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- [00:01]
Peter V. S. Bond
Hey, it's PVSP with the CPG Guys. If you're planning on attending CES, please join us on Wednesday, January 8th for a breakfast briefing sponsored by CVS Media Exchange. I'll be hosting a panel involving Parbinder Dhalarwal, the General Manager and VP for CVS Media Exchange at CVS Health. Joining us will be Andrew Lipsman from Ads, Media and Commerce and we'll be talking about some research that Andrew recently conducted interviewing CPG brands about their retail media investment plans for 2025. Really great information. You'll find it incredibly insightful. Again, it's on Wednesday, January 8th from 8 to 9am if you're interested in attending, drop us a line at contactpguys.com or click the link in the digital liner notes of this episode and you'll be able to learn more about this and we'll get you registered for the event. Look Looking forward to seeing all of our industry friends at CES this January.
- [01:08]
Emma Irwin
Hi, I'm Emma Irwin. I am the host of the Commerce Collective podcast at Flywheel and you are listening to the CPG Guys.
- [01:17]
Peter V. S. Bond
Welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. Your hosts, Sree Rajagopalan and Peter V. S Bond explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in an increasingly digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys. Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. It's our year end recap episode. I'm pvsb, your co host. When I'm not podcasting, I lead client engagement at Flywheel, the E Commerce accelerator division of Omnicom. Now joining me for today's episode, he's got my co founder of the CPG Guys among the other hats he wears. He's Chief Revenue Officer at Think Blue Consulting and he's also patriarch of the Raj family media empire which includes his daughter Rhea Raj, his daughter Lara Raj, who's a member of Cat's Eye, and of course his wife Kavita, who co hosts the iHeartRadio podcast, Lights, Camera Conversation. He is the arguably the fourth, or maybe even the seventh most important media personality in his household if you count his three cats and their growing Instagram followership. Please join me in welcoming the man known as Sri Sri. You've been out and about going to jingle ball concerts all over the country. What's going on with this?
- [02:41]
Sree Rajagopalan
Yeah, kind of hit up that series. Rio won an award for youth empowerment. I feel like I've been in Manhattan every week this past month for one reason or the other. I met you up Thanksgiving week. We were there last week for year winning an award. Three weeks ago we were doing the first set of Omnichannel awards in the HABA HBC space with drugstore news. It's like the next, you know, I get a very short four or five days at home now until we head to Tokyo for the Apple Music Awards for Cat's Eye, then Sydney, then ces, nrf, fmi. I don't know, Peter, at some point there will be a one month period where all I will do is be home. Until then, let's make transformation in the industry happen.
- [03:30]
Peter V. S. Bond
Sri, you and I have spent an enormous amount of time on airplanes this year. And the way we're being rewarded is with more times on airplane that really fundamentally rubs me the wrong way called Miles. I'm not, I'm not a big fan of that, but thank you.
- [03:44]
Sree Rajagopalan
And for American Airlines lovers, they just announced life extension of lifetime statuses. Right? You can finally like you could on Delta be a lifetime diamond on American 2. 5 million miles, you can be a lifetime Executive Platinum. And I know there's a small handful of you who would be like, it.
- [04:02]
Peter V. S. Bond
Took me 30 years to get a, to get million Miler status. I don't at that rate, I've got to live. How many more, how many more years sree to get lifetime Executive Platinum? I don't think I'm going to make it.
- [04:13]
Sree Rajagopalan
It's a reason, Peter, to stay alive and healthy till you're 217 years. 17 days, 12 months.
- [04:19]
Peter V. S. Bond
Before we get today's guest, we want to ask everyone in the audience, hey, you know what a great Christmas present to the CPG guys would be. Follow us on your preferred podcast listening app, Apple Podcast Spotify. Just click the, you know, follow button right. We, we, we want you to subscribe to. That'll ensure you automatically receive new episodes as they're released. And while you're at it, make sure to follow our sister podcast, FMCG Guys and CPG Scoop. And there's this other one called Commerce Collective you should be following. We'll talk about that in a minute, but links to our podcast, our sister cast, the social media profiles of sri's daughters, and even how to register for the Cornell Retail Media program that's coming up this May in New York City. You can find them in the digital liner notes of this episode. So let's get to the main event. Cherie. We like nothing more than to engage in a fine conversation of rank punditry. And this episode will be the capstone of the year. As we look back at some of the biggest omnichannel CPG retail stories of 2024 and kind of decompose what our POVs are on them. Joining us to engage in this recap is actually a colleague of mine. She's the host of Flywheel's podcast known as Commerce Collective. And she is also what I would call a true hands on keyboard media manager in her own right clarity. Please join us in welcoming the podcast, the incomparable, the always effervescent and the acerbic Emma Irwin. Emma, greetings. Welcome to the cast. How you doing?
- [05:58]
Emma Irwin
Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me. It's crazy to be here. I feel like I can already announce my retirement because I've made it to the CPG guys. So thank you for having me.
- [06:06]
Peter V. S. Bond
Of course. And Emma, I'm just gonna blitz you with something you weren't expecting. What was the last thing you bought online? Cause you always ask that on your podcast.
- [06:13]
Emma Irwin
I sure do. I've bought a lot of Christmas gifts, a lot of them, like in a row at the same. I will say for Black Friday, I bought this vest from Gap and so that's something. And then I want to say like marble coasters with black labs printed on them for my mom who hopefully doesn't listen to this before Christmas.
- [06:33]
Peter V. S. Bond
Well, that sounds pretty good. Here's my latest purchase. This hooks onto given this is a flying item, right? This hooks onto the seat back tray table and it's a cup holder. And not only a cup holder, but look at this. You can put your iPhone on it.
- [06:51]
Emma Irwin
You sure can.
- [06:52]
Peter V. S. Bond
And tilt it and watch it.
- [06:53]
Emma Irwin
I am so glad that you.
- [06:55]
Peter V. S. Bond
$3.
- [06:55]
Emma Irwin
So glad.
- [06:57]
Peter V. S. Bond
Listen, thanks for joining us. Before we get to the topics we're all going to toss around, why don't you tell our audience about what you do at Flywheel, Both your, your straight up job and your side of the desk job. Or maybe just you have two jobs.
