Intro 0:00
Hey welcome to another episode of Ecom Experiences a podcast where ecommerce marketing leaders who want to grow and scale their brands faster. Join us as we interview some of the smartest brand founders and marketing leaders in the industry. Explore the lessons they learned discover the keys to their success, discuss what excites them most about the future.
Samir Balwani 0:28
Hi, it's Samir Balwani. Here host of the Ecom Experiences where we talk to brand founders and marketing leaders about their experiences growing brands. This episode is brought to you by QRY QRY is a paid media agency that helps brands balance brand awareness and performance marketing to drive predictable and profitable growth. To learn more about how we can help you visit, weareqry.com. I'm really excited about our guest today I have Summer Jubelirer, the Amazon manager, OLLY and the CO hosts of the podcast Always Off Brand. It's she's awesome. I've had a chance to be on their podcast, and I had a hell of a time. So thank you so much for joining us.
Summer Jubelirer 1:04
Absolutely. Thanks for having me on today. Oh,
Samir Balwani 1:08
so I'm excited to dig into this. And we'll start always with the easy questions. So Summer, tell us about you. You know, where do you work right now? How'd you get there? Yeah, the story of Summer.
Summer Jubelirer 1:20
Yeah, so I am at OLLY, we are a vitamin supplement company where they really focus on, you know, health from within. And, you know, what are the questions that you asked me coming into this podcast was like, Hey, can you share, like, what advice you might give somebody and I think I'm gonna move it up to the front, because I have never been so happy at a company before. And you know, I just turned 40. And I finally found like, my place, which is funny, yeah, congratulations, I made it. So I think what I, what I want to share about like, why I love this brand, and why I'm there like, I looked for a new place to go for a year. And I think that the best advice I can give somebody is to be looking for that new role, that new company while you still have a job. Yeah, because I had, I wasn't desperate, I wasn't in this like, crunch. Like, I have to find something by this day, I didn't have a deadline, I had a goal for myself to find somewhere where I could see myself retiring, I could see myself like making a difference. And what I learned through that whole interview process I interviewed for a year, so many different places, some great places, some not some great places. And I really wanted to be at a B Corp, which is what all he is. And if you're not familiar with what a B Corp is, it's a certain set of values. And truly, in my opinion, morals that a brand has to or company has to stand by, regardless of who the CEO is. So you have to meet certain demands from who you manufacture with who how you treat your employees, are your employees making a living wage? How are you helping the environment. So it's not just focused on profits, it's also focused, its main focus is people which is what keeps the core companies in line. And I had been on a company before that I did love in my early 20s That was purchased and acquired. And the cultural difference in the shift was so dramatic, which you hear about a lot. And what I wanted to know is that if I go somewhere and they get acquired, or a CEO changes and leadership changes, do their values stay the same, which all he does, which is what I love about the brand. It's a really great positive company that not only do they focus a lot on mental health for their consumers, but they really do that internally as well. We we get a lot of great benefits, they couldn't say enough good things about the brand. And it took me a long time to get here. One of the I remember interviewing at this one company, and I'm sitting there and it's a it's kind of during COVID I think it's 2021, early 2020. And these two women are on the interview with me like bickering over who works more hours, like who works more, and I'm like, nope, like, I'm so glad you guys did this, like, this is insight like you don't get and I worked I interviewed at another company of very, like well known chocolate company. And I was talking to the guy and trying to understand, you know, what, what does he like to work with and what's the cultural vibe and he deadpans mean goes, well, I can work with anybody. That was like I do not want to work with you like I'm good. Yeah. And then another another company like they're a huge furniture company. They do 400 plus million on Amazon. I was like, Wow, this looks great on my resume, like, what can I do with these guys? And this guy had been there for Well, years and he goes, your coworkers are not family. They are your coworkers and you don't need to get happier with them. You don't need to cause asking about like, I would travel to come visit And I'm like, Oh my god. So I literally come into the office and then like, go to say, my hotel for the rest of the night like, you don't have like a cultural vibe. And so for some people that works, and he was there for 12 years, clearly that worked for him. But like, for me, I know I would have been there for a year and been miserable. So sorry, interestingly say that,
Samir Balwani 5:21
I love that. So I think it's really interesting because I always tell people don't run away from something run toward something. So don't run away from a job you don't like run towards a job you're really excited about. And it's interesting a query when we do interviews, I tend I'm the last interviewer, I don't really have a say, it's actually really funny. Like, my head of HR, I'll be like, Samir, you're there. Because I want prospective employer employees to know that they get a chance to interview you. And so they get to have interviews with me are 10 minutes and me asking you questions about, hey, what do you like to do? I always throw Zinger in there, I asked people to teach me something that they learned recently. So just anything,
Summer Jubelirer 6:07
like I'm nervous for these people, like you're the owner.
