"Retail Media Simplified from the Middle!" with Tom Limongello

Summary

Always Off Brand

Episode: "Retail Media Simplified from the Middle!" with Tom Limongello

Date: February 19, 2026
Host: QuickFire Podcast Network
Guest: Tom Limongello (Co-Founder, Nextapedia; Host, Middleman Podcast)

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the evolving landscape of retail media, its monetization, measurement, and how retailers are striving to catch up with Amazon’s dominance. The hosts, Haley Brooker and Scott Oshman, bring on Tom Limongello, known for the Middleman Podcast, to offer an insider’s perspective on what’s changing, who’s really winning in retail media, where AI fits, and why the “middleman” role matters more than ever. The conversation is rich in industry lore, honest opinions, and actionable insights for brands, agencies, and technology providers alike.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Podcast Crossover Energy

• The show opens with banter about Super Bowl parties and life updates before introducing Tom Limongello, emphasizing cross-podcast respect and camaraderie in the ecommerce/retail media space.
• Discussion quickly becomes meta: podcasts talking about podcasts, voice and format critique, and why certain shows resonate.
  • [09:00] Tom Limongello: “It's hard to be a good podcaster. ...Do no harm at first. Don’t have too much intro. Don’t have too much this.”
  • Lighthearted self-awareness about “catchphrases” and conversational tics (e.g., “freaking fabulous”).

2. What is the Middleman Podcast and Why Retail Media?

• Middleman Podcast Genesis
  • Born out of Tom’s background at Quotient (coupons.com)—where access to both retailer and shopper data was game-changing.
  • Saw opportunity to push retail media conversation “to the next level,” beyond sponsored products into measurement, first-party data, and retail-as-publisher thinking.
  • [13:08] Tom Limongello: “We should be having these conversations about how retailers need to be more like publishers and how publishers are struggling because they don't have first party data.”
• Key hosts: Tom Limongello, Todd Sawicki, Scott Messer—all with roots in retail tech and consulting.

3. Retail Media — The Big Picture and Its Problems

• Amazon's Spark: Sparked the current retail media boom with sponsored products (2014), which revealed the profitability of retail ad networks.
• On-site vs. Off-site vs. In-store:
  • Early days: Off-site audience extension used loyalty data to drive store/traffic.
  • Measurement challenges: Awareness ads (e.g. M&M’s) don’t always convert via clicks; attribution through POS data and incrementality studies became essential.
  • The industry is at a pivot: Conflict between merchandising (traditional shelf/display) and retail media (digital ad revenue).
  • [23:40] Tom Limongello: “When you do that there is a conflict. ...What is the right mix or technology that will help you manage an overall compound margin that...allows you to make ad revenue...but still doesn't lower your conversion or your sales?”

4. Is Retail Media Just a Money Grab?

• Hosts openly question whether retail media is just the latest profit center, and Tom agrees—for now, often yes.
  • [29:10] Tom Limongello: “Do you blame them for that?...In the short term, when you first launch the retail media network, it absolutely is a money grab...”
  • Conversation then shifts to trends in “incrementality” (measuring the net new value of an ad/placement), now a gold standard in retail media.
  • Multiple retailers (Walmart, Albertsons, etc.) compete to provide incrementality metrics to brands.

5. Outside of Amazon and Walmart: The Fractured Pie

• Amazon and Walmart still control 85–90% of retail media dollars ([32:17]).
• For “middle of the pack” retailers, progress means more sophisticated tech stacks, agency relationships, and movement toward “retail as publisher” and data unification.
• Orchestration: The concept that, as complexity grows, retailers must unify disparate tech, data, and goals into one system.
  • [33:54] Tom Limongello: “You can’t just have one tech provider...You need another one enabling your search...so your team can have a unified dashboard...”

6. Industry Silos and Agency Headaches

• Hosts highlight the “silo sadness” of teams and brands managing separate agencies, platforms, and vendors, resulting in inefficiency and role confusion.
• Consulting Trend: Smart people from ad tech/publishing “best of breed” are flowing into retail media and driving valuable innovation—potentially pointing toward convergence.

7. The AI (Agentic) Revolution & The Claude Super Bowl Moment

• Fun side discussion on AI “agents” (Rufus, Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) and the implications for retail media/search-ad business.
• Claude’s Super Bowl ad: Parodied the idea of ad-targeted search agents, raising the question: will AI-powered shopping kill or enhance retail media?
  • [38:49] Tom Limongello: “Nobody has made a...new currency to handle this...The whole Amazon sponsored search mania that started the retail media craze is all based on keywords. Now,...Claude and Gemini are getting people to search either through their voice or long paragraphs...How is that going to work to insert advertising?”
• Tom predicts an “agentic” future where retail media could be stronger—not weaker—thanks to better data and automated, dynamic collaboration between brand and retailer “agents.”
• JBP (Joint Business Plan): Explained as the heart of merchandising relationships ([41:17]).

8. Evolving UX: Will Websites Survive the AI Era?

• Short debate: Will AI agents keep shoppers on retailer websites, or disintermediate the buying journey even further?
  • Haley asserts that website visits remain important, especially bottom of funnel.
  • Retailers want to find ways to leverage LLMs/AI for both conversion and brand-building, not just last-click sales.

9. Amazon, Walmart, and the AI Platform Arms Race

• News segment centers around Anthropic (Claude) raising $30 billion, and Amazon’s AI investments (Rufus, embedding Claude tech, etc.).
• Key insight: Amazon doesn’t just want to win in sales—they want to “own the power grid” behind retail AI.
  • [58:07] Haley Brooker quoting LinkedIn: “Walmart built the house, but Amazon just bought the power grid.”
• Data center spend and platform alliances (Claude/Anthropic’s AWS relationship) indicate a greenfield, infrastructure-first approach, not just ad revenue chasing.
• Hosts anticipate a fragmented future where some consumers shop via agent/LLM and others stick to current ecommerce journeys.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [13:08] Tom Limongello: “The reason I'm doing the Middlemen podcast and why it's focused on retail media is that I was at a company called Quotient ...They had point of sale access ...so the incredible amount of PII they were sitting on...we can attach all this to a digital spine and start doing off site audience extension campaigns.”
• [23:40] Tom Limongello: “The beginning of retail media for a physical retailer ...then as you move to sponsored products and now to in-store, those channels had [the] problem...the merchants already were doing things like that...Now there's a conflict.”
• [29:10] Tom Limongello: “In the short term...it absolutely is a money grab...But I think the bigger thing is what I am seeing in 2026 is that every part of retail media is turning to incrementality measurement.”
• [33:54] Tom Limongello: “Orchestration is basically saying ...it’s such a complicated space that...your team can have a unified dashboard to manage all this stuff.”
• [38:49] Tom Limongello (on AI agents): “Nobody has made a ... new currency to handle this...How is that going to work to insert advertising capabilities?”
• [41:17] Tom Limongello (explains JBP): “The joint business plan is really sort of the ... relic of merchandising relationships...that relationship is sacred and important...do you keep all of retail media in the JBP process...or do you ... allow it to be separate?”

Humorous/Light Moments:

• Hosts riff on podcast voices and catchphrases (“freaking fabulous”).
• Scott laments becoming a “Progressive ad” (chatty like parents in commercials).
• The “What’s That Keyword?” game show—with wild guesses like “Matthew McConaughey’s truck nuts” and “Hunger Games” for dice and hacky sacks ([47:51], [49:19]).

