The Current Podcast

The reservation platform Resy centers itself around the communal experience that comes from dining, affirming and building connection between restaurants and diners, according to CMO Hannah Kelly.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

[00:00:00] Damian: I'm Damian Fowler.

[00:00:01] Ilyse: And I'm Ilyse Liffreing

[00:00:02] Damian: welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.

[00:00:05] Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Hannah Kelly, the CMO of Resy.

[00:00:09] Damian: Want to make a restaurant reservation? American Express owned Resy is there for you. With over 40 million global users, the app has driven over 600 million reservations. Now that's a lot of fine dining, I imagine.

[00:00:23] Ilyse: With almost 14 years of working at American Express under her belt, Hannah leads marketing efforts to connect restaurants and tastemakers.

[00:00:31] Damian: We start off by talking about the value of customer data and how insights inform Resy's marketing strategy.

[00:00:38] Damian: We work in an industry where, data is capital. You know, how does Resy rely on the customer data, especially from its parent company, American Express?

[00:00:47] Hannah: Sure. So thank you so much for having me. And you could argue that the premise of the Resyacquisition was based on American Express's deep use of data. So when we look at spend at American Express, dining one [00:01:00] of our highest spend categories. We reached 100 billion in spend for the full year in 2023 for the first time ever.

[00:01:06] So for us, being an American Express and in the business of membership, we are constantly looking for ways to engage and attract card members and deepen our relationships with merchants. Resy naturally presented that opportunity as a way for us to own an asset, own a brand, and build a community of being able to connect the world's best restaurants to the world's best diners on a proprietary basis.

[00:01:28] Damian: That makes a lot of sense. I, as an Amex owner, do spend a lot in restaurants. I wonder if you have any interesting stories around turning those insights into action.

[00:01:38] Hannah: Sure. So, We know that millennials and Gen Z's are worried about making the perfect reservation. In fact, we commissioned our own research and we found that 50 percent of the millennial and Gen Z population are worried about making the perfect reservation.

[00:01:52] And so with that, that drove three sort of primary objectives and campaigns for us. So first is our brand platform. we launched a brand platform in [00:02:00] 2023 called Reservationships, which is really meant to highlight how that Resy is more than reservations, really being that trusted partner in crime when you don't know where to go.

[00:02:09] You want to have that fine dining moment with your potential in laws to be with a new date. How can we really own the fact that Resy has served as that sort of curator, and role. I think the second piece has been, this past year we introduced our Resy shareable hit list. so what that function allows you to do in the iOS app is anyone can go in and create a list based on any title that you want.

[00:02:31] Go to date nights. Kid friendly places. You name it. We have some very creative takes in there. and you can share them out with friends. So again, it's really meant to give users the confidence that they are selecting and making the best reservation possible for them.

[00:02:48] Hannah: And we've extended that and really leaned into that a bit more with our third deliverable this year, which has been around the launch of our discover tab.

[00:02:54] So now when you go into the Resy app, you not just only see a list of restaurants based [00:03:00] on your location or cities. We've always had collections, but now our discover tab actually brings in all of our editorial content into the app. And just for reference in Q one of 2024, we highlighted over 000 plus restaurants in all of our editorial across 300 stories.

[00:03:17] So now all of that content is there in formats that can helpfully guide users on how they can connect with restaurants that they should love if they don't know them already and ones that they want to continue to celebrate their love for and be a patron of.

[00:03:28] Ilyse: You know, retail data continues to have a moment among marketers. In your experience, how much do these insights influence your strategy? And what do you think is the future of this type of data?

[00:03:42] Hannah: So I think for us, guest research is the number one place that we constantly look to. And for us, a lot of that is where are people notifying, where are people searching, where are people dining. And at American Express, we're able to see where our car...

Polaris’ Chief Customer Growth Officer talks with The Current Podcast about how many of the company’s customers are multicultural and have preferred style over performance.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

[00:00:59] Damian: I'm [00:01:00] Damian ​Fowler.

[00:01:05] Ilyse: And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. And

[00:01:07] Damian: welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.

[00:01:09] Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Pam Kermisch, the Chief Customer Growth Officer at Polaris.

[00:01:15] Damian: Polaris was founded 70 years ago with the invention of the early snowmobile in 1954. Polaris takes its name after the North Star, and it's meant to reflect the location of the company's first headquarters in northern Minnesota.

[00:01:34] Ilyse: These days, Polaris is the global industry leader in power sports. Offering everything from Indian motorcycles to its off road racers. And all the accessories that go with them.

[00:01:44] Damian: During the pandemic, the brands saw a surge of interest in its vehicles as people embraced outdoor activity. Although it started out as a specialized brand, it continues to build on its popularity through its marketing campaign. Think outside.

[00:02:03] Pam: Back in 1954, two brothers and a best friend decided they way, faster to get to their location. And they literally strapped a motor to the back of a sled and created the first snowmobile. It was ingenuity at its best.

[00:02:20] And when I think about Polaris today, We have recreational vehicles. We have motorcycles. We have off road vehicles. We have boats. We also have utility vehicles that help people do work smarter. And at the end of the day, it's really about getting people outside and helping to have a better way to do things, whether it's working smarter or on the recreational side, having the most epic experiences with your friends and family.

[00:02:47] Ilyse: Very nice. Now in 2019, the brand actually underwent a new rebranding with a new Think Outside campaign.

[00:02:56] Ilyse: I read that there is a goal to basically grow the base [00:03:00] by 50 percent by tapping into your existing base and finding new customers as well. What was your strategy around that and how has it played out to this point?