- [07:15]
Emma Irwin
Yeah, it's hard to. It's hard to actually like categorize them and pick one over as like what it actually is versus the other. But on one hand, I am a brand marketing manager at Flywheel. I am on a small but mighty team of content marketers where our job is to bring Flywheel's vision for commerce and our value proposition to life. And like a very polished serve it on a platter with a white glove way. And we do this via blue blogs, videos, webinars, podcasts, et cetera. I kind of think of it as like a liaison between our incredibly technical data nerdy guys. And then bringing that down to a handcrafted narrative. And then I'm like a sponge. I just absorb Flywheel leadership and then I spit it out as I am here today. And then as already mentioned, I am the host of Flywheel's Commerce Collective podcast. The Commerce Collective is kind of the collective hub of Flywheels thought leadership and innovation across from variety of mediums. But I'm really lucky that I get to also interview really incredible people in the e commerce industry, bringing forward educational content out to the people. I do it a little bit differently. I'm a little bit different than you guys. And I have learned a lot in the last three years that I've been doing it, but that we'll challenge that today to see how much I've actually learned.
- [08:21]
Peter V. S. Bond
Well, given that 3M is a big client of Flywheels, we're going to say that you're a Scotch Brite sponge, so shout out to my peeps in Minneapolis. But that's really helpful. That's really great. We're going to include in the digital liner notes of this podcast links to your LinkedIn profile, Flywheel's LinkedIn page, and to the Commerce Collective podcast on Apple and Spotify. So anyone you want to learn more about Emma, what she talks about on her podcast. She's just got a great style. You'll really enjoy it. It's much better than these grouchy old guys that are up in the balcony in the Muppets TV show, Waldorf and Statler Shree AKA Sh and me. It'll give you a different approach. So please do check those out and, and connect with Emma. She's, she's an absolute delight and one of the great reasons I enjoy being at Flywheel. So what we're going to do now is throw out some topics. We've kind of all weighed in on the ones we want to elaborate on and share some thoughts. So we're going to throw those out and, and, and we'll give our rank punditry. What do we think about what's important?
- [09:29]
Sree Rajagopalan
What?
- [09:29]
Peter V. S. Bond
Why was it a big deal in 24? Let's start off with clean rooms. So you know, clean rooms are mechanisms that allow different data sets to be able to connect in a privacy safe environment and leverage to get better outcomes. Essentially, probably the most famous clean room to date is Amazon Marketing Cloud. But Emma, I'd love your thoughts on why was 2024 the year of the clean room as opposed to the year of the Dragon or the rabbit? Like what, what, you know what, what are your thoughts around clean rooms? And why do you think they were such a big deal in 2024?
- [10:10]
Emma Irwin
Well, I think that clean rooms have been such a big deal because brands have really kind of adopted getting in there and getting their hands dirty with the data and seeing what exactly you can actually extract out of a clean room and how these different kind of things that you can pull out showcase what of your advert working and what are not and then you can actually do real kind of, you can take real actionable steps to make things happen for your business that you want to. And I think as you mentioned Amazon marketing cloud, obviously Amazon gets all of the kind of talk space here because they're really the only publicly available retailer.
- [10:44]
Peter V. S. Bond
Slash, 73% of all retail media dollar investments go to Amazon. Right, so that's why it's a big deal.
- [10:50]
Emma Irwin
Well, yes, but it's also like it's one you can access and people can actually get in there and play around with the data. But I think we've seen so much about Amazon marketing cloud and conversation this year because of they've actually launched like incredibly cool tools. They've democratized access to actually being able to like one run queries in there by having some custom built ones where you don't need to know SQL to know how to use it.
- [11:13]
Peter V. S. Bond
At its most essential building block, right, it's about building audience based upon the data. You have the Amazon data, which be the longitudinal historical purchasing and then any other data sets that you, you bring with you. So if you, you're a brand, you've got consumption from your own D2C site, you can upload that, there are other data sets that you can bring in, but it's really about building audiences and then serving them and then measuring them over time and even serving them up full funnel marketing campaigns now and seeing what the influence that that has. And I think there's some, we'll get into some other innovations around that. But that's like the fundamentals of what a clean room does, right?
- [11:58]
Emma Irwin
Yes, I would agree with you entirely there. And I think like a lot of we now know that there are these questions that you can kind of bring into asking someone who knows how to actually work with an amc. But you can ask questions like what products are driving the highest like new to brand percentage rates for your brand, what temple events are performing better than others and why. And you can measure all of these kind of things and actually answer your questions. But more importantly is you can see your advertising tactics that actually led to that success and then you can go back and replicate those and create those custom audiences that let you find more people who are highly likely to do the actions that you want. And it's just this more granular, granular level of insights that you can kind of get as a brand and you can say with more certainty what is working and what is not. You're eliminating some of that guesswork.
- [12:45]
Peter V. S. Bond
Not to denigrate the great founder of Flywheel, Patrick Miller, but one of the other reasons I love you coming on the podcast, Emma, is you don't seem to rely as heavily on acronyms as he does. Oh, did I just say that?
- [12:59]
Emma Irwin
No.
- [13:00]
Peter V. S. Bond
Did I just. I love you, Patrick. Love you.
- [13:03]
Sree Rajagopalan
I want to, I want to chime in on the clean rooms aspect. Needless to say, I think the three of us are very in tune with the purpose of what's. What clean rooms are, what's taking place. We're talking about it all the time. Guests here coming on our respective shows are talking about it. We're connected in day jobs to clean rooms. We're with it. Most senior leaders are not. They do not know what a clean room is. So I'm making it public. Peter and I will be at Cagney. We'll be asking senior leaders at Cagney, how do you use clean rooms to understand your consumer and deliver for your consumer? Just. I'm going to ask at that point, I, I don't think the right answer is we're going to use Dr. Lucas Solutions with a mop for clean rooms.
- [13:47]
Peter V. S. Bond
They're going to be so unexpecting of questions other than exchange rates or factory productivity. It's going to just worry. If you're a CEO of a publicly traded staple company and you're going to Cagney, you better be ready for the CPG guys because we're coming right at you with these inconvenient questions about retail media investment.
- [14:07]
Sree Rajagopalan
Not an inconvenient question, Peter, in 2025.
- [14:11]
Peter V. S. Bond
I agree.
- [14:12]
Sree Rajagopalan
If you are not able to understand your consumer to the extent you need to because of volume challenges in the industry that have now perceived close to two years. Clean rooms is an answer to getting closer to the consumer, understanding the habits. There's nothing inconvenient about it. You should know what it is. You should challenge your cio, cto, whoever it is, your CMO to help you because you need to do better for your own brand that you champion. And it's not even a CEO thing. I'm challenging all sweet leaders across the board. It's coming. We're going to ask the question, we're going to be dealing with it much more here on the cpg guys, I'll.
