Mike Fransz - Red Bull, Regenerative Organic Tea, and 25 Years of Beverage Marketing

welcome to shelf help today we're speaking with mike fransz director of marketing at nova naturals the parent to cto pure coconut water steaz mineragua and then tio gazpacho as well nova naturals is owned by novamex the mexican beverage house that owns additional brands like the infamous horchata is probably the one that probably most familiar with usually home this jobs at red bull and then lead marketing of brands like nuru brands swell foods before landing in nova naturals so a lot of really great experience in the space and really excited to get into it mike maybe just first off for listeners that aren't that familiar with with nova naturals quick lay the land in terms of maybe origin story kind of when the company started and brought all the brands together and then the core brands under the umbrella you can just kind of reiterate them a bit more i know i kind of gave them a high level and then we'll go from there yeah no worries so nova naturals uh was formed as a division of greater nova max as you mentioned adam uh novamex our parent company has three separate divisions we have a classic hispanic groceries division we have a conventional drinks division which is most known for uh the jarritos line of sodas and five years ago you know we formed nova naturals uh nova naturals is essentially the naturals business unit for greater nobel max and so the focus there was to idea there was really to have a team of people focused on natural not just a natural channel but natural brands and allowing those brands to be supported and and developed in the marketplace and um you know it's kind of a nice thing cause we it's one big matrix uh you know nova max was uh originally created out of partnerships and uh there's great team of people there um that manage everything from um sales finance operations production etcetera but you know for nova naturals we focus on really c to o and stees right now those are our two main brands i did mention tio gasparo tio was a was a brand of a at novamix really you know novamix had uh purchased into stees and also into c two o and so we formed a business unit around the naturals division they also purchased t o with t o's a few challenges coming out of covid with that brand it just you know low awareness on total on gazpacho and then also you know the challenges post covid the world was very different right so the need the desire the roots to market and the way that we were planning the market it was a challenge so not saying you won't see anything uh out of on theo but we are looking at other ways to bring value through that brand but for now uh our main focus is c two o and steve's which are doing an excellent job with and just continuing to grow year over year well perfect um you've spent i think twenty five ish years in in the food and beverage space um which you know i think so much has has evolved even like you said things changed even just between pre covid and post covid totally it was like twenty five years or so like what what kind of i'm just kind of curious what jumps out in terms of things that have really kind of fundamentally changed about how brands win today versus versus when you started i mean if you're not evolving you're dying right and like the whole game has come has changed quite a bit i mean twenty five years i mean you're seeing huge shifts right so just within the natural food sector let's just take that for a second natural foods has really become mainstream whereas like before thirty when i was a kid i mean shoot when i was a kid you'd go down to the local natural food store and if you wanted something really unique and and different that's where you got your vitamins and some of these things right your organic products they weren't available in in large conventional grocery stores uh you weren't even seeing it as menu options in in restaurants like there's a huge seismic shift that's occurred where natural has become mainstream right um i mean you're large when you the largest organic retailers in the world it's costco it's unbelievable right so like you've seen huge shifts in assortment at walmart you've seen huge shifts in assortment at target you're seeing it day in day out in kroger and other fine retailers nationwide so like there's been a huge shift in natural well it's also been a huge awareness lift in in what types of products people prefer and you know the unique thing about the products today is like people can be very specialized in what their need states are and there's a a fix and function naturally for a lot of different things so people are experimenting on the consumer side which is interesting right cause you really have a proliferation of communication information that has taken place all due to the internet i mean prior to nineteen ninety eight i don't even think there was an internet right i got my first email right and you know graduating ucla and went to work at red bull and i was working there and got a you know had a had an email for the first time i was like what the heck is that and shortly after we got cell phones i mean they weren't even small cell phones they're just ginormous freaking pieces of phone you know and we kind of laugh but the the the information age has really changed things with consumers it's also changed things as far as brands go you know you're seeing not just a other changes that you're seeing just our our general marketplace stuff that we probably take for granted i mean who knew at the time a few years later amazon a bookseller would turn into the one of the largest retailers in the world right like so and and lead the way in online shopping after the dot com bust right so like you're seeing huge changes in the way that people go to market and then it's not just amazon right i mean there's there's a whole instacart revolution and doordash and amazon now and like as if amazon two day prime wasn't enough you can now have it in an hour like it's this instant gratification right so like there's a little bit of a shift in consumers too right so consumers are used to instant gratification they're used to having a voice now because of social media they're used to having you know things quick easy simplified so but they're also wicked smart consumers are super smart right and so the one thing that's interesting though is like you've seen these shifts right you've seen this seismic shift if you would in better for you and natural right that's one thing that i saw but then you also saw online shopping change and you also saw social media right it used to be like when i was at red bull my first year there wasn't a such a thing as an influencer totally influencer is a freaking job now that's unbelievable you know and you know the way that the way that the world is it's not about a list celebrities anymore it's that people you know really youtube has democratized you know the the production value of entertainment into the form of every man's entertainment every woman's entertainment every person's entertainment whatever your view is whatever your thing is you have the potential to be an influencer now when i was first at red bull like we were we were this unique brand right so like this brand no one even knew what energy drink was when i was hired at red bull i think it was like i think my number at rebel was like number one fifty two it was the first of five college ambassadors for them and then they they basically hired me right out of college and you know here's me i'm twenty three years old here's other folks at the time that are thirty five forty years old significantly older than me maybe ten fifteen years older than me classically trained in marketing but here's the kid that learned marketing not as a history major at ucla i learned marketing outside through internships and events and activities and like consumer driven activities around products and i got hired by red bull as a college ambassador and learn marketing even more and it really got me