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- [00:00]
Vasily Samalis
Hi, my name is Vasily Somalis Utdurash and you're listening to the CPG guys.
- [00:06]
Podcast Announcer
Hello and welcome to the CPGuys podcast
- [00:09]
Peter V S Bhan
set at the intersection of commerce and tech. Your hosts, Sree Rajagopalan and Peter V S Bhan explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in a digitally driven world.
- [00:22]
Podcast Announcer
And now, here are the CPG Guys.
- [00:25]
Sree Rajagopalan
Hello and welcome to this episode of the CPG Guys podcast. And of course sri, your co host and also CRO and co founder at Think Blue Consulting, your trusted partner in your omnichannel development journey. Get in touch with me at sri@thinkblueconsulting co. Of course, listen to my older daughter's music at www.riaraj.com and follow laraj. My younger daughter is a member of the world's fastest flowing global group, Cat's Eye, who are actually touring for Lollapalooza South America. And as I speak in about three hours they're about to go live on stage at Sao Paulo. Coachella is next in April. We look forward to that. Of course. I'm joined today by my co host and co founder of pvsp who moonlights as head of industry incline engagement at Flywheel, the commerce acceleration division at Omnicom. And I know he was doing something special yesterday down at the beach. What were you doing, Peter, at the beach?
- [01:15]
Peter V S Bhan
Well, it was the beach, but it was the beach in Rhode island in March, so it was pretty cold, Sree. But I took my daughter down for a little. I was with my daughter Nadia. We did a little daddy daughter adventure. She's on spring breakfast. You know, we were in Orlando last week with you, but I still had another week of spring break, so I figured why not just pop out? It's great because you can stay at these beautiful beach resorts. There's nobody there. It's about a quarter of the rate. And they had a wonderful indoor swimming pool. So we had it all to ourselves. It was a great couple of days down in Newport, Rhode Island.
- [01:47]
Sree Rajagopalan
You know what I was reflecting on, Peter? This year, when the kids are older, like mine are 25 and 20 now, there is no spring break, there's no fall break, there's no summer vacation. Your notion of vacation suddenly evaporates. And I just realized I haven't had a single day off and Q1 is already behind me because it's just not up in the mindset to plan. Coachella will be my day off. Can you. And I'm going. Ria is performing at Arizona and Phoenix at a arena on the third on the third. So I'll be going with her. That's my day off just to be with her. Pretty good stuff. Any. Any event. Peter, I hear the CPG guys are doing residency at Cannes Lions this year.
- [02:24]
Peter V S Bhan
Can you believe it?
- [02:25]
Sree Rajagopalan
Sree, spill the tea. What's going on?
- [02:28]
Peter V S Bhan
Well, in partnership with our friends at the FMCG guys, we've secured a residence that is a block from the Palais in downtown Cannes. Lyons. It's got a huge indoor space and an outdoor space. We're going to be doing all sorts of activations, networking breakfasts, we'll have some content presentations, we'll have some happy hours and evening, some late night evening parties, all courtesy of the FMCG guys and the CPG guys. So stay tuned, follow our LinkedIn page. You'll learn a lot more about it in the coming days. We've already started to tease this a bit, but we're looking very forward. The CPG guys and the FMCG guys are going very big at Cannes Lions this year.
- [03:12]
Sree Rajagopalan
Sree and Peter, who should get in touch with us to partner? I know we've already got a bunch signed up, but who should.
- [03:18]
Peter V S Bhan
Yeah, I mean if, if you're, if you're, if you're a service provider and you're looking to do some activations at Cannes Lions, it's all about location, location, location. And we have the location and we also have a very beautiful location. So reach out, talk to us. We would love to be able to, to collaborate with you at Cannes Lions.
