VIRAL BRANDS & CREATIVE COLLABS — Starbucks, Dove x Crumbl, Dog Pack (Ep. 020)

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From a $300 Starbucks cup to talking dogs powered by AI — this week’s episode unpacks what happens when creativity, culture, and smart positioning collide.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why you are not your customer — and how that shift can 10x your offer strategy.
• The secret behind Starbucks’ ability to sell “premium” without premium ingredients.
• How brands like Dove and Crumbl use unexpected collabs to revive relevance and reach.
• The viral AI dog campaign that proves entertainment still converts.
  
  

Timestamps:

00:00- Introduction

04:52 – You Are Not Your Customer: Building Offers Beyond Your Own Preferences
 08:45 – Starbucks’ $300 Bearista Cup: Scarcity, Positioning, and Premium Perception
 13:10 – Cold Foam Economics: How Starbucks Rebranded Whipped Cream into a $2 Add-On
 17:00 – Dove x Crumbl: Turning Cookies into Soap and Collabs into Cash
 24:45 – Cutting Through Holiday Noise: Standing Out During Black Friday Chaos
 33:00 – AI Dogs, Real Impact: How Dog Pack Used Humor + Honesty to Win 20M Downloads

References & Resources:

• Starbucks “Bearista” Holiday Cup
• Crumbl Cookies
• Dove
• Dog Pack App
• Black Friday Statistics (2024)
  
  

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Transcript

Michelle Pualani: [00:00:00] Today on the podcast, we are chatting about the viral sensation that sold out immediately. That is the Starbucks. Barista Cup, specialty Cup and why that was so popular and successful. We are chatting about the collaboration between Dove and Crumble and how you can leverage continued interest over time, and we'll close with a wonderful conversation about an app that leveraged talking dogs through AI in order to get 20 million downloads.

For their product. I'm Michelle Ani Houston, founder of To Be Honest Beverage Company. We're a non-alcoholic functional spirit brand as well as business coach and marketing mentor. 

Joanna Newton: And I'm Joanna Newton, co-founder of Millennial Marketer and Agency that helps creators create their own digital products. Let's dive in. I have to say we don't match today, but we have like the same vibes,

Michelle Pualani: I was gonna say, vibes are the same for sure.

Joanna Newton: the vibes,[00:01:00]

Michelle Pualani: Like, like Bluetooth, crappy toffee and a jacket. Yeah. We're, yeah, we're vibing. Okay, so today I am drinking my dandelion root tea with a little bit of Manuka honey. And it's funny because whenever I have dandelion tea, it always makes me think of Ice Age. Did you watch those movies?

Joanna Newton: Yeah,

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, I think they're hilarious. Sid, this loss is like. They're like one of my favorite characters of all time, I'd have to say. So there's a scene where they're, I think they're rhinos and they get launched and they like fall to the ground, but the rhinos eat dandelions and it's like heading into ice age, or the ice age is happening.

So all of the dandelions have gone away. So anyway, they land and he's like a dandelion because he lands like right in front of one, but then another rhino lands like right on top of it. And it's sad 'cause it gets smashed. So every time I hear dandelion, that's what I think of

Joanna Newton: I love that. I love that I have the [00:02:00] teeniest tiniest coffee

Michelle Pualani: it is a very tiny coffee. Well, you're like,

Joanna Newton: if you're watching,

Michelle Pualani: you're in the afternoon. I don't even know how you do coffee in the afternoon.

Joanna Newton: Well, I mean, I have, I have, I have the late shift with a child, so I do have to like, keep going until nine, 10 o'clock. Well, nine o'clock at night for her and then 11 for like my wine down time. But this is the teeniest tiniest coffee because I didn't want anything crazy. what I wanted to show off, 'cause I have an espresso and like when you order lots of coffee, they send you free cups. And this is just like the cutest little cup. And I wanted to try today, um, I got a cinnamon Tamarind Espresso and um, it's like one of their holiday flavors. And like one day I wanna be sponsored by Nespresso because it's like so expensive and I would like to just get it for free. so one day, Nespresso, if you're listening. Please send me coffee. Um, but this is just a little, it's a shot of espresso with [00:03:00] just a little, little brown sugar, a little oat milk, little ice, and it's like one shot. So it's super tiny

Michelle Pualani: I love that adorable flavors.

Joanna Newton: good. That was my first sip. It's good. It's a little, um, I don't like the, like floury coffee as much as like, real like roasty Italian coffee.

It's a little flowery, but I do like this.

