Nostalgia Sells, Innovation Sustains

As we dig back into the ever-evolving world of retail in the Season 2 opener of The Longer Game, we're talking with Carter Jensen, the Sr. Manager of Global Commerce at GMI, aka General Mills, about how they're taking brands we all grew up with and loved into the future with us. How we engage with these brands has to change because, well, how we engage with each other is different. Listen in to find out what Carter eats for lunch these days and what's going on in CPG in 2022.

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Michael Maher  00:00

All right! Welcome everybody, to the return of The Longer Game. It's no longer just The Longer Game. It's the return. And we're back for Season Two. And I'm excited because guess what? Retail's changed again. Who would have figured? So I'm excited for the upcoming season, we've got a lot of great guests, and I'd say an even wider and more diverse audience of people in different aspects of retail. So that's really exciting. Joining me today is Carter Jensen, the Senior Manager, Global Commerce, and working in commerce innovation at GMI or General Mills Inc. If I'm not mistaken, is that right? GMI is General Mills Inc. 

Carter Jensen  00:41

Yeah, most people call it GM. And it's like, no, it's General Motors for GMI and I learned that first day got here because I had in my whole life I call it GM and, 

Michael Maher  00:47

And people corrected you.

Carter Jensen  00:49

Yeah, people correct me real quick.

Michael Maher  00:50

Well, welcome to the show. Introduce yourself. Tell people what you were just eating. And then let's move on with talking about retail.

Carter Jensen  01:00

Yeah. Thanks, Michael, for having me. And welcome back to Season Two. Right? Yeah, it's weird that retail didn't take a break while you guys were away. But yes, here we are in the new world. I was joking. We jumped on and we're starting to record and we were both kind of eaten lunch trying to make sure we had power to get through this and you're eating a salad I think over there and I stayed on brand, I think and my camera's not going to be but I'm eating,

Michael Maher  01:22

Dunkaroos.

Carter Jensen  01:22

Dunkaroos.

Michael Maher  01:24

And somewhat gushers?

Carter Jensen  01:26

Oh yeah. And well, what was left of gushers I ate them all. But yeah, that's a favorite.

Michael Maher  01:31

It's crazy. Because that really does bring me back to being a kid and in my lunchbox, having Gushers. And that being like, Alright, I just gotta eat my sandwich. I have a huge sweet tooth, but like, it's gonna eat my sandwich and these apples, and then I can't wait to get to these gushers.

Carter Jensen  01:47

Well, the thing that did it for me was a fruit roll-up and fruit by the foot. We have some projects going on right now with that whole world. I'm like, oh, man, those were good. When you found those in your lunchbox, you're in a really good spot.

Michael Maher  01:59

My daughter's just started getting into Fruit by the Foot. And what a crazy one. How long is it been around?

Carter Jensen  02:08

The crazy *inaudible*? I don't know, you know, I got smaller kids at home. And I've been at Mills now for two and a half years. And I'm slowly throttling up to the good stuff. You know, we started with plain Cheerios. 

Michael Maher  02:20

Yeah, right.

Carter Jensen  02:21

Then it went to honey nut and then things got crazy. And now we're slowly making our way through the cereal, our family's favorites brands. And I think by the end of this year, I'll be bringing home cases of Dunkaroos and see what my four-year-old thinks of that whole thing.

Michael Maher  02:33

Their food is very important to humans, just from a necessity standpoint, food, water, clothing, and shelter. Those are the basics.

Carter Jensen  02:41

The basics right? Yeah.

Michael Maher  02:42

We need to survive. And I'm pretty thankful to have all those things. Typically. I think about like, man, I've got access to cold water, not just clean water, but I can have cold water anytime I want. I know Europeans are not going to care so much about that. But anytime I want it, I can get it which is kind of incredible. And so I'm very thankful for that. But food digs into this memory component that in nostalgia and I think from what we've seen on the GMI side, there's a lot of just in the stuff that we've named, there's stuff that you and I grew up with. And I would say innovative products like fruit by the foot, fruit roll up, fruit leather, and stuff like that. That's pretty. That's a food creation. And then it's created super long-lasting memories. And now it's something where I see my daughter, who's nine and a half eating it. And I'm like, Man, that's just crazy. Good memories. And then you know, my wife and daughter and we talk about, hey, what did you have when you were a kid when you're eating lunch? And I was watching a show on Netflix about, it was Chef's Table, but it was all the pizza episodes. 

