00;00;02;23 - 00;00;18;19
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;18;21 - 00;00;39;16
Jess
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Dig In podcast. I am Jess Gaedeke. I have been looking forward to this conversation today because I've had the privilege of seeing our guest’s talents and innovation and leadership on display for many years. So I'm really thrilled today to be joined by Jill Boyce. She's former head of insights at Campbell's and J.M. Smucker.

00;00;39;18 - 00;00;51;26
Jess
She's worked across so many categories and so many brands, iconic brands that I'm sure all of us have in our pantry today. So I can't wait to tap into her experiences for inspiration. Jill, thanks for being here. Thanks for joining us.

00;00;51;29 - 00;00;53;21
Jill
Thanks for having me, Jess. Great to be here.

00;00;53;27 - 00;00;56;19
Jess
Let's start with telling the listeners a little bit about your background.

00;00;56;22 - 00;01;16;07
Jill
Yeah, absolutely. So like you kind of set up, I have been in insights for a really long time. All of that has been in consumer packaged goods, almost all of that in the food and beverage industry. And I just love our industry and the space because our brands are amazing, our consumers are fascinating, and there's always new, meaty challenges to solve.

00;01;16;07 - 00;01;28;29
Jill
And I always think about myself not just as an insights and analytics professional, but also as that strategist and thought partner for our teams. Because again, like we always have really good challenges and opportunities to get out there.

00;01;29;01 - 00;01;39;13
Jess
Yeah, never dull this industry. I totally agree. So I'm just going to throw an impromptu question out there to get us going today. So what's the last show that you binge watched?

00;01;39;16 - 00;01;54;20
Jill
Oh my goodness. That is such a great question. So I am a sucker for anything. PBS Masterpiece. And so as soon as they have a new historical fiction, or true historical story that comes out, that's what I'm binge watching every day.

00;01;54;22 - 00;02;12;03
Jess
Very nice. That's a good one. And we haven't heard that type of tie lately, so I like that a lot. Well, let's dig in. Let's get into your story. Our listeners really do crave inspiration from other leaders and the best way to inspire, we think, is to tell a story. So we'd love to hear the story of Folgers 1850.

00;02;12;03 - 00;02;20;17
Jess
I know you were integral in the launch of that brand during your time at Smucker, so go back to the beginning. How did that idea originate? What inspired it?

00;02;20;19 - 00;02;56;08
Jill
Folgers 1850 is such a wonderful case study to talk about, and I have such respect for teams that work on innovation because it is a hard, hard work and this is definitely a good story where there were some things that worked well and some things that didn't work so well that we can take good lessons learned from. So Folgers 1850 Coffee really came about because of smart strategy, and as I think about innovation strategy, I believe that it always should flow from brand portfolio and or a category strategy rather than living on an island by itself.

00;02;56;10 - 00;03;28;12
Jill
Now, you might still have separate teams that are working on innovation initiatives, but the strategy should always be connected. And so for 1850 Coffee, this was a really good example where all those things came together. So from a brand perspective, it's linked to Folgers, and I know we'll talk more about that linkage coming up. But Folgers as a brand really needed to think about how to bring new, younger consumers into the portfolio as opposed to the kind of older consumers who were drinking the core product from the portfolio.

00;03;28;12 - 00;03;58;03
Jill
So it's a really good brand reason for this space to be explored from a portfolio perspective. It was also really smart strategy because Folgers and coffee in general are really important to the Smucker Company. It's a big part of their revenue, high profit margin. And so finding ways to continue to grow that business also made a lot of sense and from a category perspective, we really took a look at what was driving growth in the category.

00;03;58;10 - 00;04;28;26
Jill
So if Folgers mostly plays in the more mainstream, kind of in that canister format of the coffee category, but growth was coming from the more premium segments and formats like bagged coffee. Figuring out a way to play in that part of the category, it made a lot of sense. So for Folgers 1850, coming together from both a brand reason to believe, a portfolio, reason to believe and a category reason to believe that was, again, really smart foundational strategy work that the team did.

