Treasury Wine Estates’ Justin Noland on Navigating Headwinds and Elevating the Wine Experience

Summary

Brave Commerce: Treasury Wine Estates’ Justin Nolan on Navigating Headwinds and Elevating the Wine Experience

Episode Overview: In this compelling episode of Brave Commerce, hosts Rachel Tippograph and Sarah Hofstadter engage in a live conversation with Justin Nolan, Vice President of Digital Experience at Treasury Wine Estates. Recorded live at the Shop Talk conference with Melissa Burdick filling in for Sarah, the discussion delves deep into the challenges and innovations shaping the eCommerce landscape for one of the world's leading wine producers.

---

1. Introduction to Treasury Wine Estates

Timestamp: [06:54]

Justin Nolan opens the conversation by outlining Treasury Wine Estates' dual portfolio strategy:

“We have our luxury portfolio of iconic and historic vineyards and wineries like Barringer and Frank Family and Dow that are just incredible icons of the wine industry. We also have a portfolio that we, you know, it's a premium brands. We call it our bold brands… [such as] 19 Crimes and Matua and Drop of Sunshine… [that are] in virtually every grocery store they go into. It’s just a privilege to be able to work with them.”
— Justin Nolan [06:54]

This dual approach allows Treasury to cater to both traditional luxury wine consumers and those seeking more accessible, everyday options.

---

2. Navigating Industry Headwinds

Timestamp: [08:49]

Rachel probes Justin about the myriad challenges Treasury faces, including global warming, changing consumer tastes, and stringent regulations.

“We have a ton of headwinds, but we also have a ton of really, really talented people that I get to work with. One of the pillars of our DNA is that we deliver together so that it's not any one of us or individual that has to deal with these problems themselves.”
— Justin Nolan [08:49]

He emphasizes the company's resilience, highlighting initiatives in sustainability and digital innovation as key strategies to counteract these challenges.

---

3. Brand Portfolio and Luxury Brands

Timestamp: [12:09]

Rachel shares insights from Mic Mac's data, noting the resilience of luxury brands even amidst economic fluctuations.

“Like, no matter what's happening with people's paychecks, they're like, I'm still going to go buy that LVMH bag.”
— Rachel Tippograph [12:09]

Justin agrees, citing Dow as a prime example of a luxury brand that thrives by deeply connecting with consumers through authentic experiences.

“Dow is… it’s connecting that consumer experience, that human experience to the broader brand… meeting you at that occasion.”
— Justin Nolan [12:23]

---

4. Building a Profitable Wine Label

Timestamp: [13:45]

Melissa raises a critical question about the profitability of launching a new wine label.

“Can you actually make money in building a wine label? Your company obviously does well, but if a certain person wants to go build a wine label, can they actually do that and be profitable?”
— Melissa Burdick [13:45]

Justin responds candidly, acknowledging the high initial investment but stressing the importance of customer-centric approaches and storytelling in achieving profitability.

“Knowing… what your customers care about, where their taste profiles are going, the kinds of stories that you can tell… is what helps really build that business case and allow you to be profitable in the industry.”
— Justin Nolan [14:15]

---

5. Growth Trends in the Wine Industry

Timestamp: [15:43]

Rachel inquires about other growth drivers beyond the luxury segment, referencing the rise of low-alcohol products.

“Low alcohol is popping right now. So outside of premium, where are the other growth factors in the wine industry?”
— Rachel Tippograph [15:43]

Justin highlights several emerging trends:

• Ready-to-Drink Categories: Tailored for specific occasions and consumer needs.
• Non-Alcoholic and Low-Alcohol Wines: Catering to health-conscious and sobriety-focused consumers.

“Non alcoholic wine starts as wine and actually goes through a process that takes the alcohol out of it… it's another way that people are enjoying our products.”
— Justin Nolan [16:00]

He underscores the importance of innovation in both product offerings and marketing strategies to capture these growing segments.

---

6. Leveraging Retail Media

Timestamp: [17:49]

Melissa explores the complexities of utilizing retail media in the highly regulated alcohol industry.

