a00;00;06;23 - 00;00;29;13
Speaker 1
Hi. Welcome to Dig In the podcast brought to you by Dig Insights. Every week we interview founders, marketers and researchers, from innovative brands to learn how they're approaching their role and their category in a clever way. All right, Welcome back to this week's episode of Dig In, the podcast by Dig Insights. I'm Meagan, the VP of Marketing and Communications.

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Speaker 1
And today I am with Ella Jackson, who's founded a company called May Insight. She's based in the UK. Ella, how are you today?

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Speaker 2
I'm very well, thank you. How are you?

00;00;41;02 - 00;00;56;07
Speaker 1
I'm good. I've just realized that I have scheduled this interview over your bank holiday Monday. So feeling a little worse for wear for that. But yeah, now I'm doing pretty good. Hopefully. Hopefully we won't take up too much of your holiday.

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Speaker 2
Oh, no, don't worry at all. It's been a busy weekend, so this is going to get me back into the work mindset, ready for rest for tomorrow. So that's all good.

00;01;07;07 - 00;01;27;05
Speaker 1
Get rid of the Monday Scaries after the the holiday. So today we're going to chat a little bit about I think this episode is actually gonna be so interesting that we haven't had anyone come on with your background before. We're going to talk a little bit about how to effectively sell into retailers, which is a topic we haven't we haven't covered yet.

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Speaker 1
But before we dive into that, can you just tell the listeners a little bit about what you've been up to in your career?

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Speaker 2
Yeah, of course. And so yeah, my sort of introduction to the world of insight in my my first job was at I am over here in the U.K. and I was working in the retail team. So essentially that was a really good starting point and getting to work really closely with retailers and delving into into the data and all of that sort of stuff and that kind of naturally progressed into a career that's mostly been focused on category management.

00;02;05;13 - 00;02;33;12
Speaker 2
And so, yeah, I start at category a company called Albert and Clover, who were then acquired by Unilever, and I ended up spending quite a long time at Unilever and building my kind of category skills. I did a small stint at Mills Chocolate as well, and then I ended up back at Unilever and I did some more internally focused at more strategic insight roles.

00;02;33;12 - 00;03;03;00
Speaker 2
But the main thread throughout all of that has really been that I've worked really closely with retailers and kind of built these partnerships from a and a consumer goods supplier side with that with the retailers and always thinking about shopper behavior in-store and throughout that shopper journey. And then yeah, I left and left Unilever in 2019 and set up my own consultancy business.

00;03;03;26 - 00;03;07;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. Which has been busy and and going strong ever since.

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Speaker 1
Interesting timing given the pandemic. So was it a good time, do you think, to have set up your business or was it challenging? I'm just curious how that went.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, I think it I think it worked well in the end. So it was sort of because it was it was September 2019. So I had a good six months pre-pandemic of of, you know, I got used to working from home before everybody else did. So. But yeah, I had a good six months of being able to get out and go and speak to people.

00;03;42;04 - 00;04;01;22
Speaker 2
And then and then sort of we were all stuck at home and, and yeah, I thought, we all thought it was only going to last a few months and I might be quiet for a couple of months. But ultimately, yeah, it didn't stay quiet for very long and yeah, got, got very busy, very hard place.

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Speaker 1
I mean the categories were changing a lot too, right. Like so much was changing. So that kind of checks out.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. Absolutely.

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Speaker 1
Amazing. Well, I'm so glad that it's going so well for you. Now, I'm wondering with that background of working in sort of big FMCG or big CPG, what was sort of unique about that experience that you've brought with you into May insight in terms of understanding the category, maybe if we frame it that way.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. So oh well, I think because I started out agency side, I learn the basics in a small business and then I came into a big business. I essentially learn, first of all, how to make the most of what little data and insight you have in a small business. So what I kind of came into Unilever, it was a little bit overwhelming, just quite how much data and how much information is is available.

00;04;59;03 - 00;05;34;08
Speaker 2
And so really that that the key skill that I kind of developed because of that was prioritizing, you know, especially if you've got a curious mind and you want to know everything and you want to know everything there is to know about your category, but you really have to think about what is it we're trying to achieve. You know, if what we're doing and category management is essentially undefined in the category, understanding what the drivers of the performance are and building strategies to grow the overall category.

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Speaker 2
Right? So starting from a mindset of what is the data telling us you can just get lost in and drown in that data. So, you know, same as any other kind of research objective, really, you need to start with what are we trying to achieve? What are we going to do with this information, all of these kinds of questions, and really think about what you want to know from from the data and from the other and information resources you've got available to you.

