Meet Alison Hartnoll, Vice President, Unified Commerce and Marketing at Mastermind Toys, as she takes us inside this Canadian specialty retailer's e-commerce and retail story and gives us a preview of her panel "A Marketer's Guide to Seamless Customer Retail Journeys" at the upcoming RCC Retail Marketing Conference.
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. My name is Michael LeBlanc, and I am your host. This podcast is produced in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Meet Alison Hartnoll, Vice President, Unified Commerce and Marketing at Mastermind Toys, as she takes us inside this Canadian specialty retailer's e-commerce and retail story and gives us a preview of her panel "A Marketer's Guide to Seamless Customer Retail Journeys" at the upcoming RCC Retail Marketing Conference.
Register for RCC Retail Marketing Conference here.
About Alison
Alison Hartnoll is the VP, Unified Commerce and Marketing at Mastermind Toys, Canada’s Authority on Play. Alison brings the wonder of Mastermind Toys alive online and in-store. She is a passionate, customer-obsessed, results-driven leader with more than 20 years of CPG experience across Marketing, Sales and E-Commerce. Prior to joining Mastermind Toys, Alison led the E-Commerce team at Smucker Foods of Canada, driving sales growth on Amazon and across the platforms of Canada’s grocery retailers.
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.
Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row.
Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail. He produces and co-hosts Remarkable Retail with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world.
Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers.
Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. My name is Michael LeBlanc, and I am your host. This podcast is produced in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Meet Alison Hartnoll, Vice President Unified Commerce and Marketing, Mastermind Toys. She takes us inside this Canadian specialty retailers, e-commerce and retail story and gives us a preview of our panel: A Marketer’s Guide is Seamless Customer Retail Journeys, at the upcoming RCC Retail Marketing Conference in September.
Let's listen in now.
Michael LeBlanc 00:31
Alison, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing this morning?
Alison Hartnoll 00:34
I'm doing well. Michael, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Pleasure to meet you.
Michael LeBlanc 00:40
Well, thanks so much for joining me for a special bonus episode, which is highlighting the fantastic agenda coming up at Retail Council of Canada's Retail Marketing Conference, which let's get this out of the way. It's September 19. So, if you're listening, run, don't walk to the link. I'll put in the show notes so you can register, and we're going to do a bit of chit and chatting about, about why you're there, what you're talking about and all that great stuff, but let's start, let's start with a couple of things. Let's talk about you. So first of all, where am I finding you this morning?
Alison Hartnoll 01:11
I am coming to you from Toronto, Ontario. So really in a neighborhood called Scarborough, where I am at the play HQ for Mastermind Toys, a very beloved brand in the retail space for specialty toys in Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 01:29
Let's talk about your background off mic, we're talking about a grocery conference in Vegas, and you said you had some background in, in the grocery sector. So, tell us, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, your background and what you do for a living.
Alison Hartnoll 01:40
From a professional perspective, I grew up in, in a grocery for the most part. So I did spend 17 years with Smucker Foods of Canada and going across marketing roles to sales, calling on Loblaws and then did a stint in figuring out this little thing they call e-commerce, which really at the time was kind of a decision where they tapped me on the shoulder and said, do you think you could figure this out for us, and so you know, at the time, it was sort of grocery eComm was new. This was well before COVID, of course when everything came to be, but got us into some good shape before COVID hit and then everyone really did need to start shopping online.
Michael LeBlanc 02:24
What's, what's your experience, you know, working in a brand like that in grocery I mean, there's, you know, Smuckers Foods, I don't know the full line, but you know, basically, it's relatively small units, which means it's kind of expensive or going direct to consumer is, is a more complicated, complicated thing, or do you focused on kind of how do we help the major grocers, you mentioned Loblaws, get our product in e-commerce and then to the to the floor, what was the philosophy, what was the guiding philosophy?
