Paige Billings - Selling Meat Sticks into United Airlines, Lowe's, Home Depot, and Dick's Sporting Goods

On this episode, we’re joined by Paige Billings, VP of Marketing at Anthem Snacks - the veteran-owned jerky brand started by a former Green Beret - and Founder of Dot Digital Media.

We dive into how Anthem has pushed into unconventional retail channels and the strategies for succeeding in limited shelf space environments - from Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Dick’s Sporting Goods to United Airlines’ in-flight program - proving that discovery doesn’t have to happen in the grocery aisle.

We also explore how Anthem leverages Pinterest as an underrated growth engine, persona mapping, and Costco.

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Episode Highlights:

🥩 Building a veteran-owned brand rooted in service and authenticity
🧱 How Anthem broke into channels like Lowe’s, Home Depot, and United Airlines
📦 Packaging that balances brand story and retail practicality
📌 Why Pinterest is an underrated platform
💬 Turning mission-driven storytelling into measurable marketing
🔥 Trends shaping the future of better-for-you snacking

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Table of Contents:

00:45:17 - Anthem origin story
03:15:13 - The early days, creating differentiation
06:48:21 - Target personas
11:10:09 - Packaging design
15:08:20 - United Airlines partnership
20:24:29 - Selling into unconventional channels
27:53:21 - Costco
32:32:08 - Pinterest, the under-the-radar channel
37:59:13 - Trends

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Links:

Anthem Snacks – https://www.anthemsnacks.com
Follow Paige on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/paige-billings-34623698/
Follow me on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/ 

Try Anthem Snacks with code SHELFPOD20 until 1/31/26 (not valid on subscription products and cannot be stacked).

For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out KitPrint.

Transcript

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today we're speaking with Paige Billings founder of Dot Digital Media a CPG media and advertising agency as well as she also is the VP of marketing at Anthem Snacks which you're gonna be talking about primarily veteran owned meat snack company founded by a former Green Beret page was also nice enough just to call it out if you want to try out their awesome products so I'm going to include that in the show notes but yeah isn't that first off page maybe just for people that aren't that familiar with anthem maybe just give us kind of quick lay the land in terms of the origin story why behind the brand some of the core products in the lineup and then maybe just call out a few places where people can get their hands on them and then we'll go from there for sure yeah thank you so much for having me so Anthem Snacks is a veteran owned meat snack company based here in Bozeman Montana we give 10% of our profits back to veteran and first responder nonprofit organizations and we're really focusing on giving back to the community that has given us so much I also am a veteran spouse so that's a little bit about the why and then our core products we originally launched with just beef jerky um and we're different in the way that we are premium beef so whole muscle cuts of beef jerky low smoked using real ingredients rather than like liquid smoke or infusions and then last year we launched our first line of beef sticks which was an incredible add on to the original alignment of just beef jerky and then this year we launched a Turkey stick which that one was super fun to create and we can talk more about that later too'cause um poultry is an interesting mix when it comes to just meat snacks in general so for our beef jerky we have five premium flavors it is made with Willie's Distillery Bourbon which is a veteran owned distillery here in Ennis Montana and then we have I would say like