Samir Balwani 6:12
I like love it. I have learned how to De Graaff plants I have learned why it's called knots on articles. I've learned how to run properly. Nothing about marketing. And that is my favorite question. That's awesome. And then they spend 20 minutes grilling me. And I'm love them. Because it gives them a chance to understand the culture understand why we work what we do. Why what the vision is, yeah, the growth could look like over the next five years. Because it is you should be interviewing both ways. Otherwise, what's the point? Yeah,
Summer Jubelirer 6:43
right. Totally. Yeah, OLLY, the interview process is really hard. You have to I think I interviewed with eight people. And then at the very end, you have to present they send you a list of questions. And you had to present a PowerPoint to all of these eight people. And I remember at the end, after I got done with interview, I go to my husband's office because COVID And I like collapsed on the grant.
Samir Balwani 7:09
Oh, I yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's like, long interview processes are really hard. And we struggle with this, too, on our end of like, how long is too long versus Yeah, like, you know, how do we make sure we get what we need? I tell people, a long interview process is actually a blessing in disguise. Because it means that if you do get the job, the people that you work with are going to be the best at what they're, and I think too short of interview process means that they just want to feel a headcount. Right. Yes. And so really finding that balance of a company that respects you, but also wants to make sure they get the best out of you. 100%. Well, so, summer, I think that that you stole my thunder, and you gave amazing advice right off the bat. So let's, let's talk about the role you're in right now. So what do you do? What is your day to day look like? And tell us tell us about your life at
Summer Jubelirer 8:08
Olli? Yeah, so I am the Marketing Manager for Amazon over here at OLLY. And it's really, almost everything you can think about for Amazon. It's reviewing our PIO, we're vendor, and it's reviewing our POS, it's slanting forward strategy for the rest of the year, how we're gonna bring in new to brand while also growing subscriptions. It's advertising. It's all of it from morning till night. And it's so fun, because the one thing you can rely on with Amazon is that they are going to change and they are going to break and they are going to make mistakes. And you will just have to be able to pitch pivot and be agile. And what I love about it is that there's always something new that's being thrown my way. And sometimes it's you just want to scream and other and you're like how is this you know, huge giant company making the kind of mistakes that they make on a daily basis, but then you're like, Thanks, because that's why I have a job. And I love it. And it's great working at this time, because what I started doing Amazon 13 ish years ago, I didn't know they sold anything besides books. And now I am doing a huge business and figuring out how to build a brand on Amazon. You know, we we build the brand off Amazon quite well. And the challenge here is how do we bring that brand voice into this square peg and we're around a hole right like bring the square peg into the round hole that is Amazon and it's a challenge but it's fun. And sometimes we have success and sometimes we don't
Samir Balwani 9:53
Yeah, it's really interesting because it's definitely it's almost like the you know when you're when you're a retail manager and you've got a wholesale account, and you're trying to manage it. Say you're in Target, and you're actually in store and target, at least you have the shelf, and you can build like brand voice and like, yeah, people will walk by the shelf, and they will see it. But when you're on Amazon, unless people are looking for you, they can't find you. And so it's hard to build that brand voice without kind of that serendipitous walking by
Summer Jubelirer 10:26
100%. You know, what are the things I find? Let me back up, I've never been on this side of the brand that is so well established. And all he started off as like a brick and mortar brand. You know, they got into Target there and Walmart there and CVS there. Any store, you go to that sell supplements were most likely there. And they really started to pivot, not even pivot, they just added, ecommerce really started to focus on it about four years ago, and really push it and investing in it. And it's interesting coming to a brand where I'm not just trying to spend as much as I can, because we're trying to grow in such a fast pace. But we're growing despite trying to grow despite profits, I'm not a brand, we're like, profits matter. And you have to look at margins. And you'd have to look at pricing. And that's been really interesting for me, because I've never had to worry too much about like, what's our reduced revenue looking like? What was what are our margins right now? focusing so much on the net profit. And that has been eye opening for me and I love it because now I've seen both sides. I've seen the startup side and the scrappy and do what you can and now I'm seeing the Okay, we need steady growth but at a profit. Right.