“How do you play with retail media? How does that work? Where do you see the opportunities are to activate retail media?”
— Melissa Burdick [17:49]

Justin explains Treasury's strategic approach to retail media, emphasizing the integration of digital channels where consumers discover new wines.

“It's about being where people are… ensuring that we are inclusive in that longer version of how consumers are finding out about brands… connecting the media, the advertising dollars to a direct action for commerce.”
— Justin Nolan [18:01]

He notes ongoing collaborations with platforms like TikTok to create compliant and engaging content tailored to the right audiences.

---

7. Technology and Innovation in Winery Operations

Timestamp: [22:54]

Melissa shifts the focus to technological advancements, drawing parallels to Sweetgreen's Infinite Kitchen.

“Do you have something similar that's happening with your industry?”
— Melissa Burdick [22:54]

Justin outlines Treasury's commitment to leveraging AI, machine learning, and automation to enhance operational efficiency and safety.

“How can we use automation, how can we use machine learning, how can we use robotics to make the winery safer… bringing that back into the teams that we're working with.”
— Justin Nolan [22:54]

He advocates for using technology to relieve teams of mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on high-impact projects that drive growth.

---

8. Personal Insights: Justin's Brave Act

Timestamp: [24:03]

In the heartfelt conclusion, Justin shares a personal story about his career transition from a nonprofit medical leadership role to the wine industry.

“I literally ran my entire career to moving towards being in a nonprofit medical leadership role that I left… because I was doing work that just was draining me every single day… what drove me to wine, is because… celebration, great dinners with your friends, great conversations.”
— Justin Nolan [24:11]

This revelation underscores his commitment to fostering positive experiences and connections through wine, aligning personal passion with professional mission.

---

Conclusion

The episode offers a profound glimpse into how Treasury Wine Estates navigates the intricate landscape of the modern wine industry. Justin Nolan's insights reveal a blend of resilience, innovation, and heartfelt passion that propel the company forward amidst various challenges. From leveraging digital media to embracing technological advancements, Treasury exemplifies how legacy brands can evolve to meet contemporary consumer demands while maintaining their storied heritage.

Listeners gain valuable perspectives on:

• Balancing luxury and accessibility in brand portfolios.
• Overcoming environmental and regulatory challenges through teamwork and sustainability.
• Capitalizing on emerging trends like low-alcohol and non-alcoholic wines.
• The critical role of authentic storytelling and influencer collaborations in brand building.
• Integrating advanced technologies to enhance operational efficiency and safety.

For those interested in the intersection of eCommerce and the wine industry, Justin Nolan's experiences provide actionable strategies and inspiring narratives that highlight the essence of Brave Commerce.

---

For more insightful discussions on eCommerce and branding, subscribe to Brave Commerce on your preferred podcast platform and stay tuned for upcoming episodes featuring industry leaders.

Transcript

[Instacart Representative]

If you're a parent or share a fridge with someone, Instacart is about to make grocery shopping so much easier because with family carts, you can share a cart with your partner and each add the items you want. Since between the two of you, odds are you'll both remember everything you need. And this way you'll never have to eat milkless cereal again. So minimize the stress of the weekly shop with family carts, download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy. Zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees app for three orders in 14 days excludes restaurants.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying Big Wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway, give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for.

[Justin Nolan]

Three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes extra.

[Instacart Representative]

See full [e-mail].

[Justin Nolan]

The first thing I like to point out is we have a ton of headwinds, but we also have a ton of really, really talented people that I get to work with. One of the pillars of our DNA is that we deliver together so that it's not any one of us or individual that has to deal with these problems themselves. Right? We have a brilliant team that's working on sustainability, that's being good stewards of the land, thinking about how we operate the land in a way that's going to continue to allow us to grow grapes in the future. That extends into our wineries and into new solar arrays and all these other kinds of things. That team is doing really, really incredible stuff and I get to talk about it on the stage, which is cool.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Welcome to today's episode of Brave Commerce.

[Rachel Tippograph]

I'm Rachel Tippograph, the founder and CEO of Micmac.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

I'm Sarah Hofstadter, president of Profitero, and.

