Alchemy in the Real World: Connecting With Real People In The Real World with Layne Cox, CMO of Union

Tim Rowe:
Welcome to Out of Home Insider, the first podcast for media and marketing executives about creating alchemy in the real world. My name is Tim Rowe, and for the past three years, I've been interviewing guests about their unique experiences in bridging this misunderstood and undervalued opportunity for brands. And today's guest is Lane Cox. Lane is the CMO of Union and one of the earliest startup marketers to leverage out-of-home advertising as a growth channel all the way back in 2009. Lane has helped to build and scale amazing companies like Seamless Web, Grubhub, Slice, and Palm. Lane's specialty culminates at the intersection of the digital consumer experience in the physical world, specifically the two-sided marketplace is truly at the tip of the spear in the platform revolution. In today's episode, we delve into Lane's insights on getting the formula right, on measuring the impact of offline media in a holistic way that makes sense while being accountable to the bottom line, the dynamics of being a challenger brand that create competitive advantages over incumbent competitors, and a different way of thinking about wasted reach in a broadcast media. Lane stresses the importance of being relevant and fun and on meeting customers where they are, and the importance of using big, broad channels to prove to customers and partners that your thing is really a thing. And I'd like to set an intention for you to consider while you enjoy this episode, and that is to ask yourself this, when is the last time you experienced what it's like to buy from yourself? So without further ado, let's go.

Intro Music: Welcome everybody to the Out of Home Insider Show, a podcast like no other, hosted by the one and only Tim Rowe.

Intro Music: Get ready to have some knowledge dropped on you and to be entertained because nothing's more valuable than food for your brain. So sit back, relax. We're about to dive in as the best industry podcast is about to begin.

Tim Rowe: It's been a long time in the making and I think just right out of the box lane, we got to shout out Doug Cordova, the ultimate connector and networker of people who I had the pleasure of seeing just last night. I don't know when this will be coming out, but just saw Doug last night and Lane and I, we've been talking for, for years now and we finally got it on the schedule and really excited to unpack a pretty cool conversation here. Lane, thanks for being here.

Layne Cox: Love it. Thanks for having me. Definitely. Years in the making, but excited to be here.

Tim Rowe: Like all good things, they take time. So I think that really where we are to now in the timeline of history of advertising and specifically your career and where your career trajectory has taken you, now is the right time to have the conversation for the audience that maybe hasn't met you yet. Can you walk us through your career journey? How did you become a CMO? The focus on consumer marketing has really been a theme throughout your career, so we'd just love to hear your origin story.

