Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen:
Welcome to the Ecommerce Marketing Podcast, everyone. My name is Arlen and I am your host. And today we have a very special guest, Ryan Kutscher who is an award-winning writer, creative director, and the Founder of Circus Maximus, a branding, innovation, and advertising agency for any business that wants to build the king of brand consumers actively seek out. And welcome to the podcast, Ryan.

Ryan Kutscher:
Hey man, what’s up? Thank you for having me. 

Arlen:
Yes,

Ryan Kutscher:
Glad to be here. 

Arlen:
Thank you for joining me. I’m really excited to talk to you. You know, today we’re going to be talking about the brand narrative process. You’re going to be enlightening us on that and, and how all of this, uh, can help an e-commerce brand, you know, increase their sales. That’s really kind of the bottom line of our discussion. But, um, you know, before we do get into all that, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your background and, you know, specifically how you got into what you’re doing today.

Ryan Kutscher:
Sure, yeah, I mean, kind of by accident, you know. I went to college in Virginia, I went to William & Mary, I studied economics.

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
Not really sure what I was going to do with that, but thought I could go into some sort of a business and discovered advertising. It was almost by accident really at the school. There was a class that was taught my senior year. It was a one credit class and it met once a week and it was taught by a creative director that had been living and working in New York during sort of like… the heyday 70s, 80s, 

Arlen:
Yep.

Ryan Kutscher:
Kind of a Don Draper type guy.

Arlen:
Gotcha.

Ryan Kutscher:
And at my school, that was a really like, the business school was primarily focused around accounting,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
which was not my thing. And yeah, I kind of remember him walking in and saying like, I’m the guy that came up with Chevrolet’s Heartbeat of America campaign. And I was like, huh, that’s cool.

Arlen:
Heh.

Ryan Kutscher:
I think I’m gonna do that. And that was it.

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
So from there,

Arlen:
That’s it.

Ryan Kutscher:
I ended up going to advertising school. in Miami, which was great because Miami is fun. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
And then just as fate would turn out, there was a very fast growing kind of notorious agency in Miami that 

Arlen:
Hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
I left the ad school to go work at. And that’s kind of how I got my start in the business.

Arlen:
Okay, great, great. Yeah, that’s awesome. So it sounds like you’ve kind of been around for a little while and gotten your feet wet in a variety of different areas.

Ryan Kutscher:
We lived through a few different iterations, yeah, different iterations from the web years to the social years, now to the AI years. 

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Kutscher:
So it’s always something.

Arlen:
Yeah, I like that. You know, I was telling you before we got going, I guess I got started in the in the web years kind of right after the web was really kind of taking shape in about the year 2000. And so yeah, I like that kind of breakdown of the era is it’s, you know, the web years, the social years, now we’re in the AI years. And it’ll be interesting to see what’s after AI. Well, I guess after AI, we’ve got the

Ryan Kutscher:
Someone I said what’s gonna be after AI is not gonna be us. It’s gonna be.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly. We’re probably going to get a lot long gone, but it seems like this whole metaverse virtual world is probably kind of the next iteration that, you know, everybody’s excited about, especially with

Ryan Kutscher:
Are you? Sorry, go ahead.

Arlen:
I was just saying, especially with Apple’s announcement of their Apple Vision Pro device. And so I think that’s really going to, I think they’re ushering in this whole new era, I think.

Ryan Kutscher:
That’s one of those, I mean, is that your take on it? Does it feel like you, are you having a lot of conversations around like the metaverse and sort of virtual spaces?

Arlen:
I am, I still think it’s still early, of course. And I think them kind of putting it out there, that product at that price point, obviously once they get it out there, it’s not gonna get an immediate widespread distribution globally, of course, because of that price point, we’re at 3,500 for that device. And so yeah, I think what it is, is it’s kind of warming up the public’s. Consciousness and perception of this type of technology getting people used to it getting people You know the ability to kind of visualize them using this what they can do in this world And so at the same time I think You know the brands and companies that are gonna be taking advantage of it I think right now they’re getting their ducks in order. Yeah, you better believe it for sure I think they’re doing some things to once the whole world starts participating in this kind of metaverse, if you call it that, you know, that their presence is there. You know, it’s kind of like the early days of the web where everybody was rushing to get a web presence, to get a website and get that going. And it’s like, if you didn’t have it, you were, you know, you were, you’re going to be left out. And I think it’s going to be the same thing with the metaverse.

