How To Nail Local Marketing with with Jena Wolfe, VP of Marketing at Goop Kitchen | Ep. 444

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0:33Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests, stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the f*** up. We are back with another episode of the Marketing Millennials podcast. Today, I have Jenna Wolf, VP of Marketing at Goop Kitchen. And if I'm not mistaken, you were the first VP of Marketing at Goop Kitchen. So that's exciting. So I'm excited to chat all things marketing today. But could you give a little background like how you got into marketing?

1:21I'm interested to hear your story. Yeah, I mean, I wanted to be a writer in New York City. I wanted to work at magazines and I graduated from NYU and I started working at a magazine called Black Book. And I was doing a lot of their, I always loved restaurants and food. I was also doing a lot of their restaurant listings, content. They had like something called the, I think it was their little Black Book listings. I can't remember the name. And I was trying to freelance and, you know, basically I needed more money. And so I matriculated from editorial into marketing, advertising. I worked at an agency and then that turned into a very cool firm called Undercurrent, really popular in like 2009, 2010, doing social media marketing for some of the biggest brands.

2:11And then I started my own thing and I ran creative agencies for almost 15 years. Goop Kitchen is a really fun pivot for me because it's my first time going brown side. but it's been a very natural evolution from um from editorial to good clean food yeah i mean it's going it's like full swing going back to your roots which is cool so when a brand like goop kitchen is growing so quickly how do you actually determine what is sacred to the brand um and what can never change versus what should be willing to change Yeah, it's a really good question. I think you have to understand who you are, just like a person, a brand has to know what it believes in, what it cares about.

3:02You know, what it absolutely won't change for us. It's pretty easy because it's baked into the food that we serve, right? We are everything in our menu is gluten free. It's seed oil free. It's without artificial flavors, no preservatives, no refined sugars. We have this long list of no's, but our yes list is delicious food that makes you feel great. And that's kind of our worldview, knowing that our promise to our guests is we're going to give you food that's going to taste amazing. It's delicious. We value deliciousness. We want you to enjoy eating. We believe that eating should be a joyful experience.

3:38It's such a big part of our lives. But also the food that you eat is your daily medicine and it should make you feel good, not just today, but every day. We believe that food is the easiest way to increase your longevity and your helpfulness and how you feel. So we knew that and everything we did was through that lens. You know, when we think about brand partnerships, when we think about photography, when we think about language, those two things always have to be true for us. Delicious food that makes you feel good. If it's not going to fall into that worldview, it's really not good kitchen. i like that i love that your product really shares the values which is makes it easier to market than when it's like very commodity and then you have to like invent not invent but come up with those values through like the product i i'm interested in because i used to live in la i used to see goop kitchen everywhere but i'm interested in how you um made the pivot to like a whole like the new york customer and like what you learned from the California customer and going to because the New York market is there's some some similarities but pretty different than LA um so how would you describe those differences in that campaign you ran there we really wanted to show that we get I lived in New York for 20 years first of all and then I moved to LA six years ago and right away when I started working at Good Kitchen I was like we have to bring this to New York because New Yorkers will love it it will crush there and there is this natural, you know, relationship between the coast.

5:15Everyone in New York comes to LA and vice versa. And what's better? That whole conversation. So this was a really, really like near and dear to my heart and something that I'd been excited about even before it was on the roadmap. And I think what we wanted to show is that we get New York. We understand the pulse of the city, that it's fast, that it's high intensity, that people don't have time, but they value what they eat. They value everything they do. Every minute matters. You're on the run. You're juggling a million things. Most times for families, both parents are working, high pressure environment, and that there's this beautiful kind of high low to New York, you know, like there's amazing restaurants, but like takeout is a big part of the culture and finding like the best slice of pizza and the best taco and the best, you know, ethnic food and finding cool restaurants all over the boroughs.

6:09Like it's just a place to explore. And, you know, real New Yorkers take the subway. It's dirty. It's gritty. It's not like always, you know, a gossip girl vision and on the Upper East Side at the Met. So we really wanted to show that we are we understand New York. We see it. We love it. We respect it. And there's a place for Goop Kitchen in this city. So our campaign was about leveraged partnering with iconic New Yorkers and not, you know, the most famous New Yorkers, but just people that are, that stand for different tastes of the city. So we partnered with John Cuell Jones, who is a forward in the New York Liberty, is a forward in the New York Liberty.

