What To Actually Put In Your Supermarket Presentation to Unlock Listings - Rebecca Oliver-Mooney and Kieran South

0:00It doesn't matter whether the category exists now because tomorrow you could have made it. Yes. It's not just, I'm going to go from 50 to 100 to 150. Talk about, are rate of sale as high in these stores? Maybe because we're a premium product and these are affluent stores, or maybe we're an on-the-go and it's transient, so what's the next rollout in stores that are similar and will react in the same way? Your phrase is data plus stories, we're the magic. That's it for me. I really subscribe to that very cliche of data tells, but stories sell. And it's that bit of the stories. You show me all the data in the world, but I want to feel the goosebumps that I wanted to connect.

0:40Cool, let's jump in. So yeah, Rom, Kieran, thank you so much for doing this. Super excited. I think it's a conversation I've always wanted to bring you guys together. I think one of the things, well, Rom, when we first spoke many moons ago, we talked a lot about storytelling and how sort of small brands, or I should say small brands, zero to one million pound brands can use data, a little bit of data plus storytelling to kind of kind of get their foot in with the cup. I think my learnings with the podcast has now developed massively, sort of spoken to bigger brands. I think one of my learnings now is it's not just stories that are not listings, it's stories plus data are not listings.

1:22I really want to sort of use that as a kind of a thread through today. Kieran, obviously, what you're doing with Northstar, mate, I'm like, I'm so happy we're sort of partners. I think what the data side is fascinating. When you add those two things together, you can really grow. So thank you. What I'd love to kind of jump in with is kind of what we're talking about before we hit record is who grows categories? Do brands grow categories or do you have to sort of enter a big category? And then because you get a little smidge of that, you make a shitload of money when you exit, right? so I interviewed David Milner who's doing Cross the Moloka he did Tyrell's he did what's the other one Lily's and he was like I'll only work on something if the category is massive because I know I will get be the premium niche in that and when we exit I'll get him a little smidge of that all good conversely interviewed Citizens of Soil the other day you know the really sort of bougie olive oil brand like amazing um the other thing was challenge brands create categories so if you look at oatly look at lucky say they create the category from scratch so rom i'd love to sort of get your perspective on where does where does where does the retailer or what's the retailer's role in creating the category and working with the brands what's your specific perspective and then we can sort of bounce around all over the place?

2:49I think two things create categories. That is credibility and authenticity. So that isn't licensed to a big brand or a retailer or a small brand or a challenger brand. I think it's about the DNA of these people who are cutting through. I think the line between brands and retailer brand, own brand has never been more blurred. And I think particularly with some of the economic challenges, we see more people moving into retailer brands. But again, they have to be credible. People have to trust them. And there will always be brands that dominate, particularly when it comes to newness. I think brands create categories where there are stories that need to be told.

3:38So where it might be education, where it might be something very new, where it might be something very innovative that maybe we need to bring consumers and shoppers on the journey for how I consume it or why I would consume it. I think that's where brands of any size have a real strength. The example you use there, though, is quite interesting because in that example, whether you're going after the premium niche, still creating something in that space or whether you're challenging in at a mass market level I think it is again about that DNA of challenging and doing something different and data is really important in that space because often you have to convince a buyer before you get it on a shelf but I really subscribe to that very cliche of data tells but stories sell and it's that bit of the stories you show me all the data in the world but I want to feel the goosebumps that I wanted to connect and that's why that authenticity and credibility anchors back in yeah i mean i've got i've had a guy on called will store who literally is he's wrote a book called the science of storytelling and he basically says human beings are with a homo negan species it's going to very off piece from carrying your data here but it's basically it's basically like we are storytelling beings like the whole campfire like yeah we think in stories we think of the story of ourselves like everything is a story and i feel like some of the things with challenge brands they think um they kind of sometimes necessarily forget that and say oh we've got to do all the data it's like you still need the story but then when you can layer it and i always say like the the data is what speaks the buyer's language it's like almost you know trying to speak if you're trying to tell a story in french someone i'll speak english but suddenly the data is the translator that it makes sense and i think the data is the comfort point yes so actually i think bias still as human beings connect through stories it's in our dna to your point it's what we've done since the beginning of time It's what kept us safe.