[Rachel Tippograph]

This is a show that talks about what's relevant in E Commerce for the world's biggest brand. Hey everyone, you're about to hear a unique Brave Commerce episode. It's unique because we are breaking the rules here. I was at Shop Talk this week, which is, as everyone who's listening knows, a huge conference in our industry and my better half, Sarah Hofstadter, couldn't make Shop Talk. So Melissa Burdick, the Co founder and president of pacview, stepped in to Sarah's shoes, which we know are tremendous shoes to fill, to be my co host to record a Brave Commerce live episode from the floor of Shop Talk. And we recorded this episode with Justin Nolan, the VP of Digital experience at Treasury Wine Estates. So without further ado, please tune in to hear Melissa and I talk to Justin. So I'm super excited to record this live podcast of Brave Commerce with Melissa, who looks nothing like my co host, Sarah Hofstadter.

[Melissa Burdick]

Hey, guys, I'm honored to be here.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Sarah couldn't make it to Shop Talk, and who better to stand in and really level up? Sarah's going to kill me for saying that in her shoes. Melissa. So, Melissa, super excited to do this with you.

[Melissa Burdick]

Thanks so much. I have big shoes to fill, although I'm a size 5, so that's not.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Saying much if you've never listened to Brave Commerce. We are the official commerce podcast of Ad week. We release new episodes every Tuesday. And so without further ado, we are gonna get into it. So, Melissa, when did you arrive to Shop Talk?

[Melissa Burdick]

I got in Monday night and I went straight to Happy hours and talking to a bunch of people. And it was great to see some of them here, friendly faces. But it's been a great time so far.

[Rachel Tippograph]

And you also have Prosper this week.

[Melissa Burdick]

Yep, this is an interesting week because it's both Shop Talk and Prosper, so we're straddling both kind of shows. One is at this end of the strip and one is at the other end of the strip. So the SMB marketplace for Amazon sellers and other sellers is all the way over there, and then the Enterprise kind of conference over here.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Who has better hotel rooms?

[Melissa Burdick]

It depends on who you are, but I hear that the fountain Blue is over there and that's pretty nice.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Okay, well, so here we are, day one, or for you, day two. Like, what's standing out to you this year at Shop Talk?

[Melissa Burdick]

Well, you gave me a hard thing which was related to our guests because alcohol is like one of the hardest topics to talk about that have a lot of regulations. And so I'm really excited to talk to you today about these challenges, but there's been a couple of trends. One is, and I just returned from a session with the CEO of Sweet Greens. That was super interesting.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Sweet Greens or Sweet green? I think it's sweet green, audience.

[Melissa Burdick]

Sweet green, which I happen to love. I love the salads. I actually doordash them all the time when I'm working from home. But there were a couple of things that were very relevant to the alcohol industry, which is storytelling is still key in brand building. So that's very relevant. Also integrating technology. They talked about their infinite kitchen. One of the things that they're doing is it's very important for customers to come into their stores and you see them chopping up ingredients and that it looks fresh. But then they have this whole automated process where they fill the bowls and they can fill 500 bowls in an hour. And so that's pretty cool. The part that doesn't relate to alcohol industry is the healthy part. I would say we've had some conversations about this, but the whole trend in healthy eating and the cool thing that Sweet Greens did was that they created healthy french fries a month ago. And so they kind of came out with this healthy fry. Very social media worthy. One kind of other trend is that you can do lots of social media kind of pictures and lifestyle imagery and things like that. Also healthy ingredients. It's made out of five ingredients. They also talked about how it had to be affordable. They charge 425 to 495. And it made me realize how expensive french fries are.

[Rachel Tippograph]

It's 2025.

[Melissa Burdick]

I know. And then the last one is leveraging influencers and content creators. So that's still very relevant. And I would love to hear how that relates to the alcohol industry because I know in alcohol, with vodka, there's a lot of famous people creating vodka. So how does that relate to wine?

[Rachel Tippograph]

I'm not sure Justin appreciated the non healthy comment to his industry.