Carter Jensen  04:02

Yeah.

Michael Maher  04:02

There was a woman who screened and her parents immigrated to America. And she was born in America, but didn't really grew up with pizza but went and had pizza in college when she was at Columbia in New York. And that was like a big memory for her and she became famous for putting kimchi on pizza. And so her parents didn't even grow up with it not a food that was in their vocabulary. But where I was going with that is she went to school with a lunchbox with rice and dried fish and kimchi and open it up. And of course, kids teased her because it smelled different, it looked different,

Carter Jensen  04:42

Yeah of course, yeah.

Michael Maher  04:42

And kids are ruthless and they do that. I know I teased other kids I think it's part of any, but it doesn't, I don't even think it is specifically a racial gender thing like if you're different than what other people see. They,

Carter Jensen  04:58

They are so brutal, brutal!

Michael Maher  04:59

Will picked that out. I remember my daughter looking at the, being with my wife and she's, my wife has texted me this, but they were like the deli counter. And this woman was like missing a tooth and she's like, Mommy, why is that lady missing a tooth? 

Carter Jensen  05:15

And I'm sure she was very discreet about that comment.

Michael Maher  05:17

Oh, yeah. And my wife was like, your daughter just said this. I was like, Hey, that sounds like fun. How did it go? But anyway, this woman brought this lunch to school that was different than everybody else's. But that's a distinct memory for her regardless of you know, the kids season. That's a very distinct memory for her. And so food that takes this place, and you're now working at a company. You know, that you said you were this whole industry is something that you are newer to but now you're dealing with this nostalgia. And in the commerce, innovation space, how do we bring those products that people know and love? People in a way that's different now?

Carter Jensen  05:56

Yeah, totally. And it's like, you're joining you think you kind of have an idea of what's going on. But you started looking at the 150-year history of just what we've done and getting to meet people from not only here at headquarters, but from our factories. It's like, it's mind-blowing, really kind of the work and type of focus that goes into it. But to your point, like, there are not many companies who have more iconic brands, and I don't say that to be, you know, cocky or anything? 

Michael Maher  06:22

No, yeah, it's just true.

Carter Jensen  06:23

Think about, like, you know, you think about the stuff that is at the center of, you know, your family's table, a lot of times it's a General Mills product, which is crazy. In my interview when I joined in, since we've kind of spun off the Hamburger Helper brand, but for a long time, it was known as the meal that could feed a family of four for $2. Right or at all *inaudible.

Michael Maher  06:43

Oh my family of five, eat that regularly hamburger and sometimes tuna helper which I was not such a big fan of the tuna *inaudible*.

Carter Jensen  06:49

It hits your zone, right? 

Michael Maher  06:51

Hamburgers I was all about.

Carter Jensen  06:53

But that's such, you know, it's such a big deal, right? 

Michael Maher  06:55

Yeah.

Carter Jensen  06:55

And it's such a staple of so many families. And now you look at, you know, not only Betty Crocker, but you know, the Pillsbury acquisition and kind of the history that goes behind all of that is just fascinating. And we're not even into cereal yet, like, the breakfast category that was invented and kind of still holds with Cheerios. It's just, it's mind-blowing. So I feel about you know, this day, I feel like, you know, a little speck in this gigantic world suit with the history we have, we're trying to do new things, we're looking to figure out, you know, how are you buying our products? And how do we reach people in new ways? 

Michael Maher  07:25

Yeah.

Carter Jensen  07:25

And, you know, I think that every kind of category of department here has that right? Where our food scientists are in the basement and our fleets of kitchens, to your point, like trying to figure out new flavors and new solutions for families? And how do we really kind of meet the new needs of consumers where we are up here, kind of on the Commerce and the E-commerce side working with marketers work with others to figure out their abilities, awesome, new food solutions, meal solutions, like, are we selling them? Or how are we getting them to consumers in different ways? And it's pretty incredible to be able to work with, you know, old and kind of traditional set of brands, but the same time, like, to your point, like a brand Dunkaroos back with great success, you know, and kind of bringing brands for the 21st century?

Michael Maher  08:11

Was it something that actually that went away? And then was remanufactured again?

Carter Jensen  08:15

Yeah.

Michael Maher  08:15

Okay.