5:28Those stories around the campfire way, way back is what told us not to go out and run across the plains. It's why the very first stories were artwork on a cave wall. It is part, ultimately, of how we connect. And I think sometimes challenger brands can hear a lot of feedback and hear a lot of show me the data, show me that it works, and almost silence their stories. Because in that moment, somebody isn't going to just don't tell me anything else. They're saying, give me the comfort. where's the data points and often it's where this will work for me for this retailer what is it that's unique about your product which means it will work in this retailer with this customer base but connect to them first and foremost through the stories people by people and people by stories okay let's go on to like the different and like may you can jump in with any like kind of stuff that you've you've learned with all the different brands you've worked with but i think i'd love to go to that sort of let's say for the sake of today's conversation we've got the zero to one million pound brands one to five and then sort of five to ten to twenty there's probably three different stages everyone listens to this is is at some point on that on that scale when you're zero to one million what are you what specific data things one to three things you're looking for in a deck rom that would separate if they if the person will put that in this and their deck or brought up in that in that presentation it they would go to the top of the of the pile essentially um i think the first bit is back to creating categories and it's not necessarily about creating categories it's about identifying the space within the category and creating the product that fills it so so what is it about your product that is different that isn't a replica of whatever is on the market you've got to have a point of difference shelves are not stretchy rubber things if you want to be on that shelf something else has to come off so give me through data the most confidence that your product will do something differently and sell um secondly linked to that you might want to cover your ears slightly because if you think about that small business that that naught to half a million to a million that startup phase if you're a d2c model you probably have enough data within your business before you need to go and start investing in other business you might want to invest in somebody that can help you turn it into that story but again I think there's become this narrative in in our industry of you have to invest in all this data to almost get the listing and I think that's why what you're doing this space is really great it's about accessibility and education telling that story and my final bit would be you have to you have to believe and you have to have the passion and most founders do but you have to have the confidence to keep that belief and that passion again linked to what's different why your product why your flavor why why now has got to come through um and look most founders have founded something because they truly believe and it's it's fulfilled a need for them help get that onto a slide deck into a conversation use some of the data but again work with people like you to help bring that yeah i think what you've detailed there's is brilliant about you know how how are you different and what data backs that up where is the space the gap in the category i think kira made we i know we were talking earlier about um i think we can use the brand's wife wife is it why food and fuel and like that that new category the rtd um so i think brian the sales director from there is um he's a good mate of mine he was saying that before to begin with there was they had like two little i think i saw i don't know the guy is on linkedin but he put up the thing and it was like a picture and it was like four years ago it was two like two facings and now you go in there and it's just like what the fuck it's huge um yeah but but with with that growing a category and linking this how do brands create categories like what what's been your experience maybe we can use why food and shul as an example of that yeah i think you guys come a bit closer as well yeah so the i think before answering that i think ron i often agree on this the storytelling i agree I think the piece is just be out of evidence.

9:38Is that your view or are there multiple people who share that view? And that's the piece. And it doesn't have to be knowing what data to use just to support your thinking and then having confidence in what you think and being able to articulate that. That's the gap. Then your phrase is data plus stories. We're the magic. That's it for me. The questions we hear all the time coming back from retailers, really, which I think is a really good way of just pressure testing brands thinking to have confidence in are they really clear what they're trying to get done, which is, I think, really helpful, is what need are you fulfilling against?

10:15So as soon as you described there. That's the first question. First question. Are you really clear? An example of that. Well, the need for protein is just so broad. That's not what's meant. So it's just trying to get really clear. What is it you think your reason for being is what's the need that's seen you do packing whatever to set up a business or to join a challenger brand and help them get up and running? The next thing is who has that need? So be really clear on that target market. And again, it might be you'll just come in with a me too that's slightly cheaper or with higher margins. So that's fine as well.

10:50Would that be an example of that? Would that be? What is a good example for that? I think that's more to the premium example you used earlier, where, you know, a little bit of, so it could go either way. So it could be that you want to be in the space where you put the margin back. But for me, where people are premium, where a category exists, confectionery is a brilliant example. Confectionery has existed not quite as long as communication storytelling, but sometimes feels like it. Yet it grows in certain spaces again and again, And a lot of that can be value growth from either people who have come in like Tony's Trocoloni and shone a light on, actually, there's a premiumization here because we're doing the right thing through the supply base.

