The Retail Journey
Welcome to the Retail Journey where we will cover important topics, interview industry stakeholders, and address emerging trends as we journey through our mission of helping our listeners thrive in retail. Your hosts for this show are CEO James Harris and CGO Charles Greathouse.
The Retail Journey
Customer Centric Shopper Marketing Tactics (with Sean Campbell, CEO of Campbell Creative)
Get ready to immerse yourself in a compelling conversation with Sean Campbell, CEO of Campbell Creative. We'll dive into Sean's journey from working in retail, his agency background, and work in marketing and public relations. We'll also hear about the motivation behind his start of Campbell Creative and their unique value-based agency model and taking the less trodden path in marketing. We'll learn from Sean's unique insights into the science of shopper marketing, the Storybrand framework, understanding customer motivations, how to create an irresistible offer, and how to help an emerging brand be successful in their initial marketing efforts.
A key piece of this podcast will cover the concept of Storybrand, a marketing framework developed by Donald Miller that has been pivotal in Campbell Creative's success and helping their clients. Learn how the power of a well-crafted story can transform your brand and captivate your audience. You'll learn how to serve your hero (the customer) and how to market yourself as a helpful guide. The conversation also delves into the art of creating irresistible offers, generating high-quality content, and the critical role of understanding customer pain points when selling across different channels.
We round off our conversation with an intriguing discussion around how some successful brands have fine-tuned their offerings and customer experience to create a winning formula. Don't miss out on these valuable marketing, branding, and storytelling insights and the powerful focus of speaking to the customer when marketing or selling!
Hello and welcome to the retail journey. Today we are blessed to have the one and only Sean Campbell, CEO and founder of Campbell Creative. Sean, welcome to the retail journey. I'm one of your hosts, Charles Great House, and, to my left, our better host, James Harris.
Speaker 2:All right, Sean been looking forward to this one buddy. First of all, just tell us a little bit about yourself, who are you, and then we'll get to Campbell Creative.
Speaker 3:Love it Well. First of all, what an honor to be with you, two Awesome blokes.
Speaker 2:Privileges are Geniuses.
Speaker 3:Retail geniuses but.
Speaker 2:Sean has listened to every single retail journey podcast as it's being made Fairfied.
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:No, it's been awesome being with you guys, Glad to be here and talk marketing, but a little bit about myself. I'm a dad of three. Our house right now is a little bit like a hurricane. We have two boys four and two and then a newborn, and so it's a fun balance. It's like waking up to a tornado some days.
Speaker 1:It's a fun balance for those that can't see his eyes. There are tears there. They're slowly streaming out of them.
Speaker 2:So when the third, when the third, your, your, your daughter came along, was it kind of like drowning in some bayhinja baby, exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, except there I would add an element of like she'll do no wrong.
Speaker 2:And the other two.
Speaker 3:I'm like, yeah, we're gonna have to work on that. But she won't do that for a princess forever but, but I'm a dad, I'm a serial entrepreneur, so I enjoy problem solving, I enjoy business, I enjoy investing, I enjoy helping people and and guiding people in different ways, enjoy learning. But that's kind of a core of who I am. And then I've been married to my wife Kaylee, for 10 years. She is way smarter and better looking and just altogether a better person.
Speaker 1:Congratulations.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've married up, but yeah, that's kind of a nutshell of of a little bit about me.
Speaker 2:So so Campbell creative, you know, maybe tell a listeners a little bit about that. And then I'm really interested in because I don't know this your, your origin story, what, what was the, what was the motivation? What, what, what problems were you looking to solve?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I got into marketing by accident that's probably the easiest way to describe it is. Didn't go to school for it. Probably went to school and studied theology, but fell in love with marketing early. My dad served as a vendor to Walmart and so grew up with that and sort of, you know, fell in love with entrepreneurship early on with lawn care as a teenager and then, you know, working for different businessmen that I respected and could kind of see a little glimpse of. Oh, that's different than the normal nine to five right.
Speaker 3:And then out of college really fell in love with marketing, like fully gotten an internship with Sam's Club, and so I spent the entire summer working every department in a Sam's Club store and it was eyeopening to just learn retail to get thrown into the mix of how do consumers think what's you know? How do you get things into a basket, how is it, you know, built on the end cap, all those things and just the science of marketing and storytelling. I fell in love with that and so fast forward, had some time in an agency, managed and worked my way up there, and then served as a director of marketing PR for another, for a national recruiting company, and during that time had friends that were also entrepreneurial and started you know, trying to market themselves or their small business. And since I didn't have a non-compete anymore, I started to serve them and go, sure, I'll help you build a website. And so the fun fact, the first website I ever built I did as a trade and I did it for an AR-15.
Speaker 1:Oh no, my buddy built me I don't know if that's Arkansas Website for a weapon. There you go.
Speaker 3:Redneck marketing.
Speaker 1:That is Arkansas.
Speaker 3:We did a trade so he built me a gun. I built him a website. But, yeah, just got into that and fell in love again with just how do you serve people and tell their story in a concise way that really just identifies with people. And I call it truth telling. How do you tell truth in authentic ways that draw people in for all the right reasons? It's not polishing a turd, it's being open, honest, transparent in marketing. And you asked me kind of why we started Camper Creative. Honestly, coming from the agency side, I didn't always agree with things. I learned a lot in that season, but one of the biggest things I really felt was a gap in marketing and agency world was just that transparency, just the openness about when things go wrong. Instead of blaming it on this or blaming it on that, you learn from it. I think you may have said this on another podcast, but you reserve the right to learn from a mistake. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I reserve the right to get smarter. Correct yeah.
