Jordan Buckner (00:00)
Too many CPG brands built their entire identity around a single hero ingredient or product. But that can really complicate things down the road. And then with my first brand, Tea Squares, the name was a little too literal, right? We sold granola bars made with tea in a bite-sized square, which really anchored us in those two things, a ingredient and a shape, and that hindered us down the road. So today I want to invite on Adam Feller, who's the

founder of Avidity Creative. He's a branding expert who's helped dozens of CPG companies reposition to growth. And I wanted to unpack this common trap of leading with your ingredient instead of what it does for your customer. So let's break down kind of why that's a bad idea and what to do instead. Adam, welcome.

Adam Feller (00:47)
Yeah, Jordan, thanks for having me. I can't wait to talk about this. It's a very finite, minutiae sort of thing that lot of founders don't think of, especially, and even packaging designers don't think of it. So, excited to get into it.

Jordan Buckner (01:00)
your work with Avidity, like you work specifically with CPG brands. And so I always tell people, like design as a skill is very broad and there's a lot of nuances when you're talking about food, beverage, even like within each category that matters. And I love that you have experience of designing products with that in mind and not just as a one-off, but actually seeing how that packaging lives in market, right?

Adam Feller (01:25)
Yeah, exactly. and you know, through a ton of our experience working with our brands, we've gone over this topic a lot of times with founders. Sometimes the message doesn't always get through, but yeah. So, I guess where would you like to start with this? I...

Jordan Buckner (01:37)
Yeah,

so tell me, I mean, let's start first off, right? Like, why do you think so many CPGA founders focus their messaging on the ingredients and why is that a problem?

Adam Feller (01:46)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's natural for anyone who's starting one of these brands to think like, you everyone's going to love that this product is made with with a specific ingredient. And we'll talk maybe about some examples later. But I think it's.

when someone comes up with a new recipe, it's like an alternative meat substitute or an alternative to some other product, it's because this recipe focuses on this main ingredient that's a substitute, that's a healthier substitute maybe for the bad ingredient and whatever they're trying to kind of mimic. But then you find that...

later putting too much emphasis on that ingredient isn't what people care about. They care that it's just a better for you product compared to the product they have been using. So I think it's just natural that you want to put the focus on what this, here's my secret ingredient, here's my special ingredient, and what makes our product. But ultimately you just kind of learn that that's not what is connecting with people.

Jordan Buckner (02:38)
Yeah, I think that's so true. I think too, besides the ingredient, I see this often happen when people name the brand after the specific product. And there's these two schools of thought of, right, like how do you think about the larger platform that your product can be part of in the future if it's successful? Or how do you name the product so as literal and direct from the beginning so that people can understand it because you don't have any quote brand equity.

Adam Feller (03:04)
Right, yeah and I think I'm going to use T-squares as an example here too. I think what can happen is you silo yourself into this one ingredient and try to especially put the name of the ingredient in your brand name, in your product name that...

They kind of lose potential to venture out to other things within being under the same brand umbrella, right? So that's one negative to doing that. And I think it does just kind of hinder your potential for growth, I suppose,

Jordan Buckner (03:33)
Yeah, I think that's a big thing that happened. So what actually does drive customer and consumer purchase if it's not the ingredients highlighted on the front?

Adam Feller (03:42)
Yeah, so we can get into a few rat holes, or rabbit holes, rabbit holes of this. I've never been in a rat hole, you? So I think what actually drives people to make this purchase is having a connection with the brand. I mean, when you get down to literal things, think flavor and price are two of the biggest things that make people want to.

Jordan Buckner (03:49)
Hehehehe

Adam Feller (04:02)
purchase something compared to something else, no matter what. product, as long as it tastes good, you have a really great start. But beyond those things, I would say having your brand store figured out, understanding who your customers are, being able to connect those two things, like your brand's values, what your brand story is, what is important to you, what's important to just the essence of your brand, but understanding that your customer needs to make a connection with that.

So those things, think, that's, being able to try the product, of course, is the initial, how someone is first introduced to this. Like, I don't think many people typically go to the store thinking, you know what, today I'm gonna try to find a substitute for this soda that I drink all the time. That's not good for me.