Carter Jensen  08:15

It went away for a while, and they launched it, and no one's gonna correct me this two, three years ago, they brought it back. And now they're everywhere I see them. One of the first, And we have a lot of people, I know I bought a few cases of them, just like gifts to people because there's such an ironic or probably more of an iconic. 

Michael Maher  08:23

My daughter *inaudible*. Wow.

Carter Jensen  08:23

Had worked on. Yeah, it was Dunkaroos. Because when they brought him back, there was such a demand for them. We could do distribution fast enough, right? We couldn't get him back into circulation. And so funny story we launched like, basically a DSC site, just like people who are fanatics about these things, get their hands out, we'd actually ship them directly to your front door if you're really after it. 

Michael Maher  08:48

Yeah.

Carter Jensen  08:49

Like a gift at the end of the day, because you know, people remember them for your lunchbox. Right? Like, 

Michael Maher  08:58

Yup. 

Carter Jensen  08:58

I know how old you are. I know for us like this was like, 

Michael Maher  09:00

Yeah, no, that was inaudible for sure. 

Carter Jensen  09:02

You had a good day when you saw one of these and so it's fun to bring them back and see how they are.

Michael Maher  09:07

My wife was always more of a salty potato chip person. She still is, so like, she'd forego the brownie or the Dunkaroos.

Carter Jensen  09:15

Regard dedos or chex mix. I can see, I got brands all *inaudible.

Michael Maher  09:19

There you go. I was gonna say Pringles or something, but I don't know that I *inaudible*.

Carter Jensen  09:22

Keep it in the fan. 

Michael Maher  09:24

That's why I let you lead, I let you name some of the brands that you work with. One of the questions I have just hearing you talk. What was the biggest revelation that you had coming into the GMI family and you said, you know, you think you know what's going on? What was the biggest? Or just maybe the most poignant thing that you feel like, oh, like I learned this and that was not something I was expecting.

Carter Jensen  09:51

Yeah, I mean, I think you have like the corporate side of things and you have like the consumer side of things like you know, coming into a corporation the size of GMI as always Fascinating, right understanding who does what, when, where, and why and how you fit in that org and how you get *inaudible.

Michael Maher  10:04

The titles and organizations *inaudible*. I don't even, I do not understand I was at an event on Amazon event two weeks ago. And the titles were like lead technician engineer, and I was like, what? like, I have no idea what that means.

Carter Jensen  10:19

So the thing is, is like, they actually mean something here, like, you gotta, like, hang on to it. And everyone kept telling me, you know, General Mills is very, you know, specific on titles and your rank and all that. And like, I thought that was gonna be a bad thing, it's actually helped a ton to the honest truth because you quickly know who you're walking in the room with, and,

Michael Maher  10:36

Okay.

Carter Jensen  10:36

You know, set up so like, you know, you never have a surprise meeting on Friday afternoon with someone who you're like, oh, I should have really prepared more for that, 

Michael Maher  10:44

Ah okay, yeah. 

Carter Jensen  10:45

You know, you actually echo. And so you know, coming from, like a workforce you're trying to navigate, it's like, it's a nice little key to the kind of understand where everyone sits within the org and who reports where and why. And so there's like, the silver lining, maybe for the title game, but yes, it is a title game for sure. 

Michael Maher  10:59

Okay. 

Carter Jensen  11:00

You know, for the consumer side, like I think, you know, for what this is, I think the song or the dance we do in order to figure out how do we continue to serve consumers, but also look at realistically, the relationship with our brands happens at retailers, right? And just understanding the ecosystem and the effects on marketing and sales on commerce at that hats, right? Like, everyone knows Cheerios, everyone knows Cheerios at General Mills, but like, you buy that at Walmart, right? And you buy that at Target? 

Michael Maher  11:30

Yep. 

Carter Jensen  11:31

Right. So when we think of like, commerce innovation we've been we can make fun of titles that we want, but it's like, you know, some of our biggest customers Target or Walmart and people who've been innovating the most in commerce, especially over the last three or four years, right? 

Michael Maher  11:44

Yeah, doing both this or like all that. 

Carter Jensen  11:46

Yeah, right.

Michael Maher  11:47

Stuff online pick up in store in Amazon's getting into the game with that now, so but I think that's been huge, especially for people during the pandemic, hey, I want to feel safe. So I want to buy online and pick it up in-store and it turns into a convenience thing that people realize, oh, the utility of this is great. I don't have to go to the store, I can sit on my couch, or maybe I'm on the toilet, who knows people do stuff.

