From Advertising to Taste Testing: Andy Poe's Journey

Hello everybody, uh, welcome to, uh, Drink Up, uh, this, uh, Saturday morning. For those that you were wanting to join us either early or late, depending where you're at on planet Earth. I see that my friend Peter is out there. Peter, you have the login if you want to come in. You're always welcome, brother, but thank you for joining. Welcome Andy Poe from Tastemakers. Andy, welcome. And Adam, great to have you back.

Thank you.

I know you were on a little vacay the last couple weeks. Before I get started, I just have to call out our first sponsor, Adam. Can you, can you know who that is?

Can I, should I, should I guess? Is it, is it Jay? Is it Jay and Freebird?

Freebird. Uh, Jay Williams. I don't know if Jay's even listening, but he sent this nice shirt, so I felt compelled to talk about, uh, Freebird. And, uh, Andy, you're gonna probably wanna meet Jay Williams at some point. Uh, this item is, uh, it's, uh, water that, uh, plays, uh, in, in that, that space in a can. And, uh, he's absolutely a wonderful person. The whole bit. So, just calling out to my friend Jay Williams and the company Freebird. Thanks for our first sponsorship at Drink Up. With that being said, Andy, welcome to Drink Up. Thanks for getting up early this morning. You're out from California, I believe?

That's right. Los Angeles. Thank you for having me.

You're welcome. So, tell us, so what is Tastemakers? Are you going out there and tasting people on stuff? Are you creating beverages? What is exactly this Tastemakers Research Group?

Well, okay. So Tastemakers Research Group is an agile consumer product testing company. So we specialize in taste tests, mostly for CPG food and beverage companies. So that's anything out of the box, out of the bottle, out of the bag. We can test that with our sort— with our intercept model, where we go to the consumer versus current methods where You have the consumer, uh, you have to call in consumers one at a time or participants one at a time. And it takes a long time and it's much more expensive than what we've developed.

Interesting. You say on your website, consumer product tasting or testing, not tasting, testing reinvented. What does that mean?

Yes, sir. So what that means is that current methods, well, There haven't really been any person-to-person research innovations and market research probably since the mall intercept of the '80s, right? And people don't shop at malls anymore. So it made sense in the '80s and '90s to go to malls where the town square was and talk to people and ask them questions and maybe, you know, bring them in a room and have them taste some things. But retail has changed, like I said. And so what we do is we go to locations where we're going to get high foot traffic and a A high concentration of your target demographics. So say for example, one of our testing locations is a park here in Los Angeles. It's very popular. It's a tourist attraction. You know, you can see the Hollywood sign, so it's very Instagrammable. So we set up right on the trail there with computers, you know, with a full, you know, refrigeration and prep setup. And we screen people right there on the trail. And if they qualify, then we'll put them at a— Chromebook computer.

I'm out there walking out in the wild and stuff.

That's right.

You show up, hey, you got a second? Like, what's the approach there? I mean, I'm trying to like be peaceful here.

We're already there. So we're already there. And, you know, our presence is fairly well known, but yes, usually if people— this isn't a sales pitch because we're not doing, we're not trying to sell anything. We're trying to do a market research study. So if you don't want to Participate, or if you don't like what we're testing, we certainly do not want you to participate. However, you know, it's about— it's usually about a 6 to 8 minute survey, and you get a $5 digital reward card immediately after you're finished. So, you know, if you have an extra 5 minutes and you're just, you know, you're leisurely, you're out on the trail, you're doing a little bit of people watching, you're seeing the occasional celebrity. out there, then, you know, hop on by.

Do you intercept celebrities? You got to— so, well, first of all, let's step back. We'll get back to the intercept of celebrities, because I'm sure there's a story there. So how did you get into this journey? Tell a little bit about yourself and your journey and how we got where we're at with—

Sure. Sure. Okay. Well, I have an agency background. I started working with advertising agencies after I finished my MBA, late '90s, early 2000s. But then at the same time, I got, I was living in San Diego, you know, I got my MBA at Michigan State University. So my options were GM, Ford, and Chrysler at the time and working in Detroit. But I just kind of felt like the West was calling me. I came out to California, you know, moved to San Diego and got a job with an agency, Lambesis Agency, which is a great boutique agency. They did sort of the Airwalk You know, commercials with Tony Hawk back in the day, you know, they do Sky Vodka and that kind of thing. Really excellent clients and work that they do. But at the same time, the dot-com was rolling out and I happened to get a job with the, uh, mp3.com, you know, one of the bigger dot-coms at the time, which was in San Diego. So I, you know, I was the research point person there, did a lot of user testing. You know, I do remember going to the beach in San Diego with a couple of poster boards. We were testing out, we were testing testing out lo-fi versus hi-fi in terms of, you know, how you wanted to download your MP3. So that was again, another—

During AOL days or something, probably.

Exactly, exactly.

We're gonna date ourselves, Andy. Sorry.

That's, that's what I was, that's what I was doing at the time. So, you know, just really kind of just going out and getting from the source what, you know, people felt and thought and understood or didn't understand about That technology.

Interesting. You got into that. Uh, so, so how, so from there, uh, where did you go?

Uh, so, so, so after I was there, that company got sued by all major record labels and they, they disappeared them.

Oh, that's a— so you're like, what am I going to do now? Interesting. Oh, is it Napster?

No, it's not an app store. I think it's, I think it's just the website. It always was just the website and the URL. So anyway, that's, that's another conversation.

So you were, you were without a role. You had to go find your next opportunity.

My next opportunity was also in San Diego with a, the codec called DivX. So, you know, I had experience with MP3 codec and now, now we're doing DivX. So I was their research point person, but you know, then the bubble was starting to burst and I moved to Los Angeles and I initially got work with, I believe my, I guess it was a, again, a digital market research agency called Streetwise Concepts and Cultures. Streetwise isn't around anymore, but they're basically an arm of Velvet Hammer, which is a music label. They have, you know, Deftones, Alien Ant Farm, System of a On the line right now and they're geeking out.