6:47Giovanni Furlan, who's a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet. Kelly Catrone, who's an epic PR maven. Old Jewish men who are an Instagram account of these grouchy, kind of crabby, older Brooklynites. And we worked with them to tell the story about Goop Kitchen and introduce it to the city. And a big part of that is also saying, you know, we have a really diverse menu and there's something on our menu that's for everyone. This is not just a California girl menu. There's filled with salads, right? We have incredible salads and they're nutritious and dense and delicious and have lots of ingredients in them.

7:25They're not plain or boring or skimpy, but we also have pizzas and wraps and bowls and rotisserie chicken and sides. So we wanted to say that, you know, there's something for all different people, whether you're this incredible PR guru down in Soho, or you're like a crabby old guy in Brooklyn, or you're a busy mom and you have little kids like we're here for you. We're made for delivery. Also, that's another big part of it. All of our food is engineered for delivery. So what better city to be in than New York City where delivery is so pervasive? and we and we have food that's going to delight everybody in your life and that was the real those the combination of all those things led to this very fun hopefully very genuine campaign what is like a couple things in like your marketing that you deliberately did not change for New York that you kept like the same core DNA and I know I love that you changed a little little bit of the DNA to make sure that it fed the city.

8:29But what in the DNA were like, like the core goop kitchen that wasn't changed for New York? I mean, the menu didn't change. We didn't launch with an exclusive dish. We didn't launch with a new menu addition holistically. We brought the goop kitchen that everybody loves in Southern California and Northern California now to New York City. And the number one selling dish was the Brentwood Chinese chicken salad. In L.A., it's the teriyaki chicken bowl by far. But in New York, the Brentwood Chinese chicken salad is the forerunner, which is really interesting because I think people want that taste of L.A.

9:05in New York. Right. That that helpfulness, that idea that you're aligning yourself with kind of West Coast values and SoCal culture. But interestingly, like we didn't change the menu and there was no like, you know, menu collab item or partnership. We, we introduced the brand, but in a packaging that felt New York. Yeah. I love that. I, cause I, I remember like I, I live in the Miami and like they introduced like Pura Vida into New York and like everybody wanted like that taste of Miami and New York. And it like, it's always crowded. Like, I think they, I think New York sometimes craves like the outside.

9:46And I also think that I've heard like in a lot of podcasts, so there's like not really great like salad-lated lunch places in new york like they have like like la is like known for like good lunch spots where like new york is you have a lot of spots but like do they have like where can i get a good salad so it kind of makes sense why um goop kitchen salad is like on top there because it's like la you're like competing against like a lot of places that are like making healthy good salads where in New York you're like there's competition but not as like like I think people want that LA salad when they're in New York sometimes yeah I think it's exciting to get you know and I live in LA now I miss New York if someone could get me you know I want a delicious bowl of matzo ball soup and you know like a really fresh soft pretzel like there are things that I miss about New York that you want here and it brings that nostalgia and it connects the coast that unifies the brand.

10:46The other interesting thing is that in New York, we're finding more success in some locations with evening. So what's really cool about Goop Kitchen is that our menu is so diverse, like I said, that we're really not just a lunchtime spot. There's so many like rich, hearty, comforting dishes that are great for dinner, like our whole rotisserie line and some of our bowls. So I think unlike like some of our other competitors, we have a very healthy dinner business. And and because New York is such a delivery culture, it really lends itself to that. So that's been cool to see, you know, I'm interested, like before you like when I know, you know, New York core because you lived there for a long time.

11:28But like before you entered into like the new market, what are some things like as a marketer you did to like do consumer research to make sure like you actually got the market, the state of the market when you were entering in? Well, I think the most important thing for us is that even though I just said we are day to night, lunchtime and office lunches and catering is like such a fit for Goop Kitchen. So our first, our debut launch in New York was in Midtown. That's like the capital of office culture. And, you know, we cannot even keep up with that lunch rush. um our auvs there our av in midtown is is off the charts it's charts it's just it's it's astronomical um so there's such a clear product market fit for us when it comes to um lunch lunch business so that's the first thing is really thinking smart and working closely with our real estate team to identify the the demos and the neighborhoods where where that's going to be a fit because we barely have to market it.

12:40You know, people are just like, oh, we need some new lunch options and we have to cater this meeting. And that's awesome. Like, it's just easy. It clicks. When it's a little bit more challenging from a marketing perspective is when we know that our audience is there, but we have to find them. So whether that's through performance marketing on our first party channels or third party channels, you know, a lot of our businesses with DoorDash and Uber Eats and third-party delivery apps, whether it's with out-of-home or CTV or partnerships, whatever, you know, it's not always going to be as easy as opening up a restaurant in the middle of, you know, in Times Square where there's so much going on.

