Episode 246 / Mark Sandys / Diageo / Chief Innovation Officer
Distilling Future Consumer Behaviours In Bars & Beyond
As Chief Innovation Officer at Diageo, Mark Sandys says he is in charge of “shaping the future of how people socialise.” Beyond simply expanding existing “liquids in bottles,” his role looks at consumer trends that can apply to any industry and uses AI and data analysis to seize the overarching developments that will influence purchasing behaviour.
The Importance of Zooming In & Out
Mark’s top data driven marketing tip is about using a zoom lens to delve into data, but also to see the bigger picture. As he puts it: “the danger about being in a job like mine is you're detached from reality, and you live in an ivory tower. So you need to find those ways of knowing what's really happening.”
This involves social listening, but also interacting with people in “real life” in pubs and bars. But, of course, if you’re looking at detail too much, you may miss the bigger trends. This is why it’s important to look at overview reports and culture views to balance it all out.
Setting the Right Priorities
Mark’s best investment of his energy and time has been planning out his day in such a way that exercise is booked in first. “Your week is always busy. If you plan in your time to exercise last, you’re never going to do it.”
His advice is to look at the times where your energy works best for different parts of your work, and adapt your schedule to this. In his case, that’s a break for exercise at 11am which offers him a moment to refresh and boosts his productivity.
Technology Will Blur the Lines Between B2C and B2B
Backed and supported by the Diageo Foresight System, the Distilled report maps out the future of consumer trends with the help of AI to see what are the fastest growing areas to focus on. It’s open to all and captures trends such as: neo-hedonism, expanded reality, betterment brands, conscious wellbeing, and collective belonging.
Find out how Diageo seize on these trends with their brands, why they share their findings with the world, and more about data driven marketing with Mark, on the latest podcast episode.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Mark Sandys 0:00
There are times when you've got to get under the skin of the detail. The danger about being in a job like mine is you're detached from reality you live in an ivory tower, so you need to find those ways of knowing what's really happening.
Tom Ollerton 0:17
Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative, the creative effectiveness ad tech platform. And this is a weekly show about the future of data driven marketing. And every week I get to interview one of our industry's leaders about their vision for this industry. And today is unbelievably special. I'm sat here in their beautiful and serene Halcyon bar at Diageo one HQ, which is a lovely bar and sort of conference sort of space on top of their building on great Marlborough Street. And I've been invited here by Mark Sandys who is Chief Innovation Officer. So Mark, thank you. And for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, can you give us a bit of background?
Mark Sandys 0:55
Thanks very much for having me on the podcast on so my name is Mark Sandys. I am now Chief Innovation Officer at Diageo. I've worked for Diageo for a long time I was graduate trainee back in 1997. So started actually in Diageo, the day after Princess Diana died to put it in its full historical context. And I've worked in a number of different roles around the world for the Asia mostly in marketing and commercial roles beginning in London, but then went off on an odyssey that's taken me to Dublin, to Russia, to Singapore, and then back to Dublin, again, which is where I still live. And the nature of my role now is an absolutely fascinating one. I look after innovation across all of our categories, all of our countries, for now, and for the future as well. And I tend to describe my accountability, what my job is as shaping the future of the way that people socialize.
Tom Ollerton 1:54
Just casual, just yeah, so shaping the way the people socialize, right? So help me understand the remit a bit better. So is that actually new product development, as well as marketing, as well as like, on an off trade? What's the breadth of that?
Mark Sandys 2:12
Yeah, by setting out that vision of being a bit of a higher order division, one step further away from selling liquids in bottles, what we're trying to do is broaden our scope of innovation. Now, of course, a lot of what we do is finding the new whiskies, the new ways that people are going to be enjoying tequila in the future. But also, I think, if if we're only focused on quite a narrow view of what our category does, it can ignore some of really the sort of the bigger spaces that our brands can step into. And so we've introduced a team that we call the breakthrough innovation team. And their job is all about innovation. That's not liquids in bottles, it's about platforms, not products, we call it. And that includes things like understanding how AI can help to predict people's flavor choices to help them choose the right whiskey, for example, or even seeing the how the future of our category through areas like non alcoholic versions of our brands is going to evolve out into the future.
