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Welcome to Dig In, the podcast brought to you by the minds at Dig Insights. We're interviewing some of the most inspiring brand professionals in marketing, innovation, and insights to discover the story behind the story of their most exciting innovations.
00;00;03;00 - 00;00;18;29
VO
Welcome to Dig In, the podcast brought to you by Dig Insights. Each week Jess Gaedeke chats with world class brand professionals to bring you the story behind the story of some of the most breakthrough innovations, marketing tactics, and campaigns.
00;00;19;01 - 00;00;39;09
Jess
Well, welcome everybody to Dig In. I'm Jess Gaedeke and I have been really looking forward to this conversation today because I'm joined by a longtime friend and colleague, Rob Wengel. He's President and Chief Commercial Officer at Woxi, and I can't wait to dig in and learn more about you, Rob. So let's start with you telling listeners a little bit about your background.
00;00;39;11 - 00;00;42;24
Rob
My background’s too long to tell listeners, we don't have enough time on the podcast.
00;00;42;25 - 00;00;43;25
Jess
Give us the short version.
00;00;43;25 - 00;01;12;10
Rob
I'll give you the short version. So, we'll talk a lot about Woxi but I'm leading our commercial efforts at Woxi. Prior to this, Jess and I worked together at GutCheck, where I was the CEO of a really great agile market research firm that we sold to Toluna. and prior to that, I did a whole host of things in the world of insights, analytics, data and innovation at Nielsen, Kantar, IRI.
00;01;12;12 - 00;01;32;07
Rob
But the foundation of my career was on the CPG side. I was in marketing and sales roles at Procter & Gamble and Tambrands and others. So that's kind of the career basics. And I live in the state of Maine. I think I'm one of the few CPG/insights professionals who live here.
00;01;32;10 - 00;01;38;04
Jess
You might be starting a trend, though. You never know. There might be an influx of insights people
00;01;38;06 - 00;01;43;17
Rob
Tom's of Maine came from here. We have L.L.Bean here.
00;01;43;20 - 00;01;51;20
Jess
Okay. Yeah. Proud heritage. So quick, impromptu question just to get things going here. Rob, what is one of your summertime traditions?
00;01;51;22 - 00;02;18;14
Rob
My wife is, her birthday's the end of July, so July is birthday month, so just enjoying the summer for the entire month of July is one of our traditions. And of all of our holidays, July 4th tends to be one of our favorites. So, finding fireworks somewhere and making sure we just chill with friends, family, and all the good things that go with fireworks in summer.
00;02;18;16 - 00;02;37;20
Jess
That's awesome. Well, let's dig in. So, as you know, Rob, our listeners really crave inspiration from other leaders. And I think one of the best ways to inspire is to tell a story. So I am really excited for you to walk us through the story of Woxi. It's a really dynamic business innovation that's going to change the game for a lot of companies.
00;02;37;23 - 00;02;47;02
Jess
So I'd love for you to go to the beginning. What inspired the idea of Woxi and if you could also just describe what Woxi is so that our listeners can be aware.
00;02;47;04 - 00;03;12;10
Rob
Yeah. So I'll start with the context of what is Woxi because obviously it's just this unusual name and we're not that well known in the industry yet. So Woxi is an innovation lab, foundry, an institute. and you might say, what does that mean? So it is lots of words that, that sound really fancy and sound like you could pay a consultant a lot of money for those words.
00;03;12;12 - 00;03;38;14
Rob
When we say we're a lab, foundry and institute, what that really means is, as a lab, we develop new methodologies and new approaches that drive great innovation. Ss a foundry, we then convert those into really meaningful products that our clients can use effectively. And as an institute, we're really dedicated to continuing to advance learning around what really makes innovation work in our industry.
00;03;38;16 - 00;04;07;22
Rob
But let me turn that into more practical words. So our flagship product, is basically a platform for better innovation decision making. And it's a platform that is really rooted around how clients do innovation. It is all about predictive analytics, and it's all about incorporating sales prediction at every stage of the entire development, design and launch process.
00;04;07;24 - 00;04;33;07
Rob
But importantly, it's a platform that is open to really enable our clients to work the way they work, and enable our clients to use the data, insights and information that they deem as being really valuable to helping them make better decisions. So we're a predictive analytics platform built for today's innovation decision makers. Let me give you a little bit more of how we got here.