13:18So that's where more of the challenge is. But I think we knew at a very high level that, you know, our customer was all over the city. It's just how do we find them and how do we break through and prove that we are, you know, not just a great alternative to some of the other fast casual restaurants, but also to just your favorite local restaurants in the neighborhood if you're going to order in. Because, and I lived in New York for 20 years, you know, some of my favorite restaurants, I don't want to take out there. I want to go there. I don't want to sit and want the food to be hot and delicious.

13:51I love going to Don Angie and Isodi and some of my favorite West Village haunts. But, you know, to go, they're just taking that food and they're putting it into a container and someone's shuttling it to your house and Goop Kitchen is designing for delivery. So everything that we make, we're thinking about how is this gonna sit in a container for 40 minutes? How is the container gonna be the best, you know, industrial design to maintain the integrity of this dish? How can we include the sauce and the crunchies so that people don't forget it along the way? And it's a superior experience because of that.

14:26So did I answer your question? him no yeah you definitely did because i i wanted to lean into because i a trend that i'm looking i'm seeing is especially when you launch in like a new market you like to use like local personalities and i know you're you just are launching in san diego too which actually is my hometown and i actually went like my mom lives in carmel valley and i went into like the the one paseo and i was like oh goop kitchen's coming there that's cool what do you think i i i didn't go in there because it wasn't opening it so i went but i was like oh it's like the perfect location for goop kitchen in california but i want to go into the campaign because like rob machado is like a like classic san diego surfer bro like the culture in san diego is very very different than yeah like la it's more surfer chill so like what what thought process went to like going into that campaign versus like the new york campaign because it's a way different crowd i would say yeah Yeah, there's a similarity in that we wanted to partner with local legends or local icons.

15:33But obviously, they're so different tonally. New York is fast and it's intense and it's high paced and it's rushed and it's high low and it's dirty and it's glam. It's all those things at once. And San Diego is slow and beautiful and sunny and easy and clean and relaxed and not stressful at all. I'm newly obsessed with San Diego. It's like the most beautiful place ever. And, you know, this is going to be our first, our first dine-in location. So we actually have 92 seats between indoor and outdoor dining. Beautiful space. We designed it with an incredible team, Michael Shue Architects, and worked very closely with Gwyneth Paltrow on every element of the design.

16:18It's just a really, really stunning space. And we knew that we wanted it to feel inviting. and to mirror the pace of Del Mar, which is, you know, family friendly, leisurely, be present, enjoy the moment. We wanted to have a space for gathering. We wanted to play into surf culture, which we feel like represents a lot of those same values. You know, it's a very, surfing is a very meditative, um peaceful uh patient practice you know if you surf it's not like you're going out there and you're whacking a tennis ball you know you're you're paddling out you're sitting you're waiting for the wave it's it's slow it's rhythmic it's beautiful and um we thought that was a really nice anchor for the entire campaign.

17:14And so we, we reached out to Rob Machado and his daughter Rose, who's incredible. And then we had the surf girls, um, and, and a few other faces, um, to help us, you know, introduce the brand similarly to what we did in New York, but with a very, very, very different energy. How much of your day do you spend listening to content? For me, it's constant. Music on a wall. Whatever podcast my dear wife is blasting in the morning. In the car. YouTube music for my toddler's latest favorite song. Audio is with you when no other medium is. That goes for your audience too. Sirius XM Media is the single largest audio ecosystem in the US.

18:01Reaching 9 in 10 Americans. Time to work audio in your advertising plan. Learn more about the largest addressable audio ecosystem at www.seriousxmmedia.com slash Daniel. I'm also interested, like, being attached to such, like, a well-known celebrity. Like, how do you, like, not overly use her, but, like, when do you choose your moments to, like, introduce, like, Philip Paltrow into, like, the moments of, like, launches And when are you taking a seat back and like relying on like not over relying on like that celebrity, like the celebrity. Obviously, people like no group, like some people know group because of Gwyneth, but not everybody knows group because of Gwyneth.

18:50So like how you pick and choose those moments. Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, she is very involved in the brand from like a creative and culinary perspective. She informs the whole menu, the whole diet and philosophy of Goop Kitchen is based on her philosophy and how she ate and the things that she cared about with some of her first cookbooks. And it dates back to, you know, her relationship with her dad when he got sick and trying to get him healthy and eating a certain way. So the DNA of the brand and the food is she's integral to that. And she's very involved still in ongoing menu innovation, as well as big brand moments.