Tom Ollerton 3:21
So what would you say is the best investment of your own time, energy or money in your own career?
Mark Sandys 3:31
It's a great question that and, you know, the, the word that I connected to the most from from that was energy. And it reminded me of a session that I did with the Guinness team that I was part of before stepping into this role. based in Dublin, we actually went to Munster rugby, who were they were doing a sort of session with business leaders where you spend the day with their nutritionist, their sports psychologist, their strength and conditioning team. And, and it's all about trying to bring sort of high performance sport into the workplace. And I'm a big rugby fan. I've always been quite active. I found the whole thing fascinating. But there was one thing that I took from that. I think it was seven years ago that we did, we did it. And I've done it every week since then. And what the advice was from actually one of the Munster players was, your week is always busy. And if you plan in your time to exercise last, if you plan in the other stuff first you're never going to do it and that was my life beforehand. I was always thinking, I must get out for a run or I must go to the gym and then never quite getting there. And what I've done since that session is every Monday morning, I plan out when it's going to be my exercise time during the week ahead, my favorite exercise time is to do it at 11 o'clock in the morning, I always start the day pretty early, I'm at my desk by seven, I'll do a few hours work. 11 o'clock is a great time to sort of get out and freshen up and wake up a little bit. And the difference that it's made to just kind of how much energy I've got me feeling like I'm at my best all of the time. And it's something I always talk about with my team. Firstly, to remind everyone, you've got a bit more control over your diary than you think you have. So make sure you're setting out your day in a way that works for you understand when you're at your best or when your best thinking time is or what's that time of the day when you're quite good at just getting through all the admin stuff. And make sure that you structure things around that. And what works for me won't work for other people. Everyone's got different responsibilities, different, you know, rhythms of the day when they're when they're feeling better or worse. But just be choice-full about how you structure your day, to make sure you're at your best more often.
Tom Ollerton 6:05
Yeah, I love that. And I'm the same, like I think for me, a lot of it is about your belief in yourself, right. And one of my affirmations every day is like you love exercise you love finding new excuses to be active and to do things. You know, daughter started school recently. And it's like right now my wife doesn't work. So I'm going to do the school run and literally to run now I push the pram and then run back. But it's like always, like always looking for that extra bit you can do.
Mark Sandys 6:30
I got overtaken on a park run by someone pushing a double buggy recently, like, honestly, as an aging moment, it was it was hard.
Tom Ollerton 6:38
So one thing, not so much on the topic of the podcast, but I don't know if it's all business, but certainly our industry, there's only one I've got that much experience of is sort of fixated with high performance sport, you know, like, I can't remember the name of the guy, but it was the marginal gains thing in 2012 Olympics. Yeah. And you listen, I think, yeah, marginal gains you coming back in the office, like he's right, marginal gains, and then someone drops 150 Slide PowerPoint. And obviously, there's a lot of chaos in sport. But it's like, right, you've got to get more numbers on the board than that other team. Right that. So I wonder how would you stop yourself being sort of sucked into a bit of a red herring, because Olympic cycling is not marketing at all. But yet, we're sort of drawn to it thinking yeah, marginal gains. Yeah, you know, so. So I'm curious to know, like how you synthesize two very different worlds in a way that's actually useful to your team, other than just puffing up everyone with some inspirational stories about things that went well?