Layne Cox: It's been a journey. Life's a journey, not a destination, right? But it's definitely been a journey. I started my career at Aramark in contract food services. As my husband still likes to poke fun of me, I was the lunch lady. And so I ran a cafeteria in a Starbucks outlet. I took that role because I really wanted to understand restaurant operations and management. I knew I never wanted to be in it long term, but I took it for that reason. And again, life's a journey. You never know where it's going to take you. The irony that happened while I was there, Aramark purchased a company called Seamless Web, which was online food ordering for big corporate companies. And I got that opportunity to see tech and see, oh my God, how is this working? And I'm no longer young at that time. It was like the website, web, online webbing and whatever you could say. Mobile apps didn't exist. It was new. It was like, what is this tech thing? And so it was exciting. So I remember going to my district manager and being like, I want to see what's happening at the Seamless Web thing. That looks like a cooler spot than being the lunch lady. And so she sent me over for the day to meet people over there. And it was truly this awesome unlock of, oh my God, this is cool. And so I ended up being one of the early people at Seamless Web during their migration from a B2B corporate solution to a B2C consumer solution. And while I was there, sort of apps took off. And so I had the opportunity of helping to bring Seamless to life in New York City. That kind of takes me on that journey to out of home. I was sitting on the subway train and I was tasked with offline media of how do you acquire consumers to this brand? How do you get consumers to understand we're more than just a corporate brand and that you can use us at home? And I saw this, wow, why are brands like seamless on the subway system, right? Why aren't startups here? Why is this all just like a law firm or a big Delta had one of the big ad campaigns on at the time, right? And I was like, why can't we do that? And so that parlayed me into really pioneering and pushing tech and startups in New York into the outdoor space, which was super exciting. fun and challenging and really like outdoor unlocked a huge success point for Seamless in their career and in the journey of sort of introducing the brand to New York City. Had then that opportunity of saying, what's next after outdoor? And that was television. And what I loved most about both those opportunities was ultimately the constant push from the board and the executive team of, but how do you know this is working? How do you keep getting… I kept asking for more millions of dollars ultimately, right? That's when my analytical side kind of shined up of like, oh wait, we can prove this. We can sort of look at the connection point of how this is driving the business. And I think that was my unlock of being able to really fuel outdoor, but also be able to fuel the entry into television, which clearly is bigger budgets and the entry into national radio campaigns and the bigger sponsorships that we ended up doing right at GrubHub Seamless. I guess you asked me about my career journey and I stuck in Seamless for a little bit because outdoor is fun. But that's where I then like I left after IPO. Big companies aren't my things. I like startups. I like disruption. I like the build phase. So I left Seamless Grubhub to go to Ibotta, which is a cashback couponing app that was based here in Denver, Colorado, where I currently live. And that journey was the similar challenge that they had of how do we build this brand and increase ultimately the exposure of who can use this app. At the time, they were very much a mommy couponing app and they wanted to go broader. So that's where we figured out how do we leverage national television to take their brand broader? How do we broaden the brand and how do we do it with an analytical mindset? And so that's what I brought to the table there. Career-wise though, I missed hospitality. I missed sort of the connection point of independent sort of just food is really what I missed. And so that led me back to Slice, which was online food ordering for independent pizzerias. Had the fun opportunity- Big fans of Slice here. of elevating that brand and bringing it to sort of the everyday. We went from very small when I started to where they are today. I just saw that they ranked like the 15th most popular marketplace app, which is incredible. And I feel so proud of them right now. But that brand was a fun journey. But ultimately, and sort of how we met is I wanted more. I wanted to build and disrupt and build more brands. Like I love building brands. And we can talk more about it. I know it's coming, but like that whole notion of how do you connect with the consumer and change their every day is sort of as my career has evolved is what What gets me jazzed? That early days of Seamless got me to realize consumers wanted it, but the restaurants didn't know they needed it and how to use it. And so it was this connection that was fun to build out. Same thing as Ibotta. How do you take people who are clipping coupons and make them? into the digital world, how do you expose them that this is an easy tool for them to do? Same as Splice, how do you get mom and pop pizzeria to realize that there's more value if they go online and they actually shouldn't be paying the big guys all of this money and they can go to a company that's really there to support them specifically, right? So loved all that, stepped out because I wanted more. I started my own business with a colleague from my seamless days, which was Hella Bella, online booking for nail salons. You can sort of see how that would cross connect. How do we go back into it? But again, some of the things, one COVID hit, but some of the things is I still missed hospitality. So that lands where I am now is back in hospitality, building a marketplace, but also supporting tech that's disrupting a space specifically for high volume bars. So essentially what we're doing is we're moving hospitality forward for high volume bars in a way that everybody has a positive impact. The bar owner, the bar goer, the brand of alcohol brands that are present at the bar and the bartenders. And so it's this union of all of them to make everybody to win. And we're doing it with tech enhanced experiences, which again, my sweet spot, how do you take the phone that we all have in our pocket to aid everyone to be more successful? So unions in its early phases, but super excited about the mission ahead. And to go back to how to like the journey I would never have been able to say 20 something years ago, like I'm going to be here and I'm going to be doing tech and I'm going to be running an awesome marketing team and I'm going to have touched brands and really disrupted sort of the everyday of a consumer's experience with technology. I would never have thought that. But when you like actually map I didn't make the call, like life made the call for my career journey. But to go from restaurant operations, sort of Aramark hospitality, right, to seamless web, them happening to be transitioning to consumer, I didn't know I needed that. But like one thing has always led to another, right? Like, I got to Ibotta because I was like, I'm not challenged anymore. I want something else. And I sat with someone at Ibotta. They told me what their mission was on. And I was like, holy crap, this connects. Yes, I can help. Same thing back to Slice. Same thing ultimately back to Union. I tell my founder at Union all the time, I was like, pinch me. How did I get here? Ultimately, I don't think I could have written a better sort of resume for what this company is and where we're going from. How do you relate to operators? How do you drive a mobile app experience? How do you get sort of brand media and Bev alcohol brands right to interact in a mobile environment? All of my career is lined up to it. So super exciting. My advice always to people early in their career is it's a journey. It's not a destination. Do things that make you happy. And I can tell you that's the one thing that I continuously see in my career. Challenge yourself, but if you find yourself not happy and frustrated, and this now feels like a job, it's time to lift your head up and find something else. And that's what I can tell you. I always knew hospitality was in me. And so I didn't talk about it, but I did a stunt where I helped build a direct-to-consumer brand by the name of Pomp. online ordering, like the freshest flowers, Jack, best flowers, the best flowers.

Tim Rowe: If you want to impress somebody, a significant other, it's mom's birthday, Mother's Day is coming up. Palm is the best flowers lady got me on the pump train and I haven't gotten off.

Layne Cox: Oh, literally. But Tony Awards, Miss America pageant, the best roses you can possibly get and you get them direct from the farm. So anyway, it sounds like we're doing a commercial for them, but helped build that brand and loved it. But during my time there is when I really, really validated yet again about a was it and then this was like, I'm meant to be in hospitality. I am meant to be working with sort of that every day, like the family run business. Like that, that is where I thrive and like connecting with that as well as consumers connecting with that. And so anyways, long winded answer. I don't know how I got here, but I got here.

