Meta, Nestlé, and Circana Insights on Driving Innovation While Evolving with Commerce

Summary

BRAVE COMMERCE: Meta, Nestlé, and Circana Insights on Driving Innovation While Evolving with Commerce

In the February 4, 2025, episode of Brave Commerce hosted by Rachel Tippograph of MikMak and Sarah Hofstetter of Profitero, industry leaders Veral Shah (Nestlé North America), Katie Hamill (Meta), and Sam Baglidari (Circana) delve into the evolving landscape of eCommerce. The discussion centers on leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), understanding shifting consumer behaviors, and navigating the blurring lines between traditional and digital commerce channels.

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1. Setting the Stage: The Changing Face of America and Its Impact on Commerce

Rachel Tippograph opens the episode by highlighting significant demographic and societal shifts:

“We just had Tia here, which...my generation is the least religious generation that's ever existed in the US...We replaced religion with brands...Gen Z, they're the most sexually fluid...Gen Alpha, they're the most racially diverse.”
[03:11] Rachel Tippograph

These changes, Rachel posits, are intrinsically linked to the future of commerce, emphasizing the necessity for brands to engage with consumers in increasingly personalized and meaningful ways.

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2. Meta's Perspective: Leveraging Video and AI to Engage Gen Z

Katie Hamill from Meta discusses the explosive growth of short-form video content and its impact on consumer behavior:

“Almost 80% of Gen Z people report that they have actually bought a product because of a reel that they saw on Meta.”
[05:12] Katie Hamill

She elaborates on Meta's investment in generative AI to aid marketers in creating scalable, personalized content:

“We are investing a lot in gen AI tools that will be designed specifically to help marketers ideate on creative produce more creative at scale creative that is personalized and can actually drive ROI of their advertising.”
[07:12] Katie Hamill

This focus aims to reduce the traditional barriers of cost and resource intensity associated with high-quality video production, making it more accessible for brands to engage effectively with their audience.

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3. Nestlé's Innovative Use of AI in R&D and Supply Chain Management

Veral Shah from Nestlé outlines the company's three-phase approach to integrating AI into its operations:

1. Research & Development: Utilizing generative AI to accelerate product innovation and consumer insight generation.

   “We now have a process where we actually use a chatbot... allowing us to iterate fast... what are working from an R and D standpoint.”
   [08:52] Veral Shah

2. Supply Chain Reengineering: Adapting traditional logistics to meet modern consumer shopping behaviors, including a significant shift towards online sales.

   “20% of every case that we sell at Nestlé is sold online... we're on our way to 25 to 30%.”
   [08:52] Veral Shah

3. Personalization and Digital Transformation: Creating tailored consumer experiences through AI-driven personalization strategies.

   “Don't think of generative AI as a solution. It's an enabler... everything stems from that capability that we've got to get.”
   [27:43] Veral Shah

Veral emphasizes the integration of a "digital twin" of ChatGPT, customized with Nestlé-specific data to enhance decision-making and operational efficiency.

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4. Circana's Focus on Execution and Real-Time Data Integration

Sam Baglidari from Circana underscores the importance of robust data infrastructure to support AI and machine learning initiatives:

“Execution needs to be greater than information. You have to have the plumbing built before machine learning... that's exactly what we're doing right now.”
[01:26] Sam Baglidari

Circana is expanding its data assets to include digital shelf information, logistical data, and retail media insights, aiming to provide real-time data that empowers brands to make informed, agile decisions.

“Real-time data is essential... to exploit the machine learning, the AI and everything else.”
[28:44] Sam Baglidari

This approach ensures that AI tools can effectively utilize data to reflect genuine consumer behaviors and market dynamics.

