OUTAGES & OPPORTUNITIES: AWS Crash, Count Chocula Marketing, Coke Zero Strategy (Ep. 017)

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 When the internet breaks, your customer service shows its true colors. Joanna and Michelle unpack how to turn outages into opportunities — and what Count Chocula, Coke Zero, and cinnamon rolls can teach you about seasonal offers and brand loyalty.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to turn tech outages and customer frustration into trust-building moments
• The secret behind seasonal scarcity — and how legacy brands like General Mills use it to create FOMO
• The “Coke Zero” framework for refreshing your offers without burning down your business
  
  

Timestamps:
 00:00 - Introduction

04:00 – AWS outage chaos and what it exposed about online business dependency
 07:00 – How to handle customer meltdowns with empathy (and why refunds aren’t the enemy)
 13:00 – Building loyalty through human-to-human connection
 15:00 – Count Chocula & the power of seasonal scarcity marketing
 20:00 – Maeve’s Top Buns: the $1M cinnamon roll case study in organic storytelling
 31:00 – What Coca-Cola Zero teaches us about positioning and audience segmentation
 35:00 – Pivot permission: why it’s okay to change your offer (strategically)

References & Resources:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• General Mills — Count Chocula, BooBerry, Frankenberry cereals
• Coca-Cola Zero Sugar
  
  

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Transcript

Joanna Newton: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Click Tease podcast. Today we are talking about the AWS outage and how it affected business owners. We're gonna talk a little bit about some consumer product brands like Coca-Cola and General Mills, and how they create exciting offers that get their customers ready to go. We'll also just be sharing some. Insights of ways that you can create content that really connects with your audience. Hi, my name is Joanna. I'm the co-founder of Millennial Marketer and Agency that helps creators develop their own digital products.

Michelle Pualani: I'm Michelle, founder of To be Honest Beverage Company, a non-alcoholic beverage brand, as well as business and marketing mentor and consultant. Let's dive in. 

Joanna Newton: Today I've got a cozy bev. starting to be fall. It's getting chillier, um, which is fun. I kind of like those, like cold mornings, cold nights, and I have just black tea with a little milk in it to sip on while we chat about our marketing updates.

Michelle Pualani: I am loving the change in weather too. We're starting to see like a [00:01:00] change in leaves and color, and I'm grateful. I'm welcoming. Welcoming the shift in season. We had kinda like a first rain here in Southern California, middle of central California where we are, and that feels really good. I'm drinking my mushroom immunity beverage with some cashew.

Soy milk combination and it's got, I love all my mushroom mix. It's got like REI and um, Turkey tail and Chaga and like some other things in there. So

Joanna Newton: Yeah.

Michelle Pualani: it's, it's a great morning bevy to have.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. And by the way, we match today.

Michelle Pualani: I thought about that too. I know we're, we're headed into fall. Actually, this was really funny. I went into my local coffee shop. There's somewhere I go, like consistently. I like to work there. I like the people. They have the best matcha and one of the girls, Hannah, who I'm familiar with and really enjoy, she was like, so I've noticed.

That your color palette in your wardrobe has shifted from like summer to fall. And I was like, oh, [00:02:00] have you? She is like, yeah, I just like start layering. But she's like, I've noticed a shift in what you're actually wearing towards the fall. And I don't think I've like consciously done that. And at some point I wanna have.

Like a quarterly change, you know, in wardrobe as seasons adjust. And I want it to like actually shift, shift. But I definitely enjoy now having like a different color palette in my clothing to match the season.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, that's fun to like change those things up.

Michelle Pualani: I.

Joanna Newton: The other funny thing is we match and we kind of match our brand colors that, like maroon.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, my brand palette, yeah, I have like these tops. I really like them. They're from Classy Network and they're a built in bra function. I really don't like wearing bras. So with this brand, which I loved, who was very founder led, by the way, if you've seen anything done by them, classy network. She did a ton of like, you know.

