Brand Growth Heroes

Hello everyone! In celebration of hitting 10.5K downloads, welcome to the first UPDATE episode of Brand Growth Heroes podcast, where I'm going to spend just 5 minutes or so telling you what you can expect over the coming months. I'm really excited to share some big launch news right at the end, so don't go anywhere just yet!

First of all, I can't believe that it's nearly 18 months since the first BGH episode. What started out as a way of updating my suitcase of brand growth case studies, BGH has now become way bigger than I ever intended it to, with over 50 5star ratings in different iTunes stores across the world. This might be still small in the world of podcasts, but it's helping me to realise MY brand purpose, which is to create lightbulb moments for leaders of scaling brands, in order to smooth their path to profitable, transformational growth.

So, thanks so much to all of you who have listened, subscribed, reviewed it on iTunes and written to me to say just how much you're learning from the interviews. I'm learning a huge amount from too, and for that I'm truly grateful to all of our super guests. Big shout out particularly to James McMaster of Huel for taking the risk of being my first interviewee, that could have gone either way, so thank you James.
Another shout out to Ivan Juric at Octopod productions (https://octopod.productions/), the best sound editor in the world, Gyp Buggane here at Ballagroove recording studios (https://studio.ballagroove.com/)- the best recording studio in the world you guys have both been a huge help both technically and with moral support.

We've just begun recording series 3, in which alongside more insurgent food and beverage brands, we're going to dip in and out of learning about scaling personal care brands such as soap, feminine care and the future of toothpaste. This month and next we are recording episodes with Lucky Saint beer and as well as another Masterclass with Mark Mulhern from Brand Performance Labs in New York, this time on what Performance Marketing is and why you need to understand it.

I've been spending lots of time preparing for a big talk I'm giving to the grocery industry in Austria tomorrow, as well as working on some exciting new developments that I'll share with you at the end of this update.
The week before last was a massive week where I was helping out at our favourite Food and Beverage start up festival, Bread and Jam 2.0.
I loved meeting many of our UK and Europe-based listeners, and got the chance to chat to you when we worked together at my workshop on ‘Crafting a Compelling Value Proposition’. At this, we went through how you can make sure you’re offering something of real value to your target consumer or customer, based on solid consumer insight. We looked at WHAT a value proposition is, what YOUR value proposition is, WHY you need to define it, why it needs to be based on CONSUMER INSIGHT and HOW to go about it working through.
Thanks to so many of you who wrote to me on LinkedIn after the workshop, it was great to get to meet you and I'm glad it was useful for you.

OK so finally I wanted to share some big news: Over the past 10 years, my own business has evolved from delivering traditional consultancy projects for consumer goods clients, to helping them upskill their teams to do this work themselves. This, I'm reliably informed, is called Capability Development, and that's squarely where I serve.. I do this through individual and group coaching of senior teams, but also by developing and delivering workshops and programmes to help clients develop their strategic thinking and people. Why am I telling you this? Because in January I'm launching a new online course arm to the business, under the sub-brand Brand Growth Blueprint.
We'll be delivering self-directed quick, deep-dive courses on topics such as Crafting a Compelling Value Proposition, How to Sharpen your Consumer Targeting, and How to Evaluate the Size of the Opportunity you're targeting.
But we're also launching a live, accompanied 6 week programme for founders/CEOs of successful scaling brands called The Growth Strategy Programme which will give you a bespoke framework, tools and support to make clear decisions about where you want to play and create the roadmap to growth that you, your team and ...

So here’s a question for you:

Which grocery category of non-edible products do you shop making increasingly careful choices around the products’ ingredients, choosing your favourites based on something very akin to flavours, looking for additive free or organic options, and even buying different versions of the product to cater for different members of the household?

For me, there are quite a few parallels between how we shop Food & Beverage grocery categories, and how we shop the Personal Care categories. After all, the products in Personal Care are about how we take care of, nourish and draw experience from our bodies from the outside-in, whereas we buy Food and Beverage products to solve these needs from the inside-out.

