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Dig In is your go to source for insights innovation. It's for anyone with a genuine interest in fostering brand and product growth, exploring groundbreaking innovations, and embracing the dynamic world of expanding businesses and brands.
Jess Gaedeke (00:42)
Hi everybody. Welcome to the dig in podcast. Today is a special treat for me because I'm joined by someone I've known almost like my whole life basically. So I'm joined today by Katie Curler She is national account manager for Campari And it is so hard for me to use your married name because I know you as Katie hunt, but welcome to the podcast, Katie.
Katie Curler (00:58)
Thank you. I
said your name four different times today of Jessica Grebbing. So I you continue to know someone is how you met them and we met as fourth graders. So that is how I know you I may not be the only guest you've ever had in CPG obviously.
Jess Gaedeke (01:05)
you
Katie Curler (01:17)
or from the alcohol space or even from Cal Poly where we both went to the same college but possibly Nevada High School or Linwood Elementary School I would hope that I am your first guest of that stature to come on so yes what an honor.
Jess Gaedeke (01:32)
You are and what an honor it is, right? Yeah, thank you. Truly.
Yeah, thank you. And look how far we've come. So we're going to start with an impromptu question. You have not seen this one coming, but this is just a good way to get us What's a trend that you're very glad that you skipped?
Katie Curler (01:45)
Oh, back to mom jeans. I have nieces in college and you have a daughter that's in high school, you know, that are going back to this trend where they're going to the not necessarily high-waisted, but the big bulky jeans. And I am glad that I did not get back into that trend. One, I'm six foot tall. It doesn't really look all that good. And two,
Jess Gaedeke (01:49)
you
Katie Curler (02:13)
Try to tell me nieces you have your whole life to cover up stuff and not that I'm encouraging them to wear scandalous things, but like it's not a great trend. What trend are you happy that you've skipped?
Jess Gaedeke (02:20)
Yeah. I.
Well, The trend that I am so glad is back though. I've been like waiting for this moment is denim on denim because I just never, I think it should have never gone away and I welcome it back.
Katie Curler (02:36)
I think you've spent too much time in Canada then. Like you're going for full Canadian tuxedo or are you?
Jess Gaedeke (02:39)
⁓
to any of it, any of it, any denim on whatever denim, as many denims as you like.
We're going to dig in. let's first, Katie, I'd love for you to quick introduction of yourself and a little bit about your role today.
Katie Curler (02:54)
I got into the alcohol business right after college.
So a friend of my sister's was starting a and I went to go work for them it was called Black Box Wines. my first real job,
outside of working for a baseball team was a high end wine in a box and everyone laughed, everyone made fun of it, but I was 22 at the time.
up country, but not really wine country, And I started my career in alcohol by selling wine out of the back of my car. what people didn't know was how Europe and Australia and all over the world, like box wine wasn't a low end item. Box wine was a very good economical environmental choice. And so was my first job.
when Constellation bought black box wines, now owned by Gallo, when Constellation bought black box wines, they're like, what is this like 23 year old doing? She has no experience. And so they were kind and fortunate enough to kind of get me into what was Wine Warehouse, but I just for like technical purposes to say like the Gallo system. And I worked at a Gallo wholesaler. And then I went to go work for Heineken running on premise in San Francisco. And then went back to
Jess Gaedeke (03:45)
you
Katie Curler (04:03)
where I spent a lot of my career, almost 12 years.
and where I fell in love with national accounts. that is where I've been ever since. And I truly love national accounts because it gets to blend the beauty of data and insights, which we're going to talk about with also truly getting to create some fun things around programming and creativity and whatnot. So I was at Constellation for a long time.
But in the last year and a half, I've come back to a large corporation, Campari Group, Campari I am the National Account Manager over Total Wine and Target. And Total Wine being our largest account and one of the largest in the US, it's been a really fun transition of spending the first 20 some years of my career mostly selling wine to really transitioning to the spirits world and kind of learn something new. I don't want to say in the
half of my life but we are not young anymore but it's been fun to do something different without kind of completely stepping out of the alcohol space that is me in a nutshell
Jess Gaedeke (04:53)
No.