Tim Rowe: It's good. It's good. I got goosebumps halfway through because I think that that's, I think it's the piece that sometimes we lose, right? It's the forest through the trees. We get caught up in the day to day and maybe some of those frustrations and it's hard to see like, where am I going? Right. But Lane, who started at Aramark had no idea she would be the CMO of a really exciting company where all of those elements combined, like the universe opened up and just said, we've created this perfect piece for you because you've done the other steps. You followed the passion. You trusted that internal instinct, right? And you just kept moving in that direction. And I think that good things happen when you do that. You touched on in there, the combining of out-of-home and television and having to figure out how am I proving that this works? It's interesting to hear perspective from the brand because as an out-of-home industry, these are the things that we are challenged with by advertisers, that they want to understand these things. And as an industry, we quite haven't gotten there yet where everyone's singing from the same sheet. How did you approach that then what circle when was this? And like, how did you even go about it?

Layne Cox: Wow, wow. Yeah, let's go back in time. I think my first out of home campaign was Well, the very first one was 2008 and we used an agency to do it. And we put like phone kiosks and Walmart murals and two-streeters throughout New York City. And like, it was very campaign-y and very campaign agency-like. And I say all this is because we spent a ton of money and nothing happened. Like it was… Like great people went to the campaign website, but then no one put in their email. It just flopped. And so then you fast forward like six more months. I'm sitting there. I had been looking at like search numbers before and our CPAs were only going up as we were trying to scale and spend more money. Online food ordering search was a phenomenal, phenomenal channel. Still is. them. But we were trying to scale and how do you spend more money because you still need to hit your CPAs and you still need to grow. And so that's when marketer brain goes, oh, you got to widen the funnel. You got to get more people exposed. You're just kind of on that. you know, direct response side of it, how do we add brand? And so that's where I was like, the subway, like, yeah, it's got to be expensive, but there's got to be a way we can do it because I'm looking around and all these people are the demographic that we need, right? Right. And so I bring that back as negativity from the company's perspective on outdoor, outdoor, this isn't done.

Tim Rowe: Right. This didn't work for me. Now out of home has a black eye where it's out of home doesn't work. These are some of the challenges we're trying to overcome. So I'm excited to hear how you fought through that.

Layne Cox: What I had to teach myself, who even sells outdoor? How do you buy this? How do you not go to an agency and give them the commissions on it? How do you do this yourself internally and scrap it together to prove? I'll pull out his name. Jeff Powers was introduced to me from Outfront at the time they were CBS Outdoor, right? Jeff Powers was introduced to me and he said, well, we can prove this Lane. Let's figure it out together. And to be honest, I had someone on the inside helping, helping young Lane figure out on how to do it. Wow. Shout out Jeff. Well, we ended, yes, Jeff, he knows he's a, I'm a big Jeff powers fan, but what, what we did was we did a small test campaign in DC and a market where we were growing, but we hadn't really done a lot of other things. Like it was really just a search market. We hadn't really done much. Jeff and I were able to look at where do we have restaurants currently in the DC market? which train line then should we be on to saturate ultimately and prove that by putting ads here, we can get in front of this audience. To buy in DC was much cheaper than to buy in New York. And we decided, let's do it. So I think we ran an eight week campaign in DC. We were targeting the red line. It was very clear sort of the corridor where the consumers were gonna be living on it. And I can't remember all the stats off the top of my head, but what we looked at was order volume, total increases, how many new consumers were activated. And we were able, because we weren't doing a ton of other things in that market, we were able to literally step. It was not like a 10% lift. It was like a 20, 50% lift. That's incredible. And it was like, people were commenting, people were taking pictures. Now, like in sending it to us, like we did a social component with it too. Facebook was not Facebook today, but Facebook then, but it validated enough that there was something there. And it also taught us our measurement, right, of here's how we potentially can measure it. Overall lift in the market, overall traffic to the site. Overall, and it's like what I have brought to several other startups at this point in time during their evaluation, look at what your blended CPA is. Take your total spent across all of your channels and divide that by your total new customers or whatever sort of your metric you're trying to move, whether it's orders. We looked at how many flowers we sold, whatever that is. But how did that change month over month? If that tripled, your outdoor campaign ain't working. But if it's nominally increasing, you actually are going to be able to see the impact across the whole ecosystem of the different channels. Because guess what? Your search campaign probably got better. Right? You were able to get customers at a lower cost there. But why was that? It was because you're top of the funnel branding. So anyways, we really just started tracking this blended CPA and what percent is it brand spend impacting that what percent is direct response for impacting it, but had a really good lever of being able to measure the business. So we took that and did the same thing in New York. We bought half branded trains, Jeff Powers yet again. It was his vision of nobody is doing this. You're going to stand out. And we did. Right. We stood out and it was great. We saw very similar, if not slightly better from what my brain tells me results in New York. And I haven't been to New York in a while, but I'm pretty sure Grubhub is still buying half branded trains in New York. If I'm like, you probably ride that subway, but I bet it's still there. So you talk about that was 2009, fall of 2009, I would say, when we did that. And they're still there. Wow.

Tim Rowe: 2009, like that's a decade and a half ago. And these are conversations.

Layne Cox: 2009, it was fall 2010. And I'd have to look back. I always say, and it's Jeff and I like, we should probably have done this podcast together.

Tim Rowe: Now that I think we'll do a follow up.

Layne Cox: Jeff and I always get mad because Casper normally gets the credit for starting startups and outdoor are in New York subways.

Tim Rowe: Sure.

