In this episode I'm joined by Allison Ellsworth, founder of the fastest growing beverage brand in the US, Poppi.

Poppi was started as Mother Beverage in 2018 (a nod to the raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar used in the drink) but was rebranded after featuring on Shark Tank in the same year. Now, it's one of the biggest soda brands in the US, outselling Coke and Pepsi on Amazon. I speak to Allison about the journey of creating the brand, how influential TikTok was for their growth, their merch strategy and how they ended up buying a Super Bowl ad. This is a fascinating account of how a challenger brand can disrupt an industry in such a small period of time.

Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
02:08 - Allison’s experience on Shark Tank
05:56 - Funding and rebrand of Poppi
10:36 - Launching the brand during COVID
11:06 - Outselling Coke and Pepsi on Amazon
12:33 - How big is the impact of Shark Tank
13:45 - Growing the brand on social media
17:02 - The influencer and social first marketing strategy
19:45 - How Poppi’s marketing popup worked
22:05 - Why Poppi invested in merch and launching in Target
24:36 - Chosing which flavours to launch with Poppi
28:04 - Approach to retail and growth
29:27 - Breaking into a competitive market
30:29 - Poppi’s Super Bowl campaign
35:30 - The journey from 2 to 200 employees
40:18 - How Allison hires at Poppi
42:05 - The hardest part of the journey at Poppi
44:07 - How Allison would start a new startup today

Mr Bates vs The Post Office is a the most watched drama on ITV of all time. It's the extraordinary story of the greatest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, where hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system. I speak to the producer of the show, Patrick Spence, to get a behind the scenes look at the drama, how it was discovered, how it was made and why the country rallied around Mr Bates.

Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
01:09 - The story of Mr Bates
05:33 - Having the film commissioned by ITV
08:59 - How true was the drama
12:04 - How big was the cover up at the Post Office
14:12 - How did this scandal happen
17:21 - Why some people pleaded guilty
19:36 - How has the show impacted real people
22:08 - Why no one has received compensation yet
24:46 - What awards has the show won
26:24 - The reaction from Fujitsu and the Post Office
31:53 - How has the drama translated globally?

Mark Abraham leads Boston Consulting Group’s Marketing, Sales & Pricing practice in North America. He also launched and leads the firm’s personalization capability. He has built some of the firm’s largest ventures and AI platforms, including Fabriq Personalization AI by BCG X, a personalization platform that accelerates personalization.

Mark coauthored the book Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI, which helps executives learn how to put personalization at the center of their strategy, accelerate growth, and capture their share of the $2 trillion personalization prize.

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
00:49 - Why 2025 is the year of personalisation at scale
01:38 - When personalisation goes wrong
06:04 - Consumer data on our openness to personalisation
07:48 - The $2 trillion opportunity
10:08 - Who is doing personalisation well
14:27 - The competitive advantage of speed and scale
15:50 - How AI is driving personalisation forward
24:15 - The 5 areas to build the framework for personalisation
26:49 - How do you get information about your customer
31:53 - What is the most useful intelligence to gather
37:43 - How to make mass campaigns more targeted
42:36 - Some of the barriers to personalisation
50:19 - Why companies need to embrace AI
53:25 - Parting advice to people on implementing personalisation