The Story Part 1 (Episode 16)

Every business has a story. The question is whether you're telling it or letting someone else tell it for you.

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Kyle and Kim explore why the most successful brands combine great products with compelling stories. From founder visibility and authenticity to viral bands, iconic brands, and everyday businesses, they unpack how stories shape perception, build trust, and create connection.

A great product earns credibility. A great story creates meaning. The brands that endure understand both.

Part 2 coming next week.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's Legacy Live. I'm your host, Kyle Hossack.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

And I'm your host, Kim Fitzpatrick.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Today we're breaking down how story and product are symbiotic in the relationship of a business. And this is going to get really interesting. All right, Kim. So story and product. Each of us has some experience with both sides of this. Yeah. And we want to talk about some examples that exist outside of our own experience, some of which the audience may have heard of. I have an obscure one to discuss today that you will hear of because these guys are taking off.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Oh, like I was literally can't wait for you to share this. I was like, what am I watching? What am I watching? This is terrifying and cool. And by the end of it, I was like actually shimmying my shoulders. I was like, okay, there's gotta be this guy. This is cool. Yeah, there's something there.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

But let's so let's not get too far ahead. He left a little breadcrumb early there as a teaser. But so I'm in marketing. Everyone kind of these days is in marketing, you would argue, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Like there's no you are in marketing. If you have a business, you're in marketing.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so let's start right at the beginning with brand story and the importance of story to any brand.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yes, I love this. I mean, here's the thing: I do believe that either every brand has a story or the world will tell the brand the story. I do believe that, right? The story will get made up on your story will be made up based on the product and what people's experiences are, unless you have the idea, the concept, the story, the origin story, the heart behind it is so important.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Well, and there's marketing agencies out there that are paid millions of dollars to craft a story. Sometimes that's not the real story.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I think people can tell. I honestly can tell you. That's where this is going. That differencey. Like, I believe that people buy into any identity, they buy into meaning, they buy into like something that evokes some sort of emotion andor awareness, and or something that's like, oh, that feels good. That aligns with value, that aligns with who I am. I'm gonna purchase that and support this business.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Totally. I I was thinking like the last time I actually saw a TV commercial that an advertising agency had produced and worked on was a long time ago. Like, we watched so many streaming services and bounce around different platforms. The other day we we like waited for our Kojiko to fire up because we were like, let's watch TV. And then I got to see commercials and was like, Yeah, this is so wacky that there are so many ways to consume brand story these days that are and it's evolving. Like TikTok is where I see more brand stories than ever right now. Um, but that crafted message which still exists on that Kojiko box when it was like, okay, finally we're fired up and it's updated and the circles finish spinning. I was like, oh yeah, shit, they're still making these and trying to force a story. Yeah. That what I like about sort of the Instagram and TikTok and how reels come together to form a story is you may say see three people talking about a product, you may see the brand's choice of how they're gonna package a product or a story in their own reel, but it's like such a bigger picture now. And this goes back to what you said about is it the story authentic? And I think we're moving to where authenticity is no longer avoidable, right? And the story becomes whether you like your story or not, it's gonna get out.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah. And I think it's important to get ahead of it, right? It's ahead of it. One of the examples I love, and I this will be, I think it will resonate for everybody that enjoys cookies, but girl guy, girl guy cookies, like and I sold those myself. I remember going door to door, and it was the the vanilla and the chocolate sleeves. I we I love those so much, you know, and then that evolved into the mint thins. But there's I could I there I can't I could buy a whole box, and I remember used to get boxes because I I loved the connection to the mission, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

That it was helping well see, so you little Kim walking up to your front door, like that's a brownie outfit on, right? Okay, that's brand story where you see here. She comes, it's one of the girl guys and one of the brownies, and I know this money's going to support their endeavors and what they mean. The camp. Like there's a brand story, but now let me take scrape the needle off the record for a second. They do it.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

If those cookies weren't good, it doesn't matter if little Kim's walking up to my girl to sell those cookies. That's not gonna last very long when it's like or you know what, if they're cheap enough, but that box is going in the garbage, I'm not eating those. So that there's a perfect example there of story and product uniting to create an unstoppable force in business.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

And it has proven and proven and proven. How long has brought guys been in?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

We bought them this year, yeah. And it was so fun to watch my son answer the door and interact with the little girl.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

And that's like he did. And he said, Well, I'll take two boxes, please, and did this whole, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

And I remember being on that other side, feeling so proud. You're like, I just made ten dollars, and back then that's so big, you know. That's really, really cool.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

That's a great example. And there, you have your own example. Talk about Legacy by Kim.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

