HEATHER JOHNSON & AL SCHUSTER: SAMPLE FINDER / LETS PLAY A GAME / IS RETAIL ACTUALLY DYING

0:00Is anyone out there, a Costco member or a Sam's Club member, and one of the things that drives me nuts is all the sample stations. Do we really need like 35 sample stations across the entire store? All they do is clog up the aisles, and I can't get what I need when I want it. It drives me absolutely nuts, and or not knowing what's at the sample station, only to wait and then get up to it and realize I don't even want to try it. But now there's an app I can use to know exactly what's going on in the sample world, and it's more than just Costco. Today, I'm sitting down with Val and Heather, the co-founders of Samplifier, a platform that connects everyday shoppers with in-store food sampling events happening right in their own backyard. And if it wasn't enough already to get you excited, they went and gamified the whole damn thing. Honestly, free food just got an upgrade. Trust me, you're gonna want seconds on this one. Consider this your free sample of what's coming on this week's episode. I first have to know the quick 30,000 foot

1:05of both of your backgrounds, because then ultimately I got to know how someone in graphic design teams up with an accountant to come up with something in food. That is hilarious. So I'll let each of you kind of one at a time, Heather, if you want to start first and give again, kind of your 30,000 foot background journey, and then Al, you jump in yours, and then we'll figure out how the two of you combined. Okay, so yes, I went to school for graphic design and marketing. And so I have worked at different agencies. I've worked at small agencies. I've been freelance for large agencies, and I do a lot of freelance local work around Philadelphia and other areas. Alongside of that, I've been a brand ambassador for almost or over 15 years. So that ties into the marketing because I love brands. I love brand identity. I love logos. I love seeing how they create different things and go out into the world. And experiential marketing is part of that. I was hired as a brand ambassador by Al, she's there.

2:08He's the president, owner and founder of Polaris brand promotions. And so I'll hand it off to you now. Thanks, Heather. So got my BS in accounting from St. Joe's university back in 2001. I was doing accounting. It was always a job, never a career for me. I started helping out someone like part-time with their promo staffing, like hiring brand ambassadors do liquor promotions. And I loved it. And I'm like, I'm gonna start my own company doing that. I kind of by personality, doesn't lend as much, I think, to the accounting world. I never really was passionate about it. So I started Polaris brand promotions back about almost nine years ago. And hired Heather, originally as a brand ambassador, then she kind of came on at a part-time role. And then a year ago, she was hired full-time as our marketing director. So that's kind of the very crazy whining story

3:10about the last 10 plus years of gone. Nice, I love it. It's simplified yet complex at the same time. So we got to dig into that. So yeah, maybe talk about a little bit about Polaris before we dig into what I find super interesting and the app. Maybe talk about, kind of set the stage with Polaris and kind of what you guys do there and what it's kind of morphing into. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, it's very, they're not two separate companies. Like Heather is the marketing director for Polaris brand promotions, but we are both co-founders. I wanted her to have that title. But yeah, basically like, you know, Polaris brand promotions is the company and sample funders, the app that the company is founding. Just to understand like kind of the logic there. So awesome. Because yeah, we're gonna talk about samples and Heather, I did wanna dig in first because you were talking about you love brands and everything around brands. What drew you into that? Is it graphic and was it specifically food brands or was it always been, you know, with graphic design? Was it kind of a bit of everything

4:11and I guess what made you fall in love with the food side or food brands? A little bit of everything. I love good design out in the world. I love working with different brands of all kinds, small, large and seeing how they grow throughout time. So the very initial stages of establishing a brand identity is how you're going to show up in the world and how people are going to see your logo and they need to immediately, or maybe they get a tagline with it, maybe not. But that's how they're going to immediately interpret who you are. So there's a whole color theory of it. There's the fonts you choose. There's the spacing, there's the icon. But then the journey to get that in front of other people is another separate type of marketing. And that's where it ties into like the food and beverage world that I became part of after I started being a brand ambassador. I started seeing as a brand ambassador, I make explaining why the logo is the way that it is or I'm explaining what the products are or what the history of the company is and tie it all together. And that's fascinating. That's why I love promo staffing agencies like Polaris Brand Promotions because it brings that brand identity design

5:14and marketing to experiential marketing, which is what the agency is. It's an experiential marketing and nationwide promo staffing agency. It's all together. So I love seeing the brands that I was working with. I was the type of brand ambassador that would do extra research to make sure I knew the background. And when I saw that ALS team, whenever we hire a new brand ambassador, we train them with the same type of prep that I used to do. So I was like, oh, this agency values the brand as much as I do. And they want to tell the stories of the clients. It's not just, I mean, of course it sales, but it's also the brand awareness and loyalty that we build when we're out in the field. So that's kind of where I started to see the power of experiential marketing after the design part because I love the design part. And I love the marketing too, but the experiential and event marketing is that's where it collides and comes together and is exciting for me. Well, what's the big difference between like promotional staffing versus like traditional? You hear the word staffing and people in this food industry. Either I, most people do not have the best experience