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Important Timestamps

• [09:00] – Tom Limongello introduces himself, podcast background, podcasting philosophy.
• [13:08] – Deep dive into retail media origins, Tom’s Quotient experience.
• [23:40] – Defining on-site, off-site, and in-store retail media; conflict with merchandising.
• [29:10] – Is retail media just a money grab? Measurement and incrementality.
• [32:17] – Discussing Amazon/Walmart dominance and challenges for other retailers.
• [33:54] – The need for orchestration/unified tech platforms in retail media.
• [38:49] – AI/agentic search, Claude Super Bowl ad, the challenge to keyword-based retail media/ad models.
• [41:17] – JBP explained: why it still matters for retail & media alignment.
• [45:08] – Role of websites vs. chat/AI interface for shopper journeys.
• [52:57] – News: Anthropic (Claude) raises $30B, Amazon’s AI/data center power play, implications for retail competition.
• [58:07] – Amazon vs. Walmart AI arms race; “Walmart built the house, Amazon bought the power grid.”

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Key Takeaways

• Retail media is maturing: From “money grab” to more sophisticated, measurement-driven, multi-channel experiences.
• Fragmentation and complexity: Most retailers lag behind Amazon/Walmart due to tech, data, and organizational silos.
• AI’s transformative potential: Unsettled questions about how LLMs/agents will reshape retail search, ads, and commerce—potentially favoring those with the strongest data and infrastructure (Amazon sees itself as the “power grid”).
• Industry camaraderie: There’s a genuine sense of ecosystem among podcast hosts and practitioners, offering both critique and support as the space evolves.
• Ultimately, consumer experience will determine winners: As both AI and retail media evolve, the path to purchase, attribution, and monetization is up for grabs.

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Where to Find & Follow

• Middleman Podcast: Available on LinkedIn, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Most active at the Middleman Podcast LinkedIn page.
  • [45:51] Tom Limongello: “The best way to find us and keep up with us is to follow the Middlemen podcast page on LinkedIn. …Follow me too, because I love talking to people.”
• Always Off Brand: Find episodes and video on YouTube, connect via the QuickFire Podcast Network.

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This summary captures the raw, knowledgeable, and fun tone of the show, while delivering the hard-hitting substance for ecommerce and retail professionals looking to stay ahead in the era of retail media, AI, and data-driven commerce.

Transcript

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[Scott Oshman]

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[Haley Brooker]

Oh, hello, hello. Hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are in the world listening to this. You are listening to the always off brand podcast. We take E commerce, we take retail, we take AI. All the juicy stuff that's on the interwebs these days. We break it down, we make it simple. We have a little fun. I am one of your co hosts. I'm Haley Brooker in the news, joined by one of my fabulous friends, Scott Oshman.

[Scott Oshman]

Oh, hi there, Haley. It's just the Haley and Scotty show today. Summer Jubilee is on vacation. I can't believe it.

[Haley Brooker]

Oh, man, I'm so jealous.

[Scott Oshman]

Honestly, so am I. I mean, I think she. And just my text messages and then I think she stumbled, I mean, literally stumbled to the cross to the finish line to that. To that flight.

[Haley Brooker]

Listen, she made it. She did it.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah. She leaves in the night. An undisclosed area, we're not even sure. No one was told. Is under massive secrecy.

[Haley Brooker]

Maybe sunny Mexico.

[Scott Oshman]

No, hey, hey, hey. That's just speculative. That's speculative.

[Haley Brooker]

Is that too close of a pin to drop? Would Summer be upset?

[Scott Oshman]

Just. Just a wee bit too close? Anyway, so she's out.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

You know what?

[Scott Oshman]

Now we get to talk weather, medical updates. First of all, back in the living. Are you actually living in Emma's back in school? I mean, God, this is.

[Haley Brooker]

Yeah, it has been a wild start to 2026. I mean, first of all, whatever this flu shit is that's going around right now, it's bad. I was sick for. No kidding. Probably a solid three weeks. I did not feel good.

[Scott Oshman]

Like your second bout, you were. You were at it like three weeks prior.

[Haley Brooker]

It was awful. Anyways, I still have a weird cough. We don't need to get into the details, but at least I have my energy back, which is like, huge. And I know all the Fab 45 listeners really care about my energy levels,

[Scott Oshman]

but how are you the fab? I'm good. I. I'm on cloud nine. My Seattle Seahawks are the super bowl champions.

[Haley Brooker]

I know, I know you wanted to talk about that. So go ahead, plug it in. Let's hear your.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, we talked about the. The super bowl party. I wasn't feeling great about it. I announced race in the morning, which was. We got lucked out in weather, which no one cares.

[Haley Brooker]

Oh, my gosh, I saw your post. The weather did look beautiful.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, it was gorgeous. When you're sitting outside for three, four hours, you know, the weather's important.

[Haley Brooker]

It's like a hit or miss.

[Scott Oshman]

Yes, so. But we had the part. It was actually fantastic. I got in trouble as I. As I prepared, you know, because I get.

[Haley Brooker]

Why.

[Scott Oshman]

Because I do. Noxious. I've told you this before. I. When I get too into it, I'm obnoxious. My friend Tim comes over. We had our own little place. We had 15 people. Sixteen people, I think total. It was. The food was epic. Although I couldn't eat it. I was too nervous. My friend was annoying. Tim was annoying because he was so not nervous. It was just. It. It actually made it just how meet your.

[Haley Brooker]

Your energy level.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah. And he's usually negative like me. Like, he's. He's usually just a pessimist like me. Anyway, it was phenomenal. I still can't believe it. The parade was incredible. No one gives a about this, but God damn it, I am still on cloud. I can't believe it.

[Haley Brooker]

I'm so happy for you.

[Scott Oshman]

Sports are great. I did the cheesiest post on Linky about teams, but I do. I. You know, I'm a team person. Haley. You've known me a long time.

[Haley Brooker]

People matter, Scott. And guess who makes up teams.

[Scott Oshman]

It's just team. Oh, there's nothing like being on a great team like this show. Nothing like it. Anyway. That's. That's. No one cares. Other than that. It was awesome. Thank you. And I. And I. I just want to admit right here, for most of the. Did you watch it even? I mean, you guys.

[Haley Brooker]

Oh, yeah. I watched it.

[Scott Oshman]

Okay.

[Haley Brooker]

For sure.

[Scott Oshman]

Boring as it was absolutely disgusting.

[Haley Brooker]

I mean, all football is boring to me, so that really doesn't set a bar. But I loved the halftime show.

[Scott Oshman]

Phenomenal.

[Haley Brooker]

It was freaking fabulous.

[Scott Oshman]

I know. Every was something good. Half didn't like it. I've liked it. Whatever. We're not gonna go there. Here. No, but it was.

[Haley Brooker]

I thought it was fabulous. I love the music. I was up dancing.

[Scott Oshman]

Like, I was texting. Summer texted me because she was. She was checking in on me. And the Green Day before and the Brandy Carlisle before the. The. Those are just. It was spectacular. Charlie Pluth loved it. Whatever. How you doing?

[Haley Brooker]

Listen, Green Day. That's okay. That's what I said.

[Scott Oshman]

I know. Like you young kids, you millennials. That's right in your wheelhouse.

[Haley Brooker]

I grew up in the 90s. Like, I mean, I wasn't born in the 90s. I was born before that. I don't want to drop a pin

[Scott Oshman]

on my age, but don't draw that, man.

[Haley Brooker]

Anyways, I love Green Day. They're freaking fabulous.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Look.

[Haley Brooker]

So Matt Brucker Matt, Brad Brucker told me that I say freaking fabulous too much.

[Scott Oshman]

Yes, I. This has been a constant six year

[Haley Brooker]

battle and I have just said it at least three times in the first, I don't know, five minutes of this recording. So

[Scott Oshman]

now we're all just going to lead in. I'm going to start saying it all the time. Freaking fabulous. Guess what? We got a freaking fabulous guest today.

[Haley Brooker]

Yeah, we do.