11:34Or just into why are you eating chocolate? Because it's indulgent. It makes you feel good. And we've mainstreamed confectionery. So it's then created the headspace of, OK, how do you make that a really indulgent occasion? And the lipstick effect, how do you pay a little bit more because you're treating yourself? What's the lipstick effect again? I think we mentioned this last time. So the lipstick, I really need to get some new... No, no, no, I've heard it from somewhere, but yeah. So it's doing the rounds again at the minute. It is the, and it is proven statistically that when there are economic challenges, actually we may pull back on some of our big ticket spending, but we might look for little ways to...

12:13So a tub of ice cream on the sofa, it can do wonders for you feeling like you're having an indulgent moment. And so actually we sometimes see smaller ticket, more premium. It was termed the lipstick effect because in the 2008 economic challenges, sales of lipstick allegedly went up. I'm not too sure that's statistically correct. Yeah, so it's sacking off Ibiza rules to eat more Ben & Jerry's. Yeah, if you want to rebrand it, it's exactly the same. We should. Okay, so that's super interesting. So first question is what is the need? Second question is... Who's it for? Who's the target audience? Right, and so that's basically who's buying the Tonys, who's buying the Argendars.

12:53Yeah, if you've got a new idea, who's that new idea for? And then the third thing is, well, what are they doing at the minute? So this is what the shop is doing. Yes, the person that you believe has a need that hasn't been fulfilled, what are they doing now? So are you going to switch them from buying one ice cream to another ice cream, or are there people that aren't buying the category at all that might start buying the category? Yeah. Fectures is an interesting one, or sweets, where it was always flavour and taste. was probably the drivers and then more recently the last few years it's been around going into the ingredients and almost shining a light on there and saying does everyone realize that some of the ingredients in some of these products are these and probably you sort of start to challenge the mindset that you have which is why i had no idea that the ingredients been used in some of the products um and they're more appealing there's more premiumization coming as well where people are prepared to pay a bit more not just for taste but just for uh maybe more slightly more expensive ingredients so there's lots of different reasons for that and i think the bits helping brands is clarify their own thinking um what but there's also why did i start this business what's behind it so many of the brands that are in the space you're talking the first million now the founders often aren't now from fmcg so i think one of the biggest things that's changed probably since lockdown really is there are some super smart people coming into the industry that didn't work in the industry before.

14:15There's sort of two parts to that. One is that a lot of the preconceptions around which categories can I innovate in, which brands maybe do I therefore take on, some of the established brands, people are coming in and just, without not knowing any of that, spotting needs that perhaps were just missed previously. What do you think about that? So it will be an example. The confection one is probably a good one in there. but um even if you drinks is a good example yeah huge soft drink category yes lots of the big brands that you could all roll off your tongue that you all know and you could cover up the label and you'd still know what it is great branding yeah well timed um but there has been this expansion into drinks of people wanting more from their hydration and to your point people haven't necessarily been in the industry so maybe don't know some of the challenges yeah just coming and going actually um we believe that drinks should be better for you so gut health um fiber kombucha all of that has created this this space for the likes of hip-hop um if you look abroad at america and see what the olipops have done and poppy of the world have done you can now see that we've got xoxo we've got living so you can see that space where these small challenger brands have come through identified it and been able to move with pace yet to your point some of them will still sit in a meeting and go you're using a lot of acronyms and and i think that's something as retailers we need to be really aware of what are some of the acronyms that branch again and we'll ask some three-year-old questions now because i think it's important too but what are some of the acronyms um acronyms you they should know like what's the sort of some of the big ones because you can get so lost in this so i call it semantic sludge where you're just like saying all these things that you get so bogged down there but like okay in terms of like what they actually need to know and we'll go again that's that zero to one million stage is it like you need to know what incrementality is you need to know what are some of the things they actually need to know i think you need to know that you've got a safe space to ask if you're if you're literally not half million to a million somebody's throwing and and i and i i yeah i'm sharing this because somebody him who is a co-founder of a business used that in a um in a podcast with me in terms of an example of i didn't know what incrementality meant now she was vulnerable enough to ask and i think actually that then creates a really good culture for your business of well if the founder can ask what this means then actually maybe maybe we all can there will be vias sitting in meetings going i'm not too sure exactly how we calculate x y or z so i think where the where you are on your journey with pride you know i would say let's not give them a you need to know what rsv stands for actually you need to be able to say i've got a great product it's going to sell loads sales it's going to talk to a different type of customer i do encourage people to understand to your point who is who is their customer how do you detail that maybe we can both jump in on this because it's like i think that is if we really dig into this but the story bit the passion the kind of the communication saying i don't know don't know this and those are really important things understanding how we speak to this specific shop or why the shop is different like how do you actually do that in layman's terms there's all sorts of ways of doing that so i think i think historically you have to spend a lot of money and you'd have to be working in a long time to know who to go to and where to start to find those things out or you try to shortcut it by ask maybe an eco-chamber or 20 people that you knew and you were getting really strong points of view from people who looked and sounded like you.

