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Blaine Bolus
00:00:05 - 00:00:47
Hey everyone, we're super excited to announce the launch of our Slack community for D two C pod. This is a space exclusively for D two C founders and operators to connect, share ideas, ask questions and support each other. You'll be able to engage with the best minds and operators and consumer and currently we're on a waitlist and it will open up the community once we reach 150 members. So apply using the link in the description and we hope to see you on slack. So before we kick off today's recording, I've got one more for you. Keeping up your momentum this year starts with the right selling tools and if you're looking to increase revenue, grow faster, build more pipeline and close more deals, check out the all new sales hub from HubSpot. You'll be able to manage your whole sales process. Plus my favorite part, the reporting.
Blaine Bolus
00:00:47 - 00:01:42
It's super intuitive, powerful and customizable. Plus the whole thing is powered by AI, so your teams can spend less time on tedious, time consuming stuff and more time on developing relationships. Also, no one likes a clunky platform that takes months to onboard onto, but getting set up on Saleshub is really quick and easy. It's free to get started. The pricing will scale with your business and with more than 1300 integrations and add ons you can tune it to your exact needs. Visit HubSpot.com sales to start selling with sales hub what is going on? DTC Pod today we have the pleasure of speaking with Colin Flood, who is the vp of marketing at Unreal. Unreal is a chocolate and healthy snacks brand that is distributed in thousands of retailers across the US. They also have a big d to c presence and Colin kind of oversees everything on the marketing front.
Blaine Bolus
00:01:42 - 00:01:58
So Colin, without me ruining it too much, why don't we just jump right into it? Why don't you tell us a little bit of your personal background, a little bit about Unreal and kind of your journey and how you got involved with Unreal and how you became the vp of marketing there.
Colin Flood
00:01:58 - 00:03:07
Yeah, yeah, of course. So I. A little in my background, I started in e commerce. I worked for a sports e commerce retailer called fans edge back in the day and sort of sharpened my teeth there a little bit. Just around how the buying house was shipped down line and then worked for a number of years at an agency called Rockfish, which is under WPP, really focusing on more the shopper marketing space, but really how CPG brands start to activate online, how they shift focus a little bit from purely offline to one that's more omnichannel and then found my way into unreal. And it was really unique opportunity to be on the brand side and make more of an impact on how a CPG brand, in this case, food, can really come to life in more ways than just in store. Obviously, it is still very, as a brand, we're still really focused on the retail side.
Blaine Bolus
00:03:07 - 00:03:20
Cool. And why don't you tell us a little bit, just so listeners have context, what is unreal, and tell us a little bit about your scale in terms of, you know, retailers and digital presence and all that sort of stuff.
Colin Flood
00:03:20 - 00:04:23
Yeah, yeah. It's worth just touching on. So, like the origin of Unreal, it was started about 13 years ago by a family and really two brothers, that they grew up in a healthy household, and it was a Halloween event where they got all this candy and then their parents wouldn't let them eat it all. And so the conversation started, and really the question was asked of why the foods we love most have to be so bad for us. And so with that sort of initial question, spawned this idea around better for you, chocolate snacks. But it was really the core of it was, if we can improve and kind of remove the junk from a category that is really worse in the grocery store, you can do it with any food. And so that was sort of the quest and the mission around building that out. And really, the focus then, over the past many years has been doing that.
Colin Flood
00:04:24 - 00:05:56
And in many ways, I think we've been in lockstep with just probably the broader, better for you community and the growth that we've seen from that. Not just our category, perhaps other categories even before ours, certainly, but it started for us in the natural space, really, where we started to put our focus, and that was in Whole foods and other natural, smaller, natural retailers growing our footprint there and really building awareness and loyalty with that type of consumer, and still remains to be very much a core piece of what we do. But I would say that the mission of unreal and the vision is really to be much bigger than that and to be a solution that is more mainstream and basically turning over that category bit to say that you can still indulge in these really tasty products, but it doesn't have to be the same makeup that we all know it to be and perhaps prevents a lot of people from consuming at this point. And so that's sort of the journey we're on. And in present day, we're pretty diversified in terms of where we're distributed. So we still have a really strong natural presence in terms of the grocery stores we're in, but we are in a lot of key conventional retailers as you're talking about. We have pretty wide distribution. We're in over 25,000 doors.
