Mid-Day Squares- on entrepreneurial thinking & doing things differently  

Mid-Day Squares is one of the most exciting food & drink companies today, having just sold their 40th million chocolate bar in North America, they share everything with their brand fans on their journey to becoming a $100m brand. 

The Marketing Society Member Ruth Fittock, managing partner of Tomorrow Brands, spoke to one of the founders, Nick Saltarelli to hear about their unique approach to marketing & business, here are some of the key takeaways:   

‘There’s a lot more room in today’s day and age for authentic communication’

Mid-Day Squares lead their social media content with- ‘follow us to watch us become one of the biggest chocolate companies ever, or crash and burn- we’re still not sure which one it’ll be’, they allow their fans to feel what they feel and go through the building of a business together, to connect.

The whole point of marketing is to have humans relate to what you are doing and feel connected to what you are putting out into the world, and vulnerability is a great way to do that.  They lift the curtain and show everything- highs and lows, personal and professional and as a result have a true community of brand fans who are genuinely invested in the business.

Taking inspiration from Elon Musk, Dragon’s Den and The Kardashians

Be extremely charismatic and have a founder or CEO personality that engages with the end consumers and fans (and big companies can do this too, not just start ups)

People love to see behind the curtain of businesses as they grow, hence the popularity of Dragon’s Den- so they are ultra committed to showing everything, filming everything

Be like the Kardashians, also show their lives and how they interact with each other, celebritized themselves instead of doing celebrity deals.  Midday Squares combine all three and when done well means they don’t need to do any ‘traditional marketing’   

‘We act like a music band, but instead of selling records we sell chocolate’

They stole marketing ideas from the music industry to build genuine brand fans, not just consumers.

Investing in connection

Initially they would send out personalised polaroids with every DTC order, when that became too much one of the founders mums took over and wrote a personalised note- she’s now done over 600,000- there’s no reason a brand of any size can’t do small personal touches 

In order to have an un-average outcome you need an un-average input

Mid-Day Squares saw the opportunity to do something in refrigerated, one of the toughest parts of the store- going against the grain, but the power in doing something hard and hairy like that is you get to create your own rules, and live in your own little world that no one else is living in.  Work out how you can do things differently from your competitors.  

‘What is the way to solve this problem but going in the complete opposite direction’

They love to go against the herd, not for the sake of going in the opposite direction but because that’s where the ‘un-average’ is, push their decision making, find things that feel new and exciting.

Be fearless 

Be willing to lose it all, fearlessness will show in the work you put out, people can sense when you are playing from a place of fear.  Big companies can do this too but it requires true leadership, when you start to have the boldness of bearing responsibility as a leader you create a real culture, not a culture you write on a piece of paper and tell people to follow.  

Lean into what makes you un-replicable 

They can’t compete with the big four chocolate companies on making and distributing chocolate, but they can be the best in the world at making people feel something.   Work out what it is you can be the best in the world at.

This was such a wide-ranging and inspirational conversation, it’s definitely worth checking the whole episode, here: