Using surprise to grow (with Kyrsten Halley)

In this episode Adam explores what it takes to use surprise effectively as an integral part of a challenger’s strategy. His guest is Kyrsten Halley, the former Marketing Director of Aldi UK, part of a team that for years has been putting the purposefully unexpected into the drudgery of the weekly grocery shop. One of the key ways Aldi has grown to become one of the Big Four in the UK. 

Adam and Kyrsten unpack how and why a discount supermarket came to offer the world's best champagne for £14.99, restaurant-quality lobster tails at Christmas, and a kayak in the middle aisle: where the real value lies for them in being consistently surprising, and the ‘share of heart’ they look to build through it. And why none of that worked without a real rigour and discipline across the business underpinning it. 

The conversation explores:

• How ‘delighting the customer with surprise’ can create that ‘chink of open-mindedness’ Aldi needs to grow
• How the origin of so much of what Aldi does lies in its challenger roots as a Democratiser – making goods available that many UK shoppers would have historically felt they couldn’t afford
• How the constraints of Aldi’s discount format stimulated the thinking around their famous ‘Special Buys’ 
• The strong relationships between the different areas of the business, and why they are so important.
• The codes of premium private label they felt they could and couldn’t break
• Why being consistently surprising, week in week out, really helps find the right boundaries with your audience
• Why Aldi maintains a challenger mindset even though they are now the fourth biggest UK supermarket
• What it really means to make a brave idea feel obvious to the rest of the business.

This conversation also formed part of the research for eatbigfish's Cannes Lions 2026 session, "The Startling Power of Surprise" with The Uncensored CMO Jon Evans— the latest chapter in the multi-year Cost of Dull project. For more on the Cost of Dull and the effective strategic use of Surprise, visit eatbigfish.com.

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Let's Make This More Interesting is a podcast from eatbigfish: the strategic consultancy that helps ambitious Challengers to grow.

Follow Adam on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/  

Thanks to our editor Ruth and our producer Rachael. 

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