Chris Norton: 0:00

Welcome back to the Embracing Marketing Mistakes podcast. I'm your host, chris Norton, and today I'm joined by Tamsin Daniel, head of marketing at Firetree Chocolate and a previous client of ours. Tamsin's episode is all about how she's helping Firetree stand out in the premium chocolate space, carefully crafting a brand story that starts with single estate cocoa. We touch on the importance of that first year in a new role, how to have patience and not to try to fix things too soon, and the emotional weight of decision-making when you're spending a client's money and family's money. So, as always, grab a cuppa, get comfy and let's chat all about brand building, doubt managing and the importance of choosing the right chickpeas with Tamsyn Daniel. Enjoy, tamsyn Daniel, welcome to the show.

Tamsin Daniel: 0:50

Hello, hi, good to be here.

Chris Norton: 0:52

Yeah, good to see you. You like our new office. I love it.

Tamsin Daniel: 0:55

I love this bit of Leeds. I think it's just up and coming, isn't it? There's just so much change every time I come in.

Chris Norton: 1:01

So when was the last time we saw you properly? It was five, six years ago, was it?

Tamsin Daniel: 1:06

I think it's that long. Yes, 2019, 2018 to 2019, wasn't it?

Chris Norton: 1:11

Yeah.

Tamsin Daniel: 1:11

Pre-pandemic.

Chris Norton: 1:13

And for those listeners that obviously we know each other. But for the listeners, I wanted to get back to your experience and where you started. So how did you get into marketing then?

Tamsin Daniel: 1:27

where you started. So how did you get into marketing then? Uh, right from university.

Tamsin Daniel: 1:31

Um I did a business studies and spanish degree at bradford. Um, and I did, I guess it was. I did a few marketing modules in my final year and it was the bit that most um animated me, I think, and I was most interested in. I've done a few models of modules of things like um psychology, so that kind of how people think and how they behave, that kind of stuff I was really interested in. And then my very first job out of university was nothing. I mean, I've been in food pretty much all of my working life, except for my very first job, which was in bathrooms.

Chris Norton: 2:07

OK.

Tamsin Daniel: 2:07

And I worked for Ideal Standard in Hull and it was, I mean, it was a great introduction to marketing but it was incredibly slow moving, Like the repeat purchase cycle in bathrooms is, I think, something like 15 to 20 years.

Will Ockenden: 2:24

Wow, in bathrooms is, I think, something like 15 to 20 years. So I work in there. We we have a client in the um bed sector and they're about 10 years. Yeah, but that's even longer yeah absolutely.

Chris Norton: 2:32

But they recommend you should swap your bed every seven years. That bed manufacturer actually mattress, I think isn't it?

Tamsin Daniel: 2:37

yeah, federation recommend that. I believe, exactly like shampoo, you know you wash twice.

Will Ockenden: 2:42

Yeah, repeat the best, uh, the best word, most effective word in marketing, isn't it?

Chris Norton: 2:48

and where did you go from ideal standard?

Will Ockenden: 2:50

yeah, and how did you realize? How do you move into food?

Tamsin Daniel: 2:52

yeah, so well, I did. I did a couple of years at idle standard. I must say I absolutely loved it and I and I think I I mean I massively appreciate the um my boss at the time giving me that I mean you don't, yeah, they are, you don't, yeah, they are. And you don't realize when you first start how little you know. You think you know everything and I think over those first two years it was a real wake up call. So actually you're not the brightest person in the room, you know practically nothing. But I had a great two years and I actually went traveling. While sort of semi traveling, I moved to New Zealand for a while and I ended up working for their um sole distributors who were in Auckland. So I worked for them for a little bit and then when I got back I just spent a couple of months thinking what do I actually want to do? And I don't really know where the idea had come from.

Tamsin Daniel: 3:41

But I think food was just something that I wanted to be in and I my very first food job was as the brand manager for Newman's Own, which is put was Paul Newman's oh yeah yeah, and a kind of charity um business and the company that I worked for had the license to make uh Newman's Own in this country and it was a really interesting and challenging job because Paul Newman was actually really anti-marketing, he hated the idea of advertising, he hated the idea of money being spent on advertising and I guess when you're that you know famous famous, you can kind of rely on your name to a certain extent, especially in America where obviously the brand had been born. But in this country it was quite a challenge. I had to rely on um earned media, pr and um and and word of mouth and we did a bit of you know kind of um experiential stuff and what have you, but he was very much against actually spending any money yeah he didn't.

Tamsin Daniel: 4:49

I never got to meet him. My boss did, but I never actually got to meet him. But yeah, he was very involved, surprisingly it's surprising.

Will Ockenden: 4:56

You wouldn't imagine. You know a celebrity.

Chris Norton: 4:58

Putting their name to a range of products would necessarily be if that was today, you would have got to meet him on a team's call, though yeah, yeah, yeah, which is not the same real shame.

Tamsin Daniel: 5:07

Yeah, no, um lots of conference calls yeah, that, no, he, we didn't really have even those at that time it was just it was just, you know, a few basic phone calls and I think email was fairly early on, so no, uh, but he was very involved. So things like when we did new product development that was when my boss got to meet him was she had to go out and actually present the new products that we were thinking of launching specifically for the UK market. Because one of the things that I guess was a learning curve for him was realizing that tastes in American consumer tastes were quite different from British consumers. So we developed a number of products that they didn't have in the US. But he wanted to know that, you know, taste-wise and in terms of the ingredients that they, you know, lived up to the sort of ethos that he stood for. What do you think he loved him? He loved them and we and we did actually launch them so it's quite a daunting pitch, isn't it?