Top videos, clothing, videos. She shows the inside. She's a really, really great example of [00:03:00] founder-led content in terms of branding. Classy network with a K, and I got a bunch of those tops and they all match my color palette for my brand. That was intentional.

Joanna Newton: That's so fun. And who, who wants to wear a bra these days?

Michelle Pualani: Nobody, like I can't. I, I have one bra. One bra that is so old and I only wear it with like certain, you know, pieces of clothing that I still have. But I am not a bra fan these days. No, thank you.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. Just like let 'em, let 'em fly. Um, so. Like, why not? Speaking of letting bras fly. Um, so the internet broke yesterday.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: see anything about that, Michelle?

Michelle Pualani: I didn't actually, but you keep me updated on all the, uh, all the current events.

Joanna Newton: lucky you. The internet breaks. We have like massive, massive outage. Um, so if you are, if you're in the online space, if you work online, use apps all the time [00:04:00] or different software, you may have noticed that like nothing was working for most of the day yesterday. Um, Amazon Web Services, which is one of the, be the biggest like, you know, web cloud-based hosting platforms. And so many large companies use them to keep all of their software and systems and everything up and running had a major outage. So Monday morning, midnight, um, the outage began and it wasn't resolved and actually still wasn't fully resolved by about seven o'. Eastern time last night. So from like midnight to seven, there was just a major outage and this affected tons of services.

There's a good chance we film our podcast on a cloud-based technology. There's a pretty good chance if we had tried to film this episode yesterday, we would've been blocked from being able to. To use it because it wouldn't be functional, so, so this majorly affected a lot of business owners because they're trying to send out emails.

Those emails just don't go because [00:05:00] there's a web outage, there's partial service. So yesterday I was making an email sequence and like half of it didn't save, and I kept going back and it was like error prone and I kept trying to fix it. I found more errors in it. Yeah. Today because changes I made weren't saving because of the result of this outage.

Michelle Pualani: Was it affecting overall, like general website? So if someone went to go purchase something on a website, was that affected? Like payment processing?

Joanna Newton: The whole, every, everything along the way if you, if your system uses Amazon Web services in the backend

Michelle Pualani: Hmm.

Joanna Newton: been affected. So we talk about Kajabi on this podcast 'cause we use it for our businesses, and I work with people who have clients. Lots of stuff on Kajabi was just down or spotty or unpredictable.

So in some cases, in Kajabi, people were purchasing. Offers, but that offer connection wasn't getting actually delivered in a timely manner. [00:06:00] Um, the project management tool that I used, all of the backend automations were broken. So like, you know, I have it set up so when we get a new client, all of these automations happen.

Well, just, none of those things were happening because these systems were broken. And what was really interesting to watch is people get very upset. When things are broken on the internet, and I think as a business owner you have like some choices to make. Some people just get very angry and they, they use up a lot of energy to be angry and yell at their service provider or be mad and say like, oh, fuck it.

My business is a disaster now. I can't make any money because of this outage. Um. you can like take it in stride and like take a deep breath, do what you can do, and if you need to go, just maybe you take a week, it's a sign you need to take a walk that day because the internet just is broken. Right? And I think we have some choices to make.

Now, obviously if you're mid-launch, [00:07:00] you might have to communicate with clients and have other things, but the whole nation was affected by this. If something wasn't working, most likely people figured out that the biggest. Website, like hosting provider was broken that day and so things might just not go as planned.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah. And. Knowing that that's a 24 hour cycle, you know, there are deeper rooted issues within your business, within your marketing, within your structure. That might need addressing over time, but this is something that comes and goes. And as business owners, we've gotta be okay and be flexible and be able to pivot, learn and understand.

Now, you might have suffered in your customer service, your customer delivery, but the data actually shows. I forget the exact numbers, but if someone has a good experience, they'll tell one or two people. If someone has a bad experience, they'll tell three to four people. But if someone has a bad experience that's been rectified and been made good, they'll tell five to six people.

