WavenDean Fernandes is the Brand Activation Director at TIG Brands, a business advisory platform that helps entrepreneurs build nimble, capital-efficient, and resilient consumer brands. With over 40 years of experience in branding, design, and marketing, WavenDean has worked across global companies and leading agencies, including Apple and Landor. Today, he supports founders in scaling with purpose, combining strategic guidance, industry connections, and focusing on long-term, sustainable growth.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [01:45] WavenDean Fernandes breaks down the tardigrade concept and why resilience defines lasting brands
- [03:40] Inside TIG Brands and how they guide founders through growth with a Sherpa mindset
- [11:29] Using AI to enhance brand voice while keeping human connection at the center
- [13:45] Why simple gestures like handwritten thank-you notes can create real brand impact
- [20:40] Packaging design that captures attention and sparks curiosity before customers start reading
- [31:43] WavenDean explains why embracing vulnerability and difficult moments strengthens founder resilience
- [36:00] Brands that stand out today and what makes their storytelling and positioning effective
- [44:25] Why taste is non-negotiable and how product quality drives repeat purchase and loyalty
In this episode…
Some brands chase explosive growth and billion-dollar valuations, only to burn out just as quickly. But what if the real goal isn’t becoming a unicorn at all, but building something that can survive anything thrown its way?
For WavenDean Fernandes, the key lies in building what he calls “tardigrade brands” — businesses designed for resilience, not hype. Drawing from decades of experience shaping global brands and agencies, WavenDean explains that true success isn’t about rapid scale but about staying power, adaptability, and purpose. Like the microscopic organism that can survive extreme conditions, the strongest brands are those that can endure volatility and continue forward with resilience and intention.
In this episode of The Missing Ingredient, CJ Bruce is joined by WavenDean Fernandes, Brand Activation Director at TIG Brands, to discuss building resilient, capital-efficient brands that last. WavenDean explores why founders should define success beyond exits, how packaging influences behavior at a subconscious level, and why human connection matters more in an AI-driven world. He also shares advice on building brands with purpose, responsibility, and a long-term mindset.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- CJ Bruce on LinkedIn
- The Missing Ingredient
- WavenDean Fernandes on LinkedIn
- TIG Brands
- David Eagleman on LinkedIn
Quotable Moments:
- “A tardigrade is a microscopic animal, and it can live in any kind of conditions.”
- “We come in like Sherpa guides to really help them get through that journey.”
- “Package is probably the biggest lever a brand has to activate a new engagement, a new relationship.”
- “The longer you hold something, the more you feel it’s yours, the harder it is to put it back.”
- “Get the product right as right as you can out of the box, absolutely critical.”
Action Steps:
- Define what success truly means for your brand: Clarifying whether you want longevity, impact, or an exit ensures aligned decisions and sustainable growth.
- Design packaging to disrupt behavior, not just inform: Capturing attention at a subconscious level increases the chances of trial and customer conversion.
- Prioritize product quality and taste from the start: Delivering on the promise ensures repeat purchases and prevents losing customers after initial curiosity.
- Strengthen human connections in this AI-driven world: Building genuine relationships with customers and partners creates differentiation that technology cannot replace.
- Build resilience instead of chasing rapid growth: Focusing on adaptability and endurance helps brands survive market shifts and long-term challenges.
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is sponsored by The Missing Ingredient, a food and beverage marketing agency that believes a better future starts with food. They partner with purpose-driven brands to drive growth through smart, results-focused marketing — without the “set it and forget it” approach.
From brand awareness and paid media to content, influencer partnerships, and loyalty programs, they act as true strategic partners invested in your long-term success.
To learn more about how they help food and beverage brands grow with impact, visit themissingingredient.com today.
Powered by Rise25 Podcast Production Company
Full Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
Intro: 00:01
Welcome to The Missing Ingredient podcast with CJ Bruce, where food and beverage founders, operators, and experts share the real strategies behind building successful brands. Let’s jump into today’s show.
CJ Bruce: 00:15
Hey, I’m CJ Bruce and welcome to the show. This is the podcast for founders and leaders of high impact food and beverage brands who are serious about scaling. Each episode, I sit down with the people who power the food and beverage industry brand operators, agencies, vendors, creators and retailers to uncomplicate the strategies that take brands from early traction to serious scale.
This episode is sponsored by The Missing Ingredient, a food and beverage marketing agency with over a decade in the industry. We take a different approach, starting with your business goals, looking at the full picture, and building a marketing strategy that actually ties back to growth. From content performance marketing to influencer partnerships and AI powered workflows. We’re an extension of your team, not just another vendor. Learn more at themissingingredient.com.
Now for today’s guest, WavenDean Fernandes is the Brand Activation Director at TIG Brands, where he helps emerging food and beverage companies scale with purpose building resilient, capital efficient tardigrade brands instead of chasing hype driven unicorns. With decades of experience spanning Apple, Landor, and leading global agencies. He’s shaped iconic brands before turning his focus to the scrappy founders redefining CPG today. Known for blending sharp strategy with deep human insight. WavenDean brings a rare perspective on how real growth happens at the intersection of brand, community, and execution. Welcome to the show, Wavin.
