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Retail Media Breakfast Club
Retail Media’s Narrative Problem (And How to Fix It for Optimal Impact)
00:09:24
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- [00:00]
A
In an effort to continue to educate myself in the world of ad tech, I listened to some ad tech podcasts that don't touch retail media directly. But in this case, there was such clear alignment with the world of retail media that I want to pull it into this world. Joe Zappa runs Sharp Pen Media, which is a marketing and communications firm for ad tech companies. And he was on a recent episode of the Ad Tech God podcast where he talked about his system for helping ad tech companies and their leaders differentiate themselves in the market through thought leadership and evangelism and advocacy. And it was a fantastic conversation. He laid out this framework for how companies should think about their narrative. Not their product announcements, not their new partnerships, but their narrative. And it made me think about how much most retail media networks need to hear this. The framework that Jo shared is simple. Don't lead with what your company does, lead what is wrong with the status quo?
- [01:10]
B
But there's first having a narrative, right? Like a drum you're going to beat over and over again. I call it a brand narrative. So you need to ask, you know, not just what are your products and features, what is your company doing? Yeah, but it's like, what is, what is wrong with the status quo? Whom are you championing? How are they being screwed over? How are you changing the industry to their benefit? And you know, what, what does the future of the industry look like if you win? So like a company like TV Scientific, a client of mine, like, I think, you know, they did a fantastic job of that. Right? We're talking about, we've been living in an era of unaccountable advertising. That's why Google and Meta have been eating the rest of the open Internet's lunch. If we could make tv, which is actually the most incremental advertising channel accountable, it would be not just, you know, a $60 billion industry if it ate all the dollars from linear, but it would be a multi hundred billion dollar industry. By bringing in performance marketers and SMBs, they told that story very effectively. They got acquired by Pinterest. Right? That is the kind of story I want to see every CEO, and especially ever every founder CEO out there telling. However, I know this is a podcast about the people behind the advertising industry. And so I would also just emphasize, I think this is an extremely valuable thing that anyone can do.
- [02:15]
A
And that example is from the world of connected tv. But the lesson also applies directly to retail media. TV Scientific didn't pitch that. We have a new attribution feature that they pitched that TV advertising is broken and we're the ones fixing it. And I get pitched a lot of retail media, product announcements, feature updates, new measurement capabilities, rollouts, betas, pilots, and honestly, a lot of them sound very similar. The problem isn't always the product or the rollout, it's the way that it's communicated. And so many of these announcements tell me what launched, but not really why it's anyone should care. So as a commentator of this industry, I'm trying to work this out. Is this genuinely additive to the ecosystem or is it a me too kind of feature? Is this something that brands and advertisers are actually asking for? Is it just a reason to be in the news cycle? That is why I don't cover a lot of product announcements. Not because they're irrelevant, but often because the angle is isn't clear. Later in the conversation on the Ad Tech God podcast, Joe made a point about what actually resonates when executives themselves put themselves out there.
- [03:35]
B
Exactly. He is essentially the chief of anvil for the company, which he is just a role he stepped into merely by sharing what he's learning. And that's the other thing I would say is that if you're listening to this and you know you're an executive or you, you help an executive at your company, you might be thinking like, oh, but I don't. I'm just like not the chest beating type. You know, I don't want to be out there tooting my own horn. That's not what it's about. Like, if that's the way you were approaching it, then people probably wouldn't respond anyway. Unless you already have a massive following. What people respond to is when you just share your learnings about the industry and how to approach the job and do it better.
- [04:09]
A
And this is a huge opportunity in the world of retail media that the companies that stand out aren't always the ones with the biggest booth at the conference or the best PR team. The best, often the ones where the leaders are in the conversation, sharing what they're learning, naming the problems, explaining what they're trying to solve and why it's hard. Miracle Ads is the ad tech solution trusted by rakuten and over 50 global enterprise retailers. That's because Miracle Ads was built with both 3Pmarketplace sellers and and one piece suppliers in mind. Both advertiser audiences demand a seamless advertising journey from onboarding to reporting. You can offer everything from sponsored products to video ads all in one solution. Learn more@miracle.com that's M I R A K L.com Jo went on to break down LinkedIn content into four buckets. And I think this is a really helpful framework to think about. Number one is commentary on the news. Number two is building in public. Number three is case studies, and four is proprietary data and trends. But it was his next point that really connects to what we're seeing in retail media.
- [05:35]
B
I think LinkedIn content generally falls into four buckets in our industry. There is commentary on the news, which is sort of what we were just talking about, our best practices. There is building in public, which is, which is what loosely categorizes what you were just talking about, which is, yes, talking about the growth of your company and sort of what you're doing from a cultural perspective, but also about what you're seeing and doing personally and who you are as a person. Especially when those values intersect between work and personal life. There's case studies, which is real life examples of what's going on and how to do the job. And then there's data and trends. Right. Like any proprietary data you can bring to bear to help people understand what's going on. I think those are all valid. And some of the best posts you'll ever do on social or the best pods or newsletters are inflected with personal experience because that's stuff that everyone can relate to. And if it's sort of top of funnel and it brings people in and then, you know, they actually buy from you because they're reading your post about, you know, the ins and outs of Programmatic, then that's great. Yeah, exactly. And that's, that's the core problem when you're, when you're undifferentiated, it is being more present sometimes that can, that can lead to a go to market advantage. And I think, you know, Jay Friedman, formerly of Goodway Group, he is a great example of that, like being out there sharing learnings what he's learning about ad tech. And then I'm sure that, you know, drove business for them. Lauren Wetzel, you know, obviously formerly CEO of infosam, acquired by wpp, she, she has been very effective at that. And yeah, as if your business is somewhat undifferentiated. Right. Especially if you are like one of like 20 DSPs or SSPs. It is all the more important to be out there sharing your message because in those cases it is the people who drive the business forward. Right. It's not, it's often not some granular difference in technology that isn't even perceptible to your target audience.
- [07:29]
A
So listening to all that swap what he said about 20 DSPs or SSPs for dozens of retail media networks and the point lands just as hard. Now I will say on the retailer side, retailers are notoriously very conservative and they don't always want to talk about their media business for several reasons that I've covered in depth in the past I'll link up to, including why they're so often so secretive about their tech stacks. But when I think about who cuts through in this space, and that is both from the retailer side as well as the vendor side, it is opinionated, it is backed by data, it gives something for people to react to rather than a product announcement alone. So not everyone can afford to be controversial or spicy. I understand that. But actually, what Joe's talking about, having a narrative, having a drum to beat, is really important to be able to cut through in a very, very crowded ecosystem. So a stronger pitch to me, to agencies, to brands, to the media in general, would start with the advertiser problem. What is frustrating brands and advertisers today? And the thing is that retailers and retail media ecosystem players don't need to be louder, they need to be clearer. And the opportunity really is to move from we launched a thing or we have a new partnership to here's the problem that we're solving and here's why it matters. Now this is a great conversation with Joe Zappa at Sharp Pen Media on the Ad Tech God podcast. I'll link up to it in the show notes and encourage you to listen to the full episode.