Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Lights are bright, we chase the sight. Media dreams, we take the flight. Partnerships, they lead the way. Success is what we welcome.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Today's episode of the Publisher's Playbook. This is actually our second episode on the topic of retail media, and I am thrilled to be joined by Mike Feldman, SVP of Global Retail Media at VaynerMedia. Mike's story is pretty unique. He grew up as the son of a retail consultant and spent his formative years walking up and down the aisles of big box stores, learning about the nuts and bolts of how consumers shop.
Now, with over a decade of experience, he's at the forefront of retail media just as it seems to be swelling up the entire ad market. Mike was really in retail media way before it was cool. In this episode, Mike shares what I think is a groundbreaking perspective.
Mike talks about how retail media isn't just about sponsored listings and ads on shopping websites. Mike truly believes that we may have just inadvertently discovered the world's greatest testing ground for creative ideas.
Imagine being able to experiment with ad concepts and messaging and visuals, even product features and benefits in real time, and then knowing immediately how it'll translate into product sales. Then you package up those insights and use them to inform ad campaigns across every channel. It's actually a fascinating look at how media data, sales and creativity are all starting to converge. So let's get into the art and science of retail media with Mike Feldman.
Mike, welcome to the show.
[00:01:34] Speaker C: So glad to be here.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: So you are the global head of retail media at VaynerMedia, which that couldn't have been a title when you started your career. So I'm curious how one ends up as this global head of retail media at VaynerMedia. Neither of those places existed 20 years ago. Like, retail media didn't exist. And I don't think VaynerMedia did.
[00:01:58] Speaker C: Yeah, Vayner, we just celebrated our, or actually, I think in February we're celebrating our 15th anniversary. So for sure have not been around for 20 years. And then retail media, certainly not. I think I was sort of smiling as you asked the question too, because I've had, I think my last three gigs, I've had the opportunity to have some level of input in my title and I'm like, the least concerned of, like, what the title reads. And most of the time it's driven from, like, how people are thinking about the industry or talking about it. And I can even go into some of that history. But I think retail media has been the term that has certainly stuck with people. And so that's where it's in the title because it. It plays well in audiences. But even to, like, you know, my career and things like that, to your point, a lot of this didn't exist.
It does feel fortuitous for me to be in this type of role. Like, I literally grew up with a dad as a retail consultant. So my brother and I would do store visits to Costco, BJ's Sam's Club, because he was a consultant for wholesale clubs literally every weekend of our childhood. And so then you sort of, like, take that experience and understanding what goes into being a retailer and a customer and the brands and how customers shop or consumers behave and things like that. And I even got accustomed to going into the bakery of my local Atlanta Costco and being like, how are the croissants selling? As a favor to my dad.
So it's just sort of part of my blood and sort of born for the role. And then as I sort of grew up in the ad agency media world, you know, you can sort of see those parallels start to come together where I was building a foundation in advertising and media, and I had this whole, like, history and legacy and, like, you know, retail roots. So it's been a really fun ride.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: That's interesting. You were almost born into retail media before it was a thing. This was. I mean, this was when it was probably. Was it called shopper marketing more at that time, or was it not even called that yet? Was it just like, hey, listen, you got a retail store, you want to sell more products, I can consult you on that? Like, what was your dad's job?
[00:04:06] Speaker C: So, yeah, my dad. Well, my dad was. He mainly worked with, like, food manufacturers with wholesale clubs. So, like, helping either, like, the suppliers that would go into, like, the bakery department of Costco or, like, helping. For instance, when I was a kid, he helped sell in Ben and Jerry's ice cream to BJ's Wholesale Club, which was the cool, coolest thing ever, because we got unlimited Ben and Jerry's ice cream for my entire childhood. So, you know, very cool stuff. But I would even say for, like, to your question, in shopper marketing and me. So, like, I. I grew up on the ad agency side, and one of my clients, this was over 10 years ago, was Georgia Pacific. So, like, CPG Brands, Angel Soft toilet paper, Brawny paper towels, all the cool, you know, sexy brands people are thinking about all the time.
