Tune in to Time for A Reset
Paul – 00:00:01:
If you had a big orange button in front of you to hit reset on, what would you change in the retail media industry?
Amir – 00:00:07:
There’s a few things, Paul, but the crux of my reset relates to the often narrow view of retail media. In particular, the myth that retail media is just a conversion tool, lacking the creativity and the ability needed to build brand awareness. And based on my experience over the years, when executed brilliantly across in-store, on-site and off-site channels, retail media becomes a really powerful strategy.
Paul – 00:00:39:
Welcome to the Time For A Reset Marketing Podcast: Insights from Global Brand Marketers, brought to you by CvE Marketing Consultancy. I’m your host, Paul Frampton-Calero, and in each episode, I dive deep into the minds of senior marketing leaders from around the world. Join me as we explore what they want to hit reset on an ever-changing landscape and uncover strategies that drive successful brand transformation. I’m delighted to be joined by Amir Rasekh, who runs Nectar360 in the UK. Amir and I have chatted long and hard for many months about the retail media industry, so I’m really excited to have this chance to go deeper with him. So welcome, Amir.
Amir – 00:01:19:
Thank you, Paul. Thank you for having me. Really looking forward to this.
Paul – 00:01:21:
And Amir has been at Sainsbury’s All Nectar for most of his career, over two decades, spent a lot of time in the Sainsbury’s business, moving towards the business development team in shopper marketing, changing the direction of shopper marketing, then was involved in setting up some of the insights proposition in the early days before that became what we know as Nectar360 today, which is obviously a full service 360 loyalty shopper and retail media agency that services a lot of the UK’s biggest clients with over 200 people. So Amir has a large toy set to play with and is developing the Nectar and Sainsbury’s retail media proposition at speed. So we’re going to start where we always do, Amir, which is to understand if you had a big orange button in front of you to hit reset on, what would you change in the retail media industry?
Amir – 00:02:10:
There’s a few things, Paul, but the crux of my reset relates to the often narrow view of retail media, in particular, the myth that retail media is just a conversion tool, lacking the creativity and the ability needed to build brand awareness. And based on my experience over the years, when executed brilliantly across in-store, on-site and off-site channels, retail media becomes a really powerful strategy for brand growth. And there’s a second bugbearer I love what we say with our term, which is this obsession around how big retail media is going to be, the pound signs. I understand the logic and the importance of it. But if I think about programmatic advertising and the experience we all have there, where there was plenty of hype, focused entirely on how big, from a monetary perspective, it would be. It’s a bit of a race to the bottom, and I think that’s something that we should be very mindful of. If you focus too heavily on that outcome, you actually lose sight of what’s really important. And what’s really important in the retail media space is its ability to connect and create valuable chips between customers and brands. And I fear if we lose sight of that obsession of how do you enhance the customer journey and experience through retail media, and how do you solve for some of the complexity that we have, we won’t do a brilliant job for our clients, and therefore, it would be a race to the bottom. So I’d love to reset on those two things, if that’s okay, Paul.
Paul – 00:03:41:
I like it. I think… The problem is when analysts, particularly analysts from the US, see new digital channels rising up, they have a tendency to go, okay, let’s predict where that’s going to go. And it’s the third new channel after search and social. So it’s therefore going to change the world. And it obviously has changed things dramatically, but you’re right. And I like that whenever you talk in this space, you always talk about the importance of the customer and about being omnichannel, which I think is in complete contrast to it’s a digital channel growing fast, because the real thing is that actually there’s value there, both for the customers, but also for Sainsbury’s as a business. So let’s unpack this a little, your reset. I think people often become overly obsessed with the fact that data, and this has always been the case since digital arose and programmatic after it. Data drives the bottom of the funnel. It drives conversion because, of course, if you use data, you therefore know someone’s more likely to buy. But of course, data just gives you a better understanding of who you’re after and where they are at any point in the shopping process. So talk to me a little bit about how you guys think about your data proposition and the value it provides to brands.
