Live From Cannes with Walmart Connect and Omnicom Media Group

Summary

Next in Media: Live From Cannes with Walmart Connect and Omnicom Media Group – Detailed Summary

Release Date: July 8, 2025

In this episode of Next in Media, host Mike Shields engages in an insightful conversation with Megan Palookis, Chief Product Officer at Omnicom Media Group, and Cora Malik, Head of Marketing for Walmart Connect. Broadcast live from Cannes, the discussion delves into the transformative impact of technology and data on the media, marketing, and advertising landscapes, particularly focusing on influencer marketing, social commerce, and the integration of retail media.

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I. Revolutionizing Influencer Selection with Retail Data

Megan Palookis opens the discussion by highlighting the unique advantage of integrating Walmart's vast retail data into influencer selection. Traditionally, influencer choice hinged on follower count and general visibility. However, with Walmart's data, the selection process becomes more strategic and data-driven.

Megan Palookis [01:08]: “We're now at the intersection like sitting with Walmart, the nation's largest retailer. Using that retail data for influencer selection is particularly powerful.”

This approach allows brands to pinpoint influencers who not only have a relevant following but also align closely with specific consumer behaviors and purchasing patterns, enhancing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

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II. The Convergence of Social Commerce and Retail Media

Cora Malik emphasizes the blending of social commerce with retail media, a trend that has historically operated in distinct realms. This convergence is particularly evident among younger demographics like Gen Z, who seamlessly transition from discovering products via influencers to making purchases.

Cora Malik [03:22]: “Gen Z is going to influencers both for discovery as well as all the way down through purchase.”

This integration signifies a shift where influencer marketing no longer serves just as a brand discovery tool but also as a direct driver of sales, bridging the gap between social engagement and transactional outcomes.

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III. Embracing Niche and Emerging Influencers

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the shift from prioritizing high-profile influencers to embracing niche and rising creators. Megan Palookis points out that leveraging Walmart's audience data facilitates the discovery of influencers who, while having smaller followings, possess highly engaged and loyal communities.

Megan Palookis [06:48]: “It's going to enable a shift in kind of dollars within influencer more to niche and rising where not just all the big influencers who are trying to go for the TV money, so to speak.”

This democratization of influencer marketing ensures a more diverse and authentic representation, which resonates better with target audiences and drives incremental sales.

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IV. The Rise of Live Shopping

The conversation transitions to the burgeoning trend of live shopping, particularly through platforms like Walmart Live. Cora Malik draws parallels to established markets like APAC, where live shopping has become a staple in the retail strategy.

Megan Palookis [10:15]: “Live shopping is essentially like just a natural evolution of what was like, you know what QVC was.”

While still in its experimental stages in the U.S., live shopping is poised to become a critical component of the media mix, offering consumers real-time engagement and seamless purchasing options across various devices.

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V. Programmatic Influencer Marketing and AI Integration

The integration of programmatic methodologies into influencer marketing emerges as a pivotal development. Megan Palookis discusses the utilization of AI tools to streamline the discovery and activation of multiple niche influencers simultaneously.

Megan Palookis [07:24]: “Capabilities like this, what we've announced with Walmart. Also this week we have announced with Meta, the same kind of capability where you take audience data across meta.”

This shift not only enhances scalability and efficiency but also mitigates the risk of over-reliance on a handful of top influencers, fostering a more sustainable and diversified influencer ecosystem.

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VI. Ensuring Sustainability in Influencer Partnerships

A pressing concern addressed is the potential burnout of influencers due to excessive promotional activities. Megan Palookis reassures that the programmatic approach allows brands to work with a broader base of creators, thus distributing promotional efforts more evenly.

Megan Palookis [13:52]: “We've made the process much more programmatic and you can work with multiple creators on an always on basis.”

This strategy ensures that influencers can maintain authentic connections with their audiences without feeling overexposed or pressured to constantly promote products.

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VII. Integrating Influencer Marketing into the Media Mix

Both Megan Palookis and Cora Malik advocate for the seamless integration of influencer marketing into the broader media strategy, moving beyond siloed approaches. This entails treating influencer content as a versatile asset that can be leveraged across various channels, including out-of-home advertising and connected TV (CTV).