Carter Jensen  12:11

Yeah, who knows? right.

Michael Maher  12:12

And they're putting together their list. And then they go and pick it up and it saves them time. They're able to, you know, kill two birds with one stone. 

Carter Jensen  12:19

Yup.

Michael Maher  12:19

I think that out of necessity. Necessity is the mother of invention. So a pandemic. I mean, that stuff was around before. I know.

Carter Jensen  12:28

Well not in a way. I mean, look at the *inaudible that happened in three years, right.

Michael Maher  12:33

And it was forced adoption,

Carter Jensen  12:34

Totally, yeah. 

Michael Maher  12:35

This is done out of a need for safety. And there was a huge boom that my agency, Cartology saw on the food and consumer CPG side on Amazon because people were now realizing, Oh, well, I don't want to go out to the store. I know Amazon exists, let's go and look for the stuff that I need. And so there was a huge opportunity for brands that were in a consumable space to grow during that year. And we were able to leverage that for some of our brands, and really help them to just skyrocket and we're talking about, like 12 to 16% increase in E-commerce as a percentage of total retail sales, just in q1 to q2 of 2020. 

Carter Jensen  13:20

Yup.

Michael Maher  13:20

Four percent doesn't seem like a lot. But when you look at the past 10 years, it was growing about half a percent, or sometimes less per year. So that's 10 years, almost like eight to 10 years worth of growth in a whole quarter. That's a big change and a big shift. 

Carter Jensen  13:35

Totally.

Michael Maher  13:36

And people talk a lot about Amazon being you know, 40% of that e-commerce market, but even being a percentage, like 12, 10% like that's still a sizable, sizable amount.

Carter Jensen  13:51

When you go back, you know, that consumer kind of thing, it's like, something really much more sure than the idea that Amazon's gonna show up with your package. Right? Like, I think, That was a huge thing as well, where there are so many unknowns, right, and the amount of work and investment obviously, Amazon did to be able to deliver through kind of those uncertainties like Amazon never slipped, yes, you might have gone from one day or two days, but I know for us, just from our personal experience, like you know, your Amazon orders showed up, right. And that was.

Michael Maher  14:15

Yeah. I heard of some people and we had orders that maybe were like starting to get into the 5 to 70 range. 

Carter Jensen  14:24

Interesting, yeah.

Michael Maher  14:25

But, and I talked with a lot of other like Amazon service providers about this as my colleagues, we were talking about, oh, man, I'm like, man, my orders in here in two days. And it's like, wait, like, I still have access to this thing I'm doing all right. But it was like you get used to and accustomed to the expectation that's there. 

Carter Jensen  14:43

Right. 

Michael Maher  14:43

Once that changes and goes back, like, you know, it's hard. It's hard to do that dial-up internet. You want someone to now deal with, you know, 25 megabytes of upload speed,

Carter Jensen  14:56

With five people online all day.

Michael Maher  14:58

Yeah, that's not gonna work, right? Because our habits have changed. And so as innovation comes out, we now have to the consumer behavior changes. And you have to keep pace with that. So it's a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy in that consumers, when they order from Amazon, they know their product is going to show up in one to two days. They go now to direct to consumer sites, if you're still charging for shipping, or you're not getting it in there within I would say, three to five days, you know, closer to that. You can have someone bounce from your site. Yeah.

Carter Jensen  15:31

Yeah. And that's it. So that's been back to the kind of the whole retailer side of things. It's been like, what's our place within that innovation? Right, you know, how do we look at our biggest retail partners as that partners, right, you know, they're doing, you know, the best they're doing, you know, whether it's close to instant delivery? And, you know, how are we reconfiguring our offerings, our messaging our products, based on how we know that? How are consumers changing their habits, like, I always think of, you know, for our family, and sounds like you got a couple of younger kids as well. It's like, you know, we usually run out of mac and cheese by Thursday, right? We usually run out of certain things, but you know, the stock of grocery runs every Sunday, it's like, alright, we're now in a spot where we're doing restocks, like, every three days, right? Yeah, because of curbside, you know, the ability to ship,

Michael Maher  16:19

It's easier to do.