[Scott Oshman]

We got a freaking fabulous death. Let's start the music. Let's get this thing fired up because I'm so. This is going to be so pleasant. Hold on a second here. Oh, yeah. Let's get him to the YouTube stage. We are on YouTube. We're always off brand. Just go to the tube. Search it. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, coming to the stage, coming to the program. Not only is he the co founder of nextapedia, not only is he from Philly, but he's kind of a transplant Philly. Not only does he have a cool television in his background, but he is the host of one of the coolest, smartest podcasts out there, the Middleman podcast. Tom Lemon Jello.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Thank you, Scotty. O. A big intro.

[Scott Oshman]

Oh, yeah, you got that. You got that. Now that's so opposite of your just fabulous smart. Chill. I mean, we try to be smart and funny here. We try, but we're just not at your level. The intellect level on your show is.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I mean, not everybody can wear the lamb's wool a little bit, A little bit itchy. But yeah, I went a little nuts recently trying to buy stuff online and my wife's like green again. I'm like, I'm trying to be on brand, but now I'm on the always off brand. I don't know what to do.

[Scott Oshman]

That. That is, that is true. So again, the. The great connector, Kiri Masters. I actually, she, she introduced her audience to the Middleman podcast. And then I'm like, okay, anything Kiri suggests, I gotta, I gotta at least, you know, check in on it. And then I reached out to you. I'm like, yeah, this is smart. Like I'm learning a ton of. So, so anyway, you gotta, you know the middle of how long you've been doing this.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

So we've been doing it for about a year and a half. We're actually on our third season, so I'm not sure how the math. Maths there, but it's basically like the middle of 2024. We started doing this thing and then 25 was a big year for us. And now in 26. We got some amazing guests coming on. I don't understand at this point. Yeah.

[Scott Oshman]

How do you. Again, this is. Now I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna play the open to your show because it's just so groovy. I love it so much because it's just.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

You're listening to the Middleman podcast this week with Scott Messer and Tom Levangello.

[Scott Oshman]

Is that just groovy?

[Haley Brooker]

Isn't that voice like, you know, we talk about having that podcast voice.

[Scott Oshman]

Yes.

[Haley Brooker]

And I'm really picky about what I listen to. So when I started listening to your show, I'm like, I could listen to this voice all day.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Like, that's great. Yeah, I don't. I don't know. That's awesome.

[Haley Brooker]

Really obnoxious podcast voices out there. And no matter the topic, I just can't deal. Like, my tolerance level is so low. So kudos to you.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Thank you. Yeah, I think that's the. It's a sort of a do no harm at first. It's like, don't have too much intro. Don't have too much this. Don't. You know, it's hard to. To be a good podcaster. So thank you for that. That's really nice. Nice to hear.

[Haley Brooker]

How. How many ticks do you have on the wall for saying freaking fabulous? Too much.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah. Do you have little things you say all the time?

[Tom Lemon Jello]

When I first started recording it, because I'm, you know, I'm the producer. I'm. I'm doing this on my own. In the script, I really. I. I was like, oh, my God, if my old debate teacher ever, like, heard me with all the ums and all the stops and starts, I would, I would. He would just be beside himself. Like, did I teach you anything? So, yeah, no, I. I have now realized that I just have to let it go. I can't try to self edit myself. I. I just have to speak well.

[Haley Brooker]

And we're our own worst critics too.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah.

[Scott Oshman]

Oh, big time.

[Haley Brooker]

You know, I go back and listen to some of these shows and I'm just absolutely cutting myself to pieces of. Oh, why did I say that? Why didn't I say that? Why? You know, I edit you.

[Scott Oshman]

Great. I only use the good stuff.

[Haley Brooker]

Look, the only thing you need to fix editing is our faces in these screen grabs.

[Scott Oshman]

I know, but it's that, that's.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Those are hard. Those are hard. If you do screen grabs, people are talking, they're doing stuff. They're either blurred or they have weird eye. You know, I place it like a troll.

[Scott Oshman]

That's good.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

You just, you just run it through chat gbt. And don't do it twice because then you turn, you like, they start to make you into like a K pop band.

[Haley Brooker]

But yeah, you have like maybe a third eyeball there in your face.

[Scott Oshman]

Now, now, if I'm listening to this and I'm already annoyed because the Middleman podcast, what the hell is it? Because. Oh yeah, some of your intros, I use the Cure masters one there. Because some of you explain exactly what the show is in the intro, which we don't really. I mean, we, we're not good.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah, Todd, my co host like insisted on that from the beginning. We have to do the intro.

[Scott Oshman]

Hold on. The co host? You got two co hosts. You got Todd Sawicki and you got Scott Messer.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah, so Todd and I work together. Actually we all work together now as consultants. But yeah, Todd and I worked on specifically a company in the Shopify space. So I guess this is the time to explain everything. So the reason I'm doing the Middlemen podcast and why it's focused on retail media is that I was at a company called Quotient and that company was originally coupons.com and they had this insane coverage of all the retailers. They had point of sale access because they had to measure the effectiveness of the coupons. So they had the ability to really get in there, see the transactions, know the loyalty program data, all of that stuff. So the incredible amount of PII they were sitting on and the company I was working at in the mobile ad space got acquired because we're like, oh, this is really easy. We can attach all this to a digital spine and start doing off site audience extension campaigns. And we did that. We started running these, you know, from 0 to 50, $70 million businesses for Albertsons, for Ajo, Del Hayes, for Dollar General. And so I got into this awesome situation where we were building out the RMN tech stack for all these big retailers and you know, I, you know that that company was doing really great and then it fell apart because people realized how awesome retail media was and so they, they switched it out for Criteo or the trade desk or whatever and they're like, oh, they, you aren't moving fast enough. So all those people splintered out. And so for a little while I went and worked with Todd on a Shopify roll up. And so the idea was, oh, well, I did all this for these big brands. How do I get the, you know, experience working with apparel and beauty brands, you know, Shopify is like, where I do more of my purchasing than I do at some of these big box guys. So that sounds like a fun place to bring, you know, the, the first party data lens and help those advertisers improve their targeting and measurement through advertising. And so we did that for a while. Didn't work out from the venture financing perspective. And so we became consultants and I was like, you know what? We should be having these conversations about how retailers need to be more like publishers and how publishers are struggling because they don't have first party data. We should have those discussions. And so we did. And then I realized I'm like, oh, wait, Todd, I know everybody in retail media. I should have some of those people on.

[Scott Oshman]

Oh, wait, hold on.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah. And then he's like, oh, wait, I know the best rev Ops guy. You know, the guru that is at all of the Baylor Tech events. And, and that's Scott Messer. And so we started to bring him on and he has the best questions of all of us. He, you know, he's a, he's sort of a savant when it comes to understanding the publisher world. And so, yeah, it's. It. The, the topics that we talk about are we bring retailers on, we bring platform providers that service retailers to try to understand how things are moving forward. And so, you know, really the reason I, I probably went through that and continue to do the podcast is that the, the podcasts I had heard who were talking about retail media, you know, maybe say three or four years ago, were talking about it. Like, it's crazy. Like they're, they're people doing sponsored product ads. And I'm like, okay. And, you know, it was just sort of like, like, can we get to the next level of this?

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

And so that was, that was sort of the impetus of why to. Why to do it and keep going. Yeah.

[Scott Oshman]

Well, I mean, you talk about, you know, flexing a little bit. I mean, you had, you know, the guy who runs Costco, I mean, every major retailer in the country, sometimes in the world. I mean, what's your biggest, you know, where you're like, wow, this is, this is serious.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

So when we got Mark from Costco on, that was a great. That was a breakthrough moment for us because not only was he a former client of ours, so we knew him. I knew that he was awesome with memes, so we brought some of the memes in a YouTube video. So it was a ton of fun. But actually, that's how I met Kiri, because Kiri saw that episode and she did A review of it. And then she was like, best secret in the retail media world is the Middleman podcast. So that was. That was pretty awesome for us. That was great. And then now we're at a point where we go to all the events and so all the people, PR people come to me, like, saying who should be on. On the podcast. And we're pretty discerning because, you know, we're a niche podcast. If you come with a total guest from left field, doesn't make sense. So.