excited about product and how to bring it to market and how really to get the product market fit right so for us at red bull it was kind of interesting in that there wasn't necessarily influencers but you knew we called them opinion leaders right we call them opinion leaders because you all knew who the cool kid was in your region that hung out at the local skate shop you knew who the top surfer was in the region who was winning and like the one that everyone looked up to maybe not all the ones with the trophies that do it competitively but are the one that's like the opinion leader within the group yeah so like at red bull we were trained and taught how to filter through and look for for influencers if you would you know but they're really brand they're opinion leaders but it came down to simple things one do they do they know what red bull is like is there a genuine love for the bird two do they have influence in and around their community and three are they genuine and credible right now some of these things still hold true today right because when you really think about like total product market fit like there there there's ways that you can do things smarter today yes because of technology sure and but at the end of the day you have to have a great product you have to be able to communicate what it is you have to be able to communicate the value that it represents to someone right and like you can get very granular today on targeting some of these markets which is great but back then when we were looking at the market there were some just simple things that occurred to us right it's like we knew who the music influencers were in our region i grew up i i didn't manage it on a national level i managed it on a regional level uh like in orange county so orange county california you know really started you know building that brand in gosh two thousand i was in northern los angeles county of mammoth mountain burbank santa barbara san luis obispo and it's really interesting like that first territory of mine before i got orange county was really interesting cause it had this unique area if you know anything about san fernando valley it's all tied in with burbank and entertainment land right but then you've also got ventura which is like a little bit more of an agricultural and like seafaring town and then you've got santa barbara which is a little bit more elitist and and you know part of this like biking triathlon at the time that was occurring right so like san luis obispo there's not much difference in san luis obispo being an agricultural town than there is in other parts of agricultural areas across the country so it's really it's kind of like cool microcosm and then there was mammoth mountain which was the premiere snow mountain in the on probably on the west coast one of them and so it was really cool because as a as a young marketer i got to really understand and learn about some of these unique populations but what it was teaching me was you know how to connect consumers across these different demographics and how do you make these small towns come to life and really it was kind of interesting cause at the end of the day the one thing that has not changed i would say is product market fit your product has to be able to provide value to the consumers that you're that you're working with or working you know in every day yeah hopefully you're a part of that community right um and you know there were endemic communities right so like the skateboarders all hung out with skateboarders and surfers hung out with surfers and that then became x games and everybody kind of came together and started doing their own thing but like what's really interesting is today is those same people exist but they exist online the filter is is literally a little bit more of an aperture if you would right not just what you're looking around in your community now you're looking around online you're looking at the different creative talent online you're looking at how they connect with their consumers what are the values that they have do they represent you know your brand so it was pretty interesting you know i think those would be the the four main things that i kind of put down is like when you ask me this question early i was like gosh that's a really good question man but for me it's it's like this shift in natural to mainstream which that's why i left red bull right like yeah i really felt like i got really good like when i first started red bull we were doing about fifteen hundred uh fifteen hundred cases a month when i left red bull seven years later this is just in orange county we were doing a hundred and fifty thousand cases a month you know and we completely ten x our business it was absolutely unbelievable right but like and it wasn't just a me thing we had a whole team of people around it and and some really great distributors and and really great you know uh programming uh to really make the thing go you know at the end of the day the product worked right but but when i why i left red bull was i really felt a disconnect in my heart of like what i was doing and the product i didn't really feel like it fit my life as much as i had wanted it to originally when i was 23 and i also saw started seeing that natural products were really moving in a different direction yeah and so for me i i made that decision to jump on that natural product train and really kind of do something a little bit different i love red bull i love the people at red bull i love the culture at red bull i love what red bull represents does probably not the best beverage for me day in day out just gonna say it um but man i had some of the best experience of my life with some of the best people in the industry there this is it was a great place to work and learn and develop but i really think they were forward thinking even before social media on who are the different opinions who are the main consumers how does our product fit into their daily lives how do we create um ways to communicate and and ways to intercept and launch trial and awareness campaigns uh in a way that is genuine in a way that is like different right and and you know we can get to the scale ability in a second i had a question on scalability so we can talk about that but you know it's just it's so interesting the way that it prepared me for the greater marketing yeah to be done at that point i mean i think yeah red bull's become i mean one of the most well known well respected brands in the world and it seems like you can totally correct me if i'm wrong but it seems like one of the ways that key ways that they've done that is is just having a really well run well organized field marketing work like you know i think about red bull i think about those um the red bull branded mini coopers that like drive around everywhere like the places that they they need to be and like i'm kind of curious just from yeah what i guess what are some of your biggest takeaways in terms of how to build a really well run kind of field marketing org and then how do you scale it up to the you know the scale that red bull has gotten to today where it still seems like it's it's very well organized yeah i think uh i think everybody would love to say yeah red bull can do it we can do it too that's that's just not the truth right it's it's not easy to do what red bull did you know i think there's there's a lot to be said for how they go to market i i would almost argue now not every brand needs to have field marketing there's other ways to go to market you know i think i think at the end of the day like what red bull did well was one couple of things i took away from red bull was this be genuine consumers know bullshit when they see it and they also know premium value when they see it they know it they know it don't bullshit it just be real right but also can you can you be genuine and also use that as an advantage to do the unexpected cause if you're genuine in your approach and you do something that's unexpected you create what i call these wow