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5. Navigating Media Investments and Attribution in a Cookie-less Future

The panel discusses the challenges posed by diminishing deterministic attribution models due to changes like Apple’s privacy updates and the phasing out of cookies:

Rachel prompts:

“How are you organizing yourselves around the future of attribution when there are all these industry headwinds right now?”
[22:18] Rachel Tippograph

Veral responds by acknowledging the industry's struggle with data reliability and the need for improved marketing mix models:

“We're still working through some of that. A lot of it is trust... we have to be able to unlock that.”
[11:56] Veral Shah

Katie adds Meta's strategic focus on leveraging first-party data and enhancing AI-driven creative capabilities to maintain effective attribution and ROI measurement:

“We're thinking a lot about what are the products that advertisers need... how do we help all of our advertisers reach consumers in the way that these kind of emerging business models demand.”
[19:47] Katie Hamill

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6. Embracing Omnichannel Commerce and Personalization

Veral from Nestlé emphasizes a tailored approach to omnichannel commerce, recognizing that different product categories require unique strategies:

“Every brand is going to be a different personalization... it's all about personalization.”
[17:22] Veral Shah

He illustrates this with examples of how various Nestlé products perform online based on their nature and consumer preferences, highlighting the importance of meeting consumers where they are.

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7. The Role of Market Share and Consumer-Centric Metrics

The conversation shifts to the significance of market share as a key performance indicator (KPI) in the modern retail landscape:

“Share has become really important for us internally.”
[26:19] Ryan Reynolds

Sam discusses how Circana integrates market share data with consumer behavior insights to help brands understand and capitalize on their positions within specific shopping occasions and use cases.

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8. Future Capabilities: AI Advancements and Real-Time Data Needs

Looking ahead, the panel identifies crucial capabilities required for continued success:

• Generative AI: Nestlé aims to harness generative AI not just as a tool but as an enabler for solving complex business problems.

  “Tell me your business problem and then let me help you figure out if Gen AI is actually the solution.”
  [27:43] Veral Shah

• Real-Time Data Integration: Circana focuses on obtaining real-time data to facilitate dynamic decision-making and enhance AI effectiveness.

  “Real-time data is essential for us to make better decisions.”
  [28:44] Sam Baglidari

• Business Messaging and Creative AI: Meta plans to expand its AI applications to include business messaging, aiming to improve customer communication and support.

  “Business messaging remains pretty untapped... we're leveraging AI to better communicate with customers.”
  [29:20] Katie Hamill

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9. Audience Q&A Highlights

The episode concludes with audience questions, where panelists stress the importance of integrated media strategies and the nuanced application of retail media alongside traditional channels.

Veral advises against viewing retail media as merely shopper marketing, advocating instead for its role as a national advertising platform that complements broader media investments.

“Retail media is nothing more than a national advertising platform.”
[30:27] Sam Baglidari

Ryan adds that the ROI from retail media often stems from its synergistic relationship with retail partners, enhancing overall marketing efficacy.

“It's another negotiating tool for us with the retailers, which then doubles your ROI.”
[31:51] Ryan Reynolds

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10. Concluding Thoughts: Embracing Bravery in Commerce

In a lighthearted finale, panelists share personal anecdotes about bravery, symbolizing the bold innovations and strategic shifts necessary to thrive in the evolving commerce landscape.

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Conclusion

This episode of Brave Commerce provides a comprehensive exploration of how leading companies like Meta, Nestlé, and Circana are navigating the complexities of modern eCommerce. By leveraging AI, embracing personalization, and rethinking media strategies, these industry pioneers illustrate the dynamic approaches required to engage today’s diverse and digitally-savvy consumers. The discussions underscore the importance of data-driven decision-making, real-time insights, and collaborative media investments in driving sustained growth and innovation in the ever-evolving world of commerce.

Transcript

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Sam Baglidari]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Katie Hamill]

Almost 80% of Gen Z people report that they have actually bought a product because of a reel that they saw on Meta.

[Ryan Reynolds]

20% of every case that we sell at Nestle is sold online. We were at three and a half percent five years ago, which I think is just crazy. And we're on our way to 25 to 30%.