Layne Cox: No, that was Jeff Powers and Link Cox. That was 90% us.

Tim Rowe: Let history show.

Layne Cox: Yeah. Jeff definitely sold me on it, but I was inspired by the Manhattan Mini Storage ads. I'm older than you clearly, but they had these cool witty ads. So our first creative round into New York's subway system, we copied the Manhattan Mini Storage concept. I can't remember what it was, but it was that type of thing. How do you be super relevant to the New York audience? And again, I'm not in New York, but that whole relevancy and poking fun. Everything was about the New York audience in our subway campaigns. We'd go back and pull some of the lines. We were so relevant. Why I can't remember of any of them off the top of my head. It's too long. But that was really this elevation and this growth of what we saw for the seamless brand. And it was pretty incredible to be a part of it. But that led to TV because guess what happened? You're not just in New York anymore, Lane. We got to grow in Chicago and we got to grow in DC and we got to grow in LA and San Francisco. And so we ended up moving to television to widen that funnel and get a sort of the national presence. Most people at the time were buying local TV spots. local TV spots have a massive CPM difference than a national spot. So a national spot at the time I think was like $6 CPM versus a local TV spot specifically in New York was around $35 to $45. So like this cost differential was huge. And so that's where when I said, let's do national television, it was because, okay, I can take a $6 CPM and cover 70% of our markets that we want to be in really well. And so the numbers made so much more sense. So why not numbers game of how do you do it? So like we can do it and we have the coverage because the TV audience is based on where population is. And when you're covering New York city and LA and San Francisco and Chicago, guess what? Go national. It also gives your brand a very different level of clout when you're sort of the first spot behind at the time it was Bravo. Bravo was we were on Bravo was our number one performing channel, right? And so our network to be on. And so it was huge. But that was, again, very analytical mindset of why would I spend this when I could spend this and get broader reach? And how do we then did upfronts to reduce our costs, but self-taught all of that. It was fun.

Tim Rowe: Why not? Why not build brand as so many digital born online brands do with Facebook and other social media market? Why did you choose offline media? I mean, it was the peak of Facebook efficacy, yet you went the path less traveled, which obviously we love. What led you to that? Why did you choose to go offline?

Layne Cox: We didn't just go offline. We were also very much doing digital as well. We always had a good mix. And Sarah Livingston, I'll give a shout out. Early days, she was the one fighting for digital budget at Seamless and I was the one fighting for out of home budget. Right. But we both essentially won and it lifted all tides. But I would say the reason I was a big proponent and the need that we needed to do offline, outdoor, things that weren't digital was because we were redefining a space. Ordering through a mobile app didn't exist. Consumers didn't know.

Tim Rowe: Because apps weren't even a thing.

Layne Cox: Yeah. We were growing with the app community, right? I can remember when third-party mobile digital ads, like the ad pop-up in another app was our best performing channel. Why? We were the only advertiser in it, right? We were the only one spending money in it for so long because we discovered it early. Again, startups have that luxury of being able to be nimble and to move into things fast. and to grow it out and discover things fast anyways. But with it, you have to remember in 2010, the iPhone wasn't in everybody's pockets. Apps were not as great as they are today. And I used to have to tell my mom. She didn't understand what we did. And I would be like, mom, instead of calling the Chinese restaurant for dinner, you're going to order on an app and it's going to streamline everything. And it's so much easier. She didn't get it. And I can actually remember this is I think I always, I had left Grubhub. It had IPO'd. Like we were, we were legit in my eyes as to what we were doing. And my mom was like, I just ordered an Uber Eats. Is that what you've been doing?

Tim Rowe: Oh my gosh.

Layne Cox: Mom! But she's in suburbia Arizona and it wasn't where Grubhub was or Seamless was, right? And to her, like all of a sudden her mind opened and she got it. So let's go back. We had to use big, broad media channels in order to really show that to not only our restaurant partners that this was a thing and consumers wanted it, but to consumers that this exists and make it real and legitimize it. I can remember one of our board decks about why television. We used Sonic as a example.

Tim Rowe: Sonic, the restaurant, the- Not the hedgehog, the drive up, get a slushie.

Layne Cox: Yeah. Because guess what? I lived in New York. You don't know a Sonic in New York, right?

Tim Rowe: There's no, yeah. Yeah, I don't know one.

Layne Cox: I had no, I grew up in Texas. I don't remember ever seeing a Sonic, right? Sure. Do these exist? I knew their television spot. You knew their radio ads. We use that as a, everyone knows what Sonic is, even if you didn't have one near you. Right. So it's okay board for us to advertise where we don't have presence because one day we will have presence or guess what? When they're in New York, they will be able to use us. People go to New York, people go to Chicago, people go to LA. And that was one of the reasons we were able to sort of offset it. The potential waste is what we used to call it for our TV campaigns. But it's like Sonic. Everyone, yeah, I've seen a Sonic TV commercial.

Tim Rowe: I've only been to Sonic like once in my life, but I, yeah, I could probably reenact a Sonic commercial if you ask me to.

Layne Cox: You see the crushed ice and like whatever that they guys in the car and they're bantering.

