Live from Groceryshop With Henkel’s Karen Satterlie, Pacvue’s Melissa Burdick & 84.51’s Barbara Connors

Summary

Podcast Summary: The CPG Guys – Live from Groceryshop With Henkel’s Karen Satterlie, Pacvue’s Melissa Burdick & 84.51’s Barbara Connors

Release Date: December 7, 2024

In this dynamic episode of The CPG Guys, hosts Peter V.S. Bond and Sri Rajagopalan engage in a comprehensive discussion with industry leaders Karen Satterly of Henkel, Melissa Burdick from Pacvue, and Barbara Connors from 84.51°. Filmed live at the Groceryshop conference, this episode delves deep into the evolving landscape of the CPG and FMCG eCommerce sectors, emphasizing the critical interplay between brands, retailers, and the omnichannel consumer journey.

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1. Setting the Stage: Hosts and Guests Introductions

The episode kicks off with Peter V.S. Bond and Sri Rajagopalan outlining their participation in the upcoming CES conference and their plans during Groceryshop. They warmly introduce their guests:

• Barbara Connors (84.51°): “I lead two big macro teams responsible for educating and driving awareness of our insights, creating thought leadership, and partnering between technical and commercial teams to bring the right insights innovation to market.” [04:23]

• Melissa Burdick (Pacvue): “We are a commerce acceleration platform that sits on top of over 100 retailers, unifying the retail media space and providing optimization and activation through our platform.” [05:36]

• Karen Satterly (Henkel): “I lead our shopper marketing team as well as our e-commerce content team, ensuring we're hitting the right touch points wherever the consumer is shopping.” [06:12]

2. The Current Landscape: Volume Decline and Consumer Loyalty

Sri Rajagopalan sets the context by addressing the significant decline in volume experienced by mid-tier and large market cap brands over the past 18 months. Referencing his tenure at General Mills, he explains how a focus on dollar growth through price increases led to a neglect of volume, resulting in a decline that has persisted industry-wide:

“Brands' single biggest challenge now is how do I bring them back, how do I bring new to brand.” [04:55]

This backdrop frames the conversation around strategies to inspire and activate consumers in a digitally driven marketplace.

3. Joint Business Planning: Brands and Retailers Collaborating

The discussion emphasizes the necessity of unified commerce and joint business planning between brands and retailers to effectively capture market share and drive growth. Karen Satterly highlights the importance of this collaboration:

“Unified commerce starts with joint business planning, not only from the brand side but also with our retailer partners.” [07:32]

Barbara Connors adds that holistic planning allows brands and retailers to understand their roles within category growth goals, ensuring cohesive execution across all touchpoints.

4. Inspiration to Activation: Engaging the Modern Shopper

Sri transitions the conversation to the concept of "inspiration" in consumer engagement. Barbara Connors elaborates on how modern shoppers seek inspiration directly from retailer sites, surpassing traditional sources like social media:

“60% of customers say that they actually like to go to retailer sites and apps for inspiration or their shopping lists, which is higher than those who go to social media or cookbooks.” [11:00]

She discusses strategies brands can employ to capture and retain shopper attention, such as providing targeted coupons, promoting in-store promotions, and reducing the mental load for consumers.

Melissa Burdick further explores how trends, especially those emerging from platforms like TikTok, influence consumer behavior and purchasing decisions:

“Customers are less loyal to brands and more loyal to needs and trends they discover on platforms like TikTok.” [15:05]

5. The Role of Retail Media: Media as a Core Component

A pivotal moment in the conversation is the affirmation that retail media is indeed media, a sentiment echoed by the hosts and supported by industry trends. Barbara Connors notes:

“We're still early in the journey of understanding how shopper behaviors are shifting and how to take advantage of all the capabilities available to drive an omnichannel experience.” [22:50]

Melissa Burdick emphasizes the need for seamless data integration and real-time activation to harness the full potential of retail media:

“We need programmatic access to take data and activate it in real-time, which is crucial for driving conversions.” [25:44]

6. Embracing AI: Hyper-Personalization and Automation

The conversation naturally progresses to the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence in the industry. Melissa Burdick highlights AI’s potential for creating hyper-personalized shopping experiences:

“AI allows for a hyper-personalized experience, tailoring product recommendations and content to individual shopper preferences, which significantly enhances conversions.” [27:20]

Barbara Connors adds that AI can automate mundane tasks, enabling quicker activation of insights and fostering innovation:

“AI can help us synthesize qualitative data, pull key themes, and accelerate transformations, ultimately enhancing our ability to personalize and innovate.” [29:07]

Karen Satterly discusses the duality of AI's impact, balancing excitement for its capabilities with concerns over regulatory constraints and the need for human oversight:

“While AI offers remarkable opportunities for personalization and efficiency, we must navigate legal controls and maintain human oversight to ensure compliance and authenticity.” [31:17]

7. Collaboration and the Future Outlook

As the episode draws to a close, the panelists agree on the critical importance of collaboration between brands, retailers, and service providers to navigate the evolving market landscape. They advocate for continuous learning, reduced reliance on promotions, and innovative approaches to engaging consumers:

“We all have an opportunity to transform how we launch and support innovation, especially in the digital shopping experience, to support trial and awareness similar to in-store experiences.” [25:07]

Sri Rajagopalan reinforces the necessity of being change agents within the industry, urging listeners to drive inspiration through to activation.

Conclusion: Driving Change through Collaboration and Innovation

The episode concludes with heartfelt thanks to the guests and attendees, reiterating the pivotal role of retail media and collaborative planning in overcoming current industry challenges. Peter V.S. Bond and Sri Rajagopalan emphasize the ongoing need for innovation, data-driven strategies, and harmonious cooperation between all stakeholders to inspire and activate consumers effectively.

“Retail media is real. It's here, it's media. You can make a difference for the brands you represent. Be the ones that are the change agents because the industry needs you to.” [33:49]

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Key Takeaways:

• Unified Commerce: Joint business planning between brands and retailers is essential for capturing market share and driving growth in a competitive landscape.

• Inspiration as a Strategy: Modern consumers seek inspiration from retailer platforms, necessitating brands to provide valuable content and seamless shopping experiences.

• Retail Media's Evolution: Retail media is recognized as a core component of media strategies, requiring effective data integration and real-time activation to maximize conversions.

• AI's Transformative Role: Artificial Intelligence offers significant potential for hyper-personalization and automation, enhancing consumer engagement while necessitating careful management of regulatory and authenticity concerns.

• Collaboration and Innovation: Continuous collaboration among brands, retailers, and service providers, combined with innovative approaches, is crucial for driving consumer inspiration and activation.

This episode serves as a vital resource for industry professionals seeking to understand and navigate the complexities of modern consumer engagement, emphasizing the importance of collaboration, data-driven strategies, and embracing technological advancements to stay ahead in the CPG and FMCG eCommerce sectors.

Transcript

[Peter Vs Bond]