three novelty flavors so 2: 1:58

00 sugar flavors that's more of a cowboy style jerky like drier a little bit more chew and then we have Straight Fire which was the first like R&D project that I worked on at anthem and it is exactly what the name is it is Straight Fire it has Carolina Reapers it has ghost peppers it has habanero pepper flakes it's pretty incredible you can see like the spice on it so that's our our assortment of flavors and then as far as where you can get us obviously online at Anthem snacks dot com all the time um and then where you are in Tractor Supply nationwide exporting goods Shields Lowe's Home Improvement Ace Hardware select 7 11 locations Jackson's The Naval Exchange the Marine Exchange Rebel Road Ranger Hannaford a couple others and then um Murdoch's pilot and loves convenience and then specifically for Costco we are currently in the northeast region we are going to be launching in Midwest and then Bay Area in November and Montana Awesome and talk about just kind of formulation product development for a minute like thinking back what were some of those key variables you guys were focused on in terms of trying to really create a differentiated product was there an aha moment where all of a sudden everything worked and you felt like okay this is this is the right formulation this is it yeah so yeah I've been with anthem since we started I actually when when Nate called me he was like we originally like he was a freelance client of mine and just continued to grow as the business continued to grow and when I joined anthem they already had I would say like the brand ethos kind of figured out but they hired me really to create like the brand vision who the consumer was market the product um and get out there and you're so rightly jerky and meat snacks is incredibly competitive because one it's a premium product it's a higher price product so it's it's a lot of sourcing you have to get you know the right animals the premium cuts the whole thing and for flavor you can't really go too many ways you can go funky and that can be an absolute win or an absolute miss like we have some really fun flavors I'll talk about but we had our Coraline our already figured out and our original silver branding kind of already figured out when I joined the team and I joined like six months after we started June 2020 was when anthem became a company which was you know an incredible time to start a business but when I joined I was really creating like I mentioned like a brand identity who we are trying to reach the entire like social story of everything and we have a founder that has an incredible story he was a former Green Beret he was wounded on a deployment and so that already differentiates ourselves we were veteran owned we were mission backed we're not just a company out here just like trying to make product to profit off of and it you know hope it goes somewhere so the mission side of it was huge from day one and then also creating the visuals around where we live Montana that was also a no brainer because we live in one of the most beautiful places and so when you think of you're hiking you're hunting what do you bringing high protein snacks with you and so we wanted to create a visual identity that just resonated with anyone who wants to go outside and experience nature which definitely did like it hit a really um organic approach like in the first little bit and that's where we started fun rnd like I mentioned Straight Fire was the first project that I really helped on for RND the concepting behind the branding for that bag it's bright red it's obvious that it's on fire um and then when we launched our beef sticks that's when the brand I will say like the branding kind of changed and that's when I took focus on the packaging design the flavors the R&D and all of that and I will say like the beef sticks and the Turkey stick were definitely like a brainchild of mine I wanted them to be fun and funky and cool and really have flavors that I will say like felt young and fresh and refreshing to snack on I feel like sometimes when you're go let's just say like I go I hike a lot so I'm like when you're on a long hike there's only a certain amount of foods I feel like you can put in your pocket and that don't taste horrible after 10 hours of being in the sun and so we wanted the flavors to really be able to stand being outside for a long time and not feel static or have depth of flavor which I feel like sometimes can be a miss with packaged food totally I was curious about it in terms of who the the target market is and maybe it's evolved over the years and like obviously started by Green Beret how much is it you know messaging around the veteran community military community versus trying to go more broad than that and how do you I guess blend the two if you do it's a great question because it's definitely evolved I will say like coming from Black Rifle in those early days when you know everything was gun gun shoot it down the whole thing um and I think it also changes in like what I was socially aware at the time too like that was a very social media specific time where now social media has changed so much where when we start when anthem started when we were thinking of who our consumer was it wasn't necessarily like we have to be for the veteran we have to be for the active duty soldier that is definitely like a one major pillar of our personas but it wasn't the only one when we're thinking of like who we wanted our anthem consumer to be it was really anyone who is an American who has values that resonate with ours you know veterans have a wide variety of who these people are their backgrounds their cultures and we really wanted to be for the every person which again sounds like crazy broad but in the grand scheme of things it comes down to like the values of what we putting in our product quality of ingredients that we have we support American ranchers our beef sticks are made with 100% American beef which is something that was incredibly important