Ryan Kutscher:
It’s funny, man, because like last year and maybe a little bit the year before the metaverse during the pandemic was like, you know, people were buying real estate in the metaverse.

Arlen:
Yes. Right.

Ryan Kutscher:
NFTs were crazy popular

Arlen:
Yep.

Ryan Kutscher:
and it seemed like they kind of crashed and faded. And I don’t know that I felt personally, and I’m no visionary, 

Arlen:
Mm.

Ryan Kutscher:
You know, with that stuff, but like, I was like, I don’t know about all this. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
Obviously, if Apple’s throwing their hat in the ring, maybe it means something, but you’ve had like magic leap,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
you know, and Oculus and

Arlen:
Yep.

Ryan Kutscher:
Google Cardboard, and it always just seems kind of gimmicky to me.

Arlen:
Right,

Ryan Kutscher:
Whereas like, 

Arlen:
gotcha,

Ryan Kutscher:
as opposed to AI, where the second you use chat GPT, you’re like, are we allowed to swear on your podcast?

Arlen:
Yeah, I’ll knock you so far.

Ryan Kutscher:
You use AI and you’re like, holy shit.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
Whereas whenever I’ve used the virtual reality, I’m like, eh, I don’t know.

Arlen:
Right, right, right.

Ryan Kutscher:
Maybe video games, I don’t know. But I’m not much of a gamer,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
so I could be way wrong enough.

Arlen:
Yeah, I see what you’re saying. It’s not at that level where you, like you said, when ChatGPT came out, I mean, we were like, everybody’s were walking around with their mouths hanging open like, wow, what the heck? What’s going on with this?

Ryan Kutscher:
Can I see if you can show it up? And it was like, shit, I better learn how to be an electrician or like a plumber or something.

Arlen:
Right,

Ryan Kutscher:
You know, it’s no longer 

Arlen:
Yeah, It’s like

Ryan Kutscher:
My choice

Arlen:
it’s gonna, right, replace everyone’s job. 

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah.

Arlen:
But we’ll see. Like I said, I think it’s still early. I think all of this, even the NFTs, like you’re saying, and all of these different things that are going to be contributing to this whole metaverse. I think the push for it, because like you said, it kind of faded back. You don’t hear too many things about these NFTs. 

Ryan Kutscher:
So

Arlen:
I think the push of

Ryan Kutscher:
It’s a lot of poor naps

Arlen:
it was…

Ryan Kutscher:
that you can get on discount right now. You know what I’m saying?

Arlen:
Oh, really? Okay. Gotcha. But I think the push of it was really just to get it out there. They kind of knew the whole framework for all of this was not ready yet, but it was more of just getting it out there, getting it in the consciousness and, you know, getting people used to it, getting people accustomed to the idea of what they can do in these digital assets. So

Ryan Kutscher:
Did you use the 

Arlen:
So to me, I think.

Ryan Kutscher:
Apple one? Is that even possible? Are they at Apple stores yet?

Arlen:
No, the Apple one, no, it’s not going to be released until early 2024. That’s their date on it. And so, you know, like I said, it’s really early and then putting it out there is really more just kind of just drumming up the interest, getting people accustomed to what they can do and you know, we’ll see. And you know, like anything, of course it has that high price point, but most likely they’re going to, um, you know, probably shortly after they release it, have a non pro version, which will be probably like half the cost. And so, um, you know, they. They know what they’re doing.

Ryan Kutscher:
We’ll see. I mean, people.

Arlen:
yeah, we sure will, man. Well, yeah, it’s interesting.

Ryan Kutscher:
If people want to go back to the office, I don’t know if we’re going into the metaverse or what that means, but I guess we’ll find out.

Arlen:
Yeah, we are. We sure will. Well, yeah, it’s awesome. But as far as today, Ryan, yeah, I think I want to kind of start off with, as I mentioned, we’re talking about the brand narrative process. I want to see if you can really just kind of define what that is. What is the brand narrative process? How would you define it?