[Melissa Burdick]

He's very transparent. I feel like he's like, we'll admit that.

[Rachel Tippograph]

But I grew up with a grandmother that told me she was allowed to have one glass of red wine every night. And so she would take out a goblet and she would fill it all the way to the top. And my mom would be like, you know, mom? And she'd be like, the doctor said.

[Melissa Burdick]

One glass and she lived a long time. Right.

[Rachel Tippograph]

That's questionable. But Justin, we're so excited to pick your brain. So, Justin Nolan, you're the VP of digital experiences at Treasury Wine Estate, and for everyone who's listening, you have some great wines in the portfolio. So can you remind us some of those brands?

[Justin Nolan]

Yeah. First off, thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate it and it's been awesome. First day here at Shop Talk. First and foremost, everything in moderation. Wine is awesome. Just want to make sure my bosses hear that. But moving on from there. So Treasury Wine Estates I like to think of us as two very different but very complimentary portfolios. We have our luxury portfolio of iconic and historic vineyards and wineries like Barringer and Frank Family and Dow that are just incredible icons of the wine industry. We also have a portfolio that we, you know, it's a premium brands. We call it our bold brands. These are brands that allow us to kind of challenge some of the regular norms of the wine industry. It allows us to bring people to the wine industry that maybe wouldn't have bought a bottle of wine in the first place. So kind of having both of those portfolios really gives us an opportunity and right to play and really think about consumers in a very different way. With those brands, you think of ones like 19 Crimes and Matua and Drop of Sunshine, ones that again, people will see in virtually every grocery store they go into. And it's just a privilege to be able to work with them.

[Rachel Tippograph]

So not to continue to put you in the hot seat, but maybe we just get it out of the way and also don't mean to pick on you. There's plenty of brands here today that also have lots of headwinds to navigate, but it feels like the category has so much going on. First of all, you have global warming. At the end of the day, it's an agricultural business. Tariffs probably less. I mean, maybe the glass, I don't know. If you manufacture that in the US then you have changing consumer taste preferences. Then you have the overall regulatory environment. It's not just at retail. It's also within advertising. It's becoming harder and harder for you guys to even target consumers, especially in environments like the eu. With so many curveballs coming your way, how do you position treasury for growth?

[Justin Nolan]

Well, we have a lot of headwinds, right? And I think most every organization, if they really thought about it, they'd say here's all of the positive things going on and here's all of the things that are more difficult. The first thing I like to point out is we have a ton of headwinds, but we also have a ton of really, really talented people that I get to work with. One of the pillars of our DNA is that we deliver together so that it's not any one of us or individual that has to deal with these problems themselves, right? We have a brilliant team that's working on sustainability, that's being good stewards of the land, thinking about how we operate the land in a way that's going to continue to allow us to grow grapes in the future. That extends into our wineries and into new solar arrays and all these other kinds of things. That team is doing really, really incredible stuff and I get to talk about it on the stage, which is cool. We also have really brilliant people on the digital side of things that are enabling us to connect to consumers in different ways and allowing us to continue just to reach out. Right and ensure that we have this sort of human centric capability. But you can't really be human centric or consumer centric without being digitally enabled because that's where people are essentially finding you today. So yeah, there's lots of headwinds. I mean you can talk about tariffs or potential tariffs or these kinds of things. But again, I'm fortunate to work with a great organization that has a lot of brilliant people from my colleagues in digital. Amanda Green, my buddy here, Shem Swerkis is here. Our brand partners telling incredible brand stories like Tanya Beers over at Dow. We're doing a lot of really cool things that enable us to kind of take those headwinds and say, you know what, we can still find areas of growth certainly within our luxury wine sector.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Omnisend automates all the busy work for you. It can capture customers who abandon their shopping carts, recommend other products based on their purchases, wish them a happy birthday with a personalized offer, or instantly notify them as soon as your best sellers are back in stock. Start free with Omnisend today and keep growing effortlessly sale after sale. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistance assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do.

[Instacart Representative]

@Mintmobile.Com Switch upfront payment of $45 for.

