MikMak Customer Connect: Commerce Growth Summit

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:21:20
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So on that note. Enough about me. Enough about us for a few minutes, and I'm going to bring on some of our great speakers. Starting with Chris Chesebro. Now, let me tell you a little bit about Chris before I formally bring you on. Chris and I met a decade ago when he was at L'Oreal, but Chris has really works across such a diverse set of consumer product categories.

00:00:21:21 - 00:00:45:12
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
He's worked at Ralph Lauren and Brooke Brothers. He's been agency side at OMD, and then he spent nearly the last decade of his career diving deep into beauty at L'Oreal, COTY. And now, Wella, he's the global chief digital officer. And whenever I am thinking about where I want to take MikMak, Chris is one of my first calls to pick his brain and get his take on where the industry is heading.

00:00:45:15 - 00:00:47:18
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So. Hello, Chris.

00:00:47:20 - 00:00:52:07
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Hi, Rachel. Thanks so much for having me. And I really appreciate the kind intro. Great to be here.

00:00:52:08 - 00:01:12:09
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So excited to have you. I'm going to, break my screen so everyone can just see our faces. So, Chris, you know, you've worked at a lot of big namesake brands where if I say Brooke Brothers, people in those suits. Now, if I say, well, I don't know if everyone knows what's in the Wella portfolio or even the, well, a story.

00:01:12:09 - 00:01:15:13
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So as a starting place, like, please tell me about Wella.

00:01:15:15 - 00:01:50:11
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Sure, absolutely. So, well, a company is a company that's squarely focused against the professionally credentialed beauty segments of hair and nail. We operate in more than 100 countries. And our biggest brands are Wella professionals. OPI, Clairol, GHD, we also own Briogeo, Sebastien professionals and Nioxin professional. So really businesses that were born in a hair salon or nail salon environment and then have expanded into more omnichannel, distribution and omnichannel footprints.

00:01:50:13 - 00:02:12:07
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Since then, the company has actually 144 years old now. It was founded actually as a wig company in Germany, back in the 19th century. And that has just evolved ever since then and really over the past 10 or 15 years, as the company has gone through a lot of transition, we've, we've changed ownership structure multiple times.

00:02:12:09 - 00:02:35:24
Chris Chesebro, Wella
We were family owned, then we were owned by Procter and Gamble, then we were owned by COTY. And now since 2020, we've been a standalone private company that is based both in Geneva and in New York. And we're really focused on being able to drive growth in, in our categories, because we really are the only global multinational that is only focused on these categories of beauty.

00:02:36:01 - 00:02:40:23
Chris Chesebro, Wella
So it's really our bread and butter and what we sleep and breathe every single day.

00:02:41:00 - 00:03:02:17
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So you know that ownership structure, while it's it seems unique. The reality is there's more stories and not about like that today where they were part of we traded company and then there were some sort of divestiture. I look at the last decade of major CPG portfolios, and it seems like there's more divestitures and shifts to structures than ever before.

00:03:02:23 - 00:03:06:14
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
What do you think that signals of what's going on in the industry?

00:03:06:16 - 00:03:28:05
Chris Chesebro, Wella
I think and it's not just specific to beauty, you know, we see it across multiple categories. You know, you see Unilever talking about shedding its potential, potentially shedding its ice cream business. I think a lot of companies are looking for focus. They're there are very diverse go to market models for these different categories and for these different, businesses.

00:03:28:05 - 00:04:03:03
Chris Chesebro, Wella
And, you know, the route to market for a traditional grocery business versus the route to market for a premium retail business, let alone a DTC first businesses is very different. The capabilities you need are different. You need to be able to figure out how to manage talent across all of those different verticals and different capabilities. So my personal opinion at Hasbro opinion not a well, a company opinion, is that companies are looking to focus and focus on the places that are core to their, we would say in French, their métier, right, their core, their core, skill set.

00:04:03:05 - 00:04:23:05
Chris Chesebro, Wella
I think that's what we're seeing happen in the market. And even when you read the analysis that comes out in the FT or any of the other publications, it does seem to be about driving focus on core areas of profitability, core areas of growth, and the capabilities needed to drive them home.

00:04:23:06 - 00:04:36:03
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So you just mentioned two KPIs that probably ring true to everyone here, which is profit and gross. In your role as Chief Digital Officer, how does your scope impact those two metrics?

00:04:36:05 - 00:05:03:14
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Sure. So I think I'll probably start by just defining what digital well, A means, because digital means something different for basically every single company. For, for us it's really three key pillars. The first is our, our eCommerce business. Now the eComm people in the markets work for the markets. They don't work for my organization, but we enable them with, the tools they need to run their businesses, i.e. our partnership with, with Micmac as an example of that.

00:05:03:14 - 00:05:27:13
Chris Chesebro, Wella
But then also all of our core, website infrastructure, direct to consumer infrastructure, etc. The second big component is our digital experience and technology group, who's delivering against all of that technology work. And then there's a third group that's focused on, data and AI, which is really looking at enterprise data and our AI acceleration program.

00:05:27:13 - 00:05:51:13
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Like, I'm sure every company on the phone has some form of, AI acceleration program going at the moment. The way that we are focusing in on growth and profitability for our business is one looking for revenue pools that are non-existent in our current structure. I think a lot of folks are focusing in on the rise of marketplaces, on TikTok shops and Cheyenne and now ASOS and Zara are building marketplaces.

00:05:51:13 - 00:06:16:06
Chris Chesebro, Wella
So I think that's an area of opportunity for a lot of different businesses, especially businesses that skew potentially a little bit older and demographic versus younger in demographic. The second is around the cost of running our business, because we operate in a very centralized technology model, we're able to consistently drive the cost of running the business down, because of the way that the way that we run it.

00:06:16:08 - 00:06:42:14
Chris Chesebro, Wella
And then, the third area is providing insights and new capabilities from a data perspective. We recently created a central data structure that unified, all aspects of data, everything down from master data management all the way up to the board reporting that we use, various visualization tools into one vertical. And that's really allowed us to increase the pace of delivery of new reporting capabilities.

00:06:42:16 - 00:07:03:16
Chris Chesebro, Wella
And then I could spend the next 20 minutes talking about the different, I work that we're, bodies of. I work that we're doing. But that's a place where we're really focused in on content creation, optimization of customer service and, and deploying capabilities like Copilot to our employees to help them manage their days better and be more effective in their existing work hours.

00:07:03:18 - 00:07:25:16
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So let's talk about AI for a second, and maybe not 20 minutes, but at least these seconds when you think about your investments in AI, like when I just heard you describe at least those three initiatives, it seems like there may be is a thesis that I should increase our productivity. Are there other things that you believe these AI investments will yield for the organization?

00:07:25:20 - 00:07:51:15
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Absolutely. I think we look at it in a very oversimplified fashion as increase in productivity or decrease in cost, you know, and we I'll be very clear, we do not have that employee replacement program aside assigned to our AI work. It's really about augmenting capabilities and augmenting the capabilities of our of our existing employees and helping them do more with, the same amount of resource.

00:07:51:15 - 00:08:15:22
Chris Chesebro, Wella
That's really been what our focus has been, on something like content creation. It is about being able to do more of that work ourselves, and not be as reliant on, on third parties to deliver against that content creation. You know, for, for example, I can create content that can go to one of our consumers by using some of the tools that we have now brought into our capability set.

00:08:15:22 - 00:08:34:18
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Now, I don't spend my time doing that, but the tools are simple enough that I can do that if I would like to. But it really is about giving our employees more capabilities and the way that I'm thinking about it, especially in the GPT sphere type of, way of thinking, this to me is the next evolution of search capabilities.

00:08:34:18 - 00:08:57:09
Chris Chesebro, Wella
And I know that's a little bit reductive in the way to think about it, but, the proliferation of these types of tools, it's just like we used to have, ask Jeeves, back in the day. And then things have simplified down to a triple. Quadruple in terms of search. I believe the same type of thing is going to happen, in, in AI, but it won't be 4 or 5 players.

00:08:57:09 - 00:09:05:04
Chris Chesebro, Wella
It'll probably be a couple of dozen players, versus the hundreds and hundreds that exist, right now.

00:09:05:06 - 00:09:27:15
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
It's interesting. In 2024, ChatGPT started to pop as a source of referral traffic to our customers, you know, including, well, so it's absolutely disrupting search. Now, you know, Zuckerberg in his recent earnings painted a picture of what he believes I might do to advertising. And, you know, there was a lot of conversation because it was pretty drastic.

00:09:27:15 - 00:09:49:06
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Picture. You know, he pretty much said, hey, one day you're going to be able to go to meta and say, increase my sales by 10%. That's all you input into the ad manager, and it takes care of the rest, meaning there's no human intervention and creative, media strategy, audience targeting, campaign objectives. Like it just does every day.

00:09:49:08 - 00:09:56:06
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
How does that feel as a brand leader, where you would have maybe no control over that other than just saying, increase my sales by 10%.

00:09:56:08 - 00:10:26:07
Chris Chesebro, Wella
You know, the way that the question's framed? Honestly, I like the sound of that. I like the idea of being able to dramatically oversimplify it. Now, I juxtapose that with that's a walled garden, and it's one partner, obviously a very large and important partner. But I would also be concerned about, the disintermediation between ourselves and the consumers that those ads, and messages are being served to.

00:10:26:10 - 00:10:56:13
Chris Chesebro, Wella
So my initial reaction would be something like, that sounds great, but I would want that interface to be owned by. Well, I would want that to be similar to when, you know, we turned over the programmatic contracts to the agencies, but then took the programmatic contracts over to the advertisers in the early 20 tens. I would want the exact same type of concept for the interface between a meta or one of his competitors and our ability to brief our brief our media investments.

00:10:56:15 - 00:11:18:15
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
I like that perspective a lot on top of just AI disruption, consumer product companies as a whole have experienced a lot of volatility. And also especially in the beauty category, you know, coming out of the pandemic, the Chinese consumers, no longer the Chinese consumer that we once knew that you had to deal with that headwind, then you're dealing with everything else in terms of the cost of goods is more expensive than ever before.

00:11:18:15 - 00:11:35:14
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
The pressures from retailers now, media channels have become political in Trump's first hundred days in office. Like there's so much coming at you as a leader, like one. How are you saying, saying and two, how are you navigating your team through all of this time?

00:11:35:16 - 00:12:02:20
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Sure. So I think when you think about the past 5 or 6 years now, at this point, for the vast majority of us, this has been the most volatile period that we've ever experienced. You know, unless you folks who lived through some of the larger scale conflicts in the 70s, in the 60s and 70s, it's a totally different world for, for what we experienced for the first kind of 15 ish years of our careers, 15, 20 years of our careers to the past 5 or 7.

