Join Keith Anderson as he talks to an old friend, Chris Perry, CEO of Firstmovr. He is not only a trusted advisor to the industry, but he's been in house at world class brands like Reckitt, WellPet, and Kellogg's. Chris tells us about his perspective about some of the challenges that the industry that wants to make it a priority faces in reaching out and persuading colleagues in conventional commercial roles.

He also shares an interesting point of view on the impact of emerging brands and insurgents and how innovation can play a role in accelerating industry shifts, and talks about the importance of communication. The conversation closes with us thinking a little bit differently about strategy as it relates to sustainability and retail and CPG.

Learn more about Decarbonizing Commerce at decarbonize.co

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

DCC_Ep20_Chris Perry_YT

Keith Anderson: Welcome to Decarbonizing Commerce, where we explore what's new, interesting, and actionable at the intersection of climate innovation and commerce. I'm your host, Keith Anderson, and together we'll meet entrepreneurs and innovators reinventing retail, e-commerce, and consumer products through the lenses of low carbon and commercial viability. 

Thanks for listening. This is the Decarbonizing Commerce Podcast. I am your host, Keith Anderson. This week's episode features an old friend, Chris Perry, who is the CEO of a training and education company called Firstmovr. And I've known Chris a long time, in fact, we even worked at a few of the same places, I guess one of the same places, but in contrast to me, he's got experience not only as a trusted advisor to the industry, but he's been in house at world class brands like Reckitt Benckiser, now just Reckitt, wellPet, and Kellogg's. And I wanted Chris to join me to tell us a bit about his perspective as a non specialist in sustainability about some of the challenges and headwinds that the side of the industry that wants to make it a priority faces in reaching out and persuading colleagues in conventional commercial roles.

He has a really interesting point of view on the impact of emerging brands and insurgents and how innovation can play a role in accelerating industry shifts. He's got a great mind for branding and we talked a lot about the importance of communication, and we sort of closed out by thinking a little bit differently about strategy as it relates to sustainability and retail and CPG.

So, it was great to catch up with Chris and get his input, and I'm eager for you to meet and hear from him also. So, let's meet Chris Perry of Firstmovr. 

Chris, good to see you. Welcome to the Decarbonizing Commerce Podcast.

Chris Perry: Keith, thank you so much for having me.

Keith Anderson: Yeah, we've, we've known each other for years and years, sort of crossed paths directly and indirectly, but not everybody knows you as well as I do. So to kick it off, why don't you tell folks listening a bit about your background in CPG and what you're doing now at Firstmovr?

Chris Perry: You bet. So it, my, my career actually started in brand management at Reckitt long ago, it seems, if you, if we take e-commerce years into consideration, but back in 2010 and 11, there were these opportunities, projects as if they were going to end one day to get into e-commerce in the early days of CPG.

And, like a true, true. Change agent or nerd, as some people would probably call me, I volunteered as tribute into that and really found my home in trying to drive change for what, and for some categories is still a small part of the business, but the majority of growth and the majority of the influence sales and impact on the market.

And then took my, my career from Reckitt to, you know, helping build the team there and center of excellence there for several years to Wellness Pet Company. Then actually ended up going to Kellogg's and then ended up essentially, and where Keith and I, you know, you and I know each other so well is I had to fill your unusually large shoes, at what was originally Planet Retail Net Group or Planet Retail RNG.

And then became Edge by Essential and now is Flywheel and now acquired by Omnicom. So there's like, you know, the artist formerly known as going on and on and on. But, a long line of wonderful people that have led change even, even before I started leading change. And so, and then I got to spend some time leading executive education at Edge by Essential, where I found my passion for that.

And then during the pandemic, there was this huge opportunity for both virtual education for the, for the broader community, but also custom trainings and certifications and advisory for companies. And so one of my former colleagues, Oscar Kaszubski, who actually hired me at Kellogg's, was consulting at the time.

I saw an opportunity for the education. We paired up, and launched Firstmovr and now are what we like to call, you know, your omni partner for education and change management. So we do everything from public events that are free for leaders, you know, virtual events that are free for leaders to join any time on various strategies and key retailers to, again, custom programs for CPGs, agencies, and retailer audiences.

