1041: Unleash Your Brand’s Potential: The Science Behind Quantum Branding with Chief Brand Scientist Stæven Frey

Robert Plank 0:04 Welcome back. It's the marketer of the day podcast. Stephen Fry is here from quantum branding dot agency. And Steven is the adorkable founder and the Chief Brand scientist at Quantum branding, see what helps brands become authentic and memorable category leaders through the power of brand science. And if I had infinite powers, I would put a little TM up in the air here, I could probably do it with with Zoom, but just to make sure that it's trademarked and don't you dare steal brand science, which is the core of what fuels a successful brands growth, sales and marketing. So we're gonna find out from Stephen, what is brand science, how it uncomplicated branding, how to grow your brand right now in some low risk ways, and so much more. So Steven, glad to have you.

Speaker 1 0:51 Thanks, Robert, for having me. And thank you listeners and audience members, for joining us as well. And so excited to see where we're gonna go today in our journey on the marketer day podcast.

Robert Plank 1:00 Yes, it is unpredictable. It is like a nuclear bomb strapped to a giant semi truck with the brakes cut off. Anything could happen today. So what are you all about? We introduce you a little bit, but in your own words, what's your passion? What's your focus? Well, how do you stand out?

Speaker 1 1:16 Absolutely, absolutely. So you see me drinking from my little fox cup. I love the color orange. And the term that I've kind of coined is adorkable. I'm the adorkable brand science guy next door. And that couldn't explain any better than those two concepts. I love cats. I love gardening. I love the color orange. I discovered a few years ago recently that I was neurodiverse. And so how that's changed my life, and explains kind of the way things are with my superpowers and some of my weaknesses. But I've always been diving into how things work in an investigative, artistic, enterprising way. And anybody who's familiar with Holland code, I'm an IAE. And I just labeled off some really cool skill sets. And everybody has her own skill sets. And those are mine. And so the Holland code is just an assessment of your skill sets. And so I'm an IAE. And so I love investigative, artistic, enterprising opportunities. And so with the way I'm wired with the things that I love, it wound me in the direction of starting my own branding agency after working at several agencies when I was younger, and I've been doing it ever since almost 20 years now. And it's what I love doing. And I get the chance to help people communicate really quickly, who they are, what they do, why it matters, and makes it and I helped make it a lot easier for people to share who they are, what they do and why it matters. Because we're using the science of how branding actually works. And so so we'll talk more about that. But that's kind of the stuff I'm about so you never know if a little cat is going to jump up here on on the desk with me. You never know if my service dogs gonna say hello. Like you said, excitement abounds here on the podcast, and happy to share more about that with you guys today.

Robert Plank 3:11 Well, let's jump in. And I put a little label in my brain. You said who, what and why. And I love how your brand science because it's frustrating when people talk about branding, sometimes it's all these vague concepts and talking about logo colors and your your message and repeating some kind of phrase. And it's really frustrating just to say, well, do I have it? Or don't I have it? Or what steps do I take to go from good to great. And so as far as the the science, the breaking it down? The you know, the the testing the the numbers? What's that? Like? What's your approach to breaking down the branding and kind of pursuing it in practical terms? Yeah,