00:12:02:20 - 00:12:30:09
Chris Chesebro, Wella
So I believe very fundamentally that constant change is the new normal. And the focus that I have with our teams is keeping them lasered in on what our objectives are and the fact that at the end of the day, we serve a lot of small businesses, players in the professional, in the professional beauty world, you're talking about mom and pop, hair salons, nail salons.

00:12:30:11 - 00:12:52:15
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Yes, of course you have big chains as well. But the vast majority of them are small businesses. And in almost every single economy around the world, small businesses are what keep things going. And in our objective, one of our objectives is to be able to help enable those small businesses to do the work they want to do. You know, hairdressers and nail technicians love their jobs.

00:12:52:17 - 00:13:13:19
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Don't go into it for the money. It is it is not an investment banking career by, by any stretch of the imagination. But they're real passionate artists. And our ability to help them live that every day their business grows, our business grows. It really it's a win in that, in that type of scenario.

00:13:13:23 - 00:13:37:02
Chris Chesebro, Wella
And I think one of the other things that is great about, well, a company is that all of our employees benefit from our growth. You know, our, our, primary shareholder, KKR talks very, very openly about the concept of broad based employee ownership. And that's something where as we are successful, our employees will be successful as well.

00:13:37:04 - 00:13:48:13
Chris Chesebro, Wella
So of course it's still a business. We still have to run it like a business. But there really is a benefit for every single person who works for, well, a company. As we drive more and more success for ourselves.

00:13:48:15 - 00:13:53:09
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
I mean, I love that about the P model and especially KKR. They're so forthcoming around this.

00:13:53:11 - 00:13:54:16
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Exactly.

00:13:54:18 - 00:14:16:18
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Earlier when you were talking about disruption, you mentioned the perforation of marketplaces and you talked about TikTok Shop. And given that you're in the beauty category, that's obviously the fastest growing channel within TikTok shop. And what I find so interesting is, you know, despite all the headlines in the US, which, by the way, I'm pretty sure Trump will continue to kick that can down the road.

00:14:16:20 - 00:14:32:07
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
It's a big focus globally. Like no matter what you're selling, every single type of customer I talk to, especially outside of the US, wants to invest in tick tock shops as a growth channel. Tell us, like, what have you learned being on the front lines with TikTok shop?

00:14:32:09 - 00:14:57:13
Chris Chesebro, Wella
So a couple of things I would say. One, making logistics work is very important with tick tock shops. The various different serve models and distribution service models between fulfilled by TikTok or they have an Amazon product that they, that they can leverage. Of course, if you have your own direct to consumer, business through a Shopify or whatever else, you can connect there.

00:14:57:13 - 00:15:20:21
Chris Chesebro, Wella
But the logistics model is something that I would really counsel folks to pay attention to. Because it can slow you down, in certain places. We've not moved as fast as I would like because of because of that. The second one is and this again, this is a Christiansburg opinion and not necessarily a, well, a company opinion, but I, I no longer see TikTok as a social platform.

00:15:20:21 - 00:15:43:07
Chris Chesebro, Wella
I see it as a retailer. And, and, and you really see that in the way that the volume of sales goes through TikTok shops. Very little of it goes through a brand store. The vast majority of it goes through creators. And it's north of it's closer to the hundred than it is to the 50 in terms of what goes through creators versus what goes through shops.

00:15:43:09 - 00:16:11:13
Chris Chesebro, Wella
So, it really is about managing creator relationships. So, so I would say focus in on logistics. Don't think about it like you think about the other social platforms and make sure that your creator strategy is crystal clear. And you have dedicated resources to deliver against that. Because the set up time, the investment in people capital and, and cost is there.

00:16:11:15 - 00:16:25:17
Chris Chesebro, Wella
And, the last thing I would say is be ready to pay for it in the beginning. It is not something it is not a if you list it, they will come environment. It does require investment.

00:16:25:19 - 00:16:52:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Yeah. I guess you hit it all in the head. I think the biggest misnomer going into TikTok shops is the always on creator strategy. And in many ways you got to spray and pray, which some brands aren't comfortable with. It's a totally new environment. Chris, we're obviously at a MikMak event. And I have to ask you, when you think about driving profitability and driving growth, how is MikMak helping

00:16:52:01 - 00:16:53:05
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Wella do this?

00:16:53:07 - 00:17:23:24
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Sure. So very simply, the vast majority of our brands do not have direct to consumer e-commerce infrastructure. And the build out has everyone, I believe has had some type of experience with. If you're taking a legacy infrastructure and trying to turn it DTC, it's not the most cheap thing to do in the world. So, you know, our ability to have the degree of shop ability on our brand eCommerce in a way that leverages the retailer relationships that MikMak has, helps us skip that step.

00:17:24:01 - 00:17:49:12
Chris Chesebro, Wella
And the other area would be understanding the insights that come especially with, MikMak to your point, oh, platform not. I have it open in my Chrome browser behind us because I do look at it on a regular basis. So I would say it's really those two things. It's our ability to have an eCommerce experience, both in media and on our brand, e-commerce and the insights that come from leveraging the MikMak 3.0 platform.

00:17:49:14 - 00:18:15:07
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So I want to point out one thing that Chris said, because I truly believe that there is a difference in executives by this one particular thing. Chris logs into the software platforms that the organization buys, and he has a C-suite title, and I can't even tell you how many leaders don't log in to the platforms, meaning they're not practitioners of the tools that they're investing in to drive their business growth.

00:18:15:07 - 00:18:18:08
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And, Chris, I think that's a defining characteristic of yeah.

00:18:18:13 - 00:18:36:23
Chris Chesebro, Wella
I appreciate that. No, I will say I am by no means an expert, and I'm probably more dangerous than my team would appreciate in my in my asking of questions that come from that. But I agree, I think it's important to have hands on operational knowledge of the tools that our teams are using because, you know, all of these things, they do cost money.

00:18:37:02 - 00:18:43:00
Chris Chesebro, Wella
And, making sure that we're maximizing the value that we get for those investments is also really important.

00:18:43:02 - 00:18:57:03
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Final question for you. Please fast forward. It's the year 2030 and you're charged with continuing to drive well as growth. What parts of the strategy are the same as they are today, and what parts do you think are different?

00:18:57:05 - 00:19:26:03
Chris Chesebro, Wella
I think what's going to be the same is our continued investment and focus on our professionals, because they are the core of our reason to believe for our brands. You know, they are the heart of our industry. And I don't see that changing for us at any point in time. And, you know, we I started to well, just over five years ago, after ten years at L'Oreal and the transformation that we've had within the Wella, my five years in Wella, has been extraordinary.

00:19:26:03 - 00:19:54:03
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Obviously, we can't really talk about it publicly because we're a private company, but I'm very happy with the transformation that we've driven. And for me, in 2030, where I would see us, we are the undisputed leader in the professionally credentialed beauty space. That's where I and that's where I see us in the future, and what's going to continue to get us there is continued focus on our professional communities, continued focus on upskilling our employees and giving them new capabilities.

00:19:54:03 - 00:20:07:24
Chris Chesebro, Wella
And I think by then, digital won't be a thing anymore. It will be the, and I, I don't anticipate that there will be even be a digital team. I think there will just be the team. And that to me, is true success.

00:20:08:05 - 00:20:21:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Well, Chris, thank you for letting us pick your brain. So appreciative of your partnership. Everyone watch Wella, because there's three incredible things happening there in terms of transformation. And talk to you soon.

00:20:21:03 - 00:20:22:15
Chris Chesebro, Wella
Thank you very much. Great to see you.

00:00:00:09 - 00:00:25:28
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
Thanks, Mahesh. I'm Lindsay Banks, Senior Product Marketing Manager. And now that you've seen a glimpse of the full year roadmap, I'm excited to share how some of this comes to life with our Q2 product launch. We are bringing four key innovations to market pricing, intelligence and Instacart API integration. And exclusive AccelPay partnership, and our new headless Commerce API for ad units.

00:00:25:33 - 00:01:02:16
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
These enhancements all center around helping your brand boost profitable, streamline performance and drive more meaningful engagement across retail channels. On the next slide, let's start with pricing intelligence. In a highly competitive retail landscape. You all know now more than ever before, price can make or break a sale. This new report, now available within the MikMak dashboard, gives you exclusive visibility into historical pricing trends by retailer, showing you where you're overpriced or underpriced and how that's impacting conversion and ROI.

00:01:02:25 - 00:01:39:04
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
With these insights, you can negotiate smarter with your retail partners, align pricing more effectively, and ultimately boost both brand and retailer profitability. This is just our first step into pricing intelligence, as future releases will include predictive capabilities and much more. Now let's talk about Instacart. We've built a seamless integration that connects MikMak experiences directly to Instacart via the Instacart Developer Partner API, automatically pre-loading products into shoppers carts based on real time inventory, all while collecting sales data.

00:01:39:09 - 00:02:16:19
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
This means no more promoting out-of-stock items and better conversion rates for your campaigns. But beyond efficiency, it's about proving value to your Instacart partners, driving traffic to products they can actually sell, delivering actionable conversion insights and ultimately increasing your brand influence. This new integration will be available in the coming weeks. For alcohol brands, we've partnered with AccelPay to make one click checkout not just easy, but more importantly, compliant with AccelPay's license fulfillment network powering your MikMak shoppable experiences.

00:02:16:24 - 00:02:51:18
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
Consumers can seamlessly purchase alcohol where and when they engage with your content, and you capture rich first-party MikMak data in the process. Data that we know fuels smarter retargeting and campaign optimization. So it's a true win win, seamless, compliant shopping experiences paired with better insights for your brand. This enhanced checkout capability will be available in the coming weeks via the MikMak Commerce to our Bev/Alc customers in the US, with plans to expand to more regions in the future.

00:02:51:23 - 00:03:23:42
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
And finally, our Headless Commerce API for Ad Units. Now, with our latest API innovation, you can work directly with adtech partners to turn any digital ad, whether it's display, video, programmatic or social until a live shopping experience. Our API connects directly to over 8,000 retailers pulling in real time availability, so the experience is always accurate and relevant. No more drop offs from bad links or sold out products and every click is trackable.

00:03:23:43 - 00:03:45:29
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
Tying media spend to actual conversions with retailer specific data to prove ROAS and optimize performance. This is available today and we would love to hear what we can build together with you and your ad platform partners. As always, if you want to learn more about any of these new enhancements, you can reach out directly to your MikMak representative.