Amir – 00:04:54:
There is no doubt. Retail media excels in the conversion space, but it’s not just a conversion tool. And I have a really simplistic view on this, which is retail media is unique within the media landscape, but it’s media. And it’s a vehicle or a number of attributes that it has. And it’s a media channel that has superpowers when it’s harnessed in the right way and brilliant. And those superpowers, just a frame of view, not inclusive of anything, but truly data-driven that can’t be argued. Contextually relevant on that scale. We forget about the in-store environment in digitalized, and not to mention the huge scale on-site and, of course, off-site. And it has true flexibility in its application through the marketing funnel. And therefore, it can engage and serve customers however they choose to shop. And then if you think about that upper funnel challenge that comes about more often than not on retail media, through retail media, you can create a full funnel campaign, including targeted awareness campaigns. Better for customers because they’re more relevant and better for brands because you can reduce ad wastage. And I think my challenge always is retail media has that flexibility, super nimble in way lots of different hats. And that we can serve many needs and objectives across that entire funnel.
Paul – 00:06:16:
Yeah, it’s interesting because I think to some extent… And I would say particularly agencies, as you know, having spent a lot of time in the former part of my career, they tend to want to put things into a box and go, these media owners or vendors or propositions fit into different parts of the funnel and they do this job and we use other things for… So like an agency might say, well, we use TV for upper funnel and we use Google and Meta for down funnel, which is all just a bit nonsensical because people just spend time in different environments. And obviously with the kind of data that you guys have got, you understand people’s distance from the likelihood to purchase again or their propensity to buy it regularly and across all the different categories. So I often think about the fact that originally when I used to buy media, you used to just have readership data or you used to have some kind of understanding of what type of audience does this media property have. Then obviously we’ve got to a space where there’s intent, whether it’s search or social intent. Or interest in something. But retail, given all advertising is primarily focused on ultimately driving someone to buy something, retail data is actually whether people do buy stuff and what they buy and how frequently they buy it. So it is the most valuable data you can get. Let’s be honest, isn’t it?
Amir – 00:07:35:
Yes, 100%. I actually, I prefer to talk about it through the lens of insight because a lot of organizations have data of some sort. But really the value… I think the value comes in your ability to take what is very complex and turn it into meaningful insights and then use that insight to drive anything you do as an organization. And I think it is interesting how retail media has been pigeonholed over time. And I often think why. I think number one is human behavior. We were pigeonholed everything. It does this. And in a lot of cases, maybe TV is very clear, I guess, in terms of what it can deliver. But I think that pigeonholing came about probably when the US moved in this space early on. So I think it’s a US influence. And of course, the focus in the US at the time was on-site, which is more closely linked to conversion metrics. But the reality is, if you look across the globe, the most sophisticated retail media networks have. Now created multi-channel, integrated retail media offerings across in-store, which has been digitized, on-site and off-site. And based on our experience, we see the summer parts coming together across those different environments when you do it right. And when you do that brilliantly and you integrate, you really do see a shift between the conversion and the brand metrics. And also something that’s often forgotten about retail media, if you think about funnels or awareness, consideration, conversion. At the bottom, you’ve got Lortie, right? Long-term customer value. And I’ve usually been playing that space. There’s very few channels or media channels out there that can do all those things. And it’s all based back on understanding customer behavior and engagement back in the in-store and on-site environments.
Paul – 00:09:21:
That’s a great point. Yeah. And a lot of brand planners or marketers will talk about mental availability higher up. But as you say, in the retail environment, physical availability becomes important. And retail media and retail data has an understanding of whether there is product on the shelves, which is usually useful. But then as you say, it’s about, can you get people to regularly come back and consistently with frequency buy in this category? And often, I think people in media almost see that as the CRM people’s job as opposed to the retail, as opposed to media’s job. So it’s interesting, as you say, how it kind of bleeds across different disciplines. And you rightly called out that this is really about insight and understanding audiences, well, shoppers, I guess, really audiences, shoppers, whatever you want to call it. Can you talk about some of the more progressive ways that you’re working with brands to really help them understand those insights and how it is driving what you just talked about, not just running a few campaigns to drive a few more sales in basket, but actually changing behavior and long-term loyalty?
