Episode 73: Revolutionizing retail media with Lisa Matos

You're listening to Retail Sound Bites. Hello everyone and welcome to the Cantor Retail Sound Bites podcast for the week of October 28th. I'm Barry Thomas, our senior global thought leader, serving clients on global commerce, marketing, and future tense topics. Thank you so much for tuning in and joining us on every show as my pod partner, Rachel Dalton. Hi, everyone. I'm Rachel Dalton, head of Retail Insights for North America at Cantor. Our podcast is intended to share knowledge and insights on both North America and international retail and restaurant verticals. We kick off each podcast with the news and note section to share innovative and impactful stories from the past two weeks. And then we introduce our Cantor experts or guest speakers to share insights on critical topics in commerce today. So today, we welcome back Doug Hermenson, Cantor's principal economist for our monthly macro corner. And we look forward to introducing our guest shortly Lisa Meitos, who's VP of sales capabilities in commerce for a conagra. But first, back over to you, Barry, to kick us off with news and notes. All right, Rachel, we'll have two just updates on the personal front. I'll keep it brief. It's just been golf at Paloosa here in Marietta, Georgia, you know, tennis is winding down. There's been free time. So I've just been playing a lot of golf with just my sons and then we'll play as a family, a shout out to Leslie. She's getting so much better. I mean, like, whoa, her drive is getting a bit lethal. And then Rachel, my sons are getting better, you know, around course management, etiquette, you know, etiquette is kind of important, Rachel. We just can't like, you know, we got to be very gentlemanly out there. So that's getting better. I've had a couple of compliments there. So that's always a good thing. And lastly, Rachel, big deal down here, you know, in Georgia, the Florida Georgia game is coming up this weekend. That's a very big deal. So we're having a friends and family party event, oysters, crab legs, shrimp boil, family and friends, you know, that game is always held in Jacksonville, Florida. It's called the largest cocktail party in the country. It's a big party and a lot of drunk people, frankly, but it's a great time and we'll probably replicate that in a bit of fashion here in Marietta, Georgia. So excited about that. There you go. All right. Well, awesome. Sounds like a blast. Barry, well, as you know, we have Halloween coming up this week. So we are gearing up and trying to get, put the finishing touches on what we're doing for Halloween costumes this year. We're a little indecisive. The kids are a bit indecisive. They have ideas. So I think I'll be going out late night trying to finalize what we're doing, but prepping for some trick or treating in our neighborhood, great neighborhood to trick or treat in. And yeah, looking really looking forward to that and lots of soccer. My weekends are taken up by lots of soccer. So we hit a lot of games last weekend and really a lot of fun though to bring your coffee mug on a beautiful fall day in the Northeast and enjoy the outdoors. So it's been it's been good, good fall so far. You're loving it, right? So I missed those days taking the boys out, trick or treating. That's way behind me now. Hopefully some great kids one day. We'll see what happens. Who's your two go to retailers with as you think about, you know, getting all that together. Where do you go? Well, for candy, I usually just do my local grocery store stop and shop or target grocery. Those are kind of my two right around the corner from my house. So still have to buy my candy. I'm one of the last minute shoppers as it relates to candy. Halloween costumes, Amazon, spirit Halloween, great selection, but you have to be willing to drive if you're as late as we are this week. So those are those are my go to's for Halloween. All right, just checking back in the day for me. I would say an Arkansas that was definitely Walmart and then back in Atlanta, you know, Publix is up there, but I'm going to hit Walmart, Amazon a bit. But anyway, that's fun. I miss all that. Yeah. Well, I have some good stuff too. They have Halloween costume. My son really wanted, but it wasn't his size. So we had to we had to shop around a bit. I love all that. Boy, I miss it. Enjoy it. I just miss it. All right. All right. So news and notes. Let's kick it off. I'm starting off no surprise Walmart. I just think what they're doing Rachel's been well reported with the same day pharmacy delivery is a big deal. I thought chain store age had a great article. You know, they're leveraging 4,600 stores now delivering, you know, prescription medications directly to the shoppers doorstep and other purchases and as soon as 30 minutes. So you know, the offers live now in six states by the end of next year, it would be an essentially 49 states with a few exceptions. And so, you know, obviously, Walmart's combining RX medications and general merchandise into one streamlined single order, you know, delivery and Walmart says that the prescription delivery is the number one service requested by shoppers over half have expressed the desire to have their prescriptions delivered along with groceries. So given everything that's just falling apart, absolutely, you know, with CVS and Walgreens, Rachel, I mean, don't you just see Walmart just check the box? Another huge win, great move, crushing it as usual, and drugstore chains just remain lost. It seems. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just a fantastic move by Walmart. I mean, Amazon is doing something similar as they're building up their pharmacy business and kind of their overall health and wellness initiatives. And I think it's a real game changer when a shopper can order a prescription with their groceries or other merchandise, because it just takes away that kind of separate purchase. Oh, I have to go and get my prescription. It's just a natural like, hey, let me add it to my cart. And I think that's just like the next level convenience, and we're starting to see similar things with other retailers as well, just hey, I can put everything in one basket. I don't have to separate these purchases anymore on very distinct categories. And of course, prescriptions is one of those. So definitely, I think this is going to be a big game changer for people to have, you know, be able to easily access their prescriptions when they need them. Barry, so I have an article on out of the Wall Street Journal, and I found this fascinating because I love kind of listening into interviews. This is this is called Inside Amazon's AI Cloud Strategy with AWS CEO Mark Matt Garmin. And the article from the Wall Street Journal came from an interview with Matt Garmin. He is the CEO of AWS, Amazon Web Services, and the Wall Street Journal's Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker. And this was at the Wall Street Journal Tech Live Conference. And there was lots to unpack in the article, but essentially reinforce the fact that AI and generative AI specifically per Garmin will transform really everything. And we've been doing a ton, especially you, Barry, just a ton of research and tracking in this area. One of the AI will transform every company, every job, every workflow. And that is coming from the CEO of AWS. And he also states, which you also state often, Barry, that data is really the main differentiator among companies. It's all about the data to be able to access these technologies and that's huge. AWS right now is focused on building a platform of tools that enable others to build various types of applications. One of the things that came up in this interview is energy. That's a big topic right now in terms of how to deliver on these tools and this kind of AI generative AI world. And in fact, Amazon purchased a small nuclear reactor, but it does look like there will be more options from an energy standpoint in the next few years. He points to 2030. And many of those in Amazon is working on our renewable energies as well. He also talked in the article about the need for balance and government regulations to maintain safety, but not limit companies from innovating. So that balance is really key. But I thought it was really kind of an inside kind of look at what's happening in this really important space of technology. Really like that. You don't want to become too much like Europe, where it's just being over-regulated. And basically, you're, you know, tools like Apple, the phone, Microsoft, they're just not going to have the advanced, you know, functionality that, you know, the US is having. And then lastly, just on the AI front, Rachel attended my first couple of meetings last week, not with humans, but with their AI assistants who showed up at the meeting. I just want to state for the record, everyone of us there was like, whoa, this is a little different. Uh, okay, how do we kind of work with this? I don't know if you've seen that yet, but it's definitely coming. Yes. I have seen it. And it's pretty cool. That's a time saver, especially for meetings where you're not an active participant, but you want to be able to get information kind of quickly downloaded to you and you save an hour and get the information in five minutes. I mean, that's just a massive, I think we're going to see more of that. I haven't tried it myself, Barry, but I heard you may be, uh, starting to use it more in some of our meetings. A bit, but you know, when the customer shows up and maybe there's three customers you're expecting and only one really shows up in the, they're two assistants. Yeah. AI assistants show up. Yeah. They say that, that was, uh, that was kind of new. Let's leave it at that. Yeah. That, that, you know, that may require an in-person, uh, human approach. We'll see. Uh, let's see. All right. I'm going to talk a moment about our next guest that's going to be on our show here pretty soon. And that's, uh, Robbo research. So they just released this. I thought pretty prolific, uh, private label, uh, grocery piece here in the US where they see private label moving to about a 30 share over the next 10 years, you know, up from around, uh, 20 today, and there's a lot of reasons for it. I can't wait to have them on the pad podcast. They've done so much work on this, but just a few of, you know, drivers that we all know so well is just that brochures are expanding private label sortments because of the economic pressures and loyalty. Yes, loyalty, brand loyalty is tied to private label. Secondly, obviously the economic factors driving consumers to private label brands is continues to be there. Third, you just look at more pressure on the consumer, especially that lower income consumer. You know, SNAP benefits were cut by 25% about a year ago. That's depending on how you talk to you. That's 12 to 13% of consumers in the US moving them to more private label. Then maybe the biggest factor is just the increased quality of store brands and also the increased competency around brand management. It looks so much like what you see at the big CPGs except in many cases retailers have far better data assets. So you add all that together. This private label will go up or down over the next 10 years. Well, it goes up. It looks like Europe as we've been talking about forever. And so I can't wait to have those folks on the podcast ratio. Yeah, so cool. I mean, private label is not the private label of like yesterday year, right? It's private label brands are very much like national brands. They're branded. They're much higher quality. They bring additional features and benefits. They look great on the shelf and on top of that, they have a fantastic value associated with them. And I for one appreciate private label organic products. I buy so many of them and organic products can be expensive. So it just helps me offset the cost. But still get the products I want. So there's just so much more potential, I think, in private label, even than we're seeing today. Barry, I have my next articles out of grocery dive about Kroger. And the article talks about Kroger beginning to roll out RIFD technology to fresh departments. So RIFD, that's radio frequency identification, is being launched at Kroger for inventory automation. And they're starting across their fresh departments to help with inventory tracking. Kroger is using Avery Denson system in which the RFID embedded labels are placed on individual products that can then be tracked without needing to be close to the items and actually seeing the items. So the new process will not only help with inventory management at Kroger, and also ensuring the availability of the freshest foods for the consumer in the moment that they're looking for them, but also at the same time, it will help prevent