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What's a Bank Like Chase Doing Selling Advertising?
00:20:24
Next in Media spoke with Rich Muhlstock, president of Chase Media Solutions, about his company's push into commerce media, where the bank fits in the flow of media budgets, and what it's like to sell ads in a highly regulated industry.
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- [00:01]
A
See how you'll predict future buying behaviors and build a lifetime of customer loyalty. Discover the deepest customer Insights available@epsilon.com data that's epsilon.com data. This week on Next to Media, I spoke with Rich Molstock. He's the president of Chase Media Solutions. Chase is one of the newer, perhaps unexpected entrants in the retail media or commerce media space, if you will. So I had a bunch of questions for Rich such as why does a bank want in on advertising at all? Where are they going to source budgets from? How do they make sure they keep regulators happy? Lots to talk about. So let's get started. Oh, and happy New Year. Hi everybody. Welcome to nexty Media. I'm Mike Shields and I'm here with Rich Mult. He is the managing director, head of offers and E Commerce and president of Chase Media Solutions. Hey Rich, thanks for being here.
- [00:57]
B
Thanks, Mike. Nice to join. Very happy to be participating in this.
- [01:01]
A
Yeah, I'm psyched to have you because you're one of the more interesting businesses in the industry right now. There's obviously been a huge wave of companies getting into quote unquote, retail media over the last couple years. I think that may maybe the two that surprised people were you guys and United where people said, oh, that's a little different, didn't expect that. So I'm assuming Chase is terrific data but you're not a retailer. What made you get into this world?
- [01:23]
B
It's a good question. And if you take a step back, we're really about how can we bridge the gap between what brands need and what consumers want. And so it's really how can we reach individuals at every stage of their financial journey. It's really why we're in business as a, as JPMorgan Chase and because we're the number one consumer bank, business bank card issuer, we're the preferred provider with wealth management, auto lending, home lending. Plus now we're deep into things like travel and dining offers as well. And we all know brands are always looking for ways to bring attention to products and services that customers are interested in. Obviously the whole advertising model. With Chase Media Solutions, our idea is how do we help connect those brands to our 80 million customers, provide them with personalized offers, the ability to earn cash back from either brands they love or maybe are discovering for the first time. And keep in mind like they're not just ads, they are value driven experiences. And this is really important. And it's about, I think people are.
- [02:30]
A
Assume, okay, you're going to show me ads at the ATM or my, like Matt, like, you know, that's all. What do you mean by this network? But that's, but that you're, you're in so many different categories because of what you do, right?
- [02:40]
B
And because of our data and because we know, and by the way, we know consumers love offers. Like according to a study that was done recently by Entrepreneur magazine, 80% of customers are more likely to shop at a store where they could earn extra cash back. And even one in three customers say they'll switch brands because it's an offer and it's a no brainer. And because of our scale of Chase and the credibility we have so brands can trust that their offers are actually reaching a verified and engaged audience. Our platform does ensure that the right customer is matched with the right platform. And so the idea is how can we deliver both value to a customer as well as an advertiser? Right.
- [03:22]
A
I want to ask you a bunch of different things about maybe some specific ideas or examples. But the question I ask everybody who does this, like when you decide to do this, how do you go about building the business? Do you get your own ad tech? Do you partner? Do you do something in between? It's not an easy thing to just turn this on, right?
- [03:37]
B
No, it's not. And if we take a step back again, we launched Chase Offers, the consumer facing part of our offering back in 2018. And the focus was always on connect customers to the brands they love, reward them with cash back and drive sales for merchants. A few years after we launched Offers, we started to realize that if we truly wanted to personalize the experience like made it really powerful for a customer, we needed the data to stay within our walls. So we decided to go out and acquire a company. Fig, which was a small startup, Carlinked offers platform and then we basically rebranded, merged them in with our company and created Chase Media Solutions which we launched back in April. And the goal was again back to how can we deliver even more value for consumers, drive more sales for merchants and really take advantage of the fact that we have this unique position to leverage all of our different businesses. And so think of it as providing a solution for precision targeting that really doesn't rely on third party cookies at all. It's actually based on customer transactions and our understanding of their spending, which of course is more accurate than any cookie based thing. So it's insights across shopping categories beyond any CPG products, allowing us to really personalize things and that drives better engagement for customers. And those insights that we have from purchasing can really help A marketer develop pretty strong and precise strategies based on our understanding of all of our customers spending, whether again, they come to us and they say, hey, we want to find new customers or lapsed customers or loyal ones. And the key is we report that exact impact these campaigns can have on a marketer's actual sales, both online and store. So it's pretty powerful.