00:03:45:34 - 00:03:46:55
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
And with that, I'll pass it back to.

00:00:00:07 - 00:00:20:57
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So you heard Chris. He has MikMak insights opened up on his Chrome browser. And I know that is true because I can see the analytics on the other side and I thought I'd share with you today some of our real time data. Obviously, we are living in unprecedented times, and I want to show you what's happening in the consumer economy.

00:00:21:01 - 00:00:44:08
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
The first thing is, I think it's really important to understand our worldview as I take you through the data. When I started MikMak, nearly 11 years ago, it was during what I would describe as the social media self-service commerce era. Every brand that was coming to market was built on the backbone of Shopify and Facebook ads. That playbook stopped working, and it stopped working in the year 2020.

00:00:44:13 - 00:01:06:51
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And it has nothing to do with the pandemic. It has everything to do with changes in data privacy. Apple wakes up and realizes companies like Meta and Alphabet are building multi-billion dollar businesses in their hardware, and they're not seeing a cent of it, and they decide to change the whole nature of how data is being monetized from us, automatically opting in to now us automatically opting out.

00:01:06:55 - 00:01:30:52
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And that created the perfect storm for the rise of retail media. Why? Because the retailers own first party data to monetize. So for the last four years, the billion dollar brands that are being built are being built at mass retail. And we described this period of time as the commerce, media, commerce data as a service era. But we at MikMak believe that the world is changing again, and we pegged it to this year.

00:01:31:04 - 00:02:06:09
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And there's a reason why Gen Z starts to turn 30 this year. What happens in your 30s? You become the next great buying power. You get married, you buy a house, you have a baby. How Gen Z season sells is so drastically different than prior generations. They're more racially diverse. They're more sexually diverse. And I share this because the next billion dollar brands to be built will be built on top of media data, meaning the places where consumers spend time layered with commerce data, the most important commerce data being inventory and basket level sales data married with psychographic and demographic data.

00:02:06:14 - 00:02:31:18
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And the way that this is going to happen from a technology standpoint is predicated on two things that you're going to hear us talk a lot about, which is APIs and AI, and that is the Commerce intelligence era that's going to be built on top of composable commerce technology. Now, all of that flexibility is what's going to allows you to continue to navigate the insanity that we are all living in.

00:02:31:22 - 00:02:54:49
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And when I talk to all of our customers, and MikMak is working with over 2,500 of the biggest brands in the world, and I boil down what you're all dealing with. The first is how can you generate profit in today's environment? No one knew what was going to happen to the world in Trump's first hundred days in office, and now we've all lived through it.

00:02:54:54 - 00:03:17:58
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And in many ways, it feels like 2025 is actually starting in May. We'll talk more about what's currently happening in the macro environment. But big question for you. Number one is how are you generating profit amongst all this volatility. Big question for you. Number two coming out of last year, if you looked at all of your earnings, it really doesn't matter what you're selling.

00:03:18:03 - 00:03:49:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
There is one consistent theme in 2024. Volume sales were down. Why? Well, I, Rachel Tipograph have a very strong perspective on the why. I believe as an industry we have over indexed and bottom of the funnel retail media spend. You are cannibalizing your organic sales opportunity. That person who was going to buy that item at Walmart or Tesco and then you light up an ad against them, was going to buy it anyway.

00:03:49:06 - 00:04:11:12
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Too much of the media budget has shifted to bottom of the funnel. The way that you drive volume sales is by bringing new consumers into the funnel. That's how you drive growth. How do you bring new consumers into the funnel? You have to invest in upper funnel media. Many of you know, before I built MikMak, I ran Global Digital at Gap.

00:04:11:16 - 00:04:34:22
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And we had a rule of thumb at Gap. If you invested in mobile, social and TV all at once, we saw our cost per customer acquisition go down by 7x. Why? Because enough people in the world knew that we existed because of the upper funnel investment. So we need to right size the pressures that are currently happening from retailer.

00:04:34:22 - 00:05:02:13
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So you can do full funnel media to drive volume sales. But then there's an extra nuance, which is you're probably nodding your head up and down. Rachel, I agree with you. But the reality is we have trade agreements with our retail partners where we're contractually obligated to deploy this spend, even though it isn't driving incremental growth. And on top of that, they're not going to open us up to more brick and mortar channels until we show that we have enough sales online.

00:05:02:18 - 00:05:24:06
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And so there's all of this tension to help you navigate the volatility drive volume sales and gain consumers for life. We get it. Your job is really hard, and our goal is to help you become smarter in real time so you can navigate those conversations. Now I want to share with you some of our real time data so you can see where the world is.

00:05:24:10 - 00:05:52:49
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
There's a famous saying, you probably know it. In tough times, people drink brown liquor. In fun times, they drink clear liquor. 25% of MikMak customers are alcohol. We're the largest player in media and alcohol, and I share this because I want to show you what people are drinking. In 2023 and 2024, Brown liquor was way down in Q1 of this year.

00:05:53:02 - 00:06:21:40
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Look where brown liquor is now, especially something like cognac. It's right behind tequila in gin. What this is showing to us is that consumers are saying times are tough and I'm turning to brown liquor. But what our data is also showing is that consumer resilience has been there. So we're 20 days into the month of May, and the public markets are doing better than they've done in the first 100 days of President Trump's presidential office.

00:06:21:45 - 00:06:48:42
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
There's a few reasons why. One is this pause right between us and China. So tensions are easing. But the second is economic data is coming out from Q1. And what Q1 economic data is showing is that consumer resilience was there despite everything that was happening. The macro backdrop. If you look at MikMak data from April 20th 7th to May 17th, so we tried to make this is real time for you as possible.

00:06:48:46 - 00:07:15:11
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
What you can see is conversion rates essentially have hovered around 8%. So this purple line here is the most recent data point where we saw average conversion rate end for the week at 8.7%. What this is showing us is that, hey, all the things that we were talking about where brand manufacturers and retailers were going to increase prices, that hasn't scared away consumers yet.

00:07:15:16 - 00:07:37:19
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And as the economy hopefully continues to improve, we truly believe, because our data is indicating it, that consumer resilience is going to remain. And then in terms of media volatility, I think many of you know this. We've been at the center of this global TikTok story because MikMak has the largest real time data set to show what's happening around the TikTok ban.

00:07:37:24 - 00:08:03:00
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And what you can see here on the far right is that on January 19th, we saw TikTok traffic go to 0%. It took until about March 1st for it to reach Q4 levels, and then by April 1st, it was surpassing Q4. So everything that Chris said on the why behind TikTok shop is a big reason why we continue to see brands invest in this channel, because it can build brand and drive sales all at once.

00:08:03:05 - 00:08:33:29
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So what we ended up seeing comparing Q1 to Q4, is that TikTok traffic increased by nearly 20%, yet meta traffic went down by 3%. Why? We seen a direct correlation to the announcements that Zuckerberg made in January around removing fact checking from the platform. What often trumps ROAS and all of your discussions is brand safety. You care more about your long term brand equity than short term sales.

00:08:33:34 - 00:08:58:36
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And so where did those dollars shift during all of this chaos? They shifted to Pinterest. So we saw nearly an 18% increase in Pinterest traffic comparing Q1 to Q4. Pinterest is a place that's considered brand safe and you can drive conversion. What did you see in Pinterest earnings? Their best earnings yet in the last two years? MikMak data once again predicting Wall Street earnings.

00:08:58:40 - 00:09:21:49
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And then Alphabet. We saw dollar shift to Google search and YouTube. Now Alphabet, their earnings were a little bit mixed. But a big part of why those earnings were mixed is because ChatGPT is coming for their share of search. And we continue to see ChatGPT rise in our traffic as a source of referral traffic to your brands to drive conversion.

00:09:21:54 - 00:09:50:54
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And then finally, the consumer boycott. If you all remember, on February 28th, consumers said that they were going to boycott retailers because everything that was happening with day and politics. Well guess what? Consumers didn't boycott on February 28th. They actually turned to online shopping. And who was the big winner? Amazon. The weekend of February 28th, we saw Amazon conversions soar by 42%.

00:09:50:54 - 00:10:22:32
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And you can see here eMarketer turning to map to understanding what was happening in real time around retailer traffic and the consumer boycott. I share all of this because if we're honest with ourselves, we know that 2025 is going to continue to be volatile. And the best thing that you can do right now to put yourself in the driver's seat, I truly believe, is one have real time data at your fingertips, because you got to be able to navigate this chaos in real time.

00:10:22:37 - 00:10:52:00
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And the second is you still have the pressures of driving profit and driving volume sales. And I've been doing one thing my entire career, and it is this. And history goes to show that the only way that you're going to be able to effectively and efficiently drive volume sales is by investing in full funnel marketing. You have to make sure that your investments aren't lopsided to just make your retailers happy.

00:10:52:04 - 00:11:20:06
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
You will never be able to drive long term volume sales that way. And so it is so important to continue to rightsize your investments. And if I look across most customers, and if you look at history of some of the brands that have been able to sustain tough economic times, and you look at their media is the benchmark mark is 70% is going towards our personal national digital media and 30% is going towards lower funnel, which is inclusive of retail media.

00:11:20:11 - 00:11:46:27
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And if yours is more lopsided than that and your volume sales are down, I encourage you to have this conversation. Obviously we're here to help you do this. We're driving conversion at every single touchpoint national digital media, offsite retailer, direct brand websites, your owned and operated channels with our APIs. Every single time a consumer's interacting with you, it's the opportunity for you to drive conversion and collect data.

00:11:46:31 - 00:12:12:36
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And if there's anything that goes to show there's we no longer can live in a world where you can just place your bet within a few channels. The world is too volatile. If all you did, for example, is went all in on TikTok in January, you would have been screwed. You have to diversify your investments. You have to invest in full funnel marketing, and you have to put yourself in a position to own your data to be able to navigate this level of volatility.

00:00:00:04 - 00:00:21:00
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Hopefully you're seeing, the enormous amount of investments that we have been making in R&D under Mahesh's leadership to continue to propel this industry forward. And in the spirit of continuing to propel this industry forward and in the spirit of learning together, I would love to call on some of our great customers. And when I say your name, please turn on your video.

00:00:21:02 - 00:00:46:11
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So we have Steve Hay, who is the VP of Consumer Experience at Premier Nutrition. We have Arthur Sylvestre, the VP of Digital Commerce at Danone. We have Dawn Puskas, the that Lead Digital Engagement at Church & Dwight. Fabiola Zelaya, the Global Digital Ecommerce. She's leading it there at Suntory Global Spirits. And then Amy Chun, the Head of Digital Commerce in North America for Colgate Palmolive.

