The Big Impression

JPMorgan Chase's David Pinto-Carpenter shares how the banking giant is adapting to changing consumer expectations for financial services, what he thinks is holding back more investment in CTV and why he’s comfortable not being a first mover.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse (00:02):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian (00:03):

And welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.

Ilyse (00:10):

This week we're delighted to talk with David Pinto-Carpenter, the managing director of Media Strategy and Insights at JPMorgan Chase.

Damian (00:19):

Now over 225 years old and is situated across 100 global markets. JPMorgan Chase is one of the world's most respected financial institutions, and for the second consecutive year, fortune ranked JPMorgan Chase, the fifth most admired company in the world.

Ilyse (00:35):

After 10 years of agency life, David moved over to JPMC where he's focused on how the company invests in its digital marketing strategy to stay current with the fast moving media environment.

Damian (00:48):

We start by asking David about how his agency life informed his thinking at JPMorgan Chase

Ilyse (00:55):

After having spent nearly 10 years on the agency side of media. What inspired you to move over to the brand side and how has that experience kind of shaped your approach at JPMorgan Chase?

David (01:10):

Right, so well, that really ages me, so appreciate that. But I think I've always been interested in two sides of media. One is how media can influence consumer behavior and also how media can move business. And I think it's a bit hard to get a real accurate answer of how media moves business when you don't see the other side of the business. So agencies are, there's always typically a gap between clients and agency in terms of information sharing, what can be passed back and forth. So I was fortunate enough to, as my last agency assignment work on the Truth Initiative, which is a

(01:48):

Youth pro non-smoking nonprofit, and they were very open with their information. Essentially we're all working on a common cause. The cause is maybe the only thing in marketing where you actually save lives and therefore our information is your information, whatever can make us better, we'll do it. My clients gave us access to their web analytic platform. We had a full understanding of their tagging infrastructure and which actions were scored higher and lower and where we were trying to drive people and how people were traversing across the funnel as well as their data management platform. How do we create audiences? How do we collect data on an ad impression? How do we ultimately transform that into groups that we can use to target better? And for Truth, they're trying to reach 13 to 24 year olds with the message they don't want to hear. The hardest thing to get in action, and their action is to sign people up for advocacy.

(02:40):

I was able to see front and back everything that's happening and be able to use that to build tools and capabilities that allow us to model forward outcomes. We're basically able to say, okay, now we can not only project how much the outcome will cost, but also we can anticipate how people will respond to the ads as we put them out into market, and that included creative, that included everything else. We were able to reduce the amount of working media they needed to achieve their goal by 20%. We just said, take that back. You don't need it. You're a nonprofit, you don't need to spend it anymore. That was my last gig. And then at the time, my current manager, Tracy- Ann Lim, chief media officer at JPMC started to contact me asking if I was interested in coming to JPMC. So first questions I asked were, what kind of systems do you have?

(03:24):

What kind of access to information will I have? And then what is the objective? What does a team look like? So the team was very nascent, but the technology and the systems were very similar to truth, actually. It was a no-brainer getting access to or having the potential to access some portion of JPMC data to make marketing more effective and see how it works. And then a nonprofit, let's say JPMC’s, I dunno, a hundred times the size of the nonprofit, maybe that's some job security it'll take me, took one year to make something happen on the nonprofit. Maybe we'll take a hundred on JPMC, but it's a fun thing to do. I'm very grateful for that experience. I worked across a lot of different categories, a lot of different businesses, but I don't think we would've been as successful at moving things as fast as JPMC if Tracy and I didn't come from an agency background. There's nothing that can really prepare you for working at JPMC.

Damian (04:18):

One question I have about that. When you worked on the Truth Initiative project, it sounds like you would have a very clear mission statement. How do you think about that mission statement in your current context, in your current role?

David (04:33):

So we have, depending on how you count them, between 30 and 40 business units across JPMC globally, and all of them have some desire or ambition to market something out into the world. So I think we treat it as a series of levels. We have corporate level marketing and that's, you know, what does JPMC stand for? What is it doing in the communities? What information do we need to get out? So people do any number of things, either decide to open a banking relationship with us, decide to trust us with their investments or even come to work for our company. We compete on a lot of different fronts. So that's the top. And then from there, we cascade down to business groups, business units. But I think our purpose as recently defined by Carla is to make dreams happen for everyone everywhere, every day. And I think that's the culture that we try to carry through in the marketing decisions that we make. Yes, of course we want to open more accounts, but also we want to do right by our customers and make people understand that not only is this a great place to work, it's a great place to bank, but there's a lot of good that's happening from business that originates from JPMorgan Chase.

Ilyse (05:42):

It can be a tricky sector to markets because it's so heavily regulated - finance that is. I'm curious what your media strategy looks like. What kind of customer insights can you rely on to inform your overall media plan?

David (05:59):

Yeah, so we do a lot of design target work. We do a lot of segmentation, but I think specific to media, we treat our media strategy a lot more like financial planning and analysis in that we are – it’s a couple things: One, if we don't make more than we spend, we're a bank, we're probably not going to get that money again. So we treat an initial investment as very sacrosanct. We need to be very disciplined in the way that we spend it and use the best information we have to make sure it'll be a success. And then we try to get better over time. So we work with our finance partners in every business to understand what are the financials of each product, how are they changing, what do we know about the interaction effect of the channels that we market and the other channels that we use for marketing?

(06:44):

And how do we triangulate and forecast forward what we think that benefit will be and then prove that out over time through testing. In that respect, the notion of a campaign is important in the sense that it's an organizing construct to get work done and there's a message that runs and we create a message and it runs in the advertising space, and we're trying to get better at quantifying that impact. What does good creative look like and what does bad creative look like and what does that do for the business? But for us, we buy, for lack of a better word, blank space for another message to be put in. And so we've built a lot of muscle memory over time on what works in one business, how do we adapt it to another? Our business is similarly situated so that we can believe that this will be a predictable outcome for the foreseeable future. How long do we think this outcome will last? And then the proof is in, do we hit our numbers at the end of the year?

Damian (07:33):

You've touched on this a little bit Ilyse, but it's a sector, the finance sector is a conquesting sector in some ways, and on the face of it, there may seem to be little differentiation between one big bank and another. But I'm curious from your point of view in terms of branding, how do you think about JPMC setting itself apart? What are its differentiating points and how does that manifest itself in how you think about your work?

David (07:58):

Right. Yeah. So it's very important for me to keep one foot out of JPMC and not think like a marketer but think like a human being. And in that respect, if you open a checking account, you open a savings account, generally speaking, those are going to be pretty similar products from bank to bank. But I think where the real race is right now in financial services is experiences. So how do we deliver value to you by being an account holder of one of our products? And how is that different from the way that you are treated or the way that you might feel or the things that you can experience or unlock through other products? We have a pretty robust travel platform and dining platform. We invest heavily in bonus accelerators for travel and dining and other spaces. And we're starting to open progressively larger lounge business in addition to our branches. So we treat all of those as places where we can make an impression on people to give them an experience that is, for lack of a better word, white glove.

David (09:00):

That they couldn't get anywhere else and trying to make the differentiation on those experiences. And I think that's where the biggest battleground is.

Damian (09:07):

It's so interesting to me to hear you talk like that and how a company like JPMorgan Chase is actually thinking about lifestyle and experiences and in lots of ways you are marketing a membership or a membership of a kind of elite club, if you like. Is that fair?

David (09:24):

I think for some of our products, we compete in affluent and there's a lot of benefits that we give to affluent account holders that are meant to give unforgettable experiences, experiences they can’t get anywhere else. But I think even our core experience in branches, we want that to be a differentiating factor too. So we invest totally separate from marketing, but we invest a lot in making sure that our bankers have the right information about the customers that they're serving at their fingertips so that when someone comes in and has a question that they know the entire history of that person's relationship. And then in call centers as well, investing a lot in applied AI and ML to do the same thing. So if you call, we want to understand exactly who you are and help get you the help that you need as quickly as possible. We treat all of our products across the spectrum as trying to be differentiated in that way.

Damian (10:14):

So maybe it's a better way to talk about it as you think about the different customer experiences at different levels.

David (10:19):

Right, yes.

Ilyse (10:21):

Yeah, I would say that's definitely like a audience first approach to marketing. What about when it comes to buying ad space and media space?

David (10:31):

Yea, so without going into too much detail about the secret sauce, I'll say that we obviously have relationships with a quarter of the United States in terms of our customers and our households that bank with us and millions of small businesses as well. There's a lot of information that's proprietary to us that we are able to leverage and we take the protection of that data very seriously. There's a lot that we can't use and we can't access and we have to secure approval to get it. But I think generally speaking, our products are aligned to a series of firm-wide strategic segments, and we track growth against those segments. That's at the highest level and as you go progressively lower the matrix of the audiences that we might use or the audience we might prioritize becomes more matrixed and complex. But we have an audience centric approach to targeting. We are getting better in our capabilities to orchestrate journeys. So I think our ambition or our desire is to be as close to one and personal as we can be given the restrictions that we have in data access.

Ilyse (11:36):

So your digital marketing strategy definitely signals a future that is focused on measurable outcomes. I'm curious about how you're using channels like CTV and digital out of home to connect that brand awareness with that performance level.

David (11:54):

Sure. So I would say our strategy has been focused on measurable outcomes since day one. As I mentioned, we wouldn't get money if we weren't able to prove that it was working. But we also think about media in a full funnel context. So awareness drives consideration, drives acquisition, and they're all tied to a person and that person is interacting with multiple messages every day. So I think in the past, and what we're trying to progress away from is the campaign specific mindset. Every product works in a silo, they're all targeting a general audience. And once a product launches on awareness channels, we're no longer on awareness channels. So we've spent a lot of time proving that interaction effect between awareness and consideration acquisition so that we can say what's happening up here is benefiting up here, but we also know the unique benefit of what's happening at the top.

(12:44):

But I think the two biggest things holding CTV back at the moment for us, I can't speak for the rest of the advertising industry, and it seems like they're spending a lot, is price and brand safety. So on the price front on average CTV ads among publishers, I will not name are two to three times higher than broad reach cable or some mix that's more efficient in nature. Brand safety is another in that you can buy an unlimited amount of CTV that's running in a lot of different fragmented places who you choose to buy it direct. You can choose to buy it through a hardware provider or you can choose to buy it in some app aggregator and all of those will air to some household in some content somewhere. And you know what the household is. So where we've been pushing a lot on brand safety is can we get, it doesn't have to be similar to TV per se, but we definitely need to know what programming we're running against.

(13:38):

Especially if we're talking about long tail connected TV programming. Most of it's not brand safe, but there's a lot of connected TV content that's tied to children's programming. And if it's going to a household and we can't exactly confirm where that ad brand, who knows, we're running against 12 year olds this entire time. So we're pushing for more information back through brand safety vendors and publishers to validate exactly where that's running in the same context or in a similar context to TV logs. I think once that happens, we invest in the same way that we would anywhere else.

Ilyse (14:16):

Do you think it'll get there sooner rather than later? 

David (14:19):

Or is the data incoming?

David (14:22):

I think so. Brand safety technology really just as a matter of getting the information from the hardware or the app provider itself.

Damian (14:32):

As we look back 2024, we wrote a lot about how the upfronts were changing and there's been a lot of press about upfronts changing. What's your perspective on the upfronts? You talked a little bit about the differences between linear and CTV. Has that impacted the way you think about your products across linear and streaming? How has the upfronts changed things, speeded things up, slowed things down.

David (14:55):

So the upfronts are always, I don't know if I'm, was it masochist or sadist, but the upfronts are usually my favorite part of the year because you can get a lot of decisions done at the same time and you can look much longer term than sometimes even my agency days clients or in our cases the business are thinking themselves. So it forces a lot of conversations on what is the outlook of the business, what is the outlook of the products you're prioritizing? And then on the other side, how have macro changes impacted what we think will work and at what price? So I don't think it's an exaggeration to say the last four years more has changed in consumption patterns than the previous 10 before that. I think it has had a pretty massive impact on the marketplace in that anyone who's watched cable TV recently will watch endless reruns on cable tv. And so it's really just a matter of capturing passive intent. There's not all that much original content that is being developed specifically for TV anymore.