[Sam Baglidari]

What we're driving to right now at Circana is that execution needs to be greater than information. You have to have the plumbing built before machine learning, AI, anything else can actually utilize data to understand what's happening on and that's exactly what we're doing right now.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Welcome to today's episode of Brave Commerce. I'm Rachel Tippograph, the founder and CEO of Micmac. I'm Sarah Hofstadter, president of Profitero, and this is a show that talks about what's relevant in E commerce for the world's biggest brands. We absolutely live in an ever changing world that goes well beyond commerce. Let's just look at the macro events over the last four years and we want to take a moment to examine where we are and where we think we're heading as an overall society and how it shapes commerce. And who better to do this from than a diverse set of operators on the ground? So you're going to hear from Veral Shah, who is the Chief Digital and E Commerce Officer at Nestle North America. You're going to hear From Katie Hamill, who is the head of industry for retail and E Commerce at Meta. And you're going to hear from Sam Baglidari, who is the EVP of E Commerce at Circana, and I moderate this panel. This is I, Rachel Tippograph, during our Brave Commerce Live that we hosted in New York City in May. So without further ado, let's bring these operators onto the show to hear them talk about where they think the industry is heading. If I can call up onto stage Katie from Meta and Sam from Verl from Nestle.

[Katie Hamill]

Hello.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Welcome. I'm going to set the stage since this conference is brought to you by Micmac and Profitero. And we're really here to talk about the future of commerce. And something that I constantly think about is how the face of America is drastically changing. We just had Tia here, which, you know, I'm a millennial. Then if I grew up watching her. And my generation is the least religious generation that's ever existed in the US which is why we were obsessed with brands like Supreme. Right? We replaced religion with brands. If I look at Gen Z, they're the most sexually fluid. Only one third of them today identifies as heterosexual. And then if we look at Gen Alpha, which maybe some of your kids are in Gen Alpha, they're the most racially diverse. So when I think about the future of commerce, it's directly tied to the changing face of America. I just wanted to set that stage because I think we spend so much time talking about technology and retailers. But at the end of the day, what we're all trying to do is engage with consumers, make them aware of the products that exist in the world and move them down the funnel and hope that they choose us again and again and again. Which is why Sarah and I have been talking so much about the next generation of commerce, which we both dub the Commerce Intelligence era. Now, you all have unique vantage points in the ecosystem. We have Meta, the biggest platform in the world where people are spending all of their time. We have Nestle, the biggest CPG brand in the world. Vero makes sure that we know it every single day. And then we have Circana that really sits on top of 75% of the club loyalty data. And so you have a great perspective of how consumers are shopping across category, across retailers. So if we buy into my thesis that it all sort of starts with the consumer, I would love to understand what Meta is seeing right now. That's really indicating what you believe are going to be the next five years of shopping behavior.

[Katie Hamill]

And just by Way of introduction, I'm Kate Hamill. I'm a head of industry of E Comm and retail here at Meta. Thrilled to be here with all of you today. I've been at the company for about 12 years. I think one of the emerging trends that we are seeing, and that probably many of you are seeing, is just the kind of up and coming generations expectations of content. Both the content they create themselves, the content they like to consume, and their expectations of the content that they see from brands. So for example, Reels is probably a Meta product that many of you are familiar with. It is our kind of leading short form video product. This is a product that has had just unprecedented growth. So as I said, I've been here 12 years. I've never seen a product grow this quickly. In Q4, we shared that video consumption as a result of reels was up 25% year over year. People are sharing 3.5 billion reels a day. That is just an absolutely staggering number. And as a result, we're seeing marketers and businesses who leverage our platform to reach new customers leaning in as well. So for example, three quarters of advertisers on our platform are now utilizing Reels to reach people and to influence them. And Gen Z, as you mentioned, is they're here for it. So almost 80% of Gen Z people report that they have actually bought a product because of a reel that they saw on Meta. So I think, you know, I think the trends that we're seeing specifically within video consumption content expectations speaks to this kind of shifting tide that you're talking about.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Now I've spent my entire life in this industry. It's sadly all I know. And when it comes to video for brands, it feels like the biggest barrier to entry is the cost of production, whether it's money, time, resources, et cetera. So are you seeing a shift in terms of how brands are approaching video?