And so I was working on the agency side there, and they were one of the first ones that were, like, really leaned into retail media specifically. They were one of the first ever companies to do an upfront with Amazon. And so Dow Bergsh at the time, he was a CMO and he was like, I would invest in Amazon whether I sold product on Amazon or not. And sort of that notion is then what sort of launched the idea of the retail media practice. I ended up having an opportunity to get hired and go work directly for Georgia Pacific to then build out the retail practice. And so I made the joke of I've had the opportunity to have some input in my title. And so I came to work with Dow and the Georgia Pacific team and he was like, okay, what do you want the name of your department to be? He was like, I don't care what it is, but it can't be shopper marketing. So that was my first remit was name what the department was going to be, but I can't be shopper marketing. And so we went retail media.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Interesting. So I'm curious, why not shopper marketing? Was it because the CMO just saw this different way of approaching these retailers?
[00:05:53] Speaker C: Yeah, the idea would be that it's better data. And so, you know, the idea would be. And like, really as we talk about, like, I'll even go into like the 101 sense of like, I define retail media as retailers monetizing their data and their properties. But that definition is like any media publisher out there, like Facebook monetizes their data and their properties, Google, you name it. And so yeah, a lot of it is just like truly the same playbook of media to a degree on the shopper front. So shopper marketing has existed for a really long time. And I think like you'll have people that have been in retail media for a while, like me and like a lot of folks come from the legacy shopper marketing background. There's so many of those people. And it really has been retail media has been an evolution of that. Like even I think this is such a fun small world sort of thing. But like in my first couple months at Georgia Pacific, we had an innovation summit and we had this awesome speaker named Gary Vaynerchuk who came in. I was like couple months into a new role, sort of building out the retail practice. But I was half funded by shopper marketing. So I was a shopper marketing manager. But then I also was building out this retail media practice.
And so Gary gets up there and he was like, he goes, you know what I call shopper marketing? He was like, he was like, it's trade spend. He's like, you're just giving money to the Retailers and things like that. And like, you know, sitting in front of like 10 of my colleagues who all worked in shopper marketing, I'd say it was like an interesting moment. But we were all aligned with the general sentiment of like, historically what shopper has been is then evolving. Just like I think in a lot of cases retail media is just the best that media has become with better data for targeting, better measurement, more accountable results. And so a lot of it was like, I think shopper had some stink on it, for lack of a better term. But it was also like to signal like we wanted to make a purposeful step change and like the way we were going to think about it was a little bit differently. Again, going to like the, even the Amazon conversation and like even where retail media has gone and like how it hits PNLs and things like that. But a lot of it was like, we're not going to think about it in this really like myopic world. We're going to like really think about it as a media channel that then fuels the and is integrated with the rest of the business. And so that was why it was more like retail media than shopper marketing.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: That's interesting. And so you're, you're with Georgia Pacific, so they have all these CPG brands. They're trying to increase their sales. I imagine that they're like various retailers that they're at. So, you know, start working a little bit on that side and then you return, you return to agency side. After that you go to Dentsu right next. So what was the, I guess first of all, what was the big learning that you got being brand side, being manufacturer, product side that you maybe didn't know as much from agency side.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: It was like, I mean people talk about like in generally in the industry and I know Georgia Pacific is a competitor, but like the PNG MBA as like an example. And you know, I sort of grew up agency side. Spending that time on the brand side is something I recommend to like to literally anyone, especially for me. And like where it was the most helpful one. Georgia Pacific is unique in the best way, where it's one of the largest privately held companies in the world. And so I had the amazing opportunity to like really be able to think and like make investment decisions in a different way. Where it was like, if I could beat like the average annual return of Koch Industries or whatever, like if I could build a good enough business case, I could generally get the dollars. And so like one it was, how do you think about all the different trading variables and things going on in retail media to sort of communicate what the total value is for the organization. So just from a pure privately held standpoint it made me think differently about like how do I get all the stakeholders to capture all the different value and be like yes, so that I get as much credit as possible so that I can get the dollars and go do the thing that I want to go do. And so like that was definitely a part of it. But then any client in general, I think there's a couple of things but like the sort of P L management aspect. But then especially in retail media I think the more time I spent brand side was understanding why in often cases brands are set up to fail in retail media because the sales organization and the brand organization are often at odds. And so like sitting in a shopper marketing or retail media role, often the brand teams will be like I think you're too aligned to sales. The sales teams will be like I think you're too aligned to brand. And really I'm like a people pleaser and I just want to help anyone. And so you know, it's that experience really like helped me understand not only like what each team valued but then even things like I understood that in a lot of cases and now as I'm working agency side and meeting with clients I know what questions to ask to even understand. Sometimes they're bonus differently. Like for instance some organizations will have three different bonus structures as it relates to where retail media could run. So like someone is only incented to drive E comm only sales. They get a bonus based on the number of E comm only sales. They hit someone else's total sales at one specific retailer and so then they're looking to hit those and then a brand person is maybe looking at mmm results for just their brand peanut butter spread across all retailers. And so as that relates to like all right, I want to run this retail media spend. I want to optimize towards this KPI. You could have three people looking at three different things and they're also monetarily incented to care about different things on a personal level. So it's just like a real, it can be a real mess for orgs. And so that was the biggest unlock is like really understanding how matrix CPG organizations operate especially in a privately held to then like maximize the value from retail media.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is something that's interesting in any new area. I mean I've been in advertising long enough. I worked a little bit agency side before as well. You there's a couple of things that always happen. There's always some new shiny thing that comes along, right. For whatever reason, it's just got to keep it exciting. You got to recommend different things to your clients, that type of idea. And there's also like a renaming that happens like every 10 years. So, you know, I've seen it with, you know, it was called, they were called banner ads at one time and then they're called display and then they're called programmatic display. Like the word got different over time. I mean, at the end of day it's still serving like a leaderboard on a page on a website. Right. But it gets a little fancier sounding or a little more sophisticated affiliate turned into partnerships. And that's the industry that impact lives in. Right. You have shopper marketing turning into retail media and then it starts to encompass more and more things from a, you know, the product side because you did work CPG product side.