Colin Flood
00:05:57 - 00:06:07
That's inclusive of grocery club. We play an away from home and food service and then e commerce and d two C. Sweet.
Blaine Bolus
00:06:07 - 00:06:34
So one thing I want to talk about with you is given that you've seen the brand grow, like you said, the brand's 13 years old, but you've really seen some serious growth over the last, over your time there. You've been there for six years. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what the company looked like at the time you joined. What were your initial responsibilities when you joined Unreal? And then what is the last six years looked like in unlocking a couple of new forms of growth?
Colin Flood
00:06:36 - 00:07:38
Yeah, when I stepped in to unreal, it was really from e commerce purview and helping build out. Amazon was still very much a key retailer at the time. And then d to see in general for us with primarily our branch out, I didn't realize at the time that I was sort of the core need in that endeavor was an operational need. Chocolate is not the easiest thing to ship, and identifying a fulfillment partner that can be an expert in that space is hard. The economics of it are difficult. And so really there was a lot of work and due diligence around that whole side of it. We always think very consumer centric. We're kind of like to have this consumer First Mindset and so making sure that we deliver the best quality product to consumers is really important.
Colin Flood
00:07:38 - 00:09:23
And when you're doing that in Austin, Texas, and getting it dropped off in the front doorstep, it can be really hard. A lot of my time early on was spent there and understanding how do we do that? What does that look like? And it shifted a little bit, what's the role of d two c for us? But then stepping back a little bit as well and understanding the role it can play versus perhaps other e commerce retailers in the space that we can partner with versus the retailers that we all know and where our consumer still wants to seek us out and how we can support those businesses. And really over the past six years, as we've expanded, at the time, it was whole food, was probably our biggest customer retailer, still starting to prop up into other places, and then have since expanded a lot within the Costco and club overall have gotten into target and Walmart, growing a conventional side from a grocery perspective. And so as that landscape changed for us, so did how we start to activate from a marketing perspective. And it's been fun to sort of start to dive into those different platforms and ecosystems and figure out how we can build visibility in them, how we can help drive sales. It's for the most part been from more of a lower funnel spectrum. But in that time, the ways in which you can still do that has evolved and allowed us to do more things across some of those retailers just because they've added capabilities.
Blaine Bolus
00:09:23 - 00:10:31
Yeah, and this part's really interesting and I think what we've seen is so much of a shift. Like everyone who's playing in d two c now, they're spinning up their brands, they're launching online, but they're looking for strategies to get in and expand retail. So one topic that I really want to go in on this show is kind of unpacking what that marketing mix looks like when so much of the volume comes through these massive retailers and you're leveraging your marketing strategies to support your support sales in retail as well as all the other channels, but definitely to accelerate that retail awareness and the sales through there. Um, why don't you just paint the landscape like, what does it look like? What does, what does it look like for a marketer who's trying to, like, push volume with retailers? Obviously, retailers get you on shelves, right? There's shoppers in there, you've got that baked in distribution. But, you know, marketing kind of needs to complement that. The point of marketing is to be able to kind of build that awareness. So when someone's looking at a shelf and they're looking for a couple different products, they choose yours. And that's going to accelerate, you know, the amount of sales that you do and the buyers wanting to come back and put in more pos and all that sort of stuff.
Blaine Bolus
00:10:31 - 00:10:39
So why don't you just tell us from your lens, like, what does it look like? What are the tools in your toolkit and how do you think about it?
Colin Flood
00:10:39 - 00:11:57
Yeah, it's a really good question. I guess the way I break it down is there's an in store component and an online component for our team. We probably have a little more focus on the online, but are still very thoughtful and are partnering on in store components as well. Because in store it's how are you getting off shelf? How are you getting closer to the register? What's the promo strategy? What are the displays looking like? What are different programs you can work with the retailer on as it becomes more of a digital strategy? The first question I always want to know is sort of what is available to us. And especially over the past number of years, that is what the answer is. Last year for a given retailer might be different this year because they're investing into their ecosystem, their platform. And so you really need to assess what is available to us. How much do things cost? You can start from the basics of what is the in store shelf look like and then what's the online digital shelf look like and putting your best foot forward there.
