Denzel’s | Brand & Emotion is Build a £213M Opportunity in the Pet Category

0:00It had a life after just purchasing and consuming it. And for us, that was just so special. And we're like, there's nothing like that that makes you glow. Or when we talk about it now, you know, when you give a treat to your dog and their tail goes and they look at you like you're the best thing in the world. That's easy to be passionate about. And we're like, where is that?

0:22Did you ever notice that most pet brands focus on function? Whether it's their positioning or their products, their packaging, they really do focus on either health or whatever it is. Very flat and boring. Well, our next guest, Denzel's Dog Treats, really flipped that on its head. They have unleashed the most fun, emotional and vibrant brand experience, turning dog treats into things like pocket money and seasonal celebrations like Advent calendars. Well, James and Nathan from Denzel's came on the show today to talk to us about how they identified this category opportunity, this positioning opportunity, through understanding the consumer insight that comes from all of us pet owners who adore our pets and treat them like one of the family.

1:13James and Nathan from Denzel's Dog Treats, welcome to Brand Growth Heroes. Hey, Faye. Hello. Nice to see you. How are you doing? Very good, very good. Thank you. Is it absolutely roasting? Because we are recording this in the middle of a very, very hot summer, aren't we? And you're in London, right? Nath, you're in London. I'm in North by the coast. I'm currently in the office in London and it is a hot one today. Very hot. So we met on this year's Mini MBA, Brand Growth Year's Mini MBA. And I have been, as everyone else on the program has been, so impressed by the way in which you guys embody the brand that you're building and the way in which you bring it alive.

2:02And how that brand, you know, represents a significant market opportunity that nobody else was stepping into. and the way in which you describe your insight and then bring that alive for everybody and I've created a segment really. I just thought, got to get these guys on to tell everybody, you know, how they see this opportunity and then how they decided to position on it. So bring us back in time. What is Denzel's? Why did you start it? What's the insight? How are you building this category differently? And why is it adding so much value to the retailers that have it and to the shoppers and the dogs?

2:45The shoppers that buy it and the dogs that eat it.

2:54Welcome to Brand Growth Heroes, the leading podcast for the founders of Challenger grocery brands. I'm your host, Fiona Fitz. My 25 years at global giants such as Nestle and Challenger brands such as Goo Chocolate Puds, Chobani and Strong Roots, as well as coached to over 400 scaling brands, means I have the experience to ask the questions that truly matter and get you the insight that will inspire you to think differently and drive serious growth for your brand.

3:26It's a big question. yeah um should i should i take us right right back to the beginning sure go first okay i'll i'll i'll take the i'll take the soppy there um so i think me so me and james have been best friends we met at uni i think over 16 years ago um in nottingham um we were studying animal science and nutrition we both i think wanted to be vets we've always cared a lot of our animals um and kind of put along quickly realized that neither of us were clever enough to do that so we did another degree um and that is where we met after university i was obsessed with kind of like the industry of pet food and got a job with a very very small company at the time who have gone on to do massive things um and are like really really quite awesome at the moment called Pooch and Mutt and I was kind of first in-house there and learned a lot from the six years I was there sort of doing sales operations export and James also I managed to convince him to move from the very northwest part of Yorkshire down to London to get a job as well and he can tell his little bit there on Lily's Kitchen.

4:42Yeah I mean it's pretty easy to be passionate when you love dogs right it's um it's it's a natural thing to go into and uh i lived um in north yorkshire and there was a trade show and nathan just got a job so i pretended i had a pet shop because i really wanted to see what it was about and got stuck into the show um walked around bumped into a a relatively small stand but looked crazy uh called lily's kitchen met the founder and i was just like i've got to go uh asked me if any job's going they said maybe one opening up next week and kind of customer care so i just got on a train applied they said you shouldn't be applying for a customer care job but you look like you're passionate about it so they gave me a chance and uh yeah so both of us were really thrown into learning a startup world um in pet food pretty quick but but loved it and then ended up um working in that industry for a number of years and it was super exciting but also um quite different we felt like we're the young kids on the block and we were approaching the category a little different to how everyone else kind of saw it we'd go to big vet conventions and stuff on functional food and tailored nutrition which we thought was awesome but um we were really there kind of having a bit of fun and uh you know a little bit earlier in life stage I think than the rest of it which led to uh me needing to get a dog when I was in London because I I missed having dogs around um when I was back home and always grew up with dogs so I got Denzel that kind of a strange guy that's uh single in London doesn't have kids or a family but got a dog instead of going on nights out um because that was more important and i would uh you know stay cake with him and go to him to pub and celebrate his birthday and take him out for things uh around and so uh yeah that's really where the whole idea of denzel came from because he's just he's awesome he's full of full of beans he he underplays the story of getting denser a bit like we we had we lived we were living together and he called me and he was and i was like everything okay he never calls me and he was like um don't be annoyed but um we might be uh we might be going out a lot less um and I was like why and he's like we're off to get a puppy do you want to come with and we went and got Denzel and that was it like it was we've always loved dogs I've always had family dogs but like I would kind of half pretend Denzel was mine as well and uh and take him take him everywhere with us um and at the same time we you know we spend kind of a lot of the spare time we had kind of being obsessed with brands and you know things like bear um for kids and and everything like that and there wasn't anything really like that in pet like james said we would go to these trade shows it was quite food function quite stuffy and you know when we were traveling for our jobs we would come back with all these different awesome brands and be like how cool does this look how cool does this look imagine if we could replicate that in pet food ultimately the person buying a snack some confectionery from them for themselves um or their kid is buying it for their for their dog and they're part of the family so it was kind of like those two things came together and we were like should we not just do this ourselves like we saw a big gap that's really that that's really clever so you became pet parents I suppose and you realized looking at Bear that actually people are buying these products to treat their kids but also because they like the feeling of treating their kids so that's what you're doing and you realize that there wasn't anything kind of fun and interesting yeah I mean what we loved about Bear in particular to pull it out is that it for us the experience didn't stop at the pack or at the shelf and and we just thought that was a really amazing way to approach it whether it be the boxes that have little feet and ears or it be the collectible cards inside the snacks you know it had a life after just purchasing and consuming it and for us that was just so special and we're like there's nothing like that that makes you glow or when we talk about it now you know when you give a treat to your dog and their tail goes and they look at you like you're the best thing in the world yeah that's easy to be passionate about and we're like where is that?

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11:24So what was the first product then? I mean, what are product ideas? Like, how did you imagine you were going to bring that to life? I remember this quite vividly we went we went to a bakery that we found in uh down near Surrey um with uh no money just an idea and just walked in for a meeting um it was a relatively small business we're now kind of over 50 percent of their their turnover now and we still work with them today because they've been open to MPD and innovation but we wanted something that you could put in your pocket that wouldn't crumble that would be in a snack kind of bar format that could easily sit um on a major retailer grocery shelf that would kind of sit vertical to we knew shelf space was a premium for pet um but also sit next to human snacks in a cafe or a pub and therefore need to be so clever and we really wanted to put cards in so we put little collectible cards in inspired by bear and we we hunted down the uh the first in-house designer of bear and said i know sounds crazy we don't have a business yet but like do you want to work with us and vic still works with us today as well so yeah we um we brought those out in little boxes and uh it was quite unusual so so you you actually went you thought to yourselves we're going to do what bear did but we're going to do it with dogs and and there's no doggy treats in cafes so we're going to make sure that the actual product packaging formats works at the till yeah right That's amazing.

