LOS ANGELES, CA - Everyone wants to be relevant. It’s a constant effort, seen in our industry and well beyond, but what does the term “relevant” entail and how does one achieve this desired state of business? These are questions that Golin’s Jesse Dienstag approaches with seemingly unmatched gusto. As Executive Director and Head of Planning, Jesse has made a career out of relevance and the art of staying up-to-speed with what’s going on in the world.

“It’s not just about being cool or popular—there are actual building blocks to help you stay relevant,” Jesse enlightens me, before defining what the term “relevant” means to the industry as we know it. “It’s a two-part principle. Relevance is what attracts and what keeps people paying attention to what a brand or product has to say, and then moves them into action. So that includes people’s willingness to listen, to pay attention, and a willingness to act—that’s how you know you will be relevant.”

At a recent presentation that Jesse gave for FPFC, he dove into trends, social media listening, and social conversations around certain varieties. The key finding, Jesse tells me, is that the conversation varies vastly depending on the location the research is focused on. Geographically, trends and conversations will differ, but the techniques to find the numbers are what ties the whole process together.

“The point is, when you go out to market, are you listening, do you know your audience, and are you tailoring different messages for different people to stay relevant?” he questions.

To expand upon these questions that businesses are asking themselves, I inquire how this can be seen in the produce industry, specifically. Last year, Jesse shares, “How to cut a mango” was one of the most Googled searches pertaining to produce. As a marketer, he points out that this is when you think you have found the problem to solve. One may think that the way to drive business is to educate everyone on how to cut a mango, he suggests. However, Jesse cuts to the heart of it, “How to cut a mango” search varies enormously depending on U.S. geography and once numbers are revealed, that Google search is only really huge in a few places. Looking at Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter throughout the country reinforces the idea that Google searches and the right approach will not be the same from sea to shining sea.

“In some places, ‘How to cut a mango’ is absolutely the thing you need to do,” he recommends, “but in other places, people understand how to ripen a mango, cut a mango, and eat a mango. For them, the message is different, and you focus on the question, ‘How can I use a mango more than I am using it now?’ It’s a way of approaching marketing toward people with a different level of understanding for the product.”

The two foundational building blocks, he says, for creating relevance come down to this: attention—are you able to grab someone’s attention right off the bat? If you can’t the rest doesn’t really matter because you’re being ignored, he says—and action—once you have someone’s attention, can you get them to act?

He goes on to express that data shows there is a need to always be listening—are you aware of what they are thinking, saying, and doing? There is a need to find what is trending, especially in our fast-paced world. There is also a need to look for future-forward trends that won’t necessarily be shown in data.

What is the key to thinking future-forward, you ask? Jesse has answers.

“I think like everything else, it’s a matter of getting outside your bubble a bit. Everyone has their go-to source for keeping them informed, but whatever you have to do to get outside of that is helpful. I would give that advice to anyone at any level,” Jesse says. “If you are doing the same thing every time to tap into the world, you are probably settling. The reality is, you can pay for someone else to do that for you, or you can do it yourself. You can look around. There are so many different things to take in. There are more food influencers out there than any other category. They are free for everyone on every social media platform. It’s not about the people with the most following, it’s the about the people who have the most engaged followers—who people trust.”

With eyes peeled and ears low to the ground, industry members can create a business that is relevant in perpetuity, as the practices push produce forward in ever-inspiring new ways.

Golin