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Back To Marketing Basics, With Back Market’s New CMO
00:51:54
As the former CMO of Sonos, Joy Howard’s job was to make people want to buy new electronics. Now, as the recently appointed CMO of Back Market – an online marketplace for refurbished electronics – it’s her job to convince them not to.
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign welcome to Ad Exchanger Talks, the podcast devoted to examining the issues and trends in advertising and marketing technology that matter most to you.
- [00:34]
B
Hey, everyone, I'm Alison Schiff, and you're listening to good old Ad Exchanger Talks. My guest this week is Joy Howard, the newishly appointed CMO of Back Market, an online marketplace for refurbished and secondhand electronics. She joined in April after CMO and VP of marketing stints at tons of brands you're definitely familiar with, from Patagonia to Sonos to Nike. We'll talk about Back Market's marketing strategy, of course, and how it's making conservation part of the conversation. I love wordplay that rhymes, but Back Market is also embracing an existing trend of people proactively fighting planned obsolescence by using products for longer and being proud when they do. But first, a quick FYI before we begin. Please save the date for the Next CTV Connect March 12th and 13th in New York City, Ad Exchanger is joining forces again with synopsys Ad Monsters and chief marketer to host a Can't Miss summit on all the key issues and opportunities in Connected TV. Learn more and register@ctvconnect.com hey, Joy. Welcome to the podcast.
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A
Hi Alison. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
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B
So tell me something about yourself that not a lot of other people already know.
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A
I think a lot of people don't know that I was in an indie band in the 90s. Anytime I've ever shared my resume with someone, I can tell whether or not they've read it because they all usually ask me about that. But I was part of a shoegaze band in the 90s that was, you know, signed to Warner and it was. We were part of the kind of post Nirvana indie major label, Gold Rush. Like it was a time when all the, you know, major labels thought they could make a lot of money signing the next Nirvana. So we were lucky to kind of be swept up in that. But then, you know, the bottom fell out of the music industry in 2000. Napster launched around the same time, and I went to business school and stopped being a professional musician.
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B
Did you play? Did you sing?
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A
I played bass and piano and I sang, yeah.
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B
And I do need to know what this band was called.
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A
The band was called Sealy S, Double E, L, Y and we have two. We put out four albums. Two of them are on Spotify. The third one, I don't know nobody. No one's really looked after the licensing very much, but oddly, I still get little royalty checks. All this all, you know, 24 years later.
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B
That is very tiny, though, by the.
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A
Way.
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B
You can buy some coffee. You know, coffee is expensive.
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A
Yeah, exactly.
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B
Well, something else that people might not know about you is that you, you founded and then you sold a gender neutral outerwear brand called Early Majority. What. What is that exactly?
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A
Yeah. So, I mean, you know, we really were trying to simplify outdoor clothing. And one of the things that really bothered us is it was always designed from the men's perspective first. And so we wanted to try to design something first from the women's perspective, but the men would also wear, which we actually had a lot of success with. Obviously women loved our stuff because it looked great on them, but I want to say, like maybe 60% of our customers were men. And it was just a very simple layering system. You know, kind of predicated on this insight that you can really do a lot of activities with a very minimal kit if the kit's designed well. A lot of the outdoor growth industry grows by product proliferation and they have this kind of thing that, you know, Nike really pioneered, but it's sort of like moved into the outer outdoor industry, which is what Nike calls its category offense. And the idea is basically like, you know, whatever we do in running, we're going to do it in football, we're going to do it in tennis, we're going to do it in all these different categories. We're going to persuade people that they need really different outfits for every, every sport. And that way we can sell them, you know, really different outfits for every sport. But, you know, the reality is that, you know, old timers, especially the old timers at Patagonia, I really noticed they didn't dress that way. They just had a few pieces that they use for every sport. And so we set out to design a kit like that and we sold it. We sold the company earlier this year actually, to a company that was also really focused on living between culture and nature. So we also wanted, we wanted products you could do every sport in and that you could kind of travel seamlessly between what we describe as sort of boardroom bar to backcountry.
- [04:55]
B
Product proliferation is really an excellent segue or anti. Product proliferation is an excellent segue into talking about back market. But first I have to say, I guess I dress like an old timer because I wear the same things all the time. People make fun of me, actually, because I wear swag. Like I actually wear ad tech swag. Someone gives me a T shirt like, I will wear it until it's in shreds.
- [05:19]
A
It's my personal brand new life.
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B
Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm pretty happy. Not shopping. Shopping is not my favorite thing. But I want to do a quick rundown on your background, your marketing background, just to rattle off where you've been for our listeners. Because before joining Back Market as CMO in April, and we will talk about what Back Market is in more detail in a minute, you were the CMO of Lyft, CMO of Sonos, VP of marketing at Panagodia, which you mentioned, VP of marketing for Converse Sneakers, which is Nike, and you've been a Coca Cola, Johnson Johnson. These are all really household names, except maybe Back Market. So Back Market for people who aren't familiar, it's a marketplace that sells refurbished electronics from name brands. So Apple, Dell, Samsung, Microsoft, all of those guys. And kind of a twofold goal to make it easy and safe to buy refurbished electronics and then also to be environmentally friendly at the same time. But what drew you to Back Market from a marketing perspective after so many years at so many large, very familiar consumer brands?
