Mario – 00:00:00:
A big investment for us is in-store radio, like audio ads inside the store. The thing that we’re most excited about is as we roll out radio, we’re going to be the largest radio station in the United States with 250 million listeners every month. All of our ads are generated from text to voice by AI. And so that allows us to, we can create multiple versions. The ads are streamed in. And they’re going to be tied together with a platform that is tracking the ad, the version of the ad, the sales, optimizing, optimizing A/B testing, optimizing versions, optimizing the time of day to play, et cetera,
Intro – 00:00:54:
Welcome to the Time for a Reset marketing podcast—insights from global brand marketers, brought to you by CVE Marketing Consultancy. Hosted by Fiona Davis. Each episode dives deep into the minds of senior marketing leaders from around the world. Join us as we explore what they want to reset in an ever-changing landscape and uncover strategies that drive successful brand transformation.
Fiona – 00:01:19:
Hi, welcome back to Time for a Reset. I’m Fiona Davis, the GM of CvE, and I’m your host and I have the pleasure of welcoming Mario Mijares from 7-Eleven. Welcome, Mario. We’ve been working with the 7-Eleven crew for quite some time now and had the pleasure of hosting them on stage last year in Cannes where Mario gave a great chat to the audience there about the immediate shopper experience and what that’s like for 7-Eleven and how they operate in the space versus a supermarket chain or something like that, very different dynamics. So it was super interesting and we’re great to have you back onto the podcast today, Mario. Just by way of a quick background, folks, on Mario himself, Mario started his career working at A.T. Kearney back in 1995, focused on retail and FMCG projects. He joined a company called Fusion Retail brands in Brisbane as Deputy GM of Brand Marketing and then moved to Coles Group in Melbourne. For those who don’t know, on the podcast today, that is a very large supermarket chain in Australia. It’s got one of the biggest loyalty programs out there. And he works there as Strategy Manager, Head of Coles Insurance and ultimately ended up with the Flybuys program where he led the insourcing of their programmatic trading desk for personalized targeting of loyalty members. That’s actually one of the largest loyalty programs in Australia as well. Mario then moved back to Florida working at Winn-Dixie and Southeastern Grocers in 2015. So he’s working there as SVP of Marketing, Digital Strategy and Loyalty. And then ultimately Mario joined 7-Eleven in 2020 as VP of Marketing, Loyalty and Monetization Platforms where he leads efforts across so many different verticals. Having worked with him on that account, there’s so many things that Mario covers in that role. The in-store media, shopper marketing experience, loyalty programs, customer analytics, the actual analytics platform that 7-Eleven gives access to their customers on that Mario will talk a bit about today, personalization, CRM and the data monetization. So his entire role, his focus that enhancing the customer shopper experience. So welcome back, Mario. Great to have you. I just wanted to start as we always do on the podcast by asking our guest, if you had a giant reset button in front of you, what would you reset about the marketing industry today?
Mario – 00:03:32:
I think the biggest opportunity for us to reset is all the silos that get created within marketing organizations or large CPG organizations. That to us is one of the biggest obstacles we have to make progress.
Fiona – 00:03:48:
And then just digging in a little bit on that, Mario, and maybe we’ll come onto this where you can give some background about some of the tools that you’re using and some of the ways you’re trying to combat that. Can you just elaborate a little bit on like, how do those silos affect your omni-channel commerce media partnerships? What are the challenges for you internally? And what are some of the things that you do to try to overcome some of those challenges?