And a lot of advisory, temp services, project execution, really just trying to plug into centers of excellence or become the center of excellence for smaller teams that may not have that head count. So, and it's been a real ride for now four years and we're just excited about the next areas of change, including sustainability, which is a fun topic, but it's an imperative topic.

And one I'm, I'm excited that you're taking charge of as a true change agent here.

Keith Anderson: Well, Chris, of course, can't refer to the group he was part of as the RB mafia as I can, and it's a metaphor. It was all above board. But Chris was part of a team of folks who, you know, when he says they were in the early days of CPG commerce, I think that Reckitt team was probably the first organized team, you know, professionalizing the work of doing business with online grocers and selling CPG online. And basically everybody that I ever met from that cohort has gone on to do pretty interesting stuff. And Oscar was actually a guest on the last podcast that I hosted. And so, I'm glad that you're beating him to the punch this time.

Chris Perry: Hey, no, I, well, like I said, we nerds come from a long line of nerds. There's a legacy of nerdity, but, but what, what it's, it's a, it's a fun role to play because it's, it's an opportunity to truly challenge the status quo, get out ahead. It doesn't mean you have all the right answers, but you're not afraid to fail many, many times and then hopefully find the successful path forward that then everybody else can leverage.

And whether they remember you or not is not the point. It's that you felt good knowing you made that impact along the way.

Keith Anderson: Well said. So, you know, when you and I were, comparing notes about how to approach the conversation, I think we both see the commonality of a force of change in the industry that sort of starts small, but has outsized impact and implications. And, you know, I'm sure we'll spend a little time on that, but one thing that I thought was interesting about your thinking was you sort of started with the challenges and the headwinds.

And so maybe we can start the conversation there because I definitely find a lot of the conventional wisdom, where there is any, you know, when I, when I tell people what I'm working on or tell them what I'm covering, you know, a lot of people either sort of are shocked that anyone is focused on it, or sort of have some pity.

So, you know, tell me in your view, you know, why is the headwind and the challenge of working in this area top of mind?

Chris Perry: So, and I'll, and I'll disclaim it by all means, cause I know we have fans of, and, you know, change agents for sustainability across the board coming from different angles, but I do believe sustainability is a, not only an amazing opportunity, but also an imperative imperative and the right thing to do, right for mother earth or whatever, however, however, however much of a tree hugger you want to articulate yourself to be, 

sustainability is very, very important. That being said, though, knowing that we have a lot of leadership, you know, of all levels trying to decide when and where and whether to lean into sustainability, I think sometimes it's helpful to talk about the challenges and the headwinds first, because that's what really motivates most people to change. Unfortunately, here therelots of opportunities in this world. E-commerce was an opportunity, and when framed that way, I often, and I learned a lot over my years of storytelling, when talking about and cheerleading this awesome opportunity, e-commerce was often compared to, I kid you not, to like a pallet skirt at Costco or Sam's Club, you know, it was like, or, or a rollback at Walmart.

And you're like, "no, no, no, those aren't the same things." Yes, in the short term, the sales size might be the same from the lift that you get from those, but one is the future of your business and whether you have one. And the other one is whether you got 20 percent upside in the quarter.

 Right. And so, but, but I realized at the time when framed as an opportunity, it couldn't be considered any more than the other opportunities where an imperative is a little bit different.

And so this isn't about scaring or, you know, you know, just trying to create fear. And I don't want to be the boy who cried wolf, but the fact of the matter is, like with e-commerce as an entire channel, quote unquote, evolving and disrupting the space, the wolf is here, it's eating your lunch, and then it's going to need another meal, and whether that meal is you, or another thing you fed it because you got out ahead of preparing the meals the wolf wants, we need to get out ahead of this. But by all means, it is an opportunity, and it's an important thing to be doing for shoppers, for retailers, for the environment, but, you know, and Keith, I know you're seeing a lot of this too, but we are at a place where arguably And this is early, early days now, but there are some major retailers who are actively elevating brands, whether it be through badging or merchandising or, or other, other tactical placements, they are elevating brands that already meet those needs, are already serving more sustainable goals and initiatives. We've got shoppers actively looking for those. So when those are elevated, they see them and then they connect and that aligns. But then in the case, and I'm not picking on any retailers because some of these are really amazing initiatives. So I'm glad they're doing it.

