Qu - Restaurants Reinvented - Lidija Davidson - Transcript
[00:00:00] Jenifer Kern: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, welcome back to Restaurants Reinvented. I'm Jenifer Kern, your hostess, and today I have with me a very talented marketing-maven. She is a global restaurant-marketing consultant, a brand builder, a menu-design expert, an innovator, and now an entrepreneur, and she owns a company that is called
[00:00:21] "Sift, Cipher and Bloom", which we are going to hear all about in a few minutes. She also has her MBA in marketing and worked for KFC, Taco Bell, and earlier in her career, Mattel, and various brand and marketing roles, so I'm really excited to welcome Lidija Davidson to the show. Hi, Lidija.
[00:00:39] Lidija Davidson: [00:00:39] Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me here today.
[00:00:42] Jenifer Kern: [00:00:42] Thanks for coming. It's early your time, right? You're Cali, are you in Cali?
[00:00:46] Lidija Davidson: [00:00:46] Yes, I'm in the Northern.
[00:00:47] Jenifer Kern: [00:00:47] Oh, wow, really early. Thanks for showing up with your coffee at 7:00 AM.
[00:00:51] Lidija Davidson: [00:00:51] Yeah.
[00:00:51] Jenifer Kern: [00:00:51] Awesome. I appreciate it. Yeah, and I'm looking forward to talking about all-things Restaurants Reinvented with you because you share a passion of mine, [00:01:00] which is branding.
[00:01:00] I love branding. We're actually going through a brand-refresh project ourselves at Qu, and I see you have a lot of experience in branding at some really well-known restaurants, KFC and Taco Bell predominantly, and I know you're working with some really large global brands now at your current company,
[00:01:17] so, by way of intro, can you give us a little background on yourself and how you got into marketing, and branding, and restaurants?
[00:01:25] Lidija Davidson: [00:01:25] Sure. Yeah, I'd love to. I started out my career, not in restaurants actually, but in technology. I worked for a video game manufacturer and quickly decided that I wanted to get into marketing. I was in spreadsheets, number crunching, I was a math major at that time, so I went back and got my MBA and it was focused on getting some really good marketing experience because prior to getting my MBA, I took an extension class in marketing and the gentleman teaching it had been in the corporate world and was now teaching and consulting, and the little light bulb went off, even [00:02:00] way back than then,
[00:02:01] "Oh my gosh, when I grow up, that's what I want to do. I want to help other organizations with their businesses from a marketing perspective." So, I got my MBA, with that being my goal, and was going to spend a few years in corporate, get some really good experience and then take that experience out into the corporate world.
[00:02:19] Didn't know I was going to go into restaurants at the time. I'd always loved cooking as a kid, but that wasn't necessarily a focus, but when I interviewed with Taco Bell after grad school, I just, I fell in love with the brand. I'd always liked the brand, but I fell in love with it from a work perspective, the culture there, the vibe in the hallways as I was interviewing was great.
[00:02:35] When they told me about their innovation process, how they're launching ten new products a year, every five weeks basically, it's a new product, you're really having an impact quickly. "This really sounds like the company for me," so I went and I worked there. I was with Yum! Brands for over a decade.
[00:02:52] They shipped me off to the UK for a few years to work for KFC. That's how the KFC part comes in. So, I was a West-Coast [00:03:00] girl, and KFC UK was having some troubles, so they flew me over there and relocated me for a couple of years to help them turn their business around, really focusing on pipeline,
[00:03:09] and that was one of the areas that I really helped them with, ramping up their product pipeline and a brand strategy, that sort of stuff, in conjunction with our marketing leader. So, helped them, came back to Taco Bell, and then, couple of years later, I was able to launch my consulting business, finally. Never imagined that I was going stay with the same company the whole time before I did it,
[00:03:28] but really fell in love with restaurants and fast food specifically. I love the pace of it, love the change, love the retail, the execution, the strategy, the marketing calendar, the new products, all of it's just been great. That's how I got to where I am now, and in my consulting practice, I help businesses with their brand strategy, menu strategy, menu vision,
[00:03:49] and new product pipeline innovation.
[00:03:51] Jenifer Kern: [00:03:51] Awesome. Awesome. What an exciting career, that sounds so fun.
[00:03:55] Lidija Davidson: [00:03:55] It's been fun.
[00:03:56] Jenifer Kern: [00:03:56] Yeah. Getting to go over to UK and work with a [00:04:00] top brand like that, that sounds fantastic. I'd love to know, like, at Taco Bell and KFC, what was your favorite brand campaign that you worked on? They are, like you said, big innovators in the space.
[00:04:09] Is there one that sticks out at you as, "Wow, that one was really fun to work on and also super successful"?
[00:04:17]Lidija Davidson: [00:04:17] One of the first things I worked on at Taco Bell was helping them relaunch their value menu. They'd always been known for value, for decades, the ¢ 59, ¢ 79, ¢ 99, way back when, and had always had that reputation, but they had walked away from it for a few years, focusing on other initiatives, and
[00:04:34] we had this big research and strat-deck done by our head of consumer insights and he said we had a "leaky bucket," and what we were leaking were transactions with our most price-sensitive consumers. My first project, right when I started with the company, was to help them reimagine what a value menu at Taco Bell could look like;
[00:04:53] so we did a bunch of research, did a lot of insight gathering, talking to customers, looking at [00:05:00] competitors, trying to figure out what would make the most sense for this brand today, knowing that what we had done in the past was no longer price and financially sustainable, so we were looking different ways to do it and developed bunch of different options, researched the number of ones, new ad campaign, the whole kitten caboodle, and went into market test, grew sales by,
[00:05:22] I can't remember, I think the industry was growing at like 3% of the time, and I think we got 5% or 6% growth, so almost doubled the industry's growth at the time, so it was great financial results. But what was really fun too is, our ad campaign won a gold Effie for effectiveness in advertising.