WavenDean Fernandes: 01:34
Hey. Thank you. Aloha. I appreciate the opportunity.
Defining the Tardigrade Brand Mindset
CJ Bruce: 01:38
Yeah, happy to have you. So first question I gotta dive in is what’s a tardigrade?
CJ Bruce: 01:43
Can you tell us what a tardigrade is?
WavenDean Fernandes: 01:45
A microscopic animal and it can live in any kinds of conditions. Crazy stuff. We thought the cockroach was the most resilient, but it’s actually the tardigrade. They found them in the moose on the moon.
They found them in subarctic conditions. And, you know, back when it. The origin of this, you know, pseudo mascot, if you will, as a metaphor versus the unicorn came to Elliot and I. Back around Covid when everything was shutting down. And you know, the game seems to be changing and the whole landscape was a movement.
Tectonic plates were shifting about how business was done, interactions. And we really looked for a metaphor to kind of embrace what the qualities of a success were going to be for a brand that sometimes surviving was thriving. And then when he did a little research, the tardigrade popped up as one of the most resilient organisms that we come across. And they’ve popped up in cultural media now more and more, as soon as you kind of start saying or saying something energetically, you start seeing it more, right? And we started seeing articles and everything about it, and it caught on because Elliot is a well known person in this industry and respected and appreciated. And so, you know, he would weave this. Into conversations as kind of like not a unicorn, a tardigrade, you know, and what are those qualities of that? And then he had a lot of content that went out about espousing what those qualities were. So it’s continued on since that time and really resonates with a lot of people in the industry.
How TIG Brands Supports Food and Beverage Founders
CJ Bruce: 03:28
Yeah. It’s great. No, I love it. I know there’s a lot out there people could dig into. So before we get into some other questions, get a little background on what you know, what is TIG?
And what you know, how does TIG work with food and beverage brands?
WavenDean Fernandes: 03:40
Yeah, it’s evolved, you know, since the early days. We really have a heart and a passion for founders and, and early stage and startup brands initially and how that was going and really created programs, especially after Covid to kind of embrace that community, which we still do. We now focus on brands a little bit higher in revenue to be able to help them get from where they’re at to the next tranche of revenue. And so we’re able to work much deeper now with a fewer number of brands than kind of a wider audience. But I still take calls and meetings and refer and assist those startup brands any way that it can, because we’re pretty connected to a lot of folks in the industry, such as yourself.
And I love being able to do that. We call that a karmic boomerang, part of our kind of our woo woo approach, where if the universe brings someone to us, we’ll assist them in any way that we possibly can with whatever we can. And we don’t worry about reciprocity in that term, you know, that the universe will take care of all of that kind of stuff. So it’s a trust in a much greater energy or power, if you will, that orchestrates all of these little micro movements under this macro thing that we call life. So that’s kind of an extrapolation of that.
And what I really tell brands that we talk to is that we come in as like Sherpa guides to really help them get through that journey to the top of Mount Everest, to whatever they consider success is because it’s not just a financial thing. It could be much more of a longevity thing with the business where they’re not looking for an exit to sell to, you know, a major, you know, like an olipop or something kind of, you know, you know, monetization of that sort. They might want to create a business that’s generational to pass down to children and grandchildren and things of that sort. So everybody comes into this space with a unique calling or unique perspective on what success looks like. And I think sometimes we get pretty linear, where we just focus on what the financial aspects of that are and kind of ignore all of the other pieces which are as, if not more important in many ways.
For fulfillment. You know, in terms of what we do every day and how much time we spend. In our business, if you will. So we come in as, as, as Sherpa guides. And then I like to also use it as a force multiplier.
We’ll come in and help brands do what they may not be able to do alone, or do it easier or do it faster. So, you know, make connections to the right resources. Give them the right advice at the right time. A lot of times these things are not knowing what you don’t know when you’re in this world, even if you’ve been super successful and under industry, investment banking, real estate or whatever. As you know, the natural CPG industry is an energy and a journey all into its own.
And so the best thing I think brands can do is find the right set of guides and advisors that they trust and that are in the journey with them, not just for the finances or for the client relationship, but really energetically engaged in their success long term.
CJ Bruce: 07:06
Yeah, I love that. I think these, you know, we definitely share the philosophy around the kind of the karmic piece and just helping brands. There’s a lot of different, there’s a lot of needs, but a lot of things you, you know, challenges you face. And there’s a lot of people in the space that are, you know, working together to help that. I think I also want to just underscore, you know, what you said around the, your, your objectives, right?
Like, what are you trying to achieve? I think that’s something to think about a lot with clients, but also for, you know, myself personally and my business or like, what is the goal? And there’s a lot of outside pressures around financial aspects or, you know, whatever it might be. But really figuring out that success for you is such an important first step. Yeah.
Human Connection in the Age of AI
WavenDean Fernandes: 07:46
One of the things we, you know, we have, we’re starting to have retreats, physical retreats starting. We started last year with a prototype this year and continuing into 2027, because we really saw this trend now with like with Covid. It’s nice. It’s good to watch the tea leaves and where the wind is blowing and kind of what these macro trends, you know, not just in our business, but in life. So AI is coming in like a freight train.