Ryan Kutscher:
Brand narrative process is basically like, if you think about a brand, or maybe through the framework of a story, maybe you’ve read it, I’m reading Harry Potter right now, because I was like 

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
I just need something that’s not nonfiction.

Arlen:
About the patient’s trauma. Right, right. And you have great,

Ryan Kutscher:

I just need a break. So you think about like a novel or something like that. Maybe you would start before you wrote the novel, you would write an outline for the novel, and you would describe the characters, and you would describe the plot. and you would describe the setting and you would kind of block out kind of some of the basics that would be the framework for what that story would be about.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
That’s what the brand narrative is. So if you’re a brand, we like to think of it as like, what’s your mission or purpose? Like that could be your plot or what’s your persona? That’s you as thinking about yourself as a main character. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
What’s your positioning? You know, how to, why am I different from? the things that exist today in the mind of the consumer?

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
What are the topics of authority? What are those subjects that I talk about a lot and kind of credibly own?

Arlen:
Hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
What’s my tone of voice? What’s the language? How do I speak? What’s kind of my vibe? And what are my truths? Like what are the values that my brand stands for?

Arlen:
Yeah, that make sense.

Ryan Kutscher:
And so that’s kind of the brand narrative process is defining those things.

Arlen:
Okay, gotcha. Now, as far as this is concerned, why is this really essential for you know, ecommerce businesses to be able to do this?

Ryan Kutscher:
I think it’s important for any brand, e-commerce in particular, to create a sense of meaning in the mind of your consumer to understand really who you’re for and what you’re all about. A lot of people start businesses without much of a plan, but it’s a lot easier when you have one. And I think

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
it sets up the blueprint and the roadmap for what your brand… is going to do and be in the world.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
And that helps you go to market with a very clear, concise, and compelling story. I think it indicates to your consumer, your target consumer, who you are and what you’re all about. I think it makes things easier to align your internal team, because everyone has a shared understanding of the company that they’re working for. So it does a lot of things both internally and externally that I think make your life a lot easier. makes your marketing

Arlen:
Right.

Ryan Kutscher:
makes your marketing easier, it makes recruiting easier, it makes storytelling easier, 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
it makes product roadmaps easier,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
if you have it really well clearly defined.

Arlen:
Yeah, that’s, that’s great. And that makes total sense. And now speaking of marketing, when you do have this brand narrative, you know, clearly defined as a business owner, I’m listening to this, I’m like, okay, that’s great. Now, how do I, you know, weave this into our whole marketing strategy, which, you know, the end result, what we’re trying to do is drive customer engagement. We’re trying to drive loyalty. And then of course, ultimately, you know, grow the business and the sales.

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah, I mean, I think the marketing funnel is fairly broad, right? 

Arlen:
Yep.

Ryan Kutscher:
So that could include everything from packaging to your website or your social media content or your content marketing. So one example might be, well, let’s work kind of traditional to maybe less traditional, right? So one could be most people, you talked about Apple before, right? 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
Most people that know, follow marketing probably remember the Apple commercial that was to the crazy ones. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
It was a Super Bowl commercial that ran. It had Einstein in it, and

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
it was to the crazy ones, the ones who think different.

Arlen:
me.

Ryan Kutscher:
And it sort of positioned that brand platform and said, hey, here’s what we are all about. This is our anthem.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
We’re for this kind of a person that thinks this kind of a way that has these kind of values. So that’s one way that it shows up in your marketing, and that would be like a kind of a traditional television spot. But maybe for like e-commerce marketers, like maybe, I just had a baby two weeks ago.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
I’m a new dad, and I need a lot of information. And maybe as an e-commerce brand that caters to new dads, you are kind of solving a lot of problems with content marketing in the form of a blog or emails. Right?

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
So like I ordered these, whatever these particular napkins are, I guess they’re, they have like silver fibers in them. So they’re disinfectant and it’s a lot safer for the kid.

Arlen:
Gotcha.

Ryan Kutscher:
But if I’m the marketer of this, maybe it’s like

Arlen:
Right.