food waste. The article mentions that RFID is used in other circumstances like we know Amazon juice of the technology for just walk out. So it's being used in a variety of different instances. But in this case, this rollout will help Kroger just ensure the right products or on the right shelf at the right time. And also from a sustainability side of, again, minimizing waste. So a cool, cool initiative by Kroger. - I like you, Andy Murray. Remember Rachel, the last time we had it on the podcast, he was telling us this was coming. He was like, this is kind of not being talked about as much as not front and center. Let's talk about retail media. But this is material and to see Kroger really latch on, I think speaks to that, so love it. All right, I'm gonna wrap this up with 7/11. They just continue to look more like a restaurant. And of course, what they're doing has been covered in restaurant business online with our friends over there. So 7/11 will open 500 food focus stores by 2027. And so that's gonna take place between basically next year at the end of 2027. They'll have those 500 stores in place. That's coming from a most recent investor presentation they had. The stores will feature a new format called new standard that continues the chain's shift toward larger and more high tech stores with expanded food options, including in-store restaurants. And basically what they're saying is they're, in addition to having, let's say a restaurant and far better meal solutions for shoppers, they're also moving to frictionless shopping. They're gonna have far more digital touch points in a bit. In a way, it'll kind of feel like those stores that they have in Japan and there's a lot of lateral learning coming from that. They're also saying that these stores versus a traditional 7/11 scene, at least a 13% increase in store sales, which is like quite interesting. And so this is just another sort of headwind for that QSR restaurant, if you will, that has a lot of challenges. And now here's 7/11, just like a lot of convenience stores, maybe most of them moving more aggressively into food service, a more frictionless environment, online to offline, drive-thru's included. So really exciting time to kind of be in the convenience store business going after that QSR meal occasion. And importantly, the at-home occasion, we posted a slide on that a week ago that so much more of lunch is coming from at-home occasions where the local, let's say, see stores playing a role on that, Rachel. - Yeah, I mean, really interesting too, Barry. Our colleagues Simon Johnstone just let a webinar, I think it was last week or maybe the week before, he called it X doors, so like that next generation, a new era of convenience retailing. And this was certainly a piece of that is, convenience stores are really upping their game and food is a really key piece of how they're upping their game. And like, as you said, more people are eating at home and less out at restaurants. And what an opportunity to have like a moment where you can find like something healthy and nutritious, fast, convenient, delicious, anywhere you kind of drive or are. So just so much happening in the convenience channel right now, that's pretty exciting to follow. - No doubt. - So my last article here is called Better for You Candy Brands and they go all in on Halloween. And this is from modern retail, one of our publications that we know quite well and love. And it's interesting 'cause we know what, we see the better for you trend overall and that's making its way into many food categories, but including Candy and really interesting the article talks to how Better for You Candy is making its way into major retail or Halloween assortments this year. So there's companies like Unreal, which make chocolate with a lower sugar profile and absent of artificial ingredients. They have a big Halloween variety packet at Target, which I'm gonna go maybe later today and see if it's still there. I wanna check that out. Skinny Dipped is another Better for You Candy Brand. It's known for its dipped nuts and smart sweet, it's a low sugar gummy brand. They're all gonna pushing their brands during this big candy season. The article points to Halloween expecting is expected to bring in somewhere around three to five percent more sales than last year, according to the National Confection Association. And the NCAA has stated also that the Better for You Candy segment is indeed growing. So brands like Unreal used to be available, just primarily in Whole Foods Market, but now they've expanded to not only Target, but Sprouts, Stop and Shop Grocery, Wegmans Grocery, et cetera. So there seems to be like a start of a movement here where we're gonna see more options for Better for You Candy kind of going forward. - About time, Rachel, you gotta remember the childhood obesity rate in this country is 20%. It's up 300% since I was born in 1965. I mean, like this cannot come fast enough. - Wow, yeah. So I'm pretty excited about it myself. - All right, Barry, while we have our principal economist at Cantar Doug Hermenson back for this week's podcast to talk about the back row environment, Doug, welcome back to the pod, happy to have you on. - Hi, Rachel and Barry, thanks for having me. - Doug would love to hear your perspective in views on sort of the latest data that you're seeing and what our economy looks like and what the projections look like, especially as we enter this very important holiday season. - Yeah, you're exactly right. Much of what we have right now is September data that maybe a indication of how a holiday is gonna go, but also a lot of the narratives around how it may not continue its recent trend in September because of some outside factors. And so we look at inflation, the good news is in September, it hit its lowest level since February 2021. And for holiday shoppers, it's very likely that they're gonna save more money on gasoline. We saw that in September and so for the holiday that it's gonna help free up some cash for spending on gifts at the same time when you look at the coordination measure as well as food in some cases, it either didn't improve or actually got a bit worse. And so really gasoline prices that are falling there really kind of helping to bring down that top line measure. We look at kind of those general merchandise categories. I don't think consumers may be saved as much in September within those. We