Erin Newkirk (Former Caribou Coffee) | Building Brands (and Teams) That Spark Chain Reactions

22:56And that has always pushed me forward as well So it's just for me. It's mindfulness. It's mindset lots of water lots of coffee And just surrounding myself by people who have big hearts of that career path that I rattled through which experience there was the most developmental for you? For sure, working at General Mills and working with Mark on Brand Champions. I mean, it was... And the Brand Champions is a training program. It is a training program. It is. And it's something that all marketers went through. Rumor has it, it's still alive today, 20 plus years later. It was a pretty pivotal experience.

23:29And it was really, it was an experience for marketing so that marketers could then give back to the brands and the consumers that they serve. As a newly minted brand manager, I was able to work with the CMO of a huge company, right? Fortune 500 company. And the work that we did was really relentless and on a very tight timeline. We had daily meetings with our CEO and chairman. So we were constantly coming up with one-sheeters to pitch every single day. So it was grueling. It really was. This is pre-kids. I learned so much from that. I learned so much about speed. I learned so much about impact.

24:05I got to study a ton of brands. We looked at a lot of P &G brands, which is how I knew that you and Mark were tight. It was an incredible experience. I mean, demanding, but the fact that your CEO is asking about this every day, that's a strong statement of what he or she values. Yes, 100%. I mean, everyone was involved, the full C-suite. It was pretty powerful, actually. I mean, I would say that the other, I mean, career experience that I also learned from, I think, and actually from Brand Champions is when I was like, I think I actually belong more in the startup world than the corporate America world.

24:38How'd you have that aha? The fact that we were going off script so much for the Brand Champions program. I mean, the fact that we were doing these daily one pagers. I mean, that just didn't happen in the early 2000s in CPG land in corporate America. And I loved the urgency and the passion behind the subject matter. And then I started to look at where I felt like I could make an impact for other working moms and other working women in particular. That's the persona that we had for the startup of Red Stamp. Because I realized that the busier I got at work, the more in demand my time was and the more scarce my time was outside of work.

25:18And so it was really an interesting point of doing these case studies, these one-pagers every single day, handing them in and then saying, okay, what am I passionate about? What do I feel like is a big need in the world to solve? And that's how Red Stamp was born. So working on the brand champions led you to starting a company that you sold. It was based on an insight that you got from working on brand champions. Yes. It's amazing. Yeah. So say a bit about Red Stamp so people know what the company is. Yes. It was sunsetted in 2015. So it's been a hot minute since it's been around, but yet I'm still young.

25:51So according to Jim. According to me. So Red Stamp was a modern day social secretary. It was a correspondence engine that started actually on the World Wide Web and then transferred to mobile once the smartphone was introduced. Once Apple came out with that, it changed everything. And we realized that the way that we could serve our key consumer, our persona of the chief household officer was to move to the phone. so that it was not so much about beautiful cards and stationery and holiday birth announcements, all those things that you could do from your computer, but rather around these big moments, but how could we elevate the every day?

26:28So Red Stamp was about thinking, wishing, inviting, and announcing on the daily from your smartphone. People thought we were crazy, but no one would ever create important correspondence from your phone. But we realized that's where your photos are. As you sit on the sideline of a soccer game or whatever, That's the kind of work that the chief household officer was doing. So it was about meeting her needs, about making relationships stronger, and really rolling with the times of how do we do that? So every year we would ask ourselves, you know, in the beginning when we started, it was about paper cards on the web.

26:59And then, you know, every year we would ask and eventually it transferred to mobile where the photos were happening, always on correspondence engine. And how do we take that and make that into something that's really special? What did you learn about yourself in that process? I learned how much I loved marketing. Actually, I was co-founder and CEO and also CFO and, you know, did our taxes. I did all of the things and I yet learned how much I loved marketing, which is why I went back into marketing once I sold the company. But I think I, there was so much learning that was involved with it around how to do business, what makes for a strong business, how important insights are, how important it is to not only go through an annual planning process like a robot, but actually really feel into it and get out there and be in the persona.