00;04;28;29 - 00;04;39;27
Jess
So important to start there and to be organized at that forefront of the innovation. Tell us a little bit more about what Folgers 1850s proposition was. How would you describe that concept or product?

00;04;40;01 - 00;05;11;18
Jill
So Folgers 1850, it was one a delicious product. I have to give just a ton of credit to the R&D team who developed this really amazing, delicious range of coffees. It was quite a departure from what you might think of as core Folgers Coffee. So if most of Folgers portfolio is more of a kind of a medium roast, generally kind of appeals to a lot of different people, kind of a profile, this particular coffee was more premium and a bolder product profile.

00;05;11;18 - 00;05;49;27
Jill
So it was a very different kind of product formula, if you will, versus the rest of the portfolio. And because it was living in a different section of the category, it also came to life in a very different way from core Folgers. So most people probably are very familiar with that red can of Folgers. It's so iconic. This was a very different space and the category playing in that premium bagged segment, and I will say some of the smartest insights work that the team did on this proposition was trying to figure out what's that relationship between the master brand or the parent brand of Folgers and what 1850 was as its own brand.

00;05;49;27 - 00;06;11;16
Jill
And I think that's a lot of times some of the bigger questions we have when we're launching innovation platforms is how do you think about that relationship between the parent brand and the platform and who leads and who follows and what are you borrowing from the parent brand and what are you maybe building back in as a new equity or a new consumer for the parent brand from the innovation?

00;06;11;19 - 00;06;33;18
Jill
And so the team did some really smart, both qualitative and quantitative work to really figure out what that relationship was going to be between 1850 and Folgers. So if folks maybe don't know this 1850 actually was inspired by the year that Folgers was founded. So Folgers has been around since 1850. It came to life during the gold rush in San Francisco.

00;06;33;20 - 00;06;51;18
Jill
And actually consumers give the brand a lot of credit when they learn that little factoid, because they'll tell us things like, that must mean you're doing something right if you've been around for so long. And so as a new brand, 1850 has certainly a linkage to Folgers and kind of an origin story to be able to tell on this new brand.

00;06;51;21 - 00;07;14;20
Jill
But at the same time, we also learned if we lean too heavily on Folgers from both a consumer and a retailer perspective, we maybe weren't going to get that credit for being a more premium or bold product profile. We worried a little bit that if we lean to heavily on Folgers, maybe consumers and retailers, quite honestly might think, is that just the same coffee now in a bag instead of a can?

00;07;14;22 - 00;07;23;23
Jill
And so really figuring out what needed to lead, what was there as support was one of the biggest unlocks in terms of how to bring this new proposition to life.

00;07;24;00 - 00;07;35;09
Jess
And that hierarchy within that master brand is so important to nail and from an insights standpoint, was there anything unique that you applied to bring this brand to market?

00;07;35;11 - 00;08;03;12
Jill
So I think one of the more interesting insights projects that we did was to figure out what bold meant for the consumer. And so the team did some really nice deep qualitative research to figure out the meaning of bold. And for 1850 it was the building of a double entendre. So you have bold as the product profile. It's a very bold, kind of darker roast product profile that we wanted to be able to highlight again as being very different than what Folgers was offering.

00;08;03;15 - 00;08;26;25
Jill
And for this younger consumer that we were going after, we also wanted to understand what bold meant in terms of a mindset and a lifestyle. And so being able to really figure out what both of those meant, how they built on each other really helped the team figure out then how to bring the proposition to life and did have a nice impact then and what that meant, especially for marketing communications.

00;08;26;28 - 00;08;37;13
Jess
Well, it sounds like some tremendous and comprehensive insights work really went into that launch too. You must have had some setbacks along the way. Did you have any barriers that you had to overcome?

