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The Real Deal: Why Authentic Storytelling Matters for Brands — with Paige Guzman

Giant Stories – Episode 8

If you were to ask Paige Guzman to sum up her career to this point in five words, she’d tell you: Cocktails, Cabernet, cannabis, craft beer, and Castelvetrano. 

Castelvetrano olives — to be exact — one of the many Italian staples served up by Mezzetta, where she currently is the vice president of marketing.

Like all the companies Paige has worked at — from Lagunitas Brewing to PAX, Knob Creek, Kim Crawford, and more — the family-owned Mezzetta Italian food distributor boasts a unique origin story. Indeed, the story is what inspires her. And, ultimately, it’s what inspires a customer.

“Consumers can sniff out a fake pretty fast,” says Paige. “They’re looking for those snackable stories they can share with their friends about why they’re purchasing the product.” 

In her experience, the brands that have “real meat to their genesis” are the ones that tend to endure. “They have a much wider palette to play from — from a branding perspective,” she adds. It’s why she is so dedicated to authentic storytelling in her work.

In this episode, Paige shares her brand experience and insights with John Kiker, president of Medium Giant, including:

  • The origin stories behind brands like Lagunitas and Mezzetta — and why authenticity matters
  • How to appeal to consumers emotionally and deliver content that makes an impact
  • Why brands birthed in boardrooms can be more challenging to build stories around
  • The challenges of finding influencers who have a meaningful connection with the brand
  • Where she sees a huge opportunity for unfulfilled stories in the market
  • Her predictions for how storytelling will evolve over the next five years

“All the brands I’ve worked on have a story and they also help adult consumers relax,” says Paige. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Watch Episode 8

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About Paige Guzman

Paige Guzman joined Mezzetta, a family-owned Italian foods company with a rich 90-year history, in February 2023. In her role, she is spearheading the transformation of the organization into a marketing-driven company, focusing on the development and execution of strategic marketing initiatives to accelerate growth.

With a career dedicated to creating and marketing brands that enhance the enjoyment of adult consumers, Paige has worked across diverse categories, including cocktails, wine, cannabis, craft beer, and now capers. Prior to her current position at Mezzetta, she served as the Chief Marketing Officer at The Lagunitas Brewing Company, the world’s leading IPA brand. 

Over her 20 years in the wine and spirits industry, she has contributed to building some of the most recognized beverage brands, including Maker’s Mark, Knob Creek, and Kim Crawford.

Paige began her marketing career at Beam Suntory, where she spent a decade in various roles, including public relations, brand management, and field marketing. She holds a degree from Boston University. 

Outside of work, Paige is a passionate advocate for LGBTQIA+ youth organizations and enjoys volunteering as a “puppy petter” for future service dogs. On weekends, she loves hiking with her family and her golden retriever, Lulu.

Connect with Paige Guzman

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John Kiker is a multifaceted advertising and commerce marketing executive who focuses on developing talent, fostering culture, and growing business. He’s a proven leader, a trusted partner, a passionate teacher, and an unconventional thinker.

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Giant Stories is a production of Medium Giant and our parent company, the DallasNews Corporation.

Interested in learning more about how your brand’s story can be better told and sold? Fill out our contact form or send an email to hello@mediumgiant.co.


Episode 8 Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Giant Stories, a podcast inspired by people and brands with meaningful stories to share. I’m John Kiker, your host and president of Media and Giant, a fully integrated creative agency in Dallas and Tulsa. So while the tools at our disposal to create and share great stories have never been more broad and varied, the fundamentals of great storytelling remain as transcendent as ever.

[00:00:22] Despite the headwinds our industry faces, clients and brands will always covet companies that remain steadfast with an eye on culture and understanding of the business dynamics at hand and a commitment to the fundamentals of what makes a great story. So for today’s episode, we were excited to chat with Paige Guzman.