[00:05:36] So it was, we felt it was a success all the way around from a financial, a consumer, operationally it worked, and then the advertising campaign really struck as well, so it was a fun project, great way to start a career in a new brand, in a new business that you just started at. Took a couple of years,
[00:05:52] it wasn't an overnight project, but it was a great experience overall.
[00:05:56] Jenifer Kern: [00:05:56] Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like fun. Marketers, we always need to be focused on that bottom [00:06:00] line too, like, how are we driving the sales? How are we driving the revenue? And there's, I always say, there's that balance of brands over time, sales overnight, brands over time, sales overnight.
[00:06:07] And so, keeping those two things forefront, it sounds like you did very successfully. So you've been in restaurants over 20 years, I'm going to say, right?
[00:06:17] Lidija Davidson: [00:06:17] Yeah, absolutely. Yep.
[00:06:18] Jenifer Kern: [00:06:18] Bringing it up to current, gosh, I don't think restaurants have ever had a year like they've had this past year and it's been pretty nuts. I started this show because I felt very passionate as a consumer, which I know you are as well, that restaurants really need to renew and reinvent themselves in so many ways, and I actually joined Qu because I felt that way. I feel like the guest experience is pretty broken in a lot of scenarios,
[00:06:45] mostly when you talk about the larger chains, and so, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Where have you seen restaurants change, from your experience in the early days and where we are today? What are your takeaways and advice really, I guess, or thoughts, it's [00:07:00] just, it's a lot, right?
[00:07:01] Lidija Davidson: [00:07:01] Yeah. This past year has been absolute roller coaster for brands, and it's been "A Tale of Two Cities" too, geographically or where your restaurants are located, what you sell. But I think, one of the things too, that I'm seeing with clients, that has helped people stand out in the past year is their ability to be flexible and adaptable and innovative.
[00:07:23] Even before the pandemic hit, restaurants were, at their various paces, transitioning into adopting technology at a greater rate, and whether it's an app, whether it's something that, if you're using the app it pings the app on when you arrive on lot to let the restaurant know you had placed this order, and now they need to start making it,
[00:07:43] so that kind of stuff was slowly happening. The bigger chains were already doing it. Some smaller chains were thinking about it. It was just haphazard and sporadic, although most chains knew they needed to do something, but what this pandemic did is, it really forced [00:08:00] people to adopt some of those technologies faster just because dining rooms are shut down throughout most of the country,
[00:08:07] and so, you couldn't rely on some of those old traditional ways of serving your product to your customers. More cars through the drive-through, curbside delivery, curbside pickup, all of that was really growing and adopted much more quickly. So, the chains that I have seen the most success with in the last year, the ones that pivoted. If they didn't already have that,
[00:08:29] they threw something together. It didn't have to be perfect, they just wanted to get something out there and get businesses going, and then just be real creative with what you were offering. We saw the bigger chains McDonald's and Taco Bell reduce their menus, take off products to decrease complexity and improve speed of service so they can get more people through the drive-through easier.
[00:08:49] So that was happening, so that, sort of, set the trend also for other chains to look at simplifying, streamlining menus, simplifying operations, making things easier in [00:09:00] operating with limited staff, seeing the issues with that happening now as well. Really, the ones that adapted and innovated and flexed what they were working on, were the ones that did that better,
[00:09:08] and that's just going to have to continue. As we all have seen now, with recovery coming and starting and happening, which is fantastic, and we're all so excited to have people back in our restaurants, have customers back in our restaurants, but the challenge is the staff isn't necessarily in our restaurants at the levels we need them to be.
[00:09:26] One of my clients I was talking to, they're a smaller chain, this particular one, and looking to open up a couple of new restaurants, a few new restaurants in the next 12 months, and they're rethinking their whole operations and equipment approach. They're small enough where they don't have a lot of stores to renovate, but this owner's already going like, "We probably need to start
[00:09:46] thinking about robots. And, how are we going to be serving?" And that's been out there for awhile, that's not new. Flippy, the burger flipper or whatever, we've seen that video before, but having this idea, this notion of really rethinking [00:10:00] the labor model, that's percolating down to the smallest and youngest of chains. Those chains weren't necessarily young, but they're in an expansion mode,
[00:10:08] so they're not huge, but they're really growing, and just seeing how that's manifesting itself in technology adoption and all of the different channels in which it goes, that'll touch chains from CRM-loyalty, ordering POS to how they manufacture products, how they build products on the line,
[00:10:26] so it's going to have wide-ranging implications and those chains that figure it out quickest will be the ones that are best visits and for success. You don't have to be a giant chain to figure it out and adopt it, you just got to figure out what's right for you.
[00:10:39] Jenifer Kern: [00:10:39] Actually, some of the smaller ones can move faster. So the one that you're referencing how you said there was one of the smaller chains you work with, how many locations are they or?
[00:10:47] Lidija Davidson: [00:10:47] Yeah. They just have a few right now,
[00:10:49] Jenifer Kern: [00:10:49] Okay.
[00:10:50] Okay, well, that's, I mean,
[00:10:52] Lidija Davidson: [00:10:52] Yeah.
