July 16, 2025 • 45 mins
What if there was a "third place" in retail media that went beyond product pages and high-level brand communications? Brad Godwin, SVP of CPG Partnerships at Breaktime Media, reveals how brands can create meaningful connections with shoppers through personalized digital experiences.
The retail landscape is evolving rapidly, with value now encompassing far more than just price. Today's consumers seek experiences, trust, and relationships with brands. Breaktime Media addresses this by building what Godwin calls "experiences you want to put on your fridge" – digital brand pages that combine personalization, storytelling, and seamless commerce.
For CPG brands facing complex product assortments, Breaktime's approach offers a compelling solution. Rather than overwhelming shoppers with options, their interactive quizzes and personalized recommendations help consumers quickly find the right products for their needs. This personalization drives tangible results, with an average $2.87 incremental return on advertising spend.
What makes Breaktime's model particularly attractive is its performance-based structure. They build brand experiences at no upfront cost, charging only for actual customer engagements. This "cost per human engagement" approach ensures brands pay for results, not just impressions.
Through a new partnership with Walmart Connect, Breaktime is also reimagining retail events by extending physical demonstrations into the digital realm. This allows brands to maintain deep customer connections while dramatically increasing reach and improving measurement.
At its core, Breaktimes philosophy centers on human connection. As Godwin thoughtfully notes in the episode, "We're all trying to do the same thing – we want connection with each other, we want to be known, we want to be seen and loved." In an increasingly digital retail world, perhaps that human element matters most of all.
Ready to transform how customers experience your brand online? Discover how personalized digital experiences can drive meaningful engagement and conversion for your products.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello and welcome to the Retail Journey podcast.
I'm one of your hosts, charlesGreathouse.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
And I am James Harris , and today we're talking to
Brad Godwin.
Brad is the Senior VicePresident of CPG Partnerships
and Clients Evangelist at BreakTime Media.
He's also a really good friend.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Welcome to the Retail Journey, brad Thanks man, it's
great to be here this morning.
It's great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, love having you here.
You look good in the office,the couch and you belong
together.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Look good, feel good.
You guys set up the furniture,I sit down, we have a
conversation.
Sounds like it's going to be agood Friday.
Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, tell us what's going on at break time.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well, I think at first, before we jump into break
time, one of the things I thinkit's fun to get to be in
Northwest Arkansas, inBentonville, in the place that
retail is thriving, I would say,and to be with you guys at High
Impact, not only as friends butas people that work in the
industry.
It's really fun to get to seewhat is happening here in
(01:18):
Northwest Arkansas, even withthe earnings that just got
released yesterday.
There's a lot of excitementaround just got released
yesterday.
There's a lot of excitementaround, wow, what this strategy
that Walmart is putting intoplace is working, not just in
physical stores but in digitalstores.
And so for us at Break Time, oneof the things that we get to do
is kind of sit in this what Iwould call the third place of
(01:38):
retail, and that's one of thosethings that Howard at Starbucks
originally called of like, hey,you have your home, you have
your work, and then Starbuckswants to be this like third
place.
And I think in the digitalworld of retail you kind of have
(02:05):
a product page just liketalking about the brand and very
, very high level like kind oftop of the line communication
and to go okay, well, both ofthose have value, but maybe
there's a third place.
And so what we try to do isconverge this idea of really
meaningful content andstorytelling and personalization
(02:27):
, all while having what I wouldcall edutainment, this idea of
like education, entertainment inone place with seamless
commerce.
And so that's what we get to dowith brands all the time, and
it's great to get to talk aboutthat today with you guys.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Not to divert from break time, but it was reading
the earnings Walmart earningslast night and it's kind of
shocking that they maintaintheir annual outlook.
Kind of brought profit down alittle bit for a quarter and
then the stock dropped a percent.
Wall Street does not understandretail, because it could be
(03:06):
such a bigger bloodbath than itwas and it isn't at all.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, and what's interesting is, like you, from
just the data.
The data tells one story, butthen there's the whole side of
like, and a lot of the worldthat I get to work in is the
media side of Walmart.
Connect is growing.
It's healthy.
They increased growth even morethan they were expecting for Q1
(03:29):
.
I think they're innovating at amore rapid pace than they have
in previous quarters.
There's a lot of excitement.
I was just in Hoboken yesterdayin that office and there is
just there's an energy.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Momentum.
For sure I feel it across ourclient base as we work to get
meaningful return frominvestments, across Walmart's
ecosystem, and Walmart connectsthe more than just retail media,
like just meaningful connectionto customers, and the tools
that they've deployed are allincreasingly effective and we're
seeing more momentum.
There's still folks out therefrustrated.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
There's still folks out there that seem to be
missing the point, that seemlike they just don't get an ROI,
and I think it's one of thoseareas I love helping with Love
helping someone realize, well,here's where you're missing it
and how to actually get the mostout of a platform that's really
delighting customers people aregoing to be coming in and I
(04:32):
think one of the trends I'm justcontinuing to see we were in I
was in Texas last week andbefore that in Illinois and
going to stores I've seen thisidea of this like, I think, the
(04:53):
trend of really really deep,meaningful human connection in
person you're not going to beable to replace with AI of just
deep connection right Withindividuals at the store level
and the experiences of retailattainment and things that can
happen in person.
So this kind of high touch andthen this what I would call high
(05:14):
tech, of like what's that kindof fidgetal synergy, of like
these really meaning, meaningfulphysical I don't know.
I heard that somewhere.
I did not come up with it.
I'm not going to claim it, buthere in Battenville we got
digital, but this idea of likewhat shoppers are looking for
(05:36):
and, quite frankly, what we are.
I'm a human and I want deep,meaningful connection and I want
technology to empower me tolive a better life.
At the same time, I don't wantto give up one for the other.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
There's something resonating and I appreciate the
simplicity of the message rightnow and the strategic alignment
at Walmart it's price, it'sassortment, it's experience,
it's trust, and I think thereare a lot of CPGs out there that
are delivering assortment, thatare delivering on price and are
misunderstanding experience,therefore not capturing trust.
(06:10):
And it's a very effectiveplatform if you know how to do
it and I think the way that youguys come to life with some
education, creating experiencefor customers and an environment
for expansion of understandingthat isn't a burden.
You know reading terms andconditions isn't something
anybody wants to do.
There is a lot of label readingand there's a lot of you know
(06:31):
learning how something is goingto help you.
Edutainment, I think, is some.
Edutainment goes a long way onexperience and trust.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Totally Well, and I think there's a trend too, that
you know whether it's talking toa brand manager or talking to
someone who's over commerce,marketing or, quite frankly, as
a VP of sales in one of theoffices in and around Northwest
Arkansas.
It's this idea that before andI think Doug has talked about
this recently value was reallyfocused on price.
(07:03):
Yeah, right, but value now hasa lot of other components to it,
and that equation experience isobviously one of them.
This idea that we're buildingcustomer relationships.
This is not just a exchange ofwe sell this product, you give
us money and then you go on yourway.
They're really trying todevelop that trust, right, and
(07:23):
trust comes through thoserelationships.
And so, as you can start tobring these experiences and go,
hey, great, we got in the store.
Awesome, we got our new item onthe shelf, great, well, we're
going to run this campaign fromMay 18th to June 24th.
Great Shoppers don't know that.
They don't shop in campaigns.
(07:46):
They shop just it's Tuesday andmy wife texts me and I need to
go pick up something at thestore, my daughter needs
something for volleyball orwhatever it is, and so
understanding that shoppercentric which I think Walmart is
really starting to double downon of like, who is our shopper,
what are their behaviors, andthat's something that I think
they're winning at right nowExperience, trust, nexus, the
(08:09):
fairest day in campaign.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Have y'all seen this?
It's like an incrediblecommercial.
We'll link it in the show notes.
Hopefully it's linkable outthere somewhere.
We didn't do it, but it's sogood of like being able to get
medicine you need withoutleaving the house.
I read the Walmart is within90,.
94% of Americans are within athree-hour delivery window from
(08:35):
a Walmart.
Yeah, I heard that.
That is insane Mind-blowingwhen you talk about.
You know price and assortmentis great, but you know it's hard
to sometimes get to that store.
Experience and trust threehours later.
Are you kidding?
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
You think about that delivery that they're providing
and that service.
That now and I think this isone of the things that was
brought up yesterday in someconversations with folks that I
had at Walmart Connect is someof these categories have really
complex assortments.
And if I'm a shopper and I walkup to the physical shelf, For
sure it's overwhelming.
(09:13):
Like, where do I go?
What is the efficacy of thisproduct?
They're all using kind ofsimilar jargon in their
packaging.
It kind of looks the same, theprice, architecture is similar,
but is this right for me?
And there's this risk of like,I'm going to buy this maybe new
brand that I haven't seen, or anew product, but like, am I
(09:36):
going to feel good about it?
And I think that's one of thethings we're realizing is a
major problem to solve.
That's really hard right now,even on walmartcom, because of
search and competitiveconquesting and other things of
like going hey, if there's a OTCcategory and we've done this
with with brands like Haleon andothers where it's like hey,
(09:57):
complex assortment of oral care,a lot of different toothpaste,
a lot of different things, Well,what if there's this
personalization engine that moste-commerce and websites?
You go to Charles, you go tothat site, you're going to see
the exact same experience asJames, as me, right?
Hey, it's ESPNcom.
(10:18):
Or you go to whatever the siteis Walmartcom.
Site is walmartcom.