Colin Flood
00:11:57 - 00:13:05
So packaging has always been in store super important to us. We've always felt we had a really, really strong packaging and brand experience through that where we have a leg up on shelf and then it's about building sort of a brand block in the aisle and that's really kind of a sales push. And what they're always constantly fine tuning as it shifts online. It's dependent on the capabilities of the retailer. How visually compelling can you make your product when you're looking at their site? Is it primarily done through a website, an app? What are sort of the ways in which you can really build a bit of a brand experience? I would say today, like a lot of retailers are starting to build out brand pages where brands can actually get in there and start to recreate their look and feel more so than you have been able to pass. But I would say that the product detail page still really important place and worth spending time, effort, investment in doing that. It's difficult to then manage that. I would say that's nothing.
Colin Flood
00:13:05 - 00:14:17
It's a very fragmented, on the back end, a very fragmented space that takes it just, it can be manual, it takes time. There are syndication platforms that help with that, but there's a whole world there where we spend time. And then certainly I would consider more blocking and tackling pieces would be paid search. I think we have a leg up within not only just the category, but our brand because we're better for you brand and we basically have certifications because we're trying to create a cleaner product. So we're not a vegan brand or a gluten free brand, but we have a lot of products that are those things. And so as you go on digital, there's a consumer that is seeking out those solutions. So we would be very visible when the vegan consumer is searching for vegan chocolate, vegan snacks, whatever it is, you sort of build out sort of a view into those search queries that you know you are qualified to be there for and making sure that you have exposure there. You have strong visibility, you're winning share in those queries.
Colin Flood
00:14:17 - 00:14:55
And I'd say those are the two core aspects. And then the new layer that's maybe started with Amazon, but Instacart now and even target and Walmart are adding capabilities to where you can, there's more to do. You can start to take on, you know, go up the funnel a little bit, have more contextual targeting, start to understand who is the consumer, who is our consumer, where are they within those retailers? How do we get in front of them? And so it's not purely search based. Sometimes we can start to think of different ways, more creative ways to get in front of them.
Blaine Bolus
00:14:56 - 00:15:02
What are some of those creative ways and those new, like those new platforms, like, what do they give you? And how are you thinking about that right now?
Colin Flood
00:15:02 - 00:15:57
Yeah, it's. Yeah, I'd say an example would be we found that looking at basket data, our consumers, they over index in certain other categories. So one would be like non dairy milk or like alternative sodas. You know, knowing that our consumers probably has a healthier mindset, they're going to shift towards kombuchas or probiotic sodas or whatever it may be. And so depending on the platform, you might have access to go get in front of that consumer even if they're not thinking about buying chocolate. Right. The chocolate is a very impulse driven category. And so while there are very many, a lot of consumers that are looking for a treat, oftentimes you put your in store mindset when you're going through the grocery store that might not be in the list.
Colin Flood
00:15:57 - 00:17:00
And so you kind of like walk by like, oh, yeah, let me have that. So you recreate that a little bit online and while you're searching for your, you know, your sparkling water or your almond milk, we find ways to sort of get in front of them from a display perspective to let them know that, you know, what we are and sort of invite them into our category a little bit. But it's done within a retail environment. And so we see there's, there's a better return than trying to do that where, you know, many DTC brands certainly have success doing that in social. For us, we're just seeing better return when you do it right there in the retail environment where there's more opportunity for them to actually purchase right there. I would say there's within all grocery, but certainly with chocolate, you can have a moment of discovery and then a moment of purchase, like one and the same. You don't need always to provide all of this breakdown of why to buy a piece of chocolate if you're like, that looks freaking good. Let me go buy it.