00;04;34;06 - 00;05;03;13
Rob
So our founders are Chris Adrien and John Lavelle. Both of them were longtime global product leaders at Nielsen and Basis, who have been doing a lot of work to build really innovative products for innovation, for a number of years. And when they first got together, they kind of took seriously this idea lab, foundry and institute of and examined what is really needed to dramatically improve how innovation is done today.
00;05;03;16 - 00;05;22;21
Rob
But one of the first things they did was they wrote a book, which is fruition how do great ideas come to life. So let's study and let's really kind of learn from some of the best innovators in the world about what works well. And then that really became the foundation for who we are today.
00;05;22;24 - 00;05;33;20
Jess
I love that it's grounded in that, you know, sort of foundation of, of learning and understanding. And I imagine that's really core to your culture today too. Is it a group of very curious people?
00;05;33;22 - 00;06;02;05
Rob
It's extraordinarily curious. It's both extraordinarily curious and for an early stage company, pretty ambitious and, and arguably maybe even taking on audacious goals, at an early stage. But it's a, it's a culture of people who are smart, thoughtful, empathetic, curious, and, really driven to do what's right for clients and for our industry.
00;06;02;07 - 00;06;17;03
Jess
So the company was founded by people that really know innovation. You clearly really know innovation. How did you go about developing the Woxi model or system? Did you take some of your own best practices when it comes to innovation? And what were those?
00;06;17;06 - 00;06;43;00
Rob
So, all of us, with the exception of, I think 1 or 2 employees at this point worked at Basis for a period of time. So we have deeply rooted understanding of the drivers of innovation, success, and a deep understanding of a really wide range of client types and categories and I think we were inspired by what we knew our clients loved about what we were doing.
00;06;43;03 - 00;07;03;17
Rob
But we also were really clear eyed about a number of the unmet needs that our clients had, a number of circumstances in which, the clients liked a lot of what we did, but they said, I wish I could do this, that, and the other. So, that was really in many ways, the foundation for what we've created in this platform.
00;07;03;20 - 00;07;40;20
Rob
But where we started was, we actually took some of our own medicine, which sometimes is unusual. in that we really did thorough discovery, we really spent time trying to understand clients and their needs and their unmet needs and their aspirations. We built persona based narratives. But, for each of these roles that a client, let's not just think through our lens, let’s really think through the client's lens, for for each role, for each stakeholder, for each kind of scenario and use case, you know, who is the audience, who might be looking for something new, different and better?
00;07;40;23 - 00;07;54;07
Rob
What are those jobs to be done, if you will, or unmet needs? In what circumstances? And we use that foundation to really build something that was new and different.
00;07;54;09 - 00;08;11;06
Jess
And you've been in the market now and we're moving towards a bigger announcement I know in a couple of weeks about some of the, the partners that you're working with. But I'm curious, as you went to market, one of my favorite things to ask about is like, where did it go wrong? Where did you get tripped up?
00;08;11;08 - 00;08;18;18
Jess
Where did you face barriers like, tell me about the, you know, not so glamorous side of bringing a company like Woxi to market?
00;08;18;20 - 00;08;43;11
Rob
Well, let me actually I'm going to start with where we went right. If I can. And then I'll, talk about where we've hit some bumps in the road at times. the where we went right is I used the word audacious before. The founders and this is before I joined the firm, I, I've been doing some advisory work for the founders for about 4 or 5 years, but I joined the firm a year ago.
00;08;43;13 - 00;09;04;03
Rob
Our first client is PepsiCo global, and they're comfortable with us sharing that. and I guess I wasn't the founder. I've never been a founder. I've helped. I've helped founders and helped others build businesses to start with one of the biggest, most complex companies in the world. I thought it was pretty audacious.
00;09;04;05 - 00;09;04;23
Jess
Yeah you didn’t start small.
00;09;05;00 - 00;09;33;01
Rob
Exactly, but one might argue. All right, let's let's build this, let's prototype. Let's find a really, really safe place to do this, which I might recommend to a lot of companies who are starting something new. We went big. We started with one of the more complex, incredible company, but very complex, company that we're working with some central decision makers at the global insights level who have a vision for how they want to do insights better.
