[00:00:00] Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf, where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age.
[00:00:16] Hey everyone, Peter Crosby here from the Digital Shelf Institute.
[00:00:19] Digital transformation is in Leah Carlson's blood. From the first outside employee at a family-run
[00:00:25] business to leading technology and web projects at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association,
[00:00:31] to six and a half years building out global creative content and growth capabilities at McCormick,
[00:00:37] and now a digital marketing agency, Valir. She has created a way of working across global teams
[00:00:43] to implement technologies and best practices that drive efficiency while still enabling local control.
[00:00:50] Leah generously joined Lauren Levak Gilbert and me to share the most impactful lessons from her
[00:00:55] journey. Welcome to the podcast, Leah. We are so excited to chat with you about your experience
[00:01:03] in global commerce. Thank you so much for coming on.
[00:01:08] Thanks for having me today. I'm excited to be here.
[00:01:11] In your career, you've led content best practices globally. Like I said,
[00:01:15] you launched a global dam, you helped create an internal creative studio.
[00:01:20] You are no stranger to change and what it takes for an organization to implement new concepts
[00:01:26] and drive growth on the digital shelf. Tell us a bit about your background and where you started.
[00:01:33] Yeah, I actually love change, which is kind of strange, but I think it's kind of my superpower.
[00:01:38] And I know we're here today to talk about my six and a half years at McCormick,
[00:01:42] but I wanted to share a little bit about my background beyond that as well, because I've
[00:01:48] literally been working in digital transformation my entire career, I think. So it's in a way,
[00:01:55] sometimes I like to describe it as being an entrepreneur within corporate walls, because I
[00:01:59] have always just been in this position where I've had to like bring in new technologies or start new
[00:02:04] programs. And so I started out leading the first web experience and strad in channel strategy for
[00:02:11] a family owned waste and recycling management company. And then I moved into having my own
[00:02:16] business and launching websites for other small businesses. And then I was hired at National
[00:02:22] Cattlemen's Beef Association. And so when I was there, I got to lead a number of MarTech
[00:02:27] initiatives, including bringing in their first dam as well. And then today I am the VP of Client
[00:02:34] Services overseeing digital strategy and solutions for associations. So I have around 20 to 30
[00:02:40] clients under the Valir Agency, which is a digital and data services agency based out of
[00:02:46] Boston. So you had mentioned, I mean, such an array of experience, all like you said, and
[00:02:50] sort of centered in transformation. So we have to know how you made your way from Baltimore
[00:02:57] and McCormick. Like how did you make your way there? What is your journey been like?
[00:03:03] I've been really lucky to live in a lot of different places. So grew up in Iowa,
[00:03:07] moved to Denver. That's where I was with National Cattlemen's. And then out of the blue,
[00:03:12] I got a LinkedIn message and it was from McCormick. In fact, I didn't even think it
[00:03:17] was real. And they said, would you ever move across the country and come out to Baltimore
[00:03:23] and lead a global dam and global content best practices for McCormick? And about six months
[00:03:30] later, I was packing my bags and moving across the country and starting my life in Baltimore,
[00:03:37] which is where I still am. Did you find out how they, how you came into their notice?
[00:03:43] Yeah, I didn't realize this at the time, but someone along the way mentioned that I had Widen,
[00:03:49] which is now Aquia Dam on my LinkedIn profile. And so they'd already decided that they really
[00:03:55] liked the Widen platform and they said they were looking for people without experience.
[00:04:01] And so I was the lucky one. That's amazing.
[00:04:07] And so, yeah, tell us sort of tell us that journey. So you arrive at Cormick,
[00:04:15] a gal coming out of the train in Baltimore. And so when you arrived at McCormick,
[00:04:22] what were they trying to achieve? What were the business results they were going for that
[00:04:26] that had them bring you in? Yeah. So when I came out, my manager at the time was building
[00:04:33] the first global team. And so the way that they were structured was every region did their
[00:04:40] own content and marketing. And there was this idea that if we could bring like this centralized
[00:04:47] strategy initiative, that we could start to find some scale across the organization,
[00:04:55] sharing, learning, reapplication. And I was really lucky to get to come right in to already
[00:05:04] having the support for the first global dam. And so that was, it was almost like my role was
[00:05:09] split into dam and technology and managing and building that program. And then it was split into
[00:05:17] working cross-functionally across the regions to bring the best practices and bubble those up
[00:05:24] and then share them out across the teams. So you were sort of the one kind of,
[00:05:33] you know, the sort of the center of excellence model that they were talking about.
[00:05:37] You were really extracting the excellence from the regions across the world and then
[00:05:41] packaging it up into sort of a set of best practices. That's really cool.