27:46Yeah. I learned, I learned, it's almost like asking like, how did you know when you met your spouse or there's just, there's so much learning that's just like intuitive and ingrained and it's so vast. I don't want to bore you and I don't want to bore those. No, no, no, thing. The fastest answer, the quickest win. But great CMOs believe the real power isn't in the speed. It's in stepping back to see the bigger picture. That's why everything Deloitte does in their CMO program, from their industry-leading capabilities to their connected network of CMOs, is designed to help you zoom out and gain fresh perspective.

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28:40You do have a mantra, build with heart, scale with soul, spark movements that matter. So tell us the origin story of that. Who or what influenced that? I think ever since I was younger, I've been a very heart led human. And through the different paths that I've taken through, you know, corporate and startups and whatnot, I really believe in the whole idea of win-win or win-win-win. And the fact that everyone can have a place at the table for everything that we do. It doesn't have to be, you know, brand or performance. It doesn't have to be team or guest. It doesn't have to, you know, you get that.

29:16So for me, really, the building with heart is around taking all of the opportunities and the hopes and the dreams of the team, of the guests, of the community and saying, okay, what exists here? What can we do with this? So working through the constraints that exist in business and putting your heart into it and then being able to take it and say, all right, well, what's scalable and repeatable, right? Because it doesn't fly if it's just a really good idea that works really well in one store or, you know, on one shelf. So the scaling piece is really important just to make sure, again, it's scalable, repeatable.

29:48If you ask my team, they would be like, yes, Aaron, we know scalable and repeatable. That's important. And then I think that at the end of the day, we're human and we are strong and people want to feel. and it's a time where we're feeling a lot of feelings. So how do we create really containers for people to live their best lives? It goes back to their wants and needs and dreams and jobs to do and how do we fulfill that? Now, if I had your team in the room here and I asked them, what does that mantra mean to them? What do you think they'd say? That's interesting. Well, I think it depends on who you ask in the team for sure just because we have so many great initiatives going on right now.

30:24But I think that they would for sure talk about the scale and more repeatable piece and the fact that, you know, as we go through great creative, what does great creative look like? And, you know, so they would repeat that process for the work that we do. But I think that probably the number one thing they would say is, I see people, I see process, and I see platform in there. And that's how I've really structured the team when I think about these types of things. Like, how can people influence it? How important is the process and what process are we following? And then what are the platforms that we're going to be able to execute it on?

30:52Sounds like General Mills training. Right? You think so? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's so much that goes back to that for sure. Are those annual operating plans that we put together? Man, they were, it's like a bootcamp, but yeah, it was really great training. So you've been CMO for five years, very competitive and dynamic category, but you seem to be holding your own, right? I think you're the third largest coffee brand in the U.S. right now. 850 locations. So how are you doing it? And what could we learn from you? You know, you're competing against Starbucks, Dunkin', the local houses, Nespresso, everything.

31:28and you're finding a way to grow. So what's the playbook? What could we learn? It's hard to be differentiated in this category. It is, absolutely. But it's more important than ever to be differentiated because household penetration in coffee is vast. For us, it's about doing what we do really well, which is an amazing product. I mean, we use real ingredients in everything we do. So melting real chocolate chips into every mocha, that really goes back to the craft there. We make every experience a meaningful one with our purpose statement. And we do it all at a really great value. And so I think for us, it's not about necessarily, I mean, of course we benchmark and look at the competition, but it's really leaning into what we do best.

32:12And it's making people feel amazing when they come to the store based on what they buy, based on the interaction they have, based on how much they spend. And it's the basics, but it's important when you're differentiating to lean into the good, I think, instead of actually looking out there and saying, okay, what is that person doing? I'm going to chase that. What is that person doing? I'm going to chase that. Has it been hard to scale? My experience with Caribou, I joined the month before the world shut down with COVID. So it's been an interesting last five and a half years in scaling. It's not really hard to scale once you have great playbooks.

