What can the big brands learn from you? And are there new rules for successful branding today? The answers to these questions (and many more) are available once a month in our snack interview, the Kitchen Stories business questionnaire.
Many brands think of social media as a tool in the marketing mix to communicate promotional messages. USPs. Benefits. Features. The sad truth is: Nobody likes ads! You're not going to build a community with ads. Better: Create content for or about the interests of your audience. The product can play a role here, but it doesn't have to. Brands should appear on social media such as media houses/publishers. Content first, product second.
Your community is on TikTok & Co. The campaign logic comes from the old world. Peak at Easter, peak at Christmas — that is push communication that positions brands as foreign bodies in social space. Brands should think more like creators instead. In scalable always-on formats and on equal footing with the community.
Social-first means taking social media seriously. Not as one-way communication, but as dialogue. True to the motto: Don't talk to your community. Talk to your community. However, you will always have critics. Brands don't have to get nervous just because a post causes 2-3 negative comments.
Dealing with it is much more important. Is the criticism justified? Then get to work. Is it not justified? Then do something about it: “Play with it,” make fun of people, answer ironically or show your stance and stand up for your values. For that, you need empathic community management. And not a product-oriented customer service team. So not only inbound, but also outbound. Just like real creators.
Change hurts and lasts. Unfortunately, we still see social media being ridiculed in management. Dance videos on TikTok. Colourful pictures on Instagram. That is something for our interns. We know DAX companies where there is a social media manager for 18 (!) There are brands. WTF?!
The entire budget still goes into the Big Idea and the big TV production. Because: We've always done it that way. We are fighting for social C-level priority. And it is not at the end of value creation, but at the beginning. The birth of all marketing.
Paulina and Pascal's favorite snack is vegan, by the way 🌱
We believe that branding is created through values, attitude and interaction — not through logos, fonts and color codes. Social media means “social” (and not branded media) and for one reason: The networks are based on peer-to-peer exchange and user-generated content. Branded content stands out immediately (negatively) and is skipped. Platforms such as TikTok in particular are extremely hostile to advertising. So it's better to be a Trojan horse: Aesthetically adapt to the Cultures platform, but essentially be so relevant that users interact with you, comment on, save.
A good example of anti-branding is, for example, the very successful 10 minute Hilton Hotel TikTok “worth the stay,” that revolves around Hilton Honor Points. The font used is sometimes pink with an even pinker outline, sometimes white on a blue background - the main thing is TikTok native. No sign of corporate design. Instead, trashy AR filters, lots of self-deprecation and memes.
With lots of natural wine and sport. But even then, we can't completely keep our hands off social media. For example, Paulina runs one of the biggest equestrian accounts in Berlin on TikTok @paulajolie_berlin and Pascal had Germany's widest reaching running channel on TikTok for a long time @mister .marathon.
Together, Pascal and Paulina have 240,000 followers on their private TikTok channels
Our founding story is based on the world's best pizzeria in Naples: Da Michele. This hall of gods only serves one pizza: Margherita. But they're the best at it.
And that is exactly our claim for social. Apart from that, it was also the best meal we've ever tasted. Bye! Fun fact: Margherita is and remains the only dish where we make an exception in our plant-based diet.
Thank you so much for the interview.
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