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A
Well, it's the perfect culmination of so many things that I've done. You know, it's a two sided marketplace, which is something that I learned a lot about at Lyft. We're selling consumer electronics, which I learned a lot about at Sonos. But in general, I would say throughout my career, especially the latter half, the first half I was in consumer product goods, which is very different from what I did in the second half so far, which is basically build cultural brands. And I think cultural brands really explode by tapping into things that are already happening in culture and kind of using those things that are already happening in culture to shape customer behavior. And you're really working with what's actually already happening, I guess, and you're trying to kind of like energize that you're sort of benefiting from the tailwinds of it. And I just saw so much of what was happening around me working in that market's favor that it was really, it was really irresistible opportunity for me because I can see, see, I could see so clearly how, you know, secondhand apparel and circularity and apparel has really blown up. Like that's a, you know, that, that, that industry has kind of been the only bright spot, I would say, in the apparel industry in ages. It's going to be almost 100 billion just in the US and it's time for that to happen in consumer electronics too. So people are just, they're very interested in making Smart choices that don't really compromise their experience and they want to buy in a way that's more sustainable, but they want to do it, you know, in a way that, that, that essentially like, allows them to spend less on what they need so they can spend more on what they want. This is happening all around. And if you, if you look at popular culture especially, you'll see there's so much interest in older technology you see all over social and film. I mean, you really can't avoid it. Like, once I've told you about it, you're going to start to see it everywhere. And when I see something like that happening in a business that's just really per. Poised to capture that latent demand, it's kind of an irresistible opportunity to me. I'm also very driven to work on things that have a positive impact in the world. I think most people actually want to do that, but it's been a real drive for me. So, you know, the back market opportunity was absolutely irresistible to me.
- [08:50]
B
Although you, you kind of flipped the script on yourself because like we mentioned before, you were the CMO of Sonos for three years between 2015 and 2018, and it was your job to make people want to buy new electronics. And now your job is to convince, I guess, basically convince people not to. So how are you thinking about that as a marketing challenge, selling people on the notion of buying used and restored technology?
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A
Well, the first thing we're doing is we're just really tapping into people's natural fatigue with this constant insistence that they upgrade, upgrade. You know, people are, people are being told, you know, they have to have the newest model phone, they have to have the newest smartwatch, they have to have the newest, you know, iPad. And they're, I think they're getting tired of it. Even before you go to bed at night, you know, you got to upgrade your software. So I think the first thing that we're doing is just like really keying into the natural fatigue that people have with that message to get them to think about the fact that for 99% of what you do with your technology, an older model is actually just as good. So that, that's, that's really what we're doing right now, is helping people understand just very simply that know, for most of what you do, an older model is just as good as a new one. And actually when you think about the price, it's much, much less expensive when you think about the environmental impact. And I think the biggest news in the refurbished fact space in which we Also spend a lot of time and energy on when you factor in the quality, it's absolutely better than, better than a new one. You know, this has been an interesting challenge for Sonos because they. The cool thing about Sonos as a model is that when I got there, they had a very narrow product range and they really prided themselves on the fact that their speakers lasted for a long time. And I think you've seen them struggle with that because the pressure for them to grow their business model is always focused around introducing new models. I think it's been really interesting and sad to see them struggle with that. I mean, my heart really goes out to them because I think this idea of making things that last longer is just, you know, it's very powerful. And I think people are more receptive to, to than they've ever been.
- [10:57]
B
We do live in a very disposable culture. I mean, it's late stage capitalism. My parents were, and my mother still sells antique antiques. They were antique dealers. And I, growing up had so much exposure to beautiful items that some of them for utility purposes, not just jewelry and like objet, but old, like bathroom kits, like beautiful mirrors and combs and brushes that were still functional that were really made to last. So I have a real appreciation for stuff that lives on. And those things were also very beautiful. They weren't just functional.
- [11:41]
A
Well, I think everyone has that. I mean, I launched a program at Patagonia called Worn Wear. And that was really the insight behind that. It started as a Tumblr blog and, you know, it was, you know, worn where the stories we wear. And it was basically inviting people to just, you know, send us the story of their garment that they've had that they'd repaired. And I noticed how much pride people took in having something that had been repaired, how much pride and pleasure they took in, like in the physicality of the repair and the story that they got to tell around it. And you know, I think that, that, I think that's absolutely universal. It's, it's. It's also interestingly, a really big part of the culture in France. So, you know, we were founded in France and we've had phenomenal success in France. And 1 in 3 phones in France is actually a refurbished phone. So I think, I always think that part of that comes from this huge flea market culture in France where people, every day, you know, every weekend, it's like a big ritual that you get to go out and you go to the flea market. It pops up, you know, wherever you are and, and I think in an, in a, in, in, in a world that's very driven by algorithms, I think that discoverability of the flea market is so, it is so soothing for people, it's so stimulating for people. And then I think finding these objects that are older, that have higher quality because things that were made before they, you know, they did have higher quality. So I think, I think it's no coincidence that we taken off in France, but I think that the, the pleasure that people take in things that have been repaired, that are made to last, I think that's absolutely universal.
