“Looking at the Big Picture” — with Charlie Grinnell, CEO RightMetric

Today, we’re speaking with Charlie Grinnell, CEO of RightMetric. We discuss his love for Vancouver, his experience at RedBull, and how RightMetric is giving marketers a more complete picture of their industry.

Today’s episode of Journey Map is brought to you by MindManager.

Journey Map listeners know that with the right map you can take your career anywhere you set your mind to. MindManager work management software puts your ideas, plans and projects on the path to success by transforming them into dynamic digital maps, charts, diagrams and more. Mind Managers flexible visual format makes it easy to capture, organize, understand and evolve critical business information and with powerful collaboration sharing features it’s the perfect tool for keeping remote teams aligned, on track and headed in the right direction.You can take a free thirty day no commitment trial today by visiting www.mindmanager.com/journeymap.

Looking at the Big Picture with Charlie Grinnell, CEO RightMetric

Welcome to Journey Map, the audio experience that deconstructs the career paths taken by some of the world’s most interesting people. Today’s guest is a digital marketing savant, he has received Certificates in Advanced Social Media Strategy, Digital Analytics, and Digital communication from Syracuse University, The University of British Columbia, and Simon Fraser University. Starting his career as a Content Manager for Grouse Mountain, his eclectic digital content journey has seen him in roles as a Cinematographer for Alterna Films, a Video Designer & Editor for Arc’teryx Equipment, and a Producer for Invoke Media. While working these jobs, he was also doing freelance work with his company Grinnell Media Group. In 2014 he takes on a new role working as the National Digital Marketing Specialist for Red Bull. Then in 2016 he is promoted to the Global Social Media Manager of Sport for Red Bull Media House. In 2017 he would head home to Vancouver taking on responsibility as the Head of Social Media for clothing brand Aritzia. A Member of Forbes’ Agency Council, he currently occupies the role of CEO of Right Metric. For those of you who don’t know Right Metric is a digital market research firm based in Vancouver, that provides audience and competitive insights to brands. Today’s guest is none other than Charlie Grinnell, CEO of RightMetric. Charlie, welcome to Journey Map!

Today’s episode of Journey Map is brought to you by MindManager. Journey Map listeners know that with the right map you can take your career anywhere you set your mind to. MindManager work management software puts your ideas, plans and projects on the path to success by transforming them into dynamic digital maps, charts, diagrams and more. Mind Managers flexible visual format makes it easy to capture, organize, understand and evolve critical business information and with powerful collaboration sharing features it’s the perfect tool for keeping remote teams aligned, on track and headed in the right direction.You can take a free thirty day no commitment trial today by visiting www.mindmanager.com/journeymap.

DH: Today’s guest is none other than Charlie Grinnell, CEO of RightMetric. Charlie, welcome to Journey Map!

CG: Thank you very much for having me Dave it’s good to be here.

DH: So listen I want to start, I’ll be really honest about something I have been to many places in Canada, we’re both Canadian I’ve been to many places. I have actually never been to Vancouver British Columbia. However, you seem to have a very strong affinity for Vancouver, you’ve worked at some pretty classic Vancouver brands such as outdoors company Arc’teryx, and Aritizia. What is it that you love so much about Vancouver and why do you continue to call it your home base?

CG: Yeah I mean I think the easy short answer is really you know Vancouver is home and what I realized like in solidifying that over the years is the more I traveled around for work or lived abroad I realized how unique it is here. I’m an outdoorsy guy right so having the mountains and the ocean here as well as being connected to a fairly large metropolitan area. Those are the things that really kind of stuck out for me, like the more I traveled I wouldn’t necessarily feel kind of embarrassed, I wouldn’t necessarily be that impressed when I travel to other places because I felt spoiled growing up in Vancouver. I can give an example when not when I was working in Toronto and living in Toronto we would come out back out west for a Red Bull event called Red Bull Joyride which was in Whistler at the Crank Works Mountain Biking Festival and all my coworkers who grew up in in Ontario, we’d be driving up the sea to sky highway and they’d all go like “Oh wow let’s stop!” and I would kind of just go “Yeah it’s nice like cool” but their minds would be blown, because I’d kind of grown up around this stuff. The same thing happened when I was living in Austria in Salzburg I found that so many people were amazed by certain things and I wasn’t necessarily amazed because I was so spoiled and growing up in a place like Vancouver where we have these epic mountains you know the Pacific Ocean right there, and a city that sort of thing. I think that the more I’ve traveled the more I realize how much this place is home and how much I love it.

