Hiku and Jackman Reinvents enter into strategic collaboration to bring best in class retail experience to cannabis
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Jackman is comprised of leading experts across its core disciplines of research, analytics, business strategy, brand strategy, customer experience design, and in-market activation. Jackman's extensive experience in go-to-market, ongoing learning and growth strategies, in collaboration with HIKU's industry leading brand house, will help form robust retail presence and meaningful brand differentiation.
Joe Jackman, CEO of Jackman, has extensive experience in retail brand strategy and activation, previously serving as (Acting) Chief Marketing Officer of Duane Reade, EVP, Marketing of Loblaw Companies Ltd. and (Acting) Chief Marketing Officer of Old Navy, Gap Inc. Since Jackman's inception, Joe has advised the likes of Rexall, Freshco, The Beer Store, Sobeys and Canadian Tire, among other select clientele.
"We are pleased to commence an exclusive collaboration with Joe Jackman and the Jackman Reinvents team" comments Alan Gertner, CEO of Hiku. "This strategic mandate will result in a blueprint for dispensary build-outs in select provinces, with a focus on best in class customer experience. Together we will work to define the modern cannabis retail experience for the world."
Jackman's ability to enhance retail customer experience will be leveraged in lock-step with Hiku's premium brand house market positioning. "We are excited to collaborate with and build upon Hiku's cannabis retail platform" said Joe Jackman. "We believe in Hiku's vision and that, together, we will create the leading cannabis retail experience. Our partnership is designed to deliver the most powerful and coordinated go-to-market, all focused on achieving scale with speed."
Pursuant to the Agreement, Jackman's services to the cannabis sector will be exclusive to Hiku for twice the length of the Agreement. In connection with the Agreement, the Company has agreed to issue to Jackman $800,000 worth of common shares of the Company, of which 50% will be issued immediately and 12.5% will be issued on each of June 1, 2018, September 1, 2018, December 1, 2018 and March 1, 2019.
The Future of Diligence
Merging facts and feelings in the PE world.
At Jackman, we have long been believers in Facts and Feelings. The reality is that facts can only give you half the picture, as they are inherently not future focused. You can only see facts when looking through the rear view mirror and extrapolating the past into the future is not always a good or right assumption to make.
That's where feelings come in. Feelings can help complete the other half of the story, adding intuition and gut to your already solid foundation of fact. That can be a very uncomfortable proposition for many and it requires a leap of faith - but the results can be extraordinary.
I had the opportunity to attend a Private Equity Forum in New York City recently, and saw this tension between Facts and Feelings first hand. You might think the PE world is the last place you'd expect to see 'feelings' come to life as a big part of the decision making process - but that's exactly what needs to happen.
Private Equity is at a pivot point.
There is more competition for deals, driving higher valuations, and creating a much harder climb to attractive exit multiples. In most cases, financial engineering and removing cost from a business isn't enough to create value off the price you have to pay. Disruption is happening in every industry, breaking old models and forcing companies to adapt or die. There is $1T of committed capital, or 'dry powder' that funds don't know what to do with.
When there is too much cash chasing too few deals, there is a tendency to overpay, and under-return. Unless you have information and perspective that others don't.
So what does this all have to do with the due diligence process? The process itself is evolving; higher prices means firms are turning over every stone, timelines are compressed with less access to management, and there is no room to get the price wrong.
At Jackman, we believe the future of diligence lies beyond the numbers and that to truly unlock value, there is more to understand than past performance and the management plan. Traditional diligence can be supplemented with a Future-Focused diligence that looks a little further out.
There are three ways we look to supplement traditional diligence:
1. Focusing on the true attitudes and needs of customers
2. Examining and learning from out-of-industry disruption
3. Unlocking and aligning the culture
Focusing on the true attitudes and needs of customers:
* Deep understanding of what customers want and need, the role the company plays in their lives, and what really drives their decision making process
* What drives choice for the customer? What can we do to eliminate that choice and become 'the only choice'?
Examining and learning from out-of-industry disruption:
* What disruption models are happening in adjacent or closely related industries? How might they impact our business?
* How can we learn from the disruption and apply it to our current model to create outsized value that others don't see?
Unlocking and aligning the culture:
* What makes the firm tick? What do they hold as beliefs and values?
* What is the culture of the firm and is it aligned all the way from the executives down to the front line?
These are the things, when you get them right, that can create outsized value in the companies you work with. We believe you can diagnose this in diligence – and if you do, you can move faster, pay more with more confidence, and realize that value faster by incorporating this insight into the 30/60/90/180 day plans.
