Startup Sessions: Building an Authentic Brand (with Bugisu)

In this edition of “Startup Sessions” we are talking about “Building an Authentic Brand”. Kylie Jenner may be a billionaire thanks to self-branding, but company and product branding is a different beast, merging creativity and authenticity. To tell us more about authentic branding as a young entrepreneur is Brody the Co-Founder of the Bugisu Project.

Bugisu is a closed-loop coffee supplier brewing (low-waste and maximum impact) a better and more sustainable culture in workplaces. The company is a social enterprise and launched in May 2018 when Brody was still a student at UNSW. They currently supply some of Australia’s most exciting tech companies such as Canva and Finder.

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What function does marketing play in a company?

Marketing is a way to spread our message and grow our customer-base. It helps people and companies find us and vice versa.

For us, marketing is more than just the production of creative content, it is a form of storytelling and connecting people. It’s anything that sheds light on our “why”, why we sell our product, why we exist in the market.

By using different mediums and channels to explain our “why”, marketing helps people feel part of the journey — both our active customers and the broader community.

What are some elements of your messaging/marketing strategy that help build your authenticity?

To be honest, in the early days we definitely struggled with this. As a group of students forming a not-for-profit business for the first time we were in a completely new space. We felt it was extremely important to make people aware of the issues we were responding to without romanticising or stereotyping them. This was especially the case for us working within an unfamiliar culture and environment in Uganda.

It’s sometimes obvious when an organisation is greenwashing or self-aggrandising vs. actually integrating best-practice throughout their operations. We realised how important it was to be aware that other people are trying to tackle the same issue(s), and many are doing a great job. There’s also likely a lot of people who want to help, but can’t (for a number of reasons). This is why people connect with brands who contribute to the broader purpose and do so in a humble and pragmatic way.

Because of this we felt it was important the head of marketing’s voice (Brody) doesn’t become the NFP’s voice. I tried to capture and distill the themes our leadership team wanted embedded into the “voice” of Bugisu Project and consistently carry that through our video and written collateral. These themes were clearly outlined: articulate, progressive, confident, and passionate and we focused on creating content and utilising media channels based around this.

In addition to this we knew that authenticity comes from a combination of TWO things: storytelling and data. We like to use both to help propel our marketing campaigns to focus on the content and mediums that work for our audiences.

Bugisu utilises several media channels/formats including videos with hand-drawn elements. How and why did you decide which channels were best?

Video is the best content-type for transparency, so we like to use that; particularly to demonstrate our experience in Uganda. Hand-drawn images in our video are done so to make them feel very personal and honest. We value those things.

We are beginning to use social media channels for different things — Twitter for thought-leadership on global issues; LinkedIn and Instagram for demonstrating the service experience; Facebook for fostering a community.

For any business it’s important to always consider the themes of your messaging, what do you want to say? Why? After you know what, why, and who you want to say something it’s easier to figure out how you want to do it (i.e. which content, media channel, or style works best)

In a crowded media landscape what is ONE WAY the Bugisu appears different?

We’ve got a small team so we’re very transparent about who we are and why we’re doing this — that’s how we create authenticity too by promoting each member is a unique individual that’s part of a motivated team.

We also promote other people/organisations we are collaborating with (or even just ones that inspire us). This helps us become aligned with other audiences who then take interest in what we do.

When it comes to building a brand (both in social impact and outside of it), what principles does Bugisu swear by to maximise engagement?

• Honesty, transparency: It’s important to be clear and honest about your cause or business.
• Vibrancy, passion: When you’re passionate and committed, it shows, and audiences and customers are attracted to it.

Startup Sessions is a Textbook Ventures blog aimed at helping budding student entrepreneurs by sharing best practices and tips from other student entrepreneurs who are pioneers in their industry.