00:00:46:13 - 00:00:48:22
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Hello, everyone.

00:00:48:24 - 00:00:49:16
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
Hello, Rachel.

00:00:51:21 - 00:01:12:03
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
All right. I'm going to break my screen so everyone can see us. So appreciative for you to join. We have folks joining from, both the US and Europe. So I'm very appreciative for all the different time zones to do a quick warm up. I'm going to ask you, what's your one word association. So far in calendar year 2025?

00:01:12:09 - 00:01:15:09
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And, Steve, I'm going to call on you.

00:01:15:11 - 00:01:18:01
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
Well, I'm going to go with unpredictable.

00:01:18:04 - 00:01:20:02
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Okay, Amy?

00:01:20:04 - 00:01:22:17
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
I'm going to go with resilience.

00:01:22:19 - 00:01:23:24
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Arthur.

00:01:24:01 - 00:01:31:21
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
Well, you know, I just had a baby, so I wish my word would have been sleep, but, I'll say it's, transformation.

00:01:31:23 - 00:01:34:00
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Okay, Fabiola.

00:01:34:02 - 00:01:36:05
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
Opportunities.

00:01:36:07 - 00:01:37:05
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Nice. All right.

00:01:37:05 - 00:01:38:19
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Dawn?

00:01:38:21 - 00:01:41:11
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
I will say, whirlwind.

00:01:41:13 - 00:01:59:16
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Whirlwind. Okay. And now, same thing. Rapid fire. We're going to go in reverse order. So what's your one word to describe commerce media in 2025, Don, starting with you data resource. Fabiola, partnerships are there.

00:01:59:18 - 00:02:03:24
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
I'll stay consistent with my word. So I'll keep, transformation.

00:02:04:01 - 00:02:06:04
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Okay. Amy,

00:02:06:06 - 00:02:08:01
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
I'm going to go with choiceful.

00:02:08:03 - 00:02:10:05
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Oh, okay. And Steve?

00:02:10:07 - 00:02:11:16
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
Opportunity.

00:02:11:18 - 00:02:37:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
All right, I like this. All right. There's a lot of optimism in the room. So, no need to belabor 2025, because I've obviously spent a lot of time talking about it today. But, yeah, the last few months have been pretty wild. I'm sure all of you have had to adjust your plans, and I'm just curious, like, what real time data have you used to figure out where you should be investing your next dollar?

00:02:37:01 - 00:02:44:11
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Or how to think about your retail partners? Like, what does that control center look like for you for 2025?

00:02:44:13 - 00:03:01:03
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
I can tell you, I think data and our analytics and our insights has been crucial, especially up to Q1 of this year, just given a lot of the uncertainty. I think, we've been historically relied, you know, very heavily on our internal data components and resources.

00:03:01:03 - 00:03:28:14
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
And I think, we've really been a strong effort to look more externally leveraging like Knickknack, for instance, and that real time data usage, which most recently we were just looking at to drive a lot of our linking strategy, actions and plans. So, I do think it is just given a lot of certainty. We're definitely relying on the data to make some, like, real time decisions on kind of how to pivot, and how to be choice full, as that word that I used earlier or so.

00:03:28:20 - 00:03:31:12
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And, Arthur, what were you going to say? Yeah.

00:03:31:14 - 00:03:57:24
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
You're talking about the last few weeks on the last few months, but I actually in the last few years, I think there was a shift many, many, companies, including, Danone, I think in how we try and source, more externally and real time data from, social, keyword Planner or Google Trends, but also what you're going to see in terms of, engagement, comments on anything that we do.

00:03:57:24 - 00:04:22:18
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
Then you look at, of course, sales data on a regular basis. And it's very, very important for us to, to make that shift in terms of where we look for data, but also how we operate internally to convey this information and go from one team, to all of the other teams in the organization that can actually leverage those data.

00:04:22:19 - 00:04:43:18
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
And I'll give you an example. But a couple, years ago, I think in Canada, one day we're looking at sales data and coconut milk is sold out everywhere, and nobody knows why. You know, it's like it's a big mystery because that product is it's a good product, you know, but it's not the rising star of the portfolio.

00:04:43:20 - 00:05:07:14
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
And then so we start looking into things like what's happening. Was there an issue with production or anything? And the reality is that a couple days later, someone from the social team comes to us and he's like, guys, everybody is making that coconut milk and, cranberry refresher drink on TikTok. And so this is, you know, this is something that happened.

00:05:07:14 - 00:05:35:24
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
And us, we were looking at that, trying to find rational explanation when the reality was, you know, in the consumer's behavior and just happening there. And we were blind to it. So I think there's a muscle that is being built and it's good news for us, depending on the time of the well and what's happening in terms of events, I think we have to look externally and to communicate, internally those types of information.

00:05:36:01 - 00:05:47:05
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And is that a big shift culturally? like do you feel that your organization's ten years ago were just completely internally focused and didn't pay attention to the outside world. Fabiola, I saw you nodding your head.

00:05:47:07 - 00:05:59:22
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
Well, I agree with Amy and Arthur in a way like it's also a mindset shift that we always look internally in how we adapt, not only for how we look, you know, our competitors.

00:05:59:22 - 00:06:34:17
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
It's also through our customers and consumers, right, because we sell to those retailers. So it's a matter of building data and trends within the ecosystem. So I agree with our during the complexity about bringing us together and trying to understand what each of in the different ways is trying to tell us. Right. And where are those trends. So I believe with this is great, you know, to have partners such as us, you, you know, they're in between those retailers and those and very close to consumers that help us to connect kind of the dots, because I still believe it's, and I love to hear Arthur and Amy, you know, that we're all on the

00:06:34:17 - 00:06:55:15
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
same page. We're not alone on this journey. You know, trying to shift this mindset. And, you know, even though the category that we're in the which I play but I think that's not is across all the markets as well. We're in this you know like we're competing for every choice for every you know option of we need to be there.

00:06:55:15 - 00:07:05:17
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
So that's why we are focusing more on the outside that internally. And that's, you know, probably a is a mindset that it's taking us a journey to get there.

00:07:05:19 - 00:07:21:12
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Now, there's been you guys expressed some optimism, with some of your words and there's some optimism in the month of May like, you know, the markets are performing better potentially us and China are going to ease their trade tensions with this new outlook on the rest of the year.

00:07:21:13 - 00:07:27:08
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Does that cause you to think differently about your planning over the next few months?

00:07:27:10 - 00:07:46:11
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
I'll chime in on our side. We're in a high growth category with the 10% growth kegger on average for the last five years. So we kind of went into the year bullish. It's convenient nutrition, but it certainly gives us more confidence. And I think maybe a bit of relief given that we're a premium brands within that category.

00:07:46:13 - 00:07:50:24
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
But for the most part, it's full speed ahead on the plans that we had going into the year.

00:07:51:01 - 00:07:51:18
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak


00:07:51:20 - 00:08:18:06
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
Yeah. I would say, we're paying really close attention to sentiment in the marketplace too, because things just continue to shift. Right. Even when you have some positive stories, you just don't know what's going to happen next with this whirlwind. So we're really just staying nimble, right. And thinking about just our brands from a value standpoint and how we communicate that value, which is really necessary all the time.

00:08:18:06 - 00:08:23:14
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
Right. So yeah, I would just say being nimble and flexible.

00:08:23:16 - 00:08:39:18
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
Yeah. Even though we I agree in the way we need to be flexible, we all need to stay focused. Right. Because we're building brands and we're trying to keep that momentum in some of them. So if we're not consistent that obviously has a price to pay. So yes, we need to be right at the very same lens.

00:08:39:18 - 00:08:52:11
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
We need to have a different type of forecast of what is going on, you know, part of the strategy, but also keep consistency of what we're doing. So we see that in the future. Right. That kind of growth.

00:08:52:13 - 00:09:08:01
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
I would agree I think if you did a scrape of internal emails and teams messages, pivot and did a word cloud, the word pivot would be a large word. Maybe not the one in the center, but it's certainly something that we talk about a lot and execute on a lot.

00:09:08:03 - 00:09:28:07
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
I think the big shift is we used to have one plan and then we would go into execution. Now we have multiple plans ready to write for us to shift and adjust. And I think that's the big shift. And we have to be okay with that. As leaders, you know, you're going to work on something for three months and at the last minute it's not going live, which is fine.

00:09:28:07 - 00:09:38:02
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
You know, we'll get to the next, plan and we'll keep, building, the strategies and plans all the time. So this is the big shift, at least for us.

00:09:38:04 - 00:10:00:05
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So, question for you, and I'm going to bring in a MikMak company value. So a company value of ours is Put the MikMoose on the Table. So word cloud, the word pivot. But the reality is so many of your agreements are annual agreements, whether it's with media channels or retailers or even software partners like you're locked in to certain agreements.

00:10:00:05 - 00:10:06:22
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So how do you stay flexible when maybe so much of your strategy is already locked up?

00:10:06:24 - 00:10:21:05
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
I think you're totally right. That's exactly what I was thinking as we were, as everyone was answering this question is that you are locked in. I mean, your trade relationships or trade agreements all the way down to your agency and supplier agreements are locked in for the year.

00:10:21:05 - 00:10:58:08
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
So I think you have to stay steadfast in your plans. I think for weeks of data, although optimistic, is kind of a small set to really make some significant decisions. And kind of change your marketplace dynamics. So I do think you have to kind of run the course, keep a pulse on what's happening in the marketplace and, you know, work cross-functionally to understand what is the contingency plan, what is plan B and C to be able to do the pivots, but in a way that makes logical sense for your business and doesn't create even bigger gaps or messes, you know, that you have to fix up the year end.

00:10:58:08 - 00:11:08:12
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
So, I do think it's a paced run, and I think that's just, you know, kind of steering the ship in that direction is the best way to go in our in my opinion.

00:11:08:14 - 00:11:26:23
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So something that sometimes can challenge maybe the plans is ever changing consumer behavior. And, I'll just tell you a quick anecdote, like one of my favorite things to do at MikMak at the end of the year is pull all the traffic sources for our customers and see if anything has changed.

00:11:27:00 - 00:11:52:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And last year, two traffic sources appeared in our top 50 that never had appeared in MikMak history, and it was ChatGPT. And then the second one, DuckDuckGo, which is like the most preferred web browser for Gen Z because it's all about data privacy. I'd never seen that before. And MikMak data, you all have really big, views to the global stage.

00:11:52:03 - 00:11:56:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
What are you seeing in terms of 2025 consumer behavior?

