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
Mastering Category Growth and Consumer Alignment with Todd Rupp: Evolving Insights in Retail Strategy
Unlock the secrets to successful category growth with the wisdom of Todd Rupp, the 'Todd Father' of Category Management, as he navigates the intricacies of evolving retail landscapes at High Impact. Our Director of Category Growth shares his transformative journey from sales to category mastery, focusing on the power of aligning with consumer needs rather than solely pushing brands. This episode is a treasure trove of insights as we discuss best practices in retail analytics, the transition from DSS to Walmart Luminate, and the vital role of ROI in securing leadership buy-in for innovative data-driven strategies.
Get ready to go beyond the barcode with a deep dive into Walmart's shopper behavior data utilization. As traditional DSS becomes a relic of the past, our conversation with Todd unveils how customization in analytics is becoming the bedrock of understanding consumer patterns. We tackle the hard decisions companies face in a race against the clock—a choice between basic and advanced data access. Todd's expertise in incremental sales and customer reports spotlights how data not only refines merchant dialogues but also sharpens top-tier decision-making frameworks.
Finally, we take a look at the real-world implications of category management failures and successes. Category growth isn't just about the next big flavor; it's about adding true value to the consumer's experience. Jeff Lerner's transformation from high school dropout to seasoned entrepreneur underscores the boundless potential residing in us all. The episode wraps with a candid examination of consumer behavior, dissecting the dichotomy between stated desires and actual buying habits. Whether you're a retail aficionado or an emerging brand strategist, this episode offers invaluable lessons on steering through the complex tides of market demands and consumer choices.
Hello and welcome back to the retail journey podcast. I'm one of your hosts.
Speaker 2:Charles Greathouse and I am James Harris, and today we're talking to our very own Todd Rupp. Todd is our Director of Category Growth at High Impact, but we call him affectionately the Todd Father of Category Management.
Speaker 3:Yes, how are you, todd? Todd, welcome, thank you.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, excited to be here and yeah, that name. I can thank my good friend, mark Stamps. He is the one who gave me that name Coin that. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it. It fits too. It fits yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, now, especially with the beard yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So when did you first know that you were going to become the Todd Father of Category Management?
Speaker 3:You know it's funny, I tell a lot of people you know I started off in sales actually and a lot of people, I think, get exposure to both of them. But there's very you know, it's black and white People really gravitate towards one or the other and pretty early on I gravitated towards category. So you know that was 20 some odd years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've done a few people that jump from category to sales and 18, 24 months later they're back in category.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is where I belong Exactly. It's a little bit like Northwest Arkansas. There's not a lot of gray, either Love it or hate it, I think yeah.
Speaker 1:I love it. So when you you think about what is category management, we got a lot of folks across the you know CPG land that probably have some kind of idea. We've got lots of folks that probably don't use it. So how would you describe category management?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's. You know, I think it's obviously in this market. You've got what we can call the category advisors right, category captains and some other parts of it right, and that's a very distinct part of category management for sure, for me, kind of category management overall, right. It really boils down to one thing, right, like you are understanding how to grow the category right, and whether you're a category advisor or just a category manager manager working with your sales team, you know your number one responsibility is figuring out how to grow the category, regardless of brand, regardless of product, regardless of any of that. So you're kind of taking all of that information to figure out. You know, how is the, how is the category going to grow? Right? That's ultimately, I think, what it comes down to.
Speaker 1:So I've seen, as a merchant, a whole lot of presentations that don't talk about the category. And now on this side of the of the desk, I've seen, you know, planned presentations to merchants that don't talk about the category. So you telling me that, putting the category at the center of the growth story, or how do you advise someone who's maybe stuck in the lane of like? I'm here to talk about myself and to make sure that my brand is in front of the merchant.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's you know.
Speaker 3:You certainly understand, especially with kind of emerging brands and, and you know somebody's company, it's their baby, right, like they and it's all they know it's they want to talk about it and and they put their heart and soul into it, developed it, right, it's understandable that that's where they want to spend their time talking, but you know, really it's.
