Branding

Izzy Gisondi Social Marketing Strategist

Think about a lemonade stand. Have you ever bought some just because a kid was selling it? Now imagine that same lemonade being sold by a random adult on the sidewalk. Would you feel just as compelled to stop? Probably not.

Why? Because a kid selling lemonade tells a story. They wanted to make money, asked their parents, and set up camp. It tells a story of a kid who had a dream and did it.

Storytelling in food marketing works, and it’s more important than ever.

Let’s dive into why storytelling resonates so deeply in food marketing and how brands can use it to build loyalty, trust, and emotional connection.

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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Are you currently launching innovative, new products for your food or beverage brand? Do you have ideas in the pipeline for the next 2-3 years? If not, you are already behind.

New product innovation is key to the success of every brand. If you’re simply relying on your current product offering for the future of your brand—then you don’t have a sustainable growth model.

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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Feelin’ a little tired and old? A little dated, perhaps? Do you feel like the young people aren’t giving you the attention you’ve earned and deserve? Nobody seems to care about you anymore. All that’s left to talk about are the “old” glory days?

You may have been “all that” back in the day, but now you’re a legacy brand that seems to have lost its luster with consumers.

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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

It’s 2024. If your food brand is still targeting women as their sole primary buyers, it may be time to get with the Bro-gram.

Statista recently published a report stating that 50% of men consider themselves to be the primary household grocery shopper. Other studies have that number as high as 60%. According to FMI’s Grocery Shopper Trends report, male shoppers take more frequent trips to the grocery store, they typically outspend females by $22 per week, and they tend to purchase more on impulse.

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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

“Our brand is really growing—we recently gained distribution in 1,000+ new retail outlets, and we’re getting more and more distribution by the day.”

I’ve heard this scenario a thousand times—and it doesn’t always turn out as well as you may think. Is new distribution a good thing? Of course. But it can also be the beginning of the end for a brand. I’ve seen it happen many times over the years, so much so that we’ve even coined a phrase for this particular phenomenon: Death by Distribution.

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Ashlyn Allebach-Bergey Account Executive

Digital marketing strategy has always been a moving target. Great strategies from a year ago might fall flat in today’s ad landscape. Innovation is the name of the game. New platforms, trends, and tools are constantly changing the way we approach the brand-consumer relationship. Savvy marketers and forward-thinking agencies are harnessing these new tools and turning them into big wins for their clients.

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Rick Wiener Media Director

Two of the hottest topics in food marketing are Shopper Marketing apps and the emergence of Artificial Intelligence. The conversation really gets interesting when these two topics collide, and we start to understand how AI can supercharge these apps to the benefit of the consumer, the supplier, and the platform.  

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Bob Hunsberger Associate Creative Director

In an era when social platforms have their own in-app shopping functions and affordable skynet-tier algorithms to target the masses, the direct-to-consumer model (D2C) is having a bonafide moment. More and more brands are prioritizing a robust ecommerce strategy, and much to the chagrin of the middleman wholesalers and retailers, it’s working.

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Aksa Asgher Digital Advertising Manager
Allebach Communications

May is AAPI Heritage Month—a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. With the month winding down, we want to spotlight some of our favorite AAPI-owned food brands. As a member of the AAPI community who works in digital advertising, I’m always searching for thought leaders and brands that find unique ways to incorporate their culture and share it with others. Here are three small business food brands doing just that!

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Nathan Allebach Creative Director
The Steak-umm Twitter Guy
Adweek Top 100 Creative

Who are you? Who are your consumers? What’s your history? Your product? Your values? Your distinction? Identity is the bedrock of any brand. It’s marketing 101, baby. Netflix. Apple. Nike. The most iconic brands know who they are. They know their workers and customers alike. They own a unique aesthetic and sell more than just a good or service—they sell a lifestyle to aspire toward. Capturing that essence is rare for a range of reasons. A common one is that many companies have a disjointed idea of who they are. The CEO might see the brand differently from the sales team, who may see it differently from customer service. The identity has to be unified from within through policies, practices, and messaging—it’s who a company hires, how they treat their workers, what their offices look like, and how they give back. Brands often hire consultants or agencies to help guide this process that culminates in a unified front.

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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

You hear a lot these days about how consumers are no longer loyal when it comes to CPG food and beverage brands; that they quickly trade-off for private label or newer, emerging brands. And this is quite true. But I’d like to suggest that “brand loyalty” is largely a myth fabricated by overzealous marketers. One of the many snake oil sales tactics in this business.

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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Functional foods. We’ve all heard the term. We know that in the past functional foods were considered to be foods that had a potentially positive effect on health beyond their basic nutritional value. For instance, oatmeal contains soluble fiber that can help lower cholesterol. Or salmon is an excellent functional food because the omega-3 fatty acids can reportedly decrease the risk of heart disease.

But today, functional foods mean so much more to both consumers and brands.

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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

When I was a teenager, my dad would say, son “clean up your act.” Basically, he was telling me to get the crap out of my life that was dragging me down. And, today, for food brands, I would say the same thing…you need to “clean up your act.”

The bottom line is that we live in a new era of food. Consumers simply expect more from the food brands they buy. The bar is higher than it was 10-15 years ago. Even “clean label” has been taken to an entirely new level; real ingredients, nutrition, functional benefits, claims, certifications, sustainability, and on and on.

