Beck: Hey everybody. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, or whatever time you happen to be chiming in. It's Michael Beck and the ChatGTM podcast coming to you live here from Tampa, Florida. And today is a little bit of a different day. Normally I'm here with my co host partner in business, Mr. Chad Horn. He is out doing some dadly stuff today. But that doesn't mean we're not going to have an amazing show because today is actually one of the guests that I'm really excited to talk about because we have a client. We've been blessed to work with for a while called Creative Realities. Creative Realities make some amazing, amazing digital signage and things that really create creepability for people to help them knit to that moment when you're feeling a little bit thirsty, but then you look up and you see that cup with the sparkling dew dripping down the side. And all of a sudden you are now being motivated to do something that you might not have done in that moment. And so today we're talking about how the best experiences have a way of finding us. Sometimes they catch our eyes from across the room, other times they command our full attention, but the ones that stay with us do something more. They spark our curiosity, stir emotion, tempt our taste buds, and create connections that linger long after the moment is passed. In fact, they turn a passing glance into a lasting impression and a single experience into something we want to repeat. And that is the power of credibility. At creative realities, technology and imagination come together to turn digital touch points into human experiences. From the signage we notice in passing to the immersive moments that stop us in our tracks. The opportunity is the same. Make every interaction feel personal, memorable, and compelling enough to bring us back. Today, Jackie Walker, the CXO at Creative Realities, well, let me not make it so abrupt, the chief experience officer at Creative A Realities, is joining us ahead of her keynote at the upcoming Prosper Accelerate Conference to explore the art and science of cravability. How experiences influence what we notice, feel and desire, and why the most powerful connections between people and brands often begin with something as simple as a glance. Jackie, welcome to the Chat GTM podcast. Fanfare.
Jackie: So excited to be here.
Beck: I'm so excited to have you here. We've done a little bit of negotiating back and forth to get the timing down. So especially wanted to thank you for joining us right before you have to hop on well, it's not tomorrow, but in it with Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm actually the one that's hopping on the road tomorrow. I'm going to Napa.
Jackie: I have time. I have time back.
Beck: So anyway, so how you doing today, Jackie?
Jackie: I'm doing fantastic. How about yourself?
Beck: I am really, really good. Like I said, I get to go to Napa tomorrow, see some wine country, some golden hours. I don't drink, so at least I get to watch people other people having a good time. so so Jackie, before we get going into this, tell me a little bit about yourself. I mean, yeah, people can look you up on LinkedIn, right? But you're it's funny, I can't remember who I had this conversation with last, but you you do have a lot of layers to you. When we when we first talked, I was like, wow, she's deep. And and in fact Walt Disney was famous for a quote that said, If you wanna be CEO of Disneyland you have to work every job in the park.
Jackie: Absolutely.
Beck: You've kinda worked every job in the park and you're marching merrily toward toward that spot, I think. Yeah. Yeah.
Jackie: Absolutely worked every job in the park for sure. so I joined Creative Realities about six months ago.
Beck: Uh-huh.
Jackie: Prior to being at Creative Realities, I spent 17 years at Publisha Sapient, which sounds like a really long time doing one job, but I always reminded people that I actually did a lot of different jobs and played a lot of different roles and kind of constantly reinvented myself while I was there. So you're right. I started out you know, as a functional analyst. I was writing business requirements for software products that we were building. I worked on an omnichannel platform back before anyone knew. How to spell omnichannel.
Beck: Ha ha.
Jackie: So we were kind of making things up as we as we went along. And had the privilege to work on websites, mobile apps, all you know, all of that stuff, really understanding how to create a holistic digital experience. And then we said, let's do signage, right? And how would we do signage knowing that we have all of the capabilities that we have today, like digital capabilities that we take for granted? And so we ended up actually building from The ground up a digital signage platform, which I worked very closely with on our engine with our engineering team in India, and ended up running that as a managed service for about 10 years, which was quite interesting. Worked with a range of clients in different industries, spent a lot of time thinking about data-driven signage, right? How do you actually curate an experience? Thinking about
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: data and analytics, right? How from the beginning, how do you think about as a brand how you show up to your customers in digital, you know, typical digital channels, web and mobile, how do you show up in signage and then how do you actually bring those two together? So I spent a
Beck: Right.
Jackie: lot of time actually working on just that problem, right? How do you create a kind of parallel world for analytics to to digital? And then I ended up going on this like great fantastic tour of duty in QSR. I got to work with seven of the 10 largest QSRs in the country working on their digital experience strategy and specifically digital menu board strategy. So a lot of time, a lot of iterations, you know, I've seen burgers, I've done coffee, I've done tacos, I've done chicken, like so kind
Beck: Right.
Jackie: of the full breadth of experiences that you can have in the QSR space. know, learned learned a lot along the way. I also spent a few years at Sapien as the retail experience strategy lead for North America. So really working
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: across our entire retail portfolio. So in addition to the work in QSR and Menu, I kind of broadened my horizons to really cover retail media networks, particularly in store retail media networks. How do customers think about monetized content in the in the kind of context of the store experience? Experience and then broader digital experience strategy as well, right? So how do you actually land the plane on digital in a physical retail environment?
Beck: Hmm. Yeah. Well that
Jackie: so that gives me a lot of breath when it comes to things like loyalty programs and you know advanced merchandising, even agentic retail. So I'm kinda thinking about how all of those things come together as part of my day-to-day approach. So I've done it all back, did it all, seen it.
Beck: well, it sounds like you're perfect for where you are because CRI doesn't just serve QSR. Right? Where
Jackie: That's exactly right.
Beck: are the places that you guys play?
Jackie: That's exactly right. So we do we do a lot of work in QSR, we do a lot of work in retail, both in traditional retail and in retail media networks. We are one
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: of the few signage companies in the country that has a you know full ad tech stack in addition to having the content management. So that's all integrated and pulled together, which is very exciting for me as a in-store RMN nerd. we also serve lottery, which is kind of interesting. So how of lotteries show up in convenience.
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: Work with convenience stores as well as a sector, retail banking, a ton of work in stadiums, which is fun for that like F and B crossover, right? Thinking about
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: menu experience in a stadium, which is you know, a different customer mindset. who am I forgetting? And a lot in malls and real estate. So we have a pretty broad portfolio,
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: working with you know a lot of different types of brands, solving different problems. But I think fundamentally it all comes back to the same thing, which is how do They deliver value to their customers and their brand in their physical space? Like that's that's
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: what it's all about at the end of the day.
Beck: Yeah. so thinking about that and and and your role in customer experience, right? And we talk a lot about customer experience, engagement, loyalty. but cravability feels like something deeper. Like we're talking about restaurants. What makes an experience truly cravable and how do you know when you've hit it or when you've created one?
Jackie: Yeah, it's a great question. I think there's you know, there's so much science to menus and science to food merchandising. I mean, we just think about the insiders know how much work goes into food photography, right? So that is not a picture of that burger.
Beck: Yeah, yeah. No. No. Nor would we probably want to eat that particular burger they took the picture of. Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: don't want to eat that one. As much as we want the one that they serve us to look like the one in the picture, we don't actually want to eat the one in the picture. 100%.
Beck: Right.
Jackie: But a lot of it is also about, you know, the contextuality of the experience. How do you make sure that you're bringing together the right content at the right time for the right customer with the right treatment to really make it shine and make it connect?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: Right. So it what's interesting is like, you know, cravability in the abstract is is really quite simple, right? It's it's does this look delicious? Does this look compelling? Do I want to actually like add this on to my meal or change my plan from what I was going to order to actually order this new thing. But I think what makes it magical is when you're getting not only beautiful content, but beautiful content that belongs. Like
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: that's that's the secret sauce.
Beck: Right. You and I were talking about the wrong content on a screen near the deli versus where it belonged or what the actual motivate motivating factor was of that that content could be there, but it has to be contextual to drive
Jackie: Hundred percent.
Beck: it, right? So let's talk a little bit about that.
Jackie: Absolutely. So one of the things that I've been able to do in my career is customer research, right? And really think about how customers understand content, how they relate to content. We did some research for one of the largest big box retailers in the country, and it was specifically looking at this exact problem, right? So I want to show monetized content on screens. what am I allowed to get away with with customers, right? What will customers embrace? And when will customers feel like I'm showing them something that doesn't doesn't belong here or is not for them, right? And so we actually tested the limits of, you know, if I put this type of content on a screen in the TV department, right, how is a customer gonna react to it? How are they gonna react to like a Cheerios ad? Right? or how are they gonna react to selling blankets on the screens in the pharmacy? Right. And what we found that was exactly right, what we found,
Beck: Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: and this was a an expression I I coined at the time, which I continue to use, like content must declare its own contextuality, right? So
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: the content, you can't just put it out there and think like maybe it's two or three steps removed, but a customer's gonna get it. They're
Beck: Right.