Very cool. Well, we're going to talk about some of the brands in the portfolio because it is such a rich set of long heritage brands. And those are two kind of important retailers. So I'm excited to dig into that. And so the first part of our conversation is going to be telling us a story because our listeners get inspiration from hearing from other leaders. And one of the things that actually sparked me reaching out to you to talk about being on the Is some of the really compelling campaigns that Campari puts out.
Katie Curler (05:25)
You
Jess Gaedeke (05:28)
there. And so you're going to talk about some of those campaigns. What I'd love for you to do is kind of go back to the beginning and pull up the curtain a little bit on what happens at the start of these campaigns. What are some of the originations of the insights of what we end up seeing in market?
Katie Curler (05:41)
So we'll start with the first one, Turkey. So historic brand, and Wild Turkey's been of years. And had different owners along the way, and Campari really values the authenticity of the brand, where the campaign came from. And the campaign is, don't change a damn thing.
and it's honoring the heritage of wild turkey. We have the longest running master distiller in the world, Jimmy Russell.
Jimmy Russell is turning 91 this and we
really wanting to honor that campaign, but also take wild turkey into the next step of the evolution of there's a lot of bourbons in the world. There's a lot of talk about whiskey. There's a lot of talk about the decline of whiskey in the category and how do you differentiate yourself amongst a sea of brands? And so where a lot of the work starts in terms of insights from our marketing team, insights from our sales team, insights from our finance team. Everyone has their own kind of insights team within Campari that come together to is
where data meets creativity and then it ends up on my plate. And how do we bring that to life at retail? And that's what I really love about
it's not just marketing going off on their own and saying, we want to talk about this. And it's not just the insights team saying, we want to go about this. And then buzzkill of everything being financing, no, you can't do either of those things. You have to just stay the course and whatnot. So that's where I love merging a campaign from marketing and necessarily kind of what the sales team wants to do. That's where I get to be really creative with my job. the
campaign being don't change a damn thing. How do you bring that to life? That's a marketing slogan. that's what I think a lot of brands struggle with from the sales perspective, not from the marketing or
Jess Gaedeke (07:16)
Yeah, that's just
Katie Curler (07:24)
There are beautiful brands out there. All the data goes into this is our core consumer. how do you bring that to life at shelf and how do you bring that to life and And so that's where I get to be super creative and work with my team on, well, we're gonna work on what is don't.
change a damn thing mean? It means that we're going to highlight the quality of wild turkey, but we're also going to have some fun around fantasy football. And we're going to say, this is how I'm bringing it to life. as Jessica, is a huge football fan. That is something we also share in common, that every August, everyone who plays fantasy football gets together with their team, does a draft, does competitions, And some of these traditions have gone on
20 years when you used to do a live draft. It wasn't always online. It wasn't always, you know, friends in Europe. It was, you had to kind of do it with your home crew. so that's where it's, don't change a damn thing. It works for you. It's fun. And then how do we translate it to a cocktail?
you've got, you don't need to change a thing when you really love a cocktail. You don't really need to change a recipe if the recipe works for you. So while we're trying to one, bring in new consumers to Wild Turkey, because Wild Turkey is a the nerdy bourbon drinker that knows every aspect of the green of the day of the Rick house to the person that just loves a casual bourbon might know what Wild Turkey is. How do you get them to pick your brand up off the shelf?
It's by incorporating kind of right time, right space, right campaign all at once on the floor and working with a good partner. So one of our first campaigns that we're doing with this kind of marketing slogan. And then we'll see how it goes as we go into fantasy football season and different things like that. But how do we incorporate cocktails onto the floor?
So that's what we're doing with Total Wine and it's been really fun to see it progress. We brought in Bruce Russell, who's the third generation master distiller within Wild Turkey to talk about his favorite cocktails. And it's not just bourbon on the rocks. It's not just old That's where comes of it's a paper plane now. It's a whiskey and Coke. It's all the different things that people want to do. So.
Jess Gaedeke (09:28)
Yeah,
sounds like it brings in so many facets because you've got the like a heritage, especially if you've got multiple generations that are sort of joining the story. So you've got that part dialed. You've got the almost like ritual thing with fantasy football and things like that. You're tying it to actual cocktails. What's the physicality in store? How's that some of the ways that it shows up to like the shopper?