12:49As I was saying, with the category as it was, a lot of the places people were selling dog treats and dog food was in pet shops only. And actually me and James were convinced that why only there? Why couldn't it be multi-channel and sit online in grocery and also in cafes and pubs? And I think that we took that angle when we went right to the manufacturer and were like, look, we want to be able to have a product that sits like this on shelf because we want to be able to put it in. Blue ocean. And yeah. And also even more so to that, like one of the things we looked at were and to the point about Bear, we looked at their multi packs and were like they are, you know, there's a variety of flavors.

13:39everything online at the time it was a the case that it went to store in so it was 10 of the same flavor and me and james like why surely people want to be able to buy one salmon one chicken you know have a hundred percent they do so so we did that and we did like a little backpack and you know we did we went to it and that's kind of like how we started it so at this point did you got any investment or anything i mean where were you no so we we really didn't want to take cash at the beginning um but what we did want to do was um really get involved in the community that was more food and drinks because that's how we viewed it we just want it to be for our dogs and the brands that like we mentioned and we're passionate about so we actually saw virgin startup um brands like pippa nut love corn and a personal favorite of mine was jimmy's eyes coffee at the time just absolute kick-ass brand and they'd all gone through this process of virgin startup and had a little community where they would help each other and we were like we want to be part of that and why can't dogs and the category be part of that so we approached them um and applied for a loan so we took a 25 grand loan personal loan that's what we started the business with oh wow um at the beginning it felt terrifying because we were like we want to over invest on brand and so we spent probably about 30 to 50 percent of that in the first few months on packaging design brand everything so we had to make sure that minimum mortars and everything was small because we didn't have much cash we're literally in a garage trying to do that so describe for those people who haven't necessarily seen Denzel's describe the look and feel and the positioning and the kind of brand experience from the moment you see it on shelf to when you take it home and the kinds of products that you have because we're at that point now yeah uh I'll jump in so I guess the first bit which you alluded to was the insight right and so why I got Denzel's for those uh the experience and the joy that we get from our dogs right and so because all the other brands were focused on functional food first and the treats were one um a bit of an add-on really a bit of an afterthought we had to go the other way and there was this white space that we saw about happiness so for us the branding was essential that we could really put a face that became like a a trustworthy vehicle that when people recognized it they would get what we stand for and clearly just kept coming back even though looked at lots of different options how we could do that came back to den's as he was sat there in the garage looking at us while we were trying different new products and we're like but but it's him that like that for us sums it all up so he became the face of it we wanted him to run through pack comms and off pack comms and create really um high vibrant uh colorful fun uh packaging that when you see it it would pop on shelf but also just make you smile um we talk about it being the happiness exchange like they they make us happy and we want to make them happy and so every time we have that touch point we go are we being ridiculous and joy and happiness enough um like when the dogs like when the dogs go all soppy and ridiculous I didn't understand this you see until I got Elsie three years ago I didn't really like dogs and then they just go all melty on the floor and they wag even their bums wag when their tails wag really fast and it's that just meltiness isn't it it is it is and you'll see like when you go on to even like our home page it's we like look at things like silhouettes you'll see a picture of Denzel and he's looking up for that treat when you're holding in your hand and they look up at you with those big eyes you know it's um that for us that was the moment it was lacking so we wanted that to run through all touch points and can i just say one thing you didn't say is it's not like photographs it's it's cartoon like dog denzel is like a what do you he's not a cartoon but what would you call it illustration yeah but it's kind of like a fun illustration it's a bit like something that you can imagine the joy of watching tv as a kid it's more like that like a tv show denzel yeah it's funny you say that at the beginning when we're looking for inspiration and because we didn't really look to pet we talked about some food brands but we were like look at mr men we're like the connection you have we're like these different characters that fit across personalities and stories and so we we wanted it to run whether it be a certain use case for those treats whether it be for training and fun or it be for like longer lasting or gifting and things so like you'll see that his character kind of runs across and at the beginning the collectible cards were hearing him in different scenes and stories and characters and used to get kids like coloring in coloring in downloadable sheets we used to put on the website when you buy a pack and they would send them in of dens as a policeman and we called that like uh charity dogs and things like that it was so talk to us about the npd then so how you built products around occasions treating occasions because this is where it even becomes you know a deeper brand experience and and just amplifies what you're standing for yeah i think so like christmas has always been a season that has been present within pet food but it's kind of always just been a someone's normal pack and they've maybe put like a little christmas sleeve on it or you know made made it a little bit more christmasy when we looked at this we were like come on like we want to be able to buy benzel proper christmas present buying something that's special that you know is it really engages and enhances that magical moment so we ended up doing um like a selection box like a real Christmas selection box that was a proper proper gift um and that was kind of the first interaction and it went crazy I remember to this day that we it started selling like hot cakes on Amazon and me and James were there like what do we do we were having to hand pack more selection boxes in the office and it kind of just overtook the whole space that we had um and we were like we're on to something here and then i think that kind of how we then carved out a new space and new seasons was actually a bit of an interaction with tesco's um and we were in a meeting and we have always between me and james joked about doing things was like Valentine's treats because why not, right?

