One question an amazing lineup of ceos founders and experts. This is marketing for the now. Thank you so much that made me feel. Thank you, hey gary.

I don't know why. That still makes me laugh the the beatboxing yeah yeah yeah. It's awesome. I love you economy on vcon, it's coming.

Is it coming we're a month, a little short of a month away, um can the big market festival? I know you and i are working on that we're in the depths of 2022. Obviously, vayner media has been getting a ton of industry accolades, so our new business team is crazy, busy and i know you've been busy interacting with all of the marketers as well, and it's just nice to be back on marketing for the now yeah. I know it's great and we're going to talk we're going to talk about some of those hot takes we're kind of yeah. What are we we're we're into q1 we're heading into q2 big time.

So, let's uh, we got a great lineup. We're going to have kick things off with sophie bambuck she's, the cmo of everlane and she's, the first ever cmo at everlane, but she comes from a 13-year career at nike and she held roles as cmo of converse and headed up brands for nike sportswear as well. So welcome sophie thanks, thanks for having me hi guys, hi soap. How are you i'm good, i'm good, it's great.

How are you doing yeah same here? Let's get right into it. You know we only have 10 minutes these things go fast. So what are your hot takes for 2022 in the first kind of three three and a half months, give me something that you had a hypothesis going into 2022 on that's working and give me something that, in the last 14, 15 weeks is starting to really bounce Around in that brilliant marketing head of yours of like oh man, we need to do more of this or we're not taking this serious or what's that shiny thing over there is that is that just sizzle, or is there steak under that sizzle yeah uh? I don't know about brilliance, uh i'll, just share what i have to show. What's in my head, um, i think the the big thing and obviously i work at everlane um and it's not because it's earth months or anything, but i think the topic of sustainability is a big one and i think it's becoming it's ramping up um.

If you think about how it took like a major event for kind of like dei efforts to be on everybody's minds - and i don't mean just corporate like from a brand a marketing standpoint - it became like what is it that we're saying. What are we doing? I think sustainability is seeing this um happening. I think it's on everybody's mind. The problem, i think, in my opinion, is that nobody's figured out how to make sustainability sexy nobody's figured out how to make it something that is um, honestly interesting, and so it's it's one of those where you're seeing it more and more i mean uh and obviously I follow sustainability closely, but whether it's media or just pushing you know through pr - and you know - media articles brand every collection - you know from an apparel standpoint - everybody's coming out with their sustainability.

Take you know i mean you know, i'm sorry to jump in but yeah. I will tell you, because i do this for a living when you look at the interests of 18 and under this is now table stakes. This is not sizzle like i, i have a 12 year old daughter. She doesn't even think in the concept of a product.

It's a cost of entry, it's almost as if, like there's no other perspective and you obviously your company was such a pioneer, but the companies that are doing you know this is business life right where you're making a lot of money, you're, not sustainable. If they don't figure that out within this decade, i i think the market is going to be very cruel to them. You know everyone's everyone's lightweight, altruistic in business world, about issues that matter the second, the consumer turns on you, you very much. You know you could be the least earth-loving person on earth, the second the consumers only buy if it is a hundred that and that - and that's what i keep telling my friends, i'm like we're now in yellow this isn't red we're in yellow and it's about you're Green and they're gon na all leave you behind.

That's just business talk, not even hey. Let's live on this earth totally, we don't have, and arguably i don't think we have 10 years to figure it out. I actually think we've had the past 10 years to figure it out. We haven't figured it out now we got to hurry up and actually get together, and i think, though, one of the issue also why it's not getting figured out faster, is that everybody's, using sustainability as a competitive advantage right like you're, actually looking at here's, what i'm Doing here's my shiny object, here's why you should come to me where really to actually figure it out you.

It actually requires collaboration, because nothing happens in isolation when you have a brand new concept or idea, and so but you're totally right. I mean i think i just saw a report recently that was just saying that um brand name, you know, there's still a lot of retailers who assume that brand name um uh, have more value in the consumer eyes nowadays, where actually we're seeing that consumers are starting To value product sustainability over brand name like there's a transition starting to happen, but you're definitely to your point like you're. Definitely seeing it much more in that younger audience, a lot of everlane's consumer is still you know, millennials and i mean they've been on it for a while, but it was like a nice to have versus a must-have that younger audience it's a must-have, so you have To figure it out um and maybe in a way it's a hot, take, but a hot topic for 2022, but also like uh and ask uh. We all need to get on it together because otherwise we're never gon na figure it out, like it's it's hard to figure out on your own.

Let's, let's talk about the marketing of it. You know i was just in the discord. While you were talking talking to my friend homie in the defense discord, i'm looking at what's going on on tick-tock, you know when you're running a business where you know the date is so clear. Under 25 under 30, i've got an audience.

That's fully bought into what i'm saying for the last seven minutes over 35 there's a percentage as you get older, and so we're going through this thing, not that the ogs don't remember earth day. They went crazy on earth day back in the day. But you know it is it. Is that what do you think about from a marketing standpoint getting that message out for some of the new stuff? How do you think about discord? How do you think about tick tock? Where are you and the brand on that journey? Yeah we're we're scratching the surface, i think um, but we're getting in it.