Mario – 00:04:09:
I think a good way to understand why I see it as such a challenge is, let me explain to you how I came to 7-Eleven and the tools we’ve built. So this is a North story, but before I joined 7-Eleven, let’s say five years before I joined, marketing was reporting to IT, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. No price for guessing, it didn’t work. Some of them decided, no, we need a proper marketer. And they hired Marissa Jarratt, who’s a chief marketing officer. She was running, I think, for Frito-Lay all the salty snacks globally. So proper marketer. She comes into 7-Eleven thinking. Oh my God, I finally got the keys to the liquor cabinet. I’m going to get to play with all this customer data that I’ve always wanted to see and celebrated for all these years. Comes into 7-Eleven and finds out that nobody’s really using it. There’s no really tools to use it. There’s no conscience of what we could do with this data. Back then I was consulting. She hired me as a consultant to come in and figure out, do we have any data? Is it any good? Why isn’t anybody using it? Let’s put a program together to use this data. The short answer to it was all the customer data was coming from a loyalty program that was pretty new, pretty much was just getting to scale. So fair enough. I mean, there was no data before Marissa joined. So I came in full time and over the last five years… What my team and I have done is we’ve built the set of tools that you need to use all the customer data to work across the retail funnel, product development funnel. So researching and finding opportunities with customers, testing those opportunities with customers, then communicating those and selling those new products to customers, retail media, and then using all that data to figure out what worked, what didn’t work and start again.
Fiona – 00:06:09:
Okay. And then so in terms of that, how does that manifest itself when you’re talking to a CPG? Like, obviously, we have the similar feedback from the CPG side of the house is they have the same silos in their business. How do you that challenge of trying to have one joined up conversation when you know that you might have to speak to 12 different departments within a CPG to get to an outcome with them?
Mario – 00:06:33:
So we have about five tools that we use. We have a tool called C-Sharper. That’s our analytics tool. It has all our transaction data and loyalty data. Very powerful. We have a customer research tool called the Brainfreeze Collective, which has about 300,000 members have joined. All map to the database where you could do any qualitative research. We have a store called the Lab Store where you could do cameras everywhere, where you could do an experiment where the customer doesn’t know it’s an experiment. It’s a real store, real customers voting with their own wallets. And you could do an experiment, new product introduction, figure out, is the product going to work? Is it going to be a creative? Is it going to cannibalize? Is it going to bring new people to the brand, new people? Then we have loyalty to and sharper marketing to boost product sales. And then we have retail media to tell people inside and outside Sutherland about the product. So all of these tools have different buyers within the, let’s say that we’re talking about an energy drinks company. The analytics team within the energy drinks company will subscribe to the C-Sharper tool, would be going in there, analyzing the sales and like, oh, wait, this is the way it should work. It’s not working like that. But, oh, we see that. 5% of our customers are moving away from our product and are drinking kombucha. Hmm, this is a good finding. It’s an opportunity. We need to figure out what to do. Then what you can do is you could drag that audience into the Brainfreeze Collective. They ask that specific audience that was drinking your energy drink and are now drinking kombucha. Hey, this doesn’t make any sense. Like, why are you, well, you know, gut health and probiotics, and we’re interested in this. Well, what about this? Hey, why don’t we introduce probiotic energy drink? Ah, we totally buy that. Okay, now we have a plausible solution, right? Hey, well, introducing a new product is very expensive. It’s very risky. Why don’t we do a small run? We’ll merchandise it inside the Lab Store. Customers are not going to know this is a test. So you open the fridge. All the energy drinks are going to be there, and there’s going to be the probiotic flavor energy drink. Cameras can see who actually opened the fridge. If they pick it up, put it back down. Ultimately, with the loyalty data. We can see what they bought. It’ll be accretive. Is it going to cannibalize? Is it going to drive new people to the brand? Okay, great. We decide to test it. Then you move it over to a shopper marketing sales loyalty team. Hey, okay, so let’s introduce it. We’re going to put it in these stores. We’re going to do a loyalty offer, a shopper marketing offer. And then with retail media, we’re going to tell this group of people that are interested in probiotics, but also the energy drink, et cetera, et cetera, to tell the world about it, bring them back. That’s our nirvana. That’s how it should work. What’s happening right now is that the analytics team that is using C-Shopper doesn’t really talk to the marketing team or the brand team or the research team. So a lot of the conversations we have right now with retail media, we’ll be talking to the retail media team and we’ll show them some insights about the customers. Oh my God, that’s amazing. It’s like, can we get access to this? You have access to this. What’s a- John X, that works for you. Oh, never heard that name. Really? This is amazing. Can we get a login? I said, yeah, you can get a login, but this is a pretty powerful tool. That’s what we’re facing, right? That’s why I mean silos.