19:42You want to buy your loved ones something for Valentine's. And I kind of jokingly said kind of right at the end of the meeting, like, and thinking it would be a nothing comment, like, you know, we could do Valentine's treats for dogs and her, the buyer's eyes lit up. And she was like, really? When? I think we were what, in October, November? It was mid-October. we'd only actually been in Tesco for about a month and it was our first follow-up meeting since it hitting shelf of core products um and if you can't tell Nath uh Nath Nath the salesman that loves everything about that and the amount of times he's dropped us in it by you know coming up with these ideas chatting and he comes back with the tail between his legs but um yeah it was mid-October and we said but what about for this year and they looked at us like crazy people and they went it's not possible and we went when would you need it and they said delivery mid-Jan and we went no problem wow and uh yeah it was it was awesome we can touch on that but I think uh it was a real moment that we we take pride and we still look back on it with with a bit of a smile where uh one of the commercial directors actually who we hadn't really had much interaction with called Nathan said by the way we just want to tell you that's the first time we've done anything that fast and it's gone that successful um from an idea like we we're betting in the office whether it's a record of bringing it to market that's amazing yeah yeah yeah we um we went really well we uh it kind of goes on to the point we we put branded fsdus at the front of i think it was about 700 tesco stores um next to the roses and the flowers and stuff and we're like no way this is like a are we even is this real we're pinching ourselves because that is expensive space and we managed to get that um because it was an exclusive with them at that time for that activation and uh yeah we got like a 15 to 17x on rate of sale and what you would normally see on a promotion on valentine's um and over 60 percent of the customers that bought into it had not touched pet so they were completely incremental incremental yeah yeah completely incremental it was it was yeah and it was like you know whilst it was an important moment for us because we sort of at the same time we had um covid which accelerated dog ownership and you know there was a lot of dogs um people got dogs in that pit in that period but also retailers themselves the whole um hfss stuff where you know realistically they couldn't or didn't know whether to put certain shippers near the front of store and they were looking at other ways to do it so we kind of took advantage of that and it worked and it worked really well and that's when we kind of were like right what other seasons can we do can we do something for birthday why not can we do something for halloween can we do something for easter and and we can come on to more of that in a minute but that was the sort of aha moment and it's kind of just led from there really and tell us about your um your advent calendar this is a funny one because now it's become our best-selling skew for the year right and it's obviously only available for a couple of months and and it does kind of trance anything and having the background in pet nathan and i made a couple of promises of things we like if you're going to go in business together these these we're signing up for this we can never go back on it so not a great lesson we did on this one which was we'll never make an advent calendar because operationally it sounds like a nightmare and by the way if you don't get it right it is a nightmare um but we just got so much uh demand and like messages emails dms everything going guys that you have to make an advent calendar obsessed with the brand this we really want to buy one so we actually kind of just worked backwards and um made an advent calendar how we wanted to be at the end rather than what they look like so normally obviously they're quite thin you think you like dairy milk um one and you can see them in pet we created a massive jumbo one it's like a big concertina book there is a door with a with a mini bag of treats every single day um behind it we spoke to several manufacturing sites of how can we make something unusual that will fit the machine to create these and we can make christmas limited edition flavors and so it's it's quite a lot more expensive than the many on the market and so it always had a little bit of hesitation of can we execute it both online and retail um we put it out on our website at start we sold over 30 ,000 units um and they're not they're not the cheapest um which we just couldn't keep on we put uh one picture out of it and it just went nuts um so the last three years in a row we've been um a bestseller on amazon so that's of course any products um reaching number one on our christmas lines um we have launched them into uh retail predominantly pet specialty so pets are homes the biggest in the country with with over 400 stores and you'll find them at the front of store on FSDU's each year and we sold out so it's kind of gone crazy and this year I can give you a sneak peek that I'll tell you what a huge shout out to Ian at Sainsbury's who has really worked closely with us this year it's a big big step to back us but we have got multiple dog gifts and the jumbo new advent calendar for this year hitting a branded FSDU across Sainsbury's which is freestanding shipper unit for anyone who doesn't know what an FSTU is.