I think tick. Tock has the opportunity. Tik tok is a great place to educate people. Tick tock is where you get all your tips.

Tick-Tock is where you're getting like. I mean i just learned how to like make a dish on tik-tok like recently, it's just like it's one of those where and i'm obviously older. So i used to maybe tech talk a little bit differently, but it's a place where you can actually educate, go and educate the dilemma right now. I think i really think cancer culture is hurting everybody.

This idea, you know, i think cancer culture is making everybody avoid risk, because there's an expect expectation that we're at perfection and that you know progress, doesn't need to and experimentation the over aggressive canceling, even on subtle things is creating an overreaction to just vanilla. It's the danger, we're in right now it's in order to succeed, you have to try and you have to be okay, failing and right now. Failing is no longer accepted um in some parts and and i think that's the danger of cancelled culture. It's like, if you're, not perfect, you could give your company yeah, where companies have a real tough time so, for example, as a personal brand - and i know that i have a big audience as a human being, i'm i take a ton of risks, but the reason I do is because i know my intent right.

I know my intent, which means god forbid, if i misstep, which for somebody who speaks so much i've done pretty well because of my intent yeah. But if i do i'm incredibly capable of saying i'm sorry as a human being and i've done that last 15 years publicly when i've had to, i think for brands. Brands also often do have good intent a lot of times not but a lot of times. More.

So than you know, i'm under a hood now for the last 13 years, it's not like they're trying to do the worst of all time. The problem is that's right, the problem is they suck and i'm sorry yeah. I think knock it off. Like and transparency.

Like transparency is so important, it's like here's, why we did this um and here's? Why we did this and here's? Why we're not there yet or here's why we failed um like actually like last last year. We had this whole thing around, like the last percent. We're almost there on no longer using virgin plastic, but we're not all the way there, because we haven't figured everything out and you have to be honest, you have to be transparent, you have to be authentic, um and your mission has got to be like it can't Just be a display for the consumer, it's got to be something you live and breathe as a company and actually kind of like do everything uh for, and i don't do that yeah a lot of companies are confused as if they have to be perfect. I keep telling people if you look carefully if it's okay to be like yo.

We sell this like it's actually, okay, it's when you try to make raton you're, not selling this and you're like yo, but like that's, where people get crazy yeah totally. I mean it's also, it's also when people start uh virtue, signaling others when they're vulnerable and sustainability. I have so many friends who are passionate about it, which makes me passionate about it. I'm passionate about it, but what i don't do is on everybody for every move, because when i have friends who shut on everybody for it, i'm like well.

What about with the plane, you like, literally ugly friends who try to on people for sustainability while flying private planes all around the country when they don't always happen, you know, and so i think hypocrisy is a devastating blow for sure and again i think everybody that Is touching aspirations, people who are in the sustainability space really are there for the right reasons, and it's the right intention. I think it's, but he needs to get in it. Everybody needs to have um a point of view, at least and be able to respond to it so that they don't get left behind like every burn. Now has to have some sort of responsibility to it, and it's really about figuring out how to make it interesting and simple for the consumer to understand it.

Because i mean it's major science and it's complex. So we have to boil it down to the essential and to we need to figure out how to make it sexy agreed. So, thanks for being on the show continued success, thank you so much cheers. Thank you sophie.

So gary next up we have gretchen rubin. She is one of my favorites: she is my podcast girl crush she's, an expert on habits, happiness and human nature, she's a three times new york times, best-selling author, a blogger, a speaker, and she just received nominations for two webby awards. Welcome gretchen, hello, i'm so happy to be talking to you today: hey gretchen, hey um! Let's go right into it short 10 minutes. What are your hottest takes with consumer behavior in 2022? What are you seeing? One of the things i'm saying is.

I think people are very focused on our five senses. I think we've been, you know, distanced from each other, we've been behind screens, we haven't been showing up and people i see are just hungry. They want to touch, they want to taste, they want to smell, they want to like feel those air currents between them and other people. They want to show up, they want to be in person, and i think anything that offers kind of this tactile.

Physical, concrete experience gets people very excited whether it's like, like i had a taste party for a bunch of friends, and i just had a bunch of like weird tastes for us all to experiment with or like here are the three kinds of apples, like you know, Rate them um, a planetarium um, a museum exhibit that is this. Like that experiments with sound um. You know in immersive like how many things now right, that's like the word everybody's using is immersive, but that's because it's irresistible we're so hungry. To show up that.

I think that that is driving a lot of what what people are looking for. Let's keep building up, i'm going to go back to that. What else? What else is uh or or double clicking into details on that um? What what else there's so many entrepreneurs watching right now, they're trying to figure out who's the opportunity, there's a lot of parents on here? What's the opportunity for happiness, what do you? What what other things are you saying knowing that this is what you spend your time and energy well, another thing that i'm seeing that's sort of like a less joyful and happy, but also very important to our happiness and health and productivity and creativity is habit formation. You know everybody is because of this magic, a massive disruption that we've all experienced and we're sort of coming out of that disruption, but things are not going back to the way they were.