to us to be able to have that lineage of beef um and then also just like the premium cuts definitely other jerkies out there that have different audiences it's a different price point it's all of that and we really wanted to be for the person who was purchasing for their health their flavor their the chew the texture and also anyone you know whether you sit at a desk and that's your snack at three PM to get you through the next couple hours of the day or you're literally hiking and climbing mountains every single day we wanted to be for any of you and I think you'll see that in like the variety of retailers we're in too is that we're not just focusing on grocery or you know online we're really trying to spread a wide net of who can purchase our products because I've lived in a ton of places in the US with the military my husband was active duty for 8 years and that changes also how you shop like living in Texas I really only shopped at like two grocery stores it was like H E B and Natural Grocers cause of convenience or here in Montana we have so many different chains of grocery stores and convenience stores and Florida's different and so having a wide retail net is super important too it reaches new audiences obviously Costco's huge you have so many different buyers in Costco another thing I'll kind of touch on too with like the packaging that goes into the persona of it all is I wanted to stay fresh in CPG as you know you've been in CPG for years the products that are new and evolving I feel like are very eye catching and sometimes you kind of fall into either it all looks the same or everything looks so dynamic on the shelf that you don't know how to make a decision on what you want so when we were developing the packaging and the flavors for I'll just say like the beef stick line we wanted it to say true to our brand identity but also stretch creatively so everything is very tonal with the colors like dill pickles like green and green Hot Honey is red and yellow and it's the colors you think of when you think of Hot Honey so it's been evolving to answer your question for our personas but we're really for the everyone the every American who wants to fuel their adventure I guess pretty natural for it to to evolve over time as you focus on a niche initially to kind of use as your head and then expand out from there um yeah so you own the packaging all the packaging design stuff if I came to you and told you I was launching a new CPG food brand and whatever category you want to focus on what are maybe just two or three tips you'd give me or on the other side things that you'd tell me to watch out for that might trip me up along the way throughout the process so I'm definitely like not a trained graphic designer I didn't go to school for graphic design so if anyone's listening like there might be better ways to do it than how I do it but for anthem and some of the other brands I've done like brand identity and graphics and storyboarding and visual representation for I really like to start with what you don't like to me that kind of gives me right and left limit of like this is what we like this is what we don't and I kind of what I mentioned earlier where things kind of trend in CPG especially in packaging and branding is it's not necessarily the most important to be the one who is gonna be the most unique in a lot of ways like I will say like sometimes companies um like reach change packaging and it's incredibly dynamic for that product or the way things are built and that's great don't think you necessarily have to focus on that when you're launching a product but I also think it's important to know that like how you launch a product is not necessarily how it's going to stay for the next like 40 years like it could change and be dynamic like I've been with health aid since 2018 and they've changed their packaging so many times and it's just gotten better and better with each rendition same with anthem we've gone through so many different versions of packaging and it all really comes down to what visually connects with not only the founder or the CEO or whoever's leading the company but also who do you want to be purchasing your product so if it's at the top shelf and you probably know more than anyone like you're buying shelf lined lines right when you get into a retailer is if you're on the top shelf like how are you gonna stand out and our packaging specifically is bold and bright and we've played around with you know matte and shiny and all those different things for the first packaging design for our 2.5 ounce bag at anthem we didn't have a window and we quickly Learned that that was not necessarily the best did it look so cool yes it looked like the coolest bag on the shelf because it was just so sleek it was silver it was awesome it was incredibly hard to photograph um and it didn't have a window so customers kind of second guess the purchase at first because they were like well I can't see what it looks like and we're telling you it's premium but like can you tell it is premium so when we redid our packaging design when we were a partner with the UFC and we put their their logo lock up on the bag we put a window in and it actually made bags fly off the shelf not necessarily because of the logo but you could see the product right um and that was huge and then when we started designing our stick um just stick film obviously sticks you have to have a clear back that's just like what you do but our caddies we wanted to be super super bright and like what you could see on the shelf you know stick goes into the caddy the same color the pouches we wanted as big of a window as we could get away with with showing all of the things we need to call out right the flavor the protein all of that so I always start with what you don't like then we go into colors and then we go into hey here are your 15 options and you know this you know this thing changes this thing thing changes this thing and I literally will send 47 designs when we're first starting because