Jordan Buckner (00:00)
Today, I'm joined by Christy Lebor who's a partner and head of the strategy group at Smash Brand. Christy has worked with countless brands to bring their innovation and products to market the right way, avoiding costly missteps and maximizing the chances of success. So in today's conversation, we're gonna be diving into innovation and brand strategy and what that means for emerging stage brands.

how to take the right risk and why your packaging might be one of the single most important innovation lovers you have when explaining your product to customers. Christy, welcome to the podcast today.

Christy Lebor (00:34)
Thank you so much, I'm happy to be here.

Jordan Buckner (00:36)
So

when you think about innovation within the food and beverage space, what do you see as the key drivers and like how brands should think about bringing a new product to life?

Christy Lebor (00:46)
Yeah, that's a big, big topic. We could probably talk for days about it. And in fact, I've talked for 25 years about it.

and done it for 25 years. I'd say innovation is such an awesome opportunity typically, whether that is innovating your way into the market for the first time, you're developing and launching your brand from the start, I would argue that's innovation. A lot of times when our industry talks about innovation, at least from my angle, they might be talking about your second product or your second platform. But actually, that process of bringing ⁓

brand

to life or a new product to life is very similar, whether it's your first product out of the gate or your fifth platform. You know, and overall I would say that the biggest takeaway that I've learned, well I've got many, but the one I would maybe want to express to your audience would be it's not a mystery and it doesn't have to be guesswork. There is no like magical serum or

like mystical way you can really identify the right ideas and then make sure they're fully optimized all the way through before you launch. There is a foundational process to do that. And so I see so often these emerging brands just kind of throwing spaghetti on the wall.

Jordan Buckner (02:07)
you're right about that. And I've often seen this problem of innovation and being too big of a word because someone might launch a potato kettle chip that's fried, that's cooked in avocado oil. And that can be called an innovation because there previously were not many, if any potato chips cook with avocado oil, but it's very familiar. And then you could do what?

you know, perhaps I did, which was create our tea infused energy snacks, which was a product that was kind of far out of left field where they were bite size energy squares. was kind like an energy bar made in a single square that infused black and green tea inside for natural caffeine boost. And it was doing like too many things at once. And so I see such a wide spectrum. Do you have a sense of like,

where founders in the kind food and beverage space find the most success. Is it that kind of like far out idea or is it the closer in like a better take on an existing product?

Christy Lebor (03:09)
that's such a good question. So I've got ⁓ kind of a two-faced answer for you. the first one would be there's actually a place in your portfolio for all kinds of innovation. You need close-in innovation, which in my old days at Kraft and Pepsi, we would call that a line extension. So let's say you're a fruit punch brand, or like a juice brand. You're gonna do...

Something citrusy something berry and then something punch oriented like that's what you're gonna do. There's gonna be a three foot So what's that fourth flavor? Is it a strawberry lemonade? That could be highly incremental to you and oftentimes that's a low hanging fruit. That's innovation. It's just close in a line extension Then next out think about horizon. So that's very close in horizon one horizon two would be Maybe a new platform You know if you're so if you're a juice brand, are you now going to do?

you know, energy shots. It's kind of weird. But I don't know that you'd do that next or a new. But yeah, and then maybe third out, you're now gonna do a bar. It's not a liquid anymore. It's a bar. That's breakthrough innovation for you. Now, your second part of your question was how much are you changing? I actually have got a very simple model for this that...

Jordan Buckner (04:04)
But yeah, mean, juice got into alcohol, spiked juices, right?

Christy Lebor (04:21)
I've learned and I've heard people express it different ways. This is my way of expressing it and it's so simple. But it is very, very helpful. When you step back from our industry and actually look a little bit broader at consumer psychology and behavior change, it is generally true that you can, like the hardest thing to do is change consumer behavior. Like that is the hardest thing to do on the planet. Kid, I'm not kidding.

And so the best way you can do, and by the way, changing consumer behavior could be by this brand instead of that. And there's degrees of change there. But think about it this way. The most successful innovations and the most successful companies are only asking you to change one thing.

For example, the one that you just gave earlier, it's a potato chip and it's kettle cooked. You already know what kettle cooked is because it's been around for 15, 20 years. It's just now cooked in avocado oil. Right, okay. I get it. And so you're changing one thing. it's like in your example, your tea infused energy bite. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan Buckner (05:20)
Like you can't even remember it. I can't even remember it.

