Podcasts about cpgs

In this episode of the Aaron Werner Podcast, Dr. Aaron Werner is joined by Dr. Carl Urbanski and Dr. Andy Morgenstern—two key leaders behind the AOA's Evidence-Based Optometry Committee. Together, they pull back the curtain on the Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) that shape how optometrists diagnose and manage disease. What You'll Learn: • What the AOA Clinical Practice Guidelines really are—and why they matter • The 14-step, evidence-first process behind each guideline • How to use CPGs in real-world clinical settings to improve patient care • Why prevalence data should change how you see your schedule • The difference between “great pickups” and just doing your job well • Why CPGs are NOT influenced by industry or billing priorities—only evidence • How students, staff, and even patients can benefit from engaging with guidelines To access the AOA Clinical Practice Guidelines (Free Access) CLICK HERE (https://www.aoa.org/practice/clinical-guidelines/clinical-practice-guidelines?sso=y) Whether you're in private practice, academia, or a hospital system, this episode is packed with insights on how to be a better doctor, not just a busier one. Share with your team or students—this episode is a must-listen for anyone who wants to elevate care through clinical clarity. ________________________ questions@eyecode-education.com Go to MacuHealth.com and use the coupon code PODCAST2024 at checkout for special discounts Let's Connect! Follow and join the conversation! Instagram: @aaron_werner_vision  

Welcome to Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, sponsored by Mirakl. In today's Retail Daily Minute:Amazon Launches Big Spring Sale & Promotes Amazon Haul --Amazon's Spring Sale (March 21–31) offers deep discounts, including 50% off on Amazon Haul—its low-cost marketplace rivaling Temu and Shein—aiming to attract budget-conscious shoppers amid inflation.Consumer Brands Call for Targeted Tariff Exemptions – Major CPG companies urge the White House to ease tariffs on key imports like cocoa and tin mill steel, warning of rising costs and inflationary pressures on U.S. manufacturers and consumers.Yum Brands Partners with Nvidia to Power AI in Restaurants – Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut will roll out Nvidia-powered AI tools for order taking and performance tracking in over 500 locations, signaling a major tech shift in fast food operations.The Retail Daily Minute has been rocketing up the Feedspot charts, so stay informed with Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, your source for the latest and most important retail insights. Be careful out there!

The CPGGUYS Sri Rajagopalan & Peter VS Bond muse the month that passed by. February means CAGNY - the annual Wall St analyst conference (Consumer Analyst Group of NY). Here, we got to meet several of the financial analysts and were able to discuss and learn what 2025 holds for us in the CPG industry.Find Sri Rajagopalan on Linkedin here : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sri-rajagopalan-09a0062/Find Peter VS Bond on Linkedin here : https://www.linkedin.com/in/pvsbond/Find the CPGGUYS on Linkedin here : https://www.linkedin.com/company/56451211/Find the CPGGUYS online here : https://www.cpgguys.com/Topics we cover in this episode  :1. Volume declines in the industry2. Headcount reductions - should we expect it3. Private label in Retail Media4. Org design post ECom CoE structures5. M&A… is the tide coming?6. Walmart Connect introduces Display Advertising API7. Leadership Talent at CPGs & retailers8. Changes at Kroger & Albertsons9. Global food production & tariffs10. Our upcoming conference whereaboutsApply to join the Cornell retail media program https://ecornell.cornell.edu/certificates/marketing/retail-media-strategy/?utm_source=cpg+guys&utm_medium=multi-channel_campaign&utm_campaign=mktgstrat_Retail+Media+Strategy+-+CPG+GuysCPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.comFMCG Guys Website: http://FMCGguys.comCPG Scoop Website: http://CPGscoop.comRhea Raj's Website: http://rhearaj.comLara Raj in Katseye: https://www.katseye.world/DISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGGUYS, LLC or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGGUYS, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.

Vlad Sedler (@rotogut) and Jason Anthony (@booms62) break down the latest spring training news, discuss position battles, explain the value of FTN's new Custom Rankings & Projections tool and dive into outfielders in the ADP top 150 overall.Spring Training NewsOrioles: Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg setbacks. Too many hitters, need Cease ASAP.Blue Jays: Daulton Varsho back soon, George Springer's value if not a leadoff man, Andres Gimenez rising.Yankees: Battle for the leadoff spot: Dominguez, Jazz, Volpe and...LeMahieu?Angels: Zach Neto news, Mike Trout helium, Tim Anderson making the team?Cubs: Nico Hoerner not big in Japan, Matt Shaw on the mend.Reds: Bad org, CES, McLain power.Dodgers: Freddie Freeman's new valueStarting Pitchers: Max Meyer, Brandon Woodruff, Dodgers SP5 battle, Tomoyuki SuganoClosers/Relievers: Felix Bautista, the Royals, Kyle Finnegan never ever or maybeOutfield TiersAaron Judge on an islandCarroll, Soto, Tucker or Tatis?Chourio and YordanThe Duran, Jazz, Merrill tierRonnie doing Ronnie (running?)Oneil Cruz statmashBrenton Doyle, VMILuis Robert Jr., we're outSantander and Greene on SP IslandTrout and YelichHapp, Kwan, Crews, PCA, Lowe, Randy and AdolisPlease help by rating and reviewing our podcast!The 2025 FTN Fantasy Baseball Guide is loaded with the best preseason fantasy baseball content, rankings, projections and fantasy tools! Join us this season at www.FTNFantasy.com. No team of analysts is better equipped to help you dominate your drafts and leagues.NEW!! The FTN Custom Rankings & Projections toolA few of our preseason tools:FTN VDP ProjectionsTop 500 Roto RankingsUnderdog VDP RankingsBiery's Offseason TrackerFILTH Pitcher Metric LeaderboardBullpen ReportYour fantasy baseball cheat code: FTN Fantasy Baseball  

Dave's guest this week is Hayden Consultancy Founder, Eleanor Hayden.  Hayden Consultancy works with food and beverage brands to help them increase their digital footprints and and improve their eCommerce strategies. Having worked in the industry for more than 10 years, both as an entrepreneur and as a Shopper Marketing expert, Eleanor understands that every brand needs to find their own unique approach when it comes to getting in front of the consumer. Eleanor talks about how COVID expedited the push into Retail Media (04:42), how brands can assess their in-store marketing spends (07:43), how starting a business of her own provided her with invaluable insights that help her guide brands both big and small (09:14). She also shares how Hayden Consultancy helps clients boost their sales (16:19), and her thoughts on the future of Retail Media (24:37).   Connect with Eleanor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eleanorhayden/Learn more about It'sRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/Get the It'sRapid Creative Automation Playbook: https://itsrapid.ai/creative-workflow-automation-playbook/Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducers: Sean Leviashvili, Jake Musiker

In this episode, we chat with Jorge Izquierdo, PMMI's VP of Market Development, about key findings from PMMI's latest Contract Packaging report. They discuss the sector's rapid growth, its role in supporting CPGs, and the impact of automation, E-commerce, and sustainability. Jorge highlights the increasing demand for flexibility, fast changeovers, user-friendly equipment, and the industry's shift to recyclable materials and digital integration.Get ready for the biggest event in packaging and processing the Southeast has ever seen! PACK EXPO Southeast will debut in Atlanta March 2025. Check out this new hub of innovation for consumer packaged goods and life sciences companies. Dive into the latest advancements and walk away with transformative solutions to address your unique challenges, big and small. Register today at packexposoutheast.comSupport the showRegister for PACK EXPO International today!

Discover the latest updates from the updated EASL Clinical Practice Guidelines on Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC). This episode explores key advancements, their impact on clinical practice, and how they will shape the future of HCC diagnosis, treatment, and management. Join our faculty as they break down the changes and provide practical insights for healthcare professionals.Moderator: Thomas BergFaculty: Peter Galle, Josep Llovet and Lorenza RimassaRelated episodesEASL Studio S6E4: World Cholangiocarcinoma Day: Highlighting Guidelines and Exploring the Horizon BeyondEASL Studio S6E9: Therapy Hierarchy in HCC: A New Kid on the BlockEASL Studio S5E13: Basics in Decision-Making for Liver Cancer TreatmentEASL Studio Live from EASL Congress 2024: Advances in Systemic Treatments in Liver CancerAll EASL Studio Podcasts are available on EASL Campus.

Welcome to Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, sponsored by Mirakl. In today's Retail Daily Minute:Party City's Wind-Down Nears Completion – After filing for bankruptcy in December, Party City has auctioned off its intellectual property and real estate, with Ad Populum acquiring the brand for $20 million.Instacart Introduces In-Store Tasks for Gig Workers – Instacart pilots a program allowing Shoppers to earn extra by capturing product display photos for CPG brands, helping retailers track inventory & shelf presence.Aldi's Biggest U.S. Expansion Yet – Aldi plans to open 225+ stores in 2025, converting 220 Winn-Dixie & Harveys locations while expanding into new markets like Las Vegas.The Retail Daily Minute has been rocketing up the Feedspot charts, so stay informed with Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, your source for the latest and most important retail insights. Be careful out there!

April Meyer, Information Security Consultant, shines light on the recent initiative of HHS Cybersecurity Performance Goals. *Note: This Unsecurity Episode was recorded in August 2024. CPGs are currently voluntary and it is expected that requirements be added through HIPAA in 2025. Read more about the HHS CPG's in our blog: HHS Cybersecurity Performance Goals: Context and 2 Comprehensive ChecklistsAbout FRSecure https://frsecure.com/FRSecure is a mission-driven information security consultancy headquartered in Minneapolis, MN. Our team of experts is constantly developing solutions and training to assist clients in improving the measurable fundamentals of their information security programs. These fundamentals are lacking in our industry, and while progress is being made, we can't do it alone. Whether you're wondering where to start, or looking for a team of experts to collaborate with you, we areready to serve.

This week, we decode the earnings from some of the largest sellers and buyers of advertising including Amazon, Disney, Fox, Snap, Mondelez, and Uber. Plus we look at economic news from Europe and the U.S. and expected implications for advertising growth, including the tariffs now on hold for Canada and Mexico.NOTE: There was simply too much to cover in one podcast, so we'll tackle Google's results along with the Super Bowl next week. Key earnings insights include:Amazon: Continues to thrive with significant advertising growth driven by its streaming services.Fox: Successfully balances traditional cable and streaming, leveraging political and sports advertising.Disney: Faces challenges with a slight dip in Disney+ subscribers but maintains profitability in its streaming segment.We also discuss the performance of major advertisers like Estee Lauder and Capri, who are navigating uneven recovery in the luxury sector, alongside steady growth from CPG giants like Colgate-Palmolive and Mondelez.Digital endemic companies such as PayPal and Uber show robust revenue growth, with PayPal focusing on AI and partnership scaling, while Uber expands its services into less dense areas.Finally, we touch on Shein's strategic re-entry into India, reflecting broader shifts in global trade dynamics, and the evolving advertising landscape that demands innovative strategies for brands to stay relevant.NEXT WEEK: We'll breakdown Google earnings, Super Bowl, earnings from DoorDash, Airbnb, and other CPGs.--Discover GroupM's latest⁠This Year Next Year⁠Forecast here:https://www.groupm.com/this-year-next-year-2024-global-end-of-year-forecast/If you are GroupM client or part of WPP, reach out to business.intelligence@GroupM.com for the full report.

Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.   In this episode, Justin interviews CISA Chief Privacy Officer James Burd about data privacy and protection. Topics include how CISA protects agencies and critical infrastructure, how they responded to a recent data attack, and what risk professionals and data privacy professionals can work together to ensure their organization is resistant to data breaches.   Listen for actionable ideas to improve the cyber security at your organization. Key Takeaways: [:01] About RIMS and RIMScast. [:14] Public registration is open for RISKWORLD 2025! RIMS wants you to Engage Today and Embrace Tomorrow in Chicago from May 4th through May 7th. Register at RIMS.org/RISKWORLD and the link in this episode's show notes. [:32] About this episode. We will discuss data privacy with James Burd, the Chief Privacy Officer of The Cyber Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) here in the U.S. [:58] RIMS-CRMP Workshops! On February 19th and 20th, a two-day virtual workshop for the RIMS-CRMP will be led by former RIMS President Chris Mandel and presented by the RIMS Greater Bluegrass Chapter, the 2024 RIMS Chapter of the Year. [1:20] The next RIMS-CRMP-FED exam course will be held from February 4th through the 6th, 2025. Links to these courses can be found through the Certification page of RIMS.org and this episode's show notes. [1:36] Virtual Workshops! Chris Hansen will return on February 11th and 12th to lead the two-day course “Claims Management”. Gail Kiyomura of The Art of Risk Consulting will host the “Fundamentals of Insurance” virtual workshop on February 19th and 20th, 2025. [1:59] On February 26th and 27th, Elise Farnham of Illumine Consulting will lead “Applying and Integrating ERM”. “Managing Data for ERM” will be hosted by Pat Saporito. That course starts on March 12th, 2025. [2:22] A link to the full schedule of virtual workshops can be found on the RIMS.org/education and RIMS.org/education/online-learning pages. A link is also in this episode's show notes. [2:34] The RIMS Legislative Summit 2025 is back! It will be held on March 19th and 20th in Washington, D.C. Join RIMS for two days of Congressional meetings, networking, and advocating on behalf of the risk management community. [2:51] This event is open for RIMS members only so if you're not a member, join now! Visit RIMS.org/advocacy for registration details. [3:02] Interview! It is Data Privacy Week here in the U.S., through January 31st. This is an annual effort to promote data privacy awareness and education. Its events are sponsored by the National Cybersecurity Alliance. This week's theme is Take Control of Your Data. [3:23] Here to discuss how to take control of your data, and the best practices that risk professionals and business leaders need to know, is Chief Privacy Officer of CISA, James Burd. [3:36] James is the senior agency leader responsible for managing and overseeing CISA's privacy, external civil rights, civil liberties, and transparency programs. [3:46] We're going to talk about some of the big events that made headlines in late December and early January around cybersecurity and data privacy and the frameworks and strategies that risk professionals can implement to take control of their data. [4:02] CISA Chief Privacy Officer James Burd, welcome to RIMScast! [4:18] James has a fantastic team of privacy, transparency, and access professionals who provide transparency to the American public while integrating full privacy rights, liberties, and protections into the management of a safe, secure, and resilient infrastructure. [4:48] As Chief Privacy Officer, James Burd's primary responsibility is to ensure that privacy is at the forefront and integrated into every initiative, program, and policy CISA undertakes, regardless of whether it's by policy, process, or technical solutions. [5:00] This includes ensuring compliance with Federal privacy laws and embedding privacy considerations in the agency's operations and partnerships. [5:08] Protecting critical infrastructure inherently involves safeguarding sensitive and critical information that any organization holds, whether it's CISA or any of the many stakeholders of CISA. Privacy and cybersecurity are inherently interconnected. [5:21] CISA ensures its cybersecurity programs focus on protecting systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access while the privacy portion ensures that personal and sensitive data are handled responsibly, ethically, and securely. [5:39] What are the keys to a strong cybersecurity strategy? [5:52] The work CISA does in the privacy world is to ensure that the information CISA is holding is secure and safeguarded and also to tell the public how exactly they do that. [6:14] In the early days of CISA, it was a Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT). CERTs respond to major cybersecurity incidents at a state, local, national, or international level. A cybersecurity incident in the U.S. is similar to a cybersecurity incident in any nation. [6:50] All nations are facing the same cybersecurity issues. CISA's international work is about information sharing and helping each other understand what threats we all face. [7:19] Integrating privacy into risk management frameworks is a core consideration. A lot of the privacy work CISA does with risk managers is for ERM, identifying privacy risks and impacts and ensuring that mitigation strategies align with goals. [7:42] Risk managers are key partners in implementing strong data governance practices. CISA works with them to establish policies for data handling, access, and usage that align with the security needs and privacy protection of an agency or organization. [7:56] Risk managers have the opportunity to help privacy officers identify a privacy problem or privacy risk all across the organization. That's part of the risk manager's job as a point person. [9:13] CISA wants to do this privacy protection work with organizations before a breach. Many privacy professionals have learned the hard way that if you don't collaborate up front, you have to collaborate later, as a result of your emergency. That's not a great day. [9:29] Risk professionals have different viewpoints to consider. They may see that some privacy risks overlap with some financial risks, depending on the risk owner's point of view. It doesn't make sense to solve the same problem in 10 different ways. [10:30] The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a valuable partner of CISA's. NIST can see what works or doesn't work as a conceptual or technical framework. NIST studies a problem from several angles and gives CISA an effective solution for the framework. [11:23] Daniel Elliott of NIST has been on RIMScast. James has collaborated with Daniel. [11:49] CISA is a collaborative agency. It does not exist without its partners and stakeholders. When NIST facilitates conversations between CISA and other stakeholders, it helps CISA figure out, of all the problems in the world, which critical problem we need to solve right now. [12:17] CISA has Cyber Performance Goals or CPGs, which are a subset of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. CISA will tell a small business that they should start with the CPG and get it right, and then expand to everything else. [12:38] CPGs are not a substitute for a risk management framework, but they are a starting point. The CPGs would not exist if not for the work NIST had done in talking to small, medium, and large businesses and figuring out all the different issues they face. [13:08] In December, Chinese cyber attackers infiltrated U.S. agencies. When there is a major incident like that, there is a whole-government response. CISA plays an important role in that response, like a firefighter. Law enforcement plays the role of investigator. [14:16] CISA and its interagency partners are heavily involved in responding to recent Chinese activity associated with both Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon. They've been working very closely with the Treasury Department to understand and mitigate the impacts of the recent incident.  [14:35] There's no indication that any other Federal agency has been impacted by the incident but CISA continues to monitor the situation and coordinate with other authorities, like the FBI, to ensure that there's a comprehensive response. [14:50] The security of federal systems and data is of critical importance to national security. CISA is working aggressively to safeguard any further impacts. The People's Republic of China is a persistent threat, specifically, the GRC and related entities, who perform these activities. [15:12] They're one of the most persistent and strategically sophisticated adversaries we face in cyberspace today. The PRC has decades of experience in conducting rampant cyber espionage against U.S. businesses and critical infrastructure. [15:26] CISA has become increasingly concerned over the last year that the PRC is not just doing espionage but is trying to burrow into the critical infrastructure for a rainy day. These state-sponsored activities are coming from campaigns like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon. [15:45] What happened to Treasury provides a stark example of these types of tactics. These tactics target critical infrastructure such as telecommunications, aviation, water, and energy. [15:56] Their goal, as far as we can tell, is not to cause immediate damage but to gain persistent access to those systems and remain undetected until they want to do something. [16:08] CISA has been very involved, not just responding to these incidents, but deeply studying these incidents to understand what is happening and what we need to do as a government and nation to protect ourselves from these burrowing activities. [16:27] Plug Time! RIMS Webinars! Resolver will be joining us on February 6th to discuss “4 Themes Shaping the Future of GRC in 2025”. [16:39] HUB International continues its Ready for Tomorrow Series with RIMS. On February 20th, they will host “Ready for the Unexpected? Strategies for Property Valuation, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity in 2025”. [16:55] More webinars will be announced soon and added to the RIMS.org/webinars page. Go there to register. Registration is complimentary for RIMS members. [17:07] Nominations are also open for the Donald M. Stuart Award which recognizes excellence in risk management in Canada. Links are in this episode's show notes. [17:20] Let's Return to My Interview with James Burd of the Cyber Infrastructure Security Agency!   [17:42] Whether talking about AI, IoT, or 5G, the issues are hardware problems and software problems. [18:02] The issues of the 1970s are similar to the issues of the 2020s, regarding vulnerabilities, exposure, and unsafe practices when developing software and hardware. [18:20] What we're seeing in the emerging technology space with AI, IoT, and 5G is an increase in the volume and velocity of data. The improvement of technology in this space is based on power and efficiency. Software improvement is based on the reach of interconnectivity. [18:34] Privacy and cybersecurity risks do not just appear. We're seeing existing risks and issues increasing in size and complexity. What we previously thought of as a perceived risk is now a real risk, thanks to advances in computational power and the amount of data available. [18:54] It's always been a risk but it was less likely to occur until this point where there's more data, more volume, and more complexity. AI systems rely on a vast amount of personal data, raising concerns about data security, algorithmic bias, and a lack of transparency. [19:11] We've heard about these risks with machine learning and big data databases. They require governance frameworks that address how data is collected, stored, and used in systems, or, in this case, AI models. [19:28] Those frameworks should be familiar to anyone working in the data protection space or the risk management space for the last three decades. Insurers getting into the cybersecurity space have been paying stark attention to this. [19:58] We've found out that IoT devices are probably the easiest and most risky entrance points within networks into homes and critical infrastructure devices. The biggest risks they create are unauthorized access, data breaches, and potential surveillance. [20:19] These are not new risks. They're existing risks that are promulgated because of the new avenue to get in. It used to be that the worst thing that could happen to an IoT device like a router is that it gets compromised and becomes part of a botnet to take down websites. [20:38] Today, that still happens, but that IoT device is looked at as the back door for entering someone's network if it's not properly secured. [20:49] In itself, 5G is awesome. There are fantastic things to do with increased data flow. With increased speed and connectivity come the ability to move more data at a time and we're facing data being transferred in an insecure manner. People don't know what data they're sharing. [21:15] We're running into the same classic issues but they're exacerbated by something we view as a major success, access. Access should be celebrated but we shouldn't open doors because we can open them. We need to be able to make sure those doors are secured. [21:48] James paraphrases Mark Groman, a privacy expert formerly with the FTC. “Privacy and cybersecurity are sometimes viewed as competing priorities. They are two sides of the same coin. I refuse to live in a world where you compromise security for privacy or vice versa.” [22:11] We live in a world where you can have both. The great thing about advancing technologies is that we can do both. Both cybersecurity and privacy aim to protect sensitive data and systems, just from slightly different angles and for different reasons. [22:31] There has to be a collaborative approach between cybersecurity and privacy. An intermediary like a risk professional can help cybersecurity and privacy teams work together. [22:41] By leveraging things privacy-preserving technologies and designing privacy into cybersecurity measures, organizations can bridge the gap and achieve harmony between the two essential functions. This strengthens the organization and its overall risk management. [22:58] When a risk is realized in one area, it's common for it to be a harmonious risk with another risk in a different area. In the privacy and cybersecurity space, risks overlap often. Conflicts between cybersecurity and privacy are easily bridged. [23:24] Cybersecurity professionals want to collect more data; privacy professionals want you to minimize the amount of data you collect. [23:34] Cybersecurity relies on extensive data collection to detect, monitor, and respond to threats. Privacy wants to collect only what's necessary and maintain it for a minimum time. [23:46] Security monitoring tools like intrusion detection systems may gather logs or metadata that could include personal data, creating potential privacy risks, especially for an insider threat. [24:00] Organizations can implement privacy-aware cybersecurity solutions that anonymize or pseudo-anonymize data where possible, allowing cybersecurity professionals to get to the root of the problem they're trying to solve while masking sensitive data. [24:13] If you're investigating an insider threat, you can unmask the data. Do you need that data to do the job that you're tasked to do? If not, why run the risk of inappropriately accessing it? [24:53] Privacy frameworks will always encourage transparency about data usage and sharing, especially by private entities doing consumer business and handling personal information. [25:07] The public needs to know what you are collecting from them, how you are using it, and whether are you sharing it. They need to know if you are handling their data securely. [25:38] James would tell cybersecurity professionals that if they think obscurity is security, they should find another job. Obscurity is typically the worst way to secure things. [25:51] There are ways to describe how data is being held or secured by an organization without compromising the cybersecurity tools or techniques used to monitor or look for vulnerabilities. [26:03] Transparency can be maintained without compromising security and can be used in a way to assure the public that an organization is keeping serious security techniques in mind when handling the public's data. James tells how to share that message with the public. [27:08] When James opens software, he reads the Third Party Agreements. He knows most people don't. Government agencies include a plain language version of the agreement. Some private companies are doing the same to help people understand how their data is being used. [28:40] Quick Break for RIMS Plugs! The first of hopefully many RIMS Texas Regional Conferences will be held in San Antonio from August 4th through August 6th, 2025. [28:58] This groundbreaking event is set to unite the Texas RIMS Chapters and welcome risk management professionals from around the world! Also known as the Risk Management Roundup in San Antonio, you can join as a speaker!  [29:11] The Conference planning committee is interested in submissions that explore technology and cyber risk, workforce protection and advancement, energy and sustainability, extreme weather, construction, restaurant, retail, hospitality, and other trending now sessions. [29:28] The deadline to submit your proposal is Monday, February 24th. The link to the event and the submission process is in this episode's show notes. Go check it out! [29:39] The Spencer Educational Foundation's goal to help build a talent pipeline of risk management and insurance professionals is achieved in part by its collaboration with risk management and insurance educators across the U.S. and Canada. [29:58] Since 2010, Spencer has awarded over $3.3 million in general grants to support over 130 student-centered experiential learning initiatives at universities and RMI non-profits. Spencer's 2026 application process will open on May 1st, 2025, and close on July 30th, 2025. [30:20] General grant awardees are typically notified at the end of October. Learn more about Spencer's general grants through the Programs tab at SpencerEd.org. [30:30] Let's Return to the Conclusion of My Interview with the Chief Privacy Officer of CISA, James Burd! [31:00] A lot of ERM frameworks exist because they were required by regulation or law. [31:10] Privacy professionals are starting to see the same risks that risk management and compliance professionals have been dealing with for decades. The big tools that privacy professionals use are called Data Privacy Impact Assessments (DPIA). [31:29] DPIAs vary, depending on the regulatory framework or law. DPIAs do two things: they identify what data assets you have and they examine the risks that are associated with the handling of those data assets and what mitigations must be in place to buy down those risks. [31:48] That assessment can populate half of an ERM framework's register. Getting involved with your privacy program manager as they do these DPIAs may first cause the privacy program manager to resist your risk assessment, but a risk in one space is a risk in another space. [32:21] The DPIA is a valuable source of information for a risk manager. You can see the risks earlier. You can identify with the privacy program manager what some of the major risks might become. That means both realized and unrealized risks, which are equally important. [33:06] A privacy program manager will be preoccupied with a lot of the perceived risks. A risk manager wants to know which risks are more likely and identify them early. [33:40] A likelihood assessment will help the privacy officer identify how many “calories” to spend on this risk. The risk manager and privacy manager have a mutually beneficial relationship. They help each other. [34:17] CISA provides cybersecurity education, news on vulnerabilities and cyber threats, threat intelligence, and service to critical infrastructure providers once there is an incident of some sort. The CISA website shows cyber threat indicators of what a compromise might look like. [35:40] CISA has found novel patterns on networks that make it hard to tell that your network has been compromised. CISA calls those things “Left of Doom.” On the “RIght of Doom,” CISA prioritizes the incidents that it responds to. [36:02] CISA focuses primarily on critical infrastructure. If you have a situation CISA cannot respond to, they will assist you by a local field office to find the people to help you, whether it's law enforcement, local cyber security service providers, or a local Emergency Response Team. [37:03] Companies are involved in the California wildfires. Could an incident like that distract them that they might become susceptible to data breaches? James notes that you can't address every problem at the same time. Prioritize, rack, and stack. [37:17] Incidents are going to happen. CISA asks agencies and companies to take the time and spend the resources to knock out all the low-hanging fruit. The great majority of incidents CISA sees are bad actors exploiting very simple, easy-to-fix vulnerabilities. [37:55] It might be companies not using encrypted traffic, or only using a password to secure access to a server. The fix is relatively low cost or low impact. It takes time to figure out how to do the fix, but you'll be grateful that you took the time and spent the money to implement it. [38:24] The cost of a greater fix from the breach of a simple vulnerability will be far greater than the resources you'd spend to address it in the first place. Establishing that floor will help you focus on other “fires” that pop up while assuring you won't get “popped” for a silly reason. [38:49] If somebody's going to get you, make sure they've tried their hardest to get you. [38:58] It's Data Privacy Day today, as this episode is released! It's the start of Data Privacy Week! The theme is Take Control of Your Data!  [39:22] Robust privacy governance tips: Figure out where your data asset inventory is for your organization. Keep track of it and keep track of the risk associated with each data asset, Each data asset may have a different set of risks. [39:47] Every organization should maintain a comprehensive inventory of data assets, detailing what data is collected, where it is stored, who has access to it, and how it's used. [39:56] The risk professional probably isn't the one who takes the inventory, but they should have access to it and they should be evaluating that inventory.  [40:06] The risk professional can help the privacy manager by helping them establish clear policies and procedures for handling data, access control, and breach response, based on real risk. A privacy officer sometimes has difficulty identifying a real risk over a perceived risk. [40:23] By focusing on real risks, you avoid the problem where privacy officers spend too much energy coming up with solutions for the most unlikely scenarios, leaving organizations unprepared for what's likely to happen. [40:42] Special thanks again to James Burd of CISA for joining us here on RIMScast! There are lots of links about Data Privacy Day and Data Privacy Week in this episode's show notes. [40:54] Also see links to RIMS Risk Management magazine coverage of data privacy through the years and links to some RIMScast episodes that touch upon the topic. Be sure to tune into last week's episode with Tod Eberle of the Shadowserver Foundation on cyber risk trends of 2025! [41:18] More RIMS Plugs! You can sponsor a RIMScast episode for this, our weekly show, or a dedicated episode. Links to sponsored episodes are in our show notes. [41:47] RIMScast has a global audience of risk and insurance professionals, legal professionals, students, business leaders, C-Suite executives, and more. Let's collaborate and help you reach them! Contact pd@rims.org for more information. [42:05] Become a RIMS member and get access to the tools, thought leadership, and network you need to succeed. Visit RIMS.org/membership or email membershipdept@RIMS.org for more information. [42:23] Risk Knowledge is the RIMS searchable content library that provides relevant information for today's risk professionals. Materials include RIMS executive reports, survey findings, contributed articles, industry research, benchmarking data, and more.  [42:39] For the best reporting on the profession of risk management, read Risk Management Magazine at RMMagazine.com. It is written and published by the best minds in risk management. [42:53] Justin Smulison is the Business Content Manager at RIMS. You can email Justin at Content@RIMS.org. [43:00] Thank you all for your continued support and engagement on social media channels! We appreciate all your kind words. Listen every week! Stay safe!   Mentioned in this Episode: RIMS Risk Management magazine RISKWORLD 2025 — May 4-7. | Register today! RIMS Legislative Summit — March 19‒20, 2025 Cyber Infrastructure Security Agency National Cybersecurity Alliance | Data Privacy Week 2025 Nominations for the Donald M. Stuart Award Spencer Educational Foundation — General Grants 2026 — Application Dates RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy RIMS Texas Regional Conference 2025 | Submit an Educational Session by Feb. 24. RIMS Webinars: RIMS.org/Webinars “4 Themes Shaping the Future of GRC in 2025” | Sponsored by Resolver | Feb. 6, 2025 “Ready for the Unexpected? Strategies for Property Valuation, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity in 2025” | Sponsored by Hub International | Feb. 20, 2025   Upcoming RIMS-CRMP Prep Virtual Workshops: “Stay Competitive with the RIMS-CRMP” | Presented by the RIMS Greater Bluegrass Chapter February 19‒20, 2025 | Instructor: Chris Mandel Full RIMS-CRMP Prep Course Schedule Upcoming Virtual Workshops: “Claims Management” | February 11‒12, 2025 | Instructor: Chris Hansen “Fundamentals of Insurance” | Feb. 19‒20, 2025 | Instructor: Gail Kiyomura “Applying and Integrating ERM” | Feb. 26‒27, 2025 | Instructor: Elise Farnham “Managing Data for ERM” | March 12, 2025 | Instructor: Pat Saporito See the full calendar of RIMS Virtual Workshops RIMS-CRMP Prep Workshops   Upcoming RIMS-CRMP Prep Virtual Workshops: “Stay Competitive with the RIMS-CRMP | Presented by the RIMS Greater Bluegrass Chapter” February 19‒20, 2025 | Instructor: Chris Mandel Full RIMS-CRMP Prep Course Schedule Full RIMS-CRMP Prep Course Schedule   Related RIMScast Episodes: “Cyberrisk Trends in 2025 with Shadowserver Alliance Director Tod Eberle” “Kicking off 2025 with RIMS CEO Gary LaBranche” “Year In Risk 2024 with Morgan O'Rourke and Hilary Tuttle” “AI and Regulatory Risk Trends with Caroline Shleifer” “Cybersecurity Awareness and Risk Frameworks with Daniel Eliot of NIST” (2024) “Cybersecurity and Insurance Outlook 2023 with Josephine Wolff”   Sponsored RIMScast Episodes: “Simplifying the Challenges of OSHA Recordkeeping” | Sponsored by Medcor “Risk Management in a Changing World: A Deep Dive into AXA's 2024 Future Risks Report” | Sponsored by AXA XL “How Insurance Builds Resilience Against An Active Assailant Attack” | Sponsored by Merrill Herzog “Third-Party and Cyber Risk Management Tips” | Sponsored by Alliant “RMIS Innovation with Archer” | Sponsored by Archer “Navigating Commercial Property Risks with Captives” | Sponsored by Zurich “Breaking Down Silos: AXA XL's New Approach to Casualty Insurance”| Sponsored by AXA XL “Weathering Today's Property Claims Management Challenges” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Storm Prep 2024: The Growing Impact of Convective Storms and Hail” | Sponsored by Global Risk Consultants, a TÜV SÜD Company “Partnering Against Cyberrisk” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Harnessing the Power of Data and Analytics for Effective Risk Management” | Sponsored by Marsh “Accident Prevention — The Winning Formula For Construction and Insurance” | Sponsored by Otoos “Platinum Protection: Underwriting and Risk Engineering's Role in Protecting Commercial Properties” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Elevating RMIS — The Archer Way” | Sponsored by Archer “Alliant's P&C Outlook For 2024” | Sponsored by Alliant “Why Subrogation is the New Arbitration” | Sponsored by Fleet Response “Cyclone Season: Proactive Preparation for Loss Minimization” | Sponsored by Prudent Insurance Brokers Ltd. “Subrogation and the Competitive Advantage” | Sponsored by Fleet Response   RIMS Publications, Content, and Links: RIMS Membership — Whether you are a new member or need to transition, be a part of the global risk management community! RIMS Virtual Workshops On-Demand Webinars RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy RIMS Strategic & Enterprise Risk Center RIMS-CRMP Stories — Featuring RIMS Vice President Manny Padilla!   RIMS Events, Education, and Services: RIMS Risk Maturity Model®   Sponsor RIMScast: Contact sales@rims.org or pd@rims.org for more information.   Want to Learn More? Keep up with the podcast on RIMS.org, and listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.   Have a question or suggestion? Email: Content@rims.org.   Join the Conversation! Follow @RIMSorg on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.   About our guest: James Burd, Chief Privacy Officer, Cyber Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)   Production and engineering provided by Podfly.  