6:16with staffing in the food and beverage world, especially if you're in the operation side, but kind of what's the difference between promotional staffing versus the traditional, traditional matter? You know, it's funny we're mentioning it's on another podcast recording recently that the funniest thing about our industry is that nobody knows we exist. Because we are out there representing other people's brands. And what I mean about that is, we hire all of our independent contractor brand ambassadors. We have over 9,600 in our nationwide database. And we go out and represent those clients brands directly to consumers. I would guess, I mean, it's really an independent contractor model, almost like an Uber or something like that. It's terms of like we hire independent contractors and whatnot, we give them kind of the option of which shifts they want to pick up or not pick out. So it's very much that kind of like that model

7:17in our industry as opposed to traditionally hiring. But why brands hire us is because it's a lot more cost-effective to hire us instead of doing the recruiting, the interviewing, the hiring, the setting them up on payroll when they may wind up only working one, three hour event. Yeah, nobody wants that in their operation. And you see a lot of the independent model these days, especially freelance contract work. It just, it seems to work out for both parties, right? A lot of people who are doing the freelance consulting in that boat, sometimes it's just easier, right? Hey, I've got a client, they need something. I can pop in, do what I need to do, be an expert at what I am and then pop out. And I don't have to be on full payroll and then for on the flip side, you know, the client, the brand, they don't have to make that, like you said, that huge investment into people don't understand. It's not just, okay, you're hiring and you're paying a salary, it's benefits, it's holidays, it's all that comes with the job. And then to your point, what do you do with a three hour event?

8:18And then it's like, what are they gonna do for the rest of the time? Nobody's gonna take a job for five hours a week. Nobody's gonna do that, you know what I mean? Unless you're maybe somebody's retired and just looking for some little bit of sidewalk here and there, which it does happen. But you know, we're talking samples, we're talking promotions, you're representing brands. Like where would you see, you know, your contractors or your brands, representing brands out in the real world? So people have a little bit of context. I think people are still kind of like, okay, well, where do they actually do this at? Everywhere, but I will start by saying a lot of the in-store demos that we do is like 90% of what our activations are and their campaigns that can be across the market all at the same store or in different stores. And you might be going grocery shopping, you walk up, you see a table, that's all set up, you see all the branding on the table, you see that there's samples and you're hungry because you're grocery shopping. So you might be like, okay, you know what I am looking for a new type of snack, let me just try this. That is where our brand ambassadors excel.

9:19Because now you are talking to somebody from the actual company, you get to try it before they buy or representing the company. You get to try it before you buy, you get to ask some questions, like, hey, is this going free? Like, and you get an answer from a real person instead of having to just like silently read the packaging. It gives that personal touch. But we also set up at product launches. We are at, you know, street teens that tackle outside of tailgating parking lots, walking around and we've walked around with wagons giving out different samples to tailgators. We've been at parades handing out bags. We've been in tours that set up across different sections of the cities that we represent in. We've been in, we do a lot. So it can be very customizable. That's one of the biggest hard points, selling points that we have for players, brand promotions, if you dream it up and it's feasible for our staff and us to train, we will help you out. Yeah, I think people listening, think about, if you're a Costco member or a Sam's Club member,

10:20I'm Costco. So you go in and, my God, I don't think I can walk five feet without somebody. Hey, you want to try this? You want to try this? You want to try this? You want to try this? And I'm just like, for me, it's too much. Others, I feel like they go there just to try the samples. And while sometimes it is, it is a great type model because you do get to try it for you by it. Like, hey, I want it. Oh, that actually looks interesting. I was thinking about buying it, but I don't want to buy a whole pack that's going to, especially at the big book stores. You know, I don't want to buy 40 of them and I don't like it, and then I'm stuck with it. So it's kind of in that same vein, but you have product experts in that because I know many times I come up, like, hey, is it this? And they're like, I don't know, read the package. And I'm like, well, but can you give me a little bit more? I want to know what's going on. And then I see some other activations where you may actually be part of those where, you know, they've got, like an actual table and there's actual people and they're interacting with all the folks. And I mean, you could tell us more vibrant. You could tell it's not just the little cart stand sitting around. So just to give some clarity context, that's what people can, are probably most used to seeing it out in the wild. So, okay, we're talking samples, sample finder.