Katie Curler (09:48)
Really it comes to life with Total Wine in terms of how they display each retailer has their own way of going to market. Some of it's a just on the shelf, some of it's in their e-commerce platform, but Total Wine this is where I get to be super fun. They kind of get to be the best of all things because they're not worried about selling stereo equipment that sounds really old and boomerish but or clothing or things like that. They are just the world's largest cocktail store and the world's largest liquor store. So this is what they're set up to do. So within that then we
get to go a level deeper of what is going to speak to their consumer and what's going to hit you when you walk right in the door and it's a huge display which they call wow because they want it to be creative and they want it to be eye-catching and they want it to be all of the things that
maybe a clean store policy isn't, but are still clean store things where it's very buttoned up, it's very beautiful, but it's also kitschy and fun and it's a big football and it's a, you know, all the different things that are going into while we were doing it in January during football playoffs and then how we'll transition it to August timeframe of fantasy football draft and getting ready for the football
Jess Gaedeke (10:56)
that sounds like so much fun. So that's just the wild turkey example. You also are involved in a little bit of the spritz frenzy that's happening. All right.
Katie Curler (11:04)
Just a little
bit. so Campari's strategy globally is win the first share drink. And what does that mean at retail? That doesn't mean anything to a retailer. That doesn't mean anything to a consumer or a guest that walks into Target. But what it does mean for a sales staff is how do we get the first drink? And we've never been in a more competitive space of share of mind, share of wallet, share of stomach, all of these things that over the course of
very illustrious career, harder than ever to be because the alcohol category is declining. People are declining shopping overall or impulse purchases. So you really have to be on your A game to win that first drink. And luckily for Campari brands, have a mix even though they're liqueurs, lower proof. And a Spritz is the perfect
drink of how do you enjoy happy hour? is the Apertif lifestyle?
talking about the day with your friends. It's a low proof drink that you're not going to fall asleep after two of them. You still can have dinner. That's what we want to own with winning the first drink. And with that, this is the most exciting campaign that I've gotten to work on in a while is bringing it to life at in the 20, almost 20 years I've worked with Target, people still don't realize that they sell alcohol because a lot of States don't and they don't have full liquor distribution. But what they do
know is their consumer. Their consumer is female, educated, multiracial, some have families, some don't, but they really know their consumer and they really know their consumer loves an end That's why Easter is so big. That's why back to school is so big. So how do you make an impact with liquor? Well, let's create a spritz campaign.
and let's show all of the different things that they're seeing out in restaurants and whatnot. And they can make it at home. They can make it with their girlfriends. They can make it by the pool or for a soccer game or a picnic. And that's what we developed with them is how to teach.
their consumers to make their own spritzes at home. And we incorporated working with Bacardi who owns St. Germain because there's the Hugo spritz, there's the Aperol spritz, are Capari spritz and a Lemon Cello spritz. And so we created a campaign with them that had four different shelves of all different spritzes they could make and really taught the consumer, it's not as hard as you It's Prosecco, it's a Liqueur, it's club soda, it's a garnish. It's not hard.
but it can be screwed up pretty easily if you don't do it right. So let's teach the consumer how to do it. Let's make it pop. Let's make it Tarjay. was this past summer and we're repeating it this summer. It's sort of a whole market SharePoint for Target that they gained
over last summer. So that's where the best of everything kind of comes together, where you have the data that says this is our consumer. You have the marketing that this is a hot topic of spritz. People have been watching Emily in Paris. People have been watching White Lotus. It's kind of out in the universe how fun Italy is.
And how do you bring it to a target in Nebraska, the middle of the country? How can I, can't get to Italy this summer. How can I bring a piece of that life to me and target capitalized on that? And they're going to capitalize it. Spoiler alert, you're going to see it again in target this summer.
They're going to take it a step further and have some of the new RTs that aren't necessary, that aren't my brands by any means, but they're going to have some ready to drink spritzes on the end cap. And then we're already working towards 2027 of what does a tequila spritz look like? What does a whiskey spritz look like? The evolution of the spritz is not going to go away. And it's so fun to watch something that came as an idea.
then that has the data to support it. And then you take the creativity and you bring it to life on shelf. That's, that's every, hopefully every data nerd like use dream when you see the data come to life at shelf. And that's where as a salesperson, wow, it wasn't just the creativity. It was the data that supported it, that we know the right customer. We know the right time. We know the right price point and we know that they can accomplish this at home. So that's what we're really excited at Compari to talk about.