Amir – 00:10:20:
Look, as always, with change, and we are in this change with retail media, even though I’ve been working in this space for 10, 15 years, we’re still changing. And we change to land change in the right way. It’s always around listening to needs. Listen really deeply over the years to our clients’ needs. And then we really try to work hard to showcase that value that our organization can bring through the attribution that we have on how we show up. And insights and analytics has always been at the heart of our business. So we’ve had a bit of a head start. It’s the heart of our business. And without wanting to sound too cliché, it is in our DNA. The first iteration of what we now know, Nectar360, was a business called Insights Communication. That’s what retail media does. And we’ve worked really hard to show that value of our insight and analytics in everything we do. And we know it makes a significant difference to the quality of our planning and ultimately the outcomes that we deliver to our clients. And really importantly, the end consumer, the customer. And the way we use insights. And again, a rolling up on elevating points here. But we use our insight to provide the why as we’re engaging our clients on briefs. We use it to shape our retail media planning and form a multi-channel retail media recommendations for our clients. And of course, then we use the analytics to inform our targeting and measure performance thereafter. And we’ve certainly seen conversation change over the years as marketing has become more proficient in data-driven marketing, understand the value. Naturally, the market moves to organizations that have that insight and that analytics as part of their DNA.
Paul – 00:12:04:
Absolutely. And when we see that on our side, particularly on the CPG side, it’s not the only people that obviously buy from you. Because there’s a lot of non-endemic. But CPG is a very large category. We’re seeing that there’s huge change in how they’re adapting to getting more comfortable with data. The data they have access to. The type of people that they employ. When we were at Madfest, we talked a little bit about the change and the evolution of how CPGs are setting themselves up. What are you seeing that’s changing? Because you’re changing, your proposition changes, even this year. I mean, there’s been almost like a new announcement every month about how you’re evolving, giving different flexibility or different ways to buy into your data and inventory. So what change do you see on the CPG side?
Amir – 00:12:45:
Yeah, it’s a pretty big shift over the last 12 to 18 months. I knew there would be a share, but I would have never guessed to the depth that we’ve seen. And what is interesting is this is replicated across the biggest global brands to the smallest. Actually, the shift in mindset has definitely taken place across that spectrum. Just to give you a few examples, so many, many of our clients have now got director of retail media roles, which is important nonetheless. But more importantly, they’ve built an organizational structure beneath them that pulls together in-store, on-site, and off-site specialisms. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen it at scale happening, not just a role, but building a structure underneath. And then you look to the big agencies, they’ve all created retail media center of excellencies. And you take those two things, the biggest EPGs to the smallest and the big agencies, they’ve all built a center of excellence to really get the most out of retail. I think that’s a real statement of intent. The thing I think on my mind, and I’m a little bit worried about, is that we don’t inadvertently create new silos. And what do I mean by that? Retail media, and I’ve seen the shift again in this space, has often been implemented as a bolt-on to broader marketing strategy and building. And I hope this change in the way that CPGs and agencies are organizing themselves actually doesn’t create a new silo and retail media is formally part of any well-balanced marketing mix, not just the bolt-on. So that’s the interesting next shift, I think, that we should watch out for.