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Speaker 1
Very interesting. I think it's such a fascinating I love this idea of sort of understand obviously, it's part of my job is understanding sort of the the research category, as it were. But I love the idea of pulling so many different types of data together to understand where a category is going or how to grow a category. Are there any other sort of best practices that you employ now?

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Speaker 1
May Insights with your your customers that you want to call out?

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Speaker 2
Yeah, for me, a big one is appreciating the amount of knowledge that just exists in people's heads, right? So whenever I come onto a new category to work, to work on for the first time, I always start with what? What knowledge have you got? Not just as a as a business, but also as individuals, because it can be surprising just how much of a company's knowledge just sits on individual people's heads.

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Speaker 2
So I always start with that and thinking, Right, who do I need to talk to? He's been working on the category for a long time and try and absorb as much of that information as I can before I even think about what kind of data to look into and stuff. And because yeah, a lot of knowledge only comes from experience and you do have to, you know, filter through what is genuine knowledge.

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Speaker 2
Well, hypotheses that you need to test and you need to kind of look into, you know, because we do have in certain categories for a long time, you do pick up things that you take as true. But when you kind of probe into it, you find out we need to sort of test that hypothesis a little bit and figure out what blind spots people have as well, because there might be things that they haven't even thought of.

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Speaker 2
So I think that that for me is is always kind of step one. And then once you know what knowledge they've got, what is testing, what blind spots they've got, that's when you can start thinking about what kind of data do we need to look at, what kind of insight do we need to be looking out for?

00;08;19;07 - 00;08;41;04
Speaker 1
And we could probably just talk about understanding the category, which is obviously a part of what we're going to chat about today. But I do want to move in to this idea of selling into retailers and how that process works. Admittedly, not something that I do on a day to day. So I'm fascinated to learn kind of what even the best practices look like.

00;08;41;11 - 00;09;08;15
Speaker 1
But let's almost look at the inverse to start. So coming from big sort of FMG or or consumer goods companies, are there any issues not not necessarily directly attributable to the companies you worked out, but are there any sort of like issues or challenges or roadblocks that you've seen with those brands selling into retailers that you wanted to sort of mitigate?

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Speaker 1
I guess, when you set up my insight?

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Speaker 2
Yeah. So it is, yeah, helping to build these category LED selling stories is something we've been helping quite a lot of brands with of all sorts of shapes and sizes with a and, and the purpose for that is to make sure that they're talking to retailers about how they're that brand or that innovation is going to benefit the retailer benefit the shoppers in those stores and benefit the overall category.

00;09;43;06 - 00;10;08;10
Speaker 2
Because I think our instinct in a for marketeers, the instinct is to just talk about how amazing their brand is, how amazing that product is. And and the the product is so great, it's going to sell itself. But from a point of view of a retailer and I think that's that's the thing you have to do is just step into the shoes of that buyer that you're pitching to.

00;10;09;05 - 00;10;43;21
Speaker 2
They are just going to be thinking, what's in it for me? How are you going to benefit my category sales, how you can help me achieve my target or bring new shoppers in or trade shoppers up, whatever that may look like. So I think that that's the key really is set to reposition and to get people to think about telling that story from the, you know, from the point of view of a retailer of how it's going to benefit them and that shoppers because I think when you.

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Speaker 1
Yes. No, that totally makes I think my my follow up question to that is, is there sort of a best practice when it comes to setting up that story? So in terms of like data points that you need to make sure you're aware of, like how exactly do you prove that r a Y to the retailer? Yeah, feel free to be as specific as you possibly can.

00;11;10;26 - 00;11;40;28
Speaker 2
So I always saw where's the the big picture, the kind of macro inside the things that are the big things that are happening in the world or in the country that you're talking about that are going to affect how people shop this category. So I guess that being said, over the last year, every single day I've helped to create has started with, as you know, we're living in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

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Speaker 2
Is it that you know, that there's not many categories out there that won't be impacting? So it's really important to kind of set the scene and think about this is the context in the in the category that we're talking about. And the more detail you get into that, it's harder to get people back to thinking about that big context.

00;12;05;16 - 00;12;29;06
Speaker 2
So that's why we always start there, Start with the macro view, start with the and the opportunity in the category. And that to me is all about making the right first impression because you can go in there and start with a slide that says, This is our brand history, this is where we come from, this is how amazing we are.

00;12;29;29 - 00;12;53;28
Speaker 2
But if I was a buyer, I would just be thinking, okay, great. So that's your first, you know, that's your first slide. That's what's important to you as opposed to coming up from this is the big picture stuff. This is you know, this is what we're thinking about and how we're looking to to work with you so we can both grow our businesses.

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Speaker 1
Right.