DH: Well we’ll come back to what it’s like growing up in a place like that in a bit. I might be reaching here a little bit but there’s this interesting path when I look at your journey which I have the benefit of having the actual timeline in front of me. But you have a background in digital content production or content production in general, lets say being a cinematographer, an editor and then you take on these roles doing social media, but you were a classic social media manager back before algorithms were prioritizing rich media photo, video, etc. Then there’s this irony as all the social platforms started being more real content platforms you then decide to like migrate out and start a company that’s really doing the analytics and insights side of social media. I just find it so funny you have this background that is actually directly translatable to what would make for a really wicked social content person in 2018, 2019, 2020 and beyond. It’s right at this time and you have all this experience that’s so unique. I didn’t say it in the intro but you’ve also been like a freelance producer for Nike and NBC sports. It seems to me like you’re ripe to be a real digital content master tight at the time when that’s what the social platforms are eating up, but you choose to keep moving to a different direction. What do you think is causing it?

CG: So the first thing I’ll say which I think might come as a surprise is that I’m not very creative. When I look back at my career and kind of what I did I think when I explain it it’ll make sense as to how it’s progressed. When I look back like I look at some friends who were able to draw and sketch and even people who use cameras who are so artistically creative. Whereas I think for me when I was working as a cinematographer and working as an editor I was concerned about okay what is the code that I’m shooting out what is the frame rate, what is the aspect ratio, what does good framing look like? and so I liked the technical aspect of it. I think that plays into what we’re doing now with RightMetric and why I like it and enjoy what we’re doing. Just to back it up like yeah I got my start in video because I was really interested in the technical aspect of it. As I was making content and producing content what I was realizing that more and more the stuff was ending up on the internet and so frankly I was sick and tired of giving my videos to crappy digital marketers. That’s the best way that I can describe it. So I said okay if I’m gonna spend all this time coming up with something, shooting it, editing it, and then like wanting it to go somewhere and get the distribution it needs to make an impact I need to learn that distribution side of things. That’s what actually kind of drove me or steered me to learning more about digital marketing, the internet, and how content is distributed. I think what was unique was I was just kind of in the right place at the right time so, as I started to learn more about this social media digital marketing piece, video started to pop off on platforms like Facebook and Twitter and that sort of thing. Then what you know, I have all these video skills! I was in a very unique position where I understood the production side of it and I understood the distribution, and the marketing side of it. Being able to speak those two languages and kind of being the bridge, being the translator I just was in the right place at the right time like in history. I’m using air quotes here like 2014, 2015 to 2016 as like the video started to kind of just take over the internet, I just happened to have the right set suddenly, I was sitting in the right seat that sort of thing. That’s kind of how I got into it and why I progressed from production into like the distribution side of it. I think now to your second point about how it’s interesting to see how I’ve gone from the distribution side of it into the analytics side of it, I think that’s just a natural progression because you create content, you do the creative artistic stuff, you distribute it in certain places. You have to have a skill set to know how to properly distribute things and then you need to measure it to see if things are doing what you need them to do from a business perspective. That’s kind of where I’ve just gone. I think when I look back some people who work in the creative space would probably disagree with me on this but like now that I know how to use a camera I’m not going to forget that right? like yes different cameras have different menu systems but like okay I know how to frame something up, I know how to edit something in adobe premiere, or final cut pro or whatever it is like I know how to use those tools. They don’t really change that much either how their used changes over a period of time. But once I kind of learned that skill I kind of got bored, and I was like okay I can do this now. Then the same thing on the social side of things, yes there are new digital channels coming up I’m not gonna discount that it is changing faster and faster than ever before but once you kind of have a solid understanding you’re dangerous enough to be able to be effective in many different areas. I kind of felt that way and a big thing for me was I wanted to learn more about the analytic side of things, and as analytics and insights became a more important part of business and the marketing mix that’s kind of what drew me to that area. While I was getting experience in using analytics on the brand side where I was working, a lot of it was internal and I saw a ton of value in using external data which is kind of what RightMetric specialize in right now. That’s kind of a long convoluted answer but that’s kind of the natural progression, it makes sense in my mind but I don’t know if it makes sense to you.

DH: Hey it doesn’t need to make sense to me or anybody else. It just is what it is. I just wanted to learn more about it.

CG: Absolutely.