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25:38Thank you so much. That's okay. That's fabulous. And I'm just thinking, I'm going, oh my God, you know, I was living in France. Everybody had a dog. And I know in the States, one of the previous guests I was interviewing was talking to me about the size of the category on Amazon that they're in. You know, it's 2 million a month in superfoods on Amazon in the UK. but it's like, I don't know what it was. I think it was 50 million a month on Amazon in the US. So is there a brand like you guys in the US doing treats in a fun way? There is a couple, but not really in the same way through emotion, through the story, the telling, the characters.

26:18There is gifting. But again, it's very much like Nathan would say, it's kind of like almost gift wrapping something that they would normally have. What would it take to get on Amazon US with your gifting? It's on the pad fee. It's on the pad. There's a lot more complication within pet because obviously we do use animal products and so shipping and where we'd make them. So we'd need to look at other sites or tweak things. So that's where the complication comes. But yeah, Amazon is a key part of our strategy. And so that's very much on the pad. It's kind of sat with me. I'm a little bit behind, but we're working on it.

26:52Wow. I mean, it's great. So the business today, you're turning over multi-million pounds, right? and where where are your biggest customers so Amazon obviously yeah so I'll go on Nathan I'll let you go no I was just going to say yeah like we mentioned before multi-channel but like Amazon and then we're grocery so it'd be Sainsbury's and co-op and then pet specialty so like pets at home would also make up and be one of our biggest customers and you were in Costa is that true? we were in Cafe Nero Oh, Cafe Nero. Sorry, Cafe Nero. Again, a bit like where we, so the story on Cafe Nero is that obviously we wanted to be wherever you can take your dog.

27:40And when it comes to independent cafes and pubs, that's a fairly easy sales pitch because normally you're talking to the person who owns the place. And if they've got a dog, they're open to it and they get it straight away. everyone said you could never get a dog treat into one of the big cafes and I was like okay let's have a look at that and my stepdad he loves Cafe Nero and he's obsessed with their mince pies and I was like what if we did a mince pie dog treat so that when people go in at Christmas and they pick up their mince pie they get excited for it if they've got a dog it's a no-brainer in my head and we tried and tried and tried we kind of didn't get a huge amount of traction but then we were at the London Coffee Festival because our ethos and kind of what we alluded to is we see ourselves as a snap brand that happen to sell or make products for dogs we don't really want to be at pet food trade shows because you know what's the point we want to be at places where people go and are picking up all some other brands like candy kittens and bear and everything that we've spoken about so we were there and the cafe nero um buyer not there's not a dog treat buyer obviously but the buyer for snacks came up and she was like oh i've just got a puppy and it was like okay i was like okay i've heard that i can't unhear that and all of a sudden she was on board got it and yeah we did it and we outsold the chocolate florentine at the same period of time which was a pretty awesome stat that we go back to i have to admit we tried the mince pie dog treat the denzel's dog treat in our house nice we did myself and my son alexander we had to see if it actually tasted like mince pie and it did yeah it did just a little crumb it It was very tasty, I'm sure, if you're a dog.

