The difference between stating beliefs and building them

Tony’s Chocolonely is one of the few chocolate bars that is genuinely awkward to share fairly. The pieces are uneven, so some are (perfectly) large and others are (borderline disappointingly) small, and the bar rarely snaps cleanly. In other words, it’s very tricky to divide evenly.

That awkwardness is exactly the point. The uneven pieces exist to represent the imbalance in the global cocoa industry.

Tony’s Chocolonely features an unusual, unequal ‘square’ design

Teun van de Keuken, the founder, is unquestionably passionate about the exploitation of people in the cocoa industry. Back in 2003, the Dutch journalist made an attempt to get himself arrested for the crime of “fueling slavery by knowingly purchasing a chocolate bar made with illegal child labour”. When unsuccessful, he created documentaries about child slavery, and then, believing he was the only person in the industry interested in eradicating slavery (hence the “lonely” in “chocolonely”), he launched his own chocolate brand in 2005. Selling 20,000 chocolate bars in the first two days of Tony’s Chocolonely.

It’s so easy to default to communicating a company’s values in a campaign or a paragraph on their website (at best, an entire page). But that is a fast-track ticket to customers (and probably your employees, maybe even the founder themselves) not caring about the brand.

Consumers are demanding more and more of brands each day, and Tony’s is a perfect example of building its values into its product itself. Meaning it’s impossible for its customers not to understand their values, and more importantly, want to join them on their mission.

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Going beyond user needs

I am the first to preach about meeting your customer needs. But that is only the foundation, and it’s something that every other chocolate company was already doing. So how do you set yourself apart in a crowded market?

Most chocolate brands sell the feeling their customers want. The comfort and pleasure you get from chocolate. Look at the packaging on almost any supermarket shelf, and you’ll see the same rich tones (dark red, dark purple, dark brown, dark green, notice the theme?). Take a peek at their wording and you’ll see the same emotional promise repeated in ‘same but different’ messaging, likely stating how it’s ‘smooth’ or ‘silky’. Or digital ads showing milk being poured and stirred into a creamy chocolate mixture, all to portray that indulgence and smooth taste we desire.

Chocolate marketing has been refining this formula for decades, and it works. Exceptionally well on me in particular (I have a bar of Cadburys right next to me as I type this. I already ate the Tonys for ‘research’ earlier).

But the message is simple: this will taste good, and you deserve it.

Very few chocolate brands ask you to think about anything outside of the moment of the chocolate touching your lips, and that’s exactly why Tony’s stands out so quickly. It introduces a point of view.

In a sea of sameness, Tony’s is impossible to miss. The colours are bright, primary colours. The typography is bold and playful. The outside of the wrapper showcases the words “together we’ll make chocolate 100% slave free”, and the inside gives a short story breakdown of the problem (slavery on cocoa farms) they’re trying to solve.

The inside of a Tony’s chocolate bar wrapper

They go beyond their wrapper to showcase their differences.

Like I mentioned at the start, the uneven pieces are designed to represent how the system isn’t fair.

They have an Open Chain initiative in which other chocolate brands (such as Ben & Jerry’s and Aldi) can join as “Mission Allies” to source cocoa in line with Tony’s 5 principles.

And they’re arguably one of the most transparent brands to ever exist. They publish an annual FAIR report detailing their impact and openly report the instances of child labour found in their supply chain, which they act to immediately remediate. Whilst being open about when they had to make their chocolate bars smaller, why their prices are higher than average, and address any negative press head-on, like this response to The Times.

So many businesses are defining themselves as ‘purpose-led’ and talk about their values. But the core product usually remains largely unchanged (fashion brands calling themselves eco-friendly whilst still using synthetic fabrics, I am looking at you…), which is where Tony’s separates itself.

The product itself becomes part of the argument, and even if you just pick it up because of its stand-out packaging, as soon as you take a proper look or unwrap the chocolate bar, you can’t miss their message.

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Belief alone doesn’t automatically make a business interesting.

