Building Uncommon Brands with Kenny Nguyen — Gold Rush Fall 2020 Learning Series

The Gold Rush Learning Series is part of the Fall 2020 Accelerator Program. Each week, industry-leading advisors lead keynote presentations on topics ranging from growth and branding to fundraising and product development. Kenny Nguyen is the CEO and Founder of ThreeSixtyEight, a creative agency whose mission is to challenge common thinking so that we can create an uncommon future. Here, he shares what it means to build an “uncommon brand”.

What do a party card game, a mattress, and an outdoor clothing company all have in common? Surprisingly, it’s the trustworthy brands they have built. When we fill in the names of these players: Cards Against Humanity, Casper, and Patagonia, you’ll picture recognizable brands, but more importantly, those positive memories associated with your experience consuming high-quality products.

Kenny Nguyen refers to these powerful brands as the uncommon ones: brands that truly stick out realize that their purpose doesn’t mean anything until it costs them money. These brands have solved the brand lie.

For most companies, there’s a gap between what they say and what they do. When customers realize this gap exists, it breaks trust between your brand and your consumer which is a difficult, if not impossible problem to resolve.

At Gold Rush, we strive to help build and find uncommon brands, and in this seminar, Kenny Nguyen points out the familiar signs that emerge with Founders who have developed these uncommon brands.

They Live Their Purpose

Blueland (GR Fall 2019) and Sarah Paiji Yoo come immediately to mind when we think of Founders who live their purpose. Every public-facing asset Blueland produces lives and breathes its mission: to build the future people want to live in. However, it’s not just Sarah’s company that breathes this mission, she lives it herself.

On her personal social media pages, Sarah constantly touts her lack of use of plastics in any form. She’s standing up for what she believes in, and her company was built to extend that purpose beyond her individual efforts. By doing this, Blueland has effectively closed the gap between what your brand does and what they say.

Kenny shares this framework for how you can identify those uncommon companies who live their purpose:

Blueland could easily be described as an environmental activism company disguised as a sustainable cleaning and soap product seller. But why is this important? When your product aligns with a cause your users and Founders truly believe in, you increase your surface area for achieving word-of-mouth virality.

They Know Their Person

Most brands cast a wide net in the giant ocean, but that doesn’t allow you to tailor your brand strategy towards a specific audience. When building a product and marketing your brand, you need to be empathetic to your audience’s needs.

Avarelle’s (GR Fall 2020) James Oh created his company’s Acne Cover Patch product when trying to find an acne solution for his wife. James recognized the problem was intense enough to build his own solution when he recognized that his wife’s acne was detrimental to her self-confidence and mental health. Avarelle’s core product was developed with sincere care to solve a problem for an audience that the company deeply understands.

Kenny provides four key questions that should easily be answered if you know your person:

1. What is their name?
2. What is their passion?
3. What is their pain?
4. How do you make them a hero?

It takes sacrifice to find and lift up your heroes. Heroes are people who can spread messages thoughtfully and feel empowered by your brand. You cannot be discouraged by a certain percentage of users that will be angered by any choice you make because on the other end, you will have won heroes of your brand that trust you.

Building heroes is a two-way street. First, you must help your person feel secure. Avarelle’s acne patch allows its users to feel in control of the outcomes of their skincare routine. In return, those heroes inspire others to share your mission. Heroes provide organic growth that is not driven by paid advertising or sponsorships but driven by the closing of the gap between what you say and what you do. Uncommon brands have heroes, to find your heroes, know who they are.

Here are some tactical ways brands build heroes:

• Allow a platform or person to break non-public news
• Create an events series for people to share their stories while teaching others.
• Create a digital platform for people to share their support or gratitude for an impacted sector.
• Teach people how to do a skill that benefits others.
• Highlight or tag someone on your social media that deserves recognition.
• Create an awards system celebrating someone’s achievement over respectable, uncommon criteria that distinguishes them from others
• Donate money to a cause that’s supporting someone in need.

They Strategically Position

When we think of “kombucha” without naming any explicit brands, Health-Ade Kombucha (GR Spring 2020) comes immediately to mind.

Any uncommon company can easily fill in the gaps in Kenny’s positioning framework which includes these key questions:

• Who is your target customer?
• What do they need?
• What are you truly selling and in what category?
• What is the key benefit of your product compared to your competing alternative?

You can fill this out by completing the below:

For (target customer)

Who (statement of need or opportunity),

(Product name) is a (product category)

That (statement of key benefit).

Unlike (competing alternative)

(Product name)(statement of primary differentiation).

Health-Ade recognizes its target customer as a health-conscious consumer who needs a multi-functional, healthy, and tasty product. Therefore, they sell a convenient, fun health-booster in the beverage category. Rather than focusing on the traditional perception of being a fermented drink, Health-Ade double-downed on its flavor, fun, and healthy elements to win in the kombucha space.

To be able to live your purpose, know your person, and strategically position you and your team have to publicly live and own decisions. Your leadership will always be more valuable than any marketing campaign you run. Decisions that drive these three elements are what build brands. Decisions reflect your purpose and your purpose does not mean anything until it costs you money.

Kenny Nguyen is the CEO and Co-Founder of ThreeSixtyEight, a creative agency whose mission is to challenge common thinking so that we can create an uncommon future. The company’s passion lies in helping companies build uncommon customer experiences that live up to their brand promise. Prior to ThreeSixtyEight, he co-founded Big Fish Presentations, a current service line of ThreeSixtyeight, that focuses on ridding the world of boring presentations through high-quality presentation design, presentation coaching, and speechwriting.

The Gold Rush Learning Series is part of our 12-week accelerator program. This insight was part of our Fall 2020 program, if you’re a Founder and want to learn more about our program check out this post or visit our website at www.goldhouse.org/goldrush/.

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