Team Meeting Notes

Date | time Jan 19th ,2023 [Date | time]Location

Meeting Notes

Agenda Item

TOPIC	NOTES
Background
Competitor
The Audience
Challenge & opportunity
Finacial Data
Contact Info

Other Information

Start/Getting information (Tate)

· What is the goal for the year (what are you trying to accomplish) 

Pivot to make them more digitally focused, marketing publication, create Impact on the market.

Increase the size of the audience.

· Likewise, what makes you stand out from your competitors? 

Sustainability is a pro and a con. Consumer demand is more sustainable

Their competitors engage in pay-to-play, meaning that they pay a lot of money to promote their things. They spend a lot to attract many organizations.

They really focus on putting Canada on the plate.

Encourage innovative looks in Canada (focusing on Canada), but it puts them at a slight disadvantage because they are not global.

· What would you say are the weak point in your company

Focus on Canada

For example, if an American company reaches out some Canadian companies might get mad, and it may be harder to run ads as they do not have other countries’ experience

· What did consumers like about the paper magazine that could be implemented into the online parts

Being able to hold it and visuals

Age range and demographic

45+ in management/sales

Males dominate industry

Wants to target younger groups, more food industries/audiences that could be interested in it, such as innovation startups, etc.….

What paper magazines catch that digital does not

· Someone seeing the print advertisements helps grab their audience’s attention and gets more engagement.

· People who read them used to enjoy them

· Special publication to bridge the gap

· Sustain spoke to GFS, Sysco, they were not ready to distribute sustains own info

Asking more in-depth questions: (Stephen)

·
Can you give us a rundown of your current target market and your target customer profile?  * Focus on business and concerned citizens. Businesses like restaurants, chefs, government, food, and safety, 15% of a concerned citizens.

Majority of the people above is from Canada, but they also have some from the USA, but it is ridiculously small

Developing trades with Austria, wants to ‘try’ making sure showcasing Canada when possible while also going international

· Is there currently an audience outside of Canada?

· In the past what are some of the promotional tactics used to advertise Sustain? 

15k was a great audience number, but the cost to get there was not right (meaning it cost too much). There are digital methods to reach better people and spend a lot less compared to paper advertisements like postcards.

· In your company, who are the decision-makers and executioners? And who makes the calls? 

It was a whole company decision, seeing everything get returned made it very swift

They are bad at their digital marketing, but are aware of it

They need a better value proposition for everything to work together and nail it down. Ex. Wanting to reduce waste,

Concluding questions: (Maybe Ryan)

· Are there any specific areas you would like us to focus on more so than others 

No, because she wants us to lean into the project as a passion project for us and not just hers. She give us thought starters and wants us to produce ideas and be able to bring our own perspectives to help guide them in the right direction.

· Is there anything you would like to tell us for notes or for references sake?

Just read the about section

In term of working with her, she is happy to use the QnA and anything that makes sense

If we need to book more time, then book more time. This allows us to get a better idea of the project. We can ask as much as we like.

Based on the possible ideas for the next 3 years ( Aya )

· She allows us to pick everything from each of the ideas, but it is better to focus our ideas on one section as we can go more in depth with the answers, we produce (actionable plan).

· Define the map before the boundaries. We should brainstorm which idea makes the most sense for our group’s capabilities

Ads and promo

· 30k-50k trade publications do not typically spend a lot of money on advertising, but they need to

· Production costs are about 7k when they put out an issue. This is everything included host, layout, photo licensing, writers, etc.… (digital production costs)