In this episode, the hosts sit down with Dr. Wolfgang Gaertner, Chair of the ASCRS Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) Committee, for an insider's look at how the gold standard in colorectal care is set. Dr. Gaertner takes us behind the scenes of the rigorous process of writing and reviewing CPGs, from synthesizing the latest evidence to ensuring recommendations meet the highest standards of clarity and relevance.

If you are a retailer, CPG company, entrepreneur, investor, or just interested in the natural food space, we have a sugar-free, plant-based, adaptogen-rich, protein-packed treat for you. For our final episode of the season, we're excited to bring you a panel discussion from a webinar put on by Naturally Chicago, an organization doing amazing work to bring together the natural products sector through events, resources, and industry insights. The conversation featured panelists from SPINS, a company that helps brands, retailers, and their partners understand product data and shopper values to improve product innovation, and KeHE, a national food distributor focusing on organic, natural, fresh, and specialty products. The discussion was a very data-driven analysis of the natural products industry, which, as panelists pointed out, is seeing growth across metrics. The sector is expected to hit almost $320 billion this year and to grow at a rate of 5 percent annually over the next few years. The panel explored some of the most exciting growth areas in the sector and how CPG companies and retailers can capitalize on this momentum. We also hear from Chuck Templeton about some of his reflections on the natural food space and where he sees these trends going.Key Topics: The Growth of the Natural Food Industry: The panelists discuss how demand for natural food products continues to grow. Consumers, especially Millennials and Gen Z, are more knowledgeable about how food choices impact wellness and want to take ownership of their health and incorporate functional foods into their diets. Aging Well: As we take a more proactive approach to health, there is a particular focus on how we age. The panelists point to the trend of preventative care and wellness becoming part of consumers' personal brands.  The Impact of GLP-1 on Natural Foods: The rise of GLP-1 is demonstrating how interconnected medicine and the food industry can be. The panelists discuss that as GLP-1s become increasingly prevalent, food companies will have to adapt to shifting dietary demands and needs as a result of these drugs. The Role of Sustainability in Product Development: The panelists discuss how incorporating sustainability aspects can set natural food brands apart. Chuck shares how he sees sustainability as an even bigger driver for CPGs and retailers than consumers.Media of the Moment: The panelists and Chuck talk about the rapidly evolving landscape of media marketing and customer engagement. With the rise of social media, food companies must completely rethink how they reach customers and capitalize on these new opportunities. This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. Please note that S2G may maintain investments in some of the companies discussed on this podcast. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results. For more important information, please see s2gventures.com/disclosures.

In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, Daniel Scharff is joined by a distinguished panel of investors, including Greer Tessler (Founding Partner at Simple Food Ventures), Daniel Faierman (General Partner at Habitat Partners), Carolyn Simmons (Partner at Melitas Ventures), and Andrew Reynolds (Co-Founder & General Partner at RCV Frontline). Together, they provide an in-depth exploration of the current fundraising environment for CPG brands, discussing realistic valuations, funding strategies for pre-seed and seed stages, and the nuances of engaging with angel investors versus institutional funds.The panel offers expert insights on investor expectations, from gross margin benchmarks to profitability strategies and the critical role of founder resilience. They also examine key industry trends, including the growth of better-for-you products, protein-enriched innovations, and clean-label global cuisines, while highlighting how founders can effectively differentiate themselves through strategic pitches, trust-building, and leveraging professional networks.They conclude with rapid-fire pitches from emerging brands and real-time feedback from the panel, making it a valuable resource for founders and industry professionals. Don't miss this deep dive into the minds of top CPG investors—tune in now!Listen in as they share about:Fundraising EnvironmentMetrics and MarginsTrends of InterestRaising FundsInvestment CriteriaInvestor ExpectationsPitching to VCsQ&A and Brand PitchesHow to Approach VCsEpisode Links:Greer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greer-tessler-50256640/ Daniel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-faierman/ Carolyn Simmons  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolynsimmons/ Andrew Reynolds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/areynolds720/ Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.Show Links:Transcripts of each episode are available on the Transistor platform that hosts our podcast here (click on the episode and toggle to “Transcript” at the top)Join the Startup CPG Slack community (20K+ members and growing!)Follow @startupcpgVisit host Daniel's Linkedin Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at podcast@startupcpg.comEpisode music by Super Fantastics

The CPG Guys are joined by Karen Satterlie, Director of eCommerce Marketing & Shopper Marketing at Henkel, Melissa Burdick, president of Pacvue & Barbara Connors, VP Strategy & Acceleration at 84.51 a division of Kroger. The episode was recorded in Las Vegas at Groceryshop 2024.This episode is sponsored by 84.51.Follow Karen Satterlie on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karensatterlie/Follow Melissa Burdick on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissaburdick/Follow Barbara Connors on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-connors-10312810/Follow 84.51 on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/84-51/Follow 84.51 online here: https://www.8451.com/1) Given the decline volume CPGs are currently facing, How is Henkel focused on bring consumers to your brands in an omnichannel way?2) If planning needs to start at the top with the brand, do sales teams need to work in an omnichannel way as well?3) Is “retail media” media?4) How does inspiration drive brand loyalty?5) How is value defined by shoppers?6) How is the balance of power between brands & retailers shifting in the era of retail media?For the Cornell Retail Media Strategy Executive Education program, click hereCPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.comFMCG Guys Website: http://FMCGguys.comCPG Scoop Website: http://CPGscoop.comDISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGGUYS, LLC or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGGUYS, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.

In this episode, we get a perspective of what's going on in Retail Media at the other side of the Atlantic with Jenny Holleran from Kroger, one of the US' leading Grocery propositions. In this conversation, which was recorded in person at this year's Retail Media Summit UK in London, we go over the fast evolution of Retail over the last 10 years, how FMCGs (or CPGs in the US) are getting great data from retailers and, ultimately, what makes Kroger different as a Retailer and Retail Media Network. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9oicmqpMLXg  Topics Covered: Kroger's positioning in the US market and their unique approach to Retail Media How they are helping their CPG partners bridge the gap with consumers In-store: a big area of opportunity Key differences between the US and the UK More: Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fmcgguys/   Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fmcgguys/  Audio Mixing by Rodrigo Chávez Voice Acting by Jason Martorell Parsekian

Dr. Eric Robertson, PT, DPT, MFA, FAAOMPT, a leader in orthopedic physical therapy and education, joins Phil Plisky to explore the top five updates rehab providers need to know. Eric shares insights on how to implement the latest clinical practice guidelines, with practical strategies for improving patient care and clinical outcomes. Learning Objectives Interpret the evidence around primary orthopedic physical therapist practice and conditions requiring referral Apply evidence-based, practical strategies to actionably address latest guideline-driven interventions for patients with musculoskeletal conditions Solve patient case scenarios involving patients with musculoskeletal and orthopedic physical therapy conditions Timestamps (00:00:00) Welcome (00:01:02) Introduction to guest (00:02:35) The value of OCS prep programs (00:05:57) Staying up-to-date on clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) (00:13:48) Digesting long CPGs (00:18:17) Overview of recent CPGs (00:33:41) Case scenarios and how-tos (00:42:38) Three main takeaways (00:46:15) Wrap-up with guest Rehab and Performance Lab is brought to you by Medbridge. If you'd like to earn continuing education credit for listening to this episode and access bonus takeaway handouts, log in to your Medbridge account and navigate to the course where you'll find accreditation details. If applicable, complete the post-course assessment and survey to be eligible for credit. The takeaway handout on Medbridge gives you the key points mentioned in this episode, along with additional resources you can implement into your practice right away. To hear more episodes of Rehab and Performance Lab, visit https://www.medbridge.com/rehab-and-performance-lab If you'd like to subscribe to Medbridge, visit https://www.medbridge.com/pricing/

En el episodio de hoy, tratamos de responder a la pregunta que formulamos, sobre todo matizando la autonomía o no de esos CPGs en la médula humana. Revisamos los principales autores y estudios sobre el tema y ahondamos en la evidencia más actual sobre el sistema de interneuronas que conforman los CPGs y las implicaciones para la neurorrehabilitación (estimulación epidural y terapia intensiva). Referencias del episodio: 1. Angeli, C. A., Edgerton, V. R., Gerasimenko, Y. P., & Harkema, S. J. (2014). Altering spinal cord excitability enables voluntary movements after chronic complete paralysis in humans. Brain : a journal of neurology, 137(Pt 5), 1394–1409. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awu038 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24713270/). 2. Barkan, C. L., & Zornik, E. (2019). Feedback to the future: motor neuron contributions to central pattern generator function. The Journal of experimental biology, 222(Pt 16), jeb193318. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.193318 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6739810/). 3. Brown, T. G. (1911). The Intrinsic Factors in the Act of Progression in the Mammal. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Containing Papers of a Biological Character, 84(572), 308–319. http://www.jstor.org/stable/80647 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/80647). 4. Cherni, Y., Begon, M., Chababe, H., & Moissenet, F. (2017). Use of electromyography to optimize Lokomat® settings for subject-specific gait rehabilitation in post-stroke hemiparetic patients: A proof-of-concept study. Neurophysiologie clinique = Clinical neurophysiology, 47(4), 293–299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucli.2017.01.008 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28318816/). 5. Courtine, G., Gerasimenko, Y., van den Brand, R., Yew, A., Musienko, P., Zhong, H., Song, B., Ao, Y., Ichiyama, R. M., Lavrov, I., Roy, R. R., Sofroniew, M. V., & Edgerton, V. R. (2009). Transformation of nonfunctional spinal circuits into functional states after the loss of brain input. Nature neuroscience, 12(10), 1333–1342. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2401 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19767747/). 6. Dietz V. (2010). Behavior of spinal neurons deprived of supraspinal input. Nature reviews. Neurology, 6(3), 167–174. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2009.227 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20101254/). 7. Dimitrijevic, M. R., Gerasimenko, Y., & Pinter, M. M. (1998). Evidence for a spinal central pattern generator in humans. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 860, 360–376. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1998.tb09062.x (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9928325/). 8. Dzeladini, F., van den Kieboom, J., & Ijspeert, A. (2014). The contribution of a central pattern generator in a reflex-based neuromuscular model. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 8, 371. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00371 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4071613/). 9. Gizzi, L., Nielsen, J. F., Felici, F., Moreno, J. C., Pons, J. L., & Farina, D. (2012). Motor modules in robot-aided walking. Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 9, 76. https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-0003-9-76 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23043818/). 10. Gosgnach S. (2022). Synaptic connectivity amongst components of the locomotor central pattern generator. Frontiers in neural circuits, 16, 1076766. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2022.1076766 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9730330/). 11. Grillner, S. (1981). Control of Locomotion in Bipeds, Tetrapods, and Fish. Comprehensive Physiology, 1179-1236 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cphy.cp010226). 12. Guertin P. A. (2014). Preclinical evidence supporting the clinical development of central pattern generator-modulating therapies for chronic spinal cord-injured patients. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 8, 272. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00272 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24910602/). 13. Harkema, S., Gerasimenko, Y., Hodes, J., Burdick, J., Angeli, C., Chen, Y., Ferreira, C., Willhite, A., Rejc, E., Grossman, R. G., & Edgerton, V. R. (2011). Effect of epidural stimulation of the lumbosacral spinal cord on voluntary movement, standing, and assisted stepping after motor complete paraplegia: a case study. Lancet (London, England), 377(9781), 1938–1947. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60547-3 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21601270/). 14. Kathe, C., Skinnider, M. A., Hutson, T. H., Regazzi, N., Gautier, M., Demesmaeker, R., Komi, S., Ceto, S., James, N. D., Cho, N., Baud, L., Galan, K., Matson, K. J. E., Rowald, A., Kim, K., Wang, R., Minassian, K., Prior, J. O., Asboth, L., Barraud, Q., … Courtine, G. (2022). The neurons that restore walking after paralysis. Nature, 611(7936), 540–547. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05385-7 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36352232/). 15. Minassian, K., Jilge, B., Rattay, F., Pinter, M. M., Binder, H., Gerstenbrand, F., & Dimitrijevic, M. R. (2004). Stepping-like movements in humans with complete spinal cord injury induced by epidural stimulation of the lumbar cord: electromyographic study of compound muscle action potentials. Spinal cord, 42(7), 401–416. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.sc.3101615 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15124000/). 16. Minassian, K., Persy, I., Rattay, F., Dimitrijevic, M. R., Hofer, C., & Kern, H. (2007). Posterior root-muscle reflexes elicited by transcutaneous stimulation of the human lumbosacral cord. Muscle & nerve, 35(3), 327–336. https://doi.org/10.1002/mus.20700 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17117411/). 17. Radhakrishna, M., Steuer, I., Prince, F., Roberts, M., Mongeon, D., Kia, M., Dyck, S., Matte, G., Vaillancourt, M., & Guertin, P. A. (2017). Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Randomized Phase I/IIa Study (Safety and Efficacy) with Buspirone/Levodopa/Carbidopa (SpinalonTM) in Subjects with Complete AIS A or Motor-Complete AIS B Spinal Cord Injury. Current pharmaceutical design, 23(12), 1789–1804. https://doi.org/10.2174/1381612822666161227152200 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28025945/). 18. Reier, P. J., Howland, D. R., Mitchell, G., Wolpaw, J. R., Hoh, D., & Lane, M. A. (2017). Spinal cord injury: repair, plasticity and rehabilitation. eLS, 1-12 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470015902.a0021403.pub2).

