Giles Brook Supper Club: NO WONDER Your brand is stuck at £2- 5 Million (just do this mate)

0:00They only want to buy it if they can make it a quarter billion or half a billion brand. We had five or six different ranges across categories. We had urban fruit, then we had bear, we had yo-yos, we all have alphabites and cereals, etc. Jan Boone, who's the family owner of Lotus, and one of the smartest guys I've ever met, because he just literally sat and said, look, I get all that, Giles, but actually, can I just talk to you about strawberry yo-yos? How do I make that 100 million SKU in the UK?

0:30Guys, thank you so much for coming. I'm enormously grateful before Giles and I get talking I'd love to quickly let Kieran from Northstar who are our wonderful sponsors give a little two minute yeah a little two minute sort of who you are what you do because these guys are helping put this on today so do you want to come up here mate and then we'll I think if you want to come around there and we'll just point that there yeah yeah yeah Thank you. I appreciate a few words for the sponsors. Probably like an eye roll, boring, get on with it moment. But rather than share who we are, we thought we'd just spend a moment just sharing why we are.

1:13I thought that might be a more interesting way of describing it. So the why behind Northstar is born on the belief that the food and drink industry in the UK is broken, which is a little bit of a controversial statement to make. But it's born, I guess, on a reflection, having worked in the industry for 25 years and looking where we're at at the moment. that's a little bit of a downbeat way to start what's going to be an amazing evening but for for brands in the room and the wider challenge brand community we believe there's an unbelievable opportunity right now a moment in time opportunity to be part of the solution why broken I guess as a data and insight company you could pull a whole lot of different reasons as to why but whichever way you look at it we think the need for change is just at a level we haven't seen and therefore the opportunity to be part of that change is massive so if you look from a health point of view, half the adults in the UK are obese, which is pretty embarrassing as a nation.

2:02More embarrassing is one in three primary school children leave primary school overweight. So as a group and as an industry, we're failing the next generation. So something has to be wrong with the industry right now if that's the case. If you look at the brands in the supermarkets, are they represented for the nation? They're not. So whichever way you cut it, if you look from an age point of view, one in seven people is over 70 now in the country, and yet we will talk about Gen Zs, Millennials etc and there are there are two and a half times as many over 70s as under fives and yet huge focuses on children and children's brands and what we're doing so the opportunity to make change happen is just massive right now.

2:40Our why is born out of how do we help make that so. Historically we'll throw some numbers at you 87 % of branded sales in the UK if you walk through grocery retail they come from just 3 % of the supplier base. So if you put that another way, there are 300 companies that over time have monopolised, I guess, what we consume. And maybe once that works, but from our side, that doesn't work anymore. As consumers and shoppers, that's not what we want. We want something different. And Northstar was born to try and be different and better and help you guys make that change happen. From a data point of view, historically, the big brands, 99 % of the revenue came from the really big guys and they were therefore institutionalised not to let change happen.

3:22The big guys and Giles, you weren't there once upon a time, were obsessed over market share and therefore Challenger brands couldn't win. In fact, needed to fail or at least not succeed. So what we've tried to do and what we're all about is how do we help you guys? How do we partner? How do we help you take the brilliant brands, translate that using data into the stories you need to influence buyers, retailers and investors to make different decisions than the ones they've made historically? And we believe there's a moment in time opportunity right now for Challenger brands to make. if you look at the numbers Challenger brands are outperforming the brand leaders we think that's only the start so we're super excited to be part of that that change and make that 13 % of sales currently coming from Challenger brands 26 % and beyond so yeah we love to be here love to listen and learn but also love to work with you guys and help make that change happen so thank you for giving us a chance to introduce it thank you mate thank you