Will Ockenden: 6:09

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And where? From? From from Newman's own um? What other kind of notable food brands have you worked with then?

Tamsin Daniel: 6:20

so from Newman's own. I then worked for Patax for quite a quite a long time actually. So I was seven years at Patax, absolutely loved it.

Chris Norton: 6:27

Great brand, isn't it?

Tamsin Daniel: 6:27

Brilliant brand yeah, and I was there at the. I caught the wave. I was super lucky because or I could say, well, it was part of my making.

Chris Norton: 6:40

If you were Donald Trump, you'd say it was all down to you. If I'm honest, it was a wave.

Tamsin Daniel: 6:42

If you were, Donald Trump, you'd say it was all down to you. If I'm honest, it was a wave and Indian food was at that kind of phase where it was going from being a curry house thing to being something that the British consumers wanted to make at home. And you know, patax practically invented the idea of cooking sauces. They weren't necessarily the first on the market, but made cooking sources ubiquitous and and and accessible to everybody. Um, so it was a really fabulous seven years at at patax and I got to look after the entire ambient range at patax. That was all the cooking sources the pastes, the chutneys, the pickles and all that sort of thing. This is making me hungry just thinking about oh yeah, although when you when the pickles and all that sort of thing, this is making me hungry just thinking about oh yeah although when you, when you have to do a sort of cold curry sauce tasting at eight

Will Ockenden: 7:31

o'clock in the morning on a monday not quite so great, but um yeah, that's the challenge of the food industry. We used to work for a pie company and I remember 9 am on a monday morning we went pie tasting yeah with a slight hangover in the factory.

Chris Norton: 7:45

Yeah, One of my first clients when I came. When I moved up from London to Yorkshire working for a different agency, one of my first consumer clients was Westler Foods. Did you ever?

Will Ockenden: 7:56

see them. Oh, yes, yeah.

Chris Norton: 7:58

So for Will's reference, do you know who Westler Foods?

Will Ockenden: 8:00

were, they're hot dogs.

Chris Norton: 8:01

Yeah, so they made all the hot dogs pretty much in all the cinemas, which is fine, you know everyone likes a hot dog bear with. So um, and then they also made a very beautiful product called hamburgers in a can um, and they are exactly as they sound hamburgers in a can and I was given the brief about the demographic that ate hamburgers in a can, and so we had to do exactly what you're saying.

Chris Norton: 8:28

One Tuesday, as the PR team, we went in and we went to the hot dog factory where they make them, and I went through the process and I had to do the taste testing at the beginning and then we went round to see how they were made, and I didn't eat a hot dog for seven years. Is it not a fillet of pork? I don't want to talk about it. I had ptsd I. I couldn't eat, I couldn't smell hot dogs for a while because it put me up, you know, seeing how they met. So. So the moral of the story is never go into a food processing lab to learn, unless it's chocolate, of course, which is very cold.

Will Ockenden: 9:03

curry sauces sound delightful in comparison to hot dogs.

Tamsin Daniel: 9:06

Yeah, they do that's true, yeah, and then other notable brands I guess I went to. So, from Patax I went to the very famous Betty's Famous if you live in Yorkshire, perhaps not so much if you don't and I was there for oh good, eight years, um, essentially taking the marketing department from me and one other person to a fully functioning, you know, 10 person marketing team. But because we were massively growing the online sales, that was a real untapped potential for for betty's at the time because, you know, essentially we had a load of people who would come into yorkshire, go to a betty's branch because it was like on the to-do list that you had to come and visit a betty's but then once they got home to london or scotland or wales or whatever, they weren't able to then buy betty's products.

Tamsin Daniel: 10:01

But so the online business was a really umonic phase when I took that on and that was a really for me that was, I think, probably one of the highlights of my career was working for Betty's. I did put on a stone. I have to say and that was. I mean a highlight because when you're tasting, you're having to do tasting as a marketer? Of course you do. You get involved in new product development and it was all gorgeous it was cakes, it was biscuits.

Will Ockenden: 10:32

New product development at Betty's Wow.

Chris Norton: 10:34

What's the relation? Obviously, you know I'm from Harrogate. Harrogate, for those of you that don't know, is where Betty's Tea Room is. There's several of them, but that's where one of the main ones is. And then there's Taylor's Tea, isn't there? Who make Yorkshire Tea? Right yeah, are they two symbionic? Are they the same company?

Tamsin Daniel: 10:49

Yeah, they're all owned by the same family.

Chris Norton: 10:51

Right, and so is it Betty's overall, or is it Taylor's Tea overall, or is it Yorkshire Tea overall?

Tamsin Daniel: 10:56

It's called the Betty's and Taylor's Group Right, so the the Taylor's bit came from a different family that the family who owns Betty's bought at some point in the past I think it was in the 50s, if I remember rightly and with Taylor's. The reason they really wanted to buy Taylor's was because of the buildings. So the Betty's in Harrogate, the Betty's in Ilkley and one of the Betty's in york was originally a taylor's cafe right, so that's why they bought it but with it yeah, it was almost real estate, but essentially what they also got with it was a tea and coffee importing business.

Tamsin Daniel: 11:35

Wow, um, and that was how yorkshire tea was born, because there was all this tea coming in.

Chris Norton: 11:41

They had access to.