18:06If you then looked on the shelves, the brands weren't representative of the UK population and as we're changing within it, since the rise of technology and things like that, you can find out you could within 48 hours we could help a brand find out who a thousand people who they believe will be their target audience what do they really think and you have a chance to then find out and ask your target audience and that the benefit of doing that is even if you're d2c and one of the benefits of d2c and brands you've built that is you you're you're forced to go in there and really understand your business on a day-by-day basis who's the shopping and all the some of the kpis i guess that the the businesses you do well use to grow their D2C businesses.

18:53But in a retail, it's slightly different because you're then, you have an opportunity, the cart gives you an opportunity to be in the neighborhood across the whole country. And there are different people shopping and the needs are different as well. So you've got to go and understand who shops where, what some of the needs, I guess, is jargon slightly. But what is it people are doing when they're in those stores? And how do you match your brand? does your brand match and offer a solution to those to those people but you you can guess you can spend a huge amount of money or in the middle now is an opportunity to go out there and just evidence it so not get lost in data and disappear and lose all the passion the storytelling but i think it's it's taking what you believe to be true and then just going out there and trying it my side may be slightly biased but if you put everything on the line to build this business or you've joined a challenger brand, you're all in on that.

19:45And I think there's still an opportunity for brands to guess a little bit less and make better, quicker decisions. So keep money tight, keep moving at pace, but you can just find out the answer to some of these questions. I think the brands that are doing that are the ones that are starting to speed up, build their confidence, build their understanding of you don't have to win everywhere, but how do I make the right decisions? And by the time the meeting with the retailers come along, you feel confident, you feel you've understood. You kind of know, it's like an exam. We talk about it a bit, but it's like an exam.

20:20You could try and revise everything for that exam. Probably might say I should have revised something for the exams. Or if you've got an idea of what's likely to come up in that exam, you just feel more comfortable if you focus on those areas. So why guess? What would be those things to you? what would be the and again all of this is context yeah but like what would be some of those things you would be showing i think i think it's it probably comes back to the areas with without repeating that we've talked about again you haven't got an appeal um you asked me a question a while ago i've not answered around like building a brand new category but i think it's trying to understand where your lane is are you the same as something that already exists because from a retailer point of view they're trying to balance i should answer my behalf but you're trying to balance doing the right thing for the shopper with managing a p &l for business you're trying to find the sweet spot between those so from a branded point of view you just need to have a point of view i guess on if you fast forward and you want your brand available on retail shelves or or dot com for an audience you put yourself in the shoes of the person you're talking to and just play that through for them so are you coming up with something different if so why and for who or you're offering them the same solution they've already got catered for if you've got a great idea but it's only a great idea for a few hundred people that it's not a bad idea but it perhaps doesn't want to be in a thousand car stores if you believe i think one of the things that's changed maybe in the last five years as people have come is that the the information is so readily available people are much clearer about what they need so you think the growth supplements women's health um areas like that they just haven't been well catered for previously so now the opportunity to almost understand um i was reading this morning where you can you can take a blood sample within a month you know exactly what's good for you what's bad for you what's more of what's take less off is it the yucca app as well just yeah personalization is becoming personalization and that that that increased knowledge means that one size fits all is no longer what we're looking for but you can't have a thousand different products on the same shelf so trying to understand the role you play who you play that for where those shoppers shop where they don't shop the more you can understand that I think the better you can build your business but the better quality conversation you can have when you're in the room with retailers from yeah from then just to play from your perspective Ron what would you sort How would you add to that?

