Latest / Retail Media Breakfast Club / Challenger vs. Legacy Brands in Retail Media: When Sponsored Products Stop Working (and What to Do Next)
Transcript
- Snips with intro outro === [00:00:00] Kiri: . [00:00:00] There's this conversation that happens constantly in retail media and it goes something like this. The challenger brands look up at the big legacy CPGs and think if only we had that budget, [00:00:15] that analytics team, that scale everything would be so easy. Meanwhile, those same enterprise brands are looking down at the scrappy challenges sinking. [00:00:26] If only we could move that fast, make decisions that [00:00:30] quickly pivot without 17 layers of approval. It's the ultimate grass' greener situation. And honestly, both sides are right and both sides are missing something. [00:00:40] [00:00:42] Kiri: Last week I sat down with Jordan Whitmer, who [00:00:45] leads retail media strategy at the agency, salt to dig into this dynamic. [00:00:50] And we actually did it as a live stream on LinkedIn, which was super fun because we could get questions from people along the way. So I do recommend tuning into our upcoming [00:01:00] series together. Now, Jordan has an interesting vantage point. He spent years on the big CPG side at companies like Hershey and Ken View and Stanley Black and Decker before moving to the [00:01:15] dark side, the agency life where he now works with brands across the entire size spectrum. [00:01:20] So he's seen this from every angle. Now what we landed on is that the retail media playbook really does need to be different depending on your brand's size and [00:01:30] stage. Sponsored products aren't a compromise for smaller brands. They're often the highest value investment you can make. But there's a tipping point where that math flips and knowing when you've hit it changes everything. [00:01:43] Let's listen in [00:01:45] to this segment from the conversation. So let's start just maybe by talking about what, what are the inherent strengths that both of these. Different types of consumer brands have, uh, given their different [00:02:00] sizes. [00:02:00] Jordan: Yeah. It's, this is what got me excited about doing this one with you was like, there's this, this almost, I mean, it's, if you laugh at anything, it can be funny or sad, but this, this idea that the, you [00:02:15] see a lot of big brands that look at challenger brands with envy. Mm-hmm. Uh, they can move fast. They make decisions really, really quickly. [00:02:24] They're agile, they're scrappy, and you also see it from the challenger or [00:02:30] smaller brands or growth brands side. They look up at the legacy category, leading brand and go, my goodness, if we had. That budget, if we had that analytics team, if we had that robust [00:02:45] finance process, it would be so easy. [00:02:48] Everything would be great if I was just right. Just a greener pastures conversation. But I, I think what's, what's interesting, it just depends on where you're at For our, [00:03:00] our smaller, our upstart brands, uh, right. The game was always. You launch a product, you, you beg over the course of five years to try to get onto a shelf, and then you try to prove yourself and you get to the really, really good placement at [00:03:15] some point, and you can then sink or flow as a, as a new brand, where now we talked about sponsored products a little bit as, as the quote unquote easy money. [00:03:29] It's easy money for a [00:03:30] reason. It's the easy money because it's a really good sales pitch to a brand that doesn't already own that level of presence in, in digital shelves to have it tomorrow. Um, so for [00:03:45] our smaller brands, challenger friends, uh, like don't be ashamed by the fact that your budget's mostly sponsored products. [00:03:53] It doesn't mean that you can't do what the big brands do. It means that's the most valuable thing that you can do with your next [00:04:00] dollar. [00:04:00] Kiri: Yeah, and I think, actually this is, this is a really interesting point. I just wanna add on something here. Something I've heard from a large CPG is that their sort of total investment in retail media with a very large retailer. [00:04:13] This large CPG, they [00:04:15] get benchmarked against all these challenger brands. With this retailer and. The, , large CPG is like, yeah, but they don't have, they don't have trade spend to spend in stores. Right. They don't have [00:04:30] all of these other expenses related to , the actual selling of our products that we do as a huge incumbent that sells in every brick and mortar store around the world. [00:04:40] , So these challenger brands, they just have a bigger percentage [00:04:45] of their. Total marketing budget that they can just throw right into. Really, very like high return, high turnaround, , easy to, change things in flight, right? [00:05:00] So, , that is a huge advantage that these challenger brands have is that flexibility and the ability to throw , all of their ad spend where it's gonna produce a great return. [00:05:10] Jordan: Yeah, and it's probably the right thing, right? Everybody [00:05:15] preaches incrementality and what's the next best marginal ROI you're gonna get? And as a challenger brand, getting distribution, however you get it, is probably your next best dollar