Carter Jensen  16:20

it fast, it's easier to do so like, for General Mills, like, how does that shift not only like our marketing, our messaging, our offerings, but shifts like product kind of configurations as well, like, what does that mean, now that really what we're seeing is, yes, necessity drove the innovation, but it also now is enabling new consumer kind of habits, right? So what are we doing about it? And how do we maybe double down on some of those? And then how do we start to figure out okay, target Walmart, Kroger, crushing curbside, your crushing kind of delivery, all that kind of stuff. What are the other opportunities that we have to kind of partner up and figure out what that might look like? So that going back to the core question of like, what the heck surprise me, right? It's like that dance and that kind of, you know, middle ground of like, okay, we have a lot of tools here. And a lot of them are overlapping, like, what is the best kind of next place to put that dollar to make sure we're serving consumers and helping our customers and then utilizing kind of the power of the network in the best way possible? 

Michael Maher  17:15

A skill, I've noticed this a skilled company or a skill, talent, so be it a singer, an athlete, news anchor, whatever the case might be, when something looks easy, they're doing their job very well, because they make you believe that it is easy, and it's not. And so when you get into an organization like GMI, and realize, oh, my gosh, like there's all these components that go on behind the scene that actually make that stuff happen. That's crazy. And that's something that I believe, as someone that works on Amazon with brands, I think a lot of people don't really not just consumers, but brands that are wanting to sell and access people, they don't really, or even service providers, if I'm honest, don't understand what Amazon actually is.

Carter Jensen  18:13

Right.

Michael Maher  18:13

And it's a marketplace, for sure. But at a core level, it's a very trusted brand that has a very complex and integrated distribution system. Yeah, that is one of the biggest things that people don't understand. But it's in that distribution. And this distribution promise fulfillments, like you said, you get it in a day or two days, that's made the trust go up so that people are now willing to pay 120 bucks a year to have access to, you know, prime delivery, prime deal days, like the new holiday deals or you know, Fall Prime Day, whatever you want to call it here coming up in October, like those trust is what is very, that's the consumer piece that not a lot of people get. But I think that's really where that's where the money is made. And that's where the connection is with the consumer.

Carter Jensen  19:14

Yeah, and it comes down to the 120 whatever it is now, right becomes just this convenience tax that we don't even think about often. 

Michael Maher  19:21

Yeah.

Carter Jensen  19:21

Right. And we pay that so that we don't need to think about it ever, right? We just know it's showing up as I think, you know, often, I don't find myself often tracking our Amazon orders. 

Michael Maher  19:33

Yeah. 

Carter Jensen  19:33

Because we know it's going to *inaudible*.

Michael Maher  19:35

Or you're getting updates on your phone, hey, it's two stops away. You don't have to do that now. So if you go to a site and you're like, why am I having to look up when my orders going to show up? That seems crazy. So getting pre-emptive notifications, I think is something that is big now.

Carter Jensen  19:52

Yeah, we've used multi-channel fulfillment through Amazon for a couple of different projects. And, you know, it's fascinating just to understand and obviously, our Amazon teams are way in-depth to that. And we have a pretty advanced relationship with them for our core brands with facilities, smaller kind of initiatives, like what did what would MCF look like? And it was fascinating just to get a peek kind of behind the curtain a little bit, go one step further into that ecosystem. And exactly what your point is, it's like, just incredible the number of moving parts that have been built in such a robust way that we take for granted the fact that, you know, in less than a day, often, we have something that is fulfilled without thinking about it. And you're ordering mac and cheese that you ran out of that morning. And by the time you get home from work, it's there now kinda seems normal.

Michael Maher  19:55

Okay. Or even a TV, I want a TV in two days, I don't need a TV. Nobody needs a TV in two days. But you get it.

Carter Jensen  20:17

But you might want one. 

Michael Maher  20:20

But you might want one. 

Carter Jensen  20:21

Might want one.

Michael Maher  20:23

So you can get it.

Carter Jensen  20:26

But I think it's an expectation, though. It's not even like you want it's just like you assume that it will be there. Right? And I think that's what's often not fair well it's not that not fair. It's just the reality. It's just like, the fact that we have been so accustomed to this idea, that seamless, connected experience that gets there fast. And that's just what we assume everything needs to be because if Amazon can do it, why can't you and you go back to these DTC brands, you're like, you're charging for shipping, it takes six days to get there. And you have to check in maybe like call customer service, because still there on day eight, like, no, the bar is really high, not whether we like it or not, because of just like the constant kind of gratification, not gratification, but you're kind of like this constant assumption because Amazon's just drilled that into our minds.