[00:10:52] Jenifer Kern: [00:10:52] I don't know. I'm really glad to hear, that's refreshing to hear because the fact that they're rethinking, they're that small and they're [00:11:00] still rethinking their whole operations model is impressive because this is something that we've been talking about for the last two years, even pre-pandemic we were talking about this is, and our starting point is a little bit closer to the tech-side of things, but still, the way that chains approach
[00:11:17] their technology stack and then think about their operations from that standpoint and from then connecting to marketing, we believe it needs to change drastically. You talked about the "Tale of Two Cities" and the complexity that's involved and it's not easy, right?
[00:11:31] It's not easy to do those things and the larger the chain, the harder it is to make, like you said, the pivots, but the fact that they're rethinking it is good stuff. Those larger chains, like you said, they've added all this stuff on in the pandemic. They added all that technology on, which is great,
[00:11:49] but now my analogy is, it's like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the larger the chain you are the more leaning and complex it is. And so, we talk a lot about the [00:12:00] unified experience. We talk a lot about creating stronger connections with not just your guests, but your employees and your internal operating teams,
[00:12:07] and so, I'd love to hear, with some of the customers that you're working with, own opinion too, what is the next thing they need to do? The ones that either have the "Leaning Tower of Pisa" or the ones that are smaller and looking to shift really quickly? What are some of the targeted things that you're helping them do to continue that evolution?
[00:12:26]Lidija Davidson: [00:12:26] It's exactly what you're talking about. It's connecting all of the dots together. Some chains have done this better than others, but a lot of them, they do operate their functions collaboratively, but often in silos, and one of the organizations I've worked with, they did a really good job of thinking of an approach
[00:12:47] and they did this big initiative every year where they got all of the functions together and they thought about, it came from marketing, like, "What marketing problem are we solving this year?" But then they thought [00:13:00] about it holistically, so it wasn't just marketing and, "Now let's have everybody go execute this new product or this new product platform or this new menu aspect or this new customer service platform."
[00:13:09] It was, "How does this initiative impact operations? How does this impact training? How does it impact financially? How does it impact our technology, our digital solution? How do we roll it out to the customers?" So they went a step further and they thought about how to connect all of the dots across all of the different functions, which then helps them, from a brand perspective, deliver the brand across all of its different touch points.
[00:13:35] We were talking about, what are the words on the box that comes in from the distribution center for the ingredients so that when the employees are taking it in it's reinforcing whatever particular message in that particular case it had to do with ingredients and quality and freshness, but it's reinforcing that idea
[00:13:54] all the way through to supply chain and upstream even further? The next step [00:14:00] and the next evolution is really connecting the dots across all aspects of an organization and making sure that, from employees, from hiring, from training to, here's another example, thinking about
[00:14:13] menu and menu boards and simplicity, so the small chain that's thinking about their operations model, and are they going to look at robotics, sooner rather than later, for example? We're working with them to help them streamline their menu. So, they have had a very large, very cumbersome menu,
[00:14:30] and so we've solely streamlined, focused it in, narrowed it in, really honed in on what the menu vision is. The first step was a consumer-facing, "What's the menu vision, what's the brand vision for the menu and the products and the ingredients?"
[00:14:42] And now it's, "How are we going to operationalize them? What equipment is needed? What does that mean?" We removed a whole platform of products because it was very hard. It slowed down their speed of service. They gained two minutes of efficiency off of an item that was, I want to say, 5% of their sales, so really rethinking [00:15:00] it.
[00:15:00] So, it's consumer-driven, consumer-led, but the biggest impact is going to be back-of-house. What are the cook-platforms? How is the information going to get relayed to the people in the back-of-house that are making the products? What are they going to be making? What ingredients are they going to be using?
[00:15:15] How are they prepping the ingredients? How is it cooked? How is it stored? How is it held? And then, the packaging. It's taking the ideas of menu-simplicity and realizing the gains in the kitchen, and making it easier because it all comes back to the labor shortage. The easier you make things in the back-of-house, the either you are more likely to retain people because they don't have to work as hard.
[00:15:37] It's not as cumbersome and awkward, and they don't have to memorize 80-different-million product-builds to make products, so they're going to be faster. It's going to be easier or you can get by with fewer employees if that's the situation you find yourself in. So, it's really thinking through and having a 360-holistic approach, from the technology through to the
[00:15:57] Jenifer Kern: [00:15:57] Yeah.
[00:15:58] Lidija Davidson: [00:15:58] quick equipment.
[00:15:59] Jenifer Kern: [00:15:59] Yeah. You're [00:16:00] reminding me, when I had Jonathan Ralkin on from Chipoltle, he said, "There's 150 touchpoints across the restaurant-ecosystem, forget just technology, all the other touchpoints that you're talking about and exchanges that happen, whether it's through the manufacturing and the food coming in and what's on the box, and all those things,
[00:16:19] so there's so many ways for breakages and for misconnections, like we're talking about. It's super complex. It can be super complex, but there are ways, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on, what are the ways that you bring the brand in? I love the example of the words on the box that the employee's reading, you know?
[00:16:37] But, what are the ways that brand can be used at restaurants today and where we are in the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic to create that really strong connection, not just with the guests through improving technology and things like that, but also internally with training?
[00:16:51] Because I think I'm sounding very opinionated today, but I think that the employees are under-trained at a lot of these places. They're not [00:17:00] well-trained and — I eat mostly, like I said, fast-casual. I love the bowls and the salads and the speed that you've been talking about, but it's dumbfounding to me how cranky they are and just not customer service-oriented,
[00:17:13] and it comes back to training and to brand. "Are you living your brand mission and vision? Are your employees living that?"
