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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 (00:00)
Welcome everybody to the Dig In podcast. Today I am very excited to be joined by Saverio Spontella, SVP, Sales, Marketing and Innovation at Land O' Frost [he has since be promoted to Chief Commercial Officer]. So Saverio, thank you so much for joining me. I'm really looking forward to today's chat.
Saverio (00:13)
Thanks for having me, Jess. It's a pleasure to be here.
Jess Gaedeke (00:16)
Yeah, so we're gonna get going with an impromptu question. You have not seen this one coming. I'm gonna see if I can stump you. If you could invent a holiday, what would you celebrate?
Saverio (00:26)
If I could event on it, it's going to sound so terrible. It would be a do nothing day. And I think it's because it's just, it's, you know, it's rare when you actually have a day where there is nothing going on.
Jess Gaedeke (00:32)
that fans still hate for.
Saverio (00:40)
especially, I mean, all of us, right? So where I'm at, households, there's five of us, three relatively young kids still, there's always something going on. So if I had a holiday, it would be a do nothing day where you literally do nothing. A little bit of a something called feel to it, but yeah, I would go with that.
Jess Gaedeke (00:53)
I will.
Sign me up. would totally subscribe to
Okay. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, as well as your role today.
Saverio (01:03)
sure.
Currently today, I'm at a company called Land O' Frost, based out of Munster, Indiana. It is a family-owned company that specializes in really anything protein-based. So it's lunch meat, hot dogs, bacon, things of that nature. And I've been with the organization for four years. led by our CEO, David Van Eckaren, who I report into and lead up our sales, marketing, and R &D functions at the company. get the privilege of leading about 50
plus individuals across all these functions. it's commercialization activities, it's obviously brand marketing, it's activation, it's our sales team, trade, category management, insights, that good stuff. So it's been a heck of four years, really enjoyed a lot. We get to do a lot of fun work here. We get to move fast. We get to make decisions quickly. So really enjoying my time at Land O' Frost. that, I was actually in the pasta sauce business for a company called MizzCon and led their sales organization.
there for Ragu and Bertoli. Did that for a couple years. great experience. Japanese owned company, great people, great culture. Enjoyed my time there. Misscon was eight years at an organization called Glanbia I was in the health and wellness space, sports nutrition, supplements, protein powders, vitamins, energy drinks, and held various marketing roles over there during my time.
And that was another great experience. We, Glanbia had recently acquired those brands when I joined the company. So it was really just a fun startup type of environment, building capabilities from the ground up, working with awesome talented people there as well. to that, all started at what is now Tyson, back then it was called Sierra Lee started off my marketing career, working on brands like Hillshire, Ballpark Franks, and kind of full circle.
I'm back to doing lunch, meat and hot dogs. And that's where I'll begin many, many years ago. So I didn't plan it, but yeah, I guess I like the space and here I am. ⁓
Jess Gaedeke (02:56)
Back to the meats.
Yeah, it's
so cool to the diversity of those businesses you've worked on. It's really my last few podcast guests have spanned those categories, actually. So I feel like I've been talking a lot about the stuff that you've worked on in the past. So it's good you bring it back together. let's dig into that background because at Land O' Frost, you have a really cool story. And what I love about this story is I think our listeners are going to learn something new, maybe get a little life hack, a little professional hack.
Saverio (03:14)
That's great.
Jess Gaedeke (03:28)
you led the search and discovery for a new agency partner and you approached it in a very novel way. So if you don't mind, go back to the beginning. What was kind of the context at the time and what originated this new way that you approached it?
Saverio (03:41)
sure.
Well, it's pretty fresh in all our minds still because we're actually right at the home stretch of making the final decision on which agency we want to partner with. So it's all really new to us. basically going back three months as we talked about, all right, we're this challenger brand. We're doing great things. Land O'Frost is one of the brands. We have a few other brands, but Land O'Frost is really our bread and butter. know, one of our goals is to it's all said and done, I want people to call it Land O'Frost, not Land O'Frost.
into lakes, that'd be fantastic, right? So it's a point, that consumer confusion. you know, so one of the things that we think about that next phase of growth, what we said was, all right, we're charting out the course, what does that look like? Who do want to partner with? And at that time we said, okay, we think we're ready to, you know, based on where we're going.