Speaker 3:And I felt like a lot of agencies are so scared that they hide things or there's smoke and mirrors, and to me I think if you make a mistake that's a good thing, because then you're figuring out how not to do that again or that might help you with another client down the road. But anyway. So I saw this gap and just felt like there were some things that were missing and I felt like it was just too transactional. I felt like it was serving people very well. It was too cookie cutter put in a box and I felt like if you're really serving people, especially in marketing, you have to react fast and you have to be able to be flexible and you have to be able to call an audible and go with the flow sometimes and admit, hey, we didn't do that right, but let's do this instead. Let's call you know it's a read option and there's a linebacker hanging out on the left side. Run the other way, right, yeah, you know, or pass the ball, whatever it takes.
Speaker 3:And so I think, learning that lesson early, I realized there needs to be more flexibility as an agency and serving the client and I'd say, on an additional level, and really this is kind of what separates our business a little bit is sort of this phrase called a value-based agency, which to me is we want to work with brains and we want to do work that is purposeful. We want to really steward relationships with the client, with the consumer, in a very healthy way, and what I mean by that is, instead of how can we make fast money, it's how are we making this grow, how are we making either category or this business grow in a way that's truly servicing what the customer needs and wants and what's best for them, and so that's really, I'd say, a core foundation of us. I could tell you a story about a guy named Ralph, if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:I want to tell you this story because it's so good.
Speaker 3:A few years ago I was kind of searching for really again. I wanted to disrupt and differentiate our agency and it came from an old guy named Ralph on a men's retreat in that new life ranch and at the time I was reading a book called Vivid Vision, which is a great book on how do you create the story of your company and reverse engineer from years ahead and kind of build back and advance towards what your goals are and all that. But it was kind of the perfect timing because I was really searching, praying about what our vision need to be, and this old guy named Ralph just drew my attention at New Life Ranch and so I went to sit down next to him. He was by himself in a rocking chair, going back and forth.
Speaker 3:First impression is I thought he was grumpy and mean, complete opposite, humble, gracious, so much wisdom. And so I started asking him tell me your story, where are you from? Turned out he had operated two Dairy Queens for more than 40 years and I immediately started calling him the ice cream king. I was like you know ice cream, don't you? But I began to just ask him so how was that? Tell me? What would you say to a young guy like me after that experience, and he began to tell a story of how, when he had retired, that there were people that had been there for 35, 40 years with him at a Dairy Queen, and he said that over a period of time they had actually outperformed larger markets of Chicago and Illinois and market managers would come from all the country to try to piece out why are you in these small towns doing what you're doing?
Speaker 3:He boiled it down to two things, and this is really where the value-based core has come from in our business, he said. First thing we did is I learned that as the leader, that it's my job to make everyone else successful, to serve them, to lead through service, and so he gave multiple examples. He said we had a single mom that couldn't make rent and so we would just pay her rent and take care of her. Or somebody had car trouble, we would just help out or pitch in and do what we could to just make sure they could get to work and take care of their family. My favorite example he told I couldn't believe this. He mentioned a young kid that for months had accidentally given away thousands of dollars in the drive-through window, that he was calculating things in his brain and was slowly giving a dollar here 20 cents, here 30.
Speaker 3:And so over they didn't audit and there was like a chunk of money missing and they had to figure out where this was coming from.
Speaker 2:So I thought he was stealing.
Speaker 3:He wasn't stealing. He was just honest and said I made a mistake. But instead of firing him, ralph said they took him aside and said hey, we're going to learn from this. We're going to learn with you through this and we're going to encourage you to do some better math, follow the systems and protocol we have in place, but really we're going to humanize this. Instead of you're not just a check mark on our franchise, you are a piece of our puzzle that is crucial to our success and we want you to be successful. And through your success, we know you're going to take care of our team in our restaurant. And all that turns out. So this young man is now the CEO of a corporation and he leads 500 people. And so Ralph's telling me these stories. I'm like this is unreal, like can I?
Speaker 3:steal this. So he said that was the point Number one is how do I serve my team and make them successful in and outside of business and in outside of our restaurant? And he said the number two thing is I read my Bible and I applied everything I could see from the Bible to our business, and so after that experience with Ralph, I was like can I please steal this? And that's kind of become the core of our agency is really serving people radically. Another kind of phrase I've coined is obsessive excellence, and I'm learning how to do that more and more of. Maybe it's not always we get every detail right, but we're getting the purpose right, and that, I feel, is what sets us apart as, like we may not make all the money possible, but we're doing it in the best way.
Speaker 3:We have a clean conscious, we know that our customers are well-served, and so I know I'm super passionate, I'm preaching a sermon or something but these are kind of the things that I feel like set us apart and really, now that I've been in this for years, I'm incredibly committed to, and have had to learn the process of saying no to things that are outside of our model and going. That's not a good fit. Yeah, we can make good money here, but this doesn't check the box of making our team successful.
Speaker 2:Speaking of past mistakes that's been my most repeated mistake is saying yes when I should have said that yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm still learning that.