00:11:56:03 - 00:12:16:14
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
From a commerce perspective, I would say I certainly believe AI and search like Rufus for instance. Right. Really, really making an impact even on me today as a shopper on Amazon, for instance, I am using that functionality. I just do not have the bandwidth to be searching for this toy versus this toy for my kid.

00:12:16:14 - 00:12:44:08
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
Right? So it is really about kind of, you know, what new service out there, right? New technology is really going to make your life easier and add that value. I really think those are the ones that are going to win out. And just as Chris had said earlier, all right. In the keynote, I, I certainly believe right. It is kind of that overlay on your lifestyle and the benefits that it will provide to the consumer's life that are the ones that are going to win and really make an impact to the businesses and the consumers.

00:12:44:10 - 00:12:50:14
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And, Amy, from Colgate's perspective, like, how are you thinking about optimizing your presence within Rufus?

00:12:50:16 - 00:13:05:04
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
Our search team is definitely all over it. We talk about it regularly. We just actually got out of a workshop recently and kind of dissecting it a little bit more about how it's impacting our consumers lives and how, you know, fundamentally, it is very tactical, right?

00:13:05:04 - 00:13:26:09
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
It's like understanding the consumer search terms, the consumer's mindset, you know, their behaviors of whether shopping and then also just, you know, down to, again, kind of the mechanical nature of ratings and reviews, right? Like, how are we going to work through our reviews to make sure that they're synthesized in the most appropriate way and the most valuable way to our consumers?

00:13:26:09 - 00:13:36:24
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
So I think there's a lot of tentacles to, you know, what you can do to really fortify your business, to make sure you can play along with things like Rufus and other, other talks.

00:13:38:04 - 00:14:11:01
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
You know, I, I really love what you said. I mean, because despite, you know, the growing complexity of the environment for us as marketers, to me the only, consequence is the absolute necessity for us to focus on the on the fundamentals that are actually going to help us get the business and the and the, the team, in the very right place so that whatever happens can be, tackle and successfully, activated by the team.

00:14:11:03 - 00:14:37:06
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
You're going to see, you know, the AI, ChatGPT, Gemini are playing a bigger role, meaning that, if you have the right information, with the right insights, the right copywriting, the right images, naturally, you're going to rest of us as, one of the good options, promoted by the tools. Then there's going to be probably the paid aspect that's going to come, a little bit later.

00:14:37:06 - 00:15:15:11
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
But right now, for us, as digital commerce managers or as digital managers focusing on the fundamental things, getting the basic pieces to work properly is the absolute necessity in my, in my opinion, because otherwise, you know, you can go in many, many directions. And sometimes I feel like we're like young kids playing soccer. Like the ball goes to the left and everybody goes to the next and the ball goes and we have to, you know, we have to be very clear on what is the objective, what is the strategy, and then how do we get it right despite that level of complexity?

00:15:15:13 - 00:15:36:23
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
Arthur, I'm going to steal that metaphor for some internal discussions. I wholeheartedly agree there. We really emphasize that we have to be choice for because, you know, find it. You have finite resources only a certain amount of time. And if you try to test and do everything, it's just it's not going to work. And I think, you know, applying those content fundamentals.

00:15:36:23 - 00:15:52:15
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
Well there are new channels, new tech. The fundamentals are still fairly similar. You have to have quality content, trusted content. So that's really where we're focusing our investment. Just to make sure that that we're hitting the fundamentals. But it's definitely going to be a learning journey.

00:15:52:17 - 00:16:06:15
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And Steve, given that you're in a fast growing category with probably a very digitally savvy consumer, like any interesting behaviors popping up that you're seeing your category worth sharing.

00:16:06:17 - 00:16:31:23
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
I think for us, we have some new consumer segmentation. And you know what we're seeing. The good news is consumers are prioritizing their health. They want to be stronger physically and mentally. And they're seeking more information. And there's more information out there. The challenge is they don't have a lot of time. So we need to be really smart with our sort of ecosystem, how we become discoverable and when we are discoverable.

00:16:31:23 - 00:16:45:05
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
Also enabling a consumer to take action because we talk about the funnel. And Rachel, like I agree with your opening remarks on the importance of like a balanced funnel. But the reality is the consumer can experience awareness to purchase and 30s.

00:16:45:07 - 00:16:45:17
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone


00:16:45:21 - 00:17:02:18
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
So really we're keeping a close eye on the consumer trends, and they tend to be more promiscuous than they used to be. They can take action quickly. Their expectations are super high on experience. So we're just trying to keep pace.

00:17:02:20 - 00:17:03:24
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone


00:17:04:01 - 00:17:20:19
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And Dawn, I feel like Church & Dwight every single day acquires a new company. Just you just acquired a hand sanitizer but then you sell laundry detergent, pimple poppers, you name it. Like from your perspective, any standout consumer behaviors in 2025?

00:17:20:23 - 00:17:44:02
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
Well, I mean, I agree with everyone that sort of the content strategy is critical, right? I think for us, really focusing on where consumers are discovering our brands. And, you know, I think influencer and social tends to be a big continues to tend to be a big piece of that. And you know how we're really, telling the story there, right.

00:17:44:04 - 00:18:06:00
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
Through our partnerships and then we're just monitoring sort of how that path to purchase is shortening. You know, when we even talked about search and search is a big behavior and social now as well. So, so yeah, I think, leaning in a bit there in terms of how consumers are discovering new brands about it.

00:18:06:02 - 00:18:29:00
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So, Steve, you were just touching upon this in terms of full funnel. I'm sure you're up against it every single day internally to justify or explain your investment decisions to your fellow colleagues internally, like how do you talk about the role of national digital media versus retail media versus owned and operated channels, the role it places in the customer journey, or even the role it plays in driving sales?

00:18:29:02 - 00:18:48:10
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
A lot of healthy dialog, and I would say healthy tension, which is good because it leads to better plans. But we think about it as a both and approach. We know that lower funnel retail media is going to be super effective, super efficient. We love the roles that we see. We love the strategic wins that it creates with customers.

00:18:48:10 - 00:19:10:10
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
At the same time, household penetration is probably the biggest goal, you know, to the executive team. And we're not going to drive significant, significant household penetration with a full lower funnel approach. And so we know we need some of that mass awareness building and that's tends to be our mindset. But it's not without a lot of good interrogating of plans.

00:19:10:12 - 00:19:35:14
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And Fabiola, you play in a very interesting category in the US. Obviously there's a lot more regulation because of the three tier system, but outside of the US it looks a lot more like what everyone else is navigating here. So when at Suntory, when you're talking about how you're investing in full funnel and the roles of different media channels, like what's the value of building brand versus driving sales?

00:19:35:16 - 00:19:54:03
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
So I think it's a matter of maturity of the brand in the market. They play a different role, like if we have 100% or a 90% of distribution, you can go for that awareness. And if you're having so we also play with some prestige brands or the distribution is kind of lower. So we go more under consideration. And the purchase.

00:19:54:07 - 00:20:16:04
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
So it needs to it will depend on the market and brand. And the way we're operating we try to you have we have our Suntory a global way of media, which is a 6040 overall. But I know there's a lot of nuances that can play in between. You know, the type of portfolio and the market as well.

00:20:16:06 - 00:20:28:04
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And Amy, I got to call on you because I know you got strong opinions. You know, just navigating these conversations internally, educating your stakeholders like you know, how do you go about doing that at Colgate.

00:20:28:06 - 00:20:35:15
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
Yeah I think Steve and Fabiola are absolutely right. Right. I think it's understanding your brands. Understanding your consumers. Where are they gapped.

00:20:35:15 - 00:20:54:20
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
Right. And then being good marketers. Right. And understanding is that upper or lower funnel and what is that right mix? You know I think you talked about mix earlier. And I think that's a big question right now, especially just given the current dynamic business wise. So again, I go back to that word of being choice. Well, but I do think it is like really understanding your brands.

00:20:54:20 - 00:21:20:09
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
Where are they and that that that growth trajectory in that roadmap. Is it upper or lower funnel that's really going to make the biggest difference. And then just putting your bets there and then selling the organization on it. I do think that's a really tough decision. Right. Because they're not in the day in and day out that you are so making the right business cases, using the right data, right, and telling that story is going to be so crucial to getting those wins.

00:21:20:09 - 00:21:30:14
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
So yeah, it's not it's not an easy one. The, the investment allocation piece. But I think with the right data, you can you can really dissect, right. What's going to what's going to grow your brand.

00:21:30:16 - 00:21:38:23
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So in the spirit of growing your brands obviously we are at a MikMak event. You are all MikMak customers which I am so grateful for.

00:21:39:00 - 00:21:50:23
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
I would love to hear. How is MikMak helping you achieve your business objectives? And Arthur, you've had experience, for example, taking us from Canada to now to North America. Danone. So maybe I'll start with you.

00:21:51:00 - 00:22:17:02
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
And I mean, you covered it, very well as well. I think in the conversation you had, earlier, this morning, I think there is, a big value in, in MikMak for a couple of reasons. The first one is, you know, when I hear us talking about you know, the, the funnel from awareness to consideration to conversion, you know, I understand what we're saying, and I agree with everything that I said.

00:22:17:02 - 00:22:44:23
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
However, the funnel is changing because the consumer is changing. And I think we have, a real opportunity as, advertisers to put a little bit more of, shop ability everywhere, which is what we're trying to do with MikMak. You know, there is no reason why I could not try and convert when actual there is an awareness piece that is being displayed because, you know, it's such a big missed opportunity.

00:22:45:00 - 00:23:17:07
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
If I'm watching, let's say, a 15 second video, I love the product. I buy the story, but then I cannot buy the product line. It's a big mess for us as advertisers. And so putting that that shoppable right here along the consumer journey is, is very, I think important for us as it allows us to capture both low hanging fruit then on the pure transactional standpoint, I think, you know, we don't have any B2C model here yet.

00:23:17:09 - 00:23:44:24
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
And so, without those DTC models, really, and operate and operating in the day today, you have no opportunity to convert the traffic that's coming to your, brand website. So that's a second, way to use MikMak. And that, I think, brings a lot of value. The last one for me is on the data piece, and we're just, scratching the surface today, here at the.

00:23:45:01 - 00:24:07:03
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
But a lot of opportunities, I seem to understand consumer behaviors to be a little bit better at, optimizing and predicting, based on, again, digital consumer behavior. So it's an interesting, suite for us. And I look forward to the, the next steps on, the new, tech and tools that you presented as well this morning.

00:24:07:05 - 00:24:20:03
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Yes. We can't wait to do that with you! and Dawn, You've been a long time MikMak customer, and you've even spoken internally at MikMak. So, we'd love to hear how MikMak is helping you at Church & Dwight.

