Dave's Killer Brand

If you want to get great press, you need to tell a great story. Sometimes it can be a challenge to come up with a good story that is in total alignment with your business or your persona.  Not so easy to do if your business is a new product app for an iPhone or an AI user generated content. A story that is too zany or concocted just to get attention, can harm your business.  Every so often, along comes a killer brand that achieves success, great revenue and long-lasting fame because its story is the perfect fit with its fundamental  business. 

Dave’s Killer Bread is headquartered in Milwaukie, Oregon was founded by ex-con Dave Dahl, along with his brother and his nephew.  According to Dave: “I was a four-time loser before I realized I was in the wrong game.  15 years in prison is a pretty tough way to find oneself, but I have no regrets.  This time around, I took advantage of all those long and lonely days by practicing my guitar, exercising, and getting to know myself—without drugs. To my utter amazement, I started liking what I was seeing. It’s been said adversity introduces a man to himself and I found this to be true.  If I had not suffered, I can safely assure you that you would not be reading this label on a loaf of my killer bread.  A whole lot of suffering has transformed an ex-con into an honest man who is doing his best to make the world a better place…one loaf of bread at a time.”

It helps that Dave Dahl looks like he can bench-press three times his burly bodyweight and has the rugged looks of a rock star. But striking looks alone are never enough to catapult a person to fame.  Bottom line, Dave’s Killer Bread is a good product and a great story. The brand touches on a universal human condition: sooner or later we all suffer enough to seek redemption and to reinvent ourselves.  Every human being has suffered from failure and has had to struggle to find a way back.  Bottoming-out isn’t only for junkies. Some people hit the wall because they lose money or a job. And others lose a great relationship.  There are as many different ways to bottom out as there are ways we can emotionally connect with another human being who has failed, struggled and paid the price to find the road back to redemption.

Dave’s Killer Bread proves that it is still possible to launch a populist brand that resonates with everyone.  It can be found in the small out-of-the way health food stores to mega chain stores like Costco, Safeway and Target. By 2013, the company employed over 300 people, many of whom had something in common with Dave Dahl—they were ex-convicts.  The publicly held company Flowers Foods acquired Dave’s Killer Bread for $275 million.