19:31We want her sign off. We want her to think, you know, to be involved in it creatively. For New York, she was very, very involved. Obviously, she was the face of the campaign and did a lot of press. And I think that was just such a big moment for the brand to go to launch in New York that we knew we wanted her to be like a central figure. But we also really, you know, this brand stands on its own. And we have an incredible head chef, Chef Kim Floresca, who is Michelin trained, has worked in some of the best restaurants in the world, per se, Il Bui. And so we pull Gwyneth in when it's when it's the really big stuff.

20:09But we also have lots of incredible people on our team who can represent the brand and speak to it really beautifully. And, you know, Gwyneth's pretty busy, so we can't rely on her for everything. yeah i know because i know my wife has worked on like some celebrity like campaigns for like e-commerce stuff and it's like you have to like really pick and choose your moments when you want that celebrity it's good that gwyneth is like part of the whole um campaign i also wanted to because you you said that san diego was like your first physical like location like what what like changed in like your marketing playbook to like market a physical location versus like a delivery only like forward business like what what are some things you thought about definitely what are some like channels you use differently um how did you think about it differently because it's a whole different game than marketing like a delivery business yeah well first and foremost the space had to be beautiful and it was really fun to think about what does goop kitchen come to life look like right because it's just something that existed in our imaginations nobody saw the kitchens we didn't have any front of house experience so for the first time we have something you can look and feel and touch with your eyes.

21:21So the design was really important. And one of the most essential elements of the design is this very large marble wall, right when you walk in that has the Goop Kitchen logo debossed into it. And that really, I think, sets the stage for what we want this space to feel like, you know, it's a it's real and natural material. It's a stone, it's clean, it's beautiful. You want more of it? I do at least in all my homes. And then we also paired that with really gorgeous, you know, custom millwork and beautiful striped fabrics and all of our upholstery and really careful tiling and lighting and textures.

22:07So the space itself, I think that was a huge marketing brand moment. Like, what does this look like? How do we bring it to life? And then in terms of, you know, the go to market and launching, we finally had a chance to invite people in, you know. So instead of sharing lots of free meals and promo codes to influencers and editors, we could say, hey, like, you know, editor from Eater, come on by and let us serve you and let us show you the full experience. And we would invite, you know, groups of moms and families and influencers in and treat them to, you know, some of our hospitality. Like at the end of the day, this is a hospitality business.

22:47Our entire operations team has a storied career, have storied careers in restaurants, actual brick and mortar restaurants. And we try to bring that to life in every touch point with Goop Kitchen digitally. But, you know, it was very exciting to us to say, okay, well, what can this look like in real life? You know, what's our service going to be like? What's our water station going to be like? How often can we interact with guests? what are all the touch points between like the guest experience and the servers and everyone who's prepping for delivery? How do we make this feel like a welcoming space, even if you're just popping in to pick up your food or if you're going to sit down for the first time?

23:23So it was, it's really holistic. It's the space itself. It's the marketing tactics and the PR tactics. And then it's also the service model that we aligned on. And we really thought about how to bring hospitality into every piece of it. I love that marketing has a seat at the table with this because you don't, sometimes you kind of, you don't get the seat at the table and then you have to market something that may not align with like that DNA you've been marketing for a long time. But it's nice to hear like you had some seat in the table to like help design what does the brand feel like in person, which I think is really cool and really essential to make like what this really was like a online experience like feel like in person which is really cool to hear that Goop did that um I also wanted to ask like how how do you like when you bring on a new teammate or new new team members how is like that that that brand DNA passed on like do you how do you document it to make sure like everyone in the team is living and breathing these like values that Goop embodies.

24:42Yeah. So from like a brand identity, creative perspective, we have a very robust brand book. And that was the first thing I did when I joined the company is I worked with Gwyneth and a small team internally to build a brand positioning and brand guidelines that were very robust, not just here's our logo, here's our colors, here's our fonts, but all the details of how to bring it to life. And then like, here's how we speak. Here's how we don't speak. Here's what we value as a brand. Here's our brand on a page. Here's how we, you know, here's how we approach art direction and photography. And we redid all of our photography and here's how we come to life in X, Y, and Z ways.

25:22So we have a really robust brand book. And then we try to make that really actionable for the team that's executing against it. So however your team is designing, if they're in Canva or Figma or Adobe Suite, you know, we try to build out really clean, easy, accessible depositories for all of the brand materials. Like a lot of our team does stuff in Canva. We have like a whole brand suite there. So that's getting very, very logistical. In addition to like the brand identity, we also have more corporate values that our operations team leads the development of and tries to imbue into all of our like team meetings, our leadership meetings, our alignment meetings weekly.