Jackie: not. You're asking. them to do the work for you, right? Your job
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: as the brand or the agency who's working on behalf of the brand is actually to create that connection in a way for a customer that it like bops them right on the head and they get it, right? So I'll use the pharmacy example, right? Blanket, I don't get it. Why are you merchandising blankets? Okay, what if it's a Campbell soup ad and the ad is about being sick? I'm standing, I'm in the pharmacy, right? And I'm watching this ad about being sick and you know You have like the thermometer and the blanket wrapped
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: around and it's like, you know, not feeling well. Campbell's. Well, now I declared my c contextuality. People who know me and have heard me talk about this a lot will the the deli example is a great one. a tide ad in the deli, right? Okay, how do I get away with a tide ad in the deli? If I just show a bottle of tide, a customer is, you know, in WTF territory, frankly, right? Like I'm I'm ordering a sandwich.
Beck: Yeah. Good for you, it's an ad. Yeah. Yeah.
Jackie: What why, right? But imagine if the ad is a customer, you know, somebody an a human. I don't know why I said customer. Why is it a customer? A person,
Beck: Ha ha.
Jackie: an actual person, biting into a sandwich and mustard squirts out of the sandwich and goes on their white button shirt, right?
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: And then it's tied, right? Now I get it. I'm at the deli, I'm sandwiched meat, it all like it all connects and pulls through,
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: right? Now all of a sudden I have permission to show that ad in that place. So I think doing the extra work to make the story connect for the customer is a key piece of the puzzle.
Beck: I love the idea that the powerful experiences connect with us on multiple levels, like you're saying there, our hearts, our minds, our senses, our app and our appetites. There's probably a line there though, like how do brands intentionally create those emotional and sensory connections without kicking off the radar and making those experiences feel manufactured, or to where it'll have the opposite response.
Jackie: Yeah. So one part of the puzzle is actually a little bit counterintuitive, right? I think some people have gotten excited about the idea that I can detect a customer and I know who they are. So now I can show the content that's for Beck, right? Exactly like creepy, right? Right. So
Beck: Yeah, I don't know how feel about that yet. But yeah, we're marching in that direction though.
Jackie: There's some of that, right? But I think it's really, really important to keep in mind like where you are, right? So be cognizant. Are you in a one-to-one channel with a customer? You're in a one-to-one interaction. I'm talking a
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: beck and I'm only talking a back. You're in your car ordering at the drive-thru. If I know who you are because you checked in, cool. I have permission, right? That's not weird
Beck: Right, right, right.
Jackie: anymore. It actually could be really helpful and beneficial.
Beck: Right, tied to my loyalty, the things I like, the things I buy, it's help helping to serve me up. Yeah.
Jackie: Exactly. Exactly. What coupon can I use? Like all the right? That's beautiful. If I'm walking down an aisle, you know, I'm walking down the cereal aisle in a grocery store and all of a sudden the content magically changes because it knows that I'm a, you know, customer with a propensity to buy crackling oat brand and I haven't in six weeks, that's a different thing.
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: Hey Jackie, get your crackle on, right? Like, that's not a thing. Like, don't do that. It's a one-to-many channel. In food
Beck: Right.
Jackie: service, this is really, really simple, right? Like if you're in the store, if you're at the front counter, you're in a one-to-many situation. Like the stuff
Beck: Yes.
Jackie: that's on that menu board should be for everyone, right? The stuff that's on the drive-thru, that is for one person. So having that clear kind of line of of demarcation about the types of experiences that are gonna resonate. That's really important, right? Just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should do it always. Right? Restraint is important.
Beck: Yes. Right. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Jackie: But the other piece is just making sure that the content is fit for purpose for the place it's going to be. That's one of the things we work with a lot of brands on is how do you make the content resonate in the actual moment that you're in? So intuitively, if I'm creating an LTO for a drive-thru screen, I'm not gonna create a 30-second piece of media because the customer is not looking for 30 seconds, they're looking at that for two seconds to decide whether that's enough you know does it resonate
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: enough to disrupt what I was gonna order if I wasn't already coming for that item right if I'm at the front counter then maybe I want to do a 15 second video that is you know the pouring or the dripping or the sizzling
Beck: Right.
Jackie: right like I have I can do that because the customer has time to understand and appreciate it. So that applies across everywhere right like
Beck: And it benefits everybody behind me in line too, 'cause they all might be having those same moments that they're thinking about and what's gonna move them to that thing that we're trying to move swell, right?
Jackie: Exactly right. That is exactly right.
Beck: and I do want to get into what you're gonna talk about at Prosper. These are some geeky questions I had before we got on this call. And and one of one of the things, Jackie, and I think a lot of people in hospitality will agree, and I hope this doesn't offend anybody. It feels the the truth is is that retail leads with tech initiatives, right? They'll in fact it probably goes the the workflow of CES where they start thinking about it, retail
Jackie: Yep.
Beck: where they start using it, and then maybe five, ten years later we start seeing it show up. Maybe not that bad, but in in hospitality, right?
Jackie: Yeah.
Beck: and we have, you know, some million restaurants across the country. Half of them are are are private, right? And and of those private and and the brands that are out there, somebody might be saying, Well, I have a sign. It's got my menu on it. I don't need to spend money to to to do what I've already done. What would you say to them? Because I I I know what the answer should be, but I want to hear it from you.
Jackie: I have so many things to say to this imaginary person.
Beck: Shake them. Yes. And what's the lift? You know, if if it's done right.
Jackie: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so number one, right? A lot of brands are using their menu just to show customers what they sell. What they're not doing is using their menus to show customers what they want the customer to buy, right? And that's half of the battle. Right. I was once sitting at a table with some executives at a taco chain that most people have heard of, and we were talking about the drive-thru experience and you know, having too many things or too few things on the menu, and what if you heavily curate the menu, what will customers think? And I said, Well, I mean, think about the experiences you have as a human driving into drive-throughs, right? And the primary design problem that the brand has been trying to solve is how do I fit eighty-six items. On in this pixel dimension, right? What's the smallest font that the customer is probably going to be able to read? Right? It's a bad experience.
Beck: Right.
Jackie: It is actually by definition a bad experience, right? And so I think the brands that are actually thinking about, you know, understanding the customer, meeting them where they are, and curating the experience as such have a huge advantage, right? Now, the problem is in order for that strategy. strategy to work, you have to actually have a flexible foundation on which to deliver it. Because the right thing to show today is not necessarily the right thing to show in three weeks from now, right?
Beck: Hm.
Jackie: But if I have print boards, I do not have the luxury of actually responding, right? I think, you know, you talk about the the kind of the traditional business case for for QSR menu boards, digital menu boards, right? And it's like, okay, part of the story is gonna be print cost, part of the story is gonna be merchandising compliance, marketing compliance, right? Part of it is gonna be flexibility. Part of it is gonna be I can be responsive to cost of goods. So I can actually change my prices, right?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: Another part, thank you, COVID, is supply chain disruption, right? So since then we've been talking about my goodness, like I might actually have some real issues with getting LTOs out or, you know, having items that I think are core be part of my menu experience.
Beck: Or you stalk out in the middle of the day.
Jackie: Exactly. So how do I like how do I make that change? I don't want half of my menu to be, you know, blacked out, strike through, whatever, right? That doesn't
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: really work. So the responsiveness, but I think the other part of it that people don't think about is what are the potential tools in your toolbox that are unlocked if you take the potential seriously, right? So things like motion, right? Motion is a game changer. People are gonna look wherever you You sh tell them to look and you tell them to look there by making something move, right? So it's really, really powerful. You want to be very careful and intentional about how you use it because that's like your magic wand, right? Well, if I
Beck: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jackie: put the magic wand on everything, now I lost it, right? A customer doesn't know where to look.
Beck: Deliberate.
Jackie: Day parting is a huge thing, right? So right now, you know, a lot of restaurants are in the situation where I have a breakfast menu, I have a rest of day menu. Right? Like I can literally flip the panel.
Beck: Or or you tick off your guests when they pull up and they I'd like an egg mac or sorry, a a breakfast sandwich when you could have flipped it and had that burger ready and guided them to that non disappointing moment.
Jackie: That's exactly right. That is exactly right. So there's day parting, but then there's, you know, what are the actual potentials of day parting? Because there aren't only three or four day parts in a day, let's be real. A lot of
Beck: Right. Right.
Jackie: restaurants have a snack period where customers do have different purchasing behavior. They have an after-work period, right? They have a late night that's different.
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: If I'm in print, like sorry, but that's not even I can't even have that conversation, right?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: I can't even entertain it. When I get into digital, now I do, right? So there's the advanced digital tools, there's flexibility, but then the other piece is the ability to experiment and test and learn. And I think you know, brands are just starting to scratch the surface of that. Most brands experiment in food service the same way with their menu board as they do with Their food product, right? I'm gonna pick a market, I'm gonna run the test in that particular market, I'm gonna see how it does. If it goes well, then I'm gonna pick three other markets, I'm gonna test in those markets, I'll see how it goes, then I'm gonna work out the operational kinks, and then I'm gonna roll the food out nationally, right? It makes sense, it totally makes sense, but you can't pick up that process and say that's how I'm gonna test my digital menu board. Right? Which is in reality what a lot of brands are doing, right? They create some designs, they pick a market, they test it in a market, they wait eight to ten weeks to see how they perform. Then they question, you know, okay, this worked in Tampa, right? Is this also gonna work in Cleveland?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: I don't know, we're gonna have to go test it, right? So the cycle to move from a design to a a desired state can take a long time. Like I have seen it literally take brands a year to move from a starting point to a a new menu design that they're comfortable with because of all the steps along the way. Well that's crazy.