Jordan Buckner (04:43)
Yeah. ⁓

Adam Feller (04:43)
they hear it somewhere

else and they're like, know what? That's not a bad idea. Let's give that a try. Because you know, I have been wanting to be healthier and I drink too much pop and...

You know, want to find, let's find something that is going to be a substitute for that. It's one thing I can change in my diet that doesn't mean that I have to completely go to an all vegetarian diet to be healthier. I mean, I'm going find this one next product and if it's going to be better for me. But you know what? It has to taste as flavorful as this thing that I'm drinking on a regular basis. So.

Jordan Buckner (05:14)
Yeah,

you know, I love the example of pop or soda because that's really what Ollie Pop and Poppy have really leveraged, right? If you think about it, when people are going to a store, they're looking for a beverage and generally, like if they're looking for like a pop or soda, like that's what they're going to find. And so I would say like first your product needs to communicate exactly what it is, right? Like this is a pop. Like I get it, I understand the product. Then there's the...

why, like what problem is it solving for me? And usually that's around like, want a soda that has less sugar because the one I'm drinking all the time is like really unhealthy and maybe like my doctor says I shouldn't eat so much or my spouse or something. And so like that's probably a second step. And then the third reason is maybe like how, and it's like, oh, these probiotic ingredients, I don't really understand them, but.

Adam Feller (05:46)
Okay.

Jordan Buckner (06:06)
as a good halo so I can tell people that. But in reality I'm probably just looking for something that's lower guilt, I don't say guilt free but lower guilt, to buy it and then I can use that to justify it. But I'm not buying it for the probiotics, I'm buying, the probiotics help me tell the story of why it's solving the problem which is a lower sugar soda for me.

Adam Feller (06:27)
Yeah, and along the same lines, I kind of like what we're talking about here with the ingredients. So I've seen a lot of brands that, you know, the product is intended to be good for digestive health, gut health, and one of those ingredients that you see mentioned a lot is like apple cider vinegar.

So where we would say something that these brands might be doing wrong is focusing too much on apple cider vinegar. Because in my mind, when I hear that, think of the taste of vinegar and like the taste of that apple cider vinegar is it's just so tart, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, exactly. Like that's the only thing I would think of. But if you just tell me that this product is intended for good digestive health.

Jordan Buckner (06:58)
It's incredibly strong. ⁓

Adam Feller (07:05)
for good gut health. Okay, now I'm open to this and let's give it a try. So it's a good example, I guess, of...

how you can make a little change in verbiage on your packaging to be less ingredient focused and more focused on the effects of it. What are the benefits of using this product versus what's in the product? Because most consumers are not scientists to be able to understand what the benefits of certain ingredients are. Or like we were talking before we started about Bonza, the pasta company, who is...

Jordan Buckner (07:35)
Yeah.

Adam Feller (07:36)
their main ingredient is like chickpeas, right? Like it's a chickpea pasta. And we talked about how they've sort of changed their packaging to focus on saying chickpea pasta to now pasta made with chickpeas. That is still like their differentiator because there are other pasta brands out there that are making gluten-free pasta or just different alternatives to using flour or wheat flour that has gluten in it or something.

Jordan Buckner (07:59)
Yeah, and

I love that, and I'll even pull that up. So Fred Hart, who's also a packaging designer, but he put together this graphic, which I thought was amazing. And so it shows three versions of the Bonza packaging and how it's evolved over time. The product's really great. So it went from being like Bonza chickpea pasta, right? Like ingredient front and center, to then being Bonza mac and cheese made with chickpea pasta. And then on the third iteration, which is current,

Adam Feller (08:18)
Mm-hmm.

No.

Jordan Buckner (08:25)
is really focused on the taste appeal and that cheesiness of the macaroni and cheese. And chickpeas actually only mention all the way down here at the very bottom because they realize people are just looking for mac and cheese. They want protein, they're looking for, they like this idea that it's three quarter cup of veggies, that's really great and that's really from that chickpea language. But they're not buying it for the chickpeas, they're buying it because they're looking for mac and cheese.

Adam Feller (08:37)
Hmm.

Exactly. I've never heard anyone say, you know what, I love the taste of chickpeas so much I want to put it in everything. No, it's the benefit of the chickpea and that pasta having high protein too.