- [05:29]
A
So, I mean, yeah, it sounds like you guys had to do things in, in your own way because you can't just put this in someone else's hands. I mean everyone, everyone who enters this business to be careful with their customer's data. But you know, it's a category you don't, you want to, you don't mess around with. You're, you're regulated and you're talking about financial information. Is there, was there any aspect of this, like, this is kind of scary. I, we have to be really careful. I don't know if this makes sense or is it, was it something that you felt very confident in?
- [05:53]
B
We did feel confident, but look, because we are more regulated than anyone else in the advertising industry, we cannot fail when it comes to customer trust, privacy, brand safety and security. All things that we have to do. And it forces us to really ensure in every aspect of the way we work and the way we consider and implement. This is not something that pretty much any platform really considers today, even if they should. But really for us is first and foremost, and you know, I get to talk to our regulators every quarter to share what we're doing. And again, because it's this, the advantage of Chase is we're built on foundational trust and credibility. We really ensure that our insights remain secure and private, that to protect privacy, we'll never share customer data to create campaigns. Instead we use all those purchase insights to help inform targeted offers for brands on where and when and how consumers spend. And so it's really delivering these offers in truly brand safe channels, which again, advertisers love. They're not worried about what offer is going to be next to them because they know we put brands through an extra round of review to make sure that they are not going to be something that consumers are going to freak out about.
- [07:09]
A
So where did you start? What are some good examples of maybe some early campaigns and then where do you think it can go next?
- [07:15]
B
So again, at Chase, this is like a broader thing and why. I came to Chase almost seven years ago and I love this company. Our strategy is always simple. It's like, how do we deliver products and solutions that our customers truly Love. It's like our anthem across the firm and bringing that into this world was awesome. And so we're able to be part of every moment of the customer journey. So we know what categories customers spend, whether they love purchases from retail services, travel, everyday spend at restaurants or gas or groceries. And what we're doing is helping consumers save with these tailored discounts which by the way leads to not just, you know, somebody redeems an offer, but ongoing spend at these different merchants. And so Chase Media Solutions is the media company behind Chase Offers. We call it our two site platform in commerce at Chase where it's all about bringing these things together. And on the consumer side of the two side, platform offers allows customers to earn cash back. They activate their favorite brands or brands that are discovering for the first time. Chase Media Solutions then gives brands the opportunity to reach those audience with the relevant things driving more purchases. And it's things that versus traditional advertising. They know it's like guaranteed that you only pay when a consumer actually spends with you. And it's an approach that our merchants love and obviously consumers love as well.
- [08:40]
A
Yeah, that's pretty powerful. You mentioned you only, you only got started in April. I think you were noticeable at. Can, can you maybe talk about, you know, you, you were going out and force that and being ready to do that and that strategy.
- [08:52]
B
It's interesting. I'm, I'm a lifelong marketer before I started doing this, spent years on the agency side, years running marketing, advertising acquisition for some major brands and a whole bunch of startups. And so I always looked at Cannes as this amazing creative show that I wanted to go to. And actually I've been worked on campaigns that won some awards and when we started talking about it we were like okay, this is exciting because we just launched. So it was the perfect opportunity in June to really showcase what Chase Media Solutions is and our approach to digital advertising, emphasizing our data driven strategies and the importance of integrating those customer insights with ad targeting to enhance audience engagement. And given the audience there, I was surprised to see this. It's such a media frenzy now. It's marketing, it's the entire media world is there. It really made sense to bring it out. And we had this fun story to talk about to the industry which is think about our first party data and with our data, what brands and agencies, how they can precisely target customers at scale based on purchase history such as targeting new, loyal or lapsed. But also that story about better return on investment and attribution than any other platform where brands can capture this Incremental spend. The trust and safety is always a part of that. And so suddenly, there was a lot of aha moments. And what I loved most about it personally was we had our little cabana in a great place. People would come in as Chase customers and say, can you explain this deal? I'm a customer. And that's the nice part about this, is so many people, you know, 82 million consumers have a Chase product, understand it, and it's one of the easier things to say. You show them what it is, they see it, and they realize, oh, so wait, I can run this, and then I'll only be charged a fee if a consumer spends.
