Episode 9 Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Giant Stories, a podcast inspired by people and brands with meaningful stories to share. I’m John Kiker, your host and president of Media and Giant, a fully integrated creative agency in Dallas and Tulsa. So while the tools at our disposal to create and share great stories have never been more broad and varied, the fundamentals of great storytelling remain as transcendent as ever.
[00:00:22] Despite the headwinds, our industry faces clients and brands will always covet companies that remain steadfast with an eye on culture and understanding of the business dynamics at hand and a commitment to the fundamentals of what makes a great story. What an amazing episode we had with Marissa Jarrett, the executive vice president, chief marketing and sustainability officer for seven 11.
[00:00:43] So an ubiquitous brand in the U S with, you know, 13, 000 stores, home to the Slurpee, the big gulp, the big bite, all kinds of. proprietary, uh, brands and products, amazing partnerships. Marissa really embraced the history of seven [00:01:00] 11. And you see that in how they think about marketing and celebrating what they are, which is really a retailer that does an amazing job at seeing the needs of customers and how do they meet them where they are.
[00:01:13] So whether that’s new products or new ways of getting products to the consumers or new ways for consumers to buy those products, Um, she, she really has an engaging way to talk about their philosophy on storytelling and how they’ve, uh, partnered with the, uh, with creators, how to do it right, um, how not to do it and, uh, really thinking about where we’re, where we’re headed with AI and how they view it.
[00:01:39] Um, just an awesome conversation and, uh, hope you guys enjoyed the lesson. So we have been fired up about this podcast today. Uh, we host, uh, Marissa Jarrett, executive vice president and chief marketing and sustainability officer for seven 11 with over 13, the right number? Yeah. That’s like 13, 000 in the U S and Canada.
[00:01:59] [00:02:00] Marissa’s charge is to guide, continue to grow for this incredible retailer, home of iconic brands like the slurpee, big gulp, big bite, and a continually expanding focus on fresh fruits and proprietary brands and products. How am I doing so far? Really good. I mean, you’re You’re making me feel really good about this experience.
[00:02:15] All right, well, it just gets better. Just wait for this. Uh, I also saw that you guys recently announced plans to expand the gulp radio network. I want to find out more about that to 12, 000 stores delivering localized audio experiences, which could have a really interesting storytelling angle there. Uh, prior to seven 11, Marissa served as senior vice president of marketing for Dean foods.
[00:02:34] And prior to that held various senior marketing leadership roles within Frito Lay. Uh, Marissa’s industry recognitions include be inducted into the path to purchase hall of fame in 2022 and at age leading global woman in 2022, a top 50 most influential CMO in 20, that was a big year. 2022 was for you, uh, 2024 top 100 brand innovator.
[00:02:54] And most recently, uh, listed among ad weeks, 2024 marketing vanguard winners. [00:03:00] She’s a proud university of Texas alum, which I’m willing to overlook for the sake of this. Yeah, for this conversation as an OU alum, I really have no room to talk this year. So I’m just going to have to let it slide. Just for the next hour.
[00:03:12] Yeah, just for this 30 minutes. I appreciate you indulging me. Thank you. Thank you. Um, you know, since I am the son of a grandson of a longhorned, they would be ashamed if I, if I Weren’t so accommodating, but, uh, Marissa, so thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, John. I’m so glad to be here. Yeah. This will be a lot of fun.
[00:03:27] Um, so we like for our, our audience when we start these podcasts off to, to let our, let our guests tell everybody their story. Their story. Okay. Should I start with like college or what? Where do you want me to start? It’s up to you. I mean, we only have 30 minutes. Yeah. Okay. I’ll hit the highlights. How about that?
[00:03:42] Go for it. Well, since you brought up OU and UT, I, like you said, I went to UT Austin for college. I actually got my degree in finance and Spanish, so I haven’t always been a marketer. Your career track is taking a little bit of a turn. The best laid plans. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, like probably a [00:04:00] lot of people you start in college thinking, what am I going to do with my life?
[00:04:04] And my parents, uh, you know, with very sage advice said, just make sure you can get a job. Oh, yeah. When you graduate. Get off the payroll. Yeah, exactly. And so I thought, well, finance, I could probably get a job in finance. Um, and Spanish is something that I’ve always loved and enjoyed studying and speaking and, um, traveling through Latin America.
[00:04:22] And so, uh, I got a degree in finance and went to work in corporate finance in the telecom industry. Did that for a couple of years and realized, you know, it was, Okay, at it, but not great, right? And I found myself really wanting to be in the position of kind of crafting the solution and, and creating what, whatever the product or service or idea was that was going to go make an impact on people and drive the business forward.
[00:04:46] And so I decided to go back to school and maybe less of a black or white situation and more of like a, how could I You know, shape this how I want versus policy formula. Yeah. Something like that. Just took a couple of years to kind of figure out like, right, I can do this, but also I’m not great [00:05:00] at it. And so let me figure out what I am really great at and enjoy doing.