[00:03:11] Pam: Yes. So in 2019, We really took a look at talking to our existing customers, talking to potential intenders of our brands and talking to people we thought might be interested in what we offer. And we did some great consumer research. And what we learned is at the heart of it, we tapped into what they really care about.

[00:03:35] And what we found is what our current existing owners care about. More people could care about. We just had to find the right people. We had to reach out to them. We had to show them how this could fit into their lives and introduce them to our brand. And it's really been a huge effort the past few years. To find the right people and show them how this could fit in with what they already do and make it better. And on top of bringing in more new customers, it's also bringing in new people that look a little different than our core customers.

[00:04:11] Damian: Very interesting, because when you think what sell in a way, kind of very specialized, I don't know whether I'd it niche.

[00:04:22] Pam: you know, I think when you look at household penetration off road vehicles, for example, household - So you're right. It's not something where it's 70, 80, 90 percent of the market has one of these. But what I will say is if you think about some of the audiences. We do attract people love outdoor recreation. love being outside. They love adventure. They might do camping, they might do hiking, they might do fishing. We also think about the people who do property maintenance They're farmers, they're ranchers, They're hunters. So, when you think about those populations, they are much more likely to buy our products. But if you look at the penetration even within those, We don't have 80 90 percent of hunters, so there's still so much penetration opportunity within people who do the activities where it seems like they would really benefit from something that we could offer them.

[00:05:26] Damian: Was there a moment when you realized there was the potential to expand the audience? That's so interesting to me and I wonder how you found that opportunity.

[00:05:40] Pam: So I'm kind of a nerd, self admittedly kind of a nerd. And I really think that CRM and data and analytics played a huge role in this journe...

NBCUniversal’s ad president talks upfronts, strategic audiences, brand storytelling, and the Paris Olympics.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

[00:00:00] Damian: I'm damian Fowler.

[00:00:01] Ilyse: And I'm Eileen Sliffering.

[00:00:02] Damian: Welcome to this edition of the Current Podcast.

[00:00:05] Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Allison Levin, who joined NBCUniversal as the President of Advertising and Partnerships earlier this year.

[00:00:15] Damian: Allison oversees all ad sales initiatives for NBCUniversal across national and local markets, as well as for the company's Peacock streaming service, which will be the streaming home 000 hours of Olympics coverage for the first time.

[00:00:30] Ilyse: It's no doubt going to be a summer of sport for the legacy broadcaster which owns the media rights to the Olympics through 2032 and for the first time the slots on Peacock are open to programmatic buyers.

[00:00:44] Damian: that's not all. Just this week, NBCUniversal returned to Radio City Music Hall in New York City for its annual Upfront presentation, celebrating the company's diverse slate of programming. We started by asking Alison about this year's [00:01:00] event.

[00:01:00] Alison: Yeah, I mean, it's, this is such a, an incredible busy time of year for all of us. And it really is such a great, like forcing function to take a step back and to have these conversations with clients, both agencies and our brand partners about. What it is that they're excited for the next 12 months.

[00:01:17] How do we want to partner together? And what does the future hold, right? there's so many conversations that are in quarter often, but this is the opportunity to really look ahead and talk about the future of our work together. and so I would say from the conversations we've been having, and we've been having, hundreds of conversations across clients and agencies, we're really hearing like.

[00:01:36] Two big themes that are coming out. And the first is about strategic audiences. So for those of us that have been in, digital for a long time, this isn't a surprise that, you know, buying off of a more precise audience, like someone who's in market for a car or household income or leveraging. A client's first party data is just a more effective way to place [00:02:00] media than, buying adults 18 to 49.

[00:02:03] Like someone had said to me once that adults 18 to 49 is a family reunion. It's not a buying And it's it stuck with me ever, since. And, We are hearing loud and clear from clients that they are really excited to move into more precise audiences, not just in streaming and across digital, but really looking at it on the linear side too, and having one buying tactic across the full portfolio.

[00:02:27] And, when you think about Consumers like at the end of the day, we're all consumers. We're all viewers and viewers have a relationship with IP, not delivery mechanism, right? And so as marketers we're hearing from marketers, they want to have that same execution strategy and they really want to find their target audience.

[00:02:46] Wherever they may be across a full portfolio in a more precise way. So I would say that's one key theme we're hearing a lot about. and of course that has great implications on programmatic. it has implications on our one [00:03:00] platform, total audience product, Opta, and how we, actually help leverage data to find our audience across our full portfolio. And then. Another really interesting conversation that's been coming up quite a bit. And we just were in a client meeting this morning where this was like front and center, but was how can we partner with our brands to tell stories within our stories? Right? Like, and if you just take a step back, like storytelling is, the fundamental part.

[00:03:30] Of our foundation. It's how we have learned as human beings, how we've grown. It's our number one form of entertainment is being entertained by stories. And I include sports in that. Like there is a beginning, middle end of sports. And so as we talk to marketers, they really want to And work together to stand out, to tell stories within our stories.

[00:03:50] Like even thinking about Jake from safe farm, that's a story, right? Like these brand, champions are storytellers too. So I'd say the combination of what we're hearing a lot in market is [00:04:00] strategic audiences. So moving to more precise audiences across linear and streaming, and then going deeper and big content moments, whether that be sports or Bravo or big live events, like Thanksgiving day parade and more.

[00:04:15] Damian: That was really interesting. So it's actually getting quite granular and clients have to pay attention to what's actually happening in the programming. I'm