moments right these these or at red bull we call them wom word of mouth moments right and you know at the end of the day we would do things to create word of mouth love or hate red bull was an okay thing you know when you think of energy it's positive and negative it's okay if certain people don't like you you know what's also interesting is it's not always about the the coolest and the hippest if you're really trying to drive consumption it's it's creating something of value and then delivering it in unique ways to people day in day out because it's way cool you know like to have all these sex see sports oriented amazing you know videos and all these things i mean red bull puts out some of the best content in the world it is absolutely mesmerizing i have i don't often i don't drink the brand day in day out like i used to but i sure as heck consume the media day in day out because it is still some of the best in the world and you you could almost argue that red bull is almost more of a media agency now than it is a just a beverage brand but it's still a lifestyle brand it's a brand that people connect with and share with you know i think the one thing to realize is that even though the brand was built out of a can an eight point three ounce can single flavor they had one product when i was selling red bull it was a twelve pack of red bull twelve pack eight point three ounce cans of that's how we sold them simple nothing crazy i mean i think we got crazier when we brought in a twenty four pack whoa look out you know but um and then we went sugar free and people like oh my gosh right but like the thing is it was all about connecting with consumers and when you're building consumption and you've got this like image right so it's a con it's a it's a balance a delicate balance at times between image building and consumer collecting is kind of how we refer to it right but at the end of the day it's taking that cool concept and allowing the every man to and every woman and every person to participate right regardless of what they love to do and what was really cool was the same way that you make an athlete's day by giving them wings and allowing them to fly right and have their energy to focus their body and mind is the same way that a construction worker which is one of our top demographics believe it or not the same way that that construction worker someone stops with a silly car with a can on the back of the car stops hands them an ice cold red bull at two in the afternoon have worked their butts off all day and it's like hey i hope you have a great day you know enjoy that stuff was amazing like we would get people talking about it and sharing it and caring you know we did these all these different programs nationwide but so what how did red bull do that right cause you you specifically talked about the car right the car was just one portion of the right of course that's just what red bull marketing is right so like we had a combination of of influencer or or opinion leader marketing and then we also had consumption building activities right and so like what did red bull do well to scale a field marketing organization well first of all red bull's marketing they look at everything as marketing so people today say oh sales and marketing no it's just it's just marketing and we sell product but we we are all about how we bring that product to market right whether you're on whether you're on a self proclaimed sales front or marketing front or operations front it's all marketing everybody's a marketer in the red bull organization right but the unique thing about that is because everybody's got the mind of a marketer they really focused on unifying their brand message early days was was brand training after brand training after brand training you were indoctrinated as a brand leader into the organization and brand leaders weren't just marketers brand leaders were sales traditionally today called sales people traditionally called operations people everybody was a part of the brand marketing and and the reason was is it was we were trying to unify one message yeah and we were trying to create great stewards of red bull to support the overall growth and we would provide these employees or owners of the brand tremendous resources to go out and share and be that brand evangelist if you would in their region yeah and indoctrinate others into the red bull family and we got really good at sharing this both locally regionally nationally and it was it had a little to do with the mix like the marketing mix was just some of the tools that we used right but it all came started and ended with one unified message and that that one unified message was all about the history the story you know how we came how we brought things to life and are why right really giving people wings you know to help with their body and mind right when you think about that that message it's still here today and it was done in different ways right so you had this polarizing effect going on you you see these even today i think i saw one of the early red bull commercials that they just re released for i think it was around college a football playoff but it was like you know this it was so interesting right it's this fuzzy bunny like commercial you know where the devil's talking about something and he's like got a fork and whatever but it's interesting right because it's very opposite of lindsay vonn and the athletes that you're gonna see this olympics but they're actually joined through this element of surprise and delight the way that they bring this to life is in the body and mind right so when you see some of these athletes some of the best athletes in the world are wearing red bull stuff yep i know yeah you can say all the monster guys are this and that and it's one big fight at the top right but i'll tell you what you know i'm a rebel guy i'll tell you what the best we would seek out the best athletes in the world totally and um and we would create this message that got unified we would empower great people to share that message around the the communities but then we would arm them right we would arm them with ownership they didn't necessarily own the brand it was owned by one person well a couple people detrick and his partner you know at the time but we would allow them we allow people to own it in their region and that regionality made it even more powerful right now the trick with this is like when you see things winning you share things with others right and so when you say hey look we're gonna go hire fifty you know field marketing people then we're gonna go hire fifty field sales mark and trade marketing people and we're gonna go hire fifty on premise marketing people call them salespeople whatever but now they call them salespeople but you're talking about bar nightclub marketing you're talking about full trade distribution and marketing and full field marketing people are gonna think you're nuts but we didn't we didn't the way it was explained to me is like cause i asked like why would you bring on so many stinking people and they basically are like look the us is different they spent from nineteen eighty seven to nineteen ninety seven ten years and they hadn't entered the united states yet wow and they came to the states in ninety seven and ninety eight you can almost say they kind of failed the first ceo left and then they said look we're gonna double down on the investment and you know the way it was explained to me was like this we divided up the country into fifths and we said what happens if each one of these regions within the next five years does two hundred fifty million dollars in business we'd be a multi billion dollar brand and i'll tell you what they never look back but in order to get there it wasn't just about the marketing mix right this balance between consumption and influence yes but it was really about how they delivered that message to consumers yeah in unexpected ways right you have these flying day competitions where the everyday person can be their own