What'cha Drinkin'? with Isaac Rogers
Editor's note: Automated speech-to-text transcription, edited lightly for clarity.
Steve Quirk:
Hello and welcome to another edition of What’cha Drinkin? I'm Steve Quirk, president of Quirk's Media. My guest today is Isaac Rogers, chief innovation officer of Schlesinger Group. Isaac, welcome to What’cha’ Drinkin’? It's nice to see you. Let's start with what are you drinking?
Isaac Rogers:
Well, this is something called Music City Lights. I live in Nashville and this is a local craft beer. It's just an easy drink. I went through a phase few years ago where I was always seeking out the IPAs and I've kind of gotten to a point where I just like something good and drinkable. So this is just a good local beer. I'm trying to support all the local restaurants and bars and everything so I picked up a six pack of this and so this is what I'm drinking, Music City Lights.
Steve Quirk:
Excellent. I too am having, this is a Minnesota beer. This is Bent Paddle. It is brewed up in Duluth, Minnesota, on Lake Superior. Same thing, trying to support the people who are local and native to our area as best as we can. So, cheers.
Isaac Rogers:
Hold on, I got to open mine.
Steve Quirk:
Open that up.
Isaac Rogers:
Cheers.
Steve Quirk:
Cheers. Oh, that's good. So, let's talk about, recently 20|20 was acquired by Schlesinger Group. You've got a new title as the chief innovation officer. Tell me a little bit about what it is now that you are integrated in and how have you managed that process, what the transition's been like and how have you managed your employees in this change?
Isaac Rogers:
We became part of Schlesinger Group around April 1 of this year. So it's not been too terribly long. What is that? Two months? Two months on Monday. The digital side of our business really started about three or four weeks before. It started to get really, really phenomenally busy, and so, when the acquisition was announced, our folks were already so busy.
We were going to find ways to overtime grow these companies together. In a lot of ways we have been so fortunate that we are so busy. Everybody kind of went, okay, great. And then they got back to work. We've done a ton of communication on working with folks inside of 20|20, introducing them to the folks on the Schlesinger side that we can now interact with and work with. They've all been phenomenal. Our folks have been phenomenal.
Probably the biggest challenge we have right now, or one of the big challenges is No. 1, the massive amount of work that we're servicing right now. We're borrowing our resources from Schlesinger because they're a much larger organization. We've been able to bring those into play and that's been super successful and super helpful. And then the next thing has been, how do we pace this integration out and make sure that we do it in a way that doesn't impact the day-to-day workflow because our people are working so hard. And so that's been kind of the balancing act.
If you were really to walk around, I would say walk around the offices but that's kind of an old way to say it. I guess if you were to virtually tour what the experience has been for our folks, I would probably venture to guess that June 1 doesn't feel a lot different than say March 1 or about the time that we went into to lockdown. There haven't been a lot of structural changes, we're just starting in that integration process. We got some really great plans about how to bring some of our products and technology and services together. But Steve, for the most part, it's still very, very early days.
Steve Quirk:
Good. Glad to hear it's going well. And it's really good to hear that you're busy because it’s certainly better than the alternative, isn't it?
Isaac Rogers:
We are just so fortunate, and it's been the transitional period from a lot of folks that had a lot of in-person work that immediately had to grab it and move it to digital. Those were very strenuous days because they were literally taking projects that had already been recruited and already been fielded and trying to figure out a way to get them on digital platforms. And so we work some very late nights. It's still very busy, but we've settled more into a pattern that's a little bit more manageable. So I think when we got past that kind of April early couple, first weeks in April it's still extraordinarily busy. Our folks have smoke coming out their ears most days but we've kind of settled into a pace. We do regular leadership meetings, make sure we're providing resources where we can. And it's a ton of work and people are doing amazing at taking this workload but I realize every single day how lucky we are. Not everybody is fortunate in this position.
Steve Quirk:
So since you are so busy, can you talk a little bit about, how are the brands transitioning? What are they looking for now that people are kind of still shut in and aren't able to get back to life as normal? So can you talk a little bit about the brands you're working with, what they're trying to accomplish and what they're looking for?