And we all know, and it’s like, you know, I’ve gone through many of these being as old as I am, I was in the tech in the Silicon Valley prior to the internet, prior to the invention of desktop publishing and stuff. That puts me back pretty darn far. You know, when I worked in the Apple in those days at Apple in those days. And so I’ve seen these kinds of waves and some of them, they come on and sometimes they have an impact that you can’t necessarily foresee in the beginning. And they have implications, but they’re going to have implications.
They’re going to have impact. They’re going to have consequences. So we know that about AI. Can we predict all of them? Not necessarily now, but you can read the tea leaves that it’s going to change a lot of things fundamentally, right?
And so a lot of what what I think is going to then become even more important in the age of AI is human interaction and human connection and human energy, because that’s one thing AI most yet won’t, I think replace, at least in the short term, right, is the kind of connection that we have like this and the kind of connection we have in the industry. And if people have went to Expo West, you see the craziness of the connection that can happen when you bring the whole industry, 95,000 people, 6000 plus vendors together in one space. It’s like, wow, right? Yeah. And that only happens once or twice a year, right?
So they’re pretty special. Other than that, we’re all kind of working alone, remote or whatever the case may be. So we really looked at having starting to have retreats for our clients and the advisors that we work with to come together and kind of have that time, 1 or 2 day retreat to talk about the whole spectrum and facet of success and what that means spiritually, physically, in the business, etc., etc., and really empower founders and their teams to kind of take that energy and go forth and then put that into tactical and practical application. So that’s one big change that I see that if there’s any way that brands can increase their connection to the humans within their business ecosystem, right? Whether that’s buyers, wherever you’re interacting with really kind of connect on a human level, that is something that AI will never be able to replace, I believe, and that is of super importance right now as we move a lot of these other tasks to AI enablement.
Okay, I’ll stop there.
CJ Bruce: 10:42
Yeah, no, it’s great. It’s a AI is definitely a topic I wanted to touch on. So I’m glad you jumped there. I think the, you know, similar thing we’re seeing, you know, thinking about it as kind of two things happening at the same time. Right?
Which often happens, right? There’s the force and the counterforce. And with you have you have AI that’s pushing with all these efficiencies and workflows and automation. And, you know, we’re leaning very heavily into that for our work and for our clients. And at the same time, there’s this opposite reactive force of like getting back to, you know, human connection and in real life opportunities and experiences, which I think is, you know, great, you guys are doing the retreats.
I’m curious, you know, aside from that, the kind of going the in-person side, are you seeing any other impacts like today on AI with the brands that you’re working with and how are you guys thinking about that?
WavenDean Fernandes: 11:29
You know, they’re using it, you know, in many exploring, using it in many of the same ways. We all are. Right. Helping with the inbox explosion, you know, automating different tasks, going to it to refine an email, you know, and polish it up with your language, you know, getting to know you and Elliot’s really been in a deep dive with this to kind of personalize his AI so that it really responds in a way that kind of reflects his tone and approach. And, you know, I being from born and raised in Hawaii, I have I continue a lot of that aloha spirit perspective.
So in my emails and communications, I’m much more of a texter than an email. By the way, so that’s one of my ways, you know, I’ll use aloha and mahalo words that are important to me that I grew up culturally. And if I put that in AI to kind of polish it or whatever, it’ll say, hey, I’m going to keep your Hawaiian perspective and personality, but here’s another way you could kind of tone, you know, accomplish that with a little bit more elegance or impact or whatever the case would be. And it’s just really interesting to see that. So I think we’re going to rely on it much more of an agent and an assist, right?
But I don’t think it should replace the human connection part of it. Right. So one of the things I tell our brands is, you know, go old school with stuff, send people a thank you card, You know the email, but if it’s important enough or whatever the case might be, or meeting or whatever, somebody’s really done something for you. No strings attached. You know, it’s part of a karmic boomerang interaction.
Send them a thank you note just to express that or whatever the case might be. How often do we get things in the mail anymore? Do we get three zero? I go to my mailbox all the time. I’m like Charlie Brown looking for stuff.
And even from friends and family, it’s not the case, right? So think about those places where people aren’t doing something that they used to do as much or at all. And if you could do that, you would stand out because your letter would be in that person’s mailbox, right? Don’t not do the email or the text, you know, follow up or appreciation or whatever, but send a thank you card. It’s something as simple as that as AI is not going to do that, right?
CJ Bruce: 13:43
I love it. That’s great. That’s really good.
Neuroscience, Haptics, and Consumer Behavior
WavenDean Fernandes: 13:45
Just one little one like that, right? And anything. I also think that you can get in 3D effect. You know, brands that can send samples and things of that sort. That is huge because one of the little hobbies I have, I love studying neuroscience as it relates to marketing or branding.
And there’s a fantastic gentleman down at Stanford, Dr. David Eagleman. And so I’ll post on. He’s on LinkedIn and you can find him, but you know, he’ll talk about the real reason people buy stuff. What’s the neuroscience behind the reason and all of those kinds of things? I find that part of what makes humans do what they do, or at least appear to do what they do.
