EP 20 | Why Your Brand Messaging Isn't Converting - And It Has Nothing To Do With Your Copy!

If you've rewritten your about page, hired a copywriter, or taken every messaging course — and your brand still isn't converting — this episode is your wake-up call. Brand strategist Shivani Pandey breaks down the real reason your brand messaging isn't landing: it's not the words, it's the structure underneath them. Through three real-world brand failures — Allbirds, Juicero, and Peloton — she reveals the brand story arc that turns messaging from noise into a movement. This is brand strategy for female founders who are done tweaking copy and ready to fix the foundation.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why fixing your copy without fixing your story structure is like putting great lighting in a house with no foundation
• The three structural mistakes that cause brand messaging to fail — illustrated through Allbirds, Juicero, and Peloton
• What a "brand villain" is and why your brand desperately needs one
• Why your customer — not your offer — must always be the hero of your brand story
• The four questions every buyer is unconsciously asking before they decide to trust you
• What brand story architecture is and why you need to map it before you write a single word of copy

Brands Mentioned:

• Allbirds (allbirds.com)
• Juicero (shut down 2017)
• Peloton (onepeloton.com)

Connect With Shivani:

• Instagram: [https://www.instagram.com/thinkbrandforward/]
• Website: [www.thinkbrandforward.com]
• Waitlist for the Storyboard Intensive: [coming soon]

Connect With Shivani:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkbrandforward/
• Website: www.thinkbrandforward.com
• LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivanipandey2506/
• Book your Storyboard : https://www.thinkbrandforward.com/story-board