00;08;37;15 - 00;08;58;09
Jill
There were a lot of barriers. And I always think with innovation something is going to go wrong, especially when you have a big bet platform or a new brand innovation. And I think it's always smart for us to be ready to find those insights of where things are maybe going off the rails so that we can be prepared to pivot early versus later in the process,

00;08;58;09 - 00;09;26;13
Jill
finding something didn't go well. We're left flat footed and now we're scrambling. And so one good example of where something didn't exactly go right for 1850 was in the package design. So we did some really nice work to help develop a beautiful package designed to bring this proposition to life. And we did research before the launch and to confirm that both from kind of those consumer perspectives in terms of is it conveying our value proposition and positioning the right way check.

00;09;26;13 - 00;09;54;20
Jill
It was doing a nice job there. And from a shopper perspective, it also really nicely broke through on shelf. So we're feeling great about this package design that would have been really successful. The challenge was when we launched the proposition, then we found that our neighbors on shelf had also changed their packaging, and so a design that we had that actually had stood out in an old competitive set now no longer was standing out as well on the shelf.

00;09;54;22 - 00;10;26;12
Jill
And so I give the team a ton of credit for pivoting quickly to figure out what we could do to adjust. I mean, this was early in the launch, so we could not just do a 180 flip in terms of what the package design would look like. That would really have stunted the momentum of this initiative. But the team was able to bring in some kind of new elements into the design that did help it break through on shelf better in this new competitive environment, while still retaining the overall kind of look and feel that we had initially launched with.

00;10;26;14 - 00;10;37;29
Jess
So that's a really important learning and also a great example of the ability to pivot. And was there anything special about the team that you had on this initiative that allowed you to make that change so, so close to market?

00;10;38;04 - 00;10;58;20
Jill
Yeah, I think everybody was all in on this particular initiative. The team was really working nicely across all the functional groups that had a hand in creating and monitoring this initiative. So the brand teams and innovation and insights and R&D and all of the cross-functional partners, we had expected that this would be a very sizable launch for the company.

00;10;58;27 - 00;11;23;08
Jill
And so that meant that it had a lot of eyes on it from an executional standpoint as it also got into market. And I think having that trust within the team to have some open and honest conversations and be willing to just roll up our sleeves and figure out what can we do to pivot was really integral so that everybody was kind of open to to ideas about how to make things better going forward.

00;11;23;10 - 00;11;31;18
Jess
Yeah, and with an initiative like this, there's got to be some measure of success. How did you assess the performance of this, this launch?

00;11;31;21 - 00;12;03;00
Jill
Yeah. Having an accurate and realistic sense of what success will look like before the launch. So, so important. And this is one where we had to adjust that expectation. So prior to launch, we had done a lot of good work to assess the concept potential, how great the product was delivering. Both of them look like they were going to be in good shape and we had expected that we were going to have really robust marketing support as well as a fast and robust distribution support plan.

00;12;03;07 - 00;12;24;23
Jill
And all those things together would have led to a very large size surprise. Unfortunately, as often happens with innovation, the execution didn't really kind of play out the way that we had put on paper prior to launch, and so we definitely had to adjust our expectations in terms of how big, big was going to be and what success would look like.

00;12;24;25 - 00;12;54;11
Jill
And one of the biggest things I think that I took out of this particular exercise was not just looking at success in terms of overall dollars and profit for the particular initiative, but really thinking about things through the lens of the retailer as well in terms of what success would look like. I think probably most marketers do know that velocity matters when it comes to their item performance, and this is one that we probably didn't think about until a little bit late in the process.

00;12;54;14 - 00;13;26;01
Jill
So as I kind of reflect back on this particular launch, even though the overall retail dollars were lower than what we had initially expected, again, because the execution was not what we had originally planned, what ended up happening was those dollars were spread across a lot of items and each of those items then had lower velocity. And so it's a good lesson learned in terms of thinking about how concentrated do you want that volume to be when you launch your items.

00;13;26;03 - 00;13;44;26
Jill
Obviously, we need more than one item to show up on shelf for a big innovation platform. Otherwise you're not going to have the scale and the visibility and presence at retail to really be successful. But having too many items can mean that that those dollars and that velocity get spread to the family and then that puts everything at risk.