Fiona – 00:09:59:
And I guess you would see the same thing too. We definitely see this is that budgets also sit within those silos. So sometimes you’ll have a trade marketing budget over here. You’ll have a brand media budget over here. You might have a performance marketing budget sitting over here. In a lot of organizations, the left hand doesn’t necessarily know what the right hand is doing. Have you seen that working well? You don’t have to name names, obviously, but in organizations where they have actually managed to integrate that on the CPG side, so they’re coming to the table themselves with a more holistic approach to how they’re planning the overarching activation in-store where you’re plugging all of those elements into it, or is it still a work in progress for most of your customers?
Mario – 00:10:39:
I think every company has the intention of doing that. It’s very hard to overcome silos, but convenience is a very, very different type of industry and with an advantage. And by that, I mean, we’re all about immediate consumption, but also… Most CPGs rely on line extensions and new product innovation. And the convenience store is premier place to introduce new products to the consumer. Because let’s say, yes, we’re going to do a new root beer flavor energy drink. You’re not going to introduce it at the warehouse club in a pack of 20. You’re not going to introduce it at a grocery store with a pack of six or eight. But the customer will go and say, oh, okay, root beer, energy drink. You know, I’ll try one at the convenience store. It’s a low commitment purchase. And why that is an opportunity for us is a lot of product innovation is coming in from small companies. One of the things that 7-Eleven prides itself on is giving a platform to up-and-coming products. Unfortunately, this happens. A lot of the stepping out there into the unknown innovation is coming from small companies. Now, when I have a chat with the CMO of a small company, she’ll say, oh, my God, I’ll take the whole thing because I’m in charge of the budget. So what do I need to do? Tell me, how do I use the analytics and the research? I’ll take the whole thing. And so often what we’re seeing is that some of those really innovative products are coming in and stealing market share from some of the big guys. And the big guys, going, where did that come from? And as there’s more consciousness that, wait a second, this wasn’t throwing a dart at the dartboard. This was they looked at the data, analyzed. As more of that happens and they’re seeing that there’s a set process, it’s a very rigorous set of processes, not just throwing darts at a board. More and more we’re getting participation across the teams to use more and more of the platform as it’s intended, as we use it internally as well.
Fiona – 00:12:50:
So in your view, Mario, what is the best in class partnership between 7-Eleven and a brand look like considering that whole ecosystem of offerings? How does 7-Eleven ensure that its partners are equipped to leverage all the available channels and data to create that effective personalized integrated campaigns? Basically getting to where you just described as like a holistic end-to-end solution where you’re getting the full cycle and all of the analytics, the closed loop measurement for all of it. What does that best in class partnership look like?
Mario – 00:13:20:
I think it all starts with a mindset of we don’t know everything. Let’s test. And so if you have that testing mindset, you’ll start doing more and more of that. I don’t think anybody is going to say, of course, Mario, I’m going to get rid of all my silos. Here’s my money. I’d love that, but it’s not going to happen. So I’ll give you an example. I’m sure we’ll talk about this later, but we’re a big investment for us as in-store radio, like audio ads inside the store. And you can tell. Totally, we’ll talk about later why that’s important for us. We had an energy drink brand that was really curious about that and said, okay, we want to try that. This is our ad. This is what we want you to run. And it was a 30-second ad. Not going to work in a convenience store. The job of the ad is to close the sale. There’s no storytelling. Just you’re in a convenience store, in and out, close the sale. And so with them, they were like, well, we know this ad works. We’ve tested it before. It’s- Yes, that works great when you’re in your car in a traffic jam. But why don’t we do one thing? We’ll create a condensed version of the ad. I think we got it down to about eight seconds. What we’ll do is we’ll run it in parallel. Some stores, 30 seconds. Some stores, seven seconds. And guess which one worked. And so I think that mindset of, okay, we know these things, but we don’t know what we don’t know. As more of those success stories start coming out, then there’s more willingness for, for both companies to, okay, now let’s work together and test something new.
