Espresso: How Innocent Drinks Overcame Near Death in 2008

0:28The rumours were starting to fly around the business. been on this podcast who gives a crap of being on this podcast yeah um what would you say are the principles and like the absolute bare minimum requirements for brands to have whether that's like um yeah for brands to have to remain anti-fragile in today's climate yeah i think um that brands have got to stand for something um that consumers care about and um i suppose always deliver on that on that trust um and i think that's they that's the sort of outward bit but the inward bit is just as important so they've got to be built on a foundation and culture of people who share a common mission and give a damn about what they're doing and will work really hard for each other and so it's the combination of the consumer sort of pull and that internal sort of belief that i think gets brands through and that's certainly what got innocent through the tough times yeah because i i've heard you talk and libby talks about this this better versus different proposition as kind of a kind of a common thread through most of the brands you you invest in i'd love to kind of tease that out and then we can talk about this internal versus external yeah so i think first um because there's a lot of people i've spoken to it's like the and i even did like little talk about this which is be different not better yeah it's almost like everyone says they're better yeah we're more prebiotic we're more probiotic yeah blah blah blah blah blah yeah be different and you kind of create a category of one right yeah but what you've said is the be be different and better so I think just setting the the scene like what is defined different and then defined better please um so so in terms of different you've just got to you've got to stand out you've got to actually um uh find a way of not only uh not doing exactly what everyone else does but communicating that as well and for innocent it was really clear it was like everyone was all about multi-colors really garish and bright branding and with innocent we went completely pared back very simple very and that was just different it just looked different and you know different can be on the aesthetics like that it can be in the taste it can be on the tone and attitude it can be on many many different things but i think being different and has to be across a number of different sort of directions or parameters basically.

2:52So I think being different is important to sort of be different across the board, across everything that matters to consumers, be it the design, the look of the feel, the taste, the tone and what you stand for. And I think that's what we managed to do well at Innocent. We were really quite distinctive versus all the other drinks competition and and then being better well for us actually it was we tasted a lot better than what was out there um and and that's subjective obviously but actually that's what people fundamentally care about in a food product and all the stuff around the way we talk the pictures we drew the silly jokes that was all secondary to the fact the products were great and obviously better didn't mean everybody found them delicious but on average people would definitely prefer ours to pretty much anything else out there and and we spent all our efforts on doing that and then the funny little sort of marketing bits were were the add-ons so it was absolute focus on the product that was the heart of all the marketing that we ever did quick one guys espresso's got a brand new sponsor unleashed unleashes inventory management software that talks directly to your finance and econ software.

4:06We use Unleashed daily at Ireland. I bloody love it. We've got our admin time in half, saving approximately 30k a year. Why use it? Save money, save headaches, save stress. Get granular clarity on your margins. Know where your stock is. Don't miss availability. Look, your favorite brands literally use Unleashed as their backbone. Candy Kittens, Tiny Rebel, Trip, Always Religiously. Look, there's a link in the show notes. Please feel free to book a call with josh and his wonderful sales team at unleashed they're amazing even nothing comes of it and even better news you'll get your first month free if you reference hungry thank you so almost the best is the product angle and the difference the culture the would you yeah and the branding yeah obviously if they're yeah yes exactly so um you know if you are better if you're better you are different to some extent but um but you need more than just being sort of tasting better if we were just tasted better but had exactly the same packaging exactly the same look tone and feel as everyone else i don't think the business would have worked you kind of need to do both at the same time um what would you say is more important different or better i think you've got to do both i think you've got to do both i don't i think that's the i think that's the point you've just got to do you've got to do both um because you otherwise just don't you know if you're better but it's the same no one notices you it's very different you grow very slowly if at all if you're different but not better you get noticed and no and then users comes back so you kind of need both and that's that's the thing with business business is hard right starting the business is hard you need to get everything lined up you can get nine out of ten things right and if that tenth thing is a key thing business may not work so that's why it's it's it's a rare thing for businesses to work and um and anyone who's doing it is is it's it's a bloody hard work and a challenge right but the rewards are great when you get it right um i want to i want to go into this i think i talked about you this on callmate which was this this five wise um like framework and i find it really interesting is we're kind of combining the be uh be different and better with the five five wise basically five wise as you get deeper and deeper and deeper it's like the root cause of things and almost think we've almost people listen to this you've got level one brands yeah which would be something at like a uh you know the food market in barns yeah that's level one level two would be a whole food planet organic level three would be someone like in a in a sainsbury's um or a co-op store level four level five would be an innocent a tony's vita cocoa yeah fill in the urban legend fill in the bank i'd love to know and giles giles i asked Giles this question and he I was like what how did you find that extra gear yeah to almost go down into that you know and you've seen some work with some of your brands how do you go from like a level three which would probably be that four million mark yeah four to five million mark where people get stuck yeah how what's the extra things you've got to do to kick on to build an innocent to build a vitacoco I think I think there's an obsessiveness that you you need to really want to improve everything all the time.

7:13And I think that obsessiveness was definitely there at Innocent, be it make the packaging slightly more eco, make the packaging slightly funnier, make it slightly cheaper, make it slightly more appealing. Same with the product, same with the deals we do with our distributors, the constant, you know, John always talked about Kaizen, the Japanese self-continual self-improvement on manufacturing. And that was definitely a sort of a culture that we we we imbued throughout innocent which is not being uh happy with the status quo always trying restlessly trying to improve things um and that's difficult because you know you've pulled in constant different directions as a business but actually you just can't stand still you can't say i've got a product right i'm going to go and sell it now it's like that product will get caught up other people do it and it won't you know it won't be different or better um if you don't move forward in in six months so so you know I think that that's one of the things we did really well actually is constantly restlessly wanted to make things better so that's that's almost like a kind of a top line uh yeah almost like a cultural thing really yeah like a country yeah yeah relentless pursuit of betterness yeah yeah myriad of different ways to say it and then I suppose and again this is all case by case yeah but what would you say are some of the hires you need to go from say a four million level three brand to like a we're going to start building into a into to a real big household brand?