Tamsin Daniel: 11:43

And they thought, well, okay, we need something that we can essentially grow beyond, you know, physical boundaries of a bricks and mortar cafe or store or what have you. And that was how Yorkshire Tea was invented and of course, it's gone on to do amazing things.

Chris Norton: 12:01

Amazing TV ads Shout out to the marketing team and their creative that do the ads, because some of the ads they've done are iconic. During lockdown, when they did the teapot, do you remember that? The distancing teapot, what's it called? The?

Will Ockenden: 12:18

social distancing. Teapot Social distancing teapot.

Chris Norton: 12:20

That was it, brilliant video.

Tamsin Daniel: 12:22

No, they've done some great stuff and we were quite separate as businesses. I would say Betty's. You know the kind of mentality and approach to Betty's was we were stewarding a much older brand and business. You know Betty's has been around since 1919. Brand and business, you know, betty's has been around since 1919 and I think with that comes a kind of very different sense of um well, it's a sense of place and a sense of responsibility to that, to that history, whereas yorkshire tea has been able to be a bit more sort of pioneering and set its own tone and be a little bit separate from that idea of the kind of family. I mean. Family is still very important to Yorkshire Tea internally, but it's not part of their brand. You know their open brand comms, if you like.

Tamsin Daniel: 13:15

So, yeah, fabulous, eight years and a few stone heavier. I left to just take a bit of time out, actually. So I then I had parents who were not well. My dad in particular wasn't great at the time. So I just took a bit of time out and quite quickly, when people heard that I was not working for Betty's anymore, I got a few phone calls saying, well, would you come and do this for me and could you? So I ended up just saying okay. Well, maybe I'll just set up and do a bit of freelancing and interim um, which I have sort of been doing ever since, but every now and again I've been tempted into a full-time role, and that's all to do with what the food is and is that what?

Will Ockenden: 13:58

um?

Tamsin Daniel: 13:59

so you have fire tree chocolate yeah, that was, that was attempting into a full-time role. Chocolate, more tasting, yeah. So what's? What's the what's the proposition? That I wasn't actually. Yeah, that was a tempting into a full-time role.

Chris Norton: 14:05

What tempted you into that then? Chocolate, chocolate, more tasting.

Will Ockenden: 14:08

Yeah, so what's the proposition then? I wasn't actually familiar with fire tree chocolate.

Chris Norton: 14:12

It's volcanic, isn't it yeah?

Will Ockenden: 14:13

That's the aim, it's got a fascinating sort of brand story, hasn't it?

Tamsin Daniel: 14:17

Yeah, all of the cocoa that we source is grown in nutrient-rich volcanic soil, in nutrient-rich volcanic soil, and that means that we're having to go to some quite remote places to source the cocoa from and wherever possible, we do that directly as well. So we go to the actual farmers and a lot of them are very small farm holdings. You're talking a few hectares, that kind of size. So places like the Solomon Islands, vanuatu, the Philippines yeah, pretty remote, quite difficult to get to, but the cocoa is exceptional.

Will Ockenden: 15:00

That's the same principle as San Marzano tomatoes. Isn't it the volcanic soil of Mount Vesuvius? They're supposed to grow on, but it's incredible soil, isn't it? Yeah, it is.

Tamsin Daniel: 15:04

And it's almost sort of self replenishing as well. So, because of the climate, because of the soil, none of our cocoa farmers are actually certified organic, not least because actually certifying organic is incredibly expensive for a farmer to do and requires somebody to actually go out to these very distant, you know, difficult to reach places to certify them and and and that's pretty hard for them to get. So they're not certified organic. But when you look at the way they're growing the cocoa, they're not. They're not having to use pesticides, they're not having to use fertilizers, for the most part because the soil is so good, the climate takes care of the, the growth and they allow the natural flora and fauna to kind of. So actually, when you go to some of our cocoa farms, it's quite difficult to spot where the actual cocoa trees are, because you've got the hardwoods, the palms, the, you know, the just net, the natural vegetation growing around them. So they're not wild, but it to, you know, to the untrained eye it looks as if it's quite a wild sort of farming environment.

Tamsin Daniel: 16:07

It's not like rows of cocoa trees, and we're what's called a bean to bar manufacturer, so we take the cocoa directly from the farmer. It's been such a long and complicated process to make chocolate, by the way, but they have harvested it, fermented it and then dried it in the sun, so we don't have fire-dried cocoa, which a lot of other makers do. And then it arrives with us and we then whole roast the cocoa beans on a kind of low and slow heat, and then it's winnowed and ground and then we conch it ourselves and temper and so on and and mold.

Chris Norton: 16:53

So that's, that's what the bean to bar process is that essentially there's only the farmer and us how long does that take then, from from vanuatu? There's a, there's a farm in vanuatu. How how long does it take from them planting the seed to it coming over to you guys and then coming out the other end as a bar?

Tamsin Daniel: 17:11

Well, you've got some sea freight.

Chris Norton: 17:13

Yeah.

Tamsin Daniel: 17:14

So that's obviously quite a long, you know a reasonably long time.

Chris Norton: 17:18

So we've been looking it feels like a logistical, a bit of a logistical operation.