pilot and build their own flying machine and oh by the way you gotta huck it off of a thirty forty foot freaking pier and hope that you get the longest flight fun is all heck by the way fluke talk is one of the best events i've got it's so you know so fun so fun but then you know they balance it with you know some of these world class racers in f1 and these you know guys doing daredevilish stuff in wingsuits and it's like mind blowing stuff but that's exactly it right cause some of it is meant to blow your mind totally because it's mind and body right yeah so everything that red bull does is really interesting very very fortunate to have learned marketing from them very fortunate to have played a little part here in the us still absolutely love it even though i don't drink it every day now getting older passing fifty but you know it's just it's pretty amazing to see what yeah has transpired i totally hear that shifting gears a little bit i think it was in twenty nineteen nova max did that roll up where they kind of rolled up c two o stees and i think a few of those other brands is first off just at a high level what was kind of like the original kind of thought process of of the company and kind of why i feel like it made sense to group these three brands together few brands together yeah i mean i think to understand that you have to understand that nova max was built on partnerships they are such great people with just amazing business skills that know how to partner with brands but also know where there's an opportunity and areas to learn and you know we had the we had a partnership with novamax on the cto side that's where i started with novamax was on the cto team and cto is an integration with novamax they had also had stee's organic iced tea which was part of the the group as well and um you know nova max is uh um really interested in in developing brands right and bringing them to market day in day out um they they've done harritos they also had a big play in cholula and some of these other brands over the over the history of the company so we formed naturals or nova naturals if you would as a division of nova max really to put a focus on the natural products that we had we had some great people you know we've done some pretty interesting things that when you have multiple brands you can't have multiple people calling on the same customers and just made a perfect sense for us to consolidate it into a team of people that are highly focused on natural and then could also be that voice of natural and education on natural and the brands yeah to the greater company as well so it's a fun matrix to work in it's not easy but it's totally different and you know very fortunate to be a part of this group we formed nova naturals about five years ago and we're continuing to grow our our brands and are continuing to grow our i share the marketplace we have some great team members and we integrate with the great team members on total nova max side too which is awesome so you know so we're we're kind of that natural focus group but then we also steer our brands across the general market as well from a natural perspective so it's pretty it's a it's a fun time it's not not easy but it's very different yeah totally you have somewhat of a might call it a shared services approach where you've got kind of a centralized team that supports you know no cto and steve's and you know brands kind of together i'm just kind of curious in terms of how how's that kind of work work and practice on a day to day basis and how do you kind of you know align around resources when there's a bunch of competing priorities across these multiple brands yeah look i mean nothing's perfect right i'm an optimist so like always trying to find the the opportunity within the the the synergies and white space i'm also an entrepreneur so like i have an entrepreneurial mindset and i love looking at at how we can create value uh from shared from shared relationships so like when we look at you know nova naturals and kind of how we balance it between c two o and stees like it's no easy feat like let me let me just say like it's not perfect but we did and have been able to find some really cool synergies for the the brands to help bring them to market i think the the trick is you know people say how do you make that work and kind of just like what you said it's like the trick is to keep it simple and look for the value that you can deliver for your organization without overcomplicating it cause the minute you know the minute you start overcomplicating things it just becomes a quagmire right so like we've really try to keep things as simple as we possibly can but also deliver you know the value that we can and we look for synergies across both you know cto and steve's to drive total value for the organization and it comes in the form of of different things i can't give away all of our little secrets there's a little bit of secret sauce in there i'm just gonna say it uh but and it's and it's a ruthless travel right but i think at the end end of the day really focusing on um opportunity and really figuring out as a group what your shared goals are so that you can deliver maximum value to all the different parties involved and and you know we're we're constantly aligning teams internally to make sure everyone is working towards those set goals right it's not it's not easy but and we're constantly setting and and reprioritizing different things but we do have quarterly and annuals that we're working towards and those are our our our goal posts that we're marching towards right so we just continue to evolve our teams and and develop them as groups so it it's not easy but it also just helps us rationalize what's important to all of us right so we get everyone aligned on what's important for the business and then we start taking everyone in that direction and we ask them to participate it's not just a a directive it is a active participation so yeah really really cool to be a part of this team that has so many just brilliant minds working on some of these cool projects that we're trying to steer and develop our our brands into as far as business drivers to to really continue to elevate nova naturals and build out a greater business there's no year that's exactly the same here which is great uh so it's a it's a fun it's a fun place to work i get to work with great people and we get to do some cool stuff totally specifically on the on the steeze brand so i think the nobel actually acquired in twenty sixteen and i think over time i think i've heard you read i think you did an interview or two or something along those lines and i heard you say over time the brand is lost its way a bit in terms of the core mission and focus and then which ultimately led to a recent decision to go through a pretty significant kind of overhaul from a both a brand and i think formulation perspective as well so i'm just kind of curious maybe just from the at a high level the question of why what led the decision to go through this this pretty big initiative and this pretty big overhaul in the first place well the why is the why let me just say that adam so like you know i i think the the piece of this is like why would you do something well first of all let me just say i don't think it was as massive as maybe you're making it out to be it's okay but i think what i would refer to it as is a little bit more of a refinement right you know we had steve what steve's was originally created by eric and steven eric chanel steven kessler and you know it was it passed into nestle and then it ended up in in nova max and there were different teams along the way that were managing it and my team wasn't necessarily involved with it we were really at the on the cto side uh for a bit and you know anytime you have multiple people working on multiple things there can be uh brain drain and there can also be drift from what the original intention was so the team and i started to see some of this like we were asking the question of why why