[00:05:03] And so I went back to UT actually for business school and kind of fell into marketing actually. I thought I wanted to be an entrepreneur and it was only when I took a consumer behavior class that I totally fell in love with the marketing world. This was your epiphany, huh? This is my epiphany. Yeah. And, and, and the second kind of epiphany type thing that happened was I met a UT alum Who was working at Frito Lay and who was visiting UT for like a company, you know, info session and a shout out to Carol Golia.
[00:05:36] She lives in the Dallas area. So Carol kind of turned me on to brand management. Um, and her whole pitch to me was that you’ve got a, you know, a finance background, but you want to do something more creative. Actually marketing is a great place to do both. And sure enough, I ended up interning with Frito Lay that next summer.
[00:05:55] Okay. And realize that you could get paid to do marketing and brand management. [00:06:00] And it was like a, a pinch, you know, pinch yourself from it. Right. And, uh, I guess the rest is kind of history ever since then. Uh, I went to work at PepsiCo and Frito Lay in particular after business school. I, uh, learned all about brand marketing and product innovation, advertising and media, and, um, have just sort of continued to pursue that path.
[00:06:21] And I find that. It’s what I’m really good at. And it’s also what I really enjoy doing. So that, that, you know, that’s really fulfilling. Passion and aptitude are always, always a nice thing when they come on. It’s interesting though, because a lot of people, a lot of marketers in your position started out coming out of college with a marketing track or maybe a psychology or something like that.
[00:06:40] And they had to go back. to get their MBA to have that finance and business rigor. So it’s interesting that you sort of took the opposite path. Yeah. Well, it’s funny because I’m, I’m really thankful that actually I have the finance degree and some of that finance experience because I think it’s made me a better marketer.
[00:06:55] I have that kind of grounding in the business. Um, I feel like I can [00:07:00] understand more of the, you know, the, the business or financial aspects of, of the business more easily. And importantly, translate a lot of what we’re trying to do in marketing in terms of driving consumer behavior into business outcomes, which at the end of the day, that’s, that’s That’s what we’re on the hook to do in our jobs.
[00:07:16] Well, and there’s something about also being grounded in the, in the fiscal realities of what’s possible versus saying, I’ve got a great idea. Oh man, wait a minute. We can’t execute that with the way things are laid out. So that, that, that’s a, that’s a nuanced background. So I would love to hear, um, You know, there are so many directions we could go from a storytelling perspective for 7 Eleven because, like I said in the intro, I mean, we could talk about your branded products, we could talk about your partnership with your partners who help bring a lot of products, like we could talk about product innovation, we could talk about the network.
[00:07:48] I would love for, for, for our, our viewers and our listeners, maybe get a little bit more background. Um, you know, they know 7 Eleven is the brand they see today, but it’s such an evolution over time. I’d love to. So, you know, give you a chance to [00:08:00] tell, tell, tell the listeners about 7 7 Eleven a little bit.
[00:08:03] It’s a really cool story. I mean, if you don’t know about it, 7 Eleven was founded in Dallas, um, actually in South Dallas in 1927. Oak Cliff, yeah. At Oak Cliff, it was known as the Southland Ice Company at the time. And uh, you know, at the time there wasn’t refrigeration, right? And so there was actually an ice company that, you know, customers needed.
[00:08:22] Right. And And the, uh, the gentleman who was the store manager, his name was uncle Johnny green. And he had this idea. He noticed that his customers were coming in on the weekends and asking if he sold bread, milk, or eggs, like in addition to ice. And what was happening at the time is grocery stores weren’t open on the weekend and they were neat.
[00:08:41] Customers were needing these kinds of fill in items. And so he, he saw an opportunity. So he pitched his boss on the idea. He said, you know, we’re Basically, will you fund some incremental shelving and products and inventory and let’s see if this will work. And sure enough, it did. And we, we say that that’s when the convenience industry was born.
[00:08:59] [00:09:00] And over the years, 7 Eleven has been continued focus on, you know, what is the customer need that we can serve in a convenient manner. And so that’s evolved over the decades, you know, uh, but 7 Eleven has been at the forefront of many innovations in that industry. Things like we take for granted today, but I’ll just rattle them off.
[00:09:19] Cause it’s like, it’s, it’s crazy to think about it. Um, self serve fuel. That was a new thing. Self serve, uh, soda fountain like that. That was the thing. Self, uh, self serve coffee, obviously today, that’s a big deal. 7 Eleven franchisee in Long Island actually invented to go coffee in 1964. So that, like that didn’t exist before this 64.
[00:09:41] So 60 years ago, it’s crazy. Crazy to think about. I mean, Slurpee, obviously a really important innovation that the world needed. Um, and I mean, I know we’ll talk more about Slurpee, but all of that, all of those things that we kind of just take for granted now, 24 7 operations actually started by 7 Eleven in [00:10:00] Austin at a store right across the street from the UT campus.
[00:10:04] So you need to serve college students, late night party and college students. So a lot of cool, like innovations that continue to this day. We’ve obviously we’ve transformed digitally because that’s what consumers are needing, wanting, demanding. So we have a variety of digital services and products, like a delivery platform called seven now.