[00:00:39] Paige is the VP of marketing for Mazzetta, which is a family owned San Francisco based, uh, food company famous for their oils and sauces and peppers and all that good stuff. But prior to that, Paige was also the chief marketing officer for Lagunitas Brewing. Uh, well known for basically being the, the, the initial inventors of the IPA in the U S if you will, but they have a really [00:01:00] great, rich brand story too.

[00:01:01] And so page has some awesome perspectives and experiences about how they viewed themselves and their brand and how they bought it to the life and how they lived that brand out. She’s had the good, um, the good fortune of also being with some other. Uh, great brands, whether it was in the startup space or in the AlkBev space.

[00:01:17] And I’m excited for you guys to hear Paige share her perspectives. So for today’s episode, I’m excited to chat with Paige Guzman, focusing in the food, non alk and functional beverage industries. Page advises founders, investors, retailers, and agencies on how to successfully navigate these burgeoning industries to drive revenue and brand value.

[00:01:38] Currently, Page serves as VP of Marketing for Mozetta, four generations of a family owned San Francisco based, nationally distributed food company famous for their wide variety of oils, sauces, and peppers. They look really good, by the way. Um, prior to that, Paige served as Chief Marketing Officer for Lagunitas Brewing in lovely Petaluma, California, where she revitalized this [00:02:00] cherished brand that makes a damn good IPA and began to expand their portfolio with new offerings like, uh, their Hoppy Refresher non alcoholic beverage.

[00:02:08] Prior to that, Paige worked in the cannabis startup space with Pax, and prior to that, Spent time, uh, in marketing roles with constellation and beam pages had the good fortune to work with a bevy of brands with incredible stories to tell some well established and some new to the industry. Suffice it to say she’s left an indelible mark wherever she’s been and her experience across these categories will make for a fantastic conversation today.

[00:02:33] Page, my friend, it’s good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. I know. Um, I should have mentioned, she’s also a proud University of Colorado alum. So, you know, Coach Prime’s doing big things this year. We were just talking about that before we started recording. Well, but there’s a story.

[00:02:48] I actually started at the University of Colorado and then I left. I left and graduated from Boston University. So you know, entire family went to see you, but I graduated from BU because I had to be a little different. [00:03:00] You know what? Um, I’m just going to, you know, having grown up in Denver myself, I know for a fact you’re not the first person who started at Colorado who didn’t, who didn’t finish at Colorado.

[00:03:09] But at least I didn’t flunk out. No, no, no, no. You just got smart and changed your major and went to the East Coast. So there you go. There you go. Thank you for the, for the very important correction. But um, so we’d like to start out these conversations, um, to first encourage our guests to share Uh, their story with our audience.

[00:03:27] So Paige, tell us about your story. Sure. Uh, so I always say that I proudly grew up in the Midwest and I think that’s important. I’m from Chicago originally. Um, and my dad was an Eagle Scout. And the reason that’s important is because I talk fast, I think fast, I move fast. But I’m always prepared, and what’s fair is fair, uh, and I went to school in Colorado and in Boston and spent my last year in London, and I have a great love for travel, and especially, uh, in, in Western [00:04:00] Europe and the Caribbean.

[00:04:01] I really got my start, uh, in public relations and had a great, uh, first couple of years in my career in public relations. And when you’re 21 years old, uh, you basically made, at my age, you made, uh, what you, you earned your age. So if you’re 21, you made 21, 000. You’re 22, you made 22, 000. You did better than me.

[00:04:22] Yeah. It’s just back in the early aughts. And, uh, I remember when I first crossed the 50, 000 mark, I wasn’t 50 years old, so I was really, really stoked about that. Um, but, yeah, I, uh, worked at agencies and had the good fortune to work on great liquor brands like Aradar Tequila and Bombay Sapphire. At 22 or 23 years old, when you’re working on liquor brands and getting free liquor and attending and throwing parties, you think that is the, Jane, good job, right?

[00:04:49] Yeah. Um, and there’s stories behind beverage alcohol brands, right? There’s the founder story and the legacies of the, um, families that have sustained those [00:05:00] brands through prohibition and all of the taxes and challenges and multinationals that have purchased and sold them over the years. So I got a taste for that life, um, and thankfully was recruited into Jim Beam, uh, I think at the ripe age of 25 and started in PR, um, but quickly.