Christy Lebor (05:24)
It's kind of two things, right? And so now it's tea infused and now you're not buying bars, you're buying bites. You also have to look at it's not just what your product is, you have to look at the threshold of willingness to pay. Are you opening up a new price tier? Well that's gonna be, or are you asking people to change their frame of reference? Here's another little example for you. If you think about it, it's...

Jordan Buckner (05:31)
Yes.

Christy Lebor (05:47)
The types of things you might be changing for a consumer might be what is the product itself, like the product formulation, like it's got tea in it now, it's avocado oil. Another thing you might be changing is the form of the product. usually you eat yogurt with a spoon, but now you're gonna drink it. Or usually, or now it's a yogurt gummy, right? So what's the form? Then there might be, again, a really new value tier, a price point.

like thinking about it in a different way. And usually if you do that, you might be coming in and changing the frame of reference, which would be the most classic example of that I can give you is, it's not delivery, it's dijourno.

Right, so in that world, this is a while, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, but it's such a classic case. The reason why DiGiorno was able to come in and they paired strong innovation R &D, they had rise and crust, this is a fun little story, they were gonna call it Tombstone Plus. Because Kraft don't.

Jordan Buckner (06:47)
Hmm, interesting based on like the tombstone

brand

Christy Lebor (06:50)
Yeah, they own Tombstone Pizza. This

was before they spun off their pizza division to Nestle. But they own Tombstone, and their R &D team developed this new resin crust technology. It was going to launch, and it was going to be called Tombstone Plus. And that's when a very smart marketer, Julie Hennessey, I took her class at Kellogg School of Management. This is how I know this case study. She was like, wait a minute. This could be a much bigger idea.

than Tombstone Plus, we're burying the news. Like we gotta call this thing bigger. And so they, instead of saying it's a better frozen pizza, they said it's not a better frozen pizza, it's just like delivery. So we completely changed the frame of reference. They linked a new technology to it, and then they supported it with marketing that to help consumers understand the change of frame of reference. And that's how they basically doubled the SRP.

that people were willing to pay for a frozen pizza. Because it's not frozen pizza, it's like delivery. What?

Jordan Buckner (07:40)
Yeah, because if they're thinking about, yeah,

comparing it to the frozen pieces next to it, but in their mind, they're replaying that slogan like, why is it so expensive? wait, it's because it's like delivery, not.

Christy Lebor (07:51)
But think about it, that's the only thing they changed, right? So frame of reference attached to them because of that frame of reference price point, it's still pizza, you still eat it for dinner, it's still pepperoni and cheese, they didn't all of a sudden add avocado oil, they didn't make the crust cauliflower, it's just that. So they changed one thing and they maniacally focused on that one thing and that worked really well.

The last thing you can maybe change is occasion. So, ⁓ you usually eat pizza for dinner, now you're gonna eat it for breakfast. So, I mean, there's probably more than that, but really, as you think about your brand, don't ask the consumer to change more than one thing. It's very challenging for you. You're gonna get much better traction with just one. What'd you say?

Jordan Buckner (08:34)
learned that firsthand because with TeaSquares

yeah, I learned that firsthand because of TeaSquares really had four things that we were going after and changing. We are essentially a protein bar, but we had bite-sized pieces instead of one single bar. We launched in a multi-serve pouch with four servings instead of a single serving. We had ingredients like our tea in there. And then the texture was crunchy.

We use a puffed millet and almonds and other ingredients, whereas like a really, almost like a rice cake texture instead of a typical chewy protein bar. so consumers had no reference point to actually what they were buying. In my mind, I thought like, hey, here's this great innovation and we're building a moat around any competitor. Like no one's going to copy this, but I didn't realize until later, we're also building a moat around our customers.

Christy Lebor (09:11)
Right.

Jordan Buckner (09:28)
because they didn't understand what they were really buying. And it really hit me when I talked to a customer doing a demo and they were like, I saw these on the shelf at Whole Foods. It looked interesting, but I did not buy it. And once they tried it at the demo, they tasted it, they're like, these are good. And they purchased it, but it could not sell itself.

Christy Lebor (09:41)
So.

Correct, and so talking about this next piece here of it cannot sell itself. If you have an innovation or a new product or a new brand, again, ideally you're just changing one thing, all these things we've talked about, and it cannot sell itself, you are not gonna make it.