it could be as simple as like one color variant on the front of the bag in one spot changes the entire look and feel and that's how we've really focused on like anthem is like we also do a lot of like we send it to everyone in our friend group families and we say like which one do you like better a or B um that's kind of how we came up with the color for Turkey is I really liked the color we have currently we have a couple people who liked the other version and then it finally it came down to a poll was like this pink was way better than that pink shifting gears a bit away from building brand identity you guys landed a partnership with United the airline to be clear yes yes what did that what did that partnership entail really look like that was crazy it was such a whirlwind when he first launched that partnership because also kind of a lot goes into those partnerships because especially from our side our at the time we had a 9 ounce bag we've since gone to a 6 ounce but we had a 9 ounce bag which is a big bag of jerky and then we had our 2.5 ounce bag so when you're on an airline you get a little snack so we we're like okay we need to make a 1 ounce bag of jerky and the flavors that we had originally chosen actually they didn't choose for going on board with them they chose our pepper beef jerky in a 1 ounce so not only did we have to redesign a pouch for that um that size but we also got to develop like a launch strategy with them which was really cool the team we worked with at United was incredible they were super hands on that was like my big first partnership with anthem and you know when you're in an airport and you're walking by and you're like why is there a party at gate 1A and then you kind of like look in there as all those balloon arches we did that we got to target two flights so we did Denver to San Antonio and they with all of their data we're able to target flights that had high amount of veterans on their flights which was really cool so we did handed out bags we had a little United for veterans table we had the whole United team with us it was really incredible and then we hopped on a flight together with everyone we went to Dallas spent the night and then did the same thing the next morning in Dallas and that one was really cool because something I didn't know at the time before we did that was United hires a lot of veterans for their pilot program so a lot of military pilots transition into the airlines and United has one of the highest percentage of veterans as in their pilot program which is incredible so at Dallas because it was I don't know a bigger airport bigger day a lot of people were out there we we handed out coins we did like a bigger party and that was really cool and so we were on United Airlines originally for six months and then they just kept extending it which was an incredible opportunity for us so we were on domestic flights and then Canada and Latin America which was really cool it was a purchase on board option as well so it wasn't necessarily like a freebie which was again something I really never paid attention to as like a passenger is like what you get as a free snack and then what you get as a purchase on board usually your higher quality and higher yeah just more expensive items are usually your purchase on board so like beef jerkies um you're usually not getting you know nuts as your purchase item so that was really cool and we had incredible feedback we got to um you know the hemisphere magazine that you read when you're taking off when the TVs don't work we advertised in that that was like part of the um promotion with them and that is actually how united or sorry UFC found us there wasn't um Wi-Fi on one of the planes that the UFC team was coming back from the East Coast on and they open the magazine and they said what is this better known beef jerky company and we got an email two days later which was really cool that's awesome that's really cool did you approach this with actually a meaningful revenue and or margin in mind or do you guys more view it as a brand awareness exercise looking to drive trial and ultimately drive more people to buy this in retail or online or what not from my perspective on marketing it was truly brand awareness there wasn't any way that I could actually capture data on who purchased we had a QR code but that was not really giving us like data so it was kind of two ways we were looking at it is like from the revenue and sales side I it also has this was about a year into business that we launched this so this allowed us to get in front of so many new customers that have now turned into online subscribers for us like there's a customer that emails us quite frequently and I love seeing their name pop across my screen because they actually came from United they messaged us on Instagram I would say about two months after we ended our contract with United and they said why aren't you on United anymore and I said that's a great question you can ask them and I and he's been a customer with us ever since and I know for a fact like it came from United but other than that I can't really track most of that um but I will say in terms of other data we gathered it was really cool like I mentioned they chose peppered beef jerky which at the time was not a best selling flavor for us smoked honey Bourbon haven't launched yet but Bourbon and smoked honey are our best two jerkies and it goes original and peppered and so that was really cool to offer that flavor to so many people you've had a lot of success and I guess what I would consider another I don't know what fairly unconventional channel in terms of the I don't know what you call them home improvement farm supply type lows and Tractor Supply what not okay what's unique about this channel compared to the more traditional Kroger's Albertson's Whole Foods of the world yes we have we've been doing incredibly well I will say in like home improvement and farm and ranch supply I think a lot of it is that's our customer so when it comes