Michelle Pualani: Mm-hmm. Everyone's got their different flour or, uh, coffee. So I'm not a coffee drinker. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while,

Joanna Newton: you

Michelle Pualani: I'm not a coffee drinker. I stick to my alternatives. Tea matcha, not a ton of caffeine in general. And then I love. Um, mushroom based stuff and all the like, funny, weird, earthy stuff.

But my dad is like a old school black dark roast, like burnt coffee drinker. And then my husband is more like new age light roast, like pour over. Everyone's got their like different vibes when it comes to coffee.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. And what you like and

Michelle Pualani: Yeah,

Joanna Newton: like.

Michelle Pualani: [00:04:00] when I used to drink coffee, I used to love vanilla nut. Irish cream flavored coffee.

That was like a, I was a big fan of that, so I love that Nespresso does the different flavors you're looking at appealing to a lot of different people when we're, so we are in the product space in terms of, to be honest, bev and non-alcoholic functional spirits. And the interesting thing is, you know, when it comes to product development, offer creation, when you're working through your marketing, when you're working through your business plan, you wanna meet the needs of the market.

You wanna be conscious of who you're speaking to with your ideal client and everything else. And I think sometimes we have a little bit of a bad frame of reference because we're thinking of ourselves, and I've heard this a lot from clients, is, oh, I would never do that. I would never buy that. That's not what I want.

And I think it's a mistake. And I think it's super common for us to kind of have that tunnel vision and think in [00:05:00] terms of like buyer psychology, market marketing, messaging and product, and offer development in a limited scope and a narrow scope of what it is that we like, want and desire. And your.

Challenge as a business owner, as a marketer, is to be able to step outside of that and see things more holistically and more from a third party lens and more like from a diverse perspective outside of just your own to better understand your client, the persona you're talking to and from, again, a marketing perspective to be able to step into that and create from that place.

I might not like Tamarind, but someone else does.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and you are not your customer. And I think a lot of times we think, what would I want? What would I need? What makes sense to me? But you are not actually your customer. You're not the one who's, who's buying. I see this, I face this all of the time, even for myself [00:06:00] when building, you know, I'm working on digital products and memberships to add to my agency services and something that. I think of as such a low value thing I could share to someone else is a very high value thing that I could share because it's something that's common sense to me is not common sense to my ideal customer. So I might think, well, I can't sell that. That's not worth it. That's not like enough. I have to have more bells and more whistles and more downloads and more videos and more things. But actually the things that I've worked to learn for. I don't know, almost 20 years of my life, like I can share it in 10 minutes and it will have massive impact.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, and even if you are the type of brand coach, service provider who is sharing your personal story of what you've gone through to then be able to sell, you know, the outcome of the change or transformation that you've experienced, even with [00:07:00] that, you are still not your customer because you're on the other side of it.

So the perspective will always be different. The marketing language will always be different, and I think this is the number one issue that most. Experts, authorities, coaches, service providers deal with is they sit in the place of expertise and authority, right? And they speak beyond the place of their ideal client.

And that's where most people go wrong in their marketing and their messaging is they typically focus on the fact that they know the technical information, they know the data, they know the outcome and the transformation and what that. Now feels like for them, but the person is starting way back when they're behind you.

So what you have to be able to do is capture what it was either for you or where that person is now as opposed to where you are now. It just makes such a big difference, and once I feel like you really understand that, it'll change the game in terms of your offer development and the messaging [00:08:00] that you use in your content creation, which will all reflect again, speaking to.

Where your customer is and the relatability of what it is that they want at that time.

Joanna Newton: Exactly. So, so important. today I wanna talk about a company that's been in the news over the past couple of weeks. Well, they're almost always in the news, but Starbucks was in the news over the past couple of weeks for having a $300 holiday cup.

Michelle Pualani: Whoa. Starbucks. Hello. Full stop. Three.

Joanna Newton: Full stop. what's interesting here is the cup was not actually sold by Starbucks for $300. released a limited edition, a holiday cup that looks kind of like a bear. So like, you know those honey jo, those honey. Dispensers that look like bears. It kind of looks like that, but has like a little cap hat and a little straw sticking out of its hat. And they were, they were selling these cups, limited [00:09:00] edition for $30 a piece. They sold out. immediately and then went on eBay selling between $150, somewhere $400, but like the average price is around $300. If you wanna get one now on eBay for this limited edition cup, it's been wild.