[00:17:22] Lidija Davidson: [00:17:22] Yeah, exactly. You see the chains where they figured it out and they did the training right. I think two of the chains, the large chains that did it well, did it best, and continue to do it are In-N-Out and Chick-fil-A. . I've not worked with either directly, but I've studied them quite a bit for some of my clients
[00:17:39] and Chick-fil-A, from what I understand, again, not having worked there, but from what I understand is, they give their employees a book when they first come on, and these are just high schoolers or young kids, to whatever age they're hiring, but they're teaching young kids even, the whole business,
[00:17:53] so they're giving them the big picture. Not just the brand, but in this case, they're teaching them the business-side of it, which is important, so [00:18:00] it helps them understand why they should care and why what they do affects all the other aspects, how they deliver their customer service.
[00:18:07] I found that particularly insightful and should be replicated throughout the industry, is this training curriculum, and that approaches it, not just from, "How do you assemble the product? How do you hand it out to the customer?" — but, for them, it was all aspects of the business in that training.
[00:18:25] But yeah, I think at the end of the day, if you, as a brand, have really figured out what your brand stands for, what sets it apart, what's your true north? If you know what that is very clearly and can define it succinctly — I've seen brands with paragraphs for their brand positioning — and no employee, whether you're in corporate or in the field is ever going to be able to remember and really take that in and live it and breathe it,
[00:18:51] so define it succinctly and clearly in a way that a brand new hire, straight out of high school comes in — summer [00:19:00] job, and was only there for the summer or whatever vacation period that they're in — if they can take it and learn it and understand it and play it back, not just in words, but in how they behave,
[00:19:10] so it goes back, like I said, to the training. If you identify it first and know it, and then you can start embedding it throughout the organization. It should be embedded throughout the organization because, just because corporate's got a great new brand vision, that's not going to help anybody —
[00:19:23] that's not going to make its way through to the guests. And one great example is Disneyland. Whether you're on the West Coast or whatever coast you're on, most people have been to one of the Disney-theme parks, and they're all about magical guest experiences and they deliver this in a bazillion different ways,
[00:19:40] but one of the things that I always tell my customers is — my clients is, they went so far as to brand their employees. The employees in the parts are cast members. They're not employees, they're not staff, they're not team members, they're cast members, so it was a very intentional way to continue [00:20:00] that brand essence and filter it through.
[00:20:02] Even as they go in to work, they have a different mindset. They're thinking like, "Okay, so I'm leaving everything else behind, leaving it in the car and I'm walking in and I'm putting on my cast member persona, and today I'm going to be —" not that they all dress up as the characters, but, "I'm going to be in my role, delivering this brand through these magical experiences."
[00:20:20] It's taking it to that level of detail. Not saying that everybody has to go give their employees a whole new brand title; this is just a great example of how to really take it through to all of the different touch points, as you say.
[00:20:32] Jenifer Kern: [00:20:32] And again, I think restaurants are ready for that. Let's not call them "waiters" and "waitresses". Let's find some new names, let's get creative. Let's have fun. Let's have fun. I think that's what's been missing. It's a lot of work working — when I had to work at KFC in the UK - when I got to work at KFC UK, I had to certify as a shift leader. I had to work three weeks in a restaurant and certainly they had to sign me off.
[00:20:53] Lidija Davidson: [00:20:53] Yes, "Lidija has demonstrated that she is able to lead a shift," and it's really hard work. There's a lot we ask [00:21:00] our restaurant-team members to do: to memorize, to learn a lot of responsibility, a lot of food safety issues. How do we bring the fun back into it? One grade,
[00:21:10] like I always think about when I think about culture in a restaurant, is this — one of the franchisees is a Taco Bell; when I worked there, every year he was Franchisee of the Year voted in by his team members, not because he had the largest organization - he didn't buy any stretch of the imagination, but he treated all of his employees like family. They created this great culture in the restaurants — they did picnics together, they did pizza parties, they closed the restaurant so that they could take time-off together, and he really treated every single - he knew all of his employees. So, as a franchise owner of, I can't remember, he had a couple of different markets and 30, 40 restaurants —
[00:21:44] he knew every single employee by name.
[00:21:46] Jenifer Kern: [00:21:46] I love that.
[00:21:47] Lidija Davidson: [00:21:47] It's definitely that. Not every employee there was perfect, they had issues. They didn't make every single hire correctly, but they treated them all really well — family scholarships for employees before that was a popular thing to do. Creating that culture, having fun with [00:22:00] them - made that a fun place to work,
[00:22:01] so I think that's also something that's missing as we think about how we're going to get past this current labor crisis, labor shortage.
[00:22:08] Jenifer Kern: [00:22:08] Yeah, it's a really good point, right? We've all been in our houses for a little over a year, pretty shut down on — depending where you are, but pretty shut down for the most part and just laughing again and having fun and remembering — a lot of my
[00:22:21] very brilliant marketing guests have talked about this — remembering the reason why people go out to eat, and eat at your establishment is because it's an occasion and it's a treat, and so, treat them like they're on a special occasion, even if, like you said, it's a bird, the two you mentioned, in-N-Out and Chick-fil-A — they're passing chicken sandwiches and burgers at a window most of the time.
[00:22:40] You might not think it's an occasion, but it is for us. It's an occasion now, especially now.
[00:22:45] Lidija Davidson: [00:22:45] Especially.