Like it had again that's the discipline of really picking one thing to shout You might have other things in there that are cool that deliver an experience or a nutritional component or something But in terms of what you're actually marketing for your brand and what you're shouting on your with your branding But specifically your packaging, you know, most emerging brands can't afford a hundred million dollar ad budgets or even

$5 million ad budgets, you know? And so really your packaging is doing the hard work for you. And if you're, the idea behind why you should buy this product, why it's worth it and why it's a brand for them, but even more importantly at the point of purchase, why it's worth it, they have to understand what it is and why it's better. It's gotta break out, you gotta break through, you gotta understand what it is and you gotta believe it's better and worth the price. And if you can't do that in,

like nine seconds, less than nine seconds for most categories. you're lose it. know, we've got, studies would say, this is a fun little fact, I read this the other day. I'm reading this wonderful book, I actually recommend it. It's not new, but I was just reading it. It's called Fascinate. Fantastic book.

Jordan Buckner (11:09)
Yes.

Christy Lebor (11:10)
by ⁓ Sally Hogshead. Anyway, one of the things she talks about is this very famous study about the attention span of a goldfish, and in general, attention spans. About 100 years ago, we had about a 20-minute attention span as humans, and now about 15 years ago, was about nine seconds equal to a goldfish.

Apparently, I think Facebook did another study and essentially post social media era in the world of like TikTok and whatnot. We're actually now at eight seconds. So we have less attention span than a goldfish. Think about that, right? So if you can't hit it and quit it in like seconds on your pack.

Jordan Buckner (11:34)
Okay.

I believe it.

Yes.

Christy Lebor (11:54)
you are never going to be able to get the velocities up and get to a place where your gross margin can even pay and get to a profit to make your business sustainable.

Jordan Buckner (12:07)
So Christy I love that. I love that you mentioned and talking about like, what's the one thing your brand is gonna shout because I think this leads into package design because when you're designing your physical real estate for the product, there's only limited space on there. And so it's really key to pick the right message or a few messages of which are going to actually sell your product. I made that mistake at TeaSquares and we didn't have a strong enough value prop that we were selling that was picking up people's attention.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on the process on identifying and then shouting that one key message using packaging and package design.

Christy Lebor (12:44)
Yeah, so the way we think about it at Smash Brand in terms of sort of the positioning and then the packaging is, you know, to get a consumer to buy your product, you have to win their head and their heart. That's not a new concept, but it's very true. It's we're all human, this is how we think. Winning the head is very rational.

side, you're doing logics and facts, it's system two thinking, it's a little slower. And that's the thing, usually what wins people over is really winning category purchase drivers. And typically, like we have a way of getting at that quantitatively, what those are and how to best express those at Smash Brand. But think about things like, okay, if let's say you're a beef stick.

Jordan Buckner (13:25)
Mm-hmm.

Christy Lebor (13:26)
like a chops or a Slim Jim or a Archer, something like that. Why is somebody really buying your category? What are they looking for? What do you have to make sure you communicate very quickly and are you gonna do that with your words or your visuals? Right, and so certain things are better done with words. 10 grams of protein, you gotta say that. Other things sometimes are done with visuals but it's still a key category purchase driver and very rational. Ooh, this is gonna taste good.

Maybe you're gonna show a bowl of salt and like cracked pepper and like a seasoned piece of wagu. I'm making that up. But you know, like you're gonna show the taste. There's so many ways to show taste, but you're gonna do that. There's obviously other category drivers too, like more natural, anything like that where you can.

not only show, I have this category driver, but maybe the way I do it is different than everybody else, and that's why you buy me, and that's right, or why it's worth more. But there's the heart, too. And a lot of that is the branding and the design. typically, when I think about the heart, like if the head is all about, it's worth it, the heart is about, this is a brand for me.

and it's very much more connected to a little bit of aesthetic design, emotional drivers, and again, we have a way of quantitatively getting to that at Smash Brand, but as we design, but if you're all heart and no head, you're gonna lose. If you're all head and no heart, you might have volume, but it's gonna be commoditized, and you're gonna be fighting, you have no brand, you have a product. So both are not good, you have to have both.

Jordan Buckner (14:57)
So here's one thing

that I always, I love talking about is really defining how to build brand because a lot of founders will hear brand and they think logo, colors, imagery on a package, but it's really more than that. It's the values that you put forth and the things that you stand for. And I love kind of breaking down, how do you...

build out those brand characteristics and then how do you showcase those through packaging, through the messaging that you're putting out in the world and your perspective.

Christy Lebor (15:30)
I'm provocative right now and say no, the brand is not a logo. That's a word mark typically. That's a design asset. A brand is a promise. A brand is a mental shortcut. It's how people can make shopping easier and trusted. mean, there's actually great TV shows about this.

the brands at Built America if you want to watch it on History Channel. But it was great. anyway, so brand overall is actually the entire value proposition and promise you are delivering to your consumer every day. Yes, you have the look, the brand identity, which is the look and the feel of your brand and the logo and some of those distinctive assets, those visual assets. It's also your product.

