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- [00:01]
Sree Rajagopalan
Make sure to check out our 500th episode, which was recorded in Cannes, France at the 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Our very special guest for this episode, Tanner eldon, vice president U.S. advertising sales at Amazon. You don't hear from Tanner very much other than on Amazon official events, so this is a rare glimpse and a conversation into what's going on Amazon at the preeminent retail media platform. It's available on all platforms, Apple, Spotify, wherever you choose to find your podcasts to hear. Thank you.
- [00:40]
Abby Larson
I'm Abby Lorson from Snap Inc. And you're listening to the CPG Guys Podcast.
- [00:48]
Sree Rajagopalan
Welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. Your host, Shree Rajagopalan and Peter V. S Bond explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in a increasingly digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys.
- [01:07]
Peter V. S Bond
Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast live from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, straight from Cannes, France. I'm of course sri, your co host and joining me today is the other co host, Peter Vs Bond. When not on the CPG Guys, I'm also CRO and co founder of Think Blue Consulting, a management advisory firm focused on omnichannel brands and retail transformation. Please do listen to my older daughter's music@www.rhearaj.com. that's R H E-R-A. My younger daughter, Lara Raj is a member of the fast growing global girl group Katseye. The new hit Gabriela is out on all channels. We recently hit episode 500 with Amazon VP of ADS Dana Elton, released on June 18th. Please do check it out on all podcasting platforms. We appreciate you leaving us a review and rating on the Apple Podcast platform. It informs us how we're doing and if we're having the right conversations on this podcast. The CPG Guys were here all week and recorded several episodes with industry luminaries from CMOs to brand and retail media leadership. Enjoy this episode. Let's welcome Abby Larson, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Snap Inc. Snap, of course, is a technology company that believes the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. That's actually one of the best company introductions I've ever spoken of. Snap contributes to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. The company's three core products are Snapchat, a visual messaging app. I mean, who doesn't know Snapchat, the visual messaging app that actually enhances your relationships with friends, family and the world. Lens Studio, an augmented Reality platform that powers AR across Snapchat and other services. And it's ar. Glasses, spectacles, Abby, it's gone. Lights. Thank you for making time.
- [02:53]
Abby Larson
Of course.
- [02:54]
Peter V. S Bond
Welcome to the CPG guys.
- [02:55]
Abby Larson
Thank you. Glad to be here.
- [02:57]
Sree Rajagopalan
Sree. Do the CPG guys contribute to Human Progress? I'm still kind of, like, stuck on that one. That was like, what do we do?
- [03:03]
Peter V. S Bond
We need three things.
- [03:04]
Sree Rajagopalan
We're Comic Relief. I know that much.
- [03:06]
Peter V. S Bond
Are we AR though?
- [03:07]
Sree Rajagopalan
No, we know. Okay.
- [03:08]
Peter V. S Bond
We have glasses, though. We qualify. One out of three. We qualify. And so Abby will include your LinkedIn profile, SNAPS website and LinkedIn page for our listeners to access in the digital liner notes of this episode. So let's get started and let me jump right in.
- [03:22]
Abby Larson
Yeah.
- [03:22]
Peter V. S Bond
What makes Snap a uniquely powerful platform for CPG marketers compared to the so many other choices they have in social or retail media environments? I mean, this festival is all about that.
- [03:33]
Abby Larson
Yeah. It's an interesting question and something I've been thinking so much about this week while I've been here, because it's also something that we get asked a lot by our clients and by our advertising partners. And what I keep coming back to, there's sort of two things. One is our audience. So Snapchat has been around for a while and, you know, the generations have grown up with, with Snapchat. So I think people sort of have a misconception sometimes that Snapchat is just full of young people who maybe don't have any buying power, but that's not actually true. You know, those young people have now grown up and they are the people making purchasing decisions.
- [04:07]
Sree Rajagopalan
So we're thinking from, like, you know, there are different generations. The baby boomers, the Gen X, the millennials, and now the, you know, and on and on. So that's what you're saying is they've moved into another group, but they're still using.
- [04:18]
Abby Larson
They're still using. They stuck around. And you know, what I keep reinforcing for all of our partners while we're here this week is they've stuck around. And the platform really serves such an important purpose in someone's lives. It's that opportunity to connect with friends and family. And so the engagement is incredibly high as well. So you sort of have this audience that's grown up on the platform. They're highly engaged, and what they do on our platform is really different. So while on some of our, you know, other competitors, what you experience is really that sort of content consumption, almost like a passive scrolling experience.
- [04:49]
Sree Rajagopalan
The Doom Scroll.
