Tune in to Time for A Reset
Amir – 00:00:01:
There’s so many players in the retail media ecosystem, and we all have to work really hard to make sure the consideration that’s given to retail media is additive to the customer experience. How do we work together to connect customers with their favorite brands? It’s a huge and vast ecosystem. Everyone plays a particular role, but ultimately, if we lose sight of the customer, there’s no future for this, really.
Intro – 00:00:26:
Welcome to a special episode of Time For A Reset Marketing Podcast: Insights from Global Brand Marketers, brought to you by CvE Marketing Consultancy. In this special episode, your host and CvE’s Global President, Paul Frampton-Calero, brings together the titans of the UK retail media industry. Tash Whitmey, Group Managing Director, Tesco Retail Media and Dunnhumby. Ollie Shayer, Omni-Media Director, Boots UK and Boots Media Group. Ben O’Mahoney, AdTech and Data Partnerships Lead, Retail Media at Ocado Retail. Amir Rasekh Managing Director, Nectar360. This unique panel discussion, held during MAD//Fest 2024, explores the incredible growth and transformation of retail media over the past four years, with 2024 marking a pivotal year. Let’s get started.
Paul – 00:01:32:
Good morning, everyone. Great to see so many familiar faces in the retail media ecosystem. And it obviously wouldn’t be a retail media panel, as I just joked to my fellow panelists, if we didn’t have a commercial break first, which obviously we just had from Tesco. So I am delighted today to be joined by an amazing panel, the titans of the retail media industry. I think I heard somebody else call it earlier. So going left to right, I have Tash Whitmey, who heads up Tesco Media in Dunnhumby. I have Ollie Shayer, that runs both Boots Marketing Media and also Boots Media Group. I have Ben O’Mahoney, who runs retail media for Ocado Retail. And last but not least, I have Amir Rasekh, who runs Nectar360 as MD in the UK. So I think you’ll agree, a pretty impressive lineup. And having hosted MAD//Fest for eight years, I think I worked out earlier this morning, the retail media conversation, has been growing steadily over the last three or four. And this year is definitely one of the key themes. So some of you may have seen my State of the Nation opening yesterday morning. And I said there were three macro themes or tailwinds that I saw driving the marketing industry. One is the return to focus on marketing as a growth engine, which I think is a positive return, given that’s what we’re all here for. Secondly, AI and the need for marketers to lean into AI and not to be scared of it, because otherwise marketeers will lose out to the IT department. And thirdly, retail media, I think retail media cuts across those first two as well, because clearly it is retailers building media businesses that drive value for manufacturers by providing data that CPGs, FMCGs, other manufacturers have always wanted to be able to understand the behavior of their actual customers. So I think this is going to be one of the standout sessions of the whole three days. So you made a very good choice to be here today. Okay, we’re going to jump straight in and I’m going to ask the first question, which is, we hear a lot about the US and the huge growth in the US, the fact that retail media spend in the US is in the billions and only growing, but the US and the UK retail media landscape are somewhat different. So I’m going to ask my panelists to give a reflection on what are the drivers of the UK market and what are the differences between the UK and the US. So if you don’t mind, Tash, I’ll start with you.
Tash – 00:03:52:
Morning, everybody. Lovely to be here. My co-panelists. Before I answer the question, sorry, Paul, I just want to say that I think it’s fantastic that we’ve got the four key retailers on the stage together this morning. It’s a real sign of the fact that there’s a whole industry to be shaped and we need to do that together as well as in competition. So the US, highly dynamic, been at it in seriousness probably a bit longer than Europe and the UK. A lot of retail media networks, I think 50 at the last count with seemingly new ones springing up every day. Quite top heavy in terms of being dominated by Amazon, Kroger, Target and Walmart. A lot of customers, which probably equates for some of those multi-billion figures that we hear about all the time. I think what’s different, one of the major things that’s different is that I think in the US they’ve mainly focused on digital and off-site historically. And in the UK, we obviously have a lot of customers who shop in our stores and we don’t see that going away anytime soon. I think at Tesco we’ve got at least 17 million customers who still do the vast majority of their shop in store. And so developing a really good connected store media proposition is critical in the UK. And I think one of my team who is in Cannes the week before last said that actually a lot of the American retailers are now looking to the UK to understand how to leverage the store network. So I think they are further advanced, but it’s easy to say that because only in certain areas. I think the UK have a slightly different shopper and we need to cater for the shopper.
