The Nutravate™ 2022 Recap
We did it. YOU did it. Thanks to you, the first ever Nutravate™ summit was a success.
Nutravate™ was the first summit of its kind, dedicated to the nutrition innovation space like never before. Compound Solutions set forth to create something unique in the nutraceutical industry – truly knowledge share and innovate across every part of the product development chain. It had never been done before in nutraceuticals, so it took a lot of vision (CEO, Matt Titlow), a ton of heart (President, Kim Sickinger), plenty of muscle (CSI Marketing and Team), and forecasting.
Here’s what we mean by forecasting: we stepped out of our own silos to see what was missing from others. We wanted to fill those gaps in, oh, say 8-hours.
Spoiler: we need much more time than that. But it’s a start!
The Who’s Who
By all accounts, Nutravate™ was a success. If you paid attention to Loran Nordgren‘s presentation on friction, you understand that overnight successes do not ever happen overnight. The level of planning, orchestrating, communication, friction, emotion, trust, and effort all culminating into just 8 fast hours – it takes grit and grace. No one exemplifies truer grit and grace than Compound Solutions’ own President, Kim Sickinger. In case you missed her, she was the lady in red, celebrating a bold new wave of energy in an industry that is ready for it. Without Kim’s laser focus on the end-game and the details that lined the path to Nutravate™, this event would have looked and felt like every single event you have attended in the past. Basic pens, basic notepads, basic hotel, basic chairs, basic information, and an experience you would forget. Kim Sickinger does not ‘do basic’. Without her sharp eye and total belief that Compound Solutions would be able to execute on Matt Titlow’s vision, we would not have the excitement that we do in introducing a new era of nutraceutical innovation.
Just as Compound Solutions moves at the speed of Matt Titlow’s innovative thoughts; we watch and learn as Kim’s operational calculations are executed with sophisticated precision. Learn more about Kim and how she runs Compound Solutions here.
The Specifics
The Nutravate™ forever Master of Ceremonies and Marketing Director of Compound Solutions, Kelsey Olanoff.
The Nutravate™ Summit is the first nutraceutical innovation summit designed for you. We set out to bring together industry experts and business leaders to freely give an actionable roadmap to innovation. On May 19th, 2022, that’s exactly what we did. Moreover, we did it with a bit of flare, hosting at The Montage Deer Valley in Utah.
The impetus for Nutravate™ was to stop reporting the news and start creating it. No more trends about gummies or personalized nutrition. How do we implement? Nutravate is designed to be a how-to summit on implementing the most important nutraceutical innovations of our time.
A shift in catering to the audience, not the presenter himself, means more win-win scenarios and more innovation.
No one is going to attend
The fear that people may not attend was real and it’s important that we stay honest about it. Fear can be a major friction we are forced to overcome. And we did overcome in a big way!
In Matt‘s opening session on observation, he talks about his true vulnerability in wanting everyone to walk away with value. Will our industry attend? Will others? Will they find it valuable? It was no small venture to go all-in on Nutravate™, and for that we can be proud. More importantly, we saw the nutraceutical industry is ready for deeper, granular discussions about innovation and improvement. Matt went through actionable ways we can shift our perspective, reminding us that copywriters need to deeply understand the target market and form the story, formulators and flavorists use that story to make the best products on the market, and online conversion experts use the story and unique product to efficiently convert online with a low CPA.
First stop: story. Stefan Georgi is a top direct response copywriter and offered up a masterclass on story. Story, as many of us know, is everything, and if your brand doesn’t tell it, it can’t sell it. This session was for everyone in the room who wanted to make connection between customers and their product. “Essential” content is an understatement. In our own approach, Compound Solutions believes in the stories behind our raw ingredients. We tell that story in a variety of ways so that any human can connect with their benefits. Stefan Georgi was fiercely good at driving home the value of story for a brand, or any business including B2B.
McCormick FONA and Kim Sickinger
Flavor. Flavor. Flavor. While formulators may have an understanding of flavoring, most copywriters don’t – but they need to! Most online conversion experts don’t – but they need to. This is because flavor is nothing without emotions and more emotions.Stefan Georgi reminded us that people buy emotionally, and then use logic to back up their emotional decision.