Ryan Kutscher:
Oh, I’m all about equipping dads with the information they need to be the most informed and capable fathers they need to be. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
It’s one of our values. Therefore my blog content is going to be all about that. It might not be about our product. It might be about other information that helps dads feel confident and be great dads.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
So that’s another way that it can inform, you know, having that narrative defined helps really kind of identify, well, what is the content that we’re going to be creating in our blog or email follow-up or social media? 

Arlen:
Hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
So it’s like an organizing principle that helps you generate content for each channel that builds back to that brand story.

Arlen:
Gotcha, gotcha. Now, one of the questions that I kind of have now I’m thinking kind of putting myself in the shoes of an e-commerce business owner. Let’s say I’m a business owner and my brand, you know, let’s say I have a kind of a diverse product line where I’m covering a variety of different demographics, different generations. And, you know, so I need to be able to hit a variety of social channels. So let’s say I’ve got, let’s say I’m selling clothes, but I have a young children’s line, but then I have a, an adult line. I have a women’s line. Let’s say I’m covering kind of a variety of areas here. What would you, how do you kind of maintain a consistent narrative when you’re talking to different audiences that are, you know, different age groups and in different generations? Is there kind of a common theme that you kind of use to kind of thread the narrative altogether and make sure it’s cohesive across all of them?

Ryan Kutscher:
Well, I think it might come back to, you know, when we’re talking about the brand narrative earlier, maybe we talked about values, right?

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
So like maybe one of your values is about helping families navigate their growing pains. So you make things for mom and you make things for grandma and you make things for the kids. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
So there is kind of a consistent theme there that’s articulated in the brand narrative. that might inform how our content for these different audiences is in some way related.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
But it can be really tough to me, to be honest with you. Like I’m trying to think of. Like an example of a brand that might live up to what you said,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
um, old Navy or like.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
I think the brand narrative might also be valuable in identifying like, all right, use that example. Are we too broad? Do we need to be selling stuff to mom, grandma, uncle?

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
Or have we spread ourselves too thin and therefore we’ve created a marketing challenge for ourselves

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
that’s too wide to solve? 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
You know, you have to. be so tactical, particularly in e-commerce marketing and with the ways that iOS and all that stuff has changed, you have to be so keenly aware of your core consumer and where they are and what they want to see

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
that it could be challenging to kind of want one message to work for everybody.

Arlen:
Yeah, that’s a good point. He said, I could definitely get a brand to kind of maybe rethink, you know, the different product lines that they have. Cause you know, obviously there’s going to be top sellers. You’re going to have certain, um, products that are going to be outselling others. And then, you know, with that in mind, I mean, looking at everything, if you were trying to keep a consistent narrative across all of them, you know, you know, maybe there’s a, maybe it doesn’t make sense. Like you said, to offer to, you know, let’s say that younger demographic, maybe you’re not getting too much. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to, to do any type of marketing or campaigns on TikTok, for instance, because maybe your, your products on the younger demographic side are maybe only let’s say five, 10% of your business. You, maybe it’s not much at all. And so, yeah, I mean, that could definitely. help you kind of fine tune that narrative and focus it in more. So yeah, that’s a great point, you know, for sure. You know, I’m always a huge advocate of kind of learning from lessons and the mistakes made. And what I wanted to see is what are some common mistakes that you’ve seen that e-commerce brands have made when it comes to creating their brand narrative and is there anything that they can do to avoid these things?

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah, I mean, I’ve definitely made many mistakes myself. I mean, I think the one that you just said is maybe being too broad and not knowing who you are for.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
That’s a super common one. And I think particularly like the performance marketers out there could probably relate to that where you’re doing interest targeting and you’re trying to figure out like, who is this really kind of resonating with? 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
Being a little too generic or too broad is probably a big, big mistake. Not having a differentiated story to tell and product is another one where it’s just like you don’t have a real position. We’re for everybody. Well, that means you’re kind of for nobody. So that’s where maybe the brand positioning component of the brand narrative might help. Other mistakes. Not having a strong media strategy. So like you kind of pointed out like, all right, are we going to market live with Google and Facebook? Or are we going to make more of an organic play with TikTok? There’s so many channels and so many ways to do e-commerce now.