But what is all this actually worth? How can we put a price on it the same way we put a price on cashflow upside or cost rationalization? The right question to be asking is actually "what are you willing to pay for the additional upside that can be unlocked by getting these three things right?"
In our experience, it's the difference between a 2x return and a 5x return.
“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” -Steve Jobs
INNOVATE
Innovate (to Survive)
What will stores provide that ecommerce can’t match?
Amazon is dominating nearly every category in retail, so it’s time to think more creatively about the in-store retail experience. All you have to do is answer one incredibly challenging question: what will stores provide that ecommerce can’t match?
For a long time now, there has been some genuine concern regarding what kind of future faces the retail industry, especially now that Amazon has become a dominant player. At SXSW 2018 Emily Wengert offered retailers and brands some measure of optimism.
Wengert categorically stated that the industry does not have a bleak future, as previously thought. In her presentation, Wengert says there is no place for boring retail. Innovation is mandatory for any brand or retail that wants to remain relevant in the 21st Century.
Concerns regarding the impending death of physical stores is somewhat justified though. Statistics show that department stores have witnessed a 35% drop in sales since 2001. During the period, online retailers have seen their sales grow from $5.0 billion to $335.4 billion.
These figures may make retailers and brands grow pessimistic, but those who hold this view have not looked at the whole picture. If they did, they would have noticed a negative growth in digital sales. In Wengert’s estimation, this right here is where retailers can take advantage of to remain in business. Finding creative ways of using technology to their advantage would help retailers and brands massively.
Measures worth implementing
She talks about measures retailers and brands can implement today to leverage their products. For example, she talks about:
a) How are brands and retailers displaying their products?
b) Are retailers employing 3D effectively to stand out from the rest?
c) How are retailers designing their physical products?
She asks retailers to move from offering products to providing experiences that attract new customers. Millennials are more interested in paying for experience rather than on actual material stuff.
Retail experience is cool, memorable, personal, and unpredictable.
That is how the next crop of retailers that dominate the market will attract and retain the new group of customers. She mentions a word “retailment”, which refers to the entertainment value obtained while shopping at a retail store.
According to Wengert, change is inevitable. Technology is the most effective tool retailers can use to enjoy a prolonged run in the industry. Retailers and brands that innovate will remain in business.
Reinvention of;
Dave & Busters
Creating a new mix of fun to drive frequency.
With a unique mix of games, prizes and a food/bar offering, Dave & Buster’s had “something for everyone.” Yet the 30-year-old organization had lost relevance and momentum. Recognizing that a change was needed, Dave & Buster’s engaged Jackman. Together, we developed a compelling new brand purpose and brought it to life across every customer touchpoint, turning Dave & Buster’s into a stock market superstar and setting the stage for a successful IPO.
RESEARCH + INSIGHTS
Through data mining and analytics, we discovered that while the Dave & Buster’s brand was perceived positively among a small group of core customers, it was losing relevance more broadly, particularly among Millennials. However, insights also revealed new opportunities to entice these customers to visit with an improved experience and brand new offerings such as sports viewing.
MANAGEMENT CONSULTING
Although building new locations was identified as a lever of growth, business performance at the time limited the number of locations available. Dave & Buster’s and Jackman collaborated on strategies for growth, including format refinement, pilot renovations, new offerings (such as D&B Sports) and general enhancements to lift performance at both new and renovated locations.
BRAND STRATEGY + DESIGN
The brand was rallied around the mantra, “First Choice for Frequent Fun,” delivering more reasons to visit, including D&B Sports, a branded in-store destination created as part of the reinvention, and became a platform to connect more often with Millennials. A new graphic identity was created to embody the brand’s new spirit, and the story of the legendary founders was woven into the refreshed brand experience.
STORE DESIGN
Jackman reconceptualized the entire environmental experience, optimizing the space to enhance multiple-use visits and maximize spend per visit. In flagship locations, we created four distinct “worlds”: Eat at Buster’s, Dave’s Arcade, Game Bar and D&B Sports, a stadium-like environment with step seating and giant screens.
OFFERING
In the past, vendors focused on large-format arcade games instead of capitalizing on what was happening in the broader marketplace of consoles and smartphones. With a new strategic approach of the “Latest & Greatest Games,” the Dave & Buster’s team began securing and adapting blockbuster apps to the arcade experience. As an example, Dave & Buster’s became the first destination to bring Fruit Ninja and Kung Fu Panda from app to arcade.
FreshCo.
As the third-place player in the hard discount grocery category, Price Chopper faced an uncertain future. Leadership concluded that success would require rewriting the rules of the category (i.e., limited selection, marginal fresh offerings and a “suffer a lot to save a lot” customer experience). Jackman was engaged to help reinvent the brand and value proposition, ultimately winning with a compelling fresh-food experience for the value-seeking consumer, and a highly localized, culturally diverse product assortment as a meaningful differentiator.