[Katie Hamill]

People realize this is where they have to be and they need to make the economics work. Now on the flip side, you know, we at Meta are kind of all in on AI. It isn't new for us. Our business was built on AI, you know, building an algorithm that could predict the type of content and people that other people would want to connect with. However, we've certainly invested a ton of resources and kind of supercharging our AI over the last few years. And I think people have seen the results of those efforts in our business. Results. The next frontier that we see for building Gen AI is for creative. I think we recognize that it is a problem and it is a gap in the marketplace and it is difficult to make the economics work. So we are investing a lot in gen AI tools that will be designed specifically to help marketers ideate on creative produce more creative at scale creative that is personalized and can actually drive ROI of their advertising. And that's something that we're investing a ton in because we appreciate this is the expectation of consumers, this is the need for businesses. But it has been historically cost prohibitive. So I think there will be more technologies coming that will kind of lessen that barrier to entry.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Got it. So Veral from your seat reels probably comes into place a year after the entire R and D process occurs. And so when you think about the future of commerce and you really own that entire end to end experience, from product inception to getting into the warehouse at Walmart, to making consumers exist, like where does your head go?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Absolutely. So again by introduction, my name is Vero. I'm the chief Digital and E commerce officer at Nestle. My comms person makes me say three times at least if I come on these panels that we are the world's biggest CPG company. So want to make sure I say that. You've said it once, that's twice. So I would say there's really three phases for us. So R and D, we're doing some really interesting stuff right now with generative AI as it relates to R and D because that's the way we can tell what the insights are of where the consumers are going. You talked a lot about diverse landscape. Like there's a stat out there that I think 40 or 50% of all new babies that are gonna be born in the next 10 years are gonna be Hispanic. Hispanics don't love the products that we sell because they didn't grow up with them. It's Stouffer's, it's Digiorno pizza. It's stuff that we grew up with here but that they didn't grow up with. And so we are completely rethinking how we do R and D. And so we now have a process where we actually use a chatbot and we will enter in a bunch of information and it will spit out four or five ideas and it will actually do our synthetic testing for us as well. And so we're able to really quickly iterate and be able to tell if actually innovation ideas work or not within a week. Where it used to take us a year to be able to go through consumer testing, the whole process and find out actually this isn't really There. So I think that's kind of phase one for us. Then you move into the supply chain. We're completely rethinking about supply chain. You know, a company like Nestle, we're used to putting 12 units in a case and 72 cases on a pallet and a bunch of pallets on a truck and shipping it. And that's just not the way consumers shop anymore. So rethinking our supply chain completely from an end to end perspective within the factories themselves and then obviously the last mile delivery is completely different. We are now up to 20% of our penetration. So 20% of every case that we sell at Nestle is sold online. That sounds maybe like a small number if you're in beauty or if you're, you know, in hbc. We were at three and a half percent five years ago because we're a food and beverage company that sells frozen foods and things like that. And so we now have 20% penetration, which I think is just crazy. And we're on our way to 25 to 30%. And so we're all about personalization and we're trying to utilize as many of these tools as we can to just iterate fast, not necessarily for the answer, but for us to be able to get more things in the test cycle, for us to be able to figure.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Out what's actually working from a R and D standpoint. How did you train the AI to respond to Nestle's business? Not another CPG manufacturer 100%.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So we, so we actually took the chat GPT version off Microsoft. We took it offline and created like a digital twin of it. And then we imported a bunch of Nestle data into it. But unlike Samsung, you won't be able to see it if you don't work at Nestle. It is just Nestle data. But it's got all of the learnings of the latest version of ChatGPT because we took the latest version and then just inputted Nestle data into it. It's got all of our, you know, planogram data in there. It's got all of our insights data, it's got all of our, you know, research studies that we've done. It's all in there. And then every few years we'll have to refresh it.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Can it predict revenue outcomes?

[Ryan Reynolds]

So we do use it for that. It doesn't. We're still working through some of that. I will tell you. A lot of it is trust. And so it will predict revenue outcomes but every marketer will go in and override it anyway. And so at the end of the day, are we really getting the efficiency of it? Not yet. But yeah, we do use it for integrated planning as well.

[Rachel Tippograph]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Sam Baglidari]

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[Rachel Tippograph]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Katie Hamill]

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[Rachel Tippograph]

Oh AI@meta very much centered around creative. At Nestle very much centered around personalization. A business iri npd been collectively I don't know how many years in business. Maybe 30 years.

[Sam Baglidari]

Collectively? No, collectively probably plus 70.

[Katie Hamill]

Wow.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Crazy. And so a data business, right? One of the oldest data businesses that exist. So how are you thinking about AI by Intro?