But like Target Forward is a great example of one where the first pillar in their priority strategies is to elevate, yes, but also design sustainable brands. So in the absence of a brand doing it for them, who partnered with them for the last 30, 40 years, they will design them in their stead, and that will take a place on the shelf.

So before we even get into other third party competition that challenger brands, the retailers are looking to do this so that they can hit their own sustainability goals. So there is a little bit of a, of, of a, a risk of not being left behind, but not even existing on a shelf. and you and I both know the digital shelf is shrinking because we don't even necessarily see but the top row or the first few in on a mobile device, and that's before AI might replace the search results all together with just a recommendation. And who's to say that the AI doesn't say, "Hey, you know what? I want to predictively control the choices to help," you know, if we think about how Skynet and all these wonderful AI, you know, AI inspired movies tried to control for human error and poor human decision making.

Who's to say AI wouldn't just recommend sustainable brands too? So, there's a, some of this might be silly things that you think, well, I don't need to worry about that today. You may not have to worry about it in 2024, but if we don't lay the groundwork today, in 2026, you might not even be on page one, recommended by AI, at the retailer altogether.

And so there is this, there's this, true sales imperative, which I hate to think is the most important thing for us, but as commercial leaders, we do have to care because that's our business.

Keith Anderson: Yeah, and some of the things that you mentioned, I think are, at least in certain categories, already a factor. I mean, one of the things as I started really studying what the retailers were doing in this broad area, what I noticed was, to your point, that they are raising the bar with their own labels.

If you look at whatever targets they've set in areas like climate and packaging waste and, you know, even things like biodiversity, almost any of their climate and environment objectives, they're setting more aggressive targets and making progress more quickly for their own labels. And to your point, you know, they're, they're filling slots in their assortment, with options that they own and, you know, not always, but in some cases giving their own brands preference preferential shelf presence. And

Chris Perry: and the, I don't want to say the worst part because this isn't against them, but private brands in a digital omni environment, where again, even if I buy in store, my, my omni journey started online and often on a retailer's site, private brands or exclusive brands aren't sitting next to your products like they used to in store as a comparison, they are sitting in front of, because they bump you down or to the point that you don't exist. I mean, I, these are long term industry stats, but knowing some of our sustainability folks out there might not have heard these before, you know, it, 64 percent of Amazon clicks go through the top three search results. 70 percent of sales on Instacart go through the top row of search results, right?

So arguably, you know, the sad joke is, you know, you can hide a dead body on page two of a retailer's site because nobody goes there, but irrespective of what your proposition is, if you're not winning you don't exist. And so, but what will naturally win will be things that shoppers are seeking. What will be helped along and accelerated will be the things the retailers are promoting and elevating.

And to your point, Keith, you know, retailers are happy to, there's a, there's also a wonderful margin play in there for private brands. If you can create one that isn't just a cheap copycat version of the other brand, but it's actually a better proposition because it does, it does the functional benefit and it's got an emotional sustainable side to it as well.

And obviously we know sustainability, obviously, can go even beyond, there's the social sustainable side of things too, you know, around causes and charity and local sourcing and other things that help the workforces, you know, of our countries and markets and small farms and other things depending on what category you're on.

So sustainability can mean many things beyond obviously the environmental side, and all of those are being elevated and accelerated by the retailer for, again, their sustainability benefits, their commercial benefits, and maybe the other imperative, and you and I were just talking about this just before we kicked this off, but it's the, it's the government imperatives too. Like, at some point, some of this is voluntary.

I'm getting out ahead of, or I'm getting out ahead of industry, you know, best practices or benchmarks, you know, of setting like the 2050 or the 2040 versus 2050 goals or things like that. But what happens when the government step in and say, "Hey, companies need to take a more proactive step," like something is going to light the fire under retailers who are already doing a lot and under those who aren't doing anything.

And when that happens, I would hate for a lot of these wonderful brands that, you know, you and I've worked with for years to be on the back foot, you know, trying, trying to respond to it. And again, the hard part is a lot of the leadership that we've worked with aren't the ones who, who are like actually driving the full ship.

