Confounded
A high energy podcast with its own video channel featuring interviews with amazing people who have overcome adversity and life’s challenges to be successful in unique and wonderful ways.
Confounded
Mastering Brand Value and Identity: A Conversation with Branding Expert Andrew King
Unlock the secrets behind powerful branding with branding guru Andrew King, the innovative force behind PJ Smoothies and Strike, who joins us to dissect the anatomy of a brand that not only captures attention but also accrues value.
Andrew offers a treasure trove of wisdom for those looking to elevate their company’s market presence. Whether you're at the forefront of a fledgling startup or driving an established enterprise, our conversation with Andrew is packed with real-world examples and actionable advice, showcasing the undeniable link between a fortified brand and its ability to command higher respect and value.
As an expert in branding and positioning, I have learned a lot from this conversation. He explains in depth how to build your brand DNA and it’s not just about packaging.
Learn how your brand impacts the whole company, its ethos, beliefs and values.
WARNING – The sound quality is not as good as it could be. This was a recorded call without decent microphones, but it was worth listening to!
Hello and welcome to Confounded TV. This episode is a weird one. I've found this recording I made with Andrew King, the ex-CEO of PJ Smoothies, and I've found and director of Strike, the Zero Proof Spirit business. This was something I recorded for different projects over a year ago. I've asked Andrew's permission. He's very kindly said I can put this up on the Confounded TV podcast. There is no video with this one, but Andrew's an expert at branding and marketing and I think is something for everyone in this episode. I apologize for the sound quality. It was recorded on a telephone app long before I had a decent microphone and a setup and well before COVID. But Andrew has got a wealth of insight and this is very much worth the listen. Enjoy.
Andrew King:What I've got with you is one of the most exciting things, but of course, with you is you were talking to the chain of the importance of brands and how. That was how that is really important, especially if you do something like PJ Smoothies. I just want to do a quick talk through for 10 minutes.
Andrew King:Just the importance of brands, how you measure brands, where do you start If you put yourself in the shoes of one of these brand new companies? Where do they start in creating this brand? If we could do a very super quick history piece from you, just who you were, where you came from, and then we'll talk about PJ Smoothies and how you create the brand and measure it and do all that kind of great stuff. Yeah, so just going. My background is food and drink. I just to just a quick moment. Can you edit the thought all of this out?
Andrew King:I'll send you the draft well before it was the first one, no, it's fine. So I was a farmer, some interested in food. When I left North Union I went to join Dalgettian it actually works for their human food side, so home-fried flour and cooking sauces and bits and bobs. I went on through there into marketing, both there then into Dono for their sources division. I joined a business called Cott beverages in about 1993, I think it was so, in their sales side. I then worked in sales for a period before then going into marketing with a number of different businesses, but Aquapura would be a brand that I worked on as marketing director. And so I think during that time, obviously clearly passionate about food and also with a marketing background to the marketing degree, understanding the importance of brand was pretty fundamental. And so, going through my then business life, both the PJs, funkin Suso, are now Strike, which are founded, and other businesses as well in between times.
Andrew King:I think the importance to me of brand is that it clearly gives you an identity, of which around which everything when you start a business is built.
Andrew King:So not only does it allow for you to differentiate from anything else, that's there because you start to have, whether it be brand guidelines and what you say, how you say it, how you look.
Andrew King:It brings a consistency to a lot of what you are doing internally but also in the way that your customers see you. Your consumers see you and how you speak, how you behave, and I think from my perspective you do that differentiation and then topping that brand up with me then allows consumers to have a relationship with that brand. It's really, really important and, as you go through that journey, one of the, of course, the critical things is about that differentiation Is it a force protection. You are obviously through IP, which is absolutely vital, getting that intellectual property protection and then, obviously, and the different ways you use that, the strap lines you put around your brand, your colors, your devices, your lockups, et cetera, but then also URLs and that's like. So it both legally gives you protection, but also it does because normally a bit of space between who you are and anyone else who's in your field, both just obviously in price position et cetera, but also in how your brand behaves and looks.
Andrew King:So it gives you that protection and then ultimately you do what I tend to do, which is to try and build a business and then hand that business on to someone else through obviously normally through a corporate transaction, is ultimately what you are building is an asset that will, with the right nurturing, go up in value and create. Ultimately, what a lot of the value in a business is, then is the goodwill that you create. So ultimately, that becomes often the biggest single asset. Yes, of course it's about revenues, about profit, goods, therefore your net profit at the end of it. But actually, when you look at most transactions, there's a goodwill, there's a numerical valuation on one that's worth and goodwill.