Beck: Feels like some would change in the middle of that process being that long and their data wouldn't be good anymore.
Jackie: Absolutely, right? It's seasonal, it's all those things. So what I really like to think about is, hey, your menu needs to be responsive and change, right? What you want customers to focus on today is not the same thing you're gonna want them to focus on three months from now. But how do you build that framework that you understand the tools in your tool chest and understand how to fit your menu? How do I change it if I'm going to add a new category, right? Or how do I change if I'm going to add a new like flagship product, right? I need to have the ability to actually do that quickly. Digital lets us do that, and then testing and learning lets us actually hone those skills. So then I have the tools in the toolbox and I know how to manufacture.
Beck: Jackie, thinking about adoption of of of of solutions like this, w what's your best guess? what's it rollout today and who's adopted digital and and what what's the white space left out there? Is everybody digital already? Is it already done or long way to go? Yeah.
Jackie: No, we're not done yet. We're not done yet. You know, I think Part of the issue is the the franchise world, right? And it it's something that is unique to food service. You don't fully appreciate it until you're on the inside of it. But
Beck: Yes.
Jackie: there is a massive difference between a brand deciding that they're gonna go do a rollout and invest and convincing a thousand franchisees that they gotta go open up their checkbook, right?
Beck: Yeah, it it's always a qu more money is is what they hear. Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: A hundred percent, right? And to go back to what we were just talking about, like what is the power of of digital and what can it drive? Well, we've said, you know, we've told the story for a long time. You install digital menu boards, you're gonna get a three percent lift, right? The part that they don't tell you is that you're gonna get a three percent lift and then it's gonna go like this, right? It's gonna go back to your baseline because the reality is customers stop caring. You get that Disney effect. This is beautiful. my word. Look.
Beck: Novelty, yeah.
Jackie: How beautiful the food looks. Look at the f I
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: can read it now, right? Like you have those those moments.
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: Customers will, this is exciting, but then it like comes back to earth, and nobody's excited when it comes back to earth because whatever ROI calculation you told the franchisee to get them to write a fifty thousand dollar check now is not working anymore, right? So it's about the experience, like it always comes back to the experience. If you want a customer to behave differently. You have to give the customer a different experience, right? So if I want to sell more product, guess what? I have to deliver an experience that's going to support customers making that decision, right?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: So I have to change the experience. That's how I can really tell the story.
Beck: So this is an ongoing discipline, not a moment in time.
Jackie: 100%. It's a performance marketing discipline. Let's
Beck: Hm.
Jackie: be really real, right? It is performance marketing. Nobody talks about it that way. That's the opportunity.
Beck: Hm. So let's let's let's take that then and and and flip it around. How does C R I help with that?
Jackie: So I lead an amazing team at CRI. It is one of the reasons that I actually, you know, made the the the big move 17 years into my career to like change my seat, right? Which is a it's a it's a little bit of a bold move, right?
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: but I have this great team. we are called Experience Intelligence, right? We are an agency consulting function that sits inside of of CRI. we bring together a unique set of Skills and craft expertise, right? So we have strategy folks, right, like myself and Amanda Starr, and like people that you've probably heard of in the industry who are leading from a strategic point of view. We also have an amazing design research capabilities, right? So we're able to do eye tracking studies, we're able to do
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: qualitative and quantitative research, right? So we can actually test things with customers in a way that makes sense for the digital experience in store. we have a design team, right, with a full suite of creative capabilities from photography all the way through production, right? and
Beck: Now was that something that existed before so you you recently you CRI acquired Cineplex Media in Canada. Was that something to flesh out those capabilities and enhance that for the business?
Jackie: Absolutely. So many of these folks were actually at Cineplex, right? there are a few people that are part of the core that are, you know, from CRI pre-acquisition, but the bulk of the headcount actually comes from that acquisition, right? So it's been one of those lovely areas where we've been able to really maximize the value of that merger so that we can take advantage of a new set of capabilities that creative realities didn't really have at scale. Now we absolutely have it at scale. The other piece that we missed is data science, right? So a lot of what I'm talking about It's experience, yeah. It's art, it's love, it's all those things, but it's also just data. Like, show me the results, man. Like, how did it do? I changed this. Did it do what I thought it was gonna do? So having data science native inside the team is an unbelievable asset, right? Most brands have insights, folks, that work for them, but Menu board is usually like, you know, all all the way down here on their list of priorities. And they're not thinking about, you know, customer experience and the relationship between customer experience and the sales data. That's what my team does every single day that ends in Y, right? So it's a it's a huge gift. So I think our
Beck: Love it.
Jackie: team is very uniquely positioned given all of the expertise we have in in strategy and and frankly a lot of Work that I've been blessed to do in my career, right? A lot of pinch me brands, a lot of great projects, AI, menu boards, like all of these things that I've been working on. then you bring like agency of record experience, right? And and really supporting the creative expression for a lot of brands, and then the production at scale, right? So, this is not a team of agency folks who have a great idea and can make a PowerPoint. This is people who understand how complex it is to turn an idea into something that you're then going to deploy across thousands of different restaurant locations and guess what there are 500 different combinations of products in your system. Right.
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: So I think it's it's magical. Like there's not really another word for it for me. It's it's just magical.
Beck: Very cool. so thinking about next Friday, not this coming Friday, but next Friday, I believe, is when you're taking the stage at Prosper. What do what do
Jackie: That's exactly right. Yep.
Beck: you what do you what are you sharing with everybody? What what could be a teaser of what what are we gonna be talking
Jackie: So
Beck: about?
Jackie: I'm super excited. People who know me, I sometimes introduce myself as a digital menu board super nerd, right? I I love geeking out on this stuff. the the talk I'm gonna give and and the conversation we're gonna have, it is a think tank session, so it is really meant to inspire that conversation and and have brands think about how they're gonna take these ideas and apply them. the session is called the The Menu is the experience, right? or the experience is the menu. Now I'm now I'm like doubting myself. What they're the it's the same either way guys, right? It's the same.
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: It doesn't matter. But really thinking about and talking about one, how do we build customer empathy, right? So
Beck: Right.
Jackie: we're all people, I mean, not everyone who works in food service loves to eat quick serve restaurant food. I I understand, like it's it's a thing, it's fine. But sometimes you do, right? My kids love it. sometimes you do. How do you experience it as a human, right? We can't undervalue our own lived experiences. actually really important because that is kind of the the BS detector on whether an idea
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: is a good idea or not. Like how would it work for me and would it work for my dad? That's always my
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: my filter, right? So, how do you think about how customers think? How do you build customer empathy? How do you meet them where they are? And how do you build an experience that is really curated to deliver customer outcomes and business outcomes together? Because they always go together if you're doing it right. And then on the other side, how do we think about the role of technology and actually enabling these experiences to come to life? And as you mentioned, you know, sometimes things start 10 years ahead of time in retail and they take a little Little while to show up over here. I think brands are really thinking about really innovative approaches, right? And so we're going to talk a little bit about how brands can and should take advantage of innovation and bring more advanced technology to the table to build experiences that are going to blow their customers away and therefore, you know, blow up their top line.
Beck: Yeah, i i I mean, if you think about anytime you walk at a restaurant, there's two things that happen concurrently. We smell the air.
Jackie: Yep.
Beck: Right. Does it smell like pine solid food or other things? And what do we what are we seeing? happy diners and probably images that make me wanna eat before
Jackie: Absolutely.
Beck: I ever get to the counter, right?
Jackie: Absolutely. And it's part of that whole experience, right? I we talk
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: a lot about the kind of the ordering ecosystem, right? What did the customers see on the window clangs when they were pulling into the drive-thru lane? What do
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: you have, you know, as a pre-sale board? A lot of brands aren't really taking advantage of pre-sale because they're not sure if it delivers value. It's a huge opportunity, like absolutely, right? and then the menu board itself. So it's like that whole connection. Same when you think about walking into a store, right? What's the merchandising that I have outside? Do I have a sandwich board standing there? Do I have a something on my on the door, like literally
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: a door clang? you know, I have happy meal toys for a reason where they are, right? Because
Beck: Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: they're drawing the eye. But it all kind of is one cohesive customer journey. And and we should think about it that way.
Beck: So much to dig into there. one question,
Jackie: Ha ha
Beck: one more question before we go into the rapid fire part. and I'd be in trouble if I didn't ask this question. So as AI, personalization and digital experiences become more sophisticated, there's an interesting question about what remains uniquely human. What do you believe the next generation of truly crevable experiences will look like? And what should brands be thinking about today to prepare for that future?