4:18All good? All good. Amazing. So what I want to start with, mate, is something quite light for a February evening. But I've been reading a lot about sort of Napoleon at the minute. And he's, well basically I started reading him because he's got loads of these entrepreneurs obsessed with him with all his sort of strategy and yeah, super, super interesting. And he's got a quote, I will link this to Challenge Brands, don't you like. I'll do it anyway. but he says napoleon often said that nations had their illnesses just as individuals did and that their history would be no less interesting to describe the maladies of the human body now i really believe brands when they start out alike alike this applies to brands as well the brand starts out as almost like the nucleus is the founder's vision and they get bigger and bigger and bigger and almost you could say sort of zero to one million is kind of like toddler stage zero to sorry one to five is uh you know kind of teenager teenager stage and i think a lot of brands get stuck i've interviewed hundreds of people um at that five million point you kind of get to that distribution and i'd love to pull this into sort of how how how the brands that you've worked with how do they get sick and fat and um kind of ill on that stage and what are some of the remedies you've used to kind of uh eek them out yeah so i think i so i think you're right and by the way good evening everybody by the way so it's really nice to be here i've met about a third of the room but it'd be great if you haven't introduced yourself please do um by the end i mean it's a difficult answer i mean what you're what you're right on is there's just there are some sleeping giants that kind of go into that stay in that small pond that's you know I call it one to two to five million, where actually if they evolved and they got the strategy right, there's no reason they couldn't become big household, you know, challenger brand success stories.

6:16I mean, look, it's circumstantial, it's case by case basis, but the kind of things I've seen is, there's a number of things, which is when you're starting out a business, you've also got to be really understand about whether you're trying to, you know, and I talk about it a lot, it's about the why, right? Like, how big is the why and why is the big? And I think one of the biggest things I always look at is people come and pitch decks to me is, why is that brand or that business better meeting a current existing need state or else tapping into a need state that hasn't been met yet? And you've got to really, really hone in on that and just try and understand it.

6:52It's like, and I don't mean this and rude and funny enough to speak to somebody in the room earlier, but it's when we did coconut water. you know we had literally maple water birch water um rosemary water melon water you know got all these things you know tell you well the next biggest thing but whenever you ask any of them why why is that none of them could articulate it really well and the why wasn't big enough so i think the number one thing for me is about the brands that really successful it's really clear to the consumer but not just to the consumer you know just talking about kieran was talking about a second ago it's also really really clear to the trade buyer so you know the guy is looking after the category and tesco sainsbury's asdo waitrose wherever they can see the consumer the shopper why really easily as well and i think that's the bit that's the big thing for me it's being really clear on the on the why i think it's part of like developing your business though is one of the issues that some people have is that you've got to kind of understand i if you're creating a category it can quite difficult to scale it yeah because you know it's you're creating something from fresh and we did that with coconut water but ultimately we were part of the bigger beverage set so it's more about you know we when we when we started vita coca we literally had i had a triangle that's really clear and this is how i explained to consumers sorry to the trade i said look we're going to take in consumers from three different areas we're going to want people who want the health of juice and smoothies but don't want the sugar or calories obviously coconut water was all about potassium, electrolytes, hydration things.

8:17So we're going to want people who want hydration like water in an enhanced way. But also thirdly, there's people who want to use it for performance and they want the benefits like you get with sports drinks but without the artificial bits and pieces. So again, just trying to demonstrate there, it's about how you articulate it. But we also have to think about how we do it to consumers. But one of the biggest Achilles heels I see on the people in that pond of two to five million is that the category isn't big enough for them to get bigger either. And that's the other thing to think about is when you're going into a business, when you're going into a brand, is if you're going to create a category, typically will involve spending a lot of money because you're almost like doing all the heavy lifting yourself.

8:57But then also you might see an idea and say, well, this is really cool. I'm going into this category. It's really new and exciting. Or else it's an existing category. But if that category is only like 15 million or 20 million or even 50 million, if you get 5, 10, 15 % of that category, in the whole scheme of things, that's not a lot of revenue. So I think you need to look at things like that. And that becomes even more important when it comes to an exit, actually, because if you think about it, you could be sat there and we could all pat ourselves on the shoulder and say, right, I've got a brand that's, you know, turnover is 25, 30, 40 million.

9:29You have to realize that if you are typically looking for a strategic exit, so one of the big other food and drink companies to buy you, they only want to buy it if they can make it a corpabillion or half a billion brand. And you've got to think in that world, right? So, for example, when Bear sold to Lotus, and my God, Lotus had done an incredible job with Bear since we handed it over. And they also took in Naked and Trek and Kidalicious as well. So they created this really nice platform. But it was really interesting on that because we had five or six different categories. And apologies if some of you heard this before.