Speaker 2:And I, we you know, charles, and I know you well and or I've gotten to know you well anyway and we'll share, for the sake of people listening, that you've been working with high impact with our firm either into last year, first of this year, and you are different. There is something that sets you all apart, the there's no sense of we're doing this for you. It feels like you've integrated you and your team into our team, and I mean any given day of the week I'm gonna walk by an officer conference room and you or somebody in your team sitting there working on something for us, and one of the biggest benefits that I've taken away from it so far is Storybrand. Like you introduced that concept of Storybrand to me, you love me some story, so you know, give us like what that it's also.
Speaker 2:It's obviously a value creating mode of marketing and it's not a look at me, but let me look at you and figure out what you need, but tell us you know, from your perspective, storybrand and why that's such a big part of how you do your job, your business, love it.
Speaker 3:Love it. Yeah, so for those that aren't familiar with Storybrand, it's a marketing framework and it's been developed by a guy named Donald Miller. Tell you a little bit of the origin of that and then talk, probably, about how we apply that to the work that we do. But Donald was a bestselling author and in the early 2000s really took off when he wrote a book called Blue Like Jazz. It's a New York Times bestseller and he just it's a cool book, kind of Seattle based, like philosophy, slash theology, storytelling book and it did really well. But he wrote several other books that just didn't do as well and he couldn't figure out why. He was kind of defeated Like man. I had an awesome take off.
Speaker 3:But now I'm not really replicating that and he has sort of this epiphany moment when he happens to be on an airplane and sits down next to a lady that has his book on her lap and he's like, all right, this is gonna be good, I'm gonna do some market research and ask her some questions about the book and she's mostly through the book. But through this hour long flight he discovers she can't tell him the plot, she's missing main points of the book and he just realizes like I can't keep writing. I've gotta figure out why I'm not selling and where this has gone off the tracks. So what he ends up doing is he hits pause, calls his publishers, like I don't think I can write another book right now. I'm gonna come back to you. And he takes a couple of years and starts to study story. He starts to study why do things sell? Well, it makes a good narrative. Why do you think sell off the shelf? What motivates people to take action? And he begins to discover this seven part framework that's been around for years and years and years, all the way back to Aristotle, basically in storytelling, and it's super easy. It's pretty basic once you get to know it, and I'll give a couple of movie examples after I say it.
Speaker 3:But the narrative always starts with the hero right. Hero is the center of the story and in our world that's the customer right. The consumer is always the hero. Hero has a problem or they have a pain point, and that pain point can be a number of things. It could be emotional, it could be a physical thing, it could be status. Status, I feel like, is a big thing that drives people to buy, something that we don't often talk about Like I wanna look good or I want people to think this about me.
Speaker 3:So hero has a problem, pain, point right. But then they need help. They realize I can't solve this by myself. I've got to get help or a coach or a guide from somewhere. So that's step number three is there's a guide that enters the picture right and the guides role that would be any successful brand or coach or however you wanna put it. That brand's role really is to speak to the hero and say we understand you, we know where you're coming from, we know your pain, we understand your pain, we know why you're here at the store, we know why you're interested in this product. We get that and we can help you. And I feel like that's the role of a good guide is to serve that hero or that consumer well and say we understand you and we've got the solution.
Speaker 3:So hero has a problem, needs guide. Well then, the guide's role is to deliver a plan of action, and the plan can be as simple as sign up here, get an email, do this, or one, two, three step. If you will, it could be buy the product, your pain goes away, you live a great life, but there's always a plan. As simple as it is, the guide's job is to say hey, here's your get out of jail card, here's how you get out of the pain that you're in. Go this way. Well then what happens is the hero's not always trustworthy, right? He's gonna qualify the guide. He's gonna say why should I trust you? So he's gonna look for referrals or reviews on a website or a testimonial of some kind where the guide has done something that the other heroes watched another hero go through the same process and has been successful.
Speaker 3:So hero has problem needs, guide gets play in validation moment right, and then the hero has gotta make a choice, and the choice can go two ways. Either they end up with success in a victory and they bought the product, or they did what the guide told them to do and they win. Or sometimes there's that stubborn moment where they make a bad choice and there's consequences to that. And so sometimes a guide is and this is where, in my line of work with marketing, I really believe in telling the truth, but not manipulation.
Speaker 3:In telling the truth would be hey, if you go that route, there is a cost to it. There's a cost of not buying, there's a cost of inaction. Here's what it is. But take it or leave it. Do what you want and I think that's the role of a good guide is to say, hey, I've been there before. Don't go this route, it's gonna hurt Sharp rocks at the bottom. That's a quote from the Disney movie. You know what I'm talking about. He's like sharp rocks at the bottom. Let's do it. I'm gonna get in trouble with my kids now.
Speaker 2:But no, I don't know.
Speaker 3:It's Emperor's new group that's what it is.
Speaker 3:The llama's looking over the waterfall and anyways, but the guy's role is to be like, hey, don't go over the waterfall, right, it's gonna hurt, but yeah, that's story brain. And so a lot of what we do as an agency and consulting, honestly, is just reminding people that they're the guide and really helping them to say what they need to say, to identify like that to their consumer. Too many brands make the mistake of making it about themselves. Look at me, look at our experience, look at our expertise, and most consumers don't care. They just wanna know can you solve my problem, can you fix the pain I'm in? So that's story brand. It's an excellent framework for video, for websites, for ads. It's honestly a game changer for anyone that's not familiar with it and how to apply it. I mean, it's just awesome.
Speaker 2:I mean, we really took from that in naming this podcast. You know the retail journey and we wanna be the guides along that retail journey, particularly with Walmart.