There'll be some past historyof like, hey, here's some things
you should buy again andwhatnot.
But if you go to a normalsearch term, it's going to pull
those things up.
But what we found is, when youcan personalize and have some
people answer a few questions,then what if the whole commerce
(10:39):
experience changes?
Oh well, oh, by the way, here'syour exact regimen, based on
exactly what you've just told us.
We've searched the 1800products.
We've given you these three.
Here's why they're relevanthere.
Then, oh, by the way, isinfluencer content from those
specific products out of all theother influencer content that's
(10:59):
pertinent.
Here's the offers, if there's aWalmart cash offer or other
things that are going on forthose specific items and then
you click this and it carts itRight, and so it's taking
somebody that used to go oh gosh, this is going to take maybe
several minutes to make adecision against.
That is done in 10 seconds,yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And if a data guy, that all I think?
I think that sounds awesome,but my question is always like
so what?
Why does it matter?
Does it matter?
And so I'm sure you've seensome results.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, yeah, I mean like right now, for every dollar
that's coming in this is overthe last 12 months is we're
seeing about a $2.87 incrementalROAS.
And so I always like to saythat's sometimes when I'm
talking to clients and they'relike, oh, I have to see a 10x
return, or so-and-so said, wecan guarantee a 7x incremental
(11:53):
ROAS, I'm like then you shouldonly ever do that If that's
actually real good for you andgood for them and like good for
the industry.
I've never seen it.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Are you dissatisfied?
Yeah, keep doing that.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Keep running that machine, Put as many quarters in
there as you have in kind ofperpetuity.
But like I think the reality is, is when you can help a shopper
decide what to buy in a verypersonalized way at scale, you
see really tangible conversion.
Because, people go oh, I don'tnow have to go through the whole
(12:26):
category or even search terms.
I answer a few questions.
You're giving me a personalizedrecommendation and I hit one
button and it carts it.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And honestly, it feels like not just conversion
of a purchase, it's conversionof a customer, because once I
get it, I understand and itworks for me, I'm sticking
around.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Well, if you think about again not something I came
up with, but Simon Sinek talksabout the why start with why?
Well, if you think about thatpremise and then you look at
most CPGs and how they'reoperating at retail, it's like
oh well, just buy us becausewe're on deal.
Well, what are you then trainingbehavior?
You're training pricesensitivity.
So then people are going to gooh well, if price, if you're not
on deal, then I'm going totrade down and go into a private
label which has a greatsolution, potentially understand
(13:25):
the founder's story, whateverthose kind of key
differentiations are, thenyou're not just getting a single
transaction.
There's LTV, like this lifetimevalue of going.
Hey, because and I use thisexample often General Mills was
launching we the yogurt.
This was years ago and Iremember meeting with one of the
marketing folks.
They were telling me all thestory about how this came about.
I went and tried it.
(13:45):
Well, now I bought it for likeI don't know how many years, but
like years and years and lotsof purchases, because I
understood the value of thebrand, not just the price of the
brand.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So often as a merchant, I have had people
explain a product to me in greatdetail yeah, and unfortunately,
as I look at the product, oreven the product, the PDP none
of that's on there, and so Ithink it can be a bit
overwhelming for folks.
On all right, how do Itranslate some complex messages?
And it feels like that's thesweet spot where Break Time
(14:18):
comes in and helps you takecomplexity.
Make it not only simple, butenjoyable and effective.
This is a good opportunity,Like what is break time?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
What does it do?
Yeah, I imagine a few peoplelistening to this won't know
that.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, so we help shoppers decide what to buy and
where to buy.
It is like a high level, I liketo say.
We build better brand pageexperiences.
We build better brand pageexperiences.
So if you think about the daysof going hey, in a perfect world
, I mean, let's go back like 10years when Walmart launched
brand engagement pages onwalmartcom.
It was like this is 100% shareof voice.
(14:55):
I can tell my story differentlythan I can on a PDP.
There's a lot of opportunity totell my story in a meaningful
way, or a campaign or a newproduct, but for us, we go hey.
Oftentimes what we hear isthere's potential limitations
associated to whether it's weonly have these modules, or you
(15:15):
can't have this type of commerceon here, or, unless you invest
at a certain investment level,it's going to not be available
or not.
And so what we've tried to sayis what would it look like?
Imagine a world you could tellthe right story you want to tell
in a brand safe environmentwith 100% share of voice.
We build it in three weeks orless and it's very reasonable
(15:41):
and everything that we buildwith it is a cost per engagement
.
It's very reasonable andeverything that we build with it
is a cost per engagement, soit's performance.
So we build it for free andthen we drive all the working
dollars to actually convert.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So yeah, I love that and I feel like sometimes,
connecting all of those dots andactually bringing it to life,
there's a lot of magic inexecution.
The strategy is great and Ithink a lot of folks have
approached the the strategy oftelling a story in a cohesive
way, but executing it in a waywhere it's actually tied to
(16:13):
where the customer is and howthey're going to purchase and be
educated, is a Not a simplefeat.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Well, and so much of these.
If you think about most mediaplans or marketing strategies.
Let's just keep it at marketing.
You've got all these silos.
Here's what we're doing forpaid social.
Here's what we're doing foronsite search.
Here's what we're doing withour complex third party retail
media like an Instacart orwhatnot.
Here's what our brand teams aredoing with out of home and
(16:40):
connected TV and everything else.
Well, where are you sendingthis?
It's like I always sayworld-class media plans or
world-class marketing strategiesneed world-class destinations
to send the traffic, and that'sreally what break time we go.
We want to build an experiencethat you want to show your mom.
I always like to say that, likewhen you're a little kid and my
kids come up to me like dad,look what I made at school,
(17:03):
you're like this is awesome,let's put it on the fridge.
Right.
We build experiences you wantto put on your fridge Right,
like it's these reallycompelling, beautiful, but also
like it's meeting a human need.
It can't just be pretty, itneeds to actually drive a
meaningful human interaction.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Talk about that for a minute, because you gave us a
really good understanding ofwhat the purpose of Break Time
is.
What's the experience?
Yeah, For people that haven'tbeen yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
So we've got several publishing sites.
One of them is calleddailybreakcom and literally that
was started 12 plus years agoin a college dorm room in
Massachusetts.
Sounds like a similar story toother tech that I will not name,
but you know who they are.
To really just take a break inyour day, daily break, like
(17:52):
let's take a break from studyingand let's kind of have
BuzzFeed-like material.
That's content Some of it'spaid, some of it's organic,
based on cultural moments.
That's content Some of it'spaid, some of it's organic,
based on cultural moments.
And so we have an audience ofaround 36 million on a monthly
basis and we know where theyshop because when they set up a
profile, I like to think of itas kind of Pinterest with points
(18:12):
.
So when you go on the site, yousay where do I like to shop?
So, charles, if you say Walmartonly and I say stop and shop
and Walmart and Target, ourcontent experiences on that site
are going to look verydifferently based on that.
And so you go through thoseexperiences and you might say
hey, as I talked about earlier,maybe there's the reasons or the
(18:34):
problems to solve is in theassortment of this category.
People don't know which productof ours is right for them.
So we've got an ability to do aquiz and some people go oh,
quiz, well, that's been aroundforever.
Well, we've got this whole ideaof this progression dynamics
that we've built in to our sitethat when you take the quiz and
(18:57):
you get an answer, every otherpiece of content on the
experience changes.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
And the unique element there is like in the
past, CPG quizzes have been fromone brand, right.
So it's like a one-sided thingand you're kind of a objective.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yeah, and trying to tell.
I think trying to tell storiesin a way that go hey, otc, as an
example, we're doing a programand this is kind of a feel-good
story with Halion and Ram, theRam Initiative, remote Area
Medical.
They're going tounderprivileged communities all
throughout the United States inpartnership with Walmart to pull
(19:32):
up these trucks and parkinglots and provide dental care for
free for Walmart shoppers.
It's an incredible initiative.
Steph Porter at Halion is kindof leading that from their end
and Brittany Bishop from WalmartConnect.
But like telling this reallyamazing story, well, digitally,
that's only if you're in thosemarkets you get to experience
(19:53):
that.
So we created digital of everyquestion that the hygienist
would ask you if you sat down.
So you're getting almost like adigital hygienist that's asking
you these questions, you answerthem, then they're recommending
a product for you based on yourneed, state of your dental,
current dental, and then you canimmediately buy it and get it
(20:14):
delivered to your house.
And so it's giving peopleaccess and personalization that
might not be able to go to astore and there's a lot of folks
that might not be in theselittle markets for these little
things.
But I think that's an example,james, of being able to take
personalization of somethingthat maybe you would get live,
or even if you're doing anin-store demo.
(20:35):
Let me tell you about theproduct.
Well, sometimes demos theperson may be doing them doesn't
necessarily represent yourbrand in the fullest capacity
that you would want.
Well, guess what, digitally,you can do, that you can have
the right person telling theright story at scale,
personalized to the shopper, andwhat's cool about making that
virtual, is you know?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
there's the benefit just from a commerce standpoint.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
There's a benefit in the store where that's happening
, cause now there's brandloyalty.
There's also the benefit ofpeople that see it from a
thousand miles away.
I think it's really awesomethey did that.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
There's a halo.
Well, that, uh, edutainment, um, edutainment is happening.
Um, as a merchant, I was a uh Ithink Steve Bratsby has called
me a glutton for punishment, inthat sometimes customers do
things that aren't what's bestfor them.
(21:32):
I'm buying vitamins.