- [14:48]
Peter V. S. Bond
Add one more comment as is Amazon the be all and end all of clean rooms. It's certainly a big clean room. It has a lot of functional capabilities and they've invested against that. But I'd also argue that it's not, it's not the primary clean room for all players. And I would point to examples of brands that are in perishable grocery. Right. Amazon's not a major player in a lot of categories and so Amazon Marketing Cloud isn't going to be where you're going to spend most of your time. It may well be a clean room that's enabled by Live Ramp. You may remember sri, they acquired HABA about a year and a half ago and that that's their mechanism we had on Matt Kilmartin. But clean rooms are very important and it's going to be dependent upon the retail marketplace that's most important to you as a brand. So I'm now going to throw it over to Emma and talk about an acronym. Yes, an acronym. Bfcm. Emma. What's that acronym and what are your thoughts on it?
- [15:54]
Emma Irwin
I have typed that acronym too many dang times in the last two and a half weeks. But that stands for Black Friday, Cyber Monday. You might otherwise hear it referred to as T5 or Turkey 5, or some retailers even extended it out to 12 days. So then some people started calling it T12, but it just is an acronym that represents whatever days are involved between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And like all the sales that come around that time period. And so of course, this past year it was the biggest one ever. Shocker. People buy stuff online and it's just going to continue to grow. I think some of the things that I kind of noticed that I found were interesting in the digital sphere. I did not actually go to a physical store. I don't know if I've ever been to a physical store on a Black Friday actually. But some of the most interesting things that I think come up are like seeing just how these different retailers and this goes across all of the different kind of large marketplaces, how are they incorporating personalization versus like discoverability of products on site? And what I mean by that is when you go to the homepage of, let's say Walmart and it says, hey, we picked these deals for you, a lot of those products will be things you've clicked on in the past. And then there's also all kinds of products that you have never seen before. But for brands that have to do these deal events over and over and over and over again and they just get longer and more frequent, you kind of have to over time refine your strategy and how you actually approach events and then also capture loyalty on the way back. And so in a world where retailers are trying to balance deal fatigue between personalization and discoverability, how do you capture shoppers who have been exposed to your brand before and maybe need to be reminded to come back versus also driving awareness for those new to brand shoppers that you want to bring in? And then how do you keep those people within your sphere? And so that is one of the main things that I kind of saw. We obviously saw Walmart driving a lot of the please sign up for Walmart plus narrative so that they can continue to build that loyalty program and that loyalty with Walmart. And somehow in living here for like a year and a couple months, I still have not signed up for Walmart plus, which is horrible, but here we are. But I also, my last kind of point that I want to bring up in terms of Black Friday Cyber Monday is that I think it's really interesting to look at, like, how consumers are actually shopping throughout Black Friday Cyber Monday in this entire event. Like, obviously some people just show up online and they want to be shown deals for things they didn't know they needed. Great. And then other people are crossing things off a wish list that is either theirs or for other people. But I wonder if there's more people like myself who are approaching it as like, I'm just going to buy the stuff that I buy every single week at Walmart, but I'm going to do it online because it has a discount. And so for those brands, how are you building the loyalty to get someone like me to come back and not be swayed away by other discounts elsewhere and with other brands. And that was so many words. But I'm going to kind of throw it to either of you in terms of like, what intrigued you this past.
- [18:43]
Peter V. S. Bond
Year, if anything, on the 12th day of Ecom, my true love bought for me. I love that T12 T5 Sri. What do you think?
- [18:52]
Sree Rajagopalan
I'm not going to get into what I bought, didn't buy, consumer bought in bought, but I'm going to. Again, sorry, I'm going to sound like I'm on the warpath over here. I'm genuinely not with senior executives. I come from this industry, my beloved industry, the CPG industry. How many of you bought something online on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. If you did not and you outsourced it to your spouse, partner, kids again, you have lost the ability to get in touch with your consumer. And so I'm going to go to that consumer point next. Black Friday, above and beyond. Everything is not just about deal shopping. It's about convenience. How do we know? Take a look at store traffic on Black Fridays. It's nothing like it used to be 15 years ago. Do you remember the stampedes at mass merchandisers?
- [19:47]
Peter V. S. Bond
Oh my God. And the reports of the news people getting run over to get, you know, a Sour Patch Kids doll or whatever.
- [19:56]
Sree Rajagopalan
I bought my first large screen TV for 99 bucks at a mass merchandiser in Plano, Texas right on the off the Dallas Parkway in Parker. 99 bucks. It was a 55 inch TV by standing in line for three hours. 99 bucks. 99 bucks. And they only had maybe 15 pieces. Because I was one of the first 20 in line, I was able to get one of those. So I want to reemphasize deal shopping. That's all about the numbers, convenience. If you don't shop yourself or even browse, you don't even have to buy anything. Just browse, learn, use the search bar, use apps just to learn you are not in touch with your consumer. And the CPG guys will be asking a question. Did you on Black Friday?
- [20:47]
Peter V. S. Bond
Yeah, I love that too. All right, Sri, let's move to in store media. What's the big deal? What's the brew? Ha ha. Is this just. You know it's funny because I was down in, I was down in, in, in, in Chile last week with the team from Walmart Chile and they took me into their stores and in store media is a huge component of Walmart Connect down there.
- [21:07]
Sree Rajagopalan
Let, let's just address what that possibly could be and what it is in Chile or Mexico or any in Western Europe. Let's Tesco as an example in Western Europe. Right. It's very straightforward and clear cut which the US refuses to adopt. And I'm going to get into the why and why it needs to evolve. So your everyday display at an end cap is in store retail media everywhere else in the world, most parts of the world. Fairly straightforward, very mature, been around for decades. Here in the US it's a P and L that belongs to the merchant, the in store, the in store display function and could be an end cap, could be a lobby display, could be a department 82 sorry, convenience display. It could be anything, a bunker, really doesn't matter, a shelf strip, shelf tag, yada. Yada yada yada yada, shipper yada. Because of the politics of who owns the P and L we have in this country, retail media became a separate engine. Everywhere else in the world it's one P and L. So when it comes to in store media, it's been around the US for decades. It's a. I want to give some apples and orange comparisons. Retail media 60 billion give or take. Approximately E marketer numbers kind of forecasted numbers 2024 give or take maybe plus within plus minus 5% of that in the US take a guess what the trade numbers are. Wild guess Peter. Our industry is about 1.6 1.7 trillion. Average trade rate 25, 30% 7x. The scale already exists. Our struggle here is we're so obsessed with everything being digital. We keep saying in store retail media, screens, it's already been here. It's to the scale of 70 techs what we call retail media in the U.S. all that has to happen is merchants, RMN captains need to come together. All of a sudden retail media, including in store retail media is a 7,800 billion dollar industry.
