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The Convergence & Coexistence of Trade & Media · IAB Europe podcasts

• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to talk to extra effective deep understanding of this practically available space.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we can lead a round table, you'll go to engaging and thought about the conversation.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So grab a speed to the table and let's dive in.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Which, to be fair, sounds a bit boring when you read about it, the convergence of trade in media within retail media.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: But it is probably one of the most important topics facing retailers and brands today.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: So really appreciate you being here to discuss it.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Colin, do you mind introducing yourself really quickly and then we'll move on to Lisa?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Yara, for having me.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Colin Colburn.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: I lead the Commerce and Retail Media Center of Excellence at IEB US.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: So essentially, me and my team are responsible for producing the thought leadership standards best practices that the IEB puts out into the industry.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Lisa?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Lisa Ravy.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the director of customer success for Zitcha.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Zitcher is a retail media platform, and we work with retail media networks helping them centralize all of their inventory and kind of get everything up and running so that they can engage and scale with their brands.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: And for those of you who don't know me, I do very similar work to Colin over here in Europe.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: And we get to collaborate on a bunch of different topics, including the trade and media discussion that we are about to embark on.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: So let's kick it off with some scene setting.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Why do you think the relationship between trade and media has become such a defining topic within retail media right now?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Colin, maybe I'll pass it on to you first.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then Lisa, I'd love your perspective.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think a big part of it is the growth that's happened in retail media, where it's no longer, it's actually too big to just be a single budget line, I think, because five years ago, retail media was kind of like a test budget for a lot of brands.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: And uh it also at the same time, today isn't really just viewed as another media channel.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: Retail and commerce is really influencing all forms of brand building and media planning, really in the effort to convert shoppers and to grow and to grow brand awareness, to grow, grow categories.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: And as that, I think as that spend has grown, many of these brand organizations are starting to realize that retail media really sits at the intersection of marketing and media, sales and trade and merchandising, um, and shopper, and also you had e-commerce.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: So it kind of really sits in this middle area of these different parts of the business that you're able to really collaborate or in maybe not so positive ways, fight and have these turf wars.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's really why this conversation has become um it's really unavoidable at this point.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like I think it's it's kind of bled into every conversation that occurs when it comes to like how do we get to that next level of growth in retail media as an overall category?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: Or if you're a brand, how do we justify more investment?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: You have to have these conversations with your counterparts because some of those are gonna have to come from them.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Lisa, and I need to add to yeah, please.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can agree more with everything Colin said.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's kind of another angle to it as well that we see with some networks who are kind of starting up.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, everyone talks about like the the retail media money train, right?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the hockey stick that everyone expects to see when you when you turn on the golden tap.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think realistically, what what new networks are kind of seeing and more existing networks are maybe experiencing more of a plateau is that there is organic growth, but there's not this kind of like shooting gold line that maybe everybody expects at the beginning.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of that is because of exactly what Colin said, which is actually this touches a bit of everything and to realize its true potential, not only for a retailer, not only for brands, but for the end customer as well, and then having like an absolutely perfect end-to-end journey so that they spend more with the brand.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you need all of this together and working.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then what you'll get if people get to this kind of holy grail, and I think everyone's still trying to get there, obviously, is you kind of get the rising ship for everyone, right?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: The customer's happier because everything's relevant, it's connected, it's joined up, they understand what's going on.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: The retail is happy because the customer's spending more money and the brand is spending more money, and the brand's happy because actually they're getting the right products in front of the right customers at the right time and getting that loyalty and engagement.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's it's really coming to a crux.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's because it's following the money, if I'm being totally honest.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: So everything you've just said makes so much sense.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Reality is a bit disconnected from that.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: And why do you think that is today?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's just um I think people assume that you know retail media should sit over here and the rest of the business, the rest of the retail business can just continue operating the way it has with this bolt-on of media.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I think um I think that that that hypothesis or that that way of working is really um, it's not working well.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: And because of the growth, because of sort of like retail media being sort of infused in all these different areas, it's really come to the surface where, oh, like we do need to collaborate more with our merchants so that they understand what are these media offerings.