At some point they're going to have some music questions. They're going to probably ask you about, have you like dealt with David Bowie or something? But all right. So keep on going on this digital journey we're on right now.

Right, right. So, you know, and it makes sense because, you know, music's one of those things that really, you know, that whole viral phenomenon that you want happens really naturally sometimes with music. So we took that, you know, with sort of the fan base of, you know, Deftones and System of a Down, and we were, we were, you know, applying it to a lot of, you know, movies that were coming out, trying to build buzz about these movies that were coming out, or, you know, music and even video games that, that were coming out. So it was, you know, this was, or this is like kind of mid-2000s.

So then, so Did you get into the CPG space for a while too? Did you transition out of that into like, um, or you just worked with those brands?

Not really, because then I kind of went on to do more movie, music, and video game research just online. So kind of what I was telling you, you know, how did I get into Tastemakers? That's when I was working with a CMO, um, and He, for a kids brand that was for nutritional supplements and products. So like I've done with other oddball projects before, I was going to soccer games on the weekends and testing these products with kids and their parents. So that was—

You're walking around with a clipboard asking questions?

You know, we, it's a, it's an actual taste test, right? So there's a lot of things that are involved with that in terms of setup and people. It's not just walking around, right? So you have tables, you have computers, you have refrigeration right there, um, on site. So electric coolers, PS, are awesome.

Wow, that's, uh, that's really interesting. Um, it's, uh, Peter's actually saying— actually, I, I'm gonna— I've learned how to do this now. But anyway, Peter says, love it, Andy, let's connect. So you're going to definitely want to talk to our, our friends there, and I can, I can make those connections. Adam, you've been sitting there thinking a little bit, so why don't you—

why don't you come into this conversation Yeah, no, I'm curious from a, and this is probably a little bit further down the rabbit hole than we're at right now, but I'm curious, Andy, from like a Psych 101 perspective, right? How do you make sure to capture the fact that maybe people are giving a more positive review than they might otherwise because they're trying things for free or for a gift card? On a beautiful sidewalk or trail in California, as opposed to having to take money out of their pocket and pay for it in the store. You know what I mean?

So yes, that's a, that's a great question. And there's, I have a few different answers for that. First of all, you know, especially in Los Angeles, especially the participants that we recruit for our studies, they know they're consumers. You know, you know, we treat them, they know that their opinion has value. We, we treat them with respect and we don't treat them like, you know, they don't know what we're doing because they know what we're doing. So I think that that happens more when you have someone standing, like when you, when you recruit people into a facility, that's formal, right? So that's really formal. It's kind of sterile and you have to wait in the lobby and you have to like sign a lot of things. We're not the clipboard people, right?

We're not the clipboard people. Sorry, but good.

So, you know, if you're on a trail and you're walking by, you know, you might say, what's going on? And say, you know, we're doing a taste test for this protein beverage. You know, we have a couple of questions if you're interested in participating before we can qualify you. Uh, and you get a $5 gift card once you finish your 5-minute survey, basically.

I love it. It's just like the post I did a few, a couple of days ago. I ran into these 2 girls. I think maybe I told you about the lemonade stand. I literally was walking around and I drove by them and said, no, I'm not interested. Then I had my dog later on in the afternoon. I was walking towards them. I put my headphones in to try to avoid them. And what they did is they pulled this little baggie out and they pulled a little bone out and it was the dog bone. And the gift card is your dog bone, right? And, uh, so I'm like, well, how much? They're like, it's free. And then after they gave me the dog bone, I was complied to do business with them. So I believe, is that how it works? It's like, hey, I get $5.

Sure.

I'll give you my time.

Right. Well, that's the other thing. You know, we have dog water bowls. We have, we have dog treats because, you know, tons of dogs there. We also have, you know, coloring books for the kids, because if we can get the kids, then we can get the parents. So, you know, it's just enjoyable. It's not your basic, you know, sterile, formal market research. You know, my staff is super friendly and helpful and professional. And, you know, there's a degree of anonymity there, you know, unlike, again, walking into a facility because it's mostly self-administered. The, you know, it's an online survey. And again, most participants that we recruit are, have taken, you know, they know how to take an online survey. So basically, you know, we walk them through, you know, we just make sure that we, we serve them their sample once they've rescreened themselves, and then we walk them through the first set of questions. And then if they have any other questions, they can raise their hand. Cool.

Um, I wanna, yeah, we're gonna, so we're, we're the I got some questions coming in, Adam.

Let me just screen these.

No, you're fine. I was gonna do the same thing. Go ahead.

Yeah, I got a, I got a comment outta here. I have a friend that freelances at grocery stores. He is hired by brands to give out samples. That's from Mason. So I don't know if you have any thoughts about that, but Mason was making a statement. Uh, do you work with people like that?

So, so that's a good question. A lot, we don't fit in a Sam's Club. Right? That's not what we do. What we, you know, we're basically doing a survey and we're collecting data. So you're basically sort of just sampling your survey and you're taking the— or sorry, sampling your product and taking the online survey. So, you know, our ideal setup is about 4 10 by 10s. At least. So, we have at least 2, uh, we, you know, cuz we wanna have at least 9 because we're high volume and that's why we become affordable. We have about 8 to 10 stations, testing stations with computers for, you know, serving samples and having participants take those, take those surveys. So, if we have 8 to 10, then, you know, we are getting the turnover. So, you know, we're getting, uh, we'd like to get maybe 100 per day, uh, which is. A lot more again than what you can get with other, other methods in that amount of time.

Interesting. So yeah, I got another question coming in. I don't know if you want to take this one. I'll let you, I'm going to put on the screen. It's from Jeff.

Yeah, I got it.

So here we go.

Go ahead.

So basically Jeff's question was, come on. There we go. So many damn tabs. Do you think the research results would be different if the test If the testing is done on the coast versus people in the middle of the US?