11:22How did it come to be? How did it, what's the birthplace of the app? Supermarket grocery store down in Washington, D.C. So here's how this happened. I went down, I live outside of Philadelphia. And yeah, I go out and still do demos. So does Heather. So does the rest of our corporate team. And I went, it was a brand new client, want to make them happy. So I drove down to D.C. to do a demo, at a very important store for them. And it was a really funky layout. It was like two levels that had like three entrances, an escalator between the two. And, you know, even though I was in a really high traffic area, you know, I realized that like, I was missing probably like 90% of the people going into the store. And it really frustrated me because I was like, you know, I really wish it was a way to promote these events. Now, it isn't to say that promotion doesn't happen. Sometimes the stores will put up like a dry erase board

12:22or a chalkboard, but they're upcoming demos. Sometimes the brands themselves will be like, stop by the store and try our new product. But there's like no one centralized database. And I thought, you know, it would be great to be able to build an app. It was just kind of an afterthought. And I kind of ran the idea by Heather, who's our creative genius in our agency and said, you know, I mean, Heather's been doing this for, you know, over a dozen years, just like myself. I'm like, what do you think about like, if, you know, build the concept first? And then, you know, and she liked it. And, you know, and the overall like, like, what about building an app and building this out? And, you know, and so she is our co-founder. And, you know, as I like to say, I just keep up with the idea. Everything else that you see, like, you know, all the creative design and everything like that, that's all Heather's genius right there. So, but that's kind of how it, you know, how it came about, the concept and God, it was almost like, probably like eight months ago. And the fact that we're like beta testing and we went to CES and NRF,

13:24the National Retail Federation is just, is this kind of incredible. Yeah, you jumped right in to CES because I want to touch on that. That's high tech, shiny. I mean, they've got everything, right? Everything of everything in tech is there. What was the vibe on the floor in the food sector food tech? I don't know how much you got to walk, but what was the overall sense in the food segment? In the food segment. So, we were in Eureka Park. So, we were actually next to a bunch of different sectors. There was everything from like a type of nail polish to gym equipment. So, we were technically not in the food section, but we were with other people who are launching. So, there was so many exciting ideas that were around. People were excited to show off. There were demos. It was really fun to be part of that, especially for the people walking around who were like, they also specifically came to Eureka Park to see what was new. And since SampleFinder was new, we got to have some great conversations to share what it is like there.

14:26What we did for food is we did set up something called, we called it a sample hour for SampleFinder. And we set up a table like you would see in a grocery store and we had food and snacks and we handed that out because we wanted to give a direct visual representation of what it's like to interact with an activation that would be on our app. Mm, okay, awesome. What kind of feedback did you get from both, you know, customer, you know, end user brands? What was, what were they saying about the app? It was exciting. I'll pass this to you in a second hour. I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that what was cool is we actually did speak to all everybody from those categories. There were some people who were like, oh, wow, I know of some brands that could use this. CES is in Las Vegas. So there were people from the Vegas entertainment sectors walking around who were like, wait a minute. When you launch, please reach out to us. And then there were other users like who I would consider users who were like, oh, I want to download this app when it comes out. Then there were investors. It was just a lot of different conversations.

15:27Go ahead, Al. I would say overall, the reception was extremely positive. The important thing about to know about CES is you really need to plan out before you go. You really need to kind of pre-show, promote, get your press release out, things like that. So we did have a lot of people who came up like, oh, I heard about you guys here and there, we had sporadically some people doing that. When people really understood the concept of sample finder and what it can and will do for the retail sector as a whole, we received comments like, oh, it's genius, this is awesome, this is gonna go out. Now, granted, appreciate the praise, fingers crossed, it actually does create a real disruption in that sector. But overall, I'd say the reception was really positive. And maybe we should unpack the actual app and what it does. We've kind of been actually all around the app and talking about samples.

16:27Well, actually walk through, right? I got an app, I download it. What does it mean both for a brand? Right, because there's that piece of it. And then what does it mean for the end user of the consumer, because ultimately somebody's gonna buy product for this whole thing to work? True, well, for the brands, what's super exciting about this and what I love especially being somebody who's a fan of different brands is that the goal is to build brand loyalty and to get feedback from your consumers. So as a person who is opening the app, you would see a list of brands that are activating, which means they're having events in your area where you can get samples. Doesn't have to be just samples. It could also be giveaways. It could be t-shirts if you sign up for a service. So not just for food and beverage, it can be for anybody. However, you would like to creatively use it. But for brands, now your logo is on this person's phone and they can read a description about your company. There's a little option for them to list the products that they have already. And when a user uses it and shows up to an event, now it's in their history.