[00:05:18] Started wondering who these brand managers were and why they held all the budgets and all the power and wanted to figure out how I could become a brand manager. But I didn’t have those three little letters after my name. These are, uh, M B A, uh, yeah, didn’t have that and didn’t have, at the time, a hundred grand or two years to go spend on one, um, but thankfully I had an amazing CMO, uh, Tom Hernquist was his name, is his name, he’s still alive.

[00:05:46] Who believed in me and supported me in becoming an associate brand manager at Jim Beam. And I was very lucky to work on one of the preeminent whiskey brands in the world now, Knob Creek. Uh, but it was baby [00:06:00] brand at the time. We were trying to build, uh, this small batch bourbon collection and convince people who were, uh, drinking.

[00:06:08] Which was barely a thing back then, right? Yeah. Yeah. They were drinking absolute vodka and maybe, you know, Bombay Sapphire, uh, to drink premium, super premium whiskey. Uh, and I ended up working for Jim Beam for 10 years. I bled bourbon. I love that company. I worked on, Bevy of their brands from, uh, Lafroig single malt whiskey, which, uh, when you are a 27 year old working on eyeless single malt scotches and traveling over to Scotland two or three times a year, it sounds really glamorous.

[00:06:37] But when you don’t drink single malt scotch, because you’re a 27 year old female who thinks it smells like band aids and campfires, you haven’t developed a palate for the Petey stuff yet. You know, I smoked a pack a day at that time. So, that’s the end. I think my palate was burnt off and I enjoyed it, but now I don’t.

[00:06:57] Um, but long story [00:07:00] short, I left beam. I moved to, or beam moved me to California. Uh, I spent a couple of years in the field and, uh, I eventually got recruited to Constellation. As you know, I worked in innovation for Constellation for seven years. I got the taste for the cannabis industry while Constellation was looking at, um, and trained.

[00:07:20] Yeah. That cannabis business. Hopped to PAX. Um, as they say, if you think the regulatory environment in beverage alcohol is crazy, go to cannabis and, uh, you’ll come running back. And had my second baby and thought, wow, I really miss beverage alcohol and being relaxed. So I joined the Heineken organization to go turn around like Adidas, how it wasn’t relaxing.

[00:07:44] Uh, three of the hardest years of my career. Take care. And, uh, at the end of July of last year, um, took a break from that and have started consulting and then joined the Mazzetta family, uh, earlier this [00:08:00] year. So it’s been a ride, but, uh, as I say, I’ve had the, the pleasure of working on cocktails, Cabernet, cannabis, craft beer, and now Castle Petranos.

[00:08:12] And all the brands I’ve worked on have a story and they help adult consumers relax. So, I wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s an amazing alliteration with a wonderful consumer benefit at the end. So, I like how you spelled all that out. Um, talk about. So talk about, I want to go to your last two stops.

[00:08:30] So, um, with Miss Etta, talk about that story because four generations of a family, there’s a lot of it, or what’s unique about the San Francisco area or the Bay area, in my experience is that there’s a lot of brands that have amazing heritage and amazing stories there, whether it’s C’s candies or, you know, uh, log in need is just right outside the Bay area, but talk about Miss Etta and, and their.

[00:08:52] Their story, which is really, really interesting. Sure. So Giuseppe Luigi came over from Italy, uh, in the [00:09:00] early 1920s and, uh, missed, missed the foodstuffs of his country. Um, in early 1920s in San Francisco, they didn’t have a lot of. Roasted red peppers and capers and the things that he loved. So we started a small importing business in North Beach neighborhood, which those of you that have had the pleasure of visiting beautiful San Francisco know that North Beach today is still the Italian neighborhood of San Francisco.

