. And this target audience is really mixed, skewing from females to family decision makers, target age is around 25 to 55, but really anyone who loves or wants to experience a whole new, um, sprouted nut, um, taste. And then, uh, the other side of this was also grab and go. Airport terminals and impulse snacking occasions are going to be a big push for them looking at 2021, 2022. Going in a different direction away from nuts and packaging in a bag is Atlantic Sea Farms. So they are another Maine-based company that we've worked very closely with, but with strong national growth and awareness. Their focus is men and women, 25 to 45, who are already familiar with fermented foods and seaweed, or those who are looking for um Ocean approved products, familiar with seafood, smoothies, opportunities to add kelp as a wonderful nutrient-dense food into their meals. And what is also really wonderful about this brand, and one thing to mention, especially when you start thinking about your brand and your mission, is what you're doing beyond just your packaging and what you're saying on your packaging. So, they are all about helping the working fishermen, the working waterfront. And really using kelp to help kelp the earth, um, with sustainability and being able to bring jobs to the working waterfront as well. So a wonderful brand to look at from a mission standpoint and how they're presenting their mission, not only on their packaging, but when they really start thinking about outward messaging on social media, on their website, and what the brand owners are doing to promote kelp as a wonderful environmental steward for the earth. Suck on this is a fun candy company, compostable tube packaging with delightful CBD or culinary-focused taffies inside. Um, this is for the taffy lovers of all ages, mostly adults, and very tongue in cheek. It was meant to be this way to really entice an audience to want to try something a little bit different with flavors like mango, chili, and toasted, I think I've tried one that was a toasted blueberry, it was absolutely amazing. We wanted to create a look that was both flavorful, but also the idea of like this pulled taffy as the owner has an antique taffy pole that they're using to make these products. So mixes of gold and silver, these tubes were also universal tubes, so something to think about. You don't always need to have special packaging for every product. You could do a universal tube that then you customize with a label to make it feel unique or to hit all the different SKUs that you have in your product line without having to do separate tube packaging for each product. Allagash brewing, again, another beverage, not food, but you know, I think we can consider beer food for what it's worth. Uh, this is a rebrand. So I wanted to show you this as to where iterative process, again, doesn't always have to be revolutionary, it can be evolutionary. So, the beer on the right here is Allagash White, and then we've got the Allagash new version on the left. Storytelling, keeping some of the same elements, and really changing the perspective of where we are within that trail for Allagash. We had done the cans first and then found our way back over to the bottles to reinvent what is this classic Allagash Belgium white. For Allagash also, they wanted to go in a completely different category, and I think this is good to see where they have a very consistent look with their flagship beers, but it was important for them to reach a new audience. So they went outside their comfort zone and really wanted to focus on a low ABV beverage that was positioned more towards a hard seltzer taste. So they're doing fun flavors with black currants, peach and kombucha brewed, um, lower 3.8% um ABV. And again, targeted towards more of a female-centric audience to bring in a lighter, um, airier, fruityer drinking experience. Another before and after I wanted to show was again iterative. It doesn't always have to be brand new. Um, Green Bee here on the left was their original, and then where we brought them to on their other soda lines, keeping the iconography of their logo, but really bringing in this essence of the honey and the bee and the soda as the honey is their natural sweetener. Um, and this is one of the final case studies, I promise, but just wanted to show you how you don't have to lose your brand essence, even working with an agency. Make sure you're working with someone that you trust, because you don't want them to have to, you know, sometimes you don't want to be reinvented. Sometimes you want a partner who can hear you and clearly help you to find the next steps for your brand in a way that feels natural and authentic and intrinsic to who you are as the brand as well. So, quick recap on all these things that we just went through. Do research and ask questions. You want to know who your target audience is, your age, gender, and buying behaviors, what messaging do they respond to, and what tone of voice is right for them as the brand. Analyze and plan, do competitor reviews. Um, others have spent millions on their branding, so learn what they've done. Highlight it, note it, and then be different. Take a spin on all those metrics that you have and say, now how can we use this to our advantage and how can we be different within the space? Know your flavors and skews. Pre-planning is key. It's always good to know what the product line might be day one, but also 3 years down the line so you can continuously plan and create a flexible brand and packaging design. Think to the future, but plan for today. And then create and test, gather ideas and create vision boards. Again, knowing your own personal aesthetic is incredibly important, and then working with someone who can help bring that aesthetic to life. Design, play, and invent, there is no wrong way to do this, but it is all about understanding what your options are within the space, especially with packaging, so that you're not just reinventing the same thing that's already out there. Create a look that represents your product, your brand, and your personality. Be mindful of FDA requirements. Conduct quick market research tests. You can use family and friends to validate these things if you don't have the funds to go into the big testing. And when in doubt, hire a good team that can help guide you through the process, one that listens to you and understands if you want to be revolutionary or if you just want to be evolutionary. If you would love to talk to us, we would love to talk with you. You can visit us at Pulpawire.com. You connect with me on LinkedIn, uh, follow us on Instagram at Pulp and Wire, or if you want, give us a call. We're always happy to talk. We love strategizing. We love talking about what could be, where you might go in the market, and how we might help you get there. And again, my name is Tasha. It was a pleasure, um, and thank you so much for your time.