Paul – 00:05:33:
Thank you, Tash. Amir, is that a similar theme that you see around the store versus digital kind of off-site?
Amir – 00:05:39:
Yeah. Morning, everyone. Thank you to Tash and Tesco for funding today. I think it’s the only free thing I’ve ever got from Tesco. So thank you very much. And I hear Ocado funding the next one, actually. So thank you. Thank you, Ben. No, Tash hit the nail on the head, actually. I think looking at the US is useful on a few different levels. The US benefits from relative scale, and that is useful for US to get inspiration and test ideas. But it’s unhelpful, on the other hand, because we all obsess on the size of the US market from a retail media perspective. And I think we risk the unintended consequence of chasing the pounds as opposed to really thinking through what makes retail media tick for a customer. And very importantly, also for clients and what their expectations are. And I know we’re going to get onto that a little bit later. But Tash is right. Over the last 10 plus years, both the US and UK have been building out their retail media capability. It used to be called something like something called shopper marketing. And now it’s got a new fancy name called retail media. And the reality is the UK was ahead from an install perspective and the US from an online perspective. And you’ve seen that flip over the last five years.
Paul – 00:06:55:
Yeah, absolutely. And Ollie, I know you share a similar view from a customer centric perspective. So, yeah, give us your thoughts, please.
Ollie – 00:07:01:
Fantastic to be on a panel with a range of retailers. I think it’s probably the first time in my career I’ve sat on a panel with a whole lot of retailers together. So I think it’s a great, to Tash’s point, it’s a great indictment of our industry and where we want to take it. I think, I mean, I was in the US last week with US retailers. And I think similarly also at Cannes. And, I think what you see is, to everything everyone said, huge scale. So our equivalents in the US, 120 million loyalty card customers, 9,000 stores, huge scale. And what that does bring is, that brings the ability to very quickly activate audiences. But what it doesn’t bring, therefore, is it’s an ease to do that. But what I think has been really the testament of the UK business is consumer insight driven customer engagement. So, you know, 80% of customers still shopping in a store environment. That’s where the majority of deals happen. And that’s where the majority of focus should be. So therefore, I think the US does have a very digital centric focus driven by the data they have. And the ease with which that can be activated. But actually, the real value comes from how you can activate. And integrated campaign, because the reality is the customer has multiple touch points that they’re going to sit against. So I think, I hope that the growth in the UK will be shown by that integrated approach versus a very sort of digital versus in store. And I guess from also the conversation I had last week, it’s becoming an increasing focus for them because they want to know what are we doing in the UK? What’s happening and how can we replicate that?
Paul – 00:08:17:
Great point. I think what I’m hearing is that UK Europe is much more thinking about the omni-channel experience and the store part has always been way more important. And that almost helps the digital and store part to come together a bit more seamlessly than maybe in the US where it has been heavily digital driven. So Ben, what are the key drivers of growth do you think in UK retail media spend?
Ben – 00:08:39:
Yeah, so lovely to see you all here today. In terms of growth, for me, the learnings of what we’re getting from the US and the model that they’re setting up with this true omni-channel activation, it feels like a bit of a buzzword. But when you think about the power that holds in being able to connect with customers across so many different media formats and to show the actual engagement from those customers when it’s done in the right way, I think it’s also fascinating the self-serve model that they are driving in a big way at the moment. I think scale helps in that because if you think about their network of customers in the hundreds of millions, like Walmart’s customer base is almost like three times the size of the UK population. It definitely helps that they can pull together at such scale. But regardless of which in the UK now, if we can take learnings from that in how they’re setting out advertisers on the right path to take control over how they’re engaging with their customers and how they’re learning collectively on what’s working, for me, if we can get that formula right, that’s really going to drive me. Some growth across the industry.