Arlen:
Hmm?

Ryan Kutscher:
Maybe you want to be focused on Amazon, or do you want to be a direct-to-consumer brand and own that relationship? I think figuring that out, or at least having a strong idea of what you want it to be, is good because the tactics that might work for an Amazon brand on the Amazon platform may not be the same as the ones that are going to be really successful on direct-to-consumer, Instagram, Facebook.

Arlen:
Right.

Ryan Kutscher:
And trying to probably not… not dilute your marketing spend by trying to do everything.

Arlen:
Yeah,

Ryan Kutscher:
So that’s like a handful of things that we’ve kind of dealt with.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah. And those are, those are some good points. Um, you know, a lot of times you mentioned that lastly, you were mentioning, you know, diluting your brand with this bunch of marketing spin across a lot of different campaigns. I mean, not a campaign, but marketing channels. I see this a lot because a lot of times businesses and especially because of all of these various, uh, social media channels, there’s so many, there’s more and more coming out, you know, all the time. I think brands have the tendency to have that whole kind of FOMO reaction when it comes to the latest channel and stuff feel like, okay, if I’m not on here, I’m not on TikTok, I’m missing out. But it just may not be right for your brand. Are the demographics there for it to be worthwhile and worth the budget there? And then, I see a lot of companies just throwing money across all of these things and it’s you know, it doesn’t make sense. You know, I understand you do have to test when you’re doing any type of marketing and see what the results are. And then if it gets any type of return, then yeah, maybe double down or if not pivot. But yeah, a lot of times, you know, I see it just across the board where people are just kind of throwing money or, you know, at a lot of these things and not really being strategic with it.

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah. I mean, knowing your category, knowing what works, know your business model. Like you mentioned e-commerce, but there’s a lot of brands out there that might be a split. They might do some e-commerce. They might have some bricks and mortar. There’s different qualities. Like maybe you’re an alcohol and spirits brand.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
And most of your sales are coming from like what we would call on-premise or like either in a bar or like, let’s say you’re a big bar brand, your social presence is going to be really different. than a clothing brand that’s trying to get you to click through and make a sale online. So

Arlen:
Yep.

Ryan Kutscher:
I think you have to, you really have to have that categorical knowledge of how does your pipeline operate.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
We’ve seen people waste a lot of money, a lot of big brands waste a lot of money

Arlen:
Yeah. Right.

Ryan Kutscher:
kind of playing someone else’s playbook thinking that’s going to work for me. And it doesn’t.

Arlen:
Yeah. Yeah, I see that. I see that. I mean, because I think from the mindset of a, of an e-commerce brand, they’re looking at these other companies, these other brands that are larger and that are spending, you know, millions and millions of dollars on marketing and ad campaigns. And they’re like, okay, if I just do what they’re doing, you know, it’ll work for me, but that’s not always the case because 

Ryan Kutscher:
That’s the case.

Arlen:
they have a whole different customer. persona, profile, demographics are going after, and there’s a lot of factors as to the decisions that they make, so yeah, that’s,

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah,

Arlen:
I think a mistake

Ryan Kutscher:
and I’m not like

Arlen:
A lot of this.

Ryan Kutscher:
you know, my background is really more in the storytelling, the narrative kind of coming up with that framework.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
I’m not like a deep performance marketer, but certainly we engage with, with those folks and the combination of like, when you get the really great story, plus the,

Arlen:
Hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
the right media mix together is where the magic happens. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
Uh, but there really isn’t like an answer.

Arlen:
Hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
You know, you have to find your answer as a brand

Arlen:
Yep.

Ryan Kutscher:
and find the way that it works for you with your customers and so forth. I think that’s one of the misconceptions and I’ve fallen guilty of this too, trying to find like the blueprint that’s going

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
to work for every brand and it’s really not out there. You know, you kind of have to figure it out for yourself.

Arlen:
For sure. For sure. I mean, it would make our jobs a lot easier if there was just that blueprint that you could just apply across every brand, but not some.

Ryan Kutscher:
Do this.