[00:22:45] Jenifer Kern: [00:22:45] We're coming out and this isn't, we're not used to doing this every day, every week, like we used to all the time. And so, that brand and earning the right to that guest and being honored that they chose you over the other options [00:23:00] and treating them in that way —
[00:23:00] I think a lot of people are just feeling so strongly about that today. You talked about — I really appreciate the reminder about the concise, "Less is more with the words. Marketers, pay attention."
[00:23:15] Lidija Davidson: [00:23:15] Oh, there's so much we want to tell people.
[00:23:17] Jenifer Kern: [00:23:17] Yes. Yes. And I'm living this right now. Like I said, "We're we're gonna do this," and everybody's like, "Jen, there's too many words on the page. Cut them down." It's tough, and that's when the team aspect comes in, but I love the example you gave of your mission and vision, just a few words, your core values, a few words,
[00:23:31] and how Disney embodies that and the importance of restaurants bringing that retail aspect into, those best practices, and to this industry now. I had to think back to an example: I was in the kitchen with my son the other day — he works for Life Time gym— and one of his friends' got a promotion and he was like, "Dad, I can't believe I didn't get that promotion because I embodied the mission of this company."
[00:23:54] He spewed out the three different core values that are in their mission statement. So, back to your example of giving them the [00:24:00] book that Chick-fil-A does, he got some sort of training, I'm not sure what it was and he's, since he was a teenager been working in retail like this, and so anyone can do it, right?
[00:24:08] If it's simple, clean — and I'm not just counting my son's ability to do things like that, but yeah, teenage boy. But, I'd love to understand more about your process. So here you are. You're this awesome female entrepreneur. I want to talk about that too — so much to talk about, all the things.
[00:24:23] You're a brand expert and brand is important today, as always — but I think people have woken up to realize how much more important it is. I'd love to hear about your process. How do you help these restaurants through the brand, the rebrand — wherever they are in that brand process? What's your secret sauce?
[00:24:41] Who do you turn to for help in terms of experts and influencers?
[00:24:45] Lidija Davidson: [00:24:45] Yep. So I think the secret lies within the organization, they just haven't figured out how to get it out of their collective knowledge. So my process is not that I come in and I write it for them — my [00:25:00] process is that I come in and I pull it out of the people that are already working there because they know the brand,
[00:25:05] they've been there. They're the experts. They have it all in their subconscious, if anything. Yeah, they might've had different brand positionings, and that's one thing that I did want to mention is, some brands do it really well, but time fades some of the best intentions,
[00:25:19] so it's something that brands need to come back to at time and again, and revisit, and sometimes update, and sometimes just blow the dust off and remember what they're standing for and what they're trying to accomplish. But the process, really, is working with the key experts, and for the key marketing people, a pull-in operations people, because field, especially because they're out there working with customers every day,
[00:25:42] so they have that on-the-ground experience, so I love to bring in operators because they are the ones that are living the brand. We always talk about, "Marketing sits in this ivory tower, inside the building or inside our white ivory-tower homes for the last year," but operators are out there in the field and I always [00:26:00] encourage marketing people to get out there and get in the restaurants. You get out of the office, get out of your home office, stop working from home, get into the restaurants, now that we can — especially, and just spend time with the team members, with customers, really get the feeling of what it's like out there. I pulled together the marketing folks, I put together operations, training, whoever the right people in the organization, it varies from organization to organization — finance definitely plays a role because they have impact supply chain, so, whoever the key people are in an organization I'll put together and we'll do a couple of workshops. The workshops present stimulus to help get all of the different ideas out, so it's just creative talking, different stimulus to get words down, and then it's synthesis — so, it's looking for the trends in the words and what are the clusters of ideas coming together.
[00:26:45] So that's the part of that I do is get all the words out, get everything out of these people's great minds about the brand and then start looking at themes. What are the themes that are emerging from all of the different things that have been said in these workshops
[00:26:57] and start clustering them and identifying them [00:27:00] and then start massaging those teams? And again, it's not something I do all by myself. I come back to the experts and a core group of people and we workshop, but we work it together and we write and we rewrite, and then we shop it around the organization, "Is this making sense for the brand?"
[00:27:13] And it is making sense. "Does it make more sense like this?" So it's really getting a feel because, like I said, they're the ones that know the brand, they live the brand, and I'm just guiding them through the process and making sure they're thinking about key things, "Who's the consumer in all of this?
[00:27:26] What's the differentiating point to all of this? It's great that you might have this fantastic statement, but if it's a statement that five other brands can make, then that's not strong enough. Let's find something to differentiate your brand with." That's the role that I play, the shepherd of the brand through this process,
[00:27:42] and just making sure some of these key things are thought about and integrated, and then we finalize it and then we figure out how to embed it in the organization. So, what are all of the different touch points that are going to need to be thought through? How to roll this out?
[00:27:59] How are we going to [00:28:00] roll it out to the field? How are we going to roll it out internally? How are we going to roll it out through products? How are we going to roll it out through merchandising? So, it's working with the different functions to see how it impacts it, and in what timeframe. You can't do it all at once.
[00:28:13] It can be overwhelming, thinking through from a 360-degree perspective, working with the different function leaders to figure out, "How is this going to impact, how is this going to change what you do and how is it going to keep things the same?" So, some things may not change, some things might absolutely change too.
