Parking Lots, AI Recipes, Shopper Marketing’s Future — with Josh Ginsberg

S2 E20 T41 - Breaktime Media Josh Ginsberg: [00:00:00] You know, XM or experiential marketing is definitely kind of having a rebirth over the past few years and the power of one-to-one connection between, consumer and brand and the idea of kind of seeing something and feeling it and bringing it to life definitely has its power and scale. Tom: I don't think there's a lot of people who understand that the parking lot can be the homepage for a Todd: Well, I actually, that's the first time I've heard someone call an in-store event, actually, more specifically like a parking lot event versus an inside the building event. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the idea of like Fidgital is kind of a term that's Tom: No, no, we're not Todd: my god, Tom: Not doing. Josh Ginsberg: I didn't, I didn't coin that as term. It's out there already. But that's, ​ ​ Tom: Welcome to the [00:01:00] Middleman. Today's episode is going to be with, , Josh Ginsburg from Break Time Media, and I thought the reason it would be great to have him on is because he is in this experiential marketing, shopper marketing arena that for a long time was not that cool. You know, you made a little microsite, you maybe put a recipe out there, Tom: But it took a really long time for all of the tactics to sort of gel and work together, you know, QR codes, getting it onto your phone, all that kinda stuff. But when I checked in with Josh, and understood what he was doing, I really got a sense that the type of, retail theater that we saw with Kroger. Tom: Is really finding, its way into this experiential shopper marketing, types of campaigns that, that Josh is running. So like he's gonna be outside of a Walmart parking lot or he is gonna be at the shelf with a QR code. All these types of connections to the brand, um, are finally starting to look good. Todd: I think what what is fascinating [00:02:00] here is I think Josh and break time also are a good example of retail media in general, which is it's not new. Jo Josh and break time have had this for years over a decade, and what you're hearing about are companies that have been slowly building the whole RMN space and doing it in interest take for different ways, and now is kind of their time, right? Todd: It's the, the overnight success that took 10 years. Another example of, of that story. And so he's coming to this with a, a ton of experience. Worked with a range of, of RMNs and started in the world of shopper marketing. But as that has become kind of one of the tenets of retail media networks, it's, he's a part of the future of RMS as well. Todd: And I think the other thing that's fascinating to me is, is how you start bridging shopper marketing in RMNs and how shopper marketing was under sales in a lot of retailers. And now with retail media merging, it's shifting. Bizarre to me to ever thought it was under sales. It's media. It's, [00:03:00] it's not, you know, is it not under marketing? Todd: It's not under branding, is it? You know, it, it's a different world on the brand side, it was under sales. Like that's crazy to me. Um, that it would be considered part of sales, not part of the brand teams and part of marketing. Like they're spending these Tom: Well, yeah, it's like these, Todd: Like I just, you're, you came for that world, Tom. Todd: So I heard that Tom: yeah, I mean these Todd: I'm like, what, how is, how is shopper marketing under sales? Tom: Well, it's 'cause it, because it's co I'll tell you exactly why. 'cause coupons and other tactics that help sellers figure out how to make their quarter work or make their month end work, um, how do you move more cases? Uh, it's, it's these small, you know, sort of in-store shopper tactics of changing where the product is or putting a coupon on it, or, you know, creating another display or putting a sticker on the floor. Tom: All those types of things were really sort of like a salesperson needs those tactics to, to make it work. So, you know. Todd: Crazy, right? This is, again, you're, you, I, I think I love this, you know, learning about this realities of what it's like to be on the brand side, [00:04:00] selling in, and, and I never would've, and it gets to, I think some of the, where these brand dollars are they gonna show up and where are they gonna come from? And, and some of these, these. Todd: Tactical organizational realities of shopper marketing was not in the marketing org, it was in sales, and brand dollars are in the marketing org. And why isn't it? Are we seeing this, this lack of coordination? Because two different orgs, and maybe they're starting to come together, but I think this is fascinating to learn about this reality. Tom: Well, and I think the other part of the reality, what, what's fun about right now is that you're seeing, you know. Walmart, uh, launched electronic shelf labels and they got some bad press about it because they, you might, might see or surge pricing or something silly like that. Um, but then I went just yesterday to, uh, Amazon Fresh. Tom: They opened up in Philadelphia in northern part of the city. And they, they weren't, you know, fully digital, but there were screens, there were some corrugate on the end caps, um, but they had their dash carts. They had, , promotions in the aisle. Um, and what I saw [00:05:00] from that was that in store is happening. Tom: It's not just something that,, physical retailers are dabbling in. The big guys, Walmart and Amazon aren't doing it. So the stuff that Josh is talking about is gonna light up and it's gonna become more digital. And I think that part of it is where I think Josh's discussion gets really interesting. Todd: Yeah. The, the connections between in-store experiences and digital and how do you tie all this together is, I, I think something that is important because it is obvious in-store, is unique to retailers, and you look at like our friends at Microcenter. Who, when they opened a new store in Silicon Valley, they had literally a mile long line to get in. Todd: And as a brand marketer getting, getting attached to those sort of experiences, events like that type of buzz and customer interest is something you want to be a part of, and almost every brand does that enthusiasm. It just speaks to where the world is going, which is, these are two. Interesting and too meaningful to a marketer to, to ignore. Todd: And so how [00:06:00] do you start connecting these pieces? There's screens, there's digital experiences, I think is fascinating to sort of kind of watch, and I don't, I, I think sort of the, the, these step-by-step things. Kroger launching, its really unique screens and now break time. How do you tie digital and in store or experiential experiences back to an RMN? Todd: How do you start building the plumbing around all of that? How do you start organizationally coordinating all of this between agencies and, and sales teams and others, is this is the, the, the tactical things that are gonna be necessary to figure out, to