17:28So it really builds that brand loyalty together. The user gets to show up, check in, get points for checking in, get points for leaving a recap. So the feedback that the brands will now get is, did you buy it? We set up all of these demos, did you buy it? Did you like it? What did you like about it? Do you have any opinions? And it's a great way to have the brands feel like they're hearing directly from the shoppers. And for the end user to be like, yes, I loved it. And this is why. And now maybe you're sending all these five-star reviews and the brand can reach back out and be like, special discount for you. It really ties the whole journey of the brands and the users closer together. Sounds good. Sounds good. Sounds good. Yeah, go ahead, El. No, I mean, the other, I think you kind of really hit that nail on the head with all that. We really want to be a disruptor in the retail space. We're actually kind of launching under the hashtag

18:29Save Retail. Because we really see how retail is changing and not necessarily in a good way for the consumer. We see a lot more of online delivery of products and service products. And then you have grocery delivery on top of that. I can honestly see in about 10 to 20 years, people not being able to shop in a supermarket anymore. You're just going to order everything on your phone or go to a key ask and then someone's going to bring it out out to you. It's really going to kill the opportunity to have choice. So we're launching under Save Retail to really highlight the fact that we want to create kind of experiential engagement spaces and stores where demos can happen. And you can try samples and things like that to make the shopping experience fun. It said Costco is everyone knows them for their samples. We want to have that in every retail location

19:32as a motivational tool to get consumers out to add that value there to make it not as cumbersome and not as uncomfortable to have to go to a store park, walk through aisles, and all that stuff, which online delivery kind of removes that, all those headaches. And now that the younger generations are on their phone all the time, they're easily going to be like, well, I could just order everything. Why do I need to go to a store and deal with that headache? And kind of being able to provide real world experiences in those stores, I think that's going to be the one thing that's going to really make a mark with sample phone. Can we double click on that? Because I've got my own opinion on the whole pick up, slash delivery grocery versus going in the store, okay, right? COVID hits, what does everybody do? Pick up groceries, right? That was the hot thing everybody got there's launched. It was damn near impossible to get a pick up space if you didn't reserve it a day, two days in advance for that slot and you had to be there

20:32within that time slot, right? So that happened. And then, which was great, right? Nobody knew shit about what was going on in the world and everyone was scared that they were going to die. So, right, you picked up your groceries, you felt safer. But now that we're out of it, I don't see much on the pick up side in the grocery sector. I will kind of like pin that because like a target, they're always freaking busy in the pick up, right? And for me, I don't know. I'm trying just to unpack it because like target, I feel like I don't care. Like I don't want to walk through target because it is so massive. But as of maybe a chef and in the food industry, there's something about when I got removed from the grocery store, it really like mess with my psyche of like, I want to be able to walk through the aisles and I actually want to see what's available, what is out there. And things, again, to each their own, you know, the outside of the perimeter of the store, usually your best friend and the inside is the things we probably shouldn't eat as much. How do you know what the quality, if I want to pick up beef, right? What's the quality of that cut?

21:33Like when I'm picking up certain things, I'm looking for certain marbling or certain fat. I don't want to just have some random person that's like, there's some pork chops and let me pick them up, throw them in a cart. And they're 30% fat because they're on, you know, the tail end of a loin or something. So I'd love to hear both of your opinions honestly on this is, I don't know, like with the whole renaissance of people coming back to like the roots of like wanting to know where their food is, I don't know, do they, does it go more into delivery or inconvenience because there was also a charge with that. Very much notice that it gets upcharged if you pick up, they obviously have to cover that labor versus going in. So I'd love to, you know, just dig into that a little bit more on what you, what you think and on that topic in general. I want to jump in real quick with the one, it all sum up my thoughts really in just one sentence. The pain of keeping inferior products and items that you get is going to be less than the pain of having to return it.

22:37And this is what the retailers are banking on. You know, they're going to say, well, you know, the cut of meat in your example, you know, it wasn't that great, but I can live with it. And that's reducing consumer choice. It comes to like, you know, is it going, is the product going to expire tomorrow? You know, you know, is there something, you know, is the box damaged? So I wouldn't put that thing in my cart. So, you know, creating that balance of a pain point is definitely something that's going to be leveraged against the consumer. Hmm. And I'll pick it up from there. So from what we learned during COVID and having all of the delivery and the pickup options is also has been great for accessibility. And I do see the benefits of those options, specifically if you're unable to leave the house, if you just had surgery, if you have other things that you're dealing with, I understand. But I'm also watching these apps do it. I'm quite an app user. I, you know, I like my rewards, which is one of the reasons why I like SampleFinder.

23:39I use them. The more that companies can pay for placement on their app, and this is something we're not doing with SampleFinder and we can come back to that, but the more that happens, the, again, with the less options that you have. So when I am using GoPuff or if I'm using whatever, I'm using a door dash, whatever. I'm only getting a certain selection. And quite, honestly, those usually don't include small businesses. And I am somebody who cares about that. I'm also understanding of people who really want to make sure they're eating the right thing. They want to make sure what they're giving their kids is the right thing they want to be looking at the package. And if something gets replaced in your bag because it's being delivered, you don't really, you lose that. So all that to say is that creating an experience to go shopping and removing that like, oh, it's a chore versus, oh, I get to explore and discover. And yeah, be it a chef, like what new ingredients or what alternatives can I try this time? For fruits and vegetables as well. It's, you want to be able to see it,