Jackie: I love that. and you did not tell me you were gonna ask me that question, so this is a real answer. I think
Beck: I never tell anybody.
Jackie: that you know we can systematize a lot and we can automate
Beck: Yes.
Jackie: a lot, right? We can use AI tools to help us in in creative, right? But What we can't replicate is that the the human judgment and the soul and the real understanding of what's gonna resonate with a customer is complicated, right? How do you really convince them they made the right choice, not give them FOMO, right, really amplify satisfaction? That's the human part of it. And I think we're a long way from automating that out of the system for sure. So structure, yes, beautiful, creative, no, sorry, not yet.
Beck: So there'll still be hands touching this stuff. It's not just gonna be generated. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Jackie: Absolutely. A hundred percent yes.
Beck: Jackie, I love asking this as kind of last question for lap rapid fire. when you think about and this is also 'cause you are very much the end in mind gal. We when we first talked, you taught you shared this with me. When you think about the work you're doing and the impact you wanna have, what do you hope your legacy will be?
Jackie: Mm. So the big audacious goal, right? I want
Beck: The B Hag
Jackie: I want to impact, and I think I'm in a the right seat to do it, how customers actually experience the in-store retail environment, right? And I mean that for QSR too, obviously, right? Like it's
Beck: Right, right, right.
Jackie: it's where where people go, right? I think there are there are just so many massive untapped opportunities. There's so much magic left to be made. and I joined CRI because I want to be part of the magic. And in some
Beck: Love it.
Jackie: cases I wanna be like the one with the wand. So that's my that's the goal.
Beck: I love it. I love it. All right. You ready for the rapid fire round? They should be fun,
Jackie: Ready, let's go.
Beck: off the cuff, quick, quick. All right. So an experience you'll never forget in context of what we're talking about. Who did it right?
Jackie: So I used a riff on a quote a a little while ago, right? Which was actually Dean Matthews, who's the chief digital officer at Taco Bell. He said, We've been using the menu to show customers what we what we sell. We need to use it to show them what we want what we want them to buy. And
Beck: Ooh.
Jackie: that was a great moment for me because I was sitting there as a consultant and it was like all the synapses connecting, right? And it's like the client understands. Like we, you know, it's like the Jedi mind meld. So that's
Beck: Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: a moment, that's a moment I'll never forget. I'll keep quoting Dane on that until you know the end of time.
Beck: Love it. All right. What's more powerful? Anticipation or surprise?
Jackie: I actually think in this world that we're in, surprise is way more powerful, right? It's it's about
Beck: Mm-hmm. All right.
Jackie: the surprise and delight.
Beck: I agree. one thing that instantly ruins a customer experience.
Jackie: Okay, this is my favorite. The food. Like, I always remind people, it's really important, right? Like, we think so much about the digital experience, right?
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: And it's like, my god, the menu and the and the app, the app and the loyalty
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: and the all the things. It's like, y'all, we like live or die by what ends up in the bag.
Beck: On the plate. Yep, yep.
Jackie: Right? Like we live or die. Because if the team members or the crew members or whatever we call you know our partners, our sandwich
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: artists, they don't nail it on the execution of the food,
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: none of the rest of it matters. Right? If you can't get the right food in the bag, it does not matter. So I do think a lot about that, right? Like what how can we make that easier, not harder? It's critical, right? If I'm
Beck: Mm.
Jackie: creating experiences that are making my team members' life harder, I'm like cutting myself off at the knees, right? Because I decrease
Beck: Right.
Jackie: the chances that the final note with a customer is gonna be like two thumbs up, right? So the food. That was not a rapid fire answer. I'm sorry, I'm bad at this game.
Beck: Mm-hmm. Okay. I that's okay. I like it mo I like the expanded ones. It's good. A brand that consistent consistently gets cravability right. And you mentioned one before, I don't know if it'll be the same one, but yeah.
Jackie: so Taco Belt does do a fantastic job at this, right? Like the cheesy, gooey, crispy, crunchy, like they've they've got that down. I also think, you know, cultural relevance is like a core pillar of their brand. And that does also play a role in cravability. Like, is it of
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: the moment? so I think, yeah, off the cuff, they do a great job.
Beck: I I think it's interesting said cultural relevance because it does change generationally how things land. And I also heard recently that nostalgia is actually a bad move in most cases.
Jackie: Well you have to be careful, right? It's just it's always being everything's a trade-off. We're never gonna get the exact right experience for everyone. So we always have to choose, right? Like
Beck: Right.
Jackie: who's my design target? Who's my secondary design target? And I have to recognize that I'm gonna miss the mark with some of the circle outside of that.
Beck: Right. I imagine with legacy not legacy brands, let's call it beloved brands, they have to keep reinventing to stay relevant to the current audience that is spending the money. Right.
Jackie: Absolutely. But it's kinda like, you know, bands, right? Like you hear an album, nobody listens to albums anymore. I like just dated myself with that comment in itself, right? Like
Beck: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jackie: you listen to the album, you're like, my god, this is amazing. And then they drop the next album and they've like reinvented themselves and it's totally different. It's like, well, I I like you, but I like you like that. Like just you just keep doing that. That would be great.
Beck: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you belong to somebody else now.
Jackie: Exactly, exactly. So I like I think that's just one of the the kind of natural things that that happens with just customers and customers are fickle creatures, man.
Beck: Yes. In fact, does that hits this next one? Human connection or technological innovation.
Jackie: Human connection every time. I mean, yeah.
Beck: What what's one thing the hospitality industry needs to stop doing?
Jackie: Ooh. well it it's what we just talked about, right? It's like tech first, tech for the sake of tech, right? I think we
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: have to understand why we're doing things. What is the behavior we're trying to create? How are we connecting with our customers? And let's make darn sure that if we're gonna do a technology investment, we understand why and how and you know make it make it make the customer connection better.
Beck: Love it. All right. Last one. Finish the sentence. The secret to creating something cra people crave is blank.
Jackie: It's so stupid.
Beck: Ha ha ha ha.
Jackie: Color. Like I'm not ki I'm not actually kidding. I am really it's a funny
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: the I that's yeah, I just knocked you off, right? Like knocked you over with that answer, but it's
Beck: In a room like this I'll I'm I'm inclined to believe you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jackie: It's such a silly thing, right? Like but but it it has a huge impact. I've worked with brands they talk about like the golden problem. Like all of the food is crispy fried and so like what do you do with that, right?
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: Like if every single thing is is golden orange sizzling, like I don't know, my
Beck: Y'all blends.
Jackie: my eye doesn't know where to look. So I think color is actually such an like It's such a impactful emotional connection to customers. So
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: I think that's a big part of of cravability. I'm that's my answer, I'm sticking to it.
Beck: I love it. I love it. I mean people know that red red evokes passion, green evokes a different feeling, blues, all all those all those
Jackie: Absolutely.
Beck: things are colors or emotional states if you paint that palette right. So I I'm I'm down. Yeah.
Jackie: And deliciousness, right? Like, you know what color a strawberry needs to be for it to be delicious.
Beck: You don't want brown lettuce on your burger?
Jackie: Not today or tomorrow.
Beck: Love it. Love it. Well, Jackie, this has been awesome. And you're going so you're gonna be at Prosper Accelerate coming in on Thursday, I believe, but you're speaking on Friday. What time is your is keynote?
Jackie: Friday morning bright and early. I think it's at 9 a.m. It's a think tank
Beck: Alright.
Jackie: session. So people should come like with their thinking hats on, ready to play. Like this is all about how do we play together and how do we explore and think about, you know, how do we create relevance for for you and your brand and what are you gonna do when you get back to the office on Monday. So show up Friday morning, I think 9 a.m.
Beck: All right, I will be there and I'll be bringing some people with me. I'm very excited. but Jackie, thank you. And then pivoting to our audience, thank you guys for joining us today with Jackie Walker, the Chief Experience Officer at Creative Realities Inc. I've been working with them for some time now. Dan McAllister, the CRO, Amanda Starr, Roderick Glass, Jason Adams, and a whole group of folks over there. And I can tell you authentically that every time I I get to spend time with them. It's time well spent. They're good, decent people that you know, it might my my people who've watched our show have heard this before. My my judgment of a person is would I invite them all over for a barbecue? And I would I would roll out the red carpet for them because people you invite in your home are people you want to spend time with. and and I've gotten a sense of when I watch brands that that there are so many opportunities to tell stories digitally. And digital storytelling isn't just by a blog, it isn't just by by doing a podcast. It's the message you send in in the materials. It's the message you have on your website. It's the message you have when they walk in the door and those screens and that cravability and experience you create. It's the message you send at the drive-thru. It's that mo motion of the bead of sweat going down that beautiful Coke glass, making you want to go for an extra large because you know you're that look that medium's not going to hit at home for that thirst it just evoked in you. So, Jackie, thank you for coming on. Thank you, everybody, for watching. But keep in mind that cravability is something that is experiential. It's about colors, it's about motion. It's about being able to tap into data to understand maybe there's something in your in your inventory that if you got that up there, that you could move it and not worry about having to waste it because you could sell things in time and make things move. There's so many practical applications to what digital signage can do for you if it's done right. And CRI is a great company to talk to. But for now, it's Jackie and Beck, and we just had a little jam session. We're thankful that you joined us. And as always, I always like to close with this if you watch before. And if not, you're gonna hear it now. Random acts of kindness, sprinkle that stuff everywhere. Just like Jackie spending time with me on a busy day was an act of kindness. Show that to other people. But for now, it's Beck and Jackie sign off. We'll see you guys on the next one and we'll see you at Prosper Accelerate. Take care, everybody.