Samir Balwani 11:44
Yeah, you get to see, you got to experience the I'm going to invest net profit to grow quickly versus now. You know, 10% growth 5% Growth? 20% growth exactly is okay, based on what profit level I want. Right? Yeah. You know, it's interesting. On the advertising side, we get asked that all the time, we'll you know, we'll talk to clients and be like, Oh, sue me, or, like, why do you guys want a 2x return? And I'm like, because you want and revenue growth. And here. It's like, if you want a 5x return, then we can take a look at our return revenue growth. But like, you can't have both. Yeah, what's the master here? So we
Summer Jubelirer 12:24
just had, I'm not gonna share who they were. But on our podcast the other day, we just had some wonderful women on who were talking about the new KPIs look at besides return, and what is that? And I think it when you're at a brand that's been around for five plus years, you really do start looking at different KPIs. And the return on adspend becomes something you're less focused on. And you're more focused on like, how am I growing my brand found my sustaining? Because you could get a two or 3x return. But if your margins aren't there, doesn't matter. You're losing money. So how do you go back to your team? See, how do we improve our margins? And that's a whole different beast. It's a whole different job. Sure.
Samir Balwani 13:07
Operations job, too. Right? Yeah. And it, you know, marketing is held to a certain number, but it's really driven a lot by operations also in the coming together that helps you see success, truth. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting, because you remind me so I was at American Express before I started the agency. And and I never really appreciated, why they put so much value on this idea of doing new things. And so there is this acronym we talked about, it never been done before. And it was always a big deal. And like, if you did something that had never been done before, you got a lot of credit, and people were excited about it, regardless of how effective it was. So even if it wasn't very profitable, even if it didn't actually succeed, they just wanted to drive innovation, I realized it's because at a certain size and scale, growth doesn't come from optimizing the channels you have already it comes from experiencing and introducing new channels and new activities, new tactics. And so you know, creating a culture where you're trying out new things, regardless of whether it succeeds or fails, is so valuable. Because that's what's going to work. It's not going to be changed to bring keyword we changed some bid strategies on Google. Like none of that's going to impact like, Yeah, you did an incremental slight value here. But the real value comes from came up with a new offer. We launched a new channel, we tested this new thing. Yes, yeah. And that's where the growth comes from.
Summer Jubelirer 14:31
You know, I one of the other ideas I was thinking about when trying to talk to someone like What advice would I give them kind of goes back to what you were just saying, which is trying new ideas, but I think even taking a step further or going step behind it, which is, but let the data guide you. Right, because when I started to OLLY, they had this. They launched this campaign that was really unique, and it was kind of aggressive and I I loved it. And it was backed in data. But when it launched, we got a lot of like, negative PR. Yeah. And what was great was I was so impressed with the VP of Marketing, she said, we're not afraid to try and test new things like because everyone was kind of nervous. They're like, why she was like, Why are you nervous? Why are you upset? Like, yes, we've gotten a few negative pieces. But overall, it's been positive. And let's not focus on just a few negatives, we'll dress it, but like the data show that like this needs to be done. And I'm going to keep going back to that, because that's what showed and even if it failed, you can say like, yeah, it failed. But here's what I learned from it. And being able to trust your gut, like, Yes, I think my gut is telling me this, but then have data to back it up.
Samir Balwani 15:44
So here's where I think a lot of brands do get it wrong, though, is that they don't let the customer lead. And I think that that is probably one of the biggest mistakes people brands make is they come up with these really great brand campaigns around creative and it's really interesting, and it's cool. And it's designed by committee. So you know, it's it's intergroup. But no one and not no one. I think Amex is actually really good at this. And we see it very often. But I think a lot of younger brands Trump struggle with this, of realizing that there's a lot of customer research that needs to happen ahead of time. Because it's not, it's not good enough to be cool. You have to be cool to your core customer. And yes, I think that that's the thing that people make a mess of pretty regularly. And that's when brand campaigns and like splashy ideas get a lot of flack. And then you can look at the negative comments and be like, well, that's not our customer anyway, right?