Megan Palookis [15:42]: “It needs to be part of your media mix. Right. When you're doing your strategy, when you're doing your channel planning with your agency, you need to be including that.”

Such integration ensures a cohesive and unified marketing strategy that maximizes the reach and impact of influencer-driven content.

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VIII. Challenges and the Road Ahead

The panel acknowledges the challenges in unifying different marketing disciplines and achieving cross-channel synergy. Cora Malik stresses the importance of demonstrating higher Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) to secure buy-in from corporate decision-makers who seek more predictable outcomes.

Cora Malik [17:19]: “If the media mix, including influencers, drives higher roas compared to other channels, it's going to help drive the unification.”

By showcasing tangible results, influencer marketing can more effectively penetrate traditional marketing structures and gain broader acceptance within the industry.

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IX. Conclusion

In wrapping up, both Megan Palookis and Cora Malik reiterate the transformative potential of data-driven influencer marketing and its ability to integrate seamlessly with evolving retail and media landscapes. They emphasize the importance of choice and flexibility for both brands and creators, ensuring sustainable and mutually beneficial partnerships.

Cora Malik [17:20]: “That's what we're exciting about honoring that choice and I think it's a great opportunity.”

Mike Shields concludes the discussion by acknowledging the collaborative effort between Walmart Connect and Omnicom Media Group in driving these innovations forward.

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This episode of Next in Media provides a comprehensive exploration of the evolving dynamics between influencer marketing, social commerce, and retail media. By leveraging data and embracing niche influencers, the industry is poised to achieve greater authenticity, efficiency, and effectiveness in reaching and engaging consumers in an increasingly fragmented media environment.

Transcript

[Megan Palookis]

Foreign.

[Mike Shields]

Hi everybody. Welcome to Nexting Media. I'm Mike Shields. We're here live in Cannes as part of my special series with Walmart Connect. I'm here with Megan Palookis, she's the chief product officer at Omnicom Media Group and Cora Malik, head of marketing for Walmart Connect. How to you both, thanks for being here.

[Megan Palookis]

Thanks for having us.

[Mike Shields]

It's interesting, you know, there's so much emphasis on creators. The last couple years, particularly at Cannes we're talking about trying to bring together to me at least it seems like it's not easy for brands to figure out which creators to work with. Maybe talk about how you find these folks, how you figure out where to make your bets.

[Megan Palookis]

Yeah, so I think really important context setting right here. We're now at the intersection like sitting with Walmart, the nation's largest retailer. Using that retail data for influencer selection is particularly powerful. So when we think about that selection, previously influencers had been more of like a PR kind of function where you're selecting influencers based on the number of followers. Also the technical capability just wasn't there within the platforms until recently.

[Mike Shields]

Right. You could, you could get, reach, you could get, you know, you kind of do a promotional campaign or that other thing. Other things were cut off.

[Cora Malik]

Yeah.

[Megan Palookis]

And it would like lean towards celebrity and kind of, you know, well known names. Now what you see is like niche and rising influencers actually are work very clear like or very tight with their small communities. So you see more resonance and relevance just because of the authentic nature of the influencer. So what we've announced with Walmart is the ability to use Walmart audience data to select influencers and that allows us to select the right influencers to be able to drive to Walmart store, to be able to drive to Walmart E commerce, to be able to use that content on Walmart live. So it's a really, it's really a powerful intersection of these two kind of growing channels.

[Mike Shields]

I want to come back to that partnership but maybe you could talk about how you look at influencers and yeah, I don't know if, I don't know if people know. Like how do you can you, you can use Walmart data to figure out to find influencers. That's kind of interesting. And how does that work?

[Cora Malik]

Yeah, well I want to start with why you started with like how to think about influencers as like just a strategy. So I always think about like as a brand you're really trying to win carts or mines or both. Right. And so you Start to think about like, well, how can an influencer help me win a cart or win a mind? And you start with scale and you think about where do I build a brand through a brand solution or a performance solution? Or you think about how do I measure it. There's all these dimensions. When I think about influencers, the role that they can play is provide another content opportunity or channel that can frankly compete with what I call the enterprise content. So you have like the big production studios, you have the creative agencies and that's a choice a brand can use and make. You can use indie partners or you can, you know, work with creators. And I think that's a fantastic way. So how do you choose a creator? I'd go back to what's your objective? What's the reach that they have? Are they talking about a context you care about? If you're cpg, do they talk about, you know, beauty? Do they talk about food? Right. And that can play a big part in the selection of the right influencer. And then working with a partner like our announcement did, to go and activate. But I always go back to that fun saying of winning the carts and money.