[Scott Oshman]

Well, you got again, I see. I like that. All the pod villagers. Right?

[Tom Lemon Jello]

You can.

[Scott Oshman]

Oh, hey, hey. That's one of six. That's one of six. How are the puppies doing, by the way?

[Haley Brooker]

Oh, my gosh. They're so freaking cute. She's got cannot deal. They are so cute. They're so good. We're working on potty training, but other than that, they can sit and come and all the great things.

[Scott Oshman]

Not to derail, but it's like puppies. So you get Mark on. Then Carrie writes an article. She kind of pubs you out. That's how I got it. But what I'm saying is all of us Potters and again, the CPG guys and PVSB and all those guys that they get the biggest of the big on, and they've been so kind to us anyway, we're all just all in this together.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

That's okay.

[Scott Oshman]

Our attitude is like, you know what? Listen to this, Listen to that. I move around. I'm a podcast listener who moves around.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah. Peter Bond was sick once and binged our stuff and came back and, you know, said, we love what you're doing and you're wonky. And I'm like, okay. And then he was like, but you didn't do a service to Kroger. They're really a big part of the history of retail media. And I was like, great, come on, tell us about it. Because I didn't work with Kroger, so that sounds great. So, yeah, it's been just sort of a love fest with all the other Potters.

[Haley Brooker]

Yeah, he's great. He's been on our show a couple times as well.

[Scott Oshman]

He's going to be a detail, and I'm going to try. I've been trying to wrangle him, him and Sri to to come on and give a little something, something. Okay.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah.

[Scott Oshman]

So you're the middleman. That's a little triggering for me because I've been a middleman my whole life wise. But then more personally, as you know, I grew up Jewish. My Wife. I married a woman who wasn't Jewish. So again, if you've seen, you know, nobody wants this on Netflix. That was my life. So I was always in the middle between my mother, the Jewish mother, and my wife. I've just been in the middle my whole life. I just.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

But are you. Are you, in Larry David's estimation, a good middle?

[Scott Oshman]

Well, I love Larry David. He's like one of my all time favorites. That's. That's questionable. That's a good debate. Maybe that's another episode.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I'm a good middle. If you put me in the middle of the Thanksgiving table, I will talk to people on both sides. Well, that's. I am.

[Scott Oshman]

Yes. Yes, I'm. I am the. Because I'm a conversationalist. I mean, I can talk to anybody. I mean, I went. Got my. I had to get my ears blasted for. For wax because I got to get a hearing aid because I play the drums and my ears are not good.

[Haley Brooker]

Wait, you have to get a hearing aid?

[Scott Oshman]

No, I don't know. I got enough.

[Haley Brooker]

That explains so much.

[Scott Oshman]

It does, but it's just like I hate that I'm at this stage of life where I have to go get a hearing aid. Maybe. I don't think so.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

But you know who has very affordable, actually very good hearing aids?

[Scott Oshman]

Who?

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Costco.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, I know I'm going to Costco. That's where the appointment is. But my point about is I'm.

[Haley Brooker]

I'm chatting up the tech.

[Scott Oshman]

I'm chatting up the tech guy who has to do this little thing. It's. I'm ridiculous. I am the progressive ad.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

To you, it may just be an elevator. Here goes nothing. But for a young homeowner becoming their parents, it's a learning opportunity.

[Scott Oshman]

Come on in.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

The more the merrier. Paris, huh? Bonjour. We got any out of towners in the elevator? Tom, it is not easy.

[Scott Oshman]

10th floor, huh? Must be a heck of a view.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Okay, see how everyone else is facing this way?

[Scott Oshman]

Progressive can't save you from becoming your

[Tom Lemon Jello]

parents, but we can save you money when you bull with us.

[Scott Oshman]

I don't like it.

[Haley Brooker]

You know what, though? Can we. That progressive ad sort of disappoints me. No. Okay, we should have this conversation because turning into your parents, if you notice in all of those commercials, they're. They're making small talk with people that are around them. And I feel like it's discouraging people from making small talk. You know, you walk through the airport now and everybody.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I. I give Todd, my co host, some Some flag sometimes. Because sometimes we. We start our episodes and he talks about the weather in the Pacific Northwest and he talks about, you know, is he targeted atmospheric river and things like that. And so I'm like, in Seattle.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Oh, do you not know that? Oh, okay. Yeah, you guys should meet up. Yeah, yeah, he's in Seattle. Yeah. And he. He, Sometimes he will talk about atmospheric rivers or, you know, like, bomb vortex. I don't even know what they are. And not to say that I'm not old. I'm just.

[Haley Brooker]

Sounds like us. Like, we talk about puppy accidents and Scott's dogs and Summer's school bus drama with her kids. Like, yeah, it's all. It's all filler.

[Scott Oshman]

But we. We joke because Summer's like, we can't talk weather or medical issues because, again, that's old people stuff. And she, you know, these guys are much older or younger than I am, so. Yes, I agree with you on that. It is funny. My kids, they kind of give me stares. My wife stares me down on those commercials. I'm just chatty, okay? I'm a chatty person.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

There's nothing wrong with that.

[Haley Brooker]

I mean, I was literally in Home Depot last night looking at paint samples for Emma's room, and I started chatting it up with the lady covered in paint next to me, also looking at paint samples, and then she ends up showing me pictures of her whole house and what she's painted. And, like, we just had this entire conversation and I made a friend.

[Scott Oshman]

There you go.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

There's nothing wrong with doing that at the Hammer Barn. I'm telling you.

[Scott Oshman]

Speaking of, I have a question about all the best. All the best retail medium. All the best. But let's.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Oh, yeah, Red vest. We had. We had. We had Ace on. We're trying to get Hybe on. That'll be a fun one.

[Haley Brooker]

Oh, yeah.

[Scott Oshman]