Many brands care about something meaningful. Many founders start companies to fix a problem they’ve noticed in their industry. What makes Tony’s stand out is the combination of ideas it brings together.

Ultimately, it’s still a chocolate brand. It needs to taste good, feel indulgent, and hold its own on a supermarket shelf alongside some of the world’s biggest confectionery companies.

But that is paired with its core purpose and activism to end slavery in the cocoa industry.

Tony’s tagline

These two things are a juxtaposition. Chocolate is supposed to be enjoyed, largely in moments of escapism or relaxation. And slavery is about as heavy a subject for a purpose that you can pick.

So what Tony’s does so well is bring these together at their intersection, along with their playfulness. The bright colours, bold typography, slightly cheeky tone of voice, and the unusual design of the bar itself all keep the brand feeling energetic rather than doomsday.

The result is a very unusual combination. Chocolate and activism. Serious issues delivered through a brand that still feels fun. Without a doubt, a unique intersection that only Tony’s sits in, which is what makes them so memorable and interesting. This combination allows the brand to talk about difficult problems without becoming too bleak, and to sell a treat without pretending the industry behind it is equally perfect.

The brand itself is so completely clear on the space they sit in that everything they do, say and show feels effortlessly them. When a business is so clear on its positioning, it’s easy for customers to understand it too, and, more importantly, share that message even further. This is a large part of why Tony’s has grown to be as successful as it is.

Giving the customer a part to play

Perhaps one of the best ways Tony’s has made itself into an interesting brand is by bringing its customers into its world.

Through its campaigns, reports, and brand messaging, customers are encouraged to learn more about the cocoa industry, discuss the issues behind it, and share that knowledge with others. The chocolate bar becomes a conversation starter, and this changes the relationship between the business and its customers.

Instead of simply selling chocolate, Tony’s invites people to feel like they are part of a wider effort to change how chocolate is produced. The purchase still matters, of course, but it also carries a sense that you’re contributing to something beyond the bar itself.

And that’s another reason the brand spreads so easily through word of mouth. I love the taste of Lindt chocolate, but I also know that’s personal preference. Some of my friends find it a bit too sweet or don’t love the clammy taste it leaves in your mouth (my favourite part). The fact that I like Lindt isn’t exactly an interesting conversation starter. But Tony’s gives a reason for them to be a talking point, and for them to be brought up in conversation. You can talk about what the brand is trying to do.

So many brands are obsessing over how to develop a ‘community’ at the moment. But I firmly believe that you cannot jump straight from having customers to having a community. There are multiple steps on that journey, which I am still trying to define, but a key one is having advocates for your brand.

Tony’s has advocates.

Because they have such a clear mission that they so wonderfully bring their customers into, their customers want to stop behaving like passive buyers and start acting more like storytellers, advocates for the brands. They bring the brand into conversations, introduce it to friends, and share the idea behind it. They likely wouldn’t identify as being part of the Tony’s community (I really don’t believe every brand needs that), but they definitely are advocates for the brand. And that allows the product to travel further than the company could ever push it on its own.

Tony’s creates advocates for their brand. Image soruce: Medium.com

What does this mean for you?

Tony’s Chocolonely is an interesting business because it turned its beliefs into something tangible that people can see, feel, and join. They aren’t just stating their brand values on their website. It’s clearly visible in every element, from the chocolate’s design to the price point to the packaging to their messaging and more. (Yes, yes, a “they’re not X, they’re Y” statement. Curse AI for this no longer being seen as a good sentence structure).

They’re the perfect example of something many founder-led businesses are trying to achieve: building a brand that stands for something. But the difficulty is that most brands stop at stating those beliefs.

In the modern-day world, it’s no longer good enough to define what your brand stands for. You need to go beyond that to ask where that belief can show up in the business itself.

Could it influence the way the product works? The way you deliver your service? How customers interact with it? The language you use?

Tony’s doesn’t have to rely on a quarterly Instagram post to explain its mission statement. It simply is part of the business. And the difference between brands that state their beliefs and those that build alongside them is often what separates brands people simply buy from those people genuinely remember.

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