So it's not something, it's not a matter of will or interest. It's whether I can get the entire bureaucratic organization to pivot on a dime. "Why, why do we need to pivot on a dime? Why can't we pivot on a really large, silver dollar or something?" You know, with that analogy, if we can get out ahead of it and turn more slowly, but, but more thoughtfully and then, you know, correct our course over time.

Keith Anderson: Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of what I see happening, particularly at the large, what I call incumbent CPGs is, you know, they, they are looking for ways, I suppose, at the margins to make those incremental changes. As many of them, and the retailers even more so, are the first to tell, you at their scale the absolute impact of some of those changes is pretty profound and it gives them, you know, helps them buy a little time to find a way to, make some of the more fundamental transformational change they're going to have to make over the next decade or two.

Chris Perry: One thing that's always interesting to me, Keith, and this is, and I, and I'm originally a marketer, but I will tell you that Reckitt forced every marketer to become a P&L expert. So I'm really dangerous. And I, my finance analyst used to like, not, it was like, Oh, well, Chris is working on that, so he had taken all those courses at Reckitt made a stake on our P&Ls, but, I got really good at it, but I'm not perfect, but I'm good at it. But my, the one challenge I have is that this, there's this general immediate fear of like dilutive investment.

It was like, "Oh, e-commerce is dilutive, right?" Okay. Well, well, sure. Sure it is on day one when you actually put money for it. Like, and it didn't help that in the early days of e-commerce, if we, if we go back a little bit to one of those first waves of change that e-commerce was like just growing because of distribution, right?

"Hey, I got on Amazon and I started to grow, but then suddenly, and it was a creative until I had to invest to keep growing because everyone else got distribution too. Well, now, well, now that everybody has content, now we need to do media. Now we need to do search. Now we need to develop e-packs. Now..." like, once you actually have to put real money into it, yes, there is going to be a period of like, like with any startup or, or new, you know, if you were launching in China for the first time, the first few years might be in the red or like with a glide path to profitability, but you have to look at like the life cycle of the investment.

And again, some, some folks out there who are investing in packaging, you know, for, for sustainability or, or econ packaging, even if it's not sustainable, might be able to say, "Oh, Chris, you know, I've actually already looked at this and there's never going to be a time when we actually get back to, like..." you might know better on that one specific piece, but on a, on a whole, though, we almost have to look at it like, if I was trying to drive trial on a product, I might try sampling. Well, sampling means me giving away product for free at no, no profit, right? Knowing that I'm going to get someone to try the product, use it, love it, hopefully share about it. But if not share about it, use it themselves and then buy at full retail price with some margin.

And then over time, my long term customer lifetime value is going to pay me back. We need to look at this that same way and I literally had talked with a, a team just a few months ago around like, well, the, you know, the E, EPAC packaging and the, you know, the SIOC, ships in own container type packaging, you know, is, is going to be really dilutive and you're like, well, yes, but like, that's because you're trying to retrofit your, your, your you're line internally that was used to doing it one way to a new way without actually activating any efficiencies. But if I know what most CPGs are really good at is figuring out efficiencies after they do something. So, like, I can tell you my first year as an assistant brand manager at Reckitt, I helped get rid of 72 inefficient SKUs in SKU rationalization efforts.

Like, like, we had a lot of... from a base business, we had a lot of rationalization and Reckitt was an already very lean organization with that same kind of rationalization efficiency thinking. So, to find 76 potential items that we could remove to make room for future innovation or renovation, that's going to happen, but you have to get over that initial hump.

And so, I'm not saying go and just splurge on, you know, every random sustainability thing that you can get your hands on, but so many things that we can do, and if we look at like a two year, three year, five year P&L, won't the ROI have been there because we still exist and have the right to sell anywhere, let alone, you know, in year one with status quo as, you know, with it just kind of starting to build up?

So It is funny. I feel like in some realms, companies look at like a glide path approach, but then in some areas they don't. And this is one of those areas where I feel like there's still this barrier to like, "well, we're never going to get efficiencies here. This is dilutive." Maybe on year one, but if you actually made a concerted effort to pivot here, this, you figure out ways to make this very efficient and actually very advantageous for you too.

So I think there's, but there may be some long term costs. I mean, everybody may have to compress their margins a little bit. But that might be the new norm, because we're doing the right thing for all parties involved.