Michelle Pualani: This is a perfect example. I would never buy that. Would I sell it? Probably because it's demonstrated as successful, limited, which is scarcity, not time bound, but it is holiday time bound in the sense that it went out really quickly if you were kind of expecting that. Or if you're like a liquid death or, uh, like a drop type business or, um, something that releases again quickly and you know, it's like tickets are gonna sell out then that's.

You know, a limited time perspective bear. How is [00:10:00] that related to Starbucks?

Joanna Newton: I, I have Oh, oh, oh. I know why. It's actually cute. Because it's a barista.

Michelle Pualani: It's a bear. What?

Joanna Newton: a barista of a bar. A

Michelle Pualani: Oh, a bear.

Joanna Newton: barista,

Michelle Pualani: So playing on the word barista, Starbucks is coffee. It's a barista. Interesting. I'll have to look up this campaign. It seems outside of the scope of what Starbucks would normally do.

Joanna Newton: Well, you know, they normally do like a holiday cup every year. So I think this is, was this one just went viral and everyone bought it and they normally sell out, but I think this one is kind of cute and different, so it got a lot of attention something I think Starbucks is really good at doing. getting you to pay a, like a premium price for a not premium product like, like Starbucks is fine.

I think it's consistent, but it is not the best. We were talking all about coffee preferences in the world. It is not the best. [00:11:00] Coffee that you can get, but they have this real knack for getting people to pay, like I said, a premium price for a non-premium product. And one additional example of this is cold foam. So cold foam. Do you know what cold foam do you, you probably haven't stepped in a Starbucks in like

Michelle Pualani: So I go into Starbucks. We go into Starbucks when we're traveling, I will say clean bathroom and consistency. Like you know what you're gonna get, Starbucks was built off of, well, they really created a national. Then international desire for like the coffee shop feel and vibe, you know, starting in Seattle and then taking the energy and you talk about like the luxury aspect of it, or a premium price, maybe not luxury, that might not be the right word, but when you're thinking of premium, they created that identity in that brand.

So you see something like Starbucks and it's not, it's not like McDonald's. It's not like cheap fast food idea [00:12:00] concept. They do have a certain, like when you walk in, it feels nice, it feels a little bit swanky. The goal is to have that premium brand quality so that they can charge prices for maybe not very expensive products.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and essentially what cold foam is, if you've never had cold foam, is it's essentially. very whipped, whipped cream with Starbucks syrups in it. So you can get pumpkin spice cold foam, which they make in a little like aerator, basically, and they slightly whip up the like cream, add some of the pumpkin spice foam.

So they're using ingredients they already have whipping it up and you can add it to your coffee. So. Early in, earlier in Starbucks, you could add whipped cream to your beverages, but that kind of started to go out of style with like diet culture and people wanting to cut calories. So then they introduce cold foam and there's like a million varieties of cold foam and it's like $2 to add cold this to your [00:13:00] drink. So literally Starbucks. Basically repossessed whipped cream and got people to upcharge their drinks by $2. So their $5 coffee is now a $7 coffee to get not fully whipped, flavored whipped cream. Now is it kind of delicious? I have had, it is delicious. Is it actually worth $2? Like it

Michelle Pualani: That is packaging at its finest. So when you have PA packaging and positioning, so a lot of times people think that the product, their service, their offer is the issue, which. It could be, that could be a core problem, but if you have something that is desirable that people want, you know that it works, like technically that's not the issue.

Or for example, if you've created a product or program and it's not selling, it's not the product or program itself, usually it is the positioning, it's the messaging, it's [00:14:00] how you're presenting the offer. Something like whipped cream has a preconceived notion of being fattening, of being not very healthy.

Maybe it used to be like 50 cents, so it was like a cheap whatever. Right? Or maybe it just was included.

Joanna Newton: Like it's unrefined, it's childish, like not a, like a mature, grown person.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: cream to their beverage, but they may add pumpkin spice cold foam.

Michelle Pualani: Mm-hmm. Now we're talking premium, we're talking adult, we're talking sophisticated, and $2, that's, it can't be more than like 5 cents to do that.

Joanna Newton: And I'm sure like I can like imagine what those conversations were in like Starbucks corporate. It was probably like, oh no, people aren't doing add-ons anymore. What do we do? Whipped cream sales down that add-on's down. We wanna get our average order value up. That's something that if your. In the digital space in a business, getting the average amount an individual customer spends with you is really important [00:15:00] because if you're, if it costs you $2 to get that person in the door and marketing, and they're only spending $5, that's only a $3 profit.