Paul – 00:09:39:
Great. And I think we definitely come back to your point about self-serve because Ocado is obviously more of a native technology business, whereas our other panelists have obviously got very established hundred-year-old retail businesses. Tash, how have you seen retail media evolving, particularly in that omni-channel space? Like what type of things are Tesco doing that they didn’t do before?
Tash – 00:09:59:
I think one of the things that we’re working with all of our CPG and supplier advertisers on is the shift from how we serve and build inventory and to how the industry buys inventory. We articulate it as moving from pick and mix inventory types to connected campaigns that are through the full funnel. And for me, that’s the really exciting. There’s two things that are really exciting around the evolution of retail media. So number one, how you can build full funnel connected campaigns that enhance the customer experience, because that’s a conversation that we all have. Enhance the customer experience, drive retail and brand growth, and then third, deliver revenue into the media business. So I find that really exciting and starting to work on how we bring that to life for our CPGs. Then I think the notion of creativity is something that is perhaps forgotten or not thought about in a retail media context. And it’s those two things I think that are going to drive the real scaled evolution and help retail media deliver on its promise of for a really good full funnel alternative, not just at the point of purchase. Although that’s still really important.
Paul – 00:11:16:
Brilliant. And the point about promise and the promise of the session is that we’ll have a truthful conversation about what’s really happening in retail media. I think often we just get lots of stats thrown around. And it’s difficult to get to the core of what’s happening. But I think you’re already beginning to see some consistent threads from what the panelists are saying. A lot of the time, what we see from our business when we consult in UK versus US is there’s been a lot of overpromising in the US. And there’s lots of retailers that were promised hundreds of millions of dollars from retail media revenue that hasn’t materialized. Is that a problem in the UK or is it a different landscape?
Ollie – 00:11:50:
Last year, I spoke about retail media taking it from hype to reality. And I think this year is very much like that. It’s felt like it’s about how do we grow the business in the right way going forward. And I think for me, the key factor has always been about trust. How do you build measurement that builds trust? That means that we are going to ensure that for the investment that you make, the returns that you get. And I think the US has been, we touched on it earlier, the scale of the market is so large. And we all know from a digital attribution perspective, it’s not always easy. And I think what I’ve seen in the UK is that because we’ve become very customer centric, we’ve really focused on what is the customer doing in the store and online. Being able to put that measurement together, we’ve done it a lot for Boots, has really allowed US to understand effectively what is the return you’re going to get. But more importantly now, and we’re doing it, more and more is building more omni-channel measurement. So actually really thinking about, originally it was about how do you show return? Now we’re thinking about what’s the cycle of return that you should be seeing? What’s the purchase cycle of the product? How does that affect it? How’s it affecting new to the brand? How’s it affecting the way in which customers might shop online versus offline? So I think what I’ve seen and what I saw last week as well is, I think we’re becoming more finessed in the UK and what we can offer from a measurement perspective. And I think if we stay there, and I’ll use the word, dreaded word, standardization, and we commit together as a group, which I’m sure we will, to having really clear standards around measurement, I think that will be a big step forward for us as the UK market.
Paul – 00:13:04:
Thank you. And Amir, Nectar360 is growing fast. You’re adding different capabilities, partnerships, talent. How do you create the right balance with revenue growth and customer experience?