- [04:50]
Abby Larson
The Doom Scroll. I wasn't going to say it, but it's kind of the doom scroll, right? We say that all the time on Snapchat. You know, what they want to do is connect with friends and family. They're here to connect with their friends, they're here to connect with their family. They want to chat with people that they care about. So that's unique. And if I think about CPG and you know, I actually used to work in the CPG industry, I ran marketing and consumer communications for Nestle for the Middle east and North Africa. And we were trying desperately to be a part of people's experience on a daily basis and to have those moments of connection. And so for me, if I think about why is Snapchat really unique for a CPG advertiser? It's that opportunity to be a part of those moments of connection that matter so much to our community and to really be able to participate in that. And then the other thing that makes Snapchat unique is we have a really wide range of ways for brands to show up on the platform and I think for CPG as the cpg so space and CPG advertisers are starting to explore more full funnel solutions and thinking about how do we move out of this world of just being in broad reach, broad awareness, but really be pushing consumers down the funnel. We've been investing a lot in our lower funnel and sort of more performance driving solutions and working to make that really seamless for CPG advertisers who've maybe already found success on the platform in those more broad reach ways.
- [06:08]
Peter V. S Bond
When I say retail media, what comes.
- [06:09]
Abby Larson
To your mind, comes to mind. Retail digital media is what comes to mind to me. So if I think about the investments that Walmart is making, I was listening to you guys talk a little bit about Costco, which I think is a really interesting one. And that space, it's such a unique and powerful space for CPG advertisers and really driving towards that last mile conversion. But what that space doesn't have is the user sort of joy and happiness that we have on Snapchat. Right?
- [06:36]
Sree Rajagopalan
They're there for a functional reason.
- [06:38]
Abby Larson
You're there to buy, you have a mission. You have exactly. You know, you're trying to find something and you're just, you're taking something off your list, right? You've got your list of things you need to buy. People come to Snapchat to have fun and to connect and to engage in those moments of joy. And so when a brand can participate in that it's such a unique opportunity to also change the way that your brand is perceived with a user. And then the last thing I'll say is, you know, scale, right? We just passed 900 million monthly active users. Huge, huge accomplishment. And we're going to continue on that path to reach a billion. And so that scale is really significant also for partners and to be able to break through and connect at scale that way.
- [07:22]
Sree Rajagopalan
Welcome to the podcast, Abby. We're really glad to have you here.
- [07:26]
Abby Larson
Thank you.
- [07:27]
Sree Rajagopalan
So I love the fact that you talked about the funnel, talked about connectivity. What I wanted for the audience of ours that are, we have, you know, three constituents. We have a lot of retailers, we have a lot of brands, we have a lot of agencies. Those are the, the audience that we've kind of cultivated. So to them, kind of double click down on how does snap bridge the gap between upper funnel storytelling and lower funnel conversion? Because a lot of them have gotten used to retail media and they love the lower funnel conversion. But you're just talking to the same people who've been buying your product. Right. The beauty of upper Funnel is obviously discovery and bringing new to brand. And for a lot of brands that lost volume and lost households during the pandemic because they went, they chose alternatives because there's scarcity resources, and now the inflation pressures have caused, have caused them to lose to, say, private label. How can you help bridge the gap between how can you help bridge the gap between upper funnel and lower and lower Funnel?
- [08:27]
Abby Larson
Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question, you know, something we've been investing in really heavily for the last couple of years. So I think, you know, you know, we've historically, you know, played more in that upper funnel space for a lot of our partners, a lot of our advertisers, and that's done incredibly well for us. Right? You think about the reach that we have, the usage we have, but the investment we've made in our technology stack and our ad stack, we focused heavily on the lower funnel in order to meet some of those, those needs of advertisers. So what we're increasingly starting to see is that especially when advertisers are able to provide us with signal around who's purchasing signal, the big, the big question. And, and then the question we get a lot at the beginning of this lot this week is, you know, where does that signal come from if you're kind of in the CPG space? And that's where we're getting, you know, creative about how do we pull that signal through from some of the, the third parties and the partners that are.
- [09:16]
Sree Rajagopalan
Demographics are just that demographics worked in the past. There are so many more powerful signals that can come in and really help them understand is their advertising investment, delivering.
- [09:28]
Abby Larson
The return, delivering and paying off. So one of our, one of our core partners, one of our beauty partners lineage, we saw a lot of success with them when they implemented their conversions API. And so that signal element of it, right, they saw 100% increase in their conversion campaigns compared to the previous year. And so what we're seeing is that when brands are able to sort of deliver that signal back to us and then they adopt our lower funnel product solutions, they're seeing a really big success when it comes to their conversions. We're seeing that also across app install, app purchase and some sort of lead gen products as well. So you know, when I think about kind of this space and cpg for me, the like bread and butter and what I've been talking to a lot of partners about this week is when you're able to kind of allocate budget across the funnel, right. So if you're doing the sort of broad reach, broad awareness work on Snapchat, you've got the spend there, you have those big high impact moments and then you're adding on to that sort of more lower funnel conversion driving outcomes. We're able to really deliver a powerful, powerful performance in that world. And so we really want to encourage people to keep thinking of us not just in that upper funnel space, but really to kind of experiment in the conversion area. And then of course, when it comes to upper funnel, some of the things that are really exciting to me and the area that brands have seen a lot of success in, AR continues to be a big driver of impact for brands. That space of adding an AR placement onto a Snapchat campaign can deliver a lot in terms of effectiveness for our brands. That's a space that people spend a lot of time in. They're highly engaged there. And that's another area of investment and innovation that's really important for brands to, to be aware of and to embrace.