A lot of people are having very different. Um work looks very different. How they show up when they show up - and i think just traditionally a lot of us ever since you know we went to kindergarten, we kind of a five day two day way of setting up our lives. We did certain things during the week.

We did certain things during the weekend. This is how we exercise. This is what time we went to bed. This is how we ate these are the snacks that we had.

This is just the rhythm of our family life, our friend life, our work life - and you know now. This is all just getting turned upside down for many people. So like yeah, maybe your kid goes. You know to fourth grade five days a week, but you must be not going to be off.

Oh i'm certain interrupt correction uh. Now, on that, i have a really interesting back to behavior and all that do you feel, because it's a profound point what you just made do you feel that the way we are trained up in school for behavior should now start to be talked about a little Bit more because it makes people incredibly non-adaptable in a world where the speed in which the world is moving because of the internet and the blockchain is so profoundly different than the 40s. 50S. 60S.

70S. 80S. Do you think that there needs to be a bigger conversation of how many people go through the structured school system to the detriment of their adulthood? Well, i would actually zoom it back even more, and i don't even think it's about the school system. I think it's much more individual and one of the things i spend a lot of time is like thinking about how different people respond differently.

Some people really flourish in structure and they need outer accountability and that's how they thrive and that's what they need and that's fine other people resist accountability. They don't want someone looking over their shoulder. They don't want someone micromanaging them. They want they do better when they have a lot of freedom when they're choosing what they want to do gary.

I think i have an instinct about which category you're fitting into um it's funny, though, when you were delivering the sentence and to your point it. I actually think the first version is fake accountability. Right, like i actually obsess over accountability. So much like i adore accountability, and but when it's when it's a s where you're accountable to a structure for the sake of the structure, it's like having meetings for the sake of meetings if the kpi's the meeting, not the actual thing, the whole thing's okay.

Well, i just have to say if people want to take a quiz and find out where they fit into it, to a framework that does this, they can go to my website and look for gretchen rubin for tennessee's quiz, because i have so many thoughts about this. But i think, like i would talk about outer accountability like some people need adder accountability, they need a work deadline. They need somebody to be answerable too. If they're going to work out, they need to work out with a friend or a trainer or whatever, or they need a deliverable or they need a customer or a client.

And some people don't need that. And i don't think that it's better or worse to need. It or not need it, it's more a question of like well: what do you need? What do you need and how do you thrive, and the fact is because of the way it was set up, a lot of us just like if we needed that we could just plug into a typical office environment, and it gave us whether we wanted that or Not we got it for some people that was great for some people that was terrible and now those people are thriving because they're out they have this freedom and flexibility, they've always sought and maybe couldn't get. But then there are some people who are like wow.

I miss what i had. I need to replace what i had and if i don't understand what i need, i might not set myself up for success or, if i'm managing a team, i might not understand different team members need different things. We got to rethink this. We got to recreate it.

What does that look like? I couldn't agree more. I love that point. I you know it would be so much more exciting if we stood up self-awareness and built that up, i mean to me, it's been the foundation of my happiness. Success away the world to me, success is a mental game, not the tangible items you can buy with money, and i think to to your point, the question becomes: what do we do with the half of the 50 of people, 30 percent of people that are being Pushed through a system and a modern parenting infrastructure that tells them they're not doing well where's the options for you know being an 18 or 22 year old to finally find that freedom after a machine or a culture has told you you're not going to be great.

Is great for the ability to deal with negative feedback, but for a lot of people that don't have a parenting infrastructure that builds up their self-esteem to fight the world, they believe the world. I i just think you're so right that what we need is insight into how people are different from each other and instead of saying like okay, there's this procrustean bed, everybody's got ta jam their way in it's the best way. It's the right way. It's the only way it's the way.

We've done, it is to say, hey different people need different things. How do we get people, what they need, and maybe that's going to take some experimentation because you you you want to you, try this. You try that maybe something works, maybe something sounds great, doesn't work for you, but instead of having this assumption that there's one right way that if we could just find it or force everybody to do it, because what a lot of people do is they say? Well, this works for me, so that's going to work for you! No, why no you're a morning person i'm a night person. I love simplicity, love abundance.

You like to sprint, i'm a marathoner right! There's no and giving people permission to evolve. I mean it's. You know who i'm at 16 and 32 and 44 are three different versions of myself and giving us the opportunity to breathe a little bit and feel comfortable within our own skin. As we progress is profound.

I i want to go back to an incredible insight. You started this with. I love this sensory thing i think, there's you know back to making this maybe a little bit about business and less about societal norms. Um, i think, for the people that heard that and can dig into you a little bit more on your site and your socials here for people that i want to follow.

I think you're very much on to something on the sensory part. People definitely are yearning. I mean look, there's a lot of cobia going on right now and the collective society's like we're. We're done like we're tired we're gon na like like we're struggling, which is a you know, we're struggling to accept it and kind of just trying to push through it, which also equals to me a very real validation of your hypothesis that you started here with, or Your observations that you're, seeing i think sensory is a big opportunity for 2022 and 23.

well and look at your conference like it's, it's people are flooding into it. People want to be in person, they want to show up, they want to be with other people um. I think that that desire to show up and to travel to experience is going to be kind of irresistible. As you say, sort of like people are like.