00;09;33;03 - 00;09;52;27
Rob
But then we need to work very much through an organization with a lot of stakeholders, a lot of different business units, a lot of different geographies around the world. So that was the audacious thing that, I might not have done. And I give, Chris and John a lot of credit for, that has gone really, really well.
00;09;52;29 - 00;10;34;02
Rob
That being said, it is complex. So there's no question that, Pepsi has been a phenomenal partner for us in that they've actually they've had patience. That a lot of things in our timeline that we were really confident we could deliver upon might have gone a little bit slower, might have gone a little bit differently than we anticipated, despite really good discovery work, despite building these persona based narratives where we thought we really understood the stakeholders and the use cases, it's only natural that as you actually move from an idea, a prototype into real production, that you're going to run into things that weren't anticipated. Which is,
00;10;34;04 - 00;10;54;18
Rob
so I wouldn't say anything's gone wrong. I wouldn't say that we've faced any big barriers. I think we've faced the natural occurrences of we thought we were going to turn left and we actually had to turn right. We thought that a client would want to use something in this way. And once they actually started using it, they decided to use it in a slightly different way.
00;10;54;20 - 00;11;21;25
Rob
And that's what innovation is all about. And that's what agility is all about. That, so what might appear to be, roadblocks, what might appear to be things that are slowing us down in many ways are just the appropriate natural lessons as you're building a new service, a new product, and then you're actually having consumption of that product and service, you learn and you adjust.
00;11;21;25 - 00;11;36;05
Rob
And that's what we've, we've done. So our, our timelines from what we expected have probably been a little bit longer than anticipated, but the end result is proving to be really powerful. And our client is helping us learn all the way through.
00;11;36;08 - 00;12;01;03
Jess
Yeah. And I'd love to, to dig in to that part of the client experience because as you know Rob I'm a very client focused person. And I think there's nothing better than when you see the delight in the client's face that you've really changed their experience and their circumstance. So what is that delight look like for Woxi clients like, what is that moment of consumption that you think is really powerful for them?
00;12;01;05 - 00;12;37;27
Rob
Yeah. So and, to kind of give that, explanation, I probably need to talk a little bit more about the platform. So the core product is delivering predictive analytics, sales prediction at every stage of innovation. And one of the core premises is it's an on the fly, always on instant prediction. So today's universe or the previous universe is one in which most rigorous sales prediction work is handed off to an outside company, whether it be a research company, an analytics company or a consulting company.
00;12;37;29 - 00;12;57;10
Rob
And they go away and they do work. And it takes two weeks, three weeks, four weeks to return an answer. We actually return an answer within minutes, to our client. and then once we return that answer, we have a very dynamic platform that allows the client to do all kinds of what if scenarios on the fly.
00;12;57;17 - 00;13;19;13
Rob
So we not only deliver a sales prediction. More importantly, in many ways than the sales prediction is we deliver an understanding of what matters and what the drivers of those sales are, so that a client can play around with all the different levers and figure out how to optimize the launch at every stage and optimize their decision making.
00;13;19;15 - 00;13;43;04
Rob
So when you think of delighters, when we first entered, I think the primary objective for PepsiCo and we are more clients now, but, I'll rely on PepsiCo for this point. The primary driver was we need a better way to do new product sales forecasting and the thought was the job we were being hired for is just to replace sales forecasting.
00;13;43;07 - 00;14;07;04
Rob
What the client has learned and we've learned together is what we do does that. It does it really, really well. But it does so much more than that. It has become a vehicle. As one of our clients said on stage with us, that it's been able to take insights and turn it into a much better understanding of the relationship to sales.
00;14;07;10 - 00;14;27;10
Rob
So I'd always get, you know, a great insights report. And I understand because I was a researcher, the difference between top box and top two box. But when I go talk to the business, do they really know what the difference is? And we use all this research to make decisions, but we get these great human insights without necessarily knowing the sales impact.
00;14;27;12 - 00;14;51;29
Rob
What we're able to do is actually quantify the impact of every new insight that comes into a client. So while we are delighting clients in that lane of I need a sales prediction, we're at a key stage gate or key decision moment. What we're also finding is it's a really valuable tool to simply say, I got a new insight, I learned new information.
00;14;52;01 - 00;15;16;24
Rob
What does that mean from a sales standpoint, in addition to all the other data points? So that's been one really big delight. Or the second really big delighter has been this notion of creating a common currency and a connection across the organization. Innovation is a process that has so many cross functional members, has so many steps throughout.