- [03:37]
Sree Rajagopalan
All right. Make sure you're subscribing to our podcast preferred listening platform where you can get our latest episodes and go back and consume some of the 580plus episodes we've already published. And now a welcome to our guest. Today we're talking about a platform that is completely redefining convenience as we speak and is now reshaping the grocery in the CPT landscape. In fact, I used it last night. This is exactly right, Mr. PBSB. When most people hear the name of our guest company, they immediately think of restaurant delivery. That's what I used it for last night. But I was able to. Let's give away the plot. Double dash. Get it, Peter? Double dash. And also get some groceries that I'm gonna use tonight to make my dinner. But the reality of this platform has evolved into a massive high growth commerce media engine. We're going to dive deep into how brands can capture high intent demand. Why true incrementality needs to be at the center of retail media evaluation. And to break it all down. We're thrilled to bring such a guest who's going to do all of that for us on this show of the CPG guys, welcome Vasily Samolis from Doordash. Vasily, how you doing, man? Welcome to the CPG guys.
- [04:45]
Vasily Samalis
I'm doing great, Sree. Thank you. Thank you for asking and thank you for having me here, guys. What a journey. I'm a big fan of the podcast, so it's a great joy to be here.
- [04:55]
Sree Rajagopalan
Welcome indeed. But it's not every day that we can sit here and talk to a VP of Product at Doordash specifically. That's a very interesting title to have. And I'm thinking back now to my experience yesterday, where after I just ordered my home delivery dinner and I got the prompt of of course I have a dash pass. Needless to say, I got the prompt of double dashing. And my wife and I were. And I got a whole 10 minutes. So my wife and I were chatting about what we're gonna do for dinner today. Since now the kids are around and we came up with what we wanna make and we need groceries. I'm like, wait a minute, we can double dash and get this within the next hour as well. And then we don't have to go to the store tomorrow or open an app or do anything of that sort of. And that's how it worked out, basically. And somehow I believe a VP of Product at Doordash must have had a viewpoint into building things like that. What an interesting title. Tell us more about the job. Like, what is the life of the VP of Product at Doordash mean? What does it mean? What is your everyday job?
- [05:54]
Vasily Samalis
That's the question, isn't it? The look, as a product manager or VP of Product, right, Like a product leader of any level, our job at the end of the day is to stay close to our customers and translate their needs into actual products that we can build. So my days, look, I'm either in the market talking to customers, and this can be like merchants, restaurants, large retailers, CPG brands, of course, or I'm in the office with engineers, talented designers, building the products that can help them achieve the things that they want. My particular focus is on ads. So my job is to build the products that help any and all businesses grow on the marketplace. It's a fun job. It's a fun job
- [06:40]
Sree Rajagopalan
that, my friend, is awesome. And of course, in the digital liner notes of this episode, we'll include links to your LinkedIn profile and to the company's corporate websites for listeners to Access while we go on with our conversation. So I'm going to jump right in, Vasily, and hit you up with the first one. Doordash has historically been synonymous with restaurant delivery. As I just explained. I used it last night, but I was able to get groceries as well from multiple choice. I had a choice of stores to pick from. But you're now firmly positioned as a growth engine for grocery and CPG brands. Talk to us about this evolution. In fact, Vasily, I could even get product from you guys, convenient products from you, like ice cream, snacks. I didn't even have to pick a store that good. Talk to us about this evolution for grocery and CPG brands and how has doordash transformed into a platform built for everyday moments from a weekly grocery shop to instantly flowers for Valentine's?
- [07:35]
Vasily Samalis
Yeah, it's been, it's been the journey of a lifetime, right? Like the. I think you mentioned it, but like the origin story of DoorDash was third party food delivery, right? Like, and we, we became the market leader in the US in that. But more and more, right, like talking to our consumers every day. People on our platform ordering food for their families or for themselves while in the office. The thing that was clear was like, that there was no boundary, right? Like at the end of the day, people want everything that their neighborhoods have to offer and they want it quickly, they want it cheaply, and they want it there at their fingertips. So doordash has come a really long way. We evolved from delivering food to other impulse categories like alcohol and convenience. That's sri. That's like your double dash use case, right? Like, which is like, hey, I'm missing something. I want to. I want to cook at home, right? Like, or I just realized that we, we cook dinner, but maybe we don't have the bottle of wine that we want to share. But more recently, right, like, we've evolved to pretty much everything where the leading third party delivery platform on both retail and grocery. More recently, like, we've expanded into delivering retail and everything you can imagine, right? Like the world is your oyster. Sri, you mentioned Valentine's. Here's a fun fact for you and I hope you guys did the right thing this Valentine's Day. I know I did. One in third. One in three of all flower orders that were placed online this Valentine's Day were on doordash. Isn't that crazy, right? Like that just gives you a sense.