Tim Rowe: Right. And it's always silly. Yeah.

Layne Cox: Yeah. So it legitimizes as a brand in a way and really educates the consumer. So that's why I think for, you know, I was a big proponent and a big voice as to, and still I will say tell every brand, like if you can afford it, there's no reason not to do it because when you see it, there's also the tangible, like the tangible nature of, Not necessarily television, that's not tangible, but it is more tangible than a digital. Like there was this element of like, yeah, anyone can buy one of these banner ads. Anyone can do this search thing, but like, can everybody buy a billboard? Yeah, they can. It's easy. You can actually do it, but it legitimizes your brand and makes it feel in a different way. And so that was always my push and still is my push of get out from the eco, the digital ecosystem, right? And look at like where your consumers are every day. Oh, that actually tangent brings us back to the other thing that we used to, oh, like I've always chimed and talked about is don't look at the channels as I need to be on this channel. Who are you targeting? Who are you talking to? Now be a part of their every day. Where are they? So one of the reasons, and part of the sales pitch that we did for Outdoor, and again, Jeff Powers, was your consumers are sitting on that subway system for how long? Twice a day, at least going to and from work four times a day? Are they then getting back on to, you know, go to their girlfriend's house and then come home? Like, you have to think about they work. It was how do you get in front of your audience multiple times a day to and from work? and be a part of their everyday journey. And that was 100% the thesis with Outdoor that we had. But I always bring that to my team of like, we need to be part of their every day. And they need to see us, and they need to feel us, and we need to be relevant to them. So that's where Outdoor always shines in my eyes.

Tim Rowe: And I think it's a great segue to what you're working on now, which is that culmination of, of blending the, the, the digital experience with the real world. And you're doing some really exciting things at a company that on the surface, you might, you might say, Hey, that's just a point of sale company, but really you're not. It's a performance platform for spirit and alcohol brands, and you've got such deep data-driven insights, but as we've been talking about, it's that connection of the physical world and that digital component. Talk to us about Union. Tell us what you're working on now and how this incredible journey has brought you to where you are.

Layne Cox: I'm going to make everyone feel a certain way when I say that. Do it. 10 years ago. So we talked about my online food ordering journey, right? For those in their 40s, we remember not like, we literally remember not having that as an opportunity, right?

Tim Rowe: The yellow pages, you had to look up Chinese food in the yellow pages and call.

Layne Cox: We remember the pains of like, not I, I'm not calling for delivery.

Tim Rowe: I'll pick up, you buy, I fly.

Layne Cox: We remember those challenges, right? We also remember, like, I remember calling the yellow taxi to come get us, right? Like, I, I remember that. right? You talk about like, remember when I remember when we actually had to go to the airport and check in like in time to a gate agent to get a really good point.

Tim Rowe: That's a really, really good point. That was in this lifetime.

Layne Cox: We check in on our phones and we go right past that gate agent and we go straight to the gate. Well, after you take off your shoes and go through security.

Tim Rowe: Unless you, unless you want the alternative TSA adventure and then just, you know, keep your shoes on, run through the thing and see what happens.

Layne Cox: Travel alone. The, like the whole idea of like travel agents. I remember a travel agent booking my family's vacation when I was little. Right. And she would come to the house and tell us all about what we were going to do.

Tim Rowe: Oh yeah.

Layne Cox: That like everything has changed with technology. So I say all that is because I'm pretty confident in five years. if you can actually do it today, but in five years at major scale is the idea of going into a bar and waiting for a bartender to come over you to order your drink. The idea of giving someone a physical credit card for them to swipe or put in a, still happening, a shot glass behind the bar. make sure they have your payment before you get kind of too intoxicated and leave, right? Like that's not going to happen. The whole notion of a looking at sort of a neon light as to like Budweiser, this neon light behind your bar is the way that I add like a Bev alcohol brand is going to advertise and sort of on premise. That's going to all change. I see a world where this bar experience is going to be technology enhanced in a way that you can actually enjoy your night out. The bartenders can make more money. The bar owner has much more efficient operations, right? And the Bev Alcohol brands are interacting with either someone who wants to trial them or someone who they want to make more loyal, right? And so I see that because I've lived the change in other industries. And I also Like when I want the change, I see it. But like, you have to remember like independent business owners, they're the ones struggling the most in anything that we do. And they're the ones that like, don't want to embrace technology because it's scary and it's hard and it's change. Right. But they're the ones I want to help. Right. Like. Stop wasting money. Stop paying for things that don't work. Stop just doing something because you think it's the right way to do it. Those are the ones that are running, there's more of them. There's more independent. I don't know the exact stat, but hypothetically this is right in some way, shape or form. But the idea of most people these days are running their independent business. And that's why I like hospitality because it's a lot of independent hospitality owners, families. Like they're the ones like that's the nature of who we are as a country, right? And so like, I want to help those. And that's where Union sits squarely in. How do we help high volume bars and restaurants improve their operation to enable their guests to be more loyal, to enable their bartenders to make more money and to actually help them make money off of the BevAlcohol brands, right? Who want to drive on-premise consumption, right? And so Union's doing all that. I spoke in a little bit of a circle, but it's super exciting to think about this sort of trajectory of where we can be. We like to say we're moving hospitality forward so that everybody can win the union of success at a bar. And that's what I'm excited about. And that's what we're doing.