Toby Espinosa, the VP of DoorDash ads, reflects on the tremendous growth of the delivery platform, saying the key to this is local businesses. Episode TranscriptPlease note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio. Damian: [00:00:00] I'm Damian Fowler.Ilyse: And I'm Ilyse LiffreingDamian: And welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Toby Espinoza, the VP of DoorDash Ads.Damian: And Toby is responsible for connecting brands, local and national, to the more than 37 million customers who place orders on DoorDash marketplaces each month.Ilyse: At this point, DoorDash is a household name, no pun intended. It has more than 7 million couriers delivering orders for DoorDash from around 550, 000 merchants.Damian: Hard to believe that the company was founded just over 10 years ago in 2013. And Toby joined the company in 2015. So he's seen DoorDash go from strength to strength.Naturally, we start by asking him about how the company has changed over the last decade.Ilyse: So Toby, DoorDash celebrated its 10th anniversary last year. And I, I remember when you guys launched, I would just say, because I was like a hungry college student at the time.And it was like, perfect timing to get [00:01:00] anything delivered to my dormToby: And where were you?Ilyse: In San Francisco.Toby: Francisco? No way. Oh, awesome.Ilyse: was like, yeah, it was like I was in the right place at the right time for sure. Yes. And, so how would you say has the company evolved from a food delivery platform to the platform it is today?Toby: When I joined the company, we were in 4, 5 metros.And we were completely focused on one product in four or five markets. And back in 2015 when I joined the food delivery market, as you remember, seamless reigned supreme in New York. Grubhub was in Chicago and everywhere else food delivery was pizza: Domino's, Papa John's, Pizza Hut. And a few local restaurants that were able to afford having couriers. The market, everybody thought, was saturated. We entered, the company had a thesis that the market itself, given the advent of mobile technology, we believed that [00:03:00] if you took this device, this mobile device, where now a dasher had a mobile phone, a consumer had a mobile phone, and actually restaurants had access to this mobile superhighway, that if we connected all of them, there would be a larger opportunity for growth.Growth being the key word there, because as much as DoorDash has changed over the last 10 years, we have gone from a one product, one market business to a multiple product, multiple geography business, with 37 million monthly active users, over 15 million monthly active subscribers to our platform.If you go back to our founding story, Tony, Stanley and Andy, when they started DoorDash, walked down University Avenue in Palo Alto and they went from store to store asking every local business, how can I help you grow? That was the founding question. It wasn't can I build a logistics network, it wasn't, can I build an ad business? It was, “Hey, how can I help you grow?” And the opportunity they found was let's do a restaurant oriented delivery network for everybody across suburban markets. And that's what took off.Ilyse: How would you say that growth has like translated on the ads marketplace side of things? Toby: Yeah.The hard part about building something at the scale that DoorDash [00:05:00] operates is the consumer side. Building a consumer promise and then making that promise better and better and better every day, getting faster and cheaper, that is actually the harder part to find.Product market fit from a consumer perspective. Once we have that, and once we have that, we want to continue to compound that over and over and over againAbout four, four years ago, five years ago, our merchants and so stores within our ecosystem raised their hand and started to ask us, “Hey, do you have any tools to help me grow even faster?” That's how the ad business started. It was a it's very fundamental. It's a core to who we are. It's a growth business. We have customers who want to grow [00:06:00] faster. And what we then tried to figure out was how can we help serve this promise for these customers while also helping our marketplace continue to grow?So the best way to do that is to align incentives, uh, show us the incentive, and we'll show you the outcome that we're driving towards.Our AD team is incentivized both by driving incremental return from a spend perspective for advertisers, as well as driving incremental volume for our consumer marketplace, which is very different than most advertising platforms. Most advertising houses, you have product and tech on one side driving growth, and you have ads trying to monetize it on the other side. We wanted to bring those together to make sure we were able to continue to grow on both sides and serve our customers best. Damian: And cut to date to this rise of, spectacular rise of retail media, which of course is one of the hottest topics right now in our space. DoorDash of course has built its own retail media network in recent years. Could you talk a little bit about how you took some of those concepts you just talked about and built the network?Toby: Yeah, absolutely. So we, again we wanted to be completely aligned with the customer. So the first customer that we started to think about was the SMB owner operator restaurant that we all know, that's in our town.In San Francisco, it's Suvla. In New York, it's Electric Burrito. These places that, these brands [00:08:00] that we are absolutely in love with. What we quickly realize is that person, that customer, there's two fundamental things that are very difficult.The first is that they have to be an expert at 15 different things So, if we own a local restaurant, a local retailer, We have to be great at real estate. We have to be great at marketing. We have to be great at financials. We have to be great at accounting. We have to be great at customer service. We have to be great at creating a great product, which is food, right?And so when we look at this core customer, they're supposed to be an expert at 15 different things Our job is to go after one of those. And make sure that they don't have to think about that growth as [00:09:00] much as they used to by putting a little bit of the burden of that growth on our shoulders. What that means in practice when we launched the business for for SMB customers, we focused on building an economic model that worked for them. Last week, in San Francisco, I went and picked up a salad. at, at one of my favorite, favorite places. And there was a restaurant right next door that had just opened a month in. A month in, and nobody in his restaurant.Completely empty. Maybe three or four people in a, in, that could otherwise have a capacity of 50. And I went online and I looked. He was running advertising across a bunch of different channels that we all know. Snap, Google, Meta, etc.This person was in the red month day one of the month.It's one of the hardest things in this country. These small businesses that start [00:10:00] negative every single month. And on top of that, they also had to layer in more spend on Google and meta to try to get out of that hole.We took the premise of we want to be your growth assistant and we took the premise of it's really, really hard. for you to basically grow your business without having to also add more money into this negative cash cycle.And we said, let's build a product where you do not have to pay us unless you get an order.So unless we send you money, you do not have to pay us. And those two things together have helped us build one of the fastest growing retail media networks, particularly focused on a customer that was completely underserved. Damian: Could you talk about, a little bit more about how you [00:11:00] kind of expanded those relationships with both the national brands, tying that into the local, the business works at a local level fundamentally.Toby: So in the restaurant space. The vast, vast majority of restaurants on Main Street are local. Even if you are a McDonald's franchisee, so you have one of the largest brands, you're a, you're a small business owner.Really, the, the Starbucks, the Chipotles of the world that are corporately owned restaurants at scale are actually the smallest. They're the 10%, not the 90 percent in the U. S. And so our ad product designed on a CPA based level where we can be the growth assistant for all these owner operators is really for the 90.It's built for the majority. Um, that being said, we also just launched, uh, last week the our new product, which is our ad manager and our [00:12:00] ad manager for the enterprise restaurant segment is designed actually to help both the C. M. O. Of McDonald's and the owner operator franchisee within the system. And the way that we've done that is we've actually built the first of its kind way of buying or thinking about purchasing acrossA national media buyer, an agency at the national level, a district media buyer, most of these franchisees actually also have districts, or DMAs, where they have their own pools of funds that can be allocated for growth, and then also at the local level. Incremental to that, not only is if you're a franchisee and you own a couple McDonald's and a couple, uh, you know, a couple Subways and a couple other brands. Now you can also manage your business across brands. It's really the first of a kind product in its space, designed entirely to kind of work between local and national brand.We also, of course, support local. started to invest in larger CPGs. And there, you know, we really look at some of the other large retail media networks in the [00:13:00] space. You know, today I was reading the the amazing work that you all did with a woman who leads Kroger's retail media business and built it from scratch.We find a lot of inspiration from those folks learning, understanding how we can add an incremental service to folks that are already spending a lot of money at other retail media networks. And, um, and I think we found Uh, some very cool opportunities for us there, Ilyse: Very cool. You were saying how it's about 90 percent SMBs and 10 percent um, big business. Um, how does that play out within the DoorDash platform?Toby: yeah.yeah. So so it's really and when I meant that it's kind of think about where the dollars are coming from. So You might think of DoorDash Volume as large businesses. You know, a lot of people are ordering McDonald's. But the reality is the, the spender, the buyer of media could be a local franchisee.So the brand is national, but the spend is still local. That's kind of what I was saying there. On [00:14:00] the, as you know, also on the CPG side, uh, large brands like Pepsi and Coca Cola and P& G, those are large, national, entrenched franchises. Brands. Those are timeless, timeless brands that have been around for a very long time.And so the question there is, how do we build products that are timely to help the timeless? And that's been a very interesting journey for us over the last two and a half years. It's a, it's a new space for us again, as I said. Um, but it's going swimmingly well. And, and today we have the opportunity to sit on stage with, with Pernod Ricard, which is, of course, one of the storied alcohol manufacturers.Ilyse: Um, can you talk a little bit about the Partnerships and how you actually go about working with like those brands and retailers that are using your platform so much Toby: We, like I said, were founded as a growth helper. So built in our DNA is working with others to help them grow.We obviously have a [00:15:00] very large consumer marketplace that is that has helped those businesses grow. And so some of us think of in the same You know, uh, letters of other large consumer marketplaces like an Amazon, uh, like a Walmart e com.But we are fundamentally built in our DNA a partner oriented culture. What that means is first we get to partner with great local brands, mid market brands, national brands, add in the manufacturers, but that also means we get to do fun things like Add in Max, or add in Chase, or add in other folks where there are a lot of people, if given the opportunity, want to help local businesses grow.Our job is to help figure out a way to make that happen. Ilyse: would you say that is captured users I guess and they'reToby: It's a, no, it's a great question. The underlying thing is, how do we do it in a way that continues to compound our consumer promise, which is faster, better, cheaper. And, and, you know, we'll be the first to say there are some partnerships [00:16:00] where it doesn't necessarily help that much.And then there's other partnerships where it has been critical. Think about our Chase partnership and, and the depth in which we've built that partnership over time, where everybody that has a, you know, a Chase credit card has the opportunity to participate in one of the largest subscription, local subscription programs, uh, in the world.And so, some work quite well, others are challenging, and we're a first principled company that, that tries to get better every single day.Damian: Just to on that point are you very strategic about looking for new partnerships you know, that's an interesting one chase and of course there are many others but how do you think about it and go about building those different partnerships.Toby: Yeah it's a collaboration Internally within DoorDash, we have, uh, general managers that run different business units, just as myself. We have functional leaders like our incredible, uh, CMO Kofi, who has built one of the world's largest brands in a span of years, not decades, which is incredibly, incredibly amazing, and he is a celebrity. If you ever want to feel like a [00:17:00] celebrity, just walk with Kofi in Cannes for about 15 to 20 minutes and it'll be the coolest thing you'll ever experience.Um, next year, exactly, exactly. Um, but It's a collaboration across different functions, and then it's a collaboration with a partner. You know, one of the most interesting partnerships that we've launched in the last two years, from my vantage point, is we are a close partner with Amazon in Canada. Now, a lot of folks, when you think of DoorDash and Amazon would say, competitors, that, that doesn't work.Right. But we work really, really hard to try to figure out anywhere, if possible, with the largest businesses and brands that we look up to, is there a place that we can collaborate and again, help local businesses grow. That's the fundamental premise behind the whole thing Ilyse: very cool now what about when it comes to like an ad perspective. How are you working with these brands and partnering with them?Toby: Yeah, we are, I think in the ad ecosystem, you know, it's, it's, it's, there's a simple recipe that we're trying to follow. One is access. So can I [00:18:00] provide access for people to purchase? We, very early on, our first investment was in a self serve ad manager, so that local businesses could purchase our products, both promotions and our ad products, live themselves, without needing to talk to somebody.So that was first. So one is access. That's the news also from last week, where now we provide access to the largest restaurant brands, DMAs, and franchisees across the country. first of a kind product. Again, I know I keep saying that, but I'm very, very proud of it because not many people, not many technologists build for franchisees in this country.And they are one of the largest, um, one of the largest, most hardworking groups of individuals that that again, we look up to. Um, so one is access Two is providing the tools to get the best return possible. So that is, can I do better targeting? Can I? Are there new access points that I can, that I can get to?Along those lines, we've invested a lot in in better targeting again for those enterprise restaurants. [00:19:00] So today you can target new users, you can target lapsed users, you can do that if you're a brand, a small brand like a single owner operator, you can do it if you're a national restaurant, and you can also do it if you're one of the largest brands in the country.So one is better targeting tools and incrementality. And then the final is, is impressions. So, You know, DoorDash, again, we are humbly one of the favorite and largest marketplaces in the country. But we very well know there are other people that are hungry on a daily basis who are not eyes on DoorDash.And so, can we provide the ability for people, uh, for brands to reach those people using our data? And that was one of the announcements we made last week was as well.Ilyse: so one of the things I feel like DoorDash is almost known for in the advertising marketing space is it aligns itself to big occasions throughout the year.Ilyse: I know we saw [00:20:00] DoorDash for the Super Bowl, Mother's Day. Can you talk about how you plan for such occasions? And maybe what's your favorite one to work at on and be like presentToby: maybe what's Yeah We have learned over time that these occasions. Because we learned from our core customers, both the consumer and merchants that these occasions are important to them.So if you think of, if you think of Super Bowl, imagine you are a local owner operator of a wing restaurant in Tulsa. Super Bowl is your Super Bowl, right? It is the biggest day of the year where you sell out your entire inventory at the staff up, you have to build for it. We wanted to follow our customers into that moment.Mother's Day, huge moment.Both for folks where it's a special day to remember somebody or for folks that are trying to be a mother for the first time, right? So you have this both, both signs, [00:21:00] an incredible opportunity to reach consumersfrom an advertising perspective. Again, going back to partnerships, they're tricky.You have an advertiser who's excited to also follow you into that occasion. And what we try to do with these three way partnerships, we've done them with Wendy's, we've done them with Roku, we've done them with many others, trying to find three way alignment of incentives to, to again, drive local growth for our customers.Damian: I think one of the best gifts I ever got, was when my son was born somebody bought us a DoorDash gift card which was so helpful to have food delivered you know when you're at home with this tiny little baby.Ilyse: Showing up at those occasions, but also, you know, just ongoing brand campaigns. How does that proximity, why is it important for brand building? How does this, like, enable you to extend into new categories?Toby: Yeah, have you? Um, Our Super Bowl commercial is a great example of this. This past year, uh, the words were a door to more DoorDash went from again being a single vertical single product company to a multi vertical multi product company in a very, very, very fast time frame. Now, consumers are incredible.They learn very quickly. Habits are harder to change and harder to adapt and move over [00:23:00] time. And so we are in the earliest innings of our consumers really understanding that now you could actually get a pair of sneakers delivered to you on DoorDash when you need a new pair, like I did this weekend in order to go for a run.And in that moment, being able to kind of jump on these large consumer moments help from our vantage point.Our 37 million monthly active users start to understand that really DoorDash is here as an assistant in your life across all of these categories and verticals whenever you need us. We aren't just Thai food, now we're also the ability to get something, uh, to get something when you're feeling sick.And, um, and we're very, very proud to do that and very humbled to do that for our customers. Damian: Yeah. that's uh, expanding the whole concept of, of of DoorDash. Um, speaking of expanding the concept, you know, you've also cultivated good partnerships with streaming partners, and you [00:24:00] mentioned Max a little bit earlier. Why is it that streaming and delivery seem to kind of work in synchrony? Toby: it's again, I think it goes back to the moment. There's a very happy moment in my household when we finish work. And we have some, we get a little, a door, a little ring on our door, and there's a package outside, and it's filled with two burritos. And we get to turn on Max and watch industry. There's a sliver of moment in time where we're just feeling absolute happiness and joy.Now, that is a moment that a lot of consumers around the country and around the world feel. We're trying to give everybody a little bit of time back. Again, this concept of putting the weight of other things on our shoulders as a company to help people, to help local economies grow, to help [00:25:00] save consumers time, to help Dashers make a little bit of extra money.That is what we are trying to do at Dash. And so, aligning ourselves in this moment of peace. This moment of just absolute happiness with a streaming service, which all of us experience,is a very nice moment to be right next to, uh, to be right next to these brands from a consumer perspective. And so they've been, they've been very, they've been great partnerships so far.We're very excited, uh, about, about thinking about finding more of those opportunities as time goes Damian: about door dashes as a way to get time back, you know, but of course it does doesIlyse: There's too many things to worry about outside of that. Damian: we're going to ask the inevitable question about AI and how, you know, obviously door dash must be integrated with AI technology. But how do you think about it as we look ahead?Toby: We, as a company were very [00:26:00] data driven company. We have been from our founding. Again, we are riding on the backs of one of the largest technological revolutions of our time, the Internet and then the Internet plus mobile. And so to say that we want to be and continue to be students about how this next revolution will change, both from.from our merchants, consumers and dashers lives. We are in the very earliest innings and we're trying to learn as fast as possible. Um, I think what's very exciting if you kind of take a step back and you again put on the mindset of the shoes of we are trying to be an assistant for all of our customers across a bunch of different ways.Dasher Make, uh, from a financial services perspective, helping them make more money, helping them find more opportunities to make money, consumers saving time, and merchants making more. If you kind of put yourselves in all those shoes, and we're trying to be an assistant, AI as a technology will only help accelerate our mission of doing that and then unlocking growth for local.I think we're going to [00:27:00] see one of the largest increases in, in growth that we desperately, desperately need for those. Places that are our favorite coffee shop, Thai food place, uh, and, and, um, you know, and place to go pick up your, your, your meds when you're a little sick. And so it's, it's a pretty cool future.We're very excited for it.Damian: in his 50 seatToby: I, we are absolutely, we, to be, to be clear, we DoorDash. He's now using our ad product. So if we can send them any incremental customers, it'll help them. It'll help them grow his business. Damian: There's one more question, I guess. And it's a sort of like a forward looking question. And it's are there any innovations that you're thinking about into 2025 that can help with this growth mindset that you've been talking about? Toby: we, We've done an okay job. We've done a great job of the access point, which is opening up an ad manager, [00:28:00] opening up a self serve sponsored listing, allowing CPG brands to access our consumers. We've done it. We've done a great job at that. We've done an okay job at the second two, which is.once you open up a lot of this inventory and help find ways to grow, it gets complex.I think we've added incremental complexity so far to our customers' lives for most of our customers, our advertisers, and so our team is extremely excited, looking forward to continue to take more of the complexity out of our customer's lives as we layer in more complexity. On the product and engineering platform that we've built internally, and that is a very hard problem to solve, but I have one of the best teams to help us go solve that, and we're very excited to take it on.