So just thinking about it in [00:08:00] that context. I think it's a missed opportunity when something goes wrong. A lot of times people respond defensively, and I've seen this in our physical product businesses. We've had issues with delivery. We've had issues with ordering online, you're going to experience some type of challenge and some type of customer.

Let down, instead of responding defensively and saying, well, the entire internet was out, so it just wasn't working for everyone, just acknowledging their feelings, saying, you must be so upset about this. I completely understand. We've had an out outage in our software. We're trying to remedy it as quickly as possible.

You know, what can I provide you or how can I be best of service in this time of need? And then go above and beyond, like comp something, share something else, like give them a perk and help them realize, because that'll dim the fire. That'll dim the anger, that'll dim the rage response. And then it'll additionally make them feel like, oh, I'm.

Special I, they care [00:09:00] about me. Oh, this makes sense. I've already remedied a lot of our customer service experiences and we don't get re requests for refunds. We've had one request for a refund from one guy, like literally 10 minutes after he ordered because his wife had ordered something else. They wanted to try that first, and then they just ordered again later.

So like it wasn't a big deal at all. But we've had zero refund requests and I think that's because we handle our customer service so well. And even if someone did refund request, I would never be like, send us the bottle back, or. I can't believe that you wanna refund. It would just be, okay, great. Here's your refund.

Thank you so much. Like I hope you can share the product with someone else or pass it on to someone else who might like it, you know?

Joanna Newton: Yeah. And if you did have during an outage or something like that happen and say you were affected by the outage this week and. People were ordering things and the orders weren't necessarily kicking in properly. Well, [00:10:00] today would be a great day to just go through all of your orders, make sure everything's in order, fix any problems. If it's just a handful of people, send those people a personal email. Say, Hey, so sorry, the internet, the outage yesterday affected your order. It's gonna be delayed by a day, but everything's all set right. if it's more widespread, an email to everybody. Hey, orders on this day were affected. Everything is in place and working. Now, if you don't get your confirmation email, reply to this email, I will make sure your order's in place, right? Just deal with it and communicate, right? And we can get into a tizzy and think, wo is me, or everything's against me, or all of that. Get into that victim mentality. Or we can be the CEO of our business. Step up. Fix the problem, respond and maybe actually get better fans, right? If you handle a tough situation poorly, I mean, if you handle a tough situation well, [00:11:00] people will love you even more, know? And they'll say like, wow, I can really trust these people. They're gonna go above and beyond.

If something goes wrong, that's completely out of their control, they're gonna fix it anyway.

Michelle Pualani: Absolutely. We're in an economy, in a market where people can go almost anywhere for anything. So you have to create creative, unique ways of. Being the only option for them because they're invested in your brand and business. And there are lots of ways you can do that through creating like cult-like community through the type of product that you offer and positioning and marketing in a way so that they can't even compare it to someone else.

It's just, you know, in a level of its own. And then the other matter of that is customer service. I also think, and people take for granted is like picking up the phone a lot of times now if you're in, in just digital services, you might not have that phone number. If you're not doing text message marketing, you might just have email.

But for me, I collect phone numbers. Like I can easily pick up the phone and direct dial a [00:12:00] customer. And you'd be surprised how when you break down that. Digital wall between your customer, how they'll connect with you as a human, and how they completely change their demeanor. It's like people who get behind, you know, the keyboard warriors, who would never say that to your face.

Um, or if you have like road rage and you're dealing with like angry drivers, you'd never do that to someone in person. So when you break down that barrier in that wall and you just hear them out and you connect on a human to human basis, I think it makes a really, really big difference.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, it definitely does. And I think we forget. We forget about that and we try to do everything mass email and everything. Mass communication where that one-on-one touchpoint can really mean so much.