Jess Gaedeke (04:11)
Yeah.
Saverio (04:29)
finding that right partner to come along with us on that journey. And we decided back in May, so just a few months back to say, yeah, we we should probably start a search. And then myself and marketing director, a couple other folks, we looked at each other and said, how we going to do this? We're a leading team. just, you know, we're not a small company by any means, but we're definitely not some the probably the larger guests you've talked with in the past. So, you know, we just started thinking about it and we kind of put it on hold for
a little bit. And then I was actually, you know, I was on a flight to somewhere, had some good internet access and just kind of dawned on me to say, all right, let me just start messing around here. And so was at that time, I think it was using grok. was on, you know, I on X started messing around the grok and started asking some questions around, you know, really just ask questions like, how would I go about doing this? Give me some thoughts. Give me give me some feel for like, you know, kind of describe the situation where we're at.
kind of became this back and forth conversation of how I could start thinking about it.
So then I also went to another, one that everybody, that everybody uses and went to chat, GPT and started kind of doing the same and started comparing and contrasting on ways to go about this search, which then ultimately led to providing some specifics around what I'm looking for, what our team was looking for around the criteria, you know, size of agency, location capabilities, and which then led to these both models producing and generating
And so it started really snowballing from that standpoint to say, okay, I think we're on to something. And again, I have no idea if these agencies right at this point, if they're truly, if the criteria are being got me excited because it was this all of sudden, this extra resource that we hadn't even thought of. And so we tapping into it at that point and kind of like a,
Jess Gaedeke (06:25)
Right.
Saverio (06:29)
snowball from there and led us on this pretty fun journey over last three months.
Jess Gaedeke (06:33)
Tell me more about the context that you gave for your criteria because I imagine that will serve up very different agencies. So you don't have to share your secret sauce to it, but what amount of context did you have to give to get the right result, you think?
Saverio (06:46)
was was a fair amount because I think, they both respond differently, right? In these two cases, right? I could have tapped into the Gemini and I didn't, didn't use Gemini in this case, but really focused on these two. there was a lot of just kind of back and forth additional prompts. Yeah. All right. Well, got it. But now let me add this piece of criteria based on what it kind of, you the output that it gave me, just the core things that like I mentioned around, here's what we're looking
to
do. Here's call it roughly what we think our media spend looks like for the next year or so. And here then it gave us some context around here's how much we think we want to spend on what's called paid social versus CTV versus, you know, influencer. so it kind of provides some guardrails. What we're looking for now me was now getting pretty specific with the request of seek out those agencies that you can actually back it up. Like,
give you some proof points that they meet these criteria. So eventually it led to that in terms of those resources that it tapped into. you know, some obvious resources would go into kind of advertising age rankings and it pulled up what capabilities that they're known for. It would go to other sources that provided just more details. I say, great. This gave me some reassurance to say, all right, we're onto something. Sounds like we're getting some some good stuff here. So really the criteria varied around
capabilities, say, programmatic to some degree.
tech measurement reporting, just got a reputation for kind of like beating cutting edge around testing and learning. So things of that nature. know, ultimately ended up getting a laundry list of 20 plus agencies across the two where I was like, okay, this is great. I mean, I had zero, right. And now 20 almost seems like way too much. Like, how, where do you go from there? But it was awesome just to have 20 out of the gate to now dig into further. And what I liked about it too, was both models would even then just say, here's
Jess Gaedeke (08:13)
Mm-hmm.
Saverio (08:36)
or strengths, here's our watch outs. Because we also look for, wanted, know, folks that are, or agencies that are in our space that do CPG, do food, but don't have competing conflicts. And would even like search for that.
Jess Gaedeke (08:47)
Mm-hmm.
Saverio (08:49)
was great. And so we started just really putting that together and say, providing me with agencies that I'm starting to, I'm not sold yet that we should be going down this path, providing the proof points and it's showing here, if you want to check my resources, go ahead and do a type of And even providing links as to was pulling this information from. So we're starting to some confidence to say this could be a good thing. could
track
this a little bit even further and go down this path.