still saw shoppers saving money on many home goods and hobby categories relative to a year ago. I think this is one where we could see, we're gonna see more promotional activity in October rather than September. And so I expect those to be where we're gonna see a lot of the savings and deals when we look at food inflation. It was the highest since December 2023. So almost in 12 months. Some of it was very isolated in terms of eggflation continues. As well as meat prices are really soaring. Shoppers are able to save a bit more when we look at other types of proteins, poultry, seafood, dairy. Those are seeing either my- otis and flation are down a year ago, but still overall you know that basket for those essential categories still rising year by year at a fairly a much worse rate. So when we look at maybe the holiday coming up, you know, inflation and some other shelf stable categories, I think those are going to be fairly subdued. And even confectionary, we are seeing some easing flation there. And so for the Halloween season, shoppers may feel a little bit better. I very much know that that's a category that has increased so much over the past four or five years that I'm not sure if shoppers will view it as optimistically. So all of it though, we continue to see those pressures from many of the service categories, home rentals, medical services, repair costs, insurance. So those are rising quickly still. So some of those more annual costs or costs that aren't maybe have as much penetration in every household are going up creating a lot of unevenness that some of the negative, whereas the positive is at least some of those weekly purchases such as gas in the air coming down. And we see that in our shopper stoop data where we see more people are feeling better about affordability around over a year ago, a little over about 50%. But at the same time, we're still seeing that being much worse than it was five years ago. And if you look at shoppers that rate those circumstances is better terrible, we've seen less improvement in that kind of bottom box consumer, suggesting there's some bifurcation there and some of those are lagging further behind. So when we think about more broadly about what the Fed may do in its November meeting after it cut rates by 50 basis points in September, this kind of suggests and tandem with a fairly strong job report in September at the point. I'm going to cut rates as aggressively as they did in September, although we are going to see another jobs report coming out before that meeting. And it'll be interesting to see what they take away from that. Another big caveat is what is happening with all of the weather, the hurricane, Helene, as well as Milton. Those are going to skew that data report, jobs data report. And then we saw the same thing in retail sales likely influence some of the channel trends boosting supermarkets and mass and home improvement a little bit more as it relates those emergency storm preparations. So there may be a hangover after these storms in those channels, not just because of lift, but because some people are now officially displaced and focused on other things. One bright spot is the Paral Special in the accessory channel in September. So maybe people were out more during the Labor Day holiday at least for that. On the other hand, we see a lot of the category specialists in home goods really plummeted and so did automobile purchases. The extent to which that's related to some of the negatives from, of course, these storms that are rolled through, that's certainly something to note. So deciphering, you know, what does all this mean for the holiday? I think it shows nature and human nature in some ways are going to play a part in what we continue to see in October. You also look at not just the hurricanes, but the flash strike among dock workers, the strike at Boeing. So these are going to have unknown kind of effects on the October outlook. A month that, you know, retailers really want to see as being the high watermark because they want to get out there aggressively and have a head start on capturing sales. So this is a, it'll be kind of an interesting coming together of those factors. And what we're seeing from a lot of retailers, which is really trying to reel shoppers in early into their stores. And so comparing it to September expectations, I think, online, you know, we look at the kind of the rank order of channels in September versus the holiday. It's pretty consistent. Onlines going to be among the ripus of channels. I think we're going to see some moderation in those consumables channels. But nevertheless, there going to really be the backbone of brick and mortar growth, whereas a pair on accessory stores. We've seen this kind of all year. They've really kind of outperformed most other category specialists and in store growth. And that's probably going to be the case in the holiday, mostly from those off price retailers, TJX, Nordstrom Rack, Burlington coat, all those where how people feel like it's a bit of a treasure hunt, they can get deals that that's where we're going to see most of the catered glory growth. Doug, really interesting. It sounds to me that things are, things are improving slightly. Prices are coming down, but yet you still have the cumulative effects of inflation over the past several years, which affect particularly food and services. So consumers are still stretched and still focused on budgets. But it sounds as if their things are starting to improve and that potentially we might see a fairly moderate, if not pretty good holiday, at least from a retail sales perspective. Any other thoughts there. And in particular, really would love to hear more about Halloween, which is in a few days and a lot of those purchases have been made. And maybe there'll be some last minute purchases coming up. How do you how do you think Halloween is just fairing as its own unique holiday amidst kind of that the big picture Q4 holidays? Yeah, it's a great point. I do feel like it's getting a bit lost in the shuffle because of your traditional winter holiday sales period is being pulled forward so much more from these promotional events and just retailers trying to capture early sales. And so I think that when I look at things from an economic and retail perspective, there's probably going to be some headwinds for Halloween spending specifically. You look at adjustments to snap