Michelle Pualani: Which is a good reminder in general with our business and marketing is that we are dealing with human beings. We are dealing in that one-to-one environment. You might have a million customers, you might have 10 core. Really important client and [00:13:00] customers, but instead of speaking to all of them, you're typically speaking to that one person because that's how they're receiving that messaging.

That's how they're receiving the marketing, that's how they're receiving communication. So you wanna think and express in terms of single focus. Who is that one person I'm talking to?

Joanna Newton: Yeah. Yeah, such a good point. So today for our update, I'm trying something new and I made myself a notebook. Of things to chat about.

Michelle Pualani: Very cute.

Joanna Newton: remembered all of the things. Sometimes I feel like I get on this call and you've, you've heard me say this, where I'm like, oh, this person, I forget their name. Like they did this thing.

And then I'm like, I'm gonna actually remember their names because I will write it down. so one of the things that I wanted to chat about was Count CHOA cereal. Have you. 

Michelle Pualani: one i one, I don't eat mass cereal. Like I, you know, you, I know you have. Of course, I don't. Classic. Um, but I appreciate [00:14:00] cereal and how long it's been around and the marketing and the boxes and how well they appeal to kids because let's face it, it's just manipulative, but it's also very good when you think about marketing and the practices, um, and the consistency of it.

But, um, but yes, tell us about Count. Is it Cho?

Joanna Newton: Well count choa and there's actually several varieties that comes out. So General Mills creates Count choa, and it's a limited run cereal that just happens around Halloween time. And there's like three varieties. I'm gonna see if I get this right. I didn't write all three varieties down. Should have wrote them down on my notebook. But there's Count BooBerry and Frankenberry, and they're just. Fun, cute Halloween themed cereals, and they come on a limited run. And they basically go on a limited run. They get bought by grocery stores and they sell out, and then they're gone for the [00:15:00] season, which is a really kind of fun way to market a seasonal item that just gets people excited and nostalgic, and then when they see it, they have to buy it that day because they don't know. If it'll be gone now. I tried to look up like what sort of impact, um, this seasonal cereal made for General Mills and they don't actually report on publicly report, unlike their different product lines and, and how they do. So I don't know actually how much money this makes them. it is like a seasonal fun thing that they do and just really got me thinking about how important it is to have seasonality in your marketing, have things that that go together.

We've talked on this podcast about triggers, right? And when different things happen that are external, like Halloween, you. I need my count. Choate, right? And you have that trigger. And right now with Halloween around the corner, there are probably ways you and your business can connect to [00:16:00] this season in a way that makes sense for you and helps you join the popular conversation of what's going on. You could even go so far as if it makes sense for you to have something you sell, particularly every Halloween. Every Halloween season. Maybe you have a specialty item that's a limited run that can connect with people.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, the uh, sense of limited and scarcity here is very helpful around holidays and seasonality. I did a workshop actually for markets and popups, and we specifically spoke to this is leaning into that and how can you do it if you're not into holidays? You can always think seasons, right? So fall decorations, uh, discussions, topics, that kind of thing.

This covers a lot of different things. It's affiliate marketers who are working with certain types of products. It's if you have or create something that is consumable, let's say you make. Donuts, cinnamon rolls, which is something [00:17:00] I'm talking about today in an account or. Cookies or whatever, anything that can kind of be transformed into having something that is designed in a certain way to fit a certain season or a certain holiday.

I think it's a beautiful way to do that. I think there's a couple things to keep in mind is strategy and timing. A lot of times with content creation, things don't necessarily pick up steam until a little bit later, so a lot of people start publishing Halloween content two weeks ago, so. We're thinking three, four weeks in advance.

If you're into Pinterest marketing or other types of like SEO things that take a little bit longer to gain traction, you wanna think ahead. You're thinking a couple months ahead of time to be able to prepare for that. But I think doing it with some type of like clothing approach, if you're a fashion stylist or someone who helps people with their closet in some way.