[00:05:46] Absolutely. Yeah. And I got to create a playbook for, I got to essentially
[00:05:54] find the top content pieces that we were creating at the time. So images, of course,
[00:06:01] recipes. We were starting to create a best practice around product information.
[00:06:09] I think there were like five to eight. And so we built an actual playbook around that.
[00:06:14] What does it look like when you're developing a best in class image? What does it look like
[00:06:18] when you're developing a best in class recipe? And so I got to compile all of that and then
[00:06:25] share that out globally as well. As I was leading the damn part of my role,
[00:06:30] I got to bring in 30 consumer brands, the flavor solutions business. So that's like
[00:06:36] the McCormick for chefs content, as well as the business critical functions, corporate
[00:06:40] communications, HR, all of that lived within that damn. And so the role was really focused
[00:06:48] on how do we bring all of this together under one umbrella and start to centralize our
[00:06:53] content initiatives. That's great. I mean, I always think of the way McCormick differentiates
[00:07:02] itself in a lot of ways, but one of the major ways they do that is storytelling
[00:07:07] for their customers, like enabling and inspiring their consumers to stretch themselves as chefs
[00:07:15] and to introduce. I think that that's so powerful in that sort of creativity
[00:07:21] that fosters. You need to sort of harness it and manage it and make sure that it gets into
[00:07:28] action out in the market. I imagine your role is really important to that.
[00:07:32] Yeah, so some of the opportunities for scale there were thinking about leveraging content once
[00:07:38] and then creating multiple pieces of content that we could share across platforms, across regions,
[00:07:45] across brands, because at the end of the day, when you think about McCormick, people know
[00:07:50] this spice with the red cap, but it's Clubhouse in Canada. It's Schwartz in Europe. It's
[00:07:57] Ducro in Europe. And so a lot of these are still those core spices. And so the content
[00:08:02] really translates beautifully across markets, across regions, across brands. And so this is
[00:08:09] one way to centralize that and really scale it. And in terms of efficiency and using one
[00:08:16] piece of content multiple times across different regions, that has a lot to do with creative
[00:08:20] and your creative studio and how you're creating that. And I know you had the opportunity to help
[00:08:25] create an internal creative studio, which if I'm being honest is a huge question I always
[00:08:31] get from brands like should we do it in-house? Should we work with an agency?
[00:08:34] Should we do it externally? So would love your perspective on what it was like to
[00:08:39] implement that creative studio and what you saw as some of the pros for having it in-house.
[00:08:45] Yeah, it was definitely a journey. And so a couple years later after I'd been at McCormick
[00:08:50] for a bit, the organization was really building momentum. They were really developing
[00:08:55] that in-house creative studio in the US and building that capability and operating as an
[00:09:01] internal agency. They were able to make the case there for efficiencies around creating
[00:09:07] everything in-house. So it's like they were really keying in on how much does it cost for
[00:09:12] us to pay an agency to do this versus how much efficiency and scale could we get out of
[00:09:16] an internal team doing this? And I guess to answer one of your questions there,
[00:09:21] one of the challenges to this model I think is that having that outward lens and the pulse
[00:09:27] on the trends, right? Because you're so focused on delivery that you don't have
[00:09:33] the outward lens to see what's going on as easily. And so when you work with an agency,
[00:09:39] an agency is really that team that brings that economy of scale into the equation.
[00:09:44] And they can really look across their partner relationships, across their clients and
[00:09:49] from industry events that they attend and have this like broader 360 lens of the changing
[00:09:54] landscape. And so they can really bring that and bolster that. And so together,
[00:09:59] I think that's really where the magic happens in the partnership.
[00:10:04] And would you say that in terms of building a brand and having that brand story told,
[00:10:10] that would be like the pro side of having an internal in-house agency, right? Because
[00:10:15] they're internal people who know the brand, they understand the story. Because that's what
[00:10:19] I've seen on both sides. I love that point that you made that you need to know what are
[00:10:23] the trends in the industry. But if you have an in-house studio, they know the brand so well
[00:10:28] and are able to tell that story in a better way. Absolutely. So they are able to just very
[00:10:34] quickly get into the photo studio and create the thing, right? Versus the inefficiency of like,
[00:10:43] oh, hey, I got to call up my agency. I've got to do the scope of work and I've got
[00:10:47] to brief them and put all of these materials together. And it's just like creates much more
[00:10:51] agile way of working when you have that internal studio. And I think there's also just like that
[00:10:57] natural feed off of the creativity and somebody comes to you with this idea and you're like,
[00:11:02] yeah, let's try it out, right? And you just can remove that kind of wait time.