I got i i i want it. Yeah gretchen continued success. Great to see you bye-bye thanks, gretchen gary next. We we bring up rachel, tipograph, founder and ceo of mikmaq, a global ecommerce, enablement and analytics platform for brands, and we've known uh rachel for a while, but before she founded mcmack.

Rachel was at gaap as the company's youngest ever global director of digital and social media and after she left gaap. She traveled the world for a hundred days before she came gave birth to this new company. Welcome rachel hi hi rach how's it going things are well um, as many of my most intense hardcore fans know. I adore this woman.

She is someone i give a lot of public roses to because i love sitting on her board interacting with her and i cheer for her, and i am always thirsty for more opportunities to hang out with reach. How are you i'm great i'm in the office? I see that 2019 here uh. Well, i'm so appreciative for. Thank you, um, let's go into it.

What are you seeing? I mean i think, you're one of the stronger observers. That's why i'm a fan um and uh, and i would love to hear your first 15. 16 weeks into the years, insight around e-commerce, big brands in e-commerce, influencers or anything else, you've decided to uh get uh intrigued by yeah um. So for context you know my business.

We work with cpg brands anywhere, ranging from 50 billion in revenue to 50 million, and so i thought gary you and i could talk about retail media. So you know when i started mcmac going on seven years ago. Retail media represented anywhere between five and twenty percent of brands budgets today, any customer. I talk to it's anywhere between 50 and 75 and the reason why is that in many ways it's guaranteed roi, you give amazon a dollar, they know exactly who to go and target.

Now the challenge with retail media historically is that there hasn't been enough supply right, there's only so many people that you can reach within amazon.com target.comwalmart.com and so what's happened over the last 18 months. Is the retail media groups have recognized this and they're starting to try to figure out? How do i create more supply? So you see like walmart, teaming up with the trade desk, what's also happening right now in the ecosystem. That's causing retail media to rise is the changes that have happened between what i like to call apple, google and facebook industry headlines talk about a movement towards consumer data privacy. I don't really think it's about that.

I think that apple woke up one day realized that they weren't monetizing traffic within their phone, that their biggest competitors were monetizing. That, and so apple said. How do i make google and facebook's life a lot more difficult and fundamentally changed the way that all of us have to go to market, which is it is so difficult now to essentially execute the playbook that you know gary you and i grew up with, which Was the ability to remarket to someone on the internet because it takes multiple touch points to close the sale, that's right and remarketing through cooking people's browsers or phones, or things that nature and the ads showing up a third, a fourth or fifth time. You were in a shopping, cart, you let it sit.

You go somewhere else to espn all of a sudden there. It is again you're like oh right boom and that the data showed that that was an incredibly effective way to get it closed. And then you just run the math on how much all those ads cost you versus the profit you made against the thing and away we go exactly sales. Now you know sales right, which kind of actually reached in a lot of ways killed marketing creativity in a lot of ways, because everyone became so cac and ltv'ed out and it's gon na be really interesting.

You know, i think, about um donuts. I love them. Don't be dry and i and still delicious, and i think of that as sales, it's still a donut, it's good, but you give me a moist soft doughnut that, like melts in your that's brand, that's marketing and that tastes even more delicious you're, absolutely right, but because People have become so reliant on, essentially a dollar in equals a dollar fifty out of return, they're now leaving environments like facebook and they're moving into retail media, but there's a challenge right now. This is this is sort of what i'm feeling in the ecosystem.

Over the last 16 weeks, which is that retail media is where social media was in 2009., so it is completely siloed. There is no standardization very few self-serve tools and it is really painful. So if you talk to cpg brand manufacturers, they don't love talking about retail media. First reason: why is that more and more power is shifting to the retailers, so global supply chain crisis, rising prices and fuel, like it kind of sucks right now to sell consumer products? It's more expensive than ever before the retailers recognize this.

They need to be able to offset their margins best way to do. That is with advertising, because guess what we learned advertising is a great business and so they're being squeezed for dollars, but then it is so painful to execute there's gaps in reporting and there's no standardization, and so one of the things that i feel really strongly about And i'm talking with all the advocacy groups in our industry, a a iab like there needs to be a new dialogue around creating standardization in retail media, so everyone can scale together now playing this out for you. What i think is about to happen is retail media. It will scale it'll reach that 100 billion dollars that bcg talks about and then it'll become inefficient, and then people are going to start to swing back towards brand.

So they're going to go back to facebook they're going to go to snap, but then the attribution isn't going to be there and that's right 100 and what i'm most passionate about is i love marketing and sales, and back to my donut analogy, marketing has left the Room because the only marketing is television commercials and that's the worst garbage on earth in 2023, not watch network television commercials, and so we have this incredible opportunity to start building brand and social through brand work. That is not measurable. The same way that these brands want and they have to start having a better conversation of understanding, it's like a fighter in mma, you got a left hand, you got a right hand, so many people trying to fight with just one hand and which hand is it And boy, oh boy, is it a wild matrix out there right now, but i think gary i know you're super passionate about it tonight. I understand you know everything that you're saying, but that's internally at these organizations, marketing and sales it's moving closer together, it's actually being centralized.