10:00But we had five or six different ranges across categories. We had Urban Fruit, then we had Bear. And then Bear, we had Yo-Yos, but we also had Alphabites and Cereals, etc. etc. Jan Boone, who's the family owner of Lotus, and Lotus did the little caramelised biscuits if you've seen them, and then like you might have had literally like the death in a jar which is like speckle, which is so good, but my god, do not read the back of the label, but it tastes amazing. Jan was, for me, one of the smartest guys I've ever met, because he just literally sat and said, look, I get all that Giles, right, been through the deck and everything, let's talk bear, let's talk yo-yos, but actually, can I just talk to you about strawberry yo-yos right how do i make that 100 million sku in the uk and that's all he wanted to talk about i'm like well no you just not see what we're doing in alphabites and we've got this and baby and this and he's like no no just talk to me about that and you know you'll heard like rich reader innocent talk about keep the main thing the main thing but that's the other big thing as well is that the other thing i would say is that part of being successful is you know don't create a jumble sale of products right keep your keep keep narrow and go deep because if you have a hero range or something and more importantly a range or a skew that is real what we call like a power skew or power range it becomes so much easier to get traction with the buyers and with the trade and be able to really get them to do it I always talk about this where I see a lot of brands get really excited going right okay you know just talking earlier um you know we're talking about protein earlier somebody might be in protein bars they're like right I'm gonna do a drink I'm gonna do a powder I'm gonna start running to all these other categories we're actually stick in the bars and build out from the bars because okay snacking is already three four billion categories snacking bars is two billion if you can get one percent of that category you're going to be pretty happy right and build in that because that if you become famous and important to that buyer that buyer will focus on you and build out build out and the other big reason as well is that you're creating a better destination for your brand because if you can get three four five six seven eight nine ten skus in one fixture it's a lot easier for you to market and direct consumers there versus I've got two skews in that category two in there you still have to spend a lot of money trying to educate the consumers so I think there's there's loads of things I mean I can talk about you know some people stay in that pond because they under they under fund but I think one of the biggest Achilles heel I see overall on why people stay in the small pond is that there's a little bit of um defiance and belligerence sometimes I see which is and again And I think, you know, we've all heard the kind of cliched quote around definition of insanity.

12:28But that whole thing where people just keep thinking they're going to do the same thing and it's going to get a different result. I think you've got to create moments for the brand. You've got to do things differently. And, you know, within my portfolio, you know, there's a couple of recent examples I'll give on that. I mean, you may be aware of Surreal, the serial brand. Oh, my God, those guys are a breath of fresh air in consumer marketing. Everything agency is going, you need to be more surreal and stuff like that. They're creating a lovely tone of voice. people are just finding it and you know they're also using you know they're also using channels which everybody else used to kind of polish and promote their own cv such as linkedin first year of surreal 35 % of their revenue came from linkedin they use it as a sales channel and people didn't realize that right and because guess what look at using linkedin look at the surreal product profile there's a match yeah um and then another brand for me which has been incredible is that you know you look at pip and nut right pip and nut's been around you know we're we just had our 10 year anniversary we had a we had a party um 10 days ago about it i don't think after 10 years there's a stronger time than where that brand is at now today because it's become number two in nut butters it's chasing down whole earth and should be able to take over whole earth but also we got into snacking as well with the with the oat bars if you've not had one of the the the um peanut um butter infused oat bars have one with a cup of tea or coffee you won't go back honestly unbelievable within one year snacking is already 25 of that pippa nut business with the business 10 years old but the reason why i'm using that as an example is that pip's bit pip and actually jack who runs the martinev absolutely obsessed about okay we need to get standout the market's really cluttered what is you know they spent hours and hours and hours trying to crack what makes us different and i don't know if you saw in january their obsession campaign you know it's kind of like you know if you know you know and stuff like that and it's all about the obsession of peanut butter and just really smart things like creatively you know guess what they used a fluffy squirrel and everything okay that's not rocket science but it worked really well but like that obsession bit they glazed the squirrel's eye they actually glazed the eye with the pippin logo in the eye and it just created this moment for the brand that all suddenly boom everybody's just talking about it and this is what i mean about part of getting out of the pond is creating these moments creating these different things that shift the dial it's the people who keep doing the same things well i've done that promotion or i've done loads of this social i've done these influence of seeding i'm still not getting there you've got to kind of you've got to dial it up a bit and you've got to think differently and find find ways you know to change the game for yourself love that mate um i'd love to go into the bit when you said the big enough why um so say you're there's two sort of two situations i want to play here say you're a brand just starting out yeah super baby brand how do you find out how big your why is because i think a lot of brands there's some people in this room you know you might be just making it in your kitchen table um it's kind of a passion project with sort of the exit is kind of in the mirage in the distance so so going to that first and then second say you are a brand who's kind of in that in that pond trying to get out which has got got one like skew or one part of the range which is doing really well but then you've created fucking six seven other products and it's a bit like how do you do that do you count all those products off and focus in or are you kind of in too deep but some of those ranges are in quite a lot of distribution.