Another really interesting parallel is that like Food and Bev. start-ups, skin and hair care brands also increasingly try to develop their products from natural kitchen-cupboard ingredients and have a brand purpose that is centred on being kind to nature. Another striking similarity is that these businesses often start at the kitchen table, getting proof of concept at farmers markets, before moving into retail.

What I find interesting about the Personal Care category is that it remains majorly dominated by the large global brands that our grandmothers and mothers would recognise: Head&Shoulders, Radox, Palmolive, Dove... or slightly more recently, all the “famous hairdresser” hair care brands that have launched since I was in my 20s.

And although there has been a real change on the fringes of the category for years, in the Whole Foods and the Holland& Barretts, why aren’t more of the local, natural, purpose-led brands not stealing share from big brands in the supermarkets?

I have decided to pepper this series with the odd interview with founders of insurgent brands across various Personal Care categories, to see if we can learn from their experiences in a different category, in a different stage of the unavoidable 21st century category overhaul we are seeing across the board.

I recently came across an inspiring emerging brand in Personal Care that started out on the kitchen table 12 years ago, but now has national listings across all the major grocery retailers and drugstore chains in the UK , has 30 employees and is currently seeing at at least £4M in market sales.

The Little Soap Company is a purpose driven, vegan, cruelty free, ethically produced, free-from brand with a range of soaps, solid shampoo and shaving bars that use organic ingredients that you’d easily recognise. It was the first- and is still the only – “free from” range on the supermarket shelves, and has just started what could be a revolution for the category – a range of solid shampoos and washes, to avoid packaging in plastic containers.

We also discuss whether it’s useful to talk about what it’s like being a female founder.

To start to start your journey in understanding how emerging brands can transform the Personal Care category, and what we can learn from their experience, LISTEN to our interview with award winning and inspirational Founder/CEO Emma Heathcote-James.

Hear how Emma’s vision is “to make pure soap the norm not the niche” and how as the first – and often only– “free from” range on the supermarket shelves, The Little Soap Company is at the forefront of some real category transformation.

www.thelittlesoapcompany.co.uk

Instagram: little_soap_co; eco_warrior_soap

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Across the Western world, the Carbonated Soft Drinks category is experiencing real transformation... thanks to the sugar backlash, the resulting sugar tax and the fight against plastic.

I recently heard that the majority of fizzy soft drinks sold in the supermarkets now contain no or low amounts of added sugar, which really surprised me. For a category that has been built on the white stuff for over 100 years, that’s a pretty big change.

It goes without saying that it has been a difficult few years for some of the big global soft drink brands, but the other side of that coin is that there are plenty of exciting emerging brands taking advantage of the move towards Healthier and Natural. They and creating new category sub segments some real #transformational growth. Think real fruit sodas, no added sugar seltzers, and even the more niche Kombuchas, kefir waters, sparkling coconut waters....

If you live in the UK, you probably recognise the very cool British soft drinks brand Dalston’s soda, whose mission is to put real ingredients back at the heart of soft drinks.

I think their range of highly distinctive, brightly coloured metallic cans with the big standout D for Dalstons on the front is a future brand icon – just the right mix of cool yet accessible to the mass market. Together with great drinks made with real fruit, low sugar, local ingredients and even distilled botanicals for serious amount of great flavour, Dalston’s is one to watch.

I spoke to Dan Broughton, CEO and Co-Founder to find out how he and his team is setting the brand up for success.

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The case study in Category transformation that is on everyone’s lips right now is Oatly.

But did you know that Oatly has been around for 30 years in the Dairy Alternatives Category?

It’s only really in the past 5 years that something has changed massively, at least in the UK market.

In 2016, Oatly’s UK revenue was around £6M, but this year they are looking at hitting around £75M!

If you want to know how they did this, then you’re in luck! We spoke to Ishen Paran, UK Country Manager who told us about the 5 levers that he and the Oatly UK team have pulled to drive this incredible growth...

#oatmilk #oatly #transformationalgrowth #brandgrowthheroes #plantbased

If you enjoy this episode, it would be really helpful if you REVIEW it on iTunes or Spotify

& SHARE it on your social media