[00:10:21] But the story is really one, the brand story is one of innovation of, and of really trying to serve and help support our customers kind of on their journey. I would think as you’re. Bringing people into the company, especially on the marketing side, having them understand that Genesis is so important because it really, at the heart of hearts, it’s like, what’s the need that’s not being met that we can fill.
[00:10:42] And in a, in a, in an environment that you guys have, that is, you know, if you’re in the store, I mean, the average store visit is what? Less than five minutes. Yeah. Closer to two minutes, closer to two minutes. Like thinking about. How you merchandise and how you fill those needs and how you use technology or how you empower your marketers to think about what technology [00:11:00] can do to, whether it’s accelerate that experience, enhance that experience, it’s got to be a great inspiration for them to understand, like, really the DNA of the company.
[00:11:08] It’s very important. And I would tell you, like, The history of seven 11 is one component. Sure. In marketing, we’ve also studied, uh, the story of the, of the brand. Right. And we were talking about this before the show started. Yeah. That we, we utilize a story framework in all of our kind of marketing communications and really programming, partnerships, development, everything that, that we started back in 2020 during Covid.
[00:11:31] Mm-hmm . And really codified in 2021 and. It’s, it’s based on, um, you know, a story framework that like writers in Hollywood would use to write movies and, and, you know, you know, stories like that, we apply it to marketing and there’s different components of the story framework. One essential component is actually conflict, which most people would say like, well, conflict, that sounds bad.
[00:11:53] Like, you know, I don’t want to, I don’t want my brand to be, I don’t want to create conflict with my customer. Right. But actually for a brand, it’s [00:12:00] really important because, and any story, because that’s what keeps the audience. engaged. When you resolve the conflict, it’s friction. Right? When you resolve it though, it’s like, okay, well, I guess we can right.
[00:12:12] Why should I still be engaged? Because it’s whatever it’s been is resolving. Exactly. So for 711, the conflict that we’ve identified is really unique and true to the brand is the amusing versus essential conflict. Okay. And so what that, what that means when you think about seven 11 are, there are kind of literally products and services that you can purchase that are essential.
[00:12:34] Let’s talk about like fuel or for some people, a coffee, but there are essential items that we sell 3am on a Friday night. You need some cold medicine. We sell that, you know, so essential items, but there’s also a lot of amusing items and things that kind of, You know, are not essential to daily life. Think about, um, do you remember the fidget spinner craze?
[00:12:54] Yes. 7 Eleven was a huge proprietor of fidget spinners during that time. [00:13:00] Um, Slurpee is another great example. It actually does serve a functional refreshment like need, but let’s be honest, it’s 80 percent air. It’s a fun drink, you know, it’s, it’s kind of what you guys have, have, have taken it to market and use the creator.
[00:13:14] Um, the create a world out there to show how they think about how they engage. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s kind of a little reward, right? So there’s an amusement element to that also that we discovered is, is pretty unique in, in the world of retail and in particular in the world of convenience retail. So this idea of the seven 11 story, you know, the history, the heritage of the brand, but also like what it means to people and then how we use that in marketing is really important to what we do every day.
[00:13:39] So think, so let’s take that amusing versus essential into. Some of the technology that you guys have brought into, into the experience. Like, let’s take the seven 11 app, for example, because you know, that there, there’s obviously a little bit of a gamified component to it because the more you shop, the more you earn, the more you can get.
[00:13:55] So there’s, there’s the amusement, but there’s also removing a lot of friction from the process. [00:14:00] So from an essential, like I want to get out of here as quickly as I can perspective. It’s so if, if you have the seven 11 app, which if you don’t, I would encourage you and all your listeners to download it immediately.
[00:14:10] But there are some examples of essential features. So, so we have a mobile checkout feature, which you can use to, um, pay with your app in the store and, you know, get on about your day. If there’s a line at checkout, you don’t have to wait in that line. You can utilize the mobile checkout and move on. So that’s an example of an essential feature.
[00:14:28] Like that’s just providing really great functional. Uh, benefit of convenience period, but as you mentioned, there’s also gamification. So I’ll tell you one thing that we’ve got coming out in January is called make my day with five K and it’s actually a sweepstakes that we’re offering to all of our customers.
[00:14:45] When they purchase specific products, they’ll be entered into when 5, 000 every day, no limit. And all you do is go into the app and actually play. You play essentially like what is a spin game [00:15:00] to see if you win. That is, uh, that is essential in the sense of cash. Cash on hand is really important, especially in this economy when we’re all cash strapped and looking for value.
[00:15:09] But it is absolutely an amusing way to deliver value. And so we look for ways to do that all the time. That’s, that’s fantastic. So when you guys, um, I’m I want to talk about geography for you guys, because, you know, with, uh, with 13, 000 stores across the US and Canada, you really have to think about storytelling at a very national brand level, but also there’s a nuance by region.
[00:15:33] So when you, our guys are going to, Let’s say California versus Florida versus New York versus Michigan. How are you thinking about contextualizing geography with the brand? And, you know, you guys are so big into fresh food now and, you know, making sure that you feature local brands and places, how does that start to play together from a storytelling perspective?