That's great! The problem, that's not the! I mean that's phenomenal because that's business go ahead right, but what but the kpi is becoming more and more sales and less and less brand every day by the way, which is actually fantastic. When nobody understands yet is sales is just bad marketing mean it need it? There you go meaning yeah, it's very lovely. I sold almost a million dollars worth of re-friends hoodies, not because i cookied all these people in the chat, but because i built brand is sales. These did not cookie my phone, they did this and i think to your point and by the way i love it, because i love doing digital sales.

To give me air cover to do proper, digital branding. I think the the challenge with these brands is that still - which is just crazy to me - and i've, been doing this part of the industry for 15 years. They still rely on these media mix models to especially spit out how much revenue do we drive, and it just comes down to that conversation reports. You know what it reminds me of this.

You know what this is. What your first, your first sale. Oh, your high school, your secondary school report card my high school report card. You know what i call this a report.

You want to hear one you want to hear one rach. Let's hear it sophomore sophomore year speech, it's right! There, speed! Yeah! You see it speech. Yeah, you see it cp d, oh, you got it wow. I got a d in speech, it's amazing.

What else do you want to know about reports? Yeah? No, i i totally understand so anyway. I i think your points taken and i think for a lot of people, because these are all so short and i got to move the show along rachel has consistently i invested rachel. How fast did i invest in your company in our first meeting honestly three minutes. Three minutes say it for everybody: one more time: three minutes how many years later are we here seven and a half seven and a half years ago, in three minutes of conversation, i wrote a check into rachel's company.

Why? Because i had an intuition that has been proven very, very true in the last seven and a half years, which is this woman's ability to adjust to the reality of the marketplace, is real and i have that so i can sense it and very few people have It if you're interested in what rachel's talking about here, which is absolutely 1 000 true on the concept of big brands, moving a lot of their media dollars into the walmarts and the targets and the other retailers media offerings. There's a ton of innovation and business and opportunity in there, and i highly recommend you get very close to things that she's writing about podcasting about you can learn something. You'll probably ask her for a job on your second piece of content consumed and, if nothing else, it's just good for you to know her. Thank you for time.

Cheers thanks rachel thanks gary for putting in the time all kinds of chat going on. How does he do it all? How is he, how is he working on vcon and he's jumping on this, show i'll tell you how, because i didn't respect them, because i said this system, that's. Why? Because this system told me to do one thing: this system told me to do one thing and i told the system they were wrong. They are wrong, you're, so much more than a c plus you're, an a plus plus plus.

Thank you gary. I would have taken a i would have taken a c plus by the way on the record. I would take it just to zoom in here. Let's remind that's right, what do you see the gpa look at the class rank.

Tell me what i can't see it. Gary honestly, my class rank was 243 out of 254.. I was, i was the 11th 12th worst student in the entire class. I had a 1.67 gpa - oh my god, yeah and now and now look what you are and that's why you're revolutionizing everything and the best part is you know.

What's you know the look where i am now has nothing to do with the business success. What what i really learned in high school was that i was not willing to go to the final level of popularity by compromising my kindness in high school to be the super most popular. You have to be willing to pick on people. That was just a culture, and i wasn't willing to compromise that.

And so what i really learned at high school and look at who i am now - is i'm a nice person, and that was the and to be able to go through high school and deal with peer pressure at that level and not compromise your soul and your Kindness is the thing i'm most proud about, not the fact that i became a very good businessman with bad grades yeah and we're so lucky to be at vayner, where you've been able to give that gift um in such a major way. I mean we just we the fact that we can scale an organization because people love each other and they trust each other um first and they do great work and they do it fast because of it is it's real. I didn't believe there was a company out like that anywhere but uh you found it, but i found it. I love it we'll talk to you.

Thank you all right now we're going to bring up our ceo of gallery media group ryan harwood how's it going ryan. It's all good, too long. I'm excited ready to go. I'm so excited too we're going to bring up rob master of unilever, he's the vp of media and marketing, and he leads all so much media in innovation strategy, integrated communications for all of unilever's brands and check this out under rob's leadership.

Unilever has been recognized as digital marketer of the year by advertising age, a media client of the year by media post and one of the fast fast companies most innovative marketers wow. Welcome rob how you doing great to be here great to be here how's. It going ron take a moment just like just to like reflect on gary vee, and i i've known gary for actually well over a decade and just to see the growth i mean just so much fun so much energy. So so thank you for having me uh on the show today.

This is great. Absolutely did you did you do well in school rob i mean i was like a middle middling student. I wasn't like gary v level, but i certainly wasn't like ivy league level. I was i'm a big ten guy, so you know i you know it's funny, i as gary's partner.