Speaker 3:And you are and you guys are great guides and I've seen it in person and I've seen it work and it's amazing to watch. It's awesome.
Speaker 2:Go order those movies.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, great, Thank you for asking. So. Star Wars, yeah, star Wars is an easy one, right. You have Luke as the hero, obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda it's kind of serve as the guides, right? And then obviously the problem would be Darth Vader, darkness, and the plan would be learn the Force, luke, learn how to wield a lightsaber and trust your instincts. And, you know, pay attention to the inner prompts, your inner convictions, and, you know, fight for good. And obviously Luke has to make choice, good or bad. You know what am I going to do here? Another one of my favorites is Back to the Future. That's a good one, right? You know Marty is the hero, the professor is. You know Doc is his guide. There's obviously a moral conflict throughout the whole thing. Lion King, you could see that, lion King, I mean.
Speaker 3:I could go on and on and on but there's tons of movies that have that kind of that flair to it.
Speaker 1:Does it work the other way? Kind of just throughout a movie and you, uh, we could try a lot, sandlot.
Speaker 3:Yep, sandlot, yep, that's an absolutely, that's actually a great one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my kids love that. Actually, I shouldn't tell, I shouldn't say this on a podcast, I'm gonna say it anyways. My kids are obsessed with the scene where the rich kids pull up with, you know, the Sandlot kids and they insult each other. Yeah, so sometimes I'll walk in and I'll hey butt head. Should I laugh or should I be dead? Just laugh, life's too short.
Speaker 2:All right, so we are.
Speaker 2:We're talking about marketing for emerging brands and maybe with a flair towards direct-to-consumer DTC brands that are moving into the mass realm, which we're seeing a lot of today. Obviously, storybrand and everything we've talked about so far is a big part of that. But tell us a little bit about your philosophy when counseling brands in that position that they've got a market over here but they're moving into a new market it's emerging. What are the what's, the three, four things that you really need to be focused on and what are the pitfalls that you've seen?
Speaker 3:in that process. That's good, I mean. What comes to my mind first is, I think, first get your story right. Like, where are you in your Storybrands? Is your marketing and your content really from the guide position or are you just trying to puff yourself up and prove yourself?
Speaker 3:I think if you do it well, if you're humble and you really have your customer's best interest in mind, you're going to take a backseat and put them first and they're going to notice, they're going to pay attention and they're going to, they're going to validate you with their pocketbook once they see that your brand truly is about caring for their interests. So I think that's number one is put the customer first, always start there, put yourself in their shoes, live in their world, understand why they're putting things in their shopping cart or why they're attracted to you in the first place. I think that's number one. Number two I feel like is be honest and be fun, and I think being honest means when there is a mistake, you own it, you go yep, we didn't get that right, but we're working on it. Or you know what? That was an awesome learning experience. We're going to use this to our advantage to develop the next iteration.
Speaker 3:And I think being fun means like have some humor, like people love, like entertainment. Right now I think of TikTok, I think of Instagram, I think of what's trending and YouTube, and there's always an element of wit and kind of playfulness and that tells a lot about a brand. If you're too serious, people don't want to necessarily, you know, align with you. But if there's sort of this like hey, we get you and life's not perfect, and that's laugh a little bit along the way.
Speaker 2:And you're not taking yourself too seriously.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. If you idolize yourself and your product, I think people are like, hey, I'm turned off by that. I don't really know if that's the brain for me, and I think that you know, if you take yourself too seriously, that that's going to be a turnoff. I think, practically speaking, for emerging brands, content is huge. Having great quality content is key. So there's a couple of different layers of that. I'd say. First, you have to have great imagery and great storytelling. So that could be as simple as how is your, how is your product photographed? Is it not only in a studio environment with a white box or do you really like, have you really captured it in customers' hands doing what it should do, and do you have examples of that? I think I see too many Amazon products and Walmart products and they're bland. I don't think that's that's a fair representation of these products against a white backdrop. I think people want to see a real life example of it being used, being reviewed, even Critiqued, even.
Speaker 1:We'll pull it back to story brand. That's the. If the customer's the hero, they have to be able to see themselves in the story Brands, the guide you got to put your customer in the position of being the hero. If you just put your own product, you're the hero of your own story, which is a story not told nearly as often as you'd probably prefer it to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think yeah Again, do you serve the customer? Are they at the first part of your when you're creating a product? Are they first or is the profit first? And I think you know if you serve well, the profit will come.
Speaker 3:Big book I'm an advocate of. You guys know this is the GoGiver Love that book. The whole premise of that book is if you put people first, you really have their interest at heart. The profitability, the money thing, will take care of itself and there's a science to pricing things.
Speaker 3:I'm not an expert in that, but I do think that that kind of leads to my next point is you have to have an irresistible offer. You have to have a very accurate, articulate way of saying here's the price, but our value is here, and I think that's a big thing. That's key with being successful in Walmart and Sains Club is having a kick butt offer and the customer feels like when they walk out of the store they just got a kick butt deal and they feel almost like was that okay? Did I walk out of the store stealing, or you know like?
Speaker 3:I think there's keys to being, you know, an emerging brand where, if you don't have an irresistible offer, if it's not so attractive that they have to take action, then you're probably not going to disrupt for a while. You've got to come to the table with a very strong hey, we're almost willing to lose just a little bit to get our name out there and to get some momentum. So I think there's some coaching for that. I'd say emerging brands need to have a really good offer and know how their clients make those decisions. You know, is it money motivating them or is it a quality thing? And understanding how to communicate, how your brain can answer both those things.