[Justin Nolan]

3 month plan equivalent to $15 per.

[Instacart Representative]

Month Required intro rate first 3 months.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Only, then full price plan options available.

[Instacart Representative]

Taxes and fees, extra fee, full [e-mail].

[Sarah Hofstadter]

It'S time to turn your daydream into your dream job. Wix gives you the power to turn your passion into a moneymaker with a website that fits your unique vision and drives you towards your goals. Let your ideas flow with AI tools that guide you but give you full control and flexibility. Manage your business from one dashboard and keep it growing with built in marketing features. Get everything you need to turn your part time passion into a full time business. Go to wix.com.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Just to double click on that because we See, in some of our data at Mic Mac, that luxury seems to actually be pretty resilient right now. Like, no matter what's happening with people's paychecks, they're like, I'm still going to go buy that LVMH bag. So are you seeing that within wine?

[Justin Nolan]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, every brand's a little bit different, right? But Dow is a great brand. It's number one in luxury Cabernet. It's one of the fastest growing wine brands there is. And a lot of that is about how it's connecting that consumer experience, that human experience to the broader brand and getting, you know, more and more people involved in it, having people taste it and enjoy it and connect it to those experiences in this long term. So, yeah, I mean, it's one of those kind of things. I was kind of, you know, I think about it in a way that you have choices with the dollars you're going to make, right? Everybody has choices with what they're going to spend their resources on. If you love wine and you know that this is something that's going to be special for you, that you're going to enjoy this bottle, you're going to open it with friends, you're going to have great conversations with the people that you're with, you want that bottle to, like, meet you at that occasion. We have some of the most amazing brands and those bottles, the stuff that's in the bottle meets those occasions really?

[Melissa Burdick]

Well, yeah, Just to clarify, I do love wine a lot and I did ask you before this question that I thought was a pretty good response, which I've wondered, can you actually make money in building a wine label? Your company obviously does well, but if a certain person wants to go build a wine label, can they actually do that and be profitable?

[Justin Nolan]

So there's a joke in the wine industry that the fastest way to make a million dollars in wine is to start with $2 million. And I think there's some truth to that. But I also think it comes from this reality, right, that wine is an agricultural product first and foremost. And people that get into wine, they're there because they really care about harvesting the best grapes and selecting the perfect barrels and making the best wine that they possibly can. That oftentime business side of it, or like, oh, by the way, we have to sell this wine is secondary. It doesn't come as a priority or as a first piece to it. I do think that's shifting a lot. Right. And the other side of it is, you know, a Big part of the wine industry is wineries that come about as sort of, I don't want to say hobbyists. Right. People that had been really, really successful in one area and then come to wine as something because they love wine and they're maybe they're not necessarily looking to make a profit in it. They just really enjoy the process. But yes, you can absolutely be successful in wine. Right. And I think that being that customer centric, really honing in on, on what your, your customers care about, where their taste profiles are going, the kinds of stories that you can, you can tell and share, and the kinds of occasions in which they want to drink wine. Knowing all of those things is what helps really build that business case and allow you to be profitable in the industry.

[Melissa Burdick]

Okay, so there will be a collection basket on the way out. And I'm looking for $2 million, which means that I don't have to bring $2 million. I can make lots of money that way.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people in Napa are founders who exited. Melissa, you alluded that the, the luxury portfolio is doing well right now. I think we're all reading the same articles. We know that low alcohol is popping right now. So outside of premium, where are the other growth factors in the wine industry? Because the wine industry is supposedly a $500 billion industry.

[Justin Nolan]

Yeah, I think there's actually a lot of great examples of wine brands that are connecting with consumers in new and meaningful ways that aren't in the luxury space. You know, we look at things like the ready to drink categories and some of the thoughtfulness that they've put into occasions and specific needs and kind of where those things are going. There's definitely opportunity in those areas as well. I would even look at, you know, the non alcoholic, low alcoholic space as that is an area of opportunity. Most people don't realize that non alcoholic wine starts as wine and actually goes through a process that takes the alcohol out of it. So it's not necessarily a competitive field against wineries. It's just another way that people are enjoying our products. They're being thoughtful about their health, they're being thoughtful about sobriety and how they experience wine themselves. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a competitive factor. So we're looking at all of these things. How can we be innovative both with the products that we sell, but how can we be innovative in the ways that we take the products that we have and position them to meet the occasions that our consumers really want them to be at?