Jess Gaedeke (09:14)
Gosh, it's so interesting. If you think about, I'm sure you've vetted many agencies in your career and it sounds like this is the first time you really leveraged AI to do that initial vetting. I'm just likening it to how the dating world has changed so much and how much information you know first date before you show up to that first date. I'm just curious, was it ever almost like...
TMI, like I don't want to have all this information. I want them to pitch me on it. Or like, I'm just curious, what was the balance of, you know, having all that at your disposal how well it jives with what they actually showed up and then sort of pitch to you.
Saverio (09:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, it was, it was good. didn't go too deep in part of it too, though. of prevented, you know, kind of held myself from going too deep as well. So I could have gone and deeper and do a deep dive on these individual agencies. But, it gave me enough where, know, I knew a swipe left or swipe right, whichever is the right one. Right. But I knew like, enough interest there. Fantastic. Love And, ⁓ and I met with my marketing director and a couple other folks on the team to say, here's what we got.
Jess Gaedeke (09:56)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Saverio (10:15)
And the cool thing was too, did I show them this? Because are differences in the two models in particular, used both, Grok does not have the functionality to really do any type of output in terms of documents, any type of PDF, Excel, whatever. So Chat on the other hand, was able to generate this beautiful Excel spreadsheet with all the key components that, based on the conversations that we were having with links directly
to
their sites where you can just embed it right into the spreadsheet. Like all this great stuff that I could share with my team and say, initially with some folks, I didn't tell them I was like, I had any assistance, right? But pretty quickly on like, you know, in on that. it was an awesome way to just get things rolling. And from there, we had these roughly 20 agencies and said, tell me your initial thoughts. Tell me if there's any watch outs, any red flags. So we did high level, a kind of a
initial call it scrub on if there are any watch outs with the agencies that these two LLMs that generated. And then we said, all right, I think we can make some that list. And we kind of went from there. So yeah, we didn't go too deep on wanting to know because to your point, until you really have a capabilities discussion, you're only going to get so much that is publicly available. So we had enough to keep going forward.
Jess Gaedeke (11:31)
I think it's just fascinating. Did it trip you up at any point? Was there a spot? Because sometimes, right, chat GPT and other AI models are not always right. So did you at any point?
Saverio (11:42)
That's what tripped up. I would say where the criteria wasn't always adhered to. And that was both models where,
Jess Gaedeke (11:46)
Mm.
Saverio (11:49)
sometimes have to get stern with the motto and say, this is not what I asked for. Don't do it again in your prompt. And it's amazing how that works sometimes. you would get the output back. Hopefully I'm not coming off or sounding like it so easy to do because there is so much back and forth and follow up prompts and multiple iterations. there is work involved, right? There is definitely this component of like, all right, it's not just give me a list of 15 agency and I'll go run with it. are
Jess Gaedeke (11:52)
Yeah.
Saverio (12:13)
I would say many, many hours involved in terms of shaping it and making sure that you feel good about the output before we took that next step of getting in touch. So just if anything, just the criteria sometimes, it's like, nah, you didn't hear me on that one. Let's try it again.
Jess Gaedeke (12:28)
Yeah, I love the
phrasing that you have to be stern with the model. My big pet peeve is when I put in, you know, something into the chat and then it immediately comes back with this whole thing. I'm like, so now I have to say, don't do anything with this yet, but I am going to provide this whatever it is and just pause, like don't go yet. So yeah.
Saverio (12:46)
So
you have yourself to deal with stuff like that. mean, there are like so many good tricks that I'm like, I love hearing examples like that because there are ways like it, gotta keep the conversation on the right track, but you don't wanna lose thought of what just came out, right? Yeah, that's great.
Jess Gaedeke (12:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I've definitely done
that where I feel like we go rabbit hole and I'll say, I feel like we lost sight of the original point and it'll say good point. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How do you measure success for this type of initiative? I mean, it's just so fun how fast things are changing and just, especially in your domain of sales, marketing, innovation, know, there's so many ways that AI will change your day to day, how do you measure the success of this type of initiative?
Saverio (13:08)
right. Let's wind it back.