I'm trying to help Americaunderstand omega-3s.
It's about EPA and DHA, not theamount of oil.
Oil's just all you know.
It doesn't just all.
You don't actually need the oil.
You need the epa and dha and II went through just a whole lot
of you know push here and thethings I've tried on educating
(21:59):
um is similar to as I was as amerchant.
You write me a paragraph.
I'm going to read the firstcouple words of the first line.
You give me a couple bullets.
I will read the bullets.
That's still true today, by theway.
Yeah, to be fair, that's bad.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
That's bad truth, Bob .
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, and so it's like all right, edutainment.
What do Americans like to take?
In Short, simple, easy tounderstand content that can be
inspiring.
That can also take me down arabbit hole for four hours worth
of research.
But you can't start there.
You got to start with somethingsimple, and I know a lot of
(22:35):
people out there trying to helpcustomers elevate their
experience, live better in asignificant way, save a bunch of
time, because they're torturingthemselves with the wrong
solution, which is why theirregimen nothing works.
So like how do you help peopleunderstand that your problem is
an education problem?
And it's not that you don'tknow what needs to be educated,
(23:02):
You're just not bringing it to acustomer in a way they're going
to ever digest.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, a lot of times we're sitting down with like, I
think, for like growth brands,like they're executives, so like
CEO, founder, cmo For a lot ofothers, maybe a brand team or a
local office leader or shoppermarketer.
And I think one of the thingsthat's really interesting about
education and you hit on this islike a lot of people go oh no,
(23:29):
our job is to educate.
Go to our PDP, like look at allthese like bullet points and
I'm like great, as my parentsraised me and I'm trying to
raise my kids like do untoothers as you would have them do
unto you.
Is that how you like to getinformation in just static
bullet points with a simple font.
Maybe there's a differentapproach and we try to do that
(23:52):
through snackable content oflike.
Think about what you do on yourphone and why you interact with
it and why you go to the sitesyou go to and do the things you
do digitally.
Often it's because it's easy toconsume the content that's easy
to consume.
You do it not because you haveto, you just get to do it.
You're just kind of like well,I just looked, I just read these
(24:13):
like five articles and itdidn't feel like a burden.
And I think often right now,digitally with shopping, it's so
transactional, which is great.
You need to have your likeoperational principles of
e-commerce where, hey, ourimages need to have a certain
level, our digital penetrationneeds to be at a certain place.
Green fee, our search that'sjust kind of the cost of like
(24:34):
showing up.
But to go, is there?
Your packaging is reallylimited.
You can't tell your story on apackage.
Hey, there's not shelf signage,it's very difficult to get
right now.
Okay, our PDP, we can only doso much.
We don't have a million dollarsto buy a platinum brand
engagement page.
That's really where we come inand go.
Okay, what do you believe yourproblem is right now?
(24:57):
And I'll use an example.
With Hinkle, we were workingwith them and they said oh, our
problem with hair color this wasSchwarzkopf was really about.
We've got to get people to getinto the right shade.
That's the problem.
What we found was actuallythere's a problem before that.
Yeah, do people feel confidentthat they can do this at home by
(25:20):
themselves and they're notgoing to mess it up?
And if you don't address thatfirst?
So we talked about how easy itis.
Oh, it's like not idiot proof,but like it's really easy to do.
Here's the simple steps.
Here's a video that talksthrough really quickly how easy
it is for anyone to do.
(25:41):
As a dad of daughters, the lastthing I want to do is screw up
the color of my daughter's hair.
She would hate me forever.
So I need to have someconfidence of before what shade
of blonde or brown I need tohave.
I need to go.
Can I do this?
Yes or no?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
And so and you can't test it on yourself.
This is not-.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Follicly challenged.
So that is a challenge for me,but that's something I think
that's and you can't test it onyourself this is not happening
To be able to go.
Retail moves at a pretty insanepace right now and things could
be all good.
And then you get an email it's1030 on a Friday from your
merchant.
You're like, oh gosh, we've gotto react.
(26:31):
And so that's one of the thingsI like to say for us, we try to
respond and go.
Not, I don't view those peopleas jerks hey, we just got this
note and we've got to like,respond and change this
experience, or what can we do?
Okay, yeah, we'll have thatlive later this afternoon.
And so we understand that ifretail is going to continue at
the pace it is, we have tocreate services that absolutely
(26:54):
move at that speed or faster.
Because, let's say, charles,you have 13 SKUs, 10 of them are
doing great, three of them arenot.
What if we hear that we adjustthe creative, we adjust the
reasons to believe, to focus onthose three?
If there's some type of apromotion that we're doing, we
(27:14):
adjust it to that, to real time,and we can change that stuff on
the fly.
So it's not days or weeks ormonths, it's hours Right, and so
that gives people thenimbleness to react to both
their merchant and therelationships there, but also to
shoppers.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
So something that's newish for y'all at break time
is your partnership with Walmartconnect.
Help us understand what it wasthat look like.
What is that help?
Speaker 3 (27:41):
us understand.
What does that look like?
What is that?
You know, it's been fun becauseit's interesting to kind of
have more of a front row seat,maybe a third row I don't think
I ever get front row but thirdrow seat of what's going on in
the retail media landscape.
But we've had a lot ofconversations over the last year
with the Walmart Connect team,specifically with Jannie Connect
(28:02):
team, specifically with JannieFraga, who's based here in
Bentonville, who kind of leadsthis idea of experiential her
and Sam Rifkin of like what isWalmart Connect?
Historically, if you read MrSam's book and you go over to
store one, there is donkeys andwatermelons in the parking lot
and retailtainment is a wordthat Walmart's.
It's not a new word at Walmart,right, it's been around for a
(28:24):
long time and there's kind ofbeen this ebb and flow of like
parking lot events and mobiletours.
I was driving the other day.
I saw the Wienermobile drivingdown the road on Walton.
I was like, well, here we are,welcome to Bentonville, home of
the Wienermobile.
But those types of things Ithink have always existed.
Wienermobile, um, but thosetypes of things I think have
(28:46):
always existed.
I think the challenge for mostbrands and cpgs is they're
expensive and so you've got onestore at a high price limited
shopper engagement because youmight be at one store for four
hours.
A little bit of that shopperuniverse at that one store deep,
deep engagement, just limitedbreadth, and, quite frankly,
there's very little measurementother than, hey, we met with, we
(29:06):
engaged with 38 shoppers and wepassed out 62 samples.
There you go, there's yourrecap, right, and here's some
pictures, right, and that'sgreat, and that's how it's been
forever I think.
In the world, though, ofdigital advancement to go, wait
a second, I think there'ssomething we could probably do.
Everything is measurable.
We should be able to measurethis better, right, and so we
(29:28):
started to go imagine a worldwhere what, if there's this like
idea of a digital event andit's not going to be the exact
same engagement perfectly aswhat you would have a physical
human meeting with anotherphysical human but can you take
those elements that arehappening there and bring them
to life digitally and then havecommerce woven in, and so we've
(29:51):
launched this kind of likesolution with them, and so now,
when you're running any type ofa retail attainment event like
an enhanced demo in store, aparking lot event, a fourth wall
build out to go you can now,with your partner manager, work
with them to work with us, to go.
I want to do a digital eventextension, and maybe that's like
(30:11):
four weeks before the event,talking about these events that
are happening, talking about thepersonalization of the
assortment, having fun.
Maybe there's a promotion goingon Like we're starting to do a
lot of work in the promotionalspace, not because it's cool,
but because the shoppersactually it's driving results.
So we did a huge program forMarch Madness with Degree and
(30:34):
with Unilever on the deodorantcategory and it wasn't like a
whole.
Hey, yes, we couldtraditionally just run a rebate
or a coupon to drive salesvelocities and have business
impact, but it's going.
Hey, people want experiencesand in our platform when people
are running these types ofpromotions, these like
sweepstakes or better than lifeexperiences that you can't get.
(30:58):
You know, you hear about Visaand MasterCard and A amex kind
of doing these.
Like money can't buyexperiences, but when you can
give people those types ofthings for the walmart shopper
that's a big deal a weird littleside note.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Um, I've used degree uh cool breeze since I worked
for unilever, uh, and six, eightmonths ago, like I've used it
since the early 2000s.
And all of a sudden my wife shegoes you stink Like something's
wrong with your deodorant, youneed to change it.
So I changed it out.
I got a different thing and Istarted hearing advertisements
(31:36):
on podcasts that I listened to.
Hey, we screwed up.
We changed the formulation ofCool Breeze.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
We changed it back.
Please come back.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
That's incredible, oh my gosh.
I think it's those types of like, I mean, and this is something
that I think people are startingto leverage and you're seeing
it in a lot of different wayswith NIL, so that world, so like
in that campaign it was withJuju and she was obviously, I
(32:07):
think, right now the biggestname in college basketball for
for the women's side and to gofly out to LA shoot a commercial
with Juju at a Walmart, with aWalmart associate talking about
full body deodorant.
It's a way to start to go hey,there's trends happening, right.
Nil is has nothing to donecessarily with retail or CPG,
(32:29):
but I'm starting to see brandsgo.
Oh wait, these people havesevere or like big time impact
on shoppers and what influences.
And it's a way to supportstudent athlete, right.
And so I think there's a lot ofdifferent ways you can start to
see hey, taking a businessproblem like March madness,
(32:50):
which we hey, we sponsor this atthe NCAA level, how do you
translate that to retail?
Like, what does that mean forthe merchant?