Tamsin Daniel: 17:21

It's a logistical challenge and because of the nature of it being a crop that is grown in, you know, not chaotic circumstances, but you know, in small farm holdings there isn't always of it being a crop in the way that it's grown it might be that we get a call to say, actually, our yield was actually only something like six tons or whatever it might be, so that's going to come over by ship. For us, the actual process in our factory is a couple of days worth of processing time and we do it relatively slowly. Because when you do that, when you treat these amazing cocoa beans in the way that they deserve to be treated, what you get is a much more nuanced, subtle, layered flavour profile that is just really enjoyable to eat.

Will Ockenden: 18:32

Did you bring the samples? Do you know? I was just thinking.

Tamsin Daniel: 18:36

I didn't, but I'm going to send you some. I will absolutely send you some.

Chris Norton: 18:38

Welcome to embracing marketing mistakes. The first marketing mistake my one way. It tastes brilliant, but we haven't got any. I ate them all.

Will Ockenden: 18:45

I'm so sorry. And what sort of distribution have you got then? Is it a D2C proposition or have you got retailers Mainly?

Tamsin Daniel: 18:51

it has, up until this year, been mainly D2C, but we have just launched in Tesco, so really exciting, it's such a big, it's a sea change for a business and a brand like um, like firetree. So we've just got a listing in 500 um tesco extra stores for four of our bars and three of our gifting lines as well. And I think this is a really interesting because if you, if you'd asked me to guess a year ago which one of the retailers would would be really interested in firetree, I just I'd bet my money on it being something like a.

Will Ockenden: 19:26

Waitrose or a Sainsbury's. So talk to us about that then, because one of the things we were quite keen to dig into was, kind of you know, you've got amazing food experience working with some really kind of iconic brands.

Chris Norton: 19:37

And iconic agencies, hello.

Will Ockenden: 19:38

Yeah, absolutely Is the kind of the trends that you're seeing, so that's quite interesting. The Tesco the kind of the trends that you're seeing, so that's quite interesting the tesco's is is taking quite a high end. I assume it's a fairly high end, fairly high price point product. You know, traditionally you think a kato, waitrose, whatever, so what, what's? What's going on there then? Is this a kind of a shift, um, a consumer shift that's kind of spending a bit more but buying a bit more carefully? Like what's your analysis of it?

Tamsin Daniel: 20:32

yeah. So I think there's. There's a number of categories that I would draw analogies to in what's happening in in chocolate. So if you look at what's happening in coffee, in craft beer, in, even in things like olive oil, the, the premiumization, and it's not. I think premiumization underplays what's happening. I think it's not. I think premiumization underplays what's happening.

Tamsin Daniel: 20:52

I think it's actually about taste appreciation and taste exploration that consumers are getting increasingly interested, adventurous, savvy, curious, all of those things, and they're looking to find more interesting foods.

Tamsin Daniel: 21:10

And I guess some of that is because the world is open to them now as well, that we travel so much more. We experience foods in their, in their home countries, for example, and we want that experience when we come back. And I think we're seeing that kind of move towards a more crafted, a more taste driven, a taste experience driven products in in many categories, and that's true of chocolate as well. So there's been an explosion in the last sort of 10 years of bean to bar makers, of brands that are trying to elevate the, the chocolate proposition, and I think that supermarkets are recognising that those consumers at the moment can't buy that from them. They're having to go to specialist brands or they're having to go online and to independents to find that. And I think it's really interesting that Tesco have looked at the whole market and said, well, where are we missing out? We're the biggest supermarket in the country, but where might we be missing out? And it is at this sort of high end part of the market that they currently aren't pulling in the customers.

Chris Norton: 22:30

So how much is a bar of your chocolate versus a bar of mainstream chocolate in terms of weight and things? Because this sounds like the operation is quite logistical and it's very localized, which is great, and in terms of output as well. I suppose that affects how much you can actually produce. Tesco's go great. This test has gone brilliant. We're going to roll it out to every Tesco's. Oh my God. That is just a complete game changer for any brand, isn't it?

Tamsin Daniel: 22:55

Yeah, I think it's. The one thing I would say is that actually, the things that make you different as a business aren't necessarily what you talk about as a marketer, but one of the things that makes us different as a business is that we have built a bean to bar facility, but with capacity in mind, and most bean to bar producers start in a small kitchen in their house or something like that. We've done this very differently. We've literally built with scale in mind. So that's not something we would leverage from a marketing point of view, but it means that from a distribution point of view, we've got plenty to go at.

Chris Norton: 23:33

Clever.

Tamsin Daniel: 23:33

And that was the vision of the founders. From a distribution point of view, we've got plenty to go at Clever and I think you know that was the vision of the founders, that they wanted to solve the problem of how do you bring scale to being to bar. In terms of the price proposition, I think one of the things that's been really interesting about since the pandemic in pricing strategy is the way in which the supermarkets have shifted away from high, low or multi-buy deals to using their membership now as a way of pricing and that has become the absolute standard. So the price that you are off promotion is not really the price that people think and see you as um, but yeah, we at firetree is is quite a big premium compared to, say, lint, which people think of as being the the top end of the of the of the chocolate market currently, but they'll.

Tamsin Daniel: 24:27

You know, there are plenty of people that reckon. Oh, if I mean there are people out there that are quite happy to pay seven pounds for a bar of.

Will Ockenden: 24:33

I mean that trend's quite reassuring. I think that people are kind of you know, there's this kind of misconception about the UK that it's very unsophisticated in terms of taste. You know, particularly when it comes to kind of restaurants and things like that Not very good at cooking, no distinct national dish or anything like that. But the fact that there is this kind of growing demand for premium products that have authentic tastes, artisan craftsmanship to make them, people are willing to pay more, and it's the same in the brewing industry actually.