Paul – 00:14:22:
That’s really helpful. Thank you for sharing that. And I think you make a really good point in that you need specialism, but integration at the same time. It obviously behaves in a different way. You need people that understand it, people that can be familiar with the different types of ways of buying platforms, but at the same time. It’s media. And if you talk to a CMO, they’re trying to grapple with, well, how do I get my national performance marketing and retail media all coalescing together? What’s the right balance between all of them? And I don’t want another separate team that I’ve got to kind of find a way to join up because marketing, particularly since digital took off 15, 20 years ago, it just seems to have splintered, to your point, into so many different specialist teams. And specialism is wonderful, but specialism on its own, if it doesn’t come back together to be part of a team, it’s a bit like an orchestra, isn’t it? You need everyone to play the instrument, but someone’s got orchestrated all to come together to make one brilliant piece of music. So I think that’s a really good point. And we have had that watch out and seen challenges with that with other… Very digital data-driven channels in the past, search and social. There were specialist agencies. Then they got swallowed up. Then capability got built in-house inside brands. So I think there’s a natural evolution, but it’s probably a good call-out to go think about it earlier rather than wait for the problem.
Amir – 00:15:41:
Yeah, exactly. Look, I don’t think it should never be about a trade-off. Though, certainly what I’m not saying here is retail media is your entire plan. I’ve heard that said actually in the industry, and I honestly don’t believe that should be the case. I honestly don’t think that should be the case. I think that the shift that we need to see, and we’re certainly seeing the early signs of it, is retail media should be important. It should be an important part of any well-thought-out marketing plan, brand-building strategy. Fact. And that means it has to sit past your core marketing strategy, building strategy, whoever you are as an organization.
Paul – 00:16:17:
When we’ve talked recently, we’ve also talked about the differences and nuances between the US and the UK. You called out earlier that obviously on-site grew very quickly in the US, and then they embraced, I guess, off-site programmatic because programmatic is a bigger beast out in North America. And the privacy and some of the data legislation hasn’t been quite so fierce as it has in Europe. What do you see as the key with the focus on the UK? Because that’s the market you are. But what do you see that is unique about the UK?
Amir – 00:16:46:
I think the key difference always with the US has been they’ve got advantage of population scale. It has to be relative to comparison. To your point, the US started with onsite, offsite, in-store. The UK, in-store, onsite, offsite. Over the last 10, 15 years, probably, that transition has happened. It’s just been called different. I think the uniqueness of the UK, and I’ve spent a bit of time in the US and I connect a lot with US counterparts and I was globally, I know you spent a lot of time in the US. I think the difference in the UK, and please challenge me on this, I do think we’ve got a better handle on how do we integrate at scale across the three environments, in-store and off-site. I think we’re doing that really well. And all the major players are moving in that space. That said, based on what I’ve seen and heard, the US is doing exactly the same thing. And their focus, particularly on in-store, has really stepped on. And I think that level of consistency is really good for the industry and for clients, particularly those global brands that work across both sides of the pond globally. What you’ll start to see, and we’re starting to see now, is at least a level of consistency on the value proposition that’s coming forward. A whole bunch of work to be done on standardization, et cetera, around measurement. But at least… I think as a brand, when you’re working globally, the same language is being spoken about when you talk about the value proposition of retail media. And in my mind, and I’ve said this lots of times, it’s in-store, on-site, and off-site as one offering.
Paul – 00:18:17:
No, I think I’m inclined to agree with you, Amir. My instinct tells me that the US market, when it comes to any kind of advertising, is very skewed towards looking to the digital side of it first, because they know that that’s where scale and technology and obviously the valley and everything, the whole kind of tech sector and the growth and the fact that the biggest companies in the world came out of the explosion of digital marketing. I think that there’s a slight… Towards looking there first. Whereas as you say, actually in-store is where the majority of the sales still happen. So why would it not be a significant part? And of course it has been, but in different ways, not in the same data-driven digitized way, but in more of a fixed, almost like more linear way rather than the digital. So I agree with that. And I think the other one is the attitude around that phrase data monetization. I think they’re much more comfortable with monetizing data in the US because it’s just part and parcel of the way they think. Whereas here, I think that phrase, and I know you and I have talked about, that phrase feels a little uncomfortable. It’s like, well, it’s the customer and we need to protect the customer. And do we use the customer to improve insight, to help partners, to deliver better messaging to them? Yes. But just purely monetizing for the sake of monetizing feels like it doesn’t necessarily feel like the right thing to do.