Colin Flood
00:17:00 - 00:17:46
Right? You're like, oh, yeah, it's less sugar or it's cleaner ingredients. By all means, let me grab you. Which is different than when I see a lot of other great brands where you have to do some education around why to buy, especially in the better for you space, until recently, perhaps, like pop b Ollie pop. You know, they have to kind of provide a little bit of education, or they used to, at least. And even with other magic spoon or whoever, you know, there's something there. You sort of be like, well, here's why you want this. There is some of that for us, but it's not all too complicated when you can just convey there, we've done this in a cleaner way. Uh, and it's chocolate.
Colin Flood
00:17:46 - 00:17:46
Yeah.
Blaine Bolus
00:17:46 - 00:18:11
And I think that's actually such a good point. And this is for anyone who's, like, in the product development stage, like, sometimes the hardest thing to do is create products that, you know, there's zero market education for, and people don't know they want it. But, like, if you're making a chocolate, like, there's already demand for chocolate. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. People have been eating chocolate forever. So you're like, okay, it's better for you. It has all these qualities to it, but at the end of the day, it tastes good. And, like, this is why I'm gonna buy it.
Blaine Bolus
00:18:11 - 00:18:18
Um, Colin, I wanted to pivot. I want to pivot a little bit. That's kind of, kind of adjacent space. But talk to me a little bit about your Amazon strategy.
Colin Flood
00:18:18 - 00:18:19
Right.
Blaine Bolus
00:18:19 - 00:18:38
Like, um, you know, are the, the tool sets that you're using with Amazon, is it pretty similar to kind of how you're approaching these other, like, online distributors and retailers? Are you, like, you know, is your keyword targeting similar? Like, you know, how are you thinking about, like, ad spend on Amazon? Like, how, how does your whole process work for, for Amazon side of the business?
Colin Flood
00:18:39 - 00:19:24
Yeah, it's on the advertising side. I wouldn't say it's all too different at this point. It was certainly first to market in terms of just the capabilities that they had, and still are. There are more levers for us to pull on Amazon than just about anywhere else. But it's part of the difference. So I guess just to double click into that a little bit, it's very much paid search. I think that the keyword makeup is not all too different across platforms. There is a little bit of that as you start to look at Whole foods.
Colin Flood
00:19:24 - 00:20:19
Maybe is an interesting component as they've integrated with Amazon. We've had goodness from that. Our consumer, a natural consumer that's known us, everyone, I think everyone is on Amazon. And it's more of are you getting in front of a consumer that's willing to buy food? Are they willing to buy a better few products? But more or less the basics are not all too different. But again, I think Whole Foods creates a slightly different dynamic that we lean into. Where there's more differences is probably on the back end in terms of how we sell the product. So within d to C, we're shipping the product ourselves and we don't need to get into all of that from a chocolate perspective. But ultimately we're very thoughtful of how we're getting product direct consumer rights.
Colin Flood
00:20:19 - 00:21:09
That's cold shipping. That's the time from when it leaves our warehouse to when it gets to the end consumer. Are we in DC is where we don't have to ship via air. We can do that via two day ground and building that out in a way that is conducive works well with Amazon. And so that's evolved over time. We did sell for field prime for a while. We've worked through their back end vendor central and seller Central. So on the marketplace side then also working from a wholesale perspective, and it's Amazon's always changing and so you kind of have to like, you have to change with them because they're not going to care about what any brand is doing and changing the way you have to make it work for them.
Colin Flood
00:21:09 - 00:21:51
So we've done that a bit ourselves and we're an FBA now where it sort of removes some control for us, but we do that just at certain points in the year. So obviously when it's colder out and it really leveraging their logistical network at that point, which pays dividends certainly in terms of the velocity you have and unlocking new growth, but still being pretty guarded in the products we put in there and the timing in which we do that because it's a great place for us to drive discovery, but we don't want to do that at the expense of quality. And so we always come back to that.