Jess Gaedeke (14:59)
Yeah, well for sure. mean, it's long in the spritz for sure. I love just one phrase you used. You said, you know, target knows their guest and they love an end gap. ⁓
I just am like, duh, this makes so much sense. mean, I myself shop target and I, you know, I stop at all those, you know, especially the seasonals. And what a great way to like personify the data and the insights that you mentioned in a way that really connects to that shopper experience. So I can't wait to see it's like off the chain, the spritz situation. I don't even know.
Katie Curler (15:27)
It is.
It's funny because a lot of it can't come to life at every retailer. And I've worked with 7-Eleven for a long time. You're not, that's not the right consumer. That consumer is walking in, they need an RTD, they need a six pack, they need something that they can grab and go. Whereas Target, the joy of Target shopping for a lot of their guests is wandering around finding out, I didn't know I needed
similar to a Trader Joe's and different things like that where it's like, surprise and delight. I didn't know I needed that. I didn't know I could make a spritz at home. So that's where we really in on using the data that we have that this is the right core consumer and the data every retailer should know about their own consumer and kind of merge them together. Because while the Target spritz campaign work at Total Wine,
they don't have the true end cap to say someone's shopping by while they're going to pick up candy and whatnot and surprise and delight. Someone's walking into Total Wine knowing that they want to make a sprint or at a grocery store. Hey, it kind of works, but it doesn't. And this is our core consumer that's shopping at Kroger versus Target. So I think that's where sales has come a long way of knowing your customer.
me knowing my customers and what I can bring them from my portfolio that's going to make sense for them, but also them knowing their own core consumer it's like we over index on this at Target. Please don't bring us something that's not going to work for us. Otherwise, you're wasting everyone's
Jess Gaedeke (16:56)
Right.
Yeah,
it has to be a fit for Well, is takeaway you want to leave us with on the story of these campaigns at Campari? Because I'm sure you could unpack dozens of them.
Katie Curler (17:05)
I get
to talk about them all day long. think it's you know, I nervous being on your podcast because I watch you bring on these amazing marketers and amazing insights people. And don't think a lot of people realize how much the sales people truly love data. And at the end of the day, it's
you have to have the right data. Well, it's not just data that sells something because otherwise I would be out of a job. It is how you merge it and how you interpret it to your retailer and how you package it up. So I think it's gonna be fun to see this come to life. A few of our campaigns over the next few months and how we're incorporating them into the store and trying to gain.
Again, that share of wallet, share of mind, share stomach that we're all fighting for, it's gonna be interesting to see how this pans
Jess Gaedeke (17:52)
Yeah. Well, I love how much data and insights informed that. Of course, that's the side I see. So now we're going to turn to the commercial side of things because you and I have been in sales, different types of sales, but sales nonetheless for a number of years. And some things about our discipline have changed and some have just not. So I would just love for you to provide a little bit of a rant on this topic because it's a hot topic in our worlds right now.
Katie Curler (18:16)
It is a hot topic because I had someone with the audacity to say, what do salespeople do? Why can't it just be AI? And I laughed at her and said, if I just trusted AI, I would not be where I am in the last year or whatnot of people relying too much on it. And so I would say,
Two things, one, at the end of the day, sales has not changed at its core. The things that are valuable are follow up, follow through, over deliver for what you're gonna do and really to your And whether that's for me, my customer is the buyer at Total Wine and Target and also listen to your end consumer of, the person that's walking into Total Wine and Target. But truly, what's important to my customer and my buyers of,
Have I delivered the things that they need on time? Have I followed through? Have I brought them the new and exciting things? Just basics. None of that changes in sales. And none of that, I feel like, has changed over 20 years of really being a customer service-oriented mindset and a servant leader-oriented mindset of putting your customer first. So I don't think that's changed. And I don't think that can change.
ever what you bring to the table as a salesperson. What I do feel like has changed is it's not just a handshake and a golf deal and things like that. That I'm glad it has changed and we have evolved over the years of really using data, really using knowledge that this is going to sell through instead of just a one-time sale or feeling like people are giving them
car sales vibes by any means. I think the evolution of a salesperson has changed a lot. They're way more competent when it comes to talking about data, talking about ROI, talking about what that will lead to instead of just, buddy, let's go out on the golf course and talk about some whiskey that we want to sell. So I think that part's changed. and I feel like it's a great change that we're more educated, we're more equipped, we're ready to go and
we're holding it to a higher standard of just not a pretty presentation. And quite frankly, when I started, we didn't even have PowerPoint for sales presentation. So to see this come full circle in our life is like pretty amazing. What do you feel like has changed for you?