If they can add on cold foam for $2 each and every person you're spending $2 in to make $5, you're making $7 instead. That's a huge difference, especially when you're looking at volume. So I can see. Exactly how it went, and it is truly cold. Foam is like a product of marketing and now people make it at home and have recipes like cold foam has become part of coffee culture in general, which I think was really brought on.

Now, Starbucks may not have been the first people to do cold foam, but I think they were the first people to really make it national. Right.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, make it a thing, and this is a really good example from a company-wide perspective and from a business and thoughtfulness perspective to one, track your metrics and track your data when you know. [00:16:00] Column by column. These are all of our products. These are our top selling products. These are our products that are down.

These are things that only sell during this time of year. You should know that information and then be able to adjust and pivot to what's happening in the world. And so if we're seeing a cultural movement away from heavy fat inducing things, you should be changing your menu to adjust. And grow with the demands of consumers.

So it just can, you can see that Starbucks is tapped in, tuned into that, not just from a data perspective, but from a cultural listening perspective. And you have to put the two together, right? Because if you're just looking at metrics and data with those numbers, you might not be able to assimilate any information to make a decision about what's next.

How do we change, how do we do something different? What do we release now? Versus cultural listening. Now you're paying attention to why those numbers are different, why something's down, why something's up, what [00:17:00] happened as a result of that. So great example. I love the Bear Cup concept and idea. So with flavors, we were chatting about from a coffee perspective.

One of the things I wanted to talk about today, this was a campaign that was launched earlier this year, maybe even late 2024, but people are still chatting about it. Still a cultural conversation for a couple of reasons. So what I'm talking about is the dove. So the brand dove, which is like self-care body, lo, body products, soap, et cetera, and crumble cookie, which is physical edible cookies that you eat in a franchise location.

That are actual cookies. So they came out with a partnership in collaboration where Dove did body products that are the crumble cookie flavors and drops. Okay, so what's happening here very cool, is the collaboration aspect of it. You have two big [00:18:00] brands who have very different products, but are trying to tap into the same customer profile.

So Dove is. I would consider a slightly outdated brand. It was really popular when I, like, let's just say even 10 years ago when they came out with the body positive movement, they've been inclusive. You know, they talk about like the idea of self-care and self-love just as, as opposed to just like typical beauty standards, but they're not as relevant now with the advent of like all the different skincare and product lines now on the market.

And so crumble on the other hand is very Gen Z oriented. Very young, very hip, very like in the cultural conversation,

Joanna Newton: like there's a

Michelle Pualani: there's so much social.

Joanna Newton: social energy with them.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, absolutely. So when you can collaborate in partnership with supportive brand company that you wouldn't think like, okay, cookies and soap, those two things aren't related, [00:19:00] but they're leveraging each other for the reach, for the brand identity, for the recognition.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and the people who became Dove fans 25 years ago, 10 years ago that have bought Dove religiously over and over again, are now getting introduced to Crumble Cookie. And then younger Crumble cookie audience is getting exposed to a new self-care brand, which maybe then they'll adopt to their routines. Through their lifetime. Right. It's a perfect example of that collaboration, but like, I'm not really sure how I feel about like, I don't know,

Michelle Pualani: Smelling

Joanna Newton: chocolate

Michelle Pualani: like a cookie.

Joanna Newton: body wash.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: like that might not be for me, but again, that's like one of the points we were making. Like it, it doesn't need to be for.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah,

Joanna Newton: it's not, that's not the point. It

Michelle Pualani: absolutely.

Joanna Newton: it's funny, doesn't have to even smell that good, right? Like it's limited edition. [00:20:00] It's about creating buzz and creating excitement. Even if the product itself it, I think in this case, if they wanna acquire long-term customers instead of just like a quick cash grab should be good.

But it's getting the name out there. You know, last week we kind of talked about press. Is no press really. Good press. What did you say, Michelle?

Michelle Pualani: The, the idea is that. And they say any press is good press, but I don't think we're in that world anymore. It's like bad press really can have a bad influence on your business.

Joanna Newton: in, in this example, say one of the soaps didn't smell that great and it was kind of funny and it like took off and people were chatting

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: that kind of negative press isn't going to hurt Dove, right? It's just gonna actually make people talk about Dove and maybe check out some of their other things because it's not a. harmful, like problematic [00:21:00] concept for them. If like, oh, this smells kind of weird.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, and they were smart about it too, because one of the things that makes Crumble so successful is because they're launching, we've talked about this before on the podcast, which if you're not yet hit subscribe to the Click Tease podcast. You get all of our updates as well as. Tuning into the substack where we give you not just conversation, but tactical, tangible takeaways that you can implement in your business.

