Wendy

Wendy, hello everyone. I'm Wendy Liebmann, CEO and chief shopper at WSL Strategic Retail, and this is Future Shop. But before I begin with all this, I have a request of you, and you are a wonderful audience. You're all around the world, but many of you are not actually officially subscribed to this podcast. Doesn't cost you anything. All you have to do is just do it. So wherever you listen to your podcasts, whether it's Spotify, Apple, YouTube, our own, WSL Strategic Retail website, wherever you are, just click Subscribe. You'll you don't know when the latest episodes are ready, but you can also comment on the topic. It's the metrics, it's the KPI. Thanks for doing that. Really appreciate it. And now to the conversation.

If you've been listening for a while, you know this is where I talk to innovators, disruptors and iconoclasts about the future of retail. My guest today is Joanna Jensen. She is the founder of the British multi award winning baby and children's personal care brand Child's Farm. She created that in 2010 she'll tell us more later, really as a solution to her own daughter's sensitive skin issues. She took on the biggest of the big in this category, the Johnson, then Johnson & Johnson Baby with her vision for what really a children's baby's personal care line should really be. So she is indeed an innovator, a disruptor, and as you'll hear in a minute, definitely an iconoclast. So in addition to all of that, dot, dot, dot. She is an extraordinary advocate for supporting women founded businesses. Welcome Joanna.

Joanna

Thank you for having me Wendy,

Wendy 01:49

it's really a joy, because Joanna and I first got to meet, oh, I don't know, a couple of years ago, when she was looking into the expansion into the US market, And then, more recently, we co-sponsored, co-produced, an event in London around the Future of Commerce 2030 with our colleagues at The Emerson Group. And Joanna was one of the panelists with leading retailers like Tesco and Boots and Holland & Barrett and Amazon and others. And the conversation you and I had Joanna or I listened to at that point, was really about the future of brands, challenger brands, so I was really intrigued to finish or continue that conversation.

Wendy 02:32

You came out of real estate and global finance. So why did you decide to take on the biggest baby and children's personal care brand in the world?

Joanna 02:45

That's an incredibly good question. Wendy, do you know I didn't even think about it because my the reason I created the brand was because I had a little girl who was born with atopic eczema, and when I went to go and find something to soothe her really delicate and sore skin. Nothing had changed since I'd been a child in the 70s, and I was just gob smacked. And it was still, you know, it was dominated by Johnson's Baby, Aveeno, Baby Dove, and they weren't suitable for any child with sensitive skin, let alone a child with eczema prone skin. And in a fit of pique, I decided I was going to do something about it myself. And what I'm discovering more and more in my new world, as being an advisor and advocate of female founded businesses, is this is how many of these businesses start, it's there's a need. You need something and you can't find it, so you go out and get it and make it yourself.

Wendy 03:49

So that's extraordinary, really, because, you know, it's one thing, as you know, in the advisory side of the world that we live in, too, where we're advising companies about future growth opportunities. Whitespaces, all of those things, but it's intellectual power, and as you know, expertise, getting staying close to what we would call consumers as shoppers, and really understanding how to serve those needs better. But when you then say, let's put on a show, let's develop a brand, let's figure out how to make these great products. That's a very different world. So how did you go about that? And what were the things that you found fascinating, challenging and inspiring out of that journey?

