Hello, I'm Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at BevNET & NOSH.
I am with my co-host, Jackie Brugliera.
She is our Director of Marketing and co-host on Taste Radio.
Jackie, great to have you here again.
Yeah, I'm happy to be back.
Love Community Call.
Well, very excited to have you here again as co-host.
I think we are all recovered and caught up and cleaned up from our meetup that we had last week in the Newton headquarters.
It was so much fun.
Those things are always so much fun.
I know.
We had a really great one in San Diego, too, but I'm super curious about how the Boston one went because I wasn't able to make it, but I know you were there.
I sure was.
We had a good chunk of the folks who are out here on the East Coast at this meetup, and we had some fantastic brands as usual.
We had Vienna Snacks, Brave Good Kind, Plink, Wild Plant Drops, Late Milk.
Those are just sort of the ones that are rolling off my head as I was looking through the pictures that we got back.
And a really great thing about the meetup is it gave us a chance to talk to people about all of the community endeavors we are endeavoring upon.
So, for example, we had Justin Obey at the meetup.
He is a creative branding and digital marketing firm.
He was the CMO at Keele Vodka, so he was a super great person to have at the meetup, and he just, as I said, joined us.
We also had Anush Kazem, who is a food scientist from Purdue.
He focuses on the microbiome in product development and claims, which I thought was also super interesting.
He is now a patent examiner at the USPTO.
Jackie, do you take any probiotics?
Every day, every morning, I take a probiotic.
How did you decide which strains of, like, how do you know which ones?
I feel like there are so many, and I don't know what to do.
I pretty much just look at the outside of the bottle, and I go for the highest number of, you know, strains, as well as, you know, I think it says, like, one billion or three billion.
I just go for the highest number.
Usually that means the most expensive, but I've heard that that's the best thing to do.
I think that's a solid strategy.
I just actually tried a probiotic recently that's geared towards your oral health.
So, you know, there's a theory about how cavities and bad breath, like healthy gums, are all hugely dependent on the probiotics in your mouth.
So I just started taking an oral one to prevent cavities because I have like the softest teeth, the side of, I don't know, the Mississippi.
Exactly.
Anyways, I digress.
It was great to have all those folks at the meetup.
And if we're going to talk about probiotics, we also have to talk about Katherine Oh.
Katherine is a medical doctor.
She has a pudding called hopscotch.
And it is fermented brown rice using a koji starter, which I thought was very interesting.
Obviously, so many probiotics involved there and such a great way to get them.
Yeah, I feel like I haven't seen koji as a starter and products outside of eating koji or using it in Asian foods.
So really, really curious to see where that could go.
Agreed.
And I spoke with her for a good long time about koji and what a fantastic probiotic it is as an ingredient and as something to consume.
So that was super interesting.
And I'm excited to watch that product kind of spread out throughout the Northeast.
So for everybody else who wasn't able to make it to the meetup or who hasn't joined us in our Slack community yet, please do so, slack.bevnet.com.
You can ask all of your burning questions or answer other people's burning questions and get in touch with us anytime.
So please, please go ahead and do that.
We'd love to see you there.
And if you don't even know what question you might have, you might want to join in on some upcoming community calls that you have live to jump in and talk to some experts.
What do you have going on?
Yes, Jackie, we have some fantastic community calls coming up.
We've got Jonathan Lawrence of FreshTime.
He is the VP of Center Store over there, and he's going to be talking about the ways that brands can succeed with FreshTime, their submission policies, exactly what they're looking for.
And that's going to be a great opportunity for folks to speak directly with a big decision maker at that chain.
Then we also have Steve Wangler of GoodCrisp coming on.
Steve is over at GoodCrisp right now, which is totally blowing up.
He was also at Kavita 34 degrees and then was at Spins at a long time.
He's going to talk about what it takes to build an analytics program.
So definitely stay tuned for those.
And if you would like to join us on a future Community Call, we are flipping the script all the time where we talk to a CPG founder about a particular issue they're working through, and then we'll bring on the experts to help have sort of a group discussion.
So hit me up in Slack, slack.bevnet.com, or you can send me an email at mtraverse, T-R-A-V-E-R-S-E at bevnet.com.
We would love to hear from you.