00;15;16;27 - 00;15;39;17
Rob
And what often happens is their baton passes. our platform has actually created a bridge that is enabling baton passes to be done much more plainly and enabled really good alignment among the cross-functional organization through the innovation process around the prediction that the new product is based on.
00;15;39;19 - 00;16;12;23
Jess
Yeah. And what really excites me because obviously at Dig, Upsiide is a big part of our offering, and that is the agile platform that distills our perspective on consumer behavior. So we've established a partnership that is going to really help clients move quite seamlessly between testing in Upsiide and getting access to the Woxi outputs. And I love that idea of the iterative learning and insights that you might capture along that innovation process and all of those things ultimately being delivered and impacting the currency of what the client really cares about, which is sales.
00;16;12;26 - 00;16;15;16
Jess
It can be forgotten throughout that process.
00;16;15;21 - 00;16;40;00
Rob
That’s exactly right. It's, by nature, innovation is messy. Innovation is a series of decisions every single day. do we go this? What's the trade off that we're going to make here and there? If you talk to R&D people, oftentimes they'll receive a concept and they have to interpret that concept and say, how do I interpret tastes great, how do I make the product that really fits that?
00;16;40;02 - 00;17;14;07
Rob
So the whole cross-functional process between designing a proposition, figuring out how to communicate the proposition, but then actually developing the product or service to deliver upon that is so complicated. I think a lot of us, quite frankly, who are in insights and not actually doing the innovation itself, might lose sight of that at times that, the number of trade off decisions are made, the ability to now put a what's the sales impact of this decision, in the middle of that decision criteria is really proving to be invaluable.
00;17;14;10 - 00;17;49;17
Rob
and the recognition that companies like Dig and tools like Upsiide have created a real ability to support agile development in a meaningful way. But there was a gap that you could have agile research and agile information that helps you make decisions, but you didn't have agile sales impact. So we kind of close that gap of being able to add to the great work that you're doing that moves so quickly and so effectively, and gives such valuable information to just add that extra layer of but will it sell and will it have an impact?
00;17;49;20 - 00;18;13;03
Jess
Yeah. And I think that's the real unlock is this idea of agile plus Woxi is going to be very disruptive, I think, to the market research industry. So clients no longer have to feel tethered to certain methodologies that might again take weeks and weeks. Now we can really deliver on the promise of agile. So I'm obviously very excited about it and excited for our continued partnership.
00;18;13;05 - 00;18;16;15
Rob
You could even say that Dig plus Woxi would do that as well.
00;18;16;17 - 00;18;19;16
Jess
You said it, I love it.
00;18;19;18 - 00;18;44;06
Rob
And in fact, you know and you know, all kidding aside, one of the beauties and one of the things we're excited to work with you on is the fact that, you really have a broad range and the ability to, to use the right insights tool, the right information and the right, support and service when it's needed is really important to support innovation.
00;18;44;06 - 00;18;57;18
Rob
And that's, there's not a one size fits all. And you've built a portfolio that recognizes that. And we're really excited about how that portfolio just fits so neatly into our platform.
00;18;57;20 - 00;19;14;19
Jess
Well thanks for saying that. And again super excited about what this means for clients in particular this partnership. So just to kind of wrap up the Woxi story, Rob, what's your biggest takeaway from Woxi’s journey to market. And I know that we're still on the journey, but what's so far your biggest takeaway?
00;19;14;21 - 00;19;40;28
Rob
Well, my biggest takeaway and, this is actually this might sound awkward. when we set out to develop our approach to clients, our intent was, we're really going to do this, right? We're going to spend time to be truly empathetic, do really meaningful discovery with our clients, really learn how do they work? Because we built a platform that's meant to work around the way they work.
00;19;41;05 - 00;20;04;15
Rob
So we wanted to spend the time to learn, to really learn how do clients work, what do they need, what are their unmet needs, and how do we work with them to make sure our platform solves for the way they go to market? What we found is the reception we're getting to our platform, kind of out of the box, is so good that the meetings are kind of shortcut to, hey, this is really great,
00;20;04;17 - 00;20;26;07
Rob
how do we pilot this before we've had the time to really establish that deep understanding? So it's an interesting journey, and it's a problem that a lot of people would have. The reception has been phenomenal. Our client partners have been incredible. but there's a little bit of can we slow down just a tad. That we're so excited that you're excited
00;20;26;10 - 00;20;49;18
Rob
but for us to implement this in a way that doesn't lose sight of the North Star, we need to make sure that you don't just say, well, that's a really cool tool. Let's go put it in place. It's got to be yeah, that's a really cool tool. And we're really clear eyed about how different stakeholders in different scenarios are going to put it to work, so that we really maximize the value.