Keith Anderson: Yeah, I think in some cases, and I'm glad you brought up SIOC, you know, in some cases you sort of have to annuitize the cost of the change over that longer term. But particularly when it's a retailer or, as is increasingly the case, a government mandate, it's not always a phased approach. You know, a lot of cases, the band aid gets ripped and, a switch is flipped.

So, you know, to your point, those are, I think, for many companies, the more painful because it does have a fairly immediate impact that takes time to adapt around. But I also think you're right. Big companies are very skilled at wringing efficiency out of those kinds of transitions. And I think you see more of them working with each other to help influence the legislation and in areas like extended producer responsibility and deposit return schemes.

Those are both sort of packaging focused, but especially in Europe, packaging is getting a lot of attention at the moment. You know, the lobbying effort is as much about clarity and consistency in many cases as it is "please don't do this." You know, a lot of what I think is creating complexity at the moment is from market to market standards are really inconsistent, and so, particularly for the big multinationals, it's getting increasingly challenging to stay in compliance, you know, globally. You know, I think the other, the other interesting thing that, we haven't really hit on, but it's sort of the flip side of the incumbency coin is there are a lot of emerging brands that have the advantage of designing business model and a product and packaging, you name it, from the future back.

And we've sort of seen what competition looks like in the early days of digital commerce growing, you know, there were companies from the beginning that were launching digital first, if not digital exclusive and growing, you know. How do you see that dynamic playing out today between brands that are being founded and funded in 2024, and the interplay of how they compete with some of the, you know, century old brands?

Chris Perry: So, it's interesting, and, again, like, you can double click into all of these, but, we've got... digital lowers the barrier to entry for everyone in general, because obviously, Keith, you and I, if we had a product we could sell, even if it was handmade goods on Etsy, we can start a shop and start selling them, right?

Like, I mean, now, are we going to be successful overnight organically without pain to be seen breaking through the clutter? No, I mean, we're going to have to do all the normal marketing things. And, you know, commercialization and go to market strategy, the smarter we are about how we bring that to market, the faster we might be able to crack the code.

And sometimes you get that like luck of the one hit wonder where something just hit right on the trend, or you got picked up by the right influencer without even meaning to. But digital lowers the barrier to entry because of the third party marketplace, because of D2C, because of social commerce, and so, but no matter where any one of those channels is, right?

Like we've seen a lot of D2C. D2C was like this hot topic. Everyone needed to have it. But then a lot of people did it poorly or didn't understand how to differentiate what they were doing in D2C versus if it was a big company versus what they were doing with the rest of the market. So they didn't figure out their unique value propositions or, you know, we saw obviously some of these D2Cs got really big valuations and big CPG bought them and then didn't know how to do it.

They just used their old, dusted off their old playbook and said, "we're going to distribute you everywhere," but then didn't figure out how to make sure they differentiate, what was online only versus, you know, with them versus what they were selling, you know, broadly in, in other retail channels. And so.

Whether D2C is the, like, is a large part of the CPG's portfolio or not, D2C, social commerce, and even the 3P marketplace, are platforms for incubating, right, potential exclusives, new innovations, testing things, by all means, they might end up becoming really meaningful, I mean, when you think of, like, you know, Lego and Keurig and, you know, you've got some big companies that have some really meaty D2C businesses, and they use those obviously for brand building, for marketing and content and, you know, innovation testing for loyalty plays of giving their loyalists, you know, early access.

I mean, they're getting insights. They can already prove things and then go to a Walmart and say, "Hey, I already have something that's proven 90 percent of my, my loyalists love this, and it already serves these five benefits versus the traditional products." So they've got like, and I'm not just picking on those companies, but, but companies with established D2C or any other platforms as an incubation platform become really interesting. So those channels obviously offer challenger brands a way to make the case for not only their brands, but the sustainability movement. And to your point before, I don't think that goes unnoticed to other retailers who are looking at the trends or looking at the, what, what, that's why a lot of those, you know, Target and Walmart have invited so many digitally native brands and many of which are sustainable or more thoughtful to the environment or social causes than the traditional brands.

So I do think the challenger brands, they might not be big overnight, in a way that like would be noticeable. They're not going to pop up and completely disrupt your share within a month, but they could within a year or two years or three years. And again, it's not a matter of you not being on that Amazon shelf.