- [09:00]
Sree Rajagopalan
Whoa, whoa, stop the press. One in three.
- [09:03]
Vasily Samalis
One in three.
- [09:04]
Sree Rajagopalan
That is insanely good, man. Congrats. Yeah, you're reaching the Right. Audience?
- [09:09]
Vasily Samalis
It's crazy. And there were good flowers. My. My wife loved them, at least I can tell you as a. As a Data point of 1. But for me, look like a lot of like, your question was framed through the lens of the consumer, right? Like, it's like, what can we deliver to people? The other evolution of doordash, and maybe one that is closer to home for myself, is we are also a technology platform, right? Like, what that basically means is we help any and all businesses run their operations and grow, and that's huge, Right? Because helping businesses compete in the 21st century and giving them the tools means that we can retain the fabric of our communities, right? Like, I grew up in a small town in Greece, and I remember knowing by name the local businesses that made up my neighborhood. So for me, that's something that's very close to home. And that also is like a foray and kind of like a direct to what I'm doing right now.
- [10:00]
Sree Rajagopalan
Right.
- [10:01]
Vasily Samalis
Like, businesses starting with restaurants and most recently grocers and CPG brands, they started realizing the power of doordash. They were seeing the business and the growth that they were getting on the platform. And there's one thing that every business has in common, right. They want more and they want to grow. And that's kind of like the origin story, if you may, of our ads platform.
- [10:24]
Peter V S Bhan
Sree. I don't remember getting any doordash flowers from you this Valentine's Day. What did you. Did you mess up my address again? Is that what happened?
- [10:32]
Sree Rajagopalan
They were sent. They were sent to Nadia.
- [10:34]
Peter V S Bhan
Oh, they were sent to Nadia. Oh, that's why she got flowers. We were wondering if the conviction set.
- [10:39]
Sree Rajagopalan
It always goes to the daughters first.
- [10:41]
Peter V S Bhan
Yeah, that makes sense.
- [10:43]
Sree Rajagopalan
Then the wife. All right, Vasily, order men.
- [10:46]
Peter V S Bhan
I understand. Vasily, welcome to the podcast. It's. It's great to have you with us today. I want to talk to you a little bit about one of our favorite topics on the CPG guys, which is retail media. It's a very crowded field right now. Practically every day somebody's launching a new platform. DoorDash often talks about having the ability to reach and influence consumers at the exact moment of decision. So my question to you is, how does DoorDash capture that high intent demand differently than a traditional retailers.com website like a typical grocery storefront online? What's so unique about the doordash platform?
- [11:26]
Vasily Samalis
I think for me, like, doordash is special and I'm obviously biased, but like, for three main reasons, right. The biggest one is the skill and we talked, we touched on this a little bit, right? Like we're the leading platform and I think that matters, right? Because if you have a finite amount of chips to put and a finite amount of time and employees and resources to invest in, investing in the ones that have the skill is important, right? Like if you were going to get mileage out of your dollars, the second one. And again, like this is not nuclear science, guys, right? Like these are obvious things is the audience itself. So when you look at like who's shopping on DoorDash, two things are key. One is we have a lot of like consumers that are shopping online for the first time. They're placing their first grocery order online. That could be because they're young, right? Like, like sri's daughters, right? Like maybe this is like the first time they're shopping groceries and, and the first time they do that is on DoorDash. Or it could be that they are like just folks who have traditionally went to the store and now they're flipping online. And when you look at that kind of like new to market or first time online, we are the dominant player. And that matters because that's when folks are the most open minded. And kind of like one of my favorite stats that our research team did internally was 60% of consumers on DoorDash state that they are very open to exploring something new. And I think that's huge for brands, right? Because again, you talked about retail media being crowded. The CPG space is also crowded as well, right? There's a lot of incredible companies. There's a lot of like new, younger companies dynamically entering the space. So reaching folks who have an open mind and are ready to consider is huge for me, the last thing that I'll say is, goes back to sri's point, it's the multi category, right? Like, we don't do one thing, we bring everything that your neighborhood has to offer, right? Like, and what that means for a CPG brand or an advertiser is that we can collect the data and make those connections that I think very few others do.