What does that mean for thecategory?
Are you going to driveincremental traffic and sales
that are going to bring inbecause of this investment?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
It's a great point because I mean, Superbowl is
like the second largest shoppingday of the year or whatever.
We don't really talk about theother sports.
That are reasons together thatpeople in very, very large
numbers.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Well, we're about to go into what I would consider
the next couple best couple ofyears in USS sports history,
even outside of like the AtlantaOlympics back in 94.
But we've got the World Cupcoming to the US next year,
which is the biggest sportsevent in the world.
It's coming to North America.
I'm already seeing signage inNew York.
(33:39):
I was in Dallas already talkingabout World Cup.
I know a lot of brands are verymuch excited about soccer and
what's coming.
Then, guess what?
Very quick follow, we've gotthe Olympics in LA.
Um and so to go big sports as aplatform is a great way to tell
story, because these athletesall have stories, they all have
(34:00):
personal and guess what?
They're shoppers too.
Like we'd sometimes put them ona pedestal of like oh yeah,
they're like in this ivory tower.
But especially as you'reworking with college athletes,
they're like, they're kids.
Basically they're just kids andthey've grown up in a household
with brands, with theirfamilies and Scott memories and
stories, and so the way to, canyou bring that to life and tell
(34:20):
that story in a meaningful way,while driving commerce, I mean?
Speaker 1 (34:25):
the Walmart run is like a fundamental element of my
college experience.
You know you get the gametogether, we're going to Walmart
.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
We're going to Walmart, guys.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
It's.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Friday night at 4.
We're going to make $40.
Let's go spend it.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Between us.
It's so true.
Yeah, no, I think there's a lotto the.
I mean, there's exciting things, there's really cool tech,
there's, you know, enormousadvancement in AI and a lot of
decisions to make as a brandtrying to grow.
I think the simplicity andfundamental nature of price
(35:00):
assortment, experience, trust iseffective because it actually
works, and that's what you, whenyou said it's like well, the
thing that mattered about breaktime is like, yeah, we actually
got the results.
And you know, taking an eventand then elevating what happens
so that the results happen feelslike my main kind of takeaway
(35:22):
when it comes to all right, asI'm discerning what the right
things are.
I think there are folks outthere that are maybe not finding
a 10X ROAS anywhere, arefinding, you know, perhaps
customers being a bitundereducated, as they might
feel, or just their experiencesthat they've created aren't
things they want to show theirmom.
(35:43):
What are some of those commontriggers of folks that have then
come to break time, experiencewhat it is to pull it together
and get those results that wouldhelp.
You know, someone know eitheras a merchant of like, hey, you
need to go, you need to look atyour experiences.
Maybe there's a third placeMaybe it's not just the PDP or
(36:04):
as a CPG.
It might be right for aconversation with you and your
team.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Yeah, I think some of the core reasons people are
having conversations and we'redrinking coffee together often
is hey, I'm, either there'smaybe a navigation issue or a
category issue of my product.
We have an idea of, like, whatour role to play is in the
category, but we don't thinkthat's being communicated to the
shopper, right and so, or we'vegot second to bottom shelf
(36:33):
placement Guess what Break timecan't do.
Change that I can't.
Uh, that's not our, our rolesand responsibilities, right, but
to be able to say, hey, well,in an e-commerce environment,
guess what.
You're not the second to bottomshelf.
You might be second page onsearch, but in this digital
safeguard walled garden of whatwe can do at break time, what if
(36:57):
your competitors can'tadvertise on your page Because
they can't on break time?
It's 100% share of voice.
There's no private label andthere's no ability even to drive
them to the PDP where theycould trade down or switch or
see a banner from yourcompetitor.
We're just carding it and so Ithink for them, that's one.
(37:18):
I think the other big one isgoing hey, if everybody else in
my category is doing X, I alwayslike to say you're not going to
out PNG, png, right?
Or any of the big guys, right,you got to approach it
differently, right?
And if that problem is, hey,we've got to tell our meaningful
(37:40):
brand story and talk about whywe're great and why you love us
For break time.
A lot of the same thing is truewith our clients.
Hey, just try us If you don'tlike it.
We say this often.
Like, we'll give you a creditfor a free program in the future
.
Like because it's not justabout tech.
Like that's the thing is.
We are a tech company that'sempowered, but we are led by
(38:04):
great humans.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
And on that you mentioned paying.
You're a.
You're a pay for performance,right?
It's not an upfront thing, it'sa.
You pay for what you get.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yes, and so like, when we're building these
experiences on a cost per humanengagement model, so it's not a
CPM.
Sometimes there's this wholeidea of I like to use this
spinach analogy, where it's like, if you've ever cooked spinach,
you start with all this spinachin the pan and by the time it's
ready, it's like tiny.
Well that's traditional CPM.
Media is like I'm going to buyall these impressions and then
(38:38):
2% are going to click and then,of the people that click,
another half of a percentage isgoing to go to the next step and
actually convert and you spenta hundred thousand dollars to
get 4,000 engagements.
And we've said what if there's adifferent model?
What if you spend a hundredthousand dollars and you
guarantee 32,000 engagements andif we don't get those people
(39:00):
uniquely into the experience andthrough it, you don't pay
anything?
Well, it's kind of like aninsurance policy.
Now you've got this greatcontent with guaranteed results,
cause even you know, we hearthis often when I'm sitting in
front of people.
They're like Brad, I built thispage on Walmart.
No one's going to it.
It's not necessarily in thesite architecture, it's not
(39:22):
searchable.
I've got to just drive tons ofmedia to it.
And so we've said well, what ifwe could do both at a really
cost-efficient way?
That's very through the lens ofif I was a shopper, would I
want to go through thisexperience?
Yes or no?
I love it.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
We've taken a lot of your time, so maybe we move to
the lightning round.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Let's go, I like it, I like, I like lightning rounds,
let's do it.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
I'd like to start off with um.
You know, failure, call it,mistake, what call it?
Whatever you want, what's yourbiggest thing?
That you screwed up, that youlearned the most from?
Speaker 3 (39:57):
oh, in your career.
Well, I, I, I'm, keep, I'm goingto keep this abbreviated and
won't go into all the details,but let's just say early on I
was an ad agency guy in themarketing world.
I was with a client at a bigindustry event in Vegas.
They wanted to go out and dosome things at night.
I was ready to go to bed.
(40:19):
Um, so this was young Bradtrying to like make my clients
happy.
So I didn't like ask anybody, Ijust said hey, just take my
card and I'll see you atbreakfast tomorrow in Vegas.
Let's just say, at breakfastthey all had a really good time
(40:39):
and I got a very long receiptand had to call our CEO and be
like hey, we have an issue, andhe's like.
His questions were was anyonein jail?
I said no one's in jail.
Is everyone safe?
Everyone's safe.
He's like are the clients happy?
I'm like the clients are happy.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Couldn't be happier.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
But we've got a big expense report and that's about
what it was.
So it was a uh, I thought I wasgonna get fired on the spot.
He was very gracious and I'mvery grateful, but it taught me
this idea that, like hey,sometimes doing the right thing
which I thought I was doingstill costs you, and so it's
(41:23):
it's.
It's setting appropriateexpectations.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Trust but verify.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Yes, that was a good learning experience.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I love that.
Well, Brad, I know you'realways, you know digging in
learning, finding ways to learnfrom others and sharing things.
I love getting good content andinteresting inspiration from
you.
We've been doing that for adecade, so 2024, over the last
(41:55):
year, what's the thing you'vebeen learning the most?
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Well, I'm getting my master's in not related to
business in Christian spiritualformation and leadership, from a
university called FriendsUniversity in Wichita, and I
think what I'm learning is we'reall trying to do the same thing
, right, like it doesn't matterif you're 23 or you're 63 and
you're working in retail.
(42:19):
It's like like we wantconnection with each other, we
want to be known, we want to beseen and loved, and I think, for
me, as a dad, as a husband, asa coworker, as a partner in this
world of CPG, it's going hey, Ihave an innate desire whether
it's good or bad and I'vestarted to kind of deal with
this of like I just want to berelevant.
(42:41):
Well, guess what?
That's not.
I'm not the first person thathad that temptation to be
significant or to be relevant,and so, for me, I've really
started to go hey, is that thegoal, though, when I show up
every day, take my kids toschool?
Is it to be relevant or is itto be present?
(43:01):
And so that's probably thebiggest lesson.
I've read lots of books on thesetopics, but the core thing
that's been applied is liketoday we're here, can I be fully
present?
Not think about what I'm doingin 30 minutes, not thinking
about what I did 30 minutesbefore, not thinking about
what's coming up this weekend,but to go.
Hey, what a gift we have livingin this community and working
(43:25):
in this industry, because thepeople like this work is not.
I always like to say I havefriends that work in cancer
research and like that worksreally important, like what
they're doing for childhoodcancer.
We're not solving and curingcancer here, but the reason it's
important is because there'speople involved and so trying to
be fully present, love that,all right.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Last question here, um, in terms of media books,
podcasts, movies, tv shows whatare you consuming right now?
That's feeding the soul yeah, alot.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Um, uh, there's a, a book that I think is really,
really interesting.
That's called I Told Me so, andit's about this idea that we
all struggle with this conceptof self-deception, of like, what
are the stories I'm tellingmyself about myself every single
day and how does that come tolife?
And it's not necessarily aneasy read, but it's been really
(44:21):
helpful for me in the context ofmy coworkers, in the context of
my clients, of like, hey, we'reall trying to kind of be a
little better than we think weare, probably as we show up in
different rooms and differentmeetings and different spaces.