Summer Jubelirer 16:42
And that's what we kept coming back to were like, literally, we're getting these emails, and you look up their email and like Shopify, and like, they're not even our customer, like, yeah, okay, that's okay. And I think people are, you know, in this political environment, people are afraid of making others angry. But I do believe that the next generation coming up, they want to know what your stance is, like, where do you stand, and like, you know, whether it be LGBTQ beliefs, whether it be your beliefs on war, whatever it is, they want to know where the brand stands, and let them decide if they want to be your customer. Next, you can't please everyone. And that was what I was frustrated with my previous brand that I was at was, it was, this is our customer, like, don't make this person angry. Don't make this person angry. And oh, we're not that kind of brand. I'm like, Well, what are we like?
Samir Balwani 17:29
Are we? Yeah, it's interesting, because I think a lot of brands are struggling with this right now. Because there is, you have to know what you don't stand for. Yes. And then identify what you do stand for. So what is not okay, and then allow that to drive? What is okay? Yeah. Because that's how you allow people to really feel connected to you, because they, they want to really understand where to your point where you stand, what's the good, what's bad and kind of go from there. So I agree. You know, I do and so curious, because you talk about Amazon, changing everything all the time. And I'm sure that that is a challenge. But as you look at your role, as you looked at your integrations with Amazon, what are other challenges that you're kind of seeing where, what do you like, trying to solve for the next 12 months?
Summer Jubelirer 18:22
I think one of the things that my role demands me to do is to be agile. I had a big plan for March of what we're going to do, we're going to make this big, splashy thing on Amazon, it was going to be it was going to be the most money I have ever spent in my career. I was so excited. And Amazon said, you know, our policy has changed on supplements. And I was like, You're kidding me. And mind you. It's not just like me doing this, I'm getting our performance marketing. I'm getting our brand team, I'm getting our operations. Like I had to get so many people involved in this. I'm stealing budget from someone else being like, Hey, do you wanna? Do you want to pay for this?
Samir Balwani 19:05
I love all the internal or have you already done? And
Summer Jubelirer 19:09
I thought everyone aligned and it was like, beautiful. And I'm like saying, like, we're gonna do this big thing. And then, you know, because we're spending this money. Amazon has to like Amazon finance has to approve it. You're like, wow, this is like this is this is a big deal. Like, this isn't just like search and I'm, you know, like, this is a big deal. I'm so excited. And they're like, Yeah, we're not going to do it. Like, we're not going to work with you on it. And I'm like, oh, no, like, no. And then it's like, okay, that sucks. I can't do it. Like, I am bummed but like, I need to do something. So What's What's plan B, what's Plan C and then changing what you're going to do? And it doesn't mean that like you failed. What's exciting is that I got other people excited about what I can do on Amazon and, you know, a Target and Walmart we do such they're such huge brands. I mean, these are huge retailers that we're doing Pull things with it feels like all the time. And I know like, my opportunity will come with Amazon, I just don't know what that'll look like and not knowing is really exciting. So keeping my hand on the pulse of like, what are the opportunities, having a budget that I can set some things aside to be like, Okay, I'm going to hold some of this budget, because who knows what I'm going to be able to do in July or October and continuing to plan for something, even if I don't have it fully fleshed out. And then always wondering, what I love with working at a consumable brand is we have product innovation. And I'm so excited to see how these perform and what they do. You know, we launched a men's wellness product back in October, I was super, super psyched to launch it had a great launch. And then Amazon's like, oh, actually, this one like little, little ingredient you have yet you're not allowed to advertise that. And like it just came court, like our sales was, like, just fell down. And I was like, No, okay. Pivot, performance marketing, how can you help me drive traffic to this item? Right? Like, what else can we do? So there's always something around the corner, you just don't know what it's going to be. And that's really fun. So between those two things at Amazon, making changes, but then this brand that I love and believe in making new product innovations to help people you just never know, like, what's going to be the next product? That's, that's really helping a family that's helping a child that's helping a mom. And I can't wait to see what that's going to be.
