Autocomplete
I have an identity problem. A big one.
I’ll illustrate. When you hear the term “cold brew” what’s the first thing you think about? I’m going to guess your mind goes to one thing: coffee. And if I say the word “brew” I’m going to again guess that now you’ve got beer on the brain. Am I right? That’s not good for me.
I’m creating a new beverage category and words matter. Brands spend Gajillions of dollars to craft word to product associations. Those associations are powerful and if done right, immensely profitable.
My challenge is that my category does not exist. That’s a whole lot of blue ocean, plenty to drown in, or worse, to be completely lost in. On top of that, I can’t hire master wordsmiths, it’s me, Claude and some unpaid advisors doing me a favor. That’s the cacovu marketing dream team on a raft in a big ocean dreaming up words that’ll connect this new thing to actual people. It’s a big ask and we’re doing our best.
For a while I was describing my beverage as “cold-brewed cacao.” My sister wisely pointed out that “cacao cold brew” works better. She’s right, it does. Leading with cacao makes sense. It’s the star ingredient. The challenge is “cold brew.”
Every time I tell someone that cacovu is a cacao cold brew, instead of “cacao” they hear "coffee." Every time. It doesn't matter what's on the sign. It doesn't matter that I said cacao, not coffee. The moment the words "cold brew" leave my mouth, their brains go on autocomplete mode.
At a recent food festival, I had this conversation maybe 40 times in a single day. Person walks up, reads the sign, and says: "So you’re selling coffee?" No. "But it has coffee in it?" No. "Is it coffee flavored?" No. It's cacao. The plant that chocolate comes from. Brewed cold. No coffee involved. Zero. A rare few people got it immediately. Others nodded politely while clearly still thinking it was some kind of coffee drink. A few tasted it and said, "Oh wow, that really isn't coffee."
The coffee folks have an ironclad hold on the term “cold brew.” That’s some powerful branding. It’s like back in the day when Hoover was vacuum cleaners and Xerox was copiers. You can’t buy that kind of name association.
I always respond with a patient smile of course. At this point there’s no sense being upset with the association. There’s no fighting big coffee. If anything, I’m flattering myself with the comparison.
Here's the thing. "cold brew" is a method, not an ingredient. You can cold brew tea, you can cold brew cacao, you can cold brew just about anything. Reminds me of that scene in “Meet the Parents” about things that can be “milked.” Sorry, couldn’t pass that up, that’s how my mind works.
So anyway, this is a branding problem. I gotta decide, do I keep having those conversations or do I use new words to describe cacovu. “Cold brew” is OWNED by coffee. There’s no getting around this.
A simple and maybe obvious solution is to drop the word, “cold” from the description. Maybe it’s just “cacao brew.” That moves me away from coffee. Is that viable? That works until I remember the multiple people on LinkedIn who assume that I’m making a cacao beer. I’m not. “Brew” is no solution to my problem.
As I see it, I have two viable options:
Option Keep: call it cacao cold brew and spend the first 30 seconds of every customer interaction redirecting their assumptions. Those 30 seconds aren't wasted. They're actually a conversation starter. Once I explain what it actually is, people are curious. "Wait, you can brew cacao like coffee?" Yes. "And it's not sweet?" Nope. "And there's no caffeine?" Almost none. By the time we've cleared up the confusion, they're interested enough to try a sample. That’s a win with an obvious investment cost and it’s hard to scale when I’m not around for the conversation.
Option Change: try a new term to describe it. I’m testing out “chilled cacao.” I’m not aware of any product category owning “chilled.” Of course, now it can be a bit confusing, but perhaps also a bit intriguing and alluring. It’s summer in New York, so chilled is a benefit. Come winter, maybe not so much, but that’s a few months away.
This will be an experiment until my crack marketing team and I land on the words that intrigue but do not confuse the intended audience.
Maybe one day cacovu will be the category name, no additional words required. A boy can dream.
Disclosure: I write these posts. AI helps me edit them.