But to go, what would it looklike to be honest with myself
about myself?
Yeah, which is I'm my hardestcritic often, uh, most days.
(44:43):
And so what, what would thatlook like in work, in the idea
of a strategy meeting?
To go, I don't have to be thesmartest person in the room.
I'm going to give myselfpermission to not have to always
have the last word in thisconversation, to just sit and
listen.
So that would be it.
So.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Brad, thank you for joining us today.
It's been an enlighteningconversation, as always, so I
really appreciate your time andthank you all for joining us.
You can find all of ourpodcasts, either audio video on
our website athighimpactanalyticscom, or
wherever you download yournormal podcasts, and thank you
(45:22):
for joining us.
Hello and welcome to the Retail Journey podcast.
I'm one of your hosts, charlesGreathouse.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
And I am James Harris , and today we're talking to
Brad Godwin.
Brad is the Senior VicePresident of CPG Partnerships
and Clients Evangelist at BreakTime Media.
He's also a really good friend.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Welcome to the Retail Journey, brad Thanks man, it's
great to be here this morning.
It's great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, love having you here.
You look good in the office,the couch and you belong
together.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Look good, feel good.
You guys set up the furniture,I sit down, we have a
conversation.
Sounds like it's going to be agood Friday.
Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, tell us what's going on at break time.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well, I think at first, before we jump into break
time, one of the things I thinkit's fun to get to be in
Northwest Arkansas, inBentonville, in the place that
retail is thriving, I would say,and to be with you guys at High
Impact, not only as friends butas people that work in the
industry.
It's really fun to get to seewhat is happening here in
(01:18):
Northwest Arkansas, even withthe earnings that just got
released yesterday.
There's a lot of excitementaround just got released
yesterday.
There's a lot of excitementaround, wow, what this strategy
that Walmart is putting intoplace is working, not just in
physical stores but in digitalstores.
And so for us at Break Time, oneof the things that we get to do
is kind of sit in this what Iwould call the third place of
(01:38):
retail, and that's one of thosethings that Howard at Starbucks
originally called of like, hey,you have your home, you have
your work, and then Starbuckswants to be this like third
place.
And I think in the digitalworld of retail you kind of have
(02:05):
a product page just liketalking about the brand and very
, very high level like kind oftop of the line communication
and to go okay, well, both ofthose have value, but maybe
there's a third place.
And so what we try to do isconverge this idea of really
meaningful content andstorytelling and personalization
(02:27):
, all while having what I wouldcall edutainment, this idea of
like education, entertainment inone place with seamless
commerce.
And so that's what we get to dowith brands all the time, and
it's great to get to talk aboutthat today with you guys.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Not to divert from break time, but it was reading
the earnings Walmart earningslast night and it's kind of
shocking that they maintaintheir annual outlook.
Kind of brought profit down alittle bit for a quarter and
then the stock dropped a percent.
Wall Street does not understandretail, because it could be
(03:06):
such a bigger bloodbath than itwas and it isn't at all.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, and what's interesting is, like you, from
just the data.
The data tells one story, butthen there's the whole side of
like, and a lot of the worldthat I get to work in is the
media side of Walmart.
Connect is growing.
It's healthy.
They increased growth even morethan they were expecting for Q1
(03:29):
.
I think they're innovating at amore rapid pace than they have
in previous quarters.
There's a lot of excitement.
I was just in Hoboken yesterdayin that office and there is
just there's an energy.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Momentum.
For sure I feel it across ourclient base as we work to get
meaningful return frominvestments, across Walmart's
ecosystem, and Walmart connectsthe more than just retail media,
like just meaningful connectionto customers, and the tools
that they've deployed are allincreasingly effective and we're
seeing more momentum.
There's still folks out therefrustrated.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
There's still folks out there that seem to be
missing the point, that seemlike they just don't get an ROI,
and I think it's one of thoseareas I love helping with Love
helping someone realize, well,here's where you're missing it
and how to actually get the mostout of a platform that's really
delighting customers people aregoing to be coming in and I
(04:32):
think one of the trends I'm justcontinuing to see we were in I
was in Texas last week andbefore that in Illinois and
going to stores I've seen thisidea of this like, I think, the
(04:53):
trend of really really deep,meaningful human connection in
person you're not going to beable to replace with AI of just
deep connection right Withindividuals at the store level
and the experiences of retailattainment and things that can
happen in person.
So this kind of high touch andthen this what I would call high
(05:14):
tech, of like what's that kindof fidgetal synergy, of like
these really meaning, meaningfulphysical I don't know.
I heard that somewhere.
I did not come up with it.
I'm not going to claim it, buthere in Battenville we got
digital, but this idea of likewhat shoppers are looking for
(05:36):
and, quite frankly, what we are.
I'm a human and I want deep,meaningful connection and I want
technology to empower me tolive a better life.
At the same time, I don't wantto give up one for the other.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
There's something resonating and I appreciate the
simplicity of the message rightnow and the strategic alignment
at Walmart it's price, it'sassortment, it's experience,
it's trust, and I think thereare a lot of CPGs out there that
are delivering assortment, thatare delivering on price and are
misunderstanding experience,therefore not capturing trust.
(06:10):
And it's a very effectiveplatform if you know how to do
it and I think the way that youguys come to life with some
education, creating experiencefor customers and an environment
for expansion of understandingthat isn't a burden.
You know reading terms andconditions isn't something
anybody wants to do.
There is a lot of label readingand there's a lot of you know
(06:31):
learning how something is goingto help you.
Edutainment, I think, is some.
Edutainment goes a long way onexperience and trust.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Totally Well, and I think there's a trend too, that
you know whether it's talking toa brand manager or talking to
someone who's over commerce,marketing or, quite frankly, as
a VP of sales in one of theoffices in and around Northwest
Arkansas.
It's this idea that before andI think Doug has talked about
this recently value was reallyfocused on price.
(07:03):
Yeah, right, but value now hasa lot of other components to it,
and that equation experience isobviously one of them.
This idea that we're buildingcustomer relationships.
This is not just a exchange ofwe sell this product, you give
us money and then you go on yourway.
They're really trying todevelop that trust, right, and
(07:23):
trust comes through thoserelationships.
And so, as you can start tobring these experiences and go,
hey, great, we got in the store.
Awesome, we got our new item onthe shelf, great, well, we're
going to run this campaign fromMay 18th to June 24th.
Great Shoppers don't know that.
They don't shop in campaigns.
(07:46):
They shop just it's Tuesday andmy wife texts me and I need to
go pick up something at thestore, my daughter needs
something for volleyball orwhatever it is, and so
understanding that shoppercentric which I think Walmart is
really starting to double downon of like, who is our shopper,
what are their behaviors, andthat's something that I think
they're winning at right nowExperience, trust, nexus, the
(08:09):
fairest day in campaign.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Have y'all seen this?
It's like an incrediblecommercial.
We'll link it in the show notes.
Hopefully it's linkable outthere somewhere.
We didn't do it, but it's sogood of like being able to get
medicine you need withoutleaving the house.
I read the Walmart is within90,.
94% of Americans are within athree-hour delivery window from
(08:35):
a Walmart.
Yeah, I heard that.
That is insane Mind-blowingwhen you talk about.
You know price and assortmentis great, but you know it's hard
to sometimes get to that store.
Experience and trust threehours later.
Are you kidding?
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
You think about that delivery that they're providing
and that service.
That now and I think this isone of the things that was
brought up yesterday in someconversations with folks that I
had at Walmart Connect is someof these categories have really
complex assortments.
And if I'm a shopper and I walkup to the physical shelf, For
sure it's overwhelming.
(09:13):
Like, where do I go?
What is the efficacy of thisproduct?
They're all using kind ofsimilar jargon in their
packaging.
It kind of looks the same, theprice, architecture is similar,
but is this right for me?
And there's this risk of like,I'm going to buy this maybe new
brand that I haven't seen, or anew product, but like, am I
(09:36):
going to feel good about it?
And I think that's one of thethings we're realizing is a
major problem to solve.
That's really hard right now,even on walmartcom, because of
search and competitiveconquesting and other things of
like going hey, if there's a OTCcategory and we've done this
with with brands like Haleon andothers where it's like hey,
(09:57):
complex assortment of oral care,a lot of different toothpaste,
a lot of different things, Well,what if there's this
personalization engine that moste-commerce and websites?
You go to Charles, you go tothat site, you're going to see
the exact same experience asJames, as me, right?
Hey, it's ESPNcom.
(10:18):
Or you go to whatever the siteis Walmartcom.
Site is walmartcom.
There'll be some past historyof like, hey, here's some things
you should buy again andwhatnot.
But if you go to a normalsearch term, it's going to pull
those things up.
But what we found is, when youcan personalize and have some
people answer a few questions,then what if the whole commerce
(10:39):
experience changes?
Oh well, oh, by the way, here'syour exact regimen, based on
exactly what you've just told us.
We've searched the 1800products.
We've given you these three.
Here's why they're relevanthere.
Then, oh, by the way, isinfluencer content from those
specific products out of all theother influencer content that's
(10:59):
pertinent.
Here's the offers, if there's aWalmart cash offer or other
things that are going on forthose specific items and then
you click this and it carts itRight, and so it's taking
somebody that used to go oh gosh, this is going to take maybe
several minutes to make adecision against.
That is done in 10 seconds,yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And if a data guy, that all I think?