Jordan Buckner (09:03)
I love that. I mean, what are some of the signs that a brand is over indexing on those like product features and the customer outcome? Because I think on one hand, people are like, okay, if I just say this is a mac and cheese, then don't I sound like everyone else on the shelf? Like how do I differentiate? And they see that ingredient, or even maybe like the reason like as a differentiator. So how do you make that balance of saying like,

Why are we different from the other products in our competitive set?

Adam Feller (09:31)
Yeah, so I would say focusing more on the outcome of the product versus what's in the product. I'm sorry, rephrase your question one more time for me.

Jordan Buckner (09:40)
Yeah,

what are some of the ways that the constraints really differentiate if they have the packaging, like with their packaging?

Adam Feller (09:42)
You differentiate within categories.

Yep, so focus on flavor. mean, figure out what else makes your product different from the rest of the category. Because especially if it's...

If it is that ingredient, focus more on the effects of that ingredient or the flavor profile of the ingredient. Is it more savory than the other products, the other competitors? Focus on that aspect of it so you can differentiate on things that people can picture in their mind, like scents, just without even needing to taste the versus what is actually in it, I suppose.

Jordan Buckner (10:19)
Yeah,

I think that's super helpful. I I'm curious your thoughts too, because when I was running T squares, I had a heart problem. It was like my first time like running a product. was like, had no idea what to even include on the packaging. And we talked about like how much caffeine per serving and serving size, sugar and a little bit protein, but like, I don't know, we were like three or four grams of protein per serving. So it wasn't like super high.

One thing that I learned through that process is that for every category of product, there are attributes that people are looking for that are important there to highlight. And there's like a bunch of things that people probably don't care about, right? And so how do you then start to like understand what are those important attributes like in a category and then make sure you're leveraging those points to differentiate?

Adam Feller (10:57)
Mmm.

So I think along those lines is some of those like whether it's like a certification sort of thing But like people like to mention non-gmo gluten-free Vegan brand, you know, whatever like all these callouts and stuff that are on your packaging It's okay to have those I would say making them smaller You know having them having those things be less focus because these this day and age so many products

focus on that element. Everyone's really looking for a better for you version of something else. I'm thinking from the founder's side, as an entrepreneur, the next product I'm going to make is probably a better for you something, something. Was it Khloe Kardashian that just came out with the protein popcorn? There's already 100 brands of popcorn out there, but she's probably one of the first protein ones.

Jordan Buckner (11:38)
Yeah.

The cloud protein, yep.

Adam Feller (11:50)
And I think even her product and these other ones have these little call outs on there, but just kind of minimize those things. So focusing on, again, I to come back to your question from that refresher.

Jordan Buckner (12:02)
Yeah, focusing

like on those those attributes that really stand out. was like, there's like proteins really hot right now. And then maybe even like in the Bonza example, the reason they had the chickpeas was probably both because of the to make them gluten free, which is big and higher protein. And then they kind of had that veggie call out, which is interesting, especially as a lot of parents are buying things like mac and cheese from kids. And they're like, all right, how can I get my kids something like healthy?

Adam Feller (12:04)
Yes.

Okay.

Hmm.

Jordan Buckner (12:30)
and give them to eat their veggies instead of just carbs. so a call out like that probably really appeals to that customer base.

Adam Feller (12:36)
Yeah.

So you mentioned the attributes. I would say that, again, coming back to the flavor, coming back to the functionality of it, people care less about what, obviously they want things to be, whether it's environmentally friendly, or I mentioned these different call-outs and stuff, these different certifications, but I think the attributes to differentiate you within your category, it's gonna come down to a lot within just the flavor profile. Obviously pricing and stuff I mentioned earlier is a big thing,

Differentiating based on your visual brand identity is another aspect of this. So I think how can you look different but look better than your competitors? Does that make sense? Especially for an early stage founder, would say there's a lot of people that put...

Jordan Buckner (13:13)
Yeah.