Fiona – 00:14:55:
I was going to say, Mario, it’s so tropical at the moment with audio in store because with some of the legislation that’s coming in Europe with the changes to certain snack foods being able to be advertised, one of the few channels still open to people is audio in store. And so it’s now having a massive moment, I would say, where people are going to be really needing that level of information about what is the right length of ad, what is the right time of day, what is the relationship between footfall and purchase and audio ads, all of those types of things. So I think it’s an interesting time to be in that space for sure. That legislation change is having an impact.
Mario – 00:15:31:
We believe that for convenience is that our retail media is focusing on three primary channels. We use traditional digital channels, social, display, connected TV, outside of the store, but very targeted using our database to drive that consideration, put in the mind of the consumer. Because the frequency of visits you have with convenience, best customers that drive about 22, 23% of our sales are shopping with us 34 times a month. So we plant the seed with the digital media. When they come into the store, the job of that is to close the sale. And so the two primary channels inside the store is we sell a lot of fuel. So it’s the pump screen because you need to look at the screen to pay for the fuel and select your fuel grade. That screen, then we know who you are and we know what ads we’re showing you. That is a very important channel. That channel, you’re also a lot of customers, about more than 60% of our customers shop both fuel and the store. When you go into the store, we’ve mapped it many times. It’s in and out. So audio is the most effective because as you’re walking from the door to the refrigerator to grab your drink. Or your snack, we just close the sale. Hey, there’s a new flavor of such and such. Really? I know I need an energy drink, but now there’s the root beer one. But maybe I’ll try that one. It’s that ability to close the sale is very important. Now, radio may not be the best medium for a grocery store where it’s the same ad across the store, but you may be in the deli section and somebody’s talking about diapers. That may not be the right thing, but in convenience because we’re so focused on what we call Sips, Snacks and Sigs. Very discreet.
Fiona – 00:17:33:
And you’re right about you. You’re in the supermarket for a lot longer than you’re in a convenience store as well. So you could be in there for half an hour as opposed to being in a convenience store for maybe five minutes tops. So that, yeah. And I was going to ask you, so it is quite a different experience from a shopper standpoint for immediate shopper versus a supermarket. What sort of, given your experience, that’s 7-Eleven, like how’s your broader shopper retail media capabilities evolved over the last year? What are the key developments that you’ve got in the works of things that you’re hoping to, that will help continue to differentiate 7-Eleven in that space?
Mario – 00:18:08:
I think there’s two. From the outside of the store, it’s the targeting and using the power of all our data analytics to target. So we don’t have any pre-canned segments. Every single audience that we target is bespoke. And all the targeting is done based on retail behaviors. So price elasticity, people who buy or frequency of purchase. I want to talk to the people who buy one a week differently than the one who buy five energy drinks a week. Or the price elastic shoppers versus the non-price elastic shoppers. Or brand loyal shoppers versus the non-brand loyal shoppers. I think this is one of the most interesting ones for the CPGs because one conversation we always have, with them is they want to go very wide, what they’re targeting, or very narrow. And the concept that we always talk to them is there’s a movable middle. You should not waste money, maybe a little bit, but not much, in talking to super loyal customers of your competitor. They’re probably not going to move. There’s a subset that’s not going to move. There’s a subset that’s always switching brands. It’s not brand loyal. They’ll probably switch because of the price. That’s very tactical. But there’s a movable middle that you could potentially move to your brand and make it more loyal. So that’s one thing. Within the store, I think the thing that we’re most excited about is as we roll out radio, we’re going to be the largest radio station in the United States with 250 million listeners every month. All of our ads are generated from text to voice by AI. And so that allows us to, we can create multiple versions. The ads are streamed in. They’re going to be tied together with a platform that is tracking the ad, the version of the ad, the sales, optimizing A/B testing, optimizing versions, optimizing the time of day to play, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of the capabilities that marketers have gotten used to and love for digital advertising are going to be available in the store. That ability to A/B test, that ability to optimize sales to the audience, et cetera, et cetera, and closing the loop. I think that’s one of the capabilities of where everybody’s very, very, very excited about dynamic creative, right? Well, one of the things we’ll be able to do in radio is, hey, if you’re in Texas, the voice could have a Southern draw. If you’re in New York, it could have like a New York accent. If you’re in Miami, it could have a Cuban accent. We could do stuff with the creative that is roughly a similar message, but vary the voice, vary the tone, vary. We could do all sorts of things. That’s really exciting for us.