I think that sounds awesome,but my question is always like
so what?
Why does it matter?
Does it matter?
And so I'm sure you've seensome results.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, yeah, I mean like right now, for every dollar
that's coming in this is overthe last 12 months is we're
seeing about a $2.87 incrementalROAS.
And so I always like to saythat's sometimes when I'm
talking to clients and they'relike, oh, I have to see a 10x
return, or so-and-so said, wecan guarantee a 7x incremental
(11:53):
ROAS, I'm like then you shouldonly ever do that If that's
actually real good for you andgood for them and like good for
the industry.
I've never seen it.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Are you dissatisfied?
Yeah, keep doing that.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Keep running that machine, Put as many quarters in
there as you have in kind ofperpetuity.
But like I think the reality is, is when you can help a shopper
decide what to buy in a verypersonalized way at scale, you
see really tangible conversion.
Because, people go oh, I don'tnow have to go through the whole
(12:26):
category or even search terms.
I answer a few questions.
You're giving me a personalizedrecommendation and I hit one
button and it carts it.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And honestly, it feels like not just conversion
of a purchase, it's conversionof a customer, because once I
get it, I understand and itworks for me, I'm sticking
around.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Well, if you think about again not something I came
up with, but Simon Sinek talksabout the why start with why?
Well, if you think about thatpremise and then you look at
most CPGs and how they'reoperating at retail, it's like
oh well, just buy us becausewe're on deal.
Well, what are you then trainingbehavior?
You're training pricesensitivity.
So then people are going to gooh well, if price, if you're not
on deal, then I'm going totrade down and go into a private
label which has a greatsolution, potentially understand
(13:25):
the founder's story, whateverthose kind of key
differentiations are, thenyou're not just getting a single
transaction.
There's LTV, like this lifetimevalue of going.
Hey, because and I use thisexample often General Mills was
launching we the yogurt.
This was years ago and Iremember meeting with one of the
marketing folks.
They were telling me all thestory about how this came about.
I went and tried it.
(13:45):
Well, now I bought it for likeI don't know how many years, but
like years and years and lotsof purchases, because I
understood the value of thebrand, not just the price of the
brand.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So often as a merchant, I have had people
explain a product to me in greatdetail yeah, and unfortunately,
as I look at the product, oreven the product, the PDP none
of that's on there, and so Ithink it can be a bit
overwhelming for folks.
On all right, how do Itranslate some complex messages?
And it feels like that's thesweet spot where Break Time
(14:18):
comes in and helps you takecomplexity.
Make it not only simple, butenjoyable and effective.
This is a good opportunity,Like what is break time?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
What does it do?
Yeah, I imagine a few peoplelistening to this won't know
that.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, so we help shoppers decide what to buy and
where to buy.
It is like a high level, I liketo say.
We build better brand pageexperiences.
We build better brand pageexperiences.
So if you think about the daysof going hey, in a perfect world
, I mean, let's go back like 10years when Walmart launched
brand engagement pages onwalmartcom.
It was like this is 100% shareof voice.
(14:55):
I can tell my story differentlythan I can on a PDP.
There's a lot of opportunity totell my story in a meaningful
way, or a campaign or a newproduct, but for us, we go hey.
Oftentimes what we hear isthere's potential limitations
associated to whether it's weonly have these modules, or you
(15:15):
can't have this type of commerceon here, or, unless you invest
at a certain investment level,it's going to not be available
or not.
And so what we've tried to sayis what would it look like?
Imagine a world you could tellthe right story you want to tell
in a brand safe environmentwith 100% share of voice.
We build it in three weeks orless and it's very reasonable
(15:41):
and everything that we buildwith it is a cost per engagement
.
It's very reasonable andeverything that we build with it
is a cost per engagement, soit's performance.
So we build it for free andthen we drive all the working
dollars to actually convert.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So yeah, I love that and I feel like sometimes,
connecting all of those dots andactually bringing it to life,
there's a lot of magic inexecution.
The strategy is great and Ithink a lot of folks have
approached the the strategy oftelling a story in a cohesive
way, but executing it in a waywhere it's actually tied to
(16:13):
where the customer is and howthey're going to purchase and be
educated, is a Not a simplefeat.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Well, and so much of these.
If you think about most mediaplans or marketing strategies.
Let's just keep it at marketing.
You've got all these silos.
Here's what we're doing forpaid social.
Here's what we're doing foronsite search.
Here's what we're doing withour complex third party retail
media like an Instacart orwhatnot.
Here's what our brand teams aredoing with out of home and
(16:40):
connected TV and everything else.
Well, where are you sendingthis?
It's like I always sayworld-class media plans or
world-class marketing strategiesneed world-class destinations
to send the traffic, and that'sreally what break time we go.
We want to build an experiencethat you want to show your mom.
I always like to say that, likewhen you're a little kid and my
kids come up to me like dad,look what I made at school,
(17:03):
you're like this is awesome,let's put it on the fridge.
Right.
We build experiences you wantto put on your fridge Right,
like it's these reallycompelling, beautiful, but also
like it's meeting a human need.
It can't just be pretty, itneeds to actually drive a
meaningful human interaction.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Talk about that for a minute, because you gave us a
really good understanding ofwhat the purpose of Break Time
is.
What's the experience?
Yeah, For people that haven'tbeen yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
So we've got several publishing sites.
One of them is calleddailybreakcom and literally that
was started 12 plus years agoin a college dorm room in
Massachusetts.
Sounds like a similar story toother tech that I will not name,
but you know who they are.
To really just take a break inyour day, daily break, like
(17:52):
let's take a break from studyingand let's kind of have
BuzzFeed-like material.
That's content Some of it'spaid, some of it's organic,
based on cultural moments.
That's content Some of it'spaid, some of it's organic,
based on cultural moments.
And so we have an audience ofaround 36 million on a monthly
basis and we know where theyshop because when they set up a
profile, I like to think of itas kind of Pinterest with points
(18:12):
.
So when you go on the site, yousay where do I like to shop?
So, charles, if you say Walmartonly and I say stop and shop
and Walmart and Target, ourcontent experiences on that site
are going to look verydifferently based on that.
And so you go through thoseexperiences and you might say
hey, as I talked about earlier,maybe there's the reasons or the
(18:34):
problems to solve is in theassortment of this category.
People don't know which productof ours is right for them.
So we've got an ability to do aquiz and some people go oh,
quiz, well, that's been aroundforever.
Well, we've got this whole ideaof this progression dynamics
that we've built in to our sitethat when you take the quiz and
(18:57):
you get an answer, every otherpiece of content on the
experience changes.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
And the unique element there is like in the
past, CPG quizzes have been fromone brand, right.
So it's like a one-sided thingand you're kind of a objective.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yeah, and trying to tell.
I think trying to tell storiesin a way that go hey, otc, as an
example, we're doing a programand this is kind of a feel-good
story with Halion and Ram, theRam Initiative, remote Area
Medical.
They're going tounderprivileged communities all
throughout the United States inpartnership with Walmart to pull
(19:32):
up these trucks and parkinglots and provide dental care for
free for Walmart shoppers.
It's an incredible initiative.
Steph Porter at Halion is kindof leading that from their end
and Brittany Bishop from WalmartConnect.
But like telling this reallyamazing story, well, digitally,
that's only if you're in thosemarkets you get to experience
(19:53):
that.
So we created digital of everyquestion that the hygienist
would ask you if you sat down.
So you're getting almost like adigital hygienist that's asking
you these questions, you answerthem, then they're recommending
a product for you based on yourneed, state of your dental,
current dental, and then you canimmediately buy it and get it
(20:14):
delivered to your house.
And so it's giving peopleaccess and personalization that
might not be able to go to astore and there's a lot of folks
that might not be in theselittle markets for these little
things.
But I think that's an example,james, of being able to take
personalization of somethingthat maybe you would get live,
or even if you're doing anin-store demo.
(20:35):
Let me tell you about theproduct.
Well, sometimes demos theperson may be doing them doesn't
necessarily represent yourbrand in the fullest capacity
that you would want.
Well, guess what, digitally,you can do, that you can have
the right person telling theright story at scale,
personalized to the shopper, andwhat's cool about making that
virtual, is you know?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
there's the benefit just from a commerce standpoint.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
There's a benefit in the store where that's happening
, cause now there's brandloyalty.
There's also the benefit ofpeople that see it from a
thousand miles away.
I think it's really awesomethey did that.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
There's a halo.
Well, that, uh, edutainment, um, edutainment is happening.
Um, as a merchant, I was a uh Ithink Steve Bratsby has called
me a glutton for punishment, inthat sometimes customers do
things that aren't what's bestfor them.
(21:32):
I'm buying vitamins.
I'm trying to help Americaunderstand omega-3s.
It's about EPA and DHA, not theamount of oil.
Oil's just all you know.
It doesn't just all.
You don't actually need the oil.
You need the epa and dha and II went through just a whole lot
of you know push here and thethings I've tried on educating
(21:59):
um is similar to as I was as amerchant.
You write me a paragraph.
I'm going to read the firstcouple words of the first line.
You give me a couple bullets.
I will read the bullets.
That's still true today, by theway.
Yeah, to be fair, that's bad.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
That's bad truth, Bob .
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, and so it's like all right, edutainment.
What do Americans like to take?
In Short, simple, easy tounderstand content that can be
inspiring.
That can also take me down arabbit hole for four hours worth
of research.
But you can't start there.