00;13;44;29 - 00;14;03;26
Jess
Yeah, that's such an important lesson and I'm glad you could share that because there's a lot of listeners that are considering these extensions within a well-known brand and making sure that you're not spreading yourselves too thin. That's a really important lesson. I'm so glad you shared that. Anything else you want to share about the Folgers 1850 story?

00;14;03;28 - 00;14;28;07
Jill
Well the only other thing that I was thinking about, Jess, is when things don't go well, because inevitably something's going to cause you to have to pivot. How do we help ourselves focus on the things that will actually make a difference? And what I mean by that is, in the case of 1850, velocity obviously was challenged, as I was just mentioning, but we also saw that our distribution was a challenge.

00;14;28;07 - 00;14;55;18
Jill
And so both the breadth and the depth of distribution as well as the shelf placement were not as optimal as we had wanted. And so those were some key things that really needed to get addressed in order to be successful. However, as a team, we actually put a lot of energy into pivoting from our marketing communications, and so we came up with a new advertising campaign not long after we had launched.

00;14;55;21 - 00;15;31;07
Jill
The creative was not necessarily better than what we already had in market, and in hindsight I'm like, gosh, could we have just put those dollars against more media support on the existing creative or helping to solve the things that actually would have made a difference to get that distribution and to drive those velocities off? And so in hindsight, it's one of those cases where can we make sure that as we're pivoting, we're focusing on the things that will actually make a difference, not just the things that we know that we can control because it's easy, if you will, if you have the dollars to be able to come up with new marketing.

00;15;31;09 - 00;15;37;18
Jill
But is that really the right leverage to be pulling in this particular case? I'm not sure that it was.

00;15;37;21 - 00;16;00;24
Jess
Yeah, well, it takes years in the industry and so many of those types of launches to build that arsenal of lessons, Jill. So I think that you have you learned a lot and probably put that learning into play at subsequent positions and go to market strategies. Let's turn to you as a thought leader. You are such a leader in this industry and I'd love to tap into some of your thinking.

00;16;00;26 - 00;16;09;02
Jess
What would you say is one of your more controversial or passionate opinions about the state of innovation or the state of building brands today?

00;16;09;04 - 00;16;39;21
Jill
So I don’t know that this is necessarily controversial, but I'm definitely passionate about it, and that is the role of evidence based marketing and pulling the right levers to grow brands over the long term. And so what I mean by evidence based marketing is really thinking about household penetration as the one way to grow brands sustainably over the long term. All brands are going to have a leaky bucket and we have to both replenish and protect those lighter users in order to grow household penetration over the long term.

00;16;39;23 - 00;17;12;28
Jill
And so that means doing things from a tactics perspective that will actually encourage that household penetration. So I still hear from teams that say, I want a loyalty program and that's nice, but that's not going to grow household penetration or making sure that as we have our precious marketing dollars to spread around, that we're trying to do our best as possible to put those dollars against tactics that are actually going to drive your equity and your long term business building, not just your sales in the short term.

00;17;12;28 - 00;17;35;11
Jill
And so those are tactics like television, which still has a role if the brands have budget to be able to suspend against it. Premium digital video does do a really nice job of growing your brands over the long term. But a lot of times because we have pressure for the short term and so many of us are also finding the role for retail media in our overall marketing budgets.

00;17;35;18 - 00;17;50;10
Jill
Those are short term sales driving media tactics and so making sure that we have that right balance so that we don't just put in place plans that are only going to grow our brands in the short term and not also help them for the long term.

00;17;50;16 - 00;18;03;29
Jess
Yeah, and I know part of that point of view has this idea of strengthening physical and mental availability. What are some of the ways that you found are most impactful to increasing things like mental availability?

00;18;04;02 - 00;18;37;27
Jill
Yeah, mental availability is so important, so you want consumers to be thinking about you when they have a specific job to be solving in their lives or they're ready to go, you know, buy you at the shelf, whether that's physical shelf or an online shelf. And so things like making sure that you're in that mindset because you have had marketing communications that make sure that you're still top of mind, making sure that you're doing things like leveraging your distinctive brand assets really consistently so that they know who you are and can identify you really readily.

