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If you don't know this convenience store brand, it\\u2019s probably because you don't live in the Midwest \\u2013 Casey\\u2019s General Store, or Casey\\u2019s, as it\\u2019s more commonly known, is a regional brand based in Iowa and has more than 2,000 locations. Casey\\u2019s considers itself committed to the communities that it serves and is upgrading its branding to make that better known, after rolling out their Here for Good tagline late last year. Today\\u2019s guest is Chris Jones, Senior Vice President and CMO of Casey's General Stores. Chris is leading the 60-year-old company through a digital transformation and a most recent refresh of its visual identity. We talk about these initiatives, the Casey\\u2019s rewards program, and some of the interesting challenges of competing within the convenience store industry, as well as how the company responded to the COVID crisis. Tune in today!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Fun fact about Chris Jones: He\\u2019s worked in the confectionery, pet food, and pizza industries.
• What Chris loves about Iowa is its diverse population and its great mix of industries.
• The Casey\\u2019s General Stores story \\u2013 from gas station to convenience store and pizzeria.
• Part of Casey\\u2019s strategy is to position the brand at the heart of the communities they\\u2019re in.
• Chris says the Casey\\u2019s brand has different salience in different need states for their guests.
• Chris talks about the interesting challenges of competing in the convenience store industry.
• How Chris looks at the landscape, and why the convenience industry is generally congenial.
• Having a successful dinner business is extremely unusual in the convenience industry.
• The push toward digital \\u2013 Chris as the first chief marketing officer at Casey\\u2019s, and he joined at a time that digital was part of their strategy.
• From repositioning the brand and building the digital experience to refreshing visual identity.
• The combination of rewards, the new mobile app, digital, and marketing automation is really paying off in terms of Casey\\u2019s digital business.
• The process of streamlining Casey\\u2019s visual identity while retaining what makes them unique.
• Casey\\u2019s has re-centralized some operational aspects of the business so that operators can better focus on the guest experience.
• Through their rewards program, Casey\\u2019s hopes to contribute to a funding solution for schools.
• Feedback at a local level through guest surveys and real-time feedback from operators.
• Casey\\u2019s response to COVID and their pride in the resilience of their teams in stores.
• Casey\\u2019s competes with national and regional convenience, pizza, and QSR players.
• The specific marketing response to COVID \\u2013 Chris says they made no reductions.
• How Casey\\u2019s has recently been contemporizing the skills they have across the business.
• Chris\\u2019 response to brand loyalty \\u2013 it\\u2019s a feeling that guests have, not a program they offer.
• Chris feels that the type of branded content they have is word-of-mouth, where guests are talking about Casey\\u2019s program.

Tweetables:

\\u201cAcross the industries I've worked in here, in retail and financial services while I've lived in Iowa, there is still a common passion in all those industries to know your guest, care for your guest, and really evolve the experience. I think that's been a universal theme across all these businesses. They\\u2019re trying to build branded, compelling guest experiences.\\u201d \\u2014 Chris Jones [0:03:23]

\\u201cThe combination of rewards, the new mobile app, the digital, and marketing automation is really paying off in terms of our digital business in the first quarter. Our fiscal year runs from May to April, so we start with our big summer season to get our big roaring start, and then we continue with the rest of the year. But what that means is that we just reported our first quarter, May, June, July,