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Why That Worked #34: Magic Spoon—How One Tagline Dethroned Sugar and Disrupted a $65B Industry (RE-RELEASE)
00:24:35
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, hero makers, it's podcast producer Bobby Richards. I'm jumping in to share with you a new episode of our brand new podcast, why that worked, presented by StoryBrand AI with Donald Miller back in the host seat. Now, since we launched Marketing Made simple, we've been so grateful to have everybody tune in each week to learn how to make your marketing easy and make it work. Which is exactly why we're sharing new episodes of the why that Worked podcast here. In the old Marketing Made simple feedback, but only for a limited time. Each episode of the new show is gonna deliver actionable insights and key takeaways that are all designed so you can implement them to help make whatever you're working on work. Now, here's the deal. Like I said, this is only for a limited time. If you wanna catch new episodes early, you can watch or listen every Monday. To watch the show, just go subscribe to the StoryBrand YouTube channel. And to listen, go follow why that worked, presented by StoryBrand AI wherever you enjoy your podcasts. All right, that's it for me. So grateful you're here. And enjoy this week's episode of why that worked, presented by StoryBrand AI. You're listening to the why that Work podcast presented by StoryBrand AI. If you've ever wondered why certain brands, trends or cultural phenomena find success while others don't, you're in the right place. Every week we unpack why something worked, then give you actionable insights that you can use in your own life. Now let's dive in with your hosts, Donald Miller and Kyle Reed.
- [01:27]
B
Today we talk about Magic Spoon. Don.
- [01:30]
C
I've never heard of it before today when you said Magic Spoon. Knowing that we always talk about products, you said we're talking about Magic Spoon. I assumed it was sort of an infomercial, like non sticking Spoon, like a non stick pan. That's where mine went. Which is interesting that that's the name of the company and when somebody just says the name of the company or the product, I thought it was something else that would normally be a mark against you.
- [01:52]
B
Yes.
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C
Like if I need to know when you name the product, kind of what it is and what it delivers. So that's the first thing our listeners can learn. You know, if you get the product name right, it really helps you. You don't have to, but it means that you have to now educate me about what you're talking about rather than the product telling me what you're talking about.
- [02:15]
B
Yeah. So if you're starting out, if you're Magic Spoon, they started in 2019. And you come up with that name from a tactical standpoint about communicating about what the product is itself. Would you lean into that name first to kind of try to make that synonymous?
- [02:31]
C
Look, magic. How can you argue with their success? We're going to get into their success in numbers in a minute. And that's what people tell me all the time. Well, nobody knows. Coke doesn't say that. It's a soda. It's just Coke. Well, they're several trillion dollars into this.
- [02:44]
B
I think it says since 1908 on their canister.
- [02:47]
C
Yeah, exactly. So they no longer to educate people. But if you're releasing a toaster and it's called quick toast or something, then I kind of know that thing's going to make toast quick. And that really is an advantage if you're launching a product. And so there are a lot of times when somebody's launching a product and the name of it is what happens is the brain has to burn calories. The brain burns calories processing information. And if you say to me, magic spoon, and I assume it's some sort of new kitchen device, you know what I mean? Like a device that you ladle soup out of that has some sort of gimmicky thing to it. If my mind goes there, you have to burn two sets of calories. In terms of chunked thinking, I've got to unthink what I thought it was and then rethink what it actually is. So that's the principle there. So one way around that, if you say, well, Don, it's too late for us. We already launched this product. And the truth is people are confused about what it is. When we say the name, what you need to do is you need to follow it by a really quick tagline so that they don't have time to think it's anything different. So you would say Magic Spoon, healthy cereal. Yes, you would say that really quickly because the brain will try to figure out what it is automatically. And I'm not kidding, within maybe one and a half seconds.
- [04:06]
B
Yeah. So looking at their tagline, I actually think they have a good one.
- [04:09]
C
I'll read it to you.
- [04:10]
B
Magic Spoon.
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C
Well, they did something right.
- [04:11]
B
Yeah. Healthy cereal that tastes good. Too good to be true.