Speaker 1 3:51 absolutely. And so I've actually developed a thing called the brand science method. And that's a process that I specifically use to go about in creating brands, but also help brand leaders install brand science into their agency, or their brand with their team or for themselves, if they're in charge of all the marketing. I help share that. So there's there's currently 13 foundational sciences from semiotics, which is how we organize thoughts to sequence of cognition, shape, color content. So there's, we could go off in that rabbit trail, but by collecting those all together, we're able to look at the different stages of how people experience things and say, Wait a second, what is this all have in common with each other? And actually has to do with here it has to do with the human element. So the more we actually understand how your audience your clients or customers, whatever word you know, patrons whatever word you use, however, they perceive you interact with you. We need to understand how they think how they store memories, how they create memories, how they experience things in a sensory world, as well as water Some of the interpretive and cognitive lenses. And so what we find is understanding these basics helps us make better decisions in our marketing and specifically with our branding how we represent ourselves so that people can distinctly remember who you are a lot quicker. And so the kind of big picture is that the more memories you have of something, the more you remember something. And marketing is saying, Hey, do business with me. And then branding is the mnemonic devices are the sensory assets within your marketing, word shape, color, story, photography, illustrations, sound music character, all those sensory assets together, the more of them you have. And the more they are distinct. And the more famous they are, the more people will think of you first. And so that's the biggest principle that I can share with you today is that unseen as unsold or unheard of as unsold. And then the more distinctive assets you have, the more memories you have. And so the more memories is the secret for your brand to grow, because people will think of you first. So mental availability and physical availability. So if you started a new, you know, Roberts cupcake shop, I don't know, if you like cupcakes or Okay, I like a mouse, I mean, yes, or if you wanted to start your own, well, people would have to hear you hear of you, they'd have to recognize your brandmark. But also, here's the challenge. You can't own a cupcake, you can't own the word cupcake. So it's going to be a combination of those shared things that help people communicate that it's a cupcake, and also stuff that's unique to you. And we see this in every category, regardless of whether it's consumer packaged goods, or service, everything from nonprofit, to service based businesses, every category, and I've heard over 65 different categories and counting. And they're all the same, the science of how people think is the same. So the more memories we have, the more top of minus we have. Man,

Robert Plank 7:07 that's an excellent brain dump. I love how you broke it down. And I feel like I need to, like rewind and like be like, okay, he said, the, the sensory and the audio. And that's great of those the way you're explaining this, and that these these prospects, these future customers that we have, they're on a path to getting to know us better, and how do they get to know us better? Well, through repetition and being in front of them. But it also can't be just the same exact thing every time. Because then you know, the way your brain your brain stores memories is they kind of consolidate things. And if you just keep seeing the same thing over and over, well, that's not going to work either. So you need to kind of mix things up. And it's like, for some reason, I know that the coke logo has red and white for some reason, I know the Macy's logo has like a star. And so so it's great that you kind of there's like all these different factors, all these things to think about. And so to help us kind of understand your process and help us understand the problem that you solve, do you have a fun story to share with us, you say that you work with all these different brands and kind of elevated them. So what comes to mind as far as like, a fun, quirky on brand story so that we can experience your process.

Speaker 1 8:18 Awesome. So here's a good one. So I worked with a local client here in Nashville, and they came to me and they had a product that was a sweet tea Seltzer, and they wanted to take that to market. And they had a name in in and so it was called naughty T. And so naughty T and it had kind of a picture of a girl with bloomers and, and it kind of had like this like, tone of like, it had a very feminine packaging at the time. And they wanted to go to mass market, they wanted to get higher distribution, they wanted to increase sales. And they basically said like, Hey, can you just like tell us the numbers like how do we? How do we take this nationally? And so we looked at it and we basically first did a brand audit. And a brand audit actually is an attempt to look at the category norms and say, Ah, everyone in this category is blue 10% use red 39% Use sans serif. What we're doing is we're quantifying the design choices, seeing what what the common patterns are. And then also what are the common cues, what are customers looking for? What are the industry norms? How are people talking about this? So if we're gonna hit the ball, we want to hit a home run we don't want to just bumped it. So you know this you know, this happens all the time. You go to the grocery store to buy an economy, you know, to buy Oreos, and then right next to it. There's economy Oreos by your grocery store. And what do they do? They have the same looking sandwich cookie, it's a near knockoff. It just doesn't say Oreo on it. So with this client, we want to be like no, we want people to specifically look at us and recognize us. So, we looked at that direction, then we said, like, Oh, what are the opportunities out there? And so we created a brand called Hard south. And heart South is where the the living is easy, and the drinks are hard. And it has this nostalgic all the good essence of kind of utopian hospitality. Everyone is welcome, y'all means all we're in it together. Drink for everyone, above 21. You know, hard south, sweet tea Seltzer, we created a brand that when you look at it, you're like, Wow, that's amazing. But then when we broke it down, for the creation, this brand, you see that? Oh, well, there's gingham in there. And then there's also like, shiplap wood pattern. And then oh, this makes it look vintage. And so it feels historical. Oh, there's a lemon one. So that's yellow. So we know that when it comes to sweet tea, blue means sweet. And gray means on sweet yellow means loving. So some of these distinctive memories are playing off of category norms in the wine, tea and Seltzer categories, but then we're also creating new categories. And so happy to report that that brand ended up getting distribution with the number one distributor here in Tennessee, and they're on a path to growth that is fueled by the ability for people to just simply look at, oh, even I've got a mock up, or I can hear it's there's nothing on there. But you know, you can't really see in there. But you know, the everything from the design of the package to the typefaces, there's not a design element that is on there, that is arbitrary. And so we find is that the majority of people are trying to create brands that are not arbitrary. But they're making arbitrary choices, because they don't know enough. So it's kind of like, it's kind of like, you know, back in the day, they're like, oh, Robert, are you sick? Oh, you need to let out some bad blood. No, no, like, there's nothing more essential than blood in your body to keep you healthy. And so Oh, your ear hurts. Let's let's drain a pint of blood. So like that's what's that's, that's kind of a good example of like, we're doing our best and an uninformed position on some of these design choices may actually be hurting us if we don't actually know how how those decisions work. And so by having those foundational elements of design and category norms, and going through the brain science process, we're able to make better brands that people intuitively look at, and they're like, oh, yeah, cool, vintage, vintage, sweet tea southern? Oh, yeah, I get it. I get it. You know, oh, cool, fun, tropical Margarita thing, Oh, I get it. Oh, chocolate sandwich cookie, I get it. So we're using some of those shared memories and those distinctive memories. And so really happy to report that that brands are in a great position to have a trajectory moving forward.