(15:59):

So it's a bit more like, I don't know, run of network or video advertising 10 years ago. So we have to take those two things and counterbalance if we know that the bulk of live TV is happening with hyper consumers who are watching it a lot and have a different footprint than those who are watching streaming. But we also know that streaming, ad supported streaming is a very small portion of the total streaming universe. How do we munge those two things together to find the right opportunity? And how do we validate that change is ultimately resulting in a response among the people that are most likely to respond for a particular product or service advertising. This year we undertook a big evaluation. Essentially it felt like the inflection point to say, we can't really just go to market in the same way that we always have in the upfront because there's not as much inventory as we want to buy in the upfront, but it's a good opportunity for us to think about what is a holistic video investment long-term and do we make drastic changes this year or do we make drastic next year?

(16:58):

So we essentially undertook a process where we built versions of that strategic segmentation that I mentioned where all of our products are aligned against, and then flip that same segmentation around to understand how networks and digital video packages and connected TV packages all reach these different segments. And some of that's a slew of tools, not any one tool has that whole picture. So we use different platforms for different parts of the picture and then started to reorient the entire investment around how do we best reach the people that are most relevant to this product in a way that sort of normalizes the whole investment for the firm.

Ilyse (17:43):

So this was the first year that you actually looked at all the puzzle pieces, I guess, and put those together. Was there something that inspired that in the market specifically or just the ongoing change throughout the past couple of years?

David (18:00):

Yeah, I think that what really prompted that change was the options that we have to procure media in different ways. And so now we have different options to say, what is the best method of buying? Is this something that we need to buy as a commodity at the best price? Is this something that we need to buy that's highly targeted to a household, but we need to control the programming? Is this something that we within a reasonable bounds know what the content categories are and we think that there's opportunity in the response of people watching in these content categories in connected tv, or is there on the opposite side a commodity for video where we say if everything's going to run in this standard topic allow list and we're trying to get tonnage but control for the way an ad is served. And that flexibility didn't exist to the extent that it exists now, I think our flexibility to choose those different routes is also relatively recent development through our in housing efforts. And also we have great very flexible agency partnerships to say, we're going to look at this together. We'll figure out the best combination of entities or methods or pipelines to get access to the inventory that we want at the right price. And sometimes that is a collaboration and sometimes it's something we do ourselves. So that flexibility gave us a lot more options to think critically about where and how we secure video upfront inventory.

Ilyse (19:27):

Traditionally, banks are perceived as brick and mortar establishments, but these days they're all online and digital. How does that change the way you go to market?

David (19:39):

Right. So each business has some blend of digital and branch originated business. So we think about business bank. If you're a small business owner, you're more likely than not going to go into a branch to make sure you know who the person is that's handling your money for your business. Whereas credit cards are much more digital first. So that blend of who opens, which accounts, where is usually a pretty good predictor of what channels will work well to solicit a response. We have a very big app and website. We're also one of the most conservative cybersecurity companies on earth. So there's a lot of capabilities that marketers like that we will never have or capabilities that we have to work a lot harder to evaluate whether or not it's worth it for us. We treat that as a good challenge.

(20:35):

If you can't explain exactly where information is going and why it's being used, you probably shouldn't use it in the first place. I don't think that's unique to finance. So we are able use that to our advantage too. So if we're not a first mover and everyone is working out the kinks on our behalf and then we say, okay, we're comfortable with this because we're seeing how the landscape is utilizing this new tool or this new technology or some other part of the technology ecosystem makes it so that we don't have to use it in the way that it is built to be used, but we can customize it and this company will work with us. That helps us to be effective when we need to be effective. And we also don't need to be a first mover because a very small change in improvement for us might be the revenue of an entire company in another place.

(21:25):

So it's worth it to be methodical and very focused on getting it right, getting things secure, using our digital capabilities in a responsible way. But then I think that the most important thing for us is that our branches, we view our branches as a superpower. It's a place where the vast majority of our customers form an opinion of us. If you go into a branch and don't have a good experience, then you also won't have a good opinion of us. And the marketing effectiveness is partially on what ads you put into market. It's partially based on the impression people have of you, and it's partially based on the opinion that people state of you based on their experience. And so we are always looking for ways to learn from what is working in the branches to improve our marketing capabilities. So I don't think that there's necessarily a trade off. It's trying to find the way that they both benefit each other and then what mix of channels ultimately encourages the type of interest that will grow the business in the unique way the business is configured.

Damian (22:23):

Great. Thank you so much for these really thoughtful insights.

Ilyse (22:26):

Yes, thank you so much.

Damian (22:33):

And that's it for this edition of The Current Podcast. We'll be back next week. So stay tuned.

Ilyse (22:38):

The Current Podcast theme is by Love and Caliber. The Current team includes Kat Vesce and Sydney Cairns.

David (22:44):

And remember, we treat our media strategy a lot more like financial planning and analysis. We need to be very disciplined in the way that we spend it and use the best information we have to make sure it'll be a success. 

Damian (22:54):

I’m Damian. 

Ilyse (22:55):

And I'm Ilyse.

Damian (22:56):

And we'll see you next time. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave as a review. Also tune into our other podcast, The Current Report.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Beyond Yoga Chief Marketing Officer Katie Babineau joins The Current Podcast on the ground at SXSW in honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. 

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:00):

I'm Kat Vesce. And I'm Ilyse Liffreing and welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast. In honor of International Women's Day and Women's Month, we're highlighting exceptional women of advertising at this year's South by Southwest.

Kat Vesce (00:18):

For this episode, we're thrilled to be joined by Katie Bau, the chief marketing Officer of Beyond Yoga, a brand that's redefining activewear with inclusivity, comfort, and community at its core.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:28):

That's right, Beyond yoga has been making waves in the industry, not just as a female founded brand, but as one that's rapidly expanding with a devoted customer base and a strong sense of purpose.

Kat Vesce (00:39):

Katie is approaching her one year anniversary as CMO and she's already led some game changing campaigns like Club Beyond a Full Funnel experiential activation in New York City that brought the brand to life in a whole new way.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:51):

We'll dive into that campaign and what's next for Beyond Yoga, including its approach to retail, men's expansion and content strategy, as well as Katie's journey as a woman in marketing.

Kat Vesce (01:03):

Katie, great to have you here. Thanks for joining us.

Katie Babineau (01:06):

Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here in Austin and great day to be here with you.

Kat Vesce (01:12):

Yeah. So I know we're approaching your one year anniversary as a CMO. Coming from a background largely in consumer tech, what drew you to this opportunity at Beyond Yoga?

Katie Babineau (01:22):

Well, I would say first and foremost, I was already a Beyond Yoga fan and customer and just fan of the brand. So when I had an opportunity to sit down with Nancy Green, our CEO I was very eager to learn more and I had come from a background in consumer tech, so I was very open at the time to making a pivot in my career and learning and growing about a new industry and apparel active wear to me was very interesting. I grew up as an athlete. Movement is so important to me as an individual and just love working in, I love the thought of working in an industry where I could pair both my professional and personal passion. And so Nancy and I met about a year ago. We hit it off, we talked a little bit about our philosophies and brand building where the business was going and it was just such a fit and so was really happy to move very quickly to make it happen.

Kat Vesce (02:20):

I love it. And tell me a bit about that philosophy. What's at the core of your marketing strategy for Beyond Yoga?

Katie Babineau (02:27):

Well, I've been there for about a year, so we've been building very, very quickly. But I will say that what I inherited is a very strong foundation. So part of the excitement in coming to this brand was looking at it through the lens of upholding the great legacy of a female founded brand that's still female led today. And knowing the fandom that the company and the brand has when I started and just scaling that we've got opportunity to broaden our reach and our audience. We hadn't really done the brand marketing that's needed to crack that right open. And so I was very excited to come in to learn a little bit more about the customer, a little bit more about our brand and our product. And so our opportunity is just to scale that love and that fandom. And so we're doing that now. We spent last year really redefining our brand position and strategy and just cracking that right open this year. As we look ahead,

Ilyse Liffreing (03:30):

I know you guys are a great example of why we're here and doing these podcast episodes to begin with International Women's Day and Women's Month on that strategy, are there any campaigns or moments that really changed the game for you as a marketer to this point in your first 11 months on the job?

Katie Babineau (03:48):

My upbringing as a marketer, I would say I've never considered myself a traditional marketer because I came up early in my career really as social was developing. And so I started my career in PR and really fell in love with social because of the way that the landscape was changing. And so my background in social pr, editorial and community building really has allowed me to think about the marketing mix a lot differently. And of course beyond what we need is more of a full funnel approach. So what we have done to build that foundation is think about how we bring community through the funnel, how we work with the community to totally shift our content strategy in paid advertising, how we think about community events as new customer acquisition tools. And so the campaign that comes to mind for us really is the New York City experience that we created last year, last October.

(04:47):

And the goal really was to show up in our number one market with a really delightful experience where people could take a step back from the chaos of the holidays, quickly approaching and really focus on mindfulness, on movement. We brought in some of the best wellness influencers and creators and instructors in the world and programmed for a week long in this incredible space around Union Square. And what we found was because we were able to think about engaging with community a bit differently through different types of content models and activations that really were rooted in value for the customer, we saw about a 50% new customer acquisition percentage. We sold product, so we generated revenue there. We don't have a brick and mortar store in New York, but it's our largest e-comm market. And so we were able to really drive lower funnel performance, but in a way that was deeply emotive and really connecting with our customers in new and different ways. So that comes to mind for me. Obviously we've got a lot planned this year as we key up to big important brand moments for us, so very excited to do more,

Kat Vesce (06:03):

But what a strong start out of the gate. I mean that was what, six months in on the jump pulled that off.

Katie Babineau (06:07):

We moved fast. I like to move fast, I think former athlete and me, I love a good pace. And coming from tech, I really loved tech because of the fast innovation and getting to connect with customers in new and different ways. And so I think coming in, I was so excited about the potential of the brand that we really just got to work. So it was fun.

Ilyse Liffreing (06:29):

And it seems like you hit your KPIs there, at least it generated a lot of interest in the brand and everything. Would you do it again? Are there any other key learnings from the experience?

Katie Babineau (06:40):

Absolutely. So the Collabion franchise had existed before I even got to the brand. It was a matter of pouring rocket fuel on it and pointing it in the right direction. So we host about one club beyond event every month. We're now doing one high impact a quarter. So we've got this emphasis on always on community building. We're getting a little bit tighter and more strategic in where we show up and which markets where we have retail locations, where we've got really incredible wholesale partnerships, studios that we're working with. So that's the focus now and today it's about continuing that hyperlocal love that we have and being able to show up in Austin in a really authentic way or Chicago where we are in a really authentic way. We're an LA built brand, but we're growing and scaling

Kat Vesce (07:37):

Any surprising results from the large Union Square activation you want to talk about?

Katie Babineau (07:43):

The biggest surprise to me, I am all about managing expectations, especially as a new CMO within a brand who hadn't done a ton of brand marketing historically. So coming into this event, I was very clear on, hey, this is top of funnel. We are trying to drive brand lift and conversation and built some brand heat in a market that's really important for us. So here are the KPIs. We're going to look at conversation lift, we're going to look at our engagement percentages, we're going to look at virality of content, and those are the key performance indicators that we really should be focused on here for our investment. And knowing in the back of my mind that I've seen these sort of activations work full funnel in the past, like, okay, well, so secondary we're going to sell products so we'll generate revenue and secondary we will track new customers into the brand. So we will watch that. And I think I was just blown away by the such high percentage of new customer acquisition. It's like that's incredible as a secondary, but being able to level set expectations because big on for a campaign, what is the clear role that we're trying to achieve?

Kat Vesce (08:56):

So with all of this increase in customer acquisition on this campaign, how are you converting them into that lifelong fan or loyalty?

Katie Babineau (09:06):

Well, it's really interesting right now we've got such fandom among our loyal customer base. We know that if you know us, you really love us. There's deep love for the brand through high product quality. And our customers love the touch the feel of the product. So once you experience that, we see such high repeat purchase behavior. And so we believe we've got to focus on that new customer acquisition because once we get 'em into the door, it's a great place to be and they don't want to leave. So we're excited to continue to focus on lighting that up and bringing more people into the fold because we know we're going to deliver such a strong product experience, which really that's the retention piece. And so being able to continue to activate them is super important. As we look ahead,

Ilyse Liffreing (10:01):

What advice would you give to other marketers looking to build this within their brand ethos? The idea of community mindset and purpose that are all powerful drivers of brand retention and loyalty?