In episode 73 of Kantar's Retail Sound Bites, Barry Thomas, senior retail thought leader, and Rachel Dalton, head of retail insights, welcome Lisa Matos, vice president, sales capabilities and commerce at Conagra Brands, to discuss the challenges and opportunities CPGs face while navigating retail media networks. This episode also features Doug Hermanson, principal economist, who dives into the macroeconomic state of retail. Have a topic you'd like us to cover? Contact us at Kantar's Retail Sound Bites Podcast. Barry's contact information: barry.thomas@kantar.com Barry's LinkedIn Rachel's contact information: rachel.dalton@kantar.com Rachel's LinkedIn Inside Amazon's AI Cloud Strategy with AWS CEO Matt Garman – WSJ Kroger begins rollout of RFID tech to fresh departments | Grocery Dive Better-for-you candy brands go all in on Halloween https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/7-eleven-open-500-food-focused-stores https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2024/10/16/US-private-label-grocery-market-to-hit-25-30-share?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=16-Oct-2024&cid=DM1163875&bid=529561310# Walmart goes live with same-day pharmacy delivery | Chain Store Age

Andy is president of Gellert Global Group. The company imports more than 5,500 unique food items from more than 60 countries and is one of the largest food importers in the world. Gellert Global Group is home to 12 companies, led by Atalanta, the largest privately-held food importer in the U.S.Gellert Global is a third-generation family-run business. The Gellert Global Group comprises many of the leading North American food-importing companies and has been importing food products for over 100 years. The combined revenues of the Group exceed $1.7 billion.The Gellert Global family includes Andy's sister, brother and cousin. Andy's father and uncle are also part of the company. Andy's father, George, was recently inducted into the New Jersey business hall of fame. Gellert Global's goal is to be a part of every food and beverage experience. Andy and his team use a variety of factors to determine which products and brands to partner with, including trends and the needs of customers. QUOTES “Some of these family businesses and you hear about fighting and people not getting along. I think we're successful because we keep growing and there's enough things for everyone to do and for everyone to bring value.” (Andy) “You want (joining the family business) to happen organically. It's a fun business. There's opportunities for (family) to join if they want. There's no obligation to come in. We'd like them to come in, but we don't want to make a rule that they have to come in.” (Andy) “Network is important to my father. I learned that from him early on. Being a part of YPO (Young President's Organization), I love leveraging my network. I like investing in early-stage CPG's and helping and leading them to other opportunities.” (Andy) “We don't want to lose direction. We're very big and we're happy where we are but we're not in a rush to get to two billion. We're going to get there smart. If it means pairing down and doing SKU rationalization to be more profitable, all the better.” (Andy) “It's really all about efficiency. As you get bigger you can be more efficient, but you have to be diligent.” (Andy) “We're an importer of products so our products are expensive already. We're always looking for ways to (save). You always have to turn over rocks to look for more opportunities.” (Andy) “I love eating. I love food experiences. I love being surprised. I like going to a chef and saying ‘Just surprise me. Just give me what you do best.'” (Andy)  TRANSCRIPT 00:00.45Andy GellertBye. 00:01.87vigorbrandingHey there, welcome to Fork Tales. I’m ah Michael Pavone, and I’m happy to really get a chance to talk to a good friend of mine. ah Today we have Andy Gellert here. He’s a good friend I’ve known for and respected for a long, long time. Andy’s the president of Gellert Global Group, one of the largest food importers in the world. ah They import more than 2,500 product lines from more than 60 countries. Andy, thank you so much for being here. 00:27.05Andy GellertMike, always a pleasure, always great seeing you, and nice seeing your smiling face, and I love hanging out with you. We’re always having a lot of fun together. 00:34.39vigorbrandingYeah, absolutely. You know, if they if they have music for this in the beginning, you know, I was going to, I was going to change up our, our forktails music and have a little. 00:41.11Andy GellertListen, I don’t like to brag about my my my my my my my my my beautiful voice. where You saw me on stage with Welcome Pepper a long time ago. I hung that up a long time ago. 00:52.98Andy GellertI got straight into the food business, Mike. I can’t cant just think my life away, you know? 00:54.81vigorbrandingYeah. The little salt and pepper in the beginning of this thing i gets us off on everything and everything. The thing is, Andy, I have known you for a long time, but I love doing these interviews because I always learn more. so it’s like I might have seen you over the years at these shows and get to hang out and you know have a drink together, but you know when you’re digging a little deeper about the family business and about the food industry and and all of that, it’s just I’m always blown away. and your Your company and your family, which is the company, is absolutely amazing. 01:21.57vigorbrandingSo tell us a little bit about Gellert Global Group and know what they do. 01:24.57Andy Gellertbut i mean like Next year we’ll celebrate our 80th birthday and we’re very excited. and As I said, you know I’m third generation and I live i live food. It’s a passion of mine. I love all aspects of the food industry. and you know like My grandfather started this in 1945. 01:46.38Andy Gellertimporting meats from Eastern Europe and seafood. We’ve grown and got other lines of businesses in. We’re selling food service, retail, manufacturing, cruise line. 01:57.56Andy GellertWe’re now involved in, you know thanks to YPO, I’m i’m involved in the franchise business. By the end of the year, we’ll have 55 guys. Thanks to our good friend Dan Rowe. 02:05.09vigorbrandingWow. Yeah. 02:07.17Andy GellertWe’re introducing their first one. And you know we invest in food businesses and it’s just, ah We’re all about food. I tell everyone I hit my belly, it’s this is R and&D. 02:17.29Andy GellertThis is R and&D. I mean, 02:20.68vigorbrandingThat’s fantastic. Now, you know, I know family owned, super important. I know you treat everyone like family because I’ve seen you around ah customers, employees, the whole thing, but your dad, he is an older gentleman, but still very much involved in the business. Is that correct? 02:35.09Andy Gellert86. I went to his house to play tennis at 6 o’clock in the morning today. We play with people from our company. He loves it like he’s, my mom goes away for the summer. 02:45.63Andy GellertHe’s having, ah lot this summer is incredible. He’s 86. Every, twice a week, he has people from the company come over and have dinner and just different groups of people. 02:52.74vigorbrandingThat’s awesome. 02:53.86Andy GellertAnd and he loves what he does. It’s it’s it’s really it’s really an honor to to to work with him and and watch him. he loves He loves his suppliers. 03:04.49Andy GellertWe love our bankers. We love our employees. It’s all about, you know, yeah he’s all, he’s all about people. And it’s really great. 03:11.81vigorbrandingYeah. 03:12.97Andy GellertI said this summer at the fancy food show, he was honored with a lifetime achievement award. And it’s such a good honor to see him up there and enjoying all the success of the role we’ve done together. 03:22.47vigorbrandingWell, it’s so well deserved. He deserved that honor. The company’s amazing. But you should give him a break. I mean, I think you you put sneakers on him. 03:28.24Andy GellertHe loves, 03:28.57vigorbrandingi had He had sneakers on in the booth to run around. I mean, you know. 03:32.00Andy Gellertyou know, listen, like I said, he works out before we play tennis in the morning and He’s all about the next activity and what we’re doing next. So, you know. 03:39.84vigorbrandingThat’s it’s fantastic. how many So how many members of the family are currently working in the company? 03:45.07Andy GellertSo today we have my sister, my brother, and my cousin in my generation. And my cousin who, my other cousin who runs the Five Guide business. And then I have my father and my uncle. 03:56.25Andy GellertSo there’s, you know, three, six of us, you know. 03:58.55vigorbrandingthat’s great 03:59.47Andy GellertAnd we’re getting ready for the third generation. 03:59.41vigorbrandingand look 04:01.81Andy GellertHopefully, you know, there are nine kids in the next generation. Hopefully one of them or two of them will come in and we’re we’re excited. It’s all about, you know, we love what we do and there’s a lot to do. 04:12.31Andy GellertAnd, you know, some of these family businesses, you know, the family, you hear about them and they’re fighting and they’re not getting a along. 04:18.50vigorbrandingThat’s 04:19.38Andy GellertI think we’re being successful because we keep growing and there’s enough things that everyone can do and everyone brings value that no one’s stepping each other’s toes. 04:25.06vigorbrandinggreat. 04:27.57Andy GellertWe’re all different, we but we appreciate each other’s opinion and listening to each other. We argue, but, you know, we all, we we get her off our chest and we move forward. You know? 04:36.10vigorbrandingWould you go out and play tennis, right, and solve it over the own tennis court? 04:37.88Andy GellertExactly. We stopped it on the court. We stopped it on the court. 04:40.98vigorbrandingSo you the kids, are are they are they interested? are they old not I don’t know how old they are. Are they old enough to be getting close? 04:47.10Andy GellertSo I think um my daughter my daughter is a social worker therapist. I don’t think she’s going to come in, you know. But my, you know, my other two ah potentially will come in. 04:57.29Andy Gellertone One probably more likely than the other. 04:57.44vigorbrandingMm-hmm. 04:59.68Andy GellertOther is in the real estate industry. And then my sister’s kids potentially were there and my brother’s kids were a little bit younger. So I definitely think at least three or four will come in for the next generation. But in the meantime, we keep growing and getting bigger and and looking at opportunities and we have fun. Why why are we doing it? 05:17.12vigorbrandingThat’s awesome. Well, so in in your situation, I mean, we’re we’re of a generation, you and I, I’ll say that, like, did you, did you have a choice or did you always know that this is what I’m going to do or I want to do it? Or did you, did dad put a little pressure on you and say, Hey, look, you know, you got to do your thing. 05:32.22Andy GellertI did everything wrong in the family business. youre They all that go out and get the outside experience. And I came right in. 05:38.08vigorbrandingyeahh Yeah. 05:38.43Andy GellertAnd it was difficult. I’m not going to say it was a piece of cake. And my brother was a lot. 05:41.30vigorbrandingYeah. 05:44.06Andy Gellertyou know He went to business school. He went to law school. He worked in private banking. And then he came in. So it it made a lot of sense. And my sister, the same thing. yeah I did everything wrong but it’s good to know, it’s good to do it because then you know you’re not going to repeat it. 05:57.78Andy GellertSo you know my son who who definitely looks forward to maybe joining one day says he want he wants to spend three or four years you know the outside and coming in. 05:58.16vigorbrandingYeah. 06:05.42vigorbrandingyeah 06:08.26Andy GellertHe says he doesn’t like his boss I’m like that’s good get used to it. you Get used to it better than me you know. 06:12.52vigorbrandingGet used to it, right? 06:17.21vigorbrandingWell, you know, that’s I had the same rule with my girls. I mean, I don’t know that they’ll ever want to come into it. Why would anyone would go to an advertising agency or come into a marketing firm? But if they would, I said they had to work somewhere for two years and get one promotion. 06:28.93vigorbrandingAnd thankfully, they’ve both been doing that. 06:29.31Andy GellertYeah. 06:31.08vigorbrandingIn fact, they’ve been doing it for a while now, so maybe they’re not interested. So ah they may have dodged the bullet or maybe I have. But I just think our generation was one of those things where, you know, yeah, go do what you want to do, but you’re coming into the company kind of thing, you know. 06:43.02vigorbrandingI started my own business, I didn’t go to my dad’s company but I mean it was one of those things where I just think a lot of folks, it was just I guess different. ah Now I think with, I’ll say with my daughters and probably your kids like go out and do your thing and if you’re interested talk to me, don’t you know, don’t don’t not talk to me about it but you know, no pressure, that kind of thing. 07:00.05vigorbrandingYou know, it’s just a little different. 07:01.20Andy GellertYeah you want it to happen organically and you know listen he he comes around a lot of the meals and the family all gets together and a lot of time is talking about work so he’s interested and you know he spends weekends he came to the fancy food show they all came I can see what’s going on and it’s it’s a fun business so I think there’s opportunities for them in the future if they want but there’s no pressure we’re growing we we have a lot of we’ve done a great job of hiring a lot of outside ah you know ah 07:03.16vigorbrandingYeah. 07:19.45vigorbrandingYeah. 07:30.22Andy Gellertah you know professionals to help us run the business and they don’t have to come. re We’re doing well and you know they’re all going to enjoy the from the fruitfuls of the business as as it as it gets bigger but there’s no obligation for them to come in. We like them to come in but we don’t want to make a rule if they have to come in. 07:48.07vigorbrandingYeah, but on that note, and we’ll jump in more about the business, but on the family side, you mentioned earlier that we’re both in YPO. And we both know that a lot of YPO businesses are family owned businesses. And there’s there are challenges, right, with being family owned and led. I mean, you know, what, you know, can you talk a little bit about that? 08:05.93Andy GellertListen, it’s hard, but thank God for YPO. To me, it’s one of the best opportunities of my life. I really enjoyed all the people like yourself and getting involved in the Food Network and my New Jersey Forum. 08:23.49Andy GellertThese guys are my board of directors and my own personal board of directors. 08:26.70vigorbrandingyou 08:28.15Andy GellertThey really helped me grow. where you know where I was i was being stubborn, they told me to relax, where I was not being aggressive enough, they pushed me. And it’s just been a great environment for me to to prosper as a leader because of YPL. 08:43.66vigorbrandingThat’s great. When I know your food and beverage form or that group and boy, you know, I can’t believe you learned anything from them. So ah you guys have a group of, you guys have ah ah a group of, uh, of, uh, cherished individuals, yeah characters. 08:49.65Andy GellertThank you. 08:56.99Andy GellertWe’ve got a great group and we’ve been together for over, you know, some of us back almost 16, 18 years and it’s great. 08:58.20vigorbrandingYes, you do. 09:03.87Andy GellertI love seeing the guys and we don we try not to miss meetings and and we’re supportive of each other. 09:06.99vigorbrandingYeah, it’s cool. Yeah, I’ve had a couple of them one here, so it’s ah it’s been great. They’re they’re they’re like the characters, that’s for sure. So yeah and you mentioned your father got an award at Fancy Food. I was there at Fancy Food this year, and what it’s a great honor. He’s also a member of the New Jersey Business Hall of Fame. 09:24.61Andy GellertYeah, please listen, though we it’s not easy. I think we’re the 11th largest privately held business in New Jersey. We’re very proud of that. and we you know it’s We work hard and he deserves to be honored for what what what he’s accomplished. 09:39.11vigorbrandingYeah. i mean so As I was saying earlier, you know I get to meet folks and we get to see you know different folks at different shows. and i had i i mean I knew you ran a great, important company. I had no idea the size and scale. so you know on Your vision is to be a part of every food experience. and you know Well, I will say that sounds like a really you know audacious goal, right? But with your company, you kind of are. i mean you have you have you have You have a franchise, you have you import your frozen food, you have CPG, you have a private, I mean, it’s it’s incredible. 10:13.44vigorbrandingCan you talk a little bit about the breadth and the different companies within your organization? 10:15.87Andy GellertI mean, it’s exciting and I think we’ve grown over the years through acquisitions. I think the last 18 months we made three acquisitions. We’re probably closing on one the next month and have two on the table that we’re looking at. So growth is, you know, we’re always looking at mergers and acquisitions. And we like to say, listen, private equity, if you’re a family business, you want to stay apart, you know, how enjoy the ride, take some money off the table and join our family instead of private equity where they 10:44.81vigorbrandingYeah. 10:45.10Andy Gellertchange your business up and listen if you want to cash out you can always cash out but if you want to enjoy the ride a little bit longer and take some money off the table we’ve been very successful about people wanting to join a family business and ours is that we’re like a large very large family business so we get to a lot of opportunities to look at business deals. 11:05.69vigorbrandingYeah, and you know, ah your your ah passion for the business and your your love of people, it sort of precedes you. Like I’ve always seen that about you, your energy and i it’s not, it’s not, it’s not artificial. 11:18.40vigorbrandingYou do that. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen you at the booth when I’m standing walking the shows and stuff. And it’s, ah it’s really kind of ah really cool. And I’m sure that’s a compliment to your father and and I’m sure your whole family’s like that. But you do treat everybody like family. 11:29.62vigorbrandingAnd I think that’s ah admirable. 11:30.12Andy Gellertbut You know, network is always um is important to my father. I learned that from him early on. And being part of YPO, I love leveraging my network and not for myself, but helping people. 11:39.05vigorbrandingYeah. Yeah. 11:41.20Andy GellertI like investing in early stage CPGs and helping these young people and watching their passion and, you know, leading them to other opportunities. I love putting two people together and let let them prosper. 11:53.58Andy GellertIt’s it’s really a ah pleasure of mine, you know, watching that happen. 11:58.17vigorbrandingYeah, well, and that’s, that leads to success, right? 12:00.84Andy GellertIt’s really pure joy. 12:00.82vigorbrandingYou know, you help people out. 12:01.68Andy Gellertat You’re 100%. 12:01.74vigorbrandingYeah, absolutely. So, and I will say, ah you know, I’ve been informed with you and you were a treasure and valuables all get out. And the amount of people you know, and and the connections you have are second to none. 12:14.02Andy GellertWell, 12:14.00vigorbrandingAnd you know, 12:14.46Andy Gellertwe do have a good friend in LA who like to compare. 12:16.32vigorbrandingokay 12:17.18Andy GellertMy good friend, our good friend Clara, who probably knows one more than I do. 12:20.44vigorbrandingyeah hey 12:22.30Andy Gellertjob 12:23.31vigorbrandingheard I would always keep score when we’d be talking, like who knew who or who knew the other person better or whatever else, but I will say, yeah I’m excited for you to be on here because I know my podcast now will be, I’ll rival the the football games, you know the upcoming football games for for for viewership because because of you. 12:34.55Andy GellertYeah. 12:38.34vigorbrandingSo I just, I appreciate that. So, but but back when companies, though you have frozen, you have CPG. can you Can you talk a little bit about the different types of of ah products? 12:46.45Andy GellertYeah, so we’re in the frozen fruits, frozen vegetables. You know, we just actually, a few years ago, we invested in a company called Cafe Spice. I made him join YPO and they make ethnic meals. um I just, you know, we did ah the Bloomberg of Food, the Food Institute, 13:04.37Andy GellertWe made a minority investment in there. 13:04.43vigorbrandingYep. 13:06.90Andy Gellertwere you know We do a lot of different retail, private label, manufacturing. We’re just trying to leverage all the everything on a plate. look at you know we’re We’re looking at an olive business, a rice business. There’s so many opportunities out there. We just want to add on to our great team here. We’ve got great people. 13:27.64Andy Gellertah We have great sales people, great buyers, and you know, finance. And we just, we can do some more. So we’re looking for more opportunities. 13:33.69vigorbrandingMm hmm. That’s great. Do you need an ad agency? I’m just kidding. 13:37.95Andy GellertWe’ve said, a lot of us not our own brand. We do have some brands that we, that are ours. 13:43.18vigorbrandingYeah. 13:43.84Andy GellertAnd we bought, we bought two brands from, from UNFI, Mountain Vicos that was owned by UNFI and Sonoma Cheese. 13:48.53vigorbrandingMm hmm. 13:52.16Andy GellertSo we do, we do work on our brand. So we, you know, we and um we have a marketing department. 13:54.60vigorbrandingThat’s awesome. 13:56.46Andy GellertWe got a, get you more engaged, Micah. 13:58.46vigorbrandingThere you go. 13:58.78Andy GellertI’ll get to that. 13:59.35vigorbrandingHey, I’m always here for that. That’s awesome. 14:01.26Andy GellertFor even your Philly cheesesteak, we’ll have a meeting, you know, that’s all I need. 14:03.59vigorbrandingYou got it. Hey, that’s done. No no no problem there. So when you’re when you’re building and you’re always looking for these new new products or companies, ah yeah what when you want to import them, what what factors are you looking at? 14:15.50vigorbrandinglike I mean, obviously you you go to need a lot of things, there but you’re in so many different places. What what is it that you’re you’re kind of like, what’s on your checklist at the top of the checklist? 14:23.65Andy GellertSo we want to look at something that makes sense. so if you know We love the the old math, one plus one equals four. So we want to find efficiencies. Maybe they’re doing the same thing we are, but they have a big they have a big finance team that we don’t really need going forward. 14:38.14Andy GellertOr maybe they’re in one segment of the business where we’re not in. 14:42.04vigorbrandingUh-huh. 14:42.16Andy GellertSo we try to really identify where we can do the math where one plus one equals four and five. 14:47.91vigorbrandingRight. 14:48.70Andy Gellertyou know we don’t want to doesn’t that A copycat doesn’t really help sometimes, but if they have a you know a big ah big staff on the some redundancy there, then it could make sense. 14:54.08vigorbrandingUh-huh. 14:58.10Andy GellertOtherwise, it could be a whole new field that we can add to our already you know deep bench of of products that we do. So we don’t have a playlist of what we’re looking for. We just look at different opportunities and see if they make sense. 15:11.27Andy Gellerti mean like Just like building a network, we love looking at decks and looking at opportunities or 15:16.32vigorbrandingMm hmm. 15:16.75Andy GellertWhy are companies for sale? Why aren’t they aren’t? And a lot of times, i likeck listen, this is going to go to private equity. We’re not going to need a bit because we know we’ll be blown out of the water. 15:25.59vigorbrandingright Yeah. Yeah. that makes That makes a lot of sense. So, I mean, obviously, and you know, I kind of had this philosophy as well in the business. It’s like, you’re opportunistic. You know, you’re not saying I’m looking for this exact thing. 15:36.91vigorbrandingIt has to be this big, that, you know, that that category doing that thing. It’s sort of like, Oh, here’s an opportunity. Hmm. This fits or no, it doesn’t fit. Or, Hey, this can enhance that. 15:43.96Andy GellertYeah. 15:44.95vigorbrandingAnd if we do this, maybe we can go here. And so I’ve always looked at that. It’s kind of fun to do it that way. I kind of always. 15:50.32Andy GellertIt’s not a good idea. You’re looking under the rug and see what’s there and putting that puzzle together because like I said, a big company that’s competitive in mind, it’s going to go for a lot more for private equity. 15:51.60vigorbrandingYeah. 15:54.65vigorbrandingYeah. 16:03.40Andy GellertI don’t even want to play in there. I don’t have private equity money where I could afford to strike out. 16:05.38vigorbrandingRight. 16:10.74Andy GellertI want to make sure these are successful acquisitions and they fit in them all. 16:15.96vigorbrandingYeah, and you make a really good point because we’ve seen, you know, I’ll say, and um I know you’ve seen for sure, but in my business with CPG and in the restaurant side, private equity will come in and they, I’m not gonna say they don’t care if they fail, but they they know it’s a numbers game. 16:31.27vigorbrandingThey know that all aren’t gonna pan out. So they make these investments and then they they do their, they they they they apply their playbook and then, you know, if it’s like baseball. if they They hit three out of, ah if they hit three out of 10, they feel like they’ve done something and and you probably have financially, but 16:40.88Andy Gellertyeah 16:44.73vigorbrandingThe other seven are just left to the wayside. 16:46.68Andy GellertExactly. And and they’ve, you know, they can afford to do that. We really don’t want to do that. 16:49.73vigorbrandingYeah. Yeah. 16:51.36Andy GellertAnd we don’t want to, we don’t want to lose direction. 16:51.34vigorbrandingNo. 16:53.42Andy GellertI mean, listen, and we like, you know, we’re very big and we’re happy wherever you are, but we’re not in a goal to rush to get to 2 billion. 17:00.89vigorbrandingRight. 17:01.14Andy GellertWouldn’t get there smart. And if it means paring down and skew rationalization to be more profitable, all the better. 17:06.88vigorbrandingMm hmm. Do you find yourself doing that a lot? Do you do you have to go in there and and do skew rationalization or? 17:12.64Andy Gellertall the time, all the time, we really, you know, skew rash, customer rationalization, and we’ll bundle a bunch of customers and give them to a bigger customer just to make sure our warehouse is more efficient. 17:13.21vigorbrandingYeah. 17:16.68vigorbrandingYeah. 17:21.11vigorbrandingYeah. 17:23.25Andy GellertIt’s really all about efficiency. I mean, as you get bigger, you could be more efficient. 17:24.87vigorbrandingYeah. 17:27.21Andy GellertAnd, but you have to be diligent and skew rationalization, customer rationalization, people rationalization, you know, rationalization as well. 17:32.84vigorbrandingYep. 17:35.97Andy GellertYou know, it’s important. 17:37.23vigorbrandingYeah. And that’s that’s such ah’ such an interesting point because I think, you know, and I’ll say i’ll say in my own experience, you know, i in our holding company, we have several different marketing companies and I’m always afraid to let customers go. 17:48.21vigorbrandingLike, oh, though no, that we can do it for them. Sometimes it’s not good business, right? And sometimes you have to make those tough decisions and, you know, it’s it’s hard to let employees go, but it’s it’s hard for you to let, or I’ll say for me, to let a piece of business go, a paying customer. 17:52.67Andy GellertYeah. 18:00.83Andy GellertYeah, ah it’s, you know, you don’t like the same thing. But, but you got to look at it like, you know, you still have another 300 other employees out there that you want to do for the better the of the group. 18:07.78vigorbrandingRight. 18:10.14vigorbrandingRight. 18:10.45Andy GellertSo it makes sense to let someone go or let a customer go in order to be more efficient for everyone else. 18:10.42vigorbrandingThat’s right. 18:17.54Andy GellertSo it’s hard. 18:17.83vigorbrandingyeah 18:19.55Andy GellertAnd initially, it’s hard. But over time, you realize It’s a better decision and to be you know to be more efficient and just try. 18:27.95vigorbrandingAbsolutely. So I mean, one of the things that, you you know, we have the two agencies, we have quench, we have, ah which is CPG food and beverage, we have a vart of Vigor, which is ah ah restaurant marketing. and you you You cover them all because you’re in franchise with five guys, you’re in, you know, in the CPG world. um You know, it’s it’s sort of like, it’s hard to keep track of everything. How do you manage it all? I mean, I know you have different folks, but you’re sitting up there, are you just pulling up a different P and&L for each of these business units every two days? or 18:56.16Andy GellertI mean, we’re on ah basically a lot of these Zoom calls and just listening in and we just had one a few minutes ago, you know, we do a lot of nut and dry fruit business and we’re working on getting bigger in the bakery in the in the supermarket. 19:09.09Andy GellertSo how could we be, you know, and and we sat down today and we talked about all of our items and they all fit in the bakery. bill We’re selling very little of the bakery. So it’s an untapped market and it gets everyone excited. 19:21.02Andy GellertAnd we sit down and f throw things at the wall and see what sticks. 19:24.19vigorbrandingThat’s great. 19:24.58Andy GellertAnd we’re kind of fun. like we just said hey You know, we do this item, this will be good for, and I just, I love sitting in these meetings and just, you know, throwing out ideas. 19:32.21vigorbrandingThat’s great. That’s great. Very cool. Well, I know at Quench, you know, the CPG side, we would do to learn, to understand the industry. You know, we started the agency in food and beverage. 19:43.65vigorbrandingIt’s like, you can’t just say you do advertising and marketing food and beverage. You have to have an expertise. We’re going to hire people from the CPG world. But then what we did was we created a food and beverage trench to learn what was going on. 19:54.01vigorbrandingRight. And the first year we’ve done them for 15 years. You know, you’ve probably seen me speak on them at different events. 20:00.02Andy GellertYeah, are you do a great job. I love hearing your updates on the YPO conferences and you really got a pulse of what’s going on in the industry. 20:07.49vigorbrandingYeah. would So we we would do that. just We did it actually just for our own edification, just to learn. And then when we did it, we said, well, let’s let’s just give these away. So we do them every year. We give them away, fast companies written about them and all that. Do you use trends ah for your business to for like that next big thing? 20:21.92vigorbrandingOr is it more of truly just looking at the pieces and moving things around on the board? 20:26.18Andy GellertWe look at trends, we look at pieces, you know, we lot of our a lot of our suppli customers say, we like this item, can you go out and find it for us? And we got people or, you know, and in some cases we do a lot of business, some of our our customers say, here’s an item, you know here’s the supplier, you know, you’re you’re a great importer, we want you to import it for us. So it just, because we’re a trusted supplier, we’re good at logistics, they actually given us business to to handle. 20:53.89Andy GellertAnd it’s it’s exciting. And then we take that business and look at other opportunities as well. 20:59.70vigorbrandingHow is there anything are you doing anything in the beverage side is it mostly all just food? 21:01.22Andy Gellerte 21:04.27Andy GellertNo, I mean, we the beverage side we have, so we, Cipriani, you know, the so we we handle all their CPG items. 21:09.46vigorbrandingMm-hmm Okay Mm-hmm 21:13.80Andy GellertSo they make a the bulini mix, non-alcoholic bulini. So we’re slowly getting it. That’s our beverage and, you know, we’ll see where that takes us. but That’s new space for us. 21:24.96Andy GellertAnd we’re doing it on the retail side. Now we’re looking to try to listen to all the beverage distributors we don’t really touch on. So we’re getting a ah handle on that business as well. 21:31.95vigorbrandingMm-hmm. Yeah. 21:34.96Andy GellertSo that’s the only part of beverage. know I’m an investor in a few CPG, like Ollie Pop and Lemon Perfect, a few others. 21:40.57vigorbrandingMm-hmm. 21:43.06Andy GellertBut but not I think that’s a tough space. But I think we’re we’re getting our feet wet with this Trippiani land. 21:48.39vigorbrandingSee, that’s interesting. 21:48.67Andy GellertWe’re very excited. 21:50.05vigorbrandingYou’re 11 perfect. We just took over their space in Atlanta. They’re headquartered in Atlanta, yeah. 21:53.76Andy GellertOh, 21:54.76vigorbrandingAnd we just took over their space. They went ah they went all virtual, so yeah. 21:58.07Andy Gellertyeah. Yani went to Cornell with me. 22:00.32vigorbrandingYeah. Oh, is that right? 22:00.83Andy GellertYeah, yeah he’s a you should get him on your podcast. 22:03.45vigorbrandingWell, I’ve met him, he’s a great guy. 22:05.26Andy GellertI he’s Mr. Energy. It was his birthday this week. 22:06.69vigorbrandingOh my gosh. 22:07.72Andy GellertSo I just I love that guy. 22:08.28vigorbrandingIs that right? I will reach out to him. Yeah, i we you you can you can appreciate this, Andy, you know me pretty well. 22:11.20Andy GellertHe 22:15.37vigorbrandingSo i’m goingnna I was gonna sublease his his office, right? So you know it’s a real estate deal. I’m gonna sublease it, we’re gonna move from one ah ah one office to this other office. So I talked to him and he was like, he was going 180 miles an hour and it was great and all that. 22:29.28vigorbrandingAnd I was like, I really like this guy. And I’m like, 22:31.92Andy GellertHe’s an infectious personality. 22:32.86vigorbrandingYeah. 22:33.53Andy Gellertyou 22:33.75vigorbrandingAnd I’m like, you know, johnny i said hey if you want, I mean, I’ll, I’ll do the deal here with you, but if you want to stay, like, you know, I mean your energy and what you’re, you’re in the beverage, that’s what we do. 22:44.21vigorbrandingI mean, you can stay, you know, like if you have meetings here and like your, if your people come in, like it’s a big enough space for all of us, I’m not asking for anything on the other side. 22:46.07Andy GellertYeah. 22:51.86vigorbrandingah You can stay. I mean, I just i thought energy, you know, creates more energy. So, and we talked about that, but then he was like, you know, isn’t that crazy? 22:57.60Andy GellertThat’s so funny to know that guy. I met him at Expo West. And he had a small little table. 23:03.20vigorbrandingYep. 23:03.40Andy GellertAnd I’m like, wow, this guy’s this guy has a firecracker. 23:07.14vigorbrandingYeah. 23:07.31Andy GellertAnd I’m like, um’m I’m supporting you. 23:09.42vigorbrandingThat’s awesome. 23:09.51Andy GellertAnd it’s a great story. 23:11.92vigorbrandingThat’s very cool. That’s the end goes to show you know everybody that’s amazing to me amazing. That’s funny. 23:17.14Andy GellertTake that, Clara. 23:21.03vigorbrandingI’ll make sure we tell her that. 23:22.87Andy Gellertbut 23:22.95vigorbrandingSo, all right, now I’m gonna bring up something, I guess negative or whatever, but inflation. Inflation is, ah you know, is it affects every industry, especially food. 23:28.56Andy GellertIt’s tough. its you know 23:30.55vigorbrandingYeah. how How much of an impact has that had on you guys? 23:32.99Andy GellertThat’s a very important product. 23:33.03vigorbrandingand 23:34.29Andy GellertSo our product are expensive already. And so it’s tough. We have to find you know so you know find other opportunities. That’s why we invested in this cafe spice that makes meals. 23:44.93Andy GellertSo maybe we make things more efficient for more of our customers and look at other opportunities. Maybe so source something that’s coming from Europe, getting it from South America. And and we’re always looking for ways to skin. 23:59.19Andy GellertWe started importing French fries from Belgium. to the East Coast because it’s it’s more effective and looking at opportunities like that. and Now we’re looking at opportunities in India. You always have to turn over rocks, look for more opportunities. It’s scary. 24:14.30Andy Gellertand it’s it’s you know the It’s all the news, the the price inflation. So we’re always looking for newer opportunities to try to make things better for our customers. 24:25.43vigorbrandingAnd being a global you know accessing globally with conflict and things like that, I mean obviously that’s affecting everything. i mean are you having are you ah is there um Is there ever a chance where one area of the business is sort of shut down or hey we can’t get this from there? 24:40.46Andy GellertYeah, things happen all the time. I mean, you know, when the Ukraine war first started, you know, it was it was a big factor because happened old Europe was tough. 24:42.39vigorbrandingIt’s crazy. 24:51.28Andy GellertAnd then when there was a ah big problem of freight from the from from Asia, supply chain issues from COVID. I mean, we’ve we’ve seen them all, Mike. 25:00.35vigorbrandingcrazy 25:01.71Andy GellertAnd now ah there’s an impending dock strike that’s going to come. So that’s going to affect from Maine all the way to Texas. 25:07.59vigorbrandinghear about that? 25:09.05Andy Gellertand 25:09.51vigorbrandingYeah. 25:09.86Andy GellertThat’s really making us very nervous and our customers nervous. 25:11.55vigorbrandingOh yeah. 25:12.86Andy GellertSo, but we, you know, we do the best we can and we keep fighting every day, you know, get up, get up and play some tennis, you know. 25:13.80vigorbrandingWow. 25:18.34vigorbrandingYes, I was gonna say, you get played tennis and smile and have a positive attitude and that’s the secret sauce. 25:23.15Andy GellertYou just got to, you know. 25:25.04vigorbrandingYou know, and I do love because every time I’m talking, I think, I think you always say, yeah, I played tennis with my dad this morning and you know, family businesses, there’s so many family businesses that end up like not talking to each other and you hear all the the generational strife or the the falling apart. 25:37.72vigorbrandingThe fact that you you still hang with your dad, my dad was my best friend. So that’s just so near and dear to me. It’s incredible. I think that’s so awesome. 25:43.18Andy GellertWell, today is a little, today is a little flat with him. I showed up at his house at 10 to 6, pouring rain, and the the match was canceled. So I had to wake up for nothing, and I’m a little annoyed. 25:50.67vigorbrandingah Oh boy. 25:53.10Andy GellertBut that doesn’t matter at all. 25:55.76vigorbrandingI hope you don’t ever let him win. 25:57.56Andy GellertWell, i I’m his partner. He doesn’t move very well, and people, no one was allowed to drop shot him, you know? 25:59.16vigorbrandingOkay. 26:04.11Andy Gellertget Everyone starts booing, whoever dropped off him. 26:06.88vigorbrandingThat’s awesome. 26:07.02Andy GellertBut it was an accident. They’re like, no, you know? He’s got a bunch of rules, you know? 26:11.16vigorbrandingThat’s awesome. It’s his own tennis game, right? It’s his own. 26:13.99Andy Gellerttheel game is his ze tennis game 26:16.17vigorbrandingThat’s fantastic. So, if I if i may ask, and I know if there’s something you can’t say, that’s fine, but what’s what’s next for Gellert Global? I mean, what is anything new on the horizon, anything exciting you could talk about? 26:23.54Andy Gellerti We’re looking at more opportunities. you know we will be like We have such a great team. We have such great suppliers, such great employees, such great customers. We just want to keep doing what we’re doing and look for more opportunities. And if it makes sense to to make an acquisition, we’re going to do it. 26:40.44Andy Gellertand uh, it’s, it’s fun. You know, I mean, you know, just look at my cousin and the five guys, we were like 12, five guys. Now this year, by the end of the year, we’ll have a hundred. I mean, it’s just, uh, opportunistic and good people and growth to move forward. 26:50.43vigorbrandingThat’s awesome. 26:57.42vigorbrandingYeah. And, and Dan Rowe, as you mentioned, he’s a king of a guy and he, he was actually on the podcast and he, he’s, he’s fantastic. 27:00.10Andy GellertYeah. 27:03.17vigorbrandingSo that’s good company right there. 27:05.70Andy GellertYeah. Yeah. We were at a YPL event and he’s like, and we’ we’re looking My cousin at the time had a bunch of cinnabons and we’re looking for our second concept and we’re at a YPO in DC. 27:11.89vigorbrandingUh-huh. 27:15.43Andy GellertHe’s like, Andy, come try this concept. And I took a bite of the five guy burger. I’m like, this is like a, like the, when you taste a cinnabon for the first time, it’s wow factor. 27:23.93vigorbrandingRight. Yeah. 27:25.78Andy GellertI called my cousin and the next thing we know, we you know we’re down there signing the deal. So it was, it’s been a great journey. 27:30.70vigorbrandingThat’s awesome. Yeah. Fantastic. Very cool. All right. So now I asked this question. I have one last question, right? And this probably, well, I don’t know if it’ll be easy for you, but it’s not like you have to say, you can’t say five guys. 27:41.96vigorbrandingSo I have to fill it out there. So, but if you have one final meal, what would you eat and why, and I’m going to say this too. 27:48.70Andy GellertLike, that’s the hardest thing because I love. 27:48.90vigorbrandingAnd and and who with, I want to know who with. 27:52.53Andy GellertThat’s like the hardest question anyone can ever ask me. I love like, it’s like, we I think I told you was before we started out that you was open with my son and my wife and there’s so much food options. 28:00.19vigorbrandingYeah. 28:04.26Andy GellertI had a headache. I couldn’t find what to get. Would I get to the Korean bowl or the palette for the steak sandwich? or or the fancy chicken with truffles, the dumplings. 28:15.10Andy Gellertyou know i’m like I almost get a headache, I can’t even decide. 28:15.19vigorbrandingyeah 28:19.04Andy Gellertso back It’s impossible. I just i love eating, I love food experiences, I love being surprised. I like going to a chef and say, just surprise me. 28:29.38Andy Gellertonly even Just give me what you you you do best and let me try it. 28:29.31vigorbrandingYeah. 28:33.30Andy Gellertand and you know it’s really i can’t i There’s not one meal that I have to have. i 28:39.23vigorbrandingYeah. 28:40.25Andy GellertI love a good sandwich. I love a good burger. I got a good steak. I like Italian, French, Spanish food, everything. 28:45.72vigorbrandingYep. ah You know, it’s funny. i I’m the same way. I’m lucky. I can eat anything. Like I don’t get nothing. I don’t have any allergies. I don’t get sicker. But you know, if I have a go to at a certain thing at a certain place, i will I’ll have a go at my go to. 28:56.26vigorbrandingBut nine out of 10 times when I go to a restaurant, like whatever the chef wants to make, because I figured he’s gonna put his heart and soul on it. 28:56.44Andy Gellerte 29:00.90Andy GellertYeah. 29:02.21vigorbrandingRight. If it’s, if I’m asking him his opinion. 29:02.59Andy Gellertbut i agree yeah if if if If they put it on the menu and then they’re behind it, I would take their recognition and set something I really want. 29:05.89vigorbrandingYeah. 29:09.81Andy Gellertso My father, yeah. 29:10.21vigorbrandingRight. That’s right. That’s right. You nailed it. And I love the fact that you mentioned the U.S. Open and there was somebody there at the U.S. Open that had better seats than you, which was your. Of course, yeah. 29:21.87vigorbrandingAndy, you know, I love being with you. I love talking to you and I appreciate your time. ah Just thank you so much for being on Fork Tales. 29:28.25Andy Gellertah mike First of all, congratulations to you and the organization you built and you’ve always been You’re always smiling, too. i mean actually That’s why we like each other so much. 29:36.16vigorbrandingYeah. 29:36.89Andy GellertWe’re always smiling. Have a good time. And your trends are amazing. And I really enjoyed seeing you and doing this with yourself. 29:43.81vigorbrandingfantastic well thank you so much 29:45.78Andy GellertAll right? 29:46.39vigorbrandingtake care 29:46.78Andy GellertTake care. Bye. 29:47.78vigorbrandingright 30:07.41vigorbrandingFantastic. 30:11.01vigorbrandingWell, thank you so much. Take care. 