- [13:17]
B
And you're based in France? That's right.
- [13:19]
A
I'm based in Paris, yeah.
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B
How long have you lived there?
- [13:23]
A
Well, I started early, majority here, so I've been here for almost five years.
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B
So French culture I think is like you were saying, you know, very open to like reusable flea market vibes. But US consumers might be a harder nut to crack. I mean, how do you convince Americans to trust and opt for secondhand electronics? Because I know there is this fatigue. You referred to it, but this is a society where people have historically lined up overnight outside of Apple Stores to buy the newest iPhone every year.
- [13:58]
A
Yes, but those lines are getting shorter and shorter every year. So that's really great for us. But for sure the US is a much tougher nut to crack than Europe. And again, what I would say, you know, is this, this goes. You can't, I don't. I think it's very hard for any company to actually change customers behavior. You always have to tap into something that's happening naturally. So the first thing is like tapping into people's natural desire and pride they take and having something that is older, that has been repaired, that, that's universal, it's natural. People take pleasure from it. And we really try to tap into that. The second thing that we're doing is tapping into what I think is also an emergent desire for people to pursue frugality as a path to liberation rather than deprivation. People are becoming much more conscious of how they're spending and they're waking up to the fact that always spending more money on new stuff is not necessarily getting them to the place that they want to be in life. They want to spend less stuff on what they need so they could spend more on what they want. So that's the second thing that we're really tapping into. And I love being able to offer something to people that is much less expensive than the alternative. And then the third is where we are very successfully addressing people's Desire to take positive action to solve the climate crisis. And this was another thing that was a huge success for us at Patagonia. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't matter sometimes if like buying an older phone is not going to be, you know, I've heard people say, oh, you know, sustainable consumption, it's just like bailing out the Titanic with teaspoons. It, it doesn't actually matter if the feeling that it gives you is that you are part of a solution to something. You are part of a positive shift towards a brighter future for all of us. That is a great feeling that not a lot of purchases can actually authentically give you. And we authentically give you that and.
- [15:51]
B
People want it, you know. Yeah, the new car smell of anything goes away pretty quickly and you start to maybe eye other things if your desire is to always go new, new, new. So that's interesting, tapping into a pride related to buying something that's secondhand.
- [16:12]
A
Well, I love that you brought up the example of new cars because that is actually the category that is most, most inspiring to us. You know, 50 years ago, people always bought new cars and now you feel dumb. Like buying a new car is literally a flex that you have money to waste. Like, it's one of the first things that you learn when you learn about personal finances. Don't buy a new car. You know, it depreciates in value the moment you drive it off the lot. And I think, you know, we can have the same outcome for electronics. It's actually exactly the same. Like we just. I just was reviewing the results of a really successful CRM campaign that we did that was helping people understand that the value of their phone for trade in. We give people cash when they sell us their old devices. They hold their value actually a lot. And that value of the older device peaks right before an Apple keynote. So we know what phone you've bought, we know how much it's worth. And so we just did a personalized CRM campaign that basically reached out and said, hey, you know, if you're thinking about selling your 14, it's never going to be as valuable as it is for the next two weeks. So this is the time to sell it in and get that cash to put towards another device or something else in your life. So there are so many parallels to the car industry and I'm really, really excited about our ability to create the kind of ecosystem that will allow repair and electronics to be just as easy as it is to repair a car. We take that for granted. But There's a lot that needs to happen from a regulatory perspective to make sure that you can just go to another car dealer and get tires that are going to fit your car. That's something that you take for granted and Right. We don't have those same kind of laws in the consumer electronics space, which is something that we're really fighting for.
- [17:51]
B
Yeah, right to repair. I'm into the right to repair, at least just to have the option. You talked about CRM. What is back market's first party data strategy? What else do you know about your customers? What's important for you to know about your customers that you can reach them in a personalized way?
- [18:11]
A
Well, the, the most important thing for us to know is actually what device they have right now. And so we can deliver like very personalized recommendations about how to prolong the life of that device, how to get more out of it. And so that's really the thing that we have the most data on and that we're using the most effectively. We also are having a lot of success with our app. Like a lot of online retailers don't have an app and the app experience and what people do in the app and you know, what they really engage with is a really important source of data for us. Naturally we're looking at what people are viewing and we're doing all the kind of standard flows I think that any good e commerce retailer would have and we're really working to improve that. I think your imagination around what you can do to personalize is always more vivid than your technical capabilities. So it's a big focus for us from a tech investment perspective perspective to you know, just always be able to serve surface for people the things that we think would be most interesting. But you know, and, and so I, I, I guess I spend most of my time focusing on data that we don't have. Like we know for example that a lot of, a lot of people that buy from us are buying for a child. It makes absolutely zero sense to buy a child new electronics ever. Especially if they're going to slobber on it or drop it or whatever. And they're also buying for older people who don't, who definitely don't care about having the newest thing and a lot of times really struggle with the newest thing.