steve why is steve important what's you know what is important as well but why is more important for that what than anything else and really what we came down to was we were missing something there's something that occurred in the translation of passing down you know the brand it wasn't fully connecting the way that it should or could right and a lot of people had different views on the brand and so we did something non traditional we we actually went back to the founders we happened to bump into steven kessler at expo west a couple years back great guy and you know he kicked it off and hit it off with adam biggs and little do you know like eric chanel and steven and i and adam end up on a call with ron green who's our ceo and we're just talking this through of like we think we're missing something and help us understand the original why for this brand and if if stees if you were to launch stees today what would it be what would it look like and and that was the question we start asking questions right because you know you kind of you don't know until you start asking those hard questions and like what are we missing and we had to take cut it was it was a humbling experience because like you know we had just rebranded this probably three years prior and we were looking at this and like it's not something's missing and we couldn't figure out what it was and really what it was is you know getting the founding fathers if you would in this case back into the brand to understand hey guys help us understand your genesis help us understand what stees would look like today help us understand the difference in you know in what you're trying to make with stees when you originally created and how it would translate into today and you know what stees was the first organ organic brand not just t brand first organic brand from what eric and steven were telling us is is the first organic brand usda organic brand to come off the line and like they had to take it through that process and their co packer partner with them to get their first usda organic certified logo now it's not just a logo it's because they were what was important to them was the farmers what was important to them was the sourcing what was important to them was making a difference and having a product that actually had an impact on this world in a positive manner what was important to them right today it's interesting they they took the learnings from steve's and developed them into these five peas for their process now right so steve's originally had three p's people product planet right really really cool but they're they're also focused on now there's two additional ones right and those those two additional ones were really to help them connect with consumers and and it's all about prosperity right and this and creating positivity within the product and allowing people to participate in the prosperity of not just prosperity isn't just creating a product that makes money prosperity is everyone that comes in contact with that brand benefits yeah from the sourcing to the planet to the people to the you know the consumers and everyone that gets to participate now in stee's cause stee's now is the first regenerative organic certified tea to hit the market in the us you know ready to drink tea um there's loose leaf tea out there but ready to drink bottled tea steve's is the first and the premise was to get back to the why of what we would call doing good by brewing good making an impact with every can of steez that we manufacture sell and and add value to people's lives and so like we start reworking on how do we bring that to life and so we start looking at okay guys could we partner with you and we partnered with their agency then beyond brands on helping us to bring eric and steven back into this a bit and to understand the why and we asked hard questions and we listened and we listened some more and got some consumer feedback and started talking through you know different things along the way of what was missed where and when and how how we even had a founders day where we got to meet eric and steven and hear all of their stories from genesis and it was like an unlocking for our team of wow and like we had no idea what we had missed and and then it then we went to work you know we started working with them on sourcing regenerative organic tea cause when we when seeds was placed into nova naturals we're buying tea from a tea broker we you know we were which isn't bad it was it was fair trade it was organic it was quality tea but we didn't have a relationship with our farmer right right we didn't have a full understanding of the supply chain we didn't have the full understanding of the impact that the supply chain could have we also didn't have a a a real give back in the form of which we have now which is a one percent for the planet we actually have one percent for the planet on there not just because it's a cool badge we have it on there because it makes an impact it forces us to every year ask the question of how are we going to create a better planet how are we going to create an impact on the people around us and create strategies to deliver upon that so i'm you know i'm happy to say like with our tea provider now wild orchard we're partnering with them on farmer education programs we're partnering with them on other ways to educate both internal and external customers we're figuring out other ways we're also partnering with whole foods and and other core natural retailers etcetera on on impact programs where we can you know and and trying to give back in ways that create conversations around regenerative organic certification because regenerative organic is is different it's not just organic it's actually creating a regeneration of of the land so like you've heard the term sustainability sustainability really just means we're not doing any harm right right it's sustainable well you didn't do any harm but you didn't help anything either regenerative organic is we're not just sustainable we're actually putting in practices that make the land better than where it was before we're putting in systems that that ensure animals and and animals and and farmers alike that care for the crops and care for the land are treated fairly and treated in humane ways and provided fair wages in this case it's direct trade so it's even better than fair trade you know it's we know who is receiving it we know how to benefit them we've created a long term supply partnership with wild orchard and the team to develop a regenerative organic certified tea and bring it out in the form of teas to do good for the world so it's not just it's not just doing good but we're brewing good and we're doing good and we're putting it all in a can for people to participate and we're trying to bring them the value to those consumers day in day out so pretty exciting man it's the road less traveled but probably one experiences of i've had in marketing i think that's definitely gonna resonate with consumers too i think it's gonna show through yeah it's different man a lot of different things we had to do with it you know looking at it from a consumer perspective all your classic marketing stuff but at the end of the day getting the base right is the most important yeah on that topic i guess let's just say i was a brand leader at a pretty fast growing you know fairly established cpg brand like let's just say c two o water both of them are very well established and i told you hey i'm considering a packaging refresh what kind of questions might you ask me to just help me understand is a packaging refresh even the right strategy in the first place yeah i mean i mean there's a lot to it okay like there's a way there's a lot of ways to extrapolate like you know someone who's coming to that decision and and and work through all the different questions but i think for me i would start with why it sounds simple you know everyone's like oh simon sinek this and that why but i'll tell you what if you get your why right it can really