Will Ockenden: 25:03

I think, this kind of premiumization. It's not about drinking four pack of Stella. It might be about drinking smaller, 330 ml cans of locally produced.

Chris Norton: 25:13

Yeah, it's interesting.

Will Ockenden: 25:15

That's a really interesting kind of trend. I mean, what else are you seeing in kind of food marketing? I suppose Are there certain trends that are emerging, and I think origin stories and brand storytelling remains a big trend. But what else are you seeing? What's cutting through to consumers at the moment?

Tamsin Daniel: 25:34

Yeah, origin stories. I've seen that a lot. So when I was a consultant, there was a real tendency to want for very small brands often to want to leverage their origin stories, and it can be quite a difficult thing as a marketer to try to communicate to founders that that's not necessarily what consumers really care about. It's about what does your origin story actually mean? For me and I think there are some brands is very widely used now in marketing, again, some more successfully than others. I think the other thing that I'm seeing a lot of is around mixing in sort of ethical, sustainable messaging into the marketing proposition, sustainable messaging into the marketing proposition, and again, I think some brands do that really well where it's a part of their core ethos, and it's dead easy, of course, to point to a brand like patagonia and say it's their raison d'etre tony's in your tony's is a is a is a brand in our market who have taken one particular thing, which is slavery or the problem of slavery in cocoa growing, and really challenged not just consumers.

Tamsin Daniel: 27:00

actually, I think what they're doing is really interesting because they're challenging other manufacturers. And the degree to which they've made a real name for themselves, I think is incredibly admirable. It's a really, really good brand growth story. And all of the other brands the bigger brands have really had to up their game in demonstrating their credentials.

Will Ockenden: 27:25

I suppose there's a danger in doing that quite superficially as well, isn't there? And ultimately it comes down to authenticity and consumers will spot that, won't they?

Chris Norton: 27:33

If they're just paying lip service to ethical considerations versus those consumers spot it, I think they just feel a bit vulnerable when they've said that we, we endorse it and then, like, you've got the biggest brands in the market and suddenly they're going. This doesn't quite fit with our supply chain and actually maybe we need to review what we're doing and making sure we follow all these the things that we say we need to practice what we preach. Doing and making sure we follow all these the things that we say we need to practice what we preach, basically because sometimes we've preached but we haven't actually practiced allegedly, I think that's exactly it.

Tamsin Daniel: 28:01

So, if you know, if you are going to make a really strong stance on something like that, there's a real need for you to have your you know your ducks. You are literally you've got that running through not just your marketing, but through your business practices. Um, and my sense is that I I don't know, but I think that tony's has has done that, that they are, they have got their. You know, all of their supply chain team sings from exactly the same hymn sheet, and that's, that's super important. I don't think it's necessarily the consumers that are going to catch you out.

Tamsin Daniel: 28:35

It's, it's, you know, but there are people who want to catch you out so whether that's the media, or whether it's other manufacturers, or, and once a bad story is out there, it can be quite difficult to then say you know, um, actually, uh, sometimes we just we do make mistakes and we're gonna, we're gonna solve this particular one is it um lazy to suggest it's gen z driving this kind of demand for brands to behave more ethically and more sustainably, or is or is that true?

Will Ockenden: 29:02

you know what's your experience of that, or is it coming from every generation?

Chris Norton: 29:05

well, I suppose you'd look at that and say, yeah, but is it gen z brain buying the chocolate that you're selling? I bet it isn't, is it? No, it's not.

Tamsin Daniel: 29:14

I think to your point this thing about is ethical proposition. Are ethical propositions or sustainability? Are they what's driving choice? I haven't actually seen the real evidence that that is how people actually behave, that that's not their primary decision maker, that's not the first thing that they're using to make. Shall I buy this brand or that brand? I was thinking about this the other day. You know I still I'm not going to name the bank, but I still bank with a bank that I just sort of think. I've been with this bank since I was 18 and I haven't changed and I'm a bit ashamed because actually, ethically and sustainably they're not the greatest and I could quite easily Well, I think it's quite hard to change. Everybody else tells me it's really easy.

Chris Norton: 29:56

They want you to think it's hard, don't they? But banking's that thing where they say it's really easy to switch but it's going to go wrong, isn't it? They always say it's really easy to switch your broadband, but you know that it's just not going to be online when you want it online.

Tamsin Daniel: 30:08

So I think what I've seen in things like the chocolate market, and particularly when I've researched this amongst our audience, is that the primary driver is about the personal taste experiences. What am I actually getting from this chocolate this eat, and if I can also reassure myself that I not only love it but actually it's? You know, it's ethically sourced, it's transparent in terms of its supply chain. That helps me reinforce why.

Chris Norton: 30:40

I made such a good choice, yeah.

Tamsin Daniel: 30:42

So I think things like ethics and sustainability for most brands and most marketing propositions are a kind of reinforcement message. Then they are the primary driver for it.

Chris Norton: 30:53

It's taste, taste, taste, isn't it? If your product is amazing, if you've got an amazing product and it tastes great, then people will come back and, like you say, it'll post-rationalise why I've just paid a little bit more for my, because it ticks the boxes of authenticity, sustainability and locally sourced and everything.