Thinking ahead of time, what does that look like? How are you preparing for it? [00:18:00] And definitely creating and curating things that fit the holiday season. So you're leaning into that seasonality, that sense of scarcity. It's gonna be gone. And I think it's just, we've talked about this with pumpkin spice is like, people like to lean into that feeling.

They want the feeling of participating in what's new, what's now, what's happening. So very powerful, I think super helpful. Count chalk.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. Yeah. And I think if you don't have a good product spin, I think there's some like natural product spins for lots of people, especially if they're in clothing, food, you know, accessories and, and things like that. If your product isn't so directly related to something where you can have seasonal items, even just what you're talking about online, like theming it to that. worked for a company that did like AP test preparation and around holidays we did lots of fun things. We did like how to dress up as your favorite, A PUS history characters for Halloween or like just little [00:19:00] things like that or like what movies you could watch that like help you with AP comparative literature that are little spooky, right.

Just to be fun and engaging. I think it makes people. Start really recognize there are people behind the brand. There's conversation behind the brand. We're not just going to be exactly on brand message. We're gonna connect with what people are are talking about. Here's a movie to watch, right? To help you prepare for your AP comp exam or something like that.

And I think you can find ways to weave those themes into your content, even if you don't have a specific product tie in.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: have a product tie in, I think that's great, but I think there's ways to be in the conversation without it.

Michelle Pualani: It also brings in entertainment. So if you're thinking of social media marketing and content creation, where we're heading is very much entertainment based. People wanna watch things that captivate them. So if you can merge entertainment with education. That's where I think a lot of people see the most traction.

And if you're a relationship coach, it's like talking about couples costumes that will bring, [00:20:00] you know, couples closer together in your relationship. So you can think of adjacent ways to be able to share those types of things, but still leaning into authenticity and storytelling. And that's one of the examples I wanted to talk about today is Maeve's Top Buns.

It's a husband and wife duo. Who have not spent a single dime on traditional marketing sources. They don't do paid, they don't do influencer partnerships or anything. All they use is organic strategy, and they've done over a million sales within a year's time as a cinnamon roll bakery in New Jersey. So I think that a lot of us.

Miss the opportunity with organic strategy or try to over complicate it and think like, oh, I have to follow this trend. I've gotta do this thing. I've gotta do this much prep. I've gotta prepare, I've gotta do all this stuff. When really when you just share your story and you do it in an authentic way to you, people wanna like get behind that.

And that's why they've seen success with their [00:21:00] organic strategy and understanding. I'm here to tell my story. I'm here to connect with my people. I have something simple. It's a simple medium, cinnamon rolls, but how can I make it entertaining, interesting, engaging, desirable, and actually get people into our location in order to purchase our product?

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and being creative and being yourself is so important. What do you think they're doing really sets them apart from other creators in their space?

Michelle Pualani: One of the things that the owner, the wife was talking about is that she would post content even if she wasn't sure about it. So I think a lot of times we question ourselves and we think about what's gonna be received. Is this gonna be appropriate? Does this fit the family aspect of my brand? You know, what are people gonna think if I shared this particular opinion?

And we talk a lot about this polarizing people, [00:22:00] and you'd think like, okay, sim roles isn't very polarizing, but when you're creating content that maybe has, let's say, music that has profanity in it, that might be a polarizing choice. Because there are gonna be people who will not appreciate your business because you've used profanity in a song.

Right. But then the people who are okay with that and lean into it are gonna be more attracted to it. So I really think that one, she's just demonstrating, like the actual product, a lot of her content, it's like cinnamon rolls, right? So you're show showing that like ey, gooey, um, deliciousness and people are attracted to that, like food porn I guess.

I dunno if,

Joanna Newton: just

Michelle Pualani: I dunno if that's term still is used.

Joanna Newton: I, I think it's like

Michelle Pualani: Okay.