[00:15:52] It’s a great point. I mean, There are definitely regionalities to, you know, what we sell and what the brand means. I mean, just a couple of [00:16:00] quick examples. Long Island, for example, is a huge market for 7 Eleven. 25 percent of our system coffee sales are in Long Island. It’s a coffee, it’s a coffee market for sure.
[00:16:10] And so we make sure that our messaging, our product assortment, our everything that we’re doing there is, Is, is just perfect for our testing ground, too. I would think testing ground, um, one fun fact that I love to share is Detroit is the Slurpee capital of America. There are more Slurpees consumed per capita in Detroit than anywhere else.
[00:16:31] And so we look for ways, well, how do we celebrate that? A couple of years ago, actually we, um, for, to celebrate Slurpee day, seven, 11, 7, 11 birthday, we actually launched a Slurpee into space. From a store based in Detroit, because we know that was the Slurpee capital of the world. We actually did a mural to celebrate the whole thing and really kind of feed into the pride of the community that, yeah, everyone loves Slurpees there and we want to honor that.
[00:16:56] How did you get the Slurpee into space? Oh, there’s, there’s this, this, [00:17:00] I couldn’t even tell you, but it’s, it’s essentially a space balloon. I’m dramatically, uh, simplifying the technology. Okay. It actually came back down. So we sent several like Slurpee special edition Slurpee cups all the way up into, you know, the, I don’t know which part of the atmosphere it was.
[00:17:18] If you search it online, you can see all the pictures. It’s really cool. But then it came down. So it’s not like a, Yeah. Went into, you know, space. It’s not still in orbit somewhere. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um. Didn’t get burned up in the ozone or anything like that. Yeah. But, um, but I mean, we look for ways to do that.
[00:17:31] Obviously, to connect with, uh, the communities where we operate. Where, uh, 7 Eleven in particular is a heavily franchised model in the U. S. And our franchisees tend to own between one and ten stores. And they are, you In depth in their community, they live and work in their communities. They know their customers, they know what the, you know, the needs of their customers are in their communities.
[00:17:53] So they can almost be a proxy from a, from a focus group perspective about what’s needed out there. And. Thankfully, our [00:18:00] franchisees are very comfortable with sharing feedback on what can be improved as well as what’s working. That’s a gift. Yeah, it is, for sure. Feedback is always a gift. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
[00:18:07] So, I want to talk a little bit about the sustainability component of your job because in, you know, with such a massive footprint and such a high consumption, uh, retail category, how do you guys think about sustainability, whether it’s for 7 Eleven or even with the partners that you work with who have their own, you sometimes their, their own tailwinds and E or even headwinds when it comes to how they think about sustainability.
[00:18:30] It is such a great question. Cause when you take a step back and think about seven 11, we do operate a complex business. I mean, we sell merchandise products that are, that are manufactured and distributed by who we refer to as vendor partners. We also make a manufacturer, our own products. So our proprietary products account for about 25 percent of our sales.
[00:18:51] So that’s a big part of our business. And then we sell fuel. We’ve got a delivery business. Like there’s, there’s a lot going on that we have to consider, uh, our franchisees, [00:19:00] our associates. So we attack it from a couple of different ways. First, from an environmental perspective, we look at, uh, what we call the green challenge.
[00:19:08] Um, and we look at it through the lens of CO2 emissions. Plastic reduction, food waste reduction, and sustainable sourcing or sustainable procurement. And we are in various stages of maturity on each of those four pillars. We’ve, you know, done baseline measurement. We’ve got initiatives going, we’ve got goals set to achieve that lineup with some of the UN sustainable development goals.
[00:19:33] So we’ve got all that kind of, um, you know, set up and now we’re just working to embed sustainable management practices. And how, so it’s one thing to be able to control your own, um, production line in your own chain of goods. How do your, how do you work with your partners on that? Because some of them, like I said, are, are, are already, I mean, when you’re really lucky, you, you work with a, it’s a company that has sustainability as a foundational component.
[00:19:58] And that makes it a lot easier, but there are [00:20:00] some who weren’t. And so how do you guys think about, because. You know, the scale that you guys have to have for some of these partnerships, there’s just not that many partners out there, whether it’s beverages or particular food products. How do you think about that?
[00:20:10] Well, part of it is we want to lean in on those partners who are very sophisticated. We want to learn from them and lean in with them and build our own capability so that we can share it with partners who are maybe earlier in their journey as well. So we, I mean, we have a process by which we first start with just asking the question and sharing information on, Hey, here’s what our goals are.
[00:20:29] What are your goals? What are your stated goals? And let’s figure out, do they align? If they do, awesome. If they don’t, how do we, how do we get after this? And we talk a lot on the team about, this is sustainability kind of writ large is one of those topics that’s like, you know, the saying about eating an elephant, how do you eat an elephant?