Speaker 3:You know consumers don't buy products, they buy solutions, right, yeah, and you know you need to think about what unmet need or what are you meeting. You know, from that consumer's perspective, right, and that's ultimately what you want to try and sell to a merchant or anybody. Is your solution, right, what problem are you solving for that consumer? So it's, you know that's really important to start there, right, and it's also right it's really hard to think about. You know, most merchants could really care less, right, like they're ultimately responsible for the category growth, right, they can care less, whether it's private label, whether it's you know your brand, somebody else's brand or you know the combination of all of them, as long as their category is growing and so if you can come in with that perspective of helping them grow the category, it makes selling it that much easier.
Speaker 1:I mean, you hit the nail on the head, todd, as a recovering merchant, which is how I refer to myself as a not a merchant anymore, but always a merchant the easier you make the analogy between what you're doing and how it affects what I'm trying to do as a merchant, which is grow the category, the easier it is for me to say oh yeah, that would help me accomplish my goal here, which doesn't necessarily have to do with selling your brand. It has to do with solving my customers problems.
Speaker 2:Well, nobody comes in, or I hope nobody would come into a buyer meeting and say you need to buy this so I could take share from brands that are already on the shelf.
Speaker 3:You would hope you would grow the size of the pie. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So we talked a lot about Walmart Luminate on here and it's not specifically a category management tool, but I would say it does have category as kind of a central focus, along with the shopper, the customer. And you've been working with Luminate really since it came on the market, right. So let's talk a little bit with your time at previous companies, how you helped, how you worked with those companies to make the transition from decision support to Walmart Luminate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and it's certainly is a journey for sure. I like to give Charles a hard time with it. That was probably launched before it was ready for primetime. So there were a lot of bugs, a lot of issues with it and it was a major investment. Right, for any company it's a major investment and senior leadership wants to see that return on that investment sooner rather than later.
Speaker 3:Right, for our team it was a little bit easier, right, you know, having a big category advisor team, having a team of people that are, you know, in shopper data on a regular basis, understand those metrics, understand what they're telling them. So what we saw and what we continue to see today, is the category teams pick it up quicker than the rest of the organization. But the tool was built for the whole organization, right, and so for us it was really important. We also knew, going into it, right, that change management was going to be huge. People are so used to using retail link for, you know, 20, 30 years, some people that a brand new platform, brand new data, brand new interface. Right, there was going to be a very, very steep learning curve and we needed the resources to have somebody that became that subject matter expert really, really quickly. And so, you know, we were fortunate that we were able to convince the senior leadership to bring that on board, right, and so we had that. But that is that's the tough part about you know. Even bringing it on today is just that Like, it's still this massive amount of new data. It's a different platform. The metrics are named different, right? There's all of these different things that are coming on board all at the same time, and even the category managers, who understand that data right, they had, you know, 40, probably 50 or sometimes 60 hour a week work weeks already, and now you're piling that on top of them, right, and so it was really important that we, you know, and again, right, getting that adoption from the broader organization was important as well, too.
Speaker 3:So, first and foremost, right, you got to make sure the data is accurate, right, and so that involves a lot of looking at what items are. Where does it have all of the items? Or items mislabeled? Are they in the wrong category? Right, because as you start to pull that data in, if you know all of that stuff is not correct, then what it's spitting out is just correct either, right, and so, you know, taking that very kind of foundational approach of like A, let's make sure the data is correct, let's make sure you know we've got it in a way that we want to analyze the business which is a whole other topic right From an attribution standpoint of the data, and then you know laying out a plan to you know how do we bring this to fruition.