Page 2

Team Meeting

Date | time 1/19/2023 12:00 AM| Location Ontario

Facilitator Tate Millard, Stephen Fernandes Note taker Ryan Tan, Nency

Attendees: Nency, Tate, Ryan Tan, Ryan Ahadi and Aya

Meeting Objectives

Getting to know the Sustain magazine

Agenda Items

Start/Getting information (Tate) Time allotted: 9 min · ​​What is the goal for the year (what are you trying to accomplish)  · Likewise, what makes you stand out from your competitors?  · What would you say are the weak point in your company ​ · What did consumers like about the paper magazine that could be implemented into the online parts? · Based on your demographic what is your current age range and what’s the ideal age range you are looking forward Asking more in-depth questions: (Stephen) Time allotted: 7 min · Focus on business and concerned citizens. Business like restaurants, chefs and government and food and safety, 15% of concerned citizen. · Is there currently an audience outside of Canada? · In the past what are some of the promotional tactics used to advertise Sustain?  · What is the engagement rate on socials · Are you able to discuss your hiring process? /How many employees do you have?  (skip running low on time) · In your company, who are the decision-makers and executioners? And who makes the calls?  Concluding questions: (Ryan) Time Allotted: 2 min · Are there any specific areas you would like us to focus on more so than others  · Is there anything you would like to tell us for notes or for references sake? Add On questions: (Aya & Nency) Time Allotted: 3 min

Other Information

Page 2

The Company: Sustain

Link: https://www.sustainmag.ca/

Note

· For-profit organization but want to move to social enterprise

· Chefs,business,b2b,concerned citizens,food industry

· Actual magazine that was sustainable

· Loss of advertising and investments

· Not digital-first media, Still operate as a print organization

· The Pandemic forced restaurants to shut down, which led the advertisers to lose business (sustain magazine) as people didn’t have the funds to promote

·

· Move towards sustainability practices

· Making big moves and there are a lot of investments rn in innovation within this space

· Food space is often seen as a laggard in this space. They plan to expand to all facets of food industry and not just foodservice.

Competition (market share-wise)

· Menumag.ca

· Foodserviceandhospitality.com

· Restobiz.ca (former magazine publisher, Media Edge)

· Sysco (one time a year magazine on trucks)

Key diff

· Focus on sustainability is rather unique in this space

· Because of that focus, they are eligible for other sources of funding that focus on sustainability and positive environmental impacts as opposed to simple foods (

· We have opportunities (and the desire) to support lots of other social impact organizations including fair labor practices, advancing work and skills development along with DEI strategies, and food insecurity challenges within Canada

· Also have opportunities to educate their audience on how their change can have local, regional, national, and global impacts.

Our audience

· Their list is ever changing and could use some work

·

· Audience has been high as 14,000 and as low as 1,200 and is comprised of industry professionals and businesses including restaurants, suppliers, chef, government and food safety, etc

· Quality of the list is genuinely how engaged that audience is. So from out last mailing, 3,750 opened the email and 700 clicked through the magazine

· We need to re-engage their current audience and develop ways to build new audience including consumers

· (something)

· Might do special reports or physical papers unlikely going back to paper though

Challenges and opportunities

· We are a traditional medi company that has migrated to a digital format, but are not a digital media company- and we need to be

· While we currently enjoy a limited competitive environment, that wont last for long.

· As a media company, we’d like to really be a part of the solution and connect companies in meaningful ways

Possible ideas to set up for next years

·

· How many people youre talking to and they need to rebuild an engaged audience. Audience development is a strong marketing engine on its own. Its its own marketing plan through retentions

· Revenues come from advertising alone and not subscriptions

· Educational tools,webinars, final report for the year, universities and younger audience

· Media organizations something something

· Tldr diversify revenue

·

· Exploring agriculture and supply chain, and life cycle of food (how its produce, consumed, process, what it looks like and what the audience looks like (b2b and b2c))

Finances

·

· Get the bullet points shown so we know its diff thoughts

Contact Information

Q&A

Start/Getting information(Tate)

· ​​What is the goal for the year (what are you trying to accomplish) 

· Pivot to make them more digitally focused, marketing publication, create Impact on the market.

· Increase the size of the audience.

· Likewise, what makes you stand out from your competitors? 

· Sustainability is a pro and a con. Consumer demand is more sustainable

· Their comepttiros engage in pay to play, meaning that they pay a lot of money to promote their things. They spend a lot to attract many organizations.