Robert Plank 12:51 Amazing. And then this is a really powerful and deep concept for us to think about that, that all those little micro decisions we've made from the packaging and our colors, and our website, or phrasing and all these other things that go into branding. Maybe we've just fallen into them and not given it the thought that it deserves. And so we promised that we'd touch on a neurodiversity, right? Because it's really, it just even just talking to you, like you're thinking you talk in such a different way, which is like so cool. And so what, in what way? Are you neurodivergent? What do you have, so to speak? And then how have you apply this? Because like you mentioned superheroes at the beginning. And like the superhero concept is so cool, because they always have a limitation like the Hulk hoax out when it's not under host control. And at first, it seems like it's bad, but then it becomes like a differentiator. So can you tell us about your neurodiversity and how it makes you just do things differently?

Speaker 1 13:49 Yeah, so So I like to think that I like to think that I'm normal. I think we all do growing up. And we're at when we have a belief. This is another way that the mind works. When we have a belief we look for, we look for when we have a belief, we look outside ourselves for validation or confirmation that that belief is true. And so this is very difficult and dangerous, and can lead to scenarios where you're very hopeful for something but then you look for Hope outside yourself in this and may not occur. So when you're in a scenario where you may be ridiculed as a child, because of any specific factor doesn't matter. You're looking for friendship, and you're looking outside yourself. And so this can apply in so many different ways. So when you're, when you're neurodiverse, that simply means that internally you're wired differently. So it's kind of like if everyone sees red, you would see red if you're neurotypical. But if you're neurodiverse, maybe you see red and it gives you a headache. Maybe you hear beeping in a microwave and it makes you get anxiety. Maybe you feel soft, fuzzy fabrics and you feel comfort. And so sometimes the kind of more the cognitive wiring that we have, sometimes those wires can be wired in different spots. It's like someone like there's always a sci fi movie where the guy has to put the computer chips in the right thing, or it's like Star Trek or stuff. But, you know, they kind of put the right thing and and then oh, no, how do they know which one they're putting it in is the right one. And that's kind of the same thing. Sometimes. It's it's not a mistake. It's, it's, it's who you are and how you're wired. And so one of the challenges that I had was identifying that I was not neuro typical, I wasn't neuro normal. And so what I found was there were certain environments, there were certain scenarios, there were certain client engagement, certain business activities that were difficult, and I didn't enjoy. And in fact, they caused me anxiety, they made my blood pressure wise, sometimes I would get, you know, ocular migraines. So fast forward, I discovered that I'm on the autism spectrum. And typically, you know, the easiest way for me to describe that for myself is I just, I have a unique relationship with ideas, and objects and information that I believe is more deeper than some other people may see or experience. And so I discover and enjoy the world and this lens of curiosity, and wonder. And what I discovered is when when I started on my career path that I kind of did what I want, because I'll do it anyways. And then I found out that I was kind of not unemployable. But none of those environments were really conducive to my joy. And so I kept finding, how do I create an environment that's conducive to my joy. And so I, when I discovered branding, I got a book by Alina Wheeler, who's a hero and mentor of mine, she just passed recently. And I read that book, and I fell in love with the ideas behind it. And it propelled me to keep researching not just how branding is done, but why does it work, how it works. And then fast forward, you know, discovering in self identifying and understanding that, oh, wait, I'm wired differently. I have sensory processing disorder, experience things differently. Wait a second, I started to put some of the pieces together. It was like all of a sudden, a beaver was put in the wetlands with some trees. And he started making dams. And he's like, wait a second, I was I was in the forest. But now I'm in the wetland. This is this is my Jacob. And I started to understand why I worked in certain