[Rachel Tippograph]

Is the DNA of the company to do that organically or go acquire companies in the space?

[Justin Nolan]

Yes, I think the answer is yes. And that's not a bad thing. Right. So one of the things that actually drew me to treasury in the first place was that treasury is an innovative organization. It is an organization that is willing to take risks, it's willing to rethink things. It's willing to know, like, hey, maybe what we're doing today isn't what we need to be doing in the future and we need to change course or do something different. They're also completely open to looking and saying, who is doing something amazing, who's doing something special. Is that an opportunity that we can bring that specialness back into treasury and allow it to affect the other brands that we have? Allow that specialness that way that that brand or that company is interacting with consumers? You know, if we acquire that, can we have it be a broader impact? And that's absolutely something that treasury is willing to do.

[Melissa Burdick]

One of the questions that I had was the retail media question. So we know there's a lot of restrictions in alcohol. How do you play with retail media? How does that work? Where do you see the opportunities are to activate retail media?

[Justin Nolan]

Yeah, that's actually. It's a great theme and it's one of the big themes that people have been talking about at Shoptalk, not just alcohol. And alcohol certainly has its areas of compliance issues where we have to work with multiple retailers and various things like that. But it's really about being where people are. Right. So the COVID pandemic really kind of shifted the world for wineries. Wineries were very much in the let's bring people out to the winery, let's have one on one long conversations that'll drive them into being a club member and then they'll be loyal for life and me introducing our wines to their friends and all of this kind of stuff. Right. COVID pandemic sort of shut all of that down very quickly and forced a lot of wineries into investing in both digital talent and digital channels. But it also became a nice realization of that's where the consumers are. So when we think about like retail media, it's where are people finding out about the next wine that they're going to have? Where are they discovering that there's data out there? Right. That says the number one place that people discover a new wine brand is through suggestions of family and friends. Okay, cool. That makes sense. Number two, number three and number four are all digital. Right. It's search engines. It's social media and then it's additional social media. And you could make an argument that even finding out about something from your family and friends oftentimes is coming in a digital way. So it's really being thoughtful about where people are finding information. And that's one of the things we think about when it comes to retail media is are they actually searching and looking for new products on a retailer website? Are they looking at recipes and that programmatic ad that you might be able to put into this catalog of properties available, is that where they might find out about this new product? And that's really what we're thinking about is how do we ensure that we are inclusive in that longer version of how consumers are finding out about brands, how they're finding out about new products within a brand that they might already love. And the more and more we can connect the media, the advertising dollars to a direct action for commerce, the better off we're going to be. Right? I mean, that's, that's sort of the holy grail of all advertisers is I spent money and it directly made us money. So when we think about retail media, that's one of those opportunities to really connect the dots between the two.

[Rachel Tippograph]

You mentioned social being a key place. So we have a front row seat of this at Micmac. Depending on who your TikTok rep is, you get a different answer of whether alcohol brands can advertise in TikTok. So as you think about investments in social working with influencers, like how does treasury think about it?

[Justin Nolan]

It's another area where I'm excited to say that we get a little bit of leeway to try things that maybe others don't get to do. We have tested, we have run ad campaigns on TikTok. There's definitely areas where we'd like to see improvements made. And we're actually being included in that conversation with, with TikTok and with some of the other big platforms as to how can we ensure that the message that we're, we're sending out is being targeted to people that are of age and can, you know, consume alcohol. But it's a super important area. And this is one of those things that we, I think we need to be doing even a better job than we are today is creating content and delivering content in a way that is both platform specific but also just engaging, really understanding what those consumers want to be looking through and what they want to be feeling and doing in their social space and contributing to it in a way that adds value and have.

[Rachel Tippograph]

You done collabs with influencers for the wine?

