#19: Magic Spoon—How One Tagline Dethroned Sugar and Disrupted a $65B Industry
May 12, 2025
Explore the genius behind Magic Spoon's branding and how clear messaging transformed a crowded cereal market. Discover the power of a catchy tagline, which positions sugar as the villain, appealing to health-conscious parents. Learn how effective storytelling can reshape consumer perceptions and elevate a brand's visibility. Get actionable insights on identifying your audience's true challenges and how to communicate your product's value clearly. Uncover the marketing strategies that turned Magic Spoon into a household name.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Name Clarity Matters
Choose a product name that instantly conveys what the product is.
If the name is unclear, immediately follow it with a clear tagline that explains the product.
insights INSIGHT
Power of a Great Tagline
A good tagline says what the product is and overcomes objections quickly.
Magic Spoon's tagline "Healthy cereal that tastes too good to be true" opens a story loop and closes sales.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Use a Customer Villain
Identify a real villain that frustrates your customers and position your brand against it.
Magic Spoon made sugar the villain to appeal to health-conscious parents as heroes.
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In this book, Donald Miller presents the StoryBrand Framework, a proven system to help businesses effectively communicate with their customers. The framework is based on the seven universal elements of powerful stories, which include identifying the customer's desires, problems, and the role of the guide who provides a plan and calls to action. Miller emphasizes the importance of simplifying brand messages, creating clear and compelling marketing materials, and positioning the brand as a guide rather than a hero. This approach has helped numerous businesses, from small startups to large corporations, to significantly improve their customer engagement and revenue.
The Anatomy of the Soul
Kurt Thompson
It’s not enough to have a great product. You have to position it so customers instantly understand the value. That’s what separates the brands that break through from the ones that disappear. Magic Spoon didn’t invent cereal, they just told a better story: one where protein replaces sugar, and taste isn’t sacrificed for health. And they did it with a smart tagline, a well-defined villain, and a brand voice that made people pay attention. So how can you sharpen your positioning to you stand out like they did?
In this episode, Don and Kyle break down the marketing genius behind Magic Spoon’s rise in a crowded cereal market and how it became a household name. From tackling the sugar-loaded bad-guys of the breakfast aisle to delivering a tagline that opens a story loop and closes the sale, Magic Spoon gives us a playbook worth copying. Tune in to learn how to identify your brand’s real enemy and position your product so it’s instantly understood.
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Unlock the power of a framework that works—the StoryBrand Framework at StoryBrand.ai. It's like having the world’s best copywriter create high-converting marketing whenever you need it. Start your free 7-day trial at StoryBrand.ai.
Learn how to make your marketing and messaging work using a proven framework in the updated book, Building a StoryBrand 2.0. Order it now on Amazon or wherever you buy books!
Why That Worked – Presented by StoryBrand.ai 