Michael Maher  21:27

Where do you think, large like brick and mortar retailers like Target and Walmart? You said they're constantly innovating? Where do you feel like the past, let's say, five to 10 years, they've really pushed, let's say, beyond purpose, things like that? Where have they really pushed innovation that's also helped shape some of the consumer expectations that are out there? 

Carter Jensen  21:49

Small question. All right. No, it's a very broad question, I think. And we could talk about retail media networks, we could talk about kind of their new kind of first-party data plays with, you know, all the different loyalty, we could talk a lot of different things. I think,

Michael Maher  22:00

Oh let's talk about that quickly. A lot of people don't understand that. When you become, you know, like a Kroger Plus member or something like that. People and I think there's this opening perspective of as tech companies, people will start to realize, oh, all my data is getting sold to someone and someone's now targeting and they know what Mike behaviors like, Duh, how did you not think that was happening, but things like Kroger plus, that's a way to access your data, and now track your purchasing and see what you're buying and offer certain coupons to you. So that data collection is not new, how it's happening, might be different. But this is something I think when it comes to just retail in general, the basics, don't really change. What do you have to do to get consumers to purchase your product, you have to have a great product. Number one, that's good real estate, whether it's in-store, whether it's online. And the second thing is you have to get traffic to that. And in that loop, you have to tell a story that gets people hooked, so that they can say, I want to come back and buy this mac and cheese again, because my kids liked it. And they identified the box as being blue, or whatever the case might be. They know, it's easy for them to say I want this thing Hamburger Helper, I know that it's going to taste the same every single time that it's going to be a meal that I can serve, that's going to fill my family up on a budget that's tighter than you know, maybe making a fresh lasagna or something. And it's time-saving, too. That was a big issue in my family, my mom worked, my dad worked. My dad went back to med school when we were like, three, five, and seven. So that was interesting, but it meant there was a lack of time for us to do a lot of things. And so things that weren't quick, but that could fill us up. That was important.

Carter Jensen  24:02

Yeah, totally. I was gonna say, you know, obviously, you touched on kind of the first party data piece, I think one of the things that I believe when you look at some of these retailers, you know, we mentioned target Korea, Walker Walmart, you know, obviously, everyone's got their own kind of small delineation. But like, I think what was interesting about what they've been doing, it was a great lead into my actual answer this whole thing was this idea that, yeah, of course, they're collecting data, of course, the loyalty programs are fueling this thing. But like, I don't think there's a better example of how that data has been flipped to benefit the user so directly, right. So hear me out on this one. Like, if you think of like, I'm just gonna pick on target because it's down the street from us. But like, I think like the target ecosystem, like the seamless connected experience that they create between the .com, the app, opus, gib side, 

Michael Maher  24:47

Yup.

Carter Jensen  24:48

In-store like, I mean, the thing is flawless, right, like and the connected ecosystem that has been built there is amazing. And if you think about, it bends and flexes and morphs to whatever your family needs it yesterday, we ran to physical stores gotta get gloves. It was a first cold morning here in Minnesota. 

Michael Maher  25:07

Okay. 

Carter Jensen  25:07

And we did gloves to the kids before they went to daycare, right? So I'm like, okay, target opens at eight, well, the app knows the age of your kids, the app knows you've been looking at gloves, the app knows the price point you're probably looking for, and the app knows that you're in the store. Right? And how that flexes and bends to accommodate a unique anomaly in needs is fascinating. And they're able to do that, obviously, though, you know, technology and the work they've done the last four or five years to your point. But also, they're able to customize and personalize that in a way because of the fact that they know everything that I've bought for the last 10 years of my life or whatever it's been. 

Michael Maher  25:43

And that does benefit the end user and I think. 

Carter Jensen  25:48

100%.