I debate him on this all the time that you know he says grades, don't matter. I say grades matter that you should try. If you can try, we get into it all the time, but i respect his opinion and i i totally get it, but i am pumped to have you on the show. Rob for everybody.

Rob is a long time friend and colleague. He runs media and marketing at unilever and he is a legend in the industry, so i'm pumped to have him on um. You know 2022 is fully arrived. Let's talk about where you're, seeing the other day you mentioned to me streaming.

Wars was something that was going through your head. We know that netflix was the early dominant player, but they have a lot of competition. Now tell me: what's going on in your head: there yeah, so i think 20 yeah 2022 will be the year of the streaming war. I think it's actually unbelievably exciting and competitive landscape to watch from the sidelines um, although we certainly have a major role to play in it um.

But i think it's interesting. We reflect on netflix. As you said, they were the long time player. They really had no direct competition for almost like a decade.

Of course, there was hulu, but hulu was kind of an aggregator. I think in 2022 netflix faces, i think, two kind of competitors. The first is kind of the traditional media companies, the paramounts, the disney's, the warren discovery, merger, and these guys are all in i mean they're retaking back their content, whether it be the office or friends so they're taking it from netflix they're, creating enormous amount of original Content development that they're putting on their streaming platforms, they're getting they're all in on marketing, they're thinking about the consumer in a different way than they've ever thought before, and i think if you look at the user interfaces, they're really good um. I think that, as you know, they're really solid they're, good they're, good experiences and for them i think it's interesting, the disney's the warner's.

This is a burning platform for these guys. This is like they can't see anything more than netflix. I think they kind of let netflix go on for too long, but now they're all in, and so while it's not a zero-sum game, because people will have multiple subscriptions, i think it's an area. They have to win and win big, the other competitor.

So you have the traditional kind of media companies. The other competitor is a totally different, ballgame you're, probably the two most powerful companies in the world and apple and amazon, and so this isn't necessarily their core business and i'm not sure if it's a hobby or a loss leader or what they're thinking about. But it's certainly part of their overall business strategy and i think you know that's a different set of competitors than the disney's and the warner's. And so i look at netflix and i think um you know they're competing for consumers now in a different way.

But more importantly, i think, for their business model, they're competing for content with disney and with amazon and apple, and i think, that's a totally different like cost model for them and they have a single revenue stream. And i just i think, you're beginning to see signs of that that that business model crack, because you know you know apples, look in the hardware. Business amazon sells web services and soap yeah, and you know they have all these other revenue streams. As is, you know disney, so i think i think the netflix model will definitely have to change.

Is my perspective? How does how does this the streaming wars affect a company like unilever like, given that you can't advertise on a lot of these platforms but like? How does it consume your your headspace in the integrated marketing and media world? Where do you fit into this world? Yes, i think you know we're obviously watching very closely um. The transition from like traditional television, which is still like you know, provides some big numbers but to streaming and and certainly we're very supportive of these ad supported models like like hbo max and paramount, plus and hulu. These guys are an important part of our mix, because it's, i think it's a great consumer experience. I mean in the end i think we're gon na have so many subscriptions we're gon na rue the day that we forgot about the cable bundle to some degree.

But that's a whole different conversation, but i i do think that for us we're really looking at innovative and creative ways to leverage these streaming platforms, which are almost like a reset like innovative ads targeting audience like there's just so much. You could do in streaming that you can't do in linear and you can't necessarily do in social because, like we're talking about terrific amazing content, not that tick tock doesn't great content or facebook. But i think this high quality content and associating yourself with it is a huge opportunity for brands like cars and by doing it innovatively yeah. It also allows you to put out a high volume of various variety of ads.

So it's not one vanilla piece of content that goes on linear and you're, hoping and praying that resonates now. You can do a lot of different variations, so i'm excited for that as well. Totally totally talk to me about um, the conversions of media and commerce. You know this reminds me of how athletes wanted to be.

Musicians and musicians wanted to be athletes, and now they all want to be entrepreneurs. It seems like media companies want to be commerce companies, commerce companies want to be media companies. What are you seeing here? So, of course i i love that kind of metaphor analogy. I think it's it's great, that we came right after rachel and gary because i think i think what we're seeing is this convergence of media and and commerce take place at such a force and really, i think, was accelerated uh accelerated by the covid experience and listen.

I get it if i'm a retailer you're looking at the media business, it's a great business, it's a high margin business and by the way retailers have great data, and i think you just start looking at some of the market caps and the story, it tells a Clear story like look at like snapchat, where they have a couple thousand employees and their market cap is significantly bigger than someone like kroger who's. The largest grocer in america has probably a half a million employees, and you know you know that's a totally different kind of margin, business. They got real estate, they got logistics, they have weather, they got karen's going wild in stores. I mean it's a totally different experience versus snap, so i think yes, i'm i'm in the retail space.