benefits as close to flat this year. So some of those lower income households that in previous years saw some bounce in what they adjust in each October for their benefits in the previous years. That's an essentially flat this year because of the easing inflation. So we may not see that bounce. Thinking more broadly, there's been some eroding performance at some restaurant chain. So it does suggest the consumers are trimming some of that small indulgence spending outside their home, which may not both well for holiday spending. Others just wear households are shopping or not shopping and particularly drop in the share shoppers, shopping drug stores and home improvement and hardware stores is some degree. That's a negative, right? There's fewer than add on purchases that maybe are unexpected or expected if people aren't shopping those channels. So there certainly are from a retail or perspective as well as consumer spectives and headwinds there. And also just note generally, we look at some of the merchandising overlap with holiday. Does that drown out some of those Halloween displays and households trip mission when it comes to going into stores? So there's just some of the negatives. But I still think similar to the overall quarter look at for holiday, there is some positives when we look at shopper penetration and most channels is up. So can they capture more from that traffic, which we've seen retailers, struggle to build baskets from, but nevertheless feel encouraged that more people are coming in and out of at least when we look at mass and most other category specialists outside of drug stores and home improvement. All right, Doug. Well, fantastic as always. It love hearing your insights on the macro economy and look forward to connecting again next month. Thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for having me, Rachel. All right, very super excited to have our guest conversation now and really pleased to welcome Lisa Maytos. Lisa is vice president of sales capabilities and commerce for Konagra brands. And in this role, she leads the company's commerce marketing e-commerce and category leadership teams across all retail customers in driving sales growth. Lisa joined Konagra brands in 2002 and is held a variety of sales marketing and business development roles. Welcome to our podcast Lisa. Thank you, Rachel. Thanks very, really excited to be here. So wanting to kick off Lisa and just get your thoughts on how are you thinking about retail media networks today and what do you see as some of the biggest challenges and opportunities for CPGs? Yeah, so retail media networks. I mean, when you just think back four or five years ago, you only had a couple playing in this space. And all of a sudden, it seems over the last few years it's really blown up across all channels of the food business. So it's not just the big retailers who have retail media networks. Now it goes through every single channel from dollar to C store to grocery to mass. And that's really exciting, right? Because now we can get closer to the consumer using the retailer's data. So we We partner with a lot of our retailers and making sure that we understand what their capabilities are, and I think, Rachel, what, you know, you just asked is probably one of the biggest challenges is that the inconsistency of what all the retail media networks offer. And so when you have very mature platforms and you have ones that are just starting to form. So really having a clear strategy of what you want to accomplish with every single retailer is so critical as you partner with these retail media platforms. It is, it is interesting. I think one of the big topics continues to be how do you compare. There's no set standard in a way of comparing each of the networks to one another. And I think that's why it is, as you said, Lisa, so critical for you as a brand or leader of a CPG organization to be very clear about why you're using each of these networks because that I know the CPG community is looking also for retailers to provide a point of view on. You know, what's what's in it for you and and if you spend X with me, you know, how will that pay out? And so I know that those conversations continue to happen. Exactly. And when you think about it too is when you go off platform, and if you're doing that across multiple retail media networks, you could be reaching the same person over and over and over. And so if you're not starting to map out a calendar across every partner of when you're turning on something that might be programmatic or even through social through all their different capabilities, all of a sudden you could have a lot of redundancy out of marketplace. So you really have to have a cohesive retail media strategy at this point in time. Lisa, how do you work it with your overall national media plan? Are you fully integrated to speaking of just driving efficiencies really having a holistic plan that encompasses all of your media networks and types including retail media. Is that something that you talk about as well with your team and I wonder how you approach that? Yeah, so we are tightly connected to our national media team. So especially for anything that we are thinking about doing whether it's through a social media post influencers, programmatic, even CTV now, right, is being offered through the retail media networks. So anytime we go off platform off the retailers owned network, then we start to partner and make sure that we understand exactly what our national media plan is. So again, so there's no redundancy across the retail media networks, but also no redundancy with our national media team on what they're trying to accomplish and who they're trying to reach as well. Lisa, you're one of the areas that you're over is commerce, you know, marketing commerce marketing. We're hearing more about that. You hear different sort of articulations out that I've just curious to know, you know, what does that mean that kind of agra and how does that relate to retail media as well as sharper marketing. Yeah, so that's a great question. We rebranded our shopper marketing team about four years ago into commerce marketing. And we felt it was really important because of retail media, all of the maturity across retailers with their e-commerce offerings. And so for us, commerce marketing is truly shopper marketing. It's retail media. It's basically, how do you show up with