- [11:21]
Sree Rajagopalan
Brilliant.
- [11:21]
Peter V. S Bond
Speaking of lower funnel.
- [11:23]
Abby Larson
Yeah.
- [11:24]
Peter V. S Bond
Are there specific categories that it works better for? Is it for everybody?
- [11:29]
Abby Larson
You know, I think maybe back to the signal piece, right? Lower funnel. Lower funnel works really well if you have the signal that you can pass back. So in particular if I look at some of our more D2C brands where they have that component that tends to work really well. Beauty is one where we've seen, you know, a lot of success.
- [11:46]
Sree Rajagopalan
We.
- [11:47]
Abby Larson
We've also seen success with brands like Crumbl, you know, in kind of that, I guess, confectionary space. Right. Delicious. The Crumbl cookies, they're like a category of their own.
- [11:56]
Sree Rajagopalan
I have lost my train of thought. Now I am craving a Crumbl chocolate chunk cookie.
- [12:00]
Abby Larson
And Crumbl's really interesting, right? What they were trying to do on our platform is get people to download their app. That's what they wanted. That was their goal. And it worked, right? They saw 237% increase in installs, over a 400% increase in purchases. So that was their objective, was I want people to download the app. It worked, right? We were able to deliver that. Again, there was an element of kind of that signal readiness that, that helped them. But, you know, if I think about within the CPG space, you know, who can really win with lower funnel quickly, it's if you've got an action that you're trying to drive towards that you can easily measure whether you've got your own kind of D2C component, which more and more CPG brands are moving into. Right. Trying to either acquire that or do it themselves. If you've got an app component, if you have a loyalty piece, that's the other one that I think a lot.
- [12:48]
Sree Rajagopalan
Of that strong customer data platform with loyalty.
- [12:53]
Abby Larson
Exactly. You're trying to pull someone in, just get them to sign up to your email database. For a lot of companies, recipes are.
- [13:00]
Sree Rajagopalan
Really ideal for food companies. I think there was a point I was working with Campbell's Soup and I understood the value of those recipe subscriptions and their ability to understand, okay, these are the kinds of foods and ingredients that people like. Really powerful signals.
- [13:17]
Abby Larson
It's really, it's super powerful. And it's sticky. Recipes are very sticky if you can get someone excited about getting recipes from you. And it's the same with you. If I think about brands like Pampers or Huggies or infant formula brand, where you have sort of the parent connection too, a lot of these, you know, brands are investing in parenting apps and resources. And so again, if you're sort of, if you are in the space that, you know, historically you're selling products offline, it's brick and mortar. So it's very difficult to get the conversion signal back. But there are, if there are other actions you're driving, trying to drive towards whether that's, you know, the loyalty piece, that's where you can play really, I think, you know, really heavily in that lower funnel space and succeed.
- [14:01]
Peter V. S Bond
So part of the full funnel. Snap's focus has always been on real relationships.
- [14:06]
Abby Larson
Yeah.
- [14:06]
Peter V. S Bond
How does that translate into retail outcomes for brands? I'm guessing full funnel is the way to go.
- [14:12]
Abby Larson
Yeah, I think, you know, I think that's right. And I think, you know, one of the areas that I'm incredibly excited about when it comes to real relationships. We've just expanded our ads products in our messaging, the messaging part of our app. Right. And that to me is that's the core of those real relationships. You're connecting directly with someone you care about and now you can connect directly with a brand. So we've always offered the. Not always offered. We recently launched at the end of, end of last year like a takeover opportunity in our messaging experience. And that was the first impression. It was a big buy, make a splash. We've just expanded access to that chat experience for auction buys on the platform, which makes it possible for more brands to show up in chat more often in a way that is more flexible to their budgets and the outcomes they're trying to drive. So the real relationships on Snapchat, many of them happen within that chat feed. And being able to show up there as a brand is a really exciting thing to explore. Conversational commerce and other elements that will make that an even more impactful placement. But we've already seen really powerful results in terms of the reach. It's ended up being our largest reach placement across the entire platform. And also as we're looking at lower funnel, we're also seeing really encouraging results on the decrease in sort of cost per whatever the advertiser is trying to optimize for.
- [15:39]
Sree Rajagopalan
Well, I have to say, with 900 million users, I am going to myself qualify you as a subject matter expert on behavioral data sets. And so what I'm going to ask you to do with having all of that rich behavioral data at your disposal, I'd like you to tell us a little bit about what does Gen Z really expect from CPG brands today and how should brands evolve to meet that? What's the biggest myth brand still believe about Gen Z engagement on social platforms like Snap?