Amir – 00:13:17:
Retail media really works. So the height is valid. And we see that through feedback from our clients. I think how you keep a bit of a lid on that and how you keep your feet on the ground is, what I talked to earlier on, we really obsess about doing the right thing for the customer. Everything we do starts with the customer in mind throughout as we optimize. And then we take the learnings from every campaign and take it into the next. Some of the changes we’ve made over time as we’ve scaled. So we think really deeply about retail media, our retail media capabilities being additive to the customer experience. We want to be additive to the customer experience. We don’t want to drive more friction into the journey. And something we’ve done over time is deep testing before we go live on stuff. We go out actively through our Nectar panel to ask customers about what they think about these placements. And actually, we’ve made the brutal decision over time to switch off placements where engagement is not there. And that means you’ve got real control on the outcomes, which have to be focused on the customer and really returns as a consequences, of that for advertisers. And therefore, we are seeing the growth because we’re trying to do the right thing. And I know that’s the same case for everyone on the panel.
Paul – 00:14:29:
I really like that idea of being additive to the customer experience. Ben, how do you guys think about that? I mean, with your business being much more of a tech foundations, how does that come to bear?
Ben – 00:14:39:
Yeah, so I think what’s actually unique about Ocado Retail being part of Ocado Group and the tech side of the business is that we talk about sitting within the same building. So we are working directly with our marketing team. And what we’re trying to do now, we’re not there yet, but we are definitely making strides in being able to pull together a consistent customer comms plan. And when you think and talk about the additive bit is that when you think about what the marketing team are trying to do, they’re trying to bring customers into the business, but then they’re also trying to retain them. What our suppliers are looking to do is to get them to come back in and purchase their products. Now, those are two of the same thing, right? So what we’re looking to do is build consistency in how we approach things across SFS. And then across the marketing. And that is everything from the actual creative and what goes out to the customers through to the underlining technology, sharing consistent technology from both sides of the business. But then I guess the question around how we engage for the tech side of things is that’s what makes our business model unique is that it’s the online only, it’s the delivery of how the products actually make their way to the customer. And what we’re trying to do is also speak to that as well in building out the right propositions that basically a supplier can come to us and really trust in with delivering to the customer the right value proposition from both the media side and from the delivery side.
Paul – 00:16:02:
And Ollie, how is ad tech? I mean, there’s a lot of ad tech companies at every conference, MAD//Fest, Can, wherever you go, ShopTalk. How is ad tech changing the ability to deliver what people are talking about here, revenue and customer experience optimization?
Ollie – 00:16:18:
I mean, if I look back three years, like what you were able to do with first-party data three years ago and what you can do today, it’s almost revolutionary. You can create environments now with data clean rooms where you can create access to data in ways where you can do advanced data science on it in ways you could never do before. And I think coupled with that, what you are able to do is take audiences and effectively activate them across your estate. So whether that’s in digital screens in store, whether that’s digital audio, whether that’s your onsite, whether that’s your offsite, I think that capability has evolved so much in the last three years. And to be honest, from what I’ve seen will only accelerate because if I look at the volume of, to your point, ad tech vendors in the marketplace, three years ago it was a nascent. Now it is really quick. And I think we’ll talk about it a bit more in a minute, but when you add generative AI on top of that, it’s only going to accelerate faster. So what I see is it will only exponentially accelerate, but what you can do today is way beyond what you could even do three years ago.
Paul – 00:17:10:
I think that’s a really valid point. And I think the other thing that I think is quite interesting is there are lots of businesses that turned their proposition to retail media. And now you’re seeing a lot of retail media native ad tech businesses coming to light.
Ollie – 00:17:22:
Yeah, I think if you look at Cannes, if you look at some of the major propositions, some of the biggest partners now, the large scale tech vendors are getting involved in this. And that, to me, gives a really good indication of what evolution we will probably see in the next two years.
Ben – 00:17:35:
On that point, I think what’s really interesting also is that talking around the ad tech vendors is what they’ve really woken up to, I think, in a big way is the data and the actual power of what it can deliver. So if they can design propositions to speak to that in the best way possible, then it puts them forward in a way that they would never been able to before. And I think that is what is unique about retail media.