Speaker 3:You know, a on our local Walmart team, b on our category team, and then, really importantly, with this new data, you know our corporate team as well too, because there's a lot of use cases for the corporate team as well too, whether it's, you know, a brand management, finance, shopper, marketing there's a lot of information that Illuminate brings that is, you know, super valuable to that part of the organization as well too. But having that plan of knowing that this is going to be a lot of new information and new data and how do we get to where we want to be, that's probably the biggest thing I could tell anybody. That's kind of stepping into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and coming from the CPG side of the business more than the retailer, you know, the firewall between sales and category management has always been, you know, very clear what lives on one side and what's not allowed to live on the other side. And while there's still a firewall, there's still information that category shouldn't, doesn't, share with sales. They now, for the first time, have visibility to mostly the same data, right? So how does the firewall component of this evolve and our category teams able to start talking more with sales?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and that was, you know, obviously, a big question at my last organization as well too, right, like, hey, we're you know how much of these guardrails are coming down now that we've got, you know, very similar views of that. And I would say you know absolutely the traditional guardrails and firewalls and you know the curtains, right, are still there, right, everything. You know discussions you have with the buyer as an advisor, confidence. You know innovation that's coming. You know all of that stuff that traditionally has been behind the firewall is still there Now.
Speaker 3:You know, relatively, you know, over the last several years, right, the introduction of syndicated data, and you know Serkanah Nielsen, you've got visibility to that category information too. This is the first time, though, right, where you've got Walmart specific shopper information on your category, understanding what those shoppers are doing for your sales organization and your category organization and your you know your broader organization as well too, right. So I think the conversations are certainly going to change and they should change, right, and I think I don't know if that was ultimately Walmart what they wanted, right, but I think they understand that that can bring a lot of value to them as well too.
Speaker 2:Especially if your power users are on the category side, like, even if just from training and facilitation of how to use the new tool, and I think it's also right.
Speaker 3:There's going to be this expectation now, though, as well, too, on the sales team. Going back to this right selling from a category perspective Yep, you now have all of this category information again goes back to what are you know, how is your product helping me grow that category? And you can bring those you know, shopper metrics and shopper information into the conversation, and I think that's going to become the norm now in a lot of the you know line reviews and conversations with the merchants as they start to get more familiar with it as well too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, we've seen it Areas of the store where you can't show up to a line review without having a clear customer centric point of view as you walk in and for Walmart, that currency, that knowledge base is the Walmart Luminate system.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely it's. It's certainly going to be become more and more the standard right, and then come March, right like it is, the currency is right.
Speaker 1:Fair, fair point. We're recording this and it's 87 days until March 1. It is Taylor Swift's boyfriend's number 19 days. Maybe I should be counting that more. So you know you've got the Luminate basic, luminate charter. Primarily we've been talking about charter, correct, because basic is kind of like DSS, but less some things, that a little bit more, but different, correct?
Speaker 2:very different, very different. So, looking at shopper behavior specifically, there's 22 Reports that, so water some from your experience. You, I think you've probably been on the using side of it more than than Charles or myself. What are some of the best practices that you've kind of uncovered around shopper behavior?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the first one is probably right and it's kind of the report that gets used a lot as the performance in detail report and that, you know, really gives you that true picture of the channel breakout of your business right that we really really haven't seen before, and so that really becomes a great tool to kind of understand. You know on an ongoing basis what's driving your business. You know which channel, what products in that channel you know again, you can get into, you know the type of customer and that channel on that product is driving that right. So very, very detailed you know really good understanding of that. You know kind of and I don't like this word, right, but omni perspective, right, and and where the growth is really coming from and where you might want to focus.
Speaker 3:And then obviously you know with with the loss of, you know some of the the market basket data that we've been used to in DSS, right, you've got you know much more rich, deep understanding of that basket in shopper behavior as well too. So, understanding you know who that customer is, what they're buying, understanding you know where they might be switching to, where their loyalties are, the you know assortment, deep dive, which is a portion of shopper behavior as well, too, is, you know, that could be a whole another podcast, right? The amount of information that is in that like, if you just if you just spent your first six months like really understanding how to leverage that, that could be immense. Oh yeah, huge, huge benefit there. That gets back to you know, not just understanding what the sales are of your competitive items, but the incrementality, the substitutability right, those kind of things. Really, you know, start to paint some pictures that you haven't had, you know visibility to before now.