Adam Feller (13:19)
They try to just put too much stuff on their packaging, like too many different, everyone has like the next greatest thing that is like all-encompassing, this does everything for you, it solves all your problems. And that's not true, you're eventually gonna find out that it solves one main problem for a very specific audience, whether you intended it to be that way or not. So you asked a question earlier too about like, how do you know...

when you're focusing too much on the ingredient or what you're focusing too much on. I would say, number one, ask your customers. Like, whenever you're doing some sort of demo or sampling station thing or...

farmers market, whatever, especially if you're early on, this is where you get to be directly in contact and communicating with people who are trying your product or people who frequently buy your product. Send out email surveys, but ask any questions about like, what do you like best about our product?

And you might just be surprised that like, it's not because it's made, not because it's pasta made with chickpeas. It's because this has however many grams of protein in it. And that's what I'm looking for is I want to add more protein to my diet without sacrificing taste.

Jordan Buckner (14:22)
I love that idea because one thing that I've encouraged founders to do is when they're doing farmers markets or demo table sampling events, actually testing out your messaging at that event in person so you can get someone's reaction because I can almost imagine bringing a poster board. Maybe it's just like a eight and a half by 11 like sheet that's on the side and say, hey, here are the core.

Adam Feller (14:34)
Mm-hmm.

Jordan Buckner (14:45)
reasons to buy our brand, right? This much protein, these allergen-free areas, these kind of statements about veggies, and then ask people directly, like, which ones stand out the most to you? And identify if there's any trends where people are like, yeah, the protein, I love that. And they don't mention the allergy section at all. And maybe it's still important a little bit, but it's like a given and not something that stands out.

Adam Feller (14:58)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I guess I like going the route of, yes, you can ask customers directly those questions. I think the way that you framed it is you're gonna get a lot of great information from that. But if you can find ways to do it without face to face having to ask them this question, it's good to interact with them and see what they choose. But I guess what I'm talking more about is at that farmer's market, you suggested having...

a poster board that kind of shows like the call-outs, the features of your product. Change that up from week to week. Not like every week. mean, like have, do an A-B test and then just keep tweaking your A-B testing, you know, many times, I guess later on. But one week it has this, the next week it has this, then go back and forth with those two, see what your responses are from people or just like see like, do your sales numbers shift from those? So the ultimate like...

Jordan Buckner (15:38)
Yeah.

Adam Feller (15:56)
yes or no answer to any question is did people buy more of the product or did they not buy the product? You may, because someone may say like, yeah, I love like, I love the flavor of this and I love that it has 15 grams of protein per serving. And then you find out that they didn't buy it. Okay, well why not? It's kind of hard to ask them that question. They might not be able to tell you, but if you find other messages that do connect with them, you're going to know because people are going to actually start buying the product.

Jordan Buckner (16:02)
Right.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, one thing that I also really like is if you are a e-commerce brand and you're selling on a Shopify site, you can change some of the messaging. Like me, the packaging is actually the same, but you change the headline on the product page between those different attributes to measure conversion difference. Or if you're selling on Amazon, maybe you have a decent business, but you're looking on ways to improve, they have features where you can A-B test.

your images, your title, your copy, so that you can understand which ones have a higher conversion rate. And they'll tell you like this page had a 5 % conversion rate and this page had a 2 % conversion rate after you changed your title. And then once you learn those things, you think like, huh, maybe we make that call out larger, the actual physical packaging, because that's what's resonating with people.

Adam Feller (17:02)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. One point I want to make is like is a somewhat good example of this the ingredients aspect of all this is that obviously if you have your ingredients list on the back you have to include that you're going to need like you need to allow people to see what is in the product. It just means not putting too much emphasis on whatever the main ingredient is but gosh I keep losing my train of thought. I feel like it's terrible.

I don't know, I lost that. So I think as you're starting out the...

Jordan Buckner (17:39)
You're all good. Let me edit that out.

You're talking

about like the ingredients on the back of packaging.

Adam Feller (17:53)
Yeah, so.

I don't even know if that relief is helping me.

Jordan Buckner (17:56)
Cool. Let's jump into the next one. It's all good. Um, cause I think it's kind of related. So for founders who are deeply passionate about their product formulation, how can they still kind of honor that ingredient that they're really excited about without leading with another packaging? Is it like putting it on the back, including the story?

