Bandar Foods is the Indian Version of Sriracha rooster sauce. Bandar means "monkey" in Hindi -- so instead of Vietnamese rooster sauce -- we're Indian monkey sauce!
Boom -- that's our five-second sales pitch. You see, Dan is based in Silicon Valley where tech startups necessitate pithy, concise pitches to stand out from the hordes of other ideas looking for funding. One of the best utilized branding techniques is the it's like this for that method where you anchor to a known existing company and imply your value in a new market. Baby.com.br is like Diapers.com for Brazil, Stork Stack is like BirchBox for babies, and Omaze is like a raffle for badasses - easy and memorable, right? We wanted to do that with our food company. Because most Americans may not know what to do with an Indian inspired condiment -- we are choosing to anchor the brand image to a popular chili sauce and demonstrate how we're different. Oh, so monkey sauce is a spicy chili sauce that goes on everything! Got it!
We're sick of hearing verbose food pitches that ramble on and on about the freshest, organic berries from some small village in Bolivia (or wait, was it Bangladesh). Though the products themselves can be amazing, long-winded culinary pitches may not always be memorable -- or "sticky" for the average user.
That got us thinking about how other food/beverage brands may have pitched themselves as if they were tech startups:
Ramen Noodles: Fuel for poor college students (or struggling hot sauce entrepreneurs)
Ramen Noodles (Shrimp Flavor): Fuel for poor, LAZY college students who get to the supermarket too late after the beef and chicken are sold out
Soy Vay: Teriyaki Sauce for Jews
Naked Juice: Odwalla for exhibitionists
Street King: Five Hour Energy for rappers
Pabst Blue Ribbon: Budweiser for hipsters
Soy Milk: Regular milk for people who are grossed out by lactose
Almond Milk: Soy Milk for people who are grossed out by soy milk
Cheetos: Party snacks for people who hate clean furniture
Extreme Doritos: Normal Doritos for people who have lost their tastebuds (like us if we keep eating chili peppers)
Pizza Rolls: Hot Pockets for people who like Bagel Bites
Clif Bars: Granola bars for people who wished they climbed
Nature Valley: Granola bars for people who wished they took nature walks
Quaker Chewy Granola Bars: Granola bars for people who wished they just bought a candy bar instead (currently consuming a box from my command center in my parents' basement)
See -- isn't that easy? There's no longer a need for flowery, gratuitous writing because anchoring to a known idea and then showing directional differentiation efficiently lodges the idea in people's brains. These examples are from successful food companies, so perhaps if more startups pitched themselves in this way we can have huge IPOs or acquisitions as well. We're like the Instagram of hot sauce... right?!
What are other ways that food companies could pitch themselves like tech startups? Let's brainstorm some more in the comments section.
First note: We're just having fun here -- no need for brand bashing
Second note: THERE'S ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT IN OUR KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN! We would love your support!