Fascinating. And why in so many so much research or consumer research, people say one thing, but they do something completely different when they might be in the environment in the store, right? So the aspirational behavior versus what we actually buy or do I just find that part of how we’re wired so fascinating. And there’s something called the haptic effect. And it operates even online where if someone actually takes a hold of something and touches something or online, that would be turning it around, interacting with pictures, you know, more engagement, the greater the effect for consuming it, putting it in your basket and not returning it to the shelf.
So in the physical, that’s especially important when it comes to packaging design, right? And that’s one of the things we may talk about is like, what are the key triggers brands can do to increase their potential of engagement? I would say with whatever that potential consumer or customer might be. And packaging design is so multifaceted because we think it’s just what we see on the pack. It’s actually an energetic exchange that’s happening at a neuroscience neuro neural level with the viewer or engager.
CJ Bruce: 15:43
Yes. No. Yeah. Why don’t we go there now? I think that’s a super interesting topic.
And, you know, packaging design and I guess the, you know, we’d love to go into the neuroscience side of it and, you know, think about it, framing that up. And then I think also it’d be interesting touching on just the kind of practical applications like different, you know, packaging design happening at different stages of a brand. Obviously, then there’s like redesigns and, you know, new things come out. And how do you update? How do you think about that?
So yeah, if you want to touch on those, those pieces, that’d be great.
WavenDean Fernandes: 16:13
Yeah. So I’ll go back a little bit and say something that, you know, might be kind of woo woo or maybe a little profound, but I share it with the brands that we engage with and especially when we get into the retreats and I tell the brand founders or the leaders or, you know, the CEO’s, whoever you know, in their team. I said, you know, people tend to think that they own this brand, whatever that is, food, beverage, cosmetics, body care, whatever. They own this brand. But what if you switch the thinking that the brand actually chose you and engaged you to be its activator in the material world on an energetic level, and you start like, whoa, that’s, you know, a little woo woo.
But just think about that rather than you owning something that you’re in service to it and that there’s this much greater calling because I said, you know, when you’re in, when you’re in charge of or in a leadership role or responsible for a food beverage cosmetic, to some degree, nutritional supplements, for sure, kind of brand, anything where the consumer or customer takes that product you produce into themselves. What do you think happens literally within seven days to weeks or months, depending upon the tissue, that product becomes them at a molecular level. They’re consuming it. It’s right in the word. They’re a consumer of your product.
So they’re eating that protein bar. That protein bar is going instantly at different levels of its, you know, structure. Carbohydrates, protein, etc. into their system. It actually is recrafting themselves as a human being because of what they’re consuming. And we tell people all the time, the better you eat, the higher quality, you eat organic and all of that, you’re healthier, your immune system is stronger, right?
We actually say that. So I said, you’re in a sacred engagement and a sacred responsibility and a sacred trust with the universe. However, you might term that to provide the Most High. Activating energetically activating products you can because your consumer, your consumers actually are using this to become a new person, right? Like the caterpillar to the butter, they’re transforming because of the products.
I said, that’s huge, right? I don’t know if somebody at Pepsi or any place else, you know, the big quite feels it in the same way. So I said, you know, a lot of times you think you may have come into this business because you saw a white space and you want to make a better cookie or whatever the case might be, or, you know, this is you wanted to have your own business or whatever. I said. But think of this as a spiritual calling.
If it was right. And this extends down to your team that you guys are actually in service and you were chosen to be the ambassadors and the emissaries and the activators of this brand in the material world. How would that change your perspective on everything you look at? So just opening that conversation, see where that takes you. Right?
And I think when you start aligning with that higher calling, that higher energy, the purpose changes, right? It’s not just to make money or whatever the, you know, it’s to change the world as Steve Jobs, you know, in your little way, right? Your little beverage can transform the consumers that, you know. So you have a very, very sacred calling to make sure it’s the best quality ingredients, the most integrity, the most looking at the whole facet, the whole ecosystem of what you’re doing, like that pebble in the pond where the ripple effect goes out to places you can’t even foresee. So I’ll stop there for a second.
Packaging as an Energetic and Strategic Touchpoint
CJ Bruce: 19:55
Yeah, no, that’s great. That’s been peeling it back and getting to that core foundation is great. Yeah, way, way back, way back, all the way back. You know, to go to the big bang. Yeah.
No, I think there’s the, I love that perspective shift too. And just giving that simple way of thinking about the brand, choosing you versus you choosing the brand makes you just think about it differently. You know, in my mind, I’m thinking about, yeah, like that’s if I just take my business and think about it like that, right? It’s a different way of viewing things. And I’m sure new ideas come out of that.
So building from that, I wanted to get us, get us into the, the packaging piece. Just double clicking on that. So how, how does that then or, you know, at what stage does the question.
WavenDean Fernandes: 20:40
Right. So, you know, when you pull back in and that’s why I say before we start with the tactical, let’s pull real way back and look at this thing at a macro energetic perspective, right? Why do you freaking wake up every day and do this for 10 or 12 hours or whatever? You could be doing something else. A lot of them could be doing something else and making more money if that was the only objective, right?
What is the calling to do this? What is the passion for? What is the stick to itiveness, right? Which is what creates the tardigrade effect, right? The, you know, next day, the hope, the grace, the energy to carry forward.