Colgate-Palmolive's Brigitte King breaks down steering a global giant through digital transformation. She explores the value of connected TV and its data-driven addressability, why she thinks the marketing funnel looks more like a seesaw and how she's thinking about riding the retail media wave. Episode TranscriptPlease note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.[00:00:00] Ilyse: I'm Ilyse Liffreing. [00:00:01] And I'm Damian Fowler. [00:00:06] Damian: And welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast. This week we're delighted to talk with Brigitte King, the Global Chief Digital Officer at Colgate [00:00:11] Ilyse: Brigitte King, the Global Chief Digital Officer of Colgate. [00:00:22] Damian: Of course, these days Colgate Palmolive is a thriving global company with an extensive portfolio of products and billions of customers worldwide. We [00:00:30] Ilyse: of customers worldwide. [00:00:33] Brigitte: global remit in a world awash with data. So Brigitte, [00:00:36] Damian: So Brigitte, let's start. Um, what are the main challenges and opportunities for CPG brands, right now in a world where the shelf is digital and it's extremely competitive? [00:00:46] Brigitte: first, thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. And I did love that, 1800s, date you threw in there. [00:00:52] Um, just for context, you know, we are, a company with a lot of legacy brands and a lot of longevity, and that's actually something great for [00:01:00] the company. but we've got dynamic change ahead of us. And what's fantastic is the company recognizes that. So they've embarked on a digital transformation, a data and analytics transformation, the kinds of things that we need to do to really modernize our brands in a digital first world. [00:01:17] So we do have challenges, like you said. I think that CPG brands have been, somewhat late to the party in terms of really, Getting to the digital and data transformations that we need to do. But by no means are they shy about it. I think everybody has embarked on that change management journey. And the great thing about Colgate is we started it, you know, many years ago and certainly with a lot of speed the last four years. [00:01:42] And the challenges are around modernizing how we reach consumers. the challenges are around making sure we care about the digital shelf as much as the physical shelf. And we sell toothpaste in cartons and tubes and it's on the shelf. But it's been pretty incredible, certainly post, the pandemic, [00:02:00] how quickly we had to master selling online. [00:02:03] And it is a very different skill. It's a very different capability. It requires content. It requires, mastery of the algorithm. It requires working with your retailers in many new and different ways. But I'm really proud to say that, with 15 percent econ penetration of our total sales, we're getting the job done. [00:02:20] Damian: So could you say a little bit more about the opportunity of digital transformation? What does it mean? [00:02:25] Brigitte: Sure. For us, what it means is, is strategically making sure that we can start outperforming in digital commerce. And that means whether it's last mile delivery, or whether it's with our e retailers, or whether it's with our D to C businesses, which we have skin care brands and our skin health division, PCA Skin, L to MD, Philorga, those are all online direct to consumer businesses. [00:02:51] So digital commerce runs the gamut, is my point. And strategically, it means we want to learn to do better. And I'll perform category and [00:03:00] market growth in that arena. The second big pillar of digital transformation is really making a step change in the way we plan, deploy, and use our digital media. So we are a business, as you said, grounded in many years of legacy, that has often been TV first and TV heavy, and that's no longer the case. [00:03:21] Colgate Palmolive globally is weighted over 65 percent in digital media at this point in time. So we have had to do a lot to upskill. Our teams and really make sure that our digital media is working every single dollar as best as we can. I'm very proud for the teams on the ground to say that the R. Y. S. [00:03:41] Have been very positive. And so that means we're really mastering how we do business in digital today. We want [00:03:46] Damian: We want to ask you a little bit about that upskilling later on in the podcast. But I wanted to have a quick question, you know, I'm talking about legacy brands. And I know that, just for instance, one of the toothpaste brands, Colgate's toothpaste [00:03:58] Brigitte: Yes. [00:03:59] Damian: it's about the most [00:04:00] famous toothpaste brand. [00:04:02] You get, how does better marketing or digital marketing even drive brand loyalty for say, those toothpaste customers? Aren't they already loyal? [00:04:11] Brigitte: Not all of them, right? So we have, of course, loyal Colgate users. We also have people who switch. and we have people to grow your brand that have to actually come in to the brand and to the category. [00:04:22] So if you think about, let's get pragmatic. You think about One of the, um, what we call need states of toothpaste is what do a lot of people want? Whiter teeth, right? So, they're looking for whitening products, whiter toothpaste that whiten. And what you see in search terms, is a lot around where the discovery journey begins. [00:04:43] And so you also can understand how they're searching. Well then, the job of a marketer today is not to only understand those trends and those keywords, but to develop the content. that is relevant to those search, behaviors that are going on. And then guess what? You have to then deploy the content [00:05:00] on all the right channels and in the right touch points to be present when the consumer is searching for information and researching about whitening, but then more importantly, how do you get into their consideration set, right? [00:05:12] Into the mental availability of, I'm interested, oh Colgate has something, let me go a little deeper here. And then the moment of truth online, right? Which is the moment of conversion. And I don't mind if they convert, and none of us do, right? On a physical shelf or a digital shelf. The point is to get their attention and to get into the consideration set. [00:05:33] to prove that you have great ratings and reviews, great product benefits that they're seeing on the PDP product detail pages, and you will move them to the point of conversion, be it physical or virtual. [00:05:44] Damian: I like that. [00:05:46] Brigitte: Yeah. Now, as [00:05:47] Ilyse: know, retail media is absolutely exploding and along with that retail data. How is retail data and the opportunity of RMNs helping you with more precise targeting of potential customers? So this [00:05:59] Brigitte: [00:06:00] So this is, you know, the, what I call the topic du jour, right? Retail media, networks and what's happening with the explosion of retail media. I'm very, pleased to say we're actually ahead of this curve. we are investing in retail media. [00:06:11] We are experimenting, with retail partners and it's an incredibly dynamic area. But you know, what's fascinating about it is it gives you closed loops. Sales, right? You can really go from attention to consideration to discovery, and you can basically close the loop and see, did what you do actually impact the bottom line or that final moment of truth? [00:06:34] So that's exciting. But I do want to say that even with the explosion of retail media, we are brand building for the long term, which means we have to think about how retail media works and plays in the larger holistic media planning process. So you really need to think about how you're growing your brand long term and not just on one person's retail media network. [00:06:56] Damian: That's interesting. [00:06:57] Ilyse: To what extent would you say it's like a [00:07:00] game changer for CPTs? I think it [00:07:02] Brigitte: I think it is. I think that it's got all this buzz for a reason, right? And I think it's because we can start to see closed loop sales attribution in ways that are much more difficult to track elsewhere. and you can really partner with retailers who are getting more and more sophisticated about their data sets and how they partner with brands and manufacturers to build businesses. [00:07:25] So in many ways, it can absolutely be a win win situation. but you also have to think about your brand long term and make sure you're not only looking to invest in one place or with one retailer. So we're learning a lot. We've got great partnerships with our retailers. They're leaning in. We're leaning in. [00:07:42] So it's an exciting time. [00:07:44] Ilyse: Is it helping to drive more, say, direct to consumer campaigns? And does Colgate Palmolive have any of those coming up or any successful ones under their belts as it is? [00:07:56] Brigitte: I think we've definitely, we're still in that experimenting stage. We're definitely [00:08:00] learning. but yeah, we have a strategic eye towards how we're going to do this and how we're going to make sure that we get to really drive traffic to our brands. and make sure that also our data gets smarter and more enriched as we go. [00:08:12] The whole point is to basically. Do for the consumer, meet their needs and meet them where they are and do what they need. And as you partner with your retailers, if you're both with that mindset, you generally make smarter decisions with your data. You mentioned, [00:08:25] Damian: you mentioned, you know, meeting the consumer where they are and also about the different nuances of brand building across all the different touch points.  [00:08:34] I know that e commerce is growing. There's a lot of talk about the importance of, commerce advertising, e commerce strategy, and how that engages the consumer. But that also impacts how creative rolls out in the end stage. is that something that's part of your consideration under your remit as a, as somebody who's transforming digital marketing for Colgate. [00:09:14] Brigitte: And the most fascinating thing about content today is it's truly being what I call atomized. You just need more of it faster all the time. You need to create it with velocity. and I always talk about the three V's volume, velocity and variety of content. You need that. So our team equally is trying to make sure we have the technology underpinnings and the infrastructure, to get content deployed at scale. [00:09:39] So that means using dams, digital asset management systems really well across our global organization. And that means, 200 countries and territories. It's no small project. And then really working on making sure it's content that is good. So first it's having it and deploying it correctly. [00:09:59] Then it's [00:10:00] making sure it's good content and good creative. So partners of ours that are really helping us score creative with AI and ML. So we really do know that it's tagged correctly, but that it's actually scored to win, and it's AB tested. [00:10:14] So all of those things are creating a sophistication now in our creative and content wheelhouse that allow us to get where we want to go. What you said, which sounds so easy. Content in the right place at the right time. Yeah, [00:10:25] Damian: how are you adapting your approaches across all these channels that you're talking about across, including the physical store? [00:10:33] Brigitte: So I think it's less about adapting. I think what we're doing is we're retrenching. We are making sure that we understand what is driving these categories. for consumers to begin with. So that means really good consumer decision journeys, studying those, making sure we have a very thorough grasp of the insights and the people centricity around those insights about why people are coming in, why people [00:11:00] are leaving, what they're looking for when they're there. [00:11:02] So if you think about it, you're retrenching into what I call good old fashioned consumer insights. And you're, but you're doing it in a new, way. You're doing quant data, qual data, you're doing digital data, you're doing social sentiment, you're getting an understanding of what's really happening. [00:11:17] And then you're looking to understand what your brand objectives are, or you're responsible for basically strategizing around those to meet the needs of the business. And then you plan your multi touchpoint channel strategy. So there's a lot of work. Diagnostic work that goes on before you ever get into which channel do you want to be on? [00:11:39] what are you trying to get done? it has to be thoughtful because as you know, there's never enough money to go around. and we need to make sure that every dollar we spend to build our brands now to meet both short term goals and long term goals is put in the right place with thoroughness and analytical skills and capabilities and insights. [00:12:00] Ilyse: Now, of ecommerce and retail data, we hear a lot of talk about the collapse of the marketing funnel, that merging, you know, of brand awareness and performance. [00:12:13] Do you have any good metaphors or perhaps models for the way marketing works or should work today? What was the good one that we've heard before, Damian? [00:12:23] Damian: infinity [00:12:24] Brigitte: Yes, the loop. I was going to talk about the loop and not the [00:12:28] Damian: Oh, I don't want to, you know, pre think. You say what comes to mind, what works for [00:12:33] Ilyse: I mean, we've heard, yeah, infinity loop or like black hole even. [00:12:39] Brigitte: So look, I, was trained as a classic brand marketer, and I've worked on digital, for most of the second half of my career, shall I say? So I'm very conscious of, there is a lot to say about the funnel and that it is true, right? The funnel exists for a reason. and it was. [00:12:57] Classified that way because [00:13:00] you have to start from a place of awareness to get to consideration of your brand, to get to purchase, and then to ideally get to loyalty, right? We call that ACPL at Colgate. But I think what's really unique now is you can't just care about awareness. You have to care about getting attention. [00:13:16] And you can't just care about being considered. You have to be in the consideration set. with a lot of different things that affect it now than before. Before it was manufacture a message out. Now, people are reading ratings and reviews. So, as I said earlier on whitening, if they don't read positive ratings and reviews on whitening, I'm going to fall out of the consideration set. [00:13:39] And purchase, used to be fundamentally, the zero moment of truth was at the physical shelf in the store. That's no longer just the case. So the moment of truth can happen anywhere, and on any platform. And, right, it's not just e comm. It's also checking out on, TikTok, and being able to [00:14:00] purchase on social channels. [00:14:02] And that has also changed the mix because a brand now has to exponentially be better and present in all of those places.  [00:14:09] but you raised a really good question around how do you think about brand and performance. And I think that they're very different and we, I've seen a lot of studies and I've read a lot about People talking about let's go back to just the basics of brand marketing. [00:14:24] and then there's a lot of people who are just diehards on performance marketing is where it's at, right? It's data driven, it's got KPIs, you can see things working in real time. I think you need a blend of both. I think that what you really have to be doing today, whether you're driving a digital transformation, marketing or a business transformation in general, you need to be balancing all the time. [00:14:46] And for me, it is striking the balance, I think about a seesaw. Really between brand on one side, performance, brand marketing on one side, performance marketing on the other, and instead of one tipping too far, [00:15:00] balancing the two. I think that's how you get to both short and long term brand building. [00:15:04] Damian: perfect. I love that. That's a new one. [00:15:06] Ilyse: Yeah, that's a good one. That's [00:15:06] Brigitte: right, it's not a loop, it's a seesaw. [00:15:10] Ilyse: now, speaking of like the marketing mix, to what extent are digital channels like connected TV and, of course, ad tiers on streaming platforms important to that marketing mix? I know even with like retail now and retail media, it's, as far as, identity and everything, retail and CTV are kind of merging together as well. [00:15:36] as channels that are almost uniquely suited for each other, in a sense, but curious what you have to say about that. Look, [00:15:44] Brigitte: I think media has changed so much and everyone is trying to keep up and make sure that we understand what I call where the eyeballs are going. And I think that CTV specifically is, as you know, um, Growing exponentially. A lot of investment going in that [00:16:00] area. And we are as well experimenting there, and we have a lot of brands who have invested in connected TV because it's more data driven. [00:16:09] It's addressable, it's targeted, and we can see how it performs. And generally, again, we measure our ROIs against all of our touch points and we have found it is very performant. So we will continue to invest there. It's bringing new people into our brands, Hills specifically, pet food for Colgate. We do a lot of CTV and it's, performing really well for them. [00:16:33] So we're really learning how to do what I would call data driven decision making, data driven targeting. and get the measurement that proves that cycles really working for us, and it's been terrific. I mean, Colgate as one of the classic CPGs. That's hundreds of years old. actually recently posted, 9. [00:16:52] 8 percent organic sales growth. So we really are driving the base business with a lot of these new strategies. [00:16:58] Damian: And from your point of view, [00:17:00] I'm assuming that measurement portion is better. Is just the accuracy of the measurement is getting better. The data signals are getting better. Yes, absolutely. But it's also giving [00:17:11] Brigitte: everyone a whole lot more data to have to handle, hygienate, stitch together and master. And that's the complexity in a lot of this as well. And these transformations always have what I call a lot of data exhaust, a lot of data spinoff, and you have to be equipped in your organization to start mastering and managing that kind of data. [00:17:33] Ilyse: What kind of data? Like, where does it go? it sounds like trash you just like have to take out.  [00:17:42] Brigitte: So, we are, definitely looking to make sure that we put our data in a data cloud. we are looking at consumer data platforms, CDPs, because we do understand that's a place where we can stitch data together to give us a better view of the consumer. [00:17:56] We're strategizing around, unknown and [00:18:00] known data sets. first party, second party, third party data. So all of those things are coming together, strategically for us to be able to drive data driven marketing. [00:18:14] Damian: upskilling your employees. And this comes at a time when there's a ton of emphasis on AI, you know, as a friend or a foe. So, why is that important to you to place that emphasis on the people who work, in the company? Why is digital upskilling such an important, job, I guess, for you? [00:18:33] Brigitte: So it's the beginning of the whole conversation. there is a need to make sure that all of our employees around the world have access to continuous improvement and upskilling and learning. And so as we drove a digital transformation, we needed to bring everybody along with the journey. But nobody can come along if they don't understand some of the basics and the principles, not just the why of what we're doing, but the what it means. [00:18:58] So Colgate Palmolive [00:19:00] invested a lot of time and money into upscaling its own employees. And then we did, fun stuff. We badged people who took X amount of courses. we allowed them to post that on LinkedIn, because they should be proud of upscaling themselves. And it's really good for their careers and their own self development. [00:19:17] But it's also a dynamic for creating change, right? Because as you learn more, you can actually make different decisions Transcribed Act differently. Ask the right questions. Push your teams to make sure we are competing and marketing in a digital age effectively for our brands. So upskilling was everything for us. [00:19:35] and it's really also about Colgate's belief that we should invest back in our employees. this is about raising all boats. So as I also drove a digital transformation, I recruited a lot of talent into Colgate Palmolive, but equally important to all of us was upskilling the teams that we had. [00:19:52] It's reassuring to hear at a time [00:19:54] Damian: a time when, you know, there's all this chat about AI, but it's nice to hear. [00:19:57] Damian: And [00:20:00] that's it for this edition of The Current Podcast. We'll be back next week, so stay tuned. [00:20:04] Ilyse: The Current Podcast's theme is by Love Caliber. The current team includes Cat Fessy and Sydney Cairns. [00:20:11] Damian:  And remember, I'm Damian. [00:20:13] Ilyse: I'm Ilyse. [00:20:14] Damian: And we'll see you next time. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, tune in to our other podcast, The Current Report.