00:24:20:05 - 00:24:51:08
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
Yeah, I think, all of the points already discussed are super relevant, but I would really focus on the data. I mean, making everything shoppable is critical, but what we can learn from that, and I would say not just our access to the data, but our account team. You know, your team at MikMak has really been invaluable to us as a partner and helping to interpret that and also kind of give a more holistic view from what, you know, more broadly in the marketplace.

00:24:51:08 - 00:24:59:11
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
So helping us make really good decisions, you know, is critical. So thank you for that.

00:24:59:13 - 00:25:23:09
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Love to hear that the team is supporting you. Yeah, yeah. So, we're entering towards the end of this, and we also probably are entering into your 2026 planning cycle. I have to imagine that's what a lot of the titles are in your calendar invites right now. So we're all in the same cycle. Would love to hear where you guys feel thematically are some of the key areas.

00:25:23:10 - 00:25:28:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
As an industry, we're likely all investing in next year to drive growth.

00:25:28:03 - 00:25:47:23
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
I'll jump in. I think, you know, Amy hit on it earlier. We've we're really going to be focused on following our consumer first and foremost. So a combination of where is the consumer and what are your brand objectives. And that's going to lead to channels. But I think retail media is almost becoming sort of a core building block of plans.

00:25:47:23 - 00:26:10:10
Steve Hay, Premier Nutrition
And then it's a matter of where do you layer on or layer within socials? A constant increasingly, TikTok, both for discovery and shoppability. And then I think brands that have, you know, bigger awareness ambitions are also going to invest in some higher reach. But, you know, certainly retail media and TikTok feel like going back to that word cloud or are pretty big in the word cloud.

00:26:10:12 - 00:26:11:00
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Okay.

00:26:11:02 - 00:26:32:24
Fabiola Zelaya, Suntory Global Spirits
Yeah, I agree with Steve in the way like retail media, obviously from my focus and the role, we want to see retail media in each of the brand plans. You know, I said one of the biggest important touchpoints and coming back, I think overall it's about data, right, is the following that consumers and where the data goes to understand those trends and plan that accordingly.

00:26:34:06 - 00:26:51:07
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
Yeah. I mean, I, I agree, I think it's going to be that allocation conversation on like the fourth line. All right. What's the right allocation by the brand growth plans that we have. But I also think it's like look in the in the midst of a lot of chaos. Right. You got to kind of be, you know, steady at as well.

00:26:51:07 - 00:27:11:05
Amy Chun, Colgate-Palmolive
So I think it's also like the fundamentals. Right. Like really innovation. Right. That like really build the brands from the inside out. So you know, I could see us ensuring that those are 4 to 5 and strong. And you know we have those plans in place to grow the brand from a fundamentals perspective as well.

00:27:11:07 - 00:27:36:21
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
I love everything that was said I don't know, you know what other companies will do. But what I hope for us is, is really to be able to, focus on the, the key strategic plans and doubling down on those and, you know, but you think you, you think about what strategic pillar means. You could slice and dice this in 3 or 4 different things, you know, innovation, focusing on the big ones that are actually going to drive growth.

00:27:36:23 - 00:27:56:05
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
For us, you know, we're, we're creating a, a lot of, high in protein products to understand some of the, rising consumer demand. So we have to focus on this, and we have to win in that area. A couple of other, you know, big bets are placed for next year. So I really want us to be fully focused on those.

00:27:56:11 - 00:28:18:11
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
And then then in terms of, channels or, advertising tactics, of course, we talked about, retail media, but retail means that can mean a lot of things. And there are many, many different types of retail. So I really want the team to be laser focused on, the biggest opportunities. And most of the time it's going to be the biggest players in, in the market.

00:28:18:13 - 00:28:45:20
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
And last but not least, maybe my, near-term twist to this. So maybe not this year, but you're going to see a lot of companies, reinvesting into some of the fundamentals like we discussed. But also, I think SEO in its purest form. And, you know, we've been heavily relying on Zoom and Google ads, but now that Google is losing a little bit of market share, you know, you're seeing other things, rise.

00:28:45:22 - 00:28:54:16
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
I think that's going to be an interesting move. And if you're well prepared as an organization, for that, it can be, I think interesting.

00:28:54:18 - 00:28:56:14
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And Dawn, to close it out.

00:28:56:16 - 00:29:22:12
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
I would agree with as SEO and thinking of that, you know, broadly, even from traditional SEO to also, you know, how you show up in the platforms where consumers are spending their time, right? So even in social. Right. And you know, how search is becoming a behavior there. And we know that's discovery tools. So I think yes, that's a big area.

00:29:22:14 - 00:29:46:09
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
As well as just continuing to explore social commerce as well as that starts to evolve. It's interesting for CPGs because, you know, it is a different space and there are challenges there. But, that is sort of a reaction to how consumers are discovering brands. And the amplification is happening. Right. So those are some changes I see.

00:29:46:13 - 00:30:08:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So I took notes. So for everyone who's going into planning what I heard is product innovation revenue growth management. So the fundamentals full funnel allocation where to invest your next dollar, the need for data to make the right business decisions, retail media, TikTok, social commerce SEO. I got to tell you some of those words you probably wouldn't have said to me last year.

00:30:08:05 - 00:30:24:00
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So I like! I like where this is going. So appreciative for all of you for joining us. And thank you for your MikMak partnership and allowing us to pick your brains today. We, we're now going to turn into our live BRAVE COMMERCE recording. So thank you all again.

00:30:24:02 - 00:30:25:01
Arthur Sylvestre, Danone
Thank you.

00:30:25:03 - 00:30:25:14
Dawn Puskas, Church & Dwight
Bye.

00:00:00:06 - 00:00:02:03
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
One sec Sarah, I got special effects.

00:00:02:03 - 00:00:05:07
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
I’m Rachel Tipograph, the Founder and CEO of MikMak.

00:00:05:09 - 00:00:08:00
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
I'm Sarah Hofstetter, President of Profitero

00:00:08:00 - 00:00:23:06
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And this is a show that talks about what's relevant in eCommerce for the world's biggest brands.

00:00:23:08 - 00:00:25:10
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
All right. Sarah. You ready to do this with me?

00:00:25:14 - 00:00:34:14
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
Abso-freaking-lutely. What a great panel. Thanks so much to everybody there. Wow. Fabi. Amy, Dawn. Steve, that that was just extraordinary.

00:00:34:16 - 00:00:36:10
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So many, so many of your friends.

00:00:36:16 - 00:00:43:23
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
I know I felt like I was at home or at a Profitero event or at a Profitero event at home, but either way, it's awesome.

00:00:44:00 - 00:00:48:05
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
But now we have another friend with us, Erin Price. Hello, Erin!

00:00:48:07 - 00:00:50:16
Erin Price, Sargento
Good morning. It's nice to be here.

00:00:50:18 - 00:01:05:20
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So, we're so excited to do this with you. So for those of you who don't know, Erin, Erin is the General Manager of Consumer Products at Sargento, one of, America's largest cheese and dairy companies. And, Erin, we're so excited to do this with you.

00:01:05:22 - 00:01:09:07
Erin Price, Sargento
Thank you. This is going to be great. I can't wait for the conversation.

00:01:09:09 - 00:01:35:19
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So, Sarah and I have done a few of these BRAVE COMMERCE episodes live. So this is live. So I'm just going to give our future listeners an overview of what's happening. So today it's May 20th, 2025, and we are at MikMak's Commerce Growth Summit, and I have the great pleasure of recording a live episode of BRAVE COMMERCE with my co-host Sarah Hofstetter and our friend Erin Price, the General Manager of Consumer Products at Sargento.

00:01:35:23 - 00:02:00:20
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And we are here to pick Erin’s brain on what's happening in the industry. And so to kick it off, Erin, Sargento is a three generation family and you're owned by a team. You're a multibillion dollar business that's within the family. And there's been such massive changes in consumer tastes and how they shop since obviously the family started this company three generations ago.

00:02:00:22 - 00:02:08:10
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So what do you think it is about this family that has positioned them to be able to change with the times?

00:02:08:12 - 00:02:36:05
Erin Price, Sargento
It's a great question because I think, you know, at Sargento, we really see our family leadership, our family ownership as one of the core sustainable competitive advantages that we have. This is a family, that is not focused on kind of the short term gains, you know, making money, getting out. They really take seriously their commitment to the categories that we play in, to our retail partners, to the communities that we're in.

00:02:36:07 - 00:02:58:14
Erin Price, Sargento
And so the focus very much on the long term sustainability of everything that we do, whether it's the investments that we make in our production capabilities or in our employees, in the products that we create. We're always looking for the long term consumer growth and making sure that we're doing, things that are going to grow the overall dairy category.

00:02:58:14 - 00:03:28:12
Erin Price, Sargento
We're not interested in just stealing share from this player or a short term gain, you know, one year by doing something crazy in the category. We're really focused on how do we build our categories long term because the family believes that that's how everybody wins. That's how we're going to find value. That's how we're going to give value to our partners, to our suppliers, to our vendors, to our shareholders, obviously, but then also our employees and the communities that we live in.

00:03:28:14 - 00:03:37:21
Erin Price, Sargento
They really take that long term view. And I think that that's the reason that they've had so much success over the last, you know, 70 plus years.

00:03:37:23 - 00:03:56:17
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
I think that makes a lot of sense. And I'm sure throughout the course of this conference and further discussions, you're going to hear a lot of people talking about the criticality of growing category. That's the way we win taking prices. Obviously, there's only obviously we learned that lesson the hard way as an industry, as an industry for sure.

00:03:56:17 - 00:04:32:02
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
And so, I as a dairy lover myself, I'm very happy to hear that this is that that this is where, where your MO is going. That being said, it does seem like being family owned is something is a big differentiator both for the consumer. You've got this new brand platform positioned around the Sargento family promise. There are so many people here that, are on this, live broadcast listening in live, and some of them are at big companies and some of them are family owned companies.

00:04:32:04 - 00:04:39:14
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
Tell us about the insight of what brought that to life and how it's resonating in the marketplace.

00:04:39:16 - 00:05:01:18
Erin Price, Sargento
Yeah, absolutely. We are very consumer led, as I think, you know, most of the companies who have been part of your panel, as most of the people listening to this podcast, probably are. So we really do try to follow where the consumer insights are and our latest brand platform. We call it the Sargento Family Promise. It comes from the inside, the consumers, especially younger consumers.

