Latest / Retail Media Breakfast Club / AI, Retail Media & First-Party Data: What Everyone Is Really Saying After RampUp 2026
Transcript
- "We're All Holding Our Breath" - Notes from RampUp === [00:00:00] Kiri intro: LiveRamp's Annual Ramp Up conference has become one of the more interesting gatherings in commerce media. True to the host company's DNA. Everything here revolves around first party data, [00:00:15] how to leverage it, how to activate it, and increasingly how to share it. So offsite retail media was the star of the show at the event last week, and and while there, I cornered a few [00:00:30] industry peers to get their honest takes on the content, the themes and the vibe. I'll be sharing my own notes later this week from the session that I moderated with DoorDash and Nestle. But today let's hear [00:00:45] from some of the other folks who attended, here's what was being hashed out in the corridor track at Ramp Up. [00:00:52] Ian Simpson: I'm Ian Simpson from Sensor Tower. I'm the SVP of Innovation and Strategy. [00:00:57] I guess my take is that obviously [00:01:00] everyone's talking about ai. I think that we are at a very weird inflection point in the world of AI right now where. [00:01:08] There's a ton of adoption, there's a ton of insecurity, there's a ton of like uncertainty. And at the same [00:01:15] time, there are real world, um, applications that are being made. And the world of ag agentic is, is clearly like a, a, a really big element of conversation, but I don't really think anyone's really figured out [00:01:30] how to turn it into something valuable just yet. [00:01:33] but I find that what's happening is because everyone is absorbing kind of the same information all at the same time, the conversations are very generic. And so, um, [00:01:45] like two years ago, the last time I came to ramp up, the cookie was still on the way out. [00:01:51] And the things that people were complicated were dealing with were what's gonna be the future with a, what's a cookie list future gonna look like? How are we gonna handle that? And [00:02:00] LiveRamp is here to like take the retail media data, which is supposed to solve that, and then make that data available to everybody through the clean rooms. [00:02:09] And so it was really a sense of like, we are all struggling with how we're going to solve this big problem together. [00:02:15] Now. That's not the, the now the vibe is a lot more just like we're all holding our breath. To see what's gonna happen. Yeah. And we're trying to like take part in it a little bit ourselves too. [00:02:25] Right. So I, that's kind of my take. That's why I feel like it's been a little bit generic. [00:02:29] Kiri: Hurry up and [00:02:30] wait. [00:02:30] Ian Simpson: I guess you could say that. Yeah. You could say Hurry up and wait. [00:02:32] [00:02:34] Sean Crawford: Hello, it's Sean Crawford, uh, managing director for SMG North America. How are we doing? [00:02:39] Okay, so, uh, really pleased to be back at RAMP up. Um, one of the things that is coming through loud and clear industry at the moment is [00:02:45] AgTech, um, and how that's gonna affect retail media, how it's gonna affect commerce. [00:02:48] Should we all be panicking about retail media dollars coming in or will it drive incremental growth? My take on it and having gone to one of the panels today that really did talk about Gentech in a lot of detail [00:03:00] is that. Yes, it's gonna impact the industry, but is it going to flip it on its head overnight? [00:03:05] And are we going to see a sudden exodus of people no longer shopping in the way they do today? No, we're not gonna see that. And the reason behind that is if you look at where the majority of [00:03:15] transactions still take place, it's in a physical store. And everyone who's heard me talk before or seen me before knows I love a store. [00:03:21] Um, but it's because in like grocery, for example, 90 plus percent of transactions are taking place there. So how is a agent going to impact that [00:03:30] overnight? It's, it's not. Yes, it will impact the way that retailers run their operations. And yes, it will impact ultimately, and this is broad ai. Now it's gonna impact how retail operates, but AgTech itself isn't going to have [00:03:45] a disastrous overnight impact. [00:03:46] If anything, it'll be additive. [00:03:48] [00:03:49] Nicole: Hey, this is Nicole Lozinsky from Nestle, USA. Um, I lead e-comm strategy for our frozen division out of Cleveland, Ohio. And Ramp Up has been an awesome opportunity for me to, [00:04:00] one, connect with current customers or retail media networks that I'm currently working with, but also new and upcoming. [00:04:06] Um, so I'm, I've met with a lot of my current customers, but also like meeting with Lyft and DoorDash and customers that I'm just starting [00:04:15] to really do a