make this all work. And so it's fun to talk to these people who are doing it. Todd: , Who are in the field, who are actually making this happen, and, and learning from them as to what's, what's actually happening, what are they doing, and how are they thinking about the business and where it's going. So it's a good perspective from Josh on what is the, what is happening today and, and where is it going? Tom: Yeah. . So let's get into the discussion. Tom: Okay, welcome to the middlemen. We have Josh Ginsburg from Break Time Media here. We wanted to introduce you , to the podcast and hear a little bit [00:07:00] about your background. Tell us what is break time Media. Josh Ginsberg: Awesome. Well, nice to meet you all and thanks for having me on today, Tom and Todd. Um, at break time, we've been building in this commerce space for 15 plus years, so it's been a really fun journey, kind of where we started, where we are now. The shorter version of that, 'cause we only have so long on this podcast is. Josh Ginsberg: We started actually building destination properties to reach college students. And the idea on the premise was there wasn't really one place where they could all go and interact in an engage in fashion, kind of see all the resources together. And what we played around with a lot early on were things like gamification, dynamics of getting a consumer to learn and earn something. Josh Ginsberg: Back then it was. Get likes on Facebook, if you remember that. That was like a brand page's goal and email dynamics of like before Groupon even got started, but the idea of sending offers out and seeing the impact of those kind of consumers getting something quickly with promotions and sweepstakes. And so that was really like the early on what we built. Josh Ginsberg: About 10 years ago, we launched break time media and the goal with break time was to focus [00:08:00] specifically on CPGs and the needs and kind of like the pre-shop phase to reach a consumer. Understand the difference in the impact that all these CPGs have and help to story tell that to consumers through really personalized, really engaging, really interactive content. Josh Ginsberg: And so we've been out building this space, you know, for 10 plus years now, focused on CPGs using really engaging content as a way to reach shoppers kind of wherever they are and help move them all along the path to purchase journey into retail with commerce. We talk about it today as we help shoppers figure out what to buy. Josh Ginsberg: And where to buy it. And so for us, that means using our really engaging content that might be plugged in. At shelf off of a point of sale or a QR code on pack. It could be within a brand's website or you know, connected into some of their retail media activation, or across a network audience that we have with influencers. Josh Ginsberg: Wherever that shopper is, we're gonna reach 'em with this content. Allow them to choose to interact and engage, and then make it fun, make it bite-size and digestible. And really have them understand, oh, I didn't know about these new products. [00:09:00] That's cool. This recipe sounds relevant to me. Let me get this into my cart, and maybe here's an offer to purchase later. Josh Ginsberg: And so that's really what we're doing with the world's biggest CPGs, is helping them reach consumers through more engaging, more interactive and more personalized content, and then driving measurement to show, hey, this is having a much bigger impact and some other media tactics. Tom: Okay. I've seen this world evolve a little bit. I if you think about this 10 years ago when you started. All these CPG brands had grand plans but the tools were kind of terrible, right? Like it was, build a website, try to get people to go to it, never really worked. Tom: And then, you mentioned getting Facebook's likes, and so I think that made it a little bit easier. But when I was working on this type of thing in the retail media space, it was more trying to get somebody to add something to their cart really quickly or add a bundle of products and I could see like recipes starting to happen and things like that, but it still was kind of clunky. Tom: How has that changed? Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, I think, you know, technology obviously has accelerated and allowed us to really advance that and make much more curated personalized experiences [00:10:00] for consumer. I think it's also about like where are you reaching that consumer and with what content? You mentioned brand sites and brand sites do a great job of telling some overall product details, bringing the brand to life, but they're not always commerce enabled and they're certainly not set up and enabled so that. Josh Ginsberg: A shopper at Walmart or a shopper at TAR can kind of get what they need and have it personalized. On the flip side, PDP pages, you know, product detail pages on brand websites are great to get the specific details of that one UPC at that retailer. But if you're a little earlier in the journey and you're trying to understand what's right for me, what dog food do I need for my new pup that I got, or. Josh Ginsberg: I have two young kids at home. As I'm going through different stages of parenting, like what food should we try and how do we get through potty training? That information isn't always there and so we're kind of thinking what we do is almost like the third place today that sits in between a brand page that might be on their brand or a PDP or even like the brand experience pages that retail or media networks are selling as a place that can kind of help bridge the gap in story, tell and curate solutions to consumers. Josh Ginsberg: And because [00:11:00] technology has advanced so much and we can now tap into. AI within the content development we can curate and build it to be really rich, really interactive, and then make commerce seamlessly a part of it. The technology advancements to, to your question, over the past 10 years have really allowed us to kind of stay ahead of that and provide a better destination for consumers to visit. Tom: This was usually very agency driven. It was always kind of like the agency had a big idea. You mentioned this is moving up from the PD pay page and being a little higher funnel and discovery oriented. Um, is it still those agencies that are always driving this, are brands doing it directly with you? Tom: Or how, how does that work? Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, it's definitely a mix. I would say 50 50 in terms of working with brands directly and then having agencies involved. I mean, the many large scale CPGs have obviously very deep integrated relationships with their agencies, so the Holy Grail typically is like a three-pronged approach or working directly with the brand. Josh Ginsberg: Their agency partners in bringing something to life. Um, we just launched a really large program tied to a very big soccer initiative coming up next year. And [00:12:00] we're working with the, the brand teams at this brand we're working with their shopper teams kind of across all their channels as well as the agency and integrated way. Josh Ginsberg: And so that tends to be the best solution is a holy grail. But brands do reach out to us and say, Hey, we're looking to. Drive more product of one particular product at this retailer, what can you do? And so speed and kind of nimbleness is a big part of what we offer them. We can get live with a program from ideation to launch in under two weeks, sometimes under a week. Josh Ginsberg: And so the speed of market really is important to them as Todd: How important is it working with a broader team? I think one of the questions that we're wrestling with as retail media in general is if it's just the shopper marketing, we're not gonna grow this business. And it's how do we get brand teams involved and how do we move beyond shopper marketing at brands and so forth and realize that retail media is a, a broader spectrum. Todd: And are you seeing, what, what you sound like. How I imagine break time is it would appeal more to the brand side of the equation than traditional shopper marketing. Obviously shopper marketing, very promotional [00:13:00] oriented, very coupon oriented, and you look at what you guys are doing in terms of the types of promotions, content, what have you, that obviously seems very brand. Todd: And are you starting to see that piercing of the veil between shopper and brand side as you work with these CPG companies and others? Or is it more that the shopper marketing people are becoming more and more like brand people the other way? Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, great question. Um, and I think it's a little bit of both to be honest. I mean, we are seeing like, I think. All tactics are emerging a little bit towards commerce and moving people through the funnel. You're seeing brand teams shift their dollars towards RMN spend. You're seeing RMN teams trying to swim upstream to get those brand dollars, Todd: That that is the $64 billion question. Right, Ken? Because the, there are large budgets on that other side and so it's, as we look to grow RMN spend, that's been to your exactly your point. Josh Ginsberg: Totally. So it's an, I mean, we're working directly with R Mens. We have a new partnership we rolled out this spring with Walmart Connect that we've been kind of dialing up that we can get into in a little bit. But like in conversations with our team and some of the programs, we've been able to bring brands into the mix and talk a [00:14:00] little more holistically. Josh Ginsberg: We're also seeing brands for the first time are starting to fund programs dedicated to their core customers. Obviously, Walmart's gonna make up. 40% of their volume in the US in most cases. So it makes sense that they would want to put extra dollars towards that. But beyond the dollars that they pre allocate, it's all one bucket of money, right? Josh Ginsberg: The brands build their p and ls, they assign out, you know, dollars to each key retailer, shopper team, and they kind of spend those, but the brands are now bringing incremental dollars into the fold and they're saying, Hey, if I want to activate this brand program. But think about it through the lens of Walmart, kind of how and where can I do that? Josh Ginsberg: And so that's definitely happening from the brand side. And they're working closer and closer with the shopper teams as we're seeing. But the RMNs, by all you means they're providing value too. And they're saying, Hey, if again, use Walmart example, if we're 40% of your volume, your national spends happening, why not be more strategic and have it be commerce oriented and kind of have that measurement, use our closed loop solutions to understand what's going on. Josh Ginsberg: And so I think we're kind of like in the parallel right now of, of that battle happening between. Who's owning what and what's happening. But we're definitely seeing a huge [00:15:00] emerging happening, and I think it is coming together in a more integrated way. Todd: Are you seeing that it's the, like leadership at the brands pushing it? Is it a CMO office push or is it, do you think it's happening more organically? And I, and sort of the question I think comes to the more, you know, base reality right? Is, is people in the space, especially in the R men side, are like, how do I get. Todd: I'm dealing with shopper. How do I get brand side? How do I get that exposure? Who do I talk to? Who do I push up to? Is it, does it have to come top down? Are you seeing this organically across the different teams? Um, what do you think is the best recipe to get a broader exposure within the brands themselves? Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, I think you're seeing a lot of, at these CPGs, like where does shopper even live is a Todd: Right. I, it's this, this question of, right. I think how do you sell and get these budgets is the, is really again, to say, say it again. The $64 billion question. And it's been fascinating to sort of talk to people about, oh. 'cause when you talk to the brands, right? The CMO iss like, yes, we have to be more coordinated. Todd: [00:16:00] Then, you know, I think the shopper people are like, I'd love to get my brand dollars. But I think on the brand side, I, I don't know if they're always as holistically aware of these things unless someone brings an RMN type exposure to them. I think obviously the rise of RMS is sort of forcing this, but I think it's interesting to witness this, this sort of tactical development emerge, and it's always fascinating to hear the differences of how people have been successful bridging those gaps. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, we have a benefit in the fact that we kind of do have core solutions for each one, and to your point earlier, they are merging together a little bit. Like talking to a shopper uniquely at Walmart does need to be different. So we can personalize the experience around that, or an HEB shopper or a CVS shopper. Josh Ginsberg: But inherently those tactics of like. Getting onto lists and getting people to add to cart and coupons and rewards and purchase. Like that's moving more upstream to even be awareness driven tactics. So you mentioned that our platform like feels and looks a lot like that awareness and content engagement, which it does to start, but we then use that to really effectively move people through the funnel. Josh Ginsberg: And our clients are finding that that ends up converting a lot more effectively than [00:17:00] just driving plain media to one and kind of seeing what, what converged there. Um, but yeah, back to your. Your core question. Leadership for sure. I mean, a lot of reorgs are happening, but I feel like a lot of the CPGs we work with every maybe three or so years, it shifts from, okay, let's have like category based teams where have all the shopper groups kind of on those teams rolling up to a personal care kind of body line, and then it shifts back to, okay, let's just have our key categories