00;20;49;18 - 00;21;22;22
Rob
So the fear is like a lot of software that we all use, that we buy it because we get excited about all the things it can do. We end up only using it for a limited number of capabilities. And, this tool is turning out to have a broad set of jobs it does for our clients. So we need to work with our clients to find the pace of let's make sure we have the right foundation of knowledge so that we implement the tool in a way that really allows you to optimize your innovation journey, your innovation decision making.
00;21;22;22 - 00;21;28;00
Rob
So you do with more confidence, and then we can really have the maximum impact on your organization.
00;21;28;02 - 00;21;46;21
Jess
Yeah. Well it's a good problem to have, right. That that demand is so immediate and that excitement is so immediate. But I think you're being really thoughtful to say it. It's it's going back to the innovation playbook. If you don't establish and really understand that insight and that need, then you're going to rush to deliver something to market that's not going to maximize that opportunity.
00;21;46;21 - 00;22;03;27
Jess
So it's very smart. But again, a good problem to have. So Rob, we're going to turn to you as a thought leader. And again I've worked with you for years and years. I know you have a lot of passionate points of view on innovation. I'd love for you to tell us one, you know, what's one of your most, hopefully it's a little bit controversial, too.
00;22;03;27 - 00;22;08;16
Jess
I love those, but once one of your most passionate opinions about the state of innovation right now.
00;22;08;18 - 00;22;43;04
Rob
It may be controversial or may be consistent, which is way too often either the organizations we're part of or the pressure we're under leads us to not innovate as well as we could. and interestingly, when you look at the success rate of new products in almost any industry, it's far short of what one would like, particularly given the amount of human resource and financial resource that goes into innovation as well as opportunity, cost of choosing and doing innovation instead of something else.
00;22;43;06 - 00;23;11;13
Rob
The amount of time, effort and money that goes into innovation is extraordinary. and success because it's so limited, can appear like it's magic or random or just luck. And the reality is, there's a science to this that we're all smart enough to know, what the drivers of good innovation are, that there's an age old idea of finding an unmet need and fill
00;23;11;14 - 00;23;51;00
Rob
it hasn't changed. We hear a lot of people talk about being human centric. We talk a lot of people talking about really building things that are they're truly, differentiated. but the outcome often doesn't match that promise. and I worry that we don't learn enough from the past, that we are under such pressure as an industry to get things out the door, whether it's SKUs for news, so that you can just stay relevant in a, in a planogram or keeping up with competition and racing to emulate someone who came out.
00;23;51;02 - 00;24;17;18
Rob
so you're not left behind the notion of staying human centric, being genuinely empathetic to what consumers truly need or want or desire, and then developing products in a way that will delight, and deliver product promise. we just take way too many shortcuts, and you can be agile and you can be quick, and not take shortcuts.
00;24;17;28 - 00;24;31;05
Rob
And there's just so much pressure, I think for teams to perform that we lose sight of what we know works and end up with, unfortunately, too many just average or below average, innovations.
00;24;31;07 - 00;24;52;04
Jess
Yeah. So that's an important distinction. Not take shortcuts, but you can still approach the process with agility. And that's really the beauty of some of the technologies and the approaches in the firms like Woxi and like Upsiide platform that are allowing clients to, to realize that, I think that that's one of the most exciting things that it still keeps me excited in this industry after this many years.
00;24;52;07 - 00;24;54;02
Jess
And you probably similar for you.
00;24;54;04 - 00;25;17;22
Rob
In some ways it's not dissimilar to what I was saying about Woxi’s experience with clients of, the idea of go slow to go fast. That there’re just certain points where spend a little bit of extra time. Let's make sure we nail this. Let's make sure we're aligned. Let's make sure we're still, clear about what our, our north star is and what our core purpose and objectives are.