- [23:15]
Peter V. S. Bond
SRI the subs. The subtext I hear to what you're saying is that the expectation on the digital component and I would say by extension to that personalization which we see in on site and off site and streaming is not a realistic expectation, at least not now for in store. It's more about relevance than it is about personalization and digitalization.
- [23:42]
Sree Rajagopalan
Yes, I'm questioning a merchant and a media person why they can't come together, deliver that personalization to the consumer.
- [23:53]
Peter V. S. Bond
Oh yeah, so yeah, I agree with that.
- [23:55]
Sree Rajagopalan
Everybody's got a smartphone, they whip out their app, they whip out various apps while they're browsing in a store. There is no reason that can't be done, not with today's stack and connections network bandwidth infrastructure that exists. We are holding back the best consumer experience because of our politics of who owns the pl.
- [24:14]
Peter V. S. Bond
Yeah, I agree with you but there, you know, there's a lot going in. The challenge with the particularly the screens is it's a big capital investment for the retailers. So more often than not they're relying on third parties to provide that investment. And so it ends up being a.
- [24:29]
Sree Rajagopalan
No, no, no, Peter, don't, don't let the industry escape by saying well it's an investment in screens or I don't have the capital and somebody's going to invest again. No, I'm not everyday shipper that sits made of cardboard with metal frames. It is in store Retail media.
- [24:45]
Peter V. S. Bond
Oh, I'm not saying that sri. I'm simply saying way it has developed so far has been retailers have relied on third parties to make the capital investment. And the question becomes, is that sustainable? I don't know.
- [25:00]
Sree Rajagopalan
It's definitely not sustainable, Peter, in the long run because even third parties, they expect returns for the capital and the private equities and the investors investing at some point want to harness all of that. The simple solution, treat your in store display like retail media. Because think about it for a second. Peter, Emma, I'll ask you the same question. I don't know how often you guys go in store. I go in store a lot just to browse. When I do, I pass many end caps. Let's say a store has 25 aisles. I pass maybe 20 out of those 25. Right. I don't buy from 20 out of those 25 that I pass. So I just, I was an impression. I didn't go down to the lower funnel because there was nothing to induce me other than a price point. But it's, I'm an impression. The display is media.
- [25:50]
Peter V. S. Bond
So as long as they can attribute the display to have been activated in a store to some degree that can be measured in a multi touch attribution model to say that this person was in a store and frankly with other mechanisms, you can, you know, you can, you can understand their pattern in the store. You can say at least to some degree that there's an opportunity for this to have influenced the purchase.
- [26:16]
Sree Rajagopalan
The technology exists to do all of this today. It can easily be crafted. It is not science.
- [26:22]
Peter V. S. Bond
It's a big deal.
- [26:23]
Sree Rajagopalan
All I care about, Peter, just I want to be very clear here. Convenience to the consumer. We are in a volume challenge world with inflation. Give the consumer what they want, add value. And one of the best ways to do that is personalization. Don't throw everything in the kitchen sink at them.
- [26:40]
Peter V. S. Bond
I agree.
- [26:40]
Sree Rajagopalan
Give them what they want.
- [26:41]
Peter V. S. Bond
Let's move to our next topic and that's the influence of artificial intelligence in search.
- [26:48]
Sree Rajagopalan
Here we go. Another great word. But Emma, we're going to give you first dibs.
- [26:52]
Emma Irwin
Oh my gosh. It's kind of wow, you're setting me up here. But I'm thinking maybe I take this one from the approach of something SRI might like in that like I'm sure senior executives and leaders.
- [27:01]
Peter V. S. Bond
He doesn't like anything. He's usually pretty grouchy. So good luck.
- [27:04]
Emma Irwin
Give me a shot. Okay.
- [27:06]
Peter V. S. Bond
Okay.
- [27:07]
Emma Irwin
Senior leaders and executives, they probably just heard you say that and they're all like, God, ew. But I think like if you're senior leadership for a brand and you don't.
- [27:16]
Sree Rajagopalan
Have an under corporate America anymore and I want to ban. I'm only speaking the truth, respect.
- [27:26]
Emma Irwin
But I think like if you're in senior leadership and you don't have an understanding of just like how general search online works and how that ecosystem, I can brief you on it in 10 minutes. Like it's easy to kind of get there. But like that is the basis for so much of kind of digital retail. And if you don't understand search, then you're really missing out on something. But to the actual point of gen AI in search, this is the first year where this was really actually kind of a thing. And on the very tech nerdy level, like we saw Walmart and Amazon experiment with this differently. I'm going to of course lean in the Amazon chatbot chatbot world just because the chatbot's a little bit more interesting to me. But their chatbot, Rufus, you can say all the things that you want, but at the end of the day, if more people start gravitating towards searching for products via a chatbot because they like that level of personalization and like that's how people shop on their phones, that's how people shop on their laptops is going through a chatbot. Will this ever happen? I don't know. But if they do that, then changes like all of the key metrics that brands rely on when it comes to E commerce, like this is, it'll change. Share a voice on a search results page won't really be a thing because you're shown products in a different way. And that kind of changes all of the ways that you could be reporting on kind of E commerce success and how you actually drive sales. And once ads are layered in there, there's all of that. So does a senior leader care about that? No, not at all. But if search behavior changes that drastically, that's something to, that's something to care about.
- [28:52]
Sree Rajagopalan
Emma, how you and I might slightly differ on that is you're 100% right. Senior leaders don't care. My question to senior leaders is in a volume challenged environment, when you're trying to explain away that price is the only reason your volume isn't growing, shouldn't you be learning new spheres of knowledge so you can get closer to the consumer so you can give the consumer what they want? Conveniently, that's literally been our conversation for the last 10 minutes. And trying to solve the volume challenge instead of blaming everything on well, the new tariffs are coming and it's only going to get worse and I'm going to have to take another price increase and yada, yada, yada. By the way, Emma, you offered maybe seven minutes ago, you know, to senior leaders in general if you want to get a one on one on search, I'm more than happy to do it. And maybe Peter, we should have Emma back. 10 minute video. I can see it in the making or two 5 minute videos for SEO purposes. The basics of search for senior leaders.
- [29:49]
Peter V. S. Bond
I could see a whole series on the fundamentals of search. That would be a really good video series. Sree we're gonna em and I'll kick that around a little bit, shall we?