Jackie: Keep it colorful, people.
Beck: Boom. Bye,
Jackie: So excited to be here.
Beck: I'm so excited to have you here. We've done a little bit of negotiating back and forth to get the timing down. So especially wanted to thank you for joining us right before you have to hop on well, it's not tomorrow, but in it with Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm actually the one that's hopping on the road tomorrow. I'm going to Napa.
Jackie: I have time. I have time back.
Beck: So anyway, so how you doing today, Jackie?
Jackie: I'm doing fantastic. How about yourself?
Beck: I am really, really good. Like I said, I get to go to Napa tomorrow, see some wine country, some golden hours. I don't drink, so at least I get to watch people other people having a good time. so so Jackie, before we get going into this, tell me a little bit about yourself. I mean, yeah, people can look you up on LinkedIn, right? But you're it's funny, I can't remember who I had this conversation with last, but you you do have a lot of layers to you. When we when we first talked, I was like, wow, she's deep. And and in fact Walt Disney was famous for a quote that said, If you wanna be CEO of Disneyland you have to work every job in the park.
Jackie: Absolutely.
Beck: You've kinda worked every job in the park and you're marching merrily toward toward that spot, I think. Yeah. Yeah.
Jackie: Absolutely worked every job in the park for sure. so I joined Creative Realities about six months ago.
Beck: Uh-huh.
Jackie: Prior to being at Creative Realities, I spent 17 years at Publisha Sapient, which sounds like a really long time doing one job, but I always reminded people that I actually did a lot of different jobs and played a lot of different roles and kind of constantly reinvented myself while I was there. So you're right. I started out you know, as a functional analyst. I was writing business requirements for software products that we were building. I worked on an omnichannel platform back before anyone knew. How to spell omnichannel.
Beck: Ha ha.
Jackie: So we were kind of making things up as we as we went along. And had the privilege to work on websites, mobile apps, all you know, all of that stuff, really understanding how to create a holistic digital experience. And then we said, let's do signage, right? And how would we do signage knowing that we have all of the capabilities that we have today, like digital capabilities that we take for granted? And so we ended up actually building from The ground up a digital signage platform, which I worked very closely with on our engine with our engineering team in India, and ended up running that as a managed service for about 10 years, which was quite interesting. Worked with a range of clients in different industries, spent a lot of time thinking about data-driven signage, right? How do you actually curate an experience? Thinking about
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: data and analytics, right? How from the beginning, how do you think about as a brand how you show up to your customers in digital, you know, typical digital channels, web and mobile, how do you show up in signage and then how do you actually bring those two together? So I spent a
Beck: Right.
Jackie: lot of time actually working on just that problem, right? How do you create a kind of parallel world for analytics to to digital? And then I ended up going on this like great fantastic tour of duty in QSR. I got to work with seven of the 10 largest QSRs in the country working on their digital experience strategy and specifically digital menu board strategy. So a lot of time, a lot of iterations, you know, I've seen burgers, I've done coffee, I've done tacos, I've done chicken, like so kind
Beck: Right.
Jackie: of the full breadth of experiences that you can have in the QSR space. know, learned learned a lot along the way. I also spent a few years at Sapien as the retail experience strategy lead for North America. So really working
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: across our entire retail portfolio. So in addition to the work in QSR and Menu, I kind of broadened my horizons to really cover retail media networks, particularly in store retail media networks. How do customers think about monetized content in the in the kind of context of the store experience? Experience and then broader digital experience strategy as well, right? So how do you actually land the plane on digital in a physical retail environment?
Beck: Hmm. Yeah. Well that
Jackie: so that gives me a lot of breath when it comes to things like loyalty programs and you know advanced merchandising, even agentic retail. So I'm kinda thinking about how all of those things come together as part of my day-to-day approach. So I've done it all back, did it all, seen it.
Beck: well, it sounds like you're perfect for where you are because CRI doesn't just serve QSR. Right? Where
Jackie: That's exactly right.
Beck: are the places that you guys play?
Jackie: That's exactly right. So we do we do a lot of work in QSR, we do a lot of work in retail, both in traditional retail and in retail media networks. We are one
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: of the few signage companies in the country that has a you know full ad tech stack in addition to having the content management. So that's all integrated and pulled together, which is very exciting for me as a in-store RMN nerd. we also serve lottery, which is kind of interesting. So how of lotteries show up in convenience.
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: Work with convenience stores as well as a sector, retail banking, a ton of work in stadiums, which is fun for that like F and B crossover, right? Thinking about
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: menu experience in a stadium, which is you know, a different customer mindset. who am I forgetting? And a lot in malls and real estate. So we have a pretty broad portfolio,
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: working with you know a lot of different types of brands, solving different problems. But I think fundamentally it all comes back to the same thing, which is how do They deliver value to their customers and their brand in their physical space? Like that's that's
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: what it's all about at the end of the day.
Beck: Yeah. so thinking about that and and and your role in customer experience, right? And we talk a lot about customer experience, engagement, loyalty. but cravability feels like something deeper. Like we're talking about restaurants. What makes an experience truly cravable and how do you know when you've hit it or when you've created one?
Jackie: Yeah, it's a great question. I think there's you know, there's so much science to menus and science to food merchandising. I mean, we just think about the insiders know how much work goes into food photography, right? So that is not a picture of that burger.
Beck: Yeah, yeah. No. No. Nor would we probably want to eat that particular burger they took the picture of. Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: don't want to eat that one. As much as we want the one that they serve us to look like the one in the picture, we don't actually want to eat the one in the picture. 100%.
Beck: Right.
Jackie: But a lot of it is also about, you know, the contextuality of the experience. How do you make sure that you're bringing together the right content at the right time for the right customer with the right treatment to really make it shine and make it connect?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: Right. So it what's interesting is like, you know, cravability in the abstract is is really quite simple, right? It's it's does this look delicious? Does this look compelling? Do I want to actually like add this on to my meal or change my plan from what I was going to order to actually order this new thing. But I think what makes it magical is when you're getting not only beautiful content, but beautiful content that belongs. Like
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: that's that's the secret sauce.
Beck: Right. You and I were talking about the wrong content on a screen near the deli versus where it belonged or what the actual motivate motivating factor was of that that content could be there, but it has to be contextual to drive
Jackie: Hundred percent.
Beck: it, right? So let's talk a little bit about that.
Jackie: Absolutely. So one of the things that I've been able to do in my career is customer research, right? And really think about how customers understand content, how they relate to content. We did some research for one of the largest big box retailers in the country, and it was specifically looking at this exact problem, right? So I want to show monetized content on screens. what am I allowed to get away with with customers, right? What will customers embrace? And when will customers feel like I'm showing them something that doesn't doesn't belong here or is not for them, right? And so we actually tested the limits of, you know, if I put this type of content on a screen in the TV department, right, how is a customer gonna react to it? How are they gonna react to like a Cheerios ad? Right? or how are they gonna react to selling blankets on the screens in the pharmacy? Right. And what we found that was exactly right, what we found,
Beck: Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: and this was a an expression I I coined at the time, which I continue to use, like content must declare its own contextuality, right? So
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: the content, you can't just put it out there and think like maybe it's two or three steps removed, but a customer's gonna get it. They're
Beck: Right.
Jackie: not. You're asking. them to do the work for you, right? Your job
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: as the brand or the agency who's working on behalf of the brand is actually to create that connection in a way for a customer that it like bops them right on the head and they get it, right? So I'll use the pharmacy example, right? Blanket, I don't get it. Why are you merchandising blankets? Okay, what if it's a Campbell soup ad and the ad is about being sick? I'm standing, I'm in the pharmacy, right? And I'm watching this ad about being sick and you know You have like the thermometer and the blanket wrapped
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: around and it's like, you know, not feeling well. Campbell's. Well, now I declared my c contextuality. People who know me and have heard me talk about this a lot will the the deli example is a great one. a tide ad in the deli, right? Okay, how do I get away with a tide ad in the deli? If I just show a bottle of tide, a customer is, you know, in WTF territory, frankly, right? Like I'm I'm ordering a sandwich.
Beck: Yeah. Good for you, it's an ad. Yeah. Yeah.
Jackie: What why, right? But imagine if the ad is a customer, you know, somebody an a human. I don't know why I said customer. Why is it a customer? A person,
Beck: Ha ha.