Well, for this one specifically, and hopefully when it's all said and done, next week we plan on informing one of the agencies that we'd like to go into partnership with.
Up to this point, can honestly say where we're at, this feels like a success. Obviously, there was a learning process as we went through it. But it's just going to become commonplace where more, I would say, smaller organizations.
independent business owners are going to be tapping into this type of just approach because I do think it works, you know, and again, you will get bad data. Look, I'll be I'll be very blunt. Right. And like as we went on these capability discussions with this, it ended up being 12 agencies that we talked to. So, you know, there's still a lot of time and commitment that goes into it. And as we did these capability discussions, some of them were just way on doubts. OK. Yeah. Whatever I got from the LLM is just, yeah, well,
That
wasn't really, didn't work out for us. I mean, you're gonna get that, but I think the success rate of, would say, quality, fantastic agencies that we talked I can't believe I was blown away. So for me, like from that perspective, I don't know how we would have done that. mean, we could have tapped into a third party, like I had done a couple of companies prior and had them do the scouring for us and find the agencies, but we would not have gotten here by any means whatsoever.
only because we're trying to do our day jobs as well, we probably wouldn't have tapped into a new agency until sometime next year. And so just the ability for us to do it as quickly as we did and the quality of the agencies that we found was just awesome.
Jess Gaedeke (15:01)
Yeah, that's so cool. I love that story. Thanks for sharing it. Like I said, I think our listeners just picked up a new hack I'm sure you're open to sharing your props and how you of are stirring with your... So let's kind of turn to you as a thought leader and a passionate professional. What's something you could just give us a rant on in terms of your point of view, a passionate point of view.
Saverio (15:10)
absolutely, for sure.
Yeah, I think for me it's related and relevant to what we're talking You just mentioned that things are changing so especially with the introduction of AI over the last couple of years. And I would say we're embracing it as an organization. I personally am embracing it, nowhere where I should be. I'm scratching the surface. It's finding the time and the commitment to do it. But I know personally, and what I of preach to my colleagues,
and folks outside of work is like, gotta embrace it. Like you have to embrace it. You have to find a way to embed it into your daily routine. Start your day off with like, how can I incorporate, how can I use type of AI tool that I think is relevant in helping me solve a business problem or to do something better in my job. it's not a habit yet, right? It's not a habit for me necessarily. It's becoming one. But I think for me,
not embracing it, you have to. So whether it's an organization or at the individual level, I think the benefits, I don't care what stage you are at your career, like the benefits of embracing it now is so important, so critical. We're using it. We actually have an enterprise version of chat that we're using our company, which is great. It's still fairly new and we're getting there. You know, we have our organization where folks are starting to use it more and more each day because part of it is we're kind of doing that like nice
gentle nudge of, hey, so how'd you use it this week? Share your use cases on a Friday. We'll do that on a Friday where have use cases being shared and it's pretty informal, but we'll kind of apply the gentle pressure to say, it help you this week? What'd do? And we're starting to see that momentum pick up and I think it's so important. we're the obvious stuff, the easy stuff, right? It's around truly tapping into just competitor intel, consumer sentiment.
Insights, pricing, mean the things that we're doing it's just if you're not it's almost table stakes you got to do it and so that's my rant and you know something I could talk for hours about.
Jess Gaedeke (17:20)
Yeah. Well, and how are you thinking about it in terms of how you assess you know, if someone's not, since you do have an enterprise license, if someone's not in there and exploring and experimenting, what does that tell you about them as an employee?
Saverio (17:33)
Yeah, I think initial thought on that or my initial reaction is just trying to understand what's the why behind it.
