 What's the biggest lesson you've learned so far? Always have a plan C. Plan B and plan A are fantastic, but a plan C is often something that will help you sleep even deeper at night. Marisa Zupan, co-founder and CEO of United Sotas of America, are you ready to answer some questions? I am ready. United Sotas of America. What does that mean? Essentially, it means that we are the next great American soda brand. We believe that unity and variety are key to what makes for a great soda company and what makes for a great mission for our brand. Was United Colors a benetton on the mood board? No. Was the paint brand backdrop on the mood board? Nope, colors were on the mood board. And I guess that's what all of those brands have in common. For better or worse, the American brand is very distinct. Why'd you choose to go this route with United Sotas of America? The American brand is very distinct and it is very, very close to the concept of soda. A brand like Coke, a brand like Pepsi, they are very much at the heart of the American psyche. So for us, we wanted to take that head on and really talk about why soda is so inherent to the American experience. There's no shortage of anyone reinventing soda. What gave you the confidence that you could do it? It was actually really interesting because when we came up with the concept, there was no one really wanting to use the word soda. We were one of the first brands that said, hey, we're going to be reimagining what soda can be under the term soda and we're going to do it in a way that is all about the building blocks of soda, flavor, cultural relevance, and something that feels like anyone can embrace it. It's not a functional proposition. It's not a particularly niche proposition, honestly. It's something that is really about the entire drinking experience. You've worked at some of the best branding and strategy agencies. What was your strategy here? The strategy is essentially to create a soda brand that answered the question, what should soda be in the 2020 era? People have very, very different expectations of how they should be drinking soda, when they should be drinking soda, when they should be receiving soda, and what that soda should even contain. I saw you worked on Coca-Cola in absolute. What did these brands teach you about beverages? That your concept has to scale through an organization, and to do so, it needs to be extremely crystal clear what you're trying to do, so that everyone who is involved, from the retailer to the line director to the head of marketing, needs to have a really crystal clear vision. Ralph Lauren, Anomaly, Red Scout, and a few other cool brands have been stomping grounds for you along the way, which one specifically paired you the most for this entrepreneurial venture? Probably Anomaly. The group that I was a part of was specifically designed to develop beverage concepts from white space opportunity all the way through formulation. You can't get much more prepared than that, and I did that for several years, so thank you to Anomaly for that. Who did the branding? What was the brief? Center Design Studio did it. The brief was, how do we create an American soda brand that's all about variety and unity? Why does monochrome work? I think monochrome works because, well, especially in beverage, you're going to have to have a flavor cue of some kind. Sometimes a graphic can do that really well, and sometimes it's as easy as a very specific type of color to bring that flavor cue through. So that's why it works for us. Did you consider any other designs? We did, but because our design was so viscerally connected to our mission, it was very clear almost from the get-go first round of designs what we were going to go with, because the design became the mission very clearly. All right, we got the Flow Code flow card. This season, I'm with the brand, sponsored by Flow Code. It's a revolutionary new QR technology that makes beautiful QR codes with tons of more information and data enabled. So basically, it allows you to directly connect with your consumer, and right now on screen, everyone is going to see a custom Flow Code for United Sodas of America. As they pull their phone out, it will take them to a custom flow page designed for you. What would you love for them to program into your flow page? I would love for them to program in all the information about why we have a variety of choices and allow people to navigate to the variety that speaks to them the most. When your website is left idle, users see a logo bounce around the screen like a back of the day, like a DVD logo hitting the edges of the TV. First question, why? Second question, does it ever hit the corner? You caught that one. First question as to why is because we are all extremely enamored of the office, and so you will find little Easter eggs of the office throughout our experience every once in a while. And if you know the office, you will know that that's a reference. It does hit the corner every once in a while, so if you want to stare at it for a while, please be my guest. If you had to have a celebrity caught with a United Sodas of America can in their hand, well, who would it be? John Krasinski. What's your retail channel strategy? It is to go quality and then scale. We want to make sure that all of our retailers have the top quality support from us. Before we scale up big time, we're designed to scale, but we want to make sure that we're entering the market with the best possible experience for everyone. Where do you see more success? Retail or DTC? Right now, they're both critical to our plan. They both serve different purposes. You have less control in retail and more scale, more control, and gradually increasing scale in DTC, I would say. I have a brand that's in retail. You sometimes don't get to have the whole spectrum there. Did you take that into account? We did. The thing is, is that any number of our flavors altogether is a beautiful experience, so you don't need all 12 on shelf for them to perform well. And we know that because we've been on shelf, we've been on shelf with 12, and we've been on shelf with six, and we've been on shelf with four, and they all work. It's really about creating a brand that can morph and pivot in different shelf sizes. Flavor preference all comes down to personal taste, literally. How are you able to justify offering a soda satisfaction guarantee? Well, we developed the brand so that there are many different entry points. You can be someone who's interested in the more traditional soda flavors, like Cherry Pop, or something that's a little bit more unusual, like Young Mango. To us, that means that if we don't hit the nail on the head with someone with some flavor at some point, then we haven't done our jobs right, and you deserve a refund. Can you describe in detail who you're targeting? We call them culture creators, people who are interested in culture and interested in what's coming next. That is a non-demographic approach that can cut through many different generations and many different mindsets and many different places in the country. Do you ever run the risk of your brand being a little too cool and a little too coastal? I think the minimalism piece allows us to speak to people on their terms. So the brand is sort of what you bring to it. If we were trying to use super hip, cool language all the time, all over the design, then maybe, but it's very minimal, so you can get what you need out of it. What is key to your business? Focus and really ruthless decision making. If you had one marketing dollar to spend, where'd you put it? In a billboard. How important are influencers? Very important, but maintaining brand integrity over just paying someone to talk about your product is also very important, so they need to be in balance. What's the biggest challenge you've had to date? Keeping up with demand. What's the next milestone you're working towards? A new product launch. So far in your company's history, what's been the best day? What's been the worst? Best day was the Today Show. That was super exciting for us. Today Show around gifting. The worst day was probably when we realized in the middle of a work trip that a global pandemic was rolling in and everyone had to go back home and cross our fingers that we could make this thing happen. We ended up making it happen, but it was kind of a tenuous day. What's your kryptonite? Partners that don't live up to their promises. What's been harder than you anticipated? Producing fast enough. What's been the coolest moment so far? When Hailey Bieber Instagramed about us randomly. And she'd been drinking it for weeks. Amazing. She's lovely. How do you make sure your brand resonates and doesn't check boxes? Have people weighing in on the brand that aren't yes people and people who see the world slightly different than everyone else. When will you know you've made it? I don't think making it is a place that exists. I think that as long as you're happy and around incredibly smart and amazing supportive people, it's the best you're going to get and really excited to be there right now. What's the biggest lesson you've learned so far? Always have a plan C. Plan B and plan A are fantastic, but a plan C is often something that will help you sleep even deeper at night. Marisa Zupan, co-founder and CEO of United Sodas of America. Thank you so much for coming here and answering some questions. Thank you so much. I'm Ian Wishingrad, and we'll see you next time on I'm With the Brand.