I grew up in Iowa, so I'm a Hy Vee. I know Hy Vee Big. That's where I. That's where we shopped. I mean, that was our thing. Okay, so let's step back. The retail media. So Haley and I, some, right, We're Amazonian people. We're. We're locked in there. And I've. I've had the. The CVS retail media person. I did a panel with her. And so I. This is. This is. I'm. I'm just scratching the surface and then learning from you guys. Can you explain outside of Amazon, which, again, just the retail media and what these guys are doing and then the on site, off site. I mean, just explain it to us, please.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah, I mean I think the easiest way is to start with Amazon and try to move out. And so, you know, the reason that retail media exists today is that I think it was 2014Amazon started to have sponsored product listings. By 2018 they actually started to tell the world on their earnings calls. And during that period of time every other retailer, especially physical first retailers were losing their minds saying how do I get this money? And the companies when I worked at Quotient, their attempt to start to play in retail media couldn't be on site yet because they didn't have enough on site traffic. So yes, Walmart and Amazon have insanely large traffic to their dot com. You know, Albertsons back in 2020, all these guys, they had all, you know, they, they didn't really have much traffic to their website. And so what they did first was they took their loyalty program audience and they did audience extension. So they went off site and the idea was to drive traffic to their site or drive traffic to their store. And I guess the way to think about this is one of the best things that I actually ever heard early on was, you know, I was working with Xavier Fakon who was the founder of Krisp. He was the guy who got acquired by Coupons.com and he said to me, he's like, he brought me back in, I wasn't at the company. I came back and he's like, okay, I've got to explain something to you right before we start this. And that's we've been doing mobile ads and everything has been about clicks. And in this world there's actually an inverse, especially for audience extension. There's an inverse relationship between people who click on these ads and the people who actually buy. Because you have this situation where it's not specifically E commerce. If you're seeing an ad for M&M's you're not going to click to buy a single packet of M&M's on Amazon or any other e commerce platform. But you are going to remember that the next time you go into the store. It's softening your brain for top of mind awareness. And so that concept was tough because how do you measure the effectiveness? Well, we were lucky enough to have this point of sale access where we could do an incremental ROAS study that says if you get a thousand buyers, which probably takes about $100,000 in impressions, you could track and say, oh, there was actually lift and we had a whole Nielsen poached team that was doing all the attributes and testing to make sure that the seasonality and other things were removed from those tests. But the idea was we're not trying to make sure that people click and close the sale in the session. We are trying to say that over the 30 day look back window there were more sales because they were peppered with these ads at some point on Good Housekeeping or some other place off site. So that was the beginning of retail media for like a physical retailer. Then as you move to sponsor products and now you're moving to in store. So you have on site, off site and in store. Those newer channels had a problem that I'm talking about a lot on the Middleman podcast, which is merchandising or the merchants already were doing things like that. They were placing products on the site in certain ways. They were curating it. They were obviously curating shelf space for time immorium. And when you do that there is a conflict. And that is, I think where we are in the retail media world now is what is the right mix or the right technology that will help you manage an overall compound margin that is going to make sure that it doesn't lower your conversion or lower your sales, but it still allows you to make ad revenue and the same thing for in the store. How are you going to make it so that there are new opportunities for advertising so that it is not just competing with your trade but it's actually doing something more and more interesting. And I think what's most interesting about seeing those companies like CVS and others who are really starting to leverage in store is that it used to be it's like, oh, I just want the highest trafficked, you know, ad on an end cap in front of the products that are being sold. In some cases, some retailers are looking at it and saying, well, that's a really high traffic spot. I don't know if it has to be the same products as what's below. And so they're thinking about it across sessions. You know, Albertson's Liz Roche told us that, you know, something that's on the deli counter menu doesn't have to be anywhere close to that part of the store because we're okay if they don't buy it till the next time they come back.

[Scott Oshman]

Okay. But really, does that help? Yeah, it does. And I say this with love in my heart and I, I and I think it's the smartest thing to do. Isn't this just a money grab? I mean, let's just be real. Amazon created this Walmart Then again with Walmart Connect and they're like, huh, interesting. They have 8 trillion points of first party data and guess what the margin is on their ad tech and their advertising. It's like 90, 95%. It's the most profitable part of the business. So I, I would say in this form, like yes. I mean I, I still don't know what department of store, Nordstrom's trying to do it, Macy's, like what are you doing? But then all of a sudden Lowe's and Home Depot and Kroger and everything are like, huh, interesting. We have eight zillion information of all this consumer data. Why don't we try to make high margin on it?

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Well, I mean like, do you blame them for that?

[Scott Oshman]

They should. In fact, I think, I think it's still undervalued by certain retailers.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I think that in the short term when you first launch the retail media network, it absolutely is a money grab because you have this situation where it's an incremental ask question ends up being does it ever merge? And I think some of the smarter retailers are starting to merge those teams and the brands too are merging the teams and having those conversations together. Because to be fair, the merchandising in the store, if it's a piece of paper and it turns into a digital sign that is offering the same value. And so you know, at some point you need to rationalize those. But I think the bigger thing is what I am seeing in 2026 is that every part of retail media is turning to incrementality measurement. I don't know if that lasts forever, but that is what everybody is doing to up the stakes. And it was that, you know, it's so sad but like when we first started doing this, mobile web was the workhorse for measurement for the entire retail media stack. It was the only thing that could do incremental measurement. And now you have a situation where Walmart comes out and says we're doing incrementality measurement on search. And then Albertsons comes out and says we're doing incrementality measurement in the store and they're at various stages of the actual sophistication there. But that seems to be the goal is incrementality all across. But if you're, you know, somebody who's a brand, you're like, that's great. How do I reach new customers? I, you know, exactly.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

So yeah, there's definitely tension.

[Scott Oshman]

Okay, we're going to take a very quick break and we haven't even gotten into the Juicy nugget part. I mean, actually, I learned. See, that makes sense to me. You know, and then I heard the red vest people, the woman who's running Ace, and she talked.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Scott Oshman]

Which was fascinating to me because she's talking about endemic versus, you know, advertiser who. Who aren't vendors, who aren't sold in the ACE stores.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

The new hotness.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, that. That to me is another interesting part. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be back with more Tom Lemon Jello Middleman podcast. How you doing? Hey, this is Jason Nias, general manager at Shopworthy, and you are listening to Always off brand. Okay, so let's thank you for explaining what retail media is because again, that was helpful to me. Now, since you're in the middle of all of this, Pun intended. What? I'll take the easy ones. Don't, don't. Just. I'll always take the easy ones. Anyway, these huge national retailers who rightly so have, have launched and come up with their big retail media networks. How's it. How's it going? Because you're right. I've heard you and Todd talk about this. You and Scott talk about this. I sit here coming, and I'm too far in the bubble. I'm like, yeah, this hysterical retail media. And this is like two years ago. It's Amazon and Walmart. What are we doing? There's like 300 million things, but it's fractured. So talk about how we're doing outside of Amazon and Walmart.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Well, I mean, you have this challenge where the pie is getting bigger, but I think Sarah Marzano from E Marketer has show the percentage went from like 85 to 90% for Walmart and Amazon. So it's a challenging market. I think that what you see, the Krogers of the world, Albertsons, ajo dohe, those guys are big enough where they are doing some interesting things to change the nature of retail media. I think when we had Brian Monahan on from Albertsons, he explained how they are, you know, investing on in store. They're investing on the idea of getting agencies to plan out retail media rather than just allocating it based on the merchant relationship that, you know, the brand and the retailer have. And so I think that those efforts are really sort of laying the groundwork for this to be bigger for, say, the middle of the pack of retailers, the physical first guys. But yeah, it's a, it's a challenge because there's, you know, the table stakes. To get into retail media requires, you know, a lot of ad tech. And it's not, you know, and that's the reason at the Middlemen that we talk about this as the retailers becoming a publisher. See, we are watching what's happening in the publishing space and you know, the clean room era, the era you mentioned to me, you know, that this is, you know, we were talking about on the Middlemen podcast, that this is an era of orchestration. Right.

[Scott Oshman]

Yes. And that you wrote a great again, middleman podcast, but also subscribe to the newsletter because it's phenomenal.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Thank you. Yeah, we got to write more of those. And I think that what Orchestration is basically saying is that it's such a complicated space that to be able to manage the merchant goals, the advertiser or the paid team's goals, you need. You can't just have one tech provider that offers like ad serving and ad decisioning. You need another one that's enabling your search in ways that you can plug in mediators and orchestrators so that your team can have a unified dashboard to manage all this stuff. And so that world has gotten so complicated. But it's, you know, the retailers are sort of, you know, as a later mover than the publishers and with the benefit of having first party data in a sort of like safe environment where they don't have a problem of losing their, their permission with the consumer because they have a commerce relationship. That whole world, like, they are benefiting a lot from all the work that's happening on the publisher side.

[Scott Oshman]

Got it. I mean, just you just saying that sentence like, I'm overwhelmed right now. I mean, I'm like, I'm stressed out.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I mean, it's a lot. Yeah, we have, we have an episode coming out next week with Penta Leap where they're talking about how to manage that world. And you know, one of the things that we asked them was kind of like, why isn't Algolia and you know, like search providers, why aren't they just running this whole ad business? It's too complicated. There's just too many things that there's too many masters to serve.