You can also see all upcoming Community Calls, dates, times, people that are going to be on the show, what they're going to be talking about at bevnet.com/communitycall.
And we are super thrilled to present this episode of Community Call to everybody today.
This is the Community Call we did with Omsom.
Omsom just launched a new apron, which I thought was so cool.
Have you seen that?
I have, and they're already all over social media with it and showcasing recipes.
I think the coolest thing about the apron is that it has a little holder for chopsticks.
And I think a lot of people don't know that you can cook with chopsticks.
You don't just have to use them to eat.
And what they were doing was they had a recipe where they had a frozen egg and they were frying it and using the chopsticks to pick it out of the oil.
And it looked delicious.
And I want to try it out.
So cool.
I'm going to have to look for that recipe.
You know, I didn't realize that cooking chopsticks were different than eating chopsticks.
It makes perfect sense.
But I didn't realize that they are a little bit longer so that you don't burn your hands.
So learning new things all the time from Omsom.
Yeah, they just do a great job of being authentic and educating people on their culture and other cultures.
Well, we are very excited to present to you the Omsom Community Call as a podcast.
Please do follow us and give us a review on your listening platform of choice.
We would so appreciate it.
And please enjoy the show.
Do you have a recent product launch, new hire, marketing campaign, distribution news or some other exciting company announcement?
Let us know.
With our new self-service PR portal, submitting your news is easier than ever.
Just head to submit.bevnet.com to get started.
Today, we are so thrilled to welcome Kim and Vanessa Pham of Omsom.
Kim and Vanessa are daughters of Vietnamese refugees.
They're sisters who cut their teeth in startups and consulting and returned to their roots to launch Omsom, a proud and loud Asian food brand making easy-to-create restaurant-quality Asian sauces with their rip-and-pour sauces that celebrate their culture with real Asian ingredients and flavors.
They've been featured in Food & Wine, Vogue, TechCrunch, to name a few, and have partnered with the likes of Fish Cheeks, Madame Vogue, Pepper Teagan to create award-winning sauces that are truly delicious.
Speaking of award-winning, they won Best New Product at NOSH for their shaker sets with MSG, salt and pepper, and Best Packaging Design with their Rip and Tear sauces.
Kim and Vanessa, I could not be any more thrilled to have you both here.
It is such a pleasure.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, we're excited.
We never do this, the two of us.
I know.
This is truly a revelation and such an honor.
So we're thrilled to have both of you.
You two have such a strong partnership that's been instrumental in building the brand.
Could you talk a little bit about how you divide and conquer the day-to-day of Omsom?
Yeah, I mean, Kim is our creative powerhouse.
So she runs brand community content at Omsom, and largely the rest of the business reports into me, and I used to operate it.
But now we have a little bit of help, which is huge.
But that's kind of how we divide and conquer.
It's literally like, it's pretty straight down the middle in the sense of left brain, right brain, which I think is really, really nice.
Even from your backgrounds, it makes sense.
So Omsom was launched in May of 2020, but you knew you would live natively on digital even before there was a pandemic.
How did you think about D2C as a channel?
How did you see that as an opportunity, and how did you imagine it as the canvas for Omsom?
Yeah, I think Vanessa and I have always known that Omsom is first and foremost a culture brand before we are a food brand.
And to really create impact and legacy in culture nowadays, it's pretty hard to not do that on the internet.
And so while we knew the end game of Omsom was to build these really beautiful products made with deep cultural integrity, it was important to us since day one that we build a really digitally native internet first brand.
Because that's where a lot of these conversations around identity and culture are already being had.
And we knew that we wanted to become a part of it, if not help drive it a little bit.
So D2C was always kind of day one game plan, knowing that we would use it as a launch pad into retail.
I'm sure Vanessa, you've got thoughts there too.
Yeah, totally.
I think that's exactly right.
There's just so much room to play and express who you are on D2C in a way that the shelf just doesn't offer.
You're fairly limited to just your packaging.
We also have heard time and again the story of emerging brands that go straight into retail, and it's just an uphill battle.
You don't have leverage with buyers.
The channel can be a really challenging place to start the brand.
And so our strategy was to also focus on direct to consumer so we could build that brand in that community and then have something to bring to the table when it came to buyer conversations.
Your storytelling ability and expertise, it seems like it's been such a huge part of creating brand identity.