8:35Yeah. I think one of the things that we realised early on was actually we hired a people person well before businesses of our size would normally hire a people person because actually we realised that people was the heart of what the business was about. So that actually was a really important hire so that often the people side sort of gets left behind and you talk about the revenue, the gross margin, the profit it and oh yeah we've got to make sure people are happy and that that was not the way we thought about it was like if you've got a really highly functioning team with great people in that are stretched and motivated and well trained that will then deliver the results and so it was turning it the other way around really putting the people side first and I think that that was one of the lasting legacies of the business and then was there anything you did I know um I'm sorry sorry just just to finish off on that because you sort of asked about heart about hires i think at first we sort of hired generally sort of bright generalists who to do the job and that's kind of right because we didn't really know what the jobs were and you sort of needed to do that but then there needed to be a change at some point where we needed to get some expertise in and i was sort of running the commercial sales bit and i'd never really done it and i remember hiring the first key account manager who really knew her stuff in terms of you know supermarkets and it was like oh my gosh right that's how you do it and it was like oh okay real expertise that's going to improve our business and so it was then blending proper deep expertise with sort of general smarts and that made for a powerful combination not just saying how I'm from outside not just hiring internally but actually blending the two made you know made the business really well and we've talked a lot about the and we're going to get on to the alumni almost how it specifically in the interview process like what were you doing to sort of what were you specifically not necessarily but what were you specifically asking to be like um this is the right person both in terms of like attitude and aptitude because i think um i think you said something which i thought was amazing which is a rather have a hole than an arsehole right i think that's just i think we can nick that from apple or something yeah okay yeah but still like we'll explore that but yeah what were you what were you doing in the interview process to like make sure you weren't getting assholes in yeah so i think early on we codified what the values of innocent were um and sort of everyone does this now and it's not that groundbreaking but i think at the time it was really it was relatively uncommon and and we put those values up on the backs of the toilet doors and the start of every presentation and you know in the induction and up on in the kitchen above the toaster and so it was just it was inculcated into the business and the first interview with anyone was around those values and it was always making sure that someone was on values before worrying about the skill levels that they had and whether they could do the job and that was really important to making sure tonally and culturally the people that brought in fitted and you know weren't assholes and were quite the opposite, were people who added to the great genetic mix of innocent.

11:55And I think that was probably the most important thing to do. And then, of course, you need to check that someone can do the job. So you've got to know what the job is. And that was a bit of discipline about writing it down and saying, OK, these are the responsibilities. And then testing people, you know, doing case studies and not being a bit lazy in the interview of just sort of, oh, get on with them, let's hire them. It was actually let's check they can do the job they say they can do. And that takes time and effort. You know, if you're hiring for a salesperson, giving them a load of data, maybe in a situation that you're trying to sell into a customer with and, you know, giving them enough to get their teeth stuck into so that they can actually show what they can do with the information and the sell that you've given them.

12:40And that takes them a lot of energy and takes you a lot of energy to put it together. But it means you start hiring really great people. the because i know what you said as you say it's kind of like commonplace now every a lot of times brands codify values you put it on the wall one thing that kind of fascinates me and i've seen it um happen and i've interviewed people they've said this is like you put the values on the wall but it doesn't necessarily translate to the actual behaviors day to day yeah from again everyone venerates their time at innocent they genuinely said like this the culture is what you say outside and inside it's like there's the they link together yeah because i think sometimes what you can see on a company website or on a toilet wall is like well hang on mate this doesn't line up yeah yeah we used to talk about a stick of rock test so like a stick of rock just has that words all the way through and it's consistent and so wherever you cut it stick of rock like literally the old candy that you get uh you know it's kind of had the words written in like you know yes yes i love blackpool or something like that yeah yeah yeah and it said i love blackpool consistently all the way through wherever you cut it and that was exactly the sort of thinking it's like wherever you cut innocent you you should feel and touch the same culture so wherever you interact with us whether it's you know being a supermarket buyer or a consumer at shelf or you know uh someone cleaning out the bins and you know it basically feels innocent all the way through yes maybe how would you do that how would you treat the the cleaner in the office not you specifically like that i think that could be an interesting lens to explore this yeah i mean i you know i think i think you really clear on the values and then the bit i suppose i didn't say and you alluded to is on behaviors it's like okay so what does that mean if you're living up to the values these are the these are the sorts of ways you behave and so making it actually sort of obvious for people what the values values mean in behavior terms and I think um uh calling out people who've lived by the values and there was I think um there was a sort of I don't know what I can't remember what we called it at the time but it was essentially employee of the month and that was sort of voted on by other people people who've gone over above and beyond and really demonstrated the values and so every month we'd call that out and it was a bit of fun someone got you know 100 quid to go and eat in a restaurant or something and it was it was just with with with anything you've just got to keep communicating the same thing the same thing the same thing the same thing and then then it gets through and that and and we were really consistent on that you know on the values the values we wrote four years into the business three or four years in were the values that are still still up on the toilet doors now so you know they haven't changed the behaviors underpinning them haven't changed and I think everyone knew what was expected of them and I think that's that's really important thank you so much for listening to that espresso I hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and are ready for the day let's be having your boy and please do subscribe follow the podcast share this espresso on whatsapp if you liked it and also there's a link to our newsletter in the show description I spend 15 hours toiling and writing this bad boy it's full of wonderful wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink you're not going to get these in a business book so please subscribe and thank me later