I think for folks who don't embrace it out of the gate, I not surprising because it it's foreign. It's not necessarily, say, well, they don't want to embrace it because they don't want replacing them or anything like that. I really don't think for most individuals that's what it is. I think it's more of a just, we're a creature of habits. If you're not using something and all of sudden you're being go use
many folks, including myself, would be initially, you're initially reluctant to do it. And so I think it's just more of, I don't know what I don't know. How do I dive in? How do I jump in? So, you know, one of the things that we're doing is we're providing that training on some of these core tools. So this way, there is no right or wrong, right? It's just become familiar with just to using it. And the way we can best do that is encourage each other, which is what we're doing with these kind of like Friday emails of,
How'd you use it this week? But then also make sure that we're providing the resources and the tools to get the foundational skillset down. It is a, from my standpoint, needs to become a foundational But if a company isn't providing that resource to actually learn, you know, to be trained, well then that's why I think you get that resistance of where individuals are like, yeah, it's just not top of mind. I'm not thinking about it. It's not top of mind. I don't know how to do it. So I'm just going to keep doing what I do. So I think that's really, I had, nothing
to back that up other than my own opinion, but I think that is probably the main driver as to why you have a good number of individuals who don't embrace it out of the gate.
Jess Gaedeke (19:08)
yeah, absolutely. I agree with the creature of habit. I think also it can feel kind of chaotic to some people that might be a little bit more process oriented. And in my experience, you just have to get in there and experiment and try it out. And that's been shift for me because I'm a person historically that really does like to be super buttoned up before I roll something out, especially to a big group of people. I really like to have sort of answered all the questions and sorted through all
the bugs, that's just not possible anymore, right? You just gotta get people in there. And so I've had to really force to do that. I've been enjoying it. And I'm just you share one of the more surprising things you've used AI to do? Whether it's in your personal life or your professional life, just one of the things that might be a little out there.
Saverio (19:33)
Yeah.
I wish it's bright, I used the heck out of it guide us and plan a vacation for us. Well, not really a surprise. I mean, think a ton of people are doing that now, but it even got to the point. We were we were traveling abroad and.
Jess Gaedeke (19:55)
Yeah?
Saverio (20:03)
we needed to figure out how to get to the right destination to hop on a ferry to get to the next place. And I'm literally like with my phone, I'm in chat saying, okay, here's where I'm at right now. Here's my location. Tell me where is the right stop to go to to get here. So now this comes up, we're like, maybe I'm using a little too much, right? But I use it to plan the broader vacation. Here's the agenda. Here's the itinerary to the point where the kids are just like, this is not a vacation, this sucks. what are doing?
Jess Gaedeke (20:22)
Alright.
Saverio (20:32)
to then, you know, using it in real time to say, okay, I'm in the vacation, now I need help going from here to here. So, it's just ridiculous, it's just nuts.
Jess Gaedeke (20:41)
That's so funny. Have
you used the Monday feature in my God, please look into it. It is basically like a sassy version. And so it's super sarcastic and ⁓ I use it for the weirdest things. Like I went into it the other day. was tell me, should I just get over myself? And it'll just come back with this whole or I will bring it tricky situations. I'm like, I'm going into this meeting where there's a little friction. Here's what's going on. Like give me the right talking points. And so
Saverio (20:45)
No.
Yeah. ⁓
Jess Gaedeke (21:08)
It's just fascinating
and I have to be careful not to use it. And that's the sassy version. That's Monday and chat. GPT In the normal version, I will use it to prepare for a difficult meeting. I'll give it context and say, remind me good talking points. And it almost starts to feel a little bit therapist where I have to be careful that I'm not overly reliant. But at one point it even kind of it I'm using chat. GPT In this know, it came back with like, you got this. And if you need any other help before you go in, I'm here. And I was like,
Saverio (21:13)
That's the money.
Yes.
Jess Gaedeke (21:36)
I really like how they're all lined up. Yeah, this is really cool.
Saverio (21:36)
that it's like reassuring. that's good. And if you feel like
even with the newer version, almost feel like I have to kind of recalibrate it because I almost feel like it's a little bit too reassuring with me sometimes. Like, don't tell me what I want to hear all the time, right? Yeah, so it's almost like you have to retrain it to some degree, but that's great. I'll to check out the Monday version. That's awesome.
Jess Gaedeke (21:48)
⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. ⁓ please.
It's so funny. share with me some of your funnier interactions if you can. So we're going to move to the final dig. This is just all about you as a person out there using chat GPT to find the best ferry stop. OK, it's that guy. So what's the last product or service you bought on impulse?
