A Recipe For Brand Building
On this episode of #peekintoprocess Erin meets with Milka Gordillo from Sweets by Milka to discuss focusing on branding with the senses and talking about the decisions we make to build our brands — each piece of it making a difference, and more importantly, creating an experience that is uniquely your brand’s.
As you know, brands aren’t created overnight. They take work, they take strategy, they take consistency, and they even take appealing to all five of our senses — especially in the case of our brand focus today.
Catch the video on Instagram, or read along below for some of the highlights in my conversation with Milka Gordillo as we discuss how sweet her brand really is.
Read The Highlights
An Overview — What Is Your Brand?
Milka:
I am the creator of Sweets by Milka. It all started about five years ago with our high-end crafted stuffed marshmallows, and there's actually stuff inside of them, you'll see when we open them. I came up with the idea after living in Colorado, and spending a lot of time outdoors and camping. It was just s’mores and s’mores and s’mores — I just didn’t like them. It was just like sugar and paste it in my mouth, and it falls apart and it's messy and I just didn't like the whole concept. So, when I moved back I decided to create something different. I played around with a lot of things and finally created these marshmallows, and they tasted like a CLOUD. I wanted everyone to have that moment, that feeling of being on a cloud.
Erin:
Well I really want to dig into the five senses today — sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. We’re calling this the recipe for branding, right, and I couldn’t think of a better brand to tell this story about. Your concept is “the perfect bite”, tell me about that in terms of the five senses.
Milka:
So I’ve always found the problem with dessert to be that after you’ve had a big meal, there’s just not room for a large dessert — and I don’t like to share. I needed to ensure the bite I was creating was small enough to eat in one or two bites if you wanted, and you definitely aren’t sharing because the filling is right in the middle.
I had to have sweetness to it but it also had to have some type of crunch, so that it kind of like stops you when you're having that crunch in your mouth. Notice it next time you’re eating something crunchy, the sound will take over your ears and everything that's happening outside of that.
I also wanted to convey emotion when someone takes a bite. That moment of bliss when you taste something amazing that makes you stop, close your eyes, and just say “Ohhhh.” You're inside of yourself feeling that. That's what I wanted to come up with the dreaMallows, that's what the whole perfect bite is, you go through all of your senses.
Erin:
Yes, I love it. Love all of it. Do you think this concept was a business first, or a brand?
Milka:
A brand first, definitely. I created the dreaMallows and the entire feel the buyer would get from the product before I even started selling them. Down to the packaging, everything had to be perfect. I just started playing with the formula, and I swear the first bite that I had, I was like “Oh my god it's just like a cloud, like you're eating a cloud.” And so I started saying okay what am I gonna match with mallows. I came up with dream because this is my dream to be in the kitchen so it all went together, and I love it. From there I used the Green Market as kind of a testing ground to find out what worked, and what didn’t to perfect the business aspect.
Building the Brand
Erin:
Why is capturing the perfect bite so important? How is it different from other candy? We talked about preservatives, tell me the story of your ingredients.
Milka:
For me to play with ingredients I literally say “Okay, let me make my own salted caramel.” What else can I use with that? If I use my own salted caramel I have to make sure that that salted caramel is extra on every level. So I'm going to use good cream, good ingredients, and because you can taste everything in your mouth with everything melting it gives you a different coating on your tongue to allow the next flavor to come in. It all depends, I play with flavors to keep things fun and fresh.
The perfect bite comes from having that moment with yourself, where you can stop, close your eyes and take that perfect bite — you don’t have to share and you can just let your sense overtake you for a moment. That bite is like a moment of yoga for me, it just makes me feel good.
Erin:
How did you dream up the positioning of “the stuff is inside”?
Milka:
If we go back to the dream place, which is where it all started — the stuff is inside. I always went back to camping and doing S’mores and getting super dirty, and then you’d have to go to the river to wash your hands or whatever. But what about if you're in your car and you want to have a sweet and you don't have napkins, right? I was like “I don't want to get dirty. I don't want to share,” Hence, the stuff is on the inside. You can eat a sweet without making a mess because it’s all contained.
Erin:
Now we're gonna go into the nuts and bolts of how you built your brand, so let's go into that sense of visual. You have a logo, and you have a color palette. The logo itself, obviously has that cloud. It's soft, your letters are bubbly. They feel like they're floating, you know, tell me how has that evolved. What does that look like?
Milka:
So, when I first started I literally went online and paid like $300 for someone to just do the logo because I had no idea, I don't know. So I paid and I just literally told her I like this and I like that and I like this, and I wasn't 100% convinced — but it worked. And then I worked a local person that worked on my logo and when I got with her I just kind of told her, I love the cloud feeling. I don't like the cloud to be perfect. What I want people to feel when they go on my website, or when they try our sweets, I want the entire feeling. I want the whole feeling of calm and serenity and a deep sigh of relief, and I think I’ve found that here.
The Future for Sweets
Erin:
You’ve created your own category of marshmallows, you’ve given them a place to be different and now you can never sell out, right?
Milka:
That is one thing that I've been struggling with the past five years, every mentor and business mentor that I run into obviously they're like “Oh my god your idea. How do we make it? How do we do mass produce, right?”
I don't mind mass production as long as you're actually having humans producing each perfect bite, because I'm using hands and my senses, it's just everything. Everything that goes into it and you can tell, like you really can tell on the smell, you can tell if a machine makes it, you can totally tell if you're really into your senses.
You can tell, right? My answer is always no, there's already marshmallows out there at the store that you can get. These are not marshmallows. These are dreaMallows and if I add preservatives and I add everything else that cloud feeling in your mouth is going to go away, that explosion is going away.
Erin:
We talked about sound in the sense of chewing and the crunch, but what would your theme song be for Sweets by Milka?
Milka:
Oh my god, I have to get in my spirit and try one for this. *Closes eyes and takes a bite* [singing] What do you dream? Dreaming your dreaaaam with ME! [end singing]
Erin:
Amazing, are you doing anything for the holidays? Do you have a cut off for that?
Milka:
Yes! We have perfect gift boxes that include dreamMallows, regular marshmallows, cookies and a card — everything is customizable and we deliver locally as far as West Palm, after that we have to ship. I’d like to have orders in by the second week of December so everyone can get their sweets on time!
Order at www.sweetsbymilka.com