[00:20:48] Like one bite at a time. Chunking the, the work that we need to do down into, you know, much smaller projects that we can. Do and make progress. After 12 [00:21:00] months, 24 months, you can say that you’ve made meaningful progress. Exactly. Exactly. And that’s I think the hardest part of sustainability is Really breaking it down because if you if you really start to take a look at it’s like holy cow There’s so much we need to do.
[00:21:12] Yeah Um, one thing I’m really thankful for is we have goals that are set at different time horizons, so we have goals that, uh, we’re trying to achieve by 2030 and then we have goals that we’re trying to achieve by 2050 and I’m telling you, just having that perspective does help facilitate a different approach because you can say, well, what can we get done in the next four years versus what’s going to take another 10 years, 20 years, whatever, because you can think about amortizing and investment over that.
[00:21:39] Yeah, you can. And, and there’s also, there’s some. Problems or issues today that there’s not even an industrialized solution right to go, you know attack it, right? so it gets to be a bigger almost a Gosh a a whether it’s a societal level like how can we partner with other really big corporations?
[00:21:59] [00:22:00] Collectively go to go attack some of these issues and I’m telling you partnership is the key on this one Like this is not no one company is gonna figure it out No one NGO or government or no, you know Everyone has to come together across public private everything to To make progress for sure, for sure.
[00:22:15] Um, I want to, well, we can talk with it, whether it’s with seven 11 or Any of your previous brands? Um, what do you look for when you’re bringing stories to life? So again, rich palette with seven 11, but also like, you know, you’ve worked with lays, you’ve worked with cheetos, you’ve worked with some brands that have these, this, this, you know, these amazing components for, from a storytelling perspective, what do you look for as a marketer?
[00:22:36] Yeah, well, I mentioned conflict. I mean that I’m telling you guys, that is a key core component of story and feel free to, You know, learn more about it on Google. There’s, there’s a company called character out of Portland who are experts in this, that I’ve worked with multiple times. They, they facilitate workshops on, on story frameworks, but conflict is really key.
[00:22:57] So we’ve already kind of covered that. We’ll just make sure that’s on the [00:23:00] list. The second thing I would say is you got to start with who is your audience, like your consumer, your customer, your end user, whoever it is you’re trying to connect with and understand like what, what is the audience? What is their relationship with your brand?
[00:23:12] What is the role that your brand or company or product or service plays in their life? Um, next is the brand or the product or the service or company or whatever. But for me, it’s the brand, what’s the brand? Uh, and by that, I mean the brand purpose, the positioning, the promise that we make to our customers.
[00:23:30] Um, The history, you know, look to history to understand who you are. That’s a big part of it. And at 7 Eleven, we’re very, very fortunate to have such a long history that can help inform how we want to move forward. Um, so those are two big, big components. The, the third, or I guess fourth, if we’re, if I’m adding this correctly with conflict is business.
[00:23:53] What is your business goal or objective that this story needs to help you accomplish? Don’t lose sight [00:24:00] of that. Like, you know, that is why we’re all here is to drive the business forward is to utilize story and creativity to generate better commercial outcomes. Right. So make sure you understand that.
[00:24:10] And then the last thing that I think, Sometimes people believe is embedded in brand or embedded in customer, but I think it’s really important to tease it apart and look at it separately is culture, cultural context. And by that, I mean, what’s happening in culture that’s relevant to your customer and to your brand.
[00:24:28] And how do you, You know, kind of pull from that either for inspiration or actual activation or partnership draft off of it or draft off of it that can help, you know, you develop your story or tell a story, you know, that is a big source of either inspiration, but also potentially activation in the story.
[00:24:45] So let’s talk about culture for a little bit, because. Um, if you look at your guys’s marketing the last three to four to five years, I mean the culture is everywhere. Um, and I think in some of the channels that you guys have chosen, whether it’s tapping into the creator [00:25:00] economy, tapping into your fans as much as anybody, leveraging the content that they make.
[00:25:04] Yeah. I, I, I can imagine that. You guys learn more about culture from your fans than you could ever go out and study or pick up on it. You know, so talk about some of those examples. Totally. I mean, one that comes to mind is car culture. Yeah. And, uh, you know, several years ago we observed social listening, social media, listening just on our, on our channels and specifically on Instagram, we observed that about 30 percent of the user generated content on our Instagram channel was, uh, of our customers taking pictures of their cars in our parking lots.
[00:25:37] And we call them car fees or car selfies. I mean, these are like glamour shots of people’s cars with a 7 Eleven store behind it. Love it. And, you know, we’re like, what is going on? What is that all about? Like, this is so, uh, you know, interesting, right? Like it really sparked curiosity and like this, this desire to learn more about our customers.
[00:25:58] Right. And, you know, [00:26:00] it’s been a journey. It’s been, like I said, it’s been several years that we’ve been kind of diving into car culture, but kind of started with that first insight of our customers. Our brand fans are actually telling us something, right? Let’s listen first and then seek to understand. So we started by interacting with customers.
[00:26:14] The, especially those car culture, um, brand fans on social media, you know, like shout, giving them a shout out when we saw a really awesome car fee, um, helping to support their car meetups at our stores so that they could get together, grab a cup of coffee and check out each other’s cars in the parking lot of your advertising too.