Newtopia Now has certainly made a name for itself. Formerly Natural Products Expo East, the show held in Denver last month had an all-natural buzz to it and served as a springboard to successful events moving forward. The show had over 550 exhibitors, with 180 exhibiting for the first time at any trade show, and over 7,000 attendees, according to show officials. Heavy hitters in the natural and organic food industry like Whole Foods, Target, and Sprouts Farmers Market were also in attendance. The core goal of Newtopia Now is to create a meeting place for CPGs and retailers in the natural and organic market, according to New Hope. The show was divided up into four sections or “neighborhoods”: “Thrive,” “Glow,” “Regenerate,” and “Represent.” Newtopia Now also had a kitchen area where natural and organic dishes were being created, a café, and a Tasting Bar located right off the show floor where attendees could sample various products of the show. There is a lot of work that goes into show planning, and with the new name the effort took on more importance. Supermarket News sat down with Jessica Rubino, vice president of content for New Hope Network, at the show to talk about what went into the name change, the energy during the first day of the event, and some of the features.

The CPGGUYS are joined in this episode by Courtney McCants, Director of digital product sales, emerging tech at RR Donnelley. She  is driven by a passion for innovative solutions and emerging technologies, and spearheads RRD's Emerging Technology Product sales team. With 15 years of experience in media and advertising, Courtney has partnered with retailers and CPGs to craft strategies that authentically enhance customer value across the purchase journey and diverse advertising channels. Her team serves as the voice of RRDonnelley's customers, channeling their feedback to develop strategic market offerings that shape the evolution of adtech and martech. Find Courtney on Linkedin at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtney-mccants-71311710/Find RR Donnelley on Linkedin at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rr-donnelley/Find RR Donnelley online at: https://www.rrd.com/Here's what we asked her : 1. Martech is hitting us hard and is real given its AI backing.  How is martech evolving to handle the significant changes in our data environment we are exposed to?2. So RRDonnelley recently acquired Vericast's print and digital media units. What does this mean for the cpg industry and brands - how about retailers?3. What a crazy inflation driven volume challenged environment we are seeing the last 18 months. Are brands responding well? Is media driving value in consumer minds?4. Can't really not discuss retail media in today's omnichannel retail environment. Love to get your opinion on the state of retail media, data and how it is making a difference for brands - or is it?5. Just as media evolves, so should measurement, but I just hear ROAS, IROAS, impressions, its like nothings changed - why? What prevents true ROI?6. Digital marketing has evolved heavily to self service. Helping, inhibiting - and what are implications for brands and retailers?7. Give us your viewpoint on what a meaningful connection between brands and consumers looks like. Are there any examples you can highlight?8. Finally, let's ask you to look future forward. What's in store for martech and adtech, what's the next evolution.?CPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.comFMCG Guys Website: http://FMCGguys.comCPG Scoop Website: http://CPGscoop.comRhea Raj's Website: http://rhearaj.comLara Raj on PopStar Academy: https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81587828?s=i&trkid=258593161&vlang=enDISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGGUYS, LLC or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGGUYS, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.

Dave catches up with another luminary from The Partnering Group (TPG) - this time, it's Partner Matt Pierre.  Matt has over 30 years of experience in the CPG space, most of it spent at General Mills, where he built and grew the organization's US eCommerce operations.They discuss Matt's knack for predicting eCommerce trends before they happen (3:42), the challenges facing CPGs right now (7:39), an overview of his current role at TPG (11:28), why sales, marketing and ecomm need to constantly be working together (14:59), needing to understand the differences between the "spearfishing" and "full basket" eCommerce models (19:58), and the amazing work he does leading the Board of Directors for the National Wheelchair Basketball Association (28:46).Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-pierre/Take advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker 

Join us for a conversation about the challenges and opportunities facing CPG shippers in today's freight market. Mike Baudendistel, host of The Stockout, previews his upcoming interview with Thomas Wasson, host of Loaded & Rolling. Key topics covered: Shipper strategies for navigating a volatile freight market Balancing spot market vs. contract rates Effective use of brokers When to consider a private fleet Alternative fuels for transportation The impact of inflation on CPG companies Creative solutions for inventory management Collaboration between CPGs and retailers Intermodal shipping in the current market Watch the full episode live on FreightWaves.com or YouTube in 20 minutes! Subscribe to The Stockout newsletter for more insights on the CPG and retail industries. #freightwaves #stockout #cpg #shipping #logistics #supplychain #intermodal

Join Kirk Visola, founder and creative director of Mind the Font, and Andy Kurtts, founder and creative director of Buttermilk Creative, as they dive into the fascinating world of consumer research with their guest, Rich Moniz.Rich Moniz, founder of Rich Insights, brings over a decade of experience in the research industry. His company helps brands understand their shoppers through advanced techniques like eye tracking, facial coding, and other neuro and emotive methodologies. Rich's mission is to make brands stand out while fostering a stronger planet for future generations.Rich explains how his methods provide a deeper dive into the minds of consumers, helping brands improve product perception and shelf presence. From discussing the nuances of eye tracking to sharing insights on demographic influences in consumer behavior, Rich provides a wealth of knowledge that can help any brand improve its market strategy.The conversation delves into:- The role of eye tracking and other advanced research techniques in understanding consumer behavior.- How physical differences and distractions influence shopper eye patterns.- The importance of demographic considerations in product marketing.- Practical advice for brands on improving shelf presence and product appeal.- Real-world examples of how eye tracking data has informed successful packaging redesigns.Kirk and Andy share their experiences and insights on packaging design, discussing the balance between creativity and data-driven decisions. They explore the significance of standing out on the shelf and the critical elements that capture consumer attention within seconds.**Key Takeaways:**- Eye tracking provides an unfiltered view of what catches a consumer's attention.- Physical factors like height can significantly impact what products shoppers notice.- Demographic insights are essential but must be coupled with observational data for accurate targeting.- Overloading packaging with too many claims can dilute the impact of the most crucial messages.- Smaller brands can now access sophisticated research tools online, leveling the playing field with larger competitors.Don't miss this opportunity to learn from one of the industry's leading experts and discover how you can apply these insights to your brand.Support the Show.About Kirk and Andy. Kirk Visola is the Creative Director and Founder of MIND THE FONT™. He brings over 20 years of CPG experience to the packaging and branding design space, and understands how shelf aesthetics can make an impact for established and emerging brands. Check out their work http://www.mindthefont.com. Andy Kurts is the Creative Director and Founder of Buttermilk Creative. He loves a good coffee in the morning and a good bourbon at night. When he's not working on packaging design he's running in the backyard with his family. Check out Buttermilk's work http://www.buttermilkcreative.com.Music for Kirk & Kurtts intro & outro: Better by Super FantasticsShow a little love. Share the podcast with those who may benefit. Or, send us a coffee:Support the show

This week, Aebhric O'Kelly talks with Dr John Quinn and Eirik Holmstrøm, who all went to Ukraine to teach the Damage Control Resus Ukraine (DCRU) course. They discuss the curriculum, the use of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), and the importance of access to blood in the pre-hospital setting. They highlight the collaboration with Tactical Medicine North and the professional partner forces in Ukraine. The hosts also mention the Defence Health Administration's (DHA) role and the resources on the DHA website and app. The conversation emphasises evidence-based practices and knowledge exchange's significance in improving military medicine. The conversation focuses on the challenges and solutions in Ukraine's implementation of damage control resuscitation (DCR). The speakers discuss the need for interoperability in large-scale combat operations (LSCO) and the importance of rethinking traditional medical practices. They highlight the limitations of blood transfusion in the field and the need for a logistic system to support the transportation of blood. The conversation also covers training Ukrainian combat medics in advanced skills such as resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA) and ultrasound. The speakers emphasise the importance of continuous learning, adapting to failures, and the potential for DCR to increase combat effectiveness in Ukraine. Keywords Damage Control Resus Ukraine, DCRU, curriculum, clinical practice guidelines, CPGs, pre-hospital setting, blood access, Tactical Medicine North, partner forces, Defence Health Administration, DHA, evidence-based practices, military medicine, damage control resuscitation, interoperability, large-scale combat operations, blood transfusion, logistic system, training, combat medics, REBOA, ultrasound, continuous learning, combat effectiveness Takeaways The DCRU course in Ukraine focused on damage control resuscitation in the pre-hospital setting. The curriculum was based on clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) from the Defence Health Administration (DHA). Access to blood and blood components was highlighted as crucial in effective care. Collaboration with Tactical Medicine North and professional partner forces in Ukraine was instrumental in the course's success. The DHA website and app provided valuable resources for learning and reference in austere environments. The exchange of knowledge and lessons learned is essential for improving military medicine. Implementing damage control resuscitation in large-scale combat operations requires interoperability and a logistic system to support the transportation of blood. Traditional medical practices need to be rethought to align with the evolving nature of warfare. Training combat medics in advanced skills such as REBOA and ultrasound can improve patient care and increase patient transport confidence. Continuous learning and adapting to failures are essential in austere medicine. Damage control resuscitation has the potential to increase combat effectiveness in Ukraine. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Dr John Quinn and Eirik Holmstrom 02:07 Adding Co-Authors and References 04:01 Introduction to the DCRU Course 08:09 Overview of the DCRU Curriculum 13:49 Importance of Access to Blood 16:40 Acknowledging the Defence Health Administration 18:56 Interoperability and Logistic Challenges 23:35 Rethinking Traditional Medical Practices 29:24 Training Combat Medics in Advanced Skills 38:34 Continuous Learning and Adapting to Failures 41:10 The Potential of Damage Control Resuscitation

For most Americans, the Kraft and Heinz brands have been ever-present in our cupboards and fridges for our entire lives. Products like Oscar Meyer hot dogs, Kraft cheese, Velveeta, and Jello. Household names all. The company resulted from the 2015 merger between Kraft Foods and Heinz. Now the third biggest food brand in North America, we thought it would be interesting to hear how they think about innovation and reinventing their product lineup. To do that, we sit down with Kraft Heinz's President of R&D for North America, Robert Scott. As a part of this conversation, we talk with Robert about: The company's partnership with NotCo and how they are using the Guiseppe AI to develop new plant-based products. How he sees AI becoming interwoven into the company's product development cycles Why they created a Freestyle-like machine for custom condiments called the Heinz ReMix The idea behind the 360Crisp and innovating our food products and how they cook in our kitchens How Robert would advise aspiring food scientist to pursue a career path in food research and development And much more! At the Food AI Summit in September in Berkeley, we will explore how big CPGs can interweave AI into their product development and discuss lessons from the front lines. You can learn more about the Food AI Summit at our website, and make sure to use the coupon code PODCAST for 15% off tickets.

Engaged Nation provides a suite of services and solutions designed to captivate, motivate, and drive measurable results. The company's offerings include interactive web-based incentive programs that align seamlessly with each client's unique objectives, whether they aim to boost brand visibility, enhance customer lifetime value, or drive incremental revenue. Powered by the REACH™ Digital Ecosystem of technology, Engaged Nation offers a platform to create engaging and personalized experiences. Engaged Nation works closely with brands across various industries—C-store, CPGs, financial services, restaurants/QSR, travel/hospitality, and many more—to help them drive engagement, boost revenue, and build lasting customer loyalty. Engaged Nation tailors solutions to meet the unique needs of clients based on their customers and industry, with the goal of helping them stand out in a crowded digital marketplace.  Mark Johnson, CEO of Loyalty360, spoke with Daniel Wood, Chief Customer Success Officer at Engaged Nation, about the company's REACHTM platform, keeping customers engaged, and leveraging technology to understand individual customer preferences or behaviors. 

What are the pros and cons of using AI chatbots in musculoskeletal rehabilitation? What are chatbot applications in education, clinical practice, and research? How does the chatbot advice compare to the recommendations of trusted clinical practice guidelines? Dr Giacomo Rossettini shares the results of 2 new papers from his research team to answer these questions. This episode is about the best ways clinicians can think about using AI chatbots to advance their clinical practice, while avoiding the pitfalls. ------------------------------ RESOURCES Pros and cons of AI chatbots in musculoskeletal rehabilitation practice: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2023.12000 ChatGPT vs. CPGs for managing lumbosacral radicular pain: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2024.12151

The Food For Thought podcast checks in with Sally Lyons Wyatt, global executive vice president and chief advisor in consumer goods and foodservice insights for Circana, for a mid-year update on how the food and beverage industry has fared through the first half of the year. In this episode, Lyons Wyatt shares insights on inflation and how consumers are spending differently at this point in 2024. She shares the four factors the team at Circana will be monitoring for guidance on how 2024 may pan out for food and beverage CPGs. Lyons Wyatt also delves into some of the fascinating ways consumers have been trading in and out of certain products and segments, looking for a higher-value, higher-end experience. Lyons Wyatt shared her thoughts earlier this year in our 2024 Food & Beverage Industry Outlook, featured in our January 2024 issue of Food Processing magazine.

Welcome to Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, sponsored by Ownit AI and Mirakl. Ownit AI helps brands and retailers win Google search by answering their shopper's questions online. Learn more at ownit.co. Mirakl is the global leader in platform business innovation for eCommerce. Companies like Macy's, Nordstrom, and Kroger use Mirakl to build disruptive growth and profitability through marketplace, dropship, and retail media. For more, visit mirakl.comHere are today's top headlines:Walmart introduces Digital Landscapes, a self-serve insights solution within its Walmart Luminate data analytics suite for CPGs. Amazon's "Buy with Prime" service faces mixed results since its launch, with some sellers experiencing sluggish adoption and concerns about profit margins. Giant Eagle and Wegmans collaborate with Rippl, a data and media network, to enhance their retail media platforms and compete more effectively with larger players in the industry. Stay informed with Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, your source for the latest and most important retail insights. Be careful out there!