Hey, it's pvsb with the CPG guys. Sri and I are going to be in Las Vegas, Nevada January 6th through the 9th for the 2025 CES conference. Monday evening we'll be hosting an invite only party at the Aria. On Wednesday morning we'll be emceeing a breakfast briefing on 2025 Retail media investments that's sponsored by CVS Media Exchange. That's over at the Park MGM Tuesday appearing over at the OMG Commerce Experience at the Cosmopolitan. And we'll be seen mostly around the area space. Expect to see us going into a lot of the area sky suites for individual meetings. We'll even be recording some content there. If you see us, stop by, say hello, take a selfie, whatever you want. We love speaking with people. We look forward to seeing you in January. Happy holidays everyone. Welcome to the CPG Guys podcast. Your hosts Sri Rajagopalan and Peter Vs Bond explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in an increasingly digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG guys.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Good morning, I'm Sri. For those of you that don't know me, I'm one half of the CPG Guys run the industry's largest podcast. My partner Peter Bond is sitting over there on the left hand side for most of you. I'm also partner and founder of a consulting company called Think Blue Consulting. We work with brands, retailers and service providers on their Omnichannel transformation journey. We got a booth at 1601 B All About Space planning Transformation has nothing to do with omnichannel, even though I just told you that's what we do. But it's revolutionary new tech which should enable merchants to actually generate 10,000 planograms in 30 minutes. Never been done in the history. Why can we do it? Because of the wonderful buzzword of our industry, artificial intelligence. It's real, it's applied AI. Today's topic is something completely different. Yes, if you were here yesterday, we had a little bit of a chat with another panel on how volume has become the single biggest problem for mid tier and large market cap brands. So for any of you in an agency representing a brand, if you're from a brand your last 18 months still distinctly remember the day, March 18th of last year when the I was, I worked for General Mills as president of sales and so I was a client of Nielsen. When the Nielsen IQ Sunday night report came, it was the first time in three years that volume declined. We had never seen that in three years. Why? Because we had taken a lot of price increases and we were really chasing dollar growth and we weren't paying attention to volume but dollar sales got arrested, dollar share got arrested and actually the decline started. Why snap dried up, EBT dried up and then the government assistant checks dried up. Lo and behold, 18 months have passed by and a brand's single biggest challenge. Now you talk to any large and mid market cap brand at any retailer. Doesn't matter. Maybe Costco is a rare exception just because they deal in big pack sizes. And brands and presidents as well as CEOs will tell you the same thing. I'm losing households and I've lost households who've traditionally been very loyal to me. And my number one priority is how do I bring them back, how do I bring new to brand? And retailers are thinking the same thing. How do I bring new to retail so that they can capture market share of retail in the zone that the store operates One store at a time. That's our backdrop for today's conversation and it's really about from inspiring a shopper, a customer in the retail eyes all the way to activation at the end of the day. And that's what I have. These three wonderful ladies, I get a chance to actually put them on the hot seat, ask them a bunch of questions. I don't follow the script even though I've been given one. The only part I'll follow the script is actually to introduce these three wonderful ladies. So first let me, let me introduce, sitting right next to me, Barbara Connors, Vice President, Strategy and acceleration at 8451. Take a minute, tell us about what you do. What is a VP of strategy and acceleration?

[Barbara Connors]

All right, thank you all for being here today. So what I do is I lead sort of two big macro teams. One at 8451 is responsible for educating and driving awareness of our insights, creating thought leadership with them and also partnering between technical and commercial teams to bring the right insights innovation to market. I also lead a team that acts as liaisons between Kroger Merchandising and all the commercial businesses at 8451 across insights, loyalty incentives and KPM to drive better alignment and collaboration towards mutual growth.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

So I'm guessing you're right in the middle of advising not just brands but within retail as well, maybe talking to merchants. This magic of inspiration to activation, how do you bring new to brands? That's on your mind every single day now we'll jump all the way to the end. I know I said sitting right next to me is Barbara, but that's what you do when you're a podcast host and I literally told you to sit here. Melissa, of course, is a great friend of ours. She's been on the show at CPG guys. We've known each other in industry quite a while. She's actually a guest host every Sunday on the fresh floor of the cpg guys. She needs no intro. Founder, president of pacview. What does pacview do, Melissa?

[Melissa]

So for those of you who don't know, hopefully you do. We have a great partnership with Kroger. We're a commerce acceleration platform. We sit on top of all the retailers. We sit over 100 retailers. So Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Target, really unifying the retail media space and providing optimization and activation in our platform.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Thank you. And Karen, I'll assume you'll forgive me for skipping and going to Barbara because here's the funny thing. Think Blue is actually working with Henkel. She has a wonderful job of doing industry transformation as director and one of the most important pieces off retail, which is the omnichannel journey. So what does a day in your life look like?

[Karen Satterly]

So, hi everyone, I'm Karen Satterly. I'm with Hinkle Consumer Goods. So I lead our shopper marketing team as well as our e commerce content team. So A day in the life is actually pretty widespread across, you know, trying to pull everything together. And I think it's really on point for the topic today of making sure that we're wherever the consumer is shopping, we're hitting on the right touch points. And so my team is, it is really integrated into all of those touch points and we touch content to the types of media that we're talking to them, on to the types of messaging that we're using and making sure that it's really a holistic journey for them.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

So question number one is automatically going to default to you because I got a makeup. Now if we think about the planning cycle right, especially in this context of volume is now declining or it's been arrested, it's not growing, households are lost, got to get new to household, bring loyalty back. Traditionally, if I go back three, four years in history, I was very much guilty and victim sometimes of keeping the whole digital channel separate from the in store channel. How does it work at Henkel? Have you all started that journey together? And to really chase the shopper and bring them back, does it need to be one joint business plan and this planning need to start with a brand?