Joanna 04:37

Well, sometimes I think ignorance is bliss, and I'd come, as you alluded to, I was an investment banker, and I had not one I Asia of knowledge about how retail or fast moving consumer goods worked or operated. I just assumed you came up with an idea. You tapped on the door of Tesco and said, ‘here, I've got this brilliant idea, when do you want me to deliver them?’. So this whole section of being part of retail was never part of my psyche, so I can't I sort of fired my own I plowed my own furrow, which meant I didn't have this legacy or baggage of this is the way we do it. I looked at it and I thought, well, hold on a minute. What you're doing is nonsense. You know, there's a better way of doing this. You're not offering the right solutions to parents, and you're not offering it offering the right solutions to solution to children. And really, through asking a lot of questions, I found someone who would help me develop the products, initially, to then manufacture them. And then this is all pre LinkedIn and all other excitement social media nonsense. And you know, you know, you really had to do some digging. This is when an Encyclopedia Britannica was actually a sort of a set of 26 huge, great books. So it meant that you have to use all your guile. So in the one hand, you're creating something that you think is suitable. I mean, it was great for me. I had a guinea pig in the form of my little girl with her really poorly skin, who I could try and work with to make sure it was soothing and didn't irritate. We then had my knowledge, because I've always been fascinated by natural medicine. So you know, there are rules that I wanted to obey, which were using natural, natural origin ingredients, organic, where I could knowing where everything came from, having a story behind the components that made up our products. You know, we used Argan oil from parts of Morocco, where women made this Argan oil out of the Argon trees, and from the money they got from that they could send their children to school. So I wanted those ethical stories behind it, but I also wanted sustainability. I knew I had to do it in a plastic bottle, because it wouldn't be much cop for a small child to have a glass bottle by the bath. But I wanted to make sure that that plastic was as sustainable as possible. So we started off using 30% recycled plastic from the get go, and it was only five years before all of our plastic was 100% recycled. So there was, there were ethics and values rooted in absolutely everything that we did. Because I very strongly felt, if you're making something for children, you have got to leave them a legacy, which is not they're not going to be ashamed of.

Wendy 07:45

And on top of all of that, you created this wonderfully happy brand. So for those of you who haven't looked at Child’s Farm, go and have a look. But it is this wonderful, whimsical, happy brand. So that legacy of both efficacy, sustainability, not feeling like you are you have a condition, really resonates, I think, when you, when you look at, when you look at what you created in that model, it would it felt like there was so many facets to it.

Joanna 08:17

Well, if you've got, if you're a little person and you've got poorly skin, you don't really want to advertise. I mean, it's, it's challenge enough if you're in the playground at school and nobody wants to hold your hand because it's got owies all over it. So I wanted to make it as fun as possible. Because, you know, my little girl, she wanted Disney princess with the sort of fake gold flakes in it. There was no way she could have that. It would have, should have been red, raw and broken out in hives. So I wanted to come out with something that was suitable for sensitive and extra prone skin, but looked fun. And so I based it all on our farm in the UK, where we had horses, we had sheep, we had, you know, two of this, three of that, but we also have my children, and so the inspiration for our labels was my girls and their little cousins living their best life in a decoupage, a photo of the English countryside and all the animals, they were real and existed. So there was none of this made up nonsense. You know, I think it'd be cute if we did it on a farm. It was real, and that was really important we you know, authenticity is a word that's bandied around a lot at the moment, but it really is, you know, I think it's being true to yourself and true to your roots, and that was really, really important for me, because that's part of the story you're going to sell to a retailer, right? Isn't it? You know, saying, oh, you know, we created this because we thought it might work for kids, you know. I mean, you're on boring, you. What are you talking about? Yeah, well, and

Wendy 10:02

there's so much other clutter on the shelf, right, when you think about and so much money and resources that go into that, I talk about the shelf, physical and digital, so that having a story that that is true, I won't say authentic, I'll say true and and has layers of um to it really seems to pay. So when you think about, I mean, when, when we spoke, when, when you were part, part of the Future of Commerce 2030, series in London, we did, and you talked about the role of Challenger brands, that term, niche brands, whatever we however, we call them, that conversation about, okay, in many categories, many industries, we have sort of the big legacy brands that dominate. But this growth of challenger brands has been quite traumatic because of the level of innovation that's been coming there and how big brands, big, national, global brands don't always innovate at that level.

Then a big brand buys a brand like yours. What if they lose there? Or what do they gain? Do you see the what are the dynamics of all of that? That's something that I'm fascinated with. When, you know, big companies absorb full company.

