Episode # 74. This week veteran advertising executive Neil Foster (CEO of Agency Habitat) joins us on the Road 2 Retail podcast to share his thoughts and experiences with growing emerging brands. Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast at Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. Plus- give us a follow on LinkedIn.

On today's show Neil shares with us his views on the following topics:

- The importance of executing a 'soft launch' for a period of time to work out the bugs in your business model

- Understanding the need to drive awareness and trial early in a brand's lifecycle to build momentum

- The importance of demographic match with a retailer's shopper profile when an emerging brand starts to consider the move to brick & mortar retail. Fit must be excellent.

- The risk of shooting to "scale" an emerging brand too fast too soon

Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.

On December 4, 2024 the Road 2 Retail attended The Founder's Innovation Day program in NYC put on by ECRM and Retail Media IQ. Today we recap the program with Wayne Bennett, SVP Retail for ECRM/RangeMe. Wayne and his team organized this fantastic event bringing together emerging brand founder's and leading retailers where the day focused on the role emerging brands play in their categories. Other speakers included experts in various functional areas such as finance, investment banking and contract manufacturing- all offering counsel on how to help emerging brands grow. Give a listen to hear what founders and leading retailers shared with the audience. Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast at Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. Plus- give us a follow on LinkedIn.

Among the topics recapped on today's show include:

- What retailers are looking for in an emerging brand?

- What are emerging brands looking for in a retail partner?

- How to screen a contract manufacturer

- Understanding the difference between "new" and "innovation"

- Learn about the resources leading retailers offer to help emerging brands get noticed by their buying teams

Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.

2025 Program Schedule

https://ecrm.marketgate.com/Sessions/SessionList

research firm - The Connell Group.  Patty and the team at The Connell

Group have been helping consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands of all sizes, and

at all stages of their lifecycle, plot a growth path forward successfully for

many years.  On today's show some of the topics we cover in depth

include:  

The need for absolute clarity in who your target audience is- not who you

think they are (or hope they are!)- but knowing who they are.

The importance of understanding where your brand fits into the category

you participate in and why the retailer should believe you can help grow their

category.

The baseline research an emerging brand should execute to understand their

brand, their category, and their consumer prior to embarking on the expense of

retail expansion and A&P commitment.

She also covers how to write and test product concepts with consumers so that

you understand the potential positionings and product benefits that the

consumer will spark to.  Hint: it is often not what you initially think!

hear views on these points and others, please give the episode a listen. 

Your odds of success may very well improve!

the show!  Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple

podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel.  You can also follow us on

LinkedIn.  Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.

Episode # 71 Big Chalk's Rick Miller is back to share some new data about the state of the consumer as we head into the holiday shopping season.

Rick Miller, Head of Sales & Marketing Effectiveness at Big Chalk, returns to share with us new data about the state of the consumer from their Tradeoff Consumer work. According to the National Retail Federation, approximately 19% of annual retail sales take place during the holiday shopping season. Among the points Rick covers are:

1) Even with wages trending up and inflation calming down, the Tradeoff Consumer is still not feeling great and being very discerning with their spending

2) The recent contrast in financial performance between Walmart and Target and some potential reasons for the difference

3) What actions can brands take now to optimize their marketing plans and increase their odds of a successful holiday shopping season?

You can dig into The Tradeoff Consumer research at their website: www.bigchalk.co (no 'm'!).

Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.

Holiday Report Link:

https://dust.bigchalk.co/holidayoutlook2024

How to understand the effectiveness of your Retailer Media Network Ad Spend

Episode # 70 An overview of these emerging platforms with Incremental's Executive Vice President - Skye Frontier. Subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, our YouTube channel and follow us on LinkedIn.

On today's show we speak with Skye Frontier - Executive Vice President at Incremental. Skye's firm offers a very interesting service where they help consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands evaluate, measure and deploy their advertising investments with the Retailer Media Networks (RMNs). Specific points we cover include:

• Even if retail media spend is committed, there are still ways to optimize that spend to generate more revenue growth from it.

• Be skeptical of ad-attributed sales and ROAS and pay close attention to attribution windows. These terms don't mean advertising caused those sales to happen just that someone exposed to ads happened to purchase.