and then have those category owners with mass and drug and dollar kind of flow into the brand. Josh Ginsberg: So there is a shift. We've seen it work, you know, I think both ways, but really it just seems like if. Sales and marketing can be unified and working together, which I think in any business is a challenge, right? But when that's happening at these CPGs, that's where it is most effective and they're kind of working in lockstep, and we see the results tend to be a lot Todd: Well, you said something interesting there, right? Sales from the brand standpoint, and I think that's an interesting thing to to call out, which is there are plenty of brands where shopper marketing rolls up to sales. And brand rolls up to marketing and you [00:18:00] really are dealing with. Church versus state, right. Todd: In terms of some of the differences in the orgs, and that might be a good thing to sort of Claude, if you're, if shopper's part of sales and brand is part of marketing uhoh, that's a lot harder bridge versus if shopper marketing is a part of and rolls up to the CMO, then that bridge is obviously a lot easier. Todd: It is it within one org and that might be something that sort of point out like the hey world shopper marketing probably shouldn't live in sales any longer. It is a marketing Tom: Yeah. Todd: and you brand listeners, I would. If you waving that flag, like, wait a second, this is no longer sales dollars. These are really marketing dollars. Tom: Yeah. And I think the tactics, and this would be good to sort of help the listeners or the viewers hopefully, 'cause you're gonna show us some demos too, um, to get the breadth of like what's really happening in the store and around the store. So tell us a little bit about the Walmart relationship and what are the types of things and those tactics that you're doing because. Tom: Those do live under sales. 'cause they are pretty much, you know, ways of getting somebody to close the [00:19:00] sale and drive them down the funnel. But that, to Todd's point, those could very easily be marketing tactics. It's just the, the way that trade has worked out currently. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's a blend, you know, both at Walmart as well as kind of with those, those brands and those retailers and brands trying to figure out who kind of owns what. So yeah, the, the partnership kind of kicked off with an offering that is all around connecting, um, our digital experiences to Walmart activations in a few different ways. Josh Ginsberg: The first way that we launch with is tied to in-store and kind of parking lot events, which are emerging, happening more and more. You know, XM or experiential marketing is definitely kind of having a rebirth over the past few years and the power of one-to-one connection between, you know, consumer and brand and the idea of kind of seeing something and feeling it and bringing it to life definitely has its power and scale. Tom: I don't think there's a lot of people who understand that the parking lot can be the homepage for a Todd: Well, I actually, that's the first time I've heard someone call an in-store event, actually, more specifically like a parking lot event versus an inside the building event. Um, [00:20:00] and so that's an interesting sort of, okay. Oh. You know, point of view Josh Ginsberg: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the idea of like Fidgital is kind of a term that's Tom: No, no, we're not Todd: my god, Tom: Not doing. Josh Ginsberg: I didn't, I didn't coin that as term. It's out there already. But that's, you know, something and, you know, you know, retail attainment entertainment. But here's an example of a program that we ran, um, that was an activation that Tyson was running. And so this is, when I say parking lot, you can see it's not actually in the store as a typical demo or enhanced demo, but it's actually outside in the parking lot and they can do a much bigger footprint, much more kind of expansion going on. Josh Ginsberg: And so this program was all about kind of like the spring timeframe and the idea of like dusting off your grill. It was called Barbecue Bootcamp 'cause it was like reimagining what it's like to grill and kind of reremembering that as you go through it. We were brought in as a partner to help kind of scale and amplify this program. Josh Ginsberg: 'cause these events are amazing and if you go to them and you get to try these ribs and play a game that's impactful. But the program ran at five Walmart stores and there was like a really cool barbecue country [00:21:00] concert music pestle they went to as well. But the idea of kind of bringing in a digital solution is how can this be scaled to reach a wider audience? Josh Ginsberg: How can we add more commerce components to it? Not only day of, but if you guys are across the country and you're never gonna visit these five stores, how can you still go through this barbecue bootcamp experience, have it bring to life, go through some of the same games, see some of the same recipes? And so that's the first solution that we brought to market at Walmart and Walmart Connect. Josh Ginsberg: And here's a version of like the digital experience that we ran. And we were able to say, Hey, this really cool experience, let's get people thinking about growing in their own environments. And so break time really personalize, really engaging content. I'm gonna answer a series of questions. We're capturing lots of Tom: For the, for the listeners here, you're going through a bunch of quiz questions as to how you like to do your barbecue. Um, and so yeah, this is this kind of data collection that's very light, but uh, you know, gets you where you want, need Todd: Yeah, it's a, now this, looking at this, this looks like a classic microsite, um, as well. [00:22:00] And so is this something and it looks like something you guys are created and, and are hosting versus running on either Tyson's site or Walmart site. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, so, you know, good question. You know, for the event itself, someone scans a QR code, they're gonna write to the experience, so really seamless and easy. Um, we do have plans and, and part of our RMN solution is living directly on site, and so Todd: it. It can do either. Cool. Josh Ginsberg: There. Yep. We also, we can jump into this in a minute, but like we oftentimes live on, on brand sites. Josh Ginsberg: Here's a program we have live right now with op that's more of a national program we can get into. But this one right on their website, they are pushing and promoting. It can live in that environment. So at break time we build this digital content, which you know, can come to form many different ways, but the idea is kind of curating it wherever a consumer might be. Josh Ginsberg: So the browser allows us to be. Right on their device, wherever they are, they don't have to download a kind of a specific app. If they're at shelf and they scan a QR code about an offer, they can kind of see it right there. If they're