Fiona – 00:20:53:
I was just going to say, Marissa, you touched on one of my next questions about how do you see AI transforming that kind of omni-channel experience? You touched on some of the dynamic creative components of it and how you can adapt and do that very easily and actually relatively inexpensively as well. What about the impact on the AI-driven insights that come from that? How do you think that will change the way the brands, not just for 7-Eleven, but how brands would interact with any retailer? Because, obviously the richness of those insights will just increase exponentially in the coming years, right?
Mario – 00:21:24:
There’s huge potential there. I’m still unsure how it’s going to be used because there’s always the possibility to start exploding every creative or everything is different. And how do you even analyze that? We have a very careful approach to using AI and to believing the insights that are coming from an AI. I always check everything that, within our analytics tool, we have an AI module that tells you what insights are. I always double, triple check those. I’m not sure that they’re entirely robust yet. But yes, as we consolidate the insights from the analytics side, one of the things that is really cool from an AI point of view that is, it just happened in the last year. In the Brainfreeze Collective, which is a research panel and everybody is mapped to the database, one of the things we’re doing is when we do research is we ask the customers either to free text or send us a video. We transcribe all the video into text. And then we get the AI to analyze for sentiment. And so a lot of things that we have not coded the research for are emerging from the videos that customers are sending us or from the text that they’re putting in. Actually, the most exciting part about this is in big companies, it’s really hard. I know everybody thinks that they’re data-driven, but we’re still emotional animals, and we have a lot of biases. And yeah, I know the data says that, but you know, my God is telling me to go that way. So one of the things that this enables is we do all the research, all the testing. We back it up with the data, but with the AI, what we can do… Okay, so this is what we’re going to show. We need snippets of customer videos saying these words. And so what we do is we say, I know this is what we wanted to do. We want to do A, the research is saying B. And here’s a few customers. Customers telling us about why B is the important thing. And so we have the research, but then the AI allows us to get those snippets of customers. And we put together pretty much with every presentation or most presentations we do for important subjects, one minute video of 15 different customers saying, yeah, I don’t like, I don’t like A, I like B, I don’t like A, I like B. That is game changing because it helps us avoid a lot of the biases that we already know we have, but that really difficult to ignore.
Fiona – 00:23:49:
I think it’s always interesting too, Mario, when you look at some of that research. So we’ve actually seen the use of this a lot in more recent times where that ability of AI to give you both quantitative and qualitative analysis in one of what people are doing and buying and what they’re saying are two completely different things. And so it’s very interesting when you do like customer-based research panels, the actual brand themselves may do that and look at it and say, the customers are saying these things. But in reality, when they’re doing the purchasing, it’s a very different story. So having them side by side together is actually incredibly powerful because then you can plan for it, I guess. And I guess it comes back to your original point about testing, right? Because unless you’re actually live testing these things, you’re not really going to know whether they’re going to be working because people do change their minds.
Mario – 00:24:34:
Yeah, I think the point you’re making is a very important one, which is I think the platform like the Brainfreeze Collective, where we are doing, so when you do research, some of the hardest things is to finding that, very specific audience that you want to talk to. And one of the things that Brainfreeze Collective enables is finding the audience is easy because I can look how they’re behaving in the store and pull them in. And so we could do the research based on observed behaviors rather than declared behaviors. Now, most marketers today are relying on declared behaviors. Oh, yes, I’m trying to eat healthy. We’ve been testing the Brainfreeze Collective. Half of the people we look at other past is, yes, these people are trying to be healthy. They fall off the wagon here and there, but they roughly are trying to be healthy. We recruited another half that were saying, yes, yes, I’m trying to eat healthy. You will look in the database like you’re eating nachos for breakfast every day, dude. But we ran the research and the results from both groups were very different. The group that was declared behaviors, they were very opinionated and probably would have taken us down a path that was not the right path. The reason why I’m saying this is very exciting is in the same way that the CPGs realized that There was a lot of value in the retailer data for retail media. And the way they are thinking about audiences, targeting, messaging is very different than the way it was five years ago, because now they have access to all those insights for retail. I think a new version of that is going to be, hey, maybe the way I’ve been doing all my research is not as optimal as it could be, because I’ve been relying on declared behaviors, and now I can do observed behaviors and have a direct tie to the insights that I’m seeing, the research on that group of people, testing it in the store, testing the message, and optimizing the whole product development chain. My take-home is to make 7-Eleven the fastest, easiest, cheapest, less risky place to innovate. That’s where I go with all the tools we have.