From these conversations each week, one of the things that crumble does to engage their consumer base and why they've grown so quickly and so well is because they drop a new flavor every single Monday. And so people are obsessed with trying the new flavors on social media, talking about them following.

What that newness looks like over time. And so Dove mimicked that. So they didn't just say like, here's our three cookie flavor profiles. Enjoy. It was every single Monday for however long they released them, they dropped the next cookie [00:22:00] flavor in terms of their profile. So I looked at a few videos relating to them.

Honestly, the packaging on the Dove bottles, they're like a pink dove bottle. 'cause I think crumble cookie they have, it's, their brand is like pink, right? In some way, um, not great in my perspective, like pretty simple, but I don't think you have to have something that like, is super amazing to look at that, like you said, like maybe they smell good, maybe they're not the best for everybody.

But the novelty of this campaign is what is important and what actually sells.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and I'm guessing crumble, like one of crumbles like signature cookies is like this pink frosted sugar cookie. I feel like that would make a good body wash,

Michelle Pualani: Mm-hmm.

Joanna Newton: Because it'd be warm vanilla, e sugary scent,

Michelle Pualani: They'd probably what I would do.

Joanna Newton: chip.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah. I'd release like a, a, a bunch of 'em. Right. And then whatever [00:23:00] your top sellers. Keep one or 1, 2, 3 of them, whatever you know, makes the most sense in the long term. So we'll see how that kind of continues over time. But I think it's smart to just do strategic partnerships like that and think through how can we introduce something novel, something fun, and we talked about this a little bit before, is like creativity.

Creativity wins the game right now. People are looking for creative, entertaining, fun, engaging, interesting. I don't know what the ingredients are to these products. I know that they're technically body washed, but in none of the conversations that people are having, do they talk about it lathers this much and it cleans like this and it does this for your body.

That's not what this campaign is about. It's a like specifically targeting younger generations. It's marketing the cookies, the, the experience of that cookie flavor, smell, whatever. And that's such an important reminder as far as like you don't have to just talk [00:24:00] about the features of what you do.

Joanna Newton: It's way more than features. It's about the lifestyle or the benefits or just fun, right? To get people

Michelle Pualani: Yep.

Joanna Newton: One of the things that I wanna make sure is on the forefront of everyone's mind who is listening to this podcast is that the holiday season is upon us. You probably have holiday sales planned or things going on. Um, but one thing I see business owners face time and time again. During holiday season is they'll say to me, Joanna, why are my Instagram views down? All of my videos are slower. Joanna, why am I spending money on ads? Everything seems to be more expensive to get the, the least amount of reach. Why are my open rates down on my emails?

All of these things start to happen this time of year because there is so much more noise and so much more marketing messaging while companies everywhere are trying to get you to shop for the [00:25:00] holidays. I looked up some stats because I was curious about like how much volume changes this time of I two. The first is on Black Friday alone, so only Black Friday. There are in 2024, there were 12.8 billion Different emails sent campaigns. Wild,

Michelle Pualani: That's a, that's a smidge. Too many.

Joanna Newton: but so many emails.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: then also ad buying in general, like the volume of ad buying goes up about 50% during the holiday season.

Michelle Pualani: Wow. Was a.

Joanna Newton: So it's, it's a big thing. So if you're a business owner, and especially if you're a small business owner, you are going to see things like drops in your organic engagement, um, lower email open rates, because your customers are getting, like, bombarded with emails left and right. If you do. Ads on [00:26:00] Facebook or Meta or YouTube or Google, the cost for your impressions is going to be going up because there's so much more competition, especially if you're not using retargeting ad strategies, but you're using like more demographics targeting or keyword targeting, all of those expenses are going to go up. the benefit of this in some ways is people are kind of more in a buying mood. So like the effectiveness might not change, but a lot of the stats that you expect to see may change over the next, uh, you know, two months, six weeks, two months. So if those things happen to you, don't be scared. Don't say, oh my gosh, all of my marketing is broken.

I need to rethink everything Your numbers are going to change and that's okay, but I think you have to go into this season realizing that you have to do things to like cut through the noise

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: get through that. When you look at this, actually this dove crumble campaign. [00:27:00] It's kind of what that does.