[00:26:32] It’s also now shown up in our advertising. One, one of our campaigns, uh, well, many of our campaigns actually, uh, feature, you know, different aspects of car culture. One that comes to mind is probably, I guess, last year was an ad for, for our coffee business, but featured our store and our parking lot and this whole kind of JDM kind of thing.
[00:26:52] Car aspect of car culture, which, you know, that speaks to a specific subculture within car culture, which that’s important to, it’s [00:27:00] not just this big monolithic thing. Um, so I guess the short answer to your question is, you know, how did we kind of lean into culture? Well, we, we got curious and we really went to school and a lot of ways on.
[00:27:12] Like, what is it about car culture that is interesting? And within car culture, is there a certain flavor or subculture of car culture that 7 Eleven fans really gravitate towards? And then, like, why is that, you know? Well, so, drafting off of culture a little bit more, getting into food. Yeah. So, one of the things that I think is fascinating is to watch Flavor profiles and, and, and food trends and like where those come from.
[00:27:37] So whether it was the Sriracha craze at one point, or, you know, name your name, your, um, your area of the world, there’s some sort of culinary influence. How do you guys look at that and what you’re bringing to market and how you tell those stories? Well, it’s. It’s interesting. I would distinguish food from beverage.
[00:27:53] Yes. Because it, it differs, right? Within food in particular, you’re right. Our customers really love anything [00:28:00] with spice as a general rule. Not always, not everyone, but it tends to over index as we say with our customers. We’ll look at the Flamin Hot portfolio for free to learn. Oh my gosh, yeah. They’ve turned that into a whole, you know, good thing.
[00:28:10] platform, right? Which is amazing. Um, so we, we tend to study culinary, you know, trends, but also try and understand like, what is the kind of pop culture version of a culinary trend that makes sense in our environment. It has to be, um, you know, an immediate consumable item. So you got to be able to eat it on the go.
[00:28:31] Um, it has to usually be in a single serve format. Um, it has to be a great value. It has to taste awesome. And so that’s a big part of it. One other cool thing, though, from a food perspective, this has been sort of trending recently with 7 Eleven is, as you, as you know, we’re owned by a Japanese company, and there are actually 23, 000 7 Elevens in Japan, more than, more 7 Elevens in Japan than any other country in the world.
[00:28:56] And the food business in Japan is really well developed. [00:29:00] Part of that’s a function of like how Japanese consumers use 7 Eleven. They shop the brand, you know, You know, multiple times a day, every day, um, breakfast, lunch and dinner, that kind of thing. So they’ve naturally developed a, you know, a really strong food program, but they also are famous for their food.
[00:29:16] So they have, you know, this special rice that’s, you know, that’s found only in Kyoto that’s designed to match this perfect flavor profile for their, you know, rice ball snack that they sell. That’s cool. And that has really caught on in the U S. Okay. As U. S. consumers have traveled to Japan and experienced 7 Eleven, you know, on their, and during their travels and now posted about it in social media, it’s really raised the profile of 7 Eleven food and prompted 7 Eleven now in the U.
[00:29:43] S. to think about, well, how do we bring some of this food over here to the U. S.? What are the, the Japanese selling items that are going to fit well in the U. S.? How can you execute them? Well, how can we execute them and then help that drive our food business, which is a big part of, [00:30:00] you know, store traffic.
[00:30:01] It’s a big part of our profitability. It’s a big part of what we believe is our long term growth strategy. So different ways in there. Well, it’s also interesting because if you think about the variety of categories you guys are in, people wouldn’t think of the competitive set that you probably think of when you, when you look at who 7 Eleven competes against.
[00:30:17] So tell our listeners a little bit more about who are the competitors. Yeah, it could kind of generalities, however you want to talk about it. Kind of be A lot of different things is the short answer. So listeners, think about how you use a 7 Eleven, right? It could be for a quick stop for a slice of pizza.
[00:30:34] So in that, in that occasion we may be competing with other convenience retailers who also sell slices of pizza. We might be competing with QSR companies who sell pizza. We might be competing with delivery companies that will bring you pizza from any number of pizza places, right? So it’s a pretty wide variety.
[00:30:52] If you’re, let’s say you’re stopping at a 7 Eleven to get, uh, we would call it a packaged beverage or let’s say a drink out of our, our [00:31:00] cooler, right? Well, you could buy that drink and a lot of different places. You could buy it at a big grocery store or club store and a big package and take it home and put it in your fridge and take it with you when you go.
[00:31:10] So in some cases we’re competing with, uh, Like what you have in your pantry at home. Yeah, what you’re buying in other places on the go It’s like a single serve versus a 12 pack, right? Yeah. Yeah, we call it kind of immediate consumption occasions So if you can imagine an immediate consumption occasion, which is essentially anything that you purchase and then consume within about 30 minutes to an hour Yep, that’s what we’re that’s what we’re competing in um so I want to get into just the the larger marketing universe out there because um Being the brand that you are, the variety of marketing that you guys do, the variety of partners that you work with, you’re exposed to a lot of really great marketing campaigns and probably some not so great ones.