Andrew King:Did you feel that? That's actually because, obviously, if you look at most transactions and I guess most people who would read this they will be looking for an exit and they won't be building a glamorous startup with capital from Smedvig or whatever. So they'll actually build a business, they'll go to sell it and they'll get multiple of EBITDA plus a goodwill. Do you think the increased value of net goodwill is around that brand and the quality of it and the way it speaks to the customers? Yes, absolutely, of course. Any business that buys that then over the next 10 years it amortises and writes off. Legally accounting has to write off and so there's a very clearly accounting way of capturing that goodwill. Yeah, okay, this is the understanding process, but it is absolutely that when you're valuing, if you take two food businesses one food business that would be branded and one food business that would be unbranded and they have the same turnover and the same net profit Sorry, you're being involved in lots of food business transactions You'd be talking, say, in the region of if I gave a broad region, six to eight cents EBITDA for an unbranded business and double that for a branded business, that's the thing to be doing. You're getting a significant uplift from certainly 10 times, if not 12 or more, depending on and that's the value of the brand. So the importance of branding clearly it becomes your DNA, often in a business no-transcript that brand. You internalize your values around that brand. You certainly your tone of voice, the way you behave, your mantras and the business all support that brand and are guided by your brand and how you're seen. If CSR is an element to how your brand DNA, then that clearly becomes a visceral live part of your daily business. If it's around healthy living, if it's around. So you tend to build internally how you behave.
Andrew King:Again, I talk about the funkin business and funkin what is cocktail business? Part of its essence is around its speed and convenience. So it's about stopping waste as well in bar material. It's a very convenient zero waste product and so interestingly, as a business we therefore support fair share, which is around food waste. There's a logic between who we support as a charity and part of the one of the attributes of our brand when bartender's using it. It's about reducing waste behind a bar. So there's a good example of how your brand DNA also helps instruct how you behave as a business and externally. That is also true how you behave externally, where you're seen what you're doing.
Andrew King:It's clearly all around your brand DNA and there's lots of businesses that I remember going back to, I suppose, the days of the smoothies, when we were starting with smoothies and the PJs we were very much around. It was about part of your daily recommended amounts of vitamins and, clearly, portions of food, maybe two portions of food, et cetera, and anything we always did to the consumer in terms of every branded message we gave to the consumer was reinforcing our role in their diet. But also there was clearly a lot of standing on the shoulders of giants is really important and, of course, at that point, public health England, the other NHS and other people were talking about eating five a day. So we were, in a very small way, part of that journey of trying to get consumers to eat more healthily, and so our brand.
Andrew King:You hope that actually, these things reinforce but also give added impetus and fame to your brand. So that's really, really important. I think that building of fame is, ultimately, whether it be through fantastic social media, whether it be through just really well thought through, beautifully executed branding, whether it may be, it's all about building fame behind your brand. That has a resonance that you hope to. That's to define and off you go and ultimately it gives rise to the consumer, the importance of the brand. It gives rise to the consumer then engaging with your business and that repertoire, it becomes a brand that represents who I am and ultimately you see, whether it be a fashion brand, whether it be a food brand, people saying, yeah, this brand represents who I am. Why do people choose a great goose over a smirnoff, over a big goose, over a lot of bits? I'm sure a bit of it is around taste, but most people probably wouldn't be able to tell what vodka and tonic they're using. What vodka they're using in a vodka tonic, vodka, tonic line, for example.
Andrew King:They do believe it. I've taken clients out in the past, assisted in Gregus, and they couldn't tell the difference. And then I've got a friend who only buys I can't wish Gin is, and then they're fever tree because it makes such a difference. And if you blind taste this, you can't tell. Yeah, yeah, you literally can't tell. And ultimately there's obviously some of it's more subtle and some of it's so people who walk around with an adidas or a Nike logo on their clothes or their shoes or whatever. But ultimately that is very much telling people.
Andrew King:This is the sort of person that I am. We all, to the extent, do that with a car we drive, etc. And that same with food, with watches, with whatever it may be. To an extent, some of it is just a convenient product that works for my life and some of it is. It's a product that reflects who I am and I think if you can become where you get great brand loyalty is when you move from being. That's something that's available and in a split second I'll just choose that one because I like looking or whatever to. That's a very base level. Some part of your branding is working and your price, promotional strategy, etc. But then we can get to the point. Actually, I always want this brand you mentioned fevertally, but there's lots of brands like that where you can then move to move the dial to be. I want that brand because that is going to do me good and therefore I actually insist on that one or that does reflect who I am and makes me feel better. It makes it a treat for me.
Andrew King:Clearly, a confectionary chocolate I want to have that moment with a large bar because I feel I've earned it. And it's an emotional response as well as a physiological response that that brand is then playing in that consumer's life. And you think this thing applies to B2B. It certainly does, and often with B2B it's more than just a sometimes that branding thing and the important branding is not just about physical attributes, it's often around service attributes. So quite often I like that brand because of the product functionality and often it's also around some of them, the more service level issues, because they're fast and spontaneous, they're out really well to me, or because that brand certainly it's about often can be measured in performance terms. So cost value, service etc. So often it is more empirical but clearly emotional as well. Certainly people again, even in B2B, if you're using something which you want to be proud to be using, whether it be a component, whether it be in terms of utility or etc. So it really can.