For— that's a great question. A lot of the products that we test, or a lot of our clients are BFY or better for you types of products. So yeah, it's the, the B, the BFYs, you know, clean labels, low sugar, organic, these kinds of things. And in my opinion, Los Angeles is still the health and fitness capital of the world. So that's who you— that is who you wanna talk to now. We have done different, we, you know, we also do different markets and it, it is customary in research to do, you know, 1 or 2 markets. So if we do another market, when we have done that, we have not seen significant differences just because we're recruiting by people that use that type of product versus where they live.

Interesting.

So there can be, there can be slight Differences, but nothing that I've seen that's been significant. Now let's say if we did grits or something like that. Okay. We did that in Los Angeles versus, you know, Rome, Georgia, where I grew up. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. You know, there's going to be some, there's going to be some differences and it would make sense to only, you know, to test people. But that goes along with, you know, do you know, do you purchase grits? When was the last time you had grits? So they would all be screened out anyway from the beginning.

Wow.

That's really interesting. Peter talks about Disney here. I'll screen this too. It's, he was agreeing with you earlier when you, I believe when you go to the kids' soccer games. And then I can kind of turn this into a question too. So if you can convert the, convert the kids and get feedback from the kids, Is that what you're trying to do? Like if the kids like it, I can get mom and dad consuming it too, or purchasing it?

Not necessarily. Again, we're not, this is not, we're not selling anything. This is not promotion. We're, this isn't sponsored. This, this is all branded Tastemakers Research Group. Right. So it's not, it's not branded as our clients because, you know, we, you know, are the third party.

I don't know it's Freebird.

I don't know it's the product. You might, you might know the product occasionally, but say for example, if we're doing competitive taste tests. We're doing Coke versus Pepsi. You're not gonna know it's Coke versus Pepsi. You're gonna have, you know, sample 1, 2, 3 versus sample 7, 8, 9. And that's what a blind test is.

Sure.

But, you know, if, but if we're doing a concept and, or we are, we're, we're testing various, various flavors or formulas, we can have some branding, some packaging, and be able to get some feedback on our surveys in regards to branding, messaging, packaging, and those kinds of things as well, in addition to the taste and So I'm curious, and there's, I'm blanking on his name.

I want to say it's Oli Hovde, and I'm probably butchering that. He was based here in Minneapolis. I met him several years ago. And at the time he was, he wanted to do something. I'm sure I'm butchering his pitch, but he wanted to do something in the vein of like an AG1, like a greens mix, right? But targeted or focused towards, shouldn't say targeted, but focused toward for the benefit of kids. Right. And fast forward, like I said, it's probably been 3 years, 4 years or more. I'm on LinkedIn and I see a post from him and the name sounds vaguely familiar and it's, he's gotten into like Sprouts or somewhere with these packets, these green smoothie packets for, for kids.

Right.

Um, Right. So the reason I bring that up is I'm sure the question gets asked and maybe you have a hard line because you have to, and maybe you have a hard line because it's just too cumbersome and maybe you don't have a hard line at all. But if, if folks are coming through and it is kids of 5 years old, 10 years old, 12 years old, 15, 16. How do you, how do you accurately and with confidence capture their feedback? Or do you?

Yeah. Okay. That's a good question. And then that reminds me that I didn't answer your question about the kids. So I'm just saying when we're testing, when we're at a testing site, you know, for example, when we're at the park, we'll have dog bowls out and we'll have coloring books for the kids so that the parents can take the, take the survey while their kids are occupied. That's, that's what I, that's what I meant by that.

Okay.

So, and then to Adam, to, to your point, we, if, if we're doing, if we're doing adults taste tests and, you know, we probably have some little samples we can give to the kids, but we're not, if it's not part of the study, we're not going to be surveying them. But we do have locations where we do test kids and parents. For example, there's a gymnasium out in, in, in Whittier. It's, basically for gymnastics. I used to be a gymnast. So it's one of those big gyms, you know, with the Styrofoam, you can jump in and the trampolines and everything. But there are classes for all ages, you know, from, from toddlers on up.

Sure.

So, so what we have there, what's great about that is that we have a captive audience of parents and grandparents.

Sure.

And so we can test the parents and grandparents and the kids at the same time. So that's where, that's where, you know, and so So this would be targeted for active kids, you know, so the A1 Greens would be a good product for that.

So some questions are coming in here, some statements. Jeff says the qualifying is super important. So how you qualify is you're going after active kids. That's probably the, that's something one too. And then Heather, actually I'm gonna stream the question here. Our friend Heather, let me see if it'll show here. I may have missed this, but what stage of brand development is best to engage with the tastemakers?

That's a great question. When you're just getting started out and you don't have the money to do testing, I always recommend— so I mean, I say, you know, maybe $2 million and up. I mean, you have a product or, you know, maybe even $1 million and up, or if you can scrape together $10,000 or $15,000 just to make sure. Then yeah, give us a call because we can show you, we can let you know pretty precisely if you, if the product or products are market ready, if there's consumer acceptance and if the product is optimized.

Would you talk, so Heather, she says we are in the formulation phase at the moment. So Adam deals with a lot of people in the formulation phase at the moment. I would think that they want to talk to you because here's what I, here's what I experienced. I was over at Earl Giles, our friend over there, Adam, but I actually got to participate or observe. They bring in these people, right? And they'll take 'em through the, all the, they're looking for a certain flavor, but I think it'd be more interesting is it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what the consumer you're targeting thinks.

Exactly.

So I think, so that's, I think they should employ your services. Sorry, but you know, I need to connect you up with Earl Giles and you need to be part of that to talk to their consumers in there. To tell that, that the consumers say, what are they looking for?

Yeah. And it's a chicken and egg thing, right? So, you know, you might not have the money to test until after you get the product in the market, or does it make sense to test first to make sure that your product is successful once it gets in, in the markets? So I think to your point, you're right. It's really a matter of, you know, when you're thinking about your product and you wanna know if other people will like or buy your product, you know, In addition to my kids and my neighbors and my accounting person, right? So that's when you want to give us a call.