Jackie: an actual person, biting into a sandwich and mustard squirts out of the sandwich and goes on their white button shirt, right?
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: And then it's tied, right? Now I get it. I'm at the deli, I'm sandwiched meat, it all like it all connects and pulls through,
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: right? Now all of a sudden I have permission to show that ad in that place. So I think doing the extra work to make the story connect for the customer is a key piece of the puzzle.
Beck: I love the idea that the powerful experiences connect with us on multiple levels, like you're saying there, our hearts, our minds, our senses, our app and our appetites. There's probably a line there though, like how do brands intentionally create those emotional and sensory connections without kicking off the radar and making those experiences feel manufactured, or to where it'll have the opposite response.
Jackie: Yeah. So one part of the puzzle is actually a little bit counterintuitive, right? I think some people have gotten excited about the idea that I can detect a customer and I know who they are. So now I can show the content that's for Beck, right? Exactly like creepy, right? Right. So
Beck: Yeah, I don't know how feel about that yet. But yeah, we're marching in that direction though.
Jackie: There's some of that, right? But I think it's really, really important to keep in mind like where you are, right? So be cognizant. Are you in a one-to-one channel with a customer? You're in a one-to-one interaction. I'm talking a
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: beck and I'm only talking a back. You're in your car ordering at the drive-thru. If I know who you are because you checked in, cool. I have permission, right? That's not weird
Beck: Right, right, right.
Jackie: anymore. It actually could be really helpful and beneficial.
Beck: Right, tied to my loyalty, the things I like, the things I buy, it's help helping to serve me up. Yeah.
Jackie: Exactly. Exactly. What coupon can I use? Like all the right? That's beautiful. If I'm walking down an aisle, you know, I'm walking down the cereal aisle in a grocery store and all of a sudden the content magically changes because it knows that I'm a, you know, customer with a propensity to buy crackling oat brand and I haven't in six weeks, that's a different thing.
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: Hey Jackie, get your crackle on, right? Like, that's not a thing. Like, don't do that. It's a one-to-many channel. In food
Beck: Right.
Jackie: service, this is really, really simple, right? Like if you're in the store, if you're at the front counter, you're in a one-to-many situation. Like the stuff
Beck: Yes.
Jackie: that's on that menu board should be for everyone, right? The stuff that's on the drive-thru, that is for one person. So having that clear kind of line of of demarcation about the types of experiences that are gonna resonate. That's really important, right? Just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should do it always. Right? Restraint is important.
Beck: Yes. Right. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Jackie: But the other piece is just making sure that the content is fit for purpose for the place it's going to be. That's one of the things we work with a lot of brands on is how do you make the content resonate in the actual moment that you're in? So intuitively, if I'm creating an LTO for a drive-thru screen, I'm not gonna create a 30-second piece of media because the customer is not looking for 30 seconds, they're looking at that for two seconds to decide whether that's enough you know does it resonate
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: enough to disrupt what I was gonna order if I wasn't already coming for that item right if I'm at the front counter then maybe I want to do a 15 second video that is you know the pouring or the dripping or the sizzling
Beck: Right.
Jackie: right like I have I can do that because the customer has time to understand and appreciate it. So that applies across everywhere right like
Beck: And it benefits everybody behind me in line too, 'cause they all might be having those same moments that they're thinking about and what's gonna move them to that thing that we're trying to move swell, right?
Jackie: Exactly right. That is exactly right.
Beck: and I do want to get into what you're gonna talk about at Prosper. These are some geeky questions I had before we got on this call. And and one of one of the things, Jackie, and I think a lot of people in hospitality will agree, and I hope this doesn't offend anybody. It feels the the truth is is that retail leads with tech initiatives, right? They'll in fact it probably goes the the workflow of CES where they start thinking about it, retail
Jackie: Yep.
Beck: where they start using it, and then maybe five, ten years later we start seeing it show up. Maybe not that bad, but in in hospitality, right?
Jackie: Yeah.
Beck: and we have, you know, some million restaurants across the country. Half of them are are are private, right? And and of those private and and the brands that are out there, somebody might be saying, Well, I have a sign. It's got my menu on it. I don't need to spend money to to to do what I've already done. What would you say to them? Because I I I know what the answer should be, but I want to hear it from you.
Jackie: I have so many things to say to this imaginary person.
Beck: Shake them. Yes. And what's the lift? You know, if if it's done right.
Jackie: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so number one, right? A lot of brands are using their menu just to show customers what they sell. What they're not doing is using their menus to show customers what they want the customer to buy, right? And that's half of the battle. Right. I was once sitting at a table with some executives at a taco chain that most people have heard of, and we were talking about the drive-thru experience and you know, having too many things or too few things on the menu, and what if you heavily curate the menu, what will customers think? And I said, Well, I mean, think about the experiences you have as a human driving into drive-throughs, right? And the primary design problem that the brand has been trying to solve is how do I fit eighty-six items. On in this pixel dimension, right? What's the smallest font that the customer is probably going to be able to read? Right? It's a bad experience.
Beck: Right.
Jackie: It is actually by definition a bad experience, right? And so I think the brands that are actually thinking about, you know, understanding the customer, meeting them where they are, and curating the experience as such have a huge advantage, right? Now, the problem is in order for that strategy. strategy to work, you have to actually have a flexible foundation on which to deliver it. Because the right thing to show today is not necessarily the right thing to show in three weeks from now, right?
Beck: Hm.
Jackie: But if I have print boards, I do not have the luxury of actually responding, right? I think, you know, you talk about the the kind of the traditional business case for for QSR menu boards, digital menu boards, right? And it's like, okay, part of the story is gonna be print cost, part of the story is gonna be merchandising compliance, marketing compliance, right? Part of it is gonna be flexibility. Part of it is gonna be I can be responsive to cost of goods. So I can actually change my prices, right?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: Another part, thank you, COVID, is supply chain disruption, right? So since then we've been talking about my goodness, like I might actually have some real issues with getting LTOs out or, you know, having items that I think are core be part of my menu experience.
Beck: Or you stalk out in the middle of the day.
Jackie: Exactly. So how do I like how do I make that change? I don't want half of my menu to be, you know, blacked out, strike through, whatever, right? That doesn't
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: really work. So the responsiveness, but I think the other part of it that people don't think about is what are the potential tools in your toolbox that are unlocked if you take the potential seriously, right? So things like motion, right? Motion is a game changer. People are gonna look wherever you You sh tell them to look and you tell them to look there by making something move, right? So it's really, really powerful. You want to be very careful and intentional about how you use it because that's like your magic wand, right? Well, if I
Beck: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jackie: put the magic wand on everything, now I lost it, right? A customer doesn't know where to look.
Beck: Deliberate.
Jackie: Day parting is a huge thing, right? So right now, you know, a lot of restaurants are in the situation where I have a breakfast menu, I have a rest of day menu. Right? Like I can literally flip the panel.
Beck: Or or you tick off your guests when they pull up and they I'd like an egg mac or sorry, a a breakfast sandwich when you could have flipped it and had that burger ready and guided them to that non disappointing moment.
Jackie: That's exactly right. That is exactly right. So there's day parting, but then there's, you know, what are the actual potentials of day parting? Because there aren't only three or four day parts in a day, let's be real. A lot of
Beck: Right. Right.
Jackie: restaurants have a snack period where customers do have different purchasing behavior. They have an after-work period, right? They have a late night that's different.
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: If I'm in print, like sorry, but that's not even I can't even have that conversation, right?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: I can't even entertain it. When I get into digital, now I do, right? So there's the advanced digital tools, there's flexibility, but then the other piece is the ability to experiment and test and learn. And I think you know, brands are just starting to scratch the surface of that. Most brands experiment in food service the same way with their menu board as they do with Their food product, right? I'm gonna pick a market, I'm gonna run the test in that particular market, I'm gonna see how it does. If it goes well, then I'm gonna pick three other markets, I'm gonna test in those markets, I'll see how it goes, then I'm gonna work out the operational kinks, and then I'm gonna roll the food out nationally, right? It makes sense, it totally makes sense, but you can't pick up that process and say that's how I'm gonna test my digital menu board. Right? Which is in reality what a lot of brands are doing, right? They create some designs, they pick a market, they test it in a market, they wait eight to ten weeks to see how they perform. Then they question, you know, okay, this worked in Tampa, right? Is this also gonna work in Cleveland?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: I don't know, we're gonna have to go test it, right? So the cycle to move from a design to a a desired state can take a long time. Like I have seen it literally take brands a year to move from a starting point to a a new menu design that they're comfortable with because of all the steps along the way. Well that's crazy.
Beck: Feels like some would change in the middle of that process being that long and their data wouldn't be good anymore.
Jackie: Absolutely, right? It's seasonal, it's all those things. So what I really like to think about is, hey, your menu needs to be responsive and change, right? What you want customers to focus on today is not the same thing you're gonna want them to focus on three months from now. But how do you build that framework that you understand the tools in your tool chest and understand how to fit your menu? How do I change it if I'm going to add a new category, right? Or how do I change if I'm going to add a new like flagship product, right? I need to have the ability to actually do that quickly. Digital lets us do that, and then testing and learning lets us actually hone those skills. So then I have the tools in the toolbox and I know how to manufacture.