29:45But it did taste like mince pie. What's going through my head, as you say all this, is being seasonal and kind of, you know, like having these deals just at certain parts of the year, is that not difficult to manage? Yeah, I would say we've got better at it. It's something where forecasting, demand planning and those kind of things can get a little bit tricky because they don't work in your normal way. But over the last couple of years, we've really lent into it because I think it's become almost a bit of a superpower for us. It's quite unusual to a lot of the retailers, but also the buyers and the supply chain teams.

30:24And so actually now they're coming to us asking, how's the best way to approach this? And we deliver weekly reports in those key periods because everything is very much a hockey curve. And so if you look at weeks cover percentage sell through, people can panic a little bit. But actually, we've got the data now to back it up and we guide them through it and we work really closely. And it's meant that we've become that more go-to brand to not just deliver them the sales, but also to activate that period with them. And it brings a lot more sales in for them. So, yeah, it's got pros and cons, I would say.

30:56It's definitely been a painful learning curve, though. Yeah. What kind of things have you learned along the way that you can share with founders who are listening? i i think in what in terms of the seasonal specific yeah or any of it really whatever comes to mind i think for the seasonal to start with it's definitely clearly you are doing a huge amount of sales in a very short period of time and therefore we know the one of the other reasons we did dog treats is that is ambient and we always talk about some of these brands that have fresh products and we think that fair play to them that's unbelievable we have a decent shelf life But when you're, you know, trying to squeeze sales into sort of a six to eight week period, there's very little room for error.

31:40And then when you get normal manufacturing problems that come up, it kind of feels a lot more painful. And we've had it before. To James's point about the advent calendar. I remember walking into the office, hearing James saying more colorful language than normal. And I walked into the room and was like, everything all right? And he was like, nope. and the tray his clever idea of making this advent calendar awesome and different the tray that held the products we'd the manufacturer without telling us had decided to shorten the film by a couple of mil which meant they didn't fit so all of these advent calendars that we had packed and on time and operations team were celebrating about that they then no longer had that and we had to repack everything.

32:26And that was an expensive error. And also one that was very stressful. And I think just little things like that, that I've had multiple times, like it just leaves very little room for error. So where is the next, where are the next big chunks of growth going to come from for Denzel's? What's in the plan for the next three years? Yeah, we've been really focused on predominantly building distribution in the UK so we've only focused on that market which has been pretty tricky to hold back to be honest both of I have done quite a lot of international business within pet before and do love it and there's some amazing retailers beyond the island but we really wanted to make sure we could deliver a bit of a blueprint and back at what we're saying because some of it is a little bit crazy so now that we've got a couple of years under our belt of those both in seasonal and core and how we've essentially started off thinking it was just a bit of a marketing stunt it's become its own revenue channel that overlays in its own right and serves really as an acquisition funnel for that retailer and then the retention engine is into core and so across both grocery, hospitality chains and online we've really found a way of making them all work so they're actually quite different and so though we're hand-picking new retailers across Europe that we will roll out that blueprint for.

33:50Predominantly the Nordics and some in Southern Europe who we're in final conversations with, which is super exciting. Wow. And doubling down really on how we can amplify those moments for the rest of this year, watch this space, and going into next year with both retailers and online. It's really exciting. M &S is a big one for us that we launched with this year and it went really well. We're now signing in. Quite a future going ahead. So exciting conversations. So you're still in M &S? Yeah. Yeah, we launched with Easter. It went really well. They've then put Core in it. Obviously, their spaces are pretty limited for Pep.