You got to start with somethingsimple, and I know a lot of
(22:35):
people out there trying to helpcustomers elevate their
experience, live better in asignificant way, save a bunch of
time, because they're torturingthemselves with the wrong
solution, which is why theirregimen nothing works.
So like how do you help peopleunderstand that your problem is
an education problem?
And it's not that you don'tknow what needs to be educated,
(23:02):
You're just not bringing it to acustomer in a way they're going
to ever digest.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, a lot of times we're sitting down with like, I
think, for like growth brands,like they're executives, so like
CEO, founder, cmo For a lot ofothers, maybe a brand team or a
local office leader or shoppermarketer.
And I think one of the thingsthat's really interesting about
education and you hit on this islike a lot of people go oh no,
(23:29):
our job is to educate.
Go to our PDP, like look at allthese like bullet points and
I'm like great, as my parentsraised me and I'm trying to
raise my kids like do untoothers as you would have them do
unto you.
Is that how you like to getinformation in just static
bullet points with a simple font.
Maybe there's a differentapproach and we try to do that
(23:52):
through snackable content oflike.
Think about what you do on yourphone and why you interact with
it and why you go to the sitesyou go to and do the things you
do digitally.
Often it's because it's easy toconsume the content that's easy
to consume.
You do it not because you haveto, you just get to do it.
You're just kind of like well,I just looked, I just read these
(24:13):
like five articles and itdidn't feel like a burden.
And I think often right now,digitally with shopping, it's so
transactional, which is great.
You need to have your likeoperational principles of
e-commerce where, hey, ourimages need to have a certain
level, our digital penetrationneeds to be at a certain place.
Green fee, our search that'sjust kind of the cost of like
(24:34):
showing up.
But to go, is there?
Your packaging is reallylimited.
You can't tell your story on apackage.
Hey, there's not shelf signage,it's very difficult to get
right now.
Okay, our PDP, we can only doso much.
We don't have a million dollarsto buy a platinum brand
engagement page.
That's really where we come inand go.
Okay, what do you believe yourproblem is right now?
(24:57):
And I'll use an example.
With Hinkle, we were workingwith them and they said oh, our
problem with hair color this wasSchwarzkopf was really about.
We've got to get people to getinto the right shade.
That's the problem.
What we found was actuallythere's a problem before that.
Yeah, do people feel confidentthat they can do this at home by
(25:20):
themselves and they're notgoing to mess it up?
And if you don't address thatfirst?
So we talked about how easy itis.
Oh, it's like not idiot proof,but like it's really easy to do.
Here's the simple steps.
Here's a video that talksthrough really quickly how easy
it is for anyone to do.
(25:41):
As a dad of daughters, the lastthing I want to do is screw up
the color of my daughter's hair.
She would hate me forever.
So I need to have someconfidence of before what shade
of blonde or brown I need tohave.
I need to go.
Can I do this?
Yes or no?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
And so and you can't test it on yourself.
This is not-.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Follicly challenged.
So that is a challenge for me,but that's something I think
that's and you can't test it onyourself this is not happening
To be able to go.
Retail moves at a pretty insanepace right now and things could
be all good.
And then you get an email it's1030 on a Friday from your
merchant.
You're like, oh gosh, we've gotto react.
(26:31):
And so that's one of the thingsI like to say for us, we try to
respond and go.
Not, I don't view those peopleas jerks hey, we just got this
note and we've got to like,respond and change this
experience, or what can we do?
Okay, yeah, we'll have thatlive later this afternoon.
And so we understand that ifretail is going to continue at
the pace it is, we have tocreate services that absolutely
(26:54):
move at that speed or faster.
Because, let's say, charles,you have 13 SKUs, 10 of them are
doing great, three of them arenot.
What if we hear that we adjustthe creative, we adjust the
reasons to believe, to focus onthose three?
If there's some type of apromotion that we're doing, we
(27:14):
adjust it to that, to real time,and we can change that stuff on
the fly.
So it's not days or weeks ormonths, it's hours Right, and so
that gives people thenimbleness to react to both
their merchant and therelationships there, but also to
shoppers.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
So something that's newish for y'all at break time
is your partnership with Walmartconnect.
Help us understand what it wasthat look like.
What is that help?
Speaker 3 (27:41):
us understand.
What does that look like?
What is that?
You know, it's been fun becauseit's interesting to kind of
have more of a front row seat,maybe a third row I don't think
I ever get front row but thirdrow seat of what's going on in
the retail media landscape.
But we've had a lot ofconversations over the last year
with the Walmart Connect team,specifically with Jannie Connect
(28:02):
team, specifically with JannieFraga, who's based here in
Bentonville, who kind of leadsthis idea of experiential her
and Sam Rifkin of like what isWalmart Connect?
Historically, if you read MrSam's book and you go over to
store one, there is donkeys andwatermelons in the parking lot
and retailtainment is a wordthat Walmart's.
It's not a new word at Walmart,right, it's been around for a
(28:24):
long time and there's kind ofbeen this ebb and flow of like
parking lot events and mobiletours.
I was driving the other day.
I saw the Wienermobile drivingdown the road on Walton.
I was like, well, here we are,welcome to Bentonville, home of
the Wienermobile.
But those types of things Ithink have always existed.
Wienermobile, um, but thosetypes of things I think have
(28:46):
always existed.
I think the challenge for mostbrands and cpgs is they're
expensive and so you've got onestore at a high price limited
shopper engagement because youmight be at one store for four
hours.
A little bit of that shopperuniverse at that one store deep,
deep engagement, just limitedbreadth, and, quite frankly,
there's very little measurementother than, hey, we met with, we
(29:06):
engaged with 38 shoppers and wepassed out 62 samples.
There you go, there's yourrecap, right, and here's some
pictures, right, and that'sgreat, and that's how it's been
forever I think.
In the world, though, ofdigital advancement to go, wait
a second, I think there'ssomething we could probably do.
Everything is measurable.
We should be able to measurethis better, right, and so we
(29:28):
started to go imagine a worldwhere what, if there's this like
idea of a digital event andit's not going to be the exact
same engagement perfectly aswhat you would have a physical
human meeting with anotherphysical human but can you take
those elements that arehappening there and bring them
to life digitally and then havecommerce woven in, and so we've
(29:51):
launched this kind of likesolution with them, and so now,
when you're running any type ofa retail attainment event like
an enhanced demo in store, aparking lot event, a fourth wall
build out to go you can now,with your partner manager, work
with them to work with us, to go.
I want to do a digital eventextension, and maybe that's like
(30:11):
four weeks before the event,talking about these events that
are happening, talking about thepersonalization of the
assortment, having fun.
Maybe there's a promotion goingon Like we're starting to do a
lot of work in the promotionalspace, not because it's cool,
but because the shoppersactually it's driving results.
So we did a huge program forMarch Madness with Degree and
(30:34):
with Unilever on the deodorantcategory and it wasn't like a
whole.
Hey, yes, we couldtraditionally just run a rebate
or a coupon to drive salesvelocities and have business
impact, but it's going.
Hey, people want experiencesand in our platform when people
are running these types ofpromotions, these like
sweepstakes or better than lifeexperiences that you can't get.
(30:58):
You know, you hear about Visaand MasterCard and A amex kind
of doing these.
Like money can't buyexperiences, but when you can
give people those types ofthings for the walmart shopper
that's a big deal a weird littleside note.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Um, I've used degree uh cool breeze since I worked
for unilever, uh, and six, eightmonths ago, like I've used it
since the early 2000s.
And all of a sudden my wife shegoes you stink Like something's
wrong with your deodorant, youneed to change it.
So I changed it out.
I got a different thing and Istarted hearing advertisements
(31:36):
on podcasts that I listened to.
Hey, we screwed up.
We changed the formulation ofCool Breeze.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
We changed it back.
Please come back.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
That's incredible, oh my gosh.
I think it's those types of like, I mean, and this is something
that I think people are startingto leverage and you're seeing
it in a lot of different wayswith NIL, so that world, so like
in that campaign it was withJuju and she was obviously, I
(32:07):
think, right now the biggestname in college basketball for
for the women's side and to gofly out to LA shoot a commercial
with Juju at a Walmart, with aWalmart associate talking about
full body deodorant.
It's a way to start to go hey,there's trends happening, right.
Nil is has nothing to donecessarily with retail or CPG,
(32:29):
but I'm starting to see brandsgo.
Oh wait, these people havesevere or like big time impact
on shoppers and what influences.
And it's a way to supportstudent athlete, right.
And so I think there's a lot ofdifferent ways you can start to
see hey, taking a businessproblem like March madness,
(32:50):
which we hey, we sponsor this atthe NCAA level, how do you
translate that to retail?
Like, what does that mean forthe merchant?
What does that mean for thecategory?
Are you going to driveincremental traffic and sales
that are going to bring inbecause of this investment?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
It's a great point because I mean, Superbowl is
like the second largest shoppingday of the year or whatever.
We don't really talk about theother sports.
That are reasons together thatpeople in very, very large
numbers.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Well, we're about to go into what I would consider
the next couple best couple ofyears in USS sports history,
even outside of like the AtlantaOlympics back in 94.
But we've got the World Cupcoming to the US next year,
which is the biggest sportsevent in the world.
It's coming to North America.
I'm already seeing signage inNew York.
(33:39):
I was in Dallas already talkingabout World Cup.
I know a lot of brands are verymuch excited about soccer and
what's coming.
Then, guess what?
Very quick follow, we've gotthe Olympics in LA.