Speaker 1:Like when products are serving a purpose and what they're driven by is accomplishing that goal. It comes through Every day, day in, day out. I've seen too many times those brands, especially in the DTC world, who have a very different value proposition online, trying to come to a space that has the mass appeal, like Walmart or Sam's Club, and don't know why they're not hitting it off, because at that shelf or at that decision point customer does not feel like that offers irresistible.
Speaker 3:In fact they resisted it pretty easily, yeah yeah. One thing I want to add to the irresistible offer going through and this may not speak to every customer, but I feel like it speaks to most is they want to know how easy is this and how much do I have to sacrifice. So how easy is it for me to buy this product and how much work do I have to do to activate it? And I think that's part of the irresistible offer thing is also going. It's not that expensive, or maybe it's expensive for the right reasons but this is easy to use, it's going to make your life better and it's quick. It's quick to relieve that pain, because sometimes that's the highest motivator for buyers. They're just thinking this my life sucks without this product, I need to fix this, and so sometimes the only thing they're thinking through is how fast can the pain go away? So I think emerging brands just have to be really clear about what they're doing to make their customers lives better and, to speak Walmart for a second save money, live better, right.
Speaker 3:If they don't speak to that really quickly. People like their buying decisions happen in a split second. And I think you know emerging brands I hate saying this. A lot of them tend to be mom and pop brands. They're proud of their product, they're proud of the good we did, and you almost have to sometimes remind them and go hey, you have made a great answer to this solution, or this problem made a great solution to this problem. But let's take off our look at us hat and really make it more about how do we really speak to the consumer with what they're dealing with. I almost feel like I'm a counselor sometimes I am so, but anyways, those are kind of my, I guess, nuggets, I'd say for emerging brands.
Speaker 2:There's always room for therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on the other, side of the spectrum, like major brands, those that are most successful, where you're seeing it work and where you're seeing them miss. Does the same thing hold true and tell us about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally yeah, we. You know I want to be careful with what I say We've, we've, we have NDAs. We worked with some really great brands that are really successful and growing. But I would say, you know, one of my favorite things about a successful brand is they know that they tend to know their customers so well that they're they're nitpicking all all the time and fine tuning how to really activate this little niche area that they're missing. And just to kind of quote another podcast that really or really impacted me a couple of years ago, it's the 1% rule. I feel like big brands know how to activate and improve 1% at a time and I heard this on a podcast they were talking about the US cycling team back probably early 2000s, when they was right before they, they had Lance Armstrong and before they'd won a few times.
Speaker 3:And they were, they were finishing second and third place and they they were really just obsessing about how do we get better, how do we win? We're this close, what do we have to do? And what they decided to do as a team. Their coaches got together and said we're going to start to test the 1%, we're going to start to test the things that are normally overlooked. So they started with sleep. So they started to test the material of the pillows. They started to test the temperature in the room, they started to test the type of fabrics and started to really coach their team on their sleep habits. And then they moved on to the materials that they were wearing while they were riding. They started to test how does this absorb sweat? Does this keep them cool? How aerodynamic is this? Is this light? Is this heavy? Whatever it is? But over time they started to just work on those 1% increases, and I feel like that's what big brands know how to do. They're very, very, very good at that.
Speaker 3:And I think when you're emerging, you're just trying to get stuff on the shelf. When you're a big brand, you've got stuff on the shelf and it's more about those fine new details of critiquing and improving. But yeah, the US team obviously won a few races.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean it's. It sounds like obsessive excellence right, exactly If you're going to make a 1% improvement. That's pretty obsessive, correct, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you almost have to have a little bit of crazy to be successful, Like, just a little bit of like. I'm going to work on this until it's near perfect and it's kind of OCD, but I think a lot of big brands are good at that. One other thing I'd say about big brands is and this plays into your world is that's part of analytics is reading and understanding the decisions that have been made and understanding the numbers and how to work on that, how to work using those numbers to your advantage on the next round and applying that forward. So I think analytics is a huge piece of that. I've seen grow and grow and grow more and more. I think big brands they really have that dial, then and figured out.
Speaker 2:Well, big brands know the power of 1%. The bigger the brand typically, the lower the percentage of growth, and every 1% could represent billions of dollars in revenue. It's opportunities, it's factories, that's millions of new customers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, One thing I just want to appreciate we've talked about Campbell Creative, a group that's been marketing, and we've talked about solving real problems, not just talking about marketing. Is that an accident or is this on purpose?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it's an accidental purposeful reaction?
Speaker 3:I don't know yeah.
Speaker 1:It's just such a space where, to me, trust is such a huge element and seeing how you approach a problem, with dissecting it and getting on the side of driving the results, the outcome that a client from firsthand experience what we're looking for, what others see in your work, what they're looking for much more so than just selling more content more video production, more website design.
Speaker 3:It's your target, it's what you're aimed at.