Jess Gaedeke (20:33)
Well, it's interesting. Even the term sales or the word sales can have a negative connotation in a lot of different circles. And I just go back to my first mentor, Norm would define sales as sales is understanding the buyer's needs and empathetically.
aligning your products or services to meet their needs. That's it. Does it come with a financial transaction? Sure. Does it often come with some form of negotiation? Sure. But at the end of the day, it's about understanding your customers or your clients need and meeting them where they are. And that I think has not changed, especially in, you know, I'm in more of a service type industry. And so there it's even more important to understand the need. What has changed, I think, is exactly what you're saying is that the best salespeople are going to be obsessed with the client's need and then
can become so much smarter in how to meet that need because of advances in technology. So even just this week our team launched a tool where
we can more efficiently tap into the earnings reports and the public information that's available, the news releases about different brands within that client's portfolio. So we can come to that next engagement that much more educated. And so that's where I love to see the job change and evolve and get, you know, we're smarter, but at the end of the day, we're still people.
I think clients want to buy from people that they enjoy working with and that part will not change, at least for many industries.
Katie Curler (21:55)
is the life of a And you think of someone that's been in sales 20 years and I've had different points of my career of managing a team, managing a large team, managing whatnot. And now I'm back to being an individual contributor and there is nothing I have actually loved more.
because where I thrive and what I do is that client facing relationship. there are people who are great coaches and who are great mentors and you and I have had both of them along the way, who they get their joy from coaching and developing people. And has always been the, that's the best thing. sometimes it's not. And my like personal rant after going through,
my master's degree during COVID, because what else are you going to do when you're at I went and got back and got my master's in organizational leadership. And I am so glad that I did at that point in my career, because it has opened my eyes to something that I really want to bring to the table for all salespeople, as if I'm influencing the world. But just the conversation of you can be a leader without being a manager.
Jess Gaedeke (22:56)
smart.
Katie Curler (23:02)
And there are a lot of things that managers are good at in terms of making sure your goals are in correctly, making sure that your expenses are done on time and making sure that you're doing all the things that help the company get to where they are. But leadership can take a lot of different forms. And that's where I think a lot of salespeople get stuck that, I'm supposed to move up and be a manager and manage a sales team.
There's plenty of other ways to lead and there's plenty of other ways to grow as salespeople without having to manage people. And as the economy turns and as there may not be room to grow in an organization where it's managing 10 people or managing 20 people or being head of sales, there's only so many heads of sales in the world for algorithm and companies. So how can you still be a leader without necessarily being a manager of a team? And that's
That's what I've really loved over the past five or six years is it's given me an opportunity to say, this is the style of leadership I have, very servant based, very service oriented. And how can I grow and lead in that way versus just managing a team and what I can do that way. So I feel like that's the other evolution of sales, whether it's in tech or a CPG or things like that is honoring the skills that people have.
and developing them into opportunities that can grow the whole company. I know my manager would love to have a team of top tier individual performers who don't necessarily want to be managers of people because then you get to be the head of the Warriors when you've got Clay, you've got Steph Curry, you've got all these things like.
The best example I can give is you get to be Bill Walsh with a really good team and just guide them. And that's what I think I wish more companies would honor in their sales team instead of just valuing people moving up as, well, you're a people manager and now you're a manager of a division and all that stuff. So that's my rant of sales of how it hopefully has changed in this new
Jess Gaedeke (24:40)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, and I think in sales and commercial roles, there's what I tell people all the time when they're saying, well, what's next for me? It's like in sales, you can create your next job if you just crush it. If you crush it, then you say, guess what? I'd like to go open up that next region or I'd like to go open up this next division. You can create your own next role.
because you're providing that commercial result and impact to the company. So I totally agree with what you're saying. And I think it goes true for so many different functions across the organization that we need to think less hierarchy and more impact. So I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's a fabulous What's your hot take on the future of the beverage alcohol industry?