Amir – 00:19:34:
I think it’s a race to the bottom. Just a point on the store environment is, I agree on the point around digital, by the way, and why it’s so important, of course, is the future. But that store environment has now been digitalized at a rapid pace. And that means that in-store environment, operationally opens up much deeper for both direct advertisers and… Agencies and your route to execution is much quicker because there’s a digitalized format. So I think that new landscape, will reshape how we think about our install environment entirely, when it’s happening already got worse.
Paul – 00:20:11:
I think. you’re right, I mean if you look at, the speed with which digital screens rolled out, across grocery in the UK and then you look at, how prevalent they are in the US, it is very different, although I think, as you say, that’s beginning to shift in the US. Now it’s just they’ve come later to it, but they’ve almost come to it, because the growth is starting to wane, in other areas and it’s now where’s the new growth, let’s go back to where people started. So if you are talking about what you’ve said, you’ve said that… This all needs to be joined that there’s increasing ability to touch across in-store, on-site and off-site. If you were at a crystal ball looking forward over the next few years, how do you think this space will play out? And what do you think are the important drivers for a business like Nectar 360 at that?
Amir – 00:20:58:
I certainly expect increased sophistication and unification of solutions, more seamless and scalable experiences for clients. You look at some of the challenge, which I think in general is fair, which is this point around retail media promise the loss, but the measurement and tech is not quite there. I think that’s a fair challenge in general, but our plan over the last four to five years has been focused on how do we democratize our services through technology. We’ve done a lot of client listening. I obsess over how much we listen to our clients. Not only do we get regular feedback from them, but we’ll often, under NDA, involve our clients in building new capabilities. I think it’s really important, given they are the use cases at Yodam stuff. And if you listen to what they say, they want, it’s really simple, clients want ease of use, razor sharp measurement, and see your performance. And that leads you to a place where you’re going to have to get more sophisticated and you’re going to have to unify your solutions. And the area that I really want to wrestle down, and I think the winners will do this well, is the automation of multi-channel attribution, deliver that pace to the fingertips of our clients. And this is, of course, really complex because you’re talking about three really nuanced environments, in-store, on-site, and off-site. And you have lots of different nuances, but just to call out one, different attribution windows, for example, because they land at different times, et cetera. And how do we fix that? But those that fix for that make it really easy for clients to work with us, to use our services, truly bring automated attribution, multi-channel attribution to market, digitalize the store environment, and dare I say, AI will be up there in the mix as well.
Paul – 00:22:43:
Well, I think, as you say, if you think about all the different skews and the complexity of all the touch points that people have across those three environments at different points, the number of data points across lots of different audiences and different creative messages is so immense. I think it makes it quite challenging to build models that do deliver on that measurement nirvana that we all want, unless you have something like AI. I’m not saying you can’t do it, but I often ask CMOs, does media mix modeling, market mix modeling deliver for you? And they go, it kind of does to an extent, but it doesn’t give us all the right answers. And then you ask them about their digital analytics and they say the same thing. And they run some experiments in between. And it strikes me that measurement today is really complex, as you called out. Yet, I think the other thing that’s quite interesting is that you use the phrase razor sharp measurement. It is. The real, real most important thing for any marketing, whether it’s retail media or any media, frankly, to know that they have spent their money in the right place and that it is driven incremental sales value. So it makes a lot of sense to put a lot of focus there. But how complicated do you think that is? You talked about it needing to be a new era of sophistication. Is that a six-month journey? Is it a six-year journey?
Amir – 00:24:00:
You have to watch the space on this one, Paul. I don’t want to give away some of the trade secrets, but look, it’s really fun to mine for us. We think that is the ground that we need to break to really have a point of difference in the market. It’s hugely complicated. Don’t forget, we start from a strong position, which is we understand customer behavior in the in-store and online environment. So we have it. How do you build a model? And by the way, we certainly do do the measurement really well in the in-store environment, the on-site environment, and the off-site environment. So what we’re talking about is how to portray that.
Paul – 00:24:34:
Is joining up.