What's the main thing that attracts these products to work with retail media?
[00:12:52] Speaker C: I'm like obsessed with the idea of flipping it a little bit and using retail media as like a creative and insights engine. So like, let's test out things, quick feedback loops in retail media, learn and then go push that out. So like Amazon as the example, we can run a couple thousand impressions to get a read on a video, find out what's going to win and then that goes to millions of people on Thursday Night Football as an example. And so like that's where brands don't think that way because their PNLs aren't separated by the retailers and they're like, oh, I don't want to go do this Walmart thing. But if they're like, do you want to do this creative testing engine tied to actual sales with your largest customer and your most important data sets, they would be like, absolutely. And so that's where a little bit of like understanding retail media and the value I think is so essential for brands and like our biggest barrier is often ourselves.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Right. Do you think that retail media networks in general have become so big and popular because they tie back to the sale? Like we've both been in advertising a long time. Normally you're measuring top of funnel stuff, reach impressions. Maybe you get down to a click. But when you're running large ad campaigns, it's not often that you say, I ran this campaign and I can tell it drove X amount of sales or this amount of increase. It's usually fuzzy math that you're doing. It feels like in the retail media world that that math is a little less fuzzy, like it comes a little bit more into focus. Would you say that's the primary reason it's, it's become so popular or is that just like one nice. Nice to have?
[00:14:32] Speaker C: I think it's definitely a piece to the puzzle. I find it to be an interesting question because I think if I'm talk someone more outside of retail media looking in like absolutely, certainly more accountable metrics and like I even said like on the insights engine, like we talk about creative testing right now. Creative testing for a lot of clients is like going to like ipsos and having a bunch of people sitting in a room make subjective opinions. Where we could do that in retail and tie it to an actual sale. So like we can run 10 pieces of creative, we can see which one drives the most sales and then we know that that one is more effective at driving sales, not just like subjective opinion. Then test it and run an mmm and things like that. Like we can just learn quickly and then go do the thing.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: This creative testing thing is interesting. So you basically, I mean the traditional way would be you take some video ad and like you said, you put, you get a bunch of people look at it, they fill out some survey. They're like, I felt, you know, happy or sad or whatever or I knew about this. There's like unaided awareness and aided awareness. And it's all this like surveys and focus groups. It sounds like you're. The way that you're testing creative using retail media is you're taking a video, you're getting a couple thousand people and you're tracking whether it drove sales or not. And then you're just taking that information and saying, yeah, let's run, let's run an ad on Amazon Prime Video, which may not tie back to a sale anymore. You may not be able to get that full loop every single time because, you know, I might be watching a sporting event or a movie or something like that. It's not necessarily, I'm not buying my toilet paper because I was so inspired by, you know, this movie I'm watching. So talk a little bit about like that testing process because that seems unique to this space where you weren't able to do that kind of thing before.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: In terms of the creative testing, you have it exactly right. And I would say even a few different use cases. So like one is the. Instead of doing subjective opinions and I would argue also this is, this is sort of why I ended up in this role is sort of this talk track right here. Specifically in like Where Gary and like in VaynerMedia and like what Vayner X stands for is a lot of like social at the center. And like, you know, you can talk about all these different things in the industry, but like, to me, as like the retail person that didn't do creative, like coming in, what that really means is like social has some of the largest data sets in the industry. And also the algorithms are designed in a way where the best creative will then get served to people because it's trying to keep them in the platform as long as possible. So, so it's like targeting an algorithm based on interest in what is most like going to capture their attention. So then like using that same and like where Gary then has taken things is like, hey, instead of, you know, going to Ipsos or whatever, like I want to run 30 social media ads and see like, based on the creative, which one takes off in the algorithm and has the most interest. And that gives me the insight that like this is what people respond to and even like creating things for specific cohorts. Because like, if you're like, oh, I want to and this is where we can't do this in retail yet. But like, oh, I'm going to do this specific message for this audience and like see how if that actually validates, if that hits that audience and if that's who it's like being served to based on the algorithm. And so like hearing all of that and then in my world in retail media, like all I'm hearing is like, we need to invest more in sponsored products and like doing all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, that's not sustainable.