Alison Hartnoll 02:53
It, it's the ladder. So, while in the US there's enough critical mass to be able to go direct-to-consumer for grocery. In Canada, it's really going through our partners, and not wanting to compete with the partners, but rather enabling all of our grocery retailers to be able to service the customers in the best way possible and as you mentioned, I mean, it depends on which business you're talking about, but we had Smuckers Jam, Jif Peanut Butter, also Robinhood Family of Brands, so Robin Hood, Carnation, Eagle, Crisco, all of these things are heavy and then as we got into the pet side of the business, we had Milkbone, Meow Mix, we had a new brand called nature's recipe and, and then of course, the easiest e-comm-able was Folgers Coffee and that's really where the reason why I can say it's the easiest is simply because it's a bit lighter, and a bit more predictable in terms of you know how much you're going to use over time, and when you know that you're going to have refills.
Alison Hartnoll 04:01
But yeah, it was all about enabling our customer partners and making sure that their strategies could come to fruition and, and as much as we can say, you know, the old days was about putting cases of jam on the back of a truck. Really when you talk ecommerce, it's all about the data. So, if you don't have the data, all shipshape, then you really don't have a product to sell. So, it's a lot of checks and balances behind the scenes, making sure that everything is correct. So, it's displaying correctly for the customers, so they know exactly what they're getting and it's all approp-, appropriate display and then fulfillment.
Michael LeBlanc 04:39
Yeah, and the retail is really, really heavily and they, I kind of really appreciate the work that the vendors do to get that stuff right for their sites. Write him in, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of SKUs so it can go awry pretty quickly so I'm sure they really push them.
Alison Hartnoll 04:55
And you know what as I, as I, as I jumped the fence to come over to the retail side, and now working at Mastermind Toys, you realize the value of that vendor relationship and, and we have at Mastermind fabulous relationships with our vendors they're just so special, but whether they're you know giant like the Mattel's and Legos and Hasbro's of the world, or they're a little more specialty, like Ravensburger, or they're, or they're tiny, and it might just be, you know, one or two products that we're bringing into our stores and testing, it doesn't matter, we want to make sure that we have all of the data and the ability to showcase all of those products in the best way possible.
Alison Hartnoll 04:56
Toys is, it is a different one as well, because there's a lot of research in toys, there's a lot of development opportunity and parents really want to know what they're putting in front of their kids, whether it's the material or the learning opportunity, the skills and development. So, so e-comm is really quite important in their path to purchase, which, which is why, you know, as we., we roll over and start talking about the panel, when, when we participate in the conversations about the customer, it's all about that experience, and how we can make it consistent no matter where they're engaging with us and that's really what matters at the end of the day.
Michael LeBlanc 06:17
Yeah, well, it's a great, it's a great, it's a great way to kind of begin the conversation now. What's your role there, talk about the structure a little bit, and then we're going to talk, we'll talk about mastermind itself, because I'm sure anyone who's got young kids in Canada would know them, but we've I've got an international audience as well, but first of all, tell, tell me more about your role at Mastermind.
Alison Hartnoll 06:39
Sure, so I joined Mastermind last February as the head of e-commerce and this was sort of, you know, a month in, we did our back to the office moves. So, it really was coming off of the COVID lockdowns and coming back into how our customers shopping differently now and a lot of the conversation from an e-commerce perspective was about whether it would be sticky or not, but coming in it was it was now taking what had been built up as the e-commerce business and managing it as a business unit and so it wasn't necessarily a capability anymore. Now it's a business unit and identifying how do we sell things effectively.
Alison Hartnoll 07:23
How do we make sure that we, we use this channel as a path to purchase for each of our customers, and so that's the role that I came in to take care of and it was anything from onboarding, the items, and all of the data associated with it straight through to home delivery, and onboarding, same day, next day delivery, making sure that we were fulfilling our promises for our customers, whether they were Canadians shopping in Canada, maybe they're located near our stores, or whether they were international shoppers, buying in Canada for delivery to one of their friends and family in our country.
Michael LeBlanc 08:05
Gifting, I love that gifting idea.
Alison Hartnoll 08:07
Exactly, it really is all about the gifting. So, I came in in that scope and then this past February, I was promoted to the role of VP of Unified Commerce and Marketing,
Michael LeBlanc 08:19
What a title.
Alison Hartnoll 08:23
We started punching around the title and said like, what is it, what is this term, but, but really, when, when we thought it was soup to nuts on e-commerce, then if you take some other verticals and say what happens with the promotions, what happens with our systems and processes and how do we service our customers in the best way possible. So, my team is responsible for making sure everywhere an item is priced, it's consistent, where it's promoted, it's consistent, and how you get there.
