EXCLUSIVE: A Grocery Legacy Is a Powerful Business Foundation
The grocery business has a way of coming full circle. Joel Quadracci knows that well, steering Sussex, Wis.-based Quad as the global marketing experience company has expanded its sphere of influence beyond its original work in printing and into intelligence, creative services, production, integrated media, technology solutions and more.
The chairman, president and CEO of Quad learned the proverbial ropes from his father, the late Harry V. Quadracci, who founded the company in 1971 and who was, in turn, guided and inspired by his own grandfather who started a grocery store in Racine, Wis. Progressive Grocer recently talked with Quadracci about how both those grocery and family roots have shaped his company’s path and his own journey in helping retailers, brands and others ultimately connect with consumers.
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Progressive Grocer: It’s been said that the grocery industry gets into your blood. How is your family business, Quad, inextricably linked to the grocery sector?
Joel Quadracci: My great-grandfather’s family came from outside of Rome, in Amelia, Italy, a farming town. He emigrated from there through Ellis Island and as a young man, ultimately brought his wife back and settled in Racine, Wis. He did a lot of different jobs and eventually started an Italian grocery store in Racine. They lived upstairs. We have a great photo of him behind the meat counter with the neighborhood children lined up around him, including my grandfather and great-uncle.
PG: How did that auspicious beginning lay the groundwork for Quad?
JQ: In those days, your customer was within a 12-block radius. When the Depression happened, all of the neighbors were his customers and you didn’t turn them away, so my great-grandfather racked up debt through that period. My grandfather, who was 18 at the time, bought a printing press and started printing up retail flyers, out of necessity to help his father. So, it’s really the grocery industry that got us into printing.
My grandfather ended up building a nice little business out of that and in 1934, he sold it to William Krueger and it became the W.A. Krueger Company. My grandfather joined that company and through the next decade, it became one of the most innovative printers. When my father was a kid, he grew up like I did – always at the printing plant. My father became a lawyer and practiced law before he came back to W.A. Krueger Company. He ultimately left that company and wanted to work for himself, and started Quad.
PG: Did Quad’s earlier work involve food retailing in some way, too?
JQ: Yes, back to grocery. Retailer flyers were where my father came from and that got us on track into grocery when we were in the free-standing insert business. We also acquired Vertis, which was retail printing.
PG: How does your business continue to serve food retailers and brands?
JQ: Now, and where we are going, we are playing a role in helping CPGs and grocers be successful and solve their daily needs, including through in-store retail media.
In general, we work with a lot of large and medium companies and also do work with smaller grocers, so it’s across the gamut in retail. For us, as the market is changing, grocery is an exciting place for us to play with the capabilities. It all comes together.
PG: Throughout your family and customer history, how has your focus stayed consistent on connecting with the customer?
JQ: The consumer is everything. They want experiences and they will react to different types of marketing, whether it’s online or in-store.
When you are in the store, it’s a journey, a whole discovery, and that’s where tech comes in. With the ability to have a retail media network in store, for example, you can control content across the screen and across the network for both retailers and CPGs to best use the space, putting the right message in front of the right person at the right time. That’s what marketing is.
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PG: Going back to the full-circle notion, do you visit the site of your great-grandfather’s store?
JQ: From time to time, when I’m down that way, I will drive by. It was a storefront then, but I think it’s a house now. Grocery stores were small in those days.
My Great Uncle Willie, who was also my godfather, continued in the business, and it later became a Sentry store. I used to run into people who lived in Racine or their parents lived in Racine and everyone knew Willie. My uncle ran the store, but he often bagged groceries for the customers or took out their groceries to their car. That was his way of building relationships.
When I talk today about how marketing is data-driven, I reflect back on the days of my great grandfather and great uncle and how they got to know their customers and what their likes were – like "Hey, you came in today but didn’t buy milk – why not?" That’s data-driven marketing. Since the days of mass media, in TV, radio and print, the world has been trying to go back to that way of getting to know the customer intimately, and now data can help us do that.