How did that story unfold online and how did you shift messaging, even if you did shift messaging, to connect with the folks who are connecting with you online?
Yeah, I mean, I think it all really just, frankly, arises, arose from Vanessa and I's lived identities and experiences as first-gen Vietnamese Americans and Daughters of Refugees.
We built this brand to become the brand that I think her and I have always wanted as children, one that proudly and loudly centers Asian America first.
And so once we had that kind of North Star in our mission and our ethos, it became really easy to be like, okay, well, what would we want to see?
And how can we build product, packaging, content, brands?
Everything kind of flowed from that.
And it was really helpful to have that North Star of like, we of course will always first and foremost center Asian Americans as our heart.
That doesn't mean that we're exclusionary.
That doesn't mean that we only speak to this community, but it does mean that we have clarity around who is our anchor in many ways as a brand.
And I think some advice that I got very early on as we were building Omsom is like, I think a lot of brands in this space perhaps have not resonated as strongly because they've tried to be for everyone.
And a brand that tried to be for everyone, and I think when you're for everyone, someone told me this, like if you're for everyone as a brand, you're for no one.
And so Vanessa and I became really clear around, okay, like we know who we are first and foremost, and we're gonna build out from there, but we need to honor and celebrate that community kind of first and foremost.
What we believed, you know, back in 2020, when we launched and into the future, is that being existing and centering a certain community, and for us, that was first and second generation Asian Americans, doesn't make you less interesting to other audiences.
In fact, it makes you fresh and maybe just the right amount of challenging, maybe just the right amount of surprise and delight.
And I think we leaned into that, and we're pretty early, and I think that perspective, and so we're really glad that we live out who we are in that way and what the brand stands for in that way.
Who does such a great opportunity to be somewhere else and try something new without leaving your home, and the fact that you give people that end of it as well, the storytelling and a better understanding of what's behind the package and what's behind the sauce.
It's great.
It makes so much sense.
So let's get into some of the nitty gritty of your online strategy.
What channels did you invest in and what did you not invest in?
And this is sort of aimed to help folks who are working in this space and trying to figure out how to make the most of their dollars.
What are your thoughts on paid ads, influencer marketing, organic?
What did you find worked for you?
For us, it was very important to have a longer-term strategy and have our initial kind of go-to-market and launch flow down from that.
And so because we had this plan and strategy of first focusing on building a deeply resonant community and a brand that cut through the noise and had national brand awareness to parlay that into retail opportunities, that allowed us to kind of be very clear that what would enable that would be really focusing on community and brand and service of long-term value creation.
And so our strategy from there was much more focused, therefore, on organic growth and then other means of growth that weren't paid initially, like influencer, affiliate, and paid ads we didn't touch for really meaningfully for the first at least year of our journey, because we wanted the first connections we had as we were entering consumers' minds and lives to be meaningful ones where they actually got to learn our story and not like a transactional one right out of the gate.
So that was really our focus for the first year.
And then from there, when we did finally bring in ads to be a part of the mix, it was kind of a strategically meant to be an additional touch point, not really the first touch point.
And so that's really how we've thought about it.
One thing I might just add there is that I think that worked for us in a very specific time.
I think what's great and maybe not so great about D2C as a channel in general is that gone are the days of like the playbook, you know?
And so you really have to kind of map your channel strategy to like your larger distribution strategy and work almost like backwards from that.
That makes perfect sense.
Yeah, I mean, the organic growth you saw was so phenomenal.
Do you attribute some of the partnerships that you had to actually develop the sauces with folks like Pepper Teigen?
Did you see those as being helpful and almost like an influencer partnership from the Gecko?
It's kind of interesting.
So, you know, our tastemakers, so for those of y'all who don't know, our tastemakers are the chefs that we partner with to develop all of our products.
That model was built into our business since day one because Vanessa and I knew that it was really important to us that, yes, we are Vietnamese-American, but we can't report to tell you how to eat Korean food, and so we need to involve folks of these backgrounds every step of the way.
So that's kind of how our tastemaker partnership formed.
And so we work with some of, I think, the most iconic Asian chefs in the nation, really kind of redefining third culture Asian-American cuisine.
And so initially when Vanessa and I launched Omsom, we were like, oh, it's their story.