00;18;37;29 - 00;18;45;10
Jill
That applies both for your brand building and your innovation efforts. So those are a couple of things that come to mind in terms of that mental availability.

00;18;45;12 - 00;18;56;03
Jess
So important and I think can be lost nowadays. So I'm glad to hear that that's core to what you believe. And what new tools or approaches or frameworks have you started leveraging that have had an impact?

00;18;56;05 - 00;19;29;10
Jill
Yeah, I think there's always new tools in our industry and I think that's one of the things that makes insights and analytics really fun, is that there are new things to explore. So I think a lot of us these days have been talking about things like generative AI and figuring out if and how and where that can fit in with our tools that, as insights professionals know and as I think about that toolset, it's probably even though the tools are maybe evolving over time and they always have been evolving, it's figuring out what that right balance is between things that are tried and true and the things that are newer.

00;19;29;12 - 00;19;56;17
Jill
So today we might be talking about generative AI, whereas you know, decades ago we might have been talking about things like system one methods or behavioral science methods or things of that nature. It's all about figuring out what's the right approach that makes sense given your business need and your learning need, and having some appetite to be able to experiment and figuring out how some of these newer tools can play a role based on your needs.

00;19;56;20 - 00;20;07;07
Jess
And are there unique challenges that we're facing these days as an insights discipline where we are sort of forced to think more creatively, whether it's how we leverage budget or what tools we are using?

00;20;07;10 - 00;20;28;10
Jill
Yeah, I think the budget question's a really good one, just because I've historically found that well budgets don't tend to grow very much, right? Like they were really pressured to make precious use of all of those dollars. And what that ends up leading to a lot of times is that those those dollars are put against the initiatives that we know are coming.

00;20;28;15 - 00;20;48;10
Jill
So we say, we're going to be launching a new campaign this next year. I know what my learning plan needs to look like and what that budget needs to look like in order to successfully launch that that new campaign. Same thing with innovation. I'm going to have a new innovation launch. And what are the steps I need to do from an insights perspective to help inform the commercialization process?

00;20;48;12 - 00;21;20;05
Jill
And so then what happens is that pretty much all of our dollars get taken up by these known initiatives, and it's just a real pain point that teams have. And so my challenge to myself and my peers is to say, can we set aside some dollars in those not growing budgets to be able to allow ourselves to be surprised about something for our brands and our categories and our consumers to go into a project where you don't know what the answer is going to be or what you're exactly looking for.

00;21;20;05 - 00;21;41;20
Jill
And it's maybe a leap of faith in terms of what would come out of that research. So many times, if we're just getting answers to move initiatives along versus really allowing for true insights to emerge. And so anything that we can do to to find some room in our, again, not growing budgets to allow that to happen, I think would be well-served for all of us.

00;21;41;22 - 00;22;03;06
Jess
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that idea of be surprised. There's some freedom when you go into a research initiative without a lot of hypotheses. Right. And just see where the research takes you. So that's really inspiring. I'm glad you shared that. So what's your hot take on the future of our industry, whether that is the CPG industry or, you know, insights and innovation, what's your take?

00;22;03;08 - 00;22;27;23
Jill
So my hot take would be figuring out how we're going to be balancing the what's in the house from an insights perspective. I think there's always been kind of this pendulum that shifts in our industry where people are really interested in the human side and kind of the whys and the qualitative and the ethnographic. And then there was a time that big data and data analysis was really in vogue.

00;22;27;25 - 00;22;49;16
Jill
And in reality is it's both, right? And so figuring out that healthy balance in terms of understanding what's going on, having the true human insights underneath that, I think will be probably a continued pendulum shift that happens in our industry. And it's up to each of us then to figure out what that right balance is, to be able to best inform and inspire our businesses.