- [13:30]
Sree Rajagopalan
One correction, the Raj family has been used. Whether it's real Lara, Kavita or Shree, we've been using Dashers for five years plus now. And all of us have our own Dash Pass at this point.
- [13:41]
Vasily Samalis
So.
- [13:41]
Sree Rajagopalan
And in that context, I'd love to chat. Experience, shopper experience. Particularly right now, ad placements can feel intrusive if it's not done very well. Like for example, on one such platform where a lot of us shop for general merchandise, there are too many sponsored ads that showed up when you search for something and that's actually quite annoying. So as a captain, you know, one of the captains here of product in the industry, period, not just doordash, how do you think about sponsored platements for unlocking discovery for consumers, whether it's a grocer, whether it's fresh food and just everyday products. Because today dashes can get you everyday products.
- [14:20]
Vasily Samalis
Yeah, yeah. This is, I would say, almost an obsession of mine. Like my, my, my team trolls me sometimes by starting comments with facility, would ask what are we doing for the consumer? Right. Like, and, and I'm being facetious, but it is the most important thing, right? Like at the, at the end of the day, the health of the marketplace depends on whether or not we're serving people and then that is the best leading indicator in terms of serving our customers as well, right? Like, because the only way I can deliver a performant outcome for my advertisers is if people actually shop, right. For me, like, I think that the industry sometimes gets this wrong and thinks of it as like this dichotomy, right? Like that you can't have both. But my personal read is that like it boils down to a few simple things, right? Like one is advertising or any promotional content has to be native, right? Like you can't be shopping for a shampoo and I'm showing you a video ad for tax software, right? Right. Like that's when like advertising gets disruptive. The second one is it has to be contextually relevant, right? Like not just from an interest standpoint but also aesthetically, right? Like it can't be that like you're looking at a product and then there's a flashy banner with a noisy video wrapping it around like telling you about a new brand or a new whatever. And that's like where I think actually like the industry and a lot of the investment right now in AI is going to help a lot because it's going to make it a lot easier. And I think we should get an award because we're like 10 minutes in and this is the first time we mention AI. So let's give us a round of applause and look like the last thing is I think we should find ways to give value to the consumer that beyond just discovery. And I think that's where promotions and affordability plays a key part. But to bring it home, sree, like this is key and if you're trying to build the generational business that will succeed over the next couple of decades, that creates lasting impact to your customers. I don't think you can screw the end consumer. That is going to come back and bite you.
- [16:30]
Peter V S Bhan
Vasily, kudos on lasting as long as you did without mentioning AI.
- [16:34]
Sree Rajagopalan
And the one thing I'll also add though, Vasily, we didn't really plan to get into AI in any meaningful way today. But one of the things I do want to ask you is technically AI should make the personalization experience significantly improved and not just serve you an ad. There's a but I see that as a double edged sword for brands. One is on a platform you'll be serving exactly what the consumer wants to see. But a brand is also curious in putting new things in front of the consumer that they may not want to see. As a product captain of the industry, how would you navigate that? Because it's not an easy challenge whatsoever. Because brands do, at the end of the day, they want 80% contextual, 20% new, exciting, teasing things of that nature. And AI may be able to rope all that down to contextual only. Or am I wrong? I could be wrong on this.