[00:09:26] Yep. And he opened a small storefront and he was importing, um, products from San Francisco or from Italy. And then he started selling those, um, products to bars and restaurants. Um, in the North Beach area. And it was a small business for many, many years. Um, I think, you know, we talk a lot about it being almost a hundred year old brand coming up on, um, a hundred years soon, but it, it wasn’t until, um, really the 80s and 90s.

[00:09:57] So Giuseppe Luigi then passed it on to [00:10:00] his son. He kept the business going. Um, and then his son, uh, Jeff’s father really built the, yeah, built the Mazzetta brand into a grocery store brand. He was the one in the 80s and 90s that started to build the distribution, um, eastward. So we’ve always been, uh, not always, but bigger in the west than the east.

[00:10:25] Uh, for those that look at, you know, Nielsen or IRI numbers on a day to day basis, we now have about 90 percent ACV or, you know, ubiquitous, practically distribution in California and a lot of our products, but Jeff and his father really coined the Mazetta brand name, um, and then made it into a CPG or a consumer package goods product.

[00:10:48] Um, they’re the ones that came up with don’t forget a Mazetta, which was a little jingle and the ad had a lady’s finger with a little tie scripture on it. String number, when you would tie a string [00:11:00] on your finger. So when you go to the grocery store, you don’t forget out of them is that, uh, and they’ve partnered with, you know, all kinds of different people.

[00:11:07] They had a, uh, TV campaign with Julius peppers, a number of years ago, and they’ve, you know, still privately held. So we don’t disclose revenue numbers, but I will tell you that since Jeff has taken it over, um, he has. significantly increase the revenue over the last 20 years. And he is the CEO today and is in the office.

[00:11:31] Every day, uh, and really continuing to drive the business and now we’re really focusing, you know, if we have such ubiquitous, um, distribution, we’re really focused on telling the story of the brand and the products and the quality, um, because so much of Jeff’s focus in his early years was driving quality of the products and there were a lot of suppliers that he weeded out because they couldn’t meet our quality standards, uh, he says when he’d arrive to Greece or Italy to meet with the [00:12:00] suppliers, a lot of them went.

[00:12:01] You know, shakes our heads and be frustrated because he’d return a lot of the loads that they were trying to sell to him. Um, and they had a lot of choice words in their native tongues for him. Um, but it paid off and the ones that are with us, uh, today are, many of them are the ones that have been with us for 20, 25 years and we have handsomely increased their purchase orders as well.

[00:12:23] So it has, it has paid off for them to deal with the ones that, um, That’s a great story. So, uh, moving up into, uh, Sonoma County a little bit. Lagunitas. So talk about a unique brand story there because not only is it, you know, one of the very early craft breweries, but basically bringing IPA into, into the mainstream.

[00:12:50] So talk about what it was stepping into that brand was such a unique founder story and how that brand has evolved and the sort of interesting place in beer culture and even [00:13:00] counterculture that it has. Yeah. Yeah. So, Tony McGee founded that brand in 1993, uh, in Sonoma County. He was a backyard, uh, basement brewer.

[00:13:14] He literally bought his first homebrewing kit out of the back of High Times Magazine. It’s a fantastic magazine. Uh, for those of you that enjoy cannabis, you’ll be very familiar with it. And uh, Tony was a printer. He worked in the printing business and was just a. uh, hobby brewer for many years, but he stumbled upon this recipe and started, uh, selling it to local bars and restaurants, uh, you know, similar to a hundred years ago, Giuseppe Luigi and Masetta.

[00:13:44] And I’ll say about Californians, we love a good story and a, and a local product. And especially we’d love to buy from the local maker, right? Um, and Tony continued to expand the brand and brought along, um, um, [00:14:00] Mary ship of fools, as they, uh, refer to themselves lovingly. A group of probably about 20 people that truly built that brand into the behemoth that it became, um, through, uh, Sponsorships and music and community donations, and it was truly built by giving back to the community and supporting it and introducing the world to the beauty of the India pale ale style of beer.

