When Utz Brands CEO Howard Friedman took the reins from former long-time leader Dylan Lissette in December 2022, the company embarked on a new chapter of accelerated growth with an emphasis on marketing.
Friedman, known as an adept marketer, said early in his tenure at Utz that the company had a goal of increasing marketing spend to be in line with its peers, up around 3%-4% of sales over time from 1%. To help achieve that goal, Utz added a specialist to its executive ranks.
Jennifer Bentz
Permission granted by Utz
Jennifer Bentz joined Utz as EVP of insights, innovation and marketing services in July 2023. In the newly created position, she wears a variety of hats: Consumer insights reports to her; she’s responsible for marketing strategy and digital commerce, as well as media and creative platforms; she’s in charge of innovation.
“It’s a continuation of what Utz has been focused on,” Bentz said of her new role, in an interview. “One of the things that we’ve been talking about is the focus on marketing capabilities, and how those marketing capabilities will help to drive growth for the business.”
Her job description may seem complex, but Bentz comes with a wealth of experience. Her consumer goods career goes back to 1992, when she started at IRI (now Circana). From there, she went on to work at SC Johnson, Kraft Foods (now Kraft Heinz), Hillshire Brands, Tyson Foods, Mintel and Clif Bar.
Though different CPG categories require different strategies Bentz brings a diversified set of teachings to Utz.
“There are so many life lessons that I’ve had in my career,” Bentz said.
Bentz’s 3 focus areas
Bentz learned those lessons by running toward them. Amby Burfoot — motivational speaker, author and winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon — is one of Bentz’s biggest philosophical influences. “As we run, we become,” he once said.
“As you continue to move, that’s how you learn,” Bentz said. “As you keep searching, you keep finding new ways. And so that’s really been my rallying cry.”
Bentz’s new position at Utz is the latest manifestation of the momentum she’s had since her first job in the industry. At IRI, she worked with SC Johnson as a client. That company ended up hiring her directly. Continuing to move forward, Bentz’s next stop was Kraft Foods, where she worked her way up from an analytics role to running global consumer insights strategy.
She spent almost 15 years at Kraft, witnessing the company’s split and the birth of Mondelēz International. From that experience, she took away a key point about growth.
Before the split, Kraft Foods “had two very different types of businesses,” Bentz said. One was the snacks side, which was focused on direct store delivery, and the other was grocery. And both sides needed different things to grow.
“It gave me some insight into really understanding brands and thinking about portfolio strategy and how important that is when you think about growth,” she said.
Portfolio strategy is the first of three focus areas Bentz is now prioritizing at Utz, working to elevate its so-called “power brands” and “foundation brands.” Second is marketing capabilities, which include omnichannel and e-commerce operations — Utz has also added strategic design partners to its marketing plan. The third focus area is consumer insights.
Understanding the market, consumers and customers is foundational to growth, Bentz said. She’s responsible for making sure Utz is mining and analyzing the data it typically collects to understand market opportunities, as well as building other consumer insights the CPG may not currently have.
“All of that is really important and central as we think about launching new products, optimizing our media plan, executing our trade and consumer promotions,” Bentz said.
Launching new products, in particular, is a skill Bentz has honed through trial and error. Her five years working at Tyson Foods as SVP of consumer insights and marketing innovation (after the 1.5 years at Hillshire Brands that followed her time at Kraft Foods), reinforced one of the most valuable lessons of her career.
“We can’t be afraid to fail,” she said. “There are major lessons in failure — as long as you can fail fast, and you can learn behind the experiences, and grow from there.”
Failure as a successful philosophy
At Tyson, Bentz was part of a team that built an innovation lab. It launched products on a relatively accelerated time frame that created opportunities to work with retailers and taught Bentz new testing methods. Instead of traditional product testing, the team launched products in a way that allowed consumers to buy, or not buy, them early, allowing Tyson to identify what works more quickly.
Some of those products may not be on the market today, but the lessons learned continue to be relevant. Bentz’s attitude toward failure is something she has brought to Utz.
Failure is built into the innovation plan for her marketing department now. Money is earmarked specifically for testing. She and her team know not every innovation is going to be successful — but that’s OK.
“It’s about creating and building into your plan ways to test and learn and to fail fast,” she said.
One of the reasons Bentz joined Utz was for the opportunity to be a creative propeller. As she went through the interview process, she said, it was clear the CPG was open to new perspectives and was very motivated to grow.
Salty snacks is a growing category, and Utz wants to win, she said. The company did experience negative impacts to its volume in the most recent quarter, due to supply chain optimization. But net sales still increased 2.5%, compared to the year-ago period, to $371.9 million.
“It’s a company that’s looking to build the foundation and drive the business with higher levels of investment over time,” Bentz said. “When I think about that, compared to other companies that I’ve worked for, what I will say is it is a very attractive space to be in.”
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