Tim Rowe: I'm excited that it exists. Before we even talked about it, it was almost like, wait, that doesn't exist. Why doesn't it exist? That would be so much easier. Just as the consumer, it is frustrating to sit down at a bar and wait for the bartender to finally recognize you. And then, yep, your credit card's in that shot glass and you're ready to go, but you got to wait on them to it's coming back to this same idea of technology enhancing the human experience versus replacing. No one's getting replaced. The business is more operationally efficient. They're able to yield a higher profit margin on the things that they sell, stock the right liquors and carry the right products for the customers. And then for the brands, for the Bev Alcohol brands, they're able to engage the consumers in a way that they've never been able to before. Is that fair?

Layne Cox: Yeah, not only engage, but to understand what's happening on premise in a way that they've never been able to do before. That's one of the unique factors that Union has is we have a data layer across high volume independent bars, the largest panel of sort of on premise data you can get. And with that, a brand can understand truly who's consuming, when are they consuming, how. Is my Tito's being taken as a shot? Is my Tito's being put with soda? Is my Tito's being put in a margarita? I don't know if you don't want to put Tito's in a margarita.

Tim Rowe: Yeah. Yeah. I'll try anything once.

Layne Cox: Maybe, but regardless, you're seeing how like, and so that's data that we have, and that's data they don't necessarily always, they have access to, right? And so we can use that to help them drive trial and loyalty of their products on premise in a way that nobody else can do that. And then as a guest of a bar, think about what's your favorite alcohol brand, Tim?

Tim Rowe: My favorite alcohol brand, if we're just- Which you go to drink when you go to a bar. Oh, a Bourbon Neat, I'm a Knob Creek guy.

Layne Cox: Okay, Knob Creek. Now, if Knob Creek knew, every bar you go to, you order Knob Creek. What if they told you, hey, I'll get you a second Knob Creek? Or they give you something to- Try this new bourbon drink because you've been such a great- I would invite you to the Knob Creek event that we're having is distilled, right? I want to bring you in as a loyalist and show you what this is really all about because clearly you love us. And what can we get out of it? So like, I see a whole new world of how these brands can really engage and leverage and move things forward. And, and it doesn't exist today. Like one thing we've been talking internally about is like, since COVID the sampling girl is Like there's no one doing sample.

Tim Rowe: Great point. I haven't. Yeah.

Layne Cox: Right. That's brands that used to have to rely on that as ways to drive, introduce a new product. Right. You know, X flavored vodka is now like, how do you, how do you, how do you get someone to try that for the first time? Right. And so that's where we sit as enabling that to happen in a tech enhanced way and in a way that everyone wins. I don't want to be a couponing. We're not actually, it's all union funded offers, but we're supported. We're working with the brands to support sort of what are they trying to do and how do we aid it? But it's super exciting. All of it is just from a union perspective. I see a better world out there and tech can ensure it can happen. And so that's where we're at.

Tim Rowe: And you've done this a few times. It's not an easy task. Building a two-sided ecosystem involves the balancing of the needs of buyers and the needs of sellers, consumers, right? The bar owners. What are just some of the biggest challenges you've encountered building inside of a two-sided ecosystem?

Layne Cox: Knowing when to flex one versus the other. It's truly a balance. back to out of home. When I started at Slice, there was a whole notion that we needed to push more consumers into the app experience. We needed more consumers. More consumers. So what does my brain as an acquisition marketer do? Okay, let's buy some Subway ads. We can do this. We did. We got a ton of consumers, grew the business, app downloads were super high. We didn't get a lot of converts. Why? Why in a double-sided marketplace, if you add consumers to the funnel, do they not convert? We didn't have enough pizzerias. It was, or was the product experience not there, right? Right. And how do you know? So there is an element of, you have to always consider the different factors and you have to look at, okay, we got to do this. We got to do this. We got to do this. I was on a sales call with the sales team the other day. And they're like, Lane, let's do some consumer stuff here. And my brain was like, no, no, no, no, we cannot at Union yet. You do not have enough density of bars to make the consumer experience from a download to go into a bar and use us valuable enough. right? We will, we will absolutely get there, but we're not there yet. Right. And so I have a, maybe it's innate in me, but I like to look really, I use data a lot. Most of myself, I'm data driven, but we use data to say like, is this enough? But you also then have to put the, your own consumer perspective on it. If I didn't work for this company and I downloaded this app, is there enough here to be rich enough for me to continue forward? Right. And so you'd have to, ebbs and flows in the game of where do you go and how do you do it, right? But that is the hardest part of marketplaces, is getting the supply-demand equation at the right leveling and not overgoing on one before the other. Because we did it twice. We added a lot of consumers. What happens when you disappoint a bunch of consumers?

Tim Rowe: That must be hard. It's got to be a long time before they come back if they Right. Somebody comes to your store and they think that your store stinks and you've got, you know, cockroaches in the corner, right? Like they're not coming back for a long, long time. And I guess the same is true for an app.