[Sam Baglidari]

My name is Sam. I lead E commerce at Arkana almost nine years and before that I was like you all working at big brands like Reckitt, JJ and Colgate Pamolov. But to answer your question, what we're driving to right now at Circana is that execution needs to be greater than information. And in that vein, what you quickly understand and it's not too different to what Vera was saying, you have to have the plumbing built before machine learning. AI, anything else can actually utilize data to understand what's happening on and that's exactly what we're doing right now. We are the preeminent measurement and tracking solution in the marketplace. But what we're doing right now is adding to that data so that we are building out the rest of the plumbing. That includes, first and foremost, digital shelf information coming from our partners here at Profitero. It includes logistical information from our RSI acquisition. And then finally, where we're going to next, whether it's through partnerships or through acquisition, is bringing over retail media information at the same time. What you all understand, right, is omnichannel, right? We have a conversation at Circle how E commerce is a means for us to have an omnichannel conversation. Now, to be very clear, when I say omnichannel, I mean the Omni Channel that your media team talks about as well as what your sales teams talks about, right? Omni Channel in terms of where shoppers go, which outlet they go, those walls are breaking down. It's actually the mass versus drug versus online. That's how we speak so that we can better understand where shoppers are shopping.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Right?

[Sam Baglidari]

It's not how shoppers think in terms of how they go to market, how they fulfill their needs and their wants. Same thing when it comes to media. We separate media in terms of retail media into display, so forth and so on because it helps us to understand it better. And it's the same vein. The shopper doesn't see it any differently. So what we're doing again is building that plumbing so that AI can then sit on top of all that information and then finally move away from providing information to you all and providing opportunities for you to execute with excellence. Because the one thing that we also realize, and Sarah talked about this earlier on, all of our organizations, and I'll be so bold, all of our organizations right now are going through contractions. What you're going to be expected to do though, is actually going to increase. So unless we are able to take some of those mundane, low level decision making processes off of you so that you are able to focus on the higher decisions, you're not going to make any progress. So that's where we see ourselves fitting in in that ecosystem between retailers, manufacturers and media agencies.

[Rachel Tippograph]

So speaking of contraction, and something that's very disruptive to all of our businesses is the blurring of channels. We're here, we're sitting in Meta's office. One of the most popular ad products at Meta is the DPA product feed ads. And I remember when I started my career 15 years ago, that was all about D2C. Now 30% of that revenue is actually coming from retail media, like collaborative ads, right? You're going in there, you're buying against Walmart audiences. These channels are blurring. Margins are not just being compressed for brand manufacturers, but for the platforms themselves. So when you think about the future of commerce and media, you all sit in unique seats. Where do you think that is heading? Burrow.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We think of it as a total omnichannel as well. The consumer is going to go where the consumer is going to go and we're going to buy from them. We just heard from tia. They're at Walmart and then they're online. The majority of their sales are done online. Perfect product for dtc. We've tried DTC on a number of brands. It just doesn't work. Nobody wants to go to digiorno.com to buy Digiorno and then go to, you know, frito.com to buy their Frito and then, you know, pepsi.com so it just doesn't work. It goes back to how you think about the consumer. It's all about personalization. Every brand is going to be a different personalization. We sell baby food. Baby food sells great online because it's a subscribe and save product. We sell water. Water is great because no one wants to pick up a, you know, five pound water and have to carry it into the car. We sell Stouffer's. We do almost no sales online on Stouffer's. It's, it's a frozen product. It doesn't ship. It costs way too much. The sustainability aspect is not good. So we do a little bit of click and collect business and you know, that's it. And so I think we've just got to think about commerce in the future as we've got to be where the consumer is going to be and that's going to be different by brand. We got to get personalized the way that we would. The way you think about content, that's the way you got to think about commerce.

[Rachel Tippograph]

What about from a media investment level? Right? Like how are you thinking about your meta investment versus your Walmart Connect investment? And how do you think that plays out?