[00:31:49] So I want to start with where do you see an overabundance? Like what do you see too much about? There’s like, Oh my gosh, we’ve got to dial back on this from a marketing, whether it’s. tactics or [00:32:00] thematic or some cultural trend that people are just overkilling right now. Oh, let’s see. I mean, at the risk of, of, you know, offending anyone in your, in your listener base, I think we need to be careful with celebrity influencers.
[00:32:13] They play such a valuable and important role in terms of driving reach and awareness for brands. And when done well, they can be a force multiplier for, for both parties. But some, sometimes it can be overdone, you know, and you can, I think maybe forced for maybe forced or yeah, just kind of, you know, it’s been done, right?
[00:32:34] And so I think consumers, given how digitally native consumers are today, how adept they are at social media, how just smart they are about marketing period, they can see through that. Really quickly and a consumer will make a choice. Like, am I going to buy into this or am I going to just going to buy something?
[00:32:54] And we want our customers to buy into 7 Eleven brand versus just buy stuff from us. So I [00:33:00] think that’s, that’s probably an area that when done well is a force multiplier, but be careful as a marketer because it can be, it can be kind of, you know, watered down and over done. And it’s probably. You could take a very lazy approach if you had a big budget and say, okay, well, let’s just do some, some, some Q scores and let’s go get so and so, but.
[00:33:19] I think when, when well done, so seven 11 has such a vast network of influencers. And I mean that by the, the, by your customers and their hobbies and what they do, so like you, you could dive deep into the Twitch community and maybe find some, what to me might be totally obscure influencers, but if you understand how, She games and how people watch her game and what it is, how she plays the game, things about her.
[00:33:45] You can create something much more meaningful and relevant. I totally agree. I mean, we, and that can be true for big mega influencers also. And one way to kind of suss that out is to ask the question, is there already an authentic connection with this [00:34:00] influencer and my brand? Like have they ever posted about it without being paid before?
[00:34:04] Is it just something that’s part of their life? Um, You know, if so, that’s a great place to start because you can build from there. You know, I mean, it should be a, uh, we try and approach these partnerships, um, and collaborations with, with really with any other brand, including influencers through the lens of how is this going to be a one plus one equals three.
[00:34:24] In other words, how are we going to create or build some IP together that we can do with anyone else or on our own? And that adds equity to their profile too. Exactly. Right. Exactly. That’s, that’s mutually beneficial. That’s right. Um, Okay, so what do we not see enough of? I, I mean Like we live in such a polarized environment.
[00:34:44] I think you can not have enough stories of resilience, of grit, of entrepreneurial ingenuity, of, you know, collaboration of, you know, love and forgiveness. I’m an Aquarius, so I’m always going to talk about love and [00:35:00] forgiveness. January 25th, let’s go. But I think it’s true. And the, the trick for brands and for marketers is how do we tell those stories in a way that’s not cheesy and corny and, you know, cringy, but like really gets at the core human insight behind something and again, connects it back to hopefully your brand and your business and builds that deeper emotional connection.
[00:35:20] Yeah. I, I think a lot of brands have, have a lot of trouble walking that line and not falling over into the cheesy. Yeah. Performative side. Yeah. And like understanding. Cause it can be scary. Right? It can. And you know, and that’s where, you know. Getting the right market or getting the right creative partner, getting, you know, all the right people who understand how to make that as authentic as possible.
[00:35:38] If you hit it right. Yeah. And doing your homework. Think of real beauty or something like that. It’s, it’s absolute gold. If you can. I totally agree. I totally agree. Awesome. So, um, we’ve talked a lot about some of the different platforms you guys work across, but talk about how you guys view technology within how you go to market, whether it’s a platform Or getting to work quicker or whatever it might be.
[00:35:59] Well, [00:36:00] we can go in so many different places on this one. I’ll just, I’ll just kind of address maybe the elephant in the room, the gen AI, that’s the one. That’s the one. Yeah. Is, is there any other one these days? I’m not sure we’ve covered social media, so we’re good there. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Gen AI. I think, um, we are really excited about the potential for gen AI.
[00:36:19] Um, in particular, I mean, we look at kind of three different areas. One would be from an insights perspective. The second would be around creative development, and the third would be around media planning execution, that kind of thing. From an insights perspective, just the power and the potential to synthesize large amounts of information in order to get to better insights that then you can act on.
[00:36:40] Sure. Um. Um, we’re just scratching the surface on that one right now. But like for 7 Eleven, we have a loyalty program with over 95 million members. So we are so fortunate to have customer data, we’re data rich, absolutely. The trick is how do we utilize that in a way that’s going to [00:37:00] serve our customers and make their lives better, you know, and result in better business outcomes.
[00:37:04] We’re so fortunate. AI is a huge, and Gen AI in particular, is a huge opportunity for us to mine that data and develop better insights that lead to better business decisions. What’s interesting about that, I think people sometimes just fall into a somewhat lazy assumption that You can rely on AI to do all the work for you.