Speaker 3:You know Best, you know your best customer right is a is an interesting report that you can, you can dive into that as well too. And then it's also about, you know, the customization, right, and I think that's something that people don't really understand about the tool as well, too. Charles and I have talked about this a lot. Right, it's, it's very much customizable, which is great on the one hand, and then also kind of a pain in the butt on the other. One right when you can get, you know, super, super detailed and get to any level that you want to. But you have to put in the effort to create those customizations, whether it's attributions, whether it's creating custom groups of items and it's got to be done right, yeah, exactly maintained.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so super, super, you know, complicated from that perspective, but you know, again, it's just, it depends really. You know, I tell everybody as well too, like you can't just open up shopper behavior and look at the reports and start pulling reports and I need to find an insight. You got to start with a fundamental business question, right that you're trying to understand Whether it's about your shopper, a competitor shopper, the Walmart shopper in general, and then what you'll find is you'll dig into one report and that will generate some more questions that you want to go Try and find the answer to you.
Speaker 1:What are some of those questions? So I mean, think back Todd father, to the old Todd father days where you didn't have access to Illuminate and there's questions where you wanted to be able to ask and you could Potentially get your way there with some panel work, but you knew full well the merchant was gonna look at you and be like, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm super neat.
Speaker 1:Yeah that someone else's customers think this. So what are some of those questions that were like Just itching? I don't want to, you know, get into any sort of too specific Of examples from the past so you can't maybe talk specifically to, but what are those questions that you've always wanted to ask that now People actually can if you're a trader client?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, and I think it is, you know, you know who is that, you know, and that is I get back to. That is because it's a really unique report. Is that the best customer report?
Speaker 3:I didn't understanding, right, because that is that is a person that's not only potentially super valuable to your category but is also super valuable to wall. You. Walmart, you know in general, right, yeah, so if you can dive in to your portfolio and understand that you know a significant portion of your portfolio, that that you know Walmart best customer is, you know, super loyal to you, whether it's your brand or or Some segment of your business, like that's super powerful right in conversations Not only with the merchant but at some senior levels with Walmart as well too, right? So I think you know we never really understood, you know, how valuable you know Even an item, let alone a category or subcategory, might be to Walmart consumers, shoppers in general. Well, you can absolutely find that out now and then.
Speaker 3:I think the other thing for me is you know you're always wondering about incrementality of, yeah, line extensions and stuff you're bringing in, and where is the source of of volume coming from? Are you just swapping paint? Are you bringing new Customers into the category? Right, going back to you know, are you growing the category or you just, you know, trading paint with, with your competitors? Never really could get to that at the level that we have right at Walmart to your point. There's some other data sources that you can use to help understand that. But right, when you've got Walmart specific data, walmart sales right, they're showing you you're either bringing in new customers or they're just going to you from another brand in the category and it's not growing the category. That's a level that we've never, you know, been able to get to as well.
Speaker 1:It's so fun to get to those things that you've just never been able to get to before. I know there's a lot of folks out there. You know 87 days until everyone's forced to make a change and then deciding between, okay, do I basic this or do I step into the world of charter there are a lot of possibilities with charter access. As you think about people in that spot trying to make those decisions, what are some of the things that come to mind from your experience to help them kind of decide where and how? How do we go next?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's a and that's a tough one, right, and there's a lot of organizations that are struggling with that question right now. Right, you know, I think ultimately, right, companies, every company, should be working towards becoming much more data driven in general. Right, so, you know, I think you should ask yourself that question first, right, how data driven are we as an organization today? Right, because you know you don't want to make that investment if you don't have, you know, a, the resources, b the tools you know to help leverage it. Right? The second thing I would say is you know, how do we plan to use it?
Speaker 3:Again, right, like this, it's not a silver bullet. You have investments, probably in some other data sources that unfortunately, you can't make the trade off for. Right, you know, I like to tell people that you have to do a lot of triangulation. Right, we had, we had several examples in the past where we would use it, but we needed kind of that external data point, whether it was a market perspective, whether it was a share loss to a specific competitor right, to be able to show them exactly what we're talking about. Right, so this product and the data is telling us this and, oh, by the way it's playing out in the market. This competitor is growing share because you aren't carrying this item right, like direct correlation, so super, super powerful information. And so you can't just make a trade off between syndicated data and Walmart Luminate data, right.