Katie Babineau (10:15):

I think the number one mistake that marketers can make right now is the misconception that brand and growth are separate. They have to work together and they can work together. And I think we're doing ourselves a disservice if we believe that these are separate levers, right? So the reason why this campaign was so powerful was because we were able to leverage this full funnel and for our performance needs as well. We used a lot of the content in our lower funnel paid ads from, and we're actually seeing that our creator content is driving a much more efficient cost of acquisition. And so I think we can look at the way that we build the infrastructure a little bit differently and think about brand and growth really coming together to drive high impact.

Ilyse Liffreing (11:10):

The brand has been around for about 20 years now, which is amazing. It's your first store opened in 2022. How does the brand think about retail moving forward?

Katie Babineau (11:21):

Retail's a big opportunity for us. Our brand 20 years strong. We started really as a wholesale business, and so we built really strong partnerships across over 1200 different partners. You see us in Nordstrom, you see us in Equinox and studios across the country. And during the pandemic, obviously our.com business really thrived and continues to thrive today. As we look to the future, we believe retail is incredible opportunity for us to connect with customers deeply bring those insights back into our business. And so we are going to be opening many more stores. We are signed and announced on a Greenwich Village store opening early this summer. And then we will also open another store in Marin County this year as well. And so we will expand to nine stores this year for sure. We've definitely got more coming and so it's a really exciting time for us.

Kat Vesce (12:22):

What do you see as the biggest driver for beyond Yoga's next phase of growth?

Katie Babineau (12:27):

Product expansion is super exciting for us. So we historically have offered an incredible product in our space dive franchise, which is, and people usually buy it in a set of a legging and a crop tank. And we've been really sort of active wear based, but we've got so much opportunity in product expansion, lifestyle categories. Over the past year we've entered into new product categories like dresses that are fast growing for us, like these trouser pants that are incredible, that are fast growing for us. You look at fleece during the holidays, something we didn't have before, hugely a growth opportunity for us. So as we expand the product lineup, now we're bringing more people into the mix with more full funnel marketing and hopefully creating a bigger, better flywheel.

Kat Vesce (13:21):

And with that expansion, I know you speak to a lot of different generations, a lot of different types of audiences. How do you cater to that wide range of audiences both in marketing and in product?

Katie Babineau (13:34):

Yeah, it's really interesting and I love that we've got a multi-gender audience and even we see fast growing men's category for us too. So I think at the core, what we deliver is a really positive outlook on this active wear space. We really focus on bringing a little more levity and fun into the space, which can be a very serious space focused on performance and perfection. And we just want to offer an experience and a product that makes you feel really good and comfortable and really just focus on progress over perfection is sort of what we're all about. And we love that that brings in a diversity of customer base.

Ilyse Liffreing (14:12):

Amazing. So now let's get into our little rapid fire Q and A we have for you. Great. And these are all female focused questions because of International Women's Day. Tell us what inspired you to pursue a career in marketing and how has your journey been as a woman in this industry?

Katie Babineau (14:30):

People. I love the interaction with people that you get in marketing. I would also say just the diversity of what you do in marketing. It's so right brain, left brain that I really feel like it gives you an equal balance of creativity and science, which I love.

Ilyse Liffreing (14:50):

So Katie, how has your journey been as a woman in this industry so far?

Katie Babineau (14:53):

As a female in our industry, there is more pressure in some industries than others. I'll say my journey, especially coming up in tech and my experience had been being one of the only females in the room. And so I always felt an immense pressure even when I was young in my career, to develop my point of view and perspective and be able to speak up in the room in a way that would cut through. And I think being brought up in tech really trained me to do that in a way that was effective because you got to work so hard to cut through as a female if you're one of the only in the room. And so I felt a great duty to make sure that we were thinking about the female perspective. We were honoring at the time 50% of our customer base and even probably more than that for some of the companies that I was at.

(15:50):

And I took that on pretty early as something that was really important to me. Now, part of the reason I made this pivot into apparel and active wear was a false thought that I would be moving into an industry that was more female forward. I'm so happy that beyond Yoga's female founded, female led and really a majority of our business is female run, but our industry is still run by men, which I was so surprised to learn. And so I think every industry probably deals with it. And so being able to develop your perspective in the room is very important and being able to find the right partners, advocates and allies to help you build and develop that voice. I have a lot of incredible female and male mentors who have supported me along the way and you have to build your community because there's power in numbers and making sure that you've got the right people in your corner.

Ilyse Liffreing (16:49):

Amazing. And what would you say are those leadership qualities that really help you strive in the industry as a woman?

Katie Babineau (16:58):

I'm extremely collaborative and empathetic in my approach. And I think being especially early in my career, getting to bring people into a room and problem solve together and help people see each other's perspective is a bit of a superpower that I've had to develop as a female and early in my career, just finding value in being the connector, the strategic connector in the room I think has been very, very helpful. And sort of a secret weapon, if you will.

Kat Vesce (17:31):

Similar around that vein, what advice would you give to young women aspiring to make it to the next level in their career, to leadership roles? Ultimately within marketing?

Katie Babineau (17:41):

Two things I would say don't be afraid to take the risk and build your community because this was a big pivot in my career. For me, it was a big jump from tech industry to three new industries, which apparel, retail, e-commerce. And for me, I was very excited about the opportunity to learn. I think for some that might scary, intimidating, sometimes you really need to take a leap to understand either way, great, that was a great learning and I'm thriving, or that was a great learning and I don't love it and I need to go back. But don't be afraid to take risks. Careers are long hopefully and you can pivot and bob and weave and that's a beautiful thing. And the second is just building your community of people, of hype people, supporters that really can help you in tough times and high five you when things are going well because hopefully it is a long career and you've got some starts and pauses and in between and it makes it more fun to have people in your corner.

Kat Vesce (18:49):

A former leader of ours used to call that your personal board of directors, so

Katie Babineau (18:52):

I love that. Yeah, that's great.

Kat Vesce (18:53):

Do you think marketing today is authentically representing and empowering women?

Katie Babineau (18:58):

I've seen a lot of progressive change in our industry. I think just and genuine excitement to represent more diverse voices. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. I don't think marketing is the problem, I'll just say that, but I do. Just being deeply involved in this community, all of the marketing leaders that I know want to do the right thing, most of them want to do the right thing. And so I think we've got incredible people who are creative leaders who want to think and care really deeply about making sure that in the position that we're in and the storytelling that we get to do every day, that we really represent that the customer well. And so I look at a couple of brands who I love who are really progressive, creative and effective driving business results and people are always going to want to hear about the results.

(19:50):

I think you look at Elf Cosmetics, they're very progressive, they're brand forward and they've had, I forget how many consecutive quarters, maybe 20 of consecutive revenue growth. They're really changing the game with a heartbeat and they're driving the business incredible. You look at some of the work that NFL is doing, I think they're trying to reach new audiences in a way and knowing they have the deep duty of changing the model in a very old school industry. And so I love that people in our industry are taking risks and especially now this is a risk. So I think we need to continue to take risks and drive change.

Kat Vesce (20:35):

I love that. Nice to pay it forward. So Katie, this has been so great. Thank you so much for coming and for having time with us. We really appreciate it.

Katie Babineau (20:42):

Of course. Thank you.

Kat Vesce (20:44):

A great south by.

Katie Babineau (20:45):

Yeah.

Kat Vesce (20:47):

What a powerhouse Ilyse. That was so much fun. Oh my gosh. I know. I love it. She's great. What are some takeaways for you?

Ilyse Liffreing (20:53):

So I really liked how Club Beyond the full funnel experiential activation in New York City is bringing the brand to life in its own unique way. I think that's a really a great approach for a retail brand that's hoping to grow their footprint.

Kat Vesce (21:10):

And the notion of once you bring a customer in, they're a fan for life. And that is a huge customer acquisition driver. You don't always think about that in big branding moments. And so I thought that was such a cool story to hear from her. I also just loved Beyond Yoga is 20 years old, it was acquired by Levi's, it's now a Levi's company. They're really focused on that purpose-driven community culture and pushing now into more men's wear. I really just got the sense that they're a brand we're going to see for another 20 years, and I loved hearing her insights around how she's anchoring that in the community that they're building and that they have.

Ilyse Liffreing (21:52):

Yeah, and it was really interesting to hear her career trajectory and just noticing how she's really relied on people to help her through each stage of her career was fascinating and good to know that there's women out there that are willing to help other women.

Kat Vesce (22:11):

Yeah, always good. The power of network and then also the fact that you don't have to be in such a linear path in your career. Anyway, all in all, so inspiring. I'm so glad we got the time with Katie. And what a great start to South by Southwest. And that's it for this edition of The Current Podcast. Be sure to tune in this whole month as we release all the recordings from South by Southwest. See you next time.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Family-owned grocery chain Meijer is using its Midwest roots to stand out in the retail media crowd, according to Derek Steele, the company’s VP for marketing.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse (00:02):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing,

Damian (00:03):

And welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Ilyse (00:10):

This week we're delighted to talk with Derek Steele, group VP for marketing and customer strategy for Meijer.

Damian (00:17):

Meijer is a supermarket chain that's just celebrated its 90th birthday. Founded in 1934 in Michigan. It started life as a grocery store.

Ilyse (00:26):

It's still a family owned business, but now has grown to 500 locations across six states and employs more than 70,000 people.

Damian (00:35):

Now, Derek has been with Meijer for more than 16 years. He spearheaded the company's shift into e-commerce, his customer loyalty program, and more recently the launch of its retail media network. So that's where we'll start. Dar, you've been with Meijer for 16 years and so it's fair to say you've sort of grown up with the company. Can you tell us a little bit about that journey?

Derek (00:58):

Yeah, absolutely. So I've grown my entire retail career within the company, really the first and only retailer I've worked for. Started off in the merchandising side of the organization. My first real job was a buyer in our consumables area, so really learned the nitty gritty of how do you manage vendor relationships, how do you understand the customer, the trends and the products that they're interested, and then how do you craft a category strategy around that? I've had a chance to work in a variety of different areas within our fresh produce, fresh foods business, understanding the supply chain, and it's just fascinating to understand where that product comes from. And then prior to getting over to the marketing side, I let our dairy and frozen department, which my kids still think is the best job I ever had, got eat a tremendous amount of ice cream, frozen pizza and still recovering from some of the effects of that

Ilyse (01:42):

Man. Sounds good.

Derek (01:43):

Oh god.

Damian (01:44):

More recently you have been looking at customer loyalty programs and obviously e-commerce is a huge growth category right now. Can you talk about that shift and how you spearheaded the move for the supermarket chain into that category?

Derek (02:00):

Yeah, absolutely. At Meijer, we'd been focused on e-commerce and looking at it for quite some time and really the impetus for change with us, a lot of consolidation happening within some of the third party marketplace business. We had some partnerships in that space and really decided that given where the customer was going, it was going to be important for us to really own that relationship with the customer. That's extremely important to us. And so while there's great partners that we continue to partner with through our meyer.com and our Meijer app business, we really wanted to manage that relationship one-on-one with the customer. So we started that effort in 2019. We launched our e-commerce platform in the fall of 2019 with the plans to really steady and slow growth. And then of course March, 2020 hits and it was really all about, Hey, how do we scale? It went from this interesting business idea to absolutely critical in the lives of our customers in the Midwest.

Ilyse (02:53):

Yeah, that was good timing for

Derek (02:55):

Them. Yeah, good timing. There's probably three or four months that I could choose to forget, but really fascinating to see how the entire organization rallied around that and the speed which we were able to develop that business and grow that business for our customers.

Damian (03:08):

And then of course, you had all this incredible customer data at your fingertips. At what point was it inevitable that you launched a retail media network?