Speaker 3:I mean, I know what you're saying. I want to affirm that Anybody can do video, anybody can put together content, but I don't feel like you're going to be as successful, you're not going to realize the most return from ads or from that marketing dollar, unless you've really spent time honing in on what you're aimed at and what the messaging is and who you're directing that to. And I think that's really our specialty is starting there, asking a lot of questions, sometimes annoying questions, ask a lot of dumb questions. But it's really through that process of honing in slowly over time to figure out what matters and why. In a meeting the other day, the who, the what, the when, the where, the how, why those questions really are vital to realizing the most return in marketing. And having been on the side of the fence where I've had to report to a board and investors and go, this is where the money went this month or this is our quarter report and having to defend a position and go, we spent it here for these reasons.
Speaker 3:That investor mindset is really about realizing return, and so I think that's the marketing that I'm proud of is going. Let's start there first. Let's start with intention, and then we'll talk on how this applies and where those content and ads and those other social initiatives. That comes later. Let's talk purpose first.
Speaker 2:That's one thing I was taken with when we started working together and I've worked with a lot of good marketers and really strong, creative people. But there's a tendency and not just in that industry, but a lot of them to come in and say what do you want? And OK, I can do that and here's how much it costs. And it's a transaction and sometimes you need transactions. So not dismissing anybody or any other process, but I think it was the first three or four times that we met. There were a lot of questions, but it wasn't what image do we want or what logo design do we want. It was who are you? Who's your customer? What do you do? How do you do it? Why do people do business with you? Why do your employees work here?
Speaker 3:We had a lot of whiteboard conversations. They're my favorite, though, where you just literally you have to do that to be accurate is word vomit for a little while, and then heat map is what I call it, where, once you've got everything out on paper, circle things that really are the most important what's prioritizing to your brain. But yeah, it was an amazing process. Thanks for letting me do that.
Speaker 2:Well, because I'm not a creative guy, I'm a left brain data nerd. I'm not going to come up with the. I don't know what my logo should look like. Right, that's a.
Speaker 3:I've proved that multiple times.
Speaker 2:I hear you thinking over there, so funny.
Speaker 1:I can just recall some of the best merchants that I've worked with.
Speaker 1:I'm seeing a direct analogy to what you just described when they take their category and start breaking it down into like, okay, what's the actual purpose?
Speaker 1:What's the problem that the customer has that I'm trying to solve with the modular program, with the feature program or now that everything's omni-channel, it's with the website, it's with item pages, it's with content that's going to exist online. How are we helping the hero, which is the customer always huh, mm-hmm and squiggly, helping them solve their problem and choose the outcome, you know, and get to walk out of the store feeling really good because they were able to find the thing that solved the problem. So I think it matters, you know, not just to brands, small and large, but even as a merchant. When you're thinking about your category strategy, you're thinking about what promotions you're considering, how you're approaching, if you're not thinking of a satisfied customer who solved the problem, it's meaningful to them in a way that's the quickest, easiest. You know, anytime I've seen merchants try to change fundamental behaviors of customers, you know that strategy that was, you know, passionately held, it ends up dissipating because the results didn't come.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's difficult to change it at mass scale, but I think it just brings a tremendous amount of clarity and when you know why you're doing something, you know what you're not going to do Because you have conviction as to.
Speaker 1:Oh well, we're not. This doesn't fall into that, that pathway, and fundamentally, as a merchant, it's just not about you like you're a customer but you've got 130 million a week in a Walmart store. You're you're representing where. You've got members at Sam's Club and I think you know we had a conversation with Jack Ford from heart and I think he he put it really well because he talked both about the customer or the member that's shopping in the store, and the retailer. As a customer, yeah, most of the time is a, so merchants got certain problems they have to solve, but ultimately it all comes back to whether or not that person is able to understand how you as a brand and the retailer the context of shopping has products that that solve problems. So I appreciate the, the process of Bringing clarity and Verifying that that clarity exists across the the ecosystem.
Speaker 1:Ever you're showing up for the customer.
Speaker 3:I want to add this to this. This is kind of been a new thing for me. I'm learning this more and more. To a consumer, I mean, their money matters, right, but their time yeah, their time is really Like.
Speaker 3:I feel like that is something that we often overlook in marketing. And so how that applies a few different things I'm thinking of is, you know, when you have an ad, are you doing a commercial, how fast are you to grab their attention and hook them? How fast you only have two or three seconds? Or when you're walking through an aisle and the customer picks up your packaging, how fast can they understand what your product does and how it's applied at home or whatever, right? I think those are some things I feel like get overlooked but are so, like, so crucial to Serving that customer, because the customer feels like their time is valued and they got some time back in their lives. They'll pay a little extra sometimes, right, and so I think that's that's often overlooked.
Speaker 3:But another thought too I'm having is you know this may be a bad thing to say because, like, a lot of agencies are gonna tell you you have to spend this much to get this return right. What I think I kind of think a reverse of that. I think everyone's probably spending near the same. I think everyone's gonna throw money at social media and ads and you know you might average dollar a click on Google or whatever. It is right.