[Mike Shields]

Right. But so that's interesting because you mentioned historically we're not talking about a long period of time here. Social commerce I think has been treated as like an influencer, the social media agency thing, while retail media is its own thing. I guess I wonder they're ready to come together because I think some might. Steve, retail media is like all about closed group attribution and driving directly to outcomes where that's a different, that's a different thing. But it sounds like you think they maybe are coming closer.

[Megan Palookis]

Yeah, especially it is different per generation. Right. Like you see Gen Z going to influencers both for discovery as well as all the way down through purchase. So like a recent research found that kind of new to brand, 45% of people that engage with influencers are using it for kind of new to brand. So learning new brands, incremental sales for brands. So I think where it was historically just kind of a, a brand channel, it's discovery all the way through the funnel.

[Mike Shields]

Right. Because people do so much product research begins in these platforms. So do you have some good examples? I know it's early. You just, you talking about in your partnership, are there good examples of things you've done with creators in the commerce space you can talk about?

[Megan Palookis]

Yeah. So I think what's really exciting about the work is the fact that Walmart works with many of our brands. Right. So we can take Walmart purchase data for that brand as well as kind of broader purchase data within that kind of competitive set and use that to select an influencer and then use that to drive directly to store or drive to the commerce site. And then there's the, the example of using it for Walmart live shopping as well. So I think as, as you were talking about content, we're now not only talking about brand content, influencer content, we're also seeing some influencers that are doing live content. Right, right. Live streaming, Walmart live shopping. So brands have more of this, have to balance how they think about all of the different creative sets. And we typically see influencer creative perform a lot better than brand creative. It doesn't mean brand creative goes away, but it does, I think take a larger share than it has.

[Mike Shields]

I want to come back to life. Jump in please.

[Cora Malik]

So I wrote earlier last week or late last week in the drum about how one of the suppliers or third party brands on Walmart utilized a creator to drive 80% growth of merchandise rate and but the point being that a small medium sized business can come to Walmart connect, connect with the Walmart creator program, find a influencer to turbocharge their reach and sales. And so we're seeing early versions of that. I think you mentioned the intersection of social and commerce. I'd say there's an intersection of like you know, influencers or creators and commerce being retail media. So that, that mashup is still early days. But I always go back to what I find exciting is the more choices that you can give to advertisers, enterprise or SMB, the better.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Cora Malik]

And I think creators or influencers, whatever term you want to use is another choice that's available. And I think what's exciting is that that choice is available of course to the largest brands that we work on together, but also the smallest ones. And that's why I'm excited. It's also great for creators and you know I was formerly at Spotify and we think deeply about creators there. The creators there are, you know, musical artists and the smallest artists all the way to the largest. And so I'm excited about it.

[Megan Palookis]

It's going to enable a shift in kind of dollars within influencer more to niche and rising where not just all.

[Mike Shields]

The big guys who are trying to go for the TV money, so to speak.

[Megan Palookis]

Exactly. Because it's, there's, I think it's stat like 90% of influencer dollars go to 7% of the influencers today. Capabilities like this, what we've Announced with Walmart. Also this week we have announced with Meta, the same kind of capability where you take audience data across meta. So that will radically change that makeup of the influencer market because there's going to be a lot more work with the niche and rising.

[Mike Shields]

I guess the challenge always here in this category and it might be because the brands are going for these big integrations with the top talent. You know, it's great, but not that easy. You got to be custom. Does this stuff that you're talking about have to be super custom? Is that or can you. I'm not saying it's going to turn into programmatic advertising, but it can be quicker and scalable.