[00:28:30] Like we said earlier, going back to words on the boxes that come inside the restaurant, "Are there things that need to be changed to reflect this new brand vision, this new brand purpose that we just came — we didn't come up with it, it existed in the ethos of the organization,
[00:28:43] we just formalized it and wrote it down on a piece of paper and made it so that everybody can know it and live it and breathe it." So, it's identifying it, crafting it, putting it down on paper and then really working through to figure out how to bring it to life. It's different for every [00:29:00] organization, how that happens and how it gets embedded.
[00:29:02] Jenifer Kern: [00:29:02] Yeah, that's such a great process, first of all, and such great advice. I love how you're talking about this is what I found to be true as well. The brand already exists in the company, right? It's there. Our job as marketers is really to tease it out, and just put some words to it,
[00:29:17] but it's already there. We're not, quote-unquote, "creating the brand." The brand's there, just bringing it to life. I love how you're talking about that, and there's a lot of things in there that I think are really great takeaways for marketers. I think, the refreshing the brand and there's no set-time period, but it can get stale over time,
[00:29:35] and so, finding ways to bring it back to life, like you talked about and evolve it — I think as marketers, a lot of times we think, "Okay, we did the brand, it's done. Next thing." — It needs to be looked at as more evergreen and constantly evolving sort-of-thing. Yeah, I was back in the day,
[00:29:51] like, "Your brand should always stay." Maybe your "Why?" statement, your center of the Simon Sinek Circle and your "Why?" Yeah, that should stay the same, but the "How?" and the "What?" [00:30:00] especially the "What?" Yeah. Yeah. Our world is changing far too quickly to not, and that's what I was talking about earlier, being flexible and adaptable — how you deliver things. If we think about the industry, I think there's been two shifts in our service paradigm.
[00:30:14] Lidija Davidson: [00:30:14] The first was a drive-through back in the forties. In-N-Out invented the drive-through. That was the first big shift in how we deliver our products to our customers. And then it's been business as usual since then. Apps are — the pandemic really got the industry focused on a different way —
[00:30:33] it was coming, but it was coming slowly. With the technology and apps and delivery, third-party delivery, curbside like this is the next evolution chains are really rethinking their footprints because of this. Big restaurants are scaling back and making smaller restaurants so that their back-of-house is bigger,
[00:30:49] their front-of-house is smaller. They're getting people through. It's really causing people to rethink it, but it's this shift in how we deliver our same products, [00:31:00] for the most part still food, how we deliver our food to our customers. That's, I think, the big shift so that "What?" and the "How?" are, from a brand perspective, the two things that are going to be changing the most, but hopefully your "Why?" stays the same.
[00:31:14] Jenifer Kern: [00:31:14] Yeah. Let's talk about those shifts. Let's help our audience prepare and think about what some of those newer shifts are, like you mentioned. Back in the day it was a drive-through, then it was delivery and now we've got a host of things happening, a smaller footprint in the front-of-house, new, updated footprints, which I'm really excited about seeing some of the new concepts and store designs coming out.
[00:31:34] You said, "A larger back-of-house", which I'd like to hear a little bit more about, but what are some of the other shifts you think that are happening or innovative things that people can be doing to force the shift?
[00:31:44] Lidija Davidson: [00:31:44] Yeah. I mean it, and again, not all of this is new, I just think the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of it. Even kiosk ordering, it's all of the different ways that a customer can get the brand's products, and some are doing it better. You place [00:32:00] your order, you walk in — for the ones that don't have the pull-ins;
[00:32:04] if you're still walking into a restaurant and pick it up — you've been trained to already go straight to the shelves where your bag is, that your name is on there, so you grab it. Other chains, for example, there's a fantastic sandwich chain. They probably have 8 or 10 different locations near me.
[00:32:19] Love their food. Ordered it, went to go pick it up. Not clear on where to go, because I did it all on the app, I ordered online on the app, and I'm looking around and I don't see anywhere where to go to pick up. So I'm like, "I guess I have to stand in line. This is basic stuff. They should have figured this out already."
[00:32:39] So I stood in line and waited and I'm like, "Oh, they are right over there, in the corner of the restaurant, not marked," and so, you had to do a lot of extra work as a customer, so you're just thinking through how you're going to make it as easy as possible for your guests to get their food.
[00:32:55] It's the less frictionless — one of those buzzwords has been around for a bit — but how do you make it as easy [00:33:00] as possible? For each restaurant that might be a little bit different. This particular chain is probably not going to put kiosks in because there are more of a sit-down place and they have a beer counter, like a bar, everything,
[00:33:10] so they have a different model and the ambiance is really important, but, for the people that come in and want to just get takeout, takeaway and get their food quickly, they need to make sure they're making it easy. Another chain near me, a Mexican food chain near me, they've done a great job.
[00:33:25] They've marked it very obviously, like, "Skip the line if you order ahead." And so, it's really thinking through, putting yourself in the shoes of the customer and people do that, but I don't know that they go see how other people are doing it, other chains are doing it and really learning what's easy for people; people make assumptions
[00:33:43] and so understanding, looking at competitors to see what's working, what's not working and just trying it out for themselves. So yeah, so I think those are some of the things that are needing to be evaluated, and how you bring all of that to life, whether it's a kiosk, whether it's curbside pickup, whether [00:34:00] it's some new technology that we don't even know about today that's going to come out,
[00:34:03] that's going to make things easier, how do you adopt, how do you customize it for your particular situation?
[00:34:08] Jenifer Kern: [00:34:08] All right. You gave me a soft bomb. I don't like to talk about Qu. I mean I do, but I don't on the podcast, but, "New technology, you might not know about Qu. We have a platform."
[00:34:19] Online...