- [30:03]
Emma Irwin
I've done it, I've done it for college students. It was really interesting. They were of course incredibly engaged and they just wanted jobs, but they're much.
- [30:09]
Peter V. S. Bond
Smarter than some of the people that. No, nevermind. All right, so that's good. So let's move to another topic that I absolutely adore. And I know Emma's got some real thoughts on and I also know Shree as because he has several of them in his family. Let's talk about the influencer economy. What, what's kind of got your attention right now, Emma? And then sri, I want you to talk about it from, from the father of, of a, of a handful of influencers. So go ahead, Emma.
- [30:39]
Emma Irwin
Well, that was going to be one of my intro lines was that like you guys are influencers in your niche of the world and then sri's daughters are influencers in a much broader, very public niche of the world. But I think like, we live in this space where we're also like, we want to be influenced, that we have to make so many decisions every day that are incredibly like filled with pressure. And then there are so many bazillions of products that exist that it makes sense that over time like the influencer economy has really kind of become something. But I think like my most important takeaway here and of course I'm going to tie it back to like e commerce and advertising because that's what I do. But it's really cool how the influencer economy is kind of the step towards like democratization of advertising. Brands give up some of this creative control. They let down their corporate walls. And because letting creators make content and advertising content has like actually proven to drive incredible awareness and conversion, brands are willing to let it go. And I just think like this shift is, this is the world of advertising that I want to see where I can feel more intimate with the brand because they let influencers come in. And I am incredibly influenced by people that I watch on social media all the time. I buy things and then I'm like, did I really just buy that? And it's like, yeah, because that person bought it. I want it. And so it's just like this very socially relevant way to kind of like tie your identity to other people. And the way that it has shaped commerce is incredibly fascinating. And that is my two cents. But I will, I think we pass it to Sri because obviously he knows a lot about this space.
- [32:04]
Sree Rajagopalan
I want it that way. Not the greatest voice, as you can see, the poorest voice in the Raj. Tell me why, Sree, you can't sing better. But Peter, hold your breath. Ready? I waited 15 years for this moment. I told Ria and Lara what we'll be doing at ces. They always laughed at the CPG guys. And you know what they said to me yesterday when I showed them what we're doing at ces? They said, peter and you are influencers.
- [32:36]
Peter V. S. Bond
Yeah, we are.
- [32:37]
Sree Rajagopalan
Whoa. Hallelujah. To hear it from those two, I felt like it was better than the grand slam that I had to sit there. And by Freddie Freeman in game one of the World Series this year. That was a moment I felt like, wow, we've arrived, Peter. But for those of you that want to learn more about the influencer world, Peter and I just had Hunter Poole from the Acorn Agency. He did a social media influencer 101, 102 masterclass on the CPG guys. That was the episode we released just this past Saturday on the 14th of December. You can easily find it by simply going to a web browser, typing CPG Guys, Space Hunter Pool P O O L E or CPG guys, Space Hunter. Or even on LinkedIn. So I gotta tell you, Peter, it's again, you know. And Hunter and I talked about it at length, right? When a media mix is built, no senior leader in brand marketing is asking about the social media influencer in the mix and what role they can play. Yet Emma just gave a small indication. I'm not saying Emma is the benchmark for the indication in terms of how the social media influencer works. But when we talk to her, we know who she is, what she does. We also know what generation we belongs to, because you and I know her. Her generation. That's the way they buy stuff. We need to stop denying in the senior leader community that It's a fad. TikTok will be banned. TikTok is a farce. I don't want to get on TikTok because I have a privacy problem. I'm worried about my data getting sold. I'll come back to the same thing, Peter, again. If you want to move volume, you want to make it convenient, you, you need to understand personalization. You need to understand the social influencer community. I'll call it the digital creator community, that you're yielding space in this digital world and growth. You know, you're trained as a senior leader based on Philip Kotler's marketing MBA 5104 piece. That's what I remember that distinctly. It's from the 80s, right? You're married to those, especially if you have an MBA from an elite college. Sorry, Peter, no dig at you for going to Stern because my own daughter went to nyu, as you know. That said, Peter, you've limited your ability to grow to this very controlled shelf space in store only. Whereas the digital world is still growing and growing and growing. And you're irrelevant because small brands know how to eat you for lunch in that world. And if you don't start paying attention to these things, with the digital creator world being one of them, how are you getting ready for the below 35s who are the next big wallet that as the. As you're in my generation retires out from being the biggest wallet in the next five, seven years. The 45 stakeover. They're all social media influence. The smartphone is everything. And their shopping habits are digitally anchored, 100% digitally anchored. Now people will argue, no, no. Store trips are. I didn't tell you, store trips are not high. It's digitally influenced.
- [36:02]
Peter V. S. Bond
So that bleeds really well into our next topic, which is the manifestation of the influencer economy in. In social commerce. Most, most best exemplified by TikTok shop. I think I saw a stat from emarketer this week, Sri, that said that TikTok shop is converting users to commerce at a rate of over 40% of their users and it's getting bigger day by day. That's some pretty big stuff. Emma, what are Your thoughts on TikTok shop as a focus for commerce? Is it something that everyone should be paying attention to?
- [36:40]
Emma Irwin
I think it is absolutely something everyone should be paying attention to. I even think like, if you're an established brand, set up a TikTok shop and just like experiment and send your intern, like put your intern on the project where it's like setting up a TikTok shop and figuring out how to develop content that makes sense for TikTok shop. My favorite part is just how TikTok has challenged advertisers to really actually, like, get creative with the content that they put in their ads. When you scroll through TikTok, the way that you're exposed to an ad is entirely different than really any other platform. And sometimes you don't even realize you're seeing an ad. And so I think it's. It's good that TikTok is challenging these advertisers to come up with, like, cheeky and culturally relevant content that actually catches your eye but gives you information about products. And to sri's point, like, I know most people my age, like, they see things on TikTok and it passes by once and they're like, I didn't know I needed that. Sold, bought it. And then it shows up pretty quickly because TikTok shop has incredibly strict SLAs.
- [37:42]
Sree Rajagopalan
We can move off the TikTok shop because I'm interested in your opinion, Peter, and I want to share mine.