[Scott Oshman]

That. Yeah. So we have a saying here. Silos equal sadness. And this is, this is again, I think one of the biggest challenges for retailers because even coming out of the E Commerce. Right. Brick Physical first. I like that saying. Right. I mean, I was calling on REI when REI.com started going, but the merchants who bought the stuff for the stores had no connection with the dot com people and the merchants who bought for Dot and, and just melding those Nordstrom's you know, was the same way until years ago. They put them all together. Walmart's doing the same thing. So anyway, so this to me sounds like a silo situation. What you just described to me is like and then this is also I think an agencies in our. Even Amazon or Omni Channel, basically full media agencies like Quickfire. We do paid search, paid social, Amazon, all that. The brands depending on the sites. They're frustrated because they got seven, they got seven people they're managing. So it's like what's your job? Well, I'm the director of, I don't know what E commerce or whatever. How many agencies? Well, my job, 80% of my job is to manage seven agencies.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

That sounds like a lot.

[Scott Oshman]

You know what I'm saying? I mean that's an exaggeration. But this is.

[Haley Brooker]

No, I think it's realistic. I do think there's like at least four or even five agencies in some scenarios depending on the size of the brand that all have their fingers in the pot.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I, I think one way to think about it is that and this happens in our consulting business too. So I work as nextapedia helping either retailers or publishers figure out how to re platform and choose the right vendors but not connect and stitch them together in ways that's going to be sustainable. And I think that what we see as a trend is that the best of breed ad serving, Best of Breed order management, best of breed people in the measurement world are moving into retail media positions of power. And that to me, whether or not retail media becomes all media, I mean I think that's pretty grandiose. The main, the main concept of the smart people are moving into these positions is throwing off some really good innovation at least from what I've seen in 25 and early 26.

[Scott Oshman]

Okay, well let's talk about the agentic. Let's talk about the old as we call it the chit Chatty and Jimmy and all the, all the fun kids coming out. Claudia. Claude. Claude had a big splash at the Super Bowl. I love that. So where are we with that? How is this.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Was that, was that Dana Carvey doing Tom Brokaw? That might have been my favorite thing I've heard all day.

[Scott Oshman]

It's just such a.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

It's early yet the names are died today. Is that what you do? The senseless age of 84.

[Scott Oshman]

That's right, that's right. You heard it here. It's more Gilligan's island which will age me. It's more like Come on. Love a. Oh, very Good.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Okay.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, it's more thirsting. Thurston, how the.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah, the YouTube watchers can see that. Yeah, it'd be tougher on audio to get up, but the. With the teeth when you do it like that.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, I pushed the top. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Appreciate that. So what, what's happening with this? Is everybody just freaking out? Are they paranoid like, oh my God, the end is coming. We've built all this money, we spent this money. And now Claude, I'm of the opinion

[Tom Lemon Jello]

that nobody has made a, a sort of, you know, new currency to handle this higher, you know, this larger context. Right. So the whole Amazon sponsored search mania that started the retail media craze is all based on keywords. And so now you have this situation where Rufus and Sparky, which are fun but more, more likely, you know, ChatGPT and Claude and Gemini are getting people to search either through their voice or through long paragraphs of text and nobody has actually like talked about how is that going to work to insert advertising capabilities. Now you watched at the superball, Claude dunking on that and you know, showing that as a betrayal and, and they did a really great job of making fun of the idea that you're going to follow up on somebody's, you know, sort of, you know, secret intent to have a better relationship with their mother and, you know, offer them, you know, to build out their profile for, for, for cougars or whatever or, or my favorite was the, you know, get, get you lifts if you're a short king. Like all those types of things are, you know, fair, you know, like, you know, the teeth whiteners of the, of the, you know, the Taboola age are going to be, they're going to exist. And so that's, that's, that's not a great outcome. However, I think what's more interesting in the retail media world is, is there an opportunity, if this is the new surface, for the retailer to have an advantage over the brand. And so we were talking about that before, right? The brands right now don't have the advantage because the data is sitting on the retailer side. Yeah, the retailer knows not only the brand purchases, they know the category, they know the basket. And so actually we might turn this into an age of retail media that's even better where it's not, you know, Home Depot, you know, trying to squeeze somebody for a certain amount of money for, you know, keywords that have sort of middling roas. This could be, you know, Walmart working with Chachi BTS ACP protocol. And they are actually Almost like recreating the JBP process via two agents. And so like that all the joint

[Scott Oshman]

business see a lot of acronyms.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah.

[Scott Oshman]

So jbp, we kind of break down the acronyms here.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah. So the joint business plan is really sort of the artifact or the relic of merchandising relationships. So yes, that, and, and I'm calling it a relic, but it, it still exists and it still has more importance than retail media. And the reason for it is that that's how you get the products on the shelf or how you get the products on the digital shelf. And so that relationship is sacred and important. And the problem with retail media has been do you keep all of retail media in the JBP process or do you, you know, give it to agencies and allow it to be separate from the merchandising process? And so that's still a fight that hasn't been settled. But I'm saying that in the agentic world you might have an ability to have a stronger relationship between a retailer and a platform that actually gives brands an opportunity to run highly performant retail media. I don't know if that's going to happen, but that's, that's what I see as like, okay, if you've got a retailer with great data and a really smart platform like Google or ChatGPT, what can you do there? It could be very good. Obviously it could be very bad the way Claude wanted to, you know, position it on the Super Bowl. But what could be, you know, I'm usually on the middleman. We're usually trying to be like, what is the, the better future that we can get to.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, well this has been on the LinkedIn on Linky, a lot of chatter about this and I, My money's on the advertising. Because if you step back, advertising has been around the world for, for literally thousands of years. Like my money is going to be on the ads winning. Yeah. Because especially in the United States of America, we are consumer driven. We are, it's a high percentage of gdp, like advertising and marketing. We are, we are a marketing first society.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Well, we didn't, we didn't subscribe to the Claude system to get that super bowl ad. It was an ad.

[Scott Oshman]

Exactly. The irony there is deep actually. That's, that's good right there. That's good. I gotta get a bell there. That could be a, that could be a Damn.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Damn.

[Scott Oshman]

This could be a hallelujah. Because that's, that's everything right now.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I do think there is an agentic problem or just not even Agentic, just an LLM problem, which is, I don't know if you've had this, but if we're saying that this is going to create more commerce, there's also a Netflix problem that we're not talking about and I can explain that, which is, you ever try to watch Netflix and just can't find anything to watch? Scrolling through their recommendations with ChatGPT, you know, like, I, if I'm trying to buy like ski gear, it's expensive, I don't get to hold it. You know, there's all these tech specs. I don't know what it's going to look like in real life if the color is the same. All these problems. I can just keep asking Chat GPT, should I buy this? Should I buy this brand? And it's just this loop and it's just entertainment and I end up not buying anything.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, yeah, true that. I, I, oh man, I don't know. Nobody really knows the answer, but if you're gonna keep, you know, chat's great. It's just a different way. I've said this, we've talked about this. We had the guys on from Sparkworks with the Dome, which I believe is going to be on every retailer and everybody. It's basically an answer engine on your website. So if I go to Lowe's, if I go to Home Dep, I go, whatever. It, it acts and performs like, like a, like an LLM interaction.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Oh, is this kind of like a, for your whole os? Like, it's not Milo or Rufus or Sparky. It's like, no, not on the site.

[Scott Oshman]

It's like I go to middlemanpodcast.com and if I have a search bar, I have a question bar there or whatever. And it's just, it acts and then it pulls all of your data, all your, you, like, you never leave because it pulls everything into you, so it never clicks you out. So this is, I, I just don't see how this isn't the way it all goes at some point.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yes, but, but who's going to websites? That's my problem.

[Scott Oshman]

Well, you still have to.

[Haley Brooker]

I mean, that's a fair point. But I do think people still visit websites.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

They do. I end up, I end up on websites. I don't try to navigate to them.