- [10:43]
A
Like, yeah, you made me think of this. What do people. When you're deciding to build this out and you're trying to tell, you know, people have this image of a stodgy bank or a very conservative place, you know, we're going to start as an ad business. We're going to sell data, we're going to go to can and do all this crazy stuff. Like, what. What is that conversation like internally? Do they think you're crazy?
- [11:00]
B
No, because the leadership of this company, I mean, again, when we started doing this, and they saw how quickly our consumers loved the offers, and the people that are engaged in Chase offers actually wind up doing a lot more across our products. And they open up. So it's a. It's a win for the whole company. And when everyone stepped back, it was like, wow, imagine if, when I went in, if I had 80 offers, they were totally relevant to me personally, versus they're kind of generic today. And so that became the emphasis of personalize this, make it really relevant. To do that, we needed to have more of that control. And so we made the pitch about, all right, we want to either build it or buy it. And leadership said, you know, you tell us what's best. We found Fig, and we got really excited and it actually sped things up. So, I mean, the idea was a couple years ago, and launching last April was super exciting. And we've had a pretty amazing response so far from the industry.
- [12:00]
A
It sounds like you're going to be. Maybe picky's the right. I don't know if picky's the right word or just careful that you don't want to have nine zillion new advertisers at once. Like, you want to make sure that these offers really work for your customers and you're not overloading them with irrelevant stuff. Is that. Is there. Is there going to be a caution to the way you grow sort of.
- [12:16]
B
I mean again the good news, because of our range of products vary from all aspects of financial lives. From Freedom cards where you have people that are starting out to sapphire reserve to all of our co branded credit cards to our debit cards because we are the number one bank. All of those things together give the opportunity for almost every brand to come in and run campaigns with us. And again part of it is we want to make it relevant so we're not going to run offers if they have, if no customers actually would ever buy that or have ever bought anything in that category unless it's an interesting startup. And then we also look at that. But the nice part is we can come in and trial things and to see like okay, again since they only pay if a customer engages with it, it's really a win win right. Advertiser doesn't really have a tremendous risk on doing it. And for us if customers aren't interested in it, we know, okay, so that's probably a brand that's not worth pursuing.
- [13:19]
A
It's very early and I'm sure you got a lot of, you know, you can get, you can get those first meetings and get close to a few customers. Have you figured out where you're going to fit in terms of. I'm going to be talking to the retail media teams, I'm going to be talking to the, I don't know, performance marketing groups. What bucket are you going to be in if you are going to be in one?
- [13:38]
B
It's a really good question and it's one of those things where we're seeing, we're seeing budgets come from a variety of areas across digital performance marketing. It's pretty much almost every agency network we talk to. It's a different budget that they're thinking about it. Brands think about it differently. You know, I think the closest thing is in the digital marketing, performance marketing where brands normally are accustomed to paying for clicks or impressions but they can't track sales or in store visits. With budgets becoming more tighter and a little bit harder given especially there's so many new ad networks that are launching. We look at it as we're the answer if you need to prove out impact on every dollar spent. Our transparent attribution model again ensures that you're only paying when a sale is made regardless of category.
- [14:31]
A
You can cut across all these different categories.
- [14:33]
B
Exactly. And that's pretty powerful too because of that scale. No matter what brand you are or where you're going, we can look at for ways to do that that's going to reach the right thing because again, our scale is massive. We'll only make you pay for performance and we have a measurable return on ad spend. So it's almost like we become the most efficient channel a brand can run on.
- [14:56]
A
Okay, every everybody who's had retail media for a while, they start talking about okay, what's next? Do we go off platform? I can only sell so many ads on my site and app. Do we bring our data to ctv? Do we bring it to the open web? Do something else. You're early again, but you also have this huge potential. So do you want to start bringing this elsewhere? Are you going to be careful because of the nature of your data? What do you think that looks like?