15:46So yeah, first, for the super big brands, how do you find out how big that why is? So I think the why is two or three things, which is I think the why is why the opportunity is big, but I think the why is also how you communicate to the consumer or the shopper, right? And I think that's the... I actually think that a lot of brands and founders are very articulate about explaining the opportunity, but I don't think quite often that when they think about their brand and how they position the consumer I don't think they're being getting as much cut through and as much saliency as they think as they think they are and let's be really clear right it's like that we'll all see that brand where you'll suddenly see a campaign or you'll see a sign off where they've got two three words you're like that's really annoying how they cracked that god I can't think of my brand and whatever and it's not very easy right and you know on all of my brands this is where we spend the most time which is you know how it's all about simplicity i you know and the sort of things i kind of took in the why for me is like well the first things i say is like don't try and be everything to everybody right just focus on your core consumer and just how do you communicate market to that consumer as best as you possibly can because everybody tries to say well look you know again let's just take protein as an example you might say well i want to get gym goers okay we've got you know health healthy healthy affluent mums and blah blah they're starting to go right i've got to market for everything and everything like that just focus on your number one occasion right and just market against that consumer in that occasion because no matter what happens is that in every single business and i'm sure somebody approved me wrong the statistic but in everything i've worked with and also i've looked at the successful brands 20 percent of your consumers is normally 70 percent more of your business at least right go to that primary audience and market it really well because if you don't market directly to that consumer you don't get the message to them and you try and cover other bases you dilute your message to that primary consumer okay so how are you getting into that consumer like granularly specifically so i guess how do you as in how do you find it it feels like the why is the stronger the why is the tether to the consumer i think how you know your consumer is very challenging when you first start a brand because we all start a brand and think um you know i'll give an example actually i've just i was with um andrew before this meeting a guy from uh dirty you know we'll know dirty yeah so lovely guy just having a meeting with him there and actually it quite surprised me because um 70 % of the business or the consumer is actually female and i thought it would have been more gender neutral and that got me thinking you know exactly like that and i think when you start out it's really really difficult um to know who your consumer is but i think the good thing these days are is both pre and post launch in the old day you'd have to do things like you go studies and all that sort of stuff and spend a lot of money.

18:31Yeah. And Kieran will be able to articulate this better than, than I will and the guys from Northstar. But there's actually now, so like you can get, I mean, I can't, the name of the platform and you guys will probably tell what the name is. But there's, there's now places where you can literally ask any question you want on your brand and get responses back within like hours because they've got literally live platform where people will give you all the answers. You just say, right, I want to ask this question to this audience. You plug it in with an hour. You've got responses. So the data is more accessible and more affordable these days to get to know who your consumer is.

19:04I mean, the one thing I do know is that as well as consumer data, just make sure you invest in shopper data. Because again, you've got to... What's the difference? So consumer data, I guess, is who's eating your product, right? Shopper data is who's buying your product, right? And believe you me, there can be a dramatic difference on that. and I'm not just talking, it's easy when I talk about kids' products versus adult products, but I'd really, really spend a lot of time understanding how you influence the shopper as much as how you influence the consumer, because that's the really, you know, really important thing for me as well.

19:35And is there an example of a brand that got that delicate, supple difference right, and how they really targeted the... Yeah, it's an easy one for me to say this, but I think Bear was a very good example on that. So we were really clear, and we were very clear about how we marketed. and this is the really important bit is how we marketed because everybody just goes mums no it's mums and dads right so we were really clear shopper wise how do we market bear as strongly as possible to mums and dads um i'll talk about actually i've got something that's quite interesting in a second on that so but then we were also really clear about how do we talk to to to the child in the right way and again you might see in the bear those collector cards with the bear facts that was the current that was the currency right that is that is my that's the Willy Wonka golden ticket moment, right?