Derek (03:17):

Yeah, I mean you talked about it, right? We started in loyalty, moved into e-commerce, right? And I think these three things together along with retail media, all three are foundational from a retail business standpoint. I think really it started with an impetus from our suppliers, the brands that we work with saying, Hey, as we're doing marketing programs with you in that more traditional shopper marketing way, we want to understand more. We understand who the customer is, who the audience is, how that's performing. And so as you start to ask those questions, it really naturally leads you into that space of retail media. And so really our decision to enter it was, Hey, we need to be right for our brand partners and we need to be right for our customers. And really felt like those things were coming together and the opportunity to launch a retail media network was there.

Ilyse (04:02):

Now there's multiple ways brands can work with retail media networks. Can you give us some examples of how your clients are leveraging data on sites and offsite?

Derek (04:13):

Yeah, absolutely. So at Meijer, we really believe in the relationships that we form with our CPG partners. I think if you were to ask within the industry meier's ability to work and tailor those programs, it's really the key on what we're built with. And so as we launched a retail media network, that's really how we think about, it's really an extension of that relationship with the brands. So we partner closely with our merchants to understand what is key, what are the categories, what are the trends that are happening and driving. And then we really work alongside with the marketing sides of those organizations, with the brands, with the agencies to craft, okay, how do we come to market and how do we specifically drive that strategy in Meijer with our Midwestern customer and our audience? So really focused on that relationship building that kind of one-on-one, and the ability to be nimble and responsive to the community as they have opportunities that they want to tackle at Meijer.

Ilyse (05:03):

Yeah. How does that really fill that regional need, as you say?

Derek (05:07):

Yeah, certainly as the retail media space has become filled with a number of retailers, and so we get this question all the time, clearly there are players out there where if you're looking for size and reach, there are bigger players in the market, but when we look at our territory within the six states we compete, we really dominate within those areas. We understand that customer. I think our data would show that over 50% of the households within our trade area are shopping at a me store. And so we would argue that you really can't reach that audience, that unique audience that we have if you're not engaging with me. And so we feel like we play a very important role within those states and those territories that we serve.

Damian (05:47):

One of the things that's very interesting about the space is the talking points around what is retail data and what is retail media. Could you unpack that a little bit, that distinction for us a little bit? How do you think about those two things?

Derek (06:02):

And we might use slightly different language than you do Damien, but I think the world of marketing and retail has been a part of our strategy For a while, we would call it shopper marketing. So the activations that we're doing in our stores, the opportunity to provide some branding in some of those locations, we would call that shopper marketing. It's really top of the funnel impression based, but still at that point of purchase. But just by its very nature, we've not always had the ability to target and measure that, so we would distinct that as shopper marketing. When we think about retail media, we really think about the ability to define an audience, target content to that audience, and then measure the performance all the way through the point of sale, whether they're reacting on our website through our mobile app or if they're completing that transaction in the store, that measurability that ability to get to closed loop reporting. That's what we would define as retail media at Meier.

Damian (06:51):

In terms of the different channels off site that you use, where does it show up?

Derek (06:56):

So today we have the ability to do display ad. We do closed loop tv. We're working through YouTube, a number of channels along with the different social media channels, meta, Pinterest, and a handful of others that we're working on lighting up as we speak.

Damian (07:11):

So it's like a very omnichannel experience.

Derek (07:14):

Yeah, we understand we need to be where the customer and the audience is at, and so as that continues to evolve and change, we know we're going to need to continue to evolve and change along with that.

Damian (07:23):

Now, you recently announced a new closed loop measurement capability. Could you talk a little bit about this? What capability does that bring and how does that help drive better outcomes

Derek (07:32):

For your partners? Yeah, absolutely. As we partner with brands, one of the things we heard front and center as we began this project was that measurement is absolutely key. And I think there's a number of retail media brands that have started just from an impression basis and an audience basis and then bring the closed loop along. After that, we really focused on at launch, we wanted to have that capability, and so our focus from a technology standpoint is however that customer and audience chooses to complete that transaction. We want to be able to measure that. That's not easy. We've gone through some of the challenges and growing pains along with that, but at Meier, regardless of what channel that customer chooses to complete that transaction, and frankly many of our customers complete that transaction across multiple channels, we want to be able to measure that. And so that's what we've built out from a closed loop reporting standpoint. So when you put that message in front of an audience at Meier, whether it's online or in store, no matter how they choose to transact, we're going to be able to measure that and provide that reporting and insights back to our brand partners.

Ilyse (08:30):

What would you describe as some of the challenges there that you brought up?

Derek (08:35):

From a technology standpoint? At any retailer, when you look at all the different channels, a customer can complete a transaction. Historically, those have been very different streams of data. Aligning those streams of data along with all the customer information that we have to really measure that end to end a lot of different parts of the organization, a lot of different pieces of technology to bring together along with a number of partners in the industry who help us make that all work. So that's probably been the biggest challenge is coordinating all the different technology pieces to make that happen.

Ilyse (09:03):

Yeah, I think the industry overall, the retail media industry and retail media networks are all coming together to try to figure that out.

Damian (09:13):

I wanted to ask one more question here just in terms of the opportunity of the retail media network. Has it allowed you to expand as it were, brand partnerships?

Derek (09:22):

Yeah, I think it's allowed us to enter different conversations with brands than we've been able to enter before. And so there's messages, there's channels, there's tactics, there's places in the customer journey before they make a purchase that with a traditional shopper marketing funnel, we shouldn't have a good way to enter and be part of that conversation. And now whether it's on our own channels, within our app, on our website, or using our audience information to reach those customers wherever they're at, we're able to have a richer conversation about a more full funnel approach to how we can bring those brands to market at Meier.

Ilyse (09:53):

And one thing we talk a lot about is how that has increasingly become omnichannel and an omnichannel environment where all these customers are spending their time. Can you talk a little bit about that and what channels you're excited about?

Derek (10:08):

Yeah, it's interesting. When we look back at our data around our customers, more than 50% of them and an increasing percentage of them, regardless of where they complete their transaction, are coming to us to search for a product within seven days of making that purchase. And so we're seeing that behavior and it's no longer this distinction to the customer between, am I having a digital interaction with Meyer or am I having an in-store interaction? From a customer behavior standpoint, those two things are blending together. And so it's no longer is this an e-commerce transaction or is this a in-store customer? It's a Meier customer, and so we need to meet that customer wherever they're choosing to gather their information and then make that purchase.

Damian (10:50):

Do you see the same customer shop online and then come into the store? Are you able to kind of measure that and observe that?

Derek (10:58):

Yeah, we see that We have our digital loyalists who they've made that transition fully, and so that's part of their life now, that's how they interact with us. But I would say most of our customers we're seeing engage with us in a digital and in a physical store. I'll take my own family, for example. We are heavy digital shoppers at me, but there are those instances in those times where it's either more convenient or I want that exploration, I don't know what I want, and I'll leverage the store in that regard. And so week to week, day to day, based on the what's going on in the kids' activities and the family life, we'll see that switch. And I think that's true for our customers as well.

Ilyse (11:31):

Are you doing anything to personalize that experience and bridge the gap between that digital experience and in-store experience?

Derek (11:38):

Yeah, I mean, personalization has been really a part of how we've thought of going to market even before we started media. We think about personalization in every one of our retail channels, whether it's organic search, whether it's the mailers we're sending into your home and offers, whether it's servicing promotional content. We have thousands of promotions that are running every week, but what's the most important thing for our customer, that individual customer? That's part of what we're doing. We're looking at how do we allow brands to interact in some of those personalized experiences, both through audience targeting, but also then in that moment where I'm serving up promotional content or items that you've purchased before. Well, how do I let a brand influence where in that experience, that item may show up, never inserting an item that a customer hasn't purchased because we want to honor that personalization for our customer. But if there are stories or items or times where it's more important to a brand to get that purchase, we're trying to find ways to enable them to be able to do that.

Ilyse (12:34):

Very interesting. Is there an example that you can share?

Derek (12:37):

Yeah, so I mean one of our most used features by our customers is our buy again, right? I mean, it's a very quick way to make a cart. And when we're building carts in the grocery e-commerce world, there's a lot of items to get in there. Historically, we've used sort of a frequency recency model for what shows up in that, and we're starting to allow sponsored products within that. So allow brands to invest to kind of boost up where in that carousel, their product may show up.

Ilyse (13:01):

Very cool. Well, I would love to dig into your background a little bit because it's fascinating. So you were a flight controls engineer for the space shuttle program, and obviously now you're in marketing. Could you talk about that transition and then I guess how that background has really helped you in your marketing career?

Derek (13:22):

Yeah, absolutely. It's a question I get all the time in getting tired of the conversation about retail media not being rocket science, because obviously it takes one, but no, I mean, first five years of my career, that's what I did. So I had the opportunity to work on the space shuttle program, absolutely a dream come true. In fact, in fourth grade for Halloween, I dressed up like an aerospace engineer

Ilyse (13:44):

And

Derek (13:44):

No one knew what I was, right? I was in tears. It was actually the last time I ever dressed up for Halloween. But really enjoyed the technology side of that, enjoyed the adventure and the intrigue of it, but also found I had a passion for leading and a passion for working in a competitive industry. There was only one space shuttle, so there's no other one to compete with. So made a career change. 16 years ago, retail wasn't on my radar screen. I continue to run into people that have stories like mine where I never thought I would get into retail, but what attracted to me about it was just the pace of change and innovation that happens in this industry, probably one of the most dynamic industries that there is out there. And the opportunity to lead at a pretty large level relatively early on in your career.

(14:27):

So made the transition over 16 years ago, grew up through the merchandising and buying side of the organization, and then really found a home within the marketing organization. Again, I talked about I'm still a nerd at heart, and so I love the combination of the customer insight, the technology, the brand and their interest. And so being able to sit in this unique space of understanding and being able to grasp that technology piece, being trained from a merchandising standpoint on how to understand customer need, I found a nice niche in here. And I like to say at the end of the day, engineering is just structured problem solving. You break down a problem into its components, you solve the components, you solve the problem. And turns out that's applicable in a lot of different places.

Ilyse (15:08):

Those seem to be quite a few engineers turn marketers. And that does seem like to be the thorough line there as well. Engineers are more

Derek (15:15):

Creative people than they give us credit for.

Damian (15:18):

Yeah, absolutely. And so the sort of through line is data here then that helps shape strategy, of course, increasingly so in the world that we're in now.

Derek (15:27):

Yeah, I think being able to pull insights out of information, that's what I always preach my team, is that the best data set doesn't always win the best insight or the best story that you can tell from that data wins. And so I think marketing is a great place where you get to combine those two things. And at the end of the day, that's what we're doing. We're telling stories that are based on facts that are compelling to our customers.

Damian (15:48):

Just to go back to the space shuttle program, what was the toughest challenge you faced when you had that

Derek (15:52):

Job? So I joined the space shuttle program right after the Columbia accident, so if you remember that.

Ilyse (15:58):

Yeah.

Derek (15:59):

So our first year and a half was all about recertification, getting ready to fly again. And I dunno if I've ever put this story on tape before, but the first flight after Columbia, I worked in the room above the mission control center and we were the ones watching all the data and see what would happened. And the first flight afterwards, they saw something float away from the space shuttle. And so they said to everyone, they said, Hey, go scrub all your systems, see if we can figure out what that was. Did something break? Is this what's going on? So it's a mad scramble to go through the data, and I found seven little pieces of data that I could not explain everything else. I could explain these seven pieces of data. I could not explain

Ilyse (16:34):

Aliens.

Derek (16:34):

And so I sent this back to the mission control center, young engineer, proud, maybe I just saved the astronauts, and I received an email back, congratulations. You identified the seven times they flushed the toilet over the last two days. We got this one covered.

Ilyse (16:47):

That's hilarious.

Derek (16:48):

That's good. I like

Damian (16:49):

That. Oh my god. Wow.

Ilyse (16:52):

That's so wonderful.

Damian (16:53):

One question we like to ask is are there any sort of innovations in the ad tech space that are kind of on your radar, can still use an aeronautical metro on my

Derek (17:02):

Radar?

Damian (17:03):

Yeah.

Derek (17:03):

I mean, are there innovations? Absolutely. I mean, I think there's a tremendous amount of innovation. I think what we're focused on right now is what are our customers, and by that I mean the brands and agencies that we're working with, what are they looking for? And we're really focused on how do we take the friction out of that opportunity, that experience of working with Meyer. And so a lot of focus on the different self-serve platforms that are out there. How do we engage with that to drive a richer, more friction-free experience for our customers?

