032 | Global Brands are built by Bus Drivers: how managers should look after brands for the next generation | Part 1/2 with Julian Marsili, Global Drinks Brand Director (Copenhagen, DK)

I hope you will enjoy our chat. This is a two part episode, so don't forget to listen to episode 33 as well. I hope you will enjoy our chat. Hi, Julian. How are doing?

So it's a qualified brand awareness. I know how you hate us, marketeers that come along and say, let me talk to you about brand awareness. Salience is just a better way of saying brand awareness with a meaning. So the perfect example for me is when you see big sponsorships in football world cup or rugby world cup, and you see a logo and you see it every day forever, but you never can remember it is because you don't know what that company does. And if you don't know what that company does, you will never remember that logo.

You will never remember that name. So salience allows you to match a name with what they do together. And often in buying situation, then that's where the brand comes up to your mind, being a customer, being a consumer, and you make that decision, that purchase and so forth.

And you need to bring it back to the old glory because it has reached the tipping point. It has overcome the tipping point, and it's it's now declining. And that's usually when you step in or at least that's how I met you always when I work with you. You were the the fixer of the, of the brand that was at the reached mainstream and wanted to regain at least like share of mine or however we want to call it. So how would you say that?

How would you explain what I've said in a very bad way from sales minded person?

You make that very old mistake of thinking, you know it all and thinking that you are the customer and you know it all. And that's where your big brand starts declining and they lose relevance and where things get, get problematic.

I don't know what to do with it. Help me fix it. And then what usually happens from my experience, at least is that they start to sell them the same ideas all over. So whether it's gen Z before it used to be millennials, all the buzzwords step into the game. And then these brands are actually going left and right.

And they end up doing things that are not distinctive enough and they all look like the same. And then all of a sudden you end up in front of a supermarket shelf and it's like, I can drink any of this stuff because they all talk about sustainability. They all talk about gen Z. They all talk about new things that are on the media all the time. So they lost why you should have bought it. Right?

There is a line of truth into that. But I think that the quality of a good brief or the quality of a good marketing is knowing your brand, knowing what's about your brand that has made it famous or will make it famous, know what your brand is different or distinctive versus your competition. And then with that in hand, breathe a creative agency that can come up with creative ideas of basically interrupting a person while he's on his shopping spree or interrupting a person while he's watching social media or social network, or that come up with creative ways of capturing your attention and your imagination with your brand story. So yes, I am, I am not in favor of outsourcing brand stories and brand narratives. I have beaten that, but I have managed over the years to tell the difference.

I have been most successful when I haven't changed much, but I've gone back to what was done before, found something that was meaningful that, you know, got people excited and just basically found a new way, new media and so forth to tell the same story. Maybe once upon a time, we would tell that story with a sixty second documentary in the cinema today. We need to manage to say that with shorter time on different medias. Other times I just got in there and put my mark and messed it up without doing the word that I think you will love, which is brand archeology. You just go into the archives and you start looking for those insights of what has done been done before and what has made the brand famous.

There's a ton of examples of people that have walked through a factory floor, seen that old poster or old saying, yeah, that's something we know. And then, wow, that's amazing. That's really the essence of the brand because it was put there by somebody who helped build that brand and understood it completely. So that's where you find that, that inspiration.

They they hoped for it, obviously, but they didn't expect that. So there was no, let's call it like succession planning in place from a marketing perspective, or maybe there was from a family perspective, but probably not from a marketing and sales perspective. So one way that makes me think and how to fix that is to really document you, you mentioned brand archeology. I love that words. I will steal it as well to really say, okay, let's make sure that all these things that we're doing, what now we call brand platforms or brand books and brand everything are really long enough.

And whoever works for the company should not change this. And let's bring it to the next generation because it's our duty as we, as we do it as fathers and relatives, as parents to bring it on to the next generation. And what goes wrong is that every generation keeps changing something. They change, they don't change. And there is that old thing saying, oh, we have done it.

We've tried that. It didn't work, but you've tried it because you've tried it in your way. You didn't try it in the way that made it successful. So how can brands avoid having to go back to the basics while growing? That's the million dollar question, right?

You want to put your mark. Yes. But you have to be well aware of what's come before you. And that question of, yeah, it's already been done. That's that has always hurt me a lot, right? Because you, you don't want to do things that other people have already done, but you have to ask that question that you just asked, but how was it done? What was said? And in what time? Oh, we've already told that story. So what?

It's a good story. I think you should say it every time. So the example that I have is why is Carlsberg probably the best beer in the world? So I say, do you know, I sit in a bar or I'm in my presentation. I say, do you know that the original yeast for every lager comes from Carlsberg and that was shared to the world? No, I never heard that story. Yeah. That's what happened. So there's Carlsberg yeast in every lager in the world. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, that's why it's the best. Punto. And that's a story that you can tell a million times and it gets everybody And the answer that I have, I've already said it. Say it again.

Get consistency is key. So, and it's an, I would say like a normal common mistake that we all do. Listening to you is about taking a step back. And as a marketeer becoming like, I'm a custodian, I'm just taking this on like the Patek Philippe advert. No, you never own a Patek Philippe. You just look after it for the next generation.

Nobody wants to really be a bus driver, but your family story, which you have behind you, the Mappeo drinks and all that. My father, my great grandfather, he had buses. He had two buses that would take people from the mountains down to the beach. So I think that's what I was born to be a bus driver, a custodian. And I think, and I got there, as I said, through mistakes, trials and errors, through doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, trying to change things too soon, too fast, not looking back and not listening to that.