[00:14:29] Um, continued to do that until, uh, it was about the 2010, 2013. There were rumors that they were selling cannabis out of the brewery. There was, um, a sting operation and, um, every Thursday night there were these parties, um, at 420 and, you know, everybody knew that the brewers were smoking weed, but, um, the, uh, Department of, uh, alcohol tried [00:15:00] to buy cannabis from our brewers and they would only give them a joint.

[00:15:04] So the story goes that the agents came in and said, Hey man, can I buy some weed from you? And the guy’s like, I’m not going to sell it to you, but I’ll give you this joint. That’s generally how stoners are. We’re happy to give you anything we have. And um, they ended up arresting them and uh, you know, they were arrested because they were consuming cannabis on the premises where they were making alcohol.

[00:15:30] They weren’t actually selling it. So they shut down the brewery for 30 days, and when they reopened, Tony really stuck it to the man, and the first beer that they created afterwards was called Undercover Shut Down Ale. It’s one of their best sellers. Oh my gosh. So, um, they, you know, continued on with their merry band of fools for many, many years and that band of fools made out like bandits, uh, when they sold the, [00:16:00] uh, band, sold the brand to Heineken, uh, for about a billion bucks.

[00:16:05] And now Heineken has full ownership of it and has brought it, uh, globally and they now brew, I think, in seven sites globally. Um, you know, you can find, I get pictures from friends that are on a beach in Greece or, you know, somewhere in Africa and they are drinking Lagunitas. That’s amazing. So like you said, you’ve been fortunate to, to be in some places that have had these amazing Origin stories.

[00:16:33] Um, how do you, and there’s a lot of, especially AlcDev companies that manufacture brands out of nothing, just because that there’s a category opportunity there for, Hey, let’s spin up a little bit different version of this vodka and call it that, and maybe we can make some money out of it. But in your experience.

[00:16:53] At least in my experience, those ones that actually have real meat to their genesis and to their origins, those are the ones that tend to [00:17:00] endure and tend to have a much wider palate to play from, from a branding perspective. Has that been your experience? Yeah, I agree. And I’ve been one of those marketers who have, I say, birthed brands in boardrooms.

[00:17:12] It’s never pretty. It’s like an actual birth. It’s messy. And, uh, the child doesn’t, uh, you generally grow up to be very successful has what I found. You put, you send it to a fancy school and you try to give it all that you can with trade support and marketing dollars. And ultimately it flunks out of grammar school because, um, Consumers can sniff out a fake pretty fast.

[00:17:35] And so, yes, there’ve been plenty of examples of brands that have done that. Gone on to be successful, um, without a legitimate story. But I think consumers want authenticity. Uh, yes. And they’re looking for, um, those snackable stories that they can share with their friends of why they’re purchasing the product that they are.

[00:17:58] So I think being [00:18:00] able to tell that story in a world where consumers are getting 800, 000 messages a day and those messages are often coming from influencers now is the marketer’s dilemma um, today. But I, I prefer to work on brands that have a soul and a story to tell. So let’s talk about influencers for a second.

[00:18:19] That’s a, that’s a good point because there’s such a proliferation of obvious, um, hey, you’re paying me. I’m reading off of a, of a. You know, a few copy points and I’m going to show maybe not even a brief, maybe it’s three or four bullets and I’m going to be an obvious, you know, shill for whatever brand it is.

[00:18:37] Talk about the challenges of finding influencers who a have a meaningful connection or a meaningful potential association with the brand, but also themselves have that level of authenticity. Because I think there’s so many marketers that we work with who are sorting through, like, how do I make sense of what influencer do I want?

[00:18:56] How do I go find them? How, how do we make this [00:19:00] look authentic and make, make it look not so obvious on what, on what it is we’re trying to do? Yeah. Uh, I’ll give you an example of what we did with Hoppy Refresher because I think Hoppy was a great example. Um, Lagunitas known for being the number one IPA in the world.

[00:19:17] IPA was in decline. Beer was in decline. Lagunitas was in decline. We knew we needed to come out with products that had a growth trajectory. So Hoppy Refresher was a, Hopped is. Still very successful. A hop, sparkling water that literally the brewers had created a couple of years ago because they put hops in anything they can.