lot of work with. Um, but I also was able to speak on a panel, um, and it was really exciting to be in the room with, um, a lot of industry leaders and just really speaking about my partnership with DoorDash and how we're kind [00:04:30] of leading the way in, uh, clean room activity and how we're sharing data together and really building insights and, and into action. [00:04:38] Um, so that was really fun to, to be in that session and share some of the best practice work that we're doing together. [00:04:44] I [00:04:45] mean, I think we, what do you wanna know? I, I, I do, I I do get a lot of questions after sessions like this one. [00:04:50] I think 'cause we are the largest CPG and people wanna hear from us and wanna understand like how, what our go to market strategy is. Um, it was [00:05:00] more of just like, um, hey, loved this session, but wanna touch base with you. Mostly people selling stuff. Okay. Mostly people selling stuff, which I appreciate everyone's doing their job, but, um, I, I love connecting with people and [00:05:15] understanding what, uh, you know, what they do for a living. [00:05:17] And so it's fun to hear about their stories and their businesses as well. And, and maybe down the line they can help Nestle. [00:05:24] You know, the data side of it is crazy and like how much mining you can do to get these [00:05:30] insights. [00:05:30] And I think that's a missed opportunity in the industry. Like we, we say we're data driven and we have all this data, but are we doing anything with it? Not all of the time. Mm-hmm. And so that's like, that's the action part of it that I wanna start taking. And [00:05:45] especially with our e-commerce partners, like a DoorDash or an Instacart, like understanding that consumer in a new way is. [00:05:51] Like what? That's what I'm charged to do at Nestle. Right. And understanding what our strategy is so that can help us optimize investment in our go to market [00:06:00] strategy. Did you know that leading retail media networks drive 85% of their ads through mid and long tail [00:06:15] advertisers? [00:06:15] Kiri Masters: Miracle Ads provides full funnel ad formats tailored to both one P and three P advertisers leveraging unique AI capabilities that provide unprecedented levels of relevance and engagement. [00:06:30] Retailers who want to capture ad spend from the long tail of three P Marketplace sellers use miracle ads in their tech stack. [00:06:38] Learn more@miracle.com. That's M-I-R-A-K [00:06:45] l.com. [00:06:45] Praveen: my name is Pravin Manan. I was most recently senior director of product at Bridge leading a retail media consortium called Ripple. [00:06:53] And, um, the session that I really enjoyed the most was, I really enjoyed the keynote session. Um, I felt [00:07:00] like what I really liked was that they confronted, you know, the vulnerability and the anxiety around ai, but also how we can think about that as a tool to make our lives [00:07:15] easier, to do things more fast and efficient, but also how the models are evolving, the business models, um, specifically. [00:07:21] Um, I like that there was real clarity around. The need for industry standards, even as we kind of evolve how [00:07:30] we collaborate around data. I think the data marketplace of evolution I found really interesting because, you know, we. [00:07:37] Build audiences, we'd put it in these marketplaces. And even though there's these so-called autonomous buying systems like Audience Unlimited [00:07:45] or Co. Okay. We haven't really seen that intelligence translate into how media is planned and transacted. And I think now the ability to, as a media buyer, to not just have to buy segments but [00:07:58] actually buy models [00:08:00] that are trained on that data, gets you closer to making that actionable. [00:08:03] So I can actually execute a strategy within minutes instead of taking hours and days thinking about. What is the right data source? How do I construct an audience on top of it? Who can I activate [00:08:15] that on? How do I measure it? Now, I can run that experiment in minutes, and I think that should make it much easier for people to irate and learn faster and to kind of evolve how they do things. [00:08:26] And I think that just lowers the entry bar for [00:08:30] people to, you know, again, use the power and intelligence that's out there, but now it's more accessible for everybody. That is, [00:08:36] [00:08:37] Kiri Outro: Four people, four vantage points. Ian sees an industry holding its breath. Sean [00:08:45] sees a disruption that's more gradual than the hype suggests. Nicole sees a gap between data access and data action, and Pravin sees a future where AI simplifies media planning itself. I'll be back later this week with my own notes from the session [00:09:00] that I moderated at Ramp Up. [00:09:01] Stay tuned. [00:09:02]