And so really the notion is like, if I took social at the center and what Gary and Vayner have talked about and I take that same mindset and I'm like, what does retail media at the center do for me? And really retail media at the center is the insights engine tied to Accountable Metrics. And so like we can, I'd say again, not through search and where the majority of the spend is now, but through like a DSP or display or things like get really granular in the audience, targeting in cohorts, things like that, looking at specific messages and then tying that back to actual purchase.
Even to your like your movie toilet paper example where like Amazon just blows me away is with Amazon Marketing Cloud. And so there's even things because of their persistent login and they have like such a ridiculous share of life on their consumers, let alone like share a voice and media. But like we can track post view search behavior and then conversion rate off of that. So, like, I can see where did you see the. And like, with AI and everything now, like, maybe we can get some, like, AI generated, you know, angelsoft toilet paper in the movie you're watching or whatever. But, like, I can see you were exposed post view. Did you search toilet paper? And did you convert on that? And so, like, we can get really granular. And then again, like, I'll even go to, like, the sort of vayner craziness way we do everything in, like, higher volumes. And so, like, my mind went to like, all right, I'm gonna run the 10 creative, find the winner and go push that out. Where now even, like, we've taken it further is the creative teams are tagging each creative element. And I think this is so fascinating where, like, we're testing which product claims work the hardest, how many product claims, what order we put the product claims in, do we do a social hook? Do we do a demo, like a torture shot, like, things like that? And so then we're testing each of those and tagging it from creative standpoint so that not only do we identify, like, hey, which one's the winner? But then the next brief is like, okay, this claim is the most impactful at driving conversion. So we want that to be the primary message for our next batch of creative and brief and things like that. So it's like, like marketing for the sake of insights and then better marketing.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and think about, like, how granular that gets. You know, you might make changes to your product description based on the insight of which benefit is most attractive through your creative testing. Right. Like, it goes all the way down to every step along that consumer journey. Right?
[00:20:20] Speaker C: Yeah. I would even say, like, again, you can always take it even a step further. Where like, I would even go is so, like, one in retail, like, if I look at ara so Amazon retail analytics data, I can see keyword trends across Amazon. So, like, I have a general sense of, like, here's what's trending coming up, coming down. Like, you know, how is that adopting consumer behavior? Where I would then take it the step further, though, is in TikTok, we have so creator search Insights is a free tool. In TikTok, they have this thing called content gap, and it literally will tell you where your audience has a higher demand for content than there is a supply within TikTok. And so, like, pairing that all into a CPG world, you can basically see, like, all right, my audience is searching all these different Topics, you can then find the ones that are most related to your like product from like a purchase standpoint, like specific recipes or seasonal things, things like that. We can then pair that with Amazon ARA data to understand like how big is this? Is it gaining over time? Like, is this starting to become more viable? And then not only like in the creative, but then like actual product innovation where if we're like, hey, this recipe is really taking off, like maybe we create a different flavor of this thing based on this insight where then you're fueling that further.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: That's interesting. It really starts to not be necessarily just advertising and marketing if you're starting to like inform product development and creative design. Like it's kind of all in one place. I've been in the media side of the business. I'm not a creative, like I can barely draw a stick man, right?