22:53So I think the other lens that I would add on is where does it help a buyer or a retailer? So ultimately, everybody wants to do the same thing. We all want to put great products on shelves that sell a lot to the right people and make people able to see themselves on the shelves and interact with products. But if I think about where brands do it well and where there's stretch brands aren't doing it well, I think everything you've said is valid. The other bit that I would add on is how can you show that that is going to help what a retailer is trying to do? And to your point around data being available, there is so much information around what retailers are standing for at the moment.

23:35So, again, we talk a lot through the apiary, which is co-ops, incubator and accelerator scheme around who do you want your brand to work with? what can your brand do if you've got something around sustainability? Who are the retailers where actually that would probably talk to not only the retail and the buyers, but also their shoppers because they have big drives on sustainability. And I think if you can understand how your brand can hook into a retailer's overall vision, that's really powerful because then you help the buyer see their role in in laddering up to that i also think when it was we're talking about incubator schemes and accelerator schemes they exist to help these sort of brands you're talking about now an incubator is what we're talking about now i would argue that sort of not half million to a million and certainly on co-op we don't say you have to be retail ready we're we are more than happy to work with people to help get them retail ready you have to be able to be sold in a legally compliant way on our shelves but to your point we're seeing more people come into the space never before that don't have an fmcg background but actually have a brilliant entrepreneurial spirit and might just need a bit of help and the apiary is about working with purpose-led underrepresented founders so we do believe in actually how do we share and upskill accelerators are kind of the level two million pounds plus how do we help you get get bigger get slicker get more efficient um and to your point earlier if you can grow that size the pie then these are the brands that should be having a part of it so let's let's get into that then so that next stage up and again the numbers can a sliding scale whether it's zero to one one to five but it's is everyone i've spoken to is about five million brands can get stuck and it's kind of like you get into that first bit of distribution and then i think as we've said before mate it goes from a game of attack to a game of defense, whereby it's all about making sure you're on shelf, making sure you're not losing sales, about get that going, and then you get the rate of sale, like a burning furnace rate of sale, and then you can increase distribution again.

25:47In those meetings, and that may not be a new meeting, that may be you sitting with a senior account manager, probably not the founder, so this is probably moving from story to data. Yep. how do they approach those conversations? Because it's a different kind of game when you get to that size. And again, I've never really asked that. So whoever wants to kind of jump in on that. I think the conversations we have with the brands there, the conversation moves from distribution and getting listed anywhere to almost thinking about, so getting on the shelf. Yep. To rate of sale. And how do I go from the shelf into baskets, into homes and bought again the second time and then the third time and the fourth time.

26:29So the mindset changes slightly around how do I use my time, money, budget, capability of the team to do those things. At that size, you're still not listed everywhere. So you still are trying to make wins and take over the world and build the brand. But you're trying to play those two things, which is probably like attack and defense as you're describing it. You then get pulled quite thin. So the skills of the hunter and the farmer are slightly different. Being able to, if someone's taken, a buyer's taken a punt on you and has gone in on your brand's behalf within the retailer and represented your brand and put themselves out there and got you listed, then you need to do a good job for them as well as for you in there and show that that worked well.

27:09So understanding the levers, how the retailer works, what opportunities are there to appear in more baskets of more of your target audience is where that starts to move. But you can see brands getting pulled quite, been pulled there or stretched there, I guess, on numbers of people, capability, time, teams, processes, structures. Think of a listing. The bit I'd never really appreciated pre-North Star, I guess, was a listing, a listing the co-op in 1 ,500 stores that requires potentially cash flow that you haven't got, capex that you might need, a change of supplier distribution agreements that you haven't got.