Like, we are the platform in a way for these chefs to kind of venture into having physical products in folks' kitchens.
Interestingly, what we learned within the first couple months of launching is that that story actually didn't hit necessarily as hard as we thought it was going to.
What we actually found is that folks were way more interested in journalists, consumers, et cetera.
They were way more interested in our story, interestingly, as founders and our perspective as first-gen Vietnamese Americans and how we kind of thought this larger moment was happening on a national level around the reclamation of identity and of culture and of power, frankly, from communities of color.
And so, you know, absolutely our chefs are integral to our story.
They're integral to why our products, I think, taste as damn delicious as they do.
But interestingly, weren't really the kind of launch pad, I guess, publicity-wise, that we thought initially they would be.
So interesting.
Until you put something out in the world, you don't really know how it's going to be received, and you have to roll with what is being received to keep moving forward.
So that makes perfect sense.
On that note, I know that the sauces have changed since the launch into retail.
Can you talk a little bit about what you learned from your core consumers that were interacting with you online about whether it was the ingredients or the packaging or the SKUs even?
What did you learn about the product by focusing on D to C that helped shape the products the way we see them today?
So yeah, our products actually from a formulation and flavors perspective, they haven't changed.
We've maybe had to do like some tweaks.
For example, we had to go non-GMO.
When we went retail, that was one thing.
But besides that, really the flavors are true to what they've always been.
But certainly the packaging has evolved meaningfully.
And that was actually very, very intentional in that on direct to consumer, we knew that again, with the real estate of your website, you have so much space to tell that story.
Our product page tells this robust story of what went into the product, who's the chef that we partner with.
But once we went to retail, we knew that that had to kind of shrink and it had to make sense on the shelf.
So what do you see?
We had the luxury of leaning into making the product as beautiful as possible, telling the brand story in a way that had not really been done before.
You can barely kind of tell what the product is when you are holding it in your hand, which was what made it so shareable and what made it so fresh.
But unfortunately with retail, we definitely had to take some kind of evolution there.
And we certainly heard from our community in that.
We did some consumer testing focus groups to inform that.
And ultimately that's what led to the product that's on the shelf today.
And so every piece of messaging that's on there was definitely pressure tested.
Do I think we got it perfect the first time?
I don't think so.
I'm sure it will evolve into the future.
But that was the process that went into it.
D2C for us has always been a great way to get more information and feedback, but largely the flavors have just really resonated.
So we haven't actually evolved the flavor since we've launched.
Hit it right the first time.
Well done.
On some elements, not all.
How did you decide which SKUs to go to retail with?
Was that a buyer decision or was that your decision?
Our products largely sell at around the same rate online.
There's a couple that move a little bit slower than others, but we essentially just took the top four and brought them to market.
And online, they were all moving right around the same pace.
So it wasn't too hard of a decision.
And so after spending so much time in D2C and perfecting that channel, what was the impetus for deciding that it was time to go into retail?
I know, and I'll ask you to tell this in a second, but I know you have a great story around how you interfaced with the Whole Foods buyer and how you got that meeting.
But did you make a conscious decision before embarking upon retail that it was time?
Yes, we did.
Yeah.
So, I mean, as we mentioned in terms of our kind of go-to-market, we have always seen retail as a place that, you know, Omsom would really scale and become more of that household name.
Being Omnichannel was a part of the vision from the earliest days.
It was just a matter of when.
And so we basically were heads down focused on building the brand and the community online and waiting until there was some movement in retail that would signal to us that there was interest.
That was definitely a big part of it.
I would say it wasn't the most intentional.
We were just waiting to see when would be the right time and when we would get some sign that would tell us we should make moves.
And we were lucky enough to be able to get an initial introduction to one of the buyers at Whole Foods from one of our mentors.
And then from there, we certainly had to hustle it across multiple dimensions.
On one hand, certainly with that buyer, just because we got the initial introduction doesn't mean it's going to work out from there.
And then the next piece, of course, was around getting our supply chain ready for national distribution.
So between those two things, that certainly took us some time.
And in hindsight, I'm like, oh, I wish I moved faster.
But actually, there's really no point in kind of looking backwards in that way.
I feel like everything worked out, and we're really grateful to have that kind of national presence and partnership with Whole Foods.
Do you want to tell folks the crazy story of how...