Samir Balwani 21:32
That's really cool. With so much uncertainty. How do you plan for things? Like are you guys doing like quarterly planning annual planning? Oh, I do worry monthly during monthly planning, it is monthly.
Summer Jubelirer 21:42
So every month, you know, I'm having to change my forecast. I mean, I think fingers crossed that we just had another last year, we had two items go viral. Nothing to do with us. And it it it was so cool to see. And I think possibly that we just had another item go viral. If I'm looking at the data, something took off last Thursday, I had a product go up 250% In sales, and I didn't do anything other than like making sure it was live and in stock, you know, like the bear and
Samir Balwani 22:16
monitor that make sure there's enough.
Summer Jubelirer 22:19
Now I've been looking at March trying to like, plan, but that's kind of moving along. But now I'm like, Okay, this, this is front and center. I think what's what's fun about Amazon is you have to focus on the now but also be planning the strategy for the future. So I'm already thinking about what can I do in January of next year, knowing that like, I'm gonna have to submit this in November to Amazon. But can I do this in January? So I have to have that planned out. But I also need to be able to be like, something's going nuts right now. And it needs my attention. So what created? Do I have to make sure I'm driving the right ads? How do I increase my DSP spend. So consumers who have maybe now suddenly heard about this are seeing us and can like, convert quickly. So I'm planning every month and looking at my ad spend to be like, what else can I do? And also, I'm always asking for more money. If you are not asking for more money. I don't think you're doing a good job. I am always saying like, Oh, you know, so and so their plan fell apart. Can I get their budget?
Samir Balwani 23:19
Yeah. It's so funny. You say that? Like that's what we do. We tell our clients set aside assume 10% of your budget for experiments from Jan to September. And if you don't spend it, we'll spend it in November and December, right, like literally problem. So I
Summer Jubelirer 23:33
love that you gave a number though, like I love that smear. There's always like, what percentage of my budget should I put aside and you're running your agency do you tend to notice like, suddenly people have a lot more money come December, there's always seems to be leftover money, always
Samir Balwani 23:48
leftover money. And so I just say hey, ask for it upfront and just say, hey, 10% we're gonna be doing it if you need to justify it. Say we're spending 10% Now, so we know what channels we want to spend in October, November, December, we always get ah, it's frustrating. You'll get like a 25% bump in budget in September. And we're like, well, now I don't know where to put this because we haven't done any like we've already maxed out our channels. We really we didn't give you a plan with room. So So yeah, I mean, I think it's like, you know, whether it's a new channel you want to test or a new audience you want to get into like September if you don't know what that is. It's too late. And it's it's like, it's really funny. Yeah, although
Summer Jubelirer 24:33
I don't know if it's too late, severe. You know, Scott Scott says that a lot too. He's like, if you haven't spent it, it's too late. I'm like, you know, there's always something there is something there's, you know, a sampling box that you know, needs needs samples, like you have samples and they'll send a lot of times at the very last minute they'll waive the fee to like include their samples. There's an influencer program. That's what I love about influencers and I don't really work with them at all, but there's always something you can deal with them. Yeah, the last minute, and you're like, hey, I
Samir Balwani 25:03
need to I agree. But on the media side, it's too late. Like we're not the IPOs. And we're not
Summer Jubelirer 25:08
You're right. That's, that's true. You're totally right on the media side, that's, that's tough. It's
Samir Balwani 25:13
so funny. Like, there's probably some like scrappy stuff we would do. But it would be one of those things where we are building the bus and driving it at the same time. And so it's to your point, it's never too late. It's just it's too late to do it well, and so you gotta be really, like, that's why, like, you know, people ask me all the time, what holds a brand back from scaling? And, you know, invariably ally gurus will be like, Oh, you're just like, your Facebook structure is wrong, or your creative is bad. And I'm like, No, it's none of that. If your organizational structure is bad, like, you don't have a good media plan, you haven't budgeted appropriately, you don't use strong tests and learn strategy. Like, no one knows what good creative is. A good creative process will lead to good creative, but it's not like no agencies coming in, oh, I know exactly what you need to run, and we're gonna make you millions of dollars. Right? Like, they just know the process by which you get to go creative. So I think that that that is the thing that holds back. Young brands from becoming big, mature brands. Yeah, I
Summer Jubelirer 26:16
can see that. I have a question for you on the media side. How long do you give a test and learn?