[00:34:20] Lidija Davidson: [00:34:20] Not on purpose. I'm glad. I'm glad I did that for you then.
[00:34:24]Jenifer Kern: [00:34:24] Thank you, thank you. Now, but yeah, I can't say enough about this.
[00:34:27] When you were talking, here's the shift that I'm thinking about based on what you just said. So you used to — 'cause your example of walking into a large restaurant, that probably was empty, to find your bag and you couldn't find it; I've had the same scenarios. It's a bigger chain actually, but because they had such a larger real-estate footprint in their store, you walk in and it's so empty and vacuous,
[00:34:51] that it's not obvious. I think Chipotle's, they were ahead of their time, right? They always seem to have smaller footprints, and so everyone knows where the shelf is, where their bag is. You walk into some of these other [00:35:00] places and there's nothing worse than walking in there
[00:35:04] and the employees looking at you behind the counter, "What do you want?" There's nothing worse than that and that has happened to me way too many times. There's a smoothie place near me and I ordered on their — actually, I don't go there that much anymore because I was ordering on the mobile app,
[00:35:19] I walk in, and it's very small — you walk in and they just look up like, "Are you here —" but here's the shift, "Are you here to order? Place in order?" And you touch on it, "Or, are you here to pick up an order?" We know the placing the digital orders is going to be more frequent. It just is, no matter how you're doing it and the pickup, I'd love to hear your — I don't know if you have data — but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
[00:35:40] The whole pickup, picking up orders, it's gonna stay a main channel for a while.
[00:35:46] Lidija Davidson: [00:35:46] Absolutely, and probably get bigger because as things open up, people are so excited to get back to restaurants. There's going to be this big surge of people that'll come in — we are already seeing it — there's a big surge of pent-up [00:36:00] demand for just being out and about, out of our homes and going into restaurants, eating in restaurants.
[00:36:04] So there will be that, but I think life will get back to normal. We're going to get back to our crazy busy lives and the eating-in is going to be common. But I think this behavior of being able to get our food in more convenient ways than we used to, this convenience aspect has grown and we're all about convenience and making this easy and things easy and fast.
[00:36:25] So yes, people are going to want to do that and it's going to continue growing, and the chains that are gonna win are going to be the ones that do it best, that offer the best convenience to their customers. And yeah, for sure.
[00:36:35] Jenifer Kern: [00:36:35] Yeah, there you go. Great takeaway. "How do your customers want to get the food? Make it as easy and convenient as possible for them." Okay, so, what else do you want to talk about? We're going to get ready to wrap up here. Is there anything that you want to — I always give people to have some but, before we get to that, are there any other trends,
[00:36:55] re-invention things that you see going on that you want to throw out there for the [00:37:00] benefit of folks listening?
[00:37:04] Lidija Davidson: [00:37:04] I think we've already talked about some of that. I think people coming back to the restaurant, but then they're going to be going back to a lot of their old behaviors as well. Simplification of menus and this notion of convenience, I don't think it's a fad,
[00:37:17] I think it's going to be a trend; it's not just for the customer, it's for the restaurant too — is making sure your operations are set up in a way that you can provide a fantastic experience. It all has to be about a great experience to your customers, but you can't do that unless you're set up to do it in a fairly simple and straightforward way.
[00:37:38] If you have very complex operations, that you have 8,000 menu items with 8,000 bills, that's not going to help you. So, really getting back to this — not overly simple —but simple and clear and easy to execute; it's all about taking that customer experience and, just, really making it as great. It's retail.
[00:38:00] [00:37:59] Experience is everything. The food has to be delicious, it has to be hot. So there are some key-mandatories. It has to be fast. It has to be convenient to people because, with very few exceptions — people aren't gonna wait in long lines. There's a couple of brands that
[00:38:12] will win on that, but the vast majority of all the other brands, they have to be fast and convenient. And so, simplicity is important, and I think that's what this pandemic has taught us is, especially as we come out of it with this labor shortage, keeping things easy for your restaurant teams so that they can deliver the best product and the best experience to your customers.
[00:38:30] Jenifer Kern: [00:38:30] Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let me shift a little bit here. I'd love to talk about you and your career. I originally started this season two — focused on female leadership and celebration of International Women's Month which was in March — but here we are in May, but that's okay,
[00:38:44] I still want to keep that going. We don't need to tell our stories. I'd love to hear a little bit about your career, over the time you've been in the workforce and you've been in-house and now you have your own business and you're an entrepreneur, things you learned along the way, advice you have for other [00:39:00] women in the field?
[00:39:02] Lidija Davidson: [00:39:02] Yeah. One of the things that's been hard for me that I would say, for people not to do is — you don't have to get it all a hundred percent exactly. When I started my business, I'm like, "I'm not going to do until like my website's perfect,
[00:39:14] my marketing materials are perfect." That could be years before you get it, quote-unquote, "perfect" because you're going to figure out as you go what's working, what's not working. So, when I started my business, I first thought "innovation", 'cause restaurants, new products-innovation is the key,
[00:39:29] and I went out and I did all my networking and I talked about innovation and people are like, "Yeah, I ain't good at that." So then I started talking about brand, building a brand and all of a sudden I had clients out my ears, I had more clients that needed, that wanted to do this,
[00:39:46] than I knew that I could handle, almost. So I think the key takeaway — and now it's come back full circle, so then innovation came back. So it's been the cycle for me. I thought I was going to be all about innovation and then the other part of my corporate [00:40:00] experience, the brand building, actually ended up being more popular with my prospective clients.