I love my Legacy by Kim. So Legacy by Kim was built. A my mom passed away when I was younger um from Hodgkin's lymphoma, cancer. She did not lose her hair. Um, after I was born, she didn't have treatment. So that now I'm learning that's probably why she didn't lose her hair. But I remember being told that she was always so worried about it. She loved her hair. She was, you know, it was pain. She did go through chemo earlier and it was painful. And I was like, huh. I was like, okay, well, if I'm gonna do anything, like, and I was always wanted to do something in fashion. I always loved my hair. I loved it. I always loved it. What was the impetus? Well, I was a soccer player and I would like, you know, the Oh, you've mentioned this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put my hair in, I'd make bands, I'd make bows, and I'd like to have headbands all the time. I always wore bandanas. Like I was very, uh, you know, I was a very outdoor ed kid. I loved camps. I was always like something in my hair.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Timing of the start of the company, though. Like what in your head said, I'm doing this now.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Well, I just was, I was in a wellness business at that time and I was like, I need headbands. I was always buying everybody else's headbands, and I was like, what if I can do this for myself? And the real story for me, the real part for me was like, I want this to give back. So that was like, again, I think it's important when you're thinking about building a company and building a story. I was like, okay, well, I love headbands. Sure. That's the origin of like, I've always loved this. This is functional. That feels good.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

This is why I know there's a market for this. There's a market for this.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

This could work. I was like, but how do I tie emotion and legacy into that? How do I bring in the story behind like wanting you to feel good in your skin, wanting you to feel good in what you don't? I remembered my the first time I even filmed a video on it was one time. My marketing video for Legacy by Kim, which is still up. I had a side part then. You know, not the middle part. I was, I was very Everyone's gonna leave the episode. You need to go watch the we should put it in. Let's move it in. Like it's I'm walking with my head.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

We just cut through a picture of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

I'm my side thing and I'm walking with my headbands. And I'm like, you know, but I I did. I was like, you know, everyone deserves to feel great. And then when you don your band, I wanted people to feel that way. So part of this was like, okay, feel good. Look good, feel good, and it also be connected to human emotion, right? So those name bands would be like brave, uh dare bravely, you know, or act boldly or live in the light. And I would go live before the launch and I would like we'd announce the names and I'd be wearing them, being like, this is why we chose this name. And then it got to the point where people were voting in name ideas, and it was like such a community connected, you know, like mission movement of it, wasn't just a headband, it was legacy, right? And then we went on to be like, okay, well, we want to make scrub caps. Okay, we want to there, it was coming into the pandemic. I'm like, okay, we need to put buttons on for the mask, right? So we iterated, we didn't just stay with the story, right? We moved with the we moved with the product.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

But I can tell from the way you're talking, your passion for the story helped in the marketing of the product because it was real.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

It was, and every headband, this was what was so important to me, makes me emotional. Every headband helped us to be able to create the gift a headband program. So anyone in the entire world could nominate anyone that was walking through cancer, and we would send them a headband, a beanie, a scarf, and we it would be our we would build that was just built into the program and we we sent thousands. You know, I remember receiving an email one time or a text one time from my girlfriend that was struggling with her daughter at um uh sick kids, and she said, Kim, I'm literally, it was like two in the morning. She's like, I just saw four nurses walking around with your headbands on.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Oh, wow, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

And that's that's where it started to become different. So I think the brand got sticky because there was an emotion to it, it was connected and rooted in community. We asked for people's opinions. I wanted the feedback. It was a simple, beautiful package. We employed women from all over the from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, all the way to here to cross provinces, and they were makers in their home. So we were able to help women build a small little business in their home. And it was really cool. At one point, we had 24 seamstresses, you know, and it was like a really neat thing. So that was the like a real highlight of my product-based business that was six years, it was super successful, you know, seven-figure uh company and brand. It was beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah, well, and you can tie the girl guides perfectly because there's a real story that happens early in your life. Yeah, you didn't immediately go, I can capitalize on this story. It it was a thing that worked through time where you said, you know, I really want to honor my mom, and there's people out there going through cancer. Yeah, so it's kind of perfect. But I, you know, I want to pull this back a little bit to a business owner who's out there being like, Well, geez, I don't have like how big does the story need to be? And it's okay if it's not momentous and monumental because there's probably a story tucked in there somewhere that uh, you know, for for me, my revenue brand story doesn't have an emotional connection, but it does have a tie to entrepreneurship. Where I was like, there's no clothing brand that just celebrates like starting a business, you know? There's brands that are ostentatious where you can tell it cost a lot of money to wear it, and it looks like you're doing well in business, but I wanted something that's you know, maybe one day we will have a grant where 5,000 goes back to an entrepreneurial scholarship to a school. I can see that, but I didn't I I I couldn't start with like all of that messaging right away. So for anyone listening, it's not about geez, I don't have a story, so I shouldn't start this. The story could be anything, really. There's likely something there that you just haven't thought about in in your past or something you're passionate about that you can turn into the story. And now now I'm gonna jump to our scary example. So I didn't find this scary, but I understand now that you're like, what is this?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Jarring, it was jarring. I was like, what am I watching?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