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B
Specifically. Don't want it.
- [19:42]
A
No. God, I mean it's, you know, it's so hard to be an older person right now in society. I mean I just was visiting my mom and watching her struggle with her Roku TV and I didn't even know how to use it. And I thought, wow, you know, old people used to just be able to turn on the tv. It's like even that has gotten hard. So we, I want us, you know, that's, that's the kind of thing I want us to know more like, are you buying for yourself? Are you buying for your family? There's a lot that we don't know, but there's a lot that we do and I'm excited to see us using it effectively, primarily through CRM.
- [20:13]
B
I do have to give some props to my mom, who is 75 and is very technically adept. She runs an ebay business on her phone, but she needs to be shown how to do something before she's comfortable doing it. So any new thing and she freaks out. And then once you show her how to do it, she's great at it. But, but yeah, I'm kind of proud of her. But in terms of kids and you know, what they do with their electronics. I have a friend who doesn't want to get her son who's I think 13 a phone, even though all his other friends have phones. Not just because there's really no need for, you know, him to be on his phone all the time, he will be in his life later, but also because he has a good friend whose mother bought him like a thousand dollar, more than a thousand dollar iPhone and he promptly dropped it in a pool like three weeks after. So.
- [21:14]
A
Yeah, well, we, you know, one of the most eye opening things to me, you know, the bat market has a very distinctive culture and it's amazing to see how people, what devices people have. Our CEO is always whipping out his like, you know, iPhone6 or iPhone7 and you know, bragging about it. But there's also a person on our team who's really the resident Mac expert who has two young children. And I'm really excited to leverage his knowledge around what is, you know, what's the quietest approach to staying in touch with your kids? You know, what's the easiest way to allow them to listen to music? This is, you know, it's no coincidence that Apple integrated or every phone manufacturer did, you know, got rid of the ipod and put music on your phone because it's like you really can't expect a kid to live without music, especially when you're young. I mean, it's just such a big part of your life when you're young. And a lot of times that's how kids get their hands on the iPhone and then they go down the YouTube rabbit hole or all the other things that you don't really want them to, to do. So we're going to be really focused on. We have a tech tip series that we run that allow, that helps people understand how to prolong the life of their devices, their batteries. But I'm really excited to lean into educating parents and giving them like, very practical tips for how to, you know, you can, for example, there's one model of a watch that you can get for your phone, you can get for your kid that allows you to call them and they can call you but without having to have a phone. So, you know, highlighting that model, you know, educating people that ipods actually still work, you know, and there's just like a whole stream of innovation I think that we can do that's super helpful for parents to reduce that exhausting need to police their kids and keep the phone out of their hands.
- [22:59]
B
So one more question before we take a quick break and to go back to sustainability, like, there is obviously very clear sustainability story that you can tell here, and the stats are pretty wild. I mean, I, I'm just going to rattle off these numbers from Back Market's website, but manufacturing a new smartphone produces 191 pounds of CO2 and refurbishing a product creates like 15 pounds of CO2. So math is not my strong suit, but that seems like a pretty good load off of our collective carbon footprint. But by the the same token, and weirdly, there is this ESG kind of tied to DEI backlash that's going on. So politicized, you know, I don't think saving the environment should be politicized. And yet it is. How does that fit into your messaging? Do you have to address that at all? Does it come back to you at all?
- [23:55]
A
Not at all. We, we. Well, I would say. Okay, so first of all, it's not true that it doesn't affect us. Okay. Because when, you know, when pro environment leaders are in power, that definitely benefits our business. And you know, Europe has dealt with, I mean, the elections in France have been very visible. And you know, I'm sure you, most of your listeners will know about how close we came here to losing a lot of beneficial regulatory and legal frameworks that have allowed our industry to flourish. And those laws are put in place by leaders who really care about the environment. So it's probably not fair to say that it doesn't concern us at all. Because if there was a shift in political orientation or shift in leadership that didn't really care about the environment or thought Climate change was, didn't believe that climate change was threat that, that would definitely affect our business from. But, but we don't, you know, we are very like, we're very driven by this mission to do more with what we already have. Everyone who works here cares very, very deeply about solving the climate crisis. So we're not, we're not gonna, we're not gonna do anything else. Right. We're a mission driven company. That's our focus. And if you, you know, there is a huge quality and price benefit to what we sell, which I'm very proud of, but the environmental aspect of what we do is absolutely critical to us. And so we're not, you know, we're not going to budge on that one bit.
- [25:25]
B
All right, well, preach and, and stick with us. All right, welcome back. And before we dive back into what's up at back market, I want to talk a little bit more about your time at Patagonia. You talked about the Warren Ware program and Patagonia is a mission driven brand. So is back market. It makes sense that launching a program that means you, I guess, sell less new stuff would really fly and it fits right into what Patagonia is all about. But how do you sell an initiative like that at a different kind of company? Right, so it's, it's something I guess you would have to sell as being good for the bottom line, not just for the environment. If we're talking about other kinds of.