Blaine Bolus
00:21:52 - 00:22:48
We are really excited to announce that DTC Pod is officially part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals and we're really excited about being part of the network because we're going to be able to keep growing the show, bringing you guys amazing guests and obviously helping you guys learn from the best founders, marketers and builders of the most successful consumer brands. So anyway, keep listening to DTC pod and more shows like us on the HubSpot podcast network@HubSpot.com. podcastnetwork. Yeah, that makes a bunch of sense moving forward. Colin, tell me a little bit about like, you know, how, what's the structure of your marketing team? What responsibilities do you guys have? What does day to day look like? You know, how do you oversee all these different initiatives and operations that, and channels that clearly like all tie up and funnel up into like the one main idea, but like, yeah, what is the structure of the team and what are the responsibilities look like?
Colin Flood
00:22:49 - 00:24:05
Yeah, well we, we've built the team out from, I don't say two, a little over two years ago is maybe like three people and so it was from three and now we're eight people. And to start it was a focus around how we activate retail and supporting that and then more for our brand side and how we organically or within our own channels are activating what's the look and feel the brand. And then we've always had a core CX component. So how are we interacting with consumers? Certainly it's always something we try to overemphasize and put more focus on and those elements are still very much true today. But we've broken out our team to have a more performance side of the organization which is inclusive of d, two, C and then retail. And then we have more of a brand side of the organization which is houses, creative brand and then CX sort of is the underbelly of all those things because we're selling on Amazon, we have our own branch up. So we're interacting with consumers there. But we're obviously interacting with consumers through our brand site and then social and other places.
Colin Flood
00:24:05 - 00:24:07
And so it fits under both.
Blaine Bolus
00:24:07 - 00:24:27
And yeah, I think you made a great point that I want to talk a little bit about. Like tell me about the relation between marketing and like community and social. Right? Like you have real customers, they buy, they like love you, the product. Like what does that flywheel look like? What is, and how do you guys think about that from a marketing side of things?
Colin Flood
00:24:27 - 00:25:35
Yeah, it's because our sort of our footprint and the way we're distributed is very much omnichannel. We've seen a ton of goodness over the years within food service. We were especially before COVID and we didn't have as much of a retail footprint. Office was a great place for us and drove a lot of discovery and I how people first learned about it certainly, but we lean into that when it comes to the brand and social. We see that as just we want to connect with our consumer wherever they buy us. Certainly it's great to have a clean view into a consumer where you can see we found them in social, we converted them on our brand shop. There's a nice story to tell from a data standpoint that's hard to do when even if we do that, we can't see necessarily a lifetime value tied to that consumer because they can go off in other places and buy us. And we know that's happening, which is great.
Colin Flood
00:25:37 - 00:26:52
And so we're aware of that. And over time I think we are getting more sophisticated and understanding to what degree that's happening can start to, to build out a better view of agnostic of any single retailer. How do we think about the life cycle of our consumer, but also just the myriad of ways in which they can find us? Because that's really the goal is to looking down the road. If we can be more ubiquitous around indulgent snacking within where they are consuming or buying, that's 100% what we want to have happened. When you look at social or community, it's really thinking with our consumer first mindset and how are we engaging with them so that they feel energized. I mean, we're in a super fun category and so part of our view as a brand is to bring that. It's interesting looking at the natural space within the, our category and sometimes that can get missed because brands are focusing, you know, they have a very premium look and feel or they're very focused on perhaps like a dietary focus, whatever it may be. And so they're catering to their consumer, certainly.
Colin Flood
00:26:52 - 00:27:37
And our view is to really have that more traditional sense of joy and fun in our own way and in perhaps a new way. But it's bringing joy and we've seen that drive a lot of engagement with our consumers and so we want to continue to build our community there. I mean, the best way to drive awareness is through your own people's own network, right? So friends and family is where you hear about things the most. And so creating, like resonating with a consumer, not necessarily having to drive them to convert at that moment or online is okay. We love when that happens, but that doesn't, that's not necessarily the only way for success to happen for us.
Blaine Bolus
00:27:37 - 00:28:16
So how do you think about, let's talk a little bit about like data and budgeting and all that sort of stuff, right? A lot of shops when you're just working in marketing and from a pure performance perspective, and all of your attribution is coming through digital. You know what you're like, digital sales are, and you're managing one channel. It's easy. But then as, again, as you start to, like, spread out over multiple channels, the marketing mix becomes a little bit different. So how do you guys think about data in a world where, like, you're saying you can't necessarily attribute anything? Are you just looking at a blended sense? Are you just spending a percentage of revenue? Like, do you have a fixed budget that you adhere to and figure out where to allocate? Like, how do you think about budgeting and data?