Mark Sandys 7:32
I think when I was younger, I was fully on that kind of sports storytelling drug and using that all the time. And I suppose one of the things I've learned over the time is some people really connect with that, and some people really don't. And so actually learning to find different ways of looking outside of our business to learn things that we can draw on, is something that I've really learned from. Occasionally, when I'm here in London, I like going around the Royal Academy of Arts, and occasionally just sort of looking at exhibitions. And again, just finding a different perspective somewhere, that you're free from your desk, you're free from that 150, page, PowerPoint. And suddenly, you know what it's like, your brain just makes different connections, and you start thinking about things that otherwise wouldn't have occurred to you. And so it can happen in lots of different ways. But I think that importance of giving yourself space to think in different ways is, that's what's most important.
Tom Ollerton 8:36
Yeah, anecdotally, that's the joy of doing this podcast, right? So you're forcing yourself to see the world from someone else's position every week, which is has a kind of similar job.
So what is your most often given a bit of data driven marketing advice? So whether you're coaching or mentoring or talking on stage, what is that bit of advice, you find yourself bubbles up to the surface most often that you share that, you know, works?
Mark Sandys 9:06
I think my piece of data driven marketing advice I give most often is zoom in and zoom out. And what I mean by that is, there are times when you've got to get under the skin of the detail, really know what's happening, and really see what are those small things that make a difference? And you can do that in the data. Like I've always been one to love getting into the p&l or getting into Nielsen data. And you can also do it in small ways. Like, I've always started the day by looking on social media and just searching, hashtag Guinness, hashtag Smirnoff. Just seeing what people are saying. And of course, it gets to you in the end, you read it in your social listening reports and so on, but there's something really immediate about seeing new things that are popping up and seeing the way that people put our brands into into their lives as well. And so that zooming in into those details really makes a difference. And I also think you can zoom in, in real life to like, I am a little bit old school, but I really like walking around the pubs, bars and restaurants where are our brands are displayed. Doing that in Lagos as well as in London. And, and, and staying in touch with the the salespeople have taken you around there to hear what they're what they're seeing, because the danger about being in a job like mine is you're detached from reality, and you live in an ivory tower. So you need to find those ways of knowing what's really happening. But of course, if you're only zooming in, then you can be myopic, and just, you know, not seeing the bigger picture. And therefore, actually finding mechanisms and ways of zooming out to a much bigger picture. So sort of out out of our business, either into big commentator or consumer overviews, or even just a sense of what's happening in culture, outside of our business, allows you to then connect up the small details that you zoom into, with that sense of a bigger picture that can give you perspective,
Tom Ollerton 11:28
I love the idea of you sitting there in your pants in the morning looking at what people are saying. That's fantastic story. So we're gonna move on now, I would love to know more about that maybe another time, but your shiny new object is the Distilled report. So can you tell people listen to this podcast, specifically, what is the purpose? What is the distilled report and maybe how they can get hold of it?
Mark Sandys 11:51
Distilled is a consumer trends report that we've pulled together at Diageo using something that we call the foresight system. So it's using AI generated ways of exploring what are the fastest growing and most important macro trends for the future, looking at the way in which consumer behavior is going to change. This not necessarily related to the way that they consume our brands, but is much broader than that. And it lays out these five big spaces, that will, we think, most likely ways in which consumer behavior will evolve over say, 5-10 years. But also, then what we try to do is work back from that with ways in which brands can start to leap on that trend, and use it to improve their work. We describe those as different kind of ways into the trends that our brands can use. But we also decided to publish it so that other brand owners can look at it and and that in itself has been a huge learning for us to get that out in the open.
So a couple of things. Why did he share that? Why isn't this sort of like in some, you know, Johnnie Walker safe somewhere in certain floors underground? Why would you share that with industry?
Do you know, it is something that we talked about for a little while, and I'm really pleased that we did take the decision to publish it, because actually, what's happened since then is I've had loads of people getting in contact with me sparking off thoughts of what their brands are doing, partnerships that we could be doing, and different connections to make. And, you know, it's, it's non proprietary, because of the fact that it is much bigger and broader than the space that our brands operate in. So that's why we wanted to put it out there both both to show the kinds of things that we believe in, but also to look for those connections that might sort of serendipitously happen as a result of doing so.