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Speaker 2
So I think that's the kind of the important way to start. And when you say that, ask about how can we improve things and as a real balance here between speaking to people's minds and people's hearts, you know, we all make decisions on the balance of facts and feelings. And I think because people think it's a category led story, that it's all about data and facts, but it is a real balance.

00;13;24;29 - 00;13;52;10
Speaker 2
So it's important to be saying, you know, these are the hard facts that prove that this is the opportunity in the category. This is how our products are going to meet that opportunity. This is how we're going to affect the overall category. But at the same time, there's a really important human element to bring to life around why the shopper is going to buy it in the first place.

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Speaker 2
There is is there an unmet need that your product is going to fulfill and it's all good and well, bringing that to life with numbers and talking about, you know, the demographic of your shopper app. But it's another thing to bring that to life with real people who are really looking for your product.

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Speaker 1
To what extent does sort of the other products on shelf that might be sort of competing with your product? To what extent does that play a role in this story.

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Speaker 2
Really, really important because again, bringing it back to the point of view of the retailer that every product they want to put on their shelves, they're going to have to take something out. So I think that the way that I like to approach that is we never say anything bad about competitive products because, you know, there are some really great products out there and there's a need for them on the shelves from a category perspective, we are thinking about what is right for the overall category, what's right for the shopper and giving them the choice.

00;14;59;07 - 00;15;27;00
Speaker 2
But at the same time, if you can demonstrate, for example, this product is listed in another retailer and it sells better than that product you have on yourself, that can be a really powerful way to start to say to them, you know, we're not telling you, you have to take that product out. We're just letting you know that our product is already selling better than that product in another retailer.

00;15;27;06 - 00;15;47;20
Speaker 1
So yeah, that makes sense. And I guess that's where data really does come in. Like I have been able to have some data in your in your tool kit or panel. I don't think that's the right thing. But yeah, being able to have that data to hand and be like, okay, you know, while all of these products are great, you know, you have to make a challenging decision.

00;15;47;20 - 00;15;59;00
Speaker 1
So, you know, maybe allowing your allowing the people in the room and allowing yourself to sort of rely on those hard facts might make the argument a little bit a little bit more straightforward.

00;15;59;00 - 00;16;31;17
Speaker 2
Exactly. Exactly. And like making sure that that is data that that you can back up and really use to say that this is the truth of what is happening. And because and there are some that some kind of issues around that I know in the UK for example, we can I don't know if it's the same in in Canada or in the US, but in the UK we can't share data from one retailer with another retailer.

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Speaker 2
We have strict confidentiality rules around.

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Speaker 1
All kind of right, and.

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Speaker 2
Which is why we always look at it as a, you know, our product sells 1.5 times this product, something like that, as a way to kind of bring it to life that the retailer may then go back to the other supplier and say, I've heard that their products are also your products and have that conversation. So I would never endorse making anything up because retailers can always find out the truth.

00;17;03;22 - 00;17;05;01
Speaker 1
They can always fact checking.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, a play.

00;17;07;21 - 00;17;35;02
Speaker 1
Okay, I have a couple more questions about this. And when it comes to actually building the story, so does the fact that omni channel is like so key right now, like this idea of shopping online, even through a retailer or a direct to consumer as like an avenue, Does that sort of factor into your storytelling at all? Like how does that play, especially because it's become so much more important over the last few years?

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Speaker 1
Like how does that play play a part?

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Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a separate question. But I always say that there is no there's no shopper journey that is online or offline. Every offer journey has touchpoints across space. You are influenced even if you buy online, you are influenced by what you see in store and vice versa. So making sure from it, from a brands perspective, making sure that the messages that you're you're landing are consistent across all of these different touchpoints are really important and it's shifted a lot in how we tell these the sell in stories because so it's even five years ago you would have the presentations very much about the in-store environment and most of our sales are still in-store, but it

00;18;29;27 - 00;18;35;02
Speaker 2
would have gone a bit on the end about here's what we're going to do online. Whereas now.

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Speaker 1
It's kind of like the final small little hadron at.

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Speaker 2
The place. It was always, if we've got a bit of time on the end, we'll talk about what we're doing online, whereas now. So it's all part of the same story because the the kind of the stuff that we're doing online is influencing what people buy in-store and vice versa. So it needs to be consistent and it needs to have all the same messaging and the same touchpoints with in a different way.

00;19;11;08 - 00;19;19;25
Speaker 2
I say the same messaging, the same overall messaging, but the way that you do it is different. And depending on where you're talking to people.