- [26:29]
A
Companies, yeah, it's not easy. I mean, again, it's a big part of what attracted me to back market. One of the, one of the things that we say is that we, you know, we're, we're an impact by design company. So the faster we grow, the more positive our environmental impact. And there are really not very many companies on, I mean there are companies that can say that, but not very many. But for most companies, the growth logic inherently requires that you manufacture and produce more stuff, which is not what we need to be doing right now from an environmental perspective. So I don't think it's hard. And it was actually very hard to get warmware off the ground even within Patagonia. Because, you know, this might sound weird now, cause it's almost 10 years later, but back then the idea of selling used clothing was on your brand's website was like really controversial. You know, it's going to denigrate the brand. It's going to make people think that a new stuff's not as good. You know, we're going to look like a Goodwill and it, you know, there were, there were lots of concerns even within, even within a company as progressive as Patagonia, which fortunately, you know, they overcome, overcame to do that and as a result really pioneered circularity for every, you know, every, almost every major apparel brand will re, will take back its old stuff and sell, you know, resell it. So I guess what I would say from that experience though is not to be dissuaded, you know, that even if it's hard to sell something like that in, you know, think about the ways that it will drive the business in a very positive way because it has driven that business in a positive way. It's a great example of an initiative that seemed like it could be a threat to the business but ended up, you know, working really well and not to be afraid to disrupt yourself. Right. Because you know, I think that's one of the hard things about companies, about change in general is that when you do something that you think is going to cannibalize an existing business, it becomes really, really hard to drive positive change or innovation inside of a company. So almost like leaning right into that resistance and saying, okay, well this is, this is what's going to face any innovation that's required for us to be the ones that really continue to lead here versus the ones that are disrupted.
- [28:36]
B
From the outside and back to back market. It's my understanding that your back market's first ever permanent and full time cmo. Like before that there was an interim CMO and before that back market's co founder and the chief creative officer. I guess he split those roles. He, he oversaw marketing. So why, why did back market decide to make the CMO role into a permanent position like now?
- [29:01]
A
Well, growth is important for any company and for us it's really core to our mission. So I, the, I think the reason anybody wants to get a new CMO is because they want to accelerate growth within the company. I mean, I really believe that's the cmos mandate. One of the ways that I do marketing too, that's a little bit different from other CMOs, maybe is really come in and try to understand the genealogy of the brand. So how did it start? How did it take off? I think in those original kind of founder values. I've worked with a lot of founders. You've, you find the keys to the future success. Right? You can't do what you did before, but you have to understand like what is it that was so special about this company in the very beginning that matters to people right now, you know, that needs to be in the foreground of what we're doing. And the. There was a co founder here who, you know, led every. It's weird. Like they, they had a really distinct break between performance and brand, which a lot of companies have done. And I think they realized that didn't really serve them very well. But the guy that led brand here before really shaped the culture so much of the brand's personality. And so, you know, I think they wanted someone who could help lead into the future a more integrated sort of marketing approach that leverages performance, that leverages brand, but also that builds on the really powerful and disruptive culture of the company. And they were ready for that and I was the right person to do it. I think a lot of the success that we're having since I've joined is actually coming exactly from that. It's looking at what, what rocketed this brand to fame in, in France. Like how did it do it? And, and let's do that again now. And, and, and it's very fun. I mean the guy that you know, the guy that led marketing, the co founder that led, you know, branded marketing before was very like, the company has a value. Sabotage is one of the company values. And he really took that approach and did some really like hilariously disruptive stuff. So it's really given me a lot of license to do things that are provocative and, and fun and attention getting. But that's why they did it. I mean, they wanted to accelerate growth, but they wanted to do it without losing their soul.
- [31:14]
B
I mean that, that's a KPI grow without you losing your soul. And h. How else does that manifest now that brand and performance is more, you know, more aligned?
- [31:27]
A
Oh well, oh gosh, in so many ways. I like, I barely know where to start. But I think first of all, you know, you can't just look at efficiency and performance marketing independently of what you're doing to really build the brand. And you can see that so clearly across the. We operate in 18 different markets, so you can see it very clearly across the different markets. Usually when we turn a market on, we're doing it through all the basic performance channels and you can just see that efficiency kind of tap out, you know, once you exhaust that, that, that kind of high intent, latent demand that's there and then you need to do other things or else, you know, you're not going to have the kind of valuable business that you have when you have a really strong brand and you have a, you know, good performance engine that basically is monetizing and Capturing the demand from the strong brand. But you see it in behaviors throughout the funnel. It manifest you, you see it in our ability to test, you know, different messaging online that we may want to go, you know, broader and you know, with from an out of home perspective. So yeah, it manifests itself throughout the whole journey and the company itself too.
- [32:37]
B
So I want to talk about a specific campaign now for a minute. The Downgrade now campaign, which you guys launched in September. Is that your big first push as cmo?