Isaac Rogers:
Yeah, sure. I would say that in a lot of ways this is a really important time for qualitative insights because what we see a lot of brands doing and a lot of research focused on is just wide-open ear listening, trying to listen to what's going on with my consumers. We're doing a lot of work to understand switching behavior, new products they've tried, new services that people have tried that they were maybe reluctant to try before. And they may switch and substitute from a product or they may switch and come back. And so, we're seeing a ton of brands kind of go, I don't want to talk about what the new normal is going to be, but kind of what's the right now look like and what are implications starting to look like for our customers, our brands, how they're going to use our products.
So, you can imagine there's a lot of conversations around, people are doing a lot of delivery services. Who are those people who are on the fence? Are they going to go back and never use delivery services again once they don't have to or is this going to be a behavior pattern that's going to stick any kind of home delivery service? We’ve done some research around hobbies and crafts and things that people have done to fill their time and we've worked for some companies that are trying to understand what are the new things that people are trying. A lot of those crafts and hobbies and some retail stores that cater to those things didn't have really great digital presences. And so, they've had to figure out with this huge increase in volume, how do we deliver the product, the hobby materials, the kits to them? So look, there are implications for, we'd have to look really, really hard, Steve, to find a brand or product whose usage pattern experiences haven't been shifted by this.
So, in a lot of ways there's a lot of fertile ground and we're seeing a ton of research being done around what's going on in our consumers lives and can we pick out, call them the disruptions, little ripples of expectation changes in their life that they're going to stick with. And obviously without giving out any kind of research insights, we think that there's probably an extraordinary amount of change coming to the American consumer based on what they've done with their lifestyles in the past few weeks that are going to shape the way they're going to buy, use products, experience things for the next decade or so.
Steve Quirk:
Interesting. I mean, I've kind of heard that from some other people that they think that this is an opportunity for people in marketing research and insights because the brands just do not understand how consumers are going to react, how long it's going to last, is it going to be a permanent change in behavior?
Isaac Rogers:
I am 100% in that camp. Ss hard it is as it for many of our colleagues in research today, I think there's some really extraordinary opportunities for research over the next several years as brands scramble to figure out what are these new expectations? How are these experiences going to change? I think we're going to enter a real important phase of understanding customers and that's exactly what our industry is designed to help figure out.
Steve Quirk:
Yeah, I agree. So now we just move on to a little fun portion. I'm just going to ask you a random question that we have out of our list. And the question I'm going to grab for you is, if you were not in marketing research, what career would you have?
Isaac Rogers:
Oh that's a hard one because I love this industry so much and I've been here going on 13 years. And so in a way you kind of can't imagine yourself anywhere else.
Steve Quirk:
Right.
Isaac Rogers:
Okay. There's a couple of things that I guess in one way I'll tell you, there's no industry that I'm longing to get into. I feel like this is home for me. And so I'm not one of those people who's trying to figure out what am I going to do next? Most of my history has been spun around software products and software consulting companies. So I kind of feel like if one of these days Steve gets smart and fires me I will probably do something around technology. That's just because I've been in four or five different technology companies doing product development and brand strategy and that kind of stuff. So I think that's probably where I would be.
In a parallel universe I would probably be either a professor or a comedian. I love telling jokes. Most of them are not suitable for work or just, no, they're not. And they're not very good. So that's one thing. Or I love to teach. I learned kind of later in life, my grandfather was killed in World War II, so we were kind of cut off on that side of the family in a way and learned that almost everybody on his side of the family was either kind of preachers or teachers, professors, educators or they were preachers. And so I think I've kind of got that in my blood in some way. That idea of communicating and talking to people and trying to get messages and convey information over. And I have the opportunity to go speak at several universities every year and I really love it. I really have a passion for it especially going to business schools and talking about leadership entrepreneurship. And so I'd probably be, my guess is I'd probably be a professor somewhere if I wasn't in some sort of technology company.
Steve Quirk:
That's great. That's really interesting. It's good to know about you. So well maybe start working on your material. We can have you do a standup bit at one of the Quirk’s events.
Isaac Rogers:
I've never done standup, and people are always like, well, you know, you always said you want to be a comedian. I love funny people. I love laughing. My family was always telling jokes and playing pranks. So, one of these days, maybe I'll write some skits and I'll get up and do some comedy somewhere at an open mic night.
Steve Quirk:
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. It's great catching up and hopefully we'll see each other soon at one of the industry events.
Isaac Rogers:
I can't wait to see you and everybody else in the industry. I miss everybody.
Steve Quirk:
Yeah, same here. Well, cheers.
Isaac Rogers:
Good to see you.