home on their computer, they can interact anywhere. So the content can actually go anywhere. Josh Ginsberg: But yes, much like [00:23:00] you might see with a microsite, but. More interaction, a little bit deeper, more personalization going on. As we learn about you, we can kind of adapt the journey, give you some unique rewards, give you some unique add to cart. And in this case, there's some gamification, which is kind of saying, Hey, what are the steps to cook some of these items? Josh Ginsberg: How long do I have to, so for those at home, we're showing kind of like a memory match style game where we're taking Tyson. Cooking tips and bring them to life with how I activated it. And so this is just one example of how we're leveraging it. The results have come back using third party measurement and by scaling this out to the whole Walmart footprint, by reaching a much wider audience, it had really positive lift in like the millions of dollars. Josh Ginsberg: We obviously can't share the specifics just yet, but it was a really positive program. That was kind of one Todd: might be more helpful is looking at, you know, this Tyson campaign and the content that was created and the, and the whole sort of end to end experience. What's sort of the, the budget for something like that, broadly speaking? Not necessarily, you know, is it, is it in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands? Todd: Like if you're putting a program like this together, what, what budget wise are we thinking about it? Because [00:24:00] a lot of shopper marketing campaigns. Tend to be tended to be both smaller, right in their piecemeal execution in the tens of thousands, even if they're part of a larger program that is millions of dollars per year. Whereas obviously brand, you looking at a content-based brand campaign, this would typically be hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so what's sort of the, you know, if you're out there looking at this and I'm, oh, I'm, I'm a retailer and if I want to pitch this to my clients, I should be thinking, oh, it's not 50, it's two 50, or it's not, it's a half million. Todd: Or is it 10,000? Just to give some perspective on how do we need to think about framing this if we're, we're sort of ideating this and oh, this would be coming. Cool. To introduce to, you know, my org or, or my brand. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, totally. What's nice is we're, we're technology powered content, so there's lots of efficiencies. This is kind of like a full bells and whistles, lots of integration. So our average program might cost a brand $150,000 on average. But we do work, for example, like OP is a smaller brand. We do work in like emergent CPGs where a brand can get in with what's called a fast break, which is like quick hitting [00:25:00] content, a little more focused, you know, all the way down for like $50,000 or lower. Josh Ginsberg: As we're kind of bringing our retail media network solution out to more and more RMNs, we're kind of building, you know, offerings and packaging that works best for them. The event solution is one thing. Uh, promotion is another thing that we do. So buy, get, offers, sweepstakes chances to win rewards, direct spend offers at retail. Josh Ginsberg: That's something that we offer to our mens and we have just rolled out as a partner at Walmart, which is awesome. And then living onsite in platform and in app is kind of another solution as a a different destination. So a destination like you're seeing the content that's more at interactive, more engaging. Josh Ginsberg: A lot of RMNs either use PDP pages or they have these things I'm sure you've seen called brand pages, which typically are. A few images, maybe a video, but they don't always have the capability to really engage the shopper in a more interactive way. Go deeper story, tell, bring recipes to life. Oftentimes e-commerce isn't even integrated into those, um, in the way that we can kind of do that with simplification. Josh Ginsberg: And so the goal is to give that to the retailers as a more premium on platform destination. A lot of them are [00:26:00] trying to drive their revenue up, but they don't have any more onsite inventory. So they're partnering with more and more kind of off platform partners to provide more inventory. But I think with the excitement here is you can take this really engaging content, you can put it right on their platform, and that way it's an onsite part of their platform that's a little more premium. Tom: Yeah, I mean for me, what I'm seeing from this is less about the offsite capability. It's more about a new sort of Omnichannel owned operated capability where yes, this is a brand's, uh, content, but it allows the retailer to have the in-store, even outside of the store sort of theater. Tom: Uh, that we were talking about with Kroger, uh, in the, in the episode that we talked about where they brought digital signage into the stores. Um, this allows these sort of either sampling tactics or, , activation tactics to live in the store. But then to your point about scaling it on a website, it can live on site, it can be, you know, distributed on social and things like that. Tom: So for me, that's really interesting and I think you're gonna show us some more in terms of how that can be [00:27:00] personalized, right. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, we're, we're trying to continue to personalize as deep as we possibly can. We do a lot with like, what's the right solution for each household? What are some recipes? This is an integration, uh, with op, I mentioned that campaign and for those who were. Watching at least kind of saw some of that. But if you're listening, I showed an example of it living right on Olipop.com In this case, they're trying to say, Hey, how can I stretch the use case? Maybe I've tried one Olipop flavor and I've just had it as a nice. You know, pop in a good example, but what could we do more to kind of expand the usage occasions? And so in this case, we have a recipe created that we're using generative AI to deeply curate the recipes based on the household. Josh Ginsberg: So I might pick these few flavors that are most relevant to me. We're asking what type of mood I'm in, um, let's say rich and creamy and tartan. Tanney Sounds good For kind of an after lunch snack. What's the occasion? And then how much time do you wanna spend? And so what we're doing on our side is obviously taking these user inputs, but then on the back end of our CMS, we're kind of building out some prompt engineering and curating over time to say, Hey, what do we need to do to talk to these [00:28:00] various AI models to make sure we get the right kind of content back? Josh Ginsberg: I hit submit as a consumer, we're using all those inputs in real time. In this case, we're using the OpenAI API to curate some experiences that are most relevant to me as a consumer and some recipes. And so in this case, here's a classic root beer float, which has a variety of ingredients I can use and kind of add in. Josh Ginsberg: I can hit shop now and that's instantly gonna add the, the hero up PC's right to my cart. So trying to create commerce orientation within generative AI usage, which is obviously a little bit more progressive as we move through that funnel as opposed to Tom: I mean, to me it's not the shop now that's exciting. It's the copy to clip order share. 