So you know, I I go to the video and I'm like, wow, 15 million views, but that likely means you know, the few hundred people that will see this right away probably haven't heard of this band. There's a band out of Quebec called Angine de Poitrine that has exploded. And 15 million views in three months to me is exploded. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I've seen footage, some they've gotten so big that I've seen footage of them without their costumes on. Like there's detectives out there online, right? Like these guys have been playing for a long time, they know their shit, they're very good musicians. That used to be all you needed to make it as a band. Yeah, um bands today are about marketing, they're about business, they're about songs or their product, but their product is so much more. And the reason these guys are taking off is they've thought about every frickin' angle. So we're gonna call here's a picture of them. Yeah, but like if you see this, like I'll break this down as fast as I can. Their instruments all have twice as many frets as a regular instrument, they're playing micro-tonal music. So it it's bizarre.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

I did learn this today. I was today years old. Yeah. When I learned this gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

So if we tinfoil ball their story, right? They evaluated every piece. So the guitar player is playing the bass and the guitar at the same time. Yeah, not only is he using a pedal board, he's not wearing socks, and he's painted his feet polka dot, yeah, but he's not wearing socks so he can control the knobs on the pedals. Like that's how good and how much thought has gone into this music. One guy's got this flaccid nose on a paper mache mask. You see what I mean? About like checking how far, how shareable can we make this story? Right. Right down to one guy's nose is sticking out, paper mache, one of them swinging around while he's drumming, polka dots everywhere, reverse polka dots on the backdrop. The sign they use, I think they just made themselves with markers, which you know that means you can craft your own story by putting the thought into what's gonna be shareable. And this thing is shareable. I showed you, you know, I said to Kim yesterday, Halo, watch the video in the link I sent you, and we found a real where Dave Grohl, they with Dave Grohl from The Foo Fighters was asked, like, what is the what's your favorite band right now? And they have entered the zeitgeist for everyone in music, where they just controlled the story so well and gave there's so much to share and talk about that I'm it's still mind-blowing to me. And the music has taken almost a backseat to the whole thing because when you first heard it, you're like, This isn't even music, and it took like the beat had to come in.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

It did, and then I was like, Okay, this is actually pretty good. See how, but I was so taken, and I think one of the things that caught me off guard was I was so taken off guard by the look of it. Like, I was like, Oh, this is scary. This feels scary. This is a map. This is a like, and then I was like, Oh, hold on. They okay, and then I saw his feet and I was like, okay, hold on. And they're you're right, the attention it took, like, I my eyes couldn't stop going everywhere. I didn't leave. That's why there's uh so many views because they are so smart with how they're just sharing it, and then I could feel the beat, and I was like, Oh, my shoulders are shimmying.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Oh my goodness, and there's no singing, like there's two guys standing there doing this, and it's like such a I just thought it was the perfect example because they like I said, someone dug up footage of them before, and it was two guys, yeah. But there were no costumes, there were no colors, there was no story.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

And were they good?

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Would you say fantastic? Yeah, but good these days gets you playing open-air festivals and you're playing at two o'clock in the afternoon, and no one's turn no one's texting their business partner going, Have you seen this? Yeah, that's true. Because you need so much more these days behind your brand, behind your product.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Um and the thought, I think one of the things that stood out to you, and again, it's like not to scare anyone to think now that they need to go paint their toes and have polka dots, but it's like mine are painted under these shoes. Yeah, they are, they are green, yeah. But it's like we're not saying that, but it is is like be brave, be bold, be just get out there and like have the audacity to be like audacity, yeah. Like that is audacious. Like, I was like, oh, this is audacious, and that's I like that. I like hearing that now. Okay, we got another example that was so funny watching this. So talk us through the McDonald's moment.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Oh, right, McDonald's.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Okay, the McDonald's moment.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

I think most people have seen this, but we had not seen I live in a hole. This is like kind of an old example now, but like this is a waste brand story, and we talked about whether a brand can control their own story or whether it's actually the people, the audience, controlling the story these days. So the CEO of McDonald's they released the McArch, I believe it's called.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

If you haven't seen it, you need to do it.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