32:41I would say that the big piece is staying back to the people, process, and platforms. We try and create great playbooks for our teams to operate from so that it's not so much a, hey, do this. And this goes back to some of the core values work and we're talking about taking ownership. But it's more of a, here's a playbook for what to do when a competitor builds a coffee shop right across the street. Here's a playbook for construction, which in Minnesota is another thing you should know about Minnesota. It hasn't come up yet as we have two seasons, winter and road construction. But it's really empowering our teams to do great work and for us to support them through playbooks.

33:15And, you know, again, leaning into why Caribou, what makes Caribou great, the combination of those teams has been really successful. Now, you seem to be doing well with Gen Z and Millennials, right? And that's every brand wants to be there. What are you doing that would help other CMOs learn from what you've been doing? Listening, a lot of listening and a lot of problem solving and thinking through what is it that, you know, these different groups want, need, you know, what are their dreams, what are their jobs to do? So going back to the consumer insights piece, you know, I think that we've done a really good job creating products that they love.

33:51Coffee or, you know, same benefits of coffee with energy drinks and some of the other work we've done, refreshers, you know, we definitely want to make sure that we have the right products for our guests. But we also do it in a way that should feel really inviting and interesting. So about a year ago when we launched Energy Drinks, I'll give an example. We knew that we were entering a whole new category and we wanted to do something that was true to Caribou and true to Gen Z and millennials who were drinking more of the energy drink base. So we thought, okay, what's true to Caribou? What happens at Caribou?

34:23Well, a lot of first dates, a lot of situationships happen at Caribou. And we were about to introduce this new drink that would be a perfect pairing for some of these Gen Z. We also knew that dating shows were huge, right? Love is Blind, you know, all of the different dating shows. Love is Blind was filming here in Minnesota at the time, and they were just wrapping. So we said, what if we did our own, you know, dream date? What if we did our own dating show? And so we brought in Hannah Berner, who is an amazing Gen Z comedian. She really is so talented. And we had her host dating series where we found singles.

34:55We matched them up. We ran a TikTok slash Instagram campaign. And we had a huge successful launch of our product because it was really about meeting our guests where they're at, staying true to the brand, what we can do at Caribou. And it was a dreamy connection. That's real marketing innovation. So how do you build the culture that comes up with ideas like that on a scalable way? And repeatable. Yeah. You know, I think it goes back to creating playbooks instead of actually creating scripts. thinking through, okay, what are we trying to do here? Really grounding ourselves. So similar to some of the life principles too, but really grounding ourselves in what are we trying to accomplish?

35:31Who, what, when, where, why, and how, right? It just comes back to that simple, simple questions. Yeah. And framework and then digging deep into that and then letting the team have a lot of fun with it and come up with ideas, have meetings where actually ideation happens. You know, emails are great for covering off. You can route things and make decisions and we have processes and platforms for that. But meetings for us are pretty sacred in the sense that, you know, we get together and we sit around the table, usually over a cup of coffee and we hash out great ideas. It's old fashioned and it works, right?

36:01It is old fashioned. That's how your dad did it too. That's true. That's true. Any insights in your organizational design? You've been there five years. I'm sure it's shifted. Shifted a lot. And you're, you know, your brand is growing. You're growing among emerging consumers. Are you doing creative things? So how do you design the structure, the processes, the culture to be sure that happens? We have a couple of different teams within the brand and marketing team. And the brand and marketing is really important, too, because not only are we marketing our brand, we're building a brand at the same time.

36:35So that's very intentional. Within the brand team, we have digital experience, consumer insights, guest relations, marketing, creative and corporate communications. And so what's important about that is we think about our corporate messaging just as much as we think about how we're marketing it. So, again, that internal, external. And everyone comes together on the regular basis to talk about, okay, this is the work that we're doing, you know, with our overall objective, our team objective, to take the business objectives and translate them into signals, for lack of a better word, to our key stakeholders.