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Speaker 1
And I know a lot of smaller brands often start now, maybe, maybe that's a fallacy, but I know that a lot of like brands that I really love have often started direct to consumer as a way of kind of getting things off the ground. And then they'll they'll try to sell into retailer. I'm just wondering when it comes to that, that story or even the challenges of selling into a retailer as a smaller brand or like a growing brand, does anything change in terms of your advice or in terms of the data that you would recommend showing?

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Speaker 2
Yeah, it's a great question. I'd say that the earlier A brand is in its journey, the lower the expectation from the retailer on you having that solid category story and that category argument. I have worked with quite a few brands on their first ever retailer presentation and exactly as you were saying, they are brands that are direct to consumer currently and they're trying to get that this major retailer listing and the the data that is available to them even from their website, can be really powerful because that's there's more and more quality data you can get from your own website than you would be able to get from other sources because you can see where

00;20;46;16 - 00;21;14;00
Speaker 2
in the country your shoppers are. You can see you might be able to get information about the demographic of your shop. I haven't all of these kinds of insights and how frequently that's going back, all of that kind of stuff. And so there's quite a lot of data that you can retrieve from that. And then also a lot of the smaller startup brands tend to use social media quite heavily in order to build their audience as well.

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Speaker 2
So that's a lot of insight that you can pull from that both quantitative and call it as well, because you can talk about the sort of comments you're getting on your posts and things like that to really bring to light that the the consumer base you already have is really strong and that they would potentially translate into a retail environment as well as bringing in new shoppers, but having coming in and Zimmer Base is a really strong argument for a retailer to take on a small brand, especially if they are attracting a different shopper to the one that that already has.

00;21;52;25 - 00;22;21;22
Speaker 1
Really cool. I have one more question before we move on to Rapid Fire because I'm conscious of time, but it was just around this idea of like balancing inside that you have access to so when it comes to category insights or like an understanding of like what's, what's happening in the category versus maybe like customer data that you have access to as someone who works within a brand, how do you balance that when it comes to your cell story?

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Speaker 1
Like what does the retailer care more about and not know? Maybe that's not the right way to bring it. But yeah, I.

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Speaker 2
Think that these two things are they're linked. You can't understand the category without understanding the shopper and the retailer as well. And we always talk about and there's a really important category management principle that we talk about in this space called the triple win. And essentially as a Venn diagram, Do you like a Venn diagram? So it's like an event diagram where three circles and the circle being the needs of the shopper, the second circle being the needs of the retailer, and the third being that the needs of the brands and essentially the things that are going to have that staying power that are going to grow the overall category and they're going to be

00;23;19;10 - 00;23;47;20
Speaker 2
around for a long time are the things that are set in the middle of that. If you have a solution that is going to be great for your brand, great for the retailer, but the shopper is not meeting any shopper needs, there's going to be nobody to buy it. So it's not going to wear an equally if it's good for the brand, good for the shopper, but it doesn't work for the retailer, then they're not going to left and it's never going to reach the shopper anyway.

00;23;47;28 - 00;24;20;13
Speaker 2
So you really need to be thinking about does my innovation, does my solution sit in the middle of that Venn diagram? So using both kind of the category data from a sales perspective to show this is how this is how we're going to add value to the overall category from a cash perspective is really important. But you also need to talk about this is how we're going to bring value to the retailer and to the shopper beyond that.

00;24;20;27 - 00;24;44;29
Speaker 2
So if, you know, retailers of all got targets around sustainability, for example. So if your solution is ticking boxes for them from a sustainability perspective, and that's also seen in the shoppers working for them, this is an important part of your story, or if it's like healthy eating, that's something that's important. Retailer social theory, right? This is how you bring that into your story.

00;24;45;12 - 00;24;59;09
Speaker 2
And because if you if you just talk about the the growing sales stuff that is great, but it's more believable when you've got the things that are going to add value beyond that as well.

00;24;59;18 - 00;25;13;26
Speaker 1
Yeah, of course. Very cool. Thank you. Thank you, Ella. I'm going to switch to our three rapid fire questions. So first being, tell us a new or novel way that you've gone about understanding a client's audience or customers.

00;25;13;28 - 00;25;22;12
Speaker 2
I think that you're probably getting this answer a lot lately, but I have been experimenting a lot with a lot of other people.

00;25;22;26 - 00;25;32;01
Speaker 1
I Oh, my gosh. So yeah, tell us a little bit. I know that's not the point of Rapid Fire, but what was like the prompts? Like what did you assess?

00;25;32;02 - 00;26;06;07
Speaker 2
I it's been a really good tool to age with any kind of desk research. So like, you know, helping to, to understand if I've got a product that is targeted at a specific, specific shopper demographic, it's been really great at telling us more about that. And then more recently I've been trying to use it as a tool to and do a bit of social listening as well because it can go, you know, see what people are saying on Twitter about your specific category or specific as well.