Joanna Newton: people wanna see food. I think it's like, it's like babies or puppies, like it is kind of one of those natural things people wanna look at and share.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah. And it's delicious. And there are a ton of baking accounts that are very, very popular, right. When they like show that. And then the other thing is just behind the scenes, like [00:23:00] I don't think they're, they have three kids. It's a mom and dad, and they're just like figuring it out on entrepreneurs and business owners.

And I don't think that they've ever tried to be like, Hey, we know what we're doing. They've just been authentic in their story and sharing that vision, and they love cinnamon rolls and making cinnamon rolls and sharing that with the community, and people rally behind that. That's why I think a lot of people overcomplicate it when it comes to business marketing.

Now, if you're a content creator, if you're like a service provider, it can be more challenging, but especially if you own a brick and mortar location. It seems so simple to me to just demonstrate the product in action, right? Demonstrate the community, demonstrate the people coming in and share that with people.

And so I think that just leaning into that authentic voice, you have a little question bubbling up of like, is this something I should share? But if you feel inclined to do so, do it. You know?

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and I think just being able to [00:24:00] be engaging, not worry about being perfect, getting, doing things people are going to respond to and react to. We've, I started picking clips for our podcast in a way where like I'm intentionally trying to make sure we're really saying something. We are making a statement that someone might with. what's interesting is people. disagreeing with us. So as I'm posting this on TikTok, people will be like, um, I don't agree with you. That's wrong. I disagree. And it's, I mean, I'm not bothered by it. Like there should be a discussion. Maybe they are right. Maybe we can have a conversation about it. But when you actually say something, people will. Tell you what they think. So much so that one thing is really funny is I swear this one person on Substack who found us on our Substack made a Substack post making the opposite claim of our content was making. So [00:25:00] last week we talked about. Just showing up messy and not having to be perfect. And she wrote a whole post about don't listen to the people that say don't show up messy.

And I'm not offended in any way. I'm actually proud of us as as a show for making a claim and sticking up for it and stating it so much so that someone would say like, wait, don't. I don't agree with that. I disagree with that. And that's okay. We'll find the people that are right for us and who wanna show messy, who want to show the process, who want to document, and be authentic.

Those are.

Michelle Pualani: That's one thing actually I love about the world right now is I always remind myself, and it's E, even just the term 8 billion. So something will come up, and whether it's a right or wrong choice or positioning, business decision, relationship, partnership. Anything else? There are 8 billion people on this planet.

I don't even know [00:26:00] how many marketers, how many entrepreneurs, how many business owners, how many content creators, how many people who are essentially doing what we are doing in some format. Millions, if not, probably at least a billion, right? So when you think about it that way, no one is gonna have the same.

The belief systems, no one's gonna have the same values. No one's gonna have gone through the same experiences so that they come out with a similar sense of, oh, this is what works for me. This is what I'm doing, this is my approach. And I think it's a beautiful thing and it's a thing that people need to remember.

Like you can, you can choose your hill to stand on or stake your claim on. Like you can do that and you can express that. I think that it's important that we have these healthy discussions and healthy debates to just continue the conversation because what we say is not always gonna work for everybody, and what someone else says is not always gonna work for everybody.

And we just have to find what's gonna work for us through trial experimentation. Yes, we can [00:27:00] listen to advice. Yes, we should pay attention to people who have been there, done that. But at the same time, I've been doing that for years and I still haven't. Gotten the same outcome that they have because it's just gonna be different every single time.

It's gonna be different, and I think having those healthy discussions and saying those things is honestly the only way to go in your marketing right now is like you have to make statements and you have to be okay with what those statements project out into the world. And get the feedback and have those discussions.

And even actually, this comes back to Maeve's Top Buns is she was saying like her first post that went viral, that had like 80,000 ish likes on it. She said she was really surprised about the negative comments she got back. Now we're talking cinnamon rolls. Like cinnamon rolls is a pretty benign topic.