00;25;17;25 - 00;25;39;06
Rob
But then use all the great technologies and tools in agile development that are available to us to then go fast on the areas you can't go fast. Too often when you go fast, but without all the foundational elements in place, you end up playing catch up later to fix things that were a mistake or problem.
00;25;39;08 - 00;25;44;29
Jess
Yeah, yeah, we've seen it time and time again. So what's your hot take on the future of the insights industry?
00;25;45;02 - 00;26;11;24
Rob
There is, it's interesting, and I'll be self-serving for a second. There is some extraordinary AI work underway by a lot of insights providers, both within clients and within suppliers, and jointly between clients and suppliers. There's been incredible work over the past decade or more on building really great technology platforms such as Upsiide. we found a whitespace.
00;26;11;24 - 00;26;34;17
Rob
We found an area where no one had really innovated for probably about 40 years. So one of the observations about the insights industry is that, you know, everyone kind of follows, follows one thing. So one observation is that we I think have learned is if everyone's going here or here, look for the whitespace to go to.
00;26;34;21 - 00;27;04;14
Rob
And the other observation I have about the insights industry is, is the science in search of a problem notion that we have some incredible technology, incredible uses of AI. There's some really great new platforms they’re enablers. My fear is that there's a lot of chasing those sexy enablers without remembering what we're trying to enable. and I this is not an either or.
00;27;04;14 - 00;27;34;12
Rob
This is an AI trade off. We need to be innovative. We need to use all the latest and greatest technology. We need to continue to look at outside industries, to learn from, but we can't become so transactional and so focused on just the technology that we lose sight of the big picture. And the big picture is we're looking for human insights that allow for better decision making, that allow us to grow brands, grow businesses, innovate better.
00;27;34;14 - 00;27;50;11
Rob
And, so my hot take on the industry is we're doing some really cool stuff for an industry that's been viewed as kind of slow and a bit of a dinosaur by some, but we can't lose sight of the main purpose of developing all these cool technologies.
00;27;50;12 - 00;28;01;16
Jess
Let's go to the final dig. This is all about you as a consumer, Rob, so feel free to take off the professional hat for a moment if you wish. What's the last product or service you bought on impulse?
00;28;01;19 - 00;28;38;24
Rob
All right. It's not going to be the last product I bought on impulse. I probably honestly don't buy too many things on impulse. And, at the risk of perhaps sounding out of touch, I'll be genuine. My biggest, my biggest impulse purchase and probably most important is I live in a beach house, and it was literally my wife and I walking on a beach that we love, walking in a community that we love, that we would visit once a year for vacation, or twice a year for vacation, and fairly impulsively say, you only live once, right?
00;28;38;26 - 00;28;57;28
Rob
We're relatively conservative, saving for retirement. And we say, why are we saving this money to use when we're older? Let's let's go for it. And we end up buying a beach house. And, that was probably my biggest impulse purchase of my entire life and the most important one, because it's now become our permanent house.
00;28;58;00 - 00;29;13;00
Jess
Sure. Well worth it. I remember when we both worked at GutCheck. It was in the early days, and that's when you're spending, like, more weekends right at the beach house. And we were on a Friday meeting and you said, is it really, like, lame of me if I'm on the beach right now and I'm on video? And I said, no, I think that's baller.
00;29;13;00 - 00;29;30;24
Jess
I think you should go on camera, Rob. Like, this is what we're all striving for is the beach house, that you can have that lifestyle. So, good impulse purchase for sure. What is a category or a brand or a product that you can really rationalize any price point for? You just have to have it in your life.
00;29;30;27 - 00;29;56;05
Rob
That's a tough one. For me personally I'm going to say pizza. You can get, slice of pizza for a couple bucks on a New York City street, and it can be great. Or you can get a really, really great pizza for 30 bucks, and it's worth every penny because it's better than a steak, is better than almost any other meal.
00;29;56;07 - 00;30;35;04
Rob
So for me, that's probably the one that stands out when I actually, as an observer of the industry and a participant in the industry, one of the categories that I find fascinating is, beauty in particular, kind of, skincare and cosmetics. It's amazing because there's an arguably that some of the technologies that you see in an everyday beauty product that you can buy in your food, drug or mass, is might be the exact same quality as the very expensive one that you're going to buy in luxury.