Colin Flood
00:28:16 - 00:29:03
Yeah, we probably look at it a couple of different ways and actually, probably we do, but at a resale level, where we put a lot of dollars still today it is that there's a percent of revenue. And so we have budgets that we're working on understanding. Here's what we're forecasting and here's basically some guardrails for ourselves. But it's not, we're not entirely stringent on that. If we find opportunity, we will double down at times. And so that is sort of the default approach we have. But I think we still have a mindset of where we see opportunity. And there's a strong reasoning behind perhaps over investing in places strategically, just seeing opportunity.
Colin Flood
00:29:03 - 00:30:05
We're willing to do that. And that could be at a retail level that can be in more traditional spaces, be a social or otherwise, just because we feel like that's the right thing to do. And sometimes that can be data driven. And we can see here's if we have a goal in mind and we're trying to drive, if it's a sale model to lower funnel or sales focus, objective understanding that. But sometimes it can be just driving awareness, especially as we get bigger, we're putting more spend there. It's still, I'd say we're still majority kind of from a demand capture standpoint. There's a lot of opportunity there for us still, but it's really dependent on what we're trying to achieve. What's the end goal and then what's the environment, what's the channel we're in? Knowing that there's people? I would say one sort of pillar that I always come from is within retail and Amazon, Instagram, a big channel for us.
Colin Flood
00:30:05 - 00:30:38
You're getting good. You're driving awareness through those things, even if it's more of a lower funnel focus. You know, there are tens of millions of impressions happening on Amazon for us and like that's, that's powerful. And so there you might be looking at it from a roas perspective at that point and really building it out from that. But we are aware of the kind of the secondary impact that that is driving for us from a discovery standpoint.
Blaine Bolus
00:30:38 - 00:31:04
Awesome. One thing that I also wanted to ask is, you know, throughout your career, are there any like marketing initiatives that you guys have taken on that like have been really successful that, you know, that really stand out? Like what are some of the things, whether they're specific activations, activations with a specific retailer, a campaign that you launched around an Amazon keyword, like whatever it is, but like what are some examples of things that have like gone really well?
Colin Flood
00:31:04 - 00:32:56
Yeah, I think there's like lots of little nuggets I would say I mentioned earlier, like that out of category thing was certainly an unlock for us to, like we saw, we saw stronger performance out of category with some contextual targeting within retailer ecosystems and we saw in category and that I think that's tied a little bit to our category in general with the sort of the insight around people avoiding the aisle or in unplanned purchases and that there isn't a focus around searching out chocolate, but when you see it, you're likely to buy it. So that was certainly a way in which we've reactivated around that and use it across different retailers. I would say another more interesting one, we launched some new products in late March and we don't launch any new items in quite a few years. And it just brought a lot of excitement and a lot of it was our existing consumer base. So it's certainly bringing in new consumers. But there's a lot of power and continue to add to the mix for us from a product standpoint to bring engagement back to an existing consumer base. I mean, chocolate in general, it isn't a category like or even like soda where there is a, and I don't know that the category from a behavior standpoint entirely, but I'm assuming that people will buy that routinely, right? Like if you are a soda drinker, you're having your coke or whatever it is every day or there's a habit tied to it with chocolate, people consume it a lot, but there's not necessarily like the majority of people aren't consuming that on this everyday cadence basis. And so it is ways to bring them back.
Colin Flood
00:32:56 - 00:33:15
Seasonality is important and lean into that, but innovation is really helpful and giving a reason for people to come back. Oh yeah. Let me see what they have let me try that, but let me get the peanut butter cuts because I love those. And so we've seen a lot of success more recently in doing just that.
Blaine Bolus
00:33:15 - 00:33:26
And then on the flip side, are there any things, any campaigns or any initiatives that you guys have launched? And we're like, oh, that did not work out and we should not be reinvesting in those sort of initiatives.