- [16:10]
Abby Larson
Gosh, there are so many myths about Gen Z, aren't there? We were in a conversation yesterday and it's, you know, they're not, they're not going to want to have jobs in the future. They're not employable. Their attention spans are so small, you know, they're not able to commit to certain things. There's so many misconceptions.
- [16:27]
Sree Rajagopalan
Eight seconds is an eternity is what brand advertisers are like, fearing they can't do their 30 second ad spot.
- [16:34]
Abby Larson
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, we just, we launched our Snapchat Generation report, which came out, I think last week, as sort of in advance of can. And we found that a lot of the things that people believe about Gen Z, they don't end up really being true. This is a generation that's really desperate to connect. They want to be, you know, talking to each other and having those moments of connection. So some of the things that we saw were really around the way that they're exchanging voice notes and connecting with different people on the platform. So we saw through our research that in the US, the sort of Snapchat generation, they're sending 2.5 billion voice notes in Q1 of 2025, which is huge. Right. And that's up from 650 million a year ago. So this idea of really wanting to connect and engage with each other, I think there's a misconduct that maybe that's not as big there, but we know that this generation, there is sort of an element also of authenticity and wanting to show up in a way that's very real.
- [17:39]
Sree Rajagopalan
The real real.
- [17:41]
Abby Larson
Yeah. And I think that, that, you know, sometimes is, you know, maybe misconstrued as ambivalence or entitlement or something, but it's not, it's that really, that hunger for authenticity and they're coming to Snapchat to find that authenticity and to be able to express, express themselves in a very real way.
- [17:55]
Sree Rajagopalan
Creator economy. Oh, my goodness.
- [17:57]
Peter V. S Bond
How about. Yeah, you said 2.4 billion voice notes.
- [18:01]
Abby Larson
2.5 billion voice notes in Q1 of 2025. Huge.
- [18:05]
Peter V. S Bond
That would average 10 billion a year if the trend continues. So, Peter, you and I are doing something right by trading voice notes.
- [18:11]
Sree Rajagopalan
In that case, I think that's good.
- [18:13]
Peter V. S Bond
We're like 50 out of those 10 billion.
- [18:15]
Sree Rajagopalan
We're doing our best. We're doing our best. Not a bad note. Adding to the. Contributing to the achievement.
- [18:21]
Peter V. S Bond
Absolutely.
- [18:22]
Abby Larson
I mean, it's so interesting, isn't it? You think like this generation that maybe isn't picking up the phone, they're not connecting with each other the way that we used to. But I watch this generation. They're constantly on their phone with you. When you look at what they're doing, they're talking to people.
- [18:36]
Sree Rajagopalan
They're just not talking the way that maybe we did. I mean, I remember sitting at a restaurant in Vancouver.
- [18:42]
Peter V. S Bond
I think, Abby, you and me are not in the same generation.
- [18:44]
Sree Rajagopalan
No, but I remember, I remember Sitting at this point and sitting next to us, there was a table of six, much younger generation. And they were all on their phones. They weren't verbally talking to each other, but then I'd all see them laugh at the same time. Like they're talking to each other. Yeah, they're just talking to each other. Not how I was used to talking to other people.
- [19:02]
Abby Larson
Right.
- [19:02]
Sree Rajagopalan
Nothing wrong with that.
- [19:03]
Abby Larson
Nothing wrong with that.
- [19:04]
Sree Rajagopalan
That's what works for them.
- [19:04]
Peter V. S Bond
It's the biases our generation has that the only way you interact and create authentic relationships, you have to speak in English or speak in your language in front of each other. And that's the only way. But that's because it's our inability to get with the program. It's not the other way.
- [19:19]
Abby Larson
I think that's where one of the gaps comes in. Right. From a marketing perspective too is a lot of times the decision makers and the budget, I'm gonna do it.
- [19:27]
Sree Rajagopalan
Let's have some fun.
- [19:28]
Abby Larson
You know, like I think that the, and, and we see this a lot with Snapchat in particular. Right. Like the, the decision makers, the budget holders sometimes don't have that understanding of, of how people are connecting.
- [19:44]
Sree Rajagopalan
A very wise and sage luminary in this industry, I won't mention him by name, has said and made an announcement to CMOs. I don't expect you to use the social media channels to be out there sending messages, but if you don't have those on your device, you can't be a cmo. You cannot be a cmo.
- [20:08]
Peter V. S Bond
You're not qualified.
- [20:09]
Sree Rajagopalan
Foreign Drug Review's focus is on reaching the key decision makers across all retail channels, delivering comprehensive coverage of the latest shopping trends and in depth category analysis on health, beauty, over the counter products and wellness. Whether it's the latest trends, emerging technologies or strategies for adapting to new consumer behaviors, mass market retailers deliver the critical information retailers need to navigate this dynamic environment. To subscribe to the newsletters of CDR and mmr, simply follow the hyperlinks in the digital liner notes of this episode. Chain Drug Review and Mass Market Retailers are published by Retail Media iq.