Amir – 00:24:36:
Joining up. And that’s where the complication comes in. And then you have this separate consideration, which is a really important one, which is the market in general is pushing for more standardization of measurement, which I totally understand. But the reality is 900 clients that I talk to, not quite 900 different views, but certainly different aspirations of what they want to see from measurement. So you got flex. Hairy problem that you’re trying to fix. You’re really trying to listen to clients, but actually they want all one slightly more bespoke way of thinking about it. So then how do you turn it into something truly automated? Are you thinking tips to deliver that pace, et cetera? But there is definitely room for it.
Paul – 00:25:16:
That’s interesting. You’re right. Everybody wants a slightly different version, but you could go down the wrong path by trying to build 900 different models. That’s just not possible, is it? And we touched briefly on AI related to that automation. Are there other areas where you see use cases in retail media for AI already?
Amir – 00:25:36:
So I think the opportunities are endless. And to be totally honest, Paul, we are, I am, trying to get my head around what order and how do we avoid getting distracted by the premise of AI and actually think, what’s the bad equation? What’s the difference it’s going to bring? So of course, automation of measurement at scale across multiple different environments, enhanced personalization is an area that, of course, is close to my heart. And the ones that really get me excited is predictive audience building, in-flight optimization, performance prediction upfront based on those audiences. That’s what we hear over and over again from our clients, real-time reporting, we’re pretty close on that real-time reporting. But certainly, if you want to get it to a level where you’re linking in, so on-site and off-site, that has to be a lot sharp. And then the last area, which again, I think is an important focus for retail media as an industry. Bringing that creative twist to what we do. So content creation, the back of AI, rapid multivariate testing. There would probably be three or four use cases where I think I can see and feel where the value creation will come from, what types, and ultimately customers.
Paul – 00:26:54:
All of those make a great deal of sense and it sounds like you’re trying to think about in which order because this is the challenge with ai is how much can it really do it’s obvious that it can touch all of those but where is best to start or is there one i mean you’re obviously focusing big on measurement is there another that is a big focus for the moment or are you just playing around testing in different places?
Amir – 00:27:16:
I think you said three or four, measurement being the obvious one. I have an obsession around this point around predictive audience, building optimization performance. I hear that over and over again from our clients. And it is interesting because I know I’m going on a slight tangent here. What I hear over and over again from our clients is, give me the technology, make it really easy for me, really drive forward in measurement and transparency, think about automation, AI, et cetera. But then very quickly we’ll drop that on, which I think is a really important bit that’s often missed. It’s a really obvious point, Paul, but I hear this over and over again. Please don’t lose the human element of our interaction and relationship. I want to speak to an accounting. I want to see my plans with strategists. I don’t want it just to be.
Paul – 00:28:02:
I don’t want a black box self-service proposition, but I kind of do. At least I say I do. And the other aspect of it is, let’s be honest, not all CPGs or brands are completely ready to jump hands on keyboards in. So to your point, there will always be the right balance. I think it’s just going to be about how do you balance those scales at the right level on an ongoing basis? Because it will shift as technology becomes more able to do more things. But I think you’re right. If you get to a world where 90 plus percent is done without a human touch, then people in marketing, it’s about people. And you miss the nuance of understanding behavior and having conversations. So I think you’re right to keep that focus.
Amir – 00:28:43:
Yeah.
Paul – 00:28:44:
Amir, before we segue off to ask you a couple of slightly more personal questions, is there anything that you’d say to sum up how you’d encourage marketeers to think about seizing the opportunity that’s going to emerge in what you’ve just talked about for the last 25 minutes?