To me, if you look at it like, okay, maybe I don't eat them. 'cause I don't do gluten and I don't do dairy, but [00:28:00] that doesn't mean that I'm gonna hate on cinnamon rolls. She's not talking about women's rights and feminism or L-G-B-T-Q-I-A community or anything that would be considered like a hot topic. But there's still angry comments and you're going to get them and you gotta be okay with them.

So I'm glad that we're headed in that direction as well to just kind of make a statement and say something, something that we want to say.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and, and sometimes those, like the, those videos that get the negative feedback end up getting pushed to more people and you'll find more people. I was. I was watching a video. We talked on this podcast about the sorority chef and like how big he is. Well, he did some sort of recipe and like a bunch of people were like, that looks disgusting.

Like, they were like, but it probably is gonna be one of his higher performing views of videos. Because there were people in there saying like, that looks bad now. I thought it looked tasty, but I could see why like, there was like mustard and pickles involved. And I think those are [00:29:00] controversial ingredients.

Um,

Michelle Pualani: Mustard and pickles. I thought they go together. That's like

Joanna Newton: I, well, I

Michelle Pualani: hot dog toppings.

Joanna Newton: I do too, but I think, I guess they're more of an acquired taste than you might

Michelle Pualani: Oh, that's weird. I'm offended.

Joanna Newton: I'm with you. Right. But then, but then people might be like, that's weird. But then it gets more views and, that then will help you find more people. Some of them will like you, and then some of them won't.

Michelle Pualani: I think this come back, comes back to the offer, which brings me to my next thing that I wanna chat about is that you have to remember who are you talking to and trying to draw in. And what is your offer and who are you positioning it for? Because just because you have negative confrontation doesn't necessarily mean that it's gonna grow your business and have the positive impact that you want.

Now, for someone who's a content creator, who is monetized brand deal. Or just looking for reach in terms of their content, in order for [00:30:00] opportunities, then sure you, they might lean into that negative side of things, even if it's not negative like that. It, let's just say controversial, not negative.

Controversial is that they're looking for the good and the bad, and that's okay. Now, as someone who is positioning a certain product type. Offer service that doesn't want to just draw in anyone. You're not just focused on views, you're focused on an A specific type of ideal client or customer that you wanna bring into the fold.

Then it's super important, right? Like we've talked about this really briefly on a couple episodes ago about graphic designers. Now a graphic designer who's sharing negative comments. Or snarky feedback about client inquiries is not appealing to the client or customer. She's appealing to other graphic designers and that could be an issue for her underlying business.

So being cognizant about the type of content you're creating and why you're creating [00:31:00] it. So when you think about your offer, that's where your marketing really starts. So the example that I wanna use is Coca-Cola. They just announced recent, like, um, revenue, income, and therefore like stock adjustments are happening and the benefit of like, what that looks like from a company perspective.

So. Overall, they have a revenue of like 14, 12.46 billion. It's about 5% year over year growth, which is still huge. Now we don't always think about brands like Coca-Cola 'cause it's like, it's just kind of there, you know? Same thing with simple mills and cereal. It's just kind of there. Unless they're doing something that's maybe a little bit again controversial.

They're not often like talked about.

Joanna Newton: Um.

Michelle Pualani: As far as like overarching conversations, but they've seen a 14% growth in their Coca-Cola zero sugar. So from a product perspective, I'm seeing a change in shift in beverages. [00:32:00] Two zero style products and non-alcoholic. So you have big brands like Heineken, who's putting out zero 0.0 Guinness.

Budweiser, like those types of brands are putting out non-alcoholic options now. Their marketing was based in positioned around alcohol consumption, but this pivot in consumerism has changed to non-alcoholic choices, so they can't just continue to market. Alcohol because now they're creating a non-alcoholic product.

So you have to think about your product, your offer, your service, and that's where your marketing starts. That's where your languaging starts. That's where your messaging starts, it's your offer. So I think it's so important to keep that in mind. 'cause a lot of times we forget about that and we just start talking about trends or pillars or these things, but it doesn't lead back to your core offer.