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: And if we want to give them a goal of growing retail media, we need to educate them on like how it differs and how it complements in-store static activations that we've always done in the store, um, or the way in which it sits next to uh a static uh physical display or whatever it is.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that that's sort of like uh there's there's this tension I think that has formed that is really um, I think in the market created a little bit of confusion.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where I think these conversations are starting to happen more and more around is around who are the right stakeholders, what are the objectives of retail media?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like, should it be media focused only in terms of driving impressions, driving clicks, driving engagement, or should it be even more aligned with what merchandisers care a lot about, which is category growth, moving product off shelves, that sort of stuff?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you talked about the store because I really think this is where things come to a head.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um so Lisa, in your world, can you talk a little bit about how people are having those conversations in store?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Trade trade media has existed in store before I think from when retailers started retailing.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's as foreign.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a really do you know, it's a really funny one.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, Yara, you're actually completely right that this is also kind of like causing another one of those pinch points, which is making it come to reality.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think what you're seeing more and more like retail media isn't just about social media channels anymore.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about digital placements on site.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is going into store, it's on the channel, and actually the best campaigns and kind of the things you're seeing at all the awards are the things which kind of touch everywhere, which includes in store.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so that naturally is gonna overrun with kind of what your trade team is already doing in store, what merchandises are up to.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so that dynamic, there's no way unless these two teams start collaborating, you're able to give the best customer experience in store, because otherwise you're gonna have digital screens or something retail media is kind of pushing with one message and then a completely different experience.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so visible when it's in store as well, because it is the same channel effectively.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when you start impacting your own shopper experience.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really what all of these retailers are there for, right?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're not publishers, they are there for the for the shopper, and that is why they're so appealing for brands to work with, because the shopper is at the heart of everything they're doing.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: But it's hard.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like we said literally just now, like, why is it so hard?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about some of these retail media networks employ hundreds of people, when you then add on the number of people employed by the retailer, big organizations find change difficult and they can't always move as quickly.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're trying to move everyone, they're probably sitting under different C-suites with different goals, different strategies.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not realistic to sp expect only the CEO within the organization to be the one to drive some of this change.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like these teams have to kind of come together themselves and put if they both put their goals together, actually they'll achieve much more than kind of rubbing up against each other separately.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things I love to point out, and I'm always cognizant whenever I'm talking to um folks, especially in Europe, my great-great-grandfather owned a convenience and uh clothing store in very rural western New York State in the late 1800s, early 1900s.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: And my family has lots of like pictures and artifacts from that time.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: And in some of my speeches that I give about in-store media, I talk about, I show this one picture, how it's my great-grandgrandfather sitting or standing in front of the store, and you see what I would consider retail media, like the way that it was designed and merchandised.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: They that's what they called it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even know what they probably called it that back then.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: But they they showed oak leaf soap in the window so that you knew that it was on sale that week.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like that was just a way to engage your customer, let them know, like, here's what's here's why you should come to our very rural part of Western New York this week.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the reason I always I always find it funny telling people from Europe that because um you guys probably have like artifacts from the 1600s, 1500s that you can show uh how retail media has been around for a lot more than just a hundred plus years.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it was passed down.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's a family business, is what you're telling us, Colin.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's not it, it doesn't it doesn't exist anymore, but um, but I guess the uh the retail blood passed down.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: The retail blood.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: You have retail blood.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's the conclusion.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: So let's assume for a moment retailers got this figured out.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're big organizations, they got their decks in a row, and they were able to align their PLs and their conversations and their KPIs so that the retail, the trade team and the merchandising team, and then the media team are speaking the same language, they're going with a unified message.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: What I hear sometimes from brands is that's actually not great for us because now they're gonna strong arm us.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: How would you react to that?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's definitely some truth there because um, if the retailers do get their ducks in a row and do have this alignment around, okay, media is not just gonna be a bolt-on, it's gonna be part of our overall business.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: That does put the retailer in a much more competitive, advantageous position.