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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Many CPG food brands are continuing to see record sales growth. However, there are many questions that accompany this growth…How long will this growth continue? When will this spike start trending down? Should we increase capacity? How can we reach and retain the new households that have purchased our brand—some for the first time? Will we see sustained growth? If so, what will it be…2%, 5%, 10% or more?

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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Due to the current COVID-19 crisis, food and beverage companies are having to navigate unchartered waters when it comes to sourcing raw materials, workforce sustainability, retailer demand, consumer consumption, and overall brand management. Read more…

Scott Cooter Creative Director / Senior Copywriter

No, that’s not a typo – Incogmeato’s a clever new brand name for a new line of plant-based burgers, brats and Italian sausage poised to begin hitting backyard grills across America during the next few months, just in time for prime grilling season. As the name suggests, the goal for the products was that they be indistinguishable from their traditional meat-based counterparts.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

We are living in very unique times for food and beverage brands. In years past, brands could simply keep producing and selling the same old “go-to’s” year after year. Sometimes decade after decade. And maybe come up with a new twist, flavor, or product extension every few years.
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Scott Cooter Creative Director / Senior Copywriter

Snack-naming trends

Consumer attitudes toward snacking are changing, driven in a large part by the millennial audience. Where older generations viewed snacks as guilty pleasures, millennials’ insistence on socially aware, better-for-you food has created cross-over snacks requiring no discretion.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

I see soooo many food and beverage brands just pushing out the same old content on social media…nice food pic, talk about how great my brand is, more food pics, maybe a happy kid, throw in a packaging shot or two…predictable, boring, and most importantly …UNEFFECTIVE!
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

When consumers are looking…is your CPG food or beverage brand anywhere to be found?

In order to be found, you have to occupy space in two places: 1) in the minds of consumers, and 2) on the shelf at retail.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

No, seriously—would you date your brand? Humans are designed for personal interaction with each other. Basic attraction, compatibility, and the desire for relationships are what draw us together.
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Todd Bergey President

Just hearing the word audit can send even some of the most organized companies into a state of panic – that is if you are referring to a financial audit.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Food and beverage brand managers often dream of the idea that consumers are having wonderful conversations about their brand. That people everywhere are sharing the good news of the glory of their brand. Telling all their friends. Sharing on social media. Talking to strangers in the supermarket.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Think about your ownable brand assets that are distinctively yours, and no other brand can claim. It may be your name, logo, art, icon/symbol, personality, jingle, packaging, tagline, etc. Do you have such assets, AND, are you leveraging these assets to their fullest?
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Dale New Vice President of Account Services

As food marketers, we keep hearing it over and over again… “Consumers are looking for healthier eating options” – especially Millennials. In fact, according to the polls, 80% of people are “trying to eat healthier.”¹ (As Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.”) Meanwhile, everyone in the food industry is searching for the “Holy Grail” of healthy, nutritious, minimally processed and convenient. Oh, and it has to taste good too. But wait… in the real world, the relative significance of all of those factors is literally the difference between success and failure.

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Dale New Vice President of Account Services

Last week, we touched on the importance of your packaging (hint: it’s the single-most critical and cost effective marketing tool you have) and the first sign (is it more than 3 years old?). If you missed the article, you can find it here [link]. This week, we’ll cover signs 2 – 8 that you should consider a refresh.
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Dale New Vice President of Account Services

Dollar for dollar, your packaging is arguably the most important and cost effective marketing money you’ll ever spend. Consider that it’s your only branding vehicle seen by 100% of your consumers. What’s more, those consumers are influenced by it at the exact moment of decision. (Significantly, 90% of shoppers make impulse purchases. And statistics vary, but they all indicate that between 50% and 67% of ALL grocery store purchases are purely impulsive. Even with shoppers who use lists, the opportunity is always there to sway them to your brand at the last moment.)
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

For years now, the holy grail of marketing has been to forge a love bond with your consumers. As marketers, we’ve been taught that creating a deep and lasting personal “relationship” with this core audience is the key to brand success. According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of our profits will come from just 20% of our customers. It’s the basis for targeting our “loyal” followers with the bulk of our marketing efforts and budgets.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Building, Maintaining & Leveraging
Memory Structures

The human brain is complex. So, too, are memories which utilize all of your senses to link and retain information: how things look, sound, feel, taste and smell are all part of it.Read more…

Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

If you read between the lines of Kantar Worldpanel’s most recent Brand Footprint report, which tracks the “150 most chosen consumer brands,” you can connect the dots on some new ways to grow your brand you may not have considered before.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

It’s surprising how much focus too many marketers still place on the nebulous metric of “engagement.” Yes, social media engagement is an important measure of consumer response. It’s an indicator that your brand is making some sort of connection with people. Read more…

Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Back in the Sixties when Beatlemania was at its peak, John, Paul, George and Ringo were the best-known names in music, greeted by hordes of screaming fans everywhere they went, including The Ed Sullivan Show. As the Fab Four took the stage to swing into ‘She Loves You,’ scores of sobbing, emotionally-smitten teenage girls watched enraptured, tears streaming down their faces.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

There are many tasty reasons why food is such a popular visual on Instagram. Let’s be honest: we all love a mouth-watering food shot — well-lit, crisp, close-up, cool context, it just makes you wanna take a bite!
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Scott Cooter Creative Director / Senior Copywriter

Making a brand memorable
What do you do when you’re one of the best-known brands in the world and want to come up with a new brand message?
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