· They really focus on putting Canada on the plate.

· Encourage innovated looks in Canada (mainly focuses on Canada), but it puts them at a slight disadvantage because they arent global.

· What would you say are the weak point in your company ​

· Focus on canada

· For example if an american company reaches out some canadian companies might get mad and it may be harder to run ads as they don’t have other countries experience

· What did consumers like about the paper magazine that could be implemented into the online parts

· Being able to hold it and visuals

· Age range and demogpragic

· 45+ in management/sales

· Male dominate industry

· Want to target younger groups, more food industries/audiences that could be interested in it, such as innovation start ups, etc….

What paper magazine catch that digital doesn’t

· Someones seeing the print advertisements helps grabs their audiences attention and gets more engagement.

· People who read them used to enjoy them

· Special publication to bridge the gap

· Sustain spoke to GFS, sysco, they weren’t ready to distribute sustain’s own info

Asking more in-depth questions: (Stephen)

·
Can you give us a rundown of your current target market and your target customer profile?  * Focus on business and concerned citizens. Business like restaurants, chefs and government and food and safety, 15% of concerned citizen.

· Majority of the people above is from Canada, but they also have some from the USA but it is very small

· Developing trades with Austria,Wants to ‘try’ making sure showcasing canada when possible while also going international

· Many lose audience … i didnt hear it alll

·

· Is there currently an audience outside of Canada?

· In the past what are some of the promotional tactics used to advertise Sustain? 

· 15k was a great audience number, but the cost to get there was not right (meaning it costed too much). There are digital methods to reach better people and spend a lot less compared to paper advertisements like post cards.

· For the article writers, are there more freelance writers or are there employees that Sustain hires to write for the company?

· Are you able to discuss your hiring process? /How many employees do you have?  

·
Is there a difference between the print versions of the magazines compared to the online news articles?  

· In your company, who are the decision-makers and executioners? And who makes the calls? 

· It was a whole company decision, seeing everything get returned made it very swift

· They are bad at their digital marketing, but are aware of it

· They need a better value proposition for everything to work together and nail it down. Ex. Wanting to reduce waste,

Concluding questions: (Maybe Ryan)

· Are you running any major campaigns? 

·

· Are there any specific areas you would like us to focus on more so than others 

· No, because she wants us to lean into the project as a passion project for us and not just hers. Shes give us thought starters and want us to come up with ideas and be able to bring our own perspectives to help guide them in the right direction.

· Is there anything you would like to tell us for notes or for references sake?

· Just read the about section

· In term fo working with her, shes happy to use the QnA and anything that makes sense

· If we need to book more time, then book more time. This allows us to get a better idea for the project. We are able to ask as much as we like.

Based on the possible ideas for the next 3 years

· She allows us to pick a bit of everything from each of the ideas, but it is better to focus our ideas on one section as we are able to go more indepth with the answers we come up with (actionable plan).

· Define the map before the boundaries. We should brainstorm which idea makes the most sense for our groups capabilities

Ads and promo

· 30k-50k trade publications dont tpyicall spend a lot of money on advertising, but they need to

· Production cost are about 7k when they put out an issue. This is everything included hsot, layout, photo liscneing, writers, etc… (digital production costs)

Group Assignment #1: Statement of Work

A.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

B.
CLIENT BACKGROUND

· Provide a description of the company and its business

· Who are its customers?

· Purpose and goals of the project

· Objectives

· Challenges/constraints

C.
SHERIDAN STUDENT CONSULTING INTRODUCTION

· Brief biographies of each ‘consultant’

D.
PROJECT SCOPE

· Deliverables of the project with explanation

E.
CONSULTING CHARGES AND EXPENSES

· Explain that the work is done at no charge

F.
PROJECT SCHEDULE

· Complete project plan with tasks, timelines, and responsibilities

G.
KEY ASSUMPTIONS/POTENTIAL RISKS

· Provide a list of assumptions that you are making as you complete this project.

H.
SIGN-OFF