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because then they're able to package the product assortment, shelf, the the shelf negotiations that they have with the sales team in with what you need to be doing from a media perspective to drive conversion, to drive purchase, to drive consideration.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: And that likely does result in brands having to give up more, open the purse a little bit, a little bit wider.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: But I do think that there is opportunity on the brand side here too, because if the brands are able to align their sales and commercial efforts with media, that is gonna be beneficial to them because that puts them in a more advantageous negotiation position.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because now they're not just looking about looking at like distribution and pricing and you know, supplier negotiation the way that we historically have.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: Now it turns into that plus audiences and how we're gonna get the how we're gonna get reach into particular consumer cohorts that maybe we haven't been able to before.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: So it's kind of a chicken and egg situation.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: And if if both things can happen at the same time, which God only knows if that'll happen, but if it does, I think it's actually more of a rising tide lifts all boats story.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: But whoever does it first will be in a more at least short-term advantageous position.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: That is honestly so well put, and I'm so glad you were able to articulate it that way because I haven't been able to so far.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you, Colin.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but now what's the role of agencies in all of that?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, okay, all rise tied, everybody has a good advantageous negotiation position.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: They're both sitting, they're achieving their goals.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Do agencies even have a role in all of this?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's a there's an even bigger, if we take one or two steps back, a bigger macro question we need to answer, which is like, what is the role of agencies in a more AI-driven, agentic world?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, not to say that they're gonna go away, but um as all of this is happening in our world of retail, there's also the big AI question as well, whether we're talking about consumer-facing agentic commerce or how AI is gonna be woven into retail media campaigns, or maybe even how retailers are gonna are gonna employ AI to do more of their enterprise operations when it comes to IT or supply chain or whatever.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: That has a all of those things have really fundamental impacts on this category.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I think especially so when it comes to agencies.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like, look, the retailers have been going to market, yes, with agencies as a primary target audience of theirs because they control so much of the budget.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: But the retailers have really direct relationships with their suppliers, with the brands.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: And there's potentially an opportunity for retailers to kind of say, you know what, in a more agentic driven world, I could totally see some of these retailers being like, Do you really need your agency?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like, can't you just do all this with AI and us?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: Not to say, again, I'm not saying that agencies are going away, but I do think, again, like from the more macro scene, there are real questions that probably brands are gonna have to answer around how many agencies do we have, who owns what?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: Do we still keep a like a shopper, a boutique shopper agency, and then we have a regular media agency over here.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: So I think there's gonna be a little bit of consolidation that that's gonna happen in most brand relationships to their agencies.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that I the agentic piece you talked about, Colin, is kind of like the really key one.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're like technically planning for a future where agents are the ones negotiating the media deals.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've just finished building our MCP so that we can deal with like agent-to-agent conversations and we can kind of have this piece.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think the big question is gonna be like, we'll obviously be the retailer end of that agent.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the brands directly and they build their own agents that interface with that?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or do the agencies do that and then do it more en masse and kind of what comes out from that side?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And do the agencies somehow almost become an aggregator in that sense if they do build that?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's gonna be the next few years, I really think is gonna slingshot some of that conversation.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, I agree.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: I think um in the agencies you can see that they're preparing for this future very much, right?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's why there's the there's been so much acquisition in the technology space of agencies.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: Agencies are looking more and more like technology providers and data providers rather than resource um providers in terms of like, hey, build, you know, expand my team, expand the number of hands-on keyboards.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: So, Lisa, we've heard from Colin.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: Anything you would add change to his narrative?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or his doom day scenario of about agencies, whatever you want to try and can I just can I, rather than focusing on the agency, because I think he said it purposely, can we just talk about one thing that we haven't really touched on yet?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like we've kind of talked a bit about like why it's difficult traditionally for like trade and media to converge, but I think the big thing we haven't touched on yet is data and like what it actually means for data.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Data is such a huge piece of retail media, and I think it's really interesting because to me, if we can get trade and retail media on the same page and talking the same page, actually, we said there's when we think about brands, you know, we're giving retailers the carrot and the stick, so does it put it at them at a disadvantage, maybe from a negotiation perspective, potentially in the future, who knows?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, where they could really win is on the data side.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like retailer media at the moment really focuses, you know, there's a lot of data around awareness, impressions, like how many people have seen that.