And then that's where the brand connection to the liquid cracks. And that's where the issues start happening. This is at least my opinion. What is your take on that?

Did you see that guy do that thing with that girl, that car flying up in the air? And suddenly in beer, we lost completely sight of the product. That then goes into an area which is only about trouble because people taste you. People have a mouth with which they taste the products. And the rule is make a fucking great product.

And rule number one is that. And then rule number two is don't forget rule number one. It starts with the product. It starts delivering on a great product. And then a story behind that product that talks about where you come from, what's in it or where, how it was born and what's its ambition and what's its mission in this world.

So it does start from the product. And if you have an issue with the product, you fix the issue with the product. So don't be scared of admitting that you cut corners and you messed up. There is time to go back. And that's an example of what they did in The UK with Carlsberg.

Said over the years, we've tweaked this recipe and we forgot where we come from. And that's why we are re brewing it from head to hop. What was probably not the best beer in the world. That was a courageous act to say we forgot what made us important. And that was probably the best beer in the world.

We concentrated on other things. So, this is, to answer your question, product is at the heart of it and any purpose or omission statements that doesn't have a fundamental within the product to back it up. If what you say doesn't show up in your product, then you're going to be lost.

And then in some countries they are successful because of lack of other products. In some countries they're less successful. And then when the new entrants come in, then things happen. And then all of a sudden there is also a matter of admitting, okay, we have reached the top with this brand. You know, we cannot grow this brand further.

We should just maintain what we've got and try to fight the new entrance. But there is an element for me that a lot of companies, especially the new multinationals and corporations, they tend to want to grow all the times, like growth plans, you know, let's build growth, let's grow, let's grow. And then all of a sudden it's like, hang on a minute. Like you cannot grow. What made you reach what you are today?

There are no conditions anymore that can help you do that. I can support that. So either you enter with new products or you do something, but then what usually happens is that they, they, they measure them value. And then all of a sudden it's like, you cannot grow. We need to deliver value. So let's cut some corners. And then the shit hits the fan.

Go back and see what you've done to your recipe and the ingredients and so forth. It is that realization that at certain point that exponential growth reaches a tipping point, and you need to look for other areas of growth. Is it other channels, occasions, moments, other venues, elements, not just your traditional, I've piled it high in every supermarket that exists. Therefore it should continue to grow at certain points. You reach that. And yeah, there's a curve.

You got a good product and you're consistent. You remember the fundamentals, and then you use innovation to build on your brand, to build on your story. It is a way to, to reignite what we used to call fresh consistency to water that plant with fresh new ways into your brands. Sometimes it works and a lot of times it doesn't work, but unfortunately there's also an over tendency of you rely too much on innovation and, use it as a tool to get your Salesforce excited to get in the door with your customer. Look, I've got this new shiny thing.

It comes with a little bit more money than the other thing and so forth. Padiativo, as you say, a little drug that actually doesn't do your brand no good if it's not rooted in what hasn't made your brand famous. And it allows you maybe to enter, to bring that brand into similar ideations, occasions, and so forth.

When I have conversations, the motivations for the Negroni and the Penitivo is probably, you don't want to go out with Julien and the Italian friends. It's a different motivation. So demand spaces matches occasion with motivation. That's all it is. It allows you to break free of what we work together, you know, that target occasion as if it was something blocked in stone and there was only people who did this and there was other people who did that recognizes that the same person has different moments and sits within the same day or within a life in different demand spaces.

Sometimes he wants to sit back and relax and be on himself and unwind and unplug. Other times he wants to refresh and replenish himself. Other times he wants to bond with his friends or other times he wants to reward himself and show he knows the best. Those are all the same person in different demands, faces. And the theory says you should build a brand that caters for that demand space, for that occasion and that motivation.

Then you are the one that is top of mind that has salience within that moment. So I want to relax. What should I drink? I want to have fun with my friends. What should I drink? So in that moment, that brand comes top of mind.

There are the really successful ones are the ones that stay there. Now you can go into ideation. You are the reward and indulge. Maybe you can go relaxing space, but it's, you're on always that side of the quadrant. And if you want to go somewhere else, either you build another brand or if you've got a strong brand, build a sub brand that supports it.

But it is very difficult. It's going back to stick to what you know, and stick to how you grow. And if you want to go somewhere else, come up with another brand. It's, it is expensive. We know it's expensive, but it's more expensive to waste money trying to build your brand into a place which has never been right. Only because people know about it, but people know about it again, because it comes to mind for that. Why would you go over there?

Yeah. Because you were not looking with those eyes. Like we were looking at cars in general in the traffic jam. You were not looking for that particular brand with that particular take or tires or whatever. If you like ours or whatever other category could be, but it could be a handbag. It could be a, whatever, like

And when that moment comes to you, buy a car, which brand comes to mind and then you start seeing it around and so forth. Yeah.

And then as can I have the beer that I got yesterday? No. That brought the cases away because the brand is not there. There is always this disconnection between marketing and sales that we should strive to like as a distance, like we should strive to, to shorten. And this is also the kind of like me a culpa from salespeople and from marketeers in actually managing to get into a same conversation and having a constructive debate without having any extremisms in the talk.

Remember that this is a two parts episode, so don't forget to listen to episode thirty two and thirty three. That's all for today. If you liked it, please rate it, leave a comment and share it with friends and come back next week for more insights about building brands from the bottom up.