20:20When we did those, and it was just, it was absolutely amazing what I did. And of course we then, you know, we did a bit of work with people like Bear Grylls. We then worked with the... You came up with the idea for that. That's Hayley. Hayley. I mean, Hayley was the founder overall with her husband, Andrew. Hayley was just, Hayley was, she won't mind me saying this, Hayley was like a kid in an adult's body. She had creativity and how she thought everything was absolutely amazing. But we really knew how we could talk to the kids directly. But importantly, we knew how we could influence of shopper which was my mom and dad but again it makes you makes you makes you smile actually because on the bear brand we then conducted some shopper research and sorry some shopper research in terms of so we did that so who's buying it and by the way who you're buying it for so of course we wait we're going through the shopper data and going right who are buying for i was expecting to say 80 of consumption for kids so we'd ask these adults who are they buying it for 60 of people responded said they were buying it for themselves as an adult and we were like and then we asked the question why is that well so far i just quite enjoy i'm collecting the cards actually and you know there's a kid in all of us as an adult and actually it was quite an interesting thing now just to be clear though we didn't change the marketing strategy because everybody like oh no no because for us that primary consumer was all about how we get made to that amazingly delicious nutritious fruit it's got no added nonsense in it and again you'll have seen the bear with the fig leaf on it over his private parts and no added nonsense was across everything on the ranges so we knew that bear and that fig leaf was the hallmark of trust for mum and dad to shopper but the marketing was always responsibly done to kids and of course you have to be very careful how you did that but what we meant was that the whole experience around the pack putting little paws on the on on on the on the multi-pack and stuff like that and little handles so that you know they can all those things were done in in the way that we felt give a game maximized appeal to the consumer and those differences you know i can remember because hayley's it was a nightmare business for me to be in because I had Hayley and Andrew, husband and wife, and then Barry and Jannie who were Hayley's mum and dad.

22:16So the five of us on the board, I literally was, I mean, it's easy for me to run the United Nations and control the family because you can imagine the dynamics in there. Barry was very, he'd worked at Tetra Pak for years, but you try telling the guy who's all about cost control and getting price down that you're going to do loads of die cuts and have handles and feet and he's like, too expensive, not doing it. And Hayley would be like, it's happening. and they were this big standoff and I'd have to mediate it all. Let's talk about that clash because we've talked about that and one thing you sent me, mate, was like you've worked with so many people who've kind of gone for sort of the next generation of brands.

22:50So when I spoke to Adam Innocent, he was like yourself, Emma Heal, I mean Barney, there's a whole sort of smogs world of amazing people who've gone on to build the next wave of brands. That's obviously happened with some of your guys, I think Ben Veer at Living Things with you, Dom Dalton, Laura. and it's almost like how do you how do you get these amazing people these amazing ideas who are going to go on and do their thing Isshin at Oatly and Jim Parner and I think you said to me it's like you've got these amazing people with these ideas a bit like the the cards but that and I've seen this happen firsthand clashes with the board so how do you mitigate that as a as a leader I suppose between like yeah and also because if a board comes in it's like yeah we're not doing that then it sort of drains the oomph out of the team.

23:38And I think it's a real hard thing to swim.

23:48Part, probably the majority is not right, but a big part of why I do what I do is you do want to see other people come through a business and take an all, you know, I love nothing, you know, I love nothing better than, you know, if I think about Bear and Vitecoco and, you know, Dan's has given some examples there, but you've also got like an Asia who worked for me at Bear, at Bear she went to do Scrumbles the pet food brand if you know that Jeremy lovely guy did nice you know in the wine in the can Kit and Jack who worked at Vitacoco they're surreal that for me is more satisfying than everything and some people were shooting for saying this that's more satisfying than what I personally delivered on Bear or Vitacoco or other brands I've been involved with because I don't know creating an environment where you I mean let's get let's be clear this was nowhere near like Innocent like Innocent was phenomenal at that because it had a whole big education program.

24:37I taught people to be really good entrepreneurs and that's what gave me the platform. But even so, in a more informal way, it was just so inspiring and just satisfying for me seeing all these people going. Other people would get pissed off when somebody would resign. But if they were going to resign to doing their business, I was okay about that. I was like, great, go and do what you need to do. Now, I won't lie, at Vite Coco, at board level, it went, look, Joe's got a bit of an issue. I said, what? I said, that's what I waited for. I said, well, look, we're just worried you're hiring the wrong people because they're great, but you're losing them every two, three years.