Speaker 3:I think, really, as an agency, our job is to go help a brand, to help and you know, merging product, whoever that is Realize the most return from those ad dollars. So it's like the analytics game. You're looking at conversion, you're looking at how many out of how many clicks do I get a purchase right and how many video views are people gonna take action and engage this brain? I think it was an agency, though. Our job is to help and go Okay. So if you spend X amount of dollars and you know you're gonna get X amount of clicks, how do we get the most results from those clicks? And I think it's time. I think it's again having an irresistible offer, doing something or, yeah, telling the customer how, when they Apply your product or activate it, how easy it's gonna make their life. But but being very clear about those things is how you see that return grow over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, if you gain the right customers and they're gonna come back, yes, if you would have gained a customer, that was right. They're not coming back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's that's part of the value-based agency thing is Transaction versus like transactional versus repeat business. To get repeat business, you may have to actually not be as profitable. Yeah, you have to earn trust with the customer and make some decisions that are going to elevate them and opposed to making a quick buck here or there. Yeah, and the brands that are so good at that, like they stand out. One one of my favorites is Patagonia. Patagonia's marketing and style, for the way that they communicate, is about we're not the cheapest, but we've really like, we've made our products to really like last a long time. Do good, it do a great job at what you're expecting them to do, but they're always talking about how they're trying to make their customers lives better. Mm-hmm, and I think you could. I'm actually go off on so many brands that are yeah.
Speaker 2:That was that was gonna be the next question I asked. Is you know, aside from whether it's your client or not, like not disclosing things that shouldn't be disclosed, but Brands that you've seen just in the market water, water? You know a few of those emerging brands that you saw just execute flawlessly, that really stood out to you.
Speaker 3:Can I talk one local yeah? This isn't this probably is a little outside of our retail environment, but, um, our local coffee shop that's been growing a lot recently down the street. You know I'm talking about which one seven brew.
Speaker 3:Yes they've grown like crazy, right, and I think there are some other things behind the scenes. I know of certain you know people that are involved there, but you know they've had some help investor wise, but they're doing a really great job. When you pull up to the window, you're greeted really warmly. They're coached on how to engage the customer. They're coached on being, you know, joyful, being Friendly, right, but their customer service is what sticks out to me their drinks you can buy a coffee anyway, right, right, you know their drinks are good, but they're their experience.
Speaker 3:They're fast most time they're fast. Their customer service is excellent and you have a, you know, consistent product, consistent coffee drink. That you know it's gonna be there every single time and I think of them as a great brand. That's just a fantastic job of looking at who their customers are, knowing that their time is valuable. Sitting in a drive-through is horrible and they know that it's like torture to people that are high performers sitting in drive-throughs like whatever, I gotta be there, I'm tired of being here. So they've understood their customer market really well and done a great job Serving them and, and I think, answering a lot of their, their wants from a fast coffee place.
Speaker 2:That is interesting, even seven brew, but also looking at Chick-fil-A.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we live in a pretty polar eyes.
Speaker 2:You know, hateful world or whatever I get, maybe we always have, but you know, see the things in the media and those are two really strong. We're at a Chick-fil-A, especially where it's just yeah, that's good, consistent product and it doesn't taste good but it's friendly. Yeah, it's kind and it's the customer that gets the attention. It's, you know, there's not a, there's not a big ego at the register when you're, when you're making your purchase.
Speaker 3:Can I pull? This is really kind of nitpicking, but Chick-fil-A and seven brew. One thing You'll notice about both those brands that have more people working there than any other life-minded brand Hmm, go to another fast food, another drive-through Starbucks. That's a great point. They're, it's interesting, but it's a fact. In my opinion, I think they have invested in having more team members available, which is a big return because they're getting people in and out of the drive-through faster. Chick-fil-a the same way, but their level of service is higher. Right, most companies would pull back and say we have to cut back payroll, we have to make the numbers look like this, each franchise. But those are franchises that I want to be like, you know, because I think they're. They're putting the service first and you can see it visibly when there's extra people run around doing things, trying to be quick about it.
Speaker 2:So it is interesting with cost-cutting where it's a, it's treated like it's a zero-sum game. But you cut too deep, you start losing productivity, your revenue drops and now you're you're cutting revenue and profit, not just not just cost full circle on that.
Speaker 1:Instead of reducing the cost per click, get a better return for the click. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3:They're doing that.
Speaker 1:So, instead of trying to reduce labor, it's it's have the right Outcome that the customer wants fast, friendly service that they can expect every time day-in-day out, and a drive-through line that Moves heroically fast.
Speaker 3:Yes, 100%, as you go through it anybody can make a chicken sandwich, anybody can make a coffee, but Do they feel like their time was valued? It was it quick, was it excellent? I think those are brands that I see that easily on them and I'm like, yeah, way to go, good job, you put the customer first.
Speaker 2:And CPG brands can do that by identifying the need of the of the shoppers, their consumers, and really meeting those. Meeting those needs. Yeah, any particular pitfalls without name and names. But yeah, brands that that you know had the great following, maybe is on QVC, maybe is you know they're, they're direct to home, good product had had the opportunity and just kind of what at least on at least on the first, the first entry you know that and maybe they learned from it and they they made improvements down the road, but yeah, sure I want to be careful.
Speaker 2:What are those?
Speaker 3:I don't want to talk trash about any brand.
Speaker 2:No, no. But what are the pitfalls that cause? Yeah, I think yeah.
Speaker 3:I think I'm Trying to oversell. I think that's that's a big pitfall of brands that are trying to there's. They're spending too much time looking at their competition.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have to tell the other. We have to tell our consumer how much better we are. And I think when you become so distracted with that, you forget the consumer, you forget why they're looking at your product in the first place, and I do think there is a fight to be had. You, you do have to Engage in that way and differentiate. But it's not, yeah, but it's, but again, it's truth telling that's not the primary signal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not. Look at those guys, they stink it's. Hey, we really want to take, take care of you and we, we really are looking at what you care about.
Speaker 1:I like it's death wish water, isn't it called death wish?