Alison Hartnoll 08:54
So, if there is a representation of the product or, or some help needed to work through the processes that are one of our play, experts might need to go through to make sure that the customer's journey is successful. That's my team taking care of that, so platform services is one of my one of my teams and they are the people on the other end of the phone when one of our play experts call in front of a customer and says there's something wrong with the system and so we really are the phone friend, and we resolve the problems right in front of them. It's not you know, like an issue of thank you I'll take that and fix it next week. This is I'm going to fix it right in front of you and make sure that that customer leaves happy.
Michael LeBlanc 09:39
So, tell us about masterminds so as I said, I know well and, and anyone who's got small children or grown children now would, would know it well how many stores scope and scale, I think you only do business within the four walls of Canada so to speak. You take orders from international but tell us, just give us a a couple of minutes on the 411 on Mastermind.
Alison Hartnoll 10:03
Sure, so mastermind toys we, we've, we've termed it to be Canada's authority on play. And what that means is, you know, we sort of earned the right as originating 40 years ago as the educational toy store for Canadians. So, it was a couple of brothers in Scarborough, who started the business and grew to, you know, about 10 locations, and then only in the last 15, 20 years did they burst out and grow to more locations. So, we now have 66 formal locations, is what we call them across the country and then we have our e-commerce business. So, you are able to buy in, in any of our stores consistently along with, with, with our webstore, which delivers across the country and, and what we want to do really as mastermind toys objective is to inspire generations of lifelong learners through the power of play.
Alison Hartnoll 11:06
So, what that really means is, we know that there's a power behind play, we know that there is a skill and development that's being learned by children and adults alike. There's all different things that you can learn through play and some of those you might forget about, you might, you might think you're just letting the children outside and letting them kick around a soccer ball, but in that activity, there are so many social and emotional learnings that you want to make sure that you're hitting on so that your children grow up to be wonderful human beings in our worlds and so it really is all about making sure that we have that magic of the toy store. There's nothing like walking into a toy store at the holiday season, it is just unbelievable or seeing everything through the eyes of a child as they're buying a gift for a friend and going to a birthday party and getting it wrapped up with our signature gift wrap. It really is a, an amazing experience coming into one of our stores.
Michael LeBlanc 12:06
Your, your panel at the upcoming Retail Marketing Conference is 'A Marketers’ Guide to Seamless Customer Retail Journeys'. Now talk about, a little bit about mastermind, you've already spoken about kind of, your current state and your title of kind, of course, you know, tells us a lot about the philosophy behind the business. Now that was kind of a hurry up offense, pre-COVID. I mean, COVID threw everybody for a big whammy including Mastermind, and yeah, I know you joined kind of it sounds like halfway through that, but you know, the finish line is the important part. So, you know, what's a couple of minutes on the journey that Mastermind went through from being a, you know, an organization that had stores and a website to where you are today?
Alison Hartnoll 12:50
Sure, in early 2020 was when, of course, COVID hit and was when it became a necessity. So it was it was less of a, an add on to the business or a bonus to the business to have e-commerce, to all of a sudden go into an opportunity to have an excellent experience so that customers don't miss out and being a specialty retailer, especially when we're focusing on gifting and birthdays and special holidays and occasions where you want to celebrate, there was the opportunity for us to launch our e-commerce site that offered a best in class curbside pickup experience and that's really what it was about was our play experts, were still there at the end of the phone or on the chat in our eComm to make sure that you could still pull up beside one of our stores and have the same experience and it could still be gift wrapped for you and, and you know you could have that magic touch to, to that experience.
Alison Hartnoll 13:51
So, when all of that came to fruition, it really was as you say, a hurry up and do it kind of a moment. Now as we look at what the power of e-comm has brought us, everything for mastermind toys starts digitally. We ask ourselves first, how is this going to show up, can we make sure that we have a consistent experience, particularly when it comes to promotions, to make sure that you don't walk in the store and get a different experience than you did online, we want to make sure that that's consistent and we're managing customers’ expectations. We're identifying where there's inventory available as much as possible and we're recommending things in the same way.