McCormick FONA took the lead with an interactive session with strong fundamentals, allowing the audience to create a new product. This new, tasty energy drink flavor was designed to target millennial women. The tasting experience was loved by millennial women in the audience and not-so-much by older men. Shocking how target market research works. Next up, Sensapure Flavors with master flavorist, Scott Zimmerman who explained natural flavoring vs. artificial. In short, natural stories require natural solutions such as different sweeteners, and potentially even different product formulas. He had them all ready to go for us.
At some point in the processes, we have to wonder: anyone can make a product, but can everyone sell one? Industry existentialism came to a head with online conversion in The Snow Agency‘s presentation. Questions like, if customer acquisition costs are rising to >$100, then how can we all make money? Which platform do you advertise on? What is the CPM on TikTok versus other platforms? What is my post-purchase strategy in terms of subscription and customer lifetime value? Brand awareness and/or better products with repeat purchase are key to customer lifetime value? In short, online conversion is the Wild West and you’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away and know when to run. Studying the platforms you wish to grow on, and owning your own consumer data, how you build your own product conversion strategy. There are tried and true methods and with the right team, you will find yours.
Dr. Loran Nordgren
Keynote Dr. Loran Nordgren took to the Nutravate™ stage to end the day and boy did he tell us a thing or two. Regardless of the session you were most interested in, his work in The Human Element dives into the philosophy of fuel vs. friction. What keeps us from trying something new? Inertia. Effort. Emotion. Reactance. These are major frictions that we as humans experience quite naturally when faced with change. Discovering which friction your business, team, product, conversion is most affected by can greatly increase your chances of overcoming and advancing toward your goals.
The Results
First, we’re happy to report that industry leaders and experts at all levels from all industries, showed up for Nutravate™. Second, there was a deep interest, in understanding all product development processes from copywriting and formulation to flavoring and online conversion.
There will be more frictions– it’s inevitable. For example, how do we improve for next year? We’ve asked and you answered.
Here’s what some folks have already said (names redacted):
“I can’t believe that my colleagues didn’t come to this. I have already shared a lot of the content on which was covered and now they can’t wait to see the decks that were presented. Next year you will not only see me but much more from our team”
“This was easily in top 5% of any conference I’ve been to in any industry.”
- “After seeing that, I can’t believe how much opportunity we have at our company”
- “I already texted my team saying they should have been here”
- “Thank you so much!! It was amazing and far exceeded my expectations on every level”
“I had the amazing opportunity to be a part of the “Nutravate” summit, the lineup of speakers was extremely inspiring and insightful. This mashup of the best scientists, marketing professionals and academics was something to be cherished. Looking forward to the next summit in 2023.”
“Thank you for all you did to accommodate us. You went above and beyond to ensure we were taken care of. I am so proud to have been a part of this successful first conference and looking forward to next year.”
“I have been to many of shows in the industry throughout the years and this easily ranks amongst the top.”
“Thank you for an amazing collaborative event last week. You and the team did an amazing job with content and the execution was world class! You’ve truly set a new bar for our industry.”
“That conference was like taking a couple classes from my MBA program.”
“This summit was truly disruptive.”
“This whole thing is badass man.”
“Flavoring session provided a lot of insight.”
“When’s the next one?”
Here’s a recap video
Now What
“Mexico!!!!” …will not happen in 2023. But it is on the list for sure. The positive feedback floored us all. The places of improvement will be taken seriously and we are grateful for those as well.
We want to keep you guessing and keep the perspectives shifting, moving us all into an innovative space.
We’ll stay in touch and will listen to your thoughts, feedback, and ideas. When good people do good things, our worlds shift so that we can shift the world.
Once again, we are extremely grateful for your presence and interest in Nutravate™. We’re hopeful and encouraged by all of this.
Here are links you may need!
Ready to reach out? Go here.
Think your team should present? Go here.
See you next year!