Fiona – 00:26:51:
And it’s a great space to in, right? Because it’s so much harder to ask if you’re ready to do things at scale. You might be in at a Walmart, for instance, but you’re right. No one’s going to necessarily test in a Walmart, because you’re talking about buying large scale. People might only go in twice a month, depending on how their shopper behavior is, versus the type of insights you’re getting is also much faster. Because if someone’s coming in 30 times a month, then you’ll know within two weeks whether another campaign that you’re testing in-store is working, right?
Mario – 00:27:21:
Correct. So our goal is, hey, here’s all these tools. We’ll work with you. Let’s innovate together. We’ll make it faster, cheapest, less risky. Give us an exclusive. Launch it here. Launch it in 7-Eleven. Give us whatever it is, three months, six months. We’ll make it a hit. Once it’s a hit, take it everywhere. Let’s work on the next one. Because then that position 7-Eleven, in the mind of the consumer, is this is the place where I go for all the new stuff. This is where I get introduced. And which is really important because we’re all thinking about the Gen Z audience and how do you talk to the Gen Z audience, et cetera, et cetera. It’s very ethereal. If you think about the Gen Z audience, where they shop, they shop at 11. They don’t have a membership to a warehouse club. They don’t really go to the grocery store. They don’t have an Amazon Prime membership. Maybe they use their parents, but they shop at the convenience store. This is where they go. Because a lot of the new products, people like you and I, we’re setting our ways. Young people aren’t. In my household, probably most people’s households, a lot of new products are introduced by the kids. They bring in that kombucha. I’ve never had one before. My kid brought it in. I was like, actually, this is pretty good. I would have never bought it. But now I like it. And so convenience is such a magical place. If you can use all the tools and use it correctly, then I believe that the CPGs who align with this vision that we have are going to be driving innovation a lot better, faster than their competitors.
Fiona – 00:28:55:
Switching gears just slightly, Mario, because I know we’re getting close to the end of our time. I wanted to ask in just generally about commerce media, get your views on, in your opinion, what’s the most important attributes for a commerce media leader of the future? Someone who’s obviously in a similar position to your own or in any other retailer?
Mario – 00:29:13:
That’s a tough question. I mean, because you definitely need to be nimble. You need to be excited about it, et cetera, et cetera. But I think the main thing that our partners really welcome is transparency. This transparency and openness. When things don’t work, this didn’t work. But having the conversation of why it didn’t work and what do we do next, right? Because we’re both on a mission. Both want to make this thing work. So transparency is not always easy. But with the partners, my team, and the partners that embrace it, we are seeing a lot better executions than with the partners that don’t embrace it.
Fiona – 00:29:58:
Yeah, fair. And I was going to say that I think you’re seeing that change in a lot of our retail customers, even the big end of town, like the supermarkets. That dynamic has changed dramatically between where it was once they were, the brands were the buyers, they were looking to the retailer to help them get products into store, sell. The retailers are now selling media to the brand buyers. So it’s a much more symbiotic relationship now. And so the dynamic has changed, right? So inherently it means that there’s a little bit more give and take and a little bit more transparency between both parties. And I don’t know if you’ve seen this too, but we’ve definitely seen some of our clients on both sides of the fence be a bit more vulnerable with each other about, to your first point about silos, just being transparent and going, but we’ve got the same problems on our side. Like we’re working hard to try and transform it and set up processes for ourselves internally too. It’s not that easy for people to just restructure and change their budgets and P&Ls. So they’re typically trying to put process around it to make it easier for people to work together and get to the right outputs without moving the oil tanker. I’m sure you see the same thing, right? Or some of your customers go and look, bear with us. Yeah, we probably do need four other people in the room for this conversation, but it’s going to take me four weeks to go and get them.