Damian (17:31):

I like my shopping to be friction free.

Derek (17:34):

Absolutely.

Damian (17:35):

Yeah. Well, Derek, thanks so much for joining us on the current podcast. Absolutely. Thank you. And that's it for this edition of the current podcast. We'll be back next week. So stay tuned.

Ilyse (17:52):

The current podcast theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Kat Vesce and Sydney Cairns.

Derek (17:58):

And remember, the best data set doesn't always win the best insight or the best story that you can tell from that data wins. And so I think marketing is a great place where you get to combine those two things. And at the end of the day, that's what we're doing. We're telling stories that are based on facts that are compelling to our customers. I'm

Damian (18:15):

Damian, and I'm Ilyse. And we'll see you next time. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a review. Also tune into our other podcast, the current report.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The food-delivery company’s VP of brand discusses the business’ 20-year history and how it stays front of mind for consumers.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian: I'm Damian Fowler

Ilyse: And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. 

Damian: And welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.

Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Marnie Kain, the VP of Brand and Creative at Grubhub.

Damian: Grubhub recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. It was founded in Chicago in 2004, and it was the pioneer food delivery service. A forerunner to the booming e commerce delivery sector.

Ilyse: Two decades on, the business has scaled. It now has a 375, 000 restaurant partners in over 4, 000 U.S. cities.

Damian: Marnie joined the company in September 2023, just as it was planning its big birthday celebrations.

Ilyse: So Marnie, can you tell us about the challenge of marketing this brand, having joined just Grubhub in 2023?

Marnie: Well it was a very easy decision to make to go to Grubhub. I had spent a number of decades on the [00:01:00] agency side, working with clients across many different categories. And one thing I learned is that it's really fun to work in a category that you enjoy. And who doesn't love food and the delight and joy of delivery that it brings?

So I was able to really unmask my experience across many sectors like CPG, mass retail, QSR, casual dining, health and wellness. travel and so on and really bring that expertise and experience to the table to solve some really interesting challenges in a very crowded landscape.

Ilyse: Now, it is interesting with your background because, like you said, you've been across agencies for a long time. What would you say is the differentiating factor being brand side now?

Marnie: Well, being brand side you definitely have greater visibility to the complexities of the business. I think you [00:02:00] believe you understand that when you're on the agency side, but what you have visibility to is far less than what really goes on. And it is challenging to sell things in across the organization because there are many stakeholders, cross functional decision making and priorities that aren't necessarily brand marketing.

Ilyse: Now let's talk about Grubhub's marketing strategy a little. So the delivery service sector has become quite competitive as you know. As all consumers know, we have lots of choices. How do you think about differentiating Grubhub in this space and maintaining that market share

Marnie: We really look at it from a consumer standpoint and what's meaningful and relevant to our customers. What conveniences do they need? What are their pain points? What categories do they need delivery from? So we're [00:03:00] expanding even beyond restaurants into categories like grocery, convenience, and others that will soon come. So it's really about being in service of the customer and their needs.

As far as what is differentiating about us, it's really about tapping into and building upon what they see as valuable. So one of the biggest ways that we're offering value, outside of just everyday value that are always available on the app, are through partnerships like the one we have with Amazon.

Ilyse: Maybe you could tell us a little bit more about the partnership. Andhow Grubhub really works with brands and what platforms it chooses when it comes to those types of partnerships.

Marnie: Well, Amazon is a great example of really understanding what's important to consumers. Obviously, Amazon delivers pretty much everything, but what they [00:04:00] don't deliver is food from restaurants. And so the synergy between the two delivery giants is quite clear. The opportunity was to really bring added value to Amazon Prime customers, and that is what we've done. So our Amazon partnership initially launched before my time in 22 and, what you would get as an Amazon Prime member is the ability to get one year of Grubhub Plus for free, which is our membership service that essentially provides $0 delivery fees which is our premier benefit, additionally $5 cash back on pickup orders, priority delivery and other exclusive offers.

This past May, we built on the initial success and really deepened that partnership to bring added value to consumers and greater sales for our restaurant partners by making the benefits ongoing to [00:05:00] Amazon subscribers. So Prime members get - as long as they're a Prime member - $0 delivery on Grubhub. Additionally, what's really unique, is that you can shop on Amazon for Grubhub. There's actually a tile on the grocery tab that you can go through and actually link your Grubhub account, get your $0 delivery benefit and start shopping, straight within the Amazon app.

Ilyse: I really didn’t know that.

Damian: That must really help you, in terms of partnerships like that must be a big help in terms of scaling.

Marnie: It really is. We started, as early days for Grubhub, we were really looking to help restaurants scale. 20 years ago, restaurants delivered their menus by putting them in mailboxes in the neighborhood and also keeping them available outside of their restaurants. And that was their scale. Now they have access to so many consumers [00:06:00] through Grubhub which originally was a tech powered menu aggregator and ultimately a tech powered order system for restaurants.

Today, it's really a three-sided business model where we service restaurants and continue to help them scale, but we also support a very large driver community that makes a living working for Grubhub as well as bringing new conveniences every day to consumers.

Damian: Let's talk about that a little bit. You mentioned that how it started and you joined the company just as Grubhub was probably thinking about its 20th birthday in 2024. what was the sort of nature of the thinking around how it was going to mark this important anniversary?

Marnie: I think the important thing when you consider that it was our 20th anniversary, is that, it's really all about what we can do for our customers. They are perhaps [00:07:00] interested in the fact that we've been around for a long time - we're the O. G in the category and that means we stand by our product and our reliable brand - but mostly they just want what they want, when they want it. They want value. They want to know that we have the restaurants that they're interested in. 

So the first thing we did was offer literally 20,000 offers to our customers, free items that they could get from restaurants like McDonald's, Popeye's, Pizza Hut, Wendy's, Panera, Taco Bell. We also offered 20 percent off several other restaurants and convenience stores, and we celebrated this under the banner of 20 years of deals because that's really what Matters to consumers and the value is something that we continue to pursue through partnerships like Amazon, where they're saving over three hundred dollars annually on [00:08:00] not paying for delivery for delivery fees on Grubhub.

So when I think back to 2004, it's hard to believe some of the other things going on at that time. MySpace was the most popular social media. That's crazy. Mark Zuckerberg had just launched the Facebook at Harvard. Google was beta testing Gmail. Shake Shack opened its first and best, if you ask me, location in New York City and OutKast had the number one song, which was Hey, yeah, if that matters.

Damian: I remember that.

Marnie: It really is amazing how much changes in 20 years and even as a third-party delivery industry, that industry has changed so much from aggregating menus, and actually the delivery part of the business didn't even start until [00:09:00] 10 years into those 20 years.

Damian: Wow. And he also started in Chicago as a local concern. And obviously you've built up a national presence since then. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Marnie: Yeah, Grubhub did launch in Chicago in 2004, and it was the brainchild of the two founders and was about aggregating menus and fully in service of restaurants.

it's beginnings are even technically before that because, the brand acquired the Seamless brand which started in 1999. But that acquisition happened in 2013. Each part of our evolution, we've [00:10:00] constantly been looking for new ways to bring value, to bring selection, to bring better service and speed to our customers.

Ilyse: And now, what innovations do you see Grubhub making even in the near term to stay on top of like emerging trends and industry changes? Obviously, A. I. Is everywhere and I know that's one thing apps like Grubhub are looking into and experimenting with, but maybe even across creative. So I'm curious about that.

Marnie: Yeah, I think that one area of excitement for us and great innovation is our campus business. So what many people don't know is that Grubhub's campus business started about six years ago with the acquisition of an Israeli based tech company called Topenia. And, today we work with more than 360 universities and, nearly 5 million students.

And what's really interesting about this [00:11:00] partnership is that it's not superficial. It's not just: download the app and you be like a regular customer on our app. They actually, depending on the university, have their dining dollars go directly through Grubhub. So when you arrive at school, one of the first things you have happen at orientation is you are told to sign up for Grubhub and link your dining dollars.

And One of the schools where my daughter actually goes is our flagship school, Ohio State University, and that is probably the most robust version of our campus partnership where we actually have the food from the campus restaurants and dining facilities delivered by robots, and I will tell you that it's pretty cool. The robots are available at a number of colleges and as we think about the future of the category, I think it's scratching the surface on what might be readily available as ways that we can you know [00:12:00] sort of buck the speed of, how we currently deliver in urban areas by bicycle and motorbike and, you know, in the suburbs by car.

So I think, drone delivery or robot delivery could be on the horizon. I also think, creatively thinking about our different categories of delivery, we have an opportunity to create more curated and exclusive experiences. There are a lot of competitors that deliver from a lot of the categories that we deliver in, but it's really about how we combine our categories and verticals of delivery to create unique experiences that you can't find anywhere else.

Damian: How important is what's going on in culture to the way you position yourself in market?

Marnie: I think that culture is really driving everything and we do a tremendous amount of paid and organic social where we aim to capitalize on cultural moments. So, you know, as we see people talking about either the brand, or about [00:13:00] food, or about Charlie XCX, or whatever it is, that we can tap into and follow a meme, or join in the conversation.

It's really important to be agile and to be able to get out there fast and just have a voice. It doesn't mean we necessarily have to create an entire campaign that taps into that cultural moment. But what we've learned is, it's really important to be in the conversation in order to drive relevance.

It is a very crowded marketplace and there are many people spending a lot of money, many competitors, but we find that influencers are really helping us, to really speak to our customers in a moment when they're, craving food, wanting to order food and we've seen terrific engagement from the programs that we're doing as well as increased brand perceptions.

And that's the other thing about partnerships, whether it be with Amazon or influencers [00:14:00] across the gamut, we really look to partner with others that help improve our brand perception and lift all boats.

Damian: As you look ahead to later this year and beyond, what are the priorities for you as a brand? Is it a question of scaling, building more couriers, building more restaurants, building more consumers? What's the kind of game plan if it could look big picture?

Marnie: Big picture, there's so much opportunity in this category to continue to grow, to delight consumers, and also to meet their needs.

So, creating more intuitive and using AI elements of the app is really important. We have a ton of data about our consumers because they're in our ecosystem, but really leveraging that data using AI and creating more intuitive experience and more seamless experience in the app is definitely a priority.

Also, as I [00:15:00] mentioned, more curated and exclusive experiences. How can we capitalize on this very unique mix of retailers essentially available on our app to create experiences that you can't find anywhere else? Partnerships is definitely a priority. How can we continue to leverage that and sort of aggregate value for customers.

And finally, speed is really important and even distance of delivery because people are looking for the restaurants they love, they're looking to get them, when they want them. 

Ilyse: that note, with all those preferences and consumer habits that obviously leads to a lot of data that you have within the app, and you briefly mentioned, using AI to make that consumer experience a little easier on the end consumer.

Can you talk about how that works with AI a little bit and perhaps maybe do you on the creative end tap that [00:16:00] data for future campaigns?

Marnie: Really, we are exploring and experimenting with A. I. And we don't have the answer or the end of that story to share yet, but we all experience it on a daily basis being online and everybody's using chat GPT to write their speeches or whatever but in the case of food delivery, it really will allow us to become more intuitive, and that's really the key because people are looking for shortcuts. They're looking for brands that get them and know them and that understand their pain points and their inflection points.

The other thing that we're doing, and this isn't necessarily using our own data, is finding opportunities for moments or milestones where we really can make a difference in people's lives. One example of this that you may have seen is we had launched in August of 2024, a special delivery campaign, which was targeted [00:17:00] at expectant moms, and we provided them based on their engagement and signing up their first meal after giving birth.

And that was really based on the insight that as you're expecting, there's a lot of things you can't eat and you crave these things, whether they're sushi or believe it or not, deli meat,  and a lot of things that could, could cause a bacteria or, an infection for the baby. So at the point where the baby is born, the first thought is, what am I going to eat?

And we were able to meet that need with a special delivery from Grubhub. So it's really about using data to get into what's important to consumers as opposed to just for data's sake.