Amir – 00:28:59:
Yeah. How do I pull out the three or four points? So look, retail media, it shouldn’t be just a tactical bolt-on. I think we’ve talked about that many, many times. It should be a formal part of how you grow your brand. A really important part, not an art, but a really important part. I also think, and it’s interesting because I have ongoing conversations with many, many of our clients, have really high expectations of the insights and the services that retail media networks provide to you. Retail media really works, done brilliantly. And you should challenge your retail media networks really hard. If you’re not seeing that, you would challenge your normal agencies that way. So I think it shouldn’t be a tactical bolt-on. You should be really seeing value creation from your relationship. And if you’re not, you should be challenging it and you should be treating a retail media network like any other agency. And if it’s not just a conversion channel, you should expect fully integrated proposals across off-site, in-store and on-site. And the summer parts really come together to shift the dial on both conversion and brand metrics. And if you’re not seeing that balance, then you should really challenge your normalcy.
Paul – 00:30:04:
Nice. I really like that. I think that’s a really great, great summary. Thank you. So as I say, slight segue, but linked. In your opinion, and you can answer this either way, whether it’s the attributes of a future retail media business leader or a future marketeer leader, with everything changing, when we’ve talked about everything from data to AI to changes in measurement, changes in proposition, the balance between machine and human, what do you think the attributes of people running businesses like yours or running businesses that are buying from businesses like yours will be going forward? Because it is changing.
Amir – 00:30:38:
Given I’ve spent 25, 30 minutes talking about the fact that retail media should be part of the marketing plan, I’d probably look at it at a holistic marketing level. And the attributes of marketeers, certainly if you work in a retail media network organization, you do have a strong, well, you’re very data and insight savvy. And you have a strong marketing background that’s been created over time. And certainly when I look across the team that we have, that’s certainly the case. So the things, the attributes in my mind are the most important, the obvious one, but customer obsession. I know that’s always been the case for marketeers, but it can often be forgotten. That is the outcome that you’re trying to deliver. Consumers will continue to expect more of us. And having that lens is going to be vital. Continue to be curious. The rate of change in marketing is going to get faster. You’re going to have to update your experience and knowledge outside in. And link to that. Really starting to see what certainly what Einstein sees. You want marketeers to be technically proficient, increasing role of technology in marketing, et cetera, et cetera. And then you have to have a working understanding of retail media, given it’s now such a important part of any marketing plan. And then there’s this element of the two other things I look for in terms of individual joining, whatever level within the organization I run is creative problem solving. We work across multiple different categories of brands. And it brings. There’s new problems emerging all the time, evolving technical and consumer landscape. You want individuals that can work to a level of ambiguity, get our heads around stuff. What do you think about where things fit? And then finally, maybe this one’s more specific to our world, but the ability to lead across multiple different organizations and locations with technology, with automation comes the need to manage offshore teams. For example, if you’re a brand marketeer within a CPG, you’re starting to work more closely with retail media networks because it does shit on brand metrics. You’re going to have to get used to working with multiple organizations.
Paul – 00:32:42:
I think that’s really comprehensive, Amir. And I like all of those, but I particularly like the last two. Because I think you’re right, creative problem solving in an ambiguous world and ambiguity also comes from having different types of people to manage in different locations with different expectations, different ages. I think you’re right that the world of everything looking very similar and knowing what the next couple of years is going to look like is well and truly gone. And I see that people that are good at creative problem solving and do have that curiosity about the customer. And actually, let’s be honest, some of what we talked about, some of the answers to understanding the customer are in the data, but others are, as you rightly pointed out, being pushy enough to have the conversations with your customers and ask them the inquisitive questions to get the answers. Some of this is not rocket science. And I think sometimes… We have a tendency because everything’s new to throw away what we knew before. But most of those things stay applicable. But then, as you said, you’ve got to apply the curiosity and the technical skill sets to it to be able to make the most of it. So I really like how you couch that. And lastly, I always ask my guests to be vulnerable for a second and go, what is it that you’re working on? People listen to this and like, well, Amit’s got it all together. He’s worked in this industry for 20 years. He’s running a big retail media organization. He’s got 200 people reporting to him. But I’m sure there are things you touched on. AI was an area that you’re trying to get your head around. But what else, whether it’s skill-based or specific disciplines, are you trying to get better at yourself?