- [17:24]
Vasily Samalis
Yeah, yeah. Look, we should talk about AI guys as much as you like because I do think it's appending the industry in so many ways. But you're right, one of the biggest ones is, is personalization. And I think that there's a couple of interesting things to unpack about personalization, right? Like because it's not just showing the consumer the, the right thing, the most relevant thing, but it's also like about being able to personalize the creative, right. Like you can imagine maybe like the three of us are, are using the same kind of like razors. But like the ad and the creative could be very different based on our own personal tastes, preferences and kind of, maybe even the moment that we're in right now. Like sree to your question, I think that the context and the setup matters, right? Like there are moments where consumers are more open to discovery and there are moments when they're not. And I'll just walk you through a simple example, right? Like if you've already placed your food order, right, like and you're going back to the app to maybe check where the dasher is. Like that, that is a moment where you're open to a recommendation. So maybe if I recommend an ice cream or a wine or some flowers, you're open to that because you're coming with an open mind and not the specific job to do. But like if I take a counterfactual, which is, let's say, you know, you want to order shampoo for, for the household and you know what you want, right? Like, interjecting in that extremely high intent moment where you're trying to do a specific job I think would be detractive. So, so for me, like, that's what it boils down to. It's finding the right state where the, where the consumer or the person is more open to that discovery. But it's, it's, it's going to be a balance, right? Like, and I think that's, that's what makes the job interesting.
- [19:13]
Sree Rajagopalan
No debate there for me.
- [19:16]
Peter V S Bhan
So we get a chance on this podcast to talk to brands of all sizes, leaders from these brands in. It's been stated that Doordash is a growth engine for all categories, delivering action for brands regardless of their size or their objectives. So I guess my question becomes to you, Vasily, what's the playbook look like for an emerging CPG brand trying to unlock incremental audiences on your platform versus a more legacy CPG enterprise of significant scale?
- [19:51]
Vasily Samalis
Yeah, that's a good one. Thank you, Peter. I think that the big guys, and we all know the names and the brands, right, like, are the most formidable marketers in the world, right? Like, so for me, the game there is about building trust, right? Like getting to know your customers and then again building all the bells and whistles that they need to both understand their audiences and expand them. Flip. That script gets flipped completely, right? Like when you talk about like, new brands, right? Like emerging CPG brands that are trying to break. And I think one thing that's very interesting about the platform is exactly because of the demographics that we talked about before, this kind of heavy skew towards younger in conjunction with the mindset, like, we do see that even without any action right now, Jordache is a place where a lot of like, CPG brands break and kind of like make their mark. For me, like when, when I, when I talk to these folks, generally, like, a couple of consistent themes come up. They're overwhelmed. They're like wearing more hats, right? Like, this might be the CEO if we're talking like very small or like a one team cmo, right? So they're overwhelmed, they don't have time, they don't have like a lot of resources. So a lot of what I think we can do for them is take some jobs off their hands. So when I think about building product for smaller customers in kind of like that state, it's all about just making it easier for them to set up campaigns, right? Like with smart creatives and whatnot, right? Like removing a lot of complexity that it might actually be detractive if you don't know how to use it. And like, I'll give you one example, right? Like bidding, right? The large advertisers want full control over how much they bid by product, by category, by sku, by surface, right? Like it's, it's madness. But like if you're a smaller brand in 2026, AI and a well designed auto bidder, which we have, can help you compete in like a cost efficient way with one click. So for me that's what it boils down to, Peter. It's like, can I help them simplify by simplifying the product, removing the friction and then giving them the tools to compete? Basically.
- [22:05]
Sree Rajagopalan
That is awesome, man, that there's a role for some of these smaller CPG brands, of course the larger CPG brands, but it's kind of a platform where anybody can break. So one such topic that Peter and I are very passionate about, in fact, you know, I'm leading a retail media advisory board on this topic for Nielsen IQ in my think blue hat, which is measurement, you know, Nielsen IQ is actually authoring, trying to author the first set of measurement standards in the industry. And DoorDash holds a strong POV. You publicly said it that retail media must be evaluated on true business impact. And tell us more on measurement effectiveness and where you're headed in that space with doordash.