[00:40:06] So it's, it was, I said earlier too, about being flexible and adaptable; so what you want to do may not be quite what's right at the moment, so knowing that you have other skill sets, that you can fall back on other aspects of your — if you're launching a business, you may think you're going to be 80% of this and 20% of that,
[00:40:23] but it might be 50-50 — it just depends on marketplace conditions and they're changing all the time. This notion of flexibility, not necessarily having to get it all a 100% perfect, 80% of the way there is usually good, and I tend to be a perfectionist, so that's really hard for me, but being 80% of the way there is going to get you a lot further than just sitting at home and getting that brand purpose, brand vision that your own personal business is a 100%, 110%. It's better to be out there and just try things. Failure is okay. It really is. There was one year where I made, [00:41:00] I want to say,
[00:41:04] Jenifer Kern: [00:41:04] Two mistakes.
[00:41:05]Lidija Davidson: [00:41:05] no revenue, 15%; so 15% of what I made in corporate, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I shouldn't have done this.
[00:41:11] I should go back to the corporate world. This is going to stop." And that was my shift from innovation to branding. And I was like, "No, you're going to make this work. It's okay. This is going to be fine. You just need to find a different angle." That's when I went and then I'm like, "I'm going to talk about something else.
[00:41:25] I'm going to talk about branding." And then all of a sudden, the doorbell didn't start ringing. So it's away when things get tough, because they will get tough and persevere. If you really want to do this, you'll find a way and just persevering and trying something different,
[00:41:41] because now I do both, now I do both branding and innovation and I love them both. They both are a big part of my business and what I offer, so just — being flexible, not giving up, "It's okay to fail, try something different, something will work."
[00:41:55] Jenifer Kern: [00:41:55] Ah, that's so encouraging. I love it. Thank you for sharing that story. I love it. Love [00:42:00] it. Love it. And are you a solopreneur? Do you bring other people in on your projects?
[00:42:05] Lidija Davidson: [00:42:05] Yes, both. My business is structured, so it's just only me and my business, but I have a whole lot of associates that I work with. A lot of fantastic XCM-people are in the world that are freelancing and from other businesses too, from other brands as well; graphic designers I can bring in; I have menu development and R&D culinary folks I can bring in;
[00:42:23] researchers; we actually do a fair amount of research as part of our offering because I do it collectively with others, but like me, my business, we do offer research services. I bring in research experts to help us. It's a team effort, but I bring in the gig economy. I've been doing the gig economy before it became a thing and bring in different folks for whatever the project needs.
[00:42:45] Jenifer Kern: [00:42:45] Yeah, you're in Cali ahead of the curve with everything. Yeah, I hear ya. I hear ya. That's awesome. I really appreciate your time today, Lidija, and there's just so many nuggets in there. I think you did a little bit of an infomercial, but if you want to do a little bit more of an infomercial about your [00:43:00] company before we wrap and how people can reach you and why and when to reach out, that would be awesome.
[00:43:07] Lidija Davidson: [00:43:07] Sure. Yeah. Thank you for the time and the opportunity for that. My business is Sift, Cipher and Bloom, a cheesy name. Some people think it's a law firm, but the point of it is to tell people what we do. Sifting is the kind of the digging through the insights,
[00:43:19] research, competitive analysis, whatever kind of analysis is needed — the sifting through all the information to really figure out what the opportunity is, again, whether that's brand or innovation, we sift. And then, the second part of that is cipher, which is for finding themes, bringing strategies forward, putting together that the marketing recommendation,
[00:43:40] so at the end of the day my clients businesses will bloom. And so that's the genesis of the name, the Sift, Cipher and Bloom. The best time to reach out to me is before you have a big problem, just as you're having this inkling that something might not quite be right,
[00:43:54] let's have a conversation. It may not be quite right to work with me, but at least we'll have a conversation, so if [00:44:00] you feel like you're getting into a pickle, then we're already ready to jump on board. And so, that could be when brand is not really resonating, you're seeing
[00:44:09] customer losses or people are going to different chains instead of you, for example — and so, some brand issues; you're finding that your true north is not really where your company's headed anymore, or you don't really know if your true north is still really viable, so that's one opportunity —
[00:44:27] good time to think of us. Another time is menu pipeline. If you feel like your menu is challenging your market, and we look at margins, so it's not all just marketing, but we look at margins, prices, the whole gamut on that, and you need to revamp your menu or you're looking at your marketing calendar going, "Gosh, I don't really have enough products to fill the marketing calendar.
[00:44:48] I don't have enough new products or LTS or anything." Pipeline innovation is another big aspect of what we do as well. Those are the times to think of me. Oh, and you said, how to find me — so, linkedIn, "Lidija Davidson", [00:45:00] there's a J in my name, L I D I J A. That's a good way to find me. And then, yeah, "Sift, Cipher and Bloom", searching my website,
[00:45:07] there's not many other companies with those names, is worse than the names, I'm pretty easy to find that way.
[00:45:13] Jenifer Kern: [00:45:13] It's beautiful. It's great. I love it. Thank you so much for your time today, Lidija, and for sharing all of your expertise about brand and all things, restaurants re-invention. I wish you all the best. Everyone, as soon as you need some help with your brand, reach out to Lidija Davidson, she's awesome,
[00:45:29] and I can tell that you've got the goods, so thank you so much for your time and look forward to getting to know you better.
[00:45:35] Lidija Davidson: [00:45:35] Thank you. Thank you for having me on. This has been fun, really enjoyed it.