34:27So standing out on how we execute in stores is important. But we are wrapping up some exciting Christmas plans. Boom, boom. I mean, the sky's the limit because the way you're approaching this, the way you're delivering this fun way to, you know, love your dog and get that dog to just love you back in the way that just feels. For anyone who has a dog, you'll understand what I mean. And no one else is doing it. There's no reason why this can't work in a zillion countries around the world. And it's just about, like you say, getting that blueprint right. I mean, one last question for me, the brand experience is so strong when you hold the pack in your hand and you've got this little, beautiful little animated face looking up at you and there's so much fun.

35:12you've got dog pocket money for example right yes and what else do you have you have like so you've the mince pies of christmas and you've got the avon calendar and you've got what else have you got yeah we've got ranges uh so for hospitality we make specific ranges now so we have a we developed a peanut butter brownie which i'm not joking open it it looks like human brownie smells and tastes like one the dogs go wild along with banana bread and pistachio cheesecake so those places can really stand out with experience and then within grocery where pouch wins we have um like letters because you can tell your dog how much you love them.

35:42You see some hilarious TikToks, usually some swear words of when the dog's being badly behaved, you can spell it out rather than having to say it. But yeah, through pocket money and space mix and all sorts of stuff. So can I ask a question? In terms of delivering brand experience then, does it all come down to packaging and product format and creating that moment? Does that mean, because you're putting such a focus on that and you're executing it so beautifully, does that mean you can spend less effort elsewhere on, say, for example, or, you know, advertising, social media, sampling? Yeah, I would say, especially in store, because pitching products that can not only pop on shelf when there is a, especially if you look at some like Pets at Home, it's a whole aisle of dog treats.

36:23Or if you're in a major grocer, a lot of their stuff is quite functional, so those colours really explode and you get the fun through, which obviously means you need a little bit less on communicating where you sit, what the proposition is, because the pack does the work for you there. but we are very focused on digital in terms of um content advertising um campaigns and limited edition drops because they really get the cut through there um and sit with our audience which we've been really trying to refine exactly what that we call them gen zennial pet parents internally it's gen z and millennial but that sub uh 40 year old dog owner of which there is a crazy amount now it's been a hell of a shift so wow but but but we do spend an awful amount of time on making sure that the product is right and the pack like the amount of different design options that we go through to make that pack right on shelf is crazy you know right even right back to the beginning where I remember on the garage wall we had a whole wall with just Denzel's eyes and we were obsessed with okay is his are his eyes the right when you look at them from this angle from that angle because we could vision it on the shelf and we wanted to make sure it was the right experience so james is underplaying it because he does a lot of that work and we do we do get obsessed with it because my view as well as well as james's is that especially when you're in grocery and especially when you're in a crowded crowded category there's so there's over 15 million dogs in the country now um i just read a stat that i think over 50 of households with with children have a dog so like there's a big category it's normally like not quite understood how big it is but what comes with that is a lot of competition and when a lot of the competition talks about function and natural and it we're not there to go well why is ours more natural because we make it in the uk and we do this we're not there to sell that um but when you can make it stand out colorful different everything that we do i think that is the first touch point with the customer and I think that is exceptionally important so we do spend a lot of time on that.

38:30It's just brilliant to hear you speak it really is I think you're doing so many things so right it's really inspiring and I think it's a great example of when an insight is central to category growth category story category growth it's right for the shopper it's right for the person or the dog that consumes it it's right for the retailer that that launches it because it's incremental it's new it's exciting it's different and I wish you huge success going forward it's been an absolute pleasure working with you over the last 10 to 12 weeks have you enjoyed it? Oh Fee that's so nice it's a pinch me moment for us because we listened to the podcast and then we obviously applied to the course which when we got told that we were going to be on it we just couldn't believe it to be honest and the other brands that you have on there are amazing what a community of people everyone's been helping each other every week we've learnt so much we're now still going back over some of the previous weeks and rereading it because there's just so much in there.