[00:11:08] And how did you bring together kind of the creativity side and your op side to make it
[00:11:13] like a creative operation studio and having the right efficiency using the right images across
[00:11:20] the board, sharing it globally? I feel like you're in that kind of sweet spot.
[00:11:24] Yeah. Thanks for that question. I love it. It's really a passion area for me because like
[00:11:30] you said, I get to bring tech under one roof, build the process under that same roof and drive
[00:11:36] that efficiency to really bring together Creative Ops. And when the internal studio was in place
[00:11:41] to go global, they asked me to lead that first Creative Ops team. So it was such a huge
[00:11:47] opportunity and just really excited to step into that role. And it was unique at McCormick
[00:11:54] because I really sat in that global role my entire time I was there. It was more just that
[00:12:01] as the studio changed and evolved and started to grow, that US studio then became that
[00:12:08] global marketing team there. And so I got to roll in from that global lens where I was more
[00:12:15] getting to strategize and then move into more of this operational role. So it was a really
[00:12:20] cool project for me in a cool opportunity to transition there. One of the first things
[00:12:26] we did was extend Creative Operations to essentially scale our standardized process
[00:12:31] and tech to establish a scaffolding and infrastructure for a lighter or like pilot UK
[00:12:39] studio team. And so we basically took what we were already doing really well in the US and we
[00:12:45] said, okay, we need to make sure everybody is leveraging the same process. Everybody is
[00:12:51] leveraging the same tools and knows where things are located, what the process is from
[00:12:58] creative concepting through trafficking. And then we were able to really drive efficiency
[00:13:04] once we were able to kind of define that. And so to put it simply, it was like really using
[00:13:11] that people process and technology framework and saying, what are we talking about here? And
[00:13:17] how do we best drive it and look for any opportunities where things were off track in
[00:13:23] between? And so just kind of shoring that up to make sure it was really efficient.
[00:13:28] When we've talked to other people that are in global roles, there's always that
[00:13:34] opportunity slash tension of regional requirements and needs and them wanting to execute
[00:13:41] clearly and being potentially grateful for what's coming at them from the global team.
[00:13:46] But also, so how did you add McCormick? What was that situation for you sort of of the
[00:13:54] relationship between the global function and the regions? And how did that evolve over time?
[00:14:00] What was your work there? Now, that's a great question. I do feel like I was uniquely positioned
[00:14:07] because I already had those global relationships. So that was something I had working for me
[00:14:12] where I already knew the people and we already had the momentum around
[00:14:17] DAM and we haven't talked about it much, but also around our PIM, we were taking,
[00:14:22] we had really good momentum around that program and we were able to then start thinking about how
[00:14:27] do we just scale and reapply there leveraging kind of a similar program approach. And then
[00:14:32] we also had momentum around our CMS at the time too. And so I think when you pull these
[00:14:38] kind of concepts together, it's around the tooling and capabilities. And when you can
[00:14:43] really get everybody on those same anchor platforms, then you're just going to drive
[00:14:49] overall efficiency and streamlined execution. So when you standardize that process that relies
[00:14:55] on those capabilities, people know where things are, how to access them when their counterparts
[00:15:00] are out on vacation. And there's no real like waiting for someone to come back and like share
[00:15:05] that asset with you or share that content with you, right? You can just keep rolling because
[00:15:11] you have access to those tools already and you're all working together. And Lee, do you
[00:15:15] have any examples of like a process or project that made sense to standardize that was at a
[00:15:21] global level that maybe was regional before that worked out really well for you?
[00:15:27] Yeah, I think one example that is interesting to talk about is thinking about global taxonomy.
[00:15:34] So it was really tough in the making. The U.S. had an international kind of like,
[00:15:40] I think at times called ethnic or even Asian classification for one of their brands,
[00:15:46] Simply Asia. So that in the U.S. often ends up in like that international aisle in that
[00:15:53] grocery store. But when we brought the regions together, obviously our regions don't classify
[00:15:59] themselves as international. And so you really have to think about that global hierarchy from
[00:16:05] that overview umbrella lens to avoid your downstream tech debt and standardization
[00:16:14] cleanup down the road. Yeah, it's all your perspective, right? So what's international
[00:16:21] is different depending upon what country you're in. So that makes perfect sense.