- [04:14]
C
Okay. There's a lot I love about this. Tell me about it. Magic Spoon is. It's okay. They've clearly overcome it. It's not great. I would have called it something else that maybe connotates healthy cereal, but couple things. One is they say exactly what it is. So healthy cereal. Let's just start there. The first two words are healthy cereal. If you're listening to this podcast, your tagline is probably not saying what it is. Right. Ours is clarify your message so customers engage. I'm telling you what I'm gonna help you do. I'm gonna help you clarify your message. There's nothing, you know, I could have said because words matter. You see what I'm saying? And that's what. There's so many people listening to this podcast. That's their tagline. It's something to the equivalent of because words matter. And people are like, okay, is it a therapist? Are you a therapist? Are you helping people communicate? No. Clarify your message is what we do. So healthy cereal doesn't make anybody think. Really good messaging is going to think for you rather than ask you to think. And really bad advertisers who get a lot of money, bad marketers, they're like, hey, let's make people think. Let's make your advertising a puzzle. Let's take your messaging a puzzle so people can sit down and pour a glass of scotch and try to figure out what the hell you're trying to say. Right. That is bad messaging. So healthy cereal is a great first two words. Two overcome Magic spoon being a little bit elusive and hard to figure out. Now the next thing they do is they actually open a story loop that tastes too good to be true. Means in order to believe you. First of all, it makes me want to taste it. If I said, hey, taste this. If I have like a box of Tic Tacs or something, I said, taste this. This tastes too good to be true. What do you want to do?
- [05:58]
B
I want to taste it.
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C
Yeah. What you're doing is you're closing the story loop. The tagline itself defines it and opens a story loop. Dad gum. That's good.
- [06:06]
B
Yeah. Very good. Yeah. Because they could have easily gone magic spoon cereal. That's good.
- [06:11]
C
That's right.
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B
And that would have just. You would have skipped past that. Be easy to just go to describe, you know, good tasting cereal. But that it. Yeah, it's that.
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C
So if we unpack.
- [06:19]
B
Healthy is doing a lot of work there. But then the story loop, you open the other thing.
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C
Think about the other thing. The magic of this tagline. Magic of this tagline. The other thing about this tagline is it's. It's got contrast. Healthy means bad taste. It means it doesn't taste good. Right. Have you ever had all fiber? What is that? Fiber one?
- [06:38]
B
No, because I'm still in my 30s.
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C
Yeah, that was Mean, you just wait, it's going to happen to you, and I'm going to be there for it. Yeah. So it tastes like, first of all, fiber one is extremely effective. Let me just say this so that I'm not throwing them under the bus. It is also very healthy, and it tastes like it. And what I do is I put 7 cups of sugar on top of it and then oat milk and some mayo. But it doesn't taste, you know, it's not designed to taste good. That's not what it's for. So when you think healthy cereal, that's what you think of. And my kid ain't gonna eat it. And so then healthy cereal and then they, you know, they finish the tagline that tastes too good to be true. They quickly stop the thinking. They stop you from where they know your brain's gonna go.
- [07:31]
B
Yep.
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C
And if you're trying to learn from this podcast, first of all, you need a tagline. I like to call a tagline a controlling idea. And that is the only. The main idea, if you will, that I want you to think about when you're thinking about my brand. Right. Clarify your message so customers engage. That's it. Clarify your message so customers engage is what I want you to think about when you think about story brand. If your tagline is elusive and if it makes people. Makes their thoughts go chase a squirrel way out into the woods. They're never coming out of those woods. Very, very few people are coming back from those woods to buy your product. It's got to do the thinking for you. And this one is. I credit this with their success. And the cereal, I'm sure is good. I literally bought four boxes reading this thing because it's got tons of protein.
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B
Yeah, 13 grams of protein in.
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C
Yeah. I'm trying to get my protein up. So healthy cereal says what it is that tastes too good to be true, stops the objection in its track. It educates you about what it is, and it opens a story loop. That is a very powerful, controlling idea.
- [08:34]
B
Yeah, I agree. And I think the other thing they do. I've heard you talk about this a lot. I'd love to get into it a little more. Is they also created a villain inside of their marketing, and the villain is sugar. So they. They lean into.
- [08:47]
C
Well, and that's the whole. I mean, that villain is real.
- [08:49]
B
You know, I think what. They did a good job, too. If you go down the path a little bit more, they also made the parent. Because most parents are probably buying cereal for their kids. They made the Parent the hero as well. Because I think as a. As a dad, I'm always thinking about, what are my kids eating? It's super easy to go for the easiest thing. You know, just whatever. Eat something. Because I need to feed you in the morning while you're watching your show before school. But I also now feel a little better about myself because I know what they're eating is also healthy.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And so they make me.
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C
So they're relieving an emotional. You know, we talk about that, too. There's a villain. There's a villain in there, and the villain is. They call it the double bind in the industry, and it's cartoons and sugar.
- [09:28]
B
Okay.
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C
So it's the double thing that. That entices your kid. And so the villain that Magic Spoon is up against is significant.