Paul – 00:17:54:
Yeah, no, that’s a great point. So let’s talk about your customers and the people that you sell to, because that’s obviously fundamentally changed. Like Tash, I know you and I have talked a lot about how, let’s call them the CPG, customers, their expectations are changing about how they want to have relationship with retailers. How has that evolved and what are you seeing?
Tash – 00:18:13:
Well, I think the first thing to say is it’s not a new industry, but it is, which is really weird, isn’t it? We’ve been doing it for 20 years, all of us in various ways. But the acceleration that we’ve seen and the realization of the advertising community that this is really important and that they need to get on the bandwagon, I think, is what’s driving the acceleration. I don’t think a day goes past where we don’t have a conversation with a CPG or an advertising partner where they’re wrestling with how they need to set themselves up, how they bring together their capabilities, their budget pots. Historically, they’ve been split, haven’t they, functionally, like many organizations. You’ve got shopper, brand, digital, e-commerce. Then you’ve got centers of excellence, hub and spoke. And so I think without exception, the big advertiser are thinking about, they’re really thoughtful about how they set themselves up, whether it’s they’re building a retail media center of excellence, whether they’re actually employing a retail media director who sits across some of those fault lines. So I think the evolution is real and not without its pain for the advertisers. And so I think that’s just one of the major things that we’re talking to them about. And then I think the second point is how we can show up as one retail team, and how the CPG or advertiser can show up as one team. And what I mean by that is bringing together the commercial parts of the organizations with the customer parts of the organizations with the retail media so that actually you build growth plans that are based on what the CPG is trying to achieve, but also what’s going to drive retail growth. Because this thing’s only going to work. If it amplifies the things that we are trying to do or the CPG is going to, it’s not something you do differently over there in a corner. So I think those are my two big observations. It’s a lot of change everywhere and coming together to really drive out the growth that we think is possible is important.
Amir – 00:20:14:
I think Tash and Ben both touched on a really important point, which is unique in retail media. And unlike anything else that exists in the advertising or media industry, this three-way working between the buying teams, the marketing teams, the CPG, the clients, and the retail media network, you don’t see it anywhere else, right? And that’s really important. What I hear over and over again from our clients is, I don’t want a retailer to supply a relationship, but I want you to help me navigate that. And I want a client service from you. And Tash touched on the center of excellence that are being set up within our client bases. And look, the things they ask us for is bring innovation, turn up as a media partner, show me lots of flexibility in how we work and make it really easy for me to do business.
Paul – 00:21:05:
Right. And the point that you and Tash have made is really interesting that actually this collaboration, cross-functional collaboration and need to focus on incrementality and actual proof is actually arguably, hopefully going to redefine how we think about any spend on media. Because if you think about a lot of spend has gone into media and there’s very little other than the audience. Here we have not just intent, we have propensity understanding of what people buy, when they buy it, and what location and what frequency. And I think that changes the conversation. And I hope it changes the conversation about accountability for marketing and media dollars against all growth in marketing. And I feel like all of you are saying that is a possibility. Ben, we touched on in our prep call the fact that obviously some CPGs, because they’ve worked with Amazon and expect that seamless self-service again. Well, we want self-service. What do you think about that? And I’d love to get other perspectives on how realistic that is given where CPGs are from a maturity perspective.
Ben – 00:22:04:
Yeah. So I think that there is a demand for self-serve, and I guess the perception that we have on the market right now is that a lot of advertisers are looking at self-serve thinking, right, that’s an exciting opportunity. I can take control of my campaigns and really inject my own spin on things rather than relying on the retailer. I think the reality of what self-serve will be over the next few years is a culmination of the ad tech coming together. So I think about things like cross-platform attribution. If you’re going to put the power in the hands of the advertisers to then go out and run their own campaigns, they then need to get the data back in the same as us to make sure that it is working and that it’s effective. I think it’s also the operating model of what self-serve is as well. There’s, of course, the Tesco platform where you can go in, of course, and create your campaigns and forecasts and things like that. I guess advertisers are looking also now at how do I get it within my advertiser seat to then actually take control within where I’m already present. So I think self-serve is a fascinating area. I think it also helps liberate the capabilities within advertisers. These are some of the biggest spenders in the world when it comes to advertising. They have huge teams, centers of excellence. Like you say, why not give them the control to be able to do that, obviously, with parameters in place? So I think it’s a fascinating place.