Katie Curler (25:38)
Ooh, this could be a whole different podcast. But my hot take is that it needs to be level set.
Let's think to the wine boom. This is the best example I can give is the evolution of a young female wine drinker was a Boone's farm or a wine cooler college.
going to say legal drinking age, and then you moved into, I'm going to try this wine or I'm going to try this wine. And you started from kind of the sweeter palette of Riesling. And then you went to kind of a Chardonnay or a Pinot Grigio, and then you're in a Sauvignon Blanc. And then as we talked about you being a foodie, then you've kind of come back to Riesling, that Riesling is the ultimate food wine because it pairs with so many things. So you have that bookend of a drinker. The wine industry has lost that entry point of the young
spritz drinker into bringing them into the fold of cocktail is in a evolution revolution too of is it a low proof? Is it a no proof? Is it a whatever? And how do you bring them in and keep them there at every stage of their age? So
The best example I can give for Campari of that is you bring someone in that's trying an Aperol Spritz while they're studying abroad, my 22 year old niece. And then she comes back and she really enjoys an Aperol Spritz. She learns the Spritz category. But how do you keep her as an Aperol drinker and how do you keep her in there? You create more ways to use the product and enjoy the product. So as her taste buds evolve, hopefully she'll try a paper plane. Hopefully she'll try a different like margarita or something along the way to keep them into
interested, I feel like the alcohol industry has taken all of those things for granted for the last 10 years of like booming, booming, and never did any of the work to keep them there.
And so we've lost people to GLP ones, we've lost people to or prices going too high.
How do you keep them there and how do you value them as a consumer? That's what we're missing. And that's what I hope that brands, whether it's my favorite champagne brand, my favorite liquor brand, really
kind of speak to their core consumer and bring new consumers in and keep them there a long time. So that's my hot take. Everyone can say it's economy or different things like that, but we've lived through a lot of recessions since you and I graduated college and we've lived through a lot of times. But if you don't bring consumers in and speak to them, you're gonna lose them to something else. There's no.
brand loyalty, there's no category loyalty, you have to continue speaking to your consumer or you're going to lose them to who knows what.
Jess Gaedeke (28:06)
that is a brilliant hot take. agree with all of it we're going to move to the final dig. So, this is all about you as a consumer, Katie. So, feel free to take off your professional hat and just answer just authentically without a portfolio in mind. the last product or service you bought on impulse?
Katie Curler (28:20)
Well, it was for a party that I'm planning. I bought labels to make my own wine replicating Schitt's Creek for this party. I'm going to go create fruit wine and put it on some nice champagne. So that's I bought some some fun labels to put over some wine labels.
Jess Gaedeke (28:23)
Thank you.
Very
nice. This party sounds amazing. You're gonna have to send me some pictures. What's a category or a brand that you could rationalize any price point for? You just have to keep it in your life.
Katie Curler (28:47)
Champagne.
Jess Gaedeke (28:49)
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Katie Curler (28:50)
I go on record as saying I live for champagne and that starts from domestic California sparkling brand all the way up to spending a few hundred dollars a bottle on some lovely French bubbles too.
Jess Gaedeke (29:05)
Yeah, that's excellent. And I still am dying of embarrassment that I couldn't get the saber to work that time that I went to your house and I was very embarrassed and I couldn't do it in the past either. My past company, they love to saber a champagne bottle. I just never got it down, Katie. I'm very embarrassed about it.
Katie Curler (29:20)
I think
you are so type A and so wonderful that you want to get it right the first time instead of just enjoying the moment of I'm going to be with Katie's husband who loves to teach people how to savor champagne and just enjoy the moment. You are a perfectionist to the core and that's what makes you wonderful and that's you're in your head too much. So I think you're going to have to come back out and we're going to have to do it again.
Jess Gaedeke (29:44)
Yes,
and I will just be present in the moment. Okay, that's good Brands have distinct personalities. What's a brand that you would date and a brand that you would marry and it's up to you they can be the same or different brand.