27:52So you've got in there and you've pitched and you've put everything on the line. You think you've come out there and done an amazing job. The bit I hadn't appreciated was a 50 store win versus a 1500 store win. The emotional stress that puts through a brand who's at that stage and what that means behind the scenes is just unbelievable. So you've got all of that going on as well as the win that comes, the LinkedIn picture and the win outside the retailer which is we've just achieved that and also the um it's like a russian roulette game really that goes on the founder of innocent was saying to me that there's when when you get into way more stores you have this like hollow rate of sale forecast forecast basically you say right we'll take say those 200 stores we'll extrapolate that out maybe drop it down a little bit with the 1200 stores and so then you you raise money for that you get cash for that and then suddenly you don't hear that at all and you're it's a complete you know cataclysmic nightmare this feels like a brilliant time for me to do my distribution yeah yeah because i'd love to ask that was my next question rom is like from your perspective when a brand comes in asking to go from 200 stores so say 500 600 700 from a buyer's perspective what are you what is going what are you looking at what do you need to see to be like right absolutely we're we're going for it yeah so I'm probably going to talk a little bit about stuff that I talked about last time, but I think the distribution conversation bit probably had the most interaction with it.

29:22Because as you know, still all these years later, I do believe that distribution can be a vanity metric. Because we have created this environment within the challenger brand space where there are some really big brands that have really high distribution. And so therefore, a key success factor for challenger brands is get me a 99 % distribution. Those big brands that have that distribution, even they went on a journey originally. And I do think it is worth, it's not to shrink a mindset. It's not to say you're not really ambitious, but it's put that realistic pragmatism. And so I still see people coming in and going, it's a great idea and it's going to talk to these, brilliant sell and let's go in 2000 stores next week.

30:07To your point, the stress that that can put into a business anyway of achieving a 2000 store from nothing is huge, which is why we do look at the distribution rates when we look at things like whether it is somebody coming in on the apiary or just a small challenger brand coming into a category. It's always easier to build the rate of sale out, build layer upon layer and have really positive conversations with your buyer around, actually our rate of sale is doing really, really good. We're above category average. What if we built out by another 50, 100 stores? What if we then built out rather than we're in 200 stores and we're smashing it.

30:44So let's go to 2000. Then you're back into defense because I can guarantee you, you will sell more from the right stores than you will from a huge number of stores. And if your proposition's good and it's going to go mainstream, just wait and let it build and build. Because to answer the question of what the buyer's looking for, they're looking for rate of sale that is above category average. You're outselling the category that you're in a top. Lots of people talk about top quarter, top percentile. But broadly, are you selling more than the rest of the category? Or is that, say, if you're a premium product, is that units?

31:22There will always be a balance of units because you have to shift. Obviously, value rate of sale would be more beneficial from a premium product because you're going to be a higher rate of sale. But again, the metric that a lot of retailers will look at will also be what is it doing to cash going through the tills of a retailer so something to be mindful of as well i do think that we have to get away from all-store distribution being the success factor because it's going to cost more for a business and you're going to have more conversations that are difficult with the buyer and the engaging ones of let's go again and if you and your buyer have that very open conversation at the beginning of okay what does success look like yeah how do we drive that rate of sale okay when we're there what do we look at and i think you mentioned it earlier lots of lots of retailers segment their stores into different types of shoppers that are shopping there um certainly at co-op we have one of the best ways to segment our stores so it's not just i'm going to go from 50 to 100 to 150 talk about our rate of sale is high in these stores maybe because we're a premium product and these are affluent stores or maybe we're in on the go and it's transient so what's the next rollout in stores that are similar and will react in the same way that's how you protect that yeah i think i think those are the kind of questions that the brands operating at the size you're describing will get a huge amount of value from trying to understand if this is the shop that we're aiming for which are the stores that we should be in how many of those stores are there and how should we be having that conversation so it's less it's not necessarily numbers the the segmenting that you're describing is almost geared up to help yeah that exact thing so if you that's the kind of conversation you want to try and have so you know how far along that scale are you and the job really is about understanding the the quartiles of rate of sale and focus how do i just get myself from the shelf into more baskets into more homes and repeat that that's the skill being almost obsessive over that focus i think is the one do a great job on that and then the distribution follows it okay but it might not be in one retailer that's then when you've do you've done a great job and the story to go to another retailer to describe the job you've done based on a target knowing that those shoppers may also shop elsewhere based on geographics or wherever it might be that's the way that's the way to build the business up yeah i mean there's tons i think there's tons to pull out that i think one thing i do want to understand is totally get like too much distributions vanity metric but i say at some point brands do i you know i always talk about sort of the early adopters to mass market that kind of curve like that at some point they do want to go on that journey and your sort of messaging has to change from that sort of first thousand true fans, which is probably when you want to be in that small, super premium distribution if you're a premium niche brand.