It cuts through the noise because all of a sudden there's this like fun, interesting thing to talk about. People are buying gifts right now. People are doing things, something like that. This collaboration really cuts through the noise, which can help you be in the forefront of people's minds and get out of the noise of all of the holiday ads and holiday things.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, if any, we're headed in Black Friday. I mean, if you aren't familiar, I don't know all the details, but I'll just say this real quick, is that Black Friday from a retail perspective was invented and created because most. Retailers throughout the entire year in the red, and so with the massive amount of discounts that they do, they still are profitable enough from a volumes perspective to get them into the black.

So there's red, black, and green when it comes to your profitability and revenue throughout the year. The red would obviously be your losing money. The black is your. Even green is your [00:28:00] positive and you're in profitability. And so this is the, this was invented and created with a way to get retailers back into the black after basically hemorrhaging funds most of the year.

Yeah. And so it was designed, obviously as a way to help businesses. At the time, but of course, with things evolving and changing, it's become just a huge consumerist based thing. There are some companies who don't even participate it in it because it's like an ethical, moral thing. You might feel compelled to do something for Black Friday or Cyber Monday that is up to you and up to your brand and up to your business.

You do not have to participate in it. We as a brand at this time for, to be honest, Bev, we don't offer any discounts outside of our loyalty program, and that's a clear choice that we've made because we don't want the perception of our brand to be based around discounts. A lot of time companies will just offer discounts throughout the year, and yes, I know it drives [00:29:00] sales and we're still trying to find the balance between driving sales consistently, while not giving out discounts, but.

I think people then tend to wait for the sale, right? They're waiting for the discount. Oh, I'm gonna save up my shopping for Black Friday or for Cyber Monday. And that can create a negative relationship with your consumer, especially if you're in our space, which is more service based. Um, coaching those kinds of things is how do you wanna present your brand and the identity of what it is that you do.

If you have like an old product, a digital product that's not really getting any sales, but you find like it's valuable sometimes, I think this is a good time to be able to just like get that out to your email list and say, or bundle things. This is a good time for bundling to say. You know, I have this guide and this workshop and this thing, and maybe they're not even all like, they don't really work cohesively, but you've done them for different reasons and they fit into the category of [00:30:00] slimming down in the new year or whatever the case is, and just bundling a bunch of crap together, honestly.

And then sticking like a discounted. Thing on it is kind of a good time to do this, and then just don't lead with the discount. I think that's why a lot of people don't open things up, is they're just seeing that consistently. And so thinking about how, from a subject line perspective, if you're sending emails, the content creation perspective and ads campaign perspective, how you're going to differentiate, like Joanna saying from the noise, how can you make it look different, sound different, feel different?

And I think that's important as we head into this time.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and finding ways to, you know, lead with the benefits, lead with your solutions, try some different things, you know

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: Like if you're always doing one thing in your content, trying something new, or a series, or being sillier or more celebratory, or anything that you can do that can set you apart. I do love a good value add. Instead of a discount, [00:31:00] Hey, if you, if you join now, I'm gonna throw in this extra bonus. Or normally it's only a year access, I'm gonna give you a, an extra three months or like, things like that. I think this time of year can really, really benefit people. Um, you know, and find ways.

Also, you can position your. Your items as gifts, right? So if you are, especially if you're a unique creator or something, you have, create something really unique, um, can get people in the mindset that they could gift this to someone, right? As a gift. So maybe you are a coach in the, in the personal wellness space, anything like that. You can let your customers know, Hey, do you love my community? Well, I'm gonna make it really easy for you to gift three months of my community to a friend, right? And like, think of ways to actually position yourself with a gifting opportunity. My daughter's homeschooled, so I get lots of like [00:32:00] curriculum ads and things like that.

So this time of year I have all kinds of ads about different kits and different things that I could like gift my child for, you know? Activities that she can do at home. So really thinking about how you can fit into the conversation, but in a way that's not cookie cutter, not, not, that's not like what everybody else is doing.

So your messaging stands out.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, and you really shouldn't try to be the cheapest. You shouldn't try to offer the best discount, like I don't think that's good from a business. Standpoint. I don't think it's good for your personal brand. I don't think it's good for your own mentality and the way you think about your brand. I love a value add, so being able to give something instead of trying to discount.

Very, very powerful. Again, I think that the more unique, creative and thoughtful you can be about approaching this as opposed to just like, oh, we're doing 50% off everything. It's like, try not to just go the easy route and try to think of something a little bit more strategically, [00:33:00] which brings me to my next and very interesting point in terms of what we're seeing in content creation.