help you unlock the reasoning behind all the other moves that you're going to make and yeah and you know i think i don't think people give him enough credit on that book of why because it really is that genesis but it it's so theory and sometimes out there for people to go why you know and like why are you what's causing you to believe that you need to make this change yeah who who are your consumer you need to make this change yeah you know how do you validate it yeah totally that's that's a great point how did you obviously you feel like there were some things that work needed to be done but obviously it's a brand that's real established it definitely has some you know i has a lot of loyal fans and how did you kind of think about balancing the the need for a fresh look and kind of communicating you know this some of the changes regenerative organic and all that kind of stuff and all the other kind of refresh messaging versus keeping some of the familiar legacy brand elements for those existing customers they'll recognize it right away it still resonates with them also it's not so different than when they're go to the grocery store the next time they actually can immediately still recognize it on the shelf and make sure they don't walk right by it that makes sense yeah look steve is a twenty four almost twenty five year old tea brand it was the first organic tea brand how do you how do you as a marketing person and marketing team and business team not mess it up yeah because because like look it's tricky and nothing's perfect how did we come to this conclusion i think when we started to see that you know when we made an initial change in twenty twenty one twenty twenty two we came out and like we were handed a brand that was from this previous team that was kind of all over the board like very it was a little messy like the the the consistency on the reasoning behind why they ended up here and and how they ended up here we also began looking at the sourcing and like why are we going through a broker when we should be knowing who our farmers are why are we so these are all wise right why are we you know trying to talk planet if we don't have a true initiative that gives back into the health of the planet why are we you know trying to create energy drinks and energy shots and all these other thing why why are we trying to do that and and it's challenging right because you have so many different opinions yeah and so for us we were just at that time we thought and i'll be honest there was a little bit of an ego like we were trying to figure it out and like we thought we knew and we're like well we have this energy we had an energy skew we had a green tea skew we had plans for a yerba mate because yerba mate was on fire we got we're a tea company we got to be in that in that yeah in that business and what we what we learned was we were all wrong are your mate was good tasted great guayaki was great but what we didn't realize before this was when we talked to eric and steven did did you know mike that steve used to have strategic partnerships with guayaki and also amazon to not market and against each other but to lift each other up no didn't know that why why the why was because all of us were aligned around doing better for the planet and we had decided if we're gonna create a movement we're not gonna attack each other we're gonna go after the marketplace i was like wow right mike drop so like asking yourselves why some of these things could have helped us also we created steve's mike and team not just mike thing but you're talking to me um we they told me we created ste as a green tea why are we not just green tea and i couldn't answer that question right so like we started looking at the wise and they were challenging us and we were challenging them and we were like what what's important the other thing was um on our previous yeah i got a can here but on our previous can you know we we had this i don't know if you can see it hold it yeah i can see yeah so the the flower of life here is cut off the question eric and steven asks is why did you cut off that flower of life because the flower of life is a regenerative flower the flower of life is not to be cut off or else you cut off its life force the flower of life is a continuous design speaking to the regenerative qualities of the green tea like these are some of the the nuance is in here that i'm using to explain if we had known these things we probably would not have ended up in this better mouse trap if you would that we were going to create we would have anchored back into our y and our y was so that the brand could have purpose but even before my team got their hands on the brand the sourcing had changed and the y on the sourcing had changed and it become a cost thing and why on on this over that had changed like as far as different other ingredients that were used oh cause they were trendy no we're not trying to tap into trends we're trying to create something of value and it's very different and you create something of value by understanding who you are and sometimes it's a refining process in who you are so if you're that person out there that is considering that rebrand ask yourself the question why do i want to do this what value is my brand creating today for my consumer why would i want to change it why did i get into this business and what did consumers gravitate towards why did they gravitate towards me why why do they love my brand for those who don't love your brand why do you hate my brand so much sometimes those are the best questions i'd rather have someone who's a lover or a fighter but the plain old vanilla people come on we don't want not that i don't want you it's just i want people with opinions like help me understand right because at the end of the day our y has to mean something and for the founders and owner teams out there cause like i know adam you're dealing with folks that are like start up all the way to you know large cpg but like for those for that startup group understand why you're doing something understand why it's valuable to you understand why it's valuable to the people that you're delivering it to deliver it genuinely and look for ways that you can improve it to add more value to their lives without compromising on your values right totally and for and for those who are big cpg that are worried about how do i get to this keep asking yeah go back to why did this happen what was the genesis story why were they thinking this way at the time how did we end up in this in this solution why were we dealing with all these different elements you know there's an explanation for some of this the other thing if you if you've got an older even brand that you're considering do some consumer testing there's some great groups out there used to be you'd have to be in home to do an in home usage test you had to be a part of a big brand it was really costly there's some really like smart tactical practical ways to go out and do it whether it's through like a formalized service like highlight or taking your product into samplings it was interesting i i just saw an article on ben stiller in whole foods and and he's sampling at whole foods and i know totally some of it is an entertainment thing and you know a big thing there for entertaining but it but it's still really interesting and yes it's getting the word out cause he's a big celebrity but it's still really interesting if if if ben really wants to understand why consumers he's standing right there there's no better place as an owner to sit at a demo table and learn about your brand and how it connects to help you refine your why totally you know product market fit is so important today and whether you realize it or not that's what you're doing yes you know what i mean yeah so anyway yeah say like on that topic of of product market fit yeah prior to nova naturals you were letting market you led marketing at at one of i've remembered say is like one of the first if not the first like really functional beverage brands