down to it we have a huge audience that fits into the consumer of those the stores also it's a really easy convenience item so a lot of the times I feel like you're shopping at a hardware store or ranch and home supplies like you're picking something up quickly because you forgot something you need something for a project you're hungry you don't want to stop at a fast food restaurant on your way home you're just grabbing something and so that definitely has been a big win for us in those stores I will say with lows that was an incredible opportunity for us and we're actually expanding our ski line in Lowe's because we've been doing really well in that store um and then Murdoch's is Murdoch's is a ranch and home supply store it's based here in Montana in Bozeman like their headquarters is right down the street um an incredible store if you ever have the opportunity to find one you can buy anything in this store and we've been doing really well in that store as well and I think it is it comes down to convenience you're going in you're buying food for your horse you're buying tack you're buying something and you're walking out with snacks so you don't have to go to a gas station um and that that definitely was like part of our strategy when we started expanding into retailers is it was another prong on the wheel of retail you have you know convenience you have grocery and ranch and hardware was a big one totally what's like what's the key to winning here in terms of driving sales through and I'm talking about the things you might consider generally considers more normal traditional retail whether demo strategy uh you know some type of promo strategy or rebate strategy you know shelf talkers eye violators you just like merchandising that maybe different than your traditional um we actually don't do a lot of that but so yeah pay for a whole lot of that stuff we don't yes I will say if you're new to CPG and you're you don't know what that is it's incredibly expensive to do that and as a younger company we found other methods of marketing our products in these stores than diving into these traditional rebates we've done a couple through the years and kind of Learned from biting in what works and what doesn't and that goes kind of back to the packaging I will be honest is we really wanted to stand out on a shelf and not have to have a massive display or not that we're against it like I would love to do one of those eventually at some point with our products but we really wanted to be dynamic without having to hit you over the head with it at the store we've done a couple promotions I will say like we did a a promotion in Town Pump which is a Montana Idaho Wyoming convenience and gas station chain there's over like 200 something locations and we did a promotion with one of our non profit partners where we matched up to an amount sold so if you bought a bag Town Pump matched we matched and then all the money was donated to Big Sky Bravery a non profit partner of ours and so when we have done those promotions in the past they haven't been really necessarily to benefit our dollar it's been to put money in the pockets of our non profit partners so that's definitely been a different approach that we've taken rather than our traditional media and then just like general marketing we we push a lot on social and our advertising for meta and Google is pretty dynamic we've dialed that in over the years yeah I feel like there's just a lot less shelf space available for like like not grocery store there's aisles and aisles of stuff what's key to getting on shelf in the first place we have a really good story um and our products really good so I will say for like Costco we do a lot of road shows our sales guy Brandon is constantly on the road handing out jerky if you ever see him say hey I will be in the Bay Area November which is it'll be fun to go back I grew up there so it'll be fun to go hand out sticks and jerky yeah my friend so at the road from the Nevada Costco so I'll send them there amazing yes definitely um so yeah so you're so right like the shelf space I feel like has gotten smaller the competition has gotten greater especially in the meat snack world but in terms of catching the eye it's really just driving foot traffic to those stores and creating in the story I will say we invested in redoing our brand video last year and um I think it showcases where we started our founder who we are as a company the values that we have the product um and we're just really good like I'll be honest the flavor of our product is really good um and I think that definitely sets us apart totally yeah that goes a long way you also said that you also mentioned Dick's Sporting Goods so some success in I guess these sporting goods retailers that's true also definitely an unconventional channel compared to grocery or natural foods channel yes similar questions like what's the key to winning in in this channel and maybe is it fairly similar to like these lows and home goods or is it different yes yeah when I think of sporting good stores I usually don't think of food I'm in the same way when I think of like retailers like apparel retailers I usually don't think of food but there are but we've been in Shields they were one of our first wholesale partners or retail partners with us and we are one of their top selling products in food and we've been in for a couple years and we again it's a convenience item you're there purchasing something usually it's a long day of shopping doing errands you're in and out of these stores and you wanna be able to buy stuff to go to a soccer game and sit there for five hours you're buying your you know decent shot cubes your scratch electrolytes and you're buying your beef jerky and it's that was again another pillar of this spoke and this wheel that we wanted to target because especially Shields like it's such a cool have you ever been to a shield think so oh my gosh you need to get yourself to one they have like a Ferris wheel inside they're incredible yeah