Samir Balwani 26:23
Oh, good question. So it depends on how much traction the brand has, and how much statistical significance we feel comfortable with. Yeah. And so if a brand's really conservative, we will run it to full statistical significance, right? If a brand's like now we're scrappy. Let's just like if we have direction, oh, let's go and run it till directional until everyone feels good about it. Right. Okay. So it's not it's not a flat out? Like answer on that one. It's really until the strategist feels comfortable that we have enough information. Yeah.
Summer Jubelirer 26:58
Because if you're not spending enough to get the data like this is going to take a long time.
Samir Balwani 27:03
Right? Like that's our biggest struggle, struggle with incrementality testing for a lot of our brands, right? Like, yeah, and incrementality test, and you're doing what, 12? A year, man? Yeah, yeah, man a year. And so if you're only doing a check in on one channel, and one tactic every once a year, you better be comfortable with directional for the rest of the year. I love it. I love it. So yeah, so I mean, that's kind of our thought process on it. But so far, I could talk to you forever. I know. So here's my last question for you. Since you already stole my thunder on what advice you would give? Let's close on. As you look ahead, what are you most excited about?
Summer Jubelirer 27:43
So I hate my answer for this, I was trying to come up with something different. Because I'm so tired of hearing about it. But honestly, it's AI. I know, I cringe, I cringe. But I am so excited to see what this does to my job. Right? Like Amazon just released their AI for images. Like if you don't have an image, we'll make it for you. These images are hilarious. They are so they're so bad. But they're but when you think about yes, they're so bad, because we see all these beautiful images. But when you think about like what they're doing, it's impressive. And if they're doing this now, like AI is relatively new to people like you and I right being able to get our hands on it. I can't wait to see what it does. Like, it's not AI, in my opinion, it is not replacing people. I don't see it doing that I see it just in like making us faster, making us more efficient, creating new opportunities where there weren't any before and getting super granular on who you're targeting. And I can't wait to see like how I can get so specific on who I'm targeting. I remember when Google announced, I mean, this is a while ago, Google announced, like ZIP Code targeting, right? Like I'm talking 10 plus years ago, and I was like, holy cow, like I can go target these these people in this small community and like they're gonna get this ad. And I mean, we're lightyears beyond that now. But what is AI going to do to Amazon search? What is it going to do to Google search? What is it going to do? To you know, the privacy laws that came out in the last couple years? Like, yeah, this is going to work its way around it like how I can't wait to see what it does. And I am so excited for that. Yeah,
Samir Balwani 29:31
I think that I would absolutely agree with you. I think the coolest part about AI. And while it is the images are really bad right now, sometimes. It does get some brands from zero to one. Like if you don't have an image and AI image is better than no image, right? Like, it's kind of awesome to just see. You know, we talked about how Shopify and Amazon Marketplace democratized online sailing, online sales, and so anyone could just like start a brand Anyone could start selling on Amazon. At that point, then the biggest barrier was variable. Do you have creative? Like, how does the brand appear? And no one had the money to hire a studio or get product shots? So if AI start solving that, too, oh, the explosion of products that we're going to see and new brands popping up, it's just it's the tip of the iceberg green.
Summer Jubelirer 30:21
Yeah, I mean, the time it would take to get you ramped, it's shortening it now. And that is super exciting. And I just can't wait to see where it goes.
Samir Balwani 30:31
I love it. Well, Summer. Thank you so much for joining us. If someone wants to find you online, where can they go? Oh,
Summer Jubelirer 30:38
LinkedIn, LinkedIn, is it although I'm terrible at it.
Samir Balwani 30:42
And if you get a chance, please, please, please listen to all this off brand podcast is awesome. And I have so much fun on it. And you can find my episode there as well. So summer, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for being here.
Summer Jubelirer 30:55
Thank you, Samir. I appreciate your time.
Outro 31:02
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