00:05:01:20 - 00:05:24:02
Erin Price, Sargento
They really appreciate knowing where their food comes from. They're looking for, as you been mentioning earlier today, a lot of value in what they're seeking. But value is very different than price for a lot of consumers. Value when it comes to food means, hey, I know that I'm not going to be wasting my money. I know that when I buy this item, it is going to be high quality.

00:05:24:02 - 00:05:44:08
Erin Price, Sargento
It's going to deliver what I want. I know that I can trust it. And so for a lot of consumers, a way to help build that trust is to tell them exactly who we are, that there is a real family that is really involved in the business. They are running it day to day. Our CEO is a third generation family member.

00:05:44:10 - 00:06:12:19
Erin Price, Sargento
And they are really, really passionate about making sure that absolutely everything that we put in the market is the highest quality, real natural cheese. No compromises, no substitutes. You know, our tagline is you have our word on it. You have our name on it. And so we're really trying to, in this, this era of, you know, fake news and what do you trust in what's real and how do I sort through all of this, this stuff that's coming at me?

00:06:12:21 - 00:06:22:00
Erin Price, Sargento
Hey, you have our word on that. You have our name on it. At least you can trust that the cheese that you love, it's going to deliver what you want for you and your family.

00:06:22:02 - 00:06:24:18
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Clearly, you've said this line before.

00:06:24:20 - 00:06:27:01
Erin Price, Sargento
A couple times!

00:06:27:03 - 00:06:47:11
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
You know, just diving a little bit deeper into consumer behavior. I feel like dairy for a while got a bad rap, and, you know, everything. Plant-Based came into vogue. And, this isn't the first time, right? I remember periods of my childhood where everyone was like, focus on soy.

00:06:47:13 - 00:07:12:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And then everyone's like, no, no more soy. And so it feels like dairies back. You know, there's obviously people within the presidential office who are also endorsing dairy, which hopefully only can mean good things for Sargento. But what are you seeing right now? You know, in terms of consumer tastes, preferences and their dietary behaviors. And and then I'm also curious, like what data sources you're using to get that information.

00:07:12:03 - 00:07:33:10
Erin Price, Sargento
Yeah, it's really interesting. I know what you're talking about. It feels like every few years the food trends kind of go back and forth and circle back around. And it's just it seems to be human nature that that folks are interested in that. You know, honestly, though, we're a little bit insulated when it comes to dairy because people love cheese.

00:07:33:12 - 00:07:43:07
Erin Price, Sargento
An interesting fact that I just heard the other day is, on average, a consumer will eat 42 pounds of cheese in a year.

00:07:43:09 - 00:07:44:08
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
Oh, I thought you meant in a day!

00:07:45:18 - 00:07:46:05
Erin Price, Sargento
I know!

00:07:46:05 - 00:08:04:05
Erin Price, Sargento
I feel like maybe I'm probably even more than that. I hate to admit it, but I'm sure I'm on the upper end of that scale. And so, you know, really, for us, we don't we try to not follow trends. We're not. You know, again, as I was mentioning, we're in this for the long term. So we're following what the consumer is looking for.

00:08:04:05 - 00:08:23:11
Erin Price, Sargento
And we know that we are offering the consumer something that they really want. As an example, over half of consumers will say, hey, I am trying to eat less processed foods. We know that that's been something that they've been saying for a very long period of time. And so we follow those consumer insights to launch our innovations.

00:08:23:13 - 00:08:46:11
Erin Price, Sargento
At the beginning of this year, until we launch a natural American cheese slice, we just launched at the beginning of this year. And before that, the only way that the consumer could get a American cheese slice is it was processed cheese. And we know that consumers love American cheese. It's got a great melt and a creamy flavor and a texture that you just you can't get anywhere else.

00:08:46:13 - 00:09:11:13
Erin Price, Sargento
But up until earlier this year, the only option was a processed cheese. So we spent a long time with our R&D really trying to replicate that exact melt and flavor and texture and that great American cheese performance. I mean, came out with a 100% natural American cheese slice. So that's just an example of if you really look at the consumer insight and figure out what is the consumer asking for.

00:09:11:15 - 00:09:16:19
Erin Price, Sargento
That's how you can follow that and be successful. And grow those categories long term.

00:09:16:21 - 00:09:28:23
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And so, Erin, are you relying on like traditional forms of research? Is it social listening? Is it the retail partners like where is this consumer data coming from?

00:09:29:00 - 00:09:50:04
Erin Price, Sargento
Yes. All of the above. I think, you know, the great thing and the challenge right now is we are absolutely swimming in data. You can get so much more data now than you ever have before. And we have so many sources with our retail media partnerships, behavioral data, the traditional sources, the Circana,, the IRA, the bases, the Nielsen.

00:09:50:04 - 00:10:11:19
Erin Price, Sargento
You know, you can get so much data. But I think the trick is really digging through all of that. And finding the signal and ignoring the noise. And again, how are you really digging into those deep consumer insights to look at what they're looking for, not following the fads, not following just the short term trends? But really deeply understanding those consumers.

00:10:11:19 - 00:10:34:20
Erin Price, Sargento
And so a lot of times that does mean you have to reach the consumer in a different way. There's a lot of different research methodologies out there that we're using that catch the consumer real time in-store, on their mobile device, and we ask them questions when we know they are right in front of our category or another category that we want to ask about so that we can catch them in the moment.

00:10:34:20 - 00:11:00:08
Erin Price, Sargento
And really get their true deep understanding of what they're thinking. And so the technology has just evolved so much and continues to evolve so much. It's just sort of amazing, you know, versus back when I started in the business and focus groups were kind of, you know, oh, wow, let's get a bunch of people in the room and try to remember what you thought six weeks ago when you bought this product and know you can get so much closer to the consumer.

00:11:00:14 - 00:11:14:09
Erin Price, Sargento
And so as long as you're using that in a really productive way and not letting it kind of distract you. I think it's a really powerful tool that you can use any all of the above to really understand where you need to go.

00:11:14:11 - 00:11:33:10
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
Makes a ton of sense. And it's, a lot of this goes back to a famous quote from Jeff Bezos is “a brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room.” And I feel like we're getting closer and closer every day to really understanding what's happening when we're not in the room. A lil creepy.

00:11:33:12 - 00:11:58:18
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
But, in many cases, it's because the consumer wants us to know the ratings and reviews, for example, is. And by the way, that your team taps into that, with profit, tarot is one of those things where it's like, okay, we're going to get an understanding immediately after purchase how you felt about that, whether that's been actual American cheese or anything else in the portfolio.

00:11:58:20 - 00:12:25:06
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
And frankly, that also plays a role in understanding competitive environment. And what is it that's holding people back or driving people forward? But one thing that happens with that, with all of the things you just said about the different sources of data and insight and, agility that comes with a really strong talent. Now you guys are headquartered in Wisconsin.

00:12:25:06 - 00:12:48:15
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
You are a very strong in person culture. And frankly, if you run a cheese company, Wisconsin's the place to be. Questions on talent. How do you get outside to really recruit? Strong CPG talent? I'm thankful I'm in the New York area. We've got the whole CPG corridor going down the entire, you know, length of New Jersey.

00:12:48:16 - 00:12:53:09
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
You've got Chicago, you've got Bentonville. How do you get them to Wisconsin?

00:12:53:11 - 00:13:14:20
Erin Price, Sargento
Yeah, it's a great question. And, you know, look, I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't take us longer to find great talent than probably it does in one of the major metros. But it really goes back to where we started this conversation of, we're a company that is family owned, family led, and we really focus on the long term.

00:13:14:22 - 00:13:45:08
Erin Price, Sargento
And, you know, look, I was in, you know, big CPG before I came here to Sargento. So I know how the game is played. I know kind of you know, all the things that you have to do when you're working at a public company and you have to make a number. But for a lot of sales and marketing and demand planning for a lot of professionals, having an environment where you can really focus on the consumer, really focus on the long term, focus on those category building the innovation, the long term investment.

00:13:45:10 - 00:14:14:16
Erin Price, Sargento
It's such a luxury. And so oftentimes we find that, you know, maybe when they first hear the name Sargento and, you know, the recruiter or whoever talks to them and says, “hey, have you ever considered moving to Plymouth, Wisconsin?” You know, the immediate answer is kind of “what?” But we have really found that once we start talking to them, and especially once we bring them on site and they hear our story, they feel the passion of absolutely everybody that they talk to.

00:14:14:21 - 00:14:37:02
Erin Price, Sargento
They recognize how the family takes care of all 2500 Sargento employees like we are a family. They really feel that, and they live that, and they understand that we offer an opportunity to grow a career in a way that you don't get a lot of places, you know, if you have to make those trade offs, you have to make those short term choices.

00:14:37:04 - 00:15:01:10
Erin Price, Sargento
You don't get to really see things through long term category growing, consumer building, household penetration, building activities. And so a lot of people come here and they say, yeah, you know what? I think that I think I'm going to make that move. And then just a little plug for Wisconsin. We're coming into the summer season. So I can say this with a straight face, Wisconsin is beautiful, wonderful.

00:15:01:10 - 00:15:11:21
Erin Price, Sargento
It's a great place, great people. It's an awesome place to live. Don't ask me that question in January, but right now, I can't say I fully endorsing living in Wisconsin.

00:15:11:23 - 00:15:36:07
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
I would say for sure. And it was not lost on me that our team went to go do their quarterly partnership review with you guys last weekend, necessarily. Oh yeah. That being said, you do have an opportunity. You've got a lot of commerce leaders on, on this, virtual call if there's any, positions you want to advertise now might be a real good time.

00:15:36:09 - 00:15:49:12
Erin Price, Sargento
I think. We should. We will have together. We are growing and expanding at an absolutely monumental clip. So I may take you up on that. Anyone can send their resumes in to me, and we, I bet we'd have a role for you.

00:15:49:14 - 00:16:10:00
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And Erin, on that note, I mean, I've obviously been working with you for a while, and I see how Sargento is investing in their people. So when you think about the skills, like, if people want to become GMs, PNL owners like you over the next five years, what skills do you think that they need to develop?

00:16:10:02 - 00:16:40:08
Erin Price, Sargento
That's a great question. And I do think that moving forward, you know, the CPG model, having a general manager, whether you have that title or not, being able to act as though you own the business and you are making decisions as though it truly is your own small business, I think is really critical. And so a lot of the things that we talk about here as we're growing and developing our talent is, first of all, communication, obviously is critical.

00:16:40:11 - 00:17:08:22
Erin Price, Sargento
And I think as technology continues to evolve and things are moving faster, having good communication and making sure that you can keep a team aligned and prioritized and not getting distracted by, you know, I my team, we talk a lot about, the old chestnut, the big rocks and then the sand. Right. And how do you sweep the sand so that you're spending more of your time and energy focused on the big rocks, identifying the things that are really going to move the business forward?