yes they're they're such a cool store vibe but different it is yes they have like a full aquarium it's super cool but it's one of those stores that you're in forever and you're buying all your back to school supplies or you're buying stuff for your sporting events you know your lawn chair your umbrella your water bottle your cleats and snacks for that event and so those felt really natural when we started growing into retail is like we need to hit who our consumer is outdoor active people in America who want high quality protein yep that totally makes sense yep welcome to the channel you also mentioned Costco tell me about that first regional launch oh my gosh our first regional launch was so cool so I did all of the packaging design for the trays for the new pouch because Costco as we all know everything's you know super sized so that was really cool I wasn't really a Costco shopper for like my family before going you know talking about this partnership but then I was like I need to go to a Costco and see what these trays look like and figure out what this all looks like if I'm gonna be designing this packaging and similar like going back to talking about like new CPG companies you have to learn how to cut the first design and going with the fourth the design rendition that you have but launching in northeast Costco was incredible our sales VP Brandon he lives in the northeast so that was really cool for him to be able to be like in his home area handing out jerky how do I say this nicely like we sold out we crushed um the first weekend there and then we expanded more so we originally launched with Bourbon like I mentioned which is like one of our best selling flavors um and that was really cool to see just the response of new products everyone loves Costco samples that was really fun we had a big tent up um we had a boombox Brandon was on the mic telling people to come try the jerky and then we did a second launch in the northeast for hot honey sticks which was really nice also same response um and then I'm really excited like I mentioned I'm gonna be in the Bay Area one and I'm excited to bring the energy and about snacks and then we are launching in Montana in November for a brand new store opening in Kalispell Montana and also we're launching with our Bourbon Beef Jerky which is gonna be really cool because it's made with Bourbon from Ennis Montana we're a veteran on business in Bozeman so hopefully that one is gonna be really crazy and fun that's awesome what I I imagine more the sales team and and what not are probably leading those negotiations actually getting the commitment from Costco but once they got that commitment I assume that's where you got kind of pulled in so I'm just curious for other brands that get that commitment from Costco for the first time between Costco saying yes and gearing up for that launch what are things that kind of come top of mind in terms of they should other people should keep top of mind they should be focusing on to make sure they set themselves up for success when they actually do launch yes so I think one thing to learn or know about all these major retailers so you're talking about like the Walmart's the Costco's the Target's Sams all of those major retailers is if you're on the designer marketing team you're brought in way before the deals even signed because I was creating what these products look like and rendering them to create a mock up essentially of what they would look like in your store so when we were starting to pitch these major retailers that's when I got to my computer turned the lights off and focused on creating these designs and then got I don't do CAD modeling um so I got with our render team they built out these renders and then that's what you're pitching to these stores they really want to see that you're ready to take the commitment on for these major retailers and it's a big commitment because you're you're making product in massive scale you have to make sure that you have the logistics and operation distribution set up to focus on that but I will say because of United we actually had we have a pretty small team and we had the wherewithal to understand like the logistics behind setting up for United which was a big lift at the time and then when we went into these Costco partnerships and launches we kind of knew what that all looked like so wasn't necessarily new to us I would say like more the design and concepting was more new to our team but I've been pretty much part of it since the beginning not necessarily obviously the negotiations but all of the the visual concepting what the marketing rollout's gonna look like all of that and I will say it is possible to do without a ton of Costco influencers we haven't tapped into that yet maybe in the future but not yet yeah I've heard about the Costco influencers um we connected a few weeks ago you were telling me about your Pinterest focus role at Black Rifle and how successful this channel became from an ROI standpoint so yeah what what else can you tell me about this yes I could if this podcast was four and a half hours long I don't think I would fully go into Pinterest like you can shut me up um Pinterest I will say is like my favorite platform for growth marketing both in CPG and in like traditional retail apparel or home goods and I've worked with like a breadth of clients across the board Black Rifle when we launched on Pinterest I actually got hired full time originally to be their Pinterest marketing manager like I went from contractor to full time employee for Pinterest and we crushed we did an incredible lift on that platform and um I've been able to take that success and transfer it into all types of businesses on the platform that's like the major part of advertising I do through my company Dot Digital Media and I was with a hunting company for almost seven years here in Bozeman it's called Stone Glacier they sold to Vista Outdoor which then turned to revelus and when we first started talking about Pinterest they kind of