- [22:49]
Vasily Samalis
Yeah, the, this is the, the age old question, right? Like our industry, I think like a hundred years ago, right, like the quote was termed, which was like half my media is wasted, I just don't know which half. Right? Like, and I feel like even until very recently, I think that's generally true. And but if you ask business owners, right, like they've always wanted that, right? Like the constraint was technology. It's not like we suddenly Woke up in 2026 and decided that like now we should measure true performance, right? Like, it's just that initially we would proxy it with, I don't know, boxes on TVs, on people's homes, then by like trying to count cars on a highway. But look like the beauty of retail media networks is that we are, most of us at least are closed loop. And I'll get back to this point in a second. But like, let's just agree for a second on what true performance means. For me it's the answer to the following question. Would I have gotten this sale or this customer had I not invested? It's like as simple as that. I see you nodding. What do you think?
- [24:01]
Sree Rajagopalan
No, no, I, I agree with you. So the word incrementality is thrown around in the industry quite a bit and every brand you talk to will tell you the exact same thing. Now the only thing I want is incrementality.
- [24:11]
Vasily Samalis
Yeah.
- [24:12]
Sree Rajagopalan
Brands are unable to define incrementality in on their own of what that actually means. Some will say, well, new to brand. Then you try to get into what is new to brand, is it new? And you've lapsed them over Covid in the last five years because of all the pricing elements you took. Is it truly they have never tried your brand. They haven't tried it for a year. So when I, when it comes to incrementality, I'm very parochial on the definition. The first question I ask back is what's the definition? Well, here's the good news, right? Regardless of what the definition is, if you're shooting for new, you're headed in the right direction. I could not agree more.
- [24:48]
Vasily Samalis
Exactly. And look, I think the work that you're doing is incredibly valuable, right, like, because I can sit here and tell you, here's my definition which is using statistical inference and a B test and long term holdouts and whatnot. But one of the biggest challenges in the industry is the fragmentation right now. And then when you start looking across platforms, attribution windows are different. The underlying methodologies through which people try and measure incrementality are different. The very definition of new to brand is different across most platforms. And actually like customers also have their own personal preferences. So Raj, look, Sri, sorry for me, look, the answer is was this incremental to you? And then the key thing with retail media networks today is that because they are closed loop, we don't have any excuses left. You know, it's up to us. The onus is back to us to measure it in a way that our customers believe and trust us. And I think one of the big challenges that thankfully you're working on is the fragmentation because right now everybody does it a little bit different.
- [25:58]
Sree Rajagopalan
Yeah. So Vasily, I don't want to undermine however the work you're doing on the A B testing and things of that nature. I see it as a dual pronged effort where a set of standards has to be established, but then the work has to be done by RMN providers like you, which very much does include the analytics and the rigor of testing. Under no circumstances will I ever advocate for not doing that.
- [26:20]
Vasily Samalis
Agreed?
- [26:20]
Sree Rajagopalan
Agreed. All right, A reminder to audience, we're speaking with Vasily Samulis, vice president of product from Doordash. Over to you, Peter Sree.
- [26:32]
Peter V S Bhan
I love the fact that he used the classic John Wanamaker reference about wasted half of your marketing spend. Little tidbit of history, Sree. When I was going to school outside of Philadelphia in the early 80s, I used to go shopping at Wanamaker's in downtown Philadelphia before it went bankrupt in the late 80s. But yes, that's a part of.
- [26:53]
Sree Rajagopalan
Is that one episode I can work with you where you don't have to give away our age and data.
- [26:57]
Peter V S Bhan
I'm totally. I'm giving away my age.
- [27:01]
Sree Rajagopalan
All right, so should we talk about Sears next?
- [27:05]
Peter V S Bhan
I want to talk, I want to. I want to talk about incrementality.
- [27:08]
Sree Rajagopalan
Woolworth.
- [27:09]
Peter V S Bhan
No, no, I will talk about Woolworth. That was my first job out of business school, was working for Hart's Pet Care and their biggest client at the time was FW Aworth. But that's another story. Sree. We'll save that for another episode. Listen, I want to talk about incrementality, right? Vasily, you put incrementality at the core of your offering. Everyone, you know, everyone's using that term. But actually, if you actually prove it, how is DoorDash really advancing the transparent outcome based standards to prove that your ads are truly driving incremental revenue for CPG brands? What do you do? You talked about what everybody wants. How are you delivering against that?