[Haley Brooker]

But I mean, think about how bottom of the funnel you are by the time you're at that website.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Oh, yeah, that, that is totally fair. And I think that's, that's the big thing is like, is retail media just bottom of the funnel or can it be more brand building? And I think that's, that's the challenge that everybody's trying to solve is like, they know, like if you just keep trying to do sponsored search on Amazon, that's all you do, that one trick pony that doesn't work.

[Scott Oshman]

All right, plug all your places. Tell us where we can find you. Middleman podcast. It's available everywhere. Plug it all. Because we got a game show to play.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Absolutely. So the Middleman podcast, you can find us on YouTube, Spotify and Apple podcasts. One day Apple will get the idea that we're a video podcast. We're not there yet, but honestly, the best way to find us and keep up with us is to follow the Middlemen podcast page on LinkedIn. That is where all of it happens. And, you know, follow me too, because I love talking to people.

[Scott Oshman]

No, it's great. And you're smart as hell. I mean, all the stuff. I learned so much from you. Thanks for coming on.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Thank you. You guys are a lot of fun.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, we're having. We're going to have more fun right after this. It's the game show Hailey sweeping the world. The globe. What's that keyword? I'm Russ Derringer, CEO and founder of Strably. You're listening to Always Off Brand. Finally a game show nerdier than an Excel Vlookup. It's time for what's that keyword? Here's your host, Hailey Amlonist.

[Haley Brooker]

Tom stuck around to play what's that keyword? Does he know what he's in for? I don't know. But you're new here, so let me lay down the rules. I'm going to give you a product that is sold on Amazon.com you have to guess the keyword or keyword phrase. Retail media expert. What did the customer type in to buy this product? Looking for a keyword, keyword phrase. All right, your first product is a wooden multi sided dice with food. So it's a wooden multi sided die or dice. Whatever you want to call it.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Food, meat there.

[Haley Brooker]

Well, it has food options. So like burgers, pizza, steak.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Oh, I see.

[Haley Brooker]

Pasta. So when you roll this die, a food of choice comes or a food of chance comes up.

[Scott Oshman]

All right, you want to lead.

[Haley Brooker]

It sounds kind of complicated, but the words.

[Scott Oshman]

You want me to leave this off?

[Tom Lemon Jello]

So Barbie roulette. No, wait a minute.

[Haley Brooker]

I'm gonna ask about Barbie in a minute. Scott. No, that's wrong. Tom, what do you got, Scott?

[Scott Oshman]

Hunger Games.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Oh, I like that. That's good.

[Haley Brooker]

Oh, my Gosh, that's probably the best keyword guess that you've had. I wish summer was here.

[Scott Oshman]

Six years in six years.

[Haley Brooker]

It's wrong, but it's actually relevant, so. I'm so proud of you today. No, I was actually looking for Valentine gag gift.

[Scott Oshman]

What about. No, but.

[Haley Brooker]

What a longer tail.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah. I don't know. Like, something with Stanley Tucci. No, go ahead.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, that would be good.

[Haley Brooker]

I saw him on the Olympics last night with Snoop Dogg. Have y' all seen that?

[Scott Oshman]

Loved it.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I haven't, but I have seen him being mercilessly made fun of on Instagram with people wearing, like, stockings on their head and stuff.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah.

[Haley Brooker]

Oh, my God. He kind of looks like Where's Waldo

[Scott Oshman]

Tucci. Don't take shots at my boy.

[Haley Brooker]

I love him, too. Okay, that was just a practice round. Okay, Tom, here we go. This is going to be your second chance here. And last chance.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Feel like I'm gonna lose here the next product.

[Haley Brooker]

I'm gonna make this one a lot simpler for the guys here today. It's a Hacky Sack. Oh, we're going to talk about a squishy knitted crocheted ball. It's a pair of balls, and they're colorful.

[Scott Oshman]

Okay, go ahead. Do you have one off top of your head?

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Matthew McConaughey's truck nuts.

[Scott Oshman]

But you know what, Tom? You are getting the hang of this show quickly.

[Haley Brooker]

That's a great answer, but it's wrong. Scott, what you got?

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Oh, damn it.

[Scott Oshman]

Ball games.

[Haley Brooker]

Oh, I was looking for foot sack.

[Scott Oshman]

Foot sack. I should have had.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

That keyword stinks.

[Scott Oshman]

The sack. You should have went with the sack. Damn it.

[Haley Brooker]

I mean, I had to mix it up a little bit today. Summer's not here. We can, you know. All right, that was amazing.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Baby loves.

[Scott Oshman]

Exactly.

[Haley Brooker]

I mean, tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so.

[Scott Oshman]

Yes.

[Haley Brooker]

All right, guys.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Nothing says I love you. No, I'm sorry.

[Haley Brooker]

Like a pair of colorful squishy balls. All right, everybody. That was great. We'll be right back with the news. Hi, my name is Daniela Bolsman. I'm the founder of mindfulgoods Co. And you are listening to Always Off Brand.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Well, that's all been fun and games, but it's that time. The time America has been waiting for. It's time for the news.

[Haley Brooker]

All right, so our fabulous guest, Tom Lemon. Jello stuck around.

[Scott Oshman]

Hey.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Because got nothing to do on a Friday.

[Haley Brooker]

You know, I wish that. I'm so busy today, Tom, but that's okay. I love it.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I cleared my calendar because I'm going To the Pook News.

[Scott Oshman]

Oh, you're going to the Pocono.

[Haley Brooker]

I don't, I don't even know what to say to that.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, well, you guys got all the snow.

[Haley Brooker]

What's President's Day weekend, too? Isn't it like the last kind of good ski weekend for those snow?

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah, and we actually have snow, which, you know, they, they had no idea. So they gave us really cheap lift tickets.

[Haley Brooker]

It's like, oh, I'm so jealous. All right, well, you have fun. Summer's in somewhere south and southern and sunny. So I'll just here in North Carolina talking about how Anthropic just raised another $30 billion. So, okay, they spent, we were just talking a little bit offline about this before we came back on the air. They spent a little around 40 million. That's million with an M for those listeners who can't tell with my Southern accent on the super bowl ad. Okay, that was a lot. They've got to get this revenue in somehow. So, okay, they've raised another $30 billion. But I think what, what the biggest point in, in this for me is how, how is this giving Amazon a leg up in this constant battle between Amazon and Walmart and the AI and the LLMs and how we know that Amazon and Anthropic are in bed together? You know, AWS powers, all of Anthropic's back ends. I mean, they are like the foundation for it. It's really boosting these shopping agents and the product discoveries and predictive inventory demand systems for, for all of these retailers that we just talked about and for everybody else, what. Okay, I, I want to hear what you guys think. Why, first of all, do you feel like they needed to raise the $30 billion? That's a lot of money. Why did they raise that money? And how do you think it's going to benefit Amazon in the long run? That's kind of a big, broad question, but I just want to open the table up here for some discussions.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I mean, I personally think that there's, you know, Amazon has sort of gotten a pass here where, you know, ChatGPT had to talk all about, it's like Microsoft relationship and people are, you know, now that Claude skewered ChatGPT with their ads, you know, like, what's interesting to me is that there's nobody calling out that. Oh, maybe it's the fact that, you know, Claude can say it's not doing ads because it's going to give Amazon that opportunity.

[Haley Brooker]

Exactly.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

You know, enable, you know, Amazon's Rufus to be super smart or something.

[Haley Brooker]

And so we just talked about that first party data and how important it is. And when you're at Summer's party, we talk about Summer's party here on the aob. That's all the first party data. And everyone comes to Summer's house for the party. You know, we might be selling hats, we might be selling lip balm, you never know.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

But that's where the commerce happens, right?

[Haley Brooker]

So that's where it happens.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

It's like an old school mcdlt. They're keeping the hot side hot, the cool side cool. You know, you got Claude is where the higher funnel discovery is happening, but they're funneling it to Amazon. So.