Will Ockenden: 31:13

So, as the head of marketing at firetree, then. So what? Um, obviously you've got a great product. You've got a great story that's not superficial, it's a, it's a genuine story. What are you doing tactically? If we start to look at some of the kind of the marketing tactics, the campaigns that you've been delivering, what is is flying, you know, what's cutting through? Is it influencers are? Are you doing activity on social media? You know? Is there anything that you think, wow, the last 12 months, this has absolutely flown.

Tamsin Daniel: 31:39

As a relatively new business. One of the things that we have focused on and because also we were mainly D2C is kind of activation, so that kind of bottom of the funnel shopping, online shopping based activity. So we have found ways of talking about our chocolate just at the coalface at the point where people are out there looking for a particular solution. And one of the things that has worked exceptionally well for Firetree if you look at the general market 100% cocoa, so that is a bar that you can't even legally call it chocolate, it's just pure cocoa Accounts for about 5% of the market. But for our online customers, our online sales, it's about 20% Interesting and the benefits of it is it's vegan and it's sugar-free and it's a real hit. Bitter Ours isn't bitter.

Chris Norton: 32:48

Is it not?

Tamsin Daniel: 32:48

And that's the key.

Chris Norton: 32:49

If you'd have brought the products in, we could have told you.

Tamsin Daniel: 32:52

I think that's why we've got such a high following, because actually the word of mouth has really grown.

Will Ockenden: 33:01

It's a unique product, in effect. So it's not bitter, it's not, it's a really big punch like it's it's.

Tamsin Daniel: 33:08

It's not like eating dark chocolate that's got some sugar in it so it's even darker than darker. Yeah, yeah, yeah it's just 100% cocoa, and there are a lot of 100% cocoa products out there that are very bitter but not many that are volcanic, which presumably and yeah, exactly that's gonna have health benefits that so I think that's it.

Tamsin Daniel: 33:24

That's a perfect example, from a marketing point of view, of what is actually a differentiator. So I think non-bitterness in 100 cocoa is a non, is a differentiator. And then I think you know, the way that we position ourselves is around um we, our campaign is is sort of built on the ethos of distinctly complex, so we articulate that through a sense of rarity and refinement. That's what we talk about from a marketing point of view. That's about just being distinctive. So it isn't necessarily that being to bar is particularly different. It's not. There's plenty of being to bar makers out there. But I think the way you talk about yourself has to be really distinctive.

Will Ockenden: 34:09

So you can have some, some products that are differentiated and then your brand, which is just, you know, sort of building distinctiveness so you're saying you know you get product into consumers hands, get them sampling it, and it's almost a kind of a genuine word of mouthpiece yeah, so things like an analog word of things like um fifo and trust pilot, for example, where if you, if you're just leveraging that, really well, it's, it's, it's small bean stuff.

Tamsin Daniel: 34:32

So if you've only got you know, if you haven't got a big marketing budget to work with doing all of that, you know attending to that kind of stuff. So we've had a philosophy. It sounds crazy but we reply to every single trust pilot and fifo um review we get because it sparks conversation and um and we get a lot of really positive feedback, particularly for the 100 100 products. But we can leverage that through our activation so that the google shopping ads, the, you know, the meta um ads on social, that sort of thing leverages all of that on amazon or not?

Tamsin Daniel: 35:09

we're just doing a trial on amazon.

Tamsin Daniel: 35:13

Amazon's a tricky old marketplace to deal with because the rules are not that. They're not the same rules as you might have been used to. They're certainly not fmcg rules and they're a little bit like your kind of online trading rules. But then there's I think one of the biggest mistakes a lot of of businesses make is misunderstanding the costs associated with dealing with amazon. I think you think that because it's direct, you're gonna have a bigger margin, but actually your margin's very, very similar to dealing with a supermarket any other retailer?

Chris Norton: 35:49

yeah, yeah this.

Will Ockenden: 35:50

This shows about marketing fuck-ups and mistakes and um, have you got a mistake involving chickpeas?

Tamsin Daniel: 35:56

I have yeah, yeah yeah at least they're good for you, at least they're good for I. Knew nothing about chickpeas at the time. I have to, I to. That's my starting point. So yeah, trying to find it Well, thinking of a story that I could actually tell.

Chris Norton: 36:11

We have so many people coming on the show going I can't tell this one.

Will Ockenden: 36:15

Usually we hear the stories once the cameras are off. Yeah, the cameras are off, you'll get to see the others.

Tamsin Daniel: 36:21

I quite early in my time at Patax I was given the opportunity to go with Meena Patak to India.

Chris Norton: 36:29

Which part of India was it?

Tamsin Daniel: 36:31

Well, we did a bit of it. So we went to Chennai, which used to be called Madras, now Chennai, and we went across to Kerala to sort of do the spice trail, so following the spices and how they come from, from the spice plantations down to the to the port at Cochin, and my job was to ensure that Mina had everything she needed. She was doing a cookery program, so we had a film crew come out from New Zealand to film this cookery show with her, and there was a point at which, at one of the hotels we were staying, at, beautiful place in the, in the hills, they were going to be doing this, this open air cooking, and it was my job to make sure all of the ingredients were there. Everyone knew what, how Mina needed to be supported. I was also there to sort of support Mina.

Tamsin Daniel: 37:22

Generally, my day one I ate something I should have done and was absolutely sick as a dog I mean really ill, and I just hadn't prepared for that for a start. So I had no, I had nothing with me, I didn't have anything to take.

Tamsin Daniel: 37:41

Thankfully Mina did. She was, I think she was used to taking people out who got just you too there then.