- [09:36]
B
Yeah.
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C
You know, and we're talking about. I think the numbers were like, gosh, for sugar cereals out there in the world, it's a $65.25 billion space dominated by three companies. So what that means when you have a $65 billion annual space that is dominated by three companies, they know how to box you out, they know how to get you off those shelves. So I'm not going into it, but they're doing things with target buyers and, you know, Publix and Kroger and all that sort of stuff. Fred Meyer, if you're up in the Northwest, you know, they own that shelf space, and they're not giving any of it up. And so, you know, you're up against a heck of a challenge if you want to get onto that shelf. Now, the good thing about that, that's an opportunity also, because if there is a double bind, we all know that cereal's bad for you. Nine out of ten boxes of cereal, as you're walking through the shelf at Publix, that's where I go. If you walk down the aisle at Publix, nine out of ten of those are really. They're desserts. You know, I guarantee the cereal we grew up on, it was sugar cereal, but it wasn't like it is today.
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B
No, no, I agree.
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C
It's straight up addicted to it.
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B
It's interesting, too, because at some point, what I like about them. So they started in 2019, and they actually kind of responded to a major health movement, especially amongst millennials who were starting to have kids, where, again, the things they ate as kids, they knew they couldn't feed their kids because there's some reason those were not good for you anymore.
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C
And.
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B
And I think Magic Spoon Did a great job of jumping into marketing.
- [11:05]
C
Well, and that's where I was going before I got sidetracked with my own thoughts. Here with my indulgences, was when you see an opportunity where what you're up against is easy to villainize, is easy to paint and cast as a villain, there's a big time market opportunity there because you can be the one contrast. And right now, if somebody said, I'll say this from here on out, I wouldn't have said it a minute ago. But you know, what's the alternative to sugar cereals? Everybody's going to go Magic Spoon, you know, a year from now. So that's, you know, that's an opportunity for you as well in your messaging.
- [11:40]
B
Yep.
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A
If you don't communicate clearly, all your emails, your website, social media posts, everything you're communicating will be ignored. Storybrand AI is like the world's best communication expert writing it for you. Imagine having the world's best communicator writing your tagline. Just type in the name of your company, answer a few prompts and voila. Hey, that's a good one. Use it to write your social media posts, website, wireframe emails, lead generating PDF, product or service descriptions, anything you need for your business. What would happen to your revenue if every word that left your business was crystal clear and worth paying attention to? StoryBrand AI is your competitive advantage. So you'll know, you'll say it clearly. Try it right now and let us write your custom tagline for free at storybrand AI. And now back to the show.
- [12:38]
B
I think another interesting thing they did too. You mentioned this earlier when we were looking at the brand, they did an awesome job. Even though their name was Magic Spoon. Their branding is very unique and that is really visually a different way.
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C
Wow, that's kind of cool. It looks like it's a little bit of the color scheme of a lot of the art in Miami ever.
- [12:56]
B
Yes, yes, yes.
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C
It feels like you're right.
- [12:58]
B
That's right.
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C
A little bit like not graffiti, but.
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B
Yep.
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C
But like high end graffiti.
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B
It's also interesting too because most people, it's changing but a lot of people don't get their cereal cereal online. You know, you don't. It's not an e commerce thing, it's more grocery store thing. I think they did a really good job diving into that and kind of using their brand, using their website, making it very easy. You, you bought yours on Amazon, which is a win, I don't think. If I was looking to get a box of Golden Grams, I Wouldn't go to Amazon to do that. Yeah, but they're their messaging and kind of their marketing is really cool how it kind of follows the story brand framework. As far as parents, you know, looking to provide something healthy, they step in, they give you a plan. Here's some things you do. The other thing is I love what they're messaging is they have some different call to actions as well. So they have like on their website they have a starter pack. So, so again, brilliant. Even if the tagline didn't, it did open a story loop. I'm interested, but I still have some objections. I don't know, do I really want to do this? Well, there's a starter pack. I can go try that.
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C
Yeah, I bought four boxes today.
- [14:00]
B
Yeah. Just to try them. There's a subscription model so you can subscribe.
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C
A lot of companies are missing out on that. If you have a consumable, you've got to do subscription automatically coming back.
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B
Yeah. The other thing they did interesting was the way they marketed it was to adults on podcast. So they have a lot of ads. I have heard magic. The only reason I've heard of Magic.
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C
Spoon, that's new messaging and marketing against old messaging because you never hear advertising against the new way of getting the word out.
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B
All right, so for people listening this, Don, I think there's been some cool things we've pulled out about Magic Spoon. Let's talk to the small business owner.
