The CPG Guys are joined in this episode by Nikki McNeil, the co-founder of Vividly to discuss a more modern approach to one of the thorniest issues facing the CPG industry today - trade spend management.  Vividly's solution helps fast growing brands streamline their trade management, reduce the time and effort spent reconciling deductions and give them an accurate single source of truth to enable more effective measurement and allocation of trade dollars. Follow Nikki McNeil on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki-mcneil/                  Follow Vivdly on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/govividly/Follow Vividly online at: https://www.govividly.com/This episode is sponsored by Vividly. Nikki answers these questions:1) So Nikki  tell us about the journey you’ve taken and your background, and what prompted you to found Vividly?2) Promotion optimization is a slice of the commerce ecosystem that has been around for a while - what are some of the important differences in terms of how Vividly thinks about solving this problem for brands vs. legacy solutions?3) You've got a number of fast growing but well known challenger brands like Oatly, Liquid Death and Kodiak Cakes in your portfolio - what do you think these fast growing brands need from a TPM solution they can't get elsewhere?4)  How important is the forward looking view in trade management vs. just filling out the forms and tracking information?  How are your best in class clients improving their forecasting?5) Talk about the dynamics of managing spend in an omni-channel world - how are brands bringing together digital and in-store spend and thinking about it?6) One of the challenging pieces of this landscape is just the mechanics of managing chargebacks and deductions - a labor intensive, frustrating and expensive process.  What do your best clients do in partnership with you to manage that?7) What do you see as the most important changes in the world of trade promotion over the next 12-24 months?   CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual’s use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.