[Karen Satterly]

Yes, absolutely. I think one of the buzzwords a couple years ago is unified commerce. Right. And so it absolutely starts with joint business planning, not only from the brand side, but also with our retailer partners. So one of the key pieces that we've been doing is joint planning across media. So it's not. Even though my team focuses on the shopper side, which includes retail media, we work really, really closely with our national media team as well, just to make sure that we understand who's. And you know, that space is kind of converging. Right. Retail media networks, they're expanding into different parts of the funnel. And so we want to make sure that we're not overlapping in the types of things that we're executing on and then also pulling that all together in the store as well. So as I spoke about earlier, just really making sure that, you know, wherever the shopper is shopping, that shopper journey has evolved so much in the past four years. And it looks different in every single category. You know, the reasons that people dive into TikTok or dive into, you know, other channels, they're looking for different types of information and they might be in different parts of their shopper journey. And the conversion point looks different in every category. So really making sure that you understand that critically for each category is important.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

So would you kind of say that in the industry if planning does need to start up top from like the brand, and that's how things should play themselves out all the way to activation. Sales teams actually understand that and are working together with brand teams to do the best planning they can digital or in store.

[Karen Satterly]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of insights that the sales team can work with their retail partners on gathering. And we also have a wonderful category team that we work with internally as well. And I think working together and pulling those insights and bringing them back to the brands is really critical to make sure, you know, the brands, they're managing the brand overall, but helping them really understand what's, what's important to the shopper and bringing that back to square one as they're looking and figuring out where the brand growth is going to come from is really important.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

I'm going to ask you to help me set the context for my next question. And that is a sub question is retail media media?

[Karen Satterly]

Absolutely.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

So for those of you that don't. I was hoping she'd say that secretly, this wasn't practiced or rehearsed. The reason I say that is you'll see Peter and me walking around sometimes with a blue T shirt also on the show, and there's a quote we have and it says retail Media is media. Anybody want to guess who actually said that at ad Week a year ago? Cara Pratt from Kroger Precision Marketing. So we've absorbed that and we truly believe it is. Barbara, the next one's for you. And that is the backdrop, right? If retail media is genuinely media. I'm thinking about the word inspiration. Inspiration in simple English, Webster's dictionary would be inspire. You guys do a pretty good job of that on the holiday season, seasonality, Halloween, there's so many occasions, Super Bowl. What does the word inspiration mean to you? And how does inspiration especially these times, if you get it, being new to brand. Inspiration is one of the best methodologies a brand marketer can get to bring someone new to brand. How is that done? What does that word mean to you? And what's the role of retail media in that journey? Inspired to activation.

[Barbara Connors]

Oh, when I think about what inspiration means to me, another way I think about is just bringing new ideas to someone. And one of the shifts that's happened is now 60% of customers say that they actually like to go to retailer sites and apps for inspiration or their shopping lists. This is actually a higher percentage than shoppers who say that they go to social media or old school cookbooks. So this means that people are coming to retailer sites not just for transactions, but also for content. And what retailers have a unique opportunity to do is really like reduce the friction and the effort that it takes from someone to go from an idea to then items in their cart. I think the challenge that we all face is that there are several other things that are happening at the same time. One is that the number one reason why people go to E commerce today instead of shopping in stores is for convenience. The other is that financial pressures are still really high. Still, roughly 2/3 of customers say that they're highly concerned with the rate of inflation that exists today. So they're constrained in terms of their budget. And then the other is that 72% of shoppers, when they start to build their ecom basket, do it on their phone. And so this means that in the eyes of the shopper, the digital aisle is actually much more constrained than the physical one. So while we have customers that are coming to retailer sites for inspiration, the challenge then for brands to make sure that you then capture attention and can keep it of shoppers while they're on the site. There are a couple ways I think that you can really do this, and one is just continuing to focus on the content that you create as being a way to provide expanded value to shoppers. The value can be from targeted coupons. It can be from amplifying and driving awareness of promotions you have going on in store. And it can also be ideas that reduce the mental load that it takes for someone to complete their trip and make their their lives and day a little bit easier.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