Marnie: We have a ton of data about what consumers order and actually, every December, we produce some stats about where the trends are going and even some personal stats as a [00:18:00] Grubhub Plus member that you might receive about your own ordering habits. which can be very interesting because many of our employees find out that their kids are doing most of their ordering and they get surprised quite a bit. But one of the things that really surprises me is that the most ordered convenience store drink is not Diet Coke, which a lot of people guess. Not Celsius, which a lot of people guess. Interestingly, I know, it's Dr. Pepper.

Marnie: Another one I'm always am surprised by is the fastest growing pizza topping.

Ilyse: Pineapple? 

Marnie: Bingo. Yes, pineapple is the fastest growing pizza 

Ilyse: Not in New York. 

Marnie: Those are my two favorites.

Damian: I like that, yeah. You should have a Grubhub quiz. 

Marnie: We'll get one to you. 

Ilyse: Is it like a Spotify [00:19:00] wrapped kind of thing?

Marnie: It's exactly like a Spotify wrapped where you can learn about what you order. and then also what America's ordering. So it, it serves as a way to tap into the cultural zeitgeist.

Ilyse: Very fun

Damian: Alright, perfect. Thank you so much. 

Marnie: Thank you again for having me. 

Marnie: And that's it for this edition of The Current Podcast.

Damian: We'll be back next week, so stay tuned.

Ilyse: The Current Podcast's theme is by Love Caliber. The current team includes Kat Vesce and Sydney Cairns.

Damian:  And remember, 

Marnie: There lot of competitors that deliver from a lot of the categories that we deliver in, but it's really about how we combine our categories and verticals of delivery to create unique experiences that you can't find anywhere else.

Damian: I'm Damian.

Ilyse: I'm Ilyse.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Amex’s Jessica Ling sits down with The Current Podcast to discuss the biggest differences between marketing to business and to consumers, and how the brand considers the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing investments. She also touches on how Amex is reaching Gen Z by tapping into their passions and fandoms, such as a partnership with Olivia Rodrigo.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

[00:00:00] Damian: I'm Damian

[00:00:01] Ilyse: And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

[00:00:02] Damian: And welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.

[00:00:04] Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Jess Ling, Executive Vice President of Global Brand Advertising at American Express.

[00:00:12] Damian: Now, American Express, as everyone knows, is one of the world's most recognized brands. Thanks especially to its striking visual identity on its cards, which features the company logo of a centurion, which evokes trust and security. Now, Amex is a company that can chart its cultural presence through its legacy of brand campaigns, all the way to date with its powerful backing campaign.

[00:00:35] Ilyse: Jess has been at Amex for the past five years. As part of her role, she oversees Amex's in house creative agency. During her time, she's helped grow the brand's offerings into experiences and benefits for its many members.

[00:00:48] Damian: Now, Jess built her career at Amex first as a B2B marketer, but now she's a consumer facing brand marketer. We started by asking her about this transition.

[00:00:57] Damian: Jess, thank you for being here.

[00:00:59] Jess: Thank you [00:01:00] for having me.

[00:01:00] Damian: I know that you've spent six years at Verizon doing B2B marketing and your first four years at Amex were also B2B, but you've shifted now into a different department.

[00:01:10] What's that change like and what are the differences when it comes to marketing to businesses versus marketing to consumers? 

[00:01:18] Jess: Yeah, but it's a great question. I actually spent, I would say, probably the first 17 years of my career. In B to B and in revenue marketing. And even when I came to American Express, it was B to B marketing. But it was also performance marketing. So very, very heavy on the acquisition side.

[00:01:35] What I would say is, more actually unites them than separates them, right? When you think about B2B versus B2C, it is really fundamentally about knowing your audience. It's about understanding segmentation. It's about being very anchored in insights, understanding what motivates and what challenges your consumer, whether that is a small business, corporate prospect or a consumer. It's a little bit different in terms of the way we bring our brand to life, right? When you think about, more business focused channels versus consumer channels, but I would say at its core, the discipline is the same. And in fact, the rigor that you bring from B to B into B to C enables you to be a bit more focused on what are the financial and revenue implications of the work that we're doing.

[00:02:27] Damian: We're hearing that a lot more now about the CFO and the CMO being much closer together. Is that a factor for you as a marketer?

[00:02:33] Jess: you as a marketer? Financial outcomes are very important to us as a brand. It's really important. We are a performance driven culture. Much of our marketing is performance driven. I would say even on the brand side of the house, We are incredibly rigorous, and so we think a lot about not just the efficacy of our investments, but the efficiency of them.

[00:02:55] And so while I am thinking about, metrics that are a little bit, higher [00:03:00] in the funnel, so I think about consideration, I think about awareness, it's not consideration and awareness at any cost or by any means, right? So I still very deeply think, about the return on investment from a brand standpoint.

[00:03:15] Damian: Just off the back of that, how connected are the pieces of this for you? You obviously focus on global brand strategy, but you're also very much focused on, the data side of it. how important is bringing those two things together? 

[00:03:37] Jess: It’s very very important and we think about it as much as a closed loop as possible. What insights go into the strategy? How do we leverage those insights throughout the customer journey?

[00:03:42] And then how do we use data that we gain along the way to optimize, right? And so one of the things that I think can be a little bit dangerous as a one way street of insights into strategy, into plan, Without that back loop of optimization, were the insights that we used actually [00:04:00] accurate? How do we think about, improving not just the creative output or the media plan, but the foundation of data and insights that underscore it? 

[00:04:09] Ilyse: Now, American Express as a brand has gone well beyond just being a charge card or financial product, you have now positioned yourself as a brand that offers, its members like experiences and benefits. How do you think about evolving the brand while continuing to protect its legacy?

[00:04:29] Jess: Yes, that's a question we think about every day. What I would say is that we don't think of ourselves as a credit card company, right? Or we're in the financial services category, but we're very much in the business of membership. And so when someone is thinking about our brand, We need to transcend the category of, that financial transaction or that payment moment.

[00:04:52] And so our movement into experiences and lifestyle benefits is very much because we [00:05:00] believe that when you are an Amex card member, You are indeed a member, and that membership enables you access not just to seamless payment moments, but also to travel, to dining, to entertainment, and those are very sustainable categories for us. 

[00:05:18] Ilyse: Now Amex historically has been associated with wealth and status. You have the Amex gold card or the platinum card, for instance. And yet you've recently made moves to attract Gen Zers who perhaps, aren't your traditional customer. They're, they are getting older and getting more money themselves, for sure, but there's still some younger ones in that generation.

[00:05:41] Ilyse: And you've done partnerships with Olivia Rodrigo. Can you talk about these campaigns and why it's important to really connect with the younger generation?

[00:05:52] Jess: Well, first of all, Gen Z and Millennial customers are the future of our customer base. So it's very, important for us to [00:06:00] be building momentum with them.

[00:06:01] We have a very deliberate strategy. If you think about our newest card members, 60 percent of our new consumer accounts are Gen Z and Millennial. And that's not by accident, right? We have been evolving. Our product propositions to be very dynamic and responsive. And so when you think about, the question of how do you protect the brand while evolving it?

[00:06:21] What I would say is the brand is built on 174 years of trust, security and safety. And so when you think about consistency over time, what you give yourself permission to do as a brand is then evolve on that consistency, right? So in order to be innovative you have to start from a really strong foundation Where we found that innovation is very much speaking to younger audiences.

[00:06:43] And so you mentioned the Olivia Rodrigo Partnership that's an example of something that's very important to us because As an Amex card member, you're unable to get closer to the things that you love, right? And so we really try to tap into passion and fandom. [00:07:00] And Olivia is an incredible ambassador for Gen Z.

[00:07:03] And we're really excited about our ability to, whether it's pre sale, whether it's merchandise, get our card members closer to the music and the artists they love. 

[00:07:15] Damian: going back to your point about reading the tea leaves, reading the data. do you see when it comes to Gen Z consumers? And I know that's not a monolithic blog, but do they interact with the brand? in a different ways to say, more established customers.

[00:07:31] Jess: established customers? Here's what I would say about Gen Z that we, we find really interesting as a brand. They care deeply about, supporting brands that share their values, right? And for us, it's, We are a values led brand, and we are not reactive necessarily to, the thing in front of us, right? We have been, as an example, in the business of supporting small businesses for a very long time. And what we find is that Gen Z consumers care deeply about community. They care deeply about small [00:08:00] business. And it's a very natural intersection with where American Express has always been.

[00:08:04] And so You know, I think the trick is we're not creating a platform to respond to what Gen Z is interested in. We happen to already be there from a value standpoint, and we find that our consumers, especially the younger ones, it really resonates with them. And

[00:08:20] Damian: and speaking of reaching, those audiences, are there any particular nuances to the way you go about doing that? in the current environment, we're talking about the rise of CTV and all of these different opportunities.

[00:08:32] Jess: Yeah, there are a couple. I will. I'll speak to one example. We're really excited and proud of. We have had a partnership with the bear, which is a show on FX, for two seasons now. And one of the reasons we're so excited about it is because it's a new show. The conversation about the show is bigger than the show, right?

[00:08:48] Just like as a brand, the conversation around Amex is bigger than the card. And so we really look for adjacencies that help us tap into the cultural zeitgeist, right? And when you think [00:09:00] about an opportunity like The Bear, it's the perfect platform for Amex. It's about a small business owner, it's about dining, there's incredible social dialogue about it.

[00:09:09] And so that's one example of how we go outside of traditional advertising to build that connection and relevance.

[00:09:15] Damian: On that point, I guess, the idea that it's a customer centric brand, could you say a little bit more about how you center and focus on the customer?

[00:09:23] Ilyse: Yes,

[00:09:24] Jess: absolutely. So we have a global brand platform.

[00:09:27] It's called powerful backing, and it really is rooted in that 174 years of trust, security and service. And at the core are our customers, right? And so when we think about whether it's an ad campaign, whether it's a product, whatever it is, how does it manifest that brand promise of powerful backing? And one of the questions that we think about a lot is consistency through the line, right?

[00:09:50] So. Whether you see us on social media, whether you see us in TV, whether you see us, in a more sort of direct response, type piece of communication, we still want to make sure that you're [00:10:00] feeling the brand come through, and that when you are a customer, every transaction, every interaction you have, you should feel backed, by the membership.

[00:10:08] I want to

[00:10:09] Ilyse: to talk a little bit about live sports because American Express has such a big presence at a ton of major live sports events. I believe like 47 venues and teams all together, which is just a huge number. and that includes like NBA and US Open, Wimbledon and more. why do these events hold so much power for Amex?

[00:10:32] Jess: They hold power because passion around sports and live sports is an enduring passion, right?

[00:10:38] It is. I think we just celebrated our 31st year of partnership with the U. S. T. A. And the U. S. Open. We have a very longstanding partnership with the N. B. A. We have a partnership with F one in the Americas that were very excited about. And it's because the conversation and the passion around sports is deeply meaningful [00:11:00] to our customers and our ability to get them benefits and access that are so connected to what they love. Is very important for us and is an enduring platform. What does it

[00:11:11] Ilyse: it mean for a legacy brand like Amex that, dates back to 1847? I believe 1850, I was close. 1850, to stay relevant in today's world. and how do you, I guess, maintain that consistency as, a luxury product, but also integrated into, everyday life? Yeah,

[00:11:33] Jess: I think it is about, very closely watching the balance between staying consistent as a brand so that our customers and our prospects.

[00:11:42] know deeply what we stand for, and what experience they'll have once they become a card member and leveraging that consistency to be very dynamic and innovative on the product front. And I think that's how we balance it, right? When you think about the American express brand over time, it should still evoke [00:12:00] the same emotion, right?

[00:12:01] Powerful backing, access to the things that you're passionate about. But when you think about how our products have evolved over time, If I point out just the recent gold card, right, we just refreshed American Express gold and it's full of incredibly relevant dining benefits, right? There's a Dunkin benefit.

[00:12:19] There's a partnership with Rezzy and benefits there, which are very, very, they're very anchored towards speaking to the audience and what they're looking for today. So we really think about that complement between stable brand, consistent brand and dynamic products.

[00:12:35] Damian: As you're in charge of the brand story, if you like, do you look back at the legacy of amazing campaigns that American Express has had in the, throughout the, last 50 years have a and build on that? 