- [20:57]
Abby Larson
I mean, look, if you. That's where you have to be aware of their decisions.
- [21:01]
Sree Rajagopalan
You have to be aware how people. You go where the consumers are. Yeah, you go where the consumers purchase.
- [21:07]
Abby Larson
Decisions are so influenced by these platforms. Right. It's a massive contributor to how people are making brand choices, how they're making purchasing decisions, they're recommending things to friends.
- [21:16]
Sree Rajagopalan
Who are you going to trust? Are you going to trust what the Brand said, are you going to trust what the retailer said? You know, trust what your friends say. Like you are, you're about connections and friends. That's the kind of stuff that they want to hear about.
- [21:28]
Peter V. S Bond
I mean, the way I think of, I'm rolling it one level higher and saying it's an attention economy. That's where humans are. You need to know where humans are and you need to know what product they use. Nothing different than 30 years ago in the CPG industry. You would do shop alongs in store because that's where they were.
- [21:46]
Abby Larson
I would actually take it a step further from just show up where they are, you know, show up where your consumer is to show up in a way that's authentic to how they show up in that place. Right. And that's the other thing we see a lot on Snapchat and you know, it's true across the board. But being able to show up on Snapchat authentically. Right. Showing up in a way that fits with the way that our community shows up, the way they want to communicate with each other, it's so important. And especially if I think about, you know, cpg brand advertisers, tell your story in a way that feels consistent with how people connect and communicate on the platform.
- [22:20]
Peter V. S Bond
Wait, wait, wait. You're saying the 30 second TV ad wouldn't work on Snap's platform?
- [22:25]
Abby Larson
I mean, the 30 second TV ad, beautiful. Do it. But no, I mean, it's not the right way to show up here. Show up here in a way that's authentic.
- [22:32]
Sree Rajagopalan
Brands need to vibe with the platform and how those consumers are using it.
- [22:37]
Abby Larson
And it doesn't have to be real, it doesn't have to be super hard. You know, we see brands that succeed by producing content that probably was shot on someone's phone, but it worked. Right? It was the right thing. They're taking advantage of the, you know, creative tools that we have on the platform and that's, that's really where the beauty comes in. Right. If you can show up on the platform in a way that's really authentic to how people connect, how they want to communicate with each other and, and not have it be a disruptive experience.
- [23:06]
Peter V. S Bond
You view from, you've kind of tripped on a much more deeper root cause opportunity for the largest brand, like the large market cap brands in the world in general. I would say mid tier as well, which is talent in the marketing space.
- [23:22]
Abby Larson
Yeah, yeah.
- [23:23]
Peter V. S Bond
I don't want to use words like it needs an upgrade, it needs to be curious and curiosity. Curiosity is the Number one virtue, I think, for talent. And that's what you're speaking to. Let me remind the audience. Excuse me, let me remind the audience that we're speaking with Abby Larson from Snap Inc. And so, Abby, we kind of started touching upon this topic with this conversation we were just having on CMOs, etc. How is SNAP helping brands remain culturally relevant but also staying authentic? Which is true to that. And now I'm flipping the coin here. This is authenticity for brands true to their identity. We just said the 32nd TV ad is probably not the best choice.
- [24:06]
Abby Larson
So, yeah, you know, I would argue Snap is probably one of the best places for brands to retain that cultural relevancy and to even to build it. You know, we see a lot of brands trying to figure out the way to show up on Snap and the best way for them to build their brands on Snap. And the cultural relevance piece is the critical superpower that Snap can deliver to a brand. So, you know, I talked a little bit about some of our ad products that I think are really helpful here, but just to kind of go back to it, right. We have within our platform, the way that consumers really aim to connect is through messaging and through their chat experience. We've launched and expanded our sponsored Snap solution, which is the opportunity for brands to show up in that chat feed. That's the most loved, kind of one of the most used parts of our, of our app. And that's now possible across the funnel. You can do it from an upper funnel perspective, also lower funnel driving conversions. So, you know, if I think about cultural relevance, if you just think about, you know, when you're, you're talking about sitting at dinner, I think next to a group of sort of the Snapchat generations, as we call them, Right. I mean, you look at what they're doing on their phone, half the time they're on Snapchat, they're snapping each other. And so being able to show up in that environment, that's a way for brands to stay cultured, culturally relevant, be part of not just the conversation, but that conversation. What they're talking about, how they're exchanging messages and information to be there, is really critical. And then the other one that I'll talk a little bit too, is we have a part of our service, we have our Snap map, which is, I think, one of the most used maps globally. We just got to 400 million monthly active users, users for our map, which is awesome.
- [26:02]
Sree Rajagopalan
Those numbers are staggering.
- [26:05]
Peter V. S Bond
Yeah. Across the board. That's the second one you gave us.