[00:19:35] Uh, and we hadn’t put any money behind it. It was growing double digits. So marketers look at it and say, Oh, let’s go screw this up and put some money behind it, actually successful. We can’t help ourselves. Yeah, we can. We’ve got to touch this. Um, but we knew that it was going to be a very different target market to speak to.

[00:19:51] You know, we didn’t want to go after the same, um, same guy in Oregon with a beard Plat shirt is probably not going to drink an IPA is [00:20:00] probably not going to be as interested in hoppy refresher So it started with who’s our consumer target and what how are we going to appeal to them emotionally? What is going to motivate them to purchase hoppy refresher and for us?

[00:20:12] There were a couple different consumer segments. Certainly the easy one is let’s go to people who you know don’t drink alcohol well, are you gonna go to them because they’re sober, right, and in recovery, or are you gonna go to them or target them because they’re parents of young children and they have to get up 16 times in the middle of the night, or because they’re an athlete.

[00:20:32] Mm-hmm . And they are training for a marathon the next day. And so what take the latter two examples, if they’re a parent or an athlete, the way that we looked at influencers is it had nothing to do with their beer credentials. It had everything to do with those credentials that would resonate with the consumers that we were trying to target.

[00:20:52] So is, is it a mom who has a large following of women? with young children who can speak about this product and how it [00:21:00] relates to that life stage for her. Is that an athlete, not a world class marathon runner, but you know, maybe a chubby mom who’s running her first marathon that I’m going to relate to because that’s really hard for me to do.

[00:21:12] And I want to try this Hoppy Refresher because it’s really difficult to get out and run that 10 mile run for my first marathon. And maybe I want to reward myself with Hoppy Refresher. Yeah. Down to the last person who I’m not in recovery, but I’ve stopped drinking alcohol, but I still want to have something in my hand when I go out to dinner with my girlfriends and not feel like a leper.

[00:21:31] Yup. So I will associate with those people. So that’s how I look at it because otherwise it’s just so overwhelming. I mean, at Mozetta, You know, our target market is anyone who eats good food, so that’s a lot of people. So we, it’s different occasions and, you know, there’s a lot of other ways we look at it, but I always look at how are we going to appeal to our consumers emotionally the fastest.

[00:21:55] And I don’t look at mega influencers really, I look at a lot more micro. Okay. [00:22:00] Um, it’s, it’s been amazing to me in my experience how many people have, have gotten it wrong, but I think there’s a lot of, With influencers, the people who are doing it right in my experience also really get into this idea of co creation.

[00:22:15] Like, don’t just give somebody the copy points to read out, but actually put the brand in their hands and like, let them tell the story from their perspective. That, that seems to, to, to really be a much more genuine way to do it. And I think as marketers, we, we, we like to so often assume that we understand the target because we’ve done our research, but that doesn’t mean that we know how to talk.

[00:22:35] And, and connect with the target and that’s really getting, we’re getting those right influencers is, is so critical. Yeah. Yeah. And, and letting go of control a little, it’s so scary, but when you, when you do release that control, yeah, I’m thinking of a spot we did with Hoppy Refresher where the, uh, influencer was jumping on a trampoline and doing flips and then drinking a Hoppy Refresher and it was so impactful [00:23:00] and never in my wildest dreams would I tell someone to go do that.

[00:23:04] Here’s an idea. Yeah. Go get on the trampoline. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, I want to talk a little bit about Pax because working for a startup in, like you said, a very highly regulated wild, wild west environment. Talk to me about the educational challenge, the educational component with Pax, um, whether it’s working around the stigma of cannabis or the, the, the, the variety of products that Pax had.

[00:23:33] Like what a unique challenge and it’s such a You know, at that very infant stage of cannabis. Yep. So I work, just to set the stage, I worked for PAC between 2018 and 2020. So pre pandemic, at that time, the fastest growing consumer segment of cannabis users were boomers. And I think, you know, first of all, there’s a lot of misnomers in cannabis that, that Uh, [00:24:00] even today, because at that time there were only 13 legal states, um, now I think there’s 20 plus.