spent. Where if we flip the [00:05:30] conversation, we talk more about legacy category leader, uh, multi-billion dollar brands, that math changes a little bit. [00:05:39] And I think that's where you're seeing the pressure get put on retail networks to earn [00:05:45] their, earn their salt a little bit more. but at, at some point that value equation flips. And when you've got, when you're a massively, you're available everywhere type of brand. You've already got all that distribution work [00:06:00] done. You might be more efficient at driving your next incremental dollar of sales, doing something else, like foregoing the next 1% of presence on a certain keyword, instead [00:06:15] invested in reaching another point. [00:06:18] Larger of your audience, like [00:06:20] Speaker 3: Yeah, [00:06:21] Jordan: the math. The math flips based on like how big you already are and what the next incremental point of value is. [00:06:30] Retailers know that a marketplace model can dramatically boost product assortment, shopper engagement, and total revenue. But to get the most out of your [00:06:45] marketplace, you need an ad tech solution that can really engage sellers. Miracle Ads is powering the future of retail media for leading retailers to activate both three P Sellers and one P brands. [00:06:59] Kiri Masters: [00:07:00] Learn more@miracle.com. That's M-I-R-A-K l.com. [00:07:06] [00:07:08] Kiri: Well, let's talk about that tipping point maybe and make to get more specific, [00:07:15] when to stay heavy in allocation towards sponsored products or, you know, bottom, bottom of funnel retail media tactics. [00:07:24] What versus when to shift into brand building, because you mentioned kind of like a tipping point there. [00:07:29] Jordan: This is where [00:07:30] it gets pretty technical. It gets into your category, how consumers shop your category. Do they shop at Brand first? [00:07:38] Do they shop at, if you're in food, is it flavor first? Is it because what we're, what we're generally trying to look for [00:07:45] is, are we gonna be more efficient at. Harvesting demand that already exists for the category and going to win jump balls in sponsored products type of advertiser onsite. In general, you could say, [00:08:00] or to consumers. [00:08:00] Shop this a little bit differently now and we can generate more, more incremental. We can generate more value from getting X more people to go ahead and seek us out. Versus having to win a jump ball [00:08:15] for sunscreen. Can I get somebody to search for bullfrog type of activity? That's kind of the tipping point. [00:08:23] It's different for everybody. The way you measure it is very different in how you do that at a small versus a, a [00:08:30] large, and how you make that call. But from a structural framework, that's, that's the decision we're usually coaching on. [00:08:37] Kiri: So what would you, what, what advice would you have for brands at each of those stages there? [00:08:42] Jordan: I, I, if you're early [00:08:45] stage, you've just gotta be findable. You've gotta be available how, whatever that means to your category. If that means, most discovery is happening in a social platform, then great. You've gotta be readily [00:09:00] available on a social platform and expect that to translate into demand on a retail property like physical or digital. [00:09:08] If you are in a super heavy e-commerce like category type of search, like let's [00:09:15] say, let's say tele like TVs or laptops, where a lot of the, a lot of the search maybe isn't as branded as it might be in some other categories, then your path to being found is, am I showing up when [00:09:30] somebody searches the really core functional. [00:09:34] Term either to my category or to my product. we saw this a lot in right in OTC or in any type of [00:09:45] skincare, um, type of brands where it's very claims based. Tend to see search behavior be you don't just get a lot of searches for the term lotion. You get searches for the term lotion with x lotion with [00:10:00] y and. [00:10:01] On those margins is where you see some challenger brands make hay because a product's built for that specific thing and being found in that category means that so. [00:10:09] [00:10:10] Kiri: What I keep coming back to from this conversation is that retail media strategy [00:10:15] isn't one size fits all, and that is actually a feature, not a bug. If you're a challenger brand, you've gotta lean into what you got. If you're a large multinational. You gotta lean into what you got. Don't apologize for [00:10:30] your mix of ad spend being different. [00:10:34] The real skill is knowing where you are on this spectrum that we talked about, and being honest when it's time to shift. We will link up to the full replay of this [00:10:45] conversation in the show notes if you want to tune into all the other things that we discussed about challenger versus incumbent brands and how their strategy must be different And Jordan and I will be sitting down for more topics on retail [00:11:00] media, live on LinkedIn. If you wanna join, you can ask your questions and contribute to the conversation as we go along. So if you're on LinkedIn, stay tuned for those event invitations. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you tomorrow. [00:11:14]