39:25So we've loved it. Even people in the team now are starting to like kind of do little sessions with them. Oh, that's good. Yeah. And you're a sponsored brand, right? Yes. Yeah. Sponsored by? Yes. Elantra. Thank you so much. Thank you, Elantra. Yeah. Thank you, Charles. Yes, indeed. It is amazing, isn't it? The support that we get from Elantra and Nielsen and Jelson. We're really, really lucky. And you got, I think you got a lot of insight from the Nielsen data as well, didn't you? We did. We do love data and insights. But yeah, it's often quite prohibitively expensive for small brands and you've got so many things to buy.

40:03True. Or sometimes I think I have to say, and this is, you know, I never usually pitch the partners on a podcast, but it would be remiss of me not to say that actually I think the perception is that Nielsen data is really expensive, but for small brands, it's a completely different rate card and it's actually really quite affordable once you have a national listing. It's much more affordable than you'd imagine per month. I think the return you get on it is also absolutely massive versus the cost. I think it's more, when you're in lots of different customers, you get a percentage of turnover or a fee for everyone to learn theirs, whether it be Dunhumbi or through to Nectar.

40:40Completely, yeah, the stack. But Nielsen, it covers and you can really use it to tell the story. It's been massive for us. Especially if you're using Elm and then it integrates with your Nielsen data and all of your retail data and your Amazon data and your Shopify and then you've just got everything on your dashboard. It's like a no-brainer, you know? Yeah, shout out to Elm. Shout out to Elm. Actually, I'll ask Ian if he'll give us a code to put in the notes. You guys have very kindly said that anyone listening to this episode, if they want to buy a... You tell it, James. Yeah, well, we're launching our brand new Advent Calendar for this year.

41:14It will be available on DTC when this episode drops. So put an exclusive discount code in the show notes. In the show notes. 25 % off if you get an early bird. That is huge. Yeah. 25 % off. Feeling generous today. Thank you so much. That is brilliant. Okay, well, we'll agree that and put it in the show notes and then it'll be on your website. Look, thank you both so much. I'm seeing you both in person on Thursday at our closing ceremony for the final day of our program. someone is now drilling outside our door so I'm going to run congratulations on everything you've achieved so far and keep doing what you're doing because you're killing it thank you, you're awesome Fee, thank you so much love you guys, bye bye bye

42:03as I record this I have just this morning given my dog a pistachio cheesecake treat from the freezer from Denzel's and honestly she just adores it. And my daughter, when I said that I was giving Elsie a pistachio cheesecake treat, my daughter said, can I have one? And then I held up the Denzel's packaging and she realised that it was actually a dog treat. And she's like, oh. But when I read the ingredients, you know, it was like a little bit of cheese powder, lots of pistachio. It was chickpea. It was all really good stuff. No nasties, you know. And the packaging is just so fun. And I felt like I was giving her a confectionery bar, a good for you confectionery bar.

42:43And it felt really nice. Like, why should she miss out? Now, that sounds crazy, but you know, it's true. We've got all these fab brands for our kids, Bear Snacks and for ourselves. You know, in the olden days, it was Innocent Smoothie, Oatly Today, whatever. We don't have anything like that for our dogs. And why shouldn't we? I think that Nathan and James are really, really clever. And I love the way they point out that what is everybody else's, what everyone else might find difficult, short runs in terms of NPD. They've made that one of their strengths. And they're now the number one selling seasonal product in pets.

43:18And I think the world's their oyster. Pets is such a growing and kind of high value growth area for investors right now, particularly UPF free and natural pets. And I think it's a really good place to be. And I think they're going to go far.

43:40Loads goes into the planning, preparation, production, and particularly editing and sound engineering around Brand Growth Heroes episodes. So my first thanks to my tech guru and sound engineer, Jip Bagan of Balagroove, and also to the rest of the Brand Growth Heroes team who all put in so much hard work to bring these episodes to you.