24:39but it goes for packaged goods too. Because if you're a small business and you finally got shelf placement, you matter too. So you want the people to be walking through and seeing your stuff on the shelf and then you want to help the store get it off the shelf. So you might have demos to really promote it. And now people know who you are and they get to try it. They become brand loyal. Retailers happy, brand is happy. User gets to be happy too. Because now they know what they're eating. They know what they are getting and picking out. So I see the benefits. I see the cons and this is another way that will just help. Yeah, so what I was saying is a level playing field because we will not be having that type of option to purchase the top spot. It is whatever's closest to you within the radius and the soonest. So small business can be right on top. Even if this is their one and only demo. So that's what it is. It's a paid-of-play game with the apps and what pop-populates. Very much so. I never, I didn't, I never equated two and two. I probably should have, but I never put those two together

25:41of you pay more that obviously we're going to promote your products in it for pickup. Because yeah, I've just, it's so weird. You know, you go to an app and you're like, oh, I really want this, especially to your point. If it's something smaller or niche, but you're, you're very keen on it. And then you go and search for it and you're like, I know they carry it. Why isn't it on the app? Why can't I buy this? That makes total sense. It's like, well, you, that brand probably doesn't have a big enough presence and or it's, they haven't paid enough to be in a slot for pickup or delivery. That's, yeah, that's, that's insane to be. So how do, you know, with the brands that are partnering, they're going to go on to sample finder. You know, what does that look like? You know, what kind of metrics are you giving them? Obviously, you know, there's that feedback. It's, what is the time deliverables, you know, for a brand that's listening? Hey, this sounds like something that I want to do. You know, brands do it all the time in grocery stores or wherever in retail in general. What are they going to get from the experience of putting their product onto the platform or activating, you know, a session or whatever with you guys?

26:42Let's say, first of all, it would be, you know, essentially free advertising of their promotional events. How it's going to work is if you utilize our agency player spam promotions for the staffing, you'll get all the corresponding sampling events on sample finder for free, you know, it's a value ad. So that's number one is you're getting your product name out there and you're going to try to drive people to stores and try to try them. In addition to the consumers, it would be normally going to store anyway. The second is by a very simple kind of, almost like a, like a like a Yelp style little review where it's, you know, one to five stars, you know, what did you like? You can click multiple boxes. Did you buy the product? And then they can write in feedback. So that feedback will be going directly back to our clients brands for free. And then they can use that data to, you know,

27:43create customizable marketing campaigns. Like, oh, you know, we want to send, you know, free code coupon every three months to everyone who bought at who rated at least, we're out of five stars, who noted that they liked the product and that they bought it and that maybe that they, you know, put a positive comment on. So they're not only getting the exposure, they're also getting the kind of the anonymized to start. Can't make a long-term promises, but to start, the anonymized user data that they can then get. So it's almost like a combination of like a Yelp and an event bright at a focus group in a way, especially if you're launching in a market. You know, before you launch the entire product nationwide, you can get feedback on the taste, the packaging, things like that. From the consumers, our brand ambassadors, they do an amazing job completing recap reports, but they are a little biased sometimes. You know, they may say it was a little bit more positive feedback than it was, but, you know, by hearing directly from the consumers, you get a ton more information that you're getting

28:45just from our brand ambassador summary. Okay, two things. I'm sorry. I'm making a couple of notes because I don't want to forget how do you, how do you keep the experience from turning it, I hate to say it this way. Yelp is a mess. Like I cannot go to Yelp anymore. The reviews are just horse shit. Like I'll just call it out. You can't use it anymore. And so it's like almost these review systems that we've used for so long of like, hey, I want to see what people think of something. I'll look at a place and take restaurants, for example. And you'll be like, no, it's not a two-star place. Like I've been there before. And then you start digging into the reviews and it's because somebody didn't get their water in the first 10 seconds that they sat down. And you're like, you gave a place a one-star review because of that. Come on, you're really ruining what the whole point of the application was. So what's kind of guess your guys safeguard to make sure that it doesn't turn into another Yelp and it's just like, okay, great. There's another app out here. And the reviews mean nothing because they're either paid for or, you know,

29:46it's just a bunch of bots. So what we're gonna do is, we're going to old school on this. We were originally going to do like a GPS-based check-in to make sure that they were close by, but we didn't want anyone driving around just trying to collect points like crazy. So we are in each brand ambassador, a six-digit code, that the user has to physically go to the store to collect by engaging with the brand ambassador, you know, that experience, that connection that makes our industry so amazing. And by doing that, then they can enter in that they checked in, then they can write their review. So that's like, I think a very strong safeguard, you know, it's nothing digital, except for giving the brand ambassador in advance what the six-digit code is. So it's a little bit old school, but you know, we really want those authentic in-person experiences and that's the safeguard we have in place. Yeah, and the brand is going to see this. So the other users will not necessarily see their reviews

30:47for phase one. So that will not affect negatively if somebody is having a bad day, they give a one-star review and they're like, you know, I didn't like that, the, I don't know, I didn't like that the table was set up in front of what I needed, and now I'm gonna leave a bad review for the brand when it isn't even a brand's fault. That we will be monitoring it, especially to start, monitoring and having everything run through and make sure we don't have like, you know, just even vulgarity will be being on top of that, but currently the way that the app is set up is the brand will be the only ones receiving it. And if we see something like that, we'll share it, but we'll be like, okay, you understand that this has nothing to do with your product. And that rating is not going to show up, you know, like how Uber drivers get a rating and the one person like they might be having a bad day and now that you were rating star review is going down and it will not be like that. The brand review rating, none of that will be showing up. It is more specifically for the brand to get the feedback.