[00:12:48] Jess: Yes, in fact, question a very, very rich history. And what I would say that I'm so proud of is that the history of our brand is often told through the advertising. Right? And so when you look back in time at [00:13:00] 174 years of a brand, and we do have this history, we look at it, my teams are trained in it. What you see is every Big moment in the company's history is paired with what was the advertising of the brand at that time.

[00:13:14] And so for us, our history and our heritage, we live that every day. And when we think about how to bring that forward, it is with all of the equity of the advertising that came before us.

[00:13:26] Damian: is question off that. Is era of fragmentation? 

[00:13:35] Jess: it's not because we have a global brand platform, right? So no matter where you are in the world You should feel the brand come to life in a way that brings powerful backing to the front. what we've made major progress on is making sure that as a consumer, when you take your American Express card with you around the globe, that you're confident in, the acceptance around, the world in terms of, being able to buy with confidence at merchants that [00:14:00] you want to support. And so we've made, huge strides there, but we continue to be a globally consistent brand. One thing I wanted

[00:14:07] Damian: I wanted to ask you about, obviously American Express by definition is a U. S. brand. And I've noticed sometimes it's less used, perhaps in Europe. I'm wondering if you see areas of opportunity to build out the brand, build that growth story in other markets.

[00:14:22] Jess: other markets?

[00:14:23] Yeah, and I think, look, there are markets that very important to us. There are growing markets that we are, a little bit newer as a brand, in terms of our penetration there. but what I would say is when you think about, a market like the UK, you'll see us, you can, you'll see us come to life in powerful ways from a brand standpoint. You'll see us at Wimbledon. you'll see us in music festivals. And when you're out there using your card in everyday ways, it'll be a seamless experience for you.

[00:14:51] Damian: Yeah, I do see that at Wimbledon and, and around those major music festivals. Yeah.

[00:14:57] Ilyse: as a, charge card financial [00:15:00] product, American Express has a lot of consumer data at its fingertips. How does that data help you in any way with the creative process? When it comes to branding and campaigns, do you consider it whether it's like business outcomes or in the KPIs that you said?

[00:15:19] Jess: mean, what I would say is, at its core, my job is to tell great stories, that are grounded in insights that, of course, are backed by data. what I would say is, when we think about our creative strategy and we look at data and insight, It's two things need to be true. They need to be true in culture and they need to be true for American Express.

[00:15:39] If they're only true for one half of that equation, it doesn't resonate. And so I'll give you a quick example. we have a ton of data and in one of our recent travel studies, we found that I think it was over 75 percent of millennials want to take a solo trip this year. So it's certainly true for American Express, but you can't go on Tik and not see amazing [00:16:00] travel adventures of millennial and Gen Z people taking vacations alone, right? So again, it's an example of something that we're seeing our customers do and something that is true and identifiable in culture. And so that becomes a creative territory for us, right? How do we then create stories based on that insight?

[00:16:17] And we launched a piece of creative. It's called all by myself, and it's about a woman traveling on her own to Greece, and she collects friends and experiences along the way. And of course. and it's leveraging the benefits of American Express. And so it's only through that combination that we really get the most out of the data and insights.

[00:16:35] Ilyse: All right, so Jess, tell me, what does it mean for a legacy brand like Amex to stay relevant?

[00:16:42] You obviously have been around since 1850, which is a long time. And how do you then maintain that consistency as a luxury product, but also integrate into everyday life?

[00:16:55] Jess: great question. Um, and we think that all of the time. And [00:17:00] it really is, that balance between a very consistent, stable and disciplined brand, which over time you mentioned since 18 50 we have stayed true to the values of trust, security and service, right?

[00:17:13] And so when you build on that foundation, you're then able to create a very dynamic product set that is responsive to the needs of today's consumers. And so one example that I will give because you asked about everyday value, Is that we recently refreshed the MX gold product, and it is very much built for purpose for today's customer, right?

[00:17:35] And so when you think about the benefits on that card, it's very dining forward because we know that our customers, especially Gen Z and millennial customers are obsessed with great dining. They're obsessed with food and experiences, and so it's one way in which we keep true to the brand while also continuing to innovate and elevate through our products.

[00:17:57] Damian: So Jess, you oversee Amex's in house creative [00:18:00] agency. What does it mean to have the agency in house? How does that give you flexibility and agility, which is one of the key buzzwords

[00:18:07] Jess: buzzwords, right? It is, it's an incredible privilege to lead our in house creative agency. It's called On Brand. it's full of incredibly talented, creative folks, but also project managers and account managers and strategists. and we really leverage On Brand to create, excellent creative quality. On Brand.

[00:18:27] Throughout the enterprise. And so, when I think about our brand, you think about The sort of big advertising channels that we do, and we have agencies of record who help us with that on Brent also contributes to that. But we do still have a roster of really, really close agency partners. But when you think about the internal agency, think about all of the advertising and communication that go out from the business units.

[00:18:50] That talk to our colleagues that talk to prospective colleagues. and all of that, having that in house really led by brand stewards. These people work at the brand. They live and [00:19:00] breathe the MX brand. it pays dividends in terms of the quality of the work, our ability to partner across American Express.

[00:19:08] and of course, to deliver more efficiency. 

[00:20:18] Damian: Okay, yeah, that's great. Thank you so much for your time and insight.

[00:20:23] Jess: It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[00:20:26] Damian: And that's it for this edition of The Current Podcast.

[00:20:28] We'll be back next week, so stay tuned.

[00:20:31] Ilyse: The Current Podcast's theme is by Love Caliber. The current team includes Cat Fessy and Sydney Cairns.

[00:20:37] Damian: And remember, 

[00:20:39] Jess: When you look back in time at 174 years of a brand, What you see is every Big moment in the company's history is paired with what was the advertising of the brand at that time.

[00:20:51] And so for us, our history and our heritage, we live that every day. And when we think about how to bring that forward, it is [00:21:00] with all of the equity of the advertising that came before us. 

[00:21:03] Damian: I'm Damian.

[00:21:04] Ilyse: I'm Ilyse.

[00:21:05] 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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Goalhanger's Tony Pastor explores building the U.K.’s leading independent podcast production company which includes shows like The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics and The Rest is Football.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian: I'm Damian Fowler and welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast. This week we sit down with Tony Pastor, the co-founder of Goalhanger, the UK's leading independent podcast production company. After a career as a TV producer, first at the BBC and then at ITV in the sports department, Tony teamed up with Gary Lineker, the former international football star turned broadcaster, to create the company.

It launched its podcast hub in 2019. In just a few years, Goal Hanger has gone from strength to strength with hit podcast shows like The Rest is Football and The Rest is History, which apparently clock up 42 million downloads a month and counting. We'll get into the creative process in a minute about what makes these shows so successful.

But first, I wanted to ask Tony about how Goalhanger was created. 

Tony: I set up Goal Hanger with my co host Gary Lineker, who in the UK is a well known media figure and former [00:01:00] footballer back in 2014. I'd been, a producer at ITV, a big TV company in the UK, and then left to set up my own production company. We concentrated largely on making sports documentaries, and then slowly the business changed, and, by 2019, we were launching our own podcasts, and in the last couple of years, it's become the main part of our business. 

Damian: You know, the podcast hub was launched, I know more recently than the actual whole production company and it's now like hosting some of the UK's most popular podcasts. I know that the company's just reported record audience figures for the May, July period this 2024. Big hit shows like the rest is football, which is co hosted by Gary Lineker.

And the rest is politics and several others, you know, I'm kind of curious to how you achieved this in a world with, let's say, tens of thousands of podcasts. 

Tony: Well, it's a good question. [00:02:00] And the big challenge in the world of podcasting is discoverability. It's not easy for audiences, listeners to find new content. There's an awful lot of really good podcasts out there, but unfortunately they're not easy to find. We have had a bit of luck on that front because once you build a successful podcast, you can then tell people about anything new that you do.

And there's no doubt that the number one way you can make sure that people know about a new podcast is if they're already listening to a podcast because they're on the right platform there, then they're enjoying the right form of medium. Once we had the rest is history at a super successful level, it made the launch of political shows and our entertainment shows and our sports shows that bit easier .

Damian: So the rest is history was the kind of vehicle was the kind of prototype as it were. Is that fair? 

Tony: Well, actually we launched a podcast, that was a real niche podcast, in 2019. It's called we have ways of making you talk and [00:03:00] it's all about the history of the second world war and I did it really almost as a hobby. It was great fun. I launched it with a great historian called James Holland and a comedian called Al Murray, both of whom are real aficionados of the period.

It quite quickly became a bit of a cult. No doubt lockdown during the COVID period helped in a way because it meant people were stuck at home seeking content. Podcasts are, producible remotely, we were able to really up the amount of content we produced. Suddenly it went from being very niche to some, to having quite a significant audience. And then the next iteration really was to say, we've got a successful podcaster that is, doing north of a million downloads a month, it's making some money and what would happen if we, did a podcast about more than just six years of history? In fact, let's do the whole of history.

And that's how the rest is history was born and it broke out, became a super success and it really showed us that the format of intelligent people talking in an entertaining way about something they know a great deal about [00:04:00] really could work. 

Damian: That's pretty ambitious. I've got to say, the idea of doing the whole of history. And I've got to say, I am an avid listener to the rest is history. Absolutely fantastic show with the two co-hosts, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland, who've got this got this brilliant rapport. Between them, I'm wondering if you could sort of like for people who haven't heard it  just give a kind of distillation of the kind of tone and style of that podcast. 

Tony: Sure, it's a history podcast. It tells narrative stories, fabulous stories from history. Be that the story of Napoleon or the French revolution or the sinking of the Titanic, the rise of the Nazis. These are all subjects that have been covered extensively in the last 12 months, for example. But what it really does is it's two, people who know an awful lot about the subject, who research it really, really well, but then have a fantastic conversation.

Fairly light conversation in a very entertaining, witty, well informed way. The best way I can [00:05:00] describe the tone of voice of The Rest is History is if you could imagine being sat in a bar or a cafe and hearing two people who know each other really well and are good mates chatting about something they're fascinated by in a very entertaining way. That's The Rest is History. 

Damian: And that formula also kind of carries over into the other podcasts, like for instance, the rest is football similarly, it's like, three guys having a kind of elevated, smart, funny conversation about what's just happened in the week, the week in, whether it be the Premier League or international football or what have you, is that fair? 

Tony: Yes, I think that is fair. I mean, we don't, create relationships on air with our podcasters. We basically, listen in on relationships that already exist. So Gary Lineker, Micah Richards and Alan Shearer, all great soccer players in their own right. But more important than that, their mates, and you get a real strong sense of that when you listen to them talking, they love their football, they watch it endlessly, they [00:06:00] have a WhatsApp group that frankly you could publish and probably get 100,000 subscribers to, it's so entertaining, it's all about what's going on in football constantly, and they basically bring that conversational style, that very matey friendly, but intelligent and analytical style to their conversations three times a week on a Monday, they look back over the weekend's action on a Wednesday.

They try and answer as many of the audience's questions as they can. And on Friday they review the midweek and look forward to the weekend. So it's an ongoing conversation, between three guys who frankly. If we weren't recording it, would be having the same conversations anyway.

Damian: I love that, insight. 

Damian: So I want to shift a little bit to ask you about the, business perspective. And what need, as it were, did you tap in the UK market? Which, obviously has a wide variety and diversity of broadcast options because the BBC is there. So, how did you get that market? 

Tony: Well, I think first of all, I would say that the BBC does a brilliant, brilliant [00:07:00] job. It's a wonderful broadcast that makes an incredible amount of diverse content, but it has to, it has to serve an awful lot of people so it can, find itself spread a little thin. One of the great attributes of podcasting as we discovered with our second world war history pod is that you can super serve a group of people who want something very specific.

So the second world war pod is listened to by about 80 to 100,000 people. But it's listened to by them religiously twice a week and that means we get 1. 2 million downloads a month. That audience is not being served anywhere else. So that was our first insight. We then looked at kind of the broader history offering in traditional radio and it was all slightly stale.

It had been the same for a long time when we wanted to have a slightly fresher, newer, more entertainment focused approach and, I'd like to tell you it was super planned, but in fact, it was about getting too [00:08:00] great talent to have good conversations. And, we spent nothing on marketing the entire growth of that podcast.