[00:21:51] Speaker C: But I, I'm, I'm drinking through the fire hose and learning creative as it speaks. But like that's where yeah, I came into the role thinking like media. I believed in media and creative together. And I'm now nine months in and I'm like media creative and like sales or innovation or commerce is like really where I think it can all come together. And like, even if you look at like creator affiliates today, like Mr. Beast and things like that, like really it's, it's a lot of that together. Like even I forget which of the Paul brothers, so you'll have to forgive me, but one of them is launching like a beauty care, personal care line at Walmart. And I remember the quote was like, you know, we've been looking at this category for a while, like not a lot of innovation, things like that. And that's where you can literally see on a TikTok and through some of the social platforms of like, here's the products that are trending again to content gap, here's what people are consuming content. So then if you're a creator affiliate, like you have a huge following, you can literally create products that fill voids in high interest areas with high potential. And now a lot of them have great relationships with the retailers and then sell the product directly. And so like that is creative media and product commerce all together. And that's what creator affiliates are doing.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's cool. It's. The feedback loop has really tightened up from like a day where your creative director would come up with this great insight into, you know, this is the ad that we will create. And then the media team would go and say, okay, we'll buy a bunch of media where we think those people are. And then let's put that into market and let's see how sales go over the next six months and see if there's a lift. Maybe we'll do a brand lift study and then let's do it again. Six months. It sounds like this is happening just in real time. You're putting a. You're finding out what ad people might want or like what creative people may want through this content gap, what products they're interested in. You're serving that up to the people that might be most interested in it. Maybe it's a sponsored listing or video or otherwise. You see how well that does and then you put more fuel on that fire if you need to or compare different creatives. It seems like retail media started out just being really a name for Amazon and Walmart Connect essentially. Right. You have these two big behemoths, they own most of the market. Over the last like 18 months everybody's starting to come into this. Whether it's doordash or Uber or you know, United Airlines or. Everybody seems to have, you know, a media network. So I've seen this splitting of even terminology where you have retail media networks, which is really clear. I'm a retailer, I have a media network. Pretty self explanatory. But you have these things that are like different. They're not a retailer, they might be an intermediary, a delivery thing, they're an airline, they're a travel provider, they're a bank and everything in between. Everyone is now has a media network and I've heard it called commerce media as a way to basically say this is the same thing. Ish. But we can't call it a retail media network because we're not a retailer. You being right in this space, I'm sure you have your thoughts on this and I'd like to just get your opinion on what retail media is and what commerce media is. Are they different or are they just different flavors of the same thing?
[00:25:00] Speaker C: I think it's whatever you want it to be. I am not particular. I think the way you framed it up in terms of like retailers being retail media. Sure. The way I even like think about this topic more broadly is again and I'll go back to like the definition of retail media as retailers monetizing their data and their properties. That's the same definition of every media publisher. If you look at then Delta Airlines, the, you know, they would be the travel media network. You could also call it media, retail media, commerce, whatever. But like it's the same principles. Everyone is trying to monetize their data and their properties. And so if I was to try to like create definitions, like maybe commerce media is more of like the buying function or strategy or things like that, where your KPIs are related to sales or something like that. But like again, it's the room, the definition. My ultimate thing would be enter the conversation and state what you feel like the definition is so that everyone has the same playing field. That's why you hear me say I believe that the definition of retail media is retailers monetizing data and properties. And I do not think that is unique to retail. And so I just try to get those sort of caveats out there. Then we're like, things are going, everyone is looking for more ways to, you know, make more with the same. And so like retail media is a no brainer for any organization. And again like going back to that definition, anyone with data and properties, I would highly recommend figuring out a way for you to monetize. And like this is a bad example because they would never do it. I also don't work on this account, but like I'll say like a Kraft Heinz. Could you imagine Kraft Heinz selling a piece of the ketchup bottle for like advertising purposes? Like they could make a ton of money on that that they probably don't want to. And there's brand equity and things like that. But like literally everyone out there that has data and properties should be thinking about how they want to monetize it. Anyone with a checkout experience is a call away from like monetize that experience.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that is interesting way to think of this as, you know, it's just, it's a media property that you own and you have data on who your consumer is, how they act on your site or in your app, which does mean the retail media is just media. It's the same way that the New York Times is like, I know my reader and I'm going to make sure to present the reader your brand in the right way. But so they're all media networks. This is a retail media network. You're right. We might have travel media networks, we might have financial media networks, and on and on and on. And we may group these all under some nomenclature. It might maybe commerce media, maybe it'll be called something else. Right, but that's an interesting way to look at it. So because this is starting to fragment, you know, you go from two or three big players now, I've heard there's 200 different retail or Commerce media networks out there. You know, from media side, it's extremely difficult as things get fragmented to one be able to even just effectively buy from 200 different properties, but also to tie any KPIs de dupe your audiences. Like, it all gets extremely messy as you hit this level of fragmentation. We're kind of like, I feel like we're pushing at the point where it's so fragmented that usually what happens is some sort of consolidation. Traditionally that consolidation is like media company A buys media company B. But it's unlikely that Walmart's going to buy Costco. Right. Like, these are media networks within larger organizations that compete on like a very product level or retailer level. So consolidation likely would be more in the technology layer, like your buying platforms, your reporting platforms. Where do you see this? Because I have heard this quite a bit where the buying side, the people that are representing the brands and the agencies that are trying to buy across multiple retail media networks are getting a bit frustrated with the difficulty that's coming into it. Where do you think this is going and do you already see signs of consolidation?