Yeah, oh my gosh.
We want to hear the crazy story, for sure.
We definitely still have some hustle at us.
And I had my...
Ever since we got that initial introduction, I really had my eyes set on building that relationship and having Whole Foods be our first partner to bring Omsom into retail.
But as you know, buyers get busy, and Amazon acquisitions happen, and personnel changes happen, right?
There's a lot of things that are not within your control.
And so after some time of just some back and forth, but not getting a meeting on the calendar, we decided to do something a little sneaky, which was to tell the Whole Foods buyer that we were going to be in Austin.
I was going to be in Austin.
And shouldn't we meet up?
Because I would just happen to be there.
And I got some signal, but no confirmation, and I just went out there.
And day of still had not gotten confirmation that we were going to meet when I was in Austin.
But regardless, we had to plan like we were.
So we got in touch with the local sous chef.
We were cooking all of our products all day.
And meanwhile, I was in her inbox, in her assistant buyer's inbox.
And eventually, the assistant buyer was able to help get in touch with her, make something happen.
And she said, let's grab dinner tonight.
And I was like, yes, let's do it.
So I came with a massive tote bag with every single one of our products cooked in Tupperware, which I brought to a restaurant.
And we had dinner together.
And that was the beginning of the incredible partnership that we do have, but it certainly did not come easily.
It was like, if y'all have ever seen like a duck, you know, where the duck on the surface is really calm and underneath its legs are like flailing.
That was the energy of like, I remember when Vanessa was like, I'm going to be okay, I'm just going to do it.
And then I hopped on Instagram and was like, does anyone know anyone in Austin who can help us cook like six dishes?
And we found like a friend of a friend who came to Vanessa's Airbnb to cook.
It was a really reminder, I think, of just, yeah, sometimes you got to like, you just got to try and do something kind of hacky a little.
I love that analogy.
I think that so many entrepreneurs feel like a duck with a calm face and peddling feet.
So that's great stuff.
I do want to let our audience know that if you have any questions for Omsom, these folks know what they're doing and they have some serious wisdom to share.
So please go ahead and throw any questions that you have in the chat, or you can join us live by raising your hand and turning on your video.
So any questions you have, we are here to answer.
Let's see here.
And what was most compelling to that buyer, whether it was at that dinner or later on?
Sometimes you're pitching and you see the other person's eyes light up and you know what's resonating with them.
Were there any moments like that where you knew that you would hit the nail on the head and that you were saying something that she was really wanting to hear?
I found that in our conversations with buyers that they're on, you know, calls are in meetings.
There's not really any, you know, trick or like, you know, I think like thing that you can say that will make it happen for you.
I have been surprised to see that they actually really watch us day in and day out from the outside and watch our community and go on our website and read our, like watch our interviews.
Like that is the level of engagement that we've been seeing from buyers and they will point to pieces of content that we put out in the world or reviews that they've read.
So that helps in some sense because it takes a little bit of the pressure off me when I'm in those meetings with them.
But certainly I think they do love to hear about how we approach brand and community.
That has been something that's been really interesting to them.
I think specifically when it comes to our category, a lot of the buyers are being tasked with bringing newness, with bringing freshness and like brands that actually are doing something that is honoring these communities.
And so we live that out kind of every day and that's really what they've pointed to in a lot of the conversations that we've had.
That's a great Whole Foods story.
And then for Target, remind me again how that came about.
It's a completely different story there, isn't it?
Yes, it was shocking.
The buyer there actually cold-messaged Kim and myself on LinkedIn separately, and we are so bad at LinkedIn messages.
We didn't respond for like weeks, and even Kim was screen-shotted.
It was like, wait, are you going to answer this?
Am I going to answer this?
Which ended up turning into obviously something really amazing.
So we were honored to see that.
And I'm curious, from there, how is pitching target different from pitching Whole Foods, or was it pretty much the same?
It was definitely different.
I think with Whole Foods, there was a lot of movement happening internally, and so we did have some changes in the folks that we were speaking to, and there was a little bit more of, I would say, navigation around the org of like, okay, there's this person, there's that person.
How do they work together?
Who's the decision maker?
I wasn't totally clear.
Now we have a lot more clarity, but during the pitching process, it was definitely less clear.