Arlen:
Yeah,

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah.

Arlen:
exactly. Do this. Follow these steps. You’re good to go.

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah, it’s tough.

Arlen:
But we wish it was that easy. Uh, well, right. As we get ready to wrap things up, I wanted to see if you could share some examples of any success successful brand narratives in the e-commerce space overall and what may makes them stand out specifically.

Ryan Kutscher:
Oh, you know, I think just from a conversation I was having earlier today, I guess I was sort of primed like Do you familiar with Magic Spoon?

Arlen:
No, I’m not. What exactly is that?

Ryan Kutscher:
Magic Spoon is a cereal brand.

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
It’s a direct to consumer cereal brand that might now be what they call Clicks to Bricks. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
But Magic Spoon evokes a lot of the sugary cereals that we probably had as kids, Lucky Charms

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
and all that stuff, Cinnamon Toast Crunch. But they’ve done it, they’ve kind of reformulated it with higher protein, lower sugar. So it’s kind of like Oh, it gives you that sort of nostalgia

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
of those things that we ate growing up. But now as adults that we know we probably shouldn’t eat.

Arlen:
Right, right.

Ryan Kutscher:
And they’ve been a terrific, I think, e-commerce success story because, you know, you don’t, consumer packaged goods and food and e-commerce sometimes don’t mesh that well, right? 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
Cause you always want to like taste it and try it. 

Arlen:
Exactly.

Ryan Kutscher:
And that’s a really hard thing to do. He says, 

Arlen:
Right.

Ryan Kutscher:
You say grocery store or channel.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
But I think the magic spoon kind of nostalgia and brand vibe and kind of like sort of some of the softer stuff that we were talking about from the brand narrative, the way that it makes me feel, plus their e-commerce execution is definitely a success story. I think they’re over a hundred million dollar brand, 

Arlen:
No,

Ryan Kutscher:
maybe even more.

Arlen:
wow. Wow.

Ryan Kutscher:
And that’s hard to do. I mean, that’s hard to do in the food world.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, that is definitely.

Ryan Kutscher:
A lot of food brands maybe are like 3% sales, e-commerce.

Arlen:
Mm.

Ryan Kutscher:
I think Magic Spoon’s probably almost flip-flopped. I don’t know, I can’t, I don’t have deep knowledge of their percentages, but that’s one that stands out to me, I think.

Arlen:
Okay, great. Yeah, that’s an awesome example. 

Ryan Kutscher:
And

Arlen:
And you’re right.

Ryan Kutscher:
I don’t work for them. I don’t.

Arlen:
Oh, for sure.

Ryan Kutscher:
But

Arlen:
No problem. Disclaimer.

Ryan Kutscher:
yeah,

Arlen:
Uh,

Ryan Kutscher:
just playing.

Arlen:
well, yeah, that makes sense. And yeah, it’s very difficult. Like you said, especially in the, you know, in the food space to be able to carve a niche like that, and then to have such sales, you know, on the e-commerce side. So, um,

Ryan Kutscher:
What’s one

Arlen:
yeah,

Ryan Kutscher:
that stands out to you?

Arlen:
how are.

Ryan Kutscher:
Like what’s an e-commerce brand that you discovered and kind of patronized recently?

Arlen:
Wow, let’s see. That’s a great question. I would say, with me, it’s tough because like many people, I’m on Amazon all the time. I don’t really wander too much outside of the whole Amazon ecosystem too much just because I’m super busy and I usually don’t have a lot of time to take chances with other brands and doing direct consumer purchases.

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah.

Arlen:
I know a lot of small business owners don’t want to hear that, but yeah, personally, I’m trying to think was there anything that I’ve bought recently outside of that ecosystem that had a kind of a narrative.

Ryan Kutscher:
I suffer from e-commerce amnesia where I’m like,

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
scrolling or whatever and I’m like, 

Arlen:
Yes.

