From Sierra Mist to Starry: When Branding Goes Sideways

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to this episode of the NerdBrand Podcast
.
It is episode number240-something-something and I

(00:41):
have lost track because we areheaded toward number 250.
And here's the announcement On250, we're thinking about
pivoting the show back to somemore relevant nerd stuff, like
how the show started, and thereason is is because Nerdbrand
began as a podcast, not as anagency, so it was branding in
the nerd culture and that wasthe whole idea way back in 2017.

(01:03):
And so back then it was abouthow did nerd culture things how
does movies and television andvideo games and even wrestling
because I had a partner thatstarted the podcast with me at
the time how does that relate tohow they brand themselves and
then market themselves and whatdoes that look like?

(01:23):
So, for example, the movieRagnarok was big at the time and
one of the episodes we did wasabout ragnarok versus bbs,
batman versus superman and um.
I think we all know how thatturned out.
I think ragnarok killed it atthe box office and batman didn't
.
Uh, batman's budget was like500 million to make, probably
about 200 million to market, andragnarok was about a $200

(01:44):
million movie and I think theyspent like I don't know $25
million or something really lowto market it, which was insane.
So the brand reach of Marveland MCU characters far exceeded
DC's at the time and I would sayright now that's probably still
true, but maybe not.
We have a lot of things comingup.

(02:06):
I mean, we just had the.
It makes me hard, it just breaksmy heart to say this the new
Avengers.
Now, I'll be honest with you, Idon't know much about the new
Avengers.
Bucky Barnes is about the onlyAvenger I can agree with, but
the others okay.
So you know, theThunderbolbolts came out and
then, shortly after that,spoiled it for everybody that

(02:28):
hadn't seen the movie yet, thatthey were now called the new
avengers.
Um, kind of a weird marketingplay, in my opinion.
You would think they would havedone that maybe at another
event, maybe or somethingdifferent, but it was literally
within a week or so, or lessthan that, I think, after it
came out, maybe even openingnight, I think that they did a

(02:48):
red carpet and they unveiledwhat the asterisk meant in the
Thunderbolts logo, which was ohyeah, actually they're the new
Avengers.
So you know, sorry if I didn'tgive you a spoiler alert here,
but honestly it's all over theInternet now and that's the
thing, isn't it when we do thesethings, when we type these

(03:10):
talks.
These trailers are expansive,they're long.
Even the teasers are trailersnow, and they have.
Now they tell you the wholemovie.
I mean, you just watch thewhole movie.
If you watch a trailerespecially if you're on a
streaming network and you'repausing at that moment to try to
watch something, you know, whenyou're trying to do advertising
to get people to want to watchyour stuff, you want to maybe
hold some stuff back.
That's not really what happens.
I think they show you all thegood stuff, so you will watch it
and hope the bad stuff isn't asbad as it is.

(03:31):
That's not a good strategy, butit kind of seems like that's
what they do.
But in the realm of nerddom, youknow, you have Thunderbolts,
you have Fantastic Four, youhave all these big properties,
all this big IP, intellectualproperty that these studios have
, and you have to understandthis is money.
This is like you going to buy aCoke or you selling your

(03:51):
services or you're selling yourproduct.
That's what they're doing.
This is their product, this istheir service, right, right?
So, up front, how do we feelabout it?
Think about that for a minute.
Do you feel good about going tothe theater, paying that money
to go there.
I mean, brand recognition is upand everybody knows who Marvel
is, they know who the FantasticFour is.

(04:12):
Everybody's kind of aware ofwhat's up, what's going on.
Go to the theater to see it.
And then there is the problemit's probably not as high or as
enthusiastic about those thingsand doing that as one would
assume.
So you know, there is a bit ofan issue or some things are not

(04:35):
in alignment with the salespitch of what's going on with
things and I think that'ssomething that the studios are
going to have to work on is youknow their brand awareness and
recognition of their productwhen they start to put it out
there.
Dc right now has been a littleslower with that.
I think they've done a lot ofonline stuff with you know

(04:55):
trailers and they put trailersin theaters.
I don't know maybe I'm wrong, Idon't watch a lot of broadcast
television if they're puttingany trailers for Superman out
there, but hopefully they will.
The other thing is istrademarking man.
This is something that hasreally lit up over the last year
that I've seen with businesses,where everybody wants to
trademark their stuff.
Well, first you got a copyrightand you got a trademark.
I think it's how it works.

(05:16):
I'm not a lawyer.
Either way, it's thousands ofdollars and it's very expensive.
And if you kind of have aproperty like Superman, I think
they're in a bit of a fightright now because, as far as
United Kingdom and other foreignnations, they have a trademark
on Superman so they really can'tdistribute the movie.
They can shoot a movie, theycan do all those things, but

(05:38):
when it comes to distribution,that is, put it in a theater,
put it on a network, that'sgoing to be a problem.
So there's a bit of a kerfufflethere that I think James Gunn's
going to have to kind of beaware of, and the studios are
probably just going to have tosettle out of court with
whatever the lawsuit shall be.
But at the end of the day, thatis a big problem because you
think about how these studiosthey make money in the States by

(05:59):
distributing a product to thetheaters, just like you know you
would distribute a product tothe store shelf.
They have only so many outletsthat they have to get and that's
the big ticket buck, rightthere, right, you know they're
going to collect most of therevenue that way.
However, if they go out andthey say, well, we can't go and
put the movie in the UnitedKingdom, we can't put it in
China, we can't put it Uh-ohWell, put it Uh-oh Well.