- [32:47]
A
My big first push was through the press because that's something that you can do earlier. And so we hadn't really done any press around our successful business results from last year. So we'd been really quiet in the press globally. So the first thing that I did was really get out there and get us into the press more where we'd been quiet for a while. But my first actual ad campaign is this Downgrade now campaign. Yeah.
- [33:10]
B
So it's mainly an out of home campaign. And the big idea is that most electronics manufacturers and retailers, like you were saying, I mean everyone's experienced this, they encourage people to upgrade. Upgrade now. Upgrade now. But your ads feature old electronics and there's this strap line Downgrade now. So like an image of an old iPhone with the copy reintroducing the iPhone 12, which is very funny, like making the point that people don't really need all the bells and whistles and you know, whatever features to get a lot out of existing technology. And then there's also this new initiative called phone, like with an exclamation mark at the end phone, where people can get a refurbished Android or iPhone phone for $249. But the catch is that they don't know what model of device they're getting until they open the box. Other than the fact they get to choose the OS so they know whether it's, you know, Android or iPhone, but not, not the model. But why be so out of home forward with this campaign? And I think in general it seems like out of home is like very important for back market.
- [34:22]
A
Yeah, I mean the first reason is because there are certain media that build trust and there are media that don't build trust. And you know, I think it's one of the great paradoxes of marketing in our time is that the more measurable and attributable the channel, the less trust building it is. And so trust is the biggest barrier to purchase when it comes to refurbished. You know, it's been around for a while but like people don't think it's an option for them because they don't want to take the risk. And so the first. So I knew right away, okay, wow, I'm going to have to do some, I'm going to have to use some trust building media. And out of Home builds trust. And it's in the same way that a Super bowl commercial builds trust. You know, it's like people kind of feel like, wow. And it's very. Nobody thinks this, you know, explicitly but, but there's a sense that like, oh wow, you know, if they're on the super bowl then they must be legit or if they're, you know, in out of them, then they must be legit. So it's really like I see these kinds of media as trust building but I'm also like very commercial. I've always been very commercially driven. It just really energizes me to see the growth numbers. That's the thing that's most energizing. And so, you know, I, one of the things, just a very casual comment that the CEO made early into my time was like, we make most of our money on these, you know, recently older models. Like I really wish you guys would focus on these older models. And that just, that kind of like casual comment unlocks something for me which is, wow, everyone's always being told to upgrade. What if we just told them to downgrade? So I'm looking for, for media that builds trust and I'm looking for creative executions that are attention getting because I'm not going to blow a huge budget on these kind of trust building media until I see whether it works. And the number one, you know, kind of factor to in when it comes to measuring the impact of any kind of media is does it get your attention? So we needed, you know, we needed media that was trust building and we needed, we always, you always need something that's going to get someone's attention and breakthrough. You just see every kind of metric, you know, follow through from that first one of like, did I get your attention? So, so that's why we chose out of Home. I wanted to put a focus on specific products where I could like, I think what we're, you know, what we're really selling. Obviously we're selling an idea, right? We're selling this whole idea of refurbished technology. But I think people respond more positively when they see the, an actual product and the focus on the actual product.
- [36:50]
B
You still have to measure it though, right out of Home. So how do you measure it and do you tie efforts like this to sales or you can't do, you can't.
- [37:02]
A
Do anything that's not measured because how do you know whether you should scale it or not? You know, so we're gonna, you know, we're so of course we're gonna do, you know, media mix modeling like that. We haven't done that yet. We're gonna do that. I'm a big believer in that. I love to see it coming back into vogue. I think that's, you know, I think that's one of the, you know, like silver linings of, you know, app tracking, transparency and all that stuff. You know, like, and the, you know, people cookies are not going to go away, but people are getting ready for them to go away. They thought they were going to go away. So anyway, I think MMM is like a really great thing to bring back and we're going to do that and that's going to probably be the most helpful thing in terms of measuring it. But otherwise, you know, there's all the good old fashioned stuff of like a holdout market. You know, how what are we seeing in the market where we're running it versus where we're not? So we will absolutely measure it and model it and look at the numbers before we expand it more broadly.
- [38:02]
B
As you were speaking, I was chuckling to myself because the rise of mmm, everything old is new again. Really fits in to everything we're talking about here. Old stuff still works pretty well.
- [38:17]
A
Yeah, it does. And it's, you know, I think that's also one of the things that, you know, one of the things that I like about MMM is that it lends itself so well to forecasting. And this is, you know, that in consumer products it was so much like I'm, I'm really glad that I've been through all these different phases of marketing. Okay. Because forecasting was very easy back in the days of iri, you know, where you could get all data and you could, you could, you know, know exactly what, you know, how did your creative perform? What is the distribution that you're going to have? You could use, I don't know if you can, if you've ever heard of something called bases. But like, you know, you could do basically like simulated test markets and you could know exactly what you were going to sell within a margin of like plus or minus 5% based on all the inputs of your, of your marketing plan. And then, you know, it really started with Walmart and then Amazon and ever since, I think it's gotten harder and harder for people to, to forecast, which means there's actually also been less and less innovation in hardware because hardware is one of these businesses where if you get the forecast wrong, it gets really existential for the business. So I've always liked MMM as an input into forecasting. You know, I love modeling. I really geek out on that. I think it's like one of the great things about AI is that we should be, you know, we should be better able to model demand than we have in the past.