I look at with envy for the media business and and to your point i think the media guys are see upside in being in the commerce business, and so i think, for good reason. Um, you know one is it's a way for them to enhance their consumer experience by either keeping people uh frictionless in buying products experiencing products on their site spending more time by the way, more time on their site means more ads by the way they can sell Ads that are like specializing in kind of like shoppable, so they can charge a higher price for that um and the other part is, i think, um it's another revenue stream, so tick tock's getting into this facebook they're getting into kind of like commission based sales. So i think this convergence is coming from both ends again. The brands are going to be important for us to play an important role.

You know we talk about the retail media players. You know we want to make sure that they're operating like me to media players with similar standards and ways of working than the rest of the media industry. Everyone loves uniqueness, that's cool, but we got to make sure that like can our ads be seen by humans in safe environments, can they be third-party measure? These are the things that retailers really going to have to embrace, but overall, we're really excited about this convergence. Awesome um: this is a short 10 minutes we get.

So i want to jump into the third area that i'd love your hot take on is is name image likeness with college athletes. Has unilever dabbled in this sector at all yeah, so just to give some context. So the name image lightness is a space that essentially the context here is that on july, 1st college athletes were able to profit from their name image and likeness and went live july. 1St and actually we were the first major advertiser to jump in we've been a long time, ncaa sponsor so we've been watching this space closely, very supportive of athletes getting involved, and you know we looked as an opportunity to like have a thoughtful precedent.

It's just not all about like the top quarterback in the country. The number one draft pick in basketball. We really were looking for a diverse set of athletes across the spectrum of sports to bring this to life um and about 10 months in it's actually as much as we tried setting a precedent to be productive and not just hawking products and thinking purpose and diversity. We're seeing kind of like a bit of the wild west, a lot of predominantly football, whether it be texas, a m or university of texas, doing a lot of kind of like interesting things and air quotes.

I think, with how they're how they're getting involved with the college athletes, which i think is a bit of a concern, um and uh. It's something that we're certainly watching closely. But our program we launched with degree our brand degree and, with this whole purpose around breaking limits. So we brought in 19 student athletes, um, wonderful, kids from across sports race, socioeconomic backgrounds, uh sexual orientation, geography and, like we brought them in ten women.

Nine men and we had them - tell their stories about how they broke limits very much tied with our purpose, and so it was like an amazing experience, amazing, uh, kids and what's great about. We didn't just start stop there. We actually did mentorships with them, because the reality is most college. Athletes are not going to make their living through the sport, so we work with a number of them now as as mentors.

So i have a great kid named chase. Griffith he's a he's: a um ucla quarterback um, not the starter, i'm surprised, you didn't do all wisconsin players, so we actually have we have. We have a bunch of wisconsin players. We have a terrific kid who's, a computer like engineering, major.

We partnered him with our head of supply chain, one of our hudson supply chain who also played sports at west point. So it's an amazing experience to like connect with these kids and i think it's a provides a lot of energizing and passion for us as well. We got ta, we got a wrap we're at time. I'm gon na go real quick on the speed round questions.

That's my patent here, salty or sweet rob it's a tough one between cashews and gummy bears. I'm gon na go with. Gummy bears 80s or 90s music. I mean you got thriller and molly crew, i'm going all 80s 80s sly, stallone or arnold schwarzenegger.

I got balboa and rambo no question. Last. One friends are seinfeld, i think, ultimately, in 15 years i'll be living in del cabo double vista. So there you go.

I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the show, rob we appreciate it all right. Thanks for having me take care thanks, ryan you're. We got to get you your own show just with that one with those rapid-fire questions, they're the best hello.

Thank you. So much for joining us ryan, we'll see you soon all right! Next up, we've got our executive director of the sasha group, mickey cloud: hey andre. How are you oh? I love it love it. A little bit of this got the screen in porch life, nice, nice, nice.

So we're super fired up to have a conversation between you and kevin miller. Who's. The cmo of the of fresh market kevin has been an industry disruptor for a long time. He's got a 30-year career he's worked with a ton of fortune 100 companies, i'm going to rattle a few of them off natural grocers pizza, hut, subway, coca-cola mcdonald's and more, and i think most importantly, we really want to thank kevin, uh and his family for his Service in the military welcome kevin all righty happy to be here, guys, hey kevin.

How are you all right? How you doing mickey doing great super excited to have you on marketing for the now you know, we know just hearing those brands that under rattled off your entire career has kind of been at the intersection of food and retail um, and so, as you, you know, Are a quarter into 2022, what's kind of the number one hot take most macro priority for you know uh retail businesses, and how does that apply to kind of your grocery world and with the fresh market yeah yeah, so um a little bit about the fresh market? First, you know we're not as famous as uh unilever, but we're doing okay, so we're uh we're a two billion dollar brand. We have 149 stores in uh in 20 states and the fresh market was was was uh founded on the idea of providing. You know the best food fresh food from around the world, curated uh to our customers and given the best service, and so for us. You know our product quality is very important, but the actual experience of shopping at the fresh market is equally important to our customers.

In fact, we have a much higher elevated expectation. Our customers expect us to provide the same level of service as a nordstrom's, or you know a rich carlton. It's not just a little bit better, they expect, but they expect a whole lot better experience and a whole lot better level of impeccable service. So that is really an important aspect.