- [26:07]
Abby Larson
It's huge, right? These are huge numbers. And within that experience, what we know is that people aren't looking to get from point A to point B. That's not the point. That's not why they're in the SNAP map. They are trying to figure out where their friends are, where their family members are, and they're trying to figure out what's cool around them that they can take advantage of. And so they're looking for places to go and visit and experience, and that's sort of making up their daily lives and a bit of sort of their culture. Brands can now be in the map. And this is something people have been asking us for, for years, to really have that opportunity to show up in the map and be a part of those exploration moments that our community is having. So we have a product called Promoted Places, which is in testing now, which allows a brand to show up on our map if the brand is sort of of a brick and mortar experience to show up on the map. And we're going to be expanding that in the next couple months to also allow for a partnerships experience. So if I think about again, back to brands where they're brick and mortar sellers, that's where they're driving the most of their conversions. They can partner with a retailer so that their brand and their product shows up on our map in partnership with a retailer. And that's a huge opportunity to really drive foot traffic to a location and then ultimately drive the conversion. But more than that, it's an opportunity for a brand to be a part of that really important moment of discovery and connection within the snap experience.
- [27:35]
Sree Rajagopalan
Well, first of all, I love how you snap is also a verb. They are snapping. Because when I grew up, snap map, when I was growing up, snapping involved elastic components of clothing. And it was not a good experience when you were a kid, and I had a kid in elementary school. So this is good news. All right, so how do you see the line between social and retail blurring in the next year or two?
- [28:01]
Abby Larson
It already has, right? I think if, you know, if we think about where are people choosing to make their purchasing decisions? The influence, and we already talked about the influences. It comes from social, right? This is where people are being most influenced to make their purchasing decisions. Whether it's coming from a friend, whether it's coming from a career creator, whatever it is, that's where they're making their choices. So I think the line, in a way, has already been blurred quite substantially, and we already see that. One of the things you see a lot is someone's in a retail location, what are they doing? They're on their phone, they're looking for what to buy. They're not even looking around at the shelves.
- [28:39]
Sree Rajagopalan
That's a bigger issue. Too often traditional brand marketers think of it's either offline or on. I go into physical store or it's pure e commerce.
- [28:48]
Abby Larson
Yep.
- [28:48]
Sree Rajagopalan
It's about the path to purchase is what you're saying. They're in the story. If you don't understand that every shopper walks into the store, virtually every shopper, with an incredible, very smart device called a smartphone, you're missing the picture. This is about fluidity. This guy over here has said to me many times, all sales are 100% digitally influenced to one degree or another.
- [29:12]
Peter V. S Bond
No debate in my mind, they are really, really get annoyed. I'm just gonna say the word annoyed by people who say 67.3% of sales are digitally influenced. It's like the simple answer lies in to this question, lies in how engaged are you on your smartphone or your tablet or whatever it is, your device all day long. That's where you source information from, that's where you source news from. That's how you engage with the human species, if that's the right word. And that's how I engage with my pets as well. Because my young baby two year old zoomies now my cover page on my phone. But why do we debate then? This is not 100% influential.
- [29:53]
Abby Larson
No, it's 100% true. And even, you know, someone's in a store, they're trying to make a decision what to buy, what are they doing, they're sending, they're snapping a friend to say which one should I get? Should I get this?
- [30:02]
Sree Rajagopalan
Here are my two things.
- [30:03]
Abby Larson
I mean, that's the, that's the checking.
- [30:05]
Peter V. S Bond
Readings and reviews, product efficacy.
- [30:08]
Sree Rajagopalan
But they want their trusted network to.
- [30:10]
Abby Larson
Tell them, to tell them where it comes from.
- [30:11]
Sree Rajagopalan
And does this work for me?
- [30:13]
Abby Larson
Exactly. Does this work for me? And so that, that moment. Right. And a lot of this is the inspiration behind what I was just talking about before with promoted places. If you can blur that kind of social and retail experience within a product itself, right. Which our map can do. You're in that location, you're, you know, you're there. And how do we then deliver the right sort of nudges for a user to make the right purchase decision or you know, right from, from the brand's perspective. But that is really sort of the manifestation of that blurring of the lines for us. And I think you know, I think Snap plays a huge role in how people are making those purchasing decisions and asking questions of each other. And so in a way, if I think about the blur between social and retail, it's already happened. And if brands aren't showing up in the places where that, in that 100% influence is happening and they're not showing up in a way that is authentic and that makes sense, they're missing out. And where are consumers? So many of them, they're on Snap, they're here. And to not be showing up in a way that you can influence those purchase decisions in that moment of truth, that's, you know, you're missing out. And I think, you know, one of the things you asked me about earlier was retail media or retail digital media. And how does Snap compare? You know, if I think about, there are a lot of, I think, brands that view in that last moment when you're sort of in the store, the holy grail is that I can deliver an ad on someone's phone. Like I'm, you know, it's from the retailer, I'm in the retailer, and then I'm going to buy the product. But that's not how people make choices. Right. They're probably, they're in their favorite apps, they're connecting with their friends. It's likely not the same app as the store that you're in. Right. You're doing something different. And so to be able to influence across all of the places that a consumer is showing up and that they're connecting is. It's so critical, it's so important. And it allows that line that's been blurred. It allows a brand to take advantage of it in the most powerful way.
