The Power Of Great Marketing - Interview With Diane Hund | Fi$H Factor With Mike Ungaro

Hi everybody. I'm the chief marketing officer for US Foods, food distribution, and all things that help people like Mike over here run really well.

Nothing wrong with hard work, by the way.

Awesome. Yeah. Isn't that exciting? You want to talk a little bit about that?

And I just one of the things that makes US Foods great is we can help our customers make it. That's what we talk about. Yeah. And so many people they grow up in this industry, they don't grow up as business people. They don't grow up knowing how to be operators. They don't know how to balance things. We help do that for you. And so that's what I love. I love that you have that generational approach. We can come in, help you guys be successful, no matter who's running the business. And that's super cool for us.

Well, I think you're talking about the definition of good marketing, which is really understanding. You got to know what your brand is. You've got to know what your unique point of difference is in the marketplace and then just be true to that and promote that. And if it's something that aligns with what customers are looking for, that's the win-win. What's that unique unmet customer need in the marketplace? How do you develop the right solution? And then how do you make sure people know about it? How do you get the word out? That's what marketing is all about. Getting that message right and then getting that message out to all those other people.

Well, so US Foods about half of our business is traditional restaurants, independent operated restaurants. We have another half of our business that sells to hospitality, healthcare, education. Those types of environments and we have a unique business model that suits both of those. We tend to find it's that independent restaurant that really needs that extra level of support and help from us. So that's where we tailor a really unique value proposition for them. That's where we bring in from a marketing perspective. We had a lot of fun last year. We came up with a new campaign. We call it more and it's about more quality, which is about our quality products, more tools, which is about cool things like our Moxy e-commerce platform. More support, which is about the people we have because we'll bring in a whole team of people to support you, and then more deliveries, which is just making sure our trucks are there on time, flexible delivery whenever you need it. So important. So that's really tailored to that independent restaurant who needs a little bit of extra support because they don't have the resources to do some of those things themselves.

You do. You need somebody that's going to actually be there when you need them, that's going to answer the phone when you call, deliver the product.

You know, there is so much unknown, uncertainty, flexibility you need to have. It's one of the things we're building into our business model. So, we're just now in the process of piloting more flexibility in our delivery. So, today you have a certain cut off time. You got to place that order. We may not get that truck to you until your delivery date, which might be Tuesday, might be Friday. But what if you need more of that shrimp to be delivered on Wednesday? We're starting to make that possible now that we are going to be able to deliver that to you later cut offs, more flexible delivery, getting you everything you need on a more flexible kind of six days a week schedule.

Yes. I'm passionate about this show. So, you know, we talked before about good marketing. Good marketing is not just knowing what your brand is about, but it's getting that message out to people. So, the cool thing about Food Fanatics is it's a food show that goes beyond just tasting product. And when we looked across most food distributor shows, we realized most of them are built on tasting, which is great. You got to taste the product, got to know the product, but how do we incorporate educational elements as well as networking, inspirational moments, some of the things you might see actually at a show like this because we're at NRA right now. How can we bring that to the food show so that you leave not just with the right products, but with the right ideas, connections, tools, everything you need to be successful. So, we started building the show from scratch. Like, we're just going to build the perfect show. And so, we started dumping everything together. And all of a sudden, we realized we had this show that was 180,000 square feet because we had so many vendors. We needed massive amounts of space for breakout rooms for general sessions. And then we were like, you know, we can't do what Food Fanatics usually is at US Foods, which is a show in every area. We're going to have to make this a destination. So, we're doing that show one time in Vegas in August. All operators can come. And we just want that to be the one place you can go. Really experience everything we've got to offer and leave there truly a better operator. When you leave, we've given you all the advice, all the input, and a head start on the tools to help you be more profitable in your business. And the dates are August 18th and 19th.

We're going to be at Mandalay Bay. Super cool place. So, you're going to have to register early if you want to make sure you get a room in our room block, but you know, Vegas, you can stay kind of anywhere you want. But the whole show is actually at Mandalay Bay. Our general session will be there and that kicks off with EMTT Smith. We love EMTT. He's so inspirational. You can't listen to EMTT talk and leave there and not do something different. Awesome. And that's what you want from a general session. You want somebody who inspires you and makes you want to do something differently. We're going to have a couple cool people. Well, he's the only one I can talk about right now. But he's going to be super cool. So, surprises are fun. And then we're going to go to Zuk nightclub that night. We're going to have a big party offsite. If you've been to Vegas and you've been to Zuk, you know it's just great place. The next day is the big day food show. And then we're having a party at Mandalay that night with Brothers Osborne. They'll be there getting everybody all pumped up.

Go to usfuse.com and you can find the registration site is open now. And we're doing massive marketing. Starting Wednesday, actually, is our big push to get folks to register because the show's coming up here in a couple months before we know, it's getting close.

Well, when I think about the main channels we use, we need to be telling that story where our operators are listening. And right now that's a lot of heavy social placement. So we're finding our operators. You guys are still using Meta, which means Facebook, Instagram. So we're reaching out to you guys a lot in those spaces. We have a big presence on YouTube. And then we like to do just a lot of search optimization so that when you're going online and you're trying to solve a problem whether that problem is how do I find more help for back of house or what do I do to optimize my frying oil and keep it going longer that when you search on those questions we come up at the top of that list because we've got really good answers for them. So we spend a lot of time doing that kind of stuff too and then we'll email you. You know, the beautiful thing about marketing today is it's personalized. So hopefully the information we're providing to you is kind of the information you want to be hearing.

Agree. I mean, it seems so simple, but it's so outside because when you're head down, butt up working cooking food and trying to get customers, you're not thinking of the technology in the background. So, I'll give you a little tip on one of the other cool things we're doing right now. So, menus, you know, menus are a challenge, but menus, you guys, that's your number one marketing tool. And everybody is checking out your menu before they're coming to your site. So, you want to make sure that that menu shows up really well digitally and then when they show up in your restaurant that they're having a great experience with that there, too. Pictures go a long way. And so, now we're using actually AI to help generate the photos for our operators. So, you can take your shrimp and maybe you don't have a great photographer around, but you want to show a nice application where you're serving up shrimp with maybe a new aioli sauce. And you like to serve it on a wooden board because that's kind of on brand for you and you got maybe a little single dip cup next to it. You kind of give us those elements and we'll build you an amazing photo that's on brand for you. And put that into your menu for you. It's super cool.

Yeah, it does. And this new evolution of AI, this what I'm calling generative AI where it's actually creating new stuff like the photos we talked about or it can create videos, it can create audio, it can kind of create just about anything you want. You should take a moment and create with it. Like just you can't mess it up. You can't get it wrong. You should just go on find a way to get started on creating something and give it a shot because it's shocking though.

Is awesome. And I don't want to steal the thunder, but you're going to see this guy and his team on the cover of one of our new food fanatic magazines real soon here. So, you'll get to read more about their amazing story. Coming out to take some pictures of the new location we're opening in the next couple of days. So, it's really exciting.