Adam Feller (18:17)
Yeah. So there's definitely times where like the ingredient needs to be the focal point, right? Because like if it's, if it is, if that is the thing that's differentiating you, if it is the, if it's like a new category that you're, you're kind of like the first one there and it's, it's based on.

this new, this specific ingredient. But I would say focus a lot, if you can, more on the flavor profile, unless on the ingredient itself. So using terms like sweet, spicy, savory, those are better than saying that it's made with this ingredient, that no one is really, like, that's not a common ingredient in our diet, right? Coming back to chickpeas or things like lentils or other legumes that people don't think of that are often substitutes for grain.

inside of a product or substitute for flour. I think that people just don't know what to associate with a certain flavor. If people know like, I'm gonna make a new candy and the base of it is strawberries.

Okay, now I have an expectation of what that flavor is going to probably taste like. Dates is like the new thing. So lots of things are sweetened using dates now. It's like an alternative to using... What's the sugar substitute? Is it stevia? Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (19:27)
Yeah.

Those stevia's are a lot and erythritols

and stuff like that. Or even like some people are looking, instead of like cane sugar, yep, they're using like date sugars. Coconut sugar's big.

Adam Feller (19:39)
Yeah, dates or I've seen... Yeah,

yeah, so things like that. Like people... don't know, dates are not like a common fruit that people just like pick up and eat. But you can... You've probably had it somewhere that you can... Or you've seen it, that you can at least start to like... Start framing what this flavor of this product is in your head. yeah, I think that that's...

That is when it makes the most sense to actually focus on that ingredient in your branding or in your packaging. Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (20:11)
Yeah,

I love that. I've seen so many brands who are doing things like sweetened with date sugar or sweetened with coconut sugar, but it's not like coconut sugar bites, right? Like it's not the brand name, it's not even the product name. It's an attribute if it's important to customers. And I think that's where it goes back to our testing where it's like, if customers really care, they're like, this isn't made with cane sugar, it's made with date sugar. That's really great. I love that sweetened with that.

Adam Feller (20:22)
meet right here.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (20:37)
And then that

Adam Feller (20:37)
Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (20:38)
can become like a tagline kind of call out if people are leading with that. But if you're like, you know, it's made with coconut oil instead of another oil. And like, then maybe that doesn't really resonate with people for that category. And that's not as important or like the chip category has been really, but there's a lot of avocado oil based products because as people are like looking at moving away from seed oils or having alter the reducing process, seed oils.

Like that's become really important in that category.

Adam Feller (21:06)
I think the plant-based category of everything has really driven a lot of this ingredient focus on things. I think people are just thinking about, well, what's the one ingredient I can substitute that's going to replace meat or eggs or cheese or something? But I think that is driven, and I think...

I know when vegan diets started to become more popular that there were a ton of people who tried to make a brownie or a cookie that was vegan because it's really hard to make it as moist and soft as a normal brownie would be, right?

having all this this I guess what you can't do then is just say like okay this brownie is made with lentils or or flax or something like that because then just immediately immediately makes me think this is probably dry. So just labeling it as a plant-based brownie and using words like moist and soft on the packaging somewhere helps not it helps you break through this this like barrier of thinking that it's going to be dry and hard.

Jordan Buckner (21:48)
Yeah.

Adam Feller (22:06)
in fact, is going to pay for it.

Jordan Buckner (22:06)
I love that example,

yeah. Well this is great. Thanks very much for sharing all this. If you're listening like, oh, I am probably making those mistakes and you want a way to look into it, I definitely recommend talking with Adam and seeing how he can help with your packaging. Either if you are new and just getting ready to launch, or if you're an existing brand and realize you're running into these headwinds, it's not too late. There's time to change as we saw with Bonza. They made some pretty significant changes to their packaging or seeing increases in sales.

from that and so definitely a lot of opportunities for you. Adam, thanks for being on.

Adam Feller (22:40)
Awesome, thanks Jordan, I appreciate it. And yeah, anyone who wants to reach out, I'm happy to just look, even just give you some advice on your current packaging and tell you where you think we can make some improvements. But yeah, thanks for having me on the show Jordan.

Jordan Buckner (22:53)
of course we'll put those uh... show notes at irk info and have a get in touch with adam in the show notes for you so you can get in touch there