Um and so to go big sports as aplatform is a great way to tell
story, because these athletesall have stories, they all have
(34:00):
personal and guess what?
They're shoppers too.
Like we'd sometimes put them ona pedestal of like oh yeah,
they're like in this ivory tower.
But especially as you'reworking with college athletes,
they're like, they're kids.
Basically they're just kids andthey've grown up in a household
with brands, with theirfamilies and Scott memories and
stories, and so the way to, canyou bring that to life and tell
(34:20):
that story in a meaningful way,while driving commerce, I mean?
Speaker 1 (34:25):
the Walmart run is like a fundamental element of my
college experience.
You know you get the gametogether, we're going to Walmart
.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
We're going to Walmart, guys.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
It's.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Friday night at 4.
We're going to make $40.
Let's go spend it.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Between us.
It's so true.
Yeah, no, I think there's a lotto the.
I mean, there's exciting things, there's really cool tech,
there's, you know, enormousadvancement in AI and a lot of
decisions to make as a brandtrying to grow.
I think the simplicity andfundamental nature of price
(35:00):
assortment, experience, trust iseffective because it actually
works, and that's what you, whenyou said it's like well, the
thing that mattered about breaktime is like, yeah, we actually
got the results.
And you know, taking an eventand then elevating what happens
so that the results happen feelslike my main kind of takeaway
(35:22):
when it comes to all right, asI'm discerning what the right
things are.
I think there are folks outthere that are maybe not finding
a 10X ROAS anywhere, arefinding, you know, perhaps
customers being a bitundereducated, as they might
feel, or just their experiencesthat they've created aren't
things they want to show theirmom.
(35:43):
What are some of those commontriggers of folks that have then
come to break time, experiencewhat it is to pull it together
and get those results that wouldhelp.
You know, someone know eitheras a merchant of like, hey, you
need to go, you need to look atyour experiences.
Maybe there's a third placeMaybe it's not just the PDP or
(36:04):
as a CPG.
It might be right for aconversation with you and your
team.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Yeah, I think some of the core reasons people are
having conversations and we'redrinking coffee together often
is hey, I'm, either there'smaybe a navigation issue or a
category issue of my product.
We have an idea of, like, whatour role to play is in the
category, but we don't thinkthat's being communicated to the
shopper, right and so, or we'vegot second to bottom shelf
(36:33):
placement Guess what Break timecan't do.
Change that I can't.
Uh, that's not our, our rolesand responsibilities, right, but
to be able to say, hey, well,in an e-commerce environment,
guess what.
You're not the second to bottomshelf.
You might be second page onsearch, but in this digital
safeguard walled garden of whatwe can do at break time, what if
(36:57):
your competitors can'tadvertise on your page Because
they can't on break time?
It's 100% share of voice.
There's no private label andthere's no ability even to drive
them to the PDP where theycould trade down or switch or
see a banner from yourcompetitor.
We're just carding it and so Ithink for them, that's one.
(37:18):
I think the other big one isgoing hey, if everybody else in
my category is doing X, I alwayslike to say you're not going to
out PNG, png, right?
Or any of the big guys, right,you got to approach it
differently, right?
And if that problem is, hey,we've got to tell our meaningful
(37:40):
brand story and talk about whywe're great and why you love us
For break time.
A lot of the same thing is truewith our clients.
Hey, just try us If you don'tlike it.
We say this often.
Like, we'll give you a creditfor a free program in the future
.
Like because it's not justabout tech.
Like that's the thing is.
We are a tech company that'sempowered, but we are led by
(38:04):
great humans.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
And on that you mentioned paying.
You're a.
You're a pay for performance,right?
It's not an upfront thing, it'sa.
You pay for what you get.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yes, and so like, when we're building these
experiences on a cost per humanengagement model, so it's not a
CPM.
Sometimes there's this wholeidea of I like to use this
spinach analogy, where it's like, if you've ever cooked spinach,
you start with all this spinachin the pan and by the time it's
ready, it's like tiny.
Well that's traditional CPM.
Media is like I'm going to buyall these impressions and then
(38:38):
2% are going to click and then,of the people that click,
another half of a percentage isgoing to go to the next step and
actually convert and you spenta hundred thousand dollars to
get 4,000 engagements.
And we've said what if there's adifferent model?
What if you spend a hundredthousand dollars and you
guarantee 32,000 engagements andif we don't get those people
(39:00):
uniquely into the experience andthrough it, you don't pay
anything?
Well, it's kind of like aninsurance policy.
Now you've got this greatcontent with guaranteed results,
cause even you know, we hearthis often when I'm sitting in
front of people.
They're like Brad, I built thispage on Walmart.
No one's going to it.
It's not necessarily in thesite architecture, it's not
(39:22):
searchable.
I've got to just drive tons ofmedia to it.
And so we've said well, what ifwe could do both at a really
cost-efficient way?
That's very through the lens ofif I was a shopper, would I
want to go through thisexperience?
Yes or no?
I love it.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
We've taken a lot of your time, so maybe we move to
the lightning round.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Let's go, I like it, I like, I like lightning rounds,
let's do it.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
I'd like to start off with um.
You know, failure, call it,mistake, what call it?
Whatever you want, what's yourbiggest thing?
That you screwed up, that youlearned the most from?
Speaker 3 (39:57):
oh, in your career.
Well, I, I, I'm, keep, I'm goingto keep this abbreviated and
won't go into all the details,but let's just say early on I
was an ad agency guy in themarketing world.
I was with a client at a bigindustry event in Vegas.
They wanted to go out and dosome things at night.
I was ready to go to bed.
(40:19):
Um, so this was young Bradtrying to like make my clients
happy.
So I didn't like ask anybody, Ijust said hey, just take my
card and I'll see you atbreakfast tomorrow in Vegas.
Let's just say, at breakfastthey all had a really good time
(40:39):
and I got a very long receiptand had to call our CEO and be
like hey, we have an issue, andhe's like.
His questions were was anyonein jail?
I said no one's in jail.
Is everyone safe?
Everyone's safe.
He's like are the clients happy?
I'm like the clients are happy.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Couldn't be happier.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
But we've got a big expense report and that's about
what it was.
So it was a uh, I thought I wasgonna get fired on the spot.
He was very gracious and I'mvery grateful, but it taught me
this idea that, like hey,sometimes doing the right thing
which I thought I was doingstill costs you, and so it's
(41:23):
it's.
It's setting appropriateexpectations.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Trust but verify.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Yes, that was a good learning experience.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I love that.
Well, Brad, I know you'realways, you know digging in
learning, finding ways to learnfrom others and sharing things.
I love getting good content andinteresting inspiration from
you.
We've been doing that for adecade, so 2024, over the last
(41:55):
year, what's the thing you'vebeen learning the most?
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Well, I'm getting my master's in not related to
business in Christian spiritualformation and leadership, from a
university called FriendsUniversity in Wichita, and I
think what I'm learning is we'reall trying to do the same thing
, right, like it doesn't matterif you're 23 or you're 63 and
you're working in retail.
(42:19):
It's like like we wantconnection with each other, we
want to be known, we want to beseen and loved, and I think, for
me, as a dad, as a husband, asa coworker, as a partner in this
world of CPG, it's going hey, Ihave an innate desire whether
it's good or bad and I'vestarted to kind of deal with
this of like I just want to berelevant.
(42:41):
Well, guess what?
That's not.
I'm not the first person thathad that temptation to be
significant or to be relevant,and so, for me, I've really
started to go hey, is that thegoal, though, when I show up
every day, take my kids toschool?
Is it to be relevant or is itto be present?
(43:01):
And so that's probably thebiggest lesson.
I've read lots of books on thesetopics, but the core thing
that's been applied is liketoday we're here, can I be fully
present?
Not think about what I'm doingin 30 minutes, not thinking
about what I did 30 minutesbefore, not thinking about
what's coming up this weekend,but to go.
Hey, what a gift we have livingin this community and working
(43:25):
in this industry, because thepeople like this work is not.
I always like to say I havefriends that work in cancer
research and like that worksreally important, like what
they're doing for childhoodcancer.
We're not solving and curingcancer here, but the reason it's
important is because there'speople involved and so trying to
be fully present, love that,all right.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Last question here, um, in terms of media books,
podcasts, movies, tv shows whatare you consuming right now?
That's feeding the soul yeah, alot.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Um, uh, there's a, a book that I think is really,
really interesting.
That's called I Told Me so, andit's about this idea that we
all struggle with this conceptof self-deception, of like, what
are the stories I'm tellingmyself about myself every single
day and how does that come tolife?
And it's not necessarily aneasy read, but it's been really
(44:21):
helpful for me in the context ofmy coworkers, in the context of
my clients, of like, hey, we'reall trying to kind of be a
little better than we think weare, probably as we show up in
different rooms and differentmeetings and different spaces.
But to go, what would it looklike to be honest with myself
about myself?
Yeah, which is I'm my hardestcritic often, uh, most days.
(44:43):
And so what, what would thatlook like in work, in the idea
of a strategy meeting?
To go, I don't have to be thesmartest person in the room.
I'm going to give myselfpermission to not have to always
have the last word in thisconversation, to just sit and
listen.
So that would be it.
So.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Brad, thank you for joining us today.
It's been an enlighteningconversation, as always, so I
really appreciate your time andthank you all for joining us.
You can find all of ourpodcasts, either audio video on
our website athighimpactanalyticscom, or
wherever you download yournormal podcasts, and thank you
(45:22):
for joining us.
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