It's that you don't exist to them. You're not, you don't have, you have no share of mind because you're not at eye level and then you're not at, you know, smart speaker recommendation level or AI assisted, you know, Rufus, you know, Amazon Rufus, your recommendation level, because you're not meeting maybe like table stake needs that, and again, we don't know what AI, like I only bring up AI because aI is both has a positive side from a personalization, but it also has a very disruptive side from a, I don't know what's in that black box, and I don't know what determines what is recommended for Keith when Keith starts typing in, and I don't know what, I don't know what may be like the foundational bias, and I don't use bias in a bad way, it could be a positive bias, right?

Like, "only recommend things that are really good for the environment that also meet the shopper's needs." Right? Who's to say that doesn't fall into it somewhere. If the retailers are initiating these search engine optimizations that don't favor things that qualify, they might then be the only recommendation you get.

So, so brands that proactively design themselves to be that way and get over that, challenger brands have that benefit because that's their only route to market. But the big companies almost don't treat this as an innovation. You said one other thing a minute ago, that was really important. It, for some reason, when we launch innovation at a big CPG, we're willing to overspend upfront on that amazing quality.

And then rationalize it very quickly after. I was literally part of that myself. We launched with the best packaging. It was the, you know, the foil packaging that shines off the shelf. It was embossed. It was great. Like we spent extra on all this and literally as soon as it launched, then it was the rationalization team was on how can we cut, how can we squeeze the product?

So the funny thing is we're really good at squeezing, but we're also okay with launching unusual quality. At a minimum, I'd like to say, let's just keep quality, but either way, why don't we approach it with that same mindset? Like treat this as an innovation. That's the right thing to do. It's on shopper trend.

It's on retailer trend. It has massive implications long term if we do or don't do it, not to mention against competition. And yes, there will be ways to squeeze it later, but the squeezing will be off the right base because we're already going to be, we're not going to squeeze it by making it less sustainable.

You know, we're going to... Most of the squeezing was removing packaging. So it'd be a way to make the packaging even more sustainable, if you will. So I think there's just, it's a mindset shift, and knowing like how many times do we have to see a change that started small, that even when it's still small for some categories, actually is really big in terms of share of growth, share of influenced growth, share of, even share of mind with the retailer who is making decisions about what they carry anywhere.

In store and online based on what is winning, and winning will be defined by whether you've done some of this as well.

Keith Anderson: Hey folks, this is the part of the show where we say thank you and see you soon to the general audience, plus and higher tier members of decarbonize.co, stay tuned for the rest of the episode.

 Well, Chris, what, what a high energy and fascinating conversation. I know that there are going to be folks that are going to want to hear more from you. Where would you point folks that want to get to know you or Firstmovr better?

Chris Perry: If you want to reach out to me directly and get the same level of high energy, because I'm naturally caffeinated. I do not drink coffee. You can reach out to me at [email protected] and Firstmovr doesn't have an E in it because technically there's no E in e-commerce because it should be just commerce.

And we should come up with something cool for sustainability, for that long term as well. But, I invite all of you out there to any of our upcoming events, you can find all of them at firstmovr.com/events. We have events again on every type of strategy, every type, all leading retailers.

They're all free. They will stay free. They're virtual. They can fit your schedule. You can obviously go back and watch them on demand. And we bring, we really source the best quality. We're hoping to get Keith on to several of our events so that we can maintain our top quality, you know, thought leaders in all these different areas.

But we would love to have you and you can obviously engage us there. And we host a lot of great speakers from the brand, agency, solution provider, retailer side, to speak to the next level strategies for those areas. So we'd love to have you join us. And if we can help you further, we're, you know, you can reach out to us about ways we can collaborate more custom, in a more customized manner.

Keith Anderson: Awesome. Well, thank you, Chris, for joining us.

Chris Perry: Thank you so much. 

Keith Anderson: Thanks for listening. I'm Keith Anderson, the executive producer and host of Decarbonizing Commerce. Sonic Futures handles audio, music, and video production. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you took a moment to subscribe and leave a review or share it with a colleague. For the full episode and more member exclusive insight and analysis, join the decarbonizing commerce community at decarbonize.co. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next episode of decarbonizing commerce.