ways that I did. And it gave a lot of validation. When people have diagnoses, no one is trying to say I'm different. I'm unique, you don't understand actually what they're seeking. They're seeking an understanding that says, like, you know what, this is unique to me, and I'm experiencing it. And also others have experienced it. And so I find comfort in knowing I'm not alone. So if you have whether it's an autoimmune disorder, whether it's you have your differentially enabled, or, you know, a disability, or neurodiversity, those things are just unique components of you, and you are not alone. And understanding how you are wired and for myself understanding, wow, I hate overhead lighting, I hate fluorescent lighting, anything that is not a warm light, I can hear high frequency noises that drives me nuts. I can't listen to music that doesn't have that has lyrics in it, you know, I have to change the music throughout the day, or else I get to synced in a low spot with Lo Fi beats in the morning. You know, like all these things like how do sensory environments and different sensory experiences? How do they affect me? And how do I interact with them? And ultimately, that's my superpower is oh my gosh, I help people create sensory experiences for their brand. So who better to help you do that, then someone that understands them so deeply. And you don't need to know all the science about them to work on this stuff. That's my job. That's my job and my team's job so that we can help you, you know, or anyone, you know, you don't have to do the work, but you're not alone. And here's a better way he's a faster way, what if you could do what you want to do faster. And so that's kind of my passion is like wait a second, I get to use how I'm uniquely wired to help people do how they feel they're uniquely gifted with their business, their brand, or whatever. And so there's kind of a connection of the passions, you don't have to be neurodiverse to work with me. You just have to have a brand and you have to be passionate about it. And so then I get passionate about it because you're passionate about it. And then I can geek out and we can both help each other. And so discovering that I was neurodiverse and discovering autism spectrum and sensory processing disorder and getting assistance from a big fluffy white dog onyx, in loud thing places like the airport that's actually a gift. That's a gift that I gave to myself to say that, Oh, I'm going to understand who I am. And, and unlock and unleash and educate myself and equip myself learn how to say no learn how to when to say yes, learn to have boundaries, learn to be my own advocate, learn to ask for what I want. And so I know on the podcast, you know, we kind of dive into like, you know, kind of what are some things that you've gone through? Or conflicts? And how did you rise out on top? And I would say, that's probably for me, that's been the biggest journey, like, Yes, I, you know, you know, made some bad decisions with my business, but they didn't really change, like, this has changed my life. This has changed. And what's amazing about it is it also by changing me, the world doesn't need more branding, like to, like the world doesn't need more stuff. But what they need is they need a fully alive, Steven, and then whatever he does, that's what they get. And that's, that's the better thing. And so, so the gift I gave to myself was, you know, discovery and education and diagnosis and being fully seated in myself kind of like my own little throne of my mind, and body and soul. And so now the work that I do, is fully energized. And it's not about selling the widgets or doing the stuff that's just, you know, I could go rescue cats. And that would be the most amazing Cat Rescue ever. Or I could just make pottery where I could sell plants. And those would, instead of trying to, like, do everything with purpose, everything has to have so much purpose. I just do things purposefully. I make tea, I make tea, purposefully, I brush my teeth, I'll sink your teeth, you're doing a good job chewing on your, you know, scrubbing the shower, like cleaning, thank you house, I appreciate my house doing things purposefully. So the and that that makes sense to me, because I have such a strong connection to my stuff, and your stuff, and your ideas and my ideas and just ideas in general. And so I believe that people are the most important. Ideas are the most powerful, and brands connect the two. And now that I've discovered that I'm the spectrum, and I have some unique wirings and how I'm wired, that helps me connect with people more in the way that I can. So and I