Joanna 11:20

Well, you I mean in basic terms, you absorb their customer base. But you know, and I know, the hardest thing when you get your product on shelves is keeping it there. So it's the same principle as well. If you inherit, you go out and buy a small brand, and you want to maintain that level of truth and reality about that. Now, of course, it's going to change. And, you know, I've seen my own brand change since it was acquired. And you know, A that's progress. B, you know, they've got a big business, will have much deeper pockets than a small challenger brand to do the consumer research, to understand what really, you know, gets people excited, and can make a brand go global. And I get all of that, there is a risk, though, when you do have, as you describe it, these layers, about a product, a brand, that go much they're much deeper than skin deep they go that they are the essence of the brand that has to be protected at all costs, and that is things like the values and the ethics, because it's so important now that big business sticks their head above the parapet you don't acquire, for example, we're a B Corp, and sustainability is in the core of everything that we do. Massive supporters of women in the workplace. You know, fantastic support for our pregnancy, maternity, menopause that we offered within our package to our employees, really, really important. And when we met, that we last met, I talked about the learning that big businesses can have of challenger brands, because we seem to get it right when it comes to a lot of these things. And there can be this arrogance. You've acquired a small challenger brand. You know, the people come into the office on day one and they say, It's okay, you've taken it as far as you can, but we've got this now, so you just watch the big boys and show you how it's done. And and it's just a precursor to collapse. this arrogance, this absolute arrogance, has got to stop, because it's not, it's not actually arrogance. It's fear.

Wendy 13:46

Yeah, and I think that combined learning, or the two way learning, is so powerful, because, as you say, whether it's the culture of the brand or the culture of the organization, and that shared learning, whether it's the relationships you build and have built at the at the retail and granted, you needed to figure out you couldn't just say, Hello, Tesco, hello, Boots on here. Waitrose, whomever. But that shared learning, when I think about sort of a modern business culture, where a lot of the innovation, I assume will continue to come from external, you know, brands or organizations that that seems to be, I mean, maybe I'm naive, but that seems to be a wonderful way to create this sort of innovative, Fast moving, facile culture, even within and being Corporation. Now, am I being totally naive?

Joanna 14:46

Well, it's cheaper than doing it yourself as well. You know, get someone else to do it. Get someone to try and fail and start and fail and start and fail. Don't let it be you. And I think it makes sense to a quote. Acquiring good brands is a really good idea for a PLC. And you can see, I know what Unilever did with Ben & Jerry's. You know, that is still run almost as an independent business, as is Baby Dove that is, that is run with kid gloves. And that kind of attitude ensures this consistency of a fabulous brand, and I commend that, and it ensures that people stick by the rooted values that lie there. What we need is, is these bigger business to then adopt these rooted values, and they can see that actually it's bringing them a collective of different consumers, because, you know, it'd be deadly dull, and it would be very inefficient if you as a conglomerate only appealed to, you know, four foot six hairy monkeys, you know, what's a limited audience.

Wendy 15:57

But you're right. I mean, in our world, that is really, certainly a vision that I just love and applaud. Now, you alluded to not and you spoke very passionately about this in London, these white spaces. You talked about women's health and menopause. Specifically, you talked about health in general, anxiety. I as I step back and think about so many of these white spaces in the world, UK, US, Australia, global, how do you see the opportunities around that? And what are we all missing here when we think about growing at retail, when whether that's physical or digital, as you look at now and the next phase of this journey for you, how do you look at some of those things as opportunities, and what do we need to do about it? Well,