[Ryan Reynolds]

100% meta. Like that's all we invest. I would say the hardest part of us making those decisions is really getting the marketing mix and really understanding the data. I mean, you know, my friend Sam here is that we work with Sarkana really closely. The data is the unlock to figuring out where the right place for the mix to happen is. And we still aren't good at that as an industry. We still haven't really been able to unlock. I can't go and tell my marketers if they run this banner ad, this is exactly what that's going to get and we have to be able to unlock that. So today we're working with the best we can. We're kind of in everything. We've got a little bit of retailer media, we've got a little bit of national media. Generative AI obviously is, you know, AI media. Although I don't see AI media as its own thing, I see AI media as a enabler of all media. So when you say, like, would you run retailer media or AI media? It's the same thing because retailer media should be kind of generated through AI. But we've got to get better as an industry around the data. If we can't solve that and really be able to get really clear ROIs in the way that we've been able to do for 100 years for a TV ad, it's really difficult for us to kind of leave and invest in those areas.

[Katie Hamill]

Katie so I agree with a lot of what Viral was saying. I think from Meta's vantage point, you're talking about needing to meet the consumer where they are. We obviously think that way as well, but we play a different role in the ecosystem and so we're thinking a lot about we need to meet advertisers where they are. And the media landscape, as you said, is shifting really quickly. So I completely agree that one of the massive competitive edges any market or any company can have is their first party data. The other main lever, which I talked about a little bit before, is creative and how you kind of go about telling your message. Now from our vantage point, as we think about building specifically for all of these new and emerging and very quickly emerging use cases, as I said, we really want to meet any advertiser where they are so that we can meet their needs. So a lot of our focus over the last few years has been investing in our Advantage plus suite of products. Asc, which is Advantage Plus Shopping Campaigns, which is kind of the flagship product that anybody who listens to any of our earnings call will hear our CEO and CFO talk about has been that kind of flagship D2C product. It hasn't supplanted DPA now called Advantage Plus Catalog Ads, because there are slightly different use cases there. But it is the kind of flagship DTC product. At Meta, we're now thinking a lot about how do we build on that foundation, leverage that same AI that I think has made that product such a massive success, and build use cases for other types of marketers. So the retail media network example is very salient. We're Thinking a lot about what are the needs of retail media networks. Well, they need closed loop reporting, they need omnichannel reporting. We are building products specifically to help advertisers, whether it's the CPG or the retailer, accomplish those goals. First party data, also an incredible source of value to many marketers. We're thinking a lot about our value products. So I do a lot of work with our product team, both the E. Comm Product team, the value product team. We're thinking a lot about what are the products that advertisers need. They want to be able to optimize for margin, they want to be able to optimize for projected lifetime value. There are various use cases based on the industry and the product type. So we are very much kind of building upon this bedrock of industry leading AI which we've gone to market with over the last few years and thinking about how do we help all of our advertisers reach consumers in the way that these kind of emerging business models demand that they do.

[Rachel Tippograph]

It's interesting you both touched on attribution and roi. There's this undercurrent right now that's happening in the industry that is almost going to make us go back to the old ways. And you reference television, which is we all believed in essentially deterministic attribution, this whole notion of one to one marketing. And then Apple woke up and realized that people were building billion dollar businesses in their hardware and they decided to make that increasingly more difficult by changing the whole nature from automatically opting in for our data to be monetized to to now automatically opt out. And so when you think about attribution and ROI models and that the changes in iOS 14 and eventual cookie less Internet though that keeps getting pushed away, is really forcing us to all move towards more probabilistic, which is the way that all of you have been modeling your data through media mix models that you've been doing internally. How are you organizing yourselves around the future future of attribution when there are all these industry headwinds right now? Earl?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, so just taking a step back, I think our overall media team is trying to figure out what the landscape's going to look like in the future. We aren't organized today in a way that I think we can actually capture that of what you're talking about. And so again the internal selling of that comes back down to the data and being able to provide that data for us to be able to think about it in that way. Today we talk about retailer media and We, I just had this conversation last week, and it's like we can talk about retailer media. Our groups are spending on promotions and getting the price down and doing banner ads around innovation, but we haven't spent money on search. And so we're showing up on page three or four of the search engine. And for all intents and purposes, we're out of stock in the old school world. And so you're spending all of this money and you're thinking about this consumer one on one, but they don't even see your product because it's on page three or four. And so we've got to rewire the organizations to be thinking about what kind of the new consumer, what the new consumer path is going to be as far as how we would invest in media.