34:25But at some point you have to go like these brands on the roof and go on that journey. That's not distribution for me though. Yes, I was going to say, yes. What would you say this is? I would talk about penetration. Right. So I would talk about the fact that... Just define that for listeners. So I would talk about the fact that penetration is how many people in the UK population are buying into your product. Sure. Now, that is a statistic that you can get through data providers that are available. But again, you will have an understanding of how many people are interacting with your product. The reason why penetration is really, really good to talk to retailers about is because there is often in a lot of product, even in some of the big ones, still headroom for growth.

35:10Because what every retailer is looking for is, if I put that on my shelf, is it going to work? Is it going to sell? But then is there opportunity for it to grow and grow? Is it going to continue to earn its space? Is it going to pay the rent if this was an apartment block or a house, for example? Yes. So if you can go and say, look, we're in this distribution. Great. you've had a conversation about distribution, but we're really early on. So if I think about some of my previous experiences, when I was at Biotiful, and we all know that they've recently exited very successfully, we talked a lot about the headroom for growth, the penetration growth, because that was how you go from that niche buy-in to becoming more mainstream and then becoming mainstream again.

35:53And that's when your portfolio expansion NPD can be, all right, well we've we've talked to these shoppers but now we recognize that actually parents want their kids to be healthy so we can look at kids or protein so we can look at a protein signal that penetration so what's the difference between penetrate penetration growth and distribution growth is that so that means you don't need more stores to do that in the example that you gave earlier yeah you talked about going into other retailers so actually we've got shoppers shopping in retailer a over here where you can buy a product retailer b hasn't listed it retailer b lists it these shoppers might change.

36:27So they might shop in Retailer A this week and Retailer B next week. So you're not getting necessarily any more sales. You're moving the sales around. Likewise, if you're in 100 stores in Retailer A and you move into 150, I might have come to this store and I'm going to walk a bit further or drive a bit further to a different store. Penetration growth is you are talking to people that currently aren't buying into your brand. And if you can convert them, and similar to the distribution where we said that your rate of sale will be here and as you build out and distribution, your rate of sales probably going to slow as you become less relevant from that segmentation.

37:02From a penetration point of view, if you've got a product that somebody's buying on a weekly basis and they're really locked in and really loyal, that core group of those people at the beginning of that penetration journey, they're always going to buy every week. If you've then got the next level out of penetration, they might buy fortnightly. The next level out might buy monthly. The next level out might buy once every four weeks. but they're all different purchasing opportunities that is back to the point earlier that's incremental growth 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 absolutely killing it in your farm shop and your indies but my friends making the leap crossing el chasm 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 you 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 Northstar.

38:21They are the team that's helping purpose-led FMCG brands go from gut instinct dreams to unstoppable pitch decks that actually unlock retailers. Northstar are not like another data company that force Fiji data like FUAGUA 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. Northstar 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 that's what those are different shoppers that each other way detailed it like that those are different shoppers okay because i think um i interviewed mark palmer who was the marketing director at um uh green and blacks and i think we've been having a conversation i think over drinks mate about like how uh brands need to be and it links what you're saying wrong but that sort of circular thing um how do you change your messaging as you get bigger and how do you speak to some of those shoppers on the periphery who are actually different without losing your fucking soul as a brand i think what what um green and blacks did so well is they'd i think they sponsored to begin with they did like a blackout thing in london where they sponsored i think it was either valentine's day or something like that look really kind of slick and plush but then about four five six years when they wanted that that outer rim um well that penetrational mentality i think they end up sponsoring like um uh it was like i think maybe one of the like car fest or something like that so it's much older demographic but still premium and that's how they sort of did it but i think i love to understand how how when you know more about your how your shop is changing how that affects or changes your marketing decisions.

40:17I think that's a real art if we go on that journey from here to here. I think it's one of the things that the big brands and the brand leaders have done brilliantly over time is they've understood things like penetration, exactly that. They've understood the penetration of their brand within the category. They've then got a really good understanding of who the people are. So there are 28.8 million households in the UK. The question is how many of those buy into the category and then how many of those buy into your brand. That gives you an idea. Then it becomes about who. This is about people. So who are those people?