37:14So we know who it is that we're working with when, and then every team that's under that umbrella that I talked about is really focused on that one thing. We share, you know, we have, again, probably back to my General Mills days, but we have a matrix where we look at, you know, by team, what are we doing to win hearts, to drive feet? Both things are really important. Yeah. It's brand new performance. Yes. Better way to say it, actually. Yes, yes.

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38:45So let's flip to the creative brief. Okay. And we talked about this in the beginning, but I want to come back to it. You love working in Minnesota. Yeah, I do. Talk more about it. What is special? What could other regions learn from this? I came here in 1999 thinking that I was going to be here for, I don't know, a year or two, right? I was doing the CPG gig and learning all the things. And I, you know, I'm still here 26 years later. It's our home. This is where we raised our family and our child. And it's an important place, dear friends and family. I think it's because of the fact that people here care and they care about each other.

39:22Maybe it's the cold weather and the fact that we're indoors so much. But you know what? When it's nice out, we're outside a lot too. So I just think it's actually one of those places where people care about each other and they care about their neighbor. It starts with that. And then I would say too, obviously the brands are pretty sweet. And the companies that come here. Yeah, but that comes from the people, right? It does, it does. So it starts with the people value and the brands and companies will come out of that. You know, when I was doing my startup, it was really interesting because there were not a lot of women in technology in Minnesota.

39:50And certainly none of them were focused on B2C. We were really focused on the consumer or the chief health officer. So I did actually go to New York quite a bit. And what was interesting about being in New York at the time is that I was the person from Minnesota So that was interesting for the New Yorkers. But that was a pretty vibrant, wonderful culture as well. And I do actually think there are a lot of similarities between Minnesota and New York, which is probably too long of a tale for this right now. But it's a very creative, vibrant culture here. Yeah, I think. And you share that with New York.

40:18Yeah. Okay. What campaign or initiative in your career has been most meaningful for you? There's been so many. But, you know, I'd be remiss to say it wasn't Red Stamp because I feel like that was, you know, I spent over 10 years of my life building that brand, building that company. And we did some really cool stuff. Like one of the things that I'm most proud of with that was competing and winning at South by Southwest for a hot new startup and a hot new app. The fact that we were able to move so quickly to mobile, the fact that we were able to really withstand Apple coming in and out, some of the other greats, I won't name them by names, either entering the category and leaving and or sniffing around.

41:03The fact that we were seen as not only an app, but really a solution and a movement, so to speak. The work that we did there was really cool. And we did it with such scrappiness. And scrappiness, it was kind of amazing. So just taking those awards that we won and really spinning them into something was a lot of fun. What are you reading, watching, listening to for inspiration these days? It's a great question. I am a fan of business books. I feel like the cool thing to do is to say I'm not a fan of business books. But like I look at Brene Brown, for example, and the fact she's coming out with a new book.

41:40I love the intersection of humanity and work. I think there's a lot to be learned there. So, you know, anything that speaks to emotional intelligence or core values and work, Adam Grant, et cetera, I'm a big fan. You're a podcast listener? Well, of course. I listen to the CMO podcast. I love it. Wasn't a leading question. No, no. I, you know, I, I, I, yes, I dabble in podcasts, but I also really try most of the time when I'm listening to podcasts is when I'm in the car and I actually really just try and carve out time for music and like just rocking out my car, right? Like refreshing my brain.

42:11So I like live music. I try to keep it pretty diverse. Um, for me, it's like the killer's spoon, you know, what would we call that music? I don't know, but cool kids in the room. What would we call that music? Rock. Rock, I guess. Indie rock. Indie rock. Yeah. That's what, that's what the sidelines saying. What's the first brand that you remember making an impact on you? It's Lincoln, Lincoln Mercury. Not only because. I don't think we've heard that yet in seven years. Well, the fact that my dad, I mean, he really talking about like eating your dog food or whatever the saying is. I mean, he drove it.