Got it. Got it. So back to the question and maybe Adam, you can help expand on this, but, um, early in the formulation stage, I don't know if you really answered it. Would you want to talk to those people? Can you help those folks?

Well, and, and with that, if you guys can hear me, I don't know if I'm frozen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're good. Yeah.

We can hear you. And with that is the question I was kind of hinting at before we, before we went live. If they're in that early stage and maybe they don't even know, like they wouldn't even be able to set the parameters for you to, to take effective action on their behalf and provide value, right? Like they're total blue sky brand. They're like, I need just some insight. Is that something that you or a member of your team can help with just in terms of like an hour-long phone call to say, hey, in the better for you space, here's what we're seeing. And, you know, we'll charge you for that insight and then let you do with it what you will. Like, is that an option?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a, that's an option. So a couple things, a couple things there. A lot of times when it's really bootstrap and there just isn't enough money for, you know, proper consumer product testing study, then I say, hey, hit the streets. That's how we started, right? That's how Tastemaker started. Um, you know, have a block party, go to your soccer, you know, test it out at your kid's soccer game. Sure. You know, just do the, do those types of things. And then, you know, you know what?

And I'll, I'll even help them. Watch the streets and go to the block parties and stuff. So. I met this gentleman called Bertito Beverage, which is Tito, or, you know, Tito actually made vodka-infused vodka and he took them to his friends and his friends are like, this is really good. So what he ended up doing is actually created his— bought his— created distillate or distiller and actually started distilling it and made his own product. So exactly what you're saying. Now, Peter had a question a little while back. He said, I would assume there's some occasional pushback from a client about results that they may not have expected. How do you navigate those waters?

That's a really good question. And I've learned some things about that because, I mean, you know, sometimes these products are, are babies, right? So no one wants to hear they have an ugly baby. And so in a sense, you know, I let the numbers speak for themselves. So the way that we do our reporting is Is pretty direct and straightforward. We don't, we don't have pages and pages of charts. You know, we have tables and we look at, you know, we look at side by side the key metrics for each question. And so we do, okay, well, this Product A was significantly preferred to Product B. They can't really argue with that, right? They can say, well, did you recruit the right people? And we can say, well, we recruited the people that use your product.

Mm-hmm.

You know, would potentially buy your product and currently use other competitive, you know, other competitive products. So, you know, so we cover our bases and we do always, of course, want to make sure that we are targeting the right, the right consumer for them. So is that, did that answer that question?

Answers the question, questions for sure. So let's, let's pivot back to Venice Beach. We were talking about this last night and a little bit before we went live.

Yep.

Tell us like any like interesting stories you can share when you're out there in the wild talking to the consumer.

Sure.

That's the first question. Like any interesting stories you just wanna share in terms of this, what happens when, you know, that, that you wanna share?

Okay. Yeah, sure. You know, just before I forget, we also do alcohol taste tests. We have some partnerships with some very, very, uh, cool, awesome Establishments in Hollywood and around Los Angeles, and we'll rent a room and we'll recruit off the street and as— and, and the patrons. So anyway, we can get there. So yeah, Venice Beach is always very interesting. We don't do Venice Beach very often because it's a— it's, it's difficult, right? So because we have to set up everything at, you know, 6 or 7 in the morning, and then we have to tear down everything at You know, 6 or 7 at night and, uh, and then do it again the next morning.

Oh, they don't let you leave it up. You have to build it.

No.

Interesting. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so there's definitely a physical element here as well. So Venice Beach is always interesting, right? So we definitely, uh, in most cases, we just wanna make sure that everybody has, uh, uh, you know, teeth and, um, You know, does not reek of alcohol and are not high as a kite. So, you know, we always have to contend with that, but you know, what, what we do is we just offer them free samples and just, you know, and—

Hey, you can have the dog biscuit, but I'm not going to talk to you.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Just say, I'm sorry. You know, we're, and we have to do that all the time, right? Because we're not, not anyone and everyone can take this, can take taste tests, whether or not they're they're homeless or not. Right. So, so basically we just, uh, yeah, you know, I generally have a security person or someone that handles, handles that. And we just kind of walk about.

What's the funniest encounter you had with an individual or a person that you can share here? That's something that inevitably just happened and you just, you think about it all the time. I'm sure something sparked in your brain. Or like you met a celebrity or something, something that happened.

Yeah. We get the occasional celebrity. So I'm not in the field as much as I used to be, but yeah, we'll get, we'll get the occasional celebrity, you know? And again, I, living in Los Angeles, you kind of see them all the time. So they just— and talking to me, listening to me.

Hey, magically up here, I lived in LA too, and I was driving down the road and I, I drove by Ted Danson and then later on Whoopi Goldberg. I'm in the airport and it's like, you know, they're just right there. right in front of you, which is amazing.

Yeah. And you know, I'm not talking about A-list celebrities, right? I'm talking about B and C-list celebrities. Um, you know, uh, Pauly Shore and, um, uh, what, you know, Mindy Kaling, some reality stars who, oh, I don't really know, but you know, my staff was like, oh, that's so-and-so from whatever.

Came on and said Kathy Griffin, lots of love.

Aw.

So back, back. So let's get back to the spirits thing, but I'd be remiss if I didn't answer one of Heather's questions. So she has it. She's big in the no-low space, no alcohol, low alcohol.

Yeah.

That space. You want to tell a little bit about, about that?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So again, this, I believe, I don't know if she'd agree, but I would say this is a BFY product, falls into sort of that better for you type of product in that, you know, it's better for you than alcohol. And a lot of these And a lot of them do have, you know, supplements or adaptogens or things like that that, you know, help you feel, feel better or more at ease. So yes, that's, that's, that's a huge thing. And we do test with some of those brands and we test here in Los Angeles. We can test elsewhere too. But, but yeah, that would be a fantastic—

What makes it test— what makes a test viable? I don't know if that's the right word, viable. Like how many people that, you know, to say about, if you have to extrapolate across the US, how many people do you have to test to say, hey, this is statistically relevant?