So well said, Melissa. I'm going to use that as the backdrop for the actual mix. This is actually flowing pretty well if you'll notice. And that by the way, one of the things I did want to share, you mentioned about recipes, right? So I mentioned it yesterday. I actually love to cook. It's like a therapy thing for me. Even though Rene Long sitting back will be like, now you're too addicted to the Yankees to cook. But all that said, last three years, every recipe I've learned is from socials and from retail website. No more word of mouth, no more referrals. It's literally coming from socials and addicted to TikTok. Melissa and I were chatting about TikTok shop this morning and they've actually created media through TikTok shop. Not for today's discussion. Another day with Melissa. I'll hop over, use that inspiration piece. Right. My last few months with General Mills, the only talk of town with merchants I'd have is we gotta drive value. That's the only way they're gonna come new to brand. But merchants definition of value would always be price reduction. Like literally, that's it. Non negotiable. Those of course, come from trade budgets. We found that when we started putting pumping trade shoppers would come the moment the TPR was over. They'd exit not just your brand, but sometimes even categories. They'd move to adjacent categories or somewhere else in the store where the wallet didn't have to stretch. In that sort of scenario, every category is nuanced based on a shopper preference. And when we start using the word value, is it just pricing? Is there inspiration involved in value? What are shoppers seeking these days?

[Melissa]

Great question. First of all, did you make the feta cheese tomato thing that went TikTok.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Viral over and over and over as well. As for those of you that followed what happened with General Mills about a year ago with the rolls and the ice cream. If you haven't find that one, just type General Mills rolls on ice cream. Must do.

[Melissa]

So I figured, okay, I don't.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Just to qualify, I don't work for General Mills. I'm not selling the product anymore, but I do have stock.

[Melissa]

Well, first, I think we all agree customers are less and less loyal on the brand. And they're more loyal to needs and even Trends. Trends from TikTok. So they're seeing things in social. I know you had a stat that's interesting. I maybe I am off the rails on that because I'm like a big TikTok follower and I find all these trends that I like to buy. Um, but you know, with the macro environment, with inflation, people are very price sensitive. And so these are. These are some of the challenges. But what can brands do? So three things. And I'm old like sree. We both had birthdays recently, so I have. I'm going to reference my notes a little bit. So one is just quick.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

I'm not old. She claims she is.

[Melissa]

Yeah, we can have a contest. So quick insight to action based on the analytics that we're looking at. So anyone in this room use magnesium for sleep aid? And this is a recent trend, right? So we work with this gummy vitamin company that is a melatonin. And melatonin was the most popular keyword for a long time. And all of a sudden trending was magnesium. And this was a TikTok trend. It was a podcast. And then people are starting to take magnesium for sleep aids. And so what did we do? You quickly kind of integrate that into your product detail page, your keywords and things like that. And so this is where identifying what are those trends in your category that maybe you didn't think about, but has become a trend that you can then kind of parlay into what you're trying to do. So that's number one. Number two is finding new customers. And so this is where it's helpful to have automated software. I don't know where we could find that, but there is software or keywords that you could be finding that you may not typically convert on or rank for that may be appropriate for your brand. And so being able to find these new customers based on kind of this constant parsing of what are the new keywords that you can be looking for. And then the last one is deal days. So today is the start of Amazon Prime Day. Has anyone bought anything yet? I already see a hand. Good shopper over there. People are just really kind of thinking about deals all the time, and especially this inflation. And so they're kind of being, I don't know, program to buy and deal. So what can we do about this? And it's not just Amazon so that every retailer is now on their gravy train of deals. It's retargeting. So getting your customers to buy on your deal. But Then retargeting them. So this is really great about audience information that we have through DSPs, through the great, you know, audience data that Kroger has. But making sure that you're retargeting your customers who are buying on your deal to secure subscribe to your products, to maybe buy different categories of your products. So get those people in your database, get them buying your products. But how do we get those sticky customers to keep coming back? Not on deal. That's something I like about the pet category. There's this, that word dog food. It's like 85% subscribe and save. Like chewy, everyone loves it. But cat food. Did you know that you change your cat food all the time? I didn't know that. So these categories have some different nuances that you can really expose and especially through the great audience data is those targets.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