42:48We talked about it. It was, we went to the Renaissance Center in Detroit on the regular back when, you know, Lincoln Mercury and Ford was in charge of the Renaissance Center. I mean, I rode in it every day with my dad. He was always the one who took us to school. So it was just a really big brand. I was surrounded by it. So what brand or leaders do you admire right now for their creativity? when you do some benchmarking, when you think about who's doing what. I know you look at brands in your category, of course. Right, right. I mean, if I mention some, it's not that I'm ignoring others. I think anyone who's really staying true to who they are as a brand is pretty amazing.

43:26Like I look at what Athleta has done and within a bigger corporate culture with the B Corp focused on women, I think that's pretty impressive. I just got their latest catalog and I'm like, man, they've even upped their game on the designs because originally I would shop there because it was B Corp and, you know, company by women, for women within that larger structure. We know how difficult that is to work that, but they continued up their game. I have a question that I'm borrowing from a fellow Twin Cities CMO, Dave Schneider from Red Wing. This is his favorite question. So we're asking of all guests while we're here in our Twin Cities tour, what's the greatest risk you'd take if you knew you couldn't fail?

44:04Okay, well, I have to say one thing because I really believe you only need to succeed one more time than you fail. So I'm a pretty risk accepting person. I also feel like there's no such thing as failure. There's only market fit. So I tend to charge into things and then figure it out as I go along. So what is the one thing that I would do if failure was not really an option, basically? Well, I think I would just travel around the world all the time, 24 seven. I mean, I think I would just figure out a way to make it work where I would create different homes within different countries. Where would you go first?

44:38Italy. I just really love the food. I know, and the scenery. But, you know, I mean, we were just in London and Edinburgh this past year. And I mean, that was so fun, just being in Edinburgh and walking around. Yeah, so I just, I really have a love of the world. And I think that there's so much to be learned from other cultures, so. Who's been the most inspiring person in your life? You know, I would have to say my son. Life hasn't always been easy for him. He is someone who really has a lot of grit. And I admire that a lot. And I think about him a lot in situations where, you know, I feel like I've had a much easier path.

45:14And I think what he's done with his and what he continues to do with his is really inspirational. Minnesota grit. Minnesota grit. Born and raised. Yes, that's right. Erin, did you have fun? So much fun. I knew I'd have fun with you. Yes. From dinner, meeting you at dinner last night. This is going to be a fun interview. Yeah, you got to make fun happen. That's the thing. Anywhere you go, right? The headline for the show. Thank you. Oh, thank you for this. Oh, it's been a great joy. And thank you for all the lessons. Oh, thanks. Yeah, very profound. Oh, thank you. Oh, my gosh. Okay, I feel like now I can just, I don't know, go home.

45:46Take the rest of the day off. Take the rest of the day off, yeah. Go have one of those cold foams. Thanks, Jim. This is really great. Thank you. That was my conversation with Erin. Three takeaways from this one for your business brand and life. First one, the importance and meaningfulness of daily grounding. Erin wakes up in the morning, spends reflective time, grounds herself, meditates, has a great cup of coffee, and thinks about what her impact will be that day. We simply do not build enough time for reflection into our daily lives. Second takeaway, say yes to high-profile assignments. Erin talked about the power of being on the brand champion project while at General Mills, reporting to the CMO and the CEO, having daily meetings with the CMO and the CEO.

46:33She said it was tough. It was demanding. But she talked about it several times in this show. It helped her develop skills that have helped her throughout her entire career. And third takeaway, know yourself and be true to yourself. This woman is a wonderful human being. She has the mantra she shared on this show. She knows who she is, what she stands for. She shares it with her team. She knows what she's good at. She knows what she's not great at. And this is one of the key traits that has made her such a wonderful and effective leader. Third takeaway, know yourself and be true to yourself. We hear that a lot on this show, but Erin really embodies that.

47:09She has a mantra. She shares it with her team. She knows what she's great at. She knows what she's not great at. She's a great leader, a self-aware leader, an effective leader. And it was a wonderful, wonderful chance to get to know her better.

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