Versus with target, it was just the one person that we were speaking with.
It was the buyer in our category.
But overall, we had very positive experiences working with them, kind of selling in and now sustaining that partnership.
Okay, so now you've pitched, you've landed.
Kelly from Karma Water would like to know, was there anything that surprised you or that was unexpected, good or bad, when you actually launched at retail?
I mean, so, so much.
I mean, everything was a surprise.
It was like a whole new channel for us.
It was, it's night and day from direct to consumer.
I mean, one of the things that shocked me was this idea of like how long it takes for execution.
Like, what does that even mean?
Like it literally means how long does it take for your product to get on shelf?
And like what I thought was just like, oh, one day you launch and you're there.
Like on D2C you launch and like you're available on your website.
With retail, it can take weeks.
And you don't have full visibility on where your product's on shelf versus where it's not.
And you have to like try to back into it, looking at data to see where is it not getting purchased, which means it's probably not on shelf.
I just had no idea that there was that much like obscurity and like literally is your product on shelf.
That was one of the things.
And then the second piece is just around merchandising and how hard that is for brands, and especially on a national scale, like how costly it is to invest in merchandising and make that happen.
It was shocking to me.
And then without it just being like, oh, I just, I guess I have to accept that like in a number of stores, my product, I have no idea what my product looks like on the shelf, if it's visible to shoppers.
It's certainly like a thornier game, I think in some ways than direct to consumer.
So those were a lot of the big surprises.
The positive ones were, I think just seeing our community out in the world, like snapping photos of our product, they in a sense, in effect were being merchandisers for us.
Like we had so many community members being like, oh, I like fixed your product or like, look, this is what it looks like in the store.
I just wanted to send it to you.
So that's been just like so heartening.
So you've seen a huge buy-in from your online audience into retail.
And I'm sure that's always the hope from the retailer's end that this strong presence you've built online will lead to purchases in store.
And it sounds like that's absolutely happened.
Yeah.
I mean, Kim, you can speak to the campaigns that you've done online to announce, you know, our presence and retail URL to IRL, I think was such an incredible piece of work that you did, that you and the team did.
Yeah.
So when we launched into Whole Foods, we weren't really sure how to kind of bridge that gap of like, okay, we're a brand that you love on Instagram.
How do we get you into the store and how do we get you to purchase?
And so I think I just honestly returned to what are Omsom's values, and one of them is really this kind of heart forward, rather, I think, vulnerable approach to business building.
Like Vanessa and I are really open to the world about who we are, what we stand for, and I felt like this kind of inflection point for our business would be no different.
And so we launched a video series called From URL to IRL, and it's all about how that small woman of color led brand would move from D to C to retail.
And it went through and kind of like opened the curtain into what that process looks like.
So we talked about going non-GMO.
We talked about how we had to reformat our packaging.
We talked about how, you know, Vanessa got that meeting with the buyer in Austin.
And again, it was just kind of like, let's just make some fun content.
Hopefully this will let people feel closer to us.
But what it actually ended up doing is it made people feel, our consumers, felt like they were a part of our journey as well.
And I can't help but think, but that also probably led to them feeling a certain sense of ownership as well in terms of, you know, if I go to Whole Foods and the caddy's a little wonky, maybe I'll fix it because I've been along for the journey.
And it did super well.
It went viral a handful of times.
And it was just, for me, such a testament to if you open, you know, yourselves and your heart to your community, I think a lot of times you're super receptive.
And so, yeah, it was really fun.
And honestly, I'm like, I want to make more episodes.
Well, we will be waiting for those and watching.
Let's see here.
We have a question from Sarah Westbrook.
How different was the onboarding with Whole Foods Market versus Target?
I know that Whole Foods was probably a little bit rocky due to all of the changes that were happening over there, but any other notable differences between launching at Whole Foods and launching at Target?
I would say it's interesting for us.
One of the bigger differences is that Target, strategically right now, is taking a close look at their grocery business and making a lot of changes in service of driving that business forward because they see opportunity to make it a more meaningful part of the Target experience and therefore have customers come in more frequently if they shop at grocery with Target.
That flows down to what it's like to be a brand working with them where they're making a very intentional effort to refresh our categories and the grocery section of the store.
They actually see us as thought partners, in a sense, around how they can do that, and that's been a really awesome part of that partnership.