Chris Norton: 37:47

Yeah, it was just us from Patax.

Tamsin Daniel: 37:48

And then there was this early career experience no, yeah, yeah, well not so much the getting sick no, that was horrific and I so day one I was out of action completely. Day two, I was still having to run to the loo every now and again it was. It was pretty horrific, couldn't eat anything as well. So all this amazing food and I was not able to eat it. I had some poppadoms and that was about all I could stomach. But then we got to the bit where we were going to do the, the filming, and one of the the ingredients required to be on hand for Mina was chickpeas. Now, I'd only ever seen chickpeas in a can. I thought that's how they came, never even occurred to me that they came in another way. And she got to all of this food laid out, all the ingredients laid out, and the chickpeas were rock hard because apparently they come in dried form. Who knew? I?

Chris Norton: 38:42

didn't.

Tamsin Daniel: 38:43

And, of course, the dish was impossible. She couldn't cook because you need to soak them overnight.

Will Ockenden: 38:48

They're like 12 hours soaking time or something like that. It's not like you can even rush, it is it.

Tamsin Daniel: 38:52

No, you couldn't rush, it Was it for a dal, then it was some sort of chickpea dish, but it was like the main ingredient in this dish and she had all of the kitchen staff running around trying to. I mean, she had to think on her feet. She's an amazing cook, um, and she just came up with an alternative recipe. The kitchen staff were running off trying to find all the ingredients for this particular thing chickpeas knocking around.

Tamsin Daniel: 39:18

There weren't any tins of chickpeas and I thought, you know, there was a bit of me that thought I could quite easily say it was their mistake because they'd misunderstood what I needed. But I was like, no, I have to, I really have to own up to this one, because I didn't want these poor kitchen staff to take the fall for me. So I did own up. What did Mina say? Well, at that point she was, she was quite frazzled because obviously trying to figure out what else?

Tamsin Daniel: 39:44

But the following so but it was absolutely no, it's absolutely fine she's, she's lovely sweating weren't you, I was not in a nice way, yeah yeah, um, but somebody, I can't remember who. Somebody gifted me a pack of chickpeas after I got back, because they'd obviously heard about the story. Um, yeah, it took a while to live that one down chickpea gate.

Will Ockenden: 40:06

Yeah, the fact that there's a New Zealand camera crew waiting to start filming as well.

Tamsin Daniel: 40:10

I know you wait 12 hours.

Chris Norton: 40:11

Thankfully it wasn't live did they not film that bit and talk about the fact there was no chickpeas, or did they cut it all out?

Tamsin Daniel: 40:16

I don't know. I hope they didn't. I was running around with the rest of the kitchen staff trying to sort of help. Yeah, yes, I mean, I think you know I. It's a really small example, but this was one thing I learned quite early in my career was actually, and I and I. Now, when I think about things like doing an exhibition or an event or something like that, I have my team writing lists galore and I'll have them thinking about. Some of the, you know, often the weirdest things that other people won't have thought of. So, you know, is the stapler on the packing list. Have you, you know? Have you organized the parking space for that van for that night? You know what, whatever it might be, is? I'm all about the tiny details, the tiny details.

Chris Norton: 41:01

That can make a massive difference, especially when you're quite good for yeah, oh okay, I haven't tried that yet yeah, for like, if you're going on holiday and you need to think about what you're going to pack, it gives you like packing lists. My wife just used it.

Chris Norton: 41:11

We're going on a game changer a football trip and we're going with a load of families this afternoon to Wales and, yeah, you just use ChatGPT and it can create you like lists of, like checklists, and then you, obviously, because it's in a chat, you can narrow it down so you could use it just like you're using my next event.

Will Ockenden: 41:29

Yeah, you should. Yeah. So, sickness and chickpeas aside, what?

Tamsin Daniel: 41:32

an amazing trip. Oh, it was a fun. I mean a of a lifetime, how long was that then?

Will Ockenden: 41:37

how long were you awake?

Tamsin Daniel: 41:38

it was a week. Right, it's a long way to go for a week isn't it um, yeah, well, it's a work trip, I guess, isn't it so? Um, but it was fabulous. At patax at the time had so in chennai, had their own poppadom factory and I I I get it was another one I didn't know how how chickpeas were came in dried form. I had no idea how poppadoms were made and I got to see that.

Chris Norton: 42:00

I still don't know how poppadoms are made fascinating. It's absolutely amazing. So tell our listeners you're essentially you're, you're making um. I don't know how poppadoms are made Fascinating.

Will Ockenden: 42:04

It's absolutely amazing.

Tamsin Daniel: 42:04

Tell our listeners, rather You're essentially you're making I don't know what they call it, but the poppadom dough essentially. And at the time it was all manually done. So somebody is sitting rolling that out into a kind of sausage shape.

Chris Norton: 42:22

Yeah.

Tamsin Daniel: 42:23

And then there was a guy sitting in front of a blade, cross-legged on the ground. He's sitting in front of this blade and he's whipping this um sausage along the blade and chopping it into the perfect um size, uh, balls or whatever pieces, absolutely you know every single one spot on the right size. But he's just doing it manually and there's a couple of guys doing that and then you've got a room full of ladies who are rolling that out into a poppadom shape by hand by hand. They were doing this.

Will Ockenden: 43:01

Talk about authentic. That is authentic, isn't it?