The cat food one is a tricky one. Melissa looked at me because I have three cats. They're my babies. I love them. They're Zane Zorozumi and actually they're tattooed on my hand forever. So as I always tell my wife, the cats will never leave me. I want to go back to Amazon for a second because you referred to the big two days of shopping. Right? In my life, I have never actually gone with an intent of buying something on prime days. What I would do is just go to prime days just because I'm from the industry, just curious to see what's going on and I would just buy stuff. I'm building an office this year. We started constructing it about a month ago. I waited till today to see if I'd actually get discounts. Sure enough, I got two iPads for 190 bucks. Like, how the heck do you get an iPad for 100? The iPad version 10.2. So they're not exactly 2024. They're 2022, 190 bucks. Like, what the heck is going on? Right? The point is though, I actually did bargain shopping on Amazon this year. Like inspiration. Why Amazon had advertised 10 days, two weeks in advance. Followed me on my shopper journey. Everywhere reminded me that this was the day gave me an opportunity to set a reminder. I was inspired. I'm like, cool, all right, let's do it. Peter And I decided 7:45am this morning, for some unknown reason, I told Peter, let's take pictures in front of the Sphinx at Luxor at 7:45. After, we had to do a hosted dinner till midnight yesterday. But we did it. So I got up at 6:30 just to buy stuff on Amazon. That's how inspired I was, because they got the message. Right. So I'm going to ask all three of you a question. Brand point of view, retail point of view, industry, large service provider point of view. Right. Let's look at the rest of this year. And most of the rest of this year is going to be spent on planning and getting the plans right for 2025, whether you're a brand retailer or a journey of a service provider. So I strongly believe we lived in a world prior to Covid, where the retailer had all the power and the brands had to follow. We now live in a world where everyone wants traffic back and the only way that can be done is brands and retailers need to work together. Call it what you may used to be called. JVP, joint business plan. So academic from the 1980s. It's really joint value creation. Because if you're hunting for shopper, that's the way you do it. Love to hear a brand perspective. Is that what we is? Have you arrived at that moment where we need to collaborate and work together? I'd love to hear the retail service provider point of view.

[Karen Satterly]

Yeah. I mean, we absolutely have to. I think that it kind of goes back to your initial question around holistic planning. And I think that that's really critical for brands and retailers to come together and really understand what is the role that that brand plays at that retailer for that category. Right. And so ultimately the retailer is going to have category growth goals. How does your brand play a role in that? And that way you can come together and holistically plan and see how that filters out into how you're executing. So, yeah, we absolutely have to do that moving forward, I think across the industry, across retailers.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

And as a representing a brand, are you seeing the desire and retailers to say, hey, let's do this together, let's not run in opposite directions?

[Karen Satterly]

Yes, we are. We are, for the most part. I mean, I think that from my side, it's also pulling in the retail media networks and understanding their role and how we can partner further, working with also like their insights teams and seeing and identifying those trends that Melissa was talking about, even getting more transparency to some of that data that retailers have very, very rich data. And I think we're only on the cusp of really understanding what type of data is truly valuable both to the retailer side, but really for the brand side and understanding as we move forward and try to figure out how do we best invest our next dollar, what type of data is going to really.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Help us push that so Let me flip it over to you, Barbara. So, as a retailer, have we reached a point where brands have gotten savvy enough where retail media is not a sales thing anymore, lower funnel only, and doing the right thing, which is it's about media and it's about brand purpose? Have you reached that pivot point in the history where brands have now actively gotten involved in retail media to drive brand purpose at retail?