[00:28:58] Speaker C: Yes, we already see signs of consolidation. I think like the next two years, especially in retail media, again going to like growth trends.
I feel like over the last year, this year, next year has been really a tipping point in as retailers are trying to capture more dollars. Like, we've seen big pushes and sort of moving at different parts of the funnel. We've seen Walmart creator, affiliate, we've seen Amazon Thursday Night Football, we've seen Roku Partnership, Spotify. Like a lot of it is like, how do we get more of the brand dollars? And I think that's coming through.
We're going to start to get to the point where if all the retail media networks are now coming with additional 20 increases, like, there's not going to be anywhere to take it from. And so that's where it's going to be tougher conversations on like, which retailers we want to make strategic investments with. Like, if you go into the smallest sense, like regional grocers, you know, they're starting to be like, oh, how do I monetize? Oh, I like don't cover a big enough part of the country. So there's a bridge ripple. I forget the exact name of it, but like they're starting to pull together the regional grocers to like become a bigger part, you know, of, you know, bigger sum of the parts, whatever.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:03] Speaker C: And so as that continues to play out, like I see Critio making a lot of strategic investments like we've also, you know, I've read that story before. We like look at like programmatic media, like it went from a bunch of publishers to then networks to then you know, open exchange and things like that. So retail media probably in a similar path where like all the inventory and you talk about like monetizing properties that can all be open exchange, biddable inventory, things like that. In terms of the monetizing the data, I see the network sort of play coming but like where I really see it going over time and that's where I look at the broader media landscape is I like talking about these sort of like media death stars and that's where I think Amazon has all the ingredients to be a media desktop where like you can essentially take all your stuff, plug into them and then you can run everything you want to. So you can like supplement your data in Amazon Marketing Cloud. You can, you know, use ctv, you can measure sales, you can use Amazon in market segment data to drive your D2C sales if you want to. Like there's so many things that you can do and all you have to do is sort of plug in I think Walmart with like the Visio acquisition, I think they're like one or two acquisitions away from like a similar sort of Death Star setup. And like I could certainly see it going that way over a longer period of time. You look at like a Disney or others like that that could sort of set up or like a Google with, you know, YouTube and things like that where they're connecting a lot of the insights, the media inventory, the data, things like that.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Yeah, we saw that same thing happen in social, right. You had meta it, you know, Google to a sense or whatever where you'll actually take your own data, you'll put it into their system, this Death Star system, because you can do so much with it. Right. What you end up learning is your data is a very small piece of the pie, like which customers you have, especially when you're prospecting for new customers or trying to figure out what they're doing. So you have these, I like this term, these big death stars because they just have so much data, so many channels that they can promote on. You can bring in your own data to it and use it to buy off their platforms too. Right. Like you don't have to just buy on Amazon using Amazon Marketing cloud. You can use it for off site targeting. You can use it for virtually everything. Right. So let's say I'm a publisher and I think that I have some sort of conversions that are happening. Maybe I'm something as small as like a movie theater or it could be anything, right? I'm a, I'm a grocery out of regional grocery store or maybe I'm something like, like a review site and I'm like, well transactions are pretty close to happening here. At least I'm, I'm informing those with your experience being the product marketer, the buyer, right. The demand side of this, what would you recommend are some best practices for me as a publisher that's trying to enter into retail media knowing that there's already these big death stars that are playing in it. There's 200 other like competition is really huge. Like what would you think? What should I focus on if I'm trying to enter this market as a smaller, more niche publisher trying to get in the space?
[00:33:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm going to answer it. Not from the buyer's perspective, but I will get there and I'll answer from a legacy retail media.