- [37:46]
Peter V. S. Bond
Why don't you go first on TikTok shop? Well, see, here's the thing. I'm not a regular TikTok user, but I'm not the person that TikTok is necessarily targeting. So I know I'm smart enough to know that I need to understand it's a real commerce channel. And if I'm a brand, to Emma's point, I should be getting in there. I should be figuring out what are the right items and what are the right price points of items that'll do best, that will provide me with the best opportunity to make money on TikTok shop. But it's absolutely something I should be in on. And at first blush, brands oftentimes will think that these two brands from their portfolio are the right ones for TikTok shop. And when you start talking to experts like the great group we've developed here at Flywheel under Darren Baker and Molly O'Brien, they'll tell you, you know what, actually, we've done the analysis and you're partially right, but there's another brand you haven't considered that we think is absolutely ideal for TikTok shots. So make sure you think about it, make sure you get some feedback, but get into it. That's the most important thing I can say.
- [38:54]
Sree Rajagopalan
So let me give you personal experience. Right, So I think, Peter, we made it public at this point that I was building a new office for my podcasting studio, which is where I am now.
- [39:05]
Peter V. S. Bond
And is that at the Raj Mahal.
- [39:08]
Sree Rajagopalan
Outside the Raj Mahal.
- [39:10]
Peter V. S. Bond
It's an adjunct Structure to the Raj Mahal. Okay.
- [39:12]
Sree Rajagopalan
Adjunct structure. You got to see it. You know, those that will record here will get to see. So that said, Peter, normally I needed network cables, couplers, ethernet ports. I had to put a new line in for a direct high bandwidth network line. All kinds of little hardware required for that. HDMI cables, extension power, extension cords. Normally I'd go to one shop, the everything store for all of it. Do you know what I did this year? I said I'll go to the TikTok shop and to TMU. And do you know what the price differential was? Quality near the same or the same?
- [39:49]
Peter V. S. Bond
I've got to say, like less than 50%.
- [39:52]
Sree Rajagopalan
A fifth.
- [39:53]
Peter V. S. Bond
A fifth. Wow. That was the cost differential. Wow.
- [39:56]
Sree Rajagopalan
20% cost. I was able to get an ethernet port box for $9.99.
- [40:03]
Peter V. S. Bond
And how much would that have cost you if you went to one of the big box retailers?
- [40:06]
Sree Rajagopalan
25.
- [40:07]
Peter V. S. Bond
Pretty good.
- [40:08]
Sree Rajagopalan
And then I'll give another example. 15 foot ethernet cable. Right. Somewhere else. 20 bucks. 19 bucks. 16 bucks. $99 a week's fulfillment.
- [40:21]
Peter V. S. Bond
All right, so that actually bleeds well into another topic, which are some of these Chinese marketplaces that are growing leaps and bounds with a different approach. So the most notable ones are Shein and Temu. Emma, can you decompose for us what is appealing about these and why is it they've been able to succeed? And then we'll kind of hash around what we think of them.
- [40:49]
Emma Irwin
Got it. Okay. What is appealing about them as a consumer is incredibly low price points, like just absolutely unbeatable. And then they also.
- [40:57]
Peter V. S. Bond
But what's the trade? What's the trade off quality?
- [41:00]
Emma Irwin
And then also time to time for the products to arrive at your house because they are sent directly from Chinese manufacturers straight to your door. So you're looking usually I think around like two weeks for those products to show up. Whereas we got over time we got very adjusted to like prime two day delivery. But I think those price points have really kind of shocked everyone in that consumers are willing to wait. They're okay if they can spend like 50 cents on something and it takes two weeks to show up from China.
- [41:27]
Peter V. S. Bond
And are there specific geographies in the United States that have that adopted Temu and Sheehan early? And why do you think that it was easy for them to adopt?
- [41:38]
Emma Irwin
I think like a lot of that gets into just like where you sit socioeconomically in the grand scheme of things like rural economies.
- [41:46]
Peter V. S. Bond
Right. In particular.
- [41:47]
Emma Irwin
Yes.
- [41:47]
Peter V. S. Bond
That socioeconomically challenged weren't accustomed to those very fast. Same day service from Amazon or other mechanisms. So the trade off was not a big deal. But saving money was a big deal, right?
- [42:01]
Emma Irwin
Yeah, but I also like I live in this building with a bunch of college students and like the TEMU stuff shows up all the time. They, I mean they might also not really have any cash. So that's not even that great of a point because they are also disadvantaged in some way or another. But what I think has been fascinating is just like as we've said, the growth rate of these marketplaces and the willingness for people to wait the time at these really low price points. It'll be interesting to see as regulation changes in the United States if that de minimis tax exemption does actually get or it ends I think is technically the right term. But I do like I believe Teams and Shein are going to figure out US Fulfillment but you're in a bit more competitive. I know they've started, they've got it going but like they'll figure it out at scale and sri.
- [42:48]
Peter V. S. Bond
The de minimis tax exemption, you remember what that's like $800. That that product that comes in is not subject to tariff, but something like that.
- [42:58]
Sree Rajagopalan
It's a small number.
- [42:59]
Peter V. S. Bond
Yeah, it's, it's pretty small. But yeah, to your point, Emma, I think both of them have started to establish warehouses here in the United States so that they can ship it in and circumvent that challenge.
- [43:11]
Sree Rajagopalan
Can I, can I just append to what you both have already said about these stores? So what I've realized is I'm actually buying stuff, you know, doing a lot of purchases on these Chinese stores just to test it out. I found that the quality is the exact same. Many cases I find there's no differentiation in the product.
- [43:29]
Peter V. S. Bond
Often the same manufacturer.
- [43:31]
Sree Rajagopalan
What they come probably coming from, I don't know for a fact, but I'm guessing they are. And what I, what I'm realizing Peter, is they come in, they travel customs, they come in, those that are importing in the US the right way are not paying duties and customs on these large imports because of the laws today as they are. While as a consumer we may not be on because of all kinds of treaties, things that exist in place, then it goes shipment within the US to many warehouses. There's a cost for that. It gets branded, there's a cost for that. And all we're doing as a consumer is when we get used to one and two day shipping is paying for all of that by getting it directly from the, from China without just the tag of the brand, we're paying 1/10 the cost, 1 fifth the cost, whatever it is, and we're having to wait. That same transportation that comes in customs clearance goes to 30 warehouses and becomes locally available. Right. Let's say these Chinese companies bring it to the US and offer you two day fulfillment. They will have to upcharge you. They won't have a choice. I'm willing to say, Peter, even if there was 30% tariffs on these things from China, they'll still be cheaper than going through that whole rigmarole of sending it to 30 warehouses and paying for the branding. Not a good message here for me.
- [44:45]
Peter V. S. Bond
So Emma, how's Amazon responded to this?