Well, that's a great question. And if you don't mind me nerding out for a second, I'll give you my little spiel on sample sizes. So first of all, the pop-up CLT is a quantitative method. Okay. Qualitative, for example, are focus groups, and I would never recommend doing taste tests or trying to get answers on whether or not to launch formulas or not, flavors or not, by doing a focus group. So the minimum sample size for quantitative taste tests is, is 50. Okay? And that's the minimum you wanna do. Now, I like 100. It's a nice round number.

Yeah.

If you say 66% prefer, you know, product A, that's significant. You know, 66% equals 66 people. So it's just easy to understand. Larger companies, you know, our bigger legacy companies, they usually like a sample size of 150, uh, now or more. Now this is, this would just be for one test, right? So if you, so for example, if you wanted to do 3 or 4 tests or 3 or 4 different flavors or, you know, competitive competitive taste tests where there's, you know, 2 or more flavors, although we would like— I would stick to 2 for many reasons, then you could— then you would need more tests. And of course that costs more money. So that's why if there's a small company and they wanna do 2 or 3 tests, and we could do a sample size of 50, whereas a larger company would probably use a sample size of 150 or more, but we can get away with 50 and you can get away with 50. And I'm okay saying that even though market research people—

Oh, gosh.

We'll tell you that.

And then you can take those numbers and then they can make some decisions based on that data that you provide. I'm going to go back to the alcohol beverage business and actually sensory testing. And Adam will appreciate this and I'll let Adam take the next question, but you do targeted sensory panels. Targeted sensory.

Oh, sensory panels. Right. Sorry.

So how does that work?

So that's basically what our pop-up CLT is. It's a, it's an act and I'll tell you that honestly, that's really more for my search engine optimization because people in market research, they call, they, they, they call everything something different than what everyone else calls things. So we call them taste tests, right?

Yeah.

Market research people call them consumer sensory panels. So I have that in there so that it catches in my search engine optimization phrasing so that I get inquiries from those clients, but that's what it is. And that's what we do, you know? So we have a BFY, better for you sensory panel. that's testing your products. You know, health and wellness enthusiasts, for example, is a consumer sensory panel that we're targeting for these taste tests.

Well, I would think I would, as a founder or a brand owner or a marketer that's responsible for the quality of my product, I would think that I want to invest in you before I make my product, because if I'm going to make a big bet, I better make sure that it actually hits the consumer. And Adam, how many people do you talk to? They just come up with a product based on the like 2 or 3 people's opinion and they come out with it. And then inevitably it rolls out into the world and people go, hmm, this doesn't taste right. Or is it, I guess there's something between what you do, Adam, in terms of helping brands, you know, come to market and then what Andy's doing to make sure we get it right.

Yeah, it's a, oh, just, it's a beautiful, beautiful segue for me, Sam, because it leads into the question that I've been wanting to ask. So I think, you know, I literally wrote something in a document I was putting together the other day that said, if your, if your product is for everyone, it's for no Right? Like, I'm not saying that you have to find, you know, the 300-person niche of some super unique hobby, but like you have to pick a lane to some degree. Right? And so, Andrea, the question that extends from that is, you know, and Sam's heard me say it before, and I might've mentioned on a call with you, I call it the give a mouse a cookie paradox. And it happens to me, and I know this happens to you. So I'm curious to see what your answer is. Somebody comes to you and says, hey, you know, I want to engage with you. I want to get this research done. You provide them the research of, hey, 66% of participants felt this way or said this thing. I'm making something up, but then, you know, Brandon responds and goes, okay, they said, you know, 66% said that they were off-put by this artwork on the can. Help me, like, can you help me redesign it? And if not, who does? Who do you recommend? You know, so how do you carry that conversation forward into helping them them either paint a larger picture within Tastemakers and figure out what kind of reformulating, redesigning, tweaking looks like, or who do you send them to?

Okay. Well, I, I mean, well, first and foremost, anyone can contact me for anything market research related. Now, in terms of packaging, I, I certainly have some contacts I would be happy to flip your way that are, you know, that are very experienced, excellent boutique. Yeah.

We'll make sure that we, uh, when we actually publish the, uh, The podcast will put like contact information in, Andy, so they can get in touch with you for sure. We, you know, this is something that, you know, it's funny, I shared with you when we first met, like when I lived in Los Angeles, I would be intercepted, right? And I got intercepted a couple of ways. One is I'd be in the mall and they'd give me a free movie pass. So it was like really big out there. I don't know if they do that now, but they're like, hey, go watch this movie. Right.

Yeah.

They paid me to go to see it. And we said, wait, so Susan and I would actually venture out in the wild. Hey, let's go get free movie passes today. 'Cause we knew where these people were to give us free movie passes. This is when we're in our 20s and we had no money. So we were trying to get the $5 dog bone for free.

So.

Yeah, they still do that. They still do that. But yeah, and that, and that, and it works for that product, for the movie product. Right.

So, so have you thought about, have you thought about like, um, so I know you talked about like the canyon, kids' soccer games, you'll go to Venice Beach. I mean, is there a particular area, maybe you said at the very beginning, but is there a particular location or a time of day that is actually really to optimize the opportunity to get people interested in you or day of the week to, to actually talk?

It depends on the location. I mean, another thing that we do is we work with I work with you know commercial retail property managers. So those are you know those are the types of companies that have owned malls or possibly own malls, but there they have retail centers nationally. So but again, like I said, we don't we're not the mall people and we're not the clipboard people. But what we'll do is we'll maybe we'll test at either an everyday retail location or which you know you have your CVS, you have your Petco. You have your Chase Bank and a Starbucks. And so there's generally what we do is a short-term lease. It's also called a pop-up.

Okay.

And so we'll just, we'll be there for 2 or 3 days or a week or how long we need to complete the project. And then we're allowed to recruit people that are in and out all day.

You bring 'em in, they get on the computer, they answer the questions.