- [32:14]
Sree Rajagopalan
You can't just be authentic. You can't just be where your consumers are. It needs to be. Be in combination.
- [32:21]
Abby Larson
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:22]
Peter V. S Bond
Abby, earlier in the show, you kind of referred to a research report for brands. So it'd be awesome to know what sort of insights brands can find in this research report. The CPG guys, of course, will include a download link in the digital liner notes of this episode.
- [32:36]
Abby Larson
Yeah, absolutely. So the Snapchat generation is a report that we released last week. And a lot of it was really focused at helping to kind of pull back the curtain on who's on Snapchat. Right. Who is here? How can we help people?
- [32:49]
Peter V. S Bond
Public data at this age.
- [32:50]
Abby Larson
Public, public data available. You know, he said the link would be available for, for your listeners. And this is really, you know, we've sort of long known within the company how unique our community is and how important it is for us to really, you know, provide the services and the experiences that will work for our community. And we want to make sure that we're making it clear to the outside world too, of what's so unique about this audience. And so we did a research report to try and identify some key insights that just sort of give a little bit more context and color to who this Snapchat generation is. And a few of the things that I think are really exciting and maybe eye opening for people to see and to understand. So one of them, if I go back to the authenticity and to kind of what makes Snapchat unique and how people show up on Snapchat unique, something we see a lot, is that people actually blur their snaps on Snapchat. So the content that they're putting onto the platform, they're not looking for it to be perfect, they even use it. We have a lens which is sort of a blurry lens, which is one of our most popular ones. And it's this idea of not wanting things to show up perfectly. So our lens that sort of blurry, if it has blurry in the name, was viewed over 3.2 billion times in 2024. So this sort of idea that it doesn't need to be perfect, it doesn't need to be right, people are willing to kind of live in the imperfection. And we saw actually that 80% of Snapchatters say that Snapchat is where they can be their most authentic and real self. Love that. What's cool, actually is we hear this from our version of creators, which we call Snap Stars. They're posting on our service, they're posting on Snapchat over a hundred times a day. And that's because they live their lives on Snapchat. They post, you know, a perfect.
- [34:42]
Sree Rajagopalan
It is integral to how they communicate in the world.
- [34:45]
Abby Larson
It is. And it's not even, you know, there. Our Snap Stars have a big community that they've built and what they're using Snapchat for is to share with that community what they're doing in their daily life on an ongoing basis. And they want brands to be a part of that. So I think there's sort of that lo fi, authentic experience experience. And that's how people really want to show up on the platform. And then the other thing, you know, I touched on this a little bit earlier, but the other thing we're seeing is that this Snapchat generation, they're talking, they're sort of narrating, confessing and kind of having this sort of saying, yapping their way into connecting with people, so they're constantly communicating with each other. So we saw that, you know, snapchatters collectively talk for more than 1.7 billion minutes each day on average. So snapchatters collectively talk for more than 1.7 billion minutes each day. That is a lot, right? And that's gone up 30% from last year. Then we said this before, but we see that Snapchatters in the US send over 2.5 billion voice notes. They sent over 2.5 billion voice notes in Q1, which is up from 650 million voice notes a year ago. So this idea of constantly connecting, constantly communicating with each other, this is another thing that we know to be really true about the Snapchat generation. And then the last thing, and I sort of touched on this earlier, but the kind of connection and communication between friends and doing it sort of real time, that's happening every day for our community. So we saw that snapchatters, they sent over 880 billion chats in Q1 of 2025, which is massive. And maybe to your point earlier, about how many purchase decisions are influenced by an online platform. 92% of daily Snapchatters include their friends in their shopping journey. So 92% of daily Snapchatters include their friends in their shopping journey.
- [36:36]
Peter V. S Bond
Zero surprises for me. Zero surprises. It's just for brands, a lot of this might be a surprise.
- [36:42]
Sree Rajagopalan
I'm surprised that I didn't know that I can now put a blurry filter when I communicate with this guy because that's going to make it much more palatable. Much more palatable.
- [36:50]
Abby Larson
Send them a snap of your forehead. You know, like that's another really popular one. This is actually really interesting too. Right. From our, from our report. Of those people that are snapping during their. Their shopping journey, half are sending messages or pictures via Snapchat. Right. So they're that that moment of I'm in that shopping experience and they're sending those messages and pictures back and forth to each other. So being able to be in that daily ongoing conversation critical for brands, you're missing out on an opportunity if you're not participating in that conversation.
- [37:20]
Peter V. S Bond
So, Abby, what does the future retail media meet social commerce look like from your seat? And what's one like? Awesome. You've given us so many. But what's one innovation or trend at Snap that CPG leaders should be paying more attention to?