As you look at all the you know, the movement toward technology - and you know the the impact of covid and inflation, and there are a number of things that are going on out there. That uh, you know, keep me up at night, i'll, just name a few jimmy fallon yeah. Are you ready all right, digital, the the physical world colliding with the digital world? Hey i'll, get this right, we'll turn into marketing dinosaurs next? Well, you know what is happening in 2022. Well.

3.0. Are you kidding me i'm still working on web 1.0. 3.0. Next, i think we heard it on a couple.

Other ones live commerce. I didn't know commerce was dead. I love this jimmy the jimmy fallon bit here. Okay, here we go all right.

What's the last one? Well, i got ta go more okay, metabolism metaverse, that's important, because zuckerberg said it is all right. Non-Fungible tokens, nfts yeah, that's hard to read yeah because it's hard to understand too all right. Well, all this is kind of adding up for us and for me is was predicted by james and elizabeth 30 years ago, and that the more technology we introduce into society, the more people will aggregate will want to be with each other. Other people, movies rock concerts and shopping, that's high tech high touch and we all seen it.

We all talked about it. It's like people are tired of being on zoom without wearing masks and whenever anyone attends the conference, they're very happy just to see other people, and so how do you make that experience of high-tech high-touch you know come to life against all the various platforms against all The different customers all the different shopping experiences, that is really our challenge for 2022 and beyond. I love that, because i mean as a as a shopper at the fresh market and someone who grew up in the state of north carolina, where you guys are based it that shopping experience. It is a vibe right, like only classical music playing.

You've got the fresh flowers, the fresh fruit, you you, you get that zen like experience when you are physically in in that in in the store in the location. How do you translate that experience for a shopper that wants to order on instacart that wants to do curbside delivery, that wants to do the ecom side of the business and and how do you make sure that you're still hitting that sensorial experience for someone? That's shopping? Digitally yeah, so you got all those platforms and technologies we just talked about, but the where you had to start is, with the you know, with the brand and really understanding your brand. Your brand dna and your brand promise better than anyone else um and from that you need to develop a brand vision. So our brand vision is to become one of america's most loved brands and that's because we're leaning into jimmy kimmel human spirit and love spirit and love.

It's just that simple, and so about anchoring our business into pleasing our customers with impeccable guest service with the highest quality products they can find anywhere and providing that with a sense of love and passion. Then we have to then translate that feeling that tone to the right customer at the right place at the right time and we've all said that before, but here's the additional kicker in the right way in the way that they want to receive our message in our Storytelling on the devices they want to receive it in a time when they want to consume that content, and so you have to invest with working with very smart people and organizations and partners, like the sasha group, to help you know translate that brand experience that brand Promise that level expectations that the customer expects of you into these platforms, where they are where they're living, that's, not a uh, something you can solve overnight, yeah it's something that you have to work on and experiment with constantly. It goes back to what gary was talking about with rachel earlier about how its brand is ultimately going to be the thing that unlocks the sales, and so i love that, for you know, as you guys have started to think about that with the curbside pickup experience And kind of the concierge level of that's, not just a okay, i'm going to drop it off and you've got to come in and walk it. Can you talk a little bit about how that's how you guys are thinking about that yep, so that goes back to again, you know walking the talk, really understanding who your brand is and what your customers expect of you.

So we um. We knew that going into the holiday selling season of 2022 uh 2020. Excuse me that that was the first year for colvin uh, the first holiday impacted by copen. We knew the covert wasn't over.

In fact, it was surging. In that you know, curbside would be a very important aspect of our customer experience for the holiday season 2020 for the first time ever, and so we engaged a uh, a terrific, consulting firm that specializes in the digital world, really smart in terms of technologies, understanding and Road mapping, the consumer journey from the time they you know, pick up their phone and begin to order on instacart to the experience of them, placing the order driving to the store arriving at the store communicating. But we didn't stop there with the technical side, we re-engineered the actual physical experience of our internal employees, who would shop for the customers. We empower them with more more phones and more tools to communicate directly with our customers, and then we backed up the experience that we called the friendliest curbside experience in america.

We backed that up by guaranteeing the accuracy of the products we empowered our shoppers to provide special, surprise and delight gifts to the curbside like a bottle of water on on a hot day and change the experience during the holiday season. Again, we customers expect us to treat them really nicely all the time, and especially during the holidays, of course, where they trust us with their shopping and their family, their family meals. And so we had santa claus. So we had oily costume santa clauses.

A lot of that from the boots to the candy canes, who were who came out and provided curbside service during the holidays. I love that. I love that. So that was really terrific sales went way up.

Customer satisfaction went way up, and then we were recognized by one side grocer the friendliest curbside experience in america was recognized as one of the top 10 digital innovations in all of food service, retail food service love. It love it well. The last thing as we wrap up this 10 minutes goes by so quick last thing i want to ask: is you know one of our priorities is making is spreading that brand love into the world of tick tock for 2022 for for the fresh market? What's your personal favorite, tick, tock trend or hashtag? What have you started to play around on the platform and what pops out to you? Oh i'm just you know. I watch a lot of the nba stuff awesome yeah.