RESEARCH + INSIGHTS + MANAGEMENT CONSULTING
While demand for lower-priced food was high, the chain wasn’t winning with price and was without any significant point of difference from its rivals. Working closely with the Price Chopper/Sobeys team, we identified what was important to discount and conventional shoppers beyond price, and where valuable white space existed. These insights led to a game-changing strategy, which we refined and brought to life using focus group feedback from a specially built lab store.
BRAND STRATEGY + DESIGN
Focused on winning with fresh and differentiating with a truly localized and ‘trade-up-at-a-price’ assortment, Jackman collaborated with leadership and Rethink, Sobey’s advertising agency partner, to reposition and rename the brand to create a truly fresh and uplifting discount grocery experience. The strategy for an unconventionally fresh discount supermarket, now called FreshCo, drove all customer-facing dimensions to embody the new “Fresher. Cheaper.” tagline. The new branding and colour palette was applied to store exteriors, interior signage, associate uniforms and shopping bags.
STORE DESIGN
Jackman worked with Sobeys’ internal design team and Rethink to reimagine how a discount food store could look and be shopped. Beginning with a unique “zone and flow” approach to store organization and a simple store design that emphasized more and better fresh food, culturally and locally relevant products, fresh breads and an expanded deli assortment, the team applied display inspiration from apparel and other non-food stores to maximize product impact and improve shop-ability for customers. We also constructed a secret lab store prior to launch to gain insights from customer focus groups in order to hone the design and prepare for rapid store fleet reinvention.
Hertz
An iconic brand and a pioneer in auto rentals, Hertz saw its market share and profits being threatened. Jackman worked with Hertz to identify what customers want from their car rental experience. Together we defined their new brand mantra – Fastest. Easiest. Most valued. – and delivered it across 360° of the customer experience. New offerings such as Road Trip by Hertz and an expanded range of premium rental cars drove new value creation and amplified the reimagined brand.
RESEARCH + INSIGHTS
It was important to understand customers’ overall travel needs, not just their car rental needs. Through deep research, analytics and customer journey mapping, we identified those needs and key growth opportunities, and established our customer hierarchy. Speed, ease and value became central to our customer experience strategy, with the new brand mantra shaping 360° of touchpoints.
MANAGEMENT CONSULTING
Foundational analytics and a clear case for change helped us identify levers for performance improvement and market growth. We linked these to brand strategy and developed prioritized operational plans to drive performance and bring the new brand experience to life. We leveraged white space revealed in the customer journey map and established a new revenue stream.
BRAND STRATEGY
The 360° customer experience affected everything from the refined brand identity and environmental design to communications, team uniforms and new integrated technology. For speed and ease, we introduced kiosks and mobile apps for customers to bypass counter check-in. We elevated value perception by expanding Hertz’s premium fleet of cars and placing them prominently on display ramps at the store entrance, resulting in a significant increase in rentals.
BRAND DESIGN
We brought “Fastest. Easiest. Most Valued.” to life through a brighter, more energized yellow and the creation of what would soon become an iconic brand element, the ”Streamline,” which provided many opportunities for way-finding and storytelling. We subsequently developed a set of standards to ensure global consistency, and partnered with Hertz on its first sites around the world, and with its agencies on a complete global identity rollout.
STORE DESIGN
We challenged ourselves to make the store experience the fastest, easiest, and most valued of all car rental companies. Road Trip by Hertz is a retail store within Hertz locations, and an industry first. With a Jackman-curated product offering, recharging devices and an iPad kiosk station where customers can research the local area, check email or book a Hertz reservation, we made the experience more convenient than any other car rental experience. The Road Trip pilot locations hit their sales goals within six months, and more locations were added.
DIGITAL EXPERIENCE
Equating ease of use with value.Integrating technology into the Hertz experience reinvented the service interaction. New digital kiosks allow time-crunched travellers to skip the check-in line, while iPads and charging stations in the Road Trip store provide comfort and convenience and keep customers connected. We also worked with Hertz and its digital agency to relaunch its website with an improved information architecture and UX design.
THE RESULTS
Customers responded: Hertz was named as the top overall and most popular car rental company in Zagat’s 2013/14 car rental survey, and voted “best” for self-service kiosk experience, business and leisure travel, airport rentals, car return experience and website. Hertz saw a significant increase in its premium fleet revenue, and success from the reinvented flagship stores propelled changes to Hertz locations in London, Shanghai and the world.
** Do not dismiss jackman's involvement with HIKU**.