DH: Okay we’re gonna talk about RightMetric as well but I would be remiss if I didn’t use the opportunity to really dive and cheer experience with two brands that I think at least if you’re Canadian are both major. If you’re not from Canada maybe Red Bull is the major one, but if you’re from Canada Aritzia is also in that category. Two pretty interesting brands to work for. Let’s talk about Red Bull for a minute, so I was even recently watching the Driven, Formula One documentary on Netflix which is really awesome. Not a promotion, just a great think watch. I don’t remember which driver but they talk about what it’s like driving for a brand where you know you’re on this team, the Aston Martin Red Bull racing team, but ultimately you’re there and your driving and ultimately you want to do a good job just so that your parent company can sell more energy drinks. Even though the brand itself can make money through doing Formula one. What’s it like at the Red Bull media house specifically both just like in general like what’s the culture like? what is that like? and then in your role as Global Social Media Manager what kinds of things did that entail on the day to day?

CG: So what I’ll say about the organization is it’s a huge part of who I am today. So what I mean by that is when I first decided I wanted just to move out of production and more into the distribution side I was looking at companies that were pushing the envelope and leading the charge so to speak in content marketing and digital marketing that sort of thing. Growing up being interested in the outdoors, action sports, and that sort of thing Red Bull is a brand that kind of came to mind. While I was looking to make this transition you can’t go out and get a bachelor of digital, there isn’t like a top university you can go to, yes I did some certificate programs at universities that you explain in the intro but there isn’t like a full time program for you to go learn that stuff. I was very fortunate that when I got on a Red Bull that was my marketing education I was kind of dropped in the deep and into one of the best marketing organizations in the world. I was just surrounded by people who looked at the world in such a different way and we’re smart and creative and work their butts off. I think that was something that I took away from that organization. Today we still do work with them which is amazing, and so that was really the start of it which really kind of framed up the way that I approach business. Then in terms of what my role was when I had the job in Salzburg doing Global Social Sports, it’s the coolest job in the world flat out. My team and I were tasked with the strategy, education, and project support within Red Bull’s marketing teams related to social media and sports initiatives. So that would be working with athletes, working with sub brands, working with events, and all these different things that would happen. Pretty much it was like how can we make sure that everything that we’re doing as Red Bull in different markets around the world is getting amplified and distributed as much as possible. I was able to kind of go around just to cool stuff for social media related to sports, and for me that was a dream job. The only reason I actually ended up leaving was my girlfriend moved with me to Austria but she couldn’t get a visa to stay, so she moved back to Vancouver and that’s kind of what pulled me out of there. Otherwise I’d probably still be there, that’s how much I loved my job over there.

DH: So on that note like you said you would leave Red Bull and come back to Canada back to Vancouver, where you would take up this post as the Head of Social Media for women’s fashion boutique Aritzia. I just want to read from the Aritzia website how they describe themselves: “Aritzia is an innovative design house and fashion boutique we’re about individual style, obsessed with quality, and we think shopping should be fun. it’s nice to meet you”. Those parts I think makes sense for you but you know obviously making clothes, exceptional experiences for every woman, and I have the pleasure of spending some time with you on video calls in the past and I can say with a great degree of confidence that when I hear Charlie had this big role at Red Bull I’m like that makes a lot of sense, when I hear Charlie had this big role at Aritzia I’m like what??? So what do you think it was like you know going from the Red Bull experience over to Aritizia? What were the things you took from RedBull that were really directly applicable to now working in a primarily female fashion brand and what were some of the challenges going there?

CG: You’re not the first person to point out by the way how you know that maybe didn’t make sense. I think for me how I was approaching it was very important for me to diversify where I worked and not only in industry but in company. So Red Bull is a company that primarily skews male, like there are women who are interested in the brand but it’s primarily a brand that’s marketed towards males. I thought it was really really important to test my skills so to speak and learn about another industry. Growing up in Vancouver I know about Aritzia, and I respect the brand because they’ve grown it to where it is now. It’s you know somewhere over 80 or 100 stores or something in North America. They’ve shown some really great growth in terms of the business. That’s what attracted me to it. It was a high performance organization that was looking to and still is looking to grow their digital footprint. So I wanted to see if I could take what I learned at Red Bull and apply it to another industry, and so it was a really cool experience. There I was lucky to work with some really smart people and learned a ton about an industry that I didn’t know anything about because you know I didn’t grow up wearing the clothes, I didn’t grow up with that kind of emotional attachment to it. At the same time I grew up respecting the brand because in every shopping mall or every part of the city you see Aritzia clothing or Aritzia store. For me I think it is important to put yourself in situations or to try to put yourself in situations that are uncomfortable, and you know I’ll be the first person to admit that I wasn’t a women’s fashion expert that wasn’t my role there my role was to help them grow their brand digitally to reach more people and that sort of thing. I happened to have some experience doing that in another industry, and I think there were things that I was able to implement there that enable them to achieve that goal. It was a very unique experience and I love how when you know you look at my career path that it goes from Red Bull to Aritzia. I like the fact that people look at that and go “What!?” I think that’s actually pretty cool and then I can kind of speak into more detail about why I did it, the motivations behind it, what I learned, and that sort of thing.