Jordan Buckner (15:52)
Hmm.

Christy Lebor (16:12)
the consistency, the quality, the benefits your products are giving, it's your value proposition, your price relative to your product, it's your availability where you are, it's your marketing message and how you show up in the world with your brand activation, it's your customer care, right, your service, it's everything. Now, I think what you were asking was, what about your brand identity, how do you develop that? Is that what you were asking?

Jordan Buckner (16:33)
Well, think that's the, what you said is what I love is it's not your wordmark and your logos, everything else that you stand for. And I think a lot of people actually were talking, was talking to a founder and they got feedback about their packaging and the feedback was that their quote brand didn't stand out on their packaging. And they were really confused because they thought it looked like other premium products as a granola product. They thought it looked like other premium granola.

Christy Lebor (16:39)
That's everything.

Jordan Buckner (17:01)
it had like a nice quality bag and they couldn't quite place this disconnect between why people felt it did not look premium or have a personality, I guess, when the founder thought that it did and they were kind of looking for direction in that. And I know I'm not showing to you, but one thing that I found is like, it's a newer brand and they did not have a specific point of view that they were like shouting. And I think that led to...

people reading that in different ways.

Christy Lebor (17:32)
So yeah, maybe to put it in other words, perhaps what this founder was missing was what I would call brand distinction. So they might have a quote, brand, meaning a look, but it wasn't different and it wasn't perceived. It got lost in a sea. Granola's a tough category. There's a lot of granolas. It's a little hard to differentiate in that category, although you can.

Oftentimes, I see a lot of, when clients come to us at Smash Brand, and we get a lot of clients like this, they'll come, they've got a great product, but you know, their sales, their velocities aren't turning as fast as they want, let's say, at retail. One of the reasons, maybe they have to charge a certain price because of their cogs and the quality of the ingredients, but like, consumers just aren't willing to pay that yet. And then I look at their packaging.

And it basically looks like every other brand out there, whether it's that Chobani aesthetic or Whole Foods aesthetic or, you know, ⁓ gourmet chef-y aesthetic, but like, it's bland, unremarkable, and maybe doesn't kind of break through the competition. So the art and the science of design is really making sure that you...

Jordan Buckner (18:26)
Yeah.

Christy Lebor (18:43)
are visually, with your visuals and your words, saying and showing the things you need to say to be relevant to the category and be what they want. But then, in the areas where you can, push and drive distinction. Breakthrough, look different. Show up in a different way that either directly communicates to a functional benefit that you're elevating that no one else has.

or whether you are meeting, let's say, an emotional need or a positioning area that could bring in a new consumer to that category in a different way than no one else is. So it's the head or the heart, one or the other. Ideally, you do both. But...

The trick is being different, but being different and relevant. Sometimes, you know, I always laugh at this as a little example. had an old mentor that used to say this. Being different alone is not, you have to be different or else you're never gonna break out as a new brand. But you cannot just be different. You have to be different and relevant. And what I mean is, you're gonna laugh right now when I say this. This is a classic example.

Jordan Buckner (19:32)
Yeah.

Christy Lebor (19:43)
Okay, let's say you're in the toothpaste category. I know we're talking about food and beverage here, but this is the example that's used. Let's say you're in the toothpaste category and you're like, I need to be different. I'm gonna launch anchovy toothpaste. Boy, is that different. Not wanted, not relevant. Nobody's gonna buy anchovy toothpaste, right? And so just make sure you don't have an anchovy toothpaste problem. Obviously that's dramatic, like no one in there.

right mind would probably launch a product like that, but you'd be surprised. ⁓

Jordan Buckner (20:11)
Well,

I think it gets because a lot of people think I need to be different. So what can I do to be different? Not what are consumers looking for that they're not being satisfied for with that I believe in myself that I can use to differentiate from the category. And I think it's a different approach. Whereas they say, right, like don't be different just for different sake. Like have a reason that you want or making the choices.

Christy Lebor (20:33)
Right.

Right, different is critical. That's how you get breakout and sort break through the clutter. But again, you can't just be unhinged in your difference.

Jordan Buckner (20:44)
Exactly.

I love that. Well, Christy, thanks so much for being on today and talking about innovation and packaging design. I think you gave a lot of great pointers and tips on the practical things brands can't or companies and brands can do to really stand out and combine those head and heart attributes to build successful brands. Thanks so much for being on.

Christy Lebor (21:02)
Thank you for having me.