[Rachel Tippograph]

So KPIs that matter in all the businesses here, right? Sales. We talked about that. The other is market share. And so what I think is interesting right now is, is that what we're all consistently seeing is that a consumer doesn't shop a category. They go in and it's Memorial Day weekend and they're going to shop Memorial Day weekend. And that spans several categories. So, Sam, as Circana thinks about the future of market share data and actually having it reflect how consumers shop, which is more about use cases and experiences. Like, how is that coming to life?

[Sam Baglidari]

I think there's a coin and there's two edges. The first edge. And because I just read this in Scott Galloway's book last night, I'll go here. Jeff Bezos famously said once in one of his shareholders meetings, like, I am not competition obsessed, I am customer obsessed. Well, the thing is, with market shares, Wall street is incredibly competition obsessed. So in that vein, market share is not going anywhere. Okay? Wall street determines whether or not you are winning by whether or not you, you have share growth or you have the number one share in the marketplace. So that's not going anywhere. But like we said earlier on, there are incremental data assets that are available that we need to bring in to really help you identify who your shopper is, but also more importantly, how your shopper is reaching your product. So understanding your share rank on a specific search term is something that we do with Profitero right now to really, truly help our clients to be able to drive their business going forward so that they understand where in the mind of a consumer, what do they have to own? Right? You can't just own your brand name anymore. You have to go and own the occasion that the shopper is trying to fill. You in for at the same time. And that's the information that we bring in. But at the end of the day, that is nothing more than a means. It's nothing more than execution to allow you to be able to drive that share. Because Wall street is what they're going to judge you on going forward.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Can I do that? Share is has become the number one thing that we've started looking at internally as well. A little bit because of Wall street, but a little bit because in E commerce you can't keep up with growth. You don't know what good growth is. I'll go to my CEO and be like, hey, we grew 28%. And he's like, great. Is that good or is that bad? I have no idea. Because you don't know what. The industry is growing. I mean, it's growing so fast and then there are years where it's lapping Covid and then all of a sudden it's growing fast again. And so we have gone from sales to share are really the two metrics we look at is our E penetration. So what percentage of our total sales is done online and then share. And so if we're not winning share, I can be growing 40, 50, 60% and I'm not winning. And my CEO makes sure I know that. And so for us, share has really become a big thing. And a few years ago, I wasn't able to see E share. Like, I didn't really have the ability to track it. And we've been partnering with a number of companies, including Circana, to figure out how we can start tracking that in, you know, better, and the data starting to get there. But share has become really important for us internally.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Mm. So five years from now, we talked a lot about AI, we've now talked about market share, we've talked about industry headwinds. What are the capabilities that you feel either the ecosystem needs to build because it's not there yet today, or internally need to come to fruition in order for each of your businesses to be successful.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So, yeah, I mean, I'm going to say the easy answer, but it definitely is generative AI for me. So I lead digital and E commerce for Nestle. So half of my job is actually leading E commerce and all of our kind of dot com business. The other half is actually generative AI and digital transformation. So I get to see how the two kind of actually come together. The one thing I always tell people at Nestle is don't think of generative AI as a solution solution. It's an enabler so tell me your business problem and then let me help you figure out if Gen AI is actually the solution. It might be something else, it might be automation, it might be something, you know, different. But as I think about content capability, as I think about innovation capability, as I think about personalization capability, everything to me stems from that capability that we've got to get. With generative AI now there's a lot. It's a dangerous tool. It's a dangerous tool and we don't know where the future is going to go still. And we're waiting to see, you know, we don't know what regulations might get added on. And so there's still a lot of work to be done. But if I could think of one capability, we've got to figure that out.

[Sam Baglidari]

In terms of capability, what we're striving for, and it's more challenging because our partners are also very large retailers, is more real time data. There are some retailers out there that have incredible real time data. There are different ads platforms, there's different types of information out there that's more real time. But as we strive to be more focused on execution as opposed to information, us getting to real time data, is it essential for us to be able to use that to exploit the machine learning, the AI and everything else? Again, that real time data is what those different applications need to help you make better decisions.