- [15:21]
B
So we're definitely our plan today because we have one of the most visited financial services apps and websites that there is. We are going to continue with that. We are rolling out now because we also because of the size of our branch network with 4700 branches across the country, 15,000 ATMs, we have relationships with many of the major sports venues. We are going to start expanding what we're doing beyond just our mobile app and our website. And so an example is you're at an atmosphere and you are waiting for your cash to come out. And because there is a coffee shop around the block, we can then give you a relevant offer that drives you into that store which advertisers would love. And we also have, we're running right now in Times Square as an example. We have a branch with a giant billboard right on the corner of 42nd street and Broadway. That's super exciting. And we're actually seeing tremendous engagement with it. Basic QR code. And so we're going to keep.
- [16:26]
A
You're actually bringing a giant billboard into your data driven retail media network, which is pretty different.
- [16:31]
B
Exactly. And so and we'll also start to expand the type of position. So today we have a simple offer tile. We will start to expand that into more premium positions to allow brands to add additional messaging into it. We want to keep it simple, but we also understand that it needs to play into broader campaigns that a brand may be running.
- [16:52]
A
You mentioned how many. There are so many, you know, new retail media networks or commerce media companies popping up left and right. Is what do you think is going to happen if you take your chase hat off for a second if you can like do you think this is sustainable? Do you think you're going to see a big roll up or coming together? Is it. What do you. Where do you think this, this goes, this, this crazy booming sector.
- [17:13]
B
For me, I think about it, I think there's going to be some consolidation. I think, you know, if I'm a brand, how can I, if there's 40 retail media networks, how can I pick? And I think because they're limited to data that's only in their own network, meaning their insights literally stop at their cash register. How can someone again like us, who capture spending across all competitors, all categories and that broad perspective really helps us identify not just how customers shop within one retailer, but how they spend across everyone. So I think we present a place for brands to understand that broader context of a customer life versus my product is sold at retailer X. So great. Now that may work for some brands, but when you want to start expanding that. And again, I don't think anyone's going to have budgets to run everywhere. But we sort of cross over all of those things and because we're not relying on just the product being sold there, because you can buy online offline anytime the offer is running. So it could be 30, 90 day campaign, it makes it super easy for the consumer. And again, it's mostly relevant because what we're serving is things that customers care about versus just saying here's a sponsored ad for this product.
- [18:30]
A
I imagine you have a lot of interesting intel on consumer behavior. Is that something that you kind of factor in or you either bring to customers or help help them steer with their strategies? Like, you know, you probably see the impact of inflation on certain categories or you know, the housing market or stuff like that. Are those, is that part of your offering? Is that something you want to lean into more? Is that something you have to be careful with?
- [18:52]
B
Well, we're super careful with it and what we do. So when we share a lot of spend insights with an advertiser when they're looking to run a campaign, we also do real time reporting so they can always see how things are performing. And when we create a forecast, we're going to create it based on those insights. And so if a brand comes to us that's having major issues, part of it is how we structure the offer because that's important and we work with every brand individually. So it's not just a one size fits all. It's not, it's not like always $5 off if you spend 20 or more dollars. It's all depending on what brand's objectives are, the challenges they're facing. Again, we'll tailor it based on the category so some categories, if it's a travel offer or retail. It may be a larger cash back drives, more sales versus a QSR or fuel where people love saving 30 cents. Yeah, because it feels good. It's, it's a little bit of a game. So I do think that's an advantage that we also have because we can look at that again, not just the entire category of spend but the consumer's impact on that as well and how they fit into it.
- [20:02]
A
That's interesting. Well, cool stuff. Great conversation. Thanks for taking time out and hopefully we'll chat again down the road.
- [20:07]
B
Awesome. Thank you Mike. I appreciate it. Have a good one too.
- [20:11]
A
Thanks again to my guest this week, Chase's Rich Molstock and my partners at Epsilon. If you like this week's episode, please take a moment to rate and leave a review. We have lots more to bring you, so please hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time for more on what's next in media.
- [20:22]
B
Thanks for listening.