Loved this example for a few different reasons. I'll explain what it is in a minute, but. We are in the world of AI and we've talked a lot about AI on the podcast before. If you aren't yet, subscribe and then go back and check for some of our AI discussions and how we feel about when to use it, how to use it, what it's, what we're seeing in the content creation industry and how it's hurting and helping in certain regards.

But this was a great use of ai. And one of the main reasons was is because some of the studies that have been done around AI is that people are okay with it as long as they know that it's ai. So people don't wanna be tricked like we are getting to a place with ai, video creation, ai. Writing ai, art creation and graphic creation where it can be deceiving and people don't want to feel deceived.[00:34:00]

They want to know, and they expect transparency and honesty from the businesses, brands, creators who are putting content out into the world. So if something is one, either very obviously AI or obviously as denoted as. Ai, then that's a positive exchange communication value in your marketing or in your strategy, because people want that trust in your brand, right?

If you're trying to pass something off as real when it isn't, that's a problem. And so this was very obviously AI because it's dogs talking.

Joanna Newton: And what does the internet love than puppies and babies? Right.

Michelle Pualani: puppies and babies are the number one visual appeal

Joanna Newton: Kittens. It may,

Michelle Pualani: in brands. Marketing ads and what

Joanna Newton: probably add kittens to the list.

Michelle Pualani: you had kittens. But dogs are way more appealing. People love dogs way more than kittens. I will say that's, that's like

Joanna Newton: or do you love [00:35:00] dogs? And

Michelle Pualani: so.

Joanna Newton: kids

Michelle Pualani: I am not my customer. Third party perspective. Yes, of course. I love dogs more than kittens.

I am biased. But generally speaking, people like dogs more than kittens. It's sa, it's science.

Joanna Newton: in science? We'll have to actually look that up because

Michelle Pualani: No, it's true.

Joanna Newton: I like, I don't really like cats. They kind of creep me out. But um.

Michelle Pualani: It's true.

Joanna Newton: look that up.

Michelle Pualani: We'll Google it. So this. Company is called Dog Pack. It is an app. It is simply for exploring dog parks and meeting other dog owners. So it's a way to create community around you having a dog. Now this app needs to get downloads. That's what's important. Obviously you have use and things like that, but the initial thing that you need, if you are an app.

Downloads, which means you need exposure. And then you need people to say, oh, I'm interested in enough to get it from the app store, right? So [00:36:00] you have to market it. And as marketing channels go, there are a lot of different options. There are a lot of which you can take. You could say Dog Pack is a great community and space for being able to connect with other dog owners, and here are all the amazing things that you're gonna see on the app.

And that's awesome. But like we've talked about. That doesn't always cut it. It's not gonna be as interesting. It's not gonna be as engaging. It's not gonna reach as many people. Is it informational? Yeah. Does it talk about the features? Awesome. Are you kind of even communicating the benefits? Totally. But what this brand did is they started creating content about a pod cast plan words Paw podcast as in dog.

Joanna Newton: We've got the berry, the berry, and the podcast. The.

Michelle Pualani: I love a good pun. Puns win every time. I love a good pun. Um, okay, so essentially they are creating just segments. It's [00:37:00] not even a full on podcast. Like, I don't think that you, I tried to find this, but I'm pretty sure it's not like a full deal because it's dogs talking. I don't know if eventually they will, but they're, they're essentially like social media clips.

In short, that center around one concept of being a dog. So it's like, so you have you, I'm sorry. This the idea of this is so funny. So they're AI dogs in the clips talking into podcast mics and it's, it's like a, you know, golden retriever or a, a little pug corgi. No, I'm forgetting. A Frenchie. It's a frenchie.

And they're like, yeah. You know when the human leaves home and you just feel like they're never gonna come back. Yeah, I know, man. I sit at the window and I just contemplate like you, they go into this story. So each of the clips are, you know, from the dog's perspective, it doesn't talk about the app, it doesn't talk [00:38:00] about what you can do on the app.

It doesn't do anything like that, but. It plays to people's entertainment, emotions, humor, and through this, they've been able to gain over 2 million users across T 20 countries in the app, and they've grown over 1 million followers on Instagram and TikTok alone for their social platforms.

Joanna Newton: Amazing. Uh, I love, I love this. example of like positive use of ai, right? For content creation. I didn't even mean to do that positive. Um, and one of the things I really like about this is we've, one thing we kind of know is important we've brought up on this show is the, the. Sort of, what's the right word?