Michael Maher  25:48

And that's where the knowing more about your purchases, allows them to say, hey, this thing's going to be 10% off, or you're gonna get cashback on this. And that's where I think a lot of like social media tech companies, platforms, like Meta have failed, because they have not utilized it to better help the consumer. It's been more about dollars and shareholders. And so I think that's a really interesting point that you bring up. It's not about it's about until. It's not about collection of data being good or bad. It's how do you end up using that data? Is it ultimately benefiting the consumer, and when you start to take the consumer, the person that's spending the money out of the picture, no matter how big or small, I think you start to lose track of what is ultimately important. That's the same with anyone who's creating a product. What is our what does our product do? Oh, well, it feeds people. Yeah, but what does it actually do? It feeds people, and that's a necessity. But what's the bigger picture? What's the bigger story there? And that's where I think a lot of direct-to-consumer brands are picking up on that. They're picking up on the fact that they have to connect with someone to last. And a company like GMI, who's got who's had Cheerios forever. My father-in-law has Cheerios every single morning. With breakfast, whatever else he has, like, it's always a volunteer as to and so that's something that he's got a commitment to. I don't think just a generic store brand is going to work for him. He wants to have Cheerios, and being able to identify that could go back to his childhood. I honestly don't know how far that goes. But there's a bond that's there. And if you don't create that bond, and it doesn't ultimately benefit someone, they don't feel good about what they're doing. Just think about that, like honey nut cheerios, you think about that little bee. Now that's been a long so many like sides, so many celebrities. If I think when honey cheers, I'm thinking about that bee. And like, that's something that's conscious of my mind, and maybe makes me feel a little bit better about what I'm purchasing maybe makes me a little bit more excited. 

Carter Jensen  27:51

Totally. 

Michael Maher  27:52

But there's something to latch on to other than just I eat food.

Carter Jensen  27:56

Yep. 100%. And that's where it's like, you know, we've worked really hard to make iconic brands, the fact that a lot of people eat Cheerios every morning, because that's what they've done, right? And I think what we're trying to figure out is and continue to build upon is like, how do we continue to do that based on the new tools and technology that we now have at our fingertips? Right? Like, how, how do we bring that to life in new ways than now? Yes, we invented Saturday morning cartoons with 32nd TV ads. And that was how we built a lot of these brands. But now, a toolbox is a lot more full, right? 

Michael Maher  28:30

Yeah.

Carter Jensen  28:30

We have a lot of tools and a lot of new capabilities with a lot of things at our fingertips. So like what are we doing in order to continue that momentum, and reach new users and serve new users in new ways? And help our new brands kind of get to that point? You know, yes, we can ride the wave of Cheerios and our iconic brands, and then they continue to be iconic. But how are we continuing to kind of make the shift that mix a little bit to not only help them in the new world, but also help some of our smaller brands kind of get up to speed?

Michael Maher  28:58

Talking about some of those smaller brands? They're having to leverage digital platforms a lot more because it's easier to scale those I think, yeah, why the direct-to-consumer brand can sell on their website have direct access to someone or utilize a marketplace, like mostly Amazon, but you know, maybe walmart.com.

Carter Jensen  29:18

*inaudible*.

Michael Maher  29:19

Yeah, they can start to utilize those, it's easier to get up and running. It doesn't mean you're going to necessarily be profitable right away, but it's easier to get up and running than getting into a retail channel and creating a big brand. And like, oh, this doesn't end up working and it flops like it's better to do it on a couple million dollar scale than like 100 million. So talk about some of those new brands and what maybe what some of them are and what things you're seeing work or not work on that side.

Carter Jensen  29:43

Yeah. So you know, we like many major CPGs have kind of an incubator program right? Where we are taking founder teams right and putting them against a consumer challenge and they're building products, which always blows my mind right you have a food engineer kind of insights person, you know, coming together to create new food. Right? And it's incredible. Excuse me, but um, what we're seeing is, is that they're actually using commerce channels or new digital channels like prove the fact that they've done it right. 

Michael Maher  30:14

Okay. 

Carter Jensen  30:14

You know, you can pivot on a dime when you talk about launching in a 3d marketplace, or do you just see where you're like, maybe that assortment wasn't right, like maybe the brand doesn't hit? Maybe our CTA isn't real, right? 

Michael Maher  30:26

Yeah. 

Carter Jensen  30:26

And that's what we're looking for.

Michael Maher  30:28

You're able to get data quicker, and you're able to, like you said, pivot or make adjustments quicker than, hey, I, you know, I know people who, who were in the retail side of things and tracking something like, how effective was this ad or promotion, it was, hey, we have to have a certain coupon code that we can then track and say, Oh, this was used in this magazine, or this was used at this retailer. And so now we know is effective, you're able to say, Oh, well, when I changed this image on my listing on my site, or on a three P marketplace, my conversion rate increased, or when I added a video, it increased or when it goes away, decrease.