[00:24:06] Uh, even today though, people think that people that use cannabis are, you know, a guy living in the basement of his mom’s house and he’s, you know, 30 years old eating too many Cheetos and watching Beavis and Butthead, right? But the top three reasons consumers use cannabis are sleep, anxiety, and pain. So you have an older consumer.

[00:24:27] That is looking for relief, and you need to quickly communicate to them how your product is safe because they’re, it’s a consumable, and how it will quickly provide them the relief that they’re seeking. Oh, but wait, you can’t advertise on Instagram. Or Facebook, because you’re, you’re prohibited from it.

[00:24:50] Right. No, you have, you know, one arm tied behind your back for one reason, another arm tied behind your back for another reason, um, and you also [00:25:00] can’t, um, communicate any of these benefits in your advertising. That’s also prohibited. Outside of that, no. Oh, and you can’t show flower. Can’t show, can’t show the product.

[00:25:14] So there’s so much upside here. Tell me about what, you said, yes, this is right for me. This is what I want to do. But I believe in the power of that plant to heal communities. And I have since I was 16 years old. And I am proud to say that I am a proud cannabis consumer. Um, and I think if people put down, um, pharmaceuticals and picked up a little bit more plant, the world would be a happier place.

[00:25:37] So I went there with a mission. And I wanted more working parents and more people that look like me to be comfortable stating the same, right? So I went in there very mission driven that, um, we could be a force for good in cannabis. And so what we, our goal and we, when I arrived, [00:26:00] uh, about six months into it, we were able to secure our first underwriters laboratory safety certification.

[00:26:06] Anyone who has a hairdryer or any electronic device. Uh, you’ve got the little UL certification, and that’s a really big deal in consumer electronics in terms of safety. And in, um, the cannabis industry, especially the vaporizers, so people that aren’t familiar with Pax, it’s a vaporizer, um, and it’s, I always associate it with, um, razors and razor blades.

[00:26:29] So Pax is the, is the razor blade handle, and then the razor are these cartridges filled with oil. Um, there’s both flour versions and then oil versions, but the oil is the one that really took off. So this This vaporizer was the first one of its kind to be certified by Underwriters Laboratories, which was a big deal because the majority of them, you know, they’re all manufactured in China, but the majority of them are not regulated.

[00:26:56] The cartridges are not regulated, and then you had a [00:27:00] serious issue where you had fake cartridges being sold in the black market with E acetate oils in it that were killing people. So we had a massive, in not Pax cartridges, but we had a massive, um PR disaster. Yes. In the industry on our hands. In a, uh, yeah, in a industry that already had a lot of mistrust.

[00:27:21] I mean, there’s a lot. Exactly. Exactly. So we came out, um, with a campaign that was all about, um, you know, motivating trust with the consumer and, and educating them about the power of the plant, but also the power of understanding how safe a consumable could be. Um, until COVID hit and then you have a respiratory pandemic in the middle of when you’re trying to market a consumable that goes through your [00:28:00] lungs.

[00:28:00] So it, it was disaster number three within the industry and initially that sector. So the campaign was called Every Detail Matters and it was all about, you You know, trying to break down fundamentally about everything, you know, our, our designers and developers are from Google and we manufacture this way and, you know, really breaking it all down.

[00:28:21] But candidly, once the pandemic hit, we stopped all advertising because you can’t. Promote inhaling cannabis when people are wearing masks everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. You just can’t make some of this stuff up. I’ll just say that. I left in July 2020. It’s just. Sometimes you’ve got to say, you got to know, it was Kenny Rogers, my, the dearly departed Kenny Rogers.

[00:28:48] You got to know when to hold him and know when to fold him. Yes. Totally. I folded him and went to beer, a category that was in decline, but that’s a story for another day. So Um, a couple more questions [00:29:00] for you. Number one, what stories out there normally ask the, the normally asked, what do we, what do we see an overabundance?