Speaker 3:Oh, death. Water, liquid, liquid, liquid liquid. Death wish.
Speaker 1:Liquid death water, because it's like, I'm sorry, what just happened. You have this.
Speaker 3:Massive cool can design. By the way, it's so cool, so as soon as it looks badass yeah, it looks like I want to drink this right, and it's just this random.
Speaker 1:Like I assumed it was an energy drink when the first Absolutely saw it and I found out it wasn't like, oh, that's super neat. And then at trade shows since then I've seen a bunch of Call it psychotic other brands react like I would do this crazy can design. It's like oh well you're. You started because of a Motivated opportunity looking at someone else, whereas they started at like wise water, so dumb.
Speaker 3:What can't water be better and? More exciting and yeah, they found a way to make water bad ass.
Speaker 2:Well, and even making a can instead of a bottle, you know most water out there. Maybe I have all water except liquid.
Speaker 1:Death or death wish, if death wish we got.
Speaker 3:No, I love that. I love that brand example. They've done a great job. Next, episode.
Speaker 1:We're gonna have liquid death. Yeah, well, they realize unless you want to come like, come tell us about the journey. I'm sure it's been fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they realized we have to identify with the manly men. They don't want to carry on a dinky little water bottle and they nailed it.
Speaker 1:This is a splash of water for me, yeah yeah. Absolutely awesome, all right. Speaking of death wish to lightning round, let's do it. Hit me, I Do I.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, what's the best movie you've seen recently? Sean?
Speaker 3:Oh man, it's not too recent Actually. I want to name two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you did just have a baby, so it doesn't have to be recent.
Speaker 3:So okay, so there's a new movie out called Sisu, or Sisu, don't forget that. If it's how you describe it, I will warn you it's a killing movie but it's awesome. It's about a guy who takes on a tank battalion and actually kind of true in some senses it was the end of World War II. Germans are going back to home and I think it's in Denmark is where the film takes place, but he's incredible and basically just fights like John Wick style, but World War II kind of. Now the one is Dune. I love the movie Dune. I think it's the new Star Wars. The plot is incredible. The cinematography is amazing, the color design. It was nominated for a lot of awards and in our field we do a lot of video production, cinema quality. All the guys that are nerds were just like yes, this is our movie, they get us soundtrack. Everything was just like this is awesome.
Speaker 2:Some would argue it's the original Star Wars, right? Yes, that's true.
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it's the Star Wars that didn't take off, correct, but now that it's been redone, everything about it is just beautiful. I love it.
Speaker 2:Awesome. What are you reading, or are you?
Speaker 3:reading. I am I'm like well with a newborn. I'm trying to sleep, james yeah with a newborn.
Speaker 3:It's a little hard, but I actually read. I try to read three or four books at a time. I get a little bored and so I jump back and forth between different books. I'm currently listening again to Rich Dad, poor Dad, love that book by Robert Kiyosaki. It's just good for investing, good for business ownership. On the side we do real estate development and then I'm actually looking at a franchise purchase right now. So we invest another thing, small wife and I, but it's just really healthy. Just to go back to the basics of how to make good investment how do you buy an asset and limit your liabilities all those things. So great book changed our life years ago, helped us really choose some different paths on debt and how do we approach business and try to be lean when we can and invest heavy when we think it's the right move. So I'm listening to that.
Speaker 3:One just wrapped up a book, apprenticeship to Jesus. That's a great book, great spiritual book. That's been helping me just be more prayerful and a way of that. And then actually reading a parenting book right now on how to might miss read the title, but it's how to create kind kids and it's really. It's honestly like a counseling book. I'm having to go back oh man, I've messed up but it's really helping me to learn how to connect with my kids and try to love them. Well, and they're all different, but it's been a great healthy book for me to just kind of rethink parenting and kind of take away what I've learned and from my past and hit the reset button in different ways as well. So but yeah, those are three books.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of in right now, so we often ask what's your biggest win in retail. So maybe not totally applicable, but what's something your team's done that you're most proud of?
Speaker 1:Man.
Speaker 2:Something that just delighted you to no end.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll talk about a product we did last year. We did a project with Celebrity and it was a very big project for us. It required a lot of teamwork, late night stress and it ended up being a national campaign for Walmart and General Mills.
Speaker 3:It was with Kenan Thompson, oh yeah, it was the celebrity and it was a school experience just working with him, working with both teams at Walmart and General Mills, and it was really about box tops. It's about for the box tops program. So what a great program that gives back to schools and teachers and kids. And that's I mean when I think about projects that are really purposeful, that really are about giving back to community or doing good. I'm really proud of that project because I feel like it was a fun way to sort of illuminate their program and really share about just the joy of giving back to community and making that kind of a cool thing.
Speaker 3:So that was a fun project that we did. I'd call that a win, A learner. We learned a lot through it too, a learner. Yeah, we did a lot of stuff through it, but it was a great project.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very cool. I got to see a few of those commercials too. I didn't realize that was a Campbell creative.
Speaker 1:How about?
Speaker 2:it All right. Well, thanks a lot, sean. This has been a lot of fun. Hopefully, we can get you on here again on a different topic one of these days, but thank you as well for tuning in. Feel free to subscribe. We'd love to hear from you from our website, through LinkedIn, what are your thoughts, what are topics you'd like to hear, what are corrections you need to make for the record of things that we said today and you can find all of our episodes on highimpactanalyticscom no shell.
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