By Kim Hanna
Today’s guest joins us all the way from Sydney, Australia: the fabulous Chocolate Johnny, talking with us about personalizing a brand.
John Kapos is a-third generation chocolatier. His family business, Perfection Chocolates, was founded in 1939 and they still hand-make their chocolates and confections in Sydney, Australia. Years ago, John realized the power of social media, especially video, for small businesses. Today, he spreads that message to small businesses all over the world, as well as continuing to put it to use for Perfection Chocolates.
Social media wasn’t around yet when John first took over the family business. However, John is an early adopter, so it didn’t take long to hop on all the social media platforms. He used social media to grow his business and to become well-known through his personal brand, Chocolate Johnny, as well.
How did you become Chocolate Johnny?
Forming a personal brand doesn’t happen overnight. The name ‘Chocolate Johnny’ had already been a nickname of John’s for many years. It wasn’t until he got involved with social media that he was able to turn this fun nickname into a personal brand.
“I took over the business more than 30 years ago. Back then, we didn't have social media. We had the newspaper, radio, and TV. Then, up came a thing called a website and a web page.”
Chocolate Johnny was an early adopter to all social media platforms. He made a Facebook business page, then a Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Now he’s even on TikTok!
He says, “I'm an early adopter. Give me an app, and I'll make sure I rip it apart and make sure I put it back to use it for my branding, for my business.”
Chocolate Johnny, Perfection Chocolates, and John Kapos
John manages three brands online: John Kapos, Chocolate Johnny, and of course Perfection Chocolates. To separate the three brands, he made sure to secure social media handles for each.
“I made sure that when Instagram came on, I got all three. Twitter, I got all three. Facebook. I got all three. For any app that came on, I just made sure I went straight into it.”
Managing three brands could sound a little overwhelming, right? We asked John about how he manages all of these accounts. He responds, “Some of the accounts suffer. Where I make my money is where I look. The truth is, we're here to make money, and Perfection Chocolates makes us money.”
One of his strategies is keeping a spare iPhone in the Perfection Chocolates retail store. It’s used by John and the employees to post about the day-to-day activity in the store. He calls it the ‘social media phone.’
This strategy allows people to get to know the Perfection Chocolates employees and get a behind-the-scenes look at the business each day.
“It's funny. When I interview new staff for the team, the first thing I say is, ‘show me your social media.’ And they go ‘okay, here it is.’ I said, ‘great. One of the first things you're gonna to do is at lunch, you get 35 minutes for lunch. 30 is to eat and five minutes is to do a post. If you're doing anything with chocolate, if you're making anything, If you're weighing up stuff, just pick up the phone, and you're allowed to video record it. As long as it's in the parameters of Perfection Chocolates, go for it. You want to put yourself on there? Do it. And it's funny, when we go live all the people who watch it know our team!”
Is there a right way to brand?
John’s answer: “Brand recognizably.”
“I always say this, people built a relationship with me. People built trust with me, and then they bought from me. I tell everyone, don't sell. Never sell. Just show me. And if you show someone, they will buy.”
What goes well with each type of chocolate?
We couldn't talk to the one and only Chocolate Johnny without asking about chocolate!
He said, “We're starting to make our own Nutella! We just bought a new machine from Europe that's gonna make its own peanut butter and our own Nutella.”
He also has a new creation in the works. It’s something that involves a layer of milk chocolate, peanut butter, white chocolate, salted caramel, and dark chocolate!
Find John
You can find Perfection Chocolates and Chocolate Johnny on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook @PerfectionChocolates and @ChocolateJohnny.
Thank you so much to John for talking to us today about personalizing a brand! Tune in for our next episode of Let’s Talk About Brand every Friday at 12 noon Eastern time on Facebook Live. You can also check out the Let’s Chat About Brand Twitter chat on Tuesdays at 12 noon Eastern time. See you next week!