[Haley Brooker]

Yeah, and Amazon just invested $4 billion into Claude's internal and seller AI facing tools or seller facing AI tools. Let me get that right, because on the back end of Amazon we have some AI tools too, like within the ad console, within seller support, which don't get me started on the seller support AI bullshit. But there are a lot of integrations happening, seller side and consumer facing AI. So I just think that this is a huge advantage for Amazon because Walmart has their own, you know, they're trying with Sparky and they're in bed with. Who's Walmart in bed with? Thank you. Why am I drawing a blank chat?

[Scott Oshman]

Everybody. I mean they've opened up the barn doors. They're, they're like, come on, come on, come one, come all. Yeah, they don't care.

[Haley Brooker]

I just think that that's the competitive edge now where everyone's just going to start competing with these AI features and functions and benefits.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

And I mean, we're going to talk about this on the middlemen soon. And when the guests come on, I think I'll be smarter about this. But my biggest thing is how important are the new protocols, like you know, ad CP for what ChatGPT is using or UCP with Google. Are those protocols going to make it so that it doesn't really matter where you are? And I think if you think of it in that way, you can imagine where, you know, Sam Altman having that bad reaction to the ads is sort of showing the vulnerability that like he has this one, you know, immaculate surface of ChatGPT and if that gets ruined, it's all over. But the real, you know, shooting matches is kind of through these platforms where the, the, the protocols are allowing the, you know, it's like the movie Her. Like it can be anywhere, it doesn't have to be on a specific surface.

[Haley Brooker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Scott Oshman]

I mean, it's the billions. Sorry, the billions. I'm like delirious. I've lost track of how many billions.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah, that part of it. Have no expertise in how, how they get to that. That number.

[Haley Brooker]

A lot of bones. Let's just leave it at that.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah. I mean, you got Bernie Sanders saying, we got to stop making data centers and stuff. So it's definitely. It's top of mind for everyone.

[Haley Brooker]

Well, it's sort of ruining the environment if they don't figure it out soon. That's kind of a big deal.

[Scott Oshman]

Yeah, they've got. So they're sitting there like, Hey, 200 billion investment. They said on the last. In the Q4 earnings call. And you can listen to my recap here on Always Off Brand about Andrew and Brian. But my point here is, and. And Scott Wingo said this, and Everybody's like, yeah, 200 billion seems like a lot, but the return, their demand, they can't even. They can't even service the business. They don't. They can't even come close. So, yeah, 200 billion for a trillion return, sure. Put me down for that. So that's why these guys in the data centers and all this other crazy stuff. The billions are crazy. Tom, I'm with you and I mean, Haley, we've always talked like, where's the consumer gonna be? I predicted with Danny Silverman on the prediction show, and I was joking, but not joking. In the week of, the third week of September of 26, Amazon, if the traffic gets high enough, they're gonna have to buckle. They're gonna have to let somebody in if the traffic gets high enough. Otherwise, walled garden. They own everything. We didn't even talk about the publishing aspect of what they've done. Last year, when they opened up Netflix, when they opened up right there as a publisher, Tom, this is your world. They. They have so much inventory, they don't know what to do with it. They can't sell it fast enough. I mean.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Right.

[Scott Oshman]

Am I wrong?

[Tom Lemon Jello]

I think that the idea that they have to buckle is. Is where their other. And I think Haley started talking about this, their other initiatives where they're trying to power other retailers or they're powering other publishers and they're looking at anonymous users and all that kind of stuff. That is all in service of the idea that they also don't really give a shit about whether or not you're on Amazon or somewhere else. And so they're already playing that game. And that's where the puck is going. So, yeah, I agree. I Don't know if I have all the answers, but yeah, I read a

[Haley Brooker]

quote on somewhere on LinkedIn earlier in the week and it said that in the race Walmart built the house, but Amazon just bought the power grid. And I thought, well what, that's such a good analogy because.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah, I mean I think in the house in this case is they're, they're talk, they're, they're talking in user interfaces. Yeah, that's not, you know, and, and to your point, Scott, on like, you know, the money and the size of this, what you're looking at, if you look at the earnings calls of all the, the hyperscaler tech companies, the Googles metas and stuff, they are spending on their own AI crunching or inference compute to such an extent that they're actually okay with taking Wall street hits because they're, you know, and so, you know, does anthropic need to raise more money? Yeah, because if they're not feeding the beast there, it's, you know, I mean

[Haley Brooker]

it's $30 billion, not enough for them this year.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah, I don't even know if it's enough.

[Haley Brooker]

You know, like that's insane. Well, and you know something else, we

[Tom Lemon Jello]

did have that deep seek thing happen a little while ago with, you know, with the, the open source models and this can be a lot cheaper. So I feel like I don't know if the money, like that's why I don't have the answers in terms of should it be this amount of money. But it's definitely like there's this greenfield race to be the best in this, this area and it takes a lot of, you know, this is kind of like a replay of the crypto mining.

[Scott Oshman]

It is. And it's a replay of when the Internet started. It's a replay of so many things and there's going to be winners and losers. But I, I don't know. It's about the consumer and how the consumer shops. Right now Rufus is just a, is a, is a. It just gets in my way today.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

It's kind of garbage right now. And that's why I love

[Scott Oshman]

Billions.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

Yeah. We have 10 billion in sales from Rufus user. What the hell is a Rufus user?

[Haley Brooker]

Well, here's the thing now. I mentioned it last week on the potty we. Wow, that sounded weird.

[Scott Oshman]

The potty.

[Tom Lemon Jello]

We were on the pod.

[Haley Brooker]

I was on the pod last week. I was not recording from the bathroom. I just totally derailed myself. No, I was talking about sponsored prompts. Sponsored prompts within the Amazon ad console is where I was going with that. You know, they just released it in December. And now advertisers can influence the questions, they can influence the results. So that's just going to evolve and grow bigger and bigger because it's all about the money. You know, we've talked about that several times and. And it's all about the data and who has the most data. But we all know that, so. All right, well, that was fun conversation. We are up at time. I wish we could talk all day because I could go on and on. Scott could too. Tom, this is fabulous. Thank you so much for coming. And we'll be right back with Summer's absolute favorite part, folks. It's the Wrap Up.

[Scott Oshman]

I'm Eric Sheinkup, CEO of the Desire company and you're listening to Always Off Brand. Okay, I'm doing the Wrap Up. Haley, we were just chit chatting away. Tom Lemon. Jello. What a guy. He's so smart. Middleman podcast. Check it out if you haven't. And he's just adding to the list of people. Why? Because people matter. And you've been listening to Always Off Brand. Please, like share all that kind of stuff. Yeah, Haley left me. Summer's on vacation. Just me just sitting here, you know, Manhood Studios, doing my thing. Anyway, check it out. YouTube. We got a great set. We've had the earnings. The Q4 earnings is out. We had Sparkworks, the dome become a domer. Go figure out what that is. Chris Perry. We we're hitting all the highlights, but have a great one. We'll see you next time.

[Haley Brooker]

Hey there. This is Hayley from Quickfire and they want me to read this so you know what this podcast is part of and how to find out more if you want. Always Off Brand is a production of Quickfire LLC and a part of the Learn and Laugh series on the Quickfire Podcast Network. For more information, go to quickfirenow.com have a good one and thanks for listening. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot. And turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. Instacart makes grocery shopping easier. And just because you're not doing the shopping yourself doesn't mean you don't care how it's done With Instacart. Shopper notes. You can get particular about what you want right in the app, like rotisserie chicken that's extra crispy steak with marbling the Romans would have loved, and lettuce you'd actually pick yourself. Just leave a note for your shopper so they can get it right for you without having to ask. That way you can get groceries just how you like. Download the Instacart app and shop today.