26:07So it's a company that really cares about values and culture and mission. And there's many ways that we're constantly trying to reinforce those values and have them be shared and felt and understood by everyone at the company level. And as we grow, because we're growing rapidly, you know we're just we're we're constantly um iterating on the best ways to do that yeah i was interested like as you are like scaling and adding more products more locations more partnerships what is like the test you put those through to like see if this strengthens the brand or dilutes the brand like what is that like filter you have to make sure like if i'm going to add a new partnership with X, like this actually strengthens or diluted or like I learned from this test that actually I did X, Y and Z and my kind of diluted the brand and we should go back to like, what is a test you run to make sure it strengthens it?

27:10Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit of science and a little bit of like just gut chemistry feeling, right? It's never going to be just one or the other. When it comes to partnerships, you know, I'm really keen to tell the story that anything can be made clean, that clean food is just real food made with whole ingredients. Our number one selling dish, like I said earlier, is the chicken teriyaki bowl. It's not a salad. It's a chicken teriyaki bowl, which is not a low-cal dish. It's a delicious dish that is traditionally made with lots of sugar and ours is not. And, you know, everyone wants permission to eat the things that they're craving, that they don't have to feel bad about it because they know it's made with really good ingredients.

27:55So to me, I want to partner with people, brands, businesses, things that help us tell that story that anything can be made clean. Like, I love that challenge. And then the second thing, that second big piece of our partnership story is, you know, we really believe that food is medicine and it's the key to longevity and health and wellness forever. So we want to tell that story. And I think a great partner for us, a good example of all this coming to life was the Andrew Huberman dish that we did. We made a turkey chili with him and it's absolutely delicious. One of my favorite things that we've had on the menu, we're keeping it on the menu.

28:33It's a turkey chili and you build it bento box style on top of a Japanese sweet potato. So like you put the potato down and pour the chili on it. And then there's all these delicious toppings on top. And it's so nourishing and satisfying and like savory and umami. And I just love it so much. But it's also really good for you. It's super high in protein and lean in fat. And, you know, it's all about he's all about brain health and thinking about your long-term health and so we got to tell all of those stories with one dish and it's just such a great symbol for what we're trying to do with our partnerships deliciousness taking care of you forever that's good kitchen as you've been scaling like what is one thing you you wish you knew before you started that you know now that you would have like maybe done a little differently they?

29:29I think the role of local marketing is really challenging for a business like ours. And I didn't have a ton of direct experience in that discipline. And it's also really changing because of the way that we're spending our media dollars. You know, it's very effective and very easy to throw money at performance marketing, paid media to get new customers. But when you're launching in smaller locations or like more residential areas, you need to build that word of mouth awareness. You need to be a little bit more boots on the ground than just pressing go on meta and Google or DoorDash ads. So that's the one piece that I'm like, I wish I had a little bit more foresight into how that would work but you know it's still an ongoing strategic question for like for how to deploy those resources where's the best use of time and dollars and budget and how do we really connect with our audience when they're not on meta i i liked it i also like like think your approach of using like local people rather than getting like that big name and local people using connect is like was a good way of like introducing it to the market because I feel like LA, I just picture the billboard that you all used to have in Studio City, like right there.

30:56And I know it was always there. I don't know if it's still there, but I just picture that group kitchen billboard all the time. And that made me want to order all the time. So it's just like those type of little like localized out of home marketing where you like they get people in through the door and areas you choose like Studio City or like areas where there are people who want to order that type of food last question um what is a marketing hill you would die on a marketing hill i would die on um

31:36oh my god how have other people answered this this is a good one yeah a lot of some people i mean a lot of people are like down the brand tail like you need brand marketing to like like performance doesn't get you like brand is long-term performance is short term yeah so a lot of people have different but everybody has like their own take on like their like deep opinion about marketing like mine is like i believe like every marketer should be a t-shaped marker like you should be highly specialized in one but know the whole business like a marketing to be good at it yeah how it affects everything so there's like a lot of like deep opinions that people have so i think mine is more yes all those things you said are true but i think for me and this is just more of my personality too like i'm a risk taker you know i always ask myself, what's the worst thing that could happen?

32:36And if I could live with that, like I'm all about the risk. I think you have to take big swings and really know who you are as a brand and then take some scary bets because when it pays off, it pays off in a really big way that will get you all the attention and the kudos you want and also just and work for the business. So I don't know. I think that's my. No, I like it. Take risks. Yeah, I think most, I think you're the first person, and I've had a lot of that said that. And I totally agree that like, I think we've been, a lot of marketers play it safe. Because it's like, you have to have that inherent, got like adrenaline that this is.