- [44:48]
Emma Irwin
Amazon, in a very reactionary way, launched Amazon hall, which is a similar low cost marketplace. The business model is also quite similar, but Amazon also has a lot of US fulfillment to build off of this as well. But they went with that very gamified approach and for Black Friday Cyber Monday did a 50% off site wide discount, which means you could get something for $2.50 instead of $5. And equally slow kind of ship times. But it's been interesting to read coverage from like the Wall Street Journal. I think it is in terms of as sellers actually on these marketplaces like there, it's a race to the bottom in terms of who has the lowest actual cost and the seller fees and everything. And then there's all these kind of rules that TEMU and Amazon are trying to like outdo each other with in terms of setting yourself up as a seller, you can't have a brand name, etc. But I do think like the most interesting thing to me is just how it kind of challenges the notion of a brand. And obviously people buying from these marketplaces don't care about brand. Aha. I did something.
- [45:50]
Sree Rajagopalan
Aha. And I was waiting for one of you to say that. My biggest realization here is not the speed of delivery, it's not the price, it's not, it's coming from China. Whatever rhetoric we want to spin here all of a sudden due to politics, it's the realization that when I buy a quote unquote been schooled to say a trusted brand 30 years from the industry that's given me so much, we are definitely paying a brand tax for the same product and warehousing and transportation costs within the U.S. that's what this is really about and nobody wants to address that. We know what brand margins and P and LS are, how high they tend to be, but entire dividends and earnings releases quarterly depend on that. Brand tax.
- [46:39]
Peter V. S. Bond
So sree, by all estimates, there are more than 60 RMNs retail media networks here in the United States. And Emarketer told us that Amazon accounts for 73 cents of every dollar spent. Walmart's another seven, which means everybody else is fighting over the last 10%. So that's another, another example around industry fragmentation. What is your thought on, on industry fragmentation and what needs to be resolved in order for. For the rest of that, that rest of the pack, the additional 60 plus that are only getting 10% of the spend, what's it going to take for them to start tapping into the share numbers that Amazon certainly dominates against?
- [47:35]
Sree Rajagopalan
First of all, let's hit up the why. Well, I want to say congratulations to Amazon for adopting retail media early in the industry and hence being the behemoth elephant in the room to the day. Right. Second part of that is Amazon is also quick to adapt to market conditions, offer new things like the whole sports offering they had on Thursday Night Football. And now they've expanded to much more than Thursday Night Football in the sports world just to get audiences and become a true media, to become a true media engine. Right. To me, that was yesterday. But Amazon continues to add more inventory. But the grocery retail world has actually woken up and understood that they have to act. We know there are worthy competitors already in the mix today that are fighting for that fragmentation. I do anticipate, Peter, that in the next few years, as the pie continues to grow, the share of Amazon dollars in that pie will actually shrink unless the growth outpaces that share model completely. If you're able to follow what I'm saying. There's also such a proliferation of retail media at this point that even if not everyone survives and even though everyone is not worth the spend, the reality of the situation, Peter, is we are going to see a world right here in front of us where that fragmentation is only going to get even more fragmented and the pizza pie is going to have many more pieces in it. And that's the reality we have to accept. I do trust Amazon is going to respond very well in that ecosystem. They were the pioneers of retail media. Of course, I can go back to ebay. If you want to really dig 15, 18 years ago, we can go back and say ebay was really one of the pioneers of retail media. Best Buys had this around forever. I mean, in a grocery world which is like center store above and beyond food and Bev, I do anticipate Amazon would respond favorably.
- [49:30]
Peter V. S. Bond
Sri all those Rmns that sit in that 10% bucket, they probably went to their senior leadership and pitched the idea of building an RMN on the fact that it would tap into the brand dollars that they're currently not accessing. Is that happening right now? And if so, what is in it? Or if not, then what does that mean for all these rms?
- [49:54]
Sree Rajagopalan
Simple answer, Peter. Go back four years in history. All the action for a short period, three, six months was digital. It was easy for salespeople to walk over to marketers and say, I am taking your media dollars to invest in retail media. And that's how retail media got a boom in the last 18 months when volume has slowed down on brands of lost household CMOs. And brand marketers have woken up and said, hold on, hold on, hold your horses. That money isn't that readily available. Every penny has to be justified again because the lower funnel conversion on volume just isn't there. So all these new ornaments that are popping up the expectation they have the brand dollars will magically appear unless you can deliver scaled audiences. Hear me carefully, I didn't say conversion, lower funnel scaled, meaningful targetable audiences.
- [50:43]
Peter V. S. Bond
It's about that. It's number of. Number of users you have on the platform.
- [50:47]
Sree Rajagopalan
True media impressions metrics. Yeah, you're not going to get those dollars.
- [50:53]
Peter V. S. Bond
Well, that's, that's, that's pretty intense.
- [50:55]
Sree Rajagopalan
I know it sucks. It sounds like this whole episode I'm like the master of the doomsday ceremony, but I'm just trying to speak facts.
- [51:02]
Peter V. S. Bond
Well, I don't know if you're about the master, but I mean there sree. I have a whole lot of other questions that I wanted to talk on that we to some degree.
- [51:11]
Sree Rajagopalan
Emma gets the last dibs.
- [51:12]
Peter V. S. Bond
Peter. Pardon me.
- [51:13]
Sree Rajagopalan
Emma gets the last dibs. We gotta ask.
- [51:15]
Peter V. S. Bond
Yeah, let me just throw it back to Emma. Emma, anything we haven't covered that you really want to say 2024, you want to stick a stake in the ground and say this is something that was pretty important about the industry we're in in 2024.
- [51:27]
Emma Irwin
I don't think so. I feel like the, the easy answer is to be like Omnicom acquiring Flywheel and what this means for the whole kind of holding company landscape.
- [51:35]
Peter V. S. Bond
Yeah, a good one.
- [51:37]
Sree Rajagopalan
What about ipg? Big announcement from a week ago.
- [51:40]
Peter V. S. Bond
Another big acquisition. I think M and I are either skilled or necessarily authorized. Yeah, no to comment on that. But it's certainly, you know, it's a bit. It's a big piece of news, you know. Big piece of news.
- [51:52]
Emma Irwin
It's been interesting to read the feedback.
- [51:54]
Sree Rajagopalan
We are not Looking to get into details here because a lot has to happen for all that to fall in place. More announcements are coming in the way, but I do think it's an industry game changer.
- [52:03]
Peter V. S. Bond
Yeah, absolutely.
- [52:04]
Sree Rajagopalan
I'll leave it at that.
- [52:05]
Peter V. S. Bond
I think it is. But.