Joanna 16:49

Well, statistically, we are being told that the wealth of this world is very soon going to the majority of it is going to be in the purses of women. So my first thing to say would be, you know, we need to ensure that women are treated with much more respect than they currently are. You know, we still have pay gaps, we still have misogyny, we still have an absolutely different way that people invest in women. In the UK, 1.8% of venture capital funding goes to women. I mean, it is unbelievably shocking. And this is down to the fact that a lot of private equity, a lot of venture capital, is dominated in the UK by men. And we have this attitude, which is, if it's something for the menopause, for example, um, oh, well, I'll take it home and give it to my wife. Now, as an angel investor, if somebody shows me something, you know, a battery company, and they say, this is, this is fantastic. Do you know I'm not going to go say, I go take it home and show it to my husband. I am going to research my ass off, understanding the battery market, and we need to have a complete change set. And what we're doing as well is we're pushing women out of the workplace far sooner than they want to go by. Not appreciating the menopause, we did something which any business that can do. We brought in a menopause specialist to talk to the entire workforce, so the the managers understood what they could expect from the women within their teams. We also, soon as you hit the age of 40, we arranged, if you wanted to, you could go and meet a menopause doctor, and understand absolutely everything that could or would or will happen to you, and we would pay for that assistance for as long as you worked within our organization. And we actually extended that to wives of men working there too. And it was extraordinary, just a small team of people. Suddenly it was, I had no idea the scales from their eyes fell. You know, it was almost like a therapy, because it wasn't just on menopause. In the end, they talked about all of their sexual health and wellness, and that was a really easy thing to do. And you know, when you look at the Harvard Business School statistics about how you retain workers, it's not by paying them, and it's not by shouting at them either. It's by making sure that they feel appreciated. And what better way to show that you appreciate them, by saying them to the you care about their health and wellness as a lot we can do, but let's not forget, it's a two way street. Employers have got to make money too, the the employers have expectations as their employees. Now, if everybody goes and works from home, what do you do when you've got, you know, children in their late teens, like I have, and they. Start their first job, and they're told you're not allowed in the office for more than two days a week, and you're living in a bed sit in a city you don't know, and you're you're working and sleeping in the same room. Now, you know, we need to understand how these different generations get affected by our behavior. But if I am going to share my experience, my knowledge, my know how with the next generation that's coming through, I have to respect the fact that I have to be in the same building as them.

Wendy 20:32

It's really interesting in my leap here, thinking about opportunity and connecting all of this to both the culture of companies, the culture of brands, the culture of the workforce, and also thinking about the role of retail. I know that you have talked about that, and the role of the physical store versus the digital store. That passion about it's a place I buy goods and services, but it's also a place that I engage with other people. How's What's your sense of that today?

Joanna 21:10

Look, you know, for me, I feel very strongly, as the human race is a social animal. We live in communities. We what we should be working in communities. We need to talk and soothe each other. We weren't made to live in I live and work in isolation. We've got young children now, not children, you know, 20 in their 20s, who suffer from Zoom anxiety, because they're terrified about going to a meeting on Zoom or Teams. And I think there's ways that we can stop this now, you could argue, Well, they'd still feel anxious if they were in the office, but no, because they will know these people better. Because community and knowing someone, if you go to your local store and they say, hi, Wendy, how are you? You know, you're going to spend more with them. You're going to go there more often. You're going to think, oh, you know, I could go to Wegmans, but actually I'm going to nip around the corner and pay a bit more, but, you know, I'll have a nice conversation. customer service. Let's not underestimate how important that is for actually cracking a sale and the anonymity of a website. Yes, it's easy to get stuff delivered. Think there's a balance. I mean, we've certainly seen here, this shift away from online. And I just went to my local town to meet someone for lunch, but not find a parking space for love nor money. There are. I mean, I think I rejoice that that thing, and these are small, small shops.

Wendy 22:41

Yeah. I think the other thing that's interesting, and the evolution of our Future of Commerce 2030, series, you know, is now back in the US, after doing the the wonderful London event. And one of the topics that's that's emerging is this notion of sort of, not sort of culture at scale. How do you think about creating with your staff, with your employees, whether your associates, not just the training in terms of tactical sayings, is the product right on the shelf? Is it in stock? All of that, but actually creating this level of empathy, as you now think about people coming when they come into the store, if they may not come as often, but when they come in person with kids, you know, screaming baby, what's for dinner tonight? And then, how do you build that into a workforce, particularly in the future? How but consciously thinking about going from sort of the tactical, transactional to building this sort of empathy and empathetic culture that changes the dynamics of this. And I think that's that's a lot of what you're just talking about here. When you step back now with this lens and think about how companies, big and small, women owned, or others in this advisory role. How do you encourage people to stay genuinely innovative in this, in this new world,