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome back. I am so excited over the next couple of weeks. I am going to be talking about a great new thing that I'm creating, and there's so much exciting stuff happening behind the scenes. So welcome, welcome. And yes, I really want to start from the place of the fact that we all keep reworking some of the stuff that we've done, right? You've rewritten your pages about four times the copy on the landing page. Maybe you even hired a copywriter, right? You've taken the messaging course, you've done all the you know all the necessary things in place as a female founder to get it going, but something is missing. The DMs are quiet, um, or it's not connecting or translating in a way that you would like it to. So I want to tell you something, no one else is saying that your copy is not the problem, right? The problem is what's underneath it, the structure, the story arc, and today I'm going to show you exactly what that looks like because there are brands that already have spent millions getting it wrong. Yes, so hold on tight, you're not the only one who's getting is is not able to you utilize your words correctly. There are so many examples out there, and we're just gonna dig deeper in them today so that you know we can learn from those mistakes and make sure that our work and our content is not feeling the same way. So, I really want to start with saying that you need to name the real villain before you start talking about your product or service, doing the things all that you're doing. You have to get the villain out there. This is called hyper contrast brand positioning, right? Your great copy can be sitting on top of a broken story structure. It's like it's like there's beautiful lighting in your house, but the ha the foundation that's broken, so it looks good, but it's not comfortable, no one wants to come to that house, it's shaky. That's why it doesn't sell. The number one reason messaging doesn't convert isn't weak words, it's no story arc, no clear villain, no customer transformation, no identity shift. Brands spend millions on this mistake, and I'm here to tell you you don't have to. So, always when we're talking about a brand, or you're talking about what you do, or you know what is your product about, features about, what's what are you selling, you have to start with a villain. Um, if your story has no villain, then there is something that will not work out in the long run for you. And I'm gonna take an example of Albert's here, okay. You know about the Albert shoes, the famous Silicon Valley look that was so popular between 20 I think 10 and 15 or 16, and yes, it was one of the most uh sorry, 2016 actually. It launched a great product back then, it was you know all about sustainability, comfortable shoes made from natural material, wool, sugarcane soles, eucalyptus fiber. I mean, the product just sounds like a dream, isn't it? And it worked for a moment, it worked. They went public in 2021, and I think it was like listed around$15 a share. But you know what? By 2024, their stock had dropped over 97%, like stores closed, mass layoffs. I think this January of 2026 they have also sold out to uh uh you know a hedge fund or a VC company who's kind of taking care of it. So a brand which was so popular and suddenly became like you know, it it became nothing from something which was so amazing. So, what went wrong? We're gonna talk about that. I feel as a brand strategist that they never named a villain. Sustainable shoes sound good, but sustainable against what the toxic synthetic shoe industry, the brand positioning, you know, the brand poisoning uh the planet, fast fashion, destroying the earth. They guaranteed at it, but never made it very visceral, you know, never made it personal. So when another competitive brand like Nike launched a sustainable line, I mean, what does all birds have to stand on? There's no fortress, and obviously the loyalty is shifted instantly, the product preference just changed. So I really feel that this is the problem, right? Without a story, there's no brand loyalty, without the stakes, there's no story, just a product preference, and product preferences can always change, and in contrast, I'm gonna talk about Patagonia for a moment, right? Patagonia has the same essentially the same products, the same um, you know, sustainability driven products, but their entire narrative is about how the planet we need to save this planet, right? It is not about their shoes or their jackets or whatever it is, right? Literally, they have a they had a campaign called don't buy this jacket, and it went viral. So I'm just trying to tell you that without naming the villain, you don't have a story, your brand needs a clear enemy, not a person, but a problem, a system, a belief your ideal client is fighting against. That's what creates a movement, not just a market. So think about it in your industry or in the work that you do for your customers. Who is the enemy? Number two, I really feel this mistake being I've seen this across, and the problem today is every brand is making their product the hero, it's all about them, what they do, everything, but not your customer, right? Like essentially, the the story has to be flipped. Your product is not the hero, your customer is the hero, you are just an enabler for that hero. So I'm gonna dig another example here. Uh Jacero, I think Jacero was again a Silicon Valley startup in 2016. They raised about 120 million, right, to sell a$400 Wi-Fi connected shoes press. Now, their entire messaging was about the machine, right? Proprietary cold press packs, precision, pressure technology, app connectivity, engineering innovation. It was impressive, it was detailed, it was it was so much about the product that it went completely wrong. Because no one bought a$400 juicer because they love engineering, right? They bought it because they would have bought it because they wanted to become someone, the person who prioritizes their health, the person who starts their morning with intention, the parent who nourishes their family differently. Now, Juicero never told that story. The product was the hero all the time, and then I think Bloomberg published a video showing that you could get the same result, which is squeezing the pack with your hands. Oh my god, the product story collapsed instantly because there was no customer transformation story underneath it to hold it up. Um, I think Gacero shut down in 2017. I'm not sure, but I mean, again, the idea is that your brand messaging, you your brand is not the hero, your offer is not the hero, your client, your consumer, your customer, they are the hero. Your role as a brand is to be the guide, the tool, the method that helps them become who they're trying to become. The moment your brand becomes about you, you're absolutely alienating your customer from the whole story, right? So, this is the second part of it in the storytelling broken architecture that we are seeing today, and which is not being delivered in the way that brands literally millions spending millions are not capturing. And my dear brand strategy for my dear female founders is to see these loopholes and implement them today so they can start working on their story arc right away. Also, another third part of this this narrative is that you're showing the wrong transformation, right? Uh, I mean, I love Paloton, I have a Peloton at home, and it's still there and like trying to regain a lot of market back, but obviously, it did ride high on the 2020 pandemic situation, which was about working out at home, premium experience. So, you know, they had a lot of uh powerful brand story arc in fitness initially. The entire identity was a transformation arc, to be honest, right? You become the 6 a.m. workout person, the disciplined one, the one who shows up for yourself, who's part of an elite community of people who aren't who don't make excuses. So I think there was there is there was so much good stuff that Peloton was kind of you know tugging at. Um, in fact, their instructors, I think they had their own cool uh, you know, part of the whole story. They were like characters, and it was quite spectacular to be honest. But something after the pandemic kind of changed, I think there was an ad that they had done sometime back during Christmas, which was called The Gift, where a husband has gifted Peloton to his wife, and I think that went down a real rabbit hole of people disliking the whole thing, right? Like there's so much commentary on it about how this basically means the husband is expecting the woman to change, and somehow the the entire fine print around it was the production was fine, but I think the story was so majorly broken here. Um, you always want your transformation to be aspirational to your client, right? If you're you're not gender specific and your product is for everyone, whoever you are showcasing has to feel that aspiration in your transformation, right? You have to not the aspiration from the outside looking in, but like from looking in towards the outside. So, in this particular scenario, the the whole gifting uh of a paladon from a husband to a wife seems like you know it's it's being like the transformation being handed down, and that's not something that you want the transformation because transformation is such an internal process, you want the people to feel it internally from their bottom of their soul, right? So, um, yes, before you write any content copy, before you are looking at all the right words in the brand voice, like I think about it. What is the transformation your client wants to claim that it's their own? Not the transformation that they need, but like the arc has to make them feel the choice, the power, like she's becoming something, right? So honestly, um, I want to talk about story arc in a much much bigger way, in every possible way, because I think strategic storytelling is missing from so much of the things that I see around, and it's not just you, even bright big brands are making big mistakes around this, and I really want to help you fix that. So, I want to talk about my offer. I am planting the seeds for you to start thinking about your story. Here is my storyboard offer. So, all three brands have something in common, and what most founders I work with have in common too, they have a beautiful execution on top of a broken foundation. Alberts had a great product design, Jacero had a great technology, Palaton still has a great production, but none of them had a clear story structure, a brand story arc that answers some of the basic questions that every buyer is unconsciously thinking. What's the problem I'm in? Who do I become and I solve it? Why is this the path? And why now? So that's what I call a story brand architecture. It's not something you just write, it's something you map before the copy, before the content, before the offer page, you need the structure first. That's exactly what I help founders build inside my storyboard intensive. But more on that soon. For now, I want you to walk away with this. Stop editing your words, your copy can wait. First, start examining your structure. Alright, I hope that helped. And if today's episode hit different, if you heard Alberts or Pelton and thought, wait, that's what I have been doing. So I really want you to save this episode, share it on your stories, tag me. I want you to know which brand examples landed hard for you. And if you're ready to go deeper on your own brand story architecture, stay tuned. I have something coming up for you very soon. So until next week, she brands, she builds, and she becomes the category. That's what Think Brand Talk Brand is all about. So that's me signing off. Thank you so much!