Katie Curler (29:55)
married and I am in a lifelong partnership with Diet I know there's other things and I know that people can say it's bad for you, but I am in a very committed relationship with Diet Coke. And that cannot change. I don't like the regular Coke. I don't like Pepsi. Like Diet Coke is it for me. That is, yeah.
Jess Gaedeke (30:15)
Yeah, that's
your soulmate, your life mate. Okay, yeah. Yeah, are there any any beverages that you just kind of date here and there and you just kind of find a little flirty with?
Katie Curler (30:19)
It is. It really is. Yeah.
Ginger ale I love is a sweet treat and I'm not loyal to any brand within ginger ale because sometimes United Airlines has one and sometimes the grocery store is another so I feel like that's something that's like as long as it's not Healthy ginger ale. I'm totally fine with then I think I'm very particular I'm not I'm the only thing that I'm really particular about is the peanut butter in my house and I say that
as there's not a lot of brand loyalty but when Kevin and I started dating I had to ask him what peanut butter brand he was because I am a Jif Crunchie and if he was a Skippy Creamy I don't think our marriage would have worked if like we had to have two peanut butters in the house.
Jess Gaedeke (31:11)
I'm
going to challenge you on that. You could just have two different peanut butters because you guys don't have to eat the same sandwich, right?
Katie Curler (31:18)
I know, but it's, there's very
few that I find as like a CPG nerd and I make my husband go to grocery stores when we travel out of the country, I love consumer products and I don't know if I could do anything else. We have girlfriends that sell tech, have like friends that do other things. I don't think I could be as passionate about selling cloud-based materials or cars as I am truly about
consumer products. And I'm not loyal, you know, I've had to change dog foods because, you know, a dog develops an allergy or something like that. I've had to change a lot of things over my life, but like diet coke and Jif peanut butter, something about that is really to my core. I would be sad if those, I would be sad if those two things went out of business. Everything else I feel like is pretty negotiable for me.
Jess Gaedeke (32:05)
Yep, I can feel it.
Yeah. You could shop around. Okay.
Yeah, that's totally fair. And I know that those brands, I'm sure, appreciate your loyalty. Who's an industry leader that you think I should bring on this podcast?
Katie Curler (32:22)
One of my favorite bosses, Claire Keys, she had long career at Miller Heineken she was at St. Michelle with me and she left St. Michelle and got an opportunity to go work at Lego. And talk about, I think it's fun to sell apparel because everyone loves it. I actually think Lego is the funnest job I've heard
Jess Gaedeke (32:42)
that's a good combination. So, okay, good. Well, I'd love to be connected with her. So as we wrap things up, I would love to hear from you. What keeps you inspired at work?
Katie Curler (32:50)
Just seeing something come to life, I get really excited when something that I've gotten to work on with a of whether it's a wow display or an end cap or different things like that. I'm not in the brand creation team, but where I get to be creative and kind of fill that void of creativity in my life is really creating things that work for my retailer
And so I think that puzzle of trying to figure out how we can bring something to life and win the retail space, win the next drink, win the next program, that's what keeps me motivated. And that's what keeps me getting up every day of really trying to be creative in that sense of like how to solve a puzzle and how to bring value to my customers. And then honestly, I love my customers. We're friends, like,
I've gone to buyer's weddings before, I've traveled with them, and I think the connection that you get with not only the people that you have to call on as a customer, but really knowing them makes you a good salesperson too. And so I love to celebrate when they have a baby. I love to celebrate when their kid gets into college and they feel like they're a part of my life and I'm part of their life. And that's, since we spend so much time at work, that's what really
gets me going is that being able to have those connections.
Jess Gaedeke (34:07)
Well, that's why you continue to be such a powerful salesperson commercial leader. So that is a great way to wrap it up. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. Share your wisdom, share your energy, and it's just good to see you friend. So thank you.
Katie Curler (34:20)
It is
good to see you and I hope that we can continue. It's sad that we had to book a podcast just to be able to hang out, but we will get to that point again of celebrating 49er victories, celebrating wine victories, and also just kind of celebrating how our friendship has been over almost 40 years. We're young. We are still young and hip.
Jess Gaedeke (34:42)
Insane, yeah, we are. have an age today, absolutely. Well cheers to
you, thank you.