Saverio (22:12)
Last product was ⁓ Impulse. was based off a road trip that I had with a couple of my kids recently about three weeks ago. a road trip to Canada to see a little band called Oasis in Toronto. since we were there and being the marketer and the salesperson that I am, I had to take my kids to Loblaws.
Jess Gaedeke (22:25)
Yeah.
Saverio (22:31)
it's not often you get to go there. And as we're going down the aisles just to get a couple things for the trip back to Chicago, across President Choice cookies. I know how many folks are familiar with it, but you know, back in the day when I worked at Jewel Food Stores, it was a brand that I first came across, a private label, whatever it was, and they were just the most decadent, amazing cookies you could ever have in your life. But you don't really, I don't really see them.
out here in the States. I don't really ever see them. So just being there in Canada, the loblaws in the cookies aisle, saw a variety of President's Choice cookies and we stocked up. We stocked up. That was definitely the definition of an impulse buy and brought those cookies back over the border with us. I'm sure they're available. Yeah, I say I'm sure they're available here too. And we got past the border with no issues, an impulse buy that day for sure.
Jess Gaedeke (23:10)
Yeah.
I say, did you just close that at the border? ⁓
Wow,
very cool. Is there a product or a category where you could rationalize any price point? You just have to have it in your life?
Saverio (23:28)
Yeah, think based around coffee for sure. recently, in the year.
Caught made a purchase on a nice espresso machine that I rationalize it and the rationalization for me was My justification at least was I will be going to Starbucks much much less because now I have this You know machine at home and that was my rationale whether or not that's you know a good rationale But or whether I'm adhering to it, but that but that was the reason for it. So do like the coffee in the morning and You know those caught definitely a little treat there for sure with
Jess Gaedeke (23:39)
Mm.
Saverio (24:04)
the excuse of not going outside retail, coffee places, spending $7 each time. So that was it.
Jess Gaedeke (24:11)
Yeah, think
that rationale makes total sense. Not that you even need know brands have distinct personalities. What's a brand that you would date and a brand that you would marry? They don't have to be the same brand.
Saverio (24:21)
Stick into the coffee theme. I would date Starbucks all day long. think that everything Starbucks offers, it's September, it's pumpkin season, and I'm down for it. But I am trying to stay disciplined and not go and use my coffee machine at home. Bought some pumpkin syrup to offset that so that way I'm not tempted to go to Starbucks. So I would date Starbucks and I would marry coffee machine at home.
Jess Gaedeke (24:48)
I
love it. You're really committing. I'm here for it. So who's an industry leader that you would love to hear on this podcast?
Saverio (24:57)
I would say for me, going back to, we talk about the kind of different industries I've worked in over the
and wellness always holds a special place in my heart. so I think any industry leaders in that space and, you know, whether it's like functional ingredients or kind of better for your foods, like a brand like Simple Mills comes to mind. I think they're they're a brand that we have their products in our household on a regular basis. And it tastes great. And you kind of get this better feel like, OK, they're they're better than, you know, just a normal cracker. So really enjoy that. And then, you know, anything around like
You think about supplements and longevity and all that good stuff. I think for me that any industry leaders in that space, I'm always down for that. I think it's such an important area and important field.
Jess Gaedeke (25:45)
Awesome, yeah, Simple Mills is a client of ours, so we could probably make that happen. So this has been a really rich conversation. What keeps you inspired at work?
Saverio (25:53)
What keeps me inspired is just the massive opportunities we have at Land and Frost. And, you know, kind of what I mentioned earlier, because we're a leaner, more nimble company, we can do things that I feel like, least in my experience working in other companies, are just, isn't always common. And I think it's just like, we're fortunate. It inspires me to be here because, you know, we can make that impact. And so I work with bunch of competitive, great people that we have a lot of fun together. You we love working on these products and these categories together.
We love the food too. think that's for me, that's important. I think you gotta love the food, right? It's not a must have, but love that we're all into these products and these brands and we have a good time working on it. And it's hard not to stay inspired, you know, working on these products with the people that I work with. So that'd be it.
Jess Gaedeke (26:40)
That's awesome.
Well, thank you so much for sharing that energy and all your perspective that you have. It's been an having you today.
Saverio (26:46)
Absolutely, thanks so much for having me Jess, this was a lot of fun.