Conquering Brand Beasts - CBB Season 5 Intro

Summary

What happens when a podcast hits 150 episodes and decides to level up? In this Season Five teaser of Conquering Brand Beasts, Thomas and JCC reflect on how far they’ve come and tee up a new direction. Instead of comparing brands, they’ll dive into individual campaigns that reshaped perception, from Jaguar’s bold moves to Skittles’ evolving identity, plus classics like Coca-Cola and even the Grateful Dead as an experience-driven brand. It’s a quick, energetic preview of a season focused on pulling big-brand ideas into practical lessons for small businesses.

Takeaways

• What happens when a podcast hits 150 episodes and decides to level up?
• In this Season Five teaser of Conquering Brand Beasts, Thomas and JCC reflect on how far they’ve come and tee up a new direction.
• Instead of comparing brands, they’ll dive into individual campaigns that reshaped perception, from Jaguar’s bold moves to Skittles’ evolving identity, plus classics like Coca-Cola and even the Grateful Dead as an experience-driven brand.
• It’s a quick, energetic preview of a season focused on pulling big-brand ideas into practical lessons for small businesses.

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Transcript

Thomas: All right. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to another episode of Conquering Brand Beasts, a segment of the Koyoti Small Business Podcast. This is Thomas.

JCC: This is JCC.

Thomas: And we're back for another season—Season Five. Did you tell me most podcasts die off after 10 episodes? We have far blown that out of the water.

JCC: At last count, we are at 150 episodes total, with roughly 50 of those being for Conquering Brand Beasts (CBB).

Thomas: We didn't do a wrap-up last season, so what were some takeaways you had?

JCC: The Jaguar campaign jumped out to me. Even if the campaign didn't go the way they wanted, the internet became a crazy echo chamber. We can all learn to take a step back and reconsider why decisions are being made. Jaguar was trying to "cut through the noise," which is an ethos they believed in but had strayed away from.

Thomas: Last season, we did a "versus" format, but towards the end, we started leaning into bias. We also found that when looking at brands, the takeaways for small businesses kept coming back to the same few things.

JCC: That’s why for Season Five, we are going to be more campaign-based. We want to look at how a single campaign can change the course of history for a company and shift public perception.

Thomas: Is there any one you’re looking forward to?

JCC: Two, actually. First is Skittles. They weren't always the "Taste the Rainbow" company, and they keep reinventing what that rainbow means. The second is the Grateful Dead. We usually think of brands as products in a brick-and-mortar store, but the Grateful Dead is a brand based on an experience.

Thomas: I went to a "hippie high school," and I remember the Grateful Dead teddy bear murals in the cafeteria, though I never really knew what it was at the time. I'm looking forward to a deep dive into music history.

JCC: Did you hear about the 1992 Lithuanian basketball team? They couldn't afford jerseys for the Barcelona Olympics, so the Grateful Dead designed and paid for these wild, tie-dye jerseys with a basketball-playing skeleton mascot.

Thomas: I also want to look at Coca-Cola. They have so many iconic campaigns, like the 1931 Santa Claus campaign that created the traditional North American image of Santa just because Coke didn't have a market in the wintertime.

JCC: They ran that for decades, though now they use the polar bear more.

Thomas: We should also discuss the "New Coke" failure from the 80s or the Coca-Cola song that actually charted on the Billboard 100. We might even talk about the "I Am Canadian" Molson campaign.

JCC: The fun this season will be figuring out how to bring these massive campaigns back to small business lessons.

Thomas: This was just a teaser episode, and it's going to be a lot of laughs. I'm Thomas.

JCC: This is JCC.

Thomas: You can find this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, and other platforms. If you’re enjoying the content, please like, subscribe, and send smoke signals to help the algorithms. You can reach us at podcast.koyoti.com. Thank you for listening to the Koyoti Small Business Podcast.