a customer? What I love about it is we then work with our hand in hand with our sales team. My organization sits within our sales organization. So we have a very tight partnership then across how we show up with every single retailer. So for us, commerce marketing is basically, how do we make everything shoppable, whether it's online, in store, how do we have that very consistent message across our brands. That's the, that's the high ground. I love that you're doing that. And then I'm, you know, one thing that was coming up a lot, a grocery shop sort of off stage from the main stage, you just heard a lot of CPG's talking about is lots of value and retail media. No question about it. No one's going to disagree with that, but goodness gracious. Now there's like 700 meet retail media networks every two weeks or every week, you know, you're being sort of sold on why this network. You know, the CPG's were look, we're saying, look, if you're wanting part of that brand media budget, we have certain thresholds like there's certain KPIs that we invest in Google and meta and we kind of expect that over here too. And we're not looking for more duplicate of reach, you know, with 700 retail media networks. So I wonder, you know, how do you think the industry is talking about that and maybe you as well. Yeah, it's such an important discussion. I think that layered with just measurement overall kind of comes together, right, because you have the capabilities being born all of a sudden retail media networks are becoming media networks like true media because they're they have every single possible channel and a very consolidated form, right. Big guys, you can do connected TV, you can do programmatic, you can literally run any type of media audio, everything is possible now. And so that's where it's really important that we're always linking with our national media team to make sure that there is nothing duplicative of what they're trying to do or even cost prohibitive to we are very eyes wide open on there is a premium to a retail media network. And they're offerings versus what you could buy direct with any of those platforms very that you just mentioned. So it truly takes a lot of work to make sure that you have a full strategic view across the company. I think where we excel is because we have such a tight partnership with our national media, we are a very concentrated consolidated view of media. So while we have a lot of brands, we don't have to sell what we're doing individually by brand, so we think of it as more of a big picture. So that's really important to have that type of partnership with your media team makes a lot of sense and Rachel, maybe just one last question before we can maybe talk about looking forward to the future is well, we were starting to see some signals. This in store media, you know, at grocery shop, you saw this Lisa, you got the paper car from Instacar that's that's really interesting. Sam's now scanning go, whoa hold on a second. That's kind of reinventing in Pulse cement, you know, a bit Tesco, some other chains over in Europe now moving really further ahead than the US with digital screens in store. So I wonder, like, how are you thinking about it? And the one exciting, but you know, what do you think? I know, well, so I always think about there's so much clutter in the world right now of advertising. And so I always tell my own team, what's the most recent advertising that you remember, whether it's your shopping online, shopping and store, even driving down the highway. And I always use the example of a billboard is one thing that I always remember, if you've been to Chicago, you probably have driven down to 94 to the airport and you are hit with all of the McDonald's ads, all of the, I think it's a hairy store growth billboard. And when you think about in store, I correlate a two billboards, right, because you have a very captive audience. The person walking into the store is not just looking at their phone. And so you almost have to have this traditional shopper marketing view of why is retail media going to work in store. And that I think that's the unlock is who can figure out how to personalize when someone passes something. How do you personalize that? And I don't believe that. Well, I think if someone is using their phone like Scanning go, Barry, you mentioned that is if Sam who already has someone actually looking at the phone, because you have to to check out that's really powerful. But for the most part, people aren't looking at their phones walking through their stores. So they're going to have to figure out how do you do it without doing it just through your mobile device. And I think that's exciting. I don't think anyone has fully figured out it's obviously it's massive infrastructure costs, right. And so I think it's intriguing of how we're going to get there. And then, you know, 10, 5, 10 years from now, what does that look like? So in this world of personalization that it's going to know who you are when you walk by that aisle. And then how does that draw you down the aisle. And that's really the cool stuff. I think that's going to start happening is how do you get the consumer to spend more time in your store. How do you get them to go down every single aisle? The famous racetrack of grocery that, you know, how do you interrupt that racetrack and get people back to the center store. So I think it's really exciting. We love seeing the new technology emerge. There is obviously companies making big bets in this space. But I do think that's going to be the next frontier of retail media is who can unlock that within the store. No question. Rachel, what do you think about this? I mean, and least as well, one thing we don't see, you know, and respectfully is, you know, we're not seeing a ton of research regarding shoppers and they're just looking forward to more messages in a store. I just can't wait to get more messages in my next one. That's not exactly what we're hearing. So I just think we're all going to have to be a bit strategic. And, you know, really think this through because more messages does not necessarily equal more value as well, right? Yeah, even think about that from. online display ad when you're searching. How many of those ads you even remember anymore because there's so much clutter coming at you constantly. It's a lot of noise. And so how do you break through that? Even, you know, they