[Justin Nolan]

Yeah, definitely. We tend to stick to the more organic style collaborations where we're. And there's one of my colleagues at Dow, Rachel Mills, She's. She's great at this, where she will, you know, hand pick, reach out, build relationships with influencers, talk them, you know, see if we can bring them out to a property, get them onto an experience. Because you can tell the difference when somebody authentically loves the product and loves the experience than when they just got sent something and are posting about it because they got sent it. Right. We've done a ton of different kinds of programs with the idea that we'd like to reach broader and broader audiences through different channels and categories.

[Melissa Burdick]

Can you maybe talk about some of the trends that you're hearing here at Shop? Talk around maybe infusing technology into being more efficient or effective? The CEO Sweet Green talked about the Infinite Kitchen. Do you have something similar that's happening with your industry?

[Justin Nolan]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's going industry wide, but it's certainly something that treasury is focusing on is how can we not just be more efficient and more effective, but how can we do things like when we think about winery operations, how can we make it a safer environment for our teams? How can we use automation, how can we use machine learning, how can we use robotics to make the winery safer, to. To make the vineyard management safer? How can we use autonomous vehicles so that there's less activity around the movement of heavy machinery, but all the way, bringing that back into the teams that we're working with? There's a lot of work around using AI today to say, how can we be more efficient as a team? How can we be taking some of those tasks that we all think of as being sort of mundane or boring or just the things that don't bring light to your life? How can you allow AI or get AI to do those tasks for you so that you can be really focused in on the kinds of projects that provide passion, that you're really going to excel? And quite frankly, those are typically the ones that actually make a difference in the bottom line.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, Justin, we're coming up against time, which means we got to ask you our famous last question. What's the bravest thing you've ever done?

[Justin Nolan]

Oh, thank goodness. I have listened to this podcast before, and I knew this was coming. Now, you know, I think there's lots of different, you know, we can talk about. I am a father of two, and I feel like every single day, there's something new that pops up there. But specific to the work that I've done in the wine industry, I literally ran my entire career to moving towards being in a nonprofit medical leadership role that I left, it's about seven years ago now because I was doing work that just was draining me every single day. Like, we're all here. We get to talk about digital marketing, we get to talk about, like, recurring revenue, and we talk about churn rates and all these kinds of things. When you're in a medical nonprofit, the number one reason for your churn rate is death. And that was just. It was killing me. I took, literally took months off trying to figure out where I could go, what did I want to do, what industry could I be in that would help bring more light to me, bring more passion? That was what drove me to wine, is because, look, there's all sorts of, you know, things when it comes to alcohol, but typically when you think of wine, you think of celebration, you think of great dinners with your friends, you think of great conversations that you've had. And that was what I wanted to be with.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, we're happy you found joy in wine for everyone who's listening. When we first met Justin, his office was like an arcade. So it's definitely the theme of your life.

[Justin Nolan]

Yes.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you next Tuesday on Brave Commerce.

[Justin Nolan]

Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, that was so fun to record that episode live with Melissa and Justin. If you're interested in more live content, we're going to be recording a live Brave Commerce episode from the Micmac Commerce Growth Summit that is happening on Zoom on the interwebs May 20th. So go to Micmac's website to sign up for that. And if you want to nerd out more about the alcohol space, go tune in to a recent episode that we did with Brad, who leads media from Molson Coors. If you like what you heard, write a review. Tell a friend. Thanks for listening.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Running a business is hard work. Building your website shouldn't be. With wix, you can express your ideas, give direction, then leave the heavy lifting to AI. From site creation to branded content and images. Have fun with the details, customize what you want the way you want, and manage your whole business from a centralized dashboard with expert AI tools. Build, scale and enjoy the incredible results. You can do it all yourself on wix.

[Instacart Representative]

Hi, I'm Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast launching on the Adweek podcast network, my dad gave me this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As a result, I've met some of the most fascinating and inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth, we're coming centre stage and sharing the mic to experience stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that will challenge your way of thinking. Touch of Truth is available wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out every Tuesday. I do hope to see you there.