Layne Cox: It's harder, it costs more money to reacquire them, right? And so you really have to think about those. Like the same is also for selling a SaaS based solution to a product, like selling, even when we were selling Grubhub or we were selling, like when you're selling something to somebody, the product has to deliver, right? So you also don't oversell a product. That's not cool, right? I like you have to do a like it's a beta. This is a beta product. You're going to try it out. You're going to give me feedback. We're going to evolve it forward because if you sell that if I if I were to go to a bar right now and sell on my vision of here's what bars look like in the future. Yeah, they want that, but it's going to take time to get us there. Not that unions actually, we were there in a really cool sense. The bar, it just requires the bars to really understand it's a service model change. And that if you, I was on the phone with the owner the other day, I was like, you're still handing the customer a paper menu and you have a QR code that leads to a static PDF. And then you have our tap to open our app for them to order. If you're a consumer, if you're your customer in your bar, how do you want them to interact and order and get their drink? Do you want them to talk to the waiter that's coming over? Do you want them to look at the static menu behind a QR code and then talk to the waiter? Or do you want them to scan this QR code in order and have the waiter bring the drink to them as their first introduction and say, hi, and here's some water? Or bring the water over and say, hey, I want you to scan this QR code or tap this NFC and place your order yourself. I'm here if you need me, right? And his brain went, oh, Yeah, I got to get those other things off the table. And I was like, yeah, because it's a service model change. You own what the customer needs to do in your venue. They're going to follow your lead, right? So you need to drive that as to what do you want them to do.

Tim Rowe: Enabling the waiter or waitress to just focus on taking care of the customer versus remembering, did they want onions or no onions? They wanted the shake and not stirred. all that's gone, they can just come and be pleasant and make sure that your glass is never empty and that the table has everything that they need, which I'm guessing means satisfaction and tips and all those things go up too.

Layne Cox: We just ran a data survey and one of the questions, I'll paraphrase, was along the lines of, what's the action you take if you wait too long for your food or service? What's the action you take? Do you call over a manager? Do you walk out? Do you leave a bad tip? 45% of people leave a bad tip. 20% leave before even ordering. That is bottom line impact for a business.

Tim Rowe: Significant. Because now that waiter or waitress feels… underpaid and undervalued and they're going to leave and turnover is expensive. And especially in this climate, it's really, really hard to find good people. Like all of the implications of that are really doom and gloom.

Layne Cox: And sometimes, so let's just go back to that. I had to wait. That's not always the staff's fault. Maybe someone called out sick and they, or, hey, you have an open role and you can't fill it, right? That's not the staff's fault. So what tools, tech enhanced experiences can you put in place that enable that staff member to be able to give that great experience so nobody is truly waiting and they can't get a better tip. But also let's look at your business. I've been one to do it. You sit down. I have kids. You sit down and you want to get your drink or you have somewhere to be. Airport's prime opportunity here, but you have somewhere to be and you sit there too long before someone comes over. leave. Like, sorry, I only had 30 minutes for this beer and nachos or whatever it was. And like, you 15 minutes, like 10 minutes, I can't. And that's bottom line hit to the venue, right? So the operation, and so it's impacting everybody. And then I just had a shitty experience. Right? Do I come back? Like, so look for an alternative. And it's not like it's truly about like, how to use tech to enhance the experience so that everybody wins. And it's game-changing when you realize like, wow, we don't need this service model the way it is. Why? The other thing about, I'm yabbering, but the other thing about menus in restaurant and hospitality, nobody needs a menu to order a cocktail to their drink, essentially. I'm a Grey Goose Soda girl, or an IPA. I know what I'm going to drink, right? Like, yeah, if I want a fancy cocktail, okay, your cocktail menu, normally it's on the chalkboard. Great. But like, most generally when for alcohol, we know what we want. We don't need a menu, right? And so that's where it's like, well, get me to my drink faster. I'm like, I can't wait. Some of the fun product features that we have coming out, it's like the whole notion of the app is get me to my drink faster, right? It's like, how do you push up? Okay, you're at Johnny's bar, Lane, you come here every Thursday for happy hour, just order your regular, done, right?

Tim Rowe: Oh, great. Or like Starbucks. I'm on my I'm on my way. I want to order it because I'll be there in 10 minutes. That's the selfish feature that I'm asking for. I love that.

Layne Cox: Think about that. Think about okay. I had just started at Slice. So five, six years ago was the Starbucks app being launched. The whole notion of I'm going to order a hot drink when I'm not in the establishment for them to make, for me to get there and pick it up was like, wait, I remember being like, I don't want my latte sitting there. What if they make it too fast? Like, what, like, like, how is this going to work? I haven't ordered really at a Starbucks in the last three years. Like we ordered on our phone and we Get it. Like you don't wait in line anymore. The efficiencies that is brought like, oh, the whole notion to someone's going to take my drink. No, nobody wants my.

Tim Rowe: No one has stole my cappuccino yet.