Speaker 3:And so, as you start to think about you know, what types of data do we want to have? How does our organization operate? Those are the types of questions that I would be thinking about, and the other thing to keep in mind is you know you may have competitors that are in it as well too, and, like I liked you know, or like I told my old organization as well too, like who knows what they're bringing to them, right, wrong or indifferent. They're bringing them something and I want to be able to, either you know, corroborate or refute what they're bringing to them. And if you don't have that access, you won't be able to do it.
Speaker 3:But again, it's you know. The worst thing you can do is think that you know I'm going to purchase this data, we're going to generate a bunch of insights with what we have today and how we operate, like that's probably the wrong way to go. Right, if you're willing to make the commitment to put in the effort to, you know, get the resources to change maybe the way your company functions with shopper data, then yeah, absolutely, it's something you should be thinking about for sure. And then again right, you know all about this as well, charles to just kind of the size of your business, how they're priced. Those are all things to consider as well too, whether it you know well, it makes a ton of sense for you to do it, or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Good counsel, wisdom from experience some of that Lernt. I'm sure you had plenty of leaders looking at you wondering if you found the silver bullet yet. Yeah, Day two of access. Exactly Did you find this?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, we talked with customers that have, you know, recently signed up with it as well too, and they're, you know, they're all under immense pressure right to understand the value of this data and the value that they're investing in, and you know, understandably right. But it's also, you know, if you're doing business as usual and, just you know, write a check for this data, like, yeah, it's going to be really hard to see a return on it.
Speaker 1:That's a great point, I mean. I like that Because you, over your career, you've probably spent or argued to spend, solicited the funds to spend an enormous amount of money for data for many different sources. So just to elevate a bit from Walmart Luminate to like paying for data being data-driven Where's the value in data?
Speaker 2:How do you? Coach someone who's maybe even not tried to solicit money for data or they're finding themselves needing to buy it for the first time. Why and where?
Speaker 3:And there's so many organizations right and typically it's the bigger ones too right that it's just like they want to get their hands on everything right Because they understand data.
Speaker 1:So more data is the thing, just more data.
Speaker 3:More data, more data, right, and not understanding ultimately what the end objective is of that data gets back to again having the right resources, right. I kind of think of it as a pyramid, right, like data is the foundation, information kind of that next level, and then actionable insights is kind of the peak of that pyramid. And if you're only focused on that foundation of just as much data as we can get, you're never going to get to that top of what are the actionable insights right, yeah, data is just numbers until you do something with it, Correct?
Speaker 3:right and it's you know. So, taking that data, putting it in information which is cleansing it, attributing it, putting it in the ways that you can, and then analyzing it and getting to that actually action-oriented insight. That's where it's really important, right and so.
Speaker 1:The action? Yeah, because we've seen so many firms that are the person who owns the action, who has a full plate. You know that 60 hour a week workload as it is today now has added an enormous amount more data, doesn't have the transformation from that data to information right and doesn't have capacity for any additional action right. That's going to be a very bad ROI.
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, exactly, and it's you know. Again, it gets you know and then it's You're going to need a bigger pyramid.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, you know, and then it's. You know, it's certainly not that individual's fault, right? And it's not the, you know, the person that's in that data or not in the data, because they're doing their day-to-day job and what they were expected to do, right, and so it's either bringing on that additional resource or, you know, finding some way to help that individual get to that level that they need to get to. That makes sense.
Speaker 2:Let's go a little bit different approach here. I feel like we've talked a lot about sales teams' uses of Walmart Luminate. So, how would you look for this item of this shop or this? What are some of the things that category, especially on the advisor side? What are they looking at in order to bring full category scope? Recommendations that say the beginning of a line review cycle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know again, get back to it Like it's not significantly different from what the sales team is looking at.
Speaker 3:right, because it's really or should be looking at right From a category perspective, right, but the big kind of thing that it brought to the table was and I go back to that kind of assortment deep dive as well too right, like you're, that's exactly what you know the internal team at Walmart was using to kind of bring to the merchants right At a line review of understanding, right, you know that the priority order of items, right, which there's a lot that goes into that, and then you know you take that science and then mix that with a little bit of the art of understanding the category and the shopper, right, but that was a huge kind of benefit to the category advising side of the business, right, because we spent, we get back to it right, like you know, assortment tools and all these other things right, as the advisor, you want it to be seen as you know, thought leadership and bringing the merchant the best information about their assortment and their category.