And so I would say sponsored products and retail search has been the most mature in retail media for a long time and even the way that started was networking up and then a lot of the retailers got big enough to sort of take it in house and do things like that. And so similar trends and parallels. A critio, a promote iq, a citrus ad. If you go back five, six, seven years, the way they would approach it is, you know, everyone was sort of like hey, I want to turn on sponsored product inventory. And the way they would make those decisions is do you have 10 million monthly visits? Yes or no? And if it's yes, okay, we're willing to do that. So to go back and answer your question, like where I think things are heading and the value is really the value of the data. Again like I think in terms of like monetizing the properties, a lot of that's going to be open exchange biddable and so that's going to be sort of consumer demand and traffic and things like that. But like in terms of the data and building up those packages, I believe the ones with the largest and most connected first party data sets are going to be the most advantage. So like Amazon has massive data, large share of life. They also own their own media inventory through like Fire TV and things like that. So they're getting really good tracking. And then oh by the way, they have Amazon marketing cloud and Amazon, Amazon web Services and like all this incredible stuff.
You know, I'd say again Walmart, like with Luminate Kroger Stratum, like some of them are sort of Moving in that direction. But I think like the more robust data centers are going to be the priority. And if you don't have that, I would think about it in two ways. Like one, can you add value to another person to make their offer bigger or. And going back to like retail media, there's a few out there and there's not a ton, but there's a few where I think they have a really distinct comparative advantage where like I would lean into that in the biggest way. So like 711 is one of the examples I'll give where like they have no business competing with a lot of the retail media networks just based on sales. However, they have 13,000 locations. And so you talk about like gulp Radio, digital, out of home, experiential, like they have a huge right to win where maybe no one else does. And so like there's just, you know, I find like either my comparative advantage where I can go crazy or yeah, find like where I can add value to other people to build their death Star.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. So you know, in traditional media it was always about scale because it was all third party data. So I just follow this user around and like whoever's got the most page views, you know, most impressions, they're going to get the most money because the data was centralized, you know, with the buyer. The buyer had this third party data and they could, they could pick like I'm going to hit this person when they're on this website. I don't need you website to tell me who this is. I already know who it is. This shift to first party starts to go more than like, I just know who this person is. Like this is Mike, right? It's more like I know that Mike lives in this neighborhood and buys like you know, a hot dog from 711 or whatever, buys his milk and cheese at this place in some kind of capacity. And so I can advertise to Mike and know like this proximity, like the more data that you have, it's less. It can be less about how many impressions you generate and more how well you know these individual people and what they do. I think that's a big shift. I think that's probably one of the biggest shifts that makes retail media different than traditional media was, which was really just about scale. It's just how many page views can you have on your site? Which led the media business down to a lot of clickbait over time, right?
[00:36:56] Speaker C: Yeah, some folks are still looking at traffic on PDPs and things like that. So everyone's in A different spot of the journey. I would say most. I'm altruistic in a lot of my talk.
[00:37:06] Speaker B: No, that makes a lot of sense though. I mean, you have to find like what differentiates it other than it just having lots of page views on a site that we couldn't buy ads on before. Like what makes it special and different. You've been in retail media now. How many years would you classify you as being in retail media in some sense?
[00:37:22] Speaker C: Like 11 years.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: Okay, so you go back 11 years is probably.
I heard you mention this one once before. Like it's the cool thing now. Like you were. It wasn't always 11 years ago. It wasn't, you know, you wouldn't be invited to be speaking on panels all the time the way that they would happen today. You're like one of the cool kids now. So a lot has changed in 11 years. Let's fast forward another 11 years in the future and let's assume you stay in retail media. You get to make up your own title. It'll be something else probably. If you get to keep making up your own titles, what do you think happens? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but do you think that retail media starts to swallow all of the rest of media or do you think it just goes like, what direction do you see it going in?
[00:38:06] Speaker C: Man 1 I love the idea of thinking so far out. I've. In order to get this job, I had to think 20 years out in what I wanted to go do. And it did. It did not. It was not specifically in retail media in 20 years from now. But I love the idea and so we'll play this one out a little bit. But I would even say like, so you know, again, I was in retail media before it was cool. I joined a shopper marketing organization to build out retail media, then sort of joined a holding company to like build out the retail media thing. And like, as I would say, it's like at its pinnacle. I decided to leave and go like pursue an integrated creative and media type role.