Ollie – 00:23:19:
Yeah, I think obviously the way I look at it as a media person and running Retail Media Group is what drives self-service? What is the driver behind it? To Ben’s point, is it operational? So do I have amazing people already who can activate for me? Or is the secondary point more that I want to understand what’s under the hood? So do I really want to see behind the curtain and understand what’s actually going on? And so I think for mine, it’s really understanding that. And we have that conversation with our partners to say, what is it you want to see? Is it more depth of reporting, more understanding of effectiveness? Or is that actually that you have the team and the operational balance to enable that already? And I think that’s the bit that’s quite critical, because I think what we have found is some people have asked for self-service, but the reality is utilizing it is quite different, because actually, there is certain parts of data that cannot be shared for customer safety. And so therefore, there’s an evolution that’s going to happen in that space that will make it easier. But I think really getting to the number of why is it important is a critical part.
Paul – 00:24:12:
Why are you asking for it? I think that’s a really good insight. I think most CPGs would accept that they’re on a journey in building out their capability and joining things up. And the reality of self-service, just going and running a platform, agencies have done it for years, and they have to train people in a detailed way to be able to do that. Tash, shifting a little bit on the operating model, you talked about the gaps or the, I think you called it the fault lines between trade, sales, performance, e-commerce, media. There’s lots of different silos. How are you seeing that operating model change on the CPG side? And how has it forced you to behave differently to service that?
Tash – 00:24:47:
I think I touched on it a little bit. And so what we’re seeing with our big CPG partners is, how do you make retail media part of the outcomes that you’re driving to as a business in your marketing? What are your big outcomes and objectives that you’re striving for? And then if you combine that with what are your plans within the retailer? So your buy, move, grow or whatever version of that you have, your category strategy, your NPD and your big bets. And you try and map that out over the course of a year to an aligned growth plan. Then it is less about all the budget sits here or the budget sits here, although there is still a lot of that. So I think starting that journey of aligned growth planning from retail up through the funnel is something we’re seeing some progress on. And then, honestly, I think the advertisers are restructuring really often and that’s really painful. So I spoke a little bit about whether it’s centers of excellence or heads of retail media or bringing people together in steer co’s. We’re seeing a lot of that as well, because I think there’s a recognition that, A whatever we do now is going to change in six months. So a constant journey of evolution. So I think it’s one getting to an aligned growth objective. And what’s the contribution of retail media in that rather than just its shopper or brand or digital? And B, it’s a journey of thinking about structure and operating models.
Paul – 00:26:20:
Right. And we definitely see that all global CBGs are changing their model and structuring things differently. I think that part of the challenge is there’s almost not one model that’s the same right now. So, Amir, you’re smiling. Tell me a little about why.
Amir – 00:26:33:
We touch on a really important point. We serve around about 900 clients every year at Nectar360 and guess what? Every one of them wants to work slightly differently. So the point around self service, the biggest CPGs are very happy to use it as our agency clients. But we’ve got a very long tail of clients who need a bit of help. Actually, the center of excellence have come together within the biggest, most sophisticated CBGs. And what we’ve seen is that bringing together a brand and shopper budgets and a real focus on those integrated multi-channel campaigns that we’ve all talked about. That’s the future. That’s where we see the biggest returns. That’s where we see the best customer engagement. So the level of sophistication has really stepped up.
Paul – 00:27:18:
And I’ve heard all of you today and on other stages talk about the fact that the data, the customer data here can as much drive decisions in the upper funnel as it can in the bottom. Yet, as usual, the industry tends to go, well, data is going to drive like people that are purchasing tomorrow. So tell us a bit about how you’re evolving your narrative. So that, I guess retail media doesn’t fall into the same trap that digital marketing did per se. Maybe, Ollie, you tell you that first.