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look at some of the more traditional ROAS metrics and things like that, they don't actually really tell the real story at the end of the day for a brand as to how many of my products have I actually sold, like have I improved myself or have I reduced it?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And all of that data right now sits much more in the hand of the trade teams.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what you have is retail media talking one language with one load of metrics, and you've got trade talking another language with another load of metrics and bringing those two together, and we've done tons of work with this with our networks at the moment and lots of conversations about how do you bring all of that data together to show the impact of your media on your sell-through on what's driving kind of those product pieces.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if we can combine that, that unlocks kind of like a whole new phase of retail media and trade together to me, because that is ultimately that is a lot of the time why the brands are investing in media to improve their overall sell-through of their products kind of across the board, not just with that one individual retailer.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: But it's obviously it's not an easy thing to link up and pull together.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that is gonna be the switch that shows people everyone needs to do this if if we can get it right with kind of like a few networks from that side.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: I can't agree more with the the sort of opportunity that's sitting in front of us to link up these two areas for both retailers and brands.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: For a retailer, let's just put it on the table.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: Most retailers have not been able to hit the goals that were put in front of them five years ago by the major consultancies that they um that they contracted with who are gonna tell them, hey, here's what you can get if you get 5% of gross product value, um gross merchandising value in the form of retail media.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: And most of them are looking at, oh my God, we're gonna be a$1 billion media business.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, guess what?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: Most of them have not hit that today.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: So, what this does, the what Lisa just described, is it gives the RMNs goals that are not just focused on singular revenue of media.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: What I mean there is that they're gonna have goals that are around are we driving revenue and profitability directly from media?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: But also, are we driving better customer experience?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: Are we driving greater loyalty?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: Are we increasing basket share?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: The things that the rest of the retail business is focused on every single day.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: And media kind of now plugs will plug into some of those goals and be able to show its worth more than just like, hey, we didn't hit our, we didn't hit the number of media dollars that we needed to be getting into the in the door today.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: What's going on?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it'll actually give a little bit of a of a relief to those media networks that are under this, that have been under this duress for so many years of why aren't we, why aren't we hitting the goals that we you know put put forth five years ago?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then on the brand side, it actually does something very similar, which is I I have found that so many of the brand marketers that I talk to are like, my sales team just doesn't see the value in retail media.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, it's because we're not the sales team doesn't actually care about the product that is moving off the shelf.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they do care about the product moving off the shelf today, but what they care a lot more about are all the palettes that they have in the warehouses and how they're gonna get them into the next retailer.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're able to show them that, hey, we're not we're not only moving product, but we're actually helping you at the negotiation table of getting product into the next store, that can be a huge unlock as well.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: Sounds easy, right?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean not doing it right now, but it also it takes us back, Colleen, to your very, very first point, right?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Which was media's always sat external to retail up to now.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can solve This and the data thing, it will drive them more naturally to be able to collaborate much more closely with the kind of broader retail business.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And you talked about data and metrics and reporting and how that's going to be a key part.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Can you give us a concrete example of how you're either doing that with a client today or you know of a client who's doing it really well?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, if you don't want to name the client, you can be client I expect.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna, I'm not gonna name names.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we're running some POCs with customers at the moment on like past data, looking at the impact of media sales both on sell-through and product margin, so that we can actually say, yes, you are driving the right things with your media, or no, you're not.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: The goal of that, even just as a starting point, people being able to see that as a data point is like almost like a step one.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: What we're gonna take it to next, which is almost the most exciting thing for me.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where AI can really start showing its teeth a little bit, is in kind of the next phase, is then using that data to actually help us inform decisions and say, you know what?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're putting all this money on this off-site meta campaign when actually that's not driving the sales of the right products for you, or it's not driving the right margin sales products for you.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe we should actually flip that and start thinking much more dynamically about budgets where we're putting stuff, and we move that into an in-store activation, or we move that into an on-site activation and actually trying to become, I feel like a lot of media planning right now is quite fixed.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, I want to do these very precise things, and I think where it's gonna move in the future and what we're looking at doing is actually helping inform them some of those decisions based on joint goals that you can set between brands and retailers to actually drive the outcomes that you want.