Just like the increase of founder led social content, even with [00:39:00] big brands, right? So there is an importance of the founder or having some sort of face attached to a brand where you are, you are creating that connection because people don't want to follow a logo. They wanna follow a person or a character or a being, right? And that can be. It's very overwhelming. Like not everybody wants to be an expert. Not everyone wants to be like the face of a company and have to put their face out there every single day. It's not, some days you don't want to, right? And so I often have people come to me and they say. I want to grow this education brand, but I don't want to show my face, like I don't want to be up in front of a camera.

And they often, the next step they think of is, can I create an AI avatar of myself to make content? And that just tends to not. Go. Well, like of what you're saying, people don't wanna be deceived. And even if you had yourself as a human with that, this is AI over it, I feel like that would still give people like a lack of trust.

Especially if you're in more of a [00:40:00] growth stage, you're not established yet. And then if you are established like, well, I wanna hear from the real person, not this AI bot, but what they did here is they made something you couldn't. in real life, you can't make dogs

Michelle Pualani: Yep.

Joanna Newton: and do a podcast, right? They took something that was so fantastical and said, okay, we're gonna make these our characters.

It makes sense for them to be AI because we couldn't do this otherwise.

Michelle Pualani: Yep.

Joanna Newton: So we're doing it this way. I guess you could do it like CGI or blah, blah, blah. But like the average person couldn't do that with AI and created a campaign and persona around it. So the founder didn't have to be like. Come to this app, but they still have that character and that personal connection.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah. And the benefit of this is technically you could use these AI characters for all time. Like they're never gonna not be able to work. They're never going to get older. Like not, they're not gonna die like. Technically they can be representatives for the brand [00:41:00] and they've started bringing on dog influencers or like dog influencers.

So other real dogs are now being a part of this plant. So now they're into like collaborations and stuff. So I just think it.

Joanna Newton: collab aate

Michelle Pualani: Collab. Oh my gosh, there's so many dog puns. Honestly, I think my next company might be in the dog category. I think there's so much opportunity there and people spoil their dogs like,

Joanna Newton: I got it. I got it. Michelle. You could make fancy beverages for dogs.

Michelle Pualani: oh my gosh, a dog beverage brand. I bet you there are

Joanna Newton: like

Michelle Pualani: on the market.

Joanna Newton: deserves to unwind at the end of the night too.

Michelle Pualani: Love it. And the dog. CBD is a big market, actually. Okay. Noted.

Joanna Newton: a percentage

Michelle Pualani: Okay. Yeah, you'll be cut into, cut into our, uh, equity pool. Uh, yeah, so just brilliant. Just another way to think about your ad strategy. I [00:42:00] love this approach. I love the trial. I love what it represents. I love that they're not trying to be anything that they're not.

They're also talking about like heartfelt things that dog owners relate to. Like, you know, because we, as a, my dog's passed away, but as someone who loves dogs, has had dogs, you are thinking these things, like you are questioning these things about your dogs and you connect with them on such a deep level.

So again, thinking through how you can approach your marketing for ingenuity, for innovation, for. You know, talking about and, and sizing up what it is that your people want to hear, how can you relate to them? How can you be funny and engaging? How can you be entertaining? How can you capture their attention when we're in a world of.

Of noise and a world of constant consumption, and we have such a short attention span and we have such a short time in which we can like draw them in. So I think this is [00:43:00] super clever, a great representation of how to do things differently, how to leverage technology in a way that aligns with the brand, aligns with the purpose, and delivers on what the consumer wants.

Super powerful.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, definitely such a great little case study of a great thing to do. I feel like we covered a lot of really cool things on the show today from at, you know, Starbucks and how they are able to turn like premium, like not so premium products into premium prices and like increase the average. Order value and just going through some of these examples, you know, know for me is gonna help me think about how to kind of cut through the noise during this holiday season and continue to see growth. Um, so that 2026 is like killer.

Michelle Pualani: Absolutely. We are gearing up for a fabulous end of 2025 and we have big plans for 2026, so if you are not yet, hit [00:44:00] subscribe. Tune in every single week where we update you on. What's happening in marketing, personal brand identity, content creation that converts, and then you can find in our show notes where to sign up for the substack because we have these great conversations every single week.

But then you can get directly to your email the tactical, tangible steps in a very simplified way that you can actually apply them in your brand, in your business, and in your marketing strategy. That's all we've got for today. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.