Exactly. Exactly. And so then, then those, then they have those on the national level. So then we can, we can use, you know, those locations, uh, at different different markets as, as well. So when we do have different markets, then we usually work with one of those commercial property managers.

So tell me about— I'm going to pronounce Neuro Bliss. So they have some great things to say about you and about how you did their sensory panels, and they contact you and they're really excited what you do. Uh, and this looks like a really cool brand, Adam. I don't know if you see on the website, but, uh, this is something— these are brands like Adam would be working with, by the way. Early stage, they want to come in And, and, and, and develop. But tell us about this relationship.

Absolutely. So Neuro's been around for a while. I would say that they're one of the first BFI functional beverages.

They used to have the, the PET, like the hourglass PET bottles, right? With the twist-off cap.

Yeah. Yes, exactly. I think that they still do.

I'm, I'm looking right at one right now on her website.

Yeah. That, that, but that, I'm pretty sure that they still do. So yeah, that was, we tested We, we tested in Los Angeles and, and New York with those. And I work with their head of research tech and, you know, technical. And yeah, we did, we've done some, some great work for them, you know, testing various formulas, testing different flavors, testing, you know, this kind of gets in, we didn't test efficacy with them, but we are now testing efficacy of these functional beverages. So that's, you know, you know, do, do you now feel energized? Do you now feel relaxed? Or, you know, those kinds of things.

So this is going to be in a world that Adam is probably going to get really technical on you. So you're actually, you can prove based on the consumer response that it's efficacious?

Yeah.

So these aren't clinical trials. Yeah. You know, again, clinical trials are basically cost prohibitive for most companies out there.

Right. But you can say like, when you're talking about THC products, right? I was talking to a guy the other day and he goes, you don't really know. So actually the gentleman I just introduced you to, he's like the flavor guy, Adam. him the other day, Michael. But anyway, he was talking about you really don't know what's in the product and a lot of stuff isn't water soluble. And I actually talked to the guy earlier in the week that actually has a technology that actually can make things water soluble. So, but based on their response, you can probably relatively assume that it's not obviously a clinical trial that it has some type of effect.

Yes. And I think one thing I also wanted to say is Uh, for our testing, and this is going to lead back into, you know, what's, you know, does this work or not, is whether or not you can claim that. Okay, whether or not you can make a claim with that. So as long as you keep it B2B or business to business, so that means distributors, grocers, um, you know, your sales team and marketing team, then you can say our product was preferred over the leading competitor. better, you know, when you're fighting for shelf space and that kind of thing.

Okay, you got it.

As long as, as long as you don't cross over into consumer advertising with that message, because that's a whole different ball of wax. Um, this, you know, these standards were developed in the '80s by companies like General Mills and Kellogg's when there were no other smaller companies around. So these projects cost a minimum $150,000 or more just to get this information. No matter how well you do the product, the product, let's say you're going up against, you know, let's say you're a small company, you're going to get going up against Coke or Pepsi, one of their BFI brands. Coke and Pepsi can sue you for sport. Just because, you know, how, you know, they dare to do that, right?

I was thinking about the Freebird Liquid Death Challenge, Jay Williams.

Can we do that?

Can we, can we do it?

All right.

So can we do that with you? Like, I'm, I've, it's not my decision, but Jay, but can we do that?

Liquid Death, not as a client, but as a, as a competitor.

Really? So how did that go?

So, so, well, it was, uh, it was with their iced tea, iced tea brand.

And Jay said they would get murdered. So anyway, I'll connect, I'll connect you up with Jay Williams, but go ahead. So you tested their ice? Oh yeah. Go ahead. Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. They have some iced teas, um, low, low sugar iced teas. I'm actually a big fan of, uh, Liquid Death myself. So, so yes. So that's what you can do. So when you're a smaller company, you don't really, first of all, you don't have the money to do the consumer ad claims, right? Because you have to, anyway, it's a whole thing, minimum $150,000. Uh, but what we can do is we can get you B2B claims so you can tell So that you can tell your distributors and your grocery stores. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, exactly.

I'm always looking for, I'm always, you know, because what we do at Bev Access is we actually help find distributors and customers, right? I was sitting at Walmart, you know, not this past Thursday, but the Thursday before last. And I wanna be able to take that information, you know, to them or to Breakthrough or Southern Glazer Wine and Spirits. And evidently you're gonna say, hey, what does the brand taste like? What does the brand stand for? Who is your competitor? And I've had some information from you. to actually build that, to talk about my brand and I'm pitching to those people, that's helpful. So from a B2B standpoint, is your point is that, that information you're gathering, we can use that that way.

Yeah. So, so there's your ROI on your cost when you're using Tastemakers Research Group. Because you're gonna have this information that you can use to either get you in the door or get you more shelf space compared to your competitors. Interesting.

Um, Adam, questions? You're thinking there. I see you looking up.

Yeah, I had it and then you kicked it over to me and now I lost it. Um, same, right?

Early. Damn it. No, it's still pretty early out here.

Come back to me.

So let's, what's next for Tastemakers? So, so you, you obviously you do the consumer research, you do the, um, pop-up CLT. product testing solutions? Are you innovating? And is there innovation coming in terms of how you're approaching the consumer? What, what's, what's in the future for you?

You know, we've got a pretty good system. We've got a pretty good setup. Basically, you know, our customers are any CPG food and beverage company. You know, I for one have not gone fast and broken things with the way I've approached my business. So it's just been kind of slow and steady and let's not break things on purpose. Right.

But we, I certainly have broken things and, you know, I can go down a whole rabbit hole about breaking things on purpose, by the way, but I won't go, I won't go down that right now. I'm just saying I'm looking at my 401k and why do we break it on purpose?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, so yeah, it, I've been, you know, it's been a slow and steady approach and that's been, you know, so it's been good for us to scale and then Just speaking of scaling, I think, you know, for example, I'm just going to throw out some pricing. Just don't hold me to it. But for example—

What's it going to cost me? Because Jay Williams is asking right now at Freebird, what is it going to cost me to get into the game here?