• There is a lot of juice to squeeze out of retail media with better measurement. Incremental sees brands that adopt 'incrementality based measurement' typically generate 30-40% more sales from the same level of investment in advertising.

Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.

Understanding Your Consumer and Utilizing Research to Drive Your Brand Performance

On the show today we spend time with Rick Miller, Head of Sales & Marketing Effectiveness at Big Chalk. Rick takes us through a detailed discussion covering:

1) What research tools should a brand utilize to ensure they understand their consumer and their brand's role in the category

2) The three key pieces of data driven research you need in order to improve your odds of success in getting a retailer to take your brand into their assortment

3) Big Chalk's proprietary research detailing The Tradeoff Consumer. Who are these people? What decisions are they making right now? How do these consumer actions impact both brands and retailers?

You can dig into The Tradeoff Consumer research at their website: www.bigchalk.co (no 'm'!).

Rick also goes into detail on marketing mix models and the importance of understanding the impact of your promotional spend and how to use this data to make spending allocation decisions going forward. These tools not only can help a brand grow, but also helps to remove uncertainty in the mind of your investors that the team knows what they are doing with their funds.

Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.

What you need to know when buying or selling an emerging brand.

On today's show we spent time with Rusty Ray of Alantra. Rusty has spent his career buying and selling brands (with a focus on healthcare) - offering counsel to both buyers and sellers regarding the best approach to executing a winning transaction. Among the key discussion points, Rusty offers his views on:

1) What a buyer should be aware of when buying tail brands (non strategic brands) out of a large CPG company's portfolio.

2) How a potential buyer should assess the brands they are considering buying.

3) How should a brand thinking of selling prepare for a potential sale, what will the process look like, how to manage internal expectations and what buyers are looking for in a brand.

Our thanks to Rusty for a great conversation and for joining us today on the Road 2 Retail podcast.

Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.

Thinking of joining an emerging brand? Thinking about bringing in outside talent?

On today's show we speak with Hayes Reilly- Managing Partner at PeopleSuite. Hayes has had a long successful career placing senior executive talent with Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) firms of all sizes. Today we cover two topics in depth:

1) How does an emerging brand founder or leader expand their leadership team as their business continues to grow? What does an entrepreneur need to be ready to give up in order to attract talent?

2) What does an executive thinking of moving from a large CPG company to an emerging brand really need to stop and consider before attempting to make the leap?

We also cover how does an emerging brand become a destination for top talent? What's your emerging brand story? Do you have the work ethic, attention to detail and willingness to get your hands dirty if you move from a large to small company? Hayes shares specific examples that both emerging brand leaders and candidates should hear before considering key career personnel moves.

Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.

The Road 2 Retail team recently spent some time with Brandon Pogue- cofounder of TruLabs. TruLabs produces a great tasting and uniquely formulated product in the very competitive hydration space. Brandon tells us about how the brand morphed into a hydration focused brand and their commitment to a "science based and consumer approved" product design. Our discussion covers topics including:

- The blessing and the concern of a large first order from a major retailer

- The need to keep communication clear and simple so the consumer understands your meaningful point of difference

- The adventures involved in getting an emerging brand off the ground

- What TruLabs would look for in an investor

- How they are thinking about building out their selling function as they grow

Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple or Spotify or our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.

On today's show, Bruce & Tracey discuss how to go about expanding your small, emerging or challenger brand with an existing retailer. Often, brand leaders get distracted by defining growth as "more retailers" when growth actually means building and expanding your brand intelligently. However, the smart play may be to expand with a retailer you are already working with and having some success vs getting involved with another one. Among the topics we cover are:

1) The importance of knowing how success will be measured. Sales/velocity hurdle rates?

2) Expanding store count with existing skus in distribution vs adding additional skus to your current assortment. Hint: If you add more skus, can you still make velocity hurdles on the legacy skus?

3) You have the benefit of experience with the account and a relationship with the buyer - build on this working relationship.

4) You have some data on what promotional programs and price points work for your brand with this retailer- build upon this knowledge and success. Building an even more impressive success story with an existing retailer will enhance your case study with other retailers in the future.

Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the Road 2 Retail podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Please share the show with a colleague and leave us a review.