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not, I mean, none of those conversations really are about ROS because the brands, like you were saying, Colin, ultimately they want sell-free of their product as well.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: They want eyeballs and they want to drive self-through.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And ROS is almost an indicator of which thing is working rather than actual concrete facts that you have kind of resold, you've sold this many or you've gained this share of voice over time.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we are just coming to the end of kind of like the initial data POCs and some of the results we're seeing is so interesting.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like some things really not working that you would expect were really working really well, and other things actually really driving some amazing results.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's gonna be some big things that we can share and talk about soon on that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's uh it's gonna be interesting in terms of the next phase.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know what, Lisa, that's such an interesting example because it makes me think about how like sometimes we as an industry need to lower our expectations in terms of how fast things are going to change.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like those are those are good, solid wins.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: And to me, like I often look at the members that I work with, especially in retail organizations, and the fact that they're even mentioning by name people in merchandising, people in store operations.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, these are wins.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like they might not seem like huge strides, but these are huge wins in frankly an industry of retail that has historically moved quite quite slow, right?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: So um some I don't want to say lower expectations, like we should be thinking about, like, oh, like we don't need to be accountable or anything like that, but like we do have to realize like retail has never been a fast moving suit.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's innovative in in in very useful ways, but not in the ways that those of us who have been in the mat the media and advertising industry for so long, it doesn't move quite as fast as media advertising.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, give it faster than financial organizations, though.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: As someone who's at least we don't have to deal with all the um massive regulation and uh all that sort of stuff that comes with uh financial services.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Colin, it's almost it ties precisely to why we're kind of doing some of these data PCs first, is you said like being able to name the merchandises by name, what it's doing is helping the retail media teams have much more credible conversations with those people so that they're getting a seat at the table and kind of bringing them more on board with it.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that is all to do with the fact the two teams don't speak the same language today.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, if we can get the retail media people showing the impact on the merchandises and prove it and believe it, that's kind of how you could help bring some of that together as well.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Is there any parting words that you guys want to share?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: No, I I would say, you know, again, like it it really comes down to the opportunity in front of us right now.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like we're in a unique time for the disparate functions within retail to come together in a way that is gonna help grow the overall business.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: Again, like not to keep on bringing up AI, but I think AI is a bit of a forcing function here because if we do get to a world where there are there is more autonomous agent-to-agent buying of goods, of shopping, um, that does have really significant downstream impacts on retail media.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then the conversation needs to pivot to how does how does the business monetize what it's in a more agentic world, what it's foundational for?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: So things like assortment, things like fulfillment, things like delivery.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: And there is a world where media still has still holds value, but it's gonna look a lot different than it does today.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: And having that greater alignment and greater collaboration across functions is going to fortify the retail business in a way that is gonna be really, I think, advantageous for those that get it right now.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think you know, I watch a lot of different podcasts and like sometimes it triggers me to do something, and sometimes I'm just like, oh, that's really interesting.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the big thing for me is this doesn't change if retailers don't start behaving differently.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if you're listening to this and you are someone who's kind of involved in a lot of these conversations, like think about what you can do to start trying to bring the teams closer together as a starting point.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like go and have a conversation with your counterpart more on the retail side of the business and start trying to understand their lens because the more we can bring them together, the better delivery you're gonna be able to give for the brands, the more money you'll make.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And actually the more integrated you'll be in the broader business and the easier everyone's life will be from that perspective as well.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, then that end customer is gonna get the absolute best experience in keep shopping more.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't happen if everyone just sits there doing the same thing.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like someone needs to bring about the change, and it can't just be the CEO, it's got to be other people.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Lisa, for that.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, it's not the sexy things right now that need to happen.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's those conversations, it's that boring re-org, it's that KPI PL conversation.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the things that are gonna move the needle.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't emphasize that enough.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for bringing it up.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: And Colin, Lisa, thank you so much for such an interesting discussion.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Really appreciate the two of you.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 29:12
  unknown: Bye.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for all.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for tuning in to the Retail Media Roundtable.
• 29:23
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• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, you can visit idf.edu to explore the latest retail media resources and insights to help you navigate this dynamic space.