Beck: Jackie, thinking about adoption of of of of solutions like this, w what's your best guess? what's it rollout today and who's adopted digital and and what what's the white space left out there? Is everybody digital already? Is it already done or long way to go? Yeah.
Jackie: No, we're not done yet. We're not done yet. You know, I think Part of the issue is the the franchise world, right? And it it's something that is unique to food service. You don't fully appreciate it until you're on the inside of it. But
Beck: Yes.
Jackie: there is a massive difference between a brand deciding that they're gonna go do a rollout and invest and convincing a thousand franchisees that they gotta go open up their checkbook, right?
Beck: Yeah, it it's always a qu more money is is what they hear. Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: A hundred percent, right? And to go back to what we were just talking about, like what is the power of of digital and what can it drive? Well, we've said, you know, we've told the story for a long time. You install digital menu boards, you're gonna get a three percent lift, right? The part that they don't tell you is that you're gonna get a three percent lift and then it's gonna go like this, right? It's gonna go back to your baseline because the reality is customers stop caring. You get that Disney effect. This is beautiful. my word. Look.
Beck: Novelty, yeah.
Jackie: How beautiful the food looks. Look at the f I
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: can read it now, right? Like you have those those moments.
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: Customers will, this is exciting, but then it like comes back to earth, and nobody's excited when it comes back to earth because whatever ROI calculation you told the franchisee to get them to write a fifty thousand dollar check now is not working anymore, right? So it's about the experience, like it always comes back to the experience. If you want a customer to behave differently. You have to give the customer a different experience, right? So if I want to sell more product, guess what? I have to deliver an experience that's going to support customers making that decision, right?
Beck: Right.
Jackie: So I have to change the experience. That's how I can really tell the story.
Beck: So this is an ongoing discipline, not a moment in time.
Jackie: 100%. It's a performance marketing discipline. Let's
Beck: Hm.
Jackie: be really real, right? It is performance marketing. Nobody talks about it that way. That's the opportunity.
Beck: Hm. So let's let's let's take that then and and and flip it around. How does C R I help with that?
Jackie: So I lead an amazing team at CRI. It is one of the reasons that I actually, you know, made the the the big move 17 years into my career to like change my seat, right? Which is a it's a it's a little bit of a bold move, right?
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: but I have this great team. we are called Experience Intelligence, right? We are an agency consulting function that sits inside of of CRI. we bring together a unique set of Skills and craft expertise, right? So we have strategy folks, right, like myself and Amanda Starr, and like people that you've probably heard of in the industry who are leading from a strategic point of view. We also have an amazing design research capabilities, right? So we're able to do eye tracking studies, we're able to do
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: qualitative and quantitative research, right? So we can actually test things with customers in a way that makes sense for the digital experience in store. we have a design team, right, with a full suite of creative capabilities from photography all the way through production, right? and
Beck: Now was that something that existed before so you you recently you CRI acquired Cineplex Media in Canada. Was that something to flesh out those capabilities and enhance that for the business?
Jackie: Absolutely. So many of these folks were actually at Cineplex, right? there are a few people that are part of the core that are, you know, from CRI pre-acquisition, but the bulk of the headcount actually comes from that acquisition, right? So it's been one of those lovely areas where we've been able to really maximize the value of that merger so that we can take advantage of a new set of capabilities that creative realities didn't really have at scale. Now we absolutely have it at scale. The other piece that we missed is data science, right? So a lot of what I'm talking about It's experience, yeah. It's art, it's love, it's all those things, but it's also just data. Like, show me the results, man. Like, how did it do? I changed this. Did it do what I thought it was gonna do? So having data science native inside the team is an unbelievable asset, right? Most brands have insights, folks, that work for them, but Menu board is usually like, you know, all all the way down here on their list of priorities. And they're not thinking about, you know, customer experience and the relationship between customer experience and the sales data. That's what my team does every single day that ends in Y, right? So it's a it's a huge gift. So I think our
Beck: Love it.
Jackie: team is very uniquely positioned given all of the expertise we have in in strategy and and frankly a lot of Work that I've been blessed to do in my career, right? A lot of pinch me brands, a lot of great projects, AI, menu boards, like all of these things that I've been working on. then you bring like agency of record experience, right? And and really supporting the creative expression for a lot of brands, and then the production at scale, right? So, this is not a team of agency folks who have a great idea and can make a PowerPoint. This is people who understand how complex it is to turn an idea into something that you're then going to deploy across thousands of different restaurant locations and guess what there are 500 different combinations of products in your system. Right.
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: So I think it's it's magical. Like there's not really another word for it for me. It's it's just magical.
Beck: Very cool. so thinking about next Friday, not this coming Friday, but next Friday, I believe, is when you're taking the stage at Prosper. What do what do
Jackie: That's exactly right. Yep.
Beck: you what do you what are you sharing with everybody? What what could be a teaser of what what are we gonna be talking
Jackie: So
Beck: about?
Jackie: I'm super excited. People who know me, I sometimes introduce myself as a digital menu board super nerd, right? I I love geeking out on this stuff. the the talk I'm gonna give and and the conversation we're gonna have, it is a think tank session, so it is really meant to inspire that conversation and and have brands think about how they're gonna take these ideas and apply them. the session is called the The Menu is the experience, right? or the experience is the menu. Now I'm now I'm like doubting myself. What they're the it's the same either way guys, right? It's the same.
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: It doesn't matter. But really thinking about and talking about one, how do we build customer empathy, right? So
Beck: Right.
Jackie: we're all people, I mean, not everyone who works in food service loves to eat quick serve restaurant food. I I understand, like it's it's a thing, it's fine. But sometimes you do, right? My kids love it. sometimes you do. How do you experience it as a human, right? We can't undervalue our own lived experiences. actually really important because that is kind of the the BS detector on whether an idea
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: is a good idea or not. Like how would it work for me and would it work for my dad? That's always my
Beck: Hmm.
Jackie: my filter, right? So, how do you think about how customers think? How do you build customer empathy? How do you meet them where they are? And how do you build an experience that is really curated to deliver customer outcomes and business outcomes together? Because they always go together if you're doing it right. And then on the other side, how do we think about the role of technology and actually enabling these experiences to come to life? And as you mentioned, you know, sometimes things start 10 years ahead of time in retail and they take a little Little while to show up over here. I think brands are really thinking about really innovative approaches, right? And so we're going to talk a little bit about how brands can and should take advantage of innovation and bring more advanced technology to the table to build experiences that are going to blow their customers away and therefore, you know, blow up their top line.
Beck: Yeah, i i I mean, if you think about anytime you walk at a restaurant, there's two things that happen concurrently. We smell the air.
Jackie: Yep.
Beck: Right. Does it smell like pine solid food or other things? And what do we what are we seeing? happy diners and probably images that make me wanna eat before
Jackie: Absolutely.
Beck: I ever get to the counter, right?
Jackie: Absolutely. And it's part of that whole experience, right? I we talk
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: a lot about the kind of the ordering ecosystem, right? What did the customers see on the window clangs when they were pulling into the drive-thru lane? What do
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: you have, you know, as a pre-sale board? A lot of brands aren't really taking advantage of pre-sale because they're not sure if it delivers value. It's a huge opportunity, like absolutely, right? and then the menu board itself. So it's like that whole connection. Same when you think about walking into a store, right? What's the merchandising that I have outside? Do I have a sandwich board standing there? Do I have a something on my on the door, like literally
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: a door clang? you know, I have happy meal toys for a reason where they are, right? Because
Beck: Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: they're drawing the eye. But it all kind of is one cohesive customer journey. And and we should think about it that way.
Beck: So much to dig into there. one question,
Jackie: Ha ha
Beck: one more question before we go into the rapid fire part. and I'd be in trouble if I didn't ask this question. So as AI, personalization and digital experiences become more sophisticated, there's an interesting question about what remains uniquely human. What do you believe the next generation of truly crevable experiences will look like? And what should brands be thinking about today to prepare for that future?
Jackie: I love that. and you did not tell me you were gonna ask me that question, so this is a real answer. I think
Beck: I never tell anybody.
Jackie: that you know we can systematize a lot and we can automate
Beck: Yes.
Jackie: a lot, right? We can use AI tools to help us in in creative, right? But What we can't replicate is that the the human judgment and the soul and the real understanding of what's gonna resonate with a customer is complicated, right? How do you really convince them they made the right choice, not give them FOMO, right, really amplify satisfaction? That's the human part of it. And I think we're a long way from automating that out of the system for sure. So structure, yes, beautiful, creative, no, sorry, not yet.
Beck: So there'll still be hands touching this stuff. It's not just gonna be generated. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Jackie: Absolutely. A hundred percent yes.