[00:37:22] In other words, but like, if you don’t understand how to query it or prompted, like what, what information are you trying to extract? I think that’s the part that people garbage in, garbage out. Right, right. It’s like a, yeah, it’s like a brief. Absolutely. Yeah. And I just thought of that. That was good. I think that’s a really good analog actually, as, as you know, if you write a crappy brief, you’re going to get.
[00:37:41] Crappy work. If you write a crappy prompt, the same will happen. Um, and your point about like, it can’t all be AI, I think is especially important when it comes to creative development. And you know, the big aha I had, uh, it’s probably been a year or so ago around when I was really trying to study up on Gen I, learn more [00:38:00] about it was, you know, the models can only, uh, Right.
[00:38:05] And so if there’s not information in the model, then they can’t generate from that. Right. And that’s fundamentally different than how we as human beings think and create, right? Sure. We, we’re going to create things that haven’t been invented before. And so you have to have that human component to get to great work.
[00:38:22] Right. Right. Jen and I can maybe help you get started. That’s awesome. Could probably help you in terms of like versioning and, you know, kind of different kind of mood boards, things like that. Absolutely. That helps support the creative process. But at the end of the day, like we got to have the human, that’s what’s going to make the work great.
[00:38:39] Yeah. I think what we talk about a lot is that. Yeah. Humans are nonsensical and that’s where our, that’s where our flaws and our beauty come out. And AI is not a nonsensical thing. Yeah. You have to prompt it to connect those things that it might not otherwise know how to. That’s right. That’s right. So in that sense, you know, we view it as an accelerator.
[00:38:56] Um, and then of course, from a media planning and [00:39:00] execution perspective, man, I’m just like, so giddy over the, the acceleration of speed to market that we’re going to be able to see, particularly from a planning perspective, but then obviously from an optimization results, you know, all of that is just, again, we’re just scratching the surface.
[00:39:16] Yeah, I, I am very excited about where that’s headed and being able to. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC. Humans took weeks sometimes like, you know, there was no real time optimization in the sense that like you got done with the flight and then you could probably figure it out.
[00:39:36] Right, right. Literally can happen in a matter of seconds. Love it. Um, okay. So last question. Um, so as fast as things are moving now, over the next five, ten years, however far out you want to play it, how do you see storytelling evolving? Hmm. I think it will continue to be important. Gosh, I hope so. If it’s not, I guess we’ll be out of a job.
[00:39:56] I was about to say, we’re all, you and I are in trouble. We’re going to have a [00:40:00] different podcast reinventing yourself, reinventing yourself, I think, you know, just on the topic of technology, um, Especially in the next 5 to 10 years, I think as marketers, we have to lean in. We have to kind of be the, the, the, what is it?
[00:40:15] The masters of our own destiny. Like we need to use it or lose it and we need to really use it in a way that’s going to generate better outcomes. That’s going to help. And by that, I don’t just mean commercial outcomes and business outcomes. I mean, how are we going to get, get better? helps people like literally live better lives at whether that’s a smile on their face from a really cool, creative, like idea that, you know, no one else had thought of to, you know, a better solution from a product innovation that’s being, being created.
[00:40:44] So we need to continue to lean into that. I know there’s, um, in some circles, a lot of angst and maybe anxiety over how quickly technology is evolving in the next five to 10 years. And you know, my, my sense is that As more as marketers, like we kind of got to [00:41:00] embrace it. We got to be the change agents that we naturally are and help guide that change and think about it not only from a standpoint of our specific function or department, but also how that can help like be a ripple effect across the entire organization or industry, depending on what kind of circle you, you float in.
[00:41:18] I think there’s something to be said for, especially in the marketing and advertising business, when you. Back in our day when you came up through the business, there was a lot of just I wouldn’t call it busy work, but just understanding how big, how a bill became a law and a very tedious hands on work. I think a lot of that is what’s going to get automated and what that’s going to empower.
[00:41:40] Hopefully a lot of people do is just give them the ability and the freedom to think and to solve problems in a more meaningful way at a younger stage in someone’s career than what you were. I had to just literally do that. Do the hard work by hand to figure out how things, how things go. I think what I hear you saying is like, you’re welcome everyone who’s younger because you won’t [00:42:00] have to do grunt work for 20 years, something like that.
[00:42:02] Just kidding. I’m sure. That’s our version of it, but I’m sure our parents thought the same thing when they looked at us. I’m sure there will still be some kind of grunt work to go around, right? Well, you can’t replace experience, but yeah. Well, that’s true. That’s totally true. Some people don’t want to hear that when you’re giving a career, when you’re giving a performance review, it’s like, yeah, really reassuring.
[00:42:22] No, uh, Marissa, this has just been awesome. Thank you so much for spending time with us. Really enjoyed it. Giant stories is a production of medium giant and our parent company, the Dallas news corporation, interested in learning more brand’s story can be better told and sold visit medium giant. co or send an email to hello at medium giant.
[00:42:43] co. Okay.
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