And I would say largely because I think retail media is super cool. It's going to continue to grow, but there's a couple areas where I just don't think any or a lot of people are really looking at it in the right way. And to me it's the retail media as an insights engine is something that is just being slept on in our industry. And again, going back to my client side days and even how creative is funded retail media creative, like talk about $50 billion in retail media spend. No one is spending anything in retail media creative because everyone's getting pressure to spend more in their RMNs. Creative budgets are typically done on the brand side. Different incentive structures, all this good stuff. And so really like trying to maximize like retail media is almost like the center of it. And even going back to like my, you know, Georgia Pacific days and things like that. Like sort of when Dow and I were talking about the role initially the way a lot of organizations operate is like hey, we're going to look at our brand media, we're going to spread it all and then we're going to fill in where we can with retail. And he was like I would love to get into a world where like here is our retail specific plans and then everything we're not going to hit we peanut butter spread with national brand medium. Like that makes a ton of sense but like we've never quite gotten there. And so that's where I think creative like cohort audience insights. Like I'm we're obsessed with like retailer specific social campaigns just from the kind of insights you can unlock and things like that. And so, so yeah, that's where I see where it's really cool but I do see the challenges and so I'd like to figure out what the solve is going to be to then lead us into the next sort of 11 years. The other one I will say though is so going back to the Death Star conversation and things like that.
I really am really highly interested in Walmart creator and what Walmart is doing there.
Then if you look at like I talk about retail media a lot but I would say in addition to that I'm spending a ton of time talking about TikTok shop and social commerce. And so to me, you know, as I'm thinking about the next 11 years, like creator affiliates social, how that plays into retail media using insights from retail media that are tied to purchase social that is tied to like consideration, intent, interest, things like that. That's where I would love to go with things. And I think creator affiliate is going to play a huge piece in that and brands haven't really done it yet because if you're a big CPG like TikTok seems too risky. Creator affiliate seems risky, Amazon maybe not. But now that like Walmart has it, I'm really curious what's going to happen.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I love this idea that like Vaynerchuk, you know, Gary's original kind of idea was hey, like do organic social and see how that does. See how the algorithms like it, because there's obviously a bunch of data in this algorithm on what people like and what they don't and then apply spend afterwards. That's kind of the idea there. And you're, you're taking that framework and saying use retail media as your starting point, test and learn on your creative. You have this tight feedback loop, like super fast feedback loop on this accountable metric which is sales. Like what more do you want? Right. It's the Wanamaker. 50% of my advertising isn't working. Like that's, that's being solved essentially. And then you extrapolate that out to the rest of your. Yeah, you do it on social the same way. It's a really interesting framework that I haven't actually heard people talk about. When I hear people talk about retail media, they're talking about like this site has, you know, 4 billion views and we can put a sponsored listing on it and sell some more products. What you're talking about here is a different approach to media in creative, which I find really fascinating.
[00:42:35] Speaker C: So it's very validating. Thank you. It's why I joined. But I would even say like in retail media and like yes, that was a lot of the conversations. The other piece was like the AI and SaaS platforms were getting so sophisticated and then even from like you know, sitting in a hold coast side, a lot of like the brands are like, hey, like I want you to do the buying like, like cheaper for less and things like that. And with so much automation, like really the creative juices are gone at that point. Like you see the biggest retailers, you see where the sales are, it's the same 10 keywords. You sort of like set up the algorithm and go and like the idea of like the old Amazon flywheel of like, hey, we're going to go heavy and sponsored products to like get a bunch of clicks, fuel organics, like that is gone. Like the idea of the old Amazon flywheel is gone. And so like I'm obsessed with finding the next flywheel and so I think it's a lot of the creative and media insights, things like that. And so yeah, love to hear the take. That's awesome.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is real and I think these things, they start to be a gem of an idea and then they grow from there and they grow from there just because it works. The advertising and media that sticks around is the one that works. You can only get away with being the flashy thing for so long before it actually has to drive some business outcomes so that people invest more. So, so I've loved having you on the show. I think this is a really interesting insight to be able to take from this. And I mean, who else has more than 11 years experience? I mean, you grew up essentially in retail media and I'm glad that you stayed with it until it became cool. So thanks for being on the show, Mike.
[00:44:08] Speaker C: Yeah, glad to be here. Happy to come back anytime. If you can't tell, I could nerd out on retail or commerce media any day of the week.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Lights are bright, we chase the sight Media dreams, we take the flight Partnerships, they lead the way Success is what we aim today Build the buzz with every post make the most we coast to coast from news to trends we never stop the publishers playbook Got it locked.