25:11What are you doing? And I said, well, look, with where the business is at, I hear what you're saying, but I'll be absolutely honest with you. So let's take Harry Mayhew, who did Embo. I don't know if Embo Snacks, right? Oh, I mean, he literally, I mean, he built up three, four million quid's worth of business in Costco in two, three years. Because absolutely phenomenal. And the way I answered the board, I said, look, I'm all about having fewer better people but also if I can get somebody like the Jack the Kits, the Harries of this world if I can have them for 2 or 3 years versus having a journey person for 5, 6, 7, 8 years who are 6 or 7 out of 10 I'm making the right decision every day I want that When you're hiring those people what are the 1, 2, 3 traits that you're like right, that's a kit I think I've told you this before but whenever I interview I know within 60 seconds if I'm going to hire somebody or not every time in 60 seconds I know that for me it's about it's about it's about charisma and it's about the hustle the hustle right you've got to have somebody who you can just see has got charisma got the hustle they've got that look in their eye they're just you just engage with them straight away and when I say hustle they're kind of like and let's be clear I'm talking about when you're when you're building it from grassroots up and doing startup stuff.

26:30It's the person you know who, you know, doesn't accept no for an answer, will have a way of finding about getting time with the buyer, even though the buyer doesn't warrant any time on your brand versus others. You know, and it's not about work hours or ethic like that. It's just the approach they take. It's approach and attitude. But I also want to be really clear that, you know, if I was going into, if I was running Vitacoco today and I've got a lovely guy called Tim Reese who I brought in to run that business, that dynamic of person probably isn't right for today because that business is listed on the stock exchange, right?

26:58It has a different setup and a different formality to it now. It's as equally about profit as well as growth because you've got obviously quarterly earnings and stuff. So for the phase I'm at, I will still maintain to all of those board guys. The hiring decisions we made on those type of individuals, I would make them every day, those sort of guys. So like I said, I'd rather have them for two years and then I lose them because they're going to do their own thing because in two years, they deliver more than those average people did in five six seven eight years and in terms of that conflict between because i know you said those people being sort of rambunctious go-getters you said that caused tension with the board how how did that how did that rub up the tension of the board was more the the fact that we're leaving and disappearing that was the tension not necessarily the characters the characters were as much as much of an issue um but i think it's also there's a slight dynamic in the u.s where you've actually got a lot of ultra-peneral people in the US but they have a greater longevity because being in a business in the Vita Coca in the US they're more likely to start that because in the US it's...

28:07I'd say it's more difficult in the US to set up your own business because it's just such a big and difficult market to challenge and to take on. Let's talk about competition and we'll begin to open this up but I think on our last podcast it was great getting into the sort of the trenches of your kind of the vitacoco warfare versus innocent and um and the other brands escape me but um i think what you're saying to me about brands to actually embrace competition almost kind of see i think seth the golden says your competition are your colleagues like if you get to that situation where you're like right come to us for this go to them for that um and i think a lot of people found us a sort of type a as they are those go-getters and um how how's your sort of how should people view their competition so i mean look it depends on you as an individual right but i've also had a view that i welcome competition but you know let's talk about the coconut walls right any trade show you know i'd be walking around food and drink expo and i'm not going to say any brand names i could walk up to some coconut water stands and literally be six people like a barrier like not let me anywhere near it and I'm just going over to say hello and I can see founders like this like white knuckles and all stuff like that I'm like really um I think there's plenty of room for everybody right um but more importantly particularly when you look at certain categories particularly new and emerging categories the power of several strong brands is always going to help release or realize the category potential and you know easiest example for me to give is just take energy drinks right energy drinks as a category would not be the same scale as it is today unless you'd have the red bull versus the monster versus the rock star etc etc you know and also just brands like boost believe it or not brands like boost which obviously come from more bottom end cash and carry they are massive massive brands today right so i think if everybody's coming in and spending money to help drive category awareness and whatever all you should be focused on about is actually everybody's helping grow this category potential stop getting paranoid about everybody else how do i make my i I just need to focus on how I make my brand, the brand of choice.