[Barbara Connors]

I think overall, we're still pretty early in the journey of understanding how shopper behaviors are shifting and how to take advantage of all the capabilities that are available to us now to drive an omnichannel experience for shoppers. So I think we're all on the same journey together. There are three things I'd focus on in terms of things that we could do differently to partner together. One is just learning together. I think there's still so much that we don't know as behaviors are changing rapidly and capabilities are changing rapidly. With that, we also have a lot more data available to understand pieces of the shopper journey that we couldn't before. In addition to sort of like our legacy data of being able to understand what people buy and how frequently and at what price point and in what combinations through digital data, we now have the ability to understand as people are engaging with our E Comm platforms, what's the order that they add items to their basket and how long does it take for them to complete their trip, what are they searching for as they're doing it, and how do they engage with the site along the journey. And all this gives us new information to be able to use together to create different experiences for shoppers that could come through in terms of the site experience, merchandising and retail media. The second piece is that in the sort of landscape shift that that we have right now, we need to all work together to help ensure that the shelf works harder so that we are all less reliant on promotions and deals to drive sales. And the third is partnering together around innovation. I think we all have an opportunity to transform how we launch and support innovation. In an omnichannel world, it is still much harder for shoppers to stumble on new items when shopping online than they are walking through an island store. And with new capabilities and creative thinking and partnership, I think we all have an opportunity to test different ways to bring fun and joy and awareness and inspiration into the digital shopping experience so that we can support innovation, to drive as much trial and awareness for those that are shopping online as those who have historically shopped in store and Continue to do so.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Thank you so much. I mean, it's heartwarming to hear that, you know, it's heartwarming to hear the collaborations or I've heard both of you say the collaboration is happening and it's joint planning and brand, purpose and mission should be number one. Can I flip the question and ask you, merchant side of the fence?

[Barbara Connors]

Yeah.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Would merchants agree with everything I just said?

[Barbara Connors]

Yeah, 100%.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Best case scenario. So, Melissa, all roads retail media, media lead through pack view. You work with brands, you work with retailers, you work with all our men's. How do you feel about collaboration? Have you arrived at that moment? Are you seeing it?

[Melissa]

Seeing it? Yes. What Barbara explained is like this vision. That's beautiful. The first point around insights and where I'd like to see us be able to get to a good place on is driving from insight to action and to actually activate that. And I don't think we're there yet because of the access to data. So in one way we have more data than we ever have had before. That's true. However, the piping. So being able to get that data and actually do something with it and activate it real time, that's the piece that's behind a little bit. And so we have this vision of like, let's get all these insights, magnesium and all these things. But we need to have this programmatic access to be able to take that data and activate it. And that's the piece that I'm excited about for the future that we're working on. And the retailer who helps us do that in a great way is going to win because that's what all the brands want. They want to be able to take insight to action very quickly. And to do that, we need this better an API first mentality. That's what we push all the time with our retailers. So everybody help me on this so that we can actually get this programmatic access and drive these insights and actually make it do something that is helpful with conversions.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

That's the word of the day. Conversions. At the end of the day, inspiration to conversion activation. So my last question is for all three of you and we'll flip the order. We'll go Melissa first on this one. No conversation is complete in our industry without the hardest buzzword of the year. Anybody want to guess what that is?

[Melissa]

AI.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

It's on your lips, AI. Thank you. I originally wanted to ask, what trends are you guys following for inspiration? But we'll probably stick to AI because it's on everybody's mind. In fact, as Melissa and I were walking over here for this panel, we were discussing what AI will do to the service provider industry in the next few years. We had strong opinions. Will it completely decimate them? Will it keep half of it, et cetera. So why don't we start with you, Melissa. What is the biggest AI trend on your mind? What are you reading these days? What do you think will happen in the next three years? Especially when it comes to inspiration and AI? Because you and I were both at the Con Lions Festival, AI was the talk of the town for creative.