yeah it resonated a lot got a lot of attention i think it was like grown super quickly for a while like looking back now i'm kind of it feels the the brand is a bit ahead of its time obviously now functional beverages is all the rage i'm kind of curious like what's your what's your take on that kind of functional beverage category today and if assuming you i agree if not you can also tell me you disagree why i may have just been a bit too early for new brands and i don't know anything else that jumps out in this vein you know it's so interesting i was just telling a friend of mine the other night that i worked at neuro with i was like man i really felt like neuro was ahead of its time he's like yeah man i i totally believe that and see it it's so interesting right i was just at bebnet live last month and in december and um you know there's all kinds of like functional products out you know and they're not just looking at at energy they're looking at all types of function even in within the day part i'm like oh my gosh it's almost like the revolution is coming back you know what i mean it's like i you know we all have those nostalgic things from our childhood that now all of a sudden our our kids i have five kids you know they're coming back i'm like no way that's back right like and uh i felt like that with nero right because nero was circa two thousand and twelve in my mind it was the first functional wellness product out there yeah it was really what and we were trying to figure out how to brand it we ended up calling it you know if you remember at the time iphone was huge iphone had just come out with all the little apps and all the little gizmos and gadgets and regard regardless there was there was an app for that yep do you remember that there was an app for that so we started to look at this you know cultural piece and we started building a campaign around neuro being this operating system for life because we were trying to explain neuro drinks neuro basically meaning an impact on your mind right and a drink that you could drink and it had different day parts like we had a neurosonic for an which was like our energy skill which was with l theanine so caffeine and l theanine we learned that it would give you a heightened response and you know not allow you to crash and it was really a lower calorie it's thirty calories compared to red bull which was eighty and we were in a sixteen ounce and red bull is an eight ounce i mean you figure out it's like fifteen calories fifteen twenty five calories on average per skew versus eighty to a hundred and twenty i mean it's ridiculous right yeah and it was a better for and and it came in a sexy bottle right people say oh it looks like shampoo but you know what it broke at the shelf yeah it broke people's eyes at the shelf you knew exactly where it was and we put it into you know this beautiful elegant bottle with an overcap it was not cheap to make nero was was an expensive brand to produce uh and but you know what it was all about delivering value and so we came up with this idea of neuro drinks the operating system for life so we had neurosonic and then we had neurobliss neurobliss was really a a lower caffeine beverage if zero caffeine is where it eventually went zero caffeine and it had l theanine in it too and what we learned was l theanine without as much caffeine would actually mellow you out a little bit make you a little bit more stress reliever right so that was kind of the the temperaments that we had we also had a neuro sleep right uh which was a first melatonin beverage and then we had neuroson which was a you know i think it was three thousand what is it three thousand milligrams i think it was of vitamin d mm hmm so you know real importance of vitamin d so this idea of you know you're not gonna get the the blues during some during winter right or being indoors all the time cause you can have your vitamin d cause vitamin d deficiency right yep and then there was neuro aqua and you know a couple of our uh explicit haha neuro neurogasm products we had neuro the infamous neurogasm which our founder was absolutely you know interestingly enough neurogasm a top flavor right interesting top flavor ranked by consumers always ranked high on top flavor interesting lowest distribution by percentage point of acv why cause of the name right the minute we changed the name to neuro passion the the skew exploded on the scene and went into kroger and went into a bunch of other retailers our founder she wanted back at gazem so they changed it again and i think eventually after i had left they changed it back but never really caught wind but it did create notoriety for the plan um yeah and neuro drinks was interesting is we had all these functional day parts and we we would say like regardless of your of your mood mood or mind state there's a neuro for that right so the same way that there's an app for that there's a neuro for that cause the neuro was if you would think about it this way the operating system for life you could have something for energy for hydration for all these different day parts the challenge with nero was how do you package it up into a a form and function that consumers could easily gravitate towards and find right i think when you go to at shelf today it's interesting like at bevnet i saw a lot of brands trying to break into multi functional multifunctionality is really interesting however it becomes a communication quagmire and you have to really figure out how you're going to arm and develop your team you know i also think like at the time when we were rolling out nero when i started with nero we were in five states within a year and a half of being there we rolled it out with dpsg and pepsi nationwide we got like close to thirty five thousand uh points of distribution that year it was an unbelievable year we positioned the brand it was a breakout brand by bevnet like it was it was definitely something that was taking the the communities and field by storm yeah i think really what was interesting about it was we had the right communication mix it's kind of red bull strategy we had a right communication mix we understood how to communicate the brand we had strong branding at shelf and also beyond shelf in in media and then what we did was we regionalized it with our core retailers as they rolled it out nationwide in an integrated media campaign and that really helped to drive it that really really helped to drive it and we got a lot of traction and consumption right away i definitely you know but i think like anything you know you you have challenges um you have challenges sometimes with ownership you have challenges sometimes with investment you have challenges on where's the long term viability for where this is going and they wanted to go in one direction and some of our team didn't want to go in that direction so you know a few of them left um but uh nero was a great place to work though when we were all there it was a tremendous product got nothing but great things to say about that team it's it's unfortunate to see how it's kind of changed over the years but i think the the challenge has been how do you communicate the multi function of the brand and yeah and that that's really i think where you've seen the decline like when we had this operating system for life and we were moving in this direction we could encapsulate all the values of the product into one and we were having traction cause consumers could easily relate this if i need this i need i get that nero if i need this i get that nero and as soon as you took the pedal off the metal and began just focusing on individual skews people began to get lost in the mix of oh i thought this was a sleep product or i thought this was an energy product or you know then there's then there's consumer confusion and i think it's hard at times to recover from that i also think there's just grand there's things that have taken place in the grander market right like you've seen plastics uh change right so you know for a long time