- [27:46]
Vasily Samalis
Okay, so there's two interesting pieces to this, right? Like I know we want to focus on measurement, but I want to make a point before we dive in, which is first and foremost, you got to give folks the tools to achieve incremental results to begin with, right? Like so. And in my mind, that boils down to two things, right? Like extreme data transparency and then two, the tools to act on the insights that you drove out of said transparency. And I think like here our principle is that we will push transparency up to the point of respecting consumer privacy, right? Like that. That is the boundary condition and the one that we will never breach. And I could provide a laundry list of all the things here, but like, it's not constructive, but you can imagine things like deep customer insights, right? Like path to purchase, et cetera. So, so for me, step one is speak the language that my customers are speaking and then build targeting and whatever other tools on top so that they can act, because that is going to drive the incremental outcomes. Now, when it comes to incrementality measurement, look, it's. We put our foot where Our mouth is in that. I still remember a customer, he's a GM at a big CPG brand and he was joking that like we built incrementality measurement before we had a NAT manager. Right? Like that that is how important it has been for our strategy. But like how we prove it is in my view the canonical and the best in class way to measure which we launched this week is what I call ghost ads. And again for your audience, maybe to simplify what that means is the problem with traditional A B testing is you don't know like what folks would traditionally do in the industry is they would look at the folks who saw the ad versus the folks who didn't. But the problem with that methodology was that you don't know if the groups were homogeneous enough. Right. Like or share different characteristics. Maybe the folks who saw the ad were older, but the folks who didn't were younger. So ghost ads is kind of like a state of the art methodology under the hood that truly tries to simulate whether or not somebody would have shown an ad. And it's like the purest form I would say of whether a result or not is incremental. So for me like that which we shipped last week is kind of like a starting point. There's a lot more work that we gotta do. But then I think like Peter, maybe the last key point in closing thought here is that every customer is a little bit different, right? And at the end of the day we're serving people in organizations and we have to meet them where they are. And even like the same companies have different objectives based on their brands, right? Like if you're a CPG brand launching an innovation product, you're going to go your marketing spend very differently than your established product. So for me again and I sound like a broken record but I think that's good which is give the tools to folks and the data to help them achieve incrementality in the first place. Best in class methodologies to try and measure lift and then sit down with your customers and meet everybody where they are.
- [30:50]
Sree Rajagopalan
Could not agree more. So Vasily, because doordash is built for everything from a Tuesday night dinner at home to last minute holiday needs. We certainly talked about Valentine's Day where we established I actually did get it right by sending flowers to the right person this year. Occasion based shopping is massive. I'm just kidding guys. But occasion based shopping is massive for you. How should brand marketers rethink their ad creative? Especially in an order of AI which can truly improve the ad creative as well as well as targeting which can hyper target to align with these specific occasion driven everyday moments on doordash.
- [31:28]
Vasily Samalis
Yeah occasions are huge, right? Like and I would say they're not huge because DoorDash did something special. They're huge because that's how our families and our lives, right like are built, right like they're built around these moments. It could be a Super bowl if you're into American football. It could be like a big holiday. It could be a back to school if you have young kids like I do. So in many ways what happens on doordash is I think a representation of what human beings do in their communities and in their day to day lives. Look, occasions have also historically provided best in class, right like opportunities for brands to communicate their messages and, and in many cases have transformed moments, right? Like I don't think any of us can imagine super bowl as a moment right now without the ads. Like as a, as a European who still, whose mind can still fully not comprehend American football. Like I look forward for the ads as much as I do to the game itself. Look for brands like success is again goes back to adding to the consumer in the moment, not trying to take away from it, right? Like so in Valentine's Day was about most folks try to buy flowers, right like so how can I make flowers cheaper? How can I help you create a package where maybe you're buying a small piece of jewelry or you're adding some chocolates to that. Similarly, football and super bowl is, is mostly like a shared moment, right like most of us watch it with close friends and family which generally for doordash means larger orders, right? Like so if you're a brand you can add to that moment by like either giving a bulk discount, right like or adding alcohol to what is a food order. I think that's the essence, right like it's like how does your commercial message or what you're trying to do as a brand improve and augment the moment for the end customer at the end of the day and look for us as a company, what that means is again giving them the tools, the resources, the co marketing dollars a lot of times, right like so that we can do that together again because those importance are so, those moments are so important for our customers.