Okay. So let's take a standard 100, N equals 100.

100 people.

100 people. Okay. And so that would typically be priced about $15,000. So what that comes out to, and that includes our snapshot reporting, all our diagnosis, our, you know, our stat-tested reporting that we, that we would use for B2B claims essentially. So that, that's included in addition to live results links on testing days. So if you can't make it out to the testing site, you have a live results link. You can see the results as they come in. And that also includes individual participant incentives. Because those are usually, you know, other methods, it's $50 just to get them in the, into the door. And ours are, you know, between $5 and $10. So the best thing to do is if we have smaller companies is to pull them together so that we can do more than once. So let's say we have, you know, let's say we have another company and they do N equals 100. Okay, well now it's maybe like $22,500. To do the 2 tests versus $30,000 for 2 individual tests, right? Because we have to cover our nut. If, if you do, uh, so, you know, if we have to take a day or 2, let's say we— 2 days to do, um, 100, because I always have to have a backup, even though we can probably finish it in 1 day. Um, we can't start, you know, passing along costs to you until we make our nut, which is mostly our fixed costs up front. But after we reach that, then we can start reducing, um, price. So let's say you had 3 baby brands, you know, and it's 300. Well, now maybe it's, uh, $30,000 or, or $10,000 a pop.

Got it. Got it.

Versus $45,000.

I was gonna make the millions of dollars investment because like I talked to a person, a founder And they actually sold their house to actually build their brand, right? So think about that for a minute. And that's probably the house sold for like a million bucks. So they took all those proceeds from that house to go pursue their dream. Or you hear it all the time, Adam, friends and family put $2 million into this deal, right? So I would think spending $15,000 is a bargain because if I'm going to make the investment, also I can use that data to go to the investors to say, Hey, we got it right. This is statistically relevant. We know this is a sweet spot for this brand against this consumer in this market because of what tastemakers told us. So for me, sometimes these people, they start to pinch pennies and they put all their money into things that don't create value. I would think that the, I mean, I always talk about this quality, consistency, and authenticity.

Yeah.

And the quality and consistency in what you do is so important in a brand. And if you don't hit it, you can sell it once, but if it doesn't taste good and it's not consistent, they're not coming back.

Right. And the other thing is, you know, in addition to the, the tasting, like, like I was saying, we also can evaluate, you know, different messaging option, you know, options, you know, importance of various benefits so that, you know, you can prioritize what to put on the package or what to, you know, what message to use with your consumers, just, you know, which one sort of resonated.

I just think that the consumer, the consumers are gonna tell you exactly what you need. So you can ask, you can put those questions in. It's really interesting. I've met some other marketers, there was one's called Mod or whatever. And what they do is they'll actually ask consumers to tell them what, like they did one called Brawl Ball was like their use case, but basically they had the consumers design the art for a Brawl Ball, right? And then they gave 'em some type of reward for the design of the art. So you'd probably do the same thing with your research too. Ask consumers, hey, what would you like to see in the package design of this product? And then they sign waivers based on that. So basically once they give that information to you, it becomes the property of that client.

Well, we, I mean, we can have all participants sign an NDA or a confidentiality agreement if needed. But, and it's also very safe with our method because, you know, if you're doing an online survey, Yeah. Just, you know, I mean, people can, people can pull those, those images down, but they can't do that when we're, we're there, you know, monitoring.

Interesting. Okay. Well, look, you know, with the last few minutes here, I want to give you an opportunity to share anything. Obviously, we want to talk about that you want to share with everybody here. I know you've talked about alcohol. You do like across all like CPG food and beverages. We'll put in how to get in contact with you, but is there anything that we missed this morning that you wanted to share with the I have that nagging feeling in the back of my head that there is something.

I know we all know that feeling.

It's early in Los Angeles. It's early in California right now. If you think about it, you can always come back to me.

Yeah, no, I just, I really love what I do and, and how, and how, and how we do things. Yeah. You know, so the way we approach people, like I said, we're not the clipboard people. We just, we just want to know their opinion and we want them to be honest. And that's something that, that we ask as a screener. Will you provide an honest evaluation? You know, going back to Adam's point is, are they just gonna say something just 'cause they want this or they wanna get paid? Well, you know, we have a rigorous screening process to, to, to ensure that. Our, I would just say that we have such high engagement with, you know, so basically I'll say, you know, our surveys are 6 to 8 minutes. Some people will spend 15 to 20 people. It's not un— sorry, minutes. Some people 15 to 20 minutes. It's not uncommon because they are, are, you know, they're sipping and they're thinking and they're sipping and they're thinking and they're writing things. And we've got, we've got these, you know, essays about what they liked or what they didn't like. So it's just, again, it's not just the method, but it's, it's the engagement. And, you know, when you are, when you're, when you're in a different environment or more formal environment or more sterile environment, you just don't, don't get that, the kind of output that we do from our participants.

One of the things you said to me, if it's okay if I share this, when we were talking, it was like a few weeks ago, but I remember you saying, like, you founded this company because you get to work when you want to work, work where you want to work. You're not a morning person, so you can get up. And so thank you for joining us early this morning that we convinced you. But, you know, being a founder, like, you know, like, do you love what you do? Do you love this company? You've put everything into it. Have you been— how long has the company been around?

You know, we were incorporated in 2014, but unofficially I started around 2010, again, about the same time I was doing those, uh, you know, kids protein bar taste tests at the soccer games. So, so yeah, I do love it.

Yeah, you do. So it's inspiring to me because I've been an entrepreneur for 2 years. My partner, Alicia Vargo, has been doing it for 2 decades. You know, first of all, you know, You know, I always ask every founder this, what is the difference between success and failure? Do you know the answer?

I think it's, I think it's all in, it's all up here. It's how you feel. I mean, you know, I don't, I, you know, I feel like Pacemakers Research is a success, whether or not anyone else considers it a success is irrelevant. You know, and it's not that I'm a millionaire or anything like that, or it's even about that. But it is at the end of the day, it's about, it's about helping companies sell better products. Yeah.