Layne Cox: right? But those were the fears that I bet Starbucks had as consumers we had. We have one of the service models we have at Union is a pickup window, right? I'm like, oh yeah, you have a busy bad bar, like imagine a busy packed bar. Bartenders are busy. Have a pickup window. Have one bartender. Operate that pickup window. Have consumers throughout the whole place order on their app. They get a text message as soon as it's ready. You hit on the point of sale. Ready. They get a ping. Tim, your drink is ready. Come to pick up bar one. You go over and you say, I'm Tim. Your drink is ready. Boom. Like. Same thing. That's like the Starbucks of the bars. That's what we're getting to. Versus that whole interaction that exists now. Do I send my husband or do I send my boobs up? What do we need? What do we need to get our drink here? Correct.

Tim Rowe: Yeah. And now it's just at your fingertips and now the drink is here. It's fascinating. I don't know that there's probably anyone in the listening audience that isn't rooting for you. I think that I can speak for the collective saying that we all want that. So we're rooting for you at Union.

Layne Cox: Go to your favorite bar and say, why haven't you called Union yet? I want to use Union here.

Tim Rowe: There we go. We can put that together as an initiative, as a community. We can all start going asking for union. I will. I promise you. One question that I would love to get your perspective on to bring us home is around data. How do you How do you think about the advancement of technology and data collection? Um, but specifically from a consumer privacy, a brand safety perspective, there's so much available. And we just talked about all of these really intimate details. How do you balance like with great power comes great responsibility. How do you balance that? Having access to all this data while still being a consumer privacy friendly brand. doing all those things.

Layne Cox: I think you have to always do the right things. Like, you know, we all know the whole target comment that I've left several years ago of, oh, you must be pregnant and dad finding the like that message, right? Like, thanks. I don't think you ever be that direct with it, right? Like, I don't know, but I'm a glass half full girl. And the way I actually approach it is all in the sense of like, if data can make my everyday better and make my experiences better, go for it and use it. Use it. Use it for me to make my experience better, right? And so like, I, I personally, I like Facebook is supporting and giving me ads that are relevant to me. But after I purchased that thing, stop showing me everybody else that I should have bought from, right? Like who's the data in a way that's going to drive my experience to be better, not hound me after the fact. Right. So I think there's improvements that can be always be made, but like, to me, it's like, how do you want your data to be used to make your experience better and keep that mindful at the forefront, right? Of like, if it's going to make. consumer's experience better, go for it. But yeah, there's a lot of scary things that I think come with data. And we all just need to be ethical about it, I think, and be cautious. And we have all sorts of rules and restrictions and how things are used, and there's policies in place. And as a leadership team, we follow it and we enforce it, and it's important. But I think it's always gonna be an evolution. And to me, If we can enhance things because of it, then go for it. You and I earlier on this call, before we jumped on, we're talking about JetGPT and AI. Scares me, right? But scares me in a good way. Like if we continue to use this in the right way, it unlocks something that none of us know. And I think that's exciting. And that's where I sit on it. Needs to be used in the right ways with the right intentions. The intentions have to be about bettering something, manipulating something.

Tim Rowe: I agree. I agree. Lane, are you a, are you a reader? Are you a podcaster? Where do you go for professional development, enrichment, those sorts of things? Where do you, uh, where do you refill that bucket?

Layne Cox: I miss the days when I could read and listen to podcasts. I'm a mom and my time gets shrunk.

Tim Rowe: I bet it does.

Layne Cox: I, right now I, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and pulling knowledge from that way. So I say that that's where I focus right now on what's happening. I have a whole stack of brand and marketing and how to get into the consumer psyche and all that stuff that I've read in the days. And I look back and I was like, Oh, I need to buy more books and read. But I'm at that era of parenting eats into everything.

Tim Rowe: I know a lot of folks can relate to that. Lane, thank you so much. This has been an incredible conversation. Give folks the Latin long. Where do they find you? Where are you most active? It sounds like LinkedIn, but if they want to learn more about union, where do they go? If they want to connect with you on the socials, where do they go?

Layne Cox: LinkedIn is Lane Cox. That's where I am. Feel free to connect with me. I love having conversations there. I'm a big believer in supporting other people and being transparent and whatnot. So happy to connect and support anyone on that front. From a union perspective, our website is getunion.com. You can go to the App Store and download the app if you're of interest. We have a large presence in New York City. Austin, LA, and San Francisco. So those cities are worthwhile to look into, but ultimately the best way to support union right now is to your favorite bar say, why haven't you called union yet? Cause you want to use union would be fabulous as a help. But yeah, this was great, Tim. I'm glad three years in the making, but different place now, which is great.

Tim Rowe: is a beautiful thing. I think this is just part one of probably many conversations about similar topics. So we're subscribed. We're looking forward to get in union and bars close by to me, selfishly, I want union. So I'm going to go to my local pub here and hopefully you listening, you do the same and support Lane for all of the incredible information, the dialogue that we were able to have here today. Lane, thank you so much for being here.

Layne Cox: Love it. Thank you for having me.

Tim Rowe: Absolutely. If you found this to be helpful, please share it with somebody who could benefit. The best way to help the podcast grow is to leave a review. So please go ahead and leave a review wherever you're watching this. And as always, we'll see y'all next time.

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