So I said, when you come from that macro perspective, and that’s not necessarily something you surface directly to the consumer in a woo woo way or whatever. It’s a way to coalesce energy. And it also affects who comes to you as part of your team and how you qualify people who resonate. And it affects everything, right from the brand, the product, the purpose, the people, everything. So then we get to kind of what we think is the tactical.
That’s what the. And then we’re going to like, okay, we’re going to, you know, create a loan. Say you’re, you know, you’re going to create from scratch. You’re creating the logo, the identity expression, the core brand identity. What’s that in a, in a graphic sense?
What’s that in a visual sense? You know, what we, most people talk to about the logo people in the street called core brand identity in different ways. But what is that thing, right? That exists everywhere that Nike swoosh, that Starbucks, mermaid, etc., etc. and those evolve and change over time too. But and, and how was it depicted, etc., etc., right.
MTV broke the mold because it took that monolithic ness and like, whoa, crazed it up right back in those days. It’s like, you don’t do that with the logo and now you see that kind of latitude with it. So, so energy and times change and trends change and impact the brand expression too. And then how you look at the packaging of it. Right?
And I think, You know, there’s things that are going on when you look at a package, you know, and, and you know, I know that. Casey Hirschmann at Fruition Design and Fred Hart, who you know, really appreciate also they see a lot of things in regards to we focus a lot on how the package reads, right. But the truth is that you’re not ever going to get to read any of that on the package until you get within a close proximity when you’re coming down the aisle, or if you watch how people shop, if they’re going for a brand they’re used to in a category and they get disrupted to look at your brand, it’s an energetic first calling because they’re far enough away that they’re not reading it. They’re not looking for you if you’re not what their preferred to go to, right? So if you sometimes just go in and be a student of human behavior and just watch shopping happen and watch how people pick what they pick and the conditions they pick them and stuff, right?
Package is probably the biggest lever a brand has, both tactically and sometimes energetically, to activate a new engagement, a new relationship with someone that is not already in their camp because it has to disrupt behavior. They might not even be going in your category, but something catches their eye, right? Or something catches the child’s eye who’s in the car or whatever. The circumstances are. Right.
But most people are not going in saying, gee, I’m going to look for the newest brand in the category and I’m going to buy that. They go in typically with a preference, right? This is neuroplasticity stuff too. They’re going in and they’re getting in and getting their business done and stuff. They’re not just like, wow, I’m just going to go in and like us weirdos, supermarkets are like our Disneyland.
We go in for entertainment. You know, Elliot will go in and spend hours just hanging out in a grocery store at different channels or whatever, you know, like me too, right? I just love like, what are you doing? I’m just looking at all the colors and wondering why that works and just, you know, that kind of stuff. It’s, it’s our not just our business.
It’s our passion. It’s our, our interest. It’s our curiosity. Not most consumers going to fit that right. They’re trying to get in tactically, get things done within a window, an efficiency, right?
So a brand package really has to work the hard as it possibly can for the 80 over 20 factor to get them into that 20% sweet spot where you could potentially incentivize a change of behavior by interrupting behavior to get them to stop. And I call it the Scooby Doo factor. Like, oh. You know, like see something and be like, what is that first thing? That’s curiosity first.
Something about that package color, typography, appetite, appeal, you know, whatever. We deconstruct it to be energetic, you know, as the element that does it right. But actually it’s something you absorb at a neuroscience level. You don’t see it and reading it, you’re feeling it. It’s calling to you at some level emotionally.
And then through the mechanism of curiosity, now you got the left and right brain going on here all the time. Right? Just to be delineated. The left brain. What are you doing?
That’s not your brand. Your brand is over here. What are you doing? You’re taking time. The kids screaming what are you in the right brains like that’s interesting.
It’s curious. I like that pink color or those cookies look really tasty or whatever. And it’s like, no, don’t stop, stop. And there’s this interesting dynamic going on in your head and you’re sometimes your right brain wins and it reaches out and tells the left brain, hey, shut up, we’re going to check this out. It’ll take a second and you reach out and you, you’re absorbing it.
Now you’re reading it because it’s within peripheral distance. And then here’s the big one. What if you’re curious enough to turn and read a side panel or bottom or the back panel? Now that haptic effect takes place where the longer you hold something, the more you feel it’s yours, the harder it is to put it back on the shelf. Not impossible, but just just check that out for yourself.
The more your left brain and your right brain are having a conversation, and the right brain is trying to convince the left brain, hey, this could be something we try out. Hey, here’s a Bogo. There’s two for, you know, it makes logic that the left brain can be like, oh, all right, go ahead and buy it. We’ll try it. Who knows, maybe we may like it.
We may love it. But if we don’t, I’ll, I’ll remember. I’ll remind you, I told you not to get this right, and then we’ll get our brand too. Okay, so you appease both, right? It’s weird to talk like this, but that’s going on at that level with everyone to some level.
And it’s like, you know, telepathy, it’s happening instantaneously, energetically, right? And then you look and you’re like, wow, this makes sense. And then, oh, guess what, left brain. It checks the macros. Look at the protein.
Look at the sugar. Look at the it’s not gluten. It was never gluten. It was water. It’s not gluten.