Carter Jensen  31:11

And it's crazy as they'll actually take that back. And they can reformulate the entire thing, right? Like, we have teams that are going from smoothies to bars to fruit leather, right? Like, you know, it's like, it's incredible to see, because they thought at one point in time, they had an insight that says, Oh, they you know, this group wants that, oh, actually, we got a ton of feedback growth, like quantitative and even qualitative, right? You have people reaching out and telling you, like, actually, this is a problem because we run out of it by Monday afternoon, and the kids can't open the bottle. Okay, like how we've then invested are applied appropriate effort to get that type of feedback that you might not uncover in a focus group. And we're using those DTC tools or three P marketplaces is cool, let's just pull it down. We'll read calibrate and do it again. And that's a really interesting way, I think we're using some of those new channels. 

Michael Maher  31:57

So that the path to innovation is quicker because you can get more data.

Carter Jensen  32:02

*inaudible, Yeah.

Michael Maher  32:02

Yeah, it's iterative. And you likely don't have to waste as much money on a test of something where you can say, hey, this data set that we're seeing this, we believe that this helps us to prove what we mean, the past, you know, three months of, of what we've seen people click on or what we've seen people interact with, hey, maybe it's not the product, maybe it's the brand messaging, how can we just add, how can we AB test that's, there's a lot of new, like you said, tools in the toolbox. And so you're able to test things and do it in a quicker way. And everything is so fast these days. And yet, it's not. What I mean by that is, you can test something for your new product very quickly, but actually proving that it's going to be profitable, that's still going, it's still going to take time, if you're building a brand, a lot of people want to get on a channel like Amazon and say, great, like, there's a couple of misconceptions, but one of them is, you know, great, we're gonna start selling, or we're just gonna start making money, you're gonna start making money, but you're gonna be spending a lot more than you're making initially. And if you're wanting to grow, and scale, somewhat quickly, if you've got a great product, and there's not a ton of other people in the marketplace, you could sell your product and not push it as much on advertising and could potentially start to build more of an organic following there. But, you know, because innovation happens so quickly, someone could come on the market and copy you, and maybe they're gonna put it in front of people's faces quicker, and they're gonna put more money behind it. And so they now have an opportunity. I don't think it matters, who comes up with something first? It's who did it better? 

Carter Jensen  32:03

Yeah. 

Michael Maher  33:44

Apple is a great example of a company that didn't necessarily come up with things first. But they took the time to do it well, and got a really strong brand. Because of that they didn't come up with the first smartphone, laptop, or anything like that. But then they've been able to pitch it in a way that people can. People can interact with, like the PC versus Mac guy. Like, Hey, I'm a Mac, I'm a PC. I'm really frustrated and things are going bad. And Mac guys like just in long's like, yeah, things are good over here, you know?

Carter Jensen  34:19

Yeah. Back to the kind of the first point, right? It's like, you know, you look to those brands as a point of trust, you know, to think about it, right? Like, if you go back, 

Michael Maher  34:28

They make it look easy.

Carter Jensen  34:29

To the point that you made, that you've done, that you make it look easy, because all the work is happening behind the scenes, but from a consumer perspective, it just works. Right. And I think when you look at you know, whether it's Amazon or these new products, we go back to the retailer question, it's like, yeah, it just works like and families people today don't have time to worry about where their order is. Right. And so relying and delivering those types of things is imperative.

Michael Maher  34:56

Carter, tell people if they want to find you or they want to know more about you or things that you're working on, where can they find you? Is it going to be under a box of Dunkaroos? Is it going to be *inaudible*.

Carter Jensen  35:09

No. LinkedIn is probably the best way we love to share stuff. So we're sharing that you know, kind of somewhere new launches every single week on unclamped in. And I would encourage you go check out even Generalmills.com. And just see like, I continue to be blown away at the amount of brands. And if you'll find something like Dunkaroos that you want to get back into next time you head to Walmart or Target and maybe get a blast from the past in terms of your childhood lunchbox and pick one up. So yeah, that's where you can find us.

Michael Maher  35:33

Yeah, you brought up an interesting point, which is, there's a lot of different places to learn about something and now you can learn about something online and go pick up in-store if you want, maybe you don't want to buy cases something you just want to buy an individual one. That's where the benefit of going in-store is. Man retail's crazy, people. Thank you, Carter for joining us, everyone, This is The Longer Game where we talk about the future of retail, and the future of retail is Omni Channel and it's happening now. Thank you for joining us. Get the hell out of here. Bye!