[00:29:08] What do we see? What do we not see enough of in terms of stories that we need from a marketer’s perspective? Like, you know, I think that there’s, um, There’s a lot of tropes out there that people continue to fall into, but what stories are we not seeing enough of?

[00:29:27] Um, female founders and CPG. Love it. Yeah. Tell me more. Um, so one of the brands that I consulted with when, um, prior to joining Mazetta is a brand called Kin Euphorics and founded by a woman named Jen Batchelor, who is an icon. She’s brilliant. She founded this functional beverage called Kin. And, you know, I’ve always worked, with the exception of PAX, at really large, well funded machines that, you know, you don’t worry about how you’re going to pay for your next production run because You [00:30:00] have a Fortune 500 publicly traded company behind you and your biggest dilemma is, you know, if Betty and accounting is going to process your purchase order in time, not if you can get the funding, uh, or if your latest funding round is going to close or if your check’s going to clear or if you’re going to make the decision to, um, clear payroll or on your next production round.

[00:30:24] So I think there’s been a tremendous, um, amount of. effort, um, for a lot of communities to get store shelf, um, placements, but I think female founders and CPG is still a huge opportunity. Way underrepresented. Yeah, and I applaud, I think Target’s doing a great job. Um, I think Sephora is doing a great job, uh, but I think there’s a lot more to be had.

[00:30:55] And I think there are so many amazing products out there. Uh, Sprouts is another one that [00:31:00] takes chances on brands early in their life stages. Um, yeah, absolutely. Um, Yeah. Um, I think women have a lot of great ideas that never see the light of day. So I wish that there were more incubators, um, to help get those products to market.

[00:31:15] I love it. Okay. Last question. How do you see great storytelling, great storytelling evolving, uh, over the next, let’s say five years? What do you think the biggest changes are going to be? A

[00:31:34] lot of ways you could take this. The next five years are going to be very interesting about how people take back platforms because the platforms are now very controlled by political parties. Affiliations, right? So there’s a lot of talk and it doesn’t matter which side you’re on. I’m not, this isn’t [00:32:00] political to me, but we choose to listen to the You know, it’s, um, confirmation bias, right?

[00:32:06] So you’re going to subscribe to the New York times or you’re going to go on Twitter, depending on what you want. Whichever echo chamber you want to go on to. Exactly. So I think what will be interesting, and I’ve talked to many people over the last couple of weeks about just, you know, am I misinformed? Am I living in this Dan Francisco bubble?

[00:32:23] Like. How come everyone doesn’t think like me? Um, and, and what do I need to read and what stories do I need to hear and how do I need to become better informed to maybe better understand the 71 million Americans that didn’t vote like me. Yeah. And, and, and instead of being angry or upset. Right. So I think that’s also the storytelling of that.

[00:32:47] So how do we break through right now? What are the, the. Traditional media outlets for people or brands to tell stories [00:33:00] in companies or platforms that don’t exist. And then you got to throw AI into it, right? So if we want legitimate stories that are unbiased by political affiliation, how does AI play a role in that?

[00:33:18] Or does it? Or is it, is it a headwind? Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Man, it’s going to be a hell of a ride, but, um, it’ll be, it’ll be interesting to watch from a marketer’s perspective. Paige, this has been awesome. You have an amazing history and I love the, uh, the battles you’ve fought, uh, the wars you’ve won and you have a heck of a lot to be proud of.

[00:33:40] So this has just been an awesome conversation. So I really appreciate you being generous with your time today. Of course. My pleasure. I, uh, enjoy chatting with you, John, as always. And, uh, I think your agency is doing great work, so keep it up. Thanks babe. Appreciate it. Giant Stories is a production of Medium Giant and our parent company, the Dallas News Corporation.

[00:33:59] Interested [00:34:00] in learning more about how your brand’s story can be better told and sold? Visit mediumgiant. co or send an email to hello at mediumgiant. co.

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