(06:22):
There's about a half a billiondollars.
It's just not going to be onthe table now because they can't
put it there.
So that's a big revenue problem.
So making movies is a business.
It's not an art, it's a bit ofan art, but it is also a
business.
There's people that got to getpaid.
There's grips, there's lighting, there's makeup, there's
artists, there's people thatbuild sets.
There's, you know, productiondesigners.
There's people that do scripts.

(06:43):
There's, you know, the writers.
There is the directors there'smore than one.
There are camera operators,directors of photography.
There's just hundreds of people, hundreds of people involved.
I remember a friend of mineshot a film out in eastern
Kentucky and there was at least50 people involved in it, and so
, um, and you know, it can allgo off the rails with one person

(07:05):
, a you know an actor or actressnot showing up for the shoot
that day, right, so it is a veryeasy thing to sort of throw off
the rails.
So you have this massiveundertaking.
That's a business.
And so how do you market that?
How do you brand that?
Well, you obviously want to doit in a way that is eye catching
, gets people's attention andthat gets people to want to go

(07:26):
to the theater and buy a ticket,because that's where you're
going to make your money.
Because we really all don'tknow how this streaming stuff
works.
We just know that there's allthese streaming services, you
got Amazon, you got Netflix,you've got Hulu, which is owned
by Disney, disney Plus, you gotHBO, max, I guess still you know
.
And at the end of the day, it'slike, okay, well, I'm going to

(07:49):
go to the here to watch this oneand go to here to watch that
one.
And it's really because thedistribution rights and the
creation rights are not the same.
And so there was a story whereKevin Smith actually had a movie
where he made Mallrats and hewanted to show it in his theater
up in New Jersey and he couldnot do that, even though it was

(08:10):
his film.
It was literally.
He had the original footage.
So he was going to show theoriginal footage, a la
Director's Cut, and he could notdo it.
He got a call from one of thebig studios and said, no, we
have the distribution rights andyou don't have an agreement
with us to show it.
So he could not show it and sothat's the deal there.
You know there's everybody's gota piece of the pie that they

(08:32):
get with regards to this product.
So when you start to brandsomething on the back end, it's
important to kind of understandwho's at the table on the back
end and that's sometimes,unfortunately, going to drive a
design by committee which ishorrible and often we see, as
end users have seen in thetheater, it drives a terrible
result where the movie is justabsolutely atrocious.

(08:55):
Talking to you, captain America4.
So a lot of people, they have alot of different opinions and
how they want it to go and howit will benefit them, because
they're concerned about well,let's be honest the bottom line.
So branding is something thatisn't oh, makes you feel good,
looks good and makes you have anice logo, a nice website or all
of the things that our agencydoes.

(09:17):
It is a pretty as easy, smartas hard mentality.
We have to be thinking aboutevery single thing that we're
doing in step in order to ensureto avoid a potential PR
disaster, to avoid any sort ofhijacking of the marketing or
the brand when it's out in thepublic, which can happen.
We've seen that.
We've all seen thesecontroversies where the brand
comes out with something whenit's out in the public, which

(09:37):
can happen.
We've seen that.
We've all seen thesecontroversies where the brand
comes out with something andit's like uh-oh.
One of the favorites that I haveis the story of Starry.
Starry is a drink.
I think it's like a lemon-limedrink.
I don't drink it, but it usedto be called Sierra Mist and
Sierra Mist is called SierraMist and Sierra Mist is well,

(10:01):
she makes spicy videos onOnlyFans.
And so the problem started withPepsi being contacted and told
that well, sierra Mist has therights to her name, she
trademarked it, so you can't useit, pepsi.
Pepsi went whoa.
Well, we're going to sue.
It's a Coke, it's our product.
I think it was either Pepsi orCoke, but maybe Coke.
For those listening, feel freeto correct me on Facebook.
But anyways, they kind of cameback and said no, you're going

(10:24):
to have to do something about it.
So Starry was born.
You never want to rebrandyourself because of something
like that happening.
It is a terrible, terriblething.
So consulting for the brand isparamount to do up front so that
we understand the landscapethat we're about to embark on,
because, by the time we do thelogo and everything, we

(10:46):
understand that the name is thename and we do not want to
deviate from that, because ithas a meaning, it has a purpose
and Sierra Mist's purpose wasobvious and it was no longer
aligned with Pepsi products.
So, anyways, as you're outthere thinking about your brand,
thinking about what you want todo with your marketing, keep
that story close to heart.
Think about Marvel and DC andwhat you see in the movie

(11:08):
theaters and in pop culture,because, coming up on the Nerd
Brand Podcast, we're going totalk more about Thunderbolts and
our thoughts about that.
We're going to bring Mitch andMichaela back on and, you know,
after that we'll probably havesome other discussions in
relation to, you know, futureentertainment, movies and venues
and things coming out that aregoing to happen this summer, and
I think it'll be worth talkingabout because there are some

(11:30):
lessons that we all can learnfrom that on what not to do and
apply that to our own model.
So, if you enjoy this episodeof the NerdBrand podcast, go to
nerdbrandagencycom slash podcast, listen to the latest episodes,
scroll down that page, fill outthe form, join our newsletter
and we'll have some fun stuff tosend you.
Maybe we'll send you some swagyou never know.
We're trying to build afollowing here and we will see

(11:52):
you next time and keep yourNerdBrand strong.