say now that life sports, that TV, that's what people are watching, the streaming services have taken over. And commercials aren't what they used to be. And so again, like, and you look at your own household behavior, when a commercial comes on, my kids immediately pick up their iPads. And so again, it's like, how do you just get that share of mine to even break through the clutter? So, and I do, I think that's the fun part of in store is you have people not actually focused on their phones for once. Yeah, and I think too, and I totally 100% agree with you, Lisa. And I think a lot of it's going to come together with how much the consumer wants to see as they're shopping. But there's also this experiential side that links directly with what you'll see kind of manifests from retail media shopper in store, retail media shopper marketing, where, you know, there's some fun to it, like to your point with younger generations wanting to be on their iPads during commercials, like, is there fun gamification that could come through these digital technologies in store and as you're walking down the aisle, make it interesting to you, but not overload, but still interesting and fun. So, there's the balance to achieve. But I think that's going to be a big part of it. But the other thing too within stores, that's like the one big differentiator that retail media networks and the investment there has for brands because typically you will get that in store kind of linkage or components. So, you have an omnichannel effort. As opposed to there's less of that kind of direct application when you're investing in more of a traditional national media plan. So, that's the other, I think, key, key benefit of investing in retail media networks. Exactly, you have thousands and thousands of consumer touch points right now. And if you can unlock that personalization and figure out how to make it relevant for the consumer at that point in time when they're thinking about food and they're getting ready to purchase, offer them solutions. There's so much that could happen in that world. But again, it requires a ton of new infrastructure and new technology, a lot of investment for the retail media networks to make. Lisa, just wanted to get your take and answer the future state. Will everyone survive, or will we start seeing a shift back to more centralization? Like how do you see the future unfolding with regards to our immense? Yeah, this isn't interesting one because we have seen this massive amounts of new networks created. So, I think when this all started, you had a lot of conglomerates out there who were servicing a lot of the regional grocers to different channels within the food space. And I think that's probably going to come back. It's really challenging to have a point of difference with retail media. It requires a ton of resourcing and constant new investment and technology, and you have to be just constantly innovating, basically, to keep up with the big retail media networks that are out there. So, I almost see the shift back that will happen to some of the conglomerates that still exist out there and that they'll start building out their capabilities. So, then some of the more regional grocers can come back on their platforms and have retail media networks is just going to be through the conglomerate. But it's a challenging space to compete right now because you have a lot of big companies launching these really robust offerings. - Well, Rachel, what do you think? As you say the next three years, what do you see coming with retail media? - Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. I also agree that kind of within these conglomerates, some of the smaller players will be able to shine in a bigger way because their point of difference is what they offer, like sometimes we talk about dollar general berry and their media network being so unique to the target market that they reach that others can't do the same with in terms of communication. So, I think that's going to be an opportunity for some of the smaller players. And I think the other big thing that we're going to start seeing is the, as you said earlier in the conversation, Lisa, that retail media networks need to become and they are, many of the bigger ones already are, media networks in and of themselves as opposed to, you know, a media network within a retailer, they're true media players now. At least the bigger ones are. So, some of the smaller players, I think, are going to have to become more like a true media agency and learn from their brand partners who already innately are more experts in media, at least in partnership with the brand and partnership with your agencies and truly become sort of that big picture, you know, buy into that full kind of national media play and they're part of that play as opposed to sort of being a separate buy and a separate thing. So, I think we're going to see more of that come together in an integrated way because you could go bigger with that. You can be much more efficient with your targeting as you look at it that way. And there's a lot more partnership opportunities. And the other big thing we did when we did this research last year, this B2B Benchmarking Study at Cantar, which showed that like 49% of retail media professionals like you, Lisa and your colleagues in this space across the industry are looking for or considering upper funnel objectives when you're looking at your media investments. And so, I think we're going to see more upper funnel partnerships and more opportunities for brands to invest like they invest currently in their national media plan. So, I think it's just going to become a lot bigger and a lot more integrated in the future. - I like that Rachel. I'll just add three quick ones. I think AI search is going to transform all search we're already seeing it. We're partnering with profound. I mean, go on ChatGPT where you want to go name the large language model and look up your brand or ask what's the best brand in your category. It'd probably be a bit surprising. You're going to have to really recode your SEO. All of this is moving to retail. Walmart calls it goal searching from scroll searching. I think secondly, AI is going to super charge so much of the content. We solve some pretty interesting use cases from CPGs at grocery shop where 20% of the content already is AI generated. I think that just continues to accelerate. And