[00:16:25] You would need to adjust what you're doing and give the regions the flexibility to tailor it
[00:16:32] for their needs, I would imagine. Yeah, exactly. If it's helpful,
[00:16:36] you know, another story I really like to talk about too is around brand guidelines and
[00:16:42] translation. So I noticed it pretty early on when McCormick acquired the record brands,
[00:16:48] Frank's Red Hot, French's Mustard. And so I got to join the team in China when we
[00:16:54] introduced the brand. And we basically all came together and started brainstorming on what
[00:17:00] that Frank's Red Hot brand would look like in the market. And I don't know if you guys remember
[00:17:04] this, but at the time, the main spokesperson was Ethel. So I don't know if you remember that
[00:17:11] funny grandmother, she was like shocking a reverent. But in the US that culture is funny
[00:17:18] and that persona works really well. It's attractive. But in China's culture, it doesn't
[00:17:25] work, right? We have very different cultural rules around our elders. And so I remember when
[00:17:33] we were talking about Ethel, it was shocking and not in a good way. And so you have to think
[00:17:39] about how the brand shows up in each of those regions, right? You have to define that up front
[00:17:44] and have those brainstorming sessions so that you can build the playbooks and the guides
[00:17:50] and then really be more efficient in the downstream with that.
[00:17:54] And I feel like that's where global fits so well, right? You have global standard standardization
[00:17:58] and regional activation, right? So that you can understand the culture, making sure that you
[00:18:03] have the right audience in mind. You're using the right language. I think one of the things
[00:18:07] that I've seen in the past to be challenging there is budget. Does the global team on the
[00:18:13] budget? Does the regional team on the budget? Who's creating the content? Where is it sitting?
[00:18:17] So I'm curious if you have any thoughts about what works really well, especially if you
[00:18:22] change to a global structure from a regional structure and any advice
[00:18:27] for people who are sitting in either of those.
[00:18:30] That's a fantastic question. I think at the beginning of my time when I was at McCormick
[00:18:37] and in that first global digital team, all of the regions kept their budgets internal.
[00:18:42] So they really could have full control over the choices that they were making.
[00:18:47] And we were more just a thought leader and strategy and collaborating from that perspective.
[00:18:52] And the temperature really did shift throughout my time at McCormick. And so
[00:18:59] it got to a point where I mean, the tension that I personally felt in leading the dam was
[00:19:05] that the teams didn't have to use the dam because they weren't paying for it.
[00:19:10] And so they didn't have to use the tool. And if it felt inefficient to them,
[00:19:14] they could just make other choices and store assets locally.
[00:19:20] And that wasn't just that platform. It was across the platforms of why
[00:19:24] do we have to use this if we're not paying for it kind of thing.
[00:19:28] And so I think where you want to shift is everybody pays into the kitty a little bit.
[00:19:35] Right. And so when everybody has that shared responsibility, they have the shared accountability.
[00:19:41] And I think that tends to work a lot better.
[00:19:46] Yeah. And I would imagine part of it and you tell me sometimes what we hear from
[00:19:52] folks that are in a position like this is that they kind of go region by region,
[00:19:58] implement a pilot, get the data that shows that it does increase efficiency and stuff like
[00:20:04] that. And then everyone starts to get a little jealous that they're not getting those same
[00:20:08] results. Did that happen in McCormick as well? Did you sort of see that?
[00:20:13] Yeah, absolutely. So the way that I approached it was in my role, it was typically starting
[00:20:20] with the U.S. because they were the most robust and had the most resources. We also liked to
[00:20:27] work with China as well, because as we all know, China is always on the forefront of
[00:20:31] trends. And so getting to have that as part of our content team is just extraordinary because
[00:20:40] we could then borrow those trends and then scale them across other regions. And so those
[00:20:45] were kind of the two areas for innovation. But then we would often pilot things in,
[00:20:51] like say Europe, because the team was excited. And so that's something I talk to people about
[00:20:57] a lot too, is like you don't always have to start with the natural fit. Sometimes it's about
[00:21:02] starting with the team who's just most excited and most willing to be part of it and then
[00:21:08] running with that momentum and then leveraging the good vibes that you're getting out of that.
[00:21:16] Did you use that as your kind of change management program to convince the other
[00:21:22] regions to get on board or showcase why it was important? Because this is a big change.
[00:21:27] If you're asking them to invest and also they're taking on a new project,
[00:21:31] so there's always a change management element. I'm wondering if there's any
[00:21:33] other pieces that were helpful in that? Oh gosh, absolutely. So I actually
[00:21:39] am change management certified. I went to ProSci for a few days and got to learn
[00:21:46] the different constructs of putting together a change management plan. And it's been really
[00:21:51] helpful throughout my career since I've had that. And so there are really structural components
[00:21:57] to it, but to make it easy to understand one of the things that I do is, and I did this even
[00:22:04] prior when I was in kind of some of my earlier career, is like finding those stakeholders
[00:22:09] in the different teams and pulling them together. It's informal because you don't manage them.