Speaker 3:This makes that a lot easier from a Walmart perspective. One caveat to that right Again, though, is that you're missing that. You know broader market perspective, right. So, again, it goes back to it's not the end-all be-all.
Speaker 2:You still need to see what's happening in the grocery store Right. What's going out?
Speaker 3:there, right, but from a Walmart specific perspective, like it saved a ton of time of understanding. You know the assortment in the category, what truly is incremental, what is substitutable, what can I potentially delete, and then running those scenarios as well too, to see you know, hey, I'm thinking about deleting this segment entirely, like, what is that going to do to my business, right? The tough part of that is, you know you, obviously it's only as good as the data that goes in it and so what you're planning on bringing in from an innovation and new item perspective, it's only as good as what your assumptions are of you know those sales rates and those sales velocities. But it's a great place for us to start and really saved a lot of work as well too.
Speaker 3:Clustering is another one, right, where you can kind of look at, you know, store groupings in a different way than you have in the past, and that was always kind of a big, big you know line item or topic with a merchant as you were going through a line item or a line review of understanding like A, do I need to change clustering B, how are they performing? What would we do differently based on new information or new data? So that was huge as well too. And then you know again I go back to it even as category advisors we didn't truly have a multi-channel, you know vision of the category. We now have that and are able to make those recommendations to the merchant as well too. And understanding, you know what segment, what you know items might be working better in one channel versus another.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of folks that don't have a category team, that don't maybe deploy category management. Now they've heard from the Todd father and they know they need category management, or at least they like the idea of the concepts of what that looks like. Is there a like? Where do you start? How do you start getting category management as a practice into the core of your business if it's not been a muscle that's existed for a long?
Speaker 3:time man, that's a million dollar question.
Speaker 3:Besides hiring the Todd, Fong, exactly, yeah, and that's, I mean, it's a really tough one too, right, Because it is, you know, it's certainly not something that happens overnight, like it has to be a fundamental shift in the entire organization of understanding what it means to go to market with a category growth mindset, right, and you know there are companies that I think are continuing to work in that direction, and I think you know moving, you know in the right direction for sure.
Speaker 3:But ultimately it goes back to again, too right, I talk about it that you know people don't buy products, right, they buy solutions. And you know, from a category perspective, it's all about starting with that in mind and understanding the needs of that shopper, the needs of the consumer, right, whether you know it's understanding human behaviors, human, you know, needs, you know that's where it all really starts, right, and then you know where your product and your offering and your portfolio fits into meeting those. That's kind of where the rubber hits the road. But ultimately, if you're not building the entire organization on that level of thought into how we're going to grow this business, it's really, really difficult.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a serious level of intentionality needed there so yeah, when I was a sales analyst at Unilever and I was getting ready to move to another retailer to move into category management, I was put into a like a one week category management training thing and my understanding of it at the time was drawing mods Like I'm way, we're halfway through the first day of the where's the GDA.
Speaker 2:You're not alone in that understanding, and that was the first exposure I had to like a decision tree, a switching tree, a gap analysis, the way to kind of break down a category, and it really is a whole universe of selling tools that's out there.
Speaker 1:Well, if anything more than a, more than a mod, more than any of the specific tools. It's almost a cultural bent. Yeah, so as you look at the customer, understand the root behind. I think that's why I'm drawn to some of the emerging brands that we work with. We're like they may not call it category, but their entire ethos is around customers have this problem and they have all these compensating behaviors and they're compensating. They're taking a second rate choice because the solution doesn't exist. So we built the solution Right. Well, that's a category management.
Speaker 3:The tough part is teaching them how to sell that without injecting their brain into everything.