40:55And again, it will be a mix, but who are our core target audience that we should be talking to? Historically, it was only affordable for the big brands to understand that. It's changed now. It's affordable for everybody, I think. For one less trade show, you can understand everything about your business i've never started a food and drink brand i know how hard it is because you see every day they get there's 20 emails a day with silver bullets that we can solve every problem you've ever and it's so hard to know where to start it's the same every day you think someone could help you take the net it's so difficult but the bit i can see and the bit having worked for the big brand i can see now is understanding who your audience is and then trying to really understand what are they like where do they shop what do they read what do they listen to that the more you can understand the better you can build your brand because you can follow where they are not just in distribution but you can talk to them the packaging then makes sense based on the audience that you're talking to um the the example of where to advertise what to promote who to sponsor all of those things it influences now it's all built on as good of understanding as possible of who your brand is, if you're guessing that as you go through that sort of first million into that next section, again, it's not all about data, but it's are your stories resonating with the audience that you want to resonate them with?

42:19That's almost now. But as you want to then build out the year after and the year after that, I think you're probably exactly right. Is it more people that you're, so say somebody like 40s, early 50s here now. Am I the target audience and therefore how many of me are there? And you just need to keep going until you've got more people that fit my demographic buying into the brand. Is that the plan? Or is the opportunity to broaden out? And if you want to broaden out, then the messaging needs to evolve and change, not to alienate me, but to appeal to more people. Is that how you're going to grow your brand?

42:58Yeah, it's also the way what you're saying now. I also think like the data actually does inform the story as well at some point, because the more clarity you've got on who you're trying to speak to, everything kind of is downstream from the consumer. I think that's how it sort of plays. Because again, you've got a tight marketing. The budget is so big and you can't, but the more you can understand, not guess, to compliment again, you haven't got to spend huge amounts of money, but just being able to understand those things helps you spend better, make better decisions and probably move a bit faster or make mistakes, but perhaps might make slightly less.

43:32So thinking about the business that way and building it out that way, I think is the brands that we're seeing at the minute, killing it. I've kind of understood that and the D2C world and the retail version of that and just starting to use that to really hone in their messaging. Mina Bobbin is rightly held up at the moment as being one of the best, but she's just got the branding incredibly well, but also has found the right language and empowered. So Amelia, well, being, but not just Amelia, the team understand the audience and just speak to them in such a way that really helps to resonate. And I think that's starting just to build it out.

44:11There's lots of brands doing it really well, but the power of understanding that I think is really important for the brands of the size. And then Ron, when it gets to brands much bigger, like how does that, so not much bigger, but like sort of 10 to 15 to 20 million, how does the, Is it the same sort of, you're still looking at data the same way? Or how does it get different? Or is it just, I don't know, it feels like it's kind of a different, I always say like when you're small, like a baby brand, then you're like a toddler, then a teenager, and then it's like uni and it feels like that. Yeah, you have to grow up a bit.

44:43Grow up a bit, yeah. So what does grow up a bit mean like to you? I'm not too sure grow up a bit is always linked back to the size of the brand. Because sometimes the size of the category can impact it. So if I think about somebody like Dashwater, I think they're doing a really good job of growing up they would still see themselves probably maybe phase two to phase three but the numbers we're talking about you know might not so I think you have to look at it in the realm of how long you've been in existence what you stand for how easily you can communicate it so for everybody who's sitting there going well I'm a small brand there are people like Dash and I'm sure Jack wouldn't mind me saying he would still put themselves in that challenger brands it's amelia from they've got that's another example so they their whole thing was the wonky veg which was on the tube and the aubergine that looked it's like something it's like something else which got in they've got them in hot water with tfl great marketing that's super niche but that wonky veg probably doesn't mean everything to those outer rims so they've changed it to finally drink to feel good about going after diet coke and the category has changed so they've changed with the category so um one one of the questions that i think a brand growing up should be able to answer is what matters most what are the motivators so when we're talking about this penetration growth what mattered most when when they started for them for that for who they're talking to so when dash water and i'm absolutely going to paraphrase their brand story and i'm really sorry jack and alex but when they first started to your point it was about how do we take this wonky fruit?