Alison Hartnoll 14:33
So, when you're on the other end of the chat, our customer service team are literally play experts. So, they're the ones also recommending what toys you might have. So, you know the first question that we might ask you is who are you shopping for today and you want to make sure that no matter where you are, we're able to help you address the needs. From a marketing perspective. It really does start with the team that I work with, at the media stage, and understanding that we want to make sure we are the answer to our customers questions when they're looking for a toy, they might not know what they want, but it might be, I have a three year old, who really likes reading, but I want them to be able to play games, what can I do, and so you're giving us like an age you're giving us a,
Michael LeBlanc 15:28
Here's a big knot, untie this knot for me.
Alison Hartnoll 15:30
Exactly, there's all of these clues and it's almost like a choose your own adventure, right, like, it's like those books where you're like, go to page 17, go back to page 3.
Michael LeBlanc 15:39
that's hilarious, well-
Alison Hartnoll 15:41
That's the magic of it.
Michael LeBlanc 15:43
You know, it's, it's well delivered, well architected. So, you're going to be on the panel with a bunch of other folks talking about basically, and they represent different organizations. So, you will be talking about this on the panel. Let's, let's wrap up with because it's very exciting. I want peop-, you know, people are, I think, I'm sure, people are going to be very excited to hear your contribution, because it's so well thought out. So, so interesting in the great category.
Michael LeBlanc 16:08
Now, last question, advice for fellow retailers who are listening, two starts and one stop. Two things they should start doing right now and one thing that they should stop, maybe it doesn't work anymore, your experience, you've tried it or it's something that you see, you know, fellow retailers doing, and you say, or even brands and say, you know what, it's probably not gonna work for you. What, what's your thoughts?
Alison Hartnoll 16:34
Definitely from a start perspective, if you're not already focused on that, data. Data, data, data. So that goes back to my comment, where we're not selling things off the back of a truck anymore. It's it really is all about the representation for the customer. The other is to really understand the use case of your customers coming in, in what state of mind are they coming in? What are they looking for, because you might be specialty, or you might be mass, you might have one product, or you might have 10,000, but it's really about meeting the needs of that customer and what they're looking for in that moment.
Alison Hartnoll 17:15
So in that one of the things that we talk about stopping doing every day, is talking to ourselves at play HQ, is sitting here and thinking like, you know, are we talking to ourselves, is this just a group of, you know, executive professionals sitting in a boardroom and talking about what it's all about or can we walk in the store and really run this through the eyes of our customer and really understand what does it mean to them, what are the important things for them? So, I think none of those things are new, none of those are different than you're going to hear from anyone else, but we really focus on getting back to the fundamentals and making sure that we're doing those things right. As much as possible. It's always a journey, you're never done. So really, one of the things that I'm quite fond of saying is that progress is success. It's that you're not always going to get to an end. It's always about progress.
Michael LeBlanc 18:10
That's great, now where, if folks want to get in touch with you, are you a LinkedIn person, or learn more about you or get in touch, what would you-
Alison Hartnoll 18:17
I am, yeah, definitely available on LinkedIn and available through Mastermind Toys, you can always call anyone here through our, through our service lines, and get in touch but definitely happy to speak with anyone about our experiences. It's a really fun and exciting industry to be in lots of things changing and moving.
Michael LeBlanc 18:39
Well, Alison, thanks so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast, really looking forward to I'm sure the audience really looking forward to seeing and hearing you and meeting you perhaps September 19, at the RCC Retail Marketing Conference. So, thanks so much for joining me on the mic and listen, it sounds like you're doing wonderful work every day is a gifting occasion and every day is a journey by the sounds of it. So, it sounds like you're having fun, so, thanks. I wish you continued success and have a great rest of your day.
Alison Hartnoll 19:07
Wonderful. Thank you, Michael.
Michael LeBlanc 19:09
Thanks for tuning into this episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will lend automatically each week and be sure to check out my other retail industry media properties Remarkable Retail podcast with Steve Dennis, and the Global Ecommerce Leaders podcast. Last but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my YouTube barbecue show Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week.
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, consumer growth consultant, president of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc., Maven Media and keynote speaker. If you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Safe travels everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
customers, mastermind, retail, commerce, talking, toys, canada, stores, business, grocery, product, specialty retailer, loblaws, experience, podcast, call, making, children, marketing, comm