looked at me like we're a male focused hunting company that definitely has a lot of media like guns and heads and I said yeah but there's 70 70% of consumers on Pinterest are women so if they're looking for you know gifts for their dad their husband their boyfriend their brother like they're shopping on Pinterest and I've seen crazy numbers upwards of you know almost seven figures in revenue on the platform you know 10 x months in revenue and it's an incredible it's an incredible platform not only for revenue growth but also for traffic growth like I've worked with some clients I'm a CPG client last year in Q4 and they wanted just traffic to their website to show investors that this is a viable product they should invest in and they went from zero like the company launched and they gave me access to it on Pinterest and we were doing over a million impressions just in December last year alone so it's an untapped platform and I think a lot of it has to do with the algorithm is it's not social media it's an SEO based platform hmm so if you understand SEO there's power behind it no I never really thought about that that makes a lot of sense yeah it makes a lot of sense if you had the yeah it's a search platform it yeah if if a marketing leader at another a healthy snack brand that came to you and asked just like I don't know distill down to three core things they should focus on or keep top of mind if they want to have some success on Pinterest what what would those be definitely understand your KPIs and what you're going for so your end goal I like to work backwards on a lot of things and a lot of it comes into advertising as well as design is what's your end goal are you driving traffic are you trying to drive sales are you trying to drive to retailers Albertsons Kroger Safeway that brand they're a massive advertiser on the platform and they will drive product advertisement so like Tropicana is a big one that advertises with Albertsons on Pinterest and so knowing that angle and then working backwards like some of my current clients I work with on Pinterest they're trying to just drive traffic on their website so that's different but I will say for CPG most people are trying to drive take rate off shelves so driving to retailers is crucial or you can do an Amazon approach as well and then also creating content for the platform unlike TikTok unlike meta platforms and unlike you know just your regular Google YouTube you need to create product images for the platform that are simple easy to digest a lot I will say when I see a lot of people when I do audits and I'm like oh this is why it might necessarily not have worked it's because you're taking your high energy crazy TikTok video and you're trying to get it on the platform where people are trying to scroll with their morning coffee and not get inundated with social media um and so creating that product and then also secondly I will say my third reason is you need to have a landing page that also nurtures that relationship you just had with them on the platform so if you create an ad that's like a let's just say it's an instant coffee company and you have a beautiful mug of coffee with a girl standing facing a mountain you're like wow that's so idyllic and then you send them to a landing page where it's TikTok UGC videos of people you know talking really quickly at the camera talking about you know buy this now this code BUY3 get two off that won't convert your audience that you lost them when they got to your website and so that's a big I just say that in C that's a big learning across the board is like your ads have to match your website or your landing page you're converting them to that makes a lot of sense yeah that's super helpful last question for you page like any specific brands in the CPG space overall or any like broader trends that you've been tracking things have been getting you excited lately at all I think mine might be a little different than most people I have celiac so yeah I focus more on like the gluten free kind of healthy trends I will say dill pickle is having another resurgence and luckily anthem was ahead of that second wave with our dill pickle beef jerky last year but also I will say like gluten free is a trend again in a big space is people are really focusing on like allergy friendly recipes and products that you know if you alienate a lot of people with allergies they won't be able to buy your product I will say that was a big focus of anthem as well as like we are big 8 free so that's a big one and in terms of like visuals I will say the packaging in CPG right now excites me so much when we were at sweet and Snacks Food Show in may I had so much fun just walking around and looking at people's packaging because the creativity bar just continues to rise the colors the brand stories all of that so really focusing on the identity as a brand has been really cool to see is um how how companies are taking what their ethos is and putting it into packaging has been really cool yeah yeah I agree with all that that makes a lot of sense what's the best place for people to follow along with you personally and then best place to follow along with anthem as well yeah so me personally my website is Dot Digital media dot com and then my Instagram is front page bakes I'm baking all the time on Instagram and then Anthem Snacks is at Anthem Snacks and Anthem snacks. com come check out our products buy us in stores and let us know if you like it thank you so much yeah we'll definitely like I said we'll put that promo code in the notes for sure to create a discount code for anthem Bourbon is definitely one of our best sellers let's kind of rewind back to those early days how much of it is focused on and I'm about to kick off brand packaging design I think it was only like six months into the business or so but it did open a lot of doors what's kind of key to winning here in terms of driving velocity food and beverages at these stores totally shifting gears a bit well yeah Paige this has been awesome