- [33:34]
Peter V S Bhan
Vasily we like to end our podcast by asking our guests to pull out their crystal balls, give it a little polish and take a look into the future. You're committed to evolving industry standards for how retail media effectiveness is evaluated. If we look out three years, how do you think DoorDash will continue to differentiate itself as the winning commerce media platform for CPGs in an increasingly fragmented landscape.
- [34:04]
Vasily Samalis
So we, we want to be the best. And I know that sounds a little bit obnoxious, but that's where we're at. And I think the only way we do that over decades is if we are serving our customers right. Like if we are the most trusted and performant place where you can deploy your dollars. So I think number one on the crystal ball would be we talk about measurement a lot more the next time we sit together, right? And there's a lot to do there, right? And the more, the more activity moves into retail media networks in places like DoorDash, I think the more we're going to be able to get more scientific about true, true performance. The second one is AI, right? Like AI is changing every single aspect of what it means to not just run but also grow your business in marketing. It means that it's going to be a lot easier to create creatives personalized campaigns, right? Like showing the right thing to the right person at the right time is now a hundred times easier than it was 10 years ago. Personalizing promotions, new ways to reach customers that were not available before. But the list goes on, right? Like we can have like an hour conversation on just AI itself and then I think the last thing is becoming a network, right? The, I think we've talked a lot today about the fragmentation. Think that's sustainable, right? Like our customers, everybody I talk to see it as a pain point right now. And I think it reminds me a lot of like the early days of the open Internet, right? Like where you had like tens of different ad providers, right? Like, and things got consolidated to 2, 3 winners that then became the networks that powered the open Internet. I think the same will be true for retail media networks and I want Doordash to be at the helm of that. We kind of took our first jab at it and going off site with acquiring Symbiosis and Antique Startup last year. But there's a lot more to come in that space. So performance, AI and networks.
- [36:04]
Sree Rajagopalan
And we couldn't agree more with you. So let me remind our listeners, you can find all of our content by simply going to a web Browser and typing cpguys.com as the URL. Of course, if you or someone you know or something to contribute to this ongoing discussion on the CPG guys, please drop us a line at contactpguys.com to our audience. We want to thank you for the clicks, likes, comments, direct messages, meeting us at trade shows, coming to our events, recording episodes with us and all of our sponsors. We're always grateful for you. This show doesn't exist without all of you. You work with us all year. Grateful to have you as your audience and partners. Thank you, thank you. Thank you deeply from the bottom of Peter and my heart. Peter, pleasure doing this episode with you. What's that big takeaway you got from Vasily today?
- [36:47]
Peter V S Bhan
It was very subtle. SRI measurement is important. No, seriously, if there's one thing Vasily hammered home is that measurement is the center of conversations with brands. They understand that budget dollars are not going to shift unless measurement is demonstrated in a very transparent and meaningful way, and that every brand has different objectives and is at different places in their life cycle. And so they need to recognize that how they measure is reflective of what those brands need. So that's my big takeaway.
- [37:17]
Sree Rajagopalan
Sree hey Peter, well I want to go in five different directions and talk a lot about AI and convenience that DoorDash provides just a variety of platforms being able to get you product general merchandise as well now, not just Food and Bell. I think it comes down to measurement. The leader of the next chapter of retail media in this industry is going to be the one that can be very clear about transparent data sharing, which Vasily referred to already closed loop measurement, which he also left her to, and then truly putting a definition of incrementality that's pretty solid in terms of what that is for the brand and working across all three of those spectrums to drive uniform measurement across the universe. So Vasily, I want to thank you for joining us on the CPG Guys today. It has been fun.
- [38:07]
Vasily Samalis
Thank you guys for having me. It's a pleasure.
- [38:10]
Sree Rajagopalan
That's a wrap of this episode of the CPG Guys.
- [38:21]
Vasily Samalis
Foreign.
- [38:26]
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