Beck: Jackie, I love asking this as kind of last question for lap rapid fire. when you think about and this is also 'cause you are very much the end in mind gal. We when we first talked, you taught you shared this with me. When you think about the work you're doing and the impact you wanna have, what do you hope your legacy will be?
Jackie: Mm. So the big audacious goal, right? I want
Beck: The B Hag
Jackie: I want to impact, and I think I'm in a the right seat to do it, how customers actually experience the in-store retail environment, right? And I mean that for QSR too, obviously, right? Like it's
Beck: Right, right, right.
Jackie: it's where where people go, right? I think there are there are just so many massive untapped opportunities. There's so much magic left to be made. and I joined CRI because I want to be part of the magic. And in some
Beck: Love it.
Jackie: cases I wanna be like the one with the wand. So that's my that's the goal.
Beck: I love it. I love it. All right. You ready for the rapid fire round? They should be fun,
Jackie: Ready, let's go.
Beck: off the cuff, quick, quick. All right. So an experience you'll never forget in context of what we're talking about. Who did it right?
Jackie: So I used a riff on a quote a a little while ago, right? Which was actually Dean Matthews, who's the chief digital officer at Taco Bell. He said, We've been using the menu to show customers what we what we sell. We need to use it to show them what we want what we want them to buy. And
Beck: Ooh.
Jackie: that was a great moment for me because I was sitting there as a consultant and it was like all the synapses connecting, right? And it's like the client understands. Like we, you know, it's like the Jedi mind meld. So that's
Beck: Yeah, yeah.
Jackie: a moment, that's a moment I'll never forget. I'll keep quoting Dane on that until you know the end of time.
Beck: Love it. All right. What's more powerful? Anticipation or surprise?
Jackie: I actually think in this world that we're in, surprise is way more powerful, right? It's it's about
Beck: Mm-hmm. All right.
Jackie: the surprise and delight.
Beck: I agree. one thing that instantly ruins a customer experience.
Jackie: Okay, this is my favorite. The food. Like, I always remind people, it's really important, right? Like, we think so much about the digital experience, right?
Beck: Right, right.
Jackie: And it's like, my god, the menu and the and the app, the app and the loyalty
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: and the all the things. It's like, y'all, we like live or die by what ends up in the bag.
Beck: On the plate. Yep, yep.
Jackie: Right? Like we live or die. Because if the team members or the crew members or whatever we call you know our partners, our sandwich
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: artists, they don't nail it on the execution of the food,
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: none of the rest of it matters. Right? If you can't get the right food in the bag, it does not matter. So I do think a lot about that, right? Like what how can we make that easier, not harder? It's critical, right? If I'm
Beck: Mm.
Jackie: creating experiences that are making my team members' life harder, I'm like cutting myself off at the knees, right? Because I decrease
Beck: Right.
Jackie: the chances that the final note with a customer is gonna be like two thumbs up, right? So the food. That was not a rapid fire answer. I'm sorry, I'm bad at this game.
Beck: Mm-hmm. Okay. I that's okay. I like it mo I like the expanded ones. It's good. A brand that consistent consistently gets cravability right. And you mentioned one before, I don't know if it'll be the same one, but yeah.
Jackie: so Taco Belt does do a fantastic job at this, right? Like the cheesy, gooey, crispy, crunchy, like they've they've got that down. I also think, you know, cultural relevance is like a core pillar of their brand. And that does also play a role in cravability. Like, is it of
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Jackie: the moment? so I think, yeah, off the cuff, they do a great job.
Beck: I I think it's interesting said cultural relevance because it does change generationally how things land. And I also heard recently that nostalgia is actually a bad move in most cases.
Jackie: Well you have to be careful, right? It's just it's always being everything's a trade-off. We're never gonna get the exact right experience for everyone. So we always have to choose, right? Like
Beck: Right.
Jackie: who's my design target? Who's my secondary design target? And I have to recognize that I'm gonna miss the mark with some of the circle outside of that.
Beck: Right. I imagine with legacy not legacy brands, let's call it beloved brands, they have to keep reinventing to stay relevant to the current audience that is spending the money. Right.
Jackie: Absolutely. But it's kinda like, you know, bands, right? Like you hear an album, nobody listens to albums anymore. I like just dated myself with that comment in itself, right? Like
Beck: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jackie: you listen to the album, you're like, my god, this is amazing. And then they drop the next album and they've like reinvented themselves and it's totally different. It's like, well, I I like you, but I like you like that. Like just you just keep doing that. That would be great.
Beck: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you belong to somebody else now.
Jackie: Exactly, exactly. So I like I think that's just one of the the kind of natural things that that happens with just customers and customers are fickle creatures, man.
Beck: Yes. In fact, does that hits this next one? Human connection or technological innovation.
Jackie: Human connection every time. I mean, yeah.
Beck: What what's one thing the hospitality industry needs to stop doing?
Jackie: Ooh. well it it's what we just talked about, right? It's like tech first, tech for the sake of tech, right? I think we
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: have to understand why we're doing things. What is the behavior we're trying to create? How are we connecting with our customers? And let's make darn sure that if we're gonna do a technology investment, we understand why and how and you know make it make it make the customer connection better.
Beck: Love it. All right. Last one. Finish the sentence. The secret to creating something cra people crave is blank.
Jackie: It's so stupid.
Beck: Ha ha ha ha.
Jackie: Color. Like I'm not ki I'm not actually kidding. I am really it's a funny
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: the I that's yeah, I just knocked you off, right? Like knocked you over with that answer, but it's
Beck: In a room like this I'll I'm I'm inclined to believe you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jackie: It's such a silly thing, right? Like but but it it has a huge impact. I've worked with brands they talk about like the golden problem. Like all of the food is crispy fried and so like what do you do with that, right?
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: Like if every single thing is is golden orange sizzling, like I don't know, my
Beck: Y'all blends.
Jackie: my eye doesn't know where to look. So I think color is actually such an like It's such a impactful emotional connection to customers. So
Beck: Yeah.
Jackie: I think that's a big part of of cravability. I'm that's my answer, I'm sticking to it.
Beck: I love it. I love it. I mean people know that red red evokes passion, green evokes a different feeling, blues, all all those all those
Jackie: Absolutely.
Beck: things are colors or emotional states if you paint that palette right. So I I'm I'm down. Yeah.
Jackie: And deliciousness, right? Like, you know what color a strawberry needs to be for it to be delicious.
Beck: You don't want brown lettuce on your burger?
Jackie: Not today or tomorrow.
Beck: Love it. Love it. Well, Jackie, this has been awesome. And you're going so you're gonna be at Prosper Accelerate coming in on Thursday, I believe, but you're speaking on Friday. What time is your is keynote?
Jackie: Friday morning bright and early. I think it's at 9 a.m. It's a think tank
Beck: Alright.
Jackie: session. So people should come like with their thinking hats on, ready to play. Like this is all about how do we play together and how do we explore and think about, you know, how do we create relevance for for you and your brand and what are you gonna do when you get back to the office on Monday. So show up Friday morning, I think 9 a.m.
Beck: All right, I will be there and I'll be bringing some people with me. I'm very excited. but Jackie, thank you. And then pivoting to our audience, thank you guys for joining us today with Jackie Walker, the Chief Experience Officer at Creative Realities Inc. I've been working with them for some time now. Dan McAllister, the CRO, Amanda Starr, Roderick Glass, Jason Adams, and a whole group of folks over there. And I can tell you authentically that every time I I get to spend time with them. It's time well spent. They're good, decent people that you know, it might my my people who've watched our show have heard this before. My my judgment of a person is would I invite them all over for a barbecue? And I would I would roll out the red carpet for them because people you invite in your home are people you want to spend time with. and and I've gotten a sense of when I watch brands that that there are so many opportunities to tell stories digitally. And digital storytelling isn't just by a blog, it isn't just by by doing a podcast. It's the message you send in in the materials. It's the message you have on your website. It's the message you have when they walk in the door and those screens and that cravability and experience you create. It's the message you send at the drive-thru. It's that mo motion of the bead of sweat going down that beautiful Coke glass, making you want to go for an extra large because you know you're that look that medium's not going to hit at home for that thirst it just evoked in you. So, Jackie, thank you for coming on. Thank you, everybody, for watching. But keep in mind that cravability is something that is experiential. It's about colors, it's about motion. It's about being able to tap into data to understand maybe there's something in your in your inventory that if you got that up there, that you could move it and not worry about having to waste it because you could sell things in time and make things move. There's so many practical applications to what digital signage can do for you if it's done right. And CRI is a great company to talk to. But for now, it's Jackie and Beck, and we just had a little jam session. We're thankful that you joined us. And as always, I always like to close with this if you watch before. And if not, you're gonna hear it now. Random acts of kindness, sprinkle that stuff everywhere. Just like Jackie spending time with me on a busy day was an act of kindness. Show that to other people. But for now, it's Beck and Jackie sign off. We'll see you guys on the next one and we'll see you at Prosper Accelerate. Take care, everybody.
Jackie: Keep it colorful, people.
Beck: Boom. Bye,