30:13So I've always tried to embrace competition, but also be respectful of it. And I think, you know, we talked about the coconut walls earlier. It was utterly brutal when Innocent, which obviously at the time was with the Coke acquisition. And then also you had like Naked, which is PepsiCo as well. It was utterly brutal when they came out. and because those big corporates are like they go about it seriously right they crash the price in the market for like nine ten months now we stupid not stupid because i do i think i've said this before i do the same thing again but we went toe for toe because we were totally obsessed with keeping number one market share if i had my time again i would have been happy to lose market share but have kept at the right price because we went too low we went toe for toe but you know innocent at one point did something like 14 weeks at buy one get one free in a row madness right but that's what they do and you know to be fair i had a huge amount of respect because three years ago innocent had started off in juice struggled in the same carton as they had which is called it's how dull i am it's our pack which is a which is similar to tetra pack and then basically wasn't working everybody's like shut it down john wright the founder was like one of the founders was that no no no this we're going to make this work coke deal came in they took the minute made proprietary carafe and then relaunched the juice into that so you could see some amazing juice and stuff they literally troused Tropicana and became within two if not three years Europe's number one juice brand not just smoothie brand the whole of the PepsiCo management team lost their jobs on it right because they literally wiped out Tropicana and it was amazing to see and that's why people ask me about the decision we made about going toe for toe to them I had ultimate respect I'd also been at the Innocent Vehicle so I knew how capable that was and I think we were very respectful for but again I think the other thing you've got to be careful on in market as well is that I just see some brands also to consumers throwing mud at the wall and slagging off other brands okay sometimes you can do it tongue-in-cheek and a great example I think Surreal's done some great stuff with Tony the Tiger and all that sort of stuff and use the the K of the Kellogg's logo which I think is absolutely fine but there's just been some brands that have overstepped the mark and just been a bit rude and derogatory about brands I just don't think I don't do any favors because you know you just feel like do you need to say that why don't you just focus on your own brand strengths because you want to talk about your own brand brand merits rather than dissing others amazing um mate i think we should open this up um so if anyone's got questions this will run round and we'll be able to pick it up in the audio at the end if you're a challenger brand that's absolutely killing it in d2c but you're struggling to crack retail then you've got to listen to this maybe you've got an ocado listing maybe you've got a whole foods listing maybe you're absolutely killing it in selfridges maybe You're absolutely killing it in your farm shop and your indies.

33:04But my friends, making the leap, crossing El Chasum, crossing El Rubicon to grocery retail is not easy. It's the Champions League of FMCG. It's super hard. It means playing at a higher level. And that's where some of your amazing brands sadly stumble. Look, retailers want stories backed by data, not dreams and a pretty pitch deck. And let's be real. Supermarkets are not just going to magically make a space for you and your little brand. They need data. something's got to go for you to get in for you to get on shelf and that is why i've got to tell you about north star they are the team that's helping purpose-led fmcg brands go from gut instinct dreams to unstoppable pitch decks that actually unlock retailers north star i'm not like another data company that force feed you data like foie gras that act like a nasa space mission it's super super simple to use their team are amazing and they actually get the challenger mindset north star are your shortcut to smarter decisions stronger pitches and investor confidence all built specifically for challenger brands like yours you don't need a massive sales team you need north star link in the show notes click that link and you'll be able to book a free demo with north star highly highly recommend that and thank me later

34:24Hi, Giles. I always hear people talking about finding your tribe of a thousand people and, you know, going inch wide, mile deep. What would you say the most powerful thing to build a brand is by doing it for your tribe of a thousand without preventing you from being able to go mass market so i think i think i get your question let me answer that and tell me if i'm answering right for you the number one thing for me right for you and that example there is that how can you how can you market your brand in a way where consumers feel that they discovered your brand and they then become evangelists and they start talking to everybody else about what they've discovered that's for me is the number one most powerful thing you can market your brand I see too many brands selling right invite consumers into your world let them ask the questions let them see what see what come to it let them feel like they've discovered the brand and I think that will that will make a big difference and you know also create like moments for yourself and I'll give you I'll give you an example on this so um I'm really excited because we I've got a brand called neat it's a neat clean which is obviously it's got the the the refills got really nice proprietary bottles and stuff this is all about taking the plastic out of household and wider aisles and stuff and Neat's a beautiful brand but at the moment we're probably more product-led than rather than brand-led so we're actually now dialing up the marketing and we've now really excited because we think we've got the marketing position right that we can really now resonate with the consumer but when I talk about softer things which are really important right the number one test for me on that is about success to me on Neat is the fact that most people put their household cleaning items away in the cupboard and shut them away i want people to be so proud they're using neat whether it's for planet or whether it's because of the proprietary design they're purposely leaving them out on the side and everything so when all everybody comes around oh what's that what's going on oh let me show you this i thought this is neat you know and that's why you want evangelists or people who literally you know kind of talk about your brand and i think that's the real thing about is if you as you and i think surreal have done a great job on that everybody's talking about surreal it's not the brand doing the talking quite often right i think that's the number one thing if build your tribe if you can get your tribe being your own ambassadors and actually off their own back talking about your brand that is a long way for it to go into getting a fast start getting your brand off the ground does that answer what you are asked or not yeah you sure because if it didn't tell me and i'll say the danger that i'm sort of trying to avoid is by winning and that those thousand people uh and creating a brand that connects so strongly with those thousand people how do you avoid missing everyone else and it being too niche on those thousand people because you've got to ignite that enthusiasm with them i think first of all i say make sure you make sure your thousand can so in terms of that target market make sure your thousand could become ten thousand a hundred thousand or a million or whatever right so make sure your primary audience can expand.