Ryan Kutscher:
ah, give it a shot. And then I completely forget and it shows up and I’m like, where did this, I have like a multi-tool thing, or whatever I ordered just shows up and I completely forgot that I even bought it.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I know that it goes. I’ve done the same thing. Actually, one brand that’s come into mind is actually a client of ours that, yeah, their narrative is very, very interesting narrative that I think has carried through to their success. The name of the company is SeaMoss Transformation. And what they create is a, they provide is an organic superfood. It’s kind of like sea moss, but it comes in a gel type. 

Ryan Kutscher:
Sounds delicious.

Arlen:
You’re familiar with it? Okay. Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
Loss.

Arlen:
Yeah. So they, they flavored it though, because yeah, like you said, you hear that, you’re like, all right, that can’t be good.

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah.

Arlen:
But the bottom line

Ryan Kutscher:
You’re gonna need to add some vanilla. Yeah.

Arlen:
yeah, exactly. They’ve added flavors to it. The bottom line is it has a variety of health benefits that really have helped. Um, you lose weight, can help your hair, your skin, you name it. The founder and owner is kind of a walking testimonial for that. I mean, I think he used to, he used to weigh over 400 pounds, something like that. And he claims his ability to lose a ton of weight was because of that. His regimen that he had with that, of course, with other things, but, you know, in all of their branding and everything that I’ve seen, he’s kind of front and center there. They actually were on Shark Tank last year and they did get a deal through, uh, for Mark, for Mark Cuban and, uh,

Ryan Kutscher:
Cuban

Arlen:
Kevin Hart

Ryan Kutscher:
is just…

Arlen:
actually. Yeah. Exactly.

Ryan Kutscher:
a little bit. Yeah.

Arlen:
He has money to burn. So yeah, they got to deal with them and they’re doing really well. Yeah. They’ve been actually using our technology, our affiliate platform to kind of grow and manage their affiliate software or their, excuse me, their affiliate program. Cause they’ve got a ton of influencers and other affiliates that are out there kind of spreading the word, but yeah, with them that kind of stuck out because everything that I’ve seen with them, even from their newsletters to their website. Um, copy. Yeah, you know that their narrative of those health benefits, they’ve tied that in kind of really tightly to, you know, the product. And then when people see that and they think about, okay, the founder losing weight, the health benefits he had, it kind of hits home there.

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah, that’s awesome.

Arlen:
Yes. Yes,

Ryan Kutscher:
And it’s conveniently

Arlen:
That’s a good one.

Ryan Kutscher:
one of your clients. That’s perfect.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Kutscher:
I’ll see you

Arlen:
Well, right, right. Well, right. It’s been awesome talking to you. I definitely have learned a lot. As we’ve seen the brand narrative process is something that every business doesn’t matter if you’re ecommerce or not. If you’re brick and mortar, you got to have a clear brand narrative across all of your channels, your marketing channels. It has to be consistent, has to be cohesive in order for you know, that communication to make sense and for people to be able to establish loyalty and, you know, get more, a few further engagement. So, um, yeah, it’s, it’s really all about that. Uh, but, uh, before we let you go, I always like to switch gears just so our audience can get to know you a little bit better, if you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact about yourself that you think we’d be interested to know.

Ryan Kutscher:
Oh, fun fact. What are like, what are some, what are some that come to mind that you’ve had recently that you were like, oh, that is a fun fact.

Arlen:
Yeah, I’ll give you some man. I’ve had some crazy fun facts. I mean, one of the top ones is I had a gentleman on a few years ago on the podcast and in a previous life, I guess you could say, he was, I think he was in the marketing field right now. He had a marketing agency, but prior to that, he was an arms dealer working for the government. 

Ryan Kutscher:
Bye.

Arlen:
Yeah. Arms dealer. Yeah. And he was telling me a few stories after the podcast. And yeah. Some crazy stuff, yeah. He’s kind of seen a lot of interesting things, 

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah,

Arlen:
if you could have met, 

Ryan Kutscher:
All right

Arlen:
and being an arms dealer for the government.

Ryan Kutscher:
I don’t know if

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
I’m gonna top arms dealer.

Arlen:
Yeah, that’s a tough one.

Ryan Kutscher:
I’m not doing a good job here. Let’s see.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
I don’t know. Here’s one fun fact. I really like learning languages and I’m currently learning three. So I’m learning French.