Tom Ollerton 13:59
This episode of the shiny new object podcast is brought to you in partnership with Madfest whether it's live in London or streamed online to the global marketing community, you can always expect the distinctive and daring blend of fast paced content startup innovation pitches and unconventional entertainment from Madfest events, you'll find me causing trouble on stage recording live versions of this podcast and sharing a beer with the nicest and most influential people in marketing. Check it out at www.madfestlondon.com.
Reminds me, you probably know the story better than me, but I think was at the end of the First World War, the US Army and Navy they commissioned this similar sort of report like what's the future of war going to be? Grim topic and they're like, well, it's gonna be nuclear weapons and jet engines, and then it kind of wrote its own future.
Mark Sandys 14:55
Yeah.
Tom Ollerton 14:55
Like they sort of said, well, well, it's all going to be about these two things. Well, we should probably invest in them and You know, though, those happened for good and very bad at times. So is it a bit like that? Are you sort of writing what the future is going to be with this? Because if Diageo say, Mark Sandys says it then, you know, the breweries across the world or distillers across the world, they're gonna go, right? Well, Diageo said, it's going to be about x y Zed that we need to, we need to gear up for that is that and then you've automatically got a headstart on them, because you're already doing it is that is that part of the play?
Mark Sandys 15:24
That is part of the play in the sense of like, I wouldn't overestimate the role that we play in the world, partly what we're doing is trying to see the big trends that are affecting consumers, and therefore how we can react to them and get ahead of them, rather than saying, like we ourselves are creating those big trends. But I'd say one of the most impactful ways that we've used this internally, is actually with our supply teams, our distilleries and breweries all the way around the world. Because, for example, one of the trends is all about Betterment brands, Betterment brands are brands that in some way are making the world a better place. Some in some ways that relates to things, concepts like inclusion and diversity. Another big area is all about sustainability. And therefore figuring out the different ways in which consumers are what consumers are going to expect from our brands, has really big implications on our business model our formats, and therefore the ways that our breweries and canning lines are built. And so to do a session that was all about the future of consumer behavior with our supply teams has been really kind of groundbreaking within Diageo, and has led us to, to make some plans and take some decisions that otherwise we would always have been kind of chasing our tail long,
Tom Ollerton 16:49
Right. I'm now starting to see the value of sharing this because you're kind of raising the tide for the whole industry and leading and inspiring others without sort of conceding any any grounds specifically, so Betterment brands, pushing the diversity and sustainability agenda. Fantastic. So can you tell me about the other four are the macro trends?
Mark Sandys 17:06
Yeah, so for others, they are neohedonism. And that is all about finding the joy in everyday moments, you know, something that I think particularly accelerated through COVID, when some of the normal ways in which we might find joy in our lives were kind of closed off for a little while, people spending time in nature. And post COVID One of the ways we see that playing out is people making the most of those freedoms, get lots of people going on a holiday, we see it in our business in the rise and return of cocktails, you know, people going out and saying, right, I'm going out for a special night out, I'm going to make this count.
Tom Ollerton 17:46
And so what's your cocktail of choice? Quick answer?
Mark Sandys 17:50
Right now, Negroni.
Tom Ollerton 17:52
Just straight up classic. Yeah, brilliant.
Mark Sandys 17:54
But we saw a stat recently that suggests that there are now consumers, more consumers will drink cocktails on a night out then drink wine on night out. And that's a real dynamic of the last few years that's driving driving that. And there are lots of other ways in which that sense of finding joy in our everyday lives. Making every experience matter more, I think is a really well ingrained trend. We also have this other trend called collective belonging. And that's all about how people connect in tribes with a shared belief. And I think one of the most evocative ways that that comes out back to the sport conversation is the power of the passion that Guinness has been able to connect into with the Guinness Six Nations over the past couple of months. Is is such a strong platform for for Guinness, the brand and the occasion and the sport fit together so well. And a similar one, which listeners in the UK might not know about so much. Diageo actually owns one of the most widely supported sports teams in the world. An Indian Premier League cricket team called Royal Challengers Bangalore. And the IPL has been good. I think I'm right in saying the IPL has been going for 16 years. RCB have been hugely well supported in that time. But they've never won it. And in the last few years, we along with some other people have been pushing for a women's league to be introduced in India, and two years ago that was introduced for the first time. And then on Sunday, just gone. RCB won the final. And it was an incredible moment. And of all of the things that we've done in Diageo to promote gender equality either in the business or with our brands. I think this is the thing that had the biggest reach because there were 93 million people that were watching. When RCB won on Sunday.