This episode of the Xtalks Food Podcast features an interview with with Dirk Herdes, General Manager and Senior Vice President of Sales at Crisp, a platform that connects CPGs to real-time POS and inventory data from 40+ retailers and distributors. Dirk gives an overview of Crisp's platform and discusses how it integrates with retailers and distributors to provide actionable insights. He talks about how AI and analytics are transforming commercial food supply chains and explains how important real-time data is in the modern supply chain. Dirk also discusses some common challenges CPGs face when trying to streamline their supply chains as well as the differences between small and large CPGs when it comes to Crisp's platform. He ends by giving advice to CPGs that are looking to leverage data strategies in their supply chains to improve efficiency and profitability. Read the full article here:2024 Food Industry Trends: Navigating the Future of Tech, Sustainability and Nutrition:https://xtalks.com/2024-food-industry-trends-navigating-the-future-of-tech-sustainability-and-nutrition-3637/For more food and beverage industry content, visit the Xtalks Vitals homepage. https://xtalks.com/vitals/Follow Us on Social Media Twitter: https://twitter.com/XtalksFood Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xtalks/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Xtalks.Webinars/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/xtalks-webconferences YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/XtalksWebinars/featured

Listen in as Grace Kopplin, a seasoned e-commerce expert with a marketing background and former Helium 10 blog writer, shares her journey from a Midwest upbringing to managing an Amazon team for a nine-figure e-commerce business. Grace's initial forays into retail buying and planning led to her pivotal shift to the e-commerce arena. As she recounts her experience honing analytical skills as a business analyst, we get an inside look at the strategies driving profitability and sales growth on the ever-evolving Amazon platform. During our conversation, we tackled the significant changes that Amazon sellers are facing, especially with the latest coupon and sales strategies in Q1 2024. Grace reveals how the new minimum discount requirements for coupons have transformed selling approaches, impacting product badging and organic ranking. We also talk about the intricacies of Amazon PPC advertising, including the exciting new video campaign options and store spotlight formats. Additionally, Grace provides insight into how resellers can navigate sponsored brand ads amidst fierce buy box competition and the potential for platforms like TikTok Shop to skyrocket brand awareness. To wrap up this episode, Grace and Bradley explore the implementation of AI in Amazon-selling strategies, noting the platform's dominance and the emerging significance of marketplaces like TikTok. We delve into how new Amazon data points and tools, like the Product Opportunity Explorer and Helium 10's Cerebro, are essential for content strategy and maintaining a competitive edge. Plus, don't miss our discussion on the unique challenges of managing large assortments in categories like apparel, footwear, and jewelry. Whether you're a seasoned seller or new to the e-commerce game, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and expert insights you won't want to miss. In episode 560 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Grace discuss: 00:00 - E-Commerce Strategies for Serious Sellers 01:21 - Grace's Backstory 06:11 - Managing Brand Registry and Fees Strategy 13:24 - Amazon Advertising and Selling Strategies 14:45 - New Amazon PPC Strategies and Challenges 20:02 - Amazon Launch Strategy Evolution 23:01 - Amazon Strategy and AI Implementation 25:12 - Leveraging Amazon Data for Strategic Advantage 32:22 - PowerPlay Hockey Jerseys and Conferences ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today, we've got a seller who used to write blogs for Helium 10 but now works at a company that's a nine-figure seller online with Amazon, obviously, being their number one moneymaker. But you might be shocked when you find out which marketplaces brings in the second most amount of sales. Find out what that is plus get her Amazon strategies in today's episode. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And just wanted to throw a quick shout out here, we have a new TikTok channel at Helium 10. It's helium10_software. So if you want some unserious strategies you know sometimes we got some serious strategies on there too. Make sure to give us a follow. All right, go. You can even see me singing in Chinese on one of these videos here but go to h10.me/tiktok or just type in Helium 10, one zero underscore software and follow us on TikTok. We're going to have somebody who I don't think I'm not going to ask her to do a TikTok dance for us here. But Grace, first time, I believe first time on the podcast, right, for you. Grace: Yes, yes, first time. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, well, welcome. Like you, actually, you know, we met years ago at different conferences and stuff but also for a while when I was running the content team, you were one of our actually contract workers where you would, you know, write some Amazon related blogs. But it could be that I know some of your backstory, but since I'm like 10-second Tom from 50 First Dates, I just forget everything. So, regardless if I remember or not, let's go into your backstory because nobody else on the show might know who you are. You just told me that you're in Minnesota, but it sounds like you're not from there. Where are you from? Grace: Yes, I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so I'm still a Midwest gal, but I made my way to Minneapolis about six years ago now. Bradley Sutton: Well, how can you be a Twins fan? Shouldn't you still be a Brewers fan then? Grace: Fair Weather fan, I suppose. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. So Milwaukee, the Frozen Tundra of Milwaukee, and then going into college. Where did you go to college at? Grace: Yes, I went to University of Wisconsin in Madison, so very big party school had a great time. Bradley Sutton: What is the mascot? Why can't it? It's not the Grace: The Badgers. Bradley Sutton: See? I was going to say I knew it started with a B. I was like no Beavers is Oregon State. What B is it the Badgers? Yes, all right. Grace: Bucky Badger. Bradley Sutton: Well, what did you? What did you major in over there? Grace: Yeah, I got my BBA in marketing. I've always been just like super business oriented and I wanted to do something that was pretty broad, so I did what anyone would do and got a degree in business, and I've done a lot of different things since then. Bradley Sutton: Okay, and what like. Well, as soon as you got out of university, you know, got your degree. What was your first gainful employment that you did? Grace: I feel like in business school they always teach you. It's like you can either go into finance and be a consultant or if you want to work in retail and you like business, let's go be a buyer. Those are like the two things they tell you that are options. I was like I need to be a buyer so I started my career in retail in a buying office doing buying and planning. So that gave me a pretty good basis of just how retail works. So I focused a lot on brick and mortar retail, buying products for stores, allocating the inventory and doing the forecasting for that. Bradley Sutton: And what was your first exposure to e-commerce? Grace: Yeah, it was actually my first job out of college. We actually slated all of our ads by writing it down in a journal and submitting it through marketing, and our e-com business was super small back then. It wasn't that long ago but that was my first exposure to e-comm and it was always really interesting to me. And as the retail atmosphere changed in the early 2010s, I knew that's where I wanted to be for longevity, for my career. Bradley Sutton: Now, was it at the same company that you're working at today? Grace: No, I've bounced around a lot and my career has led me in a lot of different ways. Unfortunately, a lot of the large big box retailers I worked for all had their demise for any reason or another. So I kind of bounced around until I found an e-commerce centric company, which is where I'm at right now. Bradley Sutton: What did you start doing at this company and then? What have you been doing over the years and not now? What is your main role? Grace: Yeah, so I started as an e-commerce business analyst, which is pretty much jack of all trades when it comes to anything analytical. So I was kind of the person who would be pulling all of the reporting from Amazon, creating forecasts, pitching to our executive team. This is why we need to buy this inventory for Amazon. This is how it all works. So I was really in the weeds and I feel like that gave me such good experience in what I'm doing now, which is kind of managing the full Amazon team really a strong focus on profitability, but also sales growth, which has been such a hot topic recently. So I've done a lot of different things. Bradley Sutton: Is this like a company that has its own brand and manufacturers own products? Grace: So the company is called Powerplay Retail. We started as a manufacturer's rep group, so working with brands, helping them get into retailers. It was really focused on brick and mortar retailers. Obviously, we have Target and Best Buy here in Minneapolis, so companies like us exist to help brands who don't know how to get into retail do just that. And then we kind of morphed into a distributor, as brands needed help actually shipping into retailers. And then when brands were like, hey, can you help us sell online, we were like yes, 100%. So then that's why our e-commerce arm exists. Grace: So we're a third-party reseller that partners with brands that don't want to bring Amazon in-house. So we buy and sell inventory out of our own large 3P account. We're also an Amazon agency, so I manage brands in their own 3P accounts. So I manage brands in their own 3P accounts. So I kind of do it both ways and it kind of just depends on what brands need. And over the years we've also dabbled in private label. We've created our own products and sold those in our accounts as well. So it's been a really cool experience being able to try it just every different way of selling on Amazon. Bradley Sutton: How many seller accounts do you guys have? Grace: Yeah, right now from an owned perspective we have three or four, but just from our full partnership perspective, I'm probably in maybe 20 different accounts on a daily basis. Bradley Sutton: So how does it work for when you're managing somebody else's stuff, like for brand registry? Like do some of these brands already have their own brand registry and then you somehow just get authorized or are you the one who is actually registering their brand because they never were before? How does that work? Grace: Both. So some companies are more Amazon savvy and right from the beginning and get go they registered with brand registry, which is great, and in that case we just become an authorized reseller and an administrator under their brand registry so we can act on their behalf. And in some cases they don't know, so either I'm kind of coaching them through that setup process or actually registering it on their behalf and managing everything. So it kind of just depends on how hands-on they want to be or how hands-off I want to be. So whatever works best for the brand, always the brand in mind for us. Bradley Sutton: Let's just skip ahead. We're going to talk a lot of strategy, but I think the thing top of mind for so many Amazon sellers and I think you have a unique perspective because you're dealing with so many different accounts I'm assuming you've got customers in many different categories, many different size of products, different, you know, types of products. The fees, you know, there's low inventory fees, that's coming. You know, there's low inventory fees. That's coming, you know, depending on when people are listening to this episode, maybe it's already there. There's the inventory placement fees, so that's been out for a little bit longer. How has this affected the brands that you're working with and what are the different strategies that? Like how you guys have pivoted? Like, are you doing your shipments any different or are you just like taking in the chin and it's costing us 20% more? Like, talk a little bit about some different experiences with different brands. Grace: Yeah. So these fees have been a huge topic of conversation for us in my operations team on how we can best handle these. Obviously they're real and we have to figure out a way to respond to them and maintain profitability above all else. So in terms of the shipment processes, we've been kind of going back and forth between the Amazon optimized shipments and just kind of eating the cost, depending on what our profitability looks like. So when these fees were introduced, our first step was like recreating our Amazon profitability model. I know there's a good Helium 10 one out there. Amazon kind of has its own Revenue Calculator tool. Grace: But what we did internally is create a very, very extensive profit and loss model outlining all of those different new fees and how they could impact us, so estimating at like a per pound dollar amount what this inventory placement fee would be an impact for us by SKU. So we can just first see how much can we afford to spend on advertising now that we have to spend more on logistics and operations costs, because that's kind of our flexible cost. And then, two, how is that going to impact our sales if we're investing less on some of the advertising side of things and then when it comes to the low inventory fee side, I was actually surprised that the fee even rolled out when it did. I know there's some concessions that Amazon is making right now and I think they're going to probably continue to make more concessions as some of the loopholes are found. But the fact that it's getting charged at the parent level is a huge problem, especially for a lot of brand partners that we have in the clothing and apparel and footwear side of things. Bradley Sutton: Wait, hold on, hold on. I've just been so busy with stuff I haven't even been checking that. So at the parent level means like you could have 10 variations and nine of them are cool, but then what? Don't tell me. You're saying that if one of them is low inventory, everything gets charged. Grace: No, it's not one of them, it's the sum of all of the children up to the parent. So no, it's not one of them, it's the sum of all of the children up to the parent. So they take like the average part of the supply chain, like it's not under my control if there's an issue with the supply of the raw materials needed to create my product and I can't ship it into FBA. So we're definitely looking at those, estimating them and seeing how we can respond, and there's definitely been some strongly worded emails to my Amazon Account Manager about just how these are impacting us and how critical it is to our business, as profitability right now is, it's hard for all third party resellers. Bradley Sutton: So your team is not the one controlling the inbound? I mean, obviously you're not controlling the manufacturing. But what about from, like you know, some of these brands have 3PL, are you the one who created the transfer shipments? Grace: Yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So how are you doing those differently, if at all? Grace: Yeah. So we have decided because Amazon is encouraging us to send in more units at once to decrease our frequency of shipments into Amazon. So in efforts to maintain a very lean weeks of supply, we've implemented a process to send in weekly replenishment orders based on the last week sales which makes a lot of sense, right. But now as Amazon is encouraging us to send in more and more and charging us more to send in less, we've had to weigh those costs and benefits of sending in shipments weekly. So now, depending on the size of the product, it might even be monthly that we're sending into Amazon, and we've been relying a lot on LTL shipments to save on prices. But now it seems like small parcel might be a little bit more cost effective for us in some cases. So it's definitely changed how we've managed this and I'm really interested to see how these fees potentially change moving into Q4, as we're sending in a ton of inventory into FBA and shipments just become so much more regular. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, okay, interesting. We've got Prime Day coming up in July and what you know. You've got a number of Prime Days under your belt. What are some things that you're planning on doing the same or and or differently as far as what kinds of deals, if any, you're doing, like how you tackle your PPC? Let's just have a quick Grace's Prime Day Playbook 2024. Grace: You know what I was thinking about this today, because Lightning Deals and Prime Exclusive Discounts are due by midnight and with all of these changes, and also I don't know if you've heard about the new return fee assessment happening on June 1st but this, I think, is going to have a huge impact on us and just our profitability and how much we're going to be able to afford on markdowns and promotions. Grace: So my theory, at least for Prime Day this year, is people are going to be a little bit less promotional just because of how hard it's been to be profitable with these new fees. But then again, there are those discount minimums that we need to meet in order to get that prime day badging which means so much to your sales. So for our top moving, best products, I'm still going to be at least 20% off, like I need the badging if I don't get the sales. It doesn't matter if I'm profitable or not, so I'm definitely be. I'm definitely going to be pulling back on some of the costs, like PPC, in order to fund my promotions. So I think, to answer your question succinctly, I will be definitely promoting steeply on my best products, but maybe my middle tier and my lower selling products. I might just keep those at full price because of profitability reasons. Bradley Sutton: Speaking of discounts and things like that. You know another thing that kind of rolled man 2024, when I think about it, the Q1 was just like a doozy for a few things. So the restrictions on, like coupons and discounts and, like you know, the sales history yeah, minimum discounts for coupons. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. So like, how has that effect? Like I mean, for me it didn't affect me too much on the coupon side, because I don't always use coupons. But what about you? Were you guys using coupons? And if so, has your strategy had to shift now? Grace: Yeah. So I wasn't even aware of the new discount minimums for coupons until I was looking at one of my listings and I was like why is my coupon not on? We used to really heavily do that like 5% coupon on one week, off the next week, five on the next week, just to keep some like badging on our listings Because we believe that has a really significant impact in like bestseller ranking and organic ranking and keywords. So we used to do that quite a lot. We're not doing that anymore just because we can't afford to be that steep of a discount on coupons. So we haven't actually come up with what our strategy is going to look like since that is so new. In the last like month-ish, we've kind of just been keeping our normal like promotion strategy and hopefully it doesn't impact sales too much. But that's something I can't answer right now. Bradley Sutton: Okay, yeah, a lot of this stuff is so new that it's going to take us all a little bit to try and figure out what. What we're going general PPC strategy you know PPC is they're doing more adding, as opposed to like taking stuff away or changing big rules. Like I hadn't added new video campaigns in a while like could have been maybe a year even and then I noticed, like a couple months ago, now all of a sudden I can do ASIN targeting video campaigns and keyword targeting video because I'm like, oh, that's new, that's pretty cool. But, like you know, Amazon's always launching new kinds of targeting and new kinds of, you know, what is it called for the sponsor brand? Is it like the vertical ads and things like that? What new-ish things are you doing, if any, on the advertising side? Grace: Yeah. So I agree with you. I think if you're not in Amazon every day, you're missing something. So that's something that I try to do. I'm not like actively in charge of PPC or managing campaigns, but I always like to stay abreast of like all the new different techniques and see how it works with the team. One thing that I'm really excited to try is the new store spotlight format, where you can actually click to different store pages in the sponsor brand placement, which I think looks really cool. If anything else, definitely, want to test to see if it drives extra sales. Grace: One thing for us that's challenging with sponsored brand ads, though, is as a reseller, and a lot of times we're not the exclusive reseller. Spending on sponsored ads for sponsored brands leads to sales for the brand but not necessarily sales for us. So if you're rotating in the buy box spend on sponsor brand, you're driving sales for the brand. It's not necessarily just for us. So how do we manage that? That's been a hot topic for us. Bradley Sutton: Are you personally doing anything on other platforms, be it Walmart, TikTok shop, or if so, or if not, is there anybody at your company who is focused on those channels? Grace: Yes, we are. We are really focused on TikTok shop right now. We've been using it more so as like an awareness driving tactic, more so than a sales driving tactic right now is a lot of the brands that we work with are more in a premium price point, so we've found that the TikTok items that work the best are really kind of almost that impulse item. So we've been using it to drive awareness, drive conversations around the products that we sell and the brands that we work with. And we've seen great halo effects on Amazon with branded search going up as engagement and content goes up for the brand on TikTok. So we've been using TikTok shop in that way. Grace: In terms of Walmart, that's always been a strategy for us. Transparently, Walmart just hasn't been a volume driver for us. It's been a steady but it hasn't really been a place that's warranted a ton of focus for us. But another marketplace that has been great for us is actually Target's marketplace, Target Plus, and that's been a key piece of our success, especially with working with brands who are looking for store placement at Target. For example, we've had a few items that we've listed on Target's marketplace that have done really well that have gotten the attention of a buyer and actually got store placement, which is really exciting. And at the end of the day, getting an item placed on shelves most of the time can drive more volume than a mid-tier listing on Amazon, so we tend to try to use that strategy. Bradley Sutton: How do you get on target these days, like wasn't it invite only back in the day or now that Target is adding that 360 or some kind of like? Grace: Yeah, I think it might still be invite only, but I know they've been actively adding a lot of sellers. I know that their back end is still quite archaic compared to what Amazon is. It's probably what Walmart was like four years ago. But I think it is still invite only but definitely something to reach out to your connections and see if you can get a connect with a Walmart e-comm buyer. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I mean, that's what I've been saying about Walmart for years is the end game and the reason for Walmart.com. You know there's people who say, oh, you know, like you know a lot of the SKUs, I'll just have like 10% of my Amazon sales. No, you're not trying to. I mean sure, if it's profitable, why not increase your sales by 10%? But the main end game is you could get on the radar of Walmart buyers potentially and go 1P which increases. And then the next step is getting into 4,000 Walmart stores, which is like yes, is now going to dwarf your Amazon sales even. But on the target side totally makes sense. That you know there's not that many people buying. You know consumers buying stuff on Target compared to Walmart or Amazon's even less than Walmart. But then that's not the end game. The end game is if you can get well like, give me an example, some of those that you said you've been able to get them in Target stores, like those POs are for what? Like how many units? Like thousands, right? Grace: Yes, tens of thousands. Bradley Sutton: Tens of thousands, wow. Grace: And what's also really cool about Target's marketplace is that it's gated from a seller perspective. So once you list a product on Target, it is gated for you to sell it, which I know has become more and more an issue on Amazon, with unauthorized resellers and different brand protection strategies that are maybe a little bit gray market. So I think that's something that is really interesting to sellers who fight for the Buy Box on Amazon, and it's a little bit of a relief to be able to list it and not have to check it or wait for the Helium 10 notification to come up that the Buy Box has changed and also your advertising spend, as you can continue to advertise when you have a Buy Box. It's something that we love about Target. Bradley Sutton: Going back to Amazon, now. Let's say you've got a brand who's launching a new product, what is your go-to launch strategy these days? Obviously gone are the days of things like two-step URLs and search, find, buys and giveaways and things like that. So for your launch, are you just doing PPC and maybe having a lower price, or you're only launching stuff where there's already some kind of brand recognition, where you don't have to do too much special? Grace: We do both. So we've worked with brands who have sold on Amazon for a long time and already have hundreds of thousands of monthly searches for their brand on Amazon and we've also worked with brands that are brand new and maybe are selling a new product that doesn't quite fit into a category that exists yet on Amazon. From a review perspective, we definitely lean on Amazon Vine. I think it has been getting better - the quality of reviews and just the ease of use of that tool, just to ensure that we're adhering to Amazon's policies. But just from an overall launch strategy, we've been thinking about top of funnel marketing a lot more. It's easiest to win when you have branded search on Amazon already, just so you're showing up on that first page of search results. But we've been using we talked about TikTok shop. Using TikTok is a really important part of our launch strategy and also just advertising outside of Amazon. So working with content creators to introduce a brand or introduce a product, if it's like a new product line under a brand that maybe people are already familiar about, using promotion codes that type of thing, as well. Are you then those influencers sending people to a TikTok shop product, or sending people to go search on Amazon, or a mixture of both? Grace: We'll mostly send to TikTok shop, but we do see just like an organic halo effect and someone sees it on Amazon. They maybe have more trust for the marketplace and they go and try to find the product on Amazon. So we've got a couple of cool case studies on that. Bradley Sutton: I probably should have asked this at the beginning. But, just like you know, I know you don't have the numbers in front of you, but if you were to talk about last year's sales or projected 2024 over all the stuff that your company manages, what do you think it's going to be on Amazon, Walmart, TikTok shop and Target rough? You know I don't need exactly. Yeah. Grace: So our goal is always double every year and we have in the last two, three years, as we've expanded marketplaces, our brand partnerships and ASIN count. I think the ASIN count that I manage right now on Amazon is upwards of 50,000 ASINs, so we're always adding more products. It's so many. Grace: That's a topic for a different time of how frustrating that can be at some time. But I mean we're in the triple digit millions going into 2024, at least for the e-commerce side of things. So it's really exciting and there's a lot of growth ahead of us and I think the biggest challenge for us as a three-piece seller and a distributor is managing the profitability and the agency side of our house is looking a lot in terms of outlook is looking a lot more profitable for us. Bradley Sutton: Nice, nice. What about what's this number two thing, so the nine figures? Is Amazon only or everything together? I mean, obviously it's going to be everything, but does Amazon by itself hit that? Grace: Or not everything together? I mean yes, Amazon by itself hits that. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so what's number two then marketplace? Grace: Target. Bradley Sutton: Target over Walmart, what in the world? Grace: It is. It is. Bradley Sutton: What? That's a shocker. Grace: It is. But again, like I said, that we work with a lot more premium products and premium brands tend to lean more towards the Target customer rather than the Walmart customer. So it's probably Amazon, Target, Walmart, TikTok, right now, but that will probably change pretty rapidly. Bradley Sutton: For TikTok, where is the inventory coming from for the orders. Are you doing fulfilled by TikTok or is it coming from Amazon? Grace: No, we're doing MCF from Amazon FBA centers. We can also drop ship from our own 3PLs as well, but we like MCF cause it's easier on us. Bradley Sutton: Amazon strategies. You know like things are changing on Amazon. New data points you know come out like search query performance and new things in product opportunity. Explore just in the day, today, things of Amazon. What new things is part of your SOPs now. That maybe wasn't there two years ago. Or maybe you just think you've got some unique strategies even on something that's been around for a while because you know you can't get to nine figures without having some cool unique strategies. That's setting you apart from the competition. Grace: Yeah, I love using the Product Opportunity Explorer. It's now a daily part of what I do. I also use it to do competitive research, which might be a little bit different. So grabbing an ASIN that I'm interested in learning more about and looking at the customer insights, specifically around returns, which is a hot button topic, obviously, with this new fee coming into place with if your return rate is higher than what the threshold of the category is, there's new fees that come into play. So, just understanding what those negative insights are about your competing products and taking advantage of those in your content and I mean in your second image or in your first bullet point has been something that's worked really well for us. And as I'm going and I'm potentially auditing a new brand partner or I'm doing a pitch for new business, I'm always looking at that. I think the data that Amazon's been able to provide there is really useful and we've never had that access before. It's always been like here's how much they sell directionally. Here's what their seller ranking is. Here's the keywords that they rank on. Grace: Here's what the keyword sales are but, like, the actual sentiment from the customers is really interesting. And something that we like to use in our content Bradley Sutton: Favorite Helium 10 tool and why? Grace: I like the Cerebro. I love doing keyword research, as we just talked about and I think, finding those niche keywords and using those in your PPC. Even though it's an old strategy, it works and it's always changing and not everyone has auto campaigns anymore, so it's something that's really important to do and I still like to do it because I love to know, like, what's changing. And another, really important, like leading or trailing indicator either one would be like branded search around your competitors branded search, so just understanding how many people less are searching for your competitors versus you. I think that provides a really unique opportunity to win. Bradley Sutton: Okay. If I were to give you the keys to the Helium 10 Product Roadmap. Something you know like hey, you're in charge of all of our product team a tool or a feature or a function that we don't have that you need, what would it be? Grace: I have two, okay, I think I asked about this already but Target Plus. I'd love to get a plugin, cause I love your dashboard, where I can see, like all my different marketplaces US, Canada, Mexico, Walmart all of that rolled up into one. I know it's probably still far out, but that would be really cool to be able to see that. Maybe TikTok shop I don't know if that's coming or maybe Bradley Sutton: What would help on TikTok shop specifically? Grace: I really like the sales product performance. That's like when I come in the morning I'm like what sold yesterday. That's where I'm looking okay and that's probably my favorite part about selling on Amazon is just seeing what's selling and how I can sell more of it. And then the second piece of it would be a Walmart ask. I know there's a tool where we're able to see kind of what the sales are on the listings for Walmart. I think there's probably opportunity to get that tool just sharpened a little bit so we really can see where the opportunity is on Walmart. I think there's still a lot of questions from everyone on like who's winning on Walmart? Like we know like CPGs are winning, but what brands are winning? There's a lot of information about amazon brands who are winning, but I think Walmart's still a little bit of a Black Box. So any tools that are available from an Amazon perspective, rolling those out and sharpening them for Walmart, would be great too. Bradley Sutton: Cool, cool, all right. So, what other strategies can you help people with out there who you know like, obviously it. You know somebody might be listening to this and like, well, what does this apply to me? I'm not a nine figure, I'm not even an eight figure or even seven figure seller, but some strategies that you're doing that, hey, even if somebody's new on Amazon or maybe you know six figure seller, they could. They could definitely be doing something you haven't mentioned yet today. Grace: Yeah, I think I'm going to speak to specifically the apparel and footwear and jewelry sellers out there. It's really hard to manage the assortment and I know I manage the 50,000 ASIN count, but we've developed processes internally to make that a lot easier. And I know catalog management is probably a hot button topic for all those apparel sellers out there. Managing sizes, colors, widths, all of that, tracking the variations that's something we can help with. So, whether it's managing variations, bringing them into one listing, separating them out, testing variation strategy, that's something that's kind of niche that we do all the time with our footwear brands to see how we can gain more share of shelf or share of click on different keywords, mostly branded. And then there's also way different style guidelines for apparel and footwear and we've learned how to harness those and utilize those to the best of our abilities. So just know that you don't have to do that on your own. There's agencies and sellers out there that specialize in just that and can help you free up your time to work on the strategic stuff and we can handle the catalog management side of it. Bradley Sutton: Last question I guess would be you know, I'm assuming maybe you might use some AI things, especially having to manage so many listings like have you leverage AI in your amazon management business and, if so, how? Grace: Yes, we've definitely started utilizing it from a copy perspective. We use a bunch of different AI tools, but one thing that's worked for us is taking our keyword research, plugging it into pick the engine that you want to use, give them your product description and have them help at least get a starting point for what your bullet points and your title should be. It just saves so much time instead of sitting there and being like okay, here are my keywords, here's what I want to say, but I don't need to type all of it out on my own. So, yes, it's not going to be perfect, but it's a great place to start and, honestly, a great place to start with really anything, whether it's Amazon copy images or even just writing an email to a brand partner or a proposal to leadership it. Leadership Like it's just a super helpful tool that'll save time across the board. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Cool. All right. Last non-Amazon question. I see your Instagram. You're traveling a lot, favorite travel spots and what's on the bucket list for you that you haven't been to? Grace: Oh, my gosh. Okay. So recently my friends and I rented a beach house in Oak Island, North Carolina. It's like a tiny little town on the coast, but it was so beautiful and so fun and it was like a great way to disconnect. We literally saw dolphins from our balcony. It's like so cool. Bradley Sutton: Wow. Grace: So that was really fun. I was just kind of wholesome and nice to be able to unplug a little bit, although I never truly unplugged because slightly addicted to selling on amazon. Um, that's why we're here, right. And then, in terms of bucket list, I've never been to Europe, which is crazy. I need to get to Italy. I'm such a wine person, I'm such a like I love food. So that is on my bucket list. I hope I can get out in the next few years. Bradley Sutton: Maybe get your boss to send you to. We're doing a it's not Italy, but nearby to Madrid. End of May we are doing a workshop, high-end workshop, in Madrid. So, that could be an opportunity to business expense for your company and learn some new strategies. And you get to, you know, maybe make a side trip to Italy on your own dime. So if anybody else is interested, I'll know. I going to try and get Grace to go. h10.me/elitespain. It's open to everybody to join. All right, well, Grace, thank you so much for coming on here. It's been great to see all that you've accomplished on Amazon. I wish you the best of success in the future and maybe we'll bring you back on and let's see how you know how deep into the hundreds of millions that your company has been able to sell next year. Grace: I want to plug. I have an amazing team. This is not just me. I just happen to be the voice of them so I want to make sure I give them a shout out too. Bradley Sutton: If somebody wants to like maybe find you on the interwebs. I mean you can be incognito if you want, you don't have to answer this. But how can they find you out there? Grace: Yeah, so if you're interested in services from PowerPlay, powerplayretail.com, find us on LinkedIn. Otherwise, you can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'm also like a LinkedIn crazy person, so I will respond probably in the first one minute but that's the easiest way to reach me. Bradley Sutton: Is the founder of your company, like a hockey fan or something. Is that the name? Is that where PowerPlay comes from? Grace: I get that question a lot. No, but we always like use that as kind of like a hook, and we're also in Minnesota so hockey and Minnesota. Bradley Sutton: So that's what I was about to say. Minnesota is a hockey. Yeah, okay, all right, well, Grace. Grace: PowerPlay Hockey Jerseys, so I will say. Bradley Sutton: Hey, you know me about my Helium 10 jersey, so I'm all about those jerseys. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us and I hope to see you at maybe what Amazon Accelerate in Seattle, where's the next one. Grace: Yeah, I'll be at Accelerate. I'll be bopping around to different conferences but maybe I'll see you in Spain. Bradley Sutton: Hey, let's do it. Let's do it, all right, we'll see you later, Grace.