[00:22:15] They don't report to you. But when you have kind of those points of contact that you can rely on
[00:22:22] in your meeting regularly, you're naturally kind of embedding that change into their teams as
[00:22:28] well because they're kind of acting as your spokespeople across the regions or across the
[00:22:33] teams. I love that. That's exactly what I did when I was on the brand side. You got to
[00:22:38] find your advocates and then have them advocate for you, especially if you're in a global
[00:22:42] regional dynamic because it's important to have everyone work together there.
[00:22:48] So, Leah, to close out, I would love to... I know you've been at the agency now for
[00:22:56] around six months by the time this airs and I'm just wondering what that transition has
[00:23:01] been like. Because you've come from a place where you found it very valuable, at least
[00:23:06] with the creative resources to have an inside... You guys provide a bunch of digital marketing
[00:23:11] services and technology services, but I was just wondering how that transition has been,
[00:23:17] what it's like being on that side of the house and how are you sort of putting it all to work?
[00:23:23] It's been such a fun transition. Thanks for asking. So I've been really fortunate
[00:23:28] throughout my career to have a lot of diverse experiences. I mentioned at the beginning
[00:23:32] of our chat today that I started working for a very small family-run company. I was the first
[00:23:40] non-family member coming in and leading marketing there. And then I worked for an association,
[00:23:46] NCBA, the Be Fits What's For Dinner team. And then I got to work for a very large CPG. And so
[00:23:52] when it came time to start thinking about what's next for Leah's resume, I was like,
[00:23:59] what do I want to do? And how can I pull all of these themes together?
[00:24:03] And I started to think how fun would it be to get to work with a variety of clients
[00:24:09] and see a variety of different solutions and problems to solve? And so it was just a really
[00:24:17] natural transition for me. It's just very exciting to now get to work with a variety
[00:24:21] of teams leading that digital transformation change. That is so fun. One, you're way more
[00:24:28] thoughtful about your career than I've ever been, which is an inspiration. I'm going to take a
[00:24:34] lesson from you in this late part of my career, but that's great. And I think particularly
[00:24:41] what we often hear is that there's so much change happening in e-commerce, in digital,
[00:24:47] in creative. And it's only going to get fiercer in this next decade of the digital shelf.
[00:24:54] So it's finding that balance of what do you keep in house and what do you work with an agency with?
[00:25:00] And then that's a constant, I would imagine you're finding this, that's a constant sort of wave.
[00:25:07] You help the client get great at something and then another opportunity comes up to it.
[00:25:12] And I was just wondering if you're finding that, that each client is at their own stage,
[00:25:19] at their own sort of what they're capable of taking on and what they need expertise in.
[00:25:25] Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of the tools that I like to use for thinking about this is
[00:25:32] when Crawlwalk run, I think most people are familiar with some form of that,
[00:25:38] you don't have to jump out of the gate and have all of the best technologies and all of
[00:25:43] the best processes. It's sometimes using what you have and then identifying where you can
[00:25:50] make change in an agile way. You want to fly the plane and build it at the same time,
[00:25:55] which can be scary, but that's the best way to be iterative and learn and to grow
[00:26:01] and do the thing rather than having perfection kind of takeover. And the other thing that
[00:26:09] hot off the press is that we're building some maturity models and capability models within
[00:26:14] the org. And so what that helps us do is say, where is your capability today? Where's your
[00:26:22] ability to invest? And then how do we look at that and strategically build roadmaps to help you
[00:26:27] get from point A to point B to point Z, right? And really work together and collaborate
[00:26:34] throughout that partnership along the way. Well, that's super exciting and incredibly
[00:26:39] necessary. So I can't wait to see how they develop and maybe have you back to talk about
[00:26:45] some of those models as they come to fruition. But Leah Carlson, thank you so much. I imagine
[00:26:53] if you're okay with it, people can reach out to you on LinkedIn if they'd like to
[00:26:56] connect up with you and are interested in sort of the experiences you've had.
[00:27:01] Absolutely. Yeah, please do.
[00:27:03] Well, on behalf of all of Lauren and myself, we just really appreciate you taking the time
[00:27:10] to come and share your experiences and sort of the trajectory of your
[00:27:14] career. It's super helpful to the community to hear about it. And thank you so much.
[00:27:19] Thanks so much for having me.
[00:27:21] Thanks again to Leah for sharing her lessons with us. Swing on over to
[00:27:25] digitalshelfinstitute.org and become a member for access to a wide array of best practices
[00:27:30] and research from the best in the industry. Thanks for being part of our community.