31:49So, you know, somebody might be like, yeah, you know, I've really, really loved it, but I'm supposed to not be having as much sodium right now. So I thank you for the taste, but maybe make an option with less sodium. And now if they get enough of that, or say they're like, yeah, I love your ice cream, I use this example all the time because I'm trying to be vegan and I love ice cream. But so if I went and I was sampling ice cream and I left a review like, hey, I love this, but could you please consider this if enough people are getting this type of feedback? They, you get to be speaking directly to the brand and that's a very cool feature in a world where people love pair of social relationships. Let's face it, they do. But you get to feel like the brand has a personality as well. And if any brand is doing experiential marketing, they care about the personality of that they're putting out there. So, another touch point, another chance to learn more about your target audience and maybe make changes the way Al said, like you test it out in certain areas, maybe next time you're like, okay, you know what, people really did like the sample but they really wanted to have, it states an alcoholic drink. They love the sample but a lot of feedback was given

32:51that they would like to try it in a drink. Okay, next round that we do, we're going to make drink. We're gonna be mixologists now and our brand ambassadors will be trained. If they work with us, I will say that this is open even if you don't work with us. It's just, you'll be listed for free if you do use our staffing services. So it's open to everybody. But yeah, then you get to learn. So that's how I don't want to be another Yelp. Good. Sidebar, you said you're trying to go vegan, you love ice cream. Have you had eclipse ice cream? No, I have not. Okay, write it down. Just like the moon, it's called called eclipse and look for the pink logo. It's, it's not like anything you've ever had. It's not just a coconut base or an almond base. Like, it's a truly vegan product. Yeah, I do recognize for logo. Okay, I recognize this pack. I'm just throwing it out there and giving them some love. I've had it in the past. Love the product anyways. Back on subject. So then brands necessarily don't need these huge teams, right? It's almost kind of like in the manufacturing equipment world,

33:54there's reps all over the country, right? Manufacturers don't have these massive teams. They rely on these rep groups all over the country. You kind of are that, but on the food side, where the message can get out, they can get feedback and they're not worrying about playing tickets in hotel stays. I mean, what a person can only do so much, right? But you've got something that's localized and probably honestly, like from a demographic standpoint knows how to talk to those people, right? If you're down in the South, it's a different dynamic than if you're up here in Chicago with completely different worlds and it probably would lend better, in my opinion, if somebody from that general area is sampling something has the same dialect, et cetera, versus somebody that's, again, from Chicago, New York, and they have this weird accent and they're just like, these are these city people, I don't want them. I would assume that's a huge benefit as well for these brands if they jump on board. Love that you said that, because that is not something that ever crossed my mind. It makes total sense.

34:55We love talking about local talent, but yes, you're talking to a member of your peers, like this is somebody who lives in your state who knows and is trained to speak about it. And it's in that role, it's almost building community. That's really cool. I'm glad you said that, very good insight. Well, I've gone around and done not sampling, but I've been to certain places and people can tell that you're not from the area. They can tell by, again, just the way you dress, the way you act, the way you talk, that you're like, there's something about this person, they seem salesier, they don't feel authentic, per se, to the experience because they just want to push a product, whatever it might be. I don't know, just kind of hit me in the back of the mind. Okay, so with the app, all right. We hit CES, you hit the couple of things. When we look at for launch date for this, what does that look like? Or what is the roadmap for 2026? We're targeting around April 1st. We're doing speed it. We're kind of beta testing as it's being built,

35:58which is very unique through this thing called test flight on truth like the Apple developer services. So yeah, so we're kind of building it and providing real time feedback as it goes, but it is obviously a very slow process with going through testing and building it and making sure the features work. So we're looking at really doing a public launch around April and then getting our brand partners on board and really trying to do, I'd say around probably July 1st, probably really trying to do consumer marketing to kind of adopt some users and kind of build our user base from there. Cool, awesome. I just have some weird off the wall questions because you guys are do sampling and it's just a very weird, no, I don't say way. It's a very unique thing. I gotta know there's really like horror stories of going out to do a sample and just like something crazy happened. Man, you're first, Heather. Yeah, I got one.