Ollie – 00:27:44:
Yeah, I think ultimately, what does data give you? Data gives you great insight. Insights generate fantastic campaigns. And I think what we’ve got now is probably the greatest richness of understanding of customers that we’ve ever had to really understand what do they buy? When? What is their behavior that links to that? And I think from my side, I think the critical factor is then how do you then utilize that? So for me, if you have great insight, you can generate great campaigns. It’s regardless of where it sits in the funnel. And I think retail media eventually will just become media. It effectively is a way into which we can access data in a really smart way, connect it effectively to any channel you want. But I think to your point, Paul, we have to really look carefully at what the objectives of the campaign are. If you’re going to run upper funnel CTV, will it have the same effectiveness as sponsored search on site? No, it’s because it’s the same as if you were running remarketing.
Paul – 00:28:33:
We’d be measuring it the same.
Ollie – 00:28:34:
And I think that’s the critical factor. So I think it’s, but it’s again, it’s evolution, right? When we began the journey, it was very much about how do we generate revenue at the lower funnel for brands? And now it’s about how do you evolve that to look at how the things you might do in the upper funnel might influence all of that. Effectively, it’s how we manage our retail media, like as a retailer, how we plan our media is effectively now how brands can plan their media. And I think it’s that evolution. And we touched on earlier, that’s a revolutionary thing for brands. I was an FMCG advertiser for 10 years. The ability to understand effectiveness, that was disconnected. Now it’s connected. And so that is a real change that’s going to happen.
Paul – 00:29:09:
Interesting. Okay, unfortunately, we’ve only got a few minutes left. We could probably talk for the rest of the afternoon. I think it would be remiss not to touch on AI, particularly given the ability potentially to personalize either retail or just the advertising versus the general on-site experience. Ben, you’re a tech business. Tell me about how AI features in a Cardo strategy.
Ben – 00:29:30:
Limited at the moment. I guess if you talk about the actual technology side of things, I’m sure it is apparent more there. But in terms of how we’re utilizing within our retail media business or where I can see things going, I find the power that AI holds and the more I’m seeing from the technology vendors out there is that it just makes things a bit more seamless. It makes things a bit more accessible for other people in the business. An example I could give is where a lot of vendors now are able to query across audiences just by asking a question, typing in a question rather than having to pull down a load of filters. And that means that anybody, in theory, could jump into a platform and start creating audiences and activating. The other bit that I find fascinating with where AI is going is obviously it’s all just housed around data. And I think much of your point earlier on is that it’s the real-time availability of data now. It’s the fact that we can get the data as retailers out there to make decisions a lot quicker, enabling AI to do its thing in effect. And when you think about from an advertising perspective, the example I always like to give is the lifecycle of a product. Why would you really want to be advertised a product that you’ve just bought when the lifecycle of it isn’t for another seven days? So, again, that is, I think, a really exciting use case where AI can help enable.
Paul – 00:30:44:
And another thing that I think about is retail commerce is complicated. The number of SKUs, the number of categories has an intensity that if you want to measure all of that and get everything personalized, that feels like it’s going to be quite challenging without AI. Amir and then Tash.
Amir – 00:31:00:
It is complex. And if you look at the machine learning models that all the major retail media networks have developed over the years to drive personalization, it’s huge. And AI will take that to a new level beyond our expectations, I’m sure. The other two use cases I think are really interesting is creative generation, as Tash touched on earlier on, particularly useful for some of the smaller brands out there. The rapid testing of creative in the retail media environment is huge. And the one that really interests me is predictive performance. Before, during campaigns, we all do levels of optimization, but how candid are we on what the opportunity could be?
Paul – 00:31:38:
Magical in-flight data.
Amir – 00:31:40:
In-flight data, yeah.