- [52:06]
Sree Rajagopalan
But Emma, the one I really wanted to get to maybe, and that's the last one, as Peter said for the day, is take us deeper into the world of streaming tv. Because that same pizza pie we talked about, retail media, streaming TV is definitely one of those inventories that is growing and growing and growing. What do you.
- [52:22]
Emma Irwin
My gosh, I didn't put my initials next to this one. But I do think, like, just with the way that people are, they want to absorb content and want to consume content. I do think it should be a scalable model. And like most retailers are getting in on this and figuring out how they build out the infrastructure to make their own, like Amazon with prime video ads and that Walmart's acquisition of Vizio and all of that. So I do think it'll be interesting to watch how everything ties together and I'll bring it back to like AMC in a clean room. You can kind of really kind of measure if your STV ads are actually doing anything when you have the capabilities of a clean room with you. But I'm going to. I won't.
- [53:01]
Peter V. S. Bond
Coupled with the recent introduction by Amazon Marketing Cloud of Multi Touch attribution in the cleat room really gets at what components of the path to purchase truly contributed to the conversion and in what sequence. Absolutely big. So I think we had a pretty robust conversation here. Can't wait for 2025. So much more on the horizon. Emma, remind us again your podcast and how often you're published and any other stats around it.
- [53:30]
Emma Irwin
Oh goodness. We are the Commerce Collective podcast. We try and get out three episodes a month. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Events help or sometimes hurt in terms of how much we actually get to get out in a span of a month. But be on the lookout for what's coming in 2025. I'm excited. I've got a lot of ideas. I'm trying to think of any of my like, Spotify Rap stats that I could throw at you.
- [53:55]
Peter V. S. Bond
Who's your. Who are you? Who's your favorite guest to have on the podcast?
- [54:00]
Emma Irwin
Of course, you guys both separately, obviously.
- [54:04]
Peter V. S. Bond
Oh wait, the CPG guys have been on your podcast. That's so cool. That was.
- [54:08]
Emma Irwin
Yeah. Both of you. I will.
- [54:10]
Peter V. S. Bond
But us aside. Us aside.
- [54:12]
Emma Irwin
You aside. I think my favorite experience has been. I get on a monthly basis. I talk with patients. Patrick Miller, the co founder of Flywheel. And over the past two years, I've gone from like a little.
- [54:21]
Peter V. S. Bond
He's the og.
- [54:22]
Emma Irwin
Yeah. Little baby that knew nothing. And now I think he actually, like, respects some of the knowledge that I do have in the way that I ask questions. So it's like a personal.
- [54:29]
Peter V. S. Bond
I think he respects you a lot.
- [54:30]
Emma Irwin
Personal growth has occurred over time, and each month I look forward to just kind of going back and forth with him.
- [54:37]
Peter V. S. Bond
All right, well, let me remind our audience. Go to cpg guys.com you can find all our content. It's organized by topic, so you can find the episodes that are most relevant for you. And if you think you have some thought leadership to contribute to our community discussion, give us an email contact@cpguys.com maybe you can join us on the podcast in the future. Drop us a rating at our website on the navigation bar and also on Apple and Spotify. Very important because it helps feed the algorithm that drives our discoverability. And thank you to the 35,000 followers we have on LinkedIn. You know what, Sri? I'll tell you one thing that Commerce Collective has on us. We have about 100 or so ratings. They have several hundred ratings. She's. She's got. Now, of course, I. It was because we had a. I. I was. I was the mastermind behind that.
- [55:31]
Emma Irwin
Shh. Peter, don't do it.
- [55:32]
Sree Rajagopalan
Shh. I would have anticipated a podcast done by Flywheel Digital to have several hundred ratings. Who is a champion of ratings and reviews? Digital.
- [55:43]
Peter V. S. Bond
It was about a moment in time when we had a room full of 400 flywheel employees and we. We coerced them.
- [55:51]
Emma Irwin
Peter, don't tell them.
- [55:52]
Peter V. S. Bond
Coerced them into.
- [55:53]
Sree Rajagopalan
It doesn't matter who. Who did the ratings and reviews. They still did it, right? All I'm saying is they did it.
- [55:58]
Peter V. S. Bond
That's all that matters.
- [56:00]
Emma Irwin
They sure did.
- [56:00]
Sree Rajagopalan
Flywheel is in the business of ratings and reviews and anticipate hundreds of reviews.
- [56:04]
Peter V. S. Bond
But, Emma, again, thank you for joining us. The podcast, we really appreciate it and we look forward to following you on Commerce Collective. Thanks for joining us.
- [56:11]
Emma Irwin
Thank you for having me.
- [56:12]
Peter V. S. Bond
Sri. 2024. Big banner year for the CPG guys, for the industry we're in. I'm so glad I took this journey with you. You know, I think it was a pretty great year. In one particular case, it was a little better for me than it was for you. We won't talk about baseball, but. But it was a great year. And I'm looking forward to 2025 because we have so many great events we're going to. Kicking off with CES and just rolling into, into January like it's like Reliance. It's going to be a big year for us, right?
- [56:47]
Sree Rajagopalan
Great year, Peter. You know, we covered many of those words. I'll just repeat them again. AI get familiar with these words and how they apply in the industry from a consumer perspective. AI is one of them. The depths of retail media in store retail media definitely one of them. Clean rooms is another one of them. Personalization for the sake of personalization, not to check a box, is another one of them. These marketplaces that exist that are coming from other countries is another one. You know, we hit up all these topics, you know. But most importantly, Peter, I want to say thank you to our audience. You know, every week, a few times we get to come on the show, we get to talk our minds. We get to talk with some of the best guests today, one of them being Emma. But they listen to us peacefully, they send us direct messages, they come to us at events and conferences, they record podcasts with us as events and conferences. They do it remotely and they tolerate your mind, your syncrasy. I can't thank you enough for listening. Downloading, playing, Spreading the word following us on LinkedIn, commenting, clicking liking all of the social influencer stuff that we want to be positive influences and spread education and bring education in our industry. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the depths of my heart. Happy New Year, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, merry whatever you celebrate. Hopefully you get a little bit of downtime and some rest. The CPG Guys look forward to seeing you in 2025. Kicksoff at CES will be their life.
- [58:17]
Peter V. S. Bond
That's a wrap for us. We look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of Goodbye. The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPG Guys LLC where the individual author, hosts or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGuys LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. The views expressed by CPTGuys LLC do not represent the views of their employers or the entity they represent. CPTGuys LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we present in this podcast.