Tom Ollerton 20:06
Did you go to the game?
Mark Sandys 20:07
I didn't I would have loved to go to the game the atmosphere looks incredible. But now it's what it was live on Sky Sports here in the in back home. So I was watching that.
Tom Ollerton 20:15
And how did the ownership of RCB come around? That's the new ultimate if you own them outright or majority investor?
Mark Sandys 20:22
Yeah, we own them outright we have a whiskey called Royal challenge in in India, so, when our ancestor company USL there in India, which we acquired must have been about 2014 I had established the team when the IPL first started.
Tom Ollerton 20:42
Right I used to be in an innovation lab myself and trends have always got fancy name haven't they: Betterment brands, neohedonism, collective belonging. So what else? What else do we have?
Mark Sandys 20:51
Two more: conscious wellbeing. And that's, that's all about people looking after themselves. But the nature of that is, is really interesting of how that's evolved. Because we see it impacting our business with the phenomenal growth of non alcoholic, for us things like Guinness, 0.0, is, is absolutely flying. But interestingly, we also see it in an area that you might call self treating, or self love. And so actually one of our brands that really benefits from that is Bailey's. It's one of the brands that for us probably had the biggest growth during the COVID period. Because what we were finding were in a particularly tough period, when people were in their homes, the majority of the day, people were looking for a little treat in their lives. And whether that was through baking through treating or just a glass of Bailey's. And we've now seen that really evolve into the post COVID world the way that we work with different treat makers and and trendsetters within the treating world, and then finally expanded reality. So that's all about how the increasingly digital world interacts with our consumer lives. It plays out for us with what's your whiskey that I mentioned that predicts your whiskey choices, based on your food preferences, and consumer conversations. So much of that relates to AI? Is it going to destroy the world? How is it going to impact us? I see and I read a lot about the way that different innovators and brands and marketers are working with AI. And I feel like all of us are expected and need to be experimenting all the time with different use cases. But we're increasingly finding use cases that we're finding really valuable and proving and starting to scale up as well.
Tom Ollerton 22:57
I think one of the standout presentations in a marketing sense that I saw last year was Benny Lickfett talking at Madfest, I don't know if the deck, or the video came to you at any point, but the kind of the scale and the ambition and the creativity and the intent, but also the honesty I thought was really interesting. I think you guys did something on it was like a Metaverse activation, and no one could get it to work. And it was a bit of a disaster. But no, and there was no sort of like brushing this under the carpet. It was like the carrot is one of the most significant events in in the UK when it comes to marketing. And there was someone on your team, you know, talking about how some link didn't work. Yeah. Which I just thought was fantastically honest and interesting, expanded realities is something I've seen quite a lot of the way that you guys were using Gen AI to kind of come up with the bottle design concepts not to complete them, but just to provoke a creative thought, I thought that was interesting.