00;22;49;19 - 00;23;03;23
Jess
I think that's completely correct. So let's turn to the final dig. This is all about you as a consumer, as a person. So feel free to take off your professional hat if you wish. But what's the last product or service you bought on impulse?

00;23;03;25 - 00;23;27;14
Jill
Okay, so this would have to be at Thanksgiving when I was in Costco and not intending to buy their huge $5 pumpkin pie. But it made its way into my cart and it was absolutely delicious. I could not pass that up. I had been intending to make one homemade for my family, but $5 for something that was like bigger than my head was kind of amazing.

00;23;27;14 - 00;23;28;23
Jill
And it was delicious.

00;23;28;25 - 00;23;47;10
Jess
It was delicious. I know. And gosh, I don't know how they forecast the demand for that because there's going to be so much impulsivity that happens with that particular product at this time of year. That's a good one. What's a category or a brand or a product that you could really rationalize any price point for? You just have to have it in your life.

00;23;47;17 - 00;24;08;13
Jill
So I would say for me, it may be surprise, but it's greeting cards. So early in my career, I had the privilege to work at Hallmark. It was a lovely company, some amazing training I feel like I got early on in my career. And even way back then, consumers are really price sensitive and this was even before online greeting cards.

00;24;08;13 - 00;24;19;09
Jill
So it was a long time ago. But for me, if I see a beautiful design with just the right sentiment because I know that I won’t be able to express it as well, I don't even look at the price point.

00;24;19;13 - 00;24;39;20
Jess
And that's a really cool one. And I love how it's tied to your early career. I'm sure there's some nostalgia for that whenever you're shopping in that category. Very cool. Well, we know that brands have very distinct personalities today. We talked about Folgers, but you've worked on so many brands. What's a brand that you would choose to date and what's a brand that you might marry?

00;24;39;20 - 00;24;42;02
Jess
And they could be the same, but they could be different.

00;24;42;04 - 00;25;02;12
Jill
Well, that's such an interesting question. gosh. Especially as an insights person, I don't know that I would have a brand that I would marry because I'm always just so curious about the brand that's out there, but a brand with a distinctive personality that I love and it's a nice one that ties into our coffee story is Café Bustelo.

00;25;02;14 - 00;25;26;07
Jill
And the reason that I really love this particular brand is because its positioning is all about an invitation to experience Latin coffee and coffee culture. And I just think it's such a beautiful, lovely, inclusive way to both celebrate the brand's heritage and history, but invite everybody from all walks of life to participate in that.

00;25;26;09 - 00;25;36;03
Jess
Yeah, that's a great one. I can remember that package design very distinctly as well, and it definitely personifies what you just what you just talked about. And finally, Jill, what keeps you inspired at work?

00;25;36;03 - 00;26;05;16
Jill
So I think our space as insights professionals is so fascinating. It is constantly evolving, right? Our consumers are always changing. Our brands have new challenges. Our competitors get tougher every year. And so what keeps me inspired is helping to solve those really meaty challenges with our teams. I love really listening to the consumer, figuring out what that insight is, and then collaborating with the teams to figure out what do we do about that.

00;26;05;19 - 00;26;27;20
Jill
My personal perspective is that we don't operate in a world of black and white where there's just one right answer and one wrong answer. I think there's a lot of shades of gray, and it's up to us to figure out what the most right answer is that does the best job of meeting the consumer's needs, but that we can actually execute and make money at for our businesses as well.

00;26;27;20 - 00;26;37;24
Jill
So that's always an ongoing challenge and it's something that keeps me just really inspired because I'm always learning something new and having a new challenge to get after.

00;26;37;26 - 00;26;51;16
Jess
Yeah, that's excellent. Well, that's a good reason for inspiration. We're so glad that you're part of the industry and have led teams and brands that are just a part of a lot of our lives. So thank you so much for joining us today., Jill. It's been a real pleasure.

00;26;51;18 - 00;26;57;28
Jill
Thanks for having me today. Jess.

00;26;58;04 - 00;27;01;29
VO
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