37:28It's all about your subtlety of your messaging and your communication platform, right? Make sure that the way you talk to that consumer hits the spot with that primary consumer, but your secondary, tertiary, whatever you want to call the consumers, aren't going to be alienated by what you're saying. And there's various things to look into. Age, you know, there's also gender, all that sort of stuff, the language you use and stuff like that. But all I would just say is every time is that just remember going back to what I said earlier. And again, somebody on this room will give you a different example.

37:57But, you know, your most loyal consumers, 20 % will always be somewhere between 60 % to 80 % of your revenue. You get that 20 % right, you're going a long way to then being in a situation where you, you know, you've got a good, solid business. It's about then how you make those light and medium loyal people. How do you get them to be into that kind of heavy users bit and get that, growing that 20 % because that's where the value is. Amazing. Any other questions?

38:25I've got two if I'm really quick is that all right yeah go for it first one what advice have you got for brands who want to grow quickly but do production in-house that's the first question

38:37so are you producing in-house because it gives you competitive advantage or it's better price or it gives you better cost chain so I think I mean look

38:51I mean if you want to grow quickly on that I think what you need to do is that if the business work is doing well you just need to make sure you've got good access to capital right to do that but also just bear in mind you can drop back and say well look I've got I've got my own site right and you might say look that can get you to year by year two that's a capacity or whatever but you can also do hybrid where you've got your own and for a certain amount of time you use other co-packers and stuff and if you've got something that's got an intellectual property or got USP, you can basically go and you can try and get exclusivity on the lines there and stuff.

39:22Vitecoco is a great example where, so we owned all of our supply chain, but we didn't own any factory. So what we did was we saw what was going on with coconut water, and we went around Asia, we started from Brazil, and we went around Asia, and we said, right, we're only going to work with reputable people who can basically obviously harvest the coconuts, cut them open, and extract the water from us. But what we did was we actually paid for some of the, they needed some machinery to basically get to do the coconut water. So we paid for some machinery, the factories, the product, the factories then paid us that back over a period of time.

39:59We had exclusivity on all of those sites. So when coconut water went absolutely ridiculous in like 2009 through 2013, we controlled 80 % of global coconut water supply. But actually the capex was quite light because we'd only invested in the sites. importantly it was almost like we had our own site because nobody else could use them yeah what milestones did you hit that gave you the confidence to go out and spend capex because i i don't really know what what a green light looks like right now yeah um i think right now so again i'm having a conversation one of my brands at this at the moment so i'm going to put my hand up and say like i am right so i love doing business supply chain and ops you'll probably start seeing me glaze over a bit so just i'll give you i'll give you some hearts on this but This is not my sweet spot, right?

40:46Just getting this in one of my businesses at the moment. What's really clear for me is we currently outsource manufacturing, but we're going to bring it in-house. It's all about the business case. And for me, I can see our current run rate and what volume we're out. So we started, obviously, we outsource at the moment. We're going to bring it in-house. I can already see that the capex is actually quite like what we need. And I'll get payback within, worst case is two years, but I think it will pay back in 12 months. Is that based on sales or gross margin? That's based on margin. Yeah, yeah. Be really careful on...

41:19Yeah. Yeah. It's that capex is about how quickly it pays back. And just try and find an asset-like way to doing it. But also, the classic being there, as an example, we're using a leased site. We're buying the equipment and putting it in there, but then we can quickly pull that machinery out and put it somewhere else and keep moving it around if we need to. Because if they put the price up and it doesn't work for us anymore, so there's loads... You just need to do kind of like a whole risk analysis and permutations around, okay, if this happens, this happens. If I don't hit forecast, if I overhit forecast, what happens?