Mark Sandys 23:48
And that the cultural impact of that and I mean, cultural in the sense of the dynamic that it has in the in the meeting room or in the workshop is is so powerful, I found with with that example, where what we were doing was suddenly, we'd be having early stage ideas. And rather than waiting to fully formed the idea, and then brief a designer and have all of that normal time that will be in the process. It was a stimulus to further thinking to be saying, right, let's have, we can produce 20 designs of how this might come to life immediately. And that would then spark the creative process. And there's this other area that we've been using as well that we find really powerful that's similar, again, to that sense of what's your whiskey we use. We work with a great partner actually called AI palettes. And what they're able to do is to predict what are going to be the big flavor trends of either next year and then also what are the emerging trends that in kind of three years time are going to be really important. And so we recently had the 2024 view of what are going to be the big trends in flavors. It's so interesting. I've found that since I've heard them, I can't stop seeing them across loads of different categories. But tell me what are the so two big areas, one that they call bloom harvest? So what kind of comes under that?
Like all fancy names Mark?
Yeah, exactly. Okay, hibiscus, Jasmine, lavender. And I see those across lots of different foodstuffs and, and also, within drinks. We've just launched Smirnoff Ice lavender lemonade in, in Australia, and it's boomed. I read a stat that search queries for Smirnoff Ice are up by 12,000% Since we launched it. And then the second one that's really interesting, which is under the heading of savory umami. So there's things like sea salt, I see sea salt, everything at the moment. And, and things like Yuzu and fermented flavors, and that's really interesting for us, we launched Johnnie Walker, elusive umami in October, and I actually think it's of all the whiskies we've, well, maybe not ever made, but certainly, of all the Diageo whiskies that I've tasted, I think that is my favorite ever.
Tom Ollerton 26:18
Really. Yeah, well, okay, we'll, we'll have one after. That would be great, brilliant. That's that decided, okay, so so then what do you do with this? So you got bloom harvest savory, umami? And you're like, how do you activate that kind of intelligence? Right? Because everyone else has that intelligence Pernod got that, Campari, grants, they've all got this intelligence. How is the is the C suite coming to you look, we need to make the most of these trends. Are you kind of like you got factories of innovators cranking through all these different variants at different times non alcoholic versions different serves different temperatures for different markets? How do you act on that? Sounds fascinating, but how do you deliver on it?
Mark Sandys 26:59
There's so much to talk about under that question. One thing I would say is, we've got an unbelievable team of r&d scientists, and also our distillers and brewers who are brilliant at taking those trends and turning those into fantastic liquids. But for us to be successful in innovation, it's more than just being able to spot the trend, or even hear what is the most trending flavor. It's bringing that to life in a way that has a consumer gift, or a bit of consumer magic to make it all kind of fit together. And not all of that can be about just immediately reacting, particularly if you think by the nature of the purchase cycle. And also, in a way kind of the manufacturing cycle of a lot of our categories. So we talk about having five categories that are our forever categories, meaning we're always going to be wanting to be innovating in them. And we need to be ahead of the curve things like Scotch whiskey, and tequila, both of which either spend a lot of time in a barrel, or a lot of time in the ground in the case of agave plant. So you've got to be well planned out. But also things like how we're going to use technology with Guinness dispense things like Guinness nitrosurge and Mike draft that have been really successful for us how we can bring cocktails to, to the world in a way that create better and better experiences for consumers. And then also in the non alcoholic space as well, which again, it takes a lot of time to get those liquids absolutely perfect. And we like to have a rule of thumb, that about 80% of our pipeline is planned out so that we can be speaking to retailers in advance so that we can be laying down the right stock. But we also leave 20% of space to be able to respond to things that are happening in culture, or that our competitors do as well.
Tom Ollerton 29:03
So of all the innovation jobs there are in the world and for the things that you shared. It's, it sounds exciting, it sounds ideal. It sounds like a lot of fun traveling there as well. You know, in the the entertainment category, it's definitely one that's based on pleasure. So it's a fun place to work. Yeah, it's a fun thing to be in. But can you honestly tell me what scares the shit out of you? What is the thing where you just like? You know, like, because there's somebody give me a lot of positives here. What are the negatives in the role when it comes to these things that you're talking about with such passion and conviction? Where are your like, moments with this job?