[Katie Hamill]

I think the biggest opportunity for us at Meta is just new applications of the AI that we built. So I talked a little bit about creative. I think another huge opportunity that we're still just kind of scratching the surface of is business messaging. You know, business messaging remains pretty untapped I think for us. We actually just released a new alpha product that will enable many other types of marketers out there to leverage AI to better communicate with customers and provide customer support. We've obviously got our huge Reality Labs division. I think bringing more of this cutting edge AI over there, I think those are the kind of the biggest opportunities over the next five years.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Great. Before we go to our famous last question, questions from the audience.

[Sam Baglidari]

Hello.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Hi there, I'm Stephanie Wood, I'm with wawa. My question is in the early days of retail media and social social commerce, it was kind of too small to really tip things from an inventory standpoint.

[Rachel Tippograph]

So I'm curious in terms of how you're each thinking about helping brands or.

[Sam Baglidari]

Your brand partners in forecasting media to.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Shelf and ensuring in stock and working.

[Rachel Tippograph]

All that through with your supply chains.

[Sam Baglidari]

I'll start on a principal base first because as I said before I started at Circana, I managed team. And the first thing that I would start with is that when it comes to retail media, the first mistake a lot of folks make is they consider it shopper market and they consider it something different. And my point of view from 2014, 2013, whenever it was when we started this back at Reckitt, was that retail media is nothing more than a national advertising platform. And if you fall into the trap of trying to use it as shopper marketing and gauge that sales team and terms of that investment, or judge them on that investment, that return on investment, you're going to miss out. So just in terms of that context, I've always been promoting retail meetings, nothing more than a media buy. And then to answer your question, in terms of how do we guide our clients with this, it starts for us here at Circana, first and foremost with understanding the audience that you want to be able to connect with. Why that audience? Is it a penetration or is it a frequency type play with that audience? And, and then what creative will allow you to be able to capture that? And in terms of the deployment of the value of the advertisement budget, it really then comes down to in the context of your strategy, which platform will allow you to be able to accomplish that? So that's where the retail partners have to help us understand who they have and how you'll be able to connect with them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I'll just add to that that for us, I don't view retail media necessarily as better or worse than national media. We view it as another way to partner with the retailer. So the ROI doesn't necessarily come just from the retailer media side, it comes from what else we can get. If we're going to sit down with Walmart and say, hey, we're going to invest $30 million, we're going to move it from national media and we're going to move it, you know, to retailer media. What does that mean? What innovation are you going to take? What items are you going to put at eye level? Like it, it's another negotiating tool for us with the retailers, which then doubles your roi. So if you just look at ROI and retail media versus national media is probably not going to be that different. But if you can sit down with the retailer and leverage that retail media spend, that's where the ROI really is for us.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, what's the bravest thing you've ever done, Katie?

[Katie Hamill]

Having a third child two years after I had twins.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Damn.

[Katie Hamill]

I'm very tired.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Sam.

[Sam Baglidari]

I guess what I would say is staying on the same topic, having three kids under five and starting my mba.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Impressive.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So I thought about this as the one question that we got in advance and I was like, there's a bunch of professional things and things like that I've done, but none of them were braver than me deciding that I was going to coach 3 year old soccer and getting out there and realizing that one kid had like taken his shorts off over on the side, didn't know what he was doing, another one was picking flowers and then there was like a third one that's like, you're, you're gonna coach me, right? Like what do I do? And I'm like, I don't know. I didn't play soccer growing up. I just wanted to hang out. And so that was the bravest thing and it's led me to 14 years of coaching baseball, basketball and soccer. So it was actually worked out great but very brave thing to do. If you want to coach 3 year old soccer.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Love it. My dad coached my soccer team.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Love it.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, thank you guys. It was awesome to hear all your insights. If you like what you heard and you want to go a little bit deeper into some of our panelist companies, you can actually go hear an episode we did with Veral, who is the Chief Digital and E Commerce Officer at Nestle in 2023. Or you can go way into the Brave Commerce Live archive and hear an episode that we did with who was at the time the CEO of IRI and is now the CEO of Circana Kirk. If you like what you heard, tell a friend. Write a review. Thanks for listening.

[Katie Hamill]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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