00;26;07;02 - 00;26;27;15
Speaker 2
And that's been really interesting. So I feel like I haven't quite figured out exactly how to use it. Yeah, but that that one's been really good. And just to sort of say, you know, have a look at have a look at Twitter, see what are the things that people are talking about in this specific category, in this specific area.

00;26;28;04 - 00;26;52;08
Speaker 2
And the thing that I found really useful is to always challenge it, to tell me like the source of the information is providing me and specific examples as well. So rather than just what topics they something about on Twitter, I'll ask it that. And can you give me ten specific examples of people talking about that right?

00;26;52;08 - 00;26;56;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's a really good tip. Yeah. And the source piece is so interesting.

00;26;56;24 - 00;26;57;07
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;26;57;22 - 00;26;57;29
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;26;58;13 - 00;27;19;25
Speaker 2
Especially on that front desk research side of things because I have been fed back some things that, you know, a bit questionable. And so I kind of probe a little bit to just say what you know, where did you get that information from? What's the source of that? Because same as you would use in Google, right?

00;27;20;06 - 00;27;51;22
Speaker 1
Totally. And I just did a panel discussion with three people who know a ton about AI, one of them being our like head of analytics internally and he was saying, I didn't even think about this, but he's like charging. But he's always going to give you an answer, like it's never not going to provide you with something. So depending on how good your prompt is or depending on how it like you could end up with like a lot of like absolute rubbish, I can write it might just be like, obviously nothing.

00;27;51;22 - 00;27;54;05
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was really interesting.

00;27;54;25 - 00;28;26;18
Speaker 2
I think that is something that makes when you're doing desk research, it's a little bit easier to use in Google because if, if you don't get the right answer out of Google, you have to then think, okay, what do I Google instead? Whereas with charging you can refine your information is giving you. Right? So quite often I might forget to specify UK and it would give me startup from the U.S. and then I can say actually can you give me the same information?

00;28;26;18 - 00;28;30;14
Speaker 2
But for the UK? And that's quite a helpful difference.

00;28;30;14 - 00;28;37;06
Speaker 1
That's true. Wow, that's so interesting. Actually, I should that should have been one of the questions I asked you.

00;28;37;07 - 00;28;40;18
Speaker 2
Sorry here. And you have to try and inform us it.

00;28;41;20 - 00;28;58;06
Speaker 1
Okay. We'll make these like extra quick. Who do you look to when you're trying to understand where your industry is going? So I guess you could take that too far. It could be like category insight or research in general or like any of the categories that that you're researching.

00;28;58;16 - 00;29;32;14
Speaker 2
I, i, my answer is everywhere. I really I, I've become a bit of an expert in getting free insights and say my own business. So I have a all is the newsletters from from the big kind of agencies you can charge a mentor which is day. I have a folder in my inbox where all the emails go. I just wherever I could get information from and think with Google is a really good one as well because that one is quite different from what you would get specific to a consumer goods industry.

00;29;32;14 - 00;29;41;10
Speaker 2
But yeah, quite a lot of quite a lot of places. And then I'm all over LinkedIn looking to see what people are saying as well.

00;29;41;22 - 00;29;48;07
Speaker 1
Love it. And finally, if you have one tip to leave a researcher listening to this with, what would it be?

00;29;48;07 - 00;30;16;04
Speaker 2
I think that understanding and understanding where your clients come from, what they're trying to achieve, and not just when I say understand your client, not just the company, but the individual people that you're you're talking to as well. And of their sphere of influence. So making sure that you're starting with what are they trying to achieve and how can I help make that happen?

00;30;16;21 - 00;30;17;03
Speaker 2
Does that make.

00;30;17;03 - 00;30;24;01
Speaker 1
Sense? Honestly, yeah. Thank you so much. Ella. Where can people find a bit more info about you or your company?

00;30;24;10 - 00;30;41;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, so we have a website which is may Insight Decoder UK, or you can find me on, on LinkedIn. So my name's Alex and my, my in is on a major plan and yeah, I post lots of lots of interesting stuff on that lately So.

00;30;42;19 - 00;30;54;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's how I found you. So thank you so much. This has been fascinating. We'll be sure to share your LinkedIn with the listeners and chatting to clarify.

00;30;54;10 - 00;30;55;04
Speaker 2
Thank you so much.

00;30;55;08 - 00;31;06;22
Speaker 1
I thanks for tuning in this week. Find us on LinkedIn at Dig Insights and don't forget to hit subscribe for a weekly dose of fresh content.