Mark Sandys 29:38
Well it's a great question, there's quite a few Tom, to be honest, there's a relentlessness about innovation that is both exhilarating and terrifying. And so it's really different from say, managing one of our big brands. That brand is still going to exist the next year. You're building on it, you're growing it But our job as innovators is every year to be thinking, Okay, what, what's the new innovation that we're bringing doesn't exist yet. That is going to deliver what we need to in terms of the business. And also is going to deliver the right level of risk for us. Because if all of our innovation is too predictable and too safe, then it's actually not doing what we need it to do, of doing that job of really shaping the way that people socialize. So that constant, you're starting every year, starting the planning for the years ahead, with an empty bucket that you need to fill up with great ideas. So I feel like that that's probably the thing that keeps me awake at night the most.
Tom Ollerton 30:49
And so you talk about the right level of risk, which is really interesting from an innovation perspective is what have you said no to? I'll tell you a story I interviewed the who, at the time, he was the guy who was the CMO of Red Bull in Europe, and I was on stage with him in a conference and I'd say like, what is the one crazy thing that Red Bull never did that you wanted to? And he said that, you know, like get like mature aeroplanes a jumbo jet like a big people carrier plane. He said that technically, you could do a barrel roll, you know, spin it around like that, right? There's the aerodynamics, a plane would survive that, but they could never get it signed off with insurance, for all the obvious reasons. But he spoke he spoke to some like crazy pilots, it's fine. Of course. I'll do that this afternoon. So what what are the things that you've had to say no to where you just like, No, that's too crazy or wild or whatever? Like, what have you respectfully declined?
Mark Sandys 31:39
It's yeah, we haven't tried the serving our drinks on a barrel rolling jumbo jet. We've looked at a lot of different new and quite spectacular different formats for the way that our drinks are dispensed. You know, if you think it most like you walk into a bar restaurant around the world, mostly what happens is someone picks up a bottle and pours it into a glass. And whilst that's convenient, when you're at home, it doesn't have to be like that in a bar or restaurant. So we tried a concept, we have lots of different ways of, of looking at that. And it's interesting that either we ended up saying no to them, or none of them have starred. But that's something that we're still after, particularly now, with the importance of recycling reusing and sustainability, we think that is, that's maybe the extra impetus that is going to find the right way of kind of cracking that.
Tom Ollerton 32:36
So is that an open invitation to listeners of this podcast to come to reach out to you? How can we serve liquid in a new way that's more sustainable,
Mark Sandys 32:45
it's more sustainable, and still does the job of looking great behind the bar. So that consumers can see it there. So yeah, absolutely. That's an open brief. But you know, what I spend more time saying no to, is the easy stuff. So for example, at times, we've done too many limited editions, too many of the next safe or predictable extension of our existing brands. And actually, once you're, once you're on that cycle, then you're just running to standstill, because if your innovation is not lasting, then you're lapping it the next year, and having to do more of the same and so on. So actually getting the balance, right, there is a role for that stuff. When you do it, right. It can drive fame, it can drive kind of excitement amongst our retail customers, you just can't overdo it. So get it pulling back on some of that stuff. And getting the balance right between the riskier, less predictable innovation that's offset by some of that short term innovation that can pay the bills for that long term stuff. Like that's the magic, if you can get that balance.
Tom Ollerton 33:53
Right, Mark, I'm really frustrated that we're gonna have to leave it there. I feel we just glossed over the report, how can we all get hold of it?
Mark Sandys 34:01
So we published it on LinkedIn. So one of the best ways to do if you look me up on LinkedIn, and you can see the Distilled consumer trends report there, or just drop me a line on LinkedIn.
Tom Ollerton 34:11
And if someone is going to drop you a line about the new ways of serving liquid in a beautiful and sustainable way, what kind of message gets a reply out of you.
Mark Sandys 34:21
I try to be good at responding to all of the messages. But certainly, like referencing this podcast would be a great way of making me notice it.
Tom Ollerton 34:31
Mark, thank you so much for your time.
Mark Sandys 34:32
Thanks so much.
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