Speaker 1:And then because if you say that the overall is true, and then we happen to meet it, it's, it's going to stand the test of time, right, and then there's even you know, almost organizational design element to how you approach category as a, as a company.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, it's and it's crazy, and I think I showed you guys something that you know. I've known this all along as well too, but I sent you that. You know you can look at it and you know five, five different options, right, and one of the options is you know, walk through this use case.
Speaker 3:I love the category is up you know 10% but your brand share is down 5% is one of the options, Like, if you were planning for that, would you choose that? Right? You brand manager or you know VP of sales, right? Like, would that be your choice? It's not ideal. Probably nine out of 10 are going to say no, right? Well, you do the numbers right and over a five year period of the category grew that much and you lost that much share. It's probably about 30% more dollars in your pocket for the brand than almost the other way around, right? If you grew your share 10% in the category was, you know, down 5%, you're going to lose a lot more money, right? And so it puts it very, very plainly right, and that's, you know, something we should think about. Right, about understanding.
Speaker 1:Well, link it in the notes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you talk about you know, talking to somebody, an emerging brand or somebody or a company right Of, like you know, charles, why do I have to sell the category Like this is my product right? Well, here's why. Right, like you could grow all this share, right, if the category doesn't grow, your bottom line is going to look worse than you know working on figuring out how to grow that category right, and so it's to me it's a little bit of an eye opener and like it's. You know, I've worked at some really big branded companies, right, and there's a lot of times we felt like you know, hey, what can we produce that are really high profit margin? Now, where are the insights to support it?
Speaker 1:right, and so that's the last place you want to be.
Speaker 3:Carp before horse and trying to sell to a merchant or any retailer, let alone Walmart, right, and so you know again, it goes back to kind of. You know creating that mindset around. You know category growth and generating products that meet those needs and that you know human understanding of. You know where is this? You know product fit in from that perspective Versus. You know hey, they're looking for new flavors Like that's not where you want to be.
Speaker 2:Differentiation without it being better, is just something different. Correct Yep.
Speaker 3:Or meeting a need that's not currently being met. Right, Right.
Speaker 2:All right, ready for lightning, all right, oh boy. So what are you? What are you reading, or what have you been reading here?
Speaker 3:lately. You know I've actually podcasts are my new new thing, right and one of the one of the ones I really love is his name is Jeff Lerner and it's called Unlock your Potential, and he's got a really great story. He dropped out of high school. He became a jazz musician for about 10, 15 years, you know, got to, he worked and he lived in Houston at the time and so he got to work in like the owner of the Houston Astros and the owner of the Texans, like he'd do their dinner parties, right, but that's how he got his network, and so now he owns a company it's called the Entree Institute and it's basically helping people become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs people that are already entrepreneurs how do they help them kind of get to that next level? But it's also about just understanding like every individual has, you know, probably this untapped potential that they don't really understand, and so that's been a really cool one to kind of get hooked on and he has some really, really interesting guests.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, next one's a zinger. You know what's the biggest retail failure that you've either been a part of, I think, or seen, because I'm sure you've got some stories of like oh yeah, that didn't go the way we thought it would.
Speaker 3:Oh man, yeah, and I, I got to be careful with that one. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus on that one for sure.
Speaker 1:The bus is backed over a lot of people, but I will.
Speaker 3:I will broaden it to kind of get back to what we were talking about right when I think I think the organization thought we were creating a category driver and understanding what the need was.
Speaker 1:It started with innovation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:It started with the product we're going to sell.
Speaker 3:And and yeah, it got back to and and it just did not work A lot of things as well too. And it's also, you know, the price point was probably the biggest one of that. And you know, for whatever reason, I'm not sure, exactly sure why the price point was where it was, and I will tell you that it was in kind of the you know kind of better for you, natural, you know kind of that kind of thing where it was like, oh, that's the trend and like, well, did we really understand what?
Speaker 1:again, going back to that human need and want, and was Well, there were lots of launches around that time that were better for you natural premium, you know, organic kind of a thing and they all failed. And then there was this resounding message of like, yeah, customers care, they're just not willing to pay more for it, right, yeah, and that was spread across Walmart very quickly, exactly. Yeah, it's great, but yeah.