Arlen:
Wow.

Ryan Kutscher:
I’m learning Italian and I’m learning Mandarin. So

Arlen:
Okay, wow, okay. How are you going about?

Ryan Kutscher:
You’re probably A bit of a French Well, I’m not sure if there’s one

Arlen:
Wow, okay, that’s awesome. Congrats on that. How are you going about doing that? Are you going to school? Are you doing any type of online virtual learning? What are you doing?

Ryan Kutscher:
Every day I do 30 minutes of each of those languages on an app called Pimsleur.

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
And Pimsleur was named for a guy, I believe, I want to say it was Joseph Pimsleur, but I might have his first name wrong. It’s a great app.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
And he created a framework by which people learn language through various forms of exposure. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
And so it’s like, it’s very conversational.

Arlen:
Hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
The way that you learn the language and you kind of start with like a basic phrase, but each lesson you’re get, you’re kind of building on introducing a new word or a new concept. But so like maybe 80% of each lesson is actually

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
what you did in the last lesson and 20% of it is new. And so

Arlen:
Oh wow.

Ryan Kutscher:
they expose you to a little bit of new phrasing. And then in the next class, they expose you to it again, but little bit more and then by the third class Dave exposes you and the next thing you know you’re just kind of doing it so it’s pretty great yeah

Arlen:
Wow, That’s awesome.

Ryan Kutscher:
I recommend it.

Arlen:
And now you’re doing, okay, yeah, thank you for that. That’s a great fun fact. Now, are you doing all three languages at once or are you doing your kind of juggling?

Ryan Kutscher:
Yeah, so in school I studied French. My mother was Belgian and she spoke a little French. So I had like kind of a maybe a little bit of a little exposure to it as a kid. And then I started to study Spanish. And then Italian was always just something that I wanted to learn. I got married in Italy a couple of years ago, and I did this class and like in five months you go from not knowing anything to basically being fluent.

Arlen:
Wow.

Ryan Kutscher:
Now, The exception is for me has been Mandarin. I’ve done that course probably three times and it’s such a different, it’s a tonal language. It’s just a very different,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Ryan Kutscher:
there’s no, it’s not a romance language like French, Spanish, English. English isn’t a romance language but it has a lot of romance language in it. You can kind of like hear, oh, that sounds a little bit like this. Certainly with Mandarin, 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kutscher:
the sounds, the whole thing is totally different. So it’s taken me a lot longer.

Arlen:
Gotcha, gotcha. Well, yeah, that’s impressive. Yeah, I can’t imagine, I mean, becoming fluent, like you said, in about five months, which I guess is the normal time. Yeah, that’s definitely something that I’m gonna have to check out for sure.

Ryan Kutscher:
Do it man, it’s awesome.

Arlen:
Well, thank you for sharing that, Ryan. I really appreciate that. Lastly,

Ryan Kutscher:

It’s still not

Arlen:
before 

Ryan Kutscher:
still

Arlen:
we do

Ryan Kutscher:
not

Arlen:
let

Ryan Kutscher:
as good

Arlen:
me go.

Ryan Kutscher:
as Arm Stealer. Ha!

Arlen:
Yeah,

Ryan Kutscher:
What? Ha ha ha!

Arlen:
yeah. Basically. Well, yeah, before we let you go, if you don’t mind sharing one of the best ways for our listeners and viewers to reach you if they want to pick your brain anymore about the brand narrative process.

Ryan Kutscher:
Sure, yeah, you can go to the website. It’s circusmaximus.com, like the thing in Rome.

Arlen:
Okay.

Ryan Kutscher:
Or you can find me at Ryan.Kutcher on Twitter and at Ryan Kutcher on Instagram, or you can just email me, Ryan at circusmaximus.

Arlen:
Okay, that sounds awesome. We’ll be sure to have those links in the show notes. And it’s been a pleasure talking to you, Ryan. Really appreciate having you on the eCommerce Marketing Podcast.

Ryan Kutscher:
Thank you, man. It’s been awesome. I appreciate it.

Arlen:
Thank you.

Podcast Guest Info

Ryan Kutscher
Founder of Circus Maximus