37:00Yeah, I know you, I think I might know yours. I had been in weird situations where like, there was a snow storm and they didn't want to cancel it. The store was still open. So I had to walk up hill in the snow to go do the sampling and then like of course, not really that many people were there and it's just like, yeah, I'm gonna talk about it. I'm still gonna do the best that I can but when it's weather related, sometimes that's really hard. What's yours now? All right, this did not happen to me personally but we've done thousands of different promo events throughout the years and I think the craziest story I ever heard was we had a brand ambassador who was representing our brand of the store and the store called me because obviously you know in a supermarket you have your aisles just going parallel to each other. Well, some stores you've got like a perpendicular cut through the cuts through all the aisles. Well, this brand ambassador managed to finagle it so that she was working two promos at the same time

38:04at the same store for two different agencies with two different brands. And what she did was like, she like had, like in the like, like it's like Cady Corner to the, she said two tables. Like one category, Cady Corner to the other and just set them both up and was bouncing back and forth. And the craziest thing was like she denied it. The store called us because the store knew something was like really wrong. And then like, yeah, we're letting all the agencies know she's blacklisted from, she's not allowed to do demos in here anymore. And we called her and like they actually sent the security video which was literally right above her head. And she's like, oh yeah, you know, it's just denying it. Like, you know, and it was just like, I mean, our brand ambassadors, I mean, you know, usually I would just say ballpark 25 to $35 an hour. You know, they are independent contractors. So that's, you know, pre-tax and pre-expenses and everything. But like they make good money. Like you go out, you can kind of like, you know,

39:05pigeonhole it a little three hour demo, you know, make, you know, $75 to $105 plus dollars for doing like, you know, a three hour demo. Like, and you really want to try to like game the system on top of that. I'm like, come on, you know, you know, other little stories about, you know, the only other one was, you know, BA was returning unused demo bottles and keeping the store credit for herself. You know, so again, it's like you're looking at ruining your reputation. Sometimes this is actually breaking the law. I mean, it is theft to the agencies and to our clients. But yeah, that one is definitely like, I mean, you know, props for the creativity there. But like, you know, I was going to say, I was going to say, I get creative creativity points. But yeah, yeah, yeah, effort, effort, execution. I mean, you know, it's, but yeah, I mean, it's a better, it's a better get. It's, it's got to be a better gig than drive an Uber or, or some of these other things. You know what I mean?

40:06Like, you don't know what Tom, Tom, Dick Harry, Sally, you're going to, you're going to pick up when you can just go to a store and, and sample products all day and talk about it. But what are some of the hardest products to sample? Properly, like to get a message across, like, what would you say the hardest is? Food that needs to be prepped. Yeah. Like, cooked on site. Like, if we need to bring in a burner, if we need to like, you know, like, cut things, prepare things, you know, one of the craziest ones I ever dealt with was we had a client, they gave out like, a little like, carry on size demo kit suitcase or making non-alcoholic, you know, mocktails. And they gave out like, you know, like, like, like, graders and knives and mixed, like, you know, like, shakers and things. And it was just like such overkill because they wanted like the product with a club soda and then like an orange, like, rind, like a little piece of orange peel or something. And I'm just like, and there was a cutting boards

41:06and everything. Like, it's just very difficult to execute those just because of like, all the logistics that need to come into that. And it's, you know, it sounds like regular demos. Yeah, sorry, it's possible to do them. It's just, it's easier than if you have two people maybe somebody who can like be doing the prep and another person who can be actually giving out the samples. And we see this all the time at trade shows where we do the, we help with food prep and we do that and our brand ambassadors are in a higher level there's a lot of people but they're trained for that and they are helping on site. So we see food and beverage shows and they're like, okay, we want to be like prepping all of this stuff but we also want to be handing out samples but we also want to have meaningful conversations and it's like, you need a brand ambassador to do all of that stuff. And speaking to your point, maybe a local one because they know the convention center that you're at and you don't have to fly them out and spend money for your team to go.

42:06So I know that takes it a little bit out of the store and the retail activations that we do but we also do so many trade shows and festivals and in that case, setting this type of stuff up is not as hard but it is still always a challenge to just, you know, make sure everything goes well and that's why we have an excelling operations team that I don't know if I mentioned this but we interview every brand ambassador before we work with them and we have close to 10,000 brand ambassadors nationwide. So we're very, we are very on top of the type of personality we're sending out and then on top of that we have training and it is all customizable types of training to help them more complicated and customizable services that we do offer runs smoothly. I didn't even think about food shows. It's that time of the year, especially in the food world. I got the first one of mine coming up at the end of this month and then in a raise around the corner and the pizza shows coming up. They're popping up everywhere. I see them all over LinkedIn. I never even thought I never thought about trade shows