Robert Plank 22:13 love hearing about your journey. And it just you figured out the right fit for you, and what motivates you and what you're good at and how you can best help people and all those sorts of things you think about before civilization existed when it was caveman times it was you plant crops, or you kill the bear, or you're raising babies. And if you if you didn't fit into one of those three molds, then you might die right or you something bad might happen to you. But now that we live in, in a civilization where we can support each other and we can find all these these crazy little opportunities, right, you can work for the company that creates the sweet tea Seltzer, or you can create the branding for the big bank or something like that. But you can just find what works for you. And that's reassuring because it's easy to doubt yourself or to give up or to maybe fight who you are or wish you or something else. And so it's great to hear about that. It almost seems like like You're like a Sherlock Holmes, right? When Sherlock Holmes kind of sees the crime scene, he sees the details. And he sees the lady's fingernails, and he sees like the scratch over on the wall. And it's like, you'd notice the things that the rest of us might not see, especially when it comes to those blind spots with our brands. So when it comes to someone getting help from you and your company, how does somebody know if they're the right fit for you? And what's that next step? What's the call to action for someone to begin working with you? Yeah, absolutely. So

Speaker 1 23:36 whether if you want to just dive in and understand a little bit more about brand science, there's a link, we're going to put in the show notes. It's bit.li, or Bitly, if you're familiar with that forward slash brand science checklist, and you can go on my website, quantum branding dot agency, but I've got a thing called the brand science checklist. And that's really the first starting point, whether you're a fortune 500 company, whether you're just starting out, you're nascent, or you're in the incubation stage, or growth stage or scaling stage, you still need to learn and go through this brand science checklist process. Like it's like if we have a pyramid and we want to get to the top of being an authority in our category. You know, the best fun, exciting cupcakes with animals on them, whatever your concept is, you know, your unique concept is, that's your unique concept authority. It's not category authority, it's concept authority. So we need to make sure that you have a good foundation. So regardless of how big you are, how much money you make, you can do the same thing that fortune 500 companies need to do. And that's count your brand assets. You just got to count them. And there's a little thing in there it looks like a gym or a pallet like Bob Ross has, you know that we could pail the paints with so we can add a happy tree and you go thin and it has some questions. Do you have a name of your company? Yes, check was one and I said do you have a color and you walk through all the sensory categories? And at the end of that there's a red Eating. And it says, Oh, how many did you have this many, this many, this many this many. And it'll just give you some prompts of what you need to do next, the average business only has three to five, three to five distinctive brand assets, their name a color, in in the their brandmark itself, typically three, maybe you've got to, you know, a secondary color or something else, but the average brand only has three to five. Typically what we find, to start out, you need at least 15 to 25 distinctive brand assets spread throughout each one of them, because why the more assets you have the more so check out the brand science checklist, there's a link there, you can check out my award winning talk shares a little bit more about brand science. And then also we have a really great opportunity. It's called Brand printer brand printers, a 10 week program for brand leaders that are wanting to learn how to take their brand to the next level, six weeks of learning brand science, a four day workshop in person, and then four days perfecting your plan, so that you can go out into the world, knowing brand science and have a plan. And you have no more bad experiences with agencies or your marketing team. And you know what is next and it's specific to you, it's diagnosed and built by you because you understand this now, that's called Brand printers. So the three things, check out that brand science checklist. Check out brand printer, and do the checklist. And you can read more about brand science on the website as well quantum branding agency, and the third one was watch the video. Now.