00;30;35;07 - 00;30;49;04
Rob
but it seems to be a category that is very resilient. almost any price point, if it's going to make me feel better and, and drive my, my skin and beauty perceptions.
00;30;49;07 - 00;31;10;17
Jess
Yeah. I don't know if it's my age or just the nature of how that categories evolved, but I think about it way more than I ever have, and I think it's now become part of an aspect of wellness that is also on trend for good reason. So yeah, I'm with you. I think there's a lot of products in that category that probably command a price point that isn't demonstrative of what's inside the package.
00;31;10;19 - 00;31;29;18
Rob
What was interesting, when I started my career at Procter and I was in the health and beauty care business, and we used to say back then that private brands, if there was something you were ingesting, you would never buy a private brand. You'd only buy a name brand if something that you're putting on your body. Yeah, you can buy a private brand.
00;31;29;21 - 00;31;48;23
Rob
And I think in some ways that's been reversed. And, you know, with all due respect to those who sell Advil, I'll buy a generic, private brand of Advil any single day. But when it comes to my shampoo, when it comes to other things like that, I'm probably sticking with the brand. So there's been a reversal of fortunes.
00;31;48;23 - 00;32;01;22
Rob
I think you're right that the taking care of my oral care, you know, the oral care has become about beauty. Other things about just making me feel good about myself have really elevated, I think, over time.
00;32;01;25 - 00;32;10;01
Jess
Yeah. Brands have distinct personalities. What's a brand that you would date and maybe a brand you would marry? And they're not always the same brand. Let's be real.
00;32;10;05 - 00;32;33;27
Rob
Yeah. It's dangerous. well, I do live in Maine. and I happen to, like craft beer. so I'm going to go with the Maine Beer Company, which their flagship product is an IPA called Lunch. They have a really, like they have a wide range, but Maine Beer Company, is is probably the brand that I would date
00;32;33;27 - 00;32;57;19
Rob
and marry. And part of what I like, it's an innovative brewery. It's actually a beautiful brewery. but they are really it's innovative, but it's also really consistently good and across the range. And their mission is one that's real, which is do what's right. So, the do what's right mission is very consistent with the way I think about things.
00;32;57;22 - 00;33;04;17
Jess
You're able to weave in some real ethos to what started as you just enjoy that craft beer. So well done. You brought it home.
00;33;04;20 - 00;33;09;10
Rob
And by the way, they make really good pizza at the brewery too. So it all comes back together.
00;33;09;12 - 00;33;24;10
Jess
I was going to ask you, where's the best pizza in Maine? And this is turning into a commercial for the Maine Beer Company. So. Good. Go, go check them out next time you're in Rob's neighborhood. so, Rob, finally, what keeps you inspired at work?
00;33;24;12 - 00;33;50;11
Rob
I love working with people that I wouldn't be in a job if weren't that, but I think, I'm inspired by change. Some people are frightened by change. I'm inspired by change. And I'm inspired by a relentless pursuit of building upon what we've already done. and, in fact, I get, restless, I get bored if we're just kind of doing the same thing over and over and over again.
00;33;50;13 - 00;34;15;26
Rob
and you've experienced some of that, that being satisfied with where we are is not consistent with the way I think. So I get inspired by the, what's next, not what's next for the sake of what's next, but what's next for how do we build upon the foundations and just continue to build? Because, as someone has said recently, the rate of change will never be this slow again.
00;34;15;29 - 00;34;32;24
Rob
so we just constantly have to be not resting our laurels and looking to see how do we improve, how do we delight customers, how do we improve what we do every day? And and that really inspires me, the, you know, not not staying in one place but constantly moving up.
00;34;32;27 - 00;34;54;17
Jess
Yeah. Well, that's the really energetic and, optimistic way of saying the terms that I use which and I you've heard me give this to commercial teams in the past, but success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive. That's the thing I like to live by. So a little bit more of a dark version of what you just described.
00;34;54;17 - 00;35;10;18
Jess
But yeah, we should never rest. We should always keep pushing. So I appreciate everything that you're doing. I’m really, really excited about the Woxi relationship and partnership and what it's going to mean for clients. So thank you so much for joining us today on Dig In. We learned a lot and it's always good to see you, Rob.
00;35;10;21 - 00;35;10;29
Rob
Thanks, Jess.
00;35;10;29 - 00;35;19;21
VO
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