[Megan Palookis]

So it's a great question. Remember, my background is ad tech. I, you know, come born out of programmatic. It's becoming a lot like programmatic. It doesn't mean that you have to not do kind of big content integrations and big celebrity pieces as well. It's not going away. But this is essentially allowing us to treat influencers with small niche and rising influencers like a programmatic always on media channel. Right. So it doesn't all have to be the complex piece.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Cora Malik]

I was talking about earlier enterprise content creators, right. You can think the biggest production studios, HC partners, etc. You could think about mid size. You can think about creators. What's interesting is there's one beyond that and I don't think we've mentioned it since we started talking is AI and the machines.

[Mike Shields]

I was going to guess we have to.

[Cora Malik]

We have to, right? We have to. But it still goes back to the fundamental nature, which is brands big or small want to use different strategies to connect with a pretty, you know, fractured media environment and you know, the machines will play a role and what, what will work is like what drives the sale for the brand or whatever success looks like. And I think that creators of course are going to stand out for, for some certain brands, I think some of the machine work, which is still early out there is something I think a year from now we'll probably be talking about.

[Mike Shields]

Please, please.

[Megan Palookis]

We're sharing a mic. So I'm like, oh, I think the interesting part of the AI creative piece is for your point around small to medium brands, right. Like you just, it makes it easier for one click buying for small medium businesses.

[Cora Malik]

Right.

[Mike Shields]

They've really been stuck on, you know, a couple of big platforms and this is, opens things up to them all right.

[Megan Palookis]

But then you have a risk of the creative with the AI being a bit of like sea of sameness Right. So I think there is a different usage of how AI is going to be applied for big brands. Right. Where you just need more creative control. You have to go through more creative approvals. You have to be very careful about what's out there. So I think we do have to think about the balance of brands creative, influencer creative. Also this nuance of influencer creative that's live versus, you know, pre recorded. And then there's a how is AI going to impact it? And I think it's different for small to medium versus for the large brands.

[Mike Shields]

Back when you talk about social commerce again, historically that there's been almost this belief that brands can fly off the shelf and go viral and we don't really know how that happened. I wonder if clients ask about that and is that actually even something that can be engineered. Do either of you see that as something that is in the ethos?

[Megan Palookis]

Well, when we think about like Walmart live shopping, while I would say it's kind of still early days, you know, if you look at other markets like Apac, you have these live shopping that is very mature, very successful. It's a critical part of brands, you know, media mix and shop and essentially sales strategy. So we were excited to get in early kind of with Walmart Live. But in some ways it's essentially like just a natural evolution of what was like, you know what QVC was, right. You want to have kind of new ways to be able to.

[Mike Shields]

It seems to. There seems to be a broader audience for or at least generationally they don't seem to think QVC might have been only for like Aunt Sally or whatever. But that seems like that's changing.

[Megan Palookis]

One of the things from our research is that Gen Z is essentially thinks about when you say live that they think live streaming on social before they think like live sports and live events. And so it just shows like it takes time for change. But you see that's where it's going to go.

[Cora Malik]

You know, I'd say for us we're certainly experimenting with live. I love the point you're making about how big it is in APAC. I think it's still an experimental phase in the U.S. i think the thing that we're excited about is the ability to go from a CTV screen to homepage on Walmart to a display campaign to search on Walmart to pick up in a store or delivery at your house. That's what we're excited about. So the short way is telling a story and then allowing someone to buy and get delivery. However they want across the big, the medium and the small screens. And I think live is just another variable within that. We're thinking deeply about how can we make it simpler to go from CTV down to a sale and so back to that fun. I mean what I say when I say about winning carts and mines, it's like we're kind of working well with carts but folks are asking us like can you help us with building a brand also? And that's where we need to rely on partners like Megan's company to make this happen.

[Mike Shields]

Do you think is there some degree of almost training like we have to get people in this country used to this, like the eventizing, live shopping, get it, get it part of the culture is that going to happen on its own?

[Cora Malik]

You know what I, I always say like follow what consumers are doing and then the advertising will follow. And so if you see people going live as a mechanism for media, then yeah right. But I tell you that my former employer, I was at Meta a decade ago and we experimented with life and it actually didn't take off. Like so if you went live on Facebook years ago, there was some success but it drained your battery. Your followers were like wait, what's going on? And so I think wherever consumers go is where the advertising and Meta has.