[Melissa]

I think the thing that I'm really excited about as a shopper is this hyper personalized experience to you. And so I see it on Amazon with Rufus that they're experimenting with where you search something and then in the answer responses, oh, do you want this? Do you want that? So it's kind of like trying to figure out what your desires are to like personalize that experience to you. So ultimately one day I can just go online and before I even know I want something, it'll tell me that I want this thing that'll be ultimately my time saving hack. But I think that's a little bit of where the AI is going. Is this very personalized. You are this type of shopper. You're going to like these things and then you get a different experience than somebody else. So that it really narrows in on like the type of recipes. Are you a keto person? What are the products that you might like? So that, that is just a much more, I don't know, like you said, people are going for content on these websites so you can be much more personalized and that, that helps with conversions because you'll more likely buy that stuff.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Barbara, how is KPM thinking about AI and what's cooking in the back factory with AI and what should we expect in the future?

[Barbara Connors]

Yeah. So I'll speak sort of holistically across all of 8451, building on what you were talking about. Hyper personalization is like number one. So as we think about the advanced analytics that can help us do this with greater speed and precision is super exciting for a retailer that has been what we believe on the forefront of personalization for decades. And I feel like we're still just at the very beginning of what we'll be able to do from an insights perspective. I don't see AI sort of decimating the industry. Is that what you said? There's a lot that has promise in terms of automating the mundane. So you have work that no one likes to do today that we will just be able to speed up so you can actually get closer to activating on the insights. There's a ton as you talk about the proliferation of data and there's so much data, but we just haven't been able to harness it. That especially if you think about qualitative data, just being able to synthesize it and pull together the key themes, that speeds up your ability to just like get to some of the AHAs and then act on it. And then I think especially as all the capabilities are continuing to evolve, the ability for AI to help all of us navigate those changes quickly. Even if you just think about simple code changes and how do I migrate from one system to the next, there's a lot that AI can do to help us all speed up our own transformations.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Very well said. Looking forward to that. By the way, I personally don't believe AI will decimate the entire industry. I mean, 30 years ago if you had said the cell phone would exist and that would dominate our life, I wouldn't have believed it either. But there's still a human element to the day in merchandising. There's a human override for a reason. But Karen is a brand, someone representing a brand. Let me ask you that question again. Melissa and I were at Khan, the talk of the town creative. We actually saw demos of self created AI based creative and it looks real, authentic storytelling feels real and authentic. As a brand, that's got to scare the heck out of you. Or maybe it doesn't. As you just mentioned, hyper personalization is actually real for the first time in seconds. How do you feel as a brand rep?

[Karen Satterly]

Depending on who you talk to, it's exciting. And also there's, you know, there's concerns and caveats to consider. Right. So from a legal perspective, it brings all these questions on what type of control. And there are some categories that we play in where there's regulatory limitations on what we can say. And so we need to make sure we fully understand what the impact of AI is going to have in those categories. And where we have control or we don't have control I think is a concern. From what Melissa said, as a shopper, I'm absolutely excited. I think as a, from a brand dollar standpoint, I'm also very excited. Right. So today we're really limited in, you know, how many types of creative we can create based on how many people we have and resources we have. And then also we're limited to the types of campaigns that we're running and you know, we have a giant audience segment that we're using the same creative for tomorrow. It could be, you know, very, very personalized and really much more impactful and just makes your makes your dollar so much more efficient and effective. So yes, there's a lot of excitement on the horizon about this. I think there's just a lot of learnings and understanding and how we'll really manage through some of the technical aspects of AI.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

I want to say thank you to the three of you. I mean, this is a very busy conference. All of you have busy schedules. Thank you for making time to be here and talk to me, make a podcast, as well as talk to everybody out here. So sincerely thank you for making the time for all of you that chose to come here. Spread the word to your colleagues. If they missed out, they can always hear it again on a podcast episode. But more importantly, I want to say thank you to you as well. This is a busy conference for every single one of you. There's probably way overbooked. 14 hours a day is what we're all working just because we're choosing to. You still chose to come here and listen to this conversation. I want to say thank you for doing that. And then the whole topic was about inspiration through activation. The industry needs your help as well. Be those agents, please, that drive inspiration all the way to activation. Retail media is real. It's here, it's media. You can make a difference for, brands you represent. Be the ones that are the change agents because the industry needs you to. With that, I'll close it out and say thank you for being here.

[Peter Vs Bond]

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