'cause this is selling the event to my wife or you know, selling the Saturday plans to friends like. Josh Ginsberg: Totally. Yeah. It by all means, taking this content, being able to use it and copy to clipboard at a time, just like text later, or obviously screenshot it, but doing a lot to like, get it into consumer's hands so they can leverage that and kind of use it later. Um, we have a, a reward offering or like you can. Josh Ginsberg: Add it to your wallet, or you [00:29:00] can text it to yourself later. So you kind of have it on hand. And the goal is to get you that content at the right time and figure out those user occasions, who's coming over, when are they coming over, what are they into, what are their dietary preferences? And that kind of like zero party data that you can only get in the moment is part of what's allowing us to really, you know, curate this around the needs of each individual Todd: What's fascinating to me is, you know, looking at this sort of, of recipe content is historically those sort of activations around microsites. Branded experiences have been on the brand side. And I think one of the challenges with shopper marketing has always been, it's been so promotion and transactional oriented. Todd: It's been hard to shoehorn in branded experiences or brand like content or make, make, uh, the. Appeal to even the brand teams, right? When they look at the tactics and the placements and the inventory, they kinda go, eh, shopper marketing is isn't for us and the brand and what we wanna do. And so I think what's interesting [00:30:00] here is how you are effectively trying to say, Hey, I'm, we're, we're. Todd: Building these branded experiences that traditionally lived in the brand world now can be tied to shopper act as that bridge between the brand and, and the shopper marketing budgets as so that you're offering and even bringing to retail media. Like I think that's one of the questions that's come up, you know, 'cause retail media starts with, in, in a, in, in terms of how it really took off online was through sponsored search. And branded experiences are hard in sponsored search. And so to me, when, as, as you know, working with Tom and, and having a chance to talk about shopper marketing and retail media and my point of view has been, yeah, that's great, Tom, but it's not a branded experience. This isn't brand media. This isn't like if we wanna see the world jump over, we have to start walking and talking like the duck that is brand. Todd: This experience is like the, the microsite content experience comes outta the brand world. It has not been a shopper marketing tactic, [00:31:00] and you're sort of saying, oh, I'm, I'm actually now trying to make it a shopper marketing, or includes some shopper marketing tactics like the Shop Now button within what has traditionally been a brand media experience. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, absolutely. And I would, I would argue that that shopper and that mindset is the one that most actually needs some of that brand content to understand what and where. I mean, going back to op, the prebio soda category right now is just like. Balancing, all sorts of brands are emerging everywhere. Josh Ginsberg: Everyone's, you know, offering their new offerings, PepsiCo. Acquire Poppy, but then you know, a few months later roll out their own solution. Obviously they've been kind of building that. But what is right for me as a shopper and consumer, I oftentimes explain like people are always like, what is shopper marketing? Josh Ginsberg: Well, like you're a consumer going through your day. And like I always explain it as, Hey, I run out of deodorant or ketchup, you know, in my house. My girls love ketchup. I have two. I'm girls. Like in that moment, I become a shopper. I put my hat on, I was like, what am I gonna get? What product where, what do I need? Josh Ginsberg: And like I'm in that mindset of trying to figure something out. And so from our perspective, [00:32:00] having content that can reach a shopper at the right moment and the right time and help to tell that story of brand of what's different about Ali Pop versus Poppy versus every other brand out there. How is it unique and different? Josh Ginsberg: Lemme keep you some new inspiration and ideas. That moment is really, really important. And you're right, I think it hasn't been always happening within the shopper space. That being said. You guys have been in retail media for a long time. We used to work with Triad when Triad owned walmart.com and sams club.com and ccbs.com and our, our content back then was actually on their pages and they saw it and so did the brands. Josh Ginsberg: It's like, Hey, we need somewhere else to drive to. But obviously that was early on and you know, our ends hadn't become mainstream and the, for starters, they were just, hey, reach and the right audience. But I think the time is, right now the RMNs we're talking to are looking for ways to story tell further to move consumers through the funnel and their brands. Josh Ginsberg: Who are being asked to spend more and more with them. You know, the suppliers at the rms, they want it because they wanna make sure if they're spending this high level investment, they can bring their brand to life in unique ways. Tom: So there's another thing here that was missing and that was too early when we were doing an quotient, was [00:33:00] influencer. And I think. What we sort of figured out was that the CPG world needed micro influencers 'cause shopper budgets were small to Todd's point. You couldn't get Taylor Swift, you couldn't get the brand style influencers, but there was a value to having people, who were like you, um, pushing certain product ideas or how to use Ziploc bags in different ways and things like that. Tom: How has that evolved? Because it seems like your, your, your platform has some capabilities there. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, we're doing a lot as obviously like more and more branch talk influencer and doubling down and tripling down on their budgets and the authentic nature of reaching a consumer in that space. I think what we're trying to do is like curate that in the right way and understand what influencer you know is right for me and. Josh Ginsberg: If I don't know somebody, influencers, maybe I do, maybe I am on TikTok Tom: Well, I mean like this was like Prime Day was infuriating to me this year because. They showed me a bunch of influencers with no context and it was kind of like, yeah, like, like this person's playlist and this is not Snoop Dogg. Like, this is not people that I know. [00:34:00] So like without any context, it's totally wasted, uh, inventory to me. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, the, the curation I think is certainly important. That's the angle we try to take, and we do partner a lot with all the influencer vendors out there and with our brands and pull it together. Obviously, all the rms are doing it. This is a program we ran with Dove around Mother's Day, and the idea was kinda like giving back to mom, giving her some new tips along the way, some new routine, and giving her some time for herself. Josh Ginsberg: We use some of our personalized content again for those who are kind of seen on the screen to understand a little bit about that individual. And then based upon that we served up here is a curated bundle that, in this case, Erica 14 Perez, the influencer kind of creative for you with, Hey, you can shop this right now. Josh Ginsberg: This is a Walmart specific program. It's unique to you. But then what we try to do is go a bit further and say, Hey, here's Erica again. Here's some information about the bundle. Here's what she's doing, and some haircare tips along the way. And this product line is kind of unique to her individually, so we're gonna dynamically change the whole experience based around that influencer. Josh Ginsberg: If we quickly [00:35:00] go back and go through a few of those questions, um, up at the top here and answer them in a different way. You'll see that we're gonna get different influencer content, different bundles established, and so the experience is gonna adapt and the influencer is gonna be kind of like the core of it. Josh Ginsberg: In this case, it's Denise and Ebony. Here's their kind of curated bundle and pick, and then the content down below is gonna be unique to them and why they love these products. And so we're again, trying to leverage, Hey, okay, you're investing in all these influencers. What can we do to personalize it to the shopper and make sure that we're kind of pairing the right shopper with the right influencer if they don't happen to see them on the dedicated social channels. Tom: So where, where does all this go for you? Is it you're, you're waiting for the time when the, you don't need the pre-populated radio buttons, you just have a search box? Or is it more like you're moving into more media products and trying to get this to be cheaper and more programmatic or like where, where's it all going? Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, we're continuing to evolve kind of our, our new solution that we launched earlier this year is a dedicated standalone solution for brands. It's called Content and Loyalty [00:36:00] Hub, and basically it takes like everything we've been building in destinations with content and audiences for all of our history. Josh Ginsberg: With the new emerging need to have more dedicated loyalty and reward offerings, A, from a data acquisition standpoint and kind of getting outside the RMN wall gardens, and then B, kinda like building up their own infrastructure and CDPs and ways to connect with consumers. And so that's one place that we're really moving towards. Josh Ginsberg: We launched it with a few brands very successfully to start the year. We just launched a really big kind of program tied to, again, that major soccer event coming up, but we're giving brands a Tom: I'm in Philly, so I can't wait to see it so. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, there's uh, there's lots of excitement around that event coming here to the US next year. Um, and across Tom: Is this like the super, you're not allowed to say it. Okay. Todd: Well, it's, you can say it, it's the World Cup. It's coming. It's coming to the US Like you're, you're being silly. And, and you know, I get the, you've been, you've been gone to way too many brand trainings and brand right. Trainings and what have you. Um, but in this, you can say yes, you're, you're working on activations around the World Cup. Todd: Um, you know, in [00:37:00] terms of, I understand the, the sponsorship rules that that show up there. But from those listening, I can make fun of the, uh, what you can say, what you can say online or in media. But certainly it is, is interesting. I mean, I think one of the things as, as you know, watching the Dove example that you were showing and that was a Dove site, and so one of the questions that emerges around RMNs are, are they going to drive traffic or allow you to drive traffic off site? Todd: Or in that case, are you then gonna bring in that dove experience within, let's say it's, it's Walmart. Does a version of that live within the Walmart world? Um, and and is it necessarily a click out? 'cause I think that's a real practical sort of, as you're thinking about these programs, can you, will it RMNs allow click outs? Todd: Is that okay? Are you really trying to build this within the online store experience so you're not clicking out what, what's the practical reality of, of that situation as you're building these sort of content experiences? Do they, are you finding pushback from arm ends because it's a click [00:38:00] out? Todd: What do you, what, what, how do you navigate that? Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, each one is unique. Great question. I mean, the best case solution is living right within their ecosystem, and technically it's very possible for our content to be embedded there. Each one of them kind of has their own process, but as we've launched our RM solution, that's kinda like the start of it is, hey, it can live within your apps, it can live within your sites, but there's just like a process to get there and roll it out. Josh Ginsberg: For now. Typically what we see with most RMNs is they're willing to drive out as long as a, it's, you know. Within their brand meets their guidelines. Data capture is within their governance and, but then also it's driving consumers back in. So because everything we do has commerce enabled components where you're then adding items right to your cart at Target, you're getting your Cartwheel offers, you're seeing kind of what's relevant to you. Josh Ginsberg: You're adding your CBS extra care coupons to your program. They're generally okay with that as a way to kind of drive something out too. Also, these rms are investing so much in off platform, as we've talked about, and so much the inventory is off platform. The off platform is totally fine to go to a destination. Josh Ginsberg: It's really when [00:39:00] it's on platform that like there has to be rationale to be able to go off platform. But we are working with Walmart as well as others to be able to have our content live within their ecosystem as a alternative destination that's more engaged and more interactive, more all the things that we Todd: One thing you just mentioned that I think is worth calling out or at least asking a question to, Hey, Todd, if there's a shopper kind of loop back right to the. Merchants, uh, to the store site, then it's okay. So are you dynamically if, if you're getting a click, let's say from CVS, are you dynamically tracking that and then enabling the sort of the cart placement back so that, oh yes, they hit the shop, now it's gonna add to a CVS cart. Todd: They hit from Target, it'll add to a target cart. And so that's kind of a cool feature then if and how you manage that, which is, oh, we're, we're dynamically recognizing the inbound click and are able to place and associate the cart as appropriate. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, absolutely. We are doing that. I mean, the retailer specific programs, like just for Target or for Walmart, we're having those products kind of ready to go, but in real time as they [00:40:00] click, we're making sure the product is available and we're getting it into their cart, you know, in, in real time on a national level. Josh Ginsberg: There's a couple different ways we can approach it, and usually there's like. Okay, we'll pick an Instacart to cover a lot of grocery 'cause that's, you know, a little more dynamic. We'll have Amazon, Walmart, and we'll pick like the right combination of those things. But the idea is to get the right solution to the right shopper. Josh Ginsberg: We also, through an audience that we have built, consumers tell us and we learn kind of what retailers they are interested in. And so based upon that we can help curate the right content to them. If we know that you're a target shopper and that I'm a CVS shopper, we can make sure that you're seeing content as relevant to that retailer. Todd: What's also interesting is the, the future of R ends and you're starting to build more relationships with them. What's your perspective on where R ends are heading? Where are you seeing, you know, the, obviously you're not the first to push in this direction. We recently talked with Kroger, and Roku, and they're building a program that has elements of what you're doing. Todd: It's different. And so we're [00:41:00] seeing, I think, more brand like experiences, emergent RMNs. And so what your prediction is, how you see the landscape evolving as you're moving outta shopper into brand and what's what, what does the Armand landscape look like in three to five years? Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, I think that's a great question. You're seeing, you know, those CTV kind of partnerships everywhere, you know, Roku is a good example. Obviously Walmart acquired Vizio and is using their inventory across the board. Disney's partnering with everyone so like it, it top of funnel and bottom funnel emerging together and the arm ends are trying to like connect the dots on that. Josh Ginsberg: You know, I think from our perspective we're trying to see that the retailers that like can become destinations and become like the new content hubs there, they're trying to build recipe hubs, they're trying to build content within app that really feels like the key to monetization. Eventually, if everyone's partnering with Disney and if everyone's partnered with their own CTB solution, it doesn't have as much differentiate at that point in time. Josh Ginsberg: And like I would go back to is the consumer in that mindset to shop? Maybe, maybe they're not, but when they're moving kind of through the funnel and they're thinking about shopping already at that point in [00:42:00] time. I'm open when I'm building my list for my family every week. Like I'm thinking about new solutions, new recipes, and so I'm very open in that moment to be able to consider new ideas and new products and new components. Josh Ginsberg: So like can RMNs help to come up with more engaging, more interactive solutions to kind of add items to list? We'll see, I think in the next three to five years, we'll definitely see a lot more, you know, connectivity into other platforms. But AI for sure is gonna be the solution to personalization. I think we kind of. Josh Ginsberg: Got that a little bit ago with like search bars versus prompts, even getting away from search bars, but like chat and really kind of coming up with a curated experience around each consumer feels like where things are gonna have to go. RM ends are definitely gonna have to lead the charge there and be able to use AI as a way to help curate, you know, all of our needs as shoppers individually. Josh Ginsberg: So personalization really feels like the way that our mens are gonna have to continue to go to own those dollars. And if they can do that. And they can effectively show that a dollar spent is leading into a positive impact in incremental sales, then it seems like brand dollars will kind of keep flowing more towards our mens and away from traditional [00:43:00] sources. Tom: What you were just talking about, sounds like we're gonna see some of the promo. Uh, artifacts coming in. You know, you do a search in chat, GBT, wherever else, um, you like to use ai and that second, that answer that comes back, um, if there are promos from a Walmart versus, you know, and, and it's sort of. Tom: Putting the retailers against each other versus the brands against each other in that, uh, scenario because it, on the retailer site, they're aggregating where the brands show their best promotions and they their sponsored listings. Now it seems like the retailers are gonna be the ones fighting within the chat apps. Tom: I. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah, and I, I think they already are. And you're hearing like, you know, Gemini is rolling out their paid offering within, you know, their. The idea of GEO versus SEO and like getting towards, you know, generative search. Uh, same thing's kind of happening across the board with chat GPT and their solutions, but everyone's figuring out how to like commerce and modify. Josh Ginsberg: I think a lot of the destinations are starting to reach consumers where they are. Of course, TikTok shop is doing a lot and like, how can you get to where that consumer is in that mindset? So. What we're trying to make sure we're [00:44:00] doing is using content, again, wherever a consumer is interacting, whether it's in an RMN or elsewhere, but just be something that's unique and allows them to get from, okay, I'm not ready to buy and hit add to cart just yet. Josh Ginsberg: I need to be a little more intentional, understand what and why and what's relevant for me. So do feel that personalization is there, we're doing. You know, everything we possibly can to connect into AI and leverage it, not only to build our content, but to kind of curate and personalize a lot more with consumers. Josh Ginsberg: But I think we're, we're in for a fun three to five years with the emergence and the speed that everything's happening, you know, with commerce and of course with AI now added into the mix. Tom: Well, we hope, uh, over the next three to five months that we run into you more. You're gonna be our experiential guy. Um, I guess we'll see you at Grocery Shop next. Josh Ginsberg: Yeah. Yeah. It's coming up quick, but yeah, I guess a month and a half now, we're already being Vegas, so we'll see you there. Tom: Cool. Well, thanks for joining the. ​ ​