See, see, see, I told you, right. Those checkpoints give you validation. And oh, the price is a little, but it’s organic, you know, whatever the other secondary cues are. Right? That package is working hard on all levels visually, verbally, energetically, right.
To not just convince, but to give you the sense of like, I can take a chance, lower the risk mitigation barrier that whatever the price you’re going to pay might be. You might hate the taste you don’t know, might not enjoy your kids, might not enjoy. Whatever the risk mitigation is, it lowers it such that you put it in the basket. And if there’s a promotional deal, you’d be like, oh three for six. Oh, I’ll take two of them or I’ll take a different flavor or whatever.
Right. In that case. And then once you get it home, the product has to perform, obviously. You have to love it, enjoy it, taste, whatever the case. And if that does it, then you’re going back.
And that brand could now either have displaced the one that you used to get in that category or added to it, right? Or become the preferred one for certain members or whatever. It’s now in your family. It’s now in your ohana, right? It earned the right to do that.
That’s packaging design at multifaceted levels, right? So when I work with the brands, with the agencies we work with on rebranding for our brands, we sweat the smallest, smallest details. You think all that stuff is unpackaged just like, oh, we got room left over. But know that real estate is so valuable. Every line, every typography, every twist, every color, every little embellishment it’s thought through to try to get it as closer into that sweet spot of the 20%, where it’ll change behavior or motivate behavior or reinforce behavior on behalf of that consumer.
I’ll stop there. That’s a long.
Design Details That Earn Their Place on Pack
CJ Bruce: 30:04
That’s great, that’s great. It’s great. Yeah. I love to go in the deep and getting, you know, it starts starts the emotional connection. You know, before you get into any of the kind of reading or anything like that, it’s great.
And I think just to call out, we got Casey and Fred are both coming on the podcast.
WavenDean Fernandes: 30:21
So fantastic. You got two.
CJ Bruce: 30:23
Of the best.
WavenDean Fernandes: 30:24
And two of the best in.
CJ Bruce: 30:25
This world.
WavenDean Fernandes: 30:26
Yeah, yeah. I wanted to say CJ, I want to say is they get it not just from a design perspective. They get it from an energetic perspective. And that’s really valuable. Rare, you know?
We have a lot of folks in our industry that do that, but they’re working with clients at that multifaceted level of stuff, right? Everything that ends up on a pack deserves to earns the right to because energetically it fits into that goal of motivating behavior, right? Having what I call the reptilian brain reach out and be like. In the cart. Bingo.
CJ Bruce: 31:10
So good. That’s great. Good ones. I love it. So I wanted to shift.
We talked a little bit about, you know, buyer psychology, consumer psychology. I want to shift to the founder psychology. And so one of the things, you know, you talked about this, this concept of the show veneer in the past and, you know, founders kind of talking about how great things are. Well, really they’re stressing behind the scenes. And I’m curious if you share any moments where, you know, that changed or they dropped that or the effect on that or, you know, anywhere you want to take it around this the founder psychology and vulnerability piece.
WavenDean Fernandes: 31:43
You know, one of the, one of the things I love to, you know, give as potentially a perspective or kind of a match, a macro construct is, you know, Joseph Campbell and I tell them that we’re all on a spiritual hero’s journey, okay? We’re in a physical three dimensional world or matrix, if you will, right? Or the simulation, whatever you want to approach it. I love the insight, but it really is a spiritual hero’s journey because you’re not necessarily, we equate so much with what we, what we think we see, we feel and all of that. Right?
But when you even look at science, the bandwidth of what we, our five senses provide is a very limited bandwidth, even compared to other creatures on the planet. We can hear what a dog here is. We can’t see what an owl. I mean, we even know that, right? Yet we equate so much and and and value so much the tangibility.
But we’re really energetic or spiritual beings having a human limited human lifetime experience. Okay, so I pull way back again on the macro for them to get them out of the silo. You have to kind of break that silo and be like, look, you guys, you’re in a spiritual hero’s journey and that thing looks like this. You come in wanting it to be like this. And, you know, social media is like, wow, it’s all up.
And I’m look at me and my, you know, all this kind of posturing. I said, but the truth of it is, and the value of it is that this. Right. Because you have to have contrast in your life and your experience in order to appreciate the difference between those. There has to be, you know, the roller coaster doesn’t just keep going up.
There’s an experience with it, you know, stops at the top and you’re like. And then comes down and goes behind. That’s the enjoyment of a roller coaster. It’s not just going up or going down all the time. There’s this wave to it and some of the ups are going to be higher, some of the etc., etc..
So I said sharing that is a much more real, authentic kind of approach. And we really encourage that with our brands. You know, it’s not just all this Pollyanna like, look, wow, it’s fantastic. No shit is hard. This stuff is hard.
AI is hard. There’s a war going on. Gas is it is. Right. But the resiliency of a tardigrade is.
Yeah, I get it. And I still have this mission or calling that’s higher that I subscribe to and I inspire my team with that. We’re bringing this kind of energetic level of product or brand to the marketplace. It’s our offering, right? See the energy of like in and out, right?
Like that. So you focus less on the little dynamics and the storms is this too shall pass and focus much more. If you need to remind yourself of what the bigger mission is, that is way more powerful than anything that’s happening on a daily basis here. This too shall pass, whatever that might be. Right?