The question I get asked most, which is really insightful in many ways, I think was it, why wasn't history taught like this at school?

If it had been taught like this at school, I would never have dropped it as a subject. I've always loved history, but it was always done in such a dry way. Why couldn't it have been taught in this entertaining fashion at school? And I hope that's what we're actually providing for those for all those millions of people who love their history. We're giving them a new access point to it.

Damian: Yeah, absolutely. I just listened to the five part series on Martin Luther and I remember going back to my history A level where I had, you know, hopefully she's not listening, but a pretty dull history teacher, but I learned everything about Martin Luther now, all these years later from that podcast. Absolutely brilliant with all its references. 

Tony: Absolutely, so there's one other thing I'm going to say to you which is, I think the commissioning model is slightly broken. I think the traditional model whereby somebody in their [00:09:00] broadcast ivory tower decides whether or not a pitch, a content pitch, will be the right thing for their audience.

I think it just doesn't work anymore. There's, it's too, we've got to a point now where commissioners are trying to satisfy too many things at once. Whereas we can just say, this is what we want to do. We don't need a commissioner. We don't need, the finances of a traditional broadcaster.

We'll self fund this. We believe in it. We can experiment. We can try stuff and it's been liberating for us creatively because we can, we can decide we want to do a podcast on Martin Luther which frankly nobody would ever commission and we can do it. And lo and behold it found a terrific audience,  likewise we did, you know we did four parts on the falklands war.

We did an extended season on custer. We did a long series on the nazis now the nazis will always get covered  in traditional media. But,  we were able to do, for example, this year, we took the guys to Sarajevo to talk about the start [00:10:00] of the first world war and the first shot that was fired, the assassination of our shoot, Franz ferdinand, you know, that's the kind of thing I just don't think traditional broadcasters are going to commission, but we're able to do it and find an audience with it.

Damian: Yeah, I want to ask you a little bit about the revenue model from a business perspective. you know, um, a little bit, we, we keep hearing in the U S about the ad opportunity, especially in podcasts. I'm curious from your perspective, what's that opportunity like in the UK? 

Tony: Well, the ad part of it is challenging. The UK is not a very big market. It is nothing like the US market. For example, the advertising slash sponsorship market in the US around podcasting is something like $4 billion a year. In the UK it's more like a hundred million. Dollars a year. It's a pretty small pizza in terms of, that needs slicing up between, all the commercial players in the UK and frankly, if the BBC enter into this market as they're [00:11:00] threatening to do, it will be even more challenging for us.

We've had to be pretty creative around the commercial side of it. So yes, we're absolutely fishing in the advertising and sponsorship pond, but we're also looking at subscription models. In fact, we've got six very successful subscription clubs for our podcasts. This is where audiences, super fans who really love the pod can get access early, can get it ad free, can get bonus content, can get live show tickets early, et cetera. And that's proved very successful. We also do live shows and the live shows, do very well. You know, the rest is history last night we did it live in Cambridge, in the university center, Cambridge in front of more than a thousand people. The rest is politics is going on a nationwide tour. We're doing seven cities. We've sold 30, 000 tickets across that tour. So yes, we've had to be quite. Smart, frankly, and see disparate potential,  financial models for our podcasts so that they can really function. 

Damian: Yeah, it makes [00:12:00] sense. I know,  people talk a lot about the kind of, the special relationship that, Podcast hosts have with their audience and sort of ipso facto that kind of translates a little bit into advertising and how advertising works, whether it be host read or ~whether it comes in,

Tony: programmaticly

Damian: programmatically. yeah. that's the word. I'm kind of curious to hear what response you've had from advertisers, in terms of what's your pitch to them? 

Tony: Yeah. I mean, our pitch to them is really relatively straightforward unlike nearly all other forms of media currently we're growing, the traditional TV and radio commercial radio models are shrinking. They're struggling. It's not easy for them. The streamers, Netflix and Apple And all the usual customers are now.

Causing traditional TV to have to be very inventive and work with smaller budgets. We're the opposite. We know the, the podcast market is growing. every year. Our audience is very [00:13:00] young, so we skew much younger than all of the other mediums. So, 48 percent of our listeners are under 34. So half of our audience is effectively in their teens, twenties and early thirties, which is,  attractive to commercial partners.

And, we have very, very long listen times. People are fine, find the content compelling and engaging. So,  the rest of history's average listen time is 41 minutes. Now,  this is great news. I'm always very reassured by this because people have told me for a long time that young audiences want only bite sized content that they can swipe through and everything has to be a minute or less. What we might call the tick tock generation.

Well, we're discovering that's not true  People in their twenties and thirties want long form, intelligent, entertaining conversations. They want, they want to hear content that entertains them, that informs them, that educates them. I'm starting to sound positively BBC wreathian, but you know, they basically They basically do want [00:14:00] long form.

People are commuting, they're exercising, they're walking dogs, they're cooking. They want to have something that entertains them, that, that informs them and a lot of people we know listen to our podcasts while they're doing something else. So I think the sell to commercial partners really is that, our listeners are super engaged. They're young, they're highly educated and by and large,  we've done surveys, by the way, large scale surveys of over 20, 000 of our listeners, they earn really good salaries. They usually are executive and managerial levels in their businesses. These are the movers and shakers, the people who inform the way that,  that our nations are moving. So there are really, really interesting and valuable audience. 

Damian: Yeah, it's, such a cliche now to say that young people have no attention. Clearly that's, that's not the case. 

Tony: It's, it's, it's absolute nonsense. It's not true. 

Damian: Yeah, it really is. And It's reassuring to hear that too. You know, in terms of the,  you mentioned it's growing. How far can it grow? What's the sort of [00:15:00] scale you can, when you think about I think the statistic I read was that 20 percent of UK listeners listen to a podcast every week. That's a lot of headroom, right? You've got left. 

Tony: Oh, it's super exciting on that score. We are definitely nowhere near peak podcasting. I can tell you why, because nobody over about 55 is listening to podcasts because they, they never did. They didn't do growing up with it. The older generations, the people who are perhaps retired and who would enjoy our podcast most are just not listening.

, They're perhaps didn't grow up with the technology. They're not quite as comfortable, opening an app and downloading audio content. I think that as people age with that native ability to use the technology and enjoy the content, there's a whole generation of people we will add between say 55 and 80, whatever, who will suddenly become listeners.

There's probably 30 percent upside just when we start being listened to and enjoyed by an older generation, which is not happening at the moment.

Damian: [00:16:00] That's a great point. Yeah, I think as people, get used to the tech, that's it. And then I don't, who knows what's coming up. You also have talked about, pushing podcasts into video as well.  And I are talking right now on zoom, but people listening are just listening to this, with their air pods or what have you, what's the benefit in a way of, pushing podcasts, onto video, is it to see those hosts sparring with each other, people are curious.

Tony: This is the area that intrigues us most about what we do. The advent of video really came from the US.

We started to hear Prominent podcasters talk about watching podcasts rather than listening to podcasts. And we started to ask ourselves, why are they doing that?

What is the gain? Surely it's not just for the programmatic ads on YouTube or Facebook. We were determined to trial it and see what the benefits were by practice, by actually trying it out. 

And what we discovered was, This was [00:17:00] an entirely different audience. So for example, during the euros, as I mentioned, 9. 7 million audio downloads and 10 million video downloads. They're not the same people with that. This was entirely additional audience. The other thing about it is, but there's a couple of things.

One is that it helps with cross promotion. We can cut this content up, put a push it out on social, on Insta and Tik TOK and Twitter, et cetera. But also when it comes to having partnerships, you know, with some of the bigger brands, there's that, that hundred million dollar UK podcast market is suddenly much greater.

If you're talking to brands about partnerships that include video and social, there's a whole extra set of people you're in conversation with. And so you can effectively turn a podcast back into a show, a 360 show, which. Frankly, we don't mind where people encounter. We don't mind whether you watch, you listen, you see the clips on your social media feeds.

As long as you're encountering our [00:18:00] content, we're happy. And that's really why we've pushed so heavily into video.

So we take the opposite position of the walled garden. We're not a walled garden. We're not going to tell you to come over to our place and enjoy our content. We're going to say, Where are you comfortable? Where do you want to be?

Damian: Yeah, love that. Love that thought. Is podcast growth dependent to a certain extent on those different platforms and platform growth? You know, if people listen through Spotify or Apple, what have you? 

Tony: Well, I don't know whether it's dependent on that growth. It's an interesting question. What I can say is that we're agnostic. We don't mind where you are. We have a really good relationship with Spotify who are our, ad and sponsorship sales partner. But similarly, you know, we have a great relationship with Apple too, who handle a lot of our subscription clubs.

And frankly, as I say, you know if you're there on YouTube or if you're there on Apple or Spotify, that's all fine. Yes, it does require people to be digitally native and comfortable with the digital platforms, but increasingly, as I say, apart from [00:19:00] perhaps my father's generation, who I still have to download podcasts for, you know apart from his generation,  I think most people now are pretty comfortable with the media. 

Damian: So one of the great advantages of podcast production is that you, have a very close relationship with your audience. Could you give me some insight into how that breaks down in terms of subscribers and people who listen for free? What are you seeing?

Tony: Sure. What we're seeing is that unlike the traditional, media relationship whereby a production company like us, we're Goalhanger. We would go in to see the commissioner at the BBC or channel four or ITV or NBC and we pitched them our idea and they would either say yes or no, usually no.

But if they did commission it, we'd make it for them. We'd hopefully keep doing it. 10 percent production fee, they would then put it out. They would sell the ad slots to,  commercial partners and ultimately the relationship between the production company and the final audience is really remote.

So ours is [00:20:00] really close. When we put our pods out free to air,  the audience listens to them. They contact us. We incorporate their questions. We have a very good relationship, very close relationship, but not nearly as close as we do with our subscribers. We've got about 90, 000 subscribers across our various podcasts.

And what they get is a direct personal relationship with us. There's no, advertising. There's no sponsorship.  They don't have to wait for a podcast. So for example,  we'll, do a, six part series on the sinking of the Titanic. You can listen to that content spread out over three weeks for free with ads, Monday, Thursday, Monday, Thursday, Monday, Thursday, or if you're a subscriber on that first Monday, you can have all six episodes immediately as a box set.

That kind of a relationship is, I think, unique to podcasting where you love the content. You decide that for the Cost of an oat milk latte. You can basically get all six episodes immediately. And many of our listeners now are just saying, you know what? I want my content clean. I'd like to just come to you direct.

I'll have it [00:21:00] immediately. By the way, I'd love to get prioritized for the live tickets for the show in New York. I'd like to get them ahead of the rest of the public. And so you develop this fantastic relationship with your listeners and your fans. 

Damian: There seems to be a kind of recognition that staying authentic, is the way to scale. I was just, I was reading some comments by, Netflix boss Ted Sarandos at the RTS conference, Royal Television Society conference, who was saying, one of the big hits this year for them was Baby Reindeer, which is a very UK, British sensibility, but yet it's done really well. They didn't pander to a global audience. They kept it authentic. It seems like that is the same formula that's having success for you. 

Tony: Well, it's really interesting this, isn't it? Because,  I've got three, I've got three, sons, two teenagers and a 20 year old, and they're watching tons of content on Netflix and, uh, and the variety of the streamers, and they're very happy watching, for example, Korean TV with subtitles. They'll watch dramas from Scandinavia with subtitles. They're very comfortable. [00:22:00] Watching authentic drama and cultural content from other nations. I don't know whether the kind of globalization of content has finally happened, the days when, if it didn't, when, if a movie didn't have a, an American star, it could never be watched around the world.

I think it's gone. I think people are much more comfortable enjoying content from a variety of nations.

Damian: Well, Tony, thank you so much for these insights. Great talking with you. 

Tony: An absolute pleasure. Thanks very much for having me on.

Damian: And that's it for this edition of The Current Podcast. We'll be back next week, so stay tuned. The current podcast theme is by Love Caliber. The current team includes Kat Vesey and Sydney Kearns. And remember,

Tony: We're not a walled garden. We're not going to tell you to come over to our place and enjoy our content. We're going to say, Where are you comfortable? Where do you want to be.

Damian: I'm Damian and we'll see you next time. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a review.

Also tune into our other podcast, The Current Report.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.