00:17:09:03 - 00:17:37:06
Erin Price, Sargento
And what are the things that are noise? What are the things that you can kind of diminish and try to spend less of your time on? And then really understanding that the consumer is changing? I really do believe that. I think that the way that the consumer moves through the world, and you were talking about it earlier on some of your panels, you know, consumers are finding out about products so much faster and so much differently, and we reach them differently with different messages and different channels.

00:17:37:08 - 00:17:56:17
Erin Price, Sargento
And how do you stay on top of all of those changes? I think you just have to be, you know, agile and flexible and making sure that you're staying on top of all of these things that continue to evolve very quickly. And keep your teams up to date and make sure that they're all focused and moving forward together.

00:17:56:19 - 00:18:04:24
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Great. Well, Erin, we got to ask you our famous last question, which is, what's the bravest thing you've ever done?

00:18:05:01 - 00:18:36:11
Erin Price, Sargento
Yes. So I knew this was coming. And so I, I had to think about this a little bit. And I hope that you two, you know, New Yorkers don't think I'm a wimp for saying that. This is my bravest thing. But when I was in college, I actually got an internship in Manhattan. And so at 21, having lived in small town Wisconsin, small town Wisconsin my whole life, I picked up and I moved to Manhattan for six months, and I did not know a soul.

00:18:36:13 - 00:18:56:07
Erin Price, Sargento
And I had to find somewhere to live. And I very clearly remember my first day of work. I lived kind of up Morningside Heights, kind of Columbia University neighborhood, and I took the subway to work, and I got to Grand Central Station. And, you know, you get off the train and there's just at rush hour, there's that mass of people just.

00:18:56:07 - 00:19:18:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
All kind of moving together. And I remember very clearly as a small town girl who had never taken public transportation before or thinking, “oh my gosh, I'm going to die. I'm going to die in New York subway station.” But you know what? I kept going, I figured it out. And I had the most amazing experience living in New York.

00:19:18:05 - 00:19:48:06
Erin Price, Sargento
Completely different from my lived experience. And so, I take that with me, and I. My team knows I'm always telling people, hey, if you want to grow, if you want to continue to learn, you need to have an experience that is completely different than the way that you see your life today. Whether that is taking a different role within the company, challenging yourself to go back to school and get a different degree, or in your personal life, moving somewhere different, exposing yourself to different people the absolute best way.

00:19:48:06 - 00:20:05:05
Erin Price, Sargento
I really believe this. The way that you can grow is by forcing yourself to see the world from a totally different perspective. And I, at 21, sort of did that accidentally. But looking back now, it was a brave thing to do. And it's something that really has impacted my life moving forward.

00:20:05:07 - 00:20:17:15
Sarah Hofstetter, Profitero
Well, I would say I take the subway fairly frequently and I always think I'm going to die. It's apparently better than taking a taxi. So yes.

00:20:17:17 - 00:20:20:03
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Well, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.

00:20:20:03 - 00:20:23:24
Erin Price, Sargento
But, that's what I learned. Absolutely. That is true.

00:20:24:01 - 00:20:44:10
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
I couldn't agree with you more. And, you know, Sarah and I are definitely through and through New Yorkers, but, I know we share your sentiment in terms of taking yourself out of your daily environment. Putting yourself in someone else's shoes and beginning to grow that empathy. So. So we thank you for allowing us to pick your brain.

00:20:44:10 - 00:20:56:11
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
This episode will be available on BRAVE COMMERCE Podcast, on whatever podcast app you like to use. And, if you like what you heard, tell a friend, write a review. And thanks for listening.

00:00:00:10 - 00:00:25:36
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
We are now going to move into the Q&A portion and I saw different questions come in. So Mahesh and Lindsey, if you can turn your videos back on and join me in this endeavor. The first question, Lindsey, maybe you want to answer. So, someone asked, can you explain the new headless commerce API, how it works with the ad units, and what makes this different from traditional shoppable ads?

00:00:25:40 - 00:00:29:57
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And how can brands use this to more prove Roas effectively?

00:00:30:01 - 00:01:04:14
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
Yeah, absolutely. Great question. I'll try and answer all of the parts of it. So basically, the new Headless Commerce API allows your brands to work directly with ad tech partners. Think Pinterest, Amazon, Trade Desk, you name it, to embed MikMak experiences directly into display video, social ads. On the back end, you'll still be connected to our retailer network, which is over 8000 retailers, and you can choose what retailer exists within the experience.

00:01:04:19 - 00:01:29:12
Lindsey Banks, MikMak
So that's going to still ensure the same accuracy in terms of availability, pricing, inventory and of course, the key piece of it. You unlock the comprehensive data on media performance, retailer specific conversions and consumer behavior, all which will help give insight to Roas and other key, performance indicators.

00:01:29:16 - 00:01:41:19
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Thank you. Lindsay. Next question. Mahesh I'm going to ask it to you. How soon will brands need to factor in AI shopping agents as a part of the consumer journey mapping and planning?

00:01:41:24 - 00:02:09:59
Mahesh Nair, MikMak
Yeah, I mean, I would say to you, you touched upon that and you also heard from the panel. I mean, this is a trend that is catching on. And I would say we should all be planning to, adjust to the change from our perspective if we are making the right investments. I talked about I won't get into the stealth and I be working on, but everything that we are focusing on right now is enabling us to open up all the data that we are collecting in different ways so that we can enable that transition as that happens.

00:02:10:13 - 00:02:15:22
Mahesh Nair, MikMak
So I would say, you know, we are ready as a company, as a platform as that transition happens.

00:02:15:26 - 00:02:29:15
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And Mahesh, just would love for you to share with everyone your perspective. You know, you say to me, Rachel, just replace the words API with agent, like your vision of where you think agents are going to be talking to agents and how the whole infrastructure is going to work.

00:02:29:20 - 00:02:55:52
Mahesh Nair, MikMak
Yeah. So if you look at how the industry, if you look at different, stakeholders and how different parties interact in today's world, it's all about API is you publish your API is this, Rest and this that, and the other thing and the secure ways of connecting. But it's all very static. Right. So as a provider, if I have a capability that I provide, I publish an interface and I provide that there's documentation and then you connect to it.

00:02:55:57 - 00:03:16:48
Mahesh Nair, MikMak
I see this changing. I would say as soon as six months, but definitely within a year where a lot of the interaction between different ecosystem players, different entities is going to be through a genetic AI. So you are going to have autonomous AI agents that are smart, and that would be able to sort of auto discover each other.

00:03:16:53 - 00:03:40:04
Mahesh Nair, MikMak
Sometimes it might be based on configuration, sometimes it's based on other criteria. The key is that because of all the frameworks that's out there, you would not have to kind of reinvent the wheel, add a lot of the genetic intelligence, because that would be things you would get from all the frameworks out there. But as providers, we get to focus on the core functionality, right.

00:03:40:04 - 00:03:58:28
Mahesh Nair, MikMak
And so essentially in about a year's time, as I said, six months, six months to a year, I think we are going to start having autonomous agents talk to each other and not have these very static, sort of ironclad API contracts. So it's going to be interesting. And, you know, we are working towards it.

00:03:58:33 - 00:04:31:22
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Thank you. Mahesh. And then last question I'm going to take from the Q&A and I'll answer it. For alcohol brands, what does the new integration with Accelpay enable. So Accelpay what we're doing with them is if you're an alcohol brand and you want to light up Accelpay within your MikMak Commerce experience, whether it's media or brand websites, we now can capture for you first party data meaning last name, household, name, email address, household address, the entire purchase order.

00:04:31:24 - 00:04:52:34
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
That order then gets fulfilled by a retailer who's already purchased your product. So we're capturing first party data. We're moving volume sales. So using a brand that comes to mind, let's just say Casamingos. It can literally say Casamingos. It could say DoorDash. It could say Uber Eats. It could say Total Wine. If someone hits consuming goes as the retailer.

00:04:52:39 - 00:05:05:25
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
That's when we're calling the Accelpay API. We're capturing all that one data. You can check out with Apple Pay. It's completely tied house compliant. So get in touch with your account rep if you're interested in using Accelpay.

00:00:00:12 - 00:00:34:10
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
We've heard from some of our, major strategic customers, everyone from Wella to Colgate to church and Dwight to Premier Nutrition to Danone. And you got an opportunity to hear how they are thinking about navigating 2025 and beyond. Key words that definitely popped up. Full funnel marketing. Budget allocation. Pivot. Retail media TikTok shop marketplaces. Social commerce. Data infrastructure, partnership were things that we heard from them over and over and over.

00:00:34:22 - 00:01:02:45
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And then I think one of the things that we all were talking about is that I is starting to eat away market share at search, both on site and off site. And that's going to significantly change how consumers are discovering your products at MikMak. We shared with you the advancements in our roadmap to ensure that we're helping you accelerate commerce and drive profitable across every single channel that you're investing in.

00:01:02:54 - 00:01:27:05
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And then we spoke about our future and the future bets on where we are taking attribution and optimizations, because we believe that the world has significantly changed, and the methods that we use to go about how we measure the effectiveness of channels in real time against a level of market volatility that we're all experiencing, has to be able to exist in the software that you're using every single day.

00:01:27:07 - 00:01:48:13
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So thank you to Profitero, Sarah Hofstetter is also my co-host on BRAVE COMMERCE and to Pacvue. We are very lucky to consider these sister companies. We work day in and day out all in the spirit of helping you drive demand and conversion all over the internet. And if you like what you heard, there are so many more ways for you to continue to hang out with us.

00:01:48:18 - 00:02:12:01
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
Sarah and I have recorded over 300 episodes of BRAVE COMMERCE. We are the official commerce podcast of Adweek, so go check out BRAVE COMMERCE to hear from some great other leaders that we get to pick their brains, and Erin's episode will soon be published. Go to our website. We are constantly publishing first party data reports, and what we're seeing in this consumer economy, and we're about to be on the road.

00:02:12:16 - 00:02:33:36
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
So ShopTalk Europe if you'll be there, let us know. And if you'll be there, let us know. GroceryShop in September. Let us know. And if you ever need to get in touch with anyone at MikMak, you can always hit us up at hola@mikmak.com. I'm so appreciative of your partnership and your attention the last 2.5 hours. We're all in it together.

00:02:33:41 - 00:02:38:00
Rachel Tipograph, MikMak
And the way that we learn is from each other. Thank you and have a great rest of your day.