Tash – 00:31:41:
I think audience building, so we’ve been using machine learning to build those audiences along with the data science for a while. I think the next frontier of the journey is going to be in the creative development and execution and measurement of that. So I don’t think as an industry, we’re quite there yet on that. But if we are going to be, as I say, delivering on the promise of incredibly personal, relevant advertising, not just for different CPGs on different SKUs, but for different customers, AI is going to be what fuels that at scale.
Paul – 00:32:12:
Brilliant. And it feels like as you opened, Tash, that actually retail media is a wonderful petri-dish for a lot of innovation within the entire industry, whether it’s different ways of measuring, improving impact, whether it’s automating the things that actually are a heavy lift that actually allow people to focus more on the strategic part or joining things up. Media and creative have always been pretty disconnected as far as long as I’ve worked in the industry. If we could change that and personalize the right message at the right time, to the right person, which I think is the promise of the industry that we live in yet, we have lots of technology that hasn’t delivered that. That could be an interesting space for us. So unfortunately, we’re running out of time, but I’d love to get a final comment or piece of advice from each of you about what you’d say to the audience to take away from today. So I’m going to start and go left to right.
Tash – 00:32:57:
Three.
Paul – 00:32:58:
Three, okay.
Tash – 00:32:58:
Number one.
Paul – 00:32:59:
I only said one, but you can have three. You are the sponsor.
Tash – 00:33:02:
Build growth plans. And I never obey anybody. Build growth plans that are delivering integrated activities. Be really clear on what you’re doing it for and how you’re going to measure it. Think about creativity. This isn’t just about wobblers in a store. It’s bigger than that. And always remember the customer. And build retail media experiences that are immersive and, I think you said it, additive.
Ollie – 00:33:26:
I think for me, the key thing is that it’s probably never been a more exciting time to be in the industry than now. Look at what we’ve talked about today. The second thing I’d say is I think we have to be aware there is no blueprint for this industry. There is nothing that is we are building it as we go. And I think the thing I would ask is that for our partners and for people who work with us, come and work with us. Help us understand what the shape of the industry should look like for the future. And I think that’s what really excites me.
Ben – 00:33:47:
I’ll probably build on Tash’s around creativity. The end product, the thing that the customer sees is an ad, and I think that sometimes gets forgotten about. So for me, it’s working with the retailer with the best creative, the best approach that you can to really speak to the customer, use the data to its best ability. And then also there’s a build on that in terms of maybe not even a digital channel, but thinking around sampling, and surprise and delight. Building your brand loyalty is done in so many different ways, from both an advertising perspective, but also just how you engage with your customers overall.
Amir – 00:34:19:
I have five. No, I’m joking.
Paul – 00:34:23:
You tell me, no. I can see them looking at me going, there’s not time for fun.
Amir – 00:34:26:
Yeah, yeah. I can see the guys on this side here. So look, there’s so many players in the retail media ecosystem and we all have to work really hard to make sure the consideration that’s given to retail media is additive to the customer experience. How do we work together to connect customers with their favorite brands? It’s a huge and vast ecosystem. Everyone plays a particular role, but ultimately, if we lose sight of the customer, there’s no future for this, really.
Paul – 00:34:51:
Brilliant. Nice place to leave it, Amir. So hopefully you have heard a lot of insight and candor from this group. I think the wonderful thing, as everybody said, is actually getting all the retailers on the panel. And there were many more in the room with Isbar last week talking about standardization. Means that all boats will rise. There is so much opportunity in this space. And I think we deliberately almost like showed the difference with the US. Not to say the US isn’t doing phenomenal things, but I think the UK is starting with a customer. It’s thinking about omnichannel. It’s thinking about measurement. And it’s thinking about building a sustainable ecosystem. And I know that each one of the people on the stage here agree that’s important because we don’t want to have these e-marketing slides that do that and then do that. And that has happened in digital advertising in the past. So all that remains is for me to thank my wonderful panelists for their candor, for their time. 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’s 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.