And know that you’re on a much longer, broader, dynamic spiritual journey than just this little piece of lifetime that we see ourselves in. Wei macro right.
CJ Bruce: 35:03
Yeah, yeah. No.
WavenDean Fernandes: 35:04
So there are tangible realities. We help them with that operations, logistics and finding the co-packer and yada, yada, yada. All that stuff is doable. We have a ton of great partners and ecosystem and the best in the business people to refer them to and all. So they’re well taken care of.
Right? But a lot of times they the energetic resiliency is really the key thing, right? Not letting it get you down or despondent and knowing that there’s grace and that there’s a trajectory to this stuff and appreciating that journey and the blessings of it.
CJ Bruce: 35:42
Yeah. That’s great.
WavenDean Fernandes: 35:43
So.
CJ Bruce: 35:45
I wanted to shift to just hear about some, you know, some specific brands or like some brands that you think that are out there and you know, people you work with or not, but just brands that you think are doing good work in this space right now that you think deserve some more attention.
When Packaging Promise Outpaces Product Experience
WavenDean Fernandes: 36:00
Yeah, I’ll speak to just one of ours that Casey just recently redesigned that I thought was beautifully done, both visually, verbally, and energetically. And that’s really they went from Artisan Tropic to really. And people can check them out online and such. It’s a brand, a beautiful family from Colombia, and they make cassava chips and different kinds of products in the snack category and spent a lot of time with the founders really feeling the essence of where they’re from in Colombia and what elements of the Colombia experience, the farming experience would extrapolate. So if you go and look at the current product design that is now rolling into market for that, you’ll see and feel those elements people might not know.
Of course, the 80 over 20 that went behind it, but our objective is for them to see the package and feel something different about that product offering and within that category, right. And all of these categories are really challenging because a lot of people are doing great work and great rebranding and things of that sort. So I think the thing that no one else can replace is the energetic essence of where those founders or where that brand is coming from, what its mission and purpose, what its reason for being is about. In Hawaii we call that mana m a n a. You know what is the spiritual essence of everything?
People? Everything, right? And that if you can kind of capture that lightning in a bottle through your packaging and your brand expression, whether it be on social website, Amazon, you know, every kind of relevant touchpoint that’s, it’s, it’s a force multiplier because it brings people to your brand from buyers in the ecosystem to consumers on the B2C side. And a lot of times they’re just attracted to it, right? They’re not necessarily looking for something different or specific, but something draws them to it.
So I’d say really is one that’s current that we just worked with that is really, that is really the name. Also that key team came and I was like, brilliant, right? It’s because you’re stop yourself. You’re like, really, really. It’s funny, but you check that one out or put the link in for your people.
The one I want to go, one I want to contrast with that is I can talk about now. In hindsight was and I’m trying to get the name as it comes to me. I’m a senior citizen, so it might take a little bit minute, but it was Mashmallow. I don’t know if you remember that brand smash Mallow and you could the website and all that. They’re gone.
The brand’s gone. But you can still see, I think, the branding on the website on Google. I thought that brand was brilliant. This was way days back, I was in San Francisco working at a design agency stuff, and that’s when they first came out and it came out from a gentleman called Sebastian Sebastiani Winery, right? He came up with krave jerky and everything, right.
So he was developing brands back then before they got sold off to majors and Smash. Melo was one of them. And I loved the branding that the agency in San Francisco did for him. It was delightful, whimsical, and it was just when marshmallows were starting to be positioned as like, better for you or good. And I’m like, what?
Because I grew up as a kid with the old tradition. I’m like, no, you know? And so this brand was re-educating the consumer audience, kind of the not so much like it’s a healthy but better for you choice, right? And they did such a beautiful job with the branding that it made you want to give it as a gift. And my sister was a huge marshmallow person, right?
Put him in everything, chocolates, everything. So I would gift her these smashed mallows because the packaging was so beautiful. It looked like a something you could give as a gift. Even though I wasn’t a marshmallow person, she was. Here’s the problem.
The product didn’t taste too well, if I can say that. Yeah, product did not deliver on the promise the packaging set up. And as I told you, with that reptilian brain, the packaging will get somebody new to a brand to buy it once. And if they take it home and the experience of what’s in that package can container natural supplement, whatever the thing is, does not deliver on the expectation of taste or efficacy or whatever it is. You’re done.
You could package it with dollar bills attached to it and be like, I’ll pay you to buy me. Forget about it. Right? You have one shot, maybe two, right? If they’ll try a different flavor or whatever.
But you don’t have more than three max with that consumer to nail it. And the product then has to deliver apart from whatever the package is. Packaging is right. You could, in some ways it’ll be meta, you know? You know, metaphorical about packaging a brown paper bag and be good to go.
If that thing inside is so amazing that they can’t live without the taste, right? But that’s really the case. That helps with, you know, them finding it and wayfinding and all that. But that was one of the contrasts to really to something like smash mellow is like they did a brilliant job on the packaging, social media. All of that was just like, oh my God, so cool.
