When Michelle Wong left the agency world in 2021 to join Sprinkles Bakeries and Picnik Restaurants as chief marketing officer, it was a sweet deal. Her mission has been to continue to cultivate the beloved cupcake brand.
“Sprinkles is such a well-known and beloved brand,” says Wong. “My job wasn’t to get people to like us again, this wasn’t a turnaround story. It really was about upholding this brand and the values that we care about like being female founded and being a playful character that has a place in popular culture. It was actually more of a challenge to say, ‘Oh, we’re already up here and we have to just keep going.’”
As a female-led brand, the company’s purpose is to empower women and also to help all people experience joy. “A lot of happiness and satisfaction comes from allowing yourself to do something,” explains Wong. “It’s about feeling empowered and giving yourself permission to go for what you want. I want to have a cupcake whenever I want to have a cupcake. It’s really about honoring that.”
Since Wong has been at the helm, the brand has created its first ever Female Chef Series featuring a signature baked treat from four different women in the culinary industry. Each chef made a new cupcake flavor and Sprinkles donated to that chef’s charity of choice. Chefs included: Los Angeles’ Brooke Williamson, Top Chef winner and co-chef/co-owner of Playa Provisions; LeAnn Mueller and Alison Clem of la Barbecue and Claudette Zepeda of San Diego’s VAGA.
The stories went beyond just a new flavor but included the relationship the chef had to the flavor. For instance, Zepeda talked about how her cupcake was inspired by the Glorias candy that she ate as a child with her grandmother. “She had a whole story around what that meant to her and how it really brought her back to that moment in her life,” explains Wong. “To be able to take that and translate it into a cupcake was really special because it was meaningful to her as an individual. When we told that story to our audience, people who also had that shared experience felt seen.”
Brand Innovators caught up with Wong from the company’s headquarters in Austin, TX to talk brand building, the Chef Series and Cupcake ATMs. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Can you talk about your target audience and how you are reaching these audiences?
Sprinkles, as a brand and as a product, is really fun. It’s about giving and sharing. The emotional attachment to Sprinkles is always coming from a place of joy or celebration, which is really such a wonderful place to have in a consumer’s heart. Everyone wants to feel that way and our product innately allows you to do that if it’s a birthday or celebration or just a treat yourself moment. Because of that social connection, we are very vocal and have a great presence in social media. It’s where most of our storytelling happens from a campaign standpoint.
We’ve partnered with other brands and products that have our shared values and mission and our guests have definitely responded to that. This year, we also launched our first Chef Series campaign where we’ve partnered with these incredibly talented female chefs to collaborate with us on creating what their dream cupcake would be. We weren’t just looking for women who are incredibly talented. Yes, they’re really well known in the culinary space. But they also had so much personal purpose in terms of their work and what they were doing to support community needs, what they were doing to support women. For us, that synergy was so perfect. From a business standpoint, that was reflected back to us. Our guests really enjoyed that experience. We’re excited to launch year two of that in 2023.
You mentioned that social media plays a big role in your storytelling. Can you talk more about how digital plays into your mix?
We are an incredibly digitally-focused brand. The experience that you have with Sprinkles is all about that connection moment and how you experience Sprinkles out in the world. Most of our orders are placed online and the whole ordering process is incredibly intuitive and simple. It’s a really seamless process. We even have this amazing personalization process on our website where you can literally pick the cupcakes you want, pick your decorations and even put a photo of whatever you want and we’ll have it printed on a sugar disc and placed in the box. It’s just such an incredible experience. Then when you go and pick it up our associates are there and they’re so warm and helpful. We also have kiosks, which makes the ordering process really simple.
How are you thinking about innovation?
Innovation is in our DNA. Sprinkles started 17 years ago, when something like a cupcake bakery didn’t even exist. From a design standpoint, we are incredibly innovative with clean, beautiful, simple design. We also started the first-ever cupcake ATM. Another product innovation is that we’ve launched a CPG line. We have cake and cupcake mixes. We’ve just launched frosting jars. We also have a line of Belgian chocolates.
From a product standpoint, at the bakery level, we are always innovating. This is a huge passion of mine. I work very closely with our head of culinary. I have a pastry background. I love desserts. I still eat more cupcakes than I ever should. There is so much joy in that innovative process of coming up with what’s the new flavor. What are we seeing out in the world that’s trending? What are things that we love to eat? The thing that has always impressed me so much about being at Sprinkles is that everything that we develop truly comes from a place of ‘I want to eat that’ or it comes from a place of these really deep-seated food memories that conjure up so much emotion. That emotion translates into the food and that emotion translates into what our guests see and feel and eat when they experience our products.
What is a cupcake ATM machine?
A cupcake ATM is a wonderful machine where you can get a fresh-baked Sprinkles cupcake 24 hours a day. Most of our bakeries have ATMs. We also have free standing ATMs. We have over 50 of them now across the country in airports and we’re in shopping centers and all these unexpected places. It’s about being able to provide that moment of delight for people. ATMs have just been so fun.
Can you tell me about how your past experiences in the agency world helps shape your approach to your current role?
Being on the agency side for most of my career, showed me how truly important storytelling is. When I think about Sprinkles, I always go back to what is the story? Where is it at the moment we’re at a photo shoot to developing a new flavor to who we’re partnering with, what is the story? What is the thing that people are going to connect with? With food, it’s always there. There’s always a story there. That’s really how people feel connected to a brand and a product within the food spaces, because there’s so much emotion wrapped up in that. Anything you can tell a story that really just pushes it over the edge.
What predictions do you have for brands in 2023?
Brands have been a lot braver lately because the world has changed so much. Consumers’ expectations of what brands can deliver has changed a lot, as well. There used to be this siloed thing where we sell cupcakes or we sell french fries and we don’t share or cross the space. We’re all competitors. My prediction 2023 is we’re going to see brands team up within the same category, in the spirit of there’s room for everyone, and really focusing on the benefit that you’re providing to your audience. If you can come together and provide something truly unique and desirable for your consumer, who do you do it with? It really shouldn’t matter, it should be about the output. How is that contributing to culture? Or how is it driving your business? And how is it connecting with your consumer?