nero was still in that elegant hourglass shape bottle extremely recyclable they were trying to make it an rpad or whatever improve it just hard to do but i think consumers really prefer cans at times aluminum and glass are now on the upswing right it's not easy to do as a beverage manufacturer single use plastics are you know finding a harder place to to market themselves these days but i mean you still have large channels that still marketed it's just um consumer trend trends are changing so yeah how do you keep up with the brand and how do you keep up with the trends right you also have functional dosability now in that it's not just about beverages you've got people that are taking powders and dosing their their lifestyle so you have a big shift that's occurred just within those five to seven years that has you know whether you like it or not competed with your overall share of mouth you know so you know melatonin's a lot more readily available and easy to use in gummies right you know you're seeing energy sticks with lower calories and and things that can be taken on the go so it's really interesting to kind of see a brand that i think was at the forefront maybe they lost their luster a little bit but when i was there that brand was humming and i'm proud to say that the team that we had around it and the ownership that was in place was great and really helping us kind of break through in the marketplace that's awesome yeah sounds like it was a great journey last last question for you mike uh yeah man pick one i'll pick let you pick either one you tend to pick one specific brand you've been just kind of following for fun or as it's speak your interest or one kind of specific trend and just cpg in general it's kind of peak your interest i'll let you pick one and uh yeah cheers what what comes to mind first man it's so hard to choose i mean it it's hard to ignore the large macro categories right when you start looking at protein like the protein revolution that is taking place today i mean it is is nuts i remember you know i was at proyo high protein ice cream which became swell foods and you know i was talking with a executive at starbucks she was one of the senior vice presidents i bumped into her actually at one of the stores here in southern california and she's like what do you do and i'm like i do product marketing you guys need more protein in your stores you know and at the time i was she's like what do you do i was like i do a high protein ice cream but i was telling her i was like it's hard to find items in your stores you need like looking at their assortment at that time this is probably twenty fourteen twenty fifteen it was like look you've got you need more nuts you you've got opportunities here for like higher protein items you could even sell like and i was i was trying to sell some ice cream let's let's just be honest high protein ice cream with that but i think at the end of the day it's really interesting to see today's environment right of now this is probably ten to gosh maybe twelve years later and what do you have you have starbucks claiming protein in all their beverages i asked the guy that was serving me i was like has the protein really changed that much he's like we had some you know you know concentrate but most of it is protein that was already in the milk anyway we're just claiming it i was like right you know so like you really think of but i think consumers are wise to some of this stuff let's not confuse ourselves right let's not let's not say that our starbucks is super healthy there's ways to order starbucks that are healthy but on average like come on man you know like our the protein revolution is just getting going i i i got a lot of respect for uh the way that some of these protein brands are coming to market these days like being like highly focused and really lasered in on their community online and developing you know customer sales you know through online channels and key influencer and and really you know affiliate based marketing so like there's some amazing stuff going on i think there's some really cool brands out there that i've just you know loved and admired so it's it's interesting right so like you see vital proteins and got sold right like a few years back but like what they're doing still in the marketplace for the larger acquiring company like they're really pushing the limit a little bit more you see chomps has gone i remember chomps came out and trader joe's i saw it at trader joe's for the first time and then i was like buying them up cause i was on keto and like love the brand even to this day but there's still some other ones right like the competitive set has just gotten even better right yeah so like you start looking at the way that these large retailers are are not just selling products but they're developing products even on their own kirkland made a decision just to go and and create their own meat stick now like they don't just go into categories just go into categories they're going in because there's a long term value yeah that it that and and life changes that are occurring but you know you also got the influx of glp one and other things that are that are impacting protein sales because people need to keep the protein levels high right or else they're going to lose some of that skeletal muscle and some of these other things so it's not just you know shooting it up and and losing weight that's a great thing but people are finding out that they need to still have a balanced diet and higher protein is definitely a driver in those diets and trends so it's a it's one i'm continuing to watch i'm really excited about what's coming out it's always interesting to see the different channels and how they're um you know looking at the items i love some of the uh different uh fish items that are coming out believe it or not for people to maintain healthy protein levels like whether that's through great brands like fish wife or some of these others that are out there i mean there's some like really cool brands that aren't just protein powders but they're really fit within a healthier lifestyle you know even some of these mediterranean diet lifestyles so it's pretty interesting and just i'm a fan of what's going on in the market i just i love to see people taking their health serious i love to see people benefiting from high quality products i love to deliver high quality products that offer consumers value to their lives and so like my positioning in the market as mike franz is a little bit different than most and that i love developing brands that really truly add that value to people yeah it can support them over the long term of their health versus just putting a product on shelf and and yeah it's gonna be really successful but is that really where i wanna be at the end of the day when when i meet my maker am i gonna be proud of the products that i brought to market to support people's lives that's the decision that i had i totally respect that i definitely love that yeah mike this has been awesome so many great insights here you give a so much great experience in this uh in the space what's the best place for people to follow along with you if they want to follow along with your expertise and then best place to follow along with uh steve and c two o these days yeah you can follow along on a linkedin it's pretty easy you know a classic business channel you know you i'll i'll i hit different posts in there you can follow me steve and c two o really easy to get at you know we we've got all the social on both of those brands so you know instagram is just some beautiful ways that we bring the brands to life you know there's a lot of other ways too we're having fun with tiktok and some of these uh uh new creatives as well so get at us you can find both brands online you know c two o drink c two o dot com or drink steez dot com and you know i'm on linkedin like france perfect appreciate you awesome mike's been great appreciate the time think that's the pod yeah buddy good to see you