43:07and it could also be a benefit too now that I'm thinking, you know, even to a food broker, right? There are so many food brokers that need support. I don't know if you guys ever work with food brokers or not but they try to do have their own, like they represent so many brands but again, there's only so many of them that can support. So I don't know, that's, I like the concept. It's a very unique and interesting niche segment that that's why I had to talk to you guys is I was like, this is, this is a really cool piece of the food and beverage world that, like you said, that nobody's ever heard of and they wouldn't think of it as being something. So anything that we didn't talk about today that you guys want to talk about. The only thing I would think I would say is the simple finder, like the gamification and the rewards. Oh, yes, yes. Yeah, this is where, and you know, this is kind of Heather's brainchild. Do you want to jump in on this one, Heather, and kind of talk about like, yeah, I will. I will in the sense of like making it fun

44:08because, okay, we're talking about food. Everybody eats. We all need to multiple times a day. Like, but what is it? What are you going to do? And then how can you get the most out of it health wise? And how can you have fun doing it? And I mentioned that grocery shopping can be a chore but so can, you know, putting together snacks for, you know, kid lunches and like all of this stuff and how do you make that fun? Well, going and going to these sampling events, finding what's happening in your area and making it sort of gamified where, you know, we will be having trivia questions that goes back to the marketing side of it. You can answer questions about like, new favorite brands, learn how you're doing it and earn points. When you check in, you get points, leave review, you get points and these points will be turned into down the road, chances to win more food products, discounts, monthly sweet steaks, points for points at adding up into new types of experiences potentially. Lots of ways that this can go. But yeah, we're launching in later this year.

45:08April, 2026 is the goal. If you go to samplefinder.com, you can put in your email address and get notified just so that you know when it's coming out and stay on top of everything. Yeah, I just wanted to plug that so that your listeners can follow along the journey as well. We're on Instagram and social media. Yeah, I was going to ask to plug all those. You already did it for me, but I want to make a point on the gamification because my kids, right? They're at that age nine and seven. Tech is, they know phones inside now. There's things that they do on my phone. I didn't even know that a phone could do, which is really sad when I am a tech person myself. But they're always like, they're different, like they're doing their rewards, they're daily check-ins. To me, I'm like, ooh, this sounds kind of like a free way in a sense to take the kids somewhere and do something and not write everything costs money nowadays. You take them to this place and it's 200 bucks to go bowling nowadays. Why not go to the grocery stores or my jam? It's therapy. It's just, I get out of the house, I can walk aisles

46:09and when my kids get to come, they get to see things they're asking questions about products, they're helping put things in shop, I don't know, it should be coming in human being, like in society, like they should become and I don't think that that happens enough. But they would be asking me, I guarantee you, hey, did you, oh, there's a sample, did you log in and get your points? I guarantee you that if you like, turn it into like a family type thing as well that your kids would jump on into your point. Now it's learning, now it's education, it's not just brands signing up to be on an app and getting feedback, which they need and they want. But now you're bringing it all together with both the consumer, the brand and everybody all together. So I really like what you're doing. I'm super excited to see how it all plays out. I'll have to get a follow up from me all in April, see how everything's going. Any other socials to plug besides sample finder if they want to contact you guys directly on anything? Yeah, so our Instagram handles on Facebook and all of that is sample finder app. Our agency, if you're interested in working with us

47:10and learning more about our services is Polaris brand promotions. And both of those are also the websites. So sample finder.com, Polarisbrandpromotions.com. You can reach out in any of those ways. It's going to be one of the two of us responding to you. So you're speaking directly with the co-founders and with the team and the owner of the agency. We like to keep it very personable. You can ask us questions. If you just are interested in knowing more, we're happy to talk to you. Very open to sharing what we do and helping other brands. Cool, anything else from you, Al? No, it's just, we're so excited and overwhelmed that how quickly this has come about. I mean, this was just an idea. I think like, now it's eight months ago. And we've already exhibited CSNRF. And we're really excited to be kind of, you know, using this to set our agency apart not only as a way to staff promotions, but also to promote them. One of the things that really kind of look

48:12out of those case studies that came to mind was, I think it was Mr. Beast launched Mr. Beast Burger up at the American Dreamwall. And I think they had like 10,000 people that showed up from, you know, that drove and showed from God only knows how long and how much distance. Just for, and I don't know what the giveaways are, but I'm sure they gave away some, you know, merch or swag or something. Yeah. Yeah, brand opening. And just I guess for the chance to maybe see Mr. Beast in person. I'm like, if they're, if you weren't willing to do that out there, and we can flood them with different opportunities like this on like a smaller scale, like, well, certainly not a major YouTube celebrity appearance. You know, if we can get that kind of excitement on a consistent basis with consumers, then I think this is really going to make a difference in the retail space. Ah, I love it, I love it. Everyone listening, go check out sample finder, download it when it comes, comes out in the store. So market calendars for April, if you like this episode, want to hear more, be sure to check out

49:12all the other previous episodes, Apple Spotify, YouTube, the sector, you know where to find us, I fell into food. So Heather, Al, thanks again for your time today, really appreciate everything. And until next time, we'll catch you on the sunny side. Thank you.