Episode 10: Competing on Brand: Moxie Sozo’s three guiding principles of building a brand that wins

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Join me in conversation with Evan Faber of Moxie Sozo, a design, advertising and interactive agency that has been creating and influencing brands for over twenty years. Evan teaches us the importance of competing on brand vs. product, his three guiding principles of building a brand, and how (and why!) to create an emotional connection with your consumers.

Evan presents straightforward, practical advice that you can apply to your own packaged food brand, and talks us through a step-by-step exercise on building your brand platform. 

Mentioned in this episode:

  • Evan’s three guiding principles to building a brand, and how you can use each to WIN:

    • Clarity

    • Humanity

    • Creativity

  • Why the elevator pitch is now considered the treadmill pitch, and the book that explains this theory.

  • The fact that we are exposed to 4,000 - 10,000 branded bits of communication daily (not including ads!), and an additional 362 ads each day... and we note only about 12 per day. Which leads us to…

  • How to create a great ad

From there, we discussed Evan’s six steps to creating your own brand platform, or brand wheel so that you focus your brand communications and maximize their impact. For details on working through each of these steps, make sure to listen to the episode! 

  1. Write down your distinguishing features, noting your “right to win”, using Marty Newman’s onliness statement.

  2. Articulate your functional benefits

  3. Write your emotional rewards - how do we want people to feel, or what do we want people to feel about themselves as a result of interacting with our brand?

  4. Identify your target audience, articulating the psychographic qualities over demographics

  5. Build your brand personality & values

  6. Summarize your brand’s core essence 

 As always, continue the conversation by joining our Food Biz Wiz™ Facebook group, accessible here. 

This episode was supported by Canva - one of my favorite tools for creating on-brand, eye-catching sell sheets, social media posts, and graphic images for your food business (that is - after you’ve worked with an agency to establish your winning brand elements!) 

To keep in touch with Evan and Moxie Sozo, follow the links below:

www.Moxiesozo.com

Instagram @moxiesozo