- [37:34]
Abby Larson
Yeah, so I think the sort of the piece of what's the future of retail media meeting Social commerce, you know, something that we're thinking about a lot. And this has come up a lot while we've been here this week and talking to different partners. We know that for the CPG advertisers out there, this is a moment of really needing to focus on efficiency in many ways and also a moment to really focus on effectiveness. And so we're really trying to make sure that we're continuing to improve our targeting solutions, our optimization solutions, and really enhancing and embracing our machine learning models and optimization so that we're delivering the most efficiency and the highest ROI for our, for our advertisers. And I think that's a really important component of where we want to dig in, is to meet our advertising partners where they are. You know, efficiency is a big part of what we need to drive towards. The macro environment is not the friendliest right now to the CPG world. Right. And I think it's important for us to continue to really build out the solutions that improve that efficiency. And again, kind of, you know, going back to how do we continue to support our advertisers as they build out their own signals and ingest those into our platform? And then I think the other piece is, you know, as if I think about our CPG partners, there's this constant desire to capture new audiences and to keep up with the audiences that they, that they have and that they need to grow. And so I think as the world continues to evolve in kind of the retail space and in the CPG space, that idea of how do you capture an audience that is continuing to change. That's a place where Snapchat has a big advantage. We have a very unique, highly engaged audience across a wide range of age groups. And so it's a really important place. And then you said sort of one other innovation that I should speak to. We haven't talked yet about Snapchat Smart Campaign Solutions. So Snapchat Smart Campaign Solutions is our AI driven suite of performance marketing tools on the platform that allow advertisers to see the most effective outcomes on our platform with sort of the least amount of effort. So we have a smart campaign.
- [39:50]
Peter V. S Bond
So the AI part of this is the least amount of effort.
- [39:53]
Abby Larson
Correct.
- [39:53]
Peter V. S Bond
For the best optimized campaigns.
- [39:56]
Abby Larson
So you give us what you're trying to accomplish. Yeah, we're building out a set of solutions that allow you to see that outcome for the most efficient cost. So smart bidding solutions, smart audience solutions so you can easily expand your audience and campaign optimization so that you can sort of move between campaigns, move Your budget between campaigns that are performing the best. So that innovation again, back to sort of the efficiency driving and getting someone the right outcome. That's a really big space of innovation for us. And we've talked about the other big ones. Ads in chat, promoted places. These are the things that we really want to double down on.
- [40:34]
Sree Rajagopalan
Abby, how's Snap really helping brands prove roi, especially when it comes to full funnel performance like the old John Wanamaker, 50% of your advertising dollars are wasted. I just don't know which 50% are. So, you know, and how does attribution play a role in a world where so many platforms are walled gardens in terms of the ability to access and make meaningful use of that data?
- [41:02]
Abby Larson
Yeah, I mean this is the like million dollar question. And the thing we're spending so much of our time on today, you know, all of our partners, all of our sort of advertisers, so many of them have very different definitions of performance. This is something very, it keeps getting more complicated. You know, you look at what everyone's trying to drive towards and it's such a massive range. And so we've invested heavily in the resources and the tools to be able to deeply understand what an advertiser is trying to drive, what does performance look like for them and how do we make sure that we, we're fully integrated on our side to be able to measure that performance and something that is a continuous journey, that takes time, that's an investment to understand the definition of performance, make sure that things are linked up in the right way and then on our side to continue to make investments with measurement partners and other third party providers to make that as easy as we can for our advertisers. So for me it's really, it's about meeting our, our advertisers where they are investing from a resources perspective, a technology perspective so that we can prove the ROI on our platform and then continue to increase that and improve it for advertisers over time.
- [42:15]
Peter V. S Bond
Awesome. 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. If you or someone you know something to contribute to this ongoing discussion on the CPG guys, simply drop us a line at contactpguys.com again that email email is contactpguys.com to our audience. Thank you for the clicks, likes, comments, DMs meeting us at trade show, shooting podcasts, coming to our events, recording episodes with us and our sponsors. We are always grateful for you this show doesn't exist without all of you. You work with us all year. We're grateful to have you as your audience and partners. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Abby. Busy show. You have a lot going on.
- [42:52]
Abby Larson
Yeah.
- [42:53]
Peter V. S Bond
Thanks for making time for the CPG Guys.
- [42:54]
Abby Larson
Of course. Very happy to be here. Thank you so much.
- [42:57]
Peter V. S Bond
Thank you. And thank you, Peter. As always, it's been a fun four and a half days. Tree.
- [43:01]
Sree Rajagopalan
We haven't. We haven't gone shoe shopping yet. We've got to do that before we.
- [43:04]
Peter V. S Bond
Get out of the Hermes scarf. Don't forget that.
- [43:06]
Sree Rajagopalan
Oh, yes, the Hermes scarf with that.
- [43:08]
Peter V. S Bond
That's a wrap of this episode of the CPG Guys.
- [43:22]
Sree Rajagopalan
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