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C
One thing real quick. Consider lowering your advertising budget and hiring a publicist.
- [14:41]
B
Okay, tell me more about that.
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C
Well, let's say a publicist is going to cost you 25,000 to get in and 5,000amonth to carry for a year. Year. So you're 7, 60, 70, $85,000 spend on a publicist whose job is to come up with sort of a topic related angle on your product and get you on podcasts. So that $85,000, you know you're probably spending that every month on meta ads, right? So just cut your meta ad budget and hire a publicist and then have somebody who knows what they're doing get on these podcasts and talk about your products. Just a tip for small businesses. You don't want to do this.
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B
I think a key thing you said there too. I think a lot of times when people hear public, they hear, oh, just they'll get me somewhere. You said something before that though. They need to help you with the angle.
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C
Yeah. There's a guy, Jonathan Weiss, he has a brand called Oswald's Mill Audio. And I am crazy about his audio equipment. Yeah. For him, one of the things that. Because we talked about his messaging and one of the things that he could go on a podcast and talk about is two things. One is he believes audio technology is almost the only technology in the world that has gotten worse in the last 80 years. So 80 years ago, things sounded better. Audio equipment sounded better 80 years ago. He also talks about in small headphones. When you wear headphones, the headphones themselves, they're so small that a sound wave is actually physical. It's big. He's like, the reason my speakers are so enormous is not because I'm being showy here. The actual sound wave is big. And so when you put a giant sound wave through a small headphone, your brain has to cognitively make up the difference and imagine the sound the way it's supposed to sound, which exhausts you. So if he went out with the reason music sounds terrible today and the reason you get a headache after listening to music and the reason as a podcast guest, or he could even come at it from the angle of ear health, right? And you haven't heard anything. Your grandparents were listening to better music than you, and here's why. And all that stuff, that's all like podcast fodder. And then he could send people on that podcast to his mini book called the Anatomy of Sound, which I also recommended that he write. People, you know, charge five bucks for the book. It includes shipping. He's breaking even on the book. And people are literally reading about why they can't buy any other hi Fi equipment but his.
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B
Yep, that's cool.
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C
And that's. That's a message. That's a messaging campaign more than a marketing campaign. But that's the sort of thing small businesses need to think about. They need to think about the angle that you're going to come at this and then hire a publicist to promote that angle and you as a guest representing that angle.
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B
And the controlling idea there for him is your music doesn't sound as good as it could. And as soon as I hear that.
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C
Why modern music is giving you a headache.
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B
Yeah, yeah. There's so much there. So one thing I was thinking about as you were talking about, and I would be remiss not to bring this up, is, okay, someone cannot hire a publicist. One thing they can do is they.
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C
Can be their own.
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B
But also go to storybrand AI and we have all these tools to help you create a tag.
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C
Yeah, you can create your own.
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B
You can create a sales script, you can create a website. There's so many things we're going to release there.
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C
Yeah. We're going to release pitch decks and proposals.
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B
So I wanted to mention that just as not as a shameless plug maybe a little bit.
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C
I'm not Shameless plug. It's the best product on the market.
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B
But also that you should go if you need to work on your These lines of messaging kind of have your own.
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C
So we'll give you that controlling idea in the brand script tool. We'll give you your controlling idea and we'll also give you a tagline and.
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B
We'Ll give you four.
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C
We gave you four options from.
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B
So I would highly recommend that to anybody who is just check your own against what we have and see how we've improved it. I think another thing for small businesses that I really like that we can learn from Magic Spoon was that just the way they continually disrupt an industry. They did it through marketing messaging. So their tagline but also their brands.
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C
Really good business strategy too. And the fact that they were all digital or you could only get it online. They went around the big three and then they got so popular that grocery stores couldn't ignore them. They were being cut out.
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B
That's right. So what's a couple things just to kind of summarize from Magic Spoon that the listeners. The small business.
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C
Yeah. You know, if there was one thing. Well, this is just not one thing. I'll give you two. Say what it is and position yourself against something that's driving people crazy. Those two things are, I would say the takeaways from the conversation for me.
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B
And I think one of the things you've taught me recently you've talked about I thought is good is again, picking your villain. But don't. Picking your own personal villain. Picking the customer's villain.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know, magic what's driving the customer crazy.
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B
Magic Spoon could have easily went and said, you know, it's not fair. All these big cereal companies own all the market and we're just trying to make something good for you. And you know, and it's not fair that they have it on. Isn't that wrong? We should get more shelf space. They didn't do that. They made the thing that is the.