Joanna 24:11

it's having that ability to pivot. And you know what I found is, when you're running a business, people have a lot of opinions, and that could be your buyer, that could be some bloke on the street. Could be your mother. But you people have very strong opinions, and you have got to learn fairly quickly whose opinion you value and whose opinion you don't. And you have got to follow your gut. And I have seen too many, uh, brand founders be flummoxed by multiple opinions and taking it each one at face base value. I as you know, I'm a fantastic believer in research, but I. I ultimately make my own decision. Following your gut is in tremendously important. The other thing that I see too often as well is too busy looking behind you and around you to see what everyone else is doing. You need to run your own race. You need to look down that track and see that finishing line and not look at anyone else, because you turn your head around, you lose it. So you focus on your plan, be clear on your strategy, but know that you are capable of pivoting at a moment's notice. So should the geopolitical or the economic impact what it is that you're trying to do so you're you're looking around and you're informing yourself. I always say a great founder is someone who's intellectually curious. Because, again, you know, say, for example, you're wanting to go into targets. Well, do you know the first thing I would do is go onto their corporate website and understand what the the needs of Target as a culture, as a business, are, what it is that they are focusing on what they have said to their shareholders, they are going to make their business be and then I would somehow weave that into my conversation to show them that I can help them deliver on their own business, KPIs, as much as their category KPIs, I think this is we need to think more than just I've got to get my product on shelf. We've got to be confident in ourselves. We've got to know whose advice is valuable and uses horseshit. And we've got to not be afraid to disagree with people. And when I say people as well, I mean buyers, because as empathetic as I found a 20 year old buyer in Boots was to what I was trying to do, they were a 20 year old buyer who was nowhere near understanding what a mum was looking for with a child with sensitive skin, and you know, certainly not when they've been there for four months. And you've got to be that realistic too. So you've got to be persuasive. And by you can only be persuasive if you know what you're talking about. 100%

Wendy 27:17

sweet. As we wrap up here, I think about one of the things we do a lot of we do a lot of research. We stay very close to consumers or shoppers, but we also believe in building relationships in more intimate ways with the retail customers, and by that is, you know, whether we do our retail immersions, where we not just look at stores, but try to understand the culture of a retailer, bring diverse companies together in the conversations, walk the stores, round tables, all of that and that, getting to know somebody, whether it's the 20 something buyer or whether it's their boss who's 30 something or whatever, but bringing that together with within the context of a brand, With the consumer, as shopper in the in the forefront, really does address some of those things that you're talking about, that knowledge, that willingness to collaborate and talk, learn together, test together. And

Joanna 28:12

Don’t get me wrong, there's that. I mean, there are some fantastic buyers out there, and I connect four or five who were fundamental in the success of my brand and aiding the success of my brand. But it is, you know, it's tough out there. Now, it really is tough. You've got to steal your shelf space of somebody else, but you and I know how important the consumer is, which is why my absolute top for everyone, no matter what you're doing, know your consumer, know your consumer, know your consumer.

Wendy 28:45

well. That is a perfect, you know, ending, because you're preaching to the converted. My team always get tired of hearing me say, is the shopper in the room? Are we thinking about her him all the time? So that's a perfect ending to this continuing conversation. So speaking of continuing, what's next for you? Where are you headed in this journey of advisory role? What's on the what's on the blank sheet of paper?

Joanna 29:15

Well, too much at the moment, I think, so far, I've invested in 14 different female founded brands, which is very exciting, everything from tech to bras. I mean, it's a real diverse bunch of I love it. I also work on a trade body, body for the government, which is something called the Enterprise Investment Scheme. It allows angel investors and high net worth individuals to invest in businesses at a tax relatable and advantageous way, which is essential for startups in the UK. So I'm sort of jiggering and puckering around there, and want to make some fundamental changes there. I've just signed a publishing deal for my first. Book, which is all about how to win in retail as a startup, and that's going to be published in September, and I get the opportunity to vent my spleen about the things that help or don't help small businesses with an occasional column in the Sunday Times. So I'm kept busy and I just really want to wave that flag for any small business, whether it's founded by a woman or not. I think, you know, it's, it's, it's hard yards, it's hard yard. And I will do whatever I can for as long as I can to try and ease that course of progress in the UK.

Wendy 30:39

Yeah. Well, to your hats off to you, if I was wearing one of my many hats today, because that is very much close to my heart. So again, like minded souls, so when you when the book is out, I'd love you to come back and talk about that. I wish you so much good fortune at the barricades and with flags flying high and growing small businesses the way we'll grow the economy, right? Thank you. Joanna, it's a pleasure,

Joanna 31:09

Always a pleasure, to speak to you.