He embarrassed the hell out of himself because he sat down and was like, I'm the CEO, watch this. I'm gonna introduce our new burger. A, he kind of alluded to the fact that him eating that for lunch was odd. Yeah, you think if you're the CEO and you're telling the story, you you probably want it to seem like you eat McDonald's every day. Right. He clearly uh revealed his cards that he does not. He finds it revolting now in two ways, because he went to take a bite of the burger and it wasn't a bite. Like he didn't even take a bite. He got like part of the top of the bun, and then he showed it, and the patties were still intact. He's like, Look at that, but he's like, Whoa, that's a bite of a burger. And like, so this is brand story, you know. You might think how your story's gonna land, and in this case, it backfired, and and half of the reels didn't talk about what we saw once we started flipping through that same search.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Well, then what happened is people were making fun of it, they were doing it, and again, this comes down to like believability. Yeah, I don't believe you. And even in the thing, he's like, you know, I'm gonna, I'm only gonna have a small bite because I'm gonna have this later for lunch. And I'm like, you know, it's in the details of oh, I let me just prime you that I'm not really gonna take a big bite, but I'm gonna show you that like it just didn't make sense of someone that was actually like, you know what, I'm behind this. I love this. And then alternatively, the Burger, so all these other companies are coming. So AW, Burger King, they're all responding. Yeah, Wendy's.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

It went in even into chicken, every restaurant. Every restaurant spoof of them.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

And I loved Burger King impressed me the most when the CEO responded. He actually was like, Here's my phone number. So you can text me what you think about our burgers, how we can improve how can we make everything better better. How can we make everything better? And what it did again, it like immediately made people be like, Oh, I can trust you, I can approach you, I can you want to make this better for us, you know? And it's like that's important to have the believability that you actually care about what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Also, the nimble nature of watching the zeitgeist. So Burger King CEO goes, Oh man, the McDonald's CEO just screwed this up royally. He had the choice to go dark a bit and be like, I don't want to screw up the way that guy did. Thank God that wasn't me. Or when you put that marketing engine into action, you go, we're gonna pounce on this. Yeah. And they did.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

And he even was the only one that flipped the burgers. I admired that. He like again, I'm gonna in the kitchen, I'm gonna ape, I'm gonna, and again, this is powerful from a marketing brand small business. I always think about this. Like, I remember back in my senior loving days, like I would go plunge the toilet. Like, even in man, like, because you I'm not gonna go ask anyone to do anything.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

I know every part of this brand.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, I know every part of every rule, every single thing. I've had like, you know, because I'm not gonna go ask you to do something that you're not doing. That that Burger King CEO demonstrated that. I've flipped burgers before, I've worked the grill, I understand what you work for. With I loved that. I was like, yep, I'm going to Burger King.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Bingo. And they they they their brand equity just went from it from a trust.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

So it's it's always about know, like, and trust. And are you building that whether you have one idea or whether you have a massive idea, like it doesn't matter? That's where you have to start.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Burger King turned that into a month of content because I saw reels where he was like turned to everyone in the restaurant who was working, was like, apparently our nuggets are shit. Like literally, yeah, swearing. And he's like, Well, we're gonna fix it. Thank you, Catherine, who wrote on my TikTok that the nuggets have been trash forever. And he's like, You know what? They have been, yeah, they have been, and they made them better.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

I love this.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Like, I've had I've had the ones in the Oakville BK and was like, holy cow! Yeah, this like evolved in such a weird way that here it is locally, where I'm like, these got better. And now talk about like that thread of a story and like capitalize.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah, you know, I think that's what it's it's all about. And I also think, too, when we talk about stories, is some brands will force a story. Like, let me just like manufactur, like and you can see spent a million dollars coming up with it.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Let me be perfect, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Let me be brand aesthetic, let me be all those things. And then I also think sometimes brands or founders will hide their stories too because oh God, I don't want to be start, I don't want to be seen as like struggling or it's hard, or you know, like what does that look like? Yeah, like I don't wanna, but it's my personality. And you know, there's like a huge thing right now on social media where there's like amazing psycho psychologists that have a real that have a t a personal brand that are like dancing on their kitchen counter because they're like, I have a personality. I might also be a you know, a a psychiatr, a psychiatrist or a um a psychologist, but I'm gonna show you my personality that you can live your life out loud. And I admire that. This is me. You know, so are you forcing your story? Are you hiding your story, or are you sharing your story? Do you know your story? Do you know your brand? Do you know what you want to be doing? Like the more you know you and the more authentic you are, the more that you are allowed to create that memory in other people's mind.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

And we're about to cliffhanger the crap out of this, right? Yeah. We're done. Yeah. But we're coming back with part two next week.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

We are