Colin Flood
00:33:26 - 00:34:08
It's a good question. There's always that happening. I feel like there's, I'd say paid social is one where we've struggled more from a lower funnel perspective. Right. Like if I listening to d two c podcasts, it's like that. If there was a playbook, it is. How do you sort of build out your with meta and starting to really drive this synergistic view around what's your CAc and how are you doing that? That is more difficult for us. We haven't been able to scale that in a way that makes a ton of sense in large part because of what we talked about before around just like the economics of shipping chocolate.
Colin Flood
00:34:08 - 00:34:30
And so the way we think about our brand shop is more to cater to a loyal consumer, an existing kind of super fan of ours, because they're willing to pay a higher price point. And so at a channel level, I think we've had learnings around what is the role that Amazon plays or branch out versus some other channels?
Blaine Bolus
00:34:30 - 00:35:03
Yeah, that makes a bunch of sense. And one of the last things I wanted to ask, is there anything that you guys are doing or that you plan to do or that you've seen other people doing around bridging experiences between retail and digital? Clearly you guys have first party data because you have the online store. But is there anything, whether it comes to packaging or other things in the future that you see in terms of getting the people who are finding and discovering your product in stores, getting them back online or vice versa?
Colin Flood
00:35:03 - 00:35:49
Yeah, I guess more, two more tactically driven things would be one backup pack. We've looked at. How do you use that space, especially in certain channels? We have eleven different products and many retailers. Maybe there's only one there, or two or three. And so we want to, chocolate is a space where there's people consume a lot of different product forms of chocolate. And so we want to bring them into all the different ways that we can be a solution for them. And so how do we use the physical pack to do that? And so we're looking into ways in which we can bring that to life. So is that a QR code or some way to actually get them to come back.
Colin Flood
00:35:50 - 00:36:34
Even if that's single percentage points of people that are actually doing that, that can still be powerful and scale, I would say. Another is we started using aisle, which is, I'm not sure if you're familiar, but basically a means to derive in store purchase and then they're uploading their receipt and we can give them a promotion or a discount back basically through a Venmo, essentially. And using that as a tool to take online activation and drive in store and track that and to understand, like, here's what we're seeing. And then the extra benefit is sort of getting that customer and you have to be able to reactivate with them.
Blaine Bolus
00:36:35 - 00:36:47
Awesome. And then, Colin, as we wrap up here, are there any big initiatives that you guys are pushing this year? Like what's top of mind? What are some of the big things that you guys are looking to iterate or improve or continue to grow on.
Colin Flood
00:36:47 - 00:38:01
The, the, you know, we launched four new items. We launched two new pretzels, dark chocolate and milk chocolate covered pretzels, and then a dark chocolate covered almond and then one with coconuts. So, excuse me, there will be a, you know, well into next year sort of a focus around just building, building those out, making sure there's strong awareness and distribution around those products. They are a pivot for us in that they're more snackable than the most part portfolio, which has certainly still a chocolate snack, but more on the confection side of things where these are, we feel might have opportunity to provide a solution from a different use education. So a lot of focus for us there. And then secondarily or not, I shouldn't say secondarily, but the other core focus for us is targeted from a customer standpoint. We are expanding into targets next month and so go find us there, please. But a lot of focus of how do we drive success there? What does that look like for us? How are we continuing to support that retail partnership and driving visibility on our products that are going to be there?
Blaine Bolus
00:38:01 - 00:38:09
Sweet. And Colin, as we wrap up here, where can we connect with you? Why don't you shout out your socials for Unreal, the brand as well as yourself?
Colin Flood
00:38:09 - 00:38:25
Yeah, reach out to LinkedIn for me, but with our brand, please visit unrealsnacks.com. follow us on socials at unreal snacks, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. You can find us sweet.
Blaine Bolus
00:38:25 - 00:38:27
All right, thanks so much, Colin. We had a blast.
Colin Flood
00:38:27 - 00:38:29
Thank you for chipling.
Blaine Bolus
00:38:30 - 00:38:48
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