Delightful. The little characters, they really created a brand world where they had all these elements that you could use in different places, product. And I, you know, another example, I was, you know, way, way back when Mrs. Fields cookies first came from the mall where you could smell the cookies and you walked in and they were going into mass real and they were going into the C chain, you know, they, we created at the agency. It was a beautiful packaging for him to make that transition because it’s the first time you buy Mrs. Fields anywhere else but their store. And it would have to be in a package to bring that, you know, and did a great job.
The package, the initial cookie rounds had something wrong with the ingredients and they were metallic tasting. Sales peaked right once all these people were like, I can’t get Mrs. Fields at the convenience store, yadda. Huge sales, huge drop off. As soon as that wave cracked open the package and started tasting it. And then started what?
Sharing that experience. Oh my God, I just bought my favorite Mrs. Fields Cookies. Don’t buy them at the C store, only get them at the store. Whatever. They reformulated and you could see the spike change again, right?
But you had some ground to make up. So the second one second, you know that the heaviest lifting I’ll tell brands is get the product right as right as you can out of the box. I mean, it’s like common sense and it seems silly to say it, but there’s still brands that pay more attention to the other things before until they get that taste or flavor or whatever nailed, if you will. Absolutely critical. If you’re trying to move people to a new kind of experience like moringa or super, this food or super that grain or whatever the case might be.
Right? And we know enough examples where they’ve new, really potentially wonderful additions don’t make it because the first product iterations don’t taste great. Yeah. And for all of us taste CJ is going to be, you know, I like things a little sweeter. You might things a little more savory, but you got to hit some kind of sweet spot, no pun intended for whatever that intended audience is and nail it for them and do your homework about that to make sure the food science part of it is like dialed in before you go crazy and embody that in packaging.
But if you do both of that, this product and the pack, it’s a force multiplier. It’ll go viral to some degree on its own. Right? All you got to do is fan the flames a little bit.
Why Taste Still Leads Brand Growth
CJ Bruce: 44:25
Yeah. Such an important point. Yeah, I think it’s a great I mean, taste is core, right? At the end of the day, I mean we talked about it earlier, right? People are consuming these products.
And if it doesn’t taste great, it doesn’t go anywhere. And we yeah, we’ve seen this from, you know, the storytelling components, you know, brands or founders want to focus on certain aspects. And it’s like, that’s all great, but taste leads, right? And it’s.
WavenDean Fernandes: 44:45
You know, this product sucks. Have you tried it? Yeah. Do you eat your own product? I mean, do you like the whole food?
Do you eat, do you drink the Kool-Aid? It’s, you know, and we say taste. And that’s a big macro concept, right? But it comes down to mouthfeel. What notes come through, you know, all these subtleties of what makes up what we call the experience of taste.
And you know, the people who like taste ice cream or something like, you know, those sommeliers of ice cream or different products, they can taste minute notes, right? So if they say lavender in the ice cream, that lavender could be too strong or for the intended audience, right? If you have to pick some kind of targets or archetype or persona, that taste is going to resonate where it’s like, wow, that cookie is amazing. Not too sweet. Goldilocks zone, right?
CJ Bruce: 45:39
Find that sweet sound takes work.
WavenDean Fernandes: 45:41
I mean, right? And transferring the recipes from home to commercial with the co-packer. Okay, what happens to the taste through that co-packer experience? What if the Co-packer says, oh, we’re going to substitute because that’s what we have. It changes the crunch profile or the.
So taste goes into, I think, mouthfeel, the whole experience of it. Right? Whatever that means. So this is a side.
CJ Bruce: 46:08
No it’s great. Yeah. I think this has been great. I’m going to wrap up here a little bit and I want to make sure that we all I know flew by van, this is.
WavenDean Fernandes: 46:20
A Hawaiian Islander talking for you.
CJ Bruce: 46:25
I do want to make sure we point people where to find you. So go to tigbrands.com. For the site and is there anywhere else online you want people to learn about you or connect with you and the work you’re doing?
WavenDean Fernandes: 46:36
Just LinkedIn is great. And one of the things I do with LinkedIn, I put all my contact information in there so you don’t even have to friend me. You can text me the email is in there, you know? So and just in tech, I ask people, just text me, you know, just text me. Hey, Waven, this is what’s up.
This is what I need. I’ll have a quick conversation with him and then kind of assess it and then be able to then refer them or assist them in whatever way you know, you know, refer people to you refer people to like Casey Fricke. You know, the whole ecosystem we work with, right, is really made up of great people. I find this industry, I’ve been in high tech and other industries. This is my favorite industry, bar none that I’ve been in for the last few decades, because the people come to this thing with heart, because I think they intuitively know whether they say it woo woo or not, that they’re in here because of passionate about what this, what this industry means and what it does, whether they’re on the marketing side of it or the food science or whatever piece of the ecosystem.
Something special about this natural product CPG industry really is, you know. So yeah.
CJ Bruce: 47:46
I love it. Yeah, that’s a great, great way to end. Thank you. So yeah, we’ve been talking to WavenDean Fernandes. Brand Activation Director at TIG Brands.
Be sure to check him out tigbrands.com and connect with him on LinkedIn. Thanks so much for being on the show.
WavenDean Fernandes: 48:00
Blessings. Thank you, CJ.
Outro: 48:03
Thanks for listening to The Missing Ingredient podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.