Andrew King:And you think a lot of businesses, just in terms of B2B, in terms of their utilities that they're using, are moving to businesses where there's power, businesses that are entirely now made up of sustainable sources and reshaping. So I'd imagine a lot of these startups who will read this will be smaller. So I'm just imagining the sort of one two, three-man band setting up their office to do that now, plumbing supply and dating to do it. Do you think it's as important for people who have got maybe on a different playing field? But if I'm looking at my plumbing supply store in Nottingham, I'm still starting up. I still got to build a logo and a brand and a web page and reach people and do social advertising and all that great stuff. So do you think it's as important for the smaller business? And from what you're saying, actually the value comes later. So if my plan is to build a plumbing business, scale up a little bit and sell it, then I guess what you're saying is I'm getting. You'll say something like this sign isn't really important, but the level of investment should be proportionate to the size of your business if you want that value like that Absolutely.
Andrew King:And I think the one bit of advice I would share with entrepreneurs is every step you take should take you one step closer to your end goal. And if your end goal is a transaction, then what you shouldn't ever do is do something that will undermine your brand. So if your brand and your point of differentiation is amazing customer service, and clearly for every brand. If you're not satisfying customers to a point, then always make that effort to delight a customer, even in a bad experience. So if they've had any problem, it's how you do it. So I would say, yeah, you're not necessarily. You're starting out.
Andrew King:You're not going to spend a huge amount of money in branding. You need to make sure you've got your IP. People sometimes don't do that straight away and ultimately, if you're going to build something, last thing you want is someone who actually can steal your clothes. So make sure you've got your IP sorted. Make sure you've got a really clear vision for what your business is about and what are the pivot points, what are the access points where you're going to add real value to what you're doing, and then make sure every day you polish them and make them look great, because the day you don't love those key points of differentiation, then actually you start to destroy your goodwill and ultimately that's what you're going to be selling. So I think it's relevant, whatever business you're in, to be honest, if you're deciding to open a little supermarket in a little village somewhere, a little convenience store, if you say I'm about, I'm about an artisanal product. I'm about great customer service, then make sure you are about those things.
Andrew King:You don't necessarily need to have the cheapest product. You've got to have people that are going to go there because I'm going to get some really lovely locally produced and sourced reds and sustainable chocutery or whatever, and that's what I expect them to get there and therefore build the fame around that. Make sure you're supporting it by telling people, make sure word of mouth is getting out there or sort of the media, et cetera, et cetera. But actually it's really really simple, so it's valid for that. If it is for someone who's I don't know doing it, or for a cleaning service or whatever, it's exactly the same.
Andrew King:Be really clear about what you'll be focused and then just make sure every day you polish your brand attributes and you keep them close to your heart and really value them and I guess, actually listening to you, I think one of the things is clear is it's not just a polish on the outside and to say that my, you know, Alice's not going. Plumbers are fantastic and really sour and the service is awesome. It's actually internal as well. You know, recruit people who have the same ethos, who understand the mission of the business and believe in it, otherwise you're effectively creating a polish and you can't polish a turd. So what you're saying is it's got to be internally as important. Hence the customer experience phones up and you move heavy enough to make that customer feel looked after, because if it would internally focus on that as well, then overall you'll move forward. Well, they're the right. It's rewarding people about it as well. So I think about the businesses I work in. We have very clear values. Our values support our brand proposition and all of our team they have within their four or five KPIs. They will have at least one, if not all of them will be aligned to delivering our values, which aligns to delivering our overall brand DNA and brand purpose. So you reward people for it.
Andrew King:So if you are Victorian plumbers in Nottingham and you are you know you think about customer service. Why do people these days invest money in getting you know check a trader and getting people rated? You know it's because actually you know that those are the rules. If you don't perform against that, you don't even get on the pitch. You know you ain't going to be in business. So if you're then not going to check that your team are delivering against those, then yeah, actually you've got real risk to your business and your business model. So make sure that service, not just speed at which you do the job, not just about you know the efficiency measures. You know some of it is going to be about those soft measures that actually help to differentiate. And actually how do you value it? You know the Lord wine, stop. 50% of my marketing is waiting. Yeah, don't know which 50%. Yeah, the same is true about you know customer service.
Andrew King:You know I respond to every customer and I always make sure that. You know we save them in two days. We try and get it there in a day. You know those are things which people do and they cost money. You know how much of that is really worth it.
Andrew King:It's very, very good for improve, but ultimately the sum of all those little bits of really working hard to like customers, gives you a business that trades well, gives you goodwill that actually, ultimately, you know it rewards you because it gives you growth and sustainability in business, or it rewards you because if you decide your model is to trans that, then you get value for that goodwill because you've got a stickiness where consumers choose you above anyone else because your brand and what your brand stands for and what your brand delivers to them is worth paying more for. So it's my new business, which is Strike, which is the zero proof spirit possesses. It's still at the start of that journey, so we're trying to live to the mantra that we have just been espousing, really. So we'll see how that goes yes.
Andrew King:It's certainly an exciting proposition. Great speech, alistair. Thank you very much and good luck with that. Yes, I'm sure we'll speak at some point. Yes, let's keep in touch. Thank you very much. Yeah, that would be great, good luck. Thank you. Bye, andrew, bye, bye, bye.