Speaker 3:Which gets back to the. You know there's so much too, and I love primary research. It's certainly a great tool, right. But getting back to it, you know illuminate versus like what they actually do.
Speaker 3:Yes Versus what they say right In a primary research like that is it's super powerful and, and you know, hopefully organizations start to use that as well too, right Prior to launching something that you know, maybe a focus group tells them it's the. It's the next greatest thing. Yep, Go back and look at kind of their shopping habits and you use the one. Yeah, tell it your favorite story. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:This. This just in hot take. I've made this story up the whole time, yeah, from the beginning of founding data ventures and tell the whole time. I've made this story up of Coso, customer perception, the primary research tool within Walmart. Illuminate uses actual purchase history, which is incredible because self-reported purchase histories can be inflated from a number of reasons, and so it's like you know, you may say you're an organic or a natural consumer and we totally believe you. That's great. And you buy double stuffed Oreos twice a month and that's fine, you know. And if you're mandalese, like you know, it's a stress. There's no organic Oreo, because double stuffed Oreos are the right Oreo, like you know. Try to prove me that single stuff is better and like I've got an argument and I'm ready to. I'm ready to have it, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But either way, oreos, they don't have to worry about right, because even the organic consumer understands what they're getting into and it's delicious.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly, but yeah, a lot, a lot of times, what they say versus what they do. Yeah, do not allow even how you see yourself Like hey, that's super great.
Speaker 1:You buy all only healthy food, Like great, yeah, it's great. Yeah, exactly Any purchase history.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fine and I know a little bit of the answer to this one, but what do you do to relax? What are your hobbies?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you definitely know this one. So fishing is the biggest one Any, any type. I mean, I definitely you know he offers the lure.
Speaker 1:The fish can't refuse.
Speaker 3:Yeah, grew up in Colorado so did a lot of fly fishing as a kid. Still love it. It's probably my top one and a lot of people don't know like we live in a fantastic area for fly fishing. You know the tailwaters. You know might not be the, you know native, you know Colorado high mountain stream but you know you go over below Bullsholes Dam and like it's a world-class trout fishery and the two biggest fish I've caught in my life are over there and so it's fantastic. But, yeah, love fishing, love being outside. You know hiking, you know wish I was more of a mountain biker, given Charles and the team.
Speaker 1:We could fix that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly I. It's like I tell everybody, though it was like it used to be golf, right, but it's like if I get four hours right away from my family fishing.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go fish right as opposed to go golf.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm doing, but you know we'll see. You know we're about to lose the second one to college, so we'll just have one at home and I don't expect to get a lot of more free time, that's for sure. But you never know. But yeah, fishing for sure, and then you know anything outdoors, you know love it, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what's your 2024 theme?
Speaker 3:Oh, man, man, yeah, I guess we're at that time of year right when you start to think about that.
Speaker 3:I unfortunately haven't started to started to think about that, but I think I think for me is it's you know, for you know, and I've got, so I've got three kids right One in college already, one about to go in college, and then, you know, one in junior high, and it's, it's amazing how different they all can be right. But you know, one of the big things for me is is, you know, just the being consistent with something and trusting the process of what you're doing.
Speaker 3:And so for me, I think it is, you know, this is, you know, coming up on a year here at high impact as well too, but it's, it's been an interesting year, for sure, too. I think it's important to trust the process, right, yeah, and what we've been building to, so for me, I think that could be a pretty good theme in 2024.
Speaker 2:The analogy that explains 23,. The best to me is changing the wings on the aircraft while we're in the air. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Right, and it's. I mean, that's you know, this market is we start. We tried to, you know, preempt that with a lot of people and, and you know, tell them what we thought might be happening, and 2024 is going to be one where it's. We'll probably still be doing a lot of that as well too, but it will be an actual reality. So that will be trust the process, I guess right, trust the process.
Speaker 2:Here we go. Well, thanks so much, todd. It's been great, great talking to you today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely I appreciate it. Thank you guys, thank you.
Speaker 2:And thank you for listening. As always. You can check out all of our podcasts on our website at highimpactanalyticscom, apple Music, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.
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