then third, this has been a competitive advantage. No wonder what Lisa thinks about this. If you have a clean room, a capability, well, you kind of understand what's happening a bit more around your data and your insights and your ROI, but I think that's going to be commoditized a bit with retailers and agencies providing that capability. And I wonder what you think about all that, Lisa. Yeah, so just a backup to on the AI front, I do agree. I think that's going to change a lot. It's going to start impacting how consumers even search. So instead of just searching for a category, it is going to be what's for dinner or an AI is going to understand whether or has what you already have in the refrigerator to the freezer to the pantry. And then it's like, oh, you also need to buy this. I think that's really cool and fun to start dream state of what's possible. And then I think one other big opportunity when it comes to data is it's really challenging to measure across retail media networks right now. And how do we partner with them individually to make sure that what we're trying to accomplish, we're getting the right measurement back. We are targeting the right audience, so we understand the right metrics. And that is a big challenge right now, I think across the different networks, because everyone has a different version of attribution windows. Personally, I don't believe in ROAS, and you know, that's kind of the industry standard right now. And almost a roadblock of how do we measure then retail media network? Because if that's what everyone is focused in on, and now it's kind of shifting up to ROAS, but you're still, you know, basing it on attributed sales. And so I think there's a lot of runway right now when it comes to data, the partnerships around data, but also measurement. It's one of our biggest priorities to figure out how are we gonna measure now across the tactics? How do we know where to invest when we have an extra dollar? Those are really the important foundational conversations that we're having to try to make sure as this industry is so rapidly evolved that we are very clear-eyed on what we're trying to accomplish. - Well, fantastic, Lisa. This has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today. And you know, I really love chatting about retail media networks always. So it was a pleasure to have you on. Thank you, thank you so much. - Yes, Lisa. - Thank you for having me. It was a great discussion. So, and I could talk retail media and it works all day too. (laughs) There's always something new happening. (laughs) (upbeat music) - All right, Barry, awesome conversation with Lisa. And we have our top five takeaways for our audience. Number one, Konagras Commerce Marketing Team integrated and results oriented. Lisa explained that commerce marketing encompasses shopper marketing, retail media, and e-commerce, and emphasized the importance of a cohesive strategy across all channels. The CPG rebranded their shopper marketing team to commerce marketing about four years ago, and this change was made to reflect the growing importance of retail media and the maturity of e-commerce offerings across retailers. And as such, the commerce marketing team works very closely with the sales teams. Number two, retail media networks have so many opportunities, also some drawbacks. Lisa highlighted the rapid growth of retail media networks across various channels, and the need for a clear strategy to navigate the inconsistencies among different networks. Viable retail media networks now are happening across all channels, including dollar stores, convenience stores, grocery, and mass retailers. Lisa noted the inconsistency and the capabilities of different retail media networks as a significant challenge, and she emphasized the importance of having a clear strategy for each retailer to navigate these inconsistencies effectively. And number three, integration with national media is paramount. Lisa explained that Kanagra's commerce marketing team works closely with their national media team to ensure there's no redundancy and to drive efficiencies. Kanagra's commerce marketing team is fully integrated with the national media team, and this integration ensures that there's no redundancy in media efforts, whether through social media posts, influencer programs, a programmatic advertising, or connected TV. And number four, we discussed in-store retail media network innovations are moving faster. And we just discussed the potential of in-store media innovations such as digital screens, personalized advertising, in many ways, this connected to your mobile phone in more effective ways. But Lisa noted, you know, got to balance the personalization here with avoiding clutter and the importance of infrastructure investments. It will take infrastructure investments and we just don't want to bombard the shopper with more retail media networks. That doesn't necessarily drive value. And the number five, the future of retail media networks can take many forms. So Lisa sees the future of retail media networks with a shift towards centralization and the role of conglomerates in supporting regional grocers who essentially need aggregation to scale across more CPGs. You know, there's 700 or approximately retail media networks, so many of them just aren't big enough. We discussed the impact of AI on retail media, including AI or GNI driven search and content generation. We discussed how GNI driven search is transforming the way consumers find products. And that is a very big deal. As such, the future of retail media networks will center in part on optimizing content and search based on ever evolving GIN AI capabilities, which are clearly happening in mainstream, if you will, search, but also moving to Walmart, Amazon, etc. So a potent discussion there with her. Yes, fantastic. Barry, I'd love to our discussion with Lisa. That does bring us to the end of this episode. Thank you very much to Doug for joining us for our macro corner and for Lisa for a great discussion today. And we hope you enjoyed our show. As always, thanks for listening to the Cantor Retail Soundbites podcast. And as always, a special thank you to Victoria for producing and marketing our podcast. And if you really saw bad day today, please leave us a review. We would love to have a review so we can continue to expand the podcast. And with that, thank you, and we'll see you in two weeks.