- [39:35]
B
So you talked about trust building. Media types like out of home, you know, like a Super bowl commercial, that kind of thing. What, what are some examples of media that you don't think is trust building that you don't like for that reason?
- [39:50]
A
Well, gosh, I mean, the least trust building channel of, of all right now is probably X. You know, it's like, wow, nobody trusts anything on that platform anymore. So if you're advertising on there, you're already susp. Expect. You know, I, I think it's, I, I really think meta and, and, and Twitter are probably like the least trust building sadly. And I think some of that comes, you know, they earn that. I think that, I think it's been hard. I was actually, you know, very vocal and, and a leader in the both waves of the boycott Facebook movement. So, you know, I think that, I think unfortunately it's going to be, it's going to take a long time for medic to get out from under some of that scandal. So I really, you know, I think meta and, and, and X are probably the least trustworthy. I think Google is in the middle of the pack there, you know, because I actually. But I think. So you asked me what are least trustworthy? I'm. I just told you. Okay, that's that. I think there's, I think, I think one that is more measurable where attribution is really interesting, but also is trust building is podcasts. And I think podcasts build trust, especially if the podcaster is reading the ad. You know, there's such an intimacy. Most people are listening to podcasts on their, on their, in their earbuds and earphones and there's, there's just such an intimacy with listening to a podcaster's voice. So I think that's one of those rare media where you can, you know, you can really measure it, especially if you have a, you know, direct response component to it. And it's also trust building. But it's very hard to get that measurement and trust thing right. It's usually like the more trust building it is, the harder is to measure and the like, more measurable it is, the less trust it inspires.
- [41:36]
B
Well, people should trust everything we're saying because we're in their ears right now through this podcast. But you mentioned Meta and you know, Google Twitter. I really put Twitter aside. Can you, I hear what you're saying about them. Can you avoid those medium though? Because you, you can't not advertiser. Maybe you can not advertise on Meta. Like, do you boycott Meta? What do you think of advertising in those places now for yourself because of the scale question?
- [42:10]
A
Well, it's funny. I mean, one of the things that really made the first boycott so successful was I announced at Sonos that we were going to boycott Facebook for a week. And Elon made fun of me for saying that we were just going to boycott it for a week. Okay. He was like, what a joke, you know, because he was so proud at the time. This is the great irony. He was so proud at the time that he didn't do any advertising for Tesla. And that tweet from him like, you know, really made the, made the boycott much, much bigger. Like I was on CNBC that afternoon, you know, so the reason that I only did it for a week is because who can afford to turn it off? You know, you can only afford to turn it off if you're someone like elon that has 20 million followers and you have like this huge organic channel that you're, that you're using to drive your announcements and to drive your press. So, you know, we, and, and if you run an e commerce business like we do, where you're in the business of matching supply and demand, you know, Google is, is very, very critical to our business. And so, you know, you will see if you go on and you search iPhone, you know, iPhone 14, refurbished iPhone, you should see us like very, you should see us very prominently there. It's a really important channel for us. And I don't, I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. That's why I'm following the Google trial so closely and so interested in all the reporting because it's a very, very, it's a really important channel for us. And you know, it's not something that we can. And it's not, you know, and I think this is coming up in the trial. It's not substitutable. Like what, what Google does for shopping is not something that you can just like switch to Meta tomorrow. So, you know, I think we have a lot of opportunity on Meta. We're definitely going to explore It, I think it takes, I think to do it really well and I'm, you know, I'm lucky that I have background in fashion and I've seen how it works in fashion. It takes a lot of investment in your creative setup and in having the right relationship between the channel owners and the creative team so that you, so, so it's not just one and done so that you're constantly testing and scaling and you know, learning about what really works.
- [44:13]
B
Penultimate question. What about Programmatic in the Open web? Where does that fit in here? Does Back market have a, an open web display? I'm going to use the term that the DOJ uses and is trying to prove is a real market because it is. Does back market have a programmatic strategy?
- [44:32]
A
We do and we probably always will and it's definitely going to need to change depending on the outcome of the trial. We'll have to see, we'll have to see what happens. But you know, we do, we have a long and intimate relationship with Google also though, so we'll work closely with them to sort of see what happens and adjust accordingly.
- [44:58]
B
And what about the open web? Just publishers, publishers out there. The New York Times of course, at the top, but then lots of smaller publications that are, I don't know, dying.