[Megan Palookis]

Relaunched it now so maybe it's about kind of the time and when you're ready. And I think there's a generational piece, right? It's we're us older people are like stuck in our ways where Gen Z. Right. I don't start my like searching on a social platform. Right. I learned in Google or in ChatGPT.

[Mike Shields]

Good old fashioned keywords.

[Megan Palookis]

Right. I'm not so I think there's the pieces we're going to see that change over time.

[Mike Shields]

I know the creator verse change is ever changing. It's so big. You know you talk about the power of these folks connection and authenticity and people come to them for product recommendations for sure. But how do you make sure you don't burn them out too much by pushing this stuff all the time? Is it just like, you know, having a big roster, having enough, you know, having a variation? How did you think about that, Megan?

[Megan Palookis]

Yeah, no, I think that's a great question. So I think part of the treating influencers as a media channel and even we said making it more kind of programmatic is you can used to not be able to work with many influencers at the same time. But both kind of the discovery workflow activation process. We also have a tool that essentially is AI like for creators to get more information about the brands to use for ideation. So we've made the process much more programmatic and you can work with multiple creators on an always on basis.

[Mike Shields]

Okay, so you're not just going to the same three people all the time. Do you currently find the same thing that you kind of have to pick your spots, have a lot of diversity?

[Cora Malik]

You know, I, you're going to see a theme for me which is I just believe a ton in choice. And so, you know, honoring the choice of a creator to say they want to work with more brands, honoring the choice of a brand to say I want to work with this creator only and making that matchup happen, if a creator is open to that, whether you're a music creator, video creator, et cetera, Fantastic. And even if it's driving sales, some creators may say that's enough, like I'm saturated. You can see this in podcasting as another example. And so as long as creators have a choice, I'm excited about honoring that choice and I think it's a great opportunity. And same with brands. You know, brands sometimes can oversaturate on one creator and you know, you, you want to pull back and try something new, I guess.

[Mike Shields]

Last one for me, for both of you is I'll start with you, Megan, but how do you, you know, you talked about the potential here of all these, you know, the two different, couple different disciplines coming together and then eventually maybe it's going from TV to social, this store and back. How complicated is that to pull that together on the brand and buy side when we love our silos and buckets and different KPIs like to reach the potential we're talking about is that what work needs to be done.

[Megan Palookis]

There it goes. And I know I've said this a couple times, but it goes back to treating influencers and media channels. So it needs to be part of your media mix. Right. When you're doing your strategy, when you're doing your channel planning with your agency, you need to be including that.

[Mike Shields]

Is there resistance to that or that's changing?

[Megan Palookis]

It is. I think it's changing. But it was always a separate siloed, like PR shop. Right. So versus treating it as a media channel. So I think that is kind of a big, a big component of the change that needs to happen. Also when working with influencer, it's about having kind of one contract to use that content anywhere. So we're seeing, you know, we use influencer content and out of home, we use influencer content in ctv. So using that as a, as a creative asset that's used everywhere.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Megan Palookis]

And it's another reason it has to be part of like, you know, it should be we're buying video and CTV as part of the upfronts, but that doesn't mean we're not, we should be not thinking about influencer creative as part of the creative that's executed there. So it has to be part of an integrated media plan and strategy.

[Mike Shields]

What about for you, Kermit, when you're, when you're trying to, you know, are the, is the ecosystem ready for what you bring to the table and all this?

[Cora Malik]

Well, you know, I'll end with that. You know, it's 2025 and like in uncertain times, like CFO CEOs more looking for more certainty.

[Mike Shields]

Sure.

[Cora Malik]

So I think like your question was like, is it going to be hard to pull the cross channel and then introduce the influencer role in that? Here's what I'd say to that. If the media mix, including influencers, drives higher roas compared to other channels, it's going to help drive the unification of the. Because it is.

[Mike Shields]

That's when decisions get made.

[Cora Malik]

That's right. And I think, like, There was a McKinsey report recently out about the, the, the kind of different goals between CMOs and CEOs going further apart. That's not great for our industry. I really hope that working with partnerships like we have and also proving that impact will actually help us unify as.

[Mike Shields]

Much as you guys together.

[Cora Malik]

Yeah.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Cora Malik]

All right.

[Mike Shields]

Awesome discussion. Steve, bro, thanks so much for your time here.