Tamsin Daniel: 43:04

Yes, this is in the late 90s. I suspect things might have changed since then but, and then they go out onto the stone platforms outside in the sun and they're all laid out to dry in the in the sun and they're turned and then, one by one, every single one, is put over a uv light to look to see that nothing, whilst they were drying, nothing's landed in in the. You know, there's no flies or anything in it. Um, so each one is checked manually and then they're packed that sounds so expensive to do.

Chris Norton: 43:38

They sell them for a couple of quid in the supermarket.

Will Ockenden: 43:41

Yeah, there's nothing like chucking a poppadom into a frying pan when it expands. It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. Taste is incredible, yeah.

Tamsin Daniel: 43:48

So you know, just fabulous seeing that. And the other thing which was real highlight of my career and I think this is, you know, I look, this is why I love food is because it's not just how you experience the food when it's delivered to you, in, in, you know, in packaging, and soup from the soup shelves of a supermarket is I've I've been able to see things like how pepper grows, peppercorns, or how nutmeg grows, or how does, how does pepper grow?

Will Ockenden: 44:14

peppers are vine and it's a.

Tamsin Daniel: 44:16

It's a little, it's a little berry, but it's essentially it's a vine, so it needs other trees to to, to grow up how do they harvest it? Not by hand by hand, wow yeah, so so much of it is done by hand.

Will Ockenden: 44:27

It's so like and then it's dried, is it?

Chris Norton: 44:29

and again yeah it's dried, you know you never, stop to think do you know, when you're grinding pepper, absolutely where it's come from.

Tamsin Daniel: 44:35

Yeah, yeah, so really, really fascinating and I think that giving for me, having that sense of connection to the earth and the people involved in, in getting our raw materials over um I I think that's quite a humbling experience because I, you know, I am absolutely adamant that for the most but I know it's so difficult because I know that there absolutely are consumers out there for whom you know, the 50p low for, or whatever it might be, is a vital part of their weekly shop and they need prices to be kept as low as they possibly can.

Tamsin Daniel: 45:10

And that's partly because we're spending so much of our money on other things because you know things like our rent and mortgages but actually our food for the most part is too cheap. We should be paying more, especially for something like chocolate, because if you look at the cheaper end of the market, that's come at a cost to the planet. And all of this comes at a cost to the planet that vast swathes of rainforest has to be set aside for mono agriculture, and that happens in lots of categories. So I think, where I can help to say sometimes less is more, that when you've got a really nice piece of chocolate you don't need to munch the whole lot in one go. You can just have one piece and it absolutely satisfies a craving and you get a real sense of the flavor. You've eaten less of it, you've more for it, but all of that rewards the whole supply chain.

Will Ockenden: 46:06

Yeah, I couldn't agree more Fascinating.

Chris Norton: 46:08

Yeah, really fascinating.

Will Ockenden: 46:09

So Tam's in a question. Don't look panicked.

Chris Norton: 46:12

Okay, this isn't a curveball at the end.

Will Ockenden: 46:14

Well, it is a bit of a curveball. Actually, a question we ask all of our guests is who would you have on the podcast as our next guest? Who could you think of or recommend we speak to? That might have an interesting story to tell that's.

Tamsin Daniel: 46:28

That is an interesting question, lots of people. Um, if you could go right to the top, I'd love for you to have mark ritson. Oh yeah, yeah, he's on the list yeah, he, uh, he's the sweariest guy in marketing I think, he earns that accolade.

Tamsin Daniel: 46:44

well, I did the mini MBA in brand management with Mark and I loved every moment of it.

Tamsin Daniel: 46:50

It was fantastic. I think he's got some really interesting stuff to say, as have Binet and Field, and I think if you could get that on, that'd be great. On a much more prosaic level, I guess anyone who's sort of been involved in, guess anyone who's sort of been involved in I think what's really interesting is if you do take a brand that has, um, you know, been a certain way for a long time and then you've had to make some really tough decisions to fundamentally change what that looks like, then I think you know somebody who's had to make tough decisions that other people have perhaps not necessarily liked and and there's been a real struggle to get you know the board on board with would be a really and I can't think of something off the top my head but there are definitely brands that have to make really big, have had to make some big u-turns, um, or real um, changes of tack, of tack, and I think that would be interesting to have somebody like that on a product recall.

Chris Norton: 47:46

Yeah, a product recall, or like a or more of a brand repositioning.

Tamsin Daniel: 47:51

You know where somebody's had to a very much loved and traditional brand.

Tamsin Daniel: 47:55

Yeah, and then and had to make some tough decisions yeah, absolutely that, that because the traditions and because I, you know, I have, for all you know, most of my career worked for family businesses as well, or privately owned small businesses. And that comes with a responsibility as a marketer to manage not just the brand from a consumer point of view but the brand from the point of view of that family and how they feel about it. And sometimes you get to the point where how a family feels about a brand is at odds with how consumers view it, it's actually about the long-term survival of the brand in many cases, isn't it?

Will Ockenden: 48:34

absolutely if people need to find out sorry, not if people need to. If people want to when they want to, yeah when people want to contact you and um start up a conversation with you, how can people find you?

Tamsin Daniel: 48:45

they can get me at firetree. So my um, you'll find firetreefiretreechocolatecom. You'll find all our amazing chocolates there. My link by you, yeah, you'll definitely find me on linkedin. I'm tamsin daniel um and you can email me at tamsin at firetreechocolatecom fantastic.

Chris Norton: 49:02

Thank you very much for coming on and sharing the stories, thank you for having me I really enjoyed it.