Dave connects with Chris Perry, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer at firstmovr.  firstmovr is an Omni Education and Change Management organization for CPGs, retailers and agencies.  They host many industry events throughout the year and publish a number of free resources, including the recently-released ebook, "Omnigeddon: 2024 Commerce Expectations for Boomsday Preppers."Chris shares an overview of firstmovr (7:57), an outline of their "Smarter Growth" concept (13:21), some recent client creative examples he's a fan of (16:57), his hopes and concerns about AI (26:48), and his predictions for the next 12 months and beyond (34:02).Download "Omnigeddon" for free here: https://firstmovr.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Omnigeddon.pdfConnect with Chris on LinkedIn: https://firstmovr.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Omnigeddon.pdfGet in touch with the firstmovr team: hello@firstmovr.comTake advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

In this insightful interview from the NGA show, Dennis Host, SVP of Marketing at Coborn's, shares his expertise on e-commerce marketing, loyalty programs, and the power of Big Data in the grocery industry. Host discusses Coborn's journey from operating a full e-commerce warehouse model to implementing store pickup, and how their loyalty program has been instrumental in understanding and segmenting their customers. He highlights the importance of leveraging customer data and partnering with CPGs to create targeted campaigns and personalized offers through AI. Host also touches on the challenges and opportunities of retail media networks for regional grocers. Discover how Coborn's is re-platforming their e-commerce experience and leveraging in-store digital media, such as dynamic digital circulars, QR codes, and video recipes, to create an experiential and engaging shopping environment for their customers. Special thanks to the VusionGroup for making all our show coverage possible! #DennisHost #Coborn's #NGAshow #ecommercemarketing #loyaltyprogram #BigData #retailmedia #customerdata #shopperdata #datawarehouse #datainfrastructure #CPGpartnerships #dynamicdigitalcircular #emailmarketing #textmarketing #instoreactivations #customersegmentation #AIpersonalization #omnichannelshoppers #analyticsinfrastructure #ecommercereplatforming #digitalmediainstore #experientialgroceryshopping #QRcodes #videorecipes #digitalsignage

Reed McCord is the Founder & CEO of First Bite, a software platform providing market intelligence and CRM tools for CPG brands selling into foodservice. In this episode, we'll talk about Reed's early experience helping scale Impossible Foods, the black box of foodservice distribution, and how First Bite is helping brands identify and sell to the most likely restaurant customers.

FreightWaves' Mike Baudendistel and Grace Sharkey interview Christine Barnhart, Chief Marketing & Industry Officer of Nulogy. According to Barnhart, contract manufacturing is not a pandemic-era trend but, instead, a growth area that makes data collaboration across CPGs' suppliers more critical.  Follow The Stockout Podcast Other FreightWaves Shows Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom Burgess, the President of SnippMedia, joined Anne and Chris to share his thoughts on how CPGs can attribute in-store retail purchases by leveraging banks' loyalty programs, and how retailers can also plug these same loyalty programs into their retail media networks. In this podcast, Chris and Anne go deep with Tom on: - The history of bank card loyalty programs and attribution - How new digital media channels can power attribution by connecting banking apps and retail purchases - How payments media allows banks to offer targeted deals and cash back to incentivize their card usage - How CPGs, in particular, can now reach bank loyalty program members with offers at the point of purchase on their banking apps - And ultimately how the whole process simplifies digital attribution by connecting ad views to store purchases With 60 million engaged consumers on banking apps, payments media represents the potential for retail media to expand in innovative directions, linking financial services to in-store buying in a new win-win structure. Music by hooksounds.com *Sponsored Content*

C. S. Sherrington said “All the brain can do is to move things". The Brain in Motion: From Microcircuits to Global Brain Function (MIT Press, 2023) shows how much the brain can do "just" by moving things. It gives an amazing overview of the large variety of motor behaviors and the cellular basis of them. It reveals how motor circuits provide the underlying mechanism not just for walking or jumping, but also for breath or chewing. The book emphasizes the evolutionary perspective. It demonstrates how the basic structures are the same across all vertebrates, suggesting that these systems have been around for more than 500 million years. At the very beginning, Grillner introduces the analogy of an orchestra: The microcircuits are the musicians, and the forebrain acts as the conductor. In the following chapters, the readers get to know all the important actors and their contribution to this "performance": the CPGs and motor centers that execute the movements, the tectum that synthesizes input from the direct surroundings of the animal, the basal ganglia and the cortex that together direct the microcircuits, and the cerebellum, which plays a crucial role in adapting the movements according to the environment and learning new motor behavior. The Brain in Motion provides both a great overview of the motor system and a detailed presentation of its major contributors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In episode 54 of Kantar's Retail Sound Bites, Barry Thomas, senior retail thought leader, and Rachel Dalton, head of retail insights, discuss the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs and the forecasted implications on the food and beverage industries with Leigh O'Donnell, head of shopper and category insights, and Patricia Gregory, global analytics lead, at Kantar. Have a topic you'd like us to cover? Contact us at Kantar's Retail Sound Bites Podcast. Learn more about GLP-1, other injectable medication usage, and shopper attitudes in our latest study GLP-1 & Injectable Medications. Barry's contact information: barry.thomas@kantar.com Barry's LinkedIn Rachel's contact information: rachel.dalton@kantar.com Rachel's LinkedIn

#159: An insightful conversation about what's happening on grocery shelves, with Errol Schweizer, whose career in the retail natural foods space included a long stint at Whole Foods on the merchandising team. Dave and Errol talk about Walmart's effect on food prices, sellers inflation, and the noticeable changes seen at food co-ops and other organic marketplaces as a result of corporate consolidation.  Errol's voice will be included in our annual virtual symposium, which starts on  03/17/2024:https://realorganicproject.org/symposium-2024/Errol Schweizer has decades of experience with food co-ops, CPGs, merchandising and food service. He is a longtime consultant, a contributing writer at Forbes magazine, and the host of his own grocery-centric podcast called The Check Out:https://www.thecheckoutradio.com/ To watch a video version of this podcast with access to the full transcript and links relevant to our conversation, please visit:https://realorganicproject.org/errol-schweizer-consolidation-greenwashing-growing-myth-local-food-episode-one-hundred-fifty-nineThe Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement working towards certifying 1,000 farms across the United States this year. Our add-on food label distinguishes soil-grown fruits and vegetables from hydroponically-raised produce, and pasture-raised meat, milk, and eggs from products harvested from animals in horrific confinement (CAFOs - confined animal feeding operations).To find a Real Organic farm near you, please visit:https://www.realorganicproject.org/farmsWe believe that the organic standards, with their focus on soil health, biodiversity, and animal welfare were written as they should be, but that the current lack of enforcement of those standards is jeopardizing the ability for small farms who adhere to the law to stay in business. The lack of enforcement is also jeopardizing the overall health of the customers who support the organic movement; customers who are not getting what they pay for at market but still paying a premium price. And the lack of enforcement is jeopardizing the very cycles (water, air, nutrients) that Earth relies upon to provide us all with a place to live, by pushing extractive, chemical agriculture to the forefront.If you like what you hear and are feeling inspired, we would love for you to join our movement by becoming one of our 1,000  Real Friends:https://www.realorganicproject.org/real-organic-friends/To read our weekly newsletter (which might just be the most forwarded newsletter on the internet!) and get firsthand news about what's happening with organic food, farming and policy, please subscribe here:https://www.realorganicproject.org/email/

This episode features conversations from season 2 of Good Data, Better Marketing. In this episode, you'll hear expert advice on AI adoption and ROI, the human side of marketing, and tips on achieving a seamless customer experience. We also have an exciting announcement from your host, Kailey Raymond!-------------------Episode Timestamps:‍*(01:08) - Special announcement‍*(01:52) - AI adoption and ROI with Morgan Norman, Ilan Frank, and Pete Housely‍*(11:33) - The human side of marketing with Kristen Maa, Ali Miller, and Andrew Mok‍*(19:28) - Building best-in-class customer experiences with Patricia Corsi, Jessica Jensen, and Tiffany Perkins-Munn-------------------“This next wave of AI is how do you get everyone to adopt it and start to tinker with it? It doesn't mean that it's going to work perfectly for them, but they're going to push the envelope of what it is, getting back to you of what those features might be or how it would work better for their workflow.” – Morgan Norman“We're continuing to really leverage all of the signals and all that wonderful first party data, to drive better outcomes and more efficient outcomes for CPGs. Altogether, it feels like the recipe for trust is not just great products. It's also engaging in those transparent conversations and building those relationships with the people behind the budgets.That's also what I love about CPG.” – Ali Miller“There are lots of businesses that are using social media, not only for marketing, but also for customer service. Actively engaging with customers on the platform, addressing their concerns, building relationships. This, to me, is a real opportunity for digital transformation and AI to maximize the work that's happening.” – Tiffany Perkins-MunnLinks:Connect with Kailey on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian Studios-------------------SponsorGood Data, Better Marketing is brought to you by Twilio Segment. In today's digital-first economy, being data-driven is no longer aspirational. It's necessary. Find out why over 20,000 businesses trust Segment to enable personalized, consistent, real-time customer experiences by visiting Segment.com

As power shifts from institutions to individuals, creators have a unique opportunity to build enterprise empires in their niches. To make this happen, creators often need the help of outside investors, including venture capital firms (VCs).  In this episode, Megan Lightcap, Principal at Slow Ventures, walks us through the thought process of VC investors, explaining the unique dynamics of funding creator businesses. She shares why VC investment firms are strategically investing in creator businesses. She also delves into the strategies, insights, and considerations that VCs have when evaluating and investing in the ever-evolving creator economy. Megan highlights the untapped possibilities for creators to identify and capitalize on white space opportunities. She shares how creators can leverage their loyal followings and insider knowledge to make substantial industry impacts with the help of VC investors. Show Notes: Here are the key takeaways from our conversation with Megan: Maximize Your Unique Industry Position:Megan spotlights the inherent advantages creators have in areas such as consumer product goods (CPGs). By having early retail distribution and avoiding the initial hurdles of brand awareness, creators can uniquely position themselves in the market. Megan emphasizes the significance of authentic audience engagement over merely securing endorsement deals. Creators have the unique ability to identify white space opportunities and pivot toward industries where they can leverage their embedded distribution and industry knowledge. Capitalize on Your Community: Megan discusses the power of creators to transform their loyal followings into thriving enterprises. By leveraging personal brands, creators have the unique opportunity to bypass traditional hurdles in pathways such as retail distribution. Megan shares how VC funding frees creators to strategically invest time and resources into their personal brand, enabling them to step back from day-to-day content creation without sacrificing their business's growth. Structure for Flexibility and Growth with the Top Co Model: Megan advocates for investing in top cos as a strategic way for creators to access funding while retaining flexibility. This approach, which involves creating a top holding company with various underlying projects, provides the benefit of separating the creative aspects from the business opportunities. Megan shares how creators and COOs interested in VC funding can position themselves for investment in a way that still allows for experimentation and growth. Jump into the Conversation: [05:12] Why equity can be a better fit for creator businesses than debt [12:07] When and why creators should raise capital [14:43] The role of Creator COOs in raising capital [16:44] Mitigating the risk of the creator lifecycle [28:44] Evaluating creators to invest in [30:17] The impact of cult-like followings [41:42] Helping creators navigate long-term planning [44:30] Underwriting creator businesses [49:14] Why VCs invest in creator top cos [55:24] Maintaining lifestyle business versus building a bigger enterprise Continue the conversation with these resources: Follow Megan Lightcap on LinkedIn and X

In this episode of BRAVE COMMERCE, Thomas Ranese, Chief Marketing Officer at Chobani, joins hosts Rachel Tipograph and Sarah Hofstetter to offer insights into the intersection of technology and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Chobani's remarkable growth, and the challenges and opportunities facing the CPG industry. As the conversation begins, Thomas emphasizes Chobani's commitment to providing nutritious and delicious food made from natural ingredients. He believes that many large companies struggle to achieve the balance of affordability, nutrition, and taste, and shares how Chobani is on a mission to fill this gap. Drawing parallels between tech companies and CPGs, Thomas highlights the importance of a consumer-first, insight-driven approach in CPG, while acknowledging that tech companies are innovation-obsessed and digitally led. He believes that blending these two mindsets is crucial for creating a modern marketing organization. Moreover, Thomas mentions that he is drawn to companies with a compelling mission and product, making Chobani a perfect fit for him. He draws parallels between Chobani and his experiences at Google, emphasizing the similarities in the early stages of both companies' growth. He also shares insights into Chobani's culture, describing it as agile, innovative, and quick to launch and iterate, similar to the approach of tech companies. The discussion then transitions to Chobani's growth strategy and portfolio expansion. Thomas stresses the importance of growth in core categories, such as yogurt, and the potential for disruption in categories like oat milk and creamer. He also acknowledges the need to connect the various products under the Chobani umbrella and shares the story of how the company's founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, sees the potential for yogurt-making to change the world. Thomas also addresses how Chobani's products aim to be delicious, nutritious, and accessible, with a focus on remaining affordable amid inflation and economic challenges. He touches on the importance of aligning the portfolio strategy with the brand's mission and purpose, ensuring consistency and clarity across all products. Key Takeaways: ● Develop a clear and cohesive portfolio strategy tying all products to core values● Collaborate closely with retail partners for innovation and adaptability● Disrupt traditional categories and explore new areas for impactful growth Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Machine learning models that use DNA markers can estimate the age of biological samples. However, understanding why these markers change with age is challenging because it's hard to prove that these changes cause aging-related traits. In this week's Everything Epigenetics podcast, I speak with Kejun Ying who uses large datasets to find specific DNA markers that directly influence aging traits. We explore his recently published study which found casual CpGs that speed up aging and others that protect against it. Kejun and colleagues created two new models, DamAge and AdaptAge, to measure harmful and beneficial changes related to aging. DamAge, which indicates negative aging effects, is linked to several health risks, including higher chances of dying. AdaptAge, on the other hand, shows positive aging adaptations. Interestingly, only the negative changes seen in DamAge can be reversed by a process that makes aged cells young again.The research findings provide a detailed understanding of the DNA markers that truly affect lifespan and overall health as we age. This helps us develop more accurate aging biomarkers and evaluate treatments aimed at reversing aging, improving longevity, and understanding events that speed up the aging process.In this Everything Epigenetics episode, you'll learn about:Kejun's unique journey into the aging fieldOne of the biggest weaknesses of the epigenetic clocks (separating causation versus correlation)Mendelian randomization Casual inferenceWhy causality matters for aging biomarkersWhy it is  important to separate deleterious and protective changes in agingDamAge (casual aging clock based on damaging sites)AdpateAge (casual aging clock based on protective sites)The applications of DamAge and what AdpateAgeClockBase: a comprehensive platform for biological age profiling in human and mouseThe application of ClockBaseData privacy when using ClockBaseWhere to find Kejun: XLinkedInGoogle ScholarKejun Ying is a 4th year Ph.D. student in Harvard Medical School, Gladyshev lab. His research focuses on understanding cause of aging and develop ML-based aging biomarkers to facilitate the discovery of novel anti-aging interventions.Support the showThank you for joining us at the Everything Epigenetics Podcast and remember you have control over your Epigenetics, so tune in next time to learn more about how.

Think of your favorite TV commercial of all time. What made it memorable? It was probably that it told a story that resonated with you. Unlike straight feature benefit ads that you'll often see from CPGs, like detergent or toothpaste, or from insurance companies, really memorable advertising tells a story and triggers feelings. The same goes for public speaking and generally all marketing. Stats or data help, too. It's about blending them. If you're deficient in any one of the three pillars of persuasion, it's difficult to get anyone to believe you or care what you have to say. Hear more: You Need All Three: Pathos, Ethos, and Logos MarketingJanuary Top 5: Every Tuesday this month, we're re-airing the top 5 most downloaded episodes of this podcast. This was the #2 most popular. This episode originally aired 2/1/2021. Next week, tune in to hear the top episode of the year.My favorite podcast tools:Riverside: record audio or video podcast: emilybinder.com/riversideDescript: edit audio or video like a Word doc. emilybinder.com/descriptPodcast gear list (mic / camera / lighting): wealthvoice.ai/gearOrder my NEW virtual keynote on ThinkersOne: "Love Bombed then Ghosted: Online Dating Mistakes Your Brand Makes"Podcast home: emilybinder.com/podcastBook a coaching session: emilybinder.com/callFollow & connect:My website | Beetle Moment Marketing | LinkedIn | X | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Get email updates Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The CPG Guys welcome Sharon Fox, operating partner of Stride consumer partners.Stride Consumer partners is a private equity firm that specializes in partnering with talented and dynamic founders, entrepreneurs, and business leaders to build the next generation of great consumer brands. Follow Sharon on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-fox-b979265/Follow Stride consumer partners on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stride-consumer-partners/Follow Stride consumer partners online at: https://www.strideconsumer.com/Here's what we asked Sharon: 1. Could you share insights into the current trends shaping the consumer goods industry? 2. What strategies has your company employed to navigate challenges in the rapidly evolving consumer landscape? 3. How do you identify promising consumer goods startups to invest in, and what criteria do you prioritize? 4. Can you discuss the role of sustainability and ethical practices in the consumer goods sector, and how it influences investment decisions? 5. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs looking to pitch their consumer goods startups to investors like Stride Consumer Partners? 6. In your experience, how has technology impacted the consumer goods industry, and what opportunities or challenges does it present? 7. How do you see the future of consumer goods evolving, especially with emerging technologies and changing consumer preferences? 8. Can you share a success story of a brand that has yielded positive results with your partnership?9. What role do branding and marketing play in the success of consumer goods startups, and how do you assess these aspects when considering investments?CPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.comFMCG Guys Website: http://FMCGguys.comCPG Scoop Website: http://CPGscoop.comNextUp Website: http://NextUpisnow.org/cpgguysRetailWit Website: http://retailwit.comRhea Raj's Website: http://rhearaj.comDISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGGUYS, LLC or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGGUYS, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.  CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.

This week on the Modern Retail Rundown: First, an overview of major CPGs like PepsiCo and retailers like Target receiving backlash for relentlessly raising prices the past few years. Then, a new report says that Shein and Temu's suppliers are being squeezed, experiencing thin margins and pressure to cut prices. Finally, Peloton's latest turnaround strategy includes launching content on TikTok.