Robert Plank 26:36 All right, well, this is very cool. And you've brought this brand science idea to our attention, and you kind of awakeness or all these things that we're learning to know that we're not doing. And if I need to be a very interesting and fascinating person, Steven. And so if you out there need to be dialing in and tapping into this whole brand science idea. And you take the test and figure out like do you even like know where you want to be just like when you either get yourself like diagnosed with what kind of neurodiversity you are that way you kind of know how to proceed for it. Then check out this brand science checklist. That's bit.li/brand Science checklist, which is a good jumping off point. And now you'll be open to this new world of being self aware with your branding, and like connecting and all these other ways because maybe your competitors are only connecting in the four or five ways. But what if you could tap another 20 or 30 or more different ways and be memorable and standout and grow your company. And so that way things don't have to be so dang hard. And you can just be on a way better path than you were before. And so as people are going and checking out that brand signs checklist here, Steven, I like to put my guests on the spot at the very end. And it's kind of scary, who are asked for a quote or lesson that can really help us out today. So what comes to mind as far as a quote or lesson to help out our listeners

Speaker 1 27:57 who quote or lesson. That's a great I've got to think you really really put me on the spice

Robert Plank 28:08 I stopped, it makes me feel good.

Speaker 1 28:11 You know what? Get out of your own way. I'm just gonna say that you've got to, you know, get out of your own way. If something is hard, ask for help. If something is hard, ask for help. If you don't know the answers, ask for them. If you're not getting the results you want, look at your actions. Get out of your own way. If marketing is hard for you get the right help. If if you know you're overwhelmed, and don't have enough time, what are the things that you don't enjoy, but you're good at but that you're doing? You know, there's so many different ways for you to get out of your own way, my invitation would be to notice, pause, listen to yourself all the different parts of yourself during the day. And notice how things are making you feel like that's a really good noticing. And then from there learn what are the things that maybe maybe you need to let go of, or maybe you need to ask for help. Or maybe you do need to invite others into. Or maybe, you know, here's some other things. You know, sometimes it's really great to rest and, and maybe you're not doing anything, maybe maybe you're not taking any action, but you want those different results. Like whatever that means for you in the way that's perfect just for you. Consider how you can get out of your own way in what you have going on with your brand next, and to take that to the next level to kind of like you know, like Mario when he gets to the mushroom like we, we want to go to the next level. Not because we're saying we're at a lower level, we just want to advance where we are. We want to advance where we are and who we are in in our business. So consider ways that you can get out of your way, your own way and listen to yourself and how things make you feel Do as a first breadcrumb and then follow those breadcrumbs with your life and with your business.

Robert Plank 30:06 Very inspiring. So get out of our own way, listen to ourself and follow the breadcrumb, you always hear about these kind of just the lip service about how important it is to revisit the fundamentals and build your team. So it's time to actually do that and to to not try to strengthen your weaknesses, but strengthen your strengths and that way you won't be so frustrated. And the very next step as far as being on this journey is to go to Stephen Fry's website and contact see verify that's it quantum branding dot agency, and thank you very much even for being raw and vulnerable and silly and funny with us and and all the all the emotions like Robert, you hit on the marketing and the copywriting. We had a lot of fun. So thank you for doing all that. Absolutely. Thank

Speaker 1 30:49 you for having me. And listeners, thank you so much for joining. It's always a pleasure wherever I go to meet great people and the brands that they work with. So look forward to connecting with you and thank you again for listening and thank you again, Robert.

Robert Plank 31:04 This is Robert plank from the marketer of the day podcast, which you can find at marketer of a day.com for more episodes and de FY podcast.com Ford slash free if you want to know more about running your own podcast or running a better or more fun or easier or less time intensive podcast, go to d f y podcast.com/free. To find out more right this instant