So something very important to keep in mind.

Joanna Newton: [00:33:00] Yeah, and actually having an offer, stating it, positioning it to people, making it clear what that is. I know one of the reasons Coca-Cola started the Coke Zero line was because diet drinks and Diet Coke were. originally marketed to women.

Michelle Pualani: Mm-hmm.

Joanna Newton: like narrowed their actual like market share. So Diet Coke was kind of thought as a female product intentionally or not?

I actually don't know the answer if they intended to make it for women. But regardless, it was like Diet Coke. Women drink Diet Coke so that they don't gain weight. So the Coke Zero line was created to appeal to men because why wouldn't they also want like a zero sugar, like. Option for a beverage, and then I think it's just like taken over and really helped with their growth. So if you have a product now, don't drink Coke at all, the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero, [00:34:00] you'd be like, what is the difference? There is no difference but to people who drink that beverage. There's a difference and they'll be like, I drink Coke Zero, or I drink Diet Coke. And there's like an identity in there. So, and how this like so clearly applies to anybody is like. I sometimes we think we have to completely reinvent the wheel to get new customers, but it's often a small tweak of formula change, a positioning and marketing that can expand what you do to new people. You do need to make adjustments.

You can't just like slap a different label on something. People will notice that, but you can make little tweaks that make something applicable to an entirely new customer base.

Michelle Pualani: Absolutely. I think a lot of times we completely try to think, oh, I have to start from scratch. Oh, I've gotta start over. Oh, I've gotta burn everything down. Which granted, I do feel that way sometimes,

Joanna Newton: And sometimes that's fun. It's fun. Like honestly, sometimes it's really fun to be like, I'm just not doing that anymore, and like start something completely new.

Michelle Pualani: [00:35:00] Yeah, I think people always think they need permission as well. You know, as we kind of start to wrap up the conversation, I feel like a lot of people are asking like, is it okay if I make this change? Can I really do this new offer? I'm not as interested in much. As much in this topic, which is what I've been known for, and now I wanna move over.

I've been in a lot of business masterminds where people are so worried about the pivot and whereas obviously you have income to think about and you don't wanna just like cut things off, but give yourself permission to pivot, to tweak, to change. Also, if you've been doing something and you know, if I'm talking to you, if you've been doing something over and over again and you're getting the same result, which you're not happy about that result.

It's time to tweak something, to change something. Don't just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I did that for years thinking like, oh, well if I just do it more, if I'm just more consistent, if I just do this over and over and over again, eventually I'll get a different result. But you've gotta tweak something.

[00:36:00] You've gotta learn. You've gotta look back at the data and say, okay, this is the outcome that I got before and this is what I was doing. I'm gonna change this variable. I'm gonna pull this lever and I'm gonna see if there's a shift. Okay that did this or didn't do this, okay, I'm gonna pull this lever. You know, don't change everything at once, because then you're not gonna know what's, what's working, what's not working.

So thinking about it kind of incrementally and thoughtfully and continuing to come back to your offer, come back to your core mission, come back to your authenticity. A lot of times we get up, we start the day, we move through it, we check the boxes. I've gotta create this piece of content. I've gotta film this thing.

I've gotta write this email. And we forget to come back to that. Why, you know, especially again, as we're seeing ai, which is exploding right now in so many industries, is that just, again, coming back to your human quality, connecting with your customer, thinking on that one-to-one level, who are you talking to directly?

How can I come back to like who I am, how I'm [00:37:00] showing up, and cultivate that into your personal brand, into your business as you grow.

Joanna Newton: Thank you so much for listening today. We hope you enjoy this episode and learn something that you can apply to your business. Please make sure to subscribe and share this with a friend. Also, we have a companion substack where each week we break down the actionable things that you can take from this episode and apply to directly to your business. So go check that out. It'll be linked in the show notes. We hope to see you there