Our meetings with them are not only just about Omsom, but we talk about the quote-unquote ethnic aisle, and we talk about the vision for this part of the store and what can it be, how can we change it and make it something that our communities are proud of.
So I've really appreciated that.
Whole Foods has actually initiated conversations like that, too, but certainly with Target, it has been front and center in all the interactions we've had with them.
In order to support both of those launches, I know you talked a little bit about merchandising.
What will be your strategy in order to support the launches, to make sure that the product's on the shelves?
Is there a demo plan?
What's the follow-up support that you have lined up?
Yeah, oh my gosh.
I wish I had all the budget in the world to do all of them.
We certainly do plan to do a little bit of the full mix and work more in the test and learn phase around them than like a true national rollout.
So definitely taking a regional lens.
We have seen incredible lift with both promotions as well as demo and field marketing.
So that's very exciting to see.
We would love to do more of it, but we're just being thoughtful about when and how and with what partners because let me tell you, we have done demos with certain partners and they have not happened.
And when they have happened, sometimes they're not according to our standards.
I am certainly the founder that is sneaking around thinking around Whole Foods Bowery watching you.
I've done the same thing, and you would not be surprised by what you see when you sneak in to do demoing.
Yes, I have seen.
I walk away and immediately they take off the Omsom swag, and just things like that.
So definitely leaning into figuring out how best we can execute on some of those opportunities, but absolutely that is in the plan and test and learning first to figure out what the right mix is.
Smart.
We have a question from Mitch.
And by the way, we're getting all kinds of comments, just applauding everything you all are doing, of course.
So Mitch has a question about how did you think about packaging and potentially repackaging to educate your consumers?
So going from D to C to retail, I know that you underwent a brand refresh.
Are there any notable changes that took place during that transition to speak specifically to the consumers who are finding you at retail?
Yeah, we actually first, we actually have two episodes on this from URL to IRL.
That's probably a more visual way that I walk through the kind of changes in the packaging.
But basically, yeah, obviously with D to C, you have so much digital real estate to be able to tell your story as a brand, brand colors, social presence.
And we realize like, you know, when it comes to retail on the shelf, when you have literally seconds to capture someone's attention and communicate what your product does, we had a, you know, an uphill battle.
And so we did, like Vanessa said, a ton of focus groups, learned a ton from our community, and we basically realized, I'd say, like a handful of main things that were important for us to consider with the new packaging.
One is how can we communicate like use case and literally how to use our rip and pour sauces.
And so that meant putting a recipe on the back.
That meant including a QR code in the front to scan for more recipes.
That meant outlining potential ways to use a product as like a marinade, a dressing, a glaze, et cetera, pairings of what to potentially cook it with of like ground meat versus seafood.
Like we really had to get a little bit more, I think, instructional than we definitely do on our DTC packaging, which is absolutely optimized for beautiful Instagram eye candy.
And then the second thing I would say also is that like, we interestingly learned that when we kind of showed new consumers, net new consumers, our DTC packaging, a lot of them were like, okay, cool, this is like a trendy brand that's trying to leverage Asian flavors and Asian communities as a trend.
And like, this is not legit, this is not authentic.
And that was so surprising to us.
And so we just literally did a mock up of the package, same exact packaging, but with photos of Vanessa and an eye on the front.
And that like fundamentally changed folks' perception of the kind of perceived authenticity of our product.
And so I think that showed Vanessa and I that, people absolutely care what's in their food, but I think people also really, really freaking care about who's behind their food.
So that was like kind of an interesting choice that we also made in our packaging.
And then lastly, I think it was just really important for us to preserve Omsom's heart.
At the end of the day, Omsom means rowdy in Vietnamese.
How do we capture that same sort of rowdy a little in your face OTT energy, but on a little caddy in a little packets in a caddy on the shelf.
And so there was constantly like a balancing act between like how can we continue to commit to our heart as a brand really design centric, very digital first, while still making sure it's usable as a product to someone just grabbing it, who's net new off the shelf.
It sounds like you're doing a lot of testing as you're evolving the brand.
Do you typically use your...
Who are you using for the insights?
Are you using market research?
Are you tapping your online audience?
How are you getting feedback for the folks who are using your product out in the world?