But you said something—

And sell more products.

Alicia's gonna appreciate this. You said it, it's all up here, right? It's manifest it, right? So half the time, if you just believe it, you'll achieve it. I know that's, uh, you know, I don't know who said that quote, But it's true. I always said, one of the other things I hear is, I'm sure, like, you weren't a success overnight. I'm 100% sure that you weren't, but you stuck with it. So I always hear the answer is not giving up. So many people are on the cusp of success and then they just, they cash in and they give up. So, I mean, how long, at this, like, you know, a 15-plus year journey you've been on, how long did it take you to actually, you know, see that ROI?

You know, it's, I would say that, you know, I would say that it's been pretty steady, right? I mean, I haven't had that sort of meteoric growth, I guess, nor have I been looking for that necessarily. It's just been slow and steady. And, you know, we're at a point now Where, like you said, was, I think, you know, Tastemakers is ready to take off. We've done all of our own research. We have a finished product.

Right.

We, we have a, we have a working machine and that is going to help determine, you know, your products. Yeah. I guess potential for success.

I think, you know, between Adam and I, there's a lot of brands we obviously want to connect you to that I believe straight up you can help even the co-packagers you deal with probably introduce your to Ryan Adam. I'm sure Ryan would love to talk to Andy as well and Anne and Jodi and many of our friends out there, even Deborah Brenner. We're part of the diversified diversity and equity and inclusion program there, as well as Women on the Vine and Spirit. So I'd love to connect you up with them.

Excellent. That would be awesome.

Yeah.

I think you would enjoy meeting with Deborah and it's also my partner partner, Alicia. With that being said, I'm going to let Adam have some closing comments, then you have some closing comments and we'll wrap it up.

Yeah, I think the, the, I remember the question I was going to ask and we've run out of time, but I'll make it a statement and Andrea, you can, or Andy, you can agree with me or disagree. The question was going to be, you know, something around obviously taking the data that your group helps capture Sure. And making sure that you work with an experienced legal team to understand ways to say it and not say it so that it is appropriately used. Right. I'm sure we could, we could run down that rabbit hole for, for another several minutes, but I asked because on this podcast and outside of it, Sam and I know a few attorneys who exist primarily in that space. And I'm assuming that's something that you either recommend or that folks who are informed will do for that exact Not necessarily.

I mean, yes, you can, but here's the thing. I'm on the American Standards Testing Materials Committee for Sensory Ad Claim Substantiation for Consumers. So what I've been able to do is I've been able to, well, first of all, you know, this is cost ineffective for most of my clients.

Yeah.

Secondly, you know, you can be sued for, so let's, so how do we do this in a Mm-hmm. How do we do claims from a B2B client, B2B way? So I've been able to find sort of the gray area and the loopholes where we can go right up until consumer advertising. So for example, I've worked with some companies and/or separately their PR firms. So if there's a, hey, you know, this was definitely preferred in these areas to the leading competitor, you can put a press release out about that. it, because this is not consumer advertising. Right. So there are, you know, there are ways that you can, you can do that. But of course, you know, if you're big enough to have sort of that lawyer, but just from me, right, knowing the standards better than the lawyers going to know them.

That's really, that's really great information. So you did answer the question, which is really good, but that— I'm part of another brand, a company called Wendy, which stands for We're Not Dead Yet Incorporated. But, uh, That's a bunch of people, but we have brands and we always talk about things being efficacious, but maybe there's certain claims we can make from a B2B standpoint as we're going to try to open up distribution. So food for thought, Wayne Latomsky, Bob Murray, and calling those people out and, uh, and Alan Copeland and others. With that being said, what kind of closing comments would you like to share with everybody, Andy, today?

I guess I would. So I do have one example. We were— this was from a while ago. We had a client, you know, just again, kind of their own product. that they, they had developed as sort of a savory trail mix, you know, you know, didn't have the raisins or the chocolates in it. So we were testing the savory trail mix. And speaking of ugly babies, the vast majority of the participants thought that it looked like dog food and that they wouldn't buy it. So that was particularly useful so that they could go back and just, you know, change. 'Cause I think all the sizes were the same, you know, they're all the sizes were kind of the same, or sorry, all the pieces were the same sizes. So it just looked very homogeneous and there's a lot of brown in it. So, so based on that information, you know, that was, it was very clear what they, what they needed to do is to make it not look like dog food. Wow.

Interesting. I just had to stop for some reason. I'm going to go try my dog's dog food now. I'm curious what it tastes like. Well, this has been, it's been great to have you here today. Um, thank you for sharing your journey. It took us a while because it was several weeks ago that we talked. I'm glad we talked last night and this morning. I'm wishing you the best of luck. I can't wait to get out to— are you in the Los Angeles area? Yeah. So when I get out there, I'd love to meet you. And I know, you know, a couple of our friends out there, Marshall, as well as I think, you know, Roger as well. You guys run in the same circles.

Exactly.

I can't join the group unless I'm physically in Los Angeles. So I'm going to come and maybe just be a guest speaker at the group and bring Adam and Tote with me so we can do that. But, uh, thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much. And then I just wanted to screen this from Jeff in closing. He said, great info on testing products and collecting data. Thanks, Andy, Adam, and Sam. And thank you, uh, Jeff, for joining us. And I'll connect you too, as well. He's from BrandArctica. And I'm sure that you could probably help many of his clients as well.

I'd be happy to. We, that's what we do and that's what we love doing. And next time you're in LA, my town, my treat. Okay.

100%. I'm booking a ticket right now and I'm heading that way.

Awesome.

Thanks, Adam. Uh, thanks, Andy. Thanks everyone for joining. Alicia, Jeff, Peter, Mason, Heather, and others that have joined us today. Uh, thanks for the participation. Just makes the show that much more special on a Saturday morning. Have a good weekend, everybody.