- [45:13]
A
I mean we've been, we've been in and out of that. Like Critio, I don't know if you know that company. It's another. Oh come joy, come joy, of course you do. So Critio is another Paris based company and you know, we've worked with them in the past and we'll work with them in the future. So we do. But, but, but I, I don't know. I mean, maybe this is where I'm old fashioned. Like if I'm going to advertise on the Atlantic or if I'm going to advertise on the New York Times, I, I'm going to go directly to them because you get so much more out of that direct partnership than you do by buying it programmatically. So it's, it's, it's, it's not, it's not something I'm as excited about and I don't think it's ever going to be as big for us as our relationship with, you know, Google Shopping and what we do there. I don't ever think it would be as big as what we could scale potentially into on Instagram and TikTok, for example, directly. And I don't think it's going to ever bring the kind of quality that A direct relationship with the publisher brings. So I, you know, we do it and we're going to, you know, we'll, we'll always test things, but it's not that that open web stuff is not as core to us as, you know, SEO shopping, you know, trying to scale into, you know, new audiences on meta and direct relationships with publishers. I love them. I love those deep partnerships. I think you can do so much cool stuff together when you buy directly. So I would always ra. Do that.
- [46:40]
B
I mean, there is no publisher in the world who wouldn't love to work with a brand inbound directly.
- [46:47]
A
Yeah, you just, you get more bang for your buck. You can, you know, the, the, the, the when, when you think, from, when you think media first, the creative is always so much stronger. And I think, you know, this is one of the things that Instagram has really trained us on is like, you can't just plop something on Instagram. You know, you really have to, you have to earn your way into the feed by contributing value to the feed and you're only going to get access to the most valuable audiences when you can add quality content to someone's feed. So that, you know, but, but it's kind of always been that way, right? So I think like, losing sight of that is not good. And, and it's just, it's more fun for everybody that's involved if you do it directly and you really think, okay, you know, what, what is the, what, you know, what is the thing that we want to put on this billboard and you know, at bus stops in France, like, you know, what are people thinking about when they're, you know, at the bus stop like that? It's just, it's a much more fun creative challenge. And, and the, and that, and the impact and the output is way better.
- [47:48]
B
So at some point, I don't know, like six questions ago, I said penultimate question. So I'm going to bring us home now and ask you the, the last question, which is how old is your current phone?
- [48:01]
A
Oh. Oh. So I have an iPhone 13 mini. I don't know.
- [48:06]
B
Me too. Yes, I also have an iPhone 13 mini.
- [48:10]
A
So I bought it. So I had a 14 and I want, I wanted this like forest green phone, you know, when I don't even know if they do that color anymore. But basically it sold out everywhere. I could never get my hands on a force green. I had a 14 and I bought a 13 mini and forest green and then I traded. So, but it was very expensive because again, people still love this older color. So I think it was like 830 bucks. And then I sold my 14 for 550. So net net. I didn't end up spending that much money on it, and I really love it. I think they. I think you can understand why they discontinued the Mini, because the battery's never as good on a mini as it is on a bigger phone.
- [48:56]
B
But it fits in my pocket.
- [48:57]
A
It fits in your pocket. I just love how small it is. And actually, personally, and I think this. I'm a very edge case on this. Okay. But I try to control how much I use my phone every day, and the discipline around managing the battery is positive for me.
- [49:11]
B
Right.
- [49:12]
A
You know, it's like, okay, well, use it when you need it and don't be. Don't touch it every five seconds or, you know, go down a rabbit hole, like, unless you. Unless you can spare the battery.
- [49:23]
B
The battery life. For me, when I upgraded, actually, to when you. I'm really into the downgrade idea, but I'll tell you why I had to upgrade. When I got the iPhone 13 mini, the battery life to me was revelatory. I got it in 2022. Before that, my last phone was an iPhone6, and I'd had it since 2015. And honestly, the only reason I upgraded is because the phone fell off the arm of my sofa. Not even that far. It was like a foot and a half, and the screen just shattered beyond repair. And I dropped that phone so many times in the past, I think the phone was, like, done. Like, the phone wanted to be retired. And to be fair, the thing barely worked anymore. I just kept it because of the principle of the matter. And also, people thought it was funny. They'd see my phone and be like, oh, that belongs in a Smithsonian. But, I mean, there are rare earth minerals in these phones.
- [50:18]
A
That's exactly right. And the extraction of those rare earth minerals is not a pretty sight. So the battery, you know, you. We have. We have a really big business in Europe just replacing batteries. And. And. And most of the time, that's the only thing that you need to really replace on your phone. So I'm hoping we're going to be able to roll that out more aggressively in the States, because it's like, you know, why. Why wouldn't you. And by the way, all of the fighting that we've been doing for right to repair is finally having an impact, because one of the things that we discovered very early, when a new iPhone comes out, our techs, you know, take it apart and they really examine it to understand okay. Have there been any changes that make this more repairable? And that's the one improvement? Actually, Apple's made a couple of improvements as a result of pressure from the right to repair movement. And one. One improvement that they've made that we're all really excited about in the repair movement is it's easier to remove the battery than it used to be and replace it.
- [51:13]
B
Well, here. Here. Down with planned obsolescence. And everyone should go listen to Celie and earn Joy some royalties.
- [51:23]
A
Absolutely. Thank you. It.