Amir – 00:34:13:
I don’t think you ever had it all together. Beautiful. Yeah. So there’s a whole bunch of things I’m working on. I feel if you spoke to my team, that list would get even longer. Well, look, there’s a huge call out. The thing I always bring myself back to is, I’ve been around for 20 odd years doing various different things, but it’s 100 miles per hour now, isn’t it? Society’s so geared to this pressure point of pace, speed, delivery, focus, and I really, really work hard to try to carve out time to think. I really hold myself to it. And I’ve spent time talking to coaches, individuals that have given up time to mentor me over the time. And the number one thing they always come back to carve out the time, to be able to think. And then, for me that the things that, I’m really trying to hold myself to, when I carve out that time to think, is being even more external. As you know, I love getting different perspectives, but do I do it enough? Do I make time to get out there and listen to different diverse perspectives? How do I get my head around new trends? When I created this time to think? How do I get the perspectives and try to learn new trends? And then this point around, never stop learning. I’ve talked about life is crazy, and I think, I sometimes stop taking the time to learn, and upskill and you perhaps, and I’ve perhaps, at times lost, the ability to, all the time to be curious. I don’t want to stop being curious, because i’m naturally geared that way, I like meeting people, get their views ask questions etc., so carving out the time, how do I continue to be more external get those diverse views? How do I continue learning? And it was, actually this happened just before, the confirmation, with the fact that we were going to be talking today. But the team at Nectar360 pulled together over the years, I think we’ve done a really good job of our, learning development, as an organization, we best time in it. Something close to my heart even though not always brilliant and making the time for it and the iab have created a whole bunch of digital content, we’re a member, so we get access to that. And we’re rolling that content, that digital content learning material across my entire team. And I sat there the other day thinking, we’ve asked the entire team to do these hours and hours of L&D and training and upskilling on a digital perspective, I can definitely see the value. I was sitting there thinking, I could get away with not doing it. And he goes, no, I’m going to make the time to do the four to six hours of training, which is all online based. And look, I think that’s just a really important bit. I know it’s not revolutionary, but how do you carve out time to be more extend?
Paul – 00:36:50:
I love that call out, Amir, because I think as senior people, we often are involved in designing some of these initiatives, but don’t necessarily embrace them in the same way. And people want to see leaders do that. They want to see leaders be vulnerable. They want to see them get involved and pull their sleeves up and be prepared to accept that they don’t know everything. So I love that you called that out. And I also think your point about finding time and curiosity is a great one. And I’m a big proponent not just of finding time to strategize at work, but also just to journal, get stuff out of your head so your head’s not quite so busy so that you can actually sit with yourself and be valuable because you’re right. I think you and I are similar in the fact that we like fast paced, challenging environments. But if your brain is always operating in that space, you’re not as brilliant or as productive. If you’re an athlete, you wouldn’t put yourself in that position all the time. You take time to rest and recuperate. And, allow your muscles to rebuild. Yet in the professional world, we just do 10 meetings every day and think that we’re going to be fine by the time we get to Friday. So I like that we’ve gone all the way from where is retail media going and what’s the future of it and making sure that we think about the customer and insight and repositioning retail media as not tactical and as a strategic thing all the way through to actually how do you be a good leader and how do you be a bit more vulnerable? So I’m very grateful for the conversation we’ve had, Amir. So thank you for making the time.
Amir – 00:38:16:
No, I really enjoyed it. As always, Paul. So thank you for the invite.
Paul – 00:38:19:
Pleasure. And that’s a wrap for this episode of the Time For A Reset Marketing Podcast: Insights from Global Brand Marketers, brought to you by CvE Marketing Consultancy. I’ve been your host, Paul Frampton-Calero, and I hope the insights shared today will help you reset and refine your strategies for successful brand transformation. We’d love to hear from you. If you’re enjoying Time for a Reset, please do leave us a comment or a review on your preferred platform and subscribe to be the first to know when a new episode drops. See you next time as I chat with another senior marketing leader. See you soon.