Mario – 00:31:10:
I see a lot of that, but you see the willingness and we have the same things internally, right? It’s like every large company suffers aversion on this. As long as there’s some willingness to work around problems, then you start making headway.
Fiona – 00:31:23:
Yeah. You’ve done that yourselves. I know that you’ve went through a process of trying to better integrate your own JVP process internally so that your own internal teams understood the flow of the information, had the right level of data that they could work with, doing sort of a more integrated version of the pitching of like, hey, how do we integrate the retail media offering into the wider trade conversation, all of those types of things. So it’s an evolution on both sides of the house, right?
Mario – 00:31:49:
Yeah, correct. For us, the two big things we’re doing is all the tools are part of my team and we all know what everybody else is doing. And with the merchant operations team, all those joint business planning, that cycle that happens every year, we get involved in our vendor summit where we present what’s going to be the strategy for next year. And with all those joint business planning session, the merchant team and the marketing team are in there in all the sessions to make sure that we remove as many silos as possible, that both. Parties are in there, at least from our side.
Fiona – 00:32:24:
And definitely we’re seeing the same on the CPG side. Brought people have started to get the same kind of process going. It’s slow, but everyone’s kind of leaning into that same thinking, I think.
Mario – 00:32:34:
Correct. But as I said, I think the accelerator would be some of those more smaller, nimbler players that come up with this innovation where, oh my God, where did that come from? Why didn’t we think that?
Fiona – 00:32:44:
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Last question to you, Mario, is more about sort of for our listeners and being vulnerable for a minute. We always like to ask people, what are some of the things that you’re working on yourself to improve and become a better leader in the commerce media space? What are the things that you think about for your own development?
Mario – 00:33:01:
I’ve always been very conscious that I don’t have best EQ communication skills. I’m very aware. I have to work very hard at them. I listen to and read a lot of books and podcasts on how to be a better communicator, how to be a better listener. Because as the team grows, the more junior, people that are in the trenches that are seeing what’s happening, I need to be open enough and have a process enough to listen to them and get some of those messages from the front line so we quash problems before they become big endemic issues. And in the same way, being a better listener and a better communicator with our CPG partners where I understand what they’re trying to do. But also when we’re trying to convince them that, hey, taking the approach that you’re having in the warehouse club or in the big box retailer and putting it in convenience, it’s not going to work because ABC. We need to be very careful with that and mindful that if we don’t approach that tactfully and in the right way, it’s not going to be good for either party. So communication skills, EQ, I’d love to say that’s my jam, but that’s what I want my jam to be.
Fiona – 00:34:26:
I was going to say you’ve got a pretty epically strong leader in that sense. Marissa Jarratt is like one of the best communications I’ve ever seen in the industry, actually. So I think you’re in the right spot to be learning those skills for sure.
Mario – 00:34:39:
Well, you know, I always tell my team there’s the best advice I ever got. And I always give it to my team is learn to figure out two things that your boss is really bad at because your boss is going to think you’re a superstar. The one thing your boss is really good at, I mean, either learn it or ask them to teach you. And a common conversation I have with, we call her MJ with Marissa, is how bad my EQ and my communication skills are and what do I need to do to improve?
Fiona – 00:35:12:
I mean, she’s a great coach for that. She’s fantastic. This is a great session. Thank you so much, Mario, for your time. This has been brilliant.
Mario – 00:35:18:
Yeah, that’s always a pleasure.
Fiona – 00:35:21:
We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Time for a Reset. Thanks for tuning in! We’ll be back, talking to another senior marketer very soon. Make sure to leave a review, and we’ll catch you next time.