We've done a mix of all of them.
We don't do any formal market research, I would say.
We've tapped our community a bunch.
We've done surveys.
We've done phone interviews, sent product, gotten feedback, and then we've also made sure to do research with folks that aren't familiar with Omsom as well, and those are mostly in the form of focus groups.
That just seems like the right amount to bite off for us as a brand.
I'm sure one day when we're larger, we'll do something more at scale and more formal, but it's often more qualitative or surveys.
Also use Instagram stories.
The polling function on Instagram is a really great way to get you a ton of insights really quickly.
Obviously, it's within your existing community, but we have used Instagram stories to inform things like changes to our recipe cards.
We've used to inform even color choices, logo choices.
We've just found that bringing people in really helps people feel like they're along for the ride.
It doesn't get any more inexpensive or easy than that.
All right, I know we are running out of time here.
Just one last question on the retail front.
What are your next dream retailers?
Landing Target and Whole Foods is amazing.
Who do you have set in your sights next?
I mean, just I think the places that we shop, you know, make a ton of sense, but down the road, I mean, I would love to see Omsom everywhere and, you know, across the country, certainly.
But next, I would love to see us in like Wegmans or Sprouts.
I think that would be really fun.
I just moved to Dumbo, which is right near the Wegmans in the Navy shipyard, which is like so beautiful.
So that would be really cool.
So, you know, we'll manifest that, put that out into the world.
I'm also going to manifest Stop and Shop because that's where Vanessa and I group south of Boston.
So Stop and Shop was like our chain.
I would go there as well since we're in the Boston area.
I will meet you at Stop and Shop.
Okay, I have one last question from Mike.
How were you so calm during the whole SVB collapse?
You know, you both did such a great job of keeping us all up to date and including that story, which so many other people were experiencing in the content that you were producing.
And, you know, even that's such a great way to build community.
But how could you even get your heads together to do that?
We were not calm.
It was a lot of like absolutely frantic calls to one another.
If you go on our Instagram, you can see literally Vanessa and I like swearing and slack at each other like, holy shit, what's going down?
But again, I think like in tough times, we just return to our values, return to our roots, which is like we have always been a company that builds in the light.
Like we really want to show folks who we are, what we stand for every step of the way, good times and bad times.
And so it honestly was centering and grounding in so many ways because it allowed us to be like, okay, yes, we can freak out and we are freaking out and our team is working literally 24-7 through the weekend.
And what would it look like for us to be radically transparent with our community and show them what happens when large institutions like play around up here is a lot of the folks at the bottom end up getting jerked around.
And so, yeah, we just, we return to our heart in many ways, and we had no idea obviously it was going to get kind of the reception it did.
We honestly just wanted to be honest with folks and also potentially be like, hey, we got to move on XYZ thing to help us.
Thankfully, we didn't have to, and thankfully all of our money was returned.
But yeah, it was really scary, but in many ways enlightening and centering.
One last question we are talking about next.
What's the next phase of Omsom?
Are you working on anything that we should know about or be thinking about?
Beyond the lookout, we are dropping our first ever new product in a really, really long time, in May.
So that's what our team is hard at work at.
That's why Vanessa and I look so tired.
It's because we're working on something really exciting.
It's kind of an extension of the world that we already live in.
It's going to be saucy.
It's going to be really delicious.
And we're just excited to show folks a new way to experience proud and loud Asian flavors.
We're so excited and we can't wait to hear more.
Thank you both so much.
It was such a pleasure to have you on Community Call.
You know, what you've done is so inspiring.
And, you know, our audience, I'm sure, as well as all of us here at BevNET and NOSH, are so impressed and we're cheering you on from here.
The best way to get in touch with both of you, would that be LinkedIn?
I think we are not great at LinkedIn.
Oh, yeah, of course.
No, it's definitely not LinkedIn.
Instagram, we're kind of more responsive on Instagram, maybe.
FamSisters.Omsom is another email that we are at.
famsisters.omsom.com.
All right, no LinkedIn.
Hit them up on Instagram, please.
Kim Pham and Vanessa Pham, such delight.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
For everybody, we will make a tape recording of this call available at bevnet.com/communitycall.
And thank you so much for joining us today.
Thanks, y'all.
Thanks, everyone.
So much fun.
Bye.