DH: Well you said you like to do uncomfortable things and two years ago was when you did the most uncomfortable thing you can do which is starting your own business: RightMetric. So thirty seconds give us the elevator pitch on what RightMetric is and then maybe you can just tell the story as to what about the experience you had working for major brands doing a professional social media job that inspired RightMetric to be founded.

CG: So basically what RightMetric does is we help marketers and analytic leaders track competitors in their industry, and doing it in a holistic way so that they can understand what winning digital strategies look like and then implement aspects of those digital strategies into their own organization. That’s really it at its core. How we do it we work with a bunch of different data vendors, so we have over 30 of the best in class data providers whether it’s you know looking at email data, web data, digital ads, content, social media, mobile apps, market places etc. we track everything relevant to a given industry. I think that the way that we kind of landed on this was when I was sitting on the brand side and my co-founder had his own ecommerce business, we always had a really good idea of what was happening within our 4 walls. What I mean by that is you know when I was at Aritzia or Red Bull I could look at our social data, I could look at our Google analytics, I could look at mobile app downloads and that sort of thing. That’s great but I always felt like there was more stuff outside of my 4 walls that I wanted to know, like what were our competitors doing?, how are competitors doing?, if we grew twenty percent this month did our competitors grow by twenty percent?, did they drop five percent?, did they grow fifty percent? So I always felt that there was so much more context that I was actually missing. As I was sitting down to build strategies or advise on certain things I kind of felt like I had one hand covering my eye, and so with RightMetric what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to build a solution that pulls that hand off of that eye so to speak in order to give marketers a more complete picture of what’s actually happening. The hypothesis is that the more information they have in front of them, and the more meaningful information they have in front of them the better equipped they are to make the right decision for their business.

DH: Thus far what would you say has been the most challenging aspect of having a hypothesis and then going out and pitching it and convincing people that they should share in that hypothesis?

CG: Yeah so I think starting a business is tough and that’s something that I’ve definitely learned over the past two years of stuff starting our business. I’m sure you feel the same way I have because you’ve been doing it longer than I have. In terms of what’s the hardest piece I think is everybody lies, and what I mean by that is getting real feedback, and getting down into the core of like what is that itch that we’re looking to scratch, and how are we making sure that we scratch in a way where people really want your product and see the value of your product. That’s a tough thing to do, it’s taken us two years and we’re still gonna be working on that for many years to come. It’s how are we constantly going to be able to have conversations with our customers to understand what are their pain points. With the marketing industry, marketing is changing so fast it’s really important to stay up to date with that stuff, and that’s a heavy lifting. We’re a small team of seven people right now and so that’s a heavy lift but at the same time we think kind of applying that product mindset to the productized service that we provide at RightMetric is going to allow us to deeply understand what marketers are struggling with and build solutions that help them.

DH: If you were to describe what the Charlie superpower is what would you say?

CG: Charlie super power that’s a really good question… I think my superpower is being able to play translator between different groups of people. What I mean by that is I spend a lot of my days sitting with CMO’s, Heads of Marketing, and CEOs of certain companies and then at the same time I will actually go into a meeting with like really nerdy data people and play translator between those two groups. I’ve been told that that’s a very unique skill set and I feel very lucky that people interpret me and my interactions in that way. So that’s what I’m gonna say, I think I’m a good translator.

DH: Nice, well it’s been a pleasure getting to know you over the last year or so. I was really excited we were able to get you on the show. You yourself have a podcast that’s coming out as well I believe and we will definitely promote that through our channels for those who follow Craft&Crew when you launch that. So everyone stay tuned there’s really great stuff coming soon coming soon from Charlie. So listen, thank you so much for joining us. It was a real pleasure and hopefully we can do this again soon.

CG: Absolutely, thanks for having me Dave.