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C
Villain for that was that I talk about that in building a story brand title. The company Tidal T I D A.
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B
L. Oh yeah, yeah.
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C
Of which I subscribe to.
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B
Yes.
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C
Tidal is Jay Z started the company with a bunch of other artists and you pay like. I think I pay like 11 bucks a month or something like that. But the Files on Tidal are larger than Apple, itunes or Spotify or any of that. And you literally can hear the difference when you're playing it through a Bluetooth speaker, if it's hooked up to Ethernet. You can literally hear how incredibly different the sound is because it's basically CD quality. But the way they market it, they came to market by saying, hey, we artists are getting boxed out. We're not getting the money we deserve for music. And so we changed everything. Well, that's a really fantastic pitch for artists, of which there are very few. What they should have said was, you're not hearing music the way we want you to hear it. The artists want you to hear it in its glory, and we want you to hear all the depth of it. And so we created something for you, the listeners, so you can hear it the way we want you to hear it. That. That's still the way they should be marketing that. In fact, I was like, I'm not getting title. Why would I give you a bunch of money? You got 40,000 people at your concert. Give me a break. You're not a victim here. But then when I heard, oh, no, the files are actually larger and you hear them the way that they were designed to be heard, I was like, oh, okay. And I started paying the money. So why wouldn't you lead with that?
- [21:13]
B
Yeah. And contrast that with another big brand started by a rapper, and that is Beats by Dream. And they gave you premium, you know, studio quality headphones at a better price. When headphones weren't, you know, that seemed unobtainable. They made them cool. They had a good brand.
- [21:31]
C
Yeah.
- [21:31]
B
You know, contrast the successes there. You can see where they. They solve that problem with a really creative and unique marketing campaign. Magic Spoon, I think it's worth going to check out. I'm gonna order some for my kids and see. Maybe really for me. But yeah, I'm not.
- [21:48]
C
I'm not using my kid. I ordered it for me.
- [21:51]
B
That alternative version of Froot Loops, I am in.
- [21:54]
C
Really? That's your. Anything with peanut butter and chocolate, though.
- [21:56]
B
See? Yeah. And I'm so. I like that whole like. Like Chocolate Pebbles or all those. I never was interested in that.
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C
Really. Still to this day.
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B
No.
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C
Wow.
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B
No.
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C
What about Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
- [22:08]
B
No, not interested.
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C
Really?
- [22:09]
B
Golden Grams, though, which is.
- [22:11]
C
That's pretty clever.
- [22:12]
B
I love those.
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C
All right, well, good on you. Magic Spoon.
- [22:15]
B
Yeah, they're doing.
- [22:16]
C
Way to get your tagline right. Way to get your messaging right. Way to get your business strategy right. I'll forgive you for Magic Spoon. Because obviously it's working. So, you know it's working great for you. And you know, it's a spoon. Spoon. You eat cereal with a spoon. So it's loosely connected to breakfast.
- [22:31]
B
True.
- [22:32]
C
Good on you.
- [22:33]
B
Well, hey, if you want to craft a message that resonates and drives action, visit storybrand AI to create a very clear and compelling brand script that connects with your audience. You can try that for free. Create a brand script and a tagline at StoryBrand AI and be sure to check out a new tool we just released where you can have your Website reviewed by StoryBrand AI.
- [22:52]
C
That's pretty cool.
- [22:53]
B
And give you back the score. I have. I actually put Magic Spoon's website through.
- [22:57]
C
Did you really? How'd they do?
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B
They did pretty good.
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C
So it reviews your website. Like, if you have a website, you can go to StoryBrand AI. You enter the domain name. Is this free or do you have to pay for this? It's free.
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B
Everything's free.
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C
So you put your website, your domain name in and using the storybrand framework, it's going to tell you where you're blowing it.
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B
Yes, correct.
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C
Magic Spoon, does it give you any encouragement?
- [23:18]
B
Yes, absolutely. It gives you some strengths and weaknesses, but then it also gives you next steps that you can change to implement and get a better.
- [23:24]
C
I actually knew all this, but I'm pretending not to know. All right, everybody, thanks for listening.
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A
Thanks for listening to the why that Worked podcast presented by StoryBrand AI. If you like the show, follow wherever you get your podcast. And if you're Enjoying this on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and leave a comment letting us know what you think and what you want the guys to talk about in a future episode. Curious about how StoryBrand AI can help you create clear, effective messaging? Well, you can try it out right now and create a free customized tagline for your business. Just go to storybrand AI. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
- [24:02]
C
Sa.