Ep. 11 - Breaking Silos, Building Retail Wins | With Toby Willse

The most expensive mistake in retail media isn’t bad targeting, it’s planning in silos. We sit down with media leader Toby Willse to map how the field evolved from banner buys to agentic commerce, why teams still talk past each other, and what it takes to turn retailer-specific wins into brand-level growth. From his design roots to ad tech tours through AOL and Millennial Media, Toby explains how creative strategy, data access, and relationship management shape outcomes more than any single tactic.

We unpack the headliners from CES and NRF, including Google’s momentum in AI shopping, retailer partnerships, and the coming wave of sponsored prompts. Expect smart provocation on the “collapsed funnel” narrative: CTV with QR codes lowers friction, but it doesn’t magically become a conversion channel. Instead, think of new side doors to the bottom of the funnel and measure accordingly. We lay out a realistic framework for attribution that pairs platform signals with retail POS and modeled incrementality, while admitting there’s no silver bullet and AMC is a powerful slice, not the whole pie.

This conversation also goes human. Retail media teams juggle overlapping retailers, expanding JBPs, and constant change. We share practical ways to fight burnout, from using AI agents for repetitive work to establishing daily learning habits and grounding decisions with store and site walks. And if we could fix one systemic issue? Tear down the walled gardens to enable privacy-safe, interoperable measurement and smarter creative orchestration across channels.

If you care about better KPIs, cleaner alignment between brand and sales, and making AI work for your team instead of against it, you’ll find plenty to steal here. Follow the show, share it with a teammate who’s buried in dashboards, and leave a quick review to tell us your number-one retail media headache.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
What's up, Party People?
BV here, and welcome to anotherepisode of Retail Media Vibes, a
doing business in Bentonvillepodcast.
I am recording at Podcast VideoStudios here in Rogers,
Arkansas.
As you can see, this is a littlebit of a different format than
what you're used to for RetailMedia Vibes, where I will be
doing an interview virtuallywith my new best friend, uh Toby

(00:28):
Wilsy.
So welcome to the show, Toby.
Great to have you here today.
Great to be here.
Looking forward to theconversation.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, it's uh been a pleasure toget to meet you and get to know
you a little bit over the lastuh few months and you know learn
a little bit about yourbackground and some of the
things that you are passionateabout here in retail media and
just the retail, you know,retail industry in general.

(00:49):
So why don't you you know sharewith uh the audience a little
bit about yourself and how youfound yourself to where you are
today?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (00:57):
Um, so my uh my background is very much in uh
digital media uh holistically.
I actually went to school forgraphic design, um, which is a
little bit tangential, but foundmyself always really interested
in the advertising field uh andreally wanted to get into more
of the analytics and thecustomer-facing side.
I've always loved to talk toindividuals and help them

(01:17):
understand how to reallyarticulate what their strategies
should be and figure out wherethings are broken, how to fix
them.
And so through a decade ofworking in that industry and
getting the opportunities thatmany don't uh to be able to work
within startups and in large uhcorporations like AOL, I've
really been um very, very luckyto be able to get to work

(01:41):
through uh the many roles withinthe industry, working from uh an
entry-level uh sales planner totoday uh chief media officer at
Ad Fury.
Um so it's been uh a reallywonderful journey.

SPEAKER_00 (01:53):
What was some of like you say you started off at
graphic design, right?
So what were some of the thingsyou may have learned in graphic
design that you think really setyou on your path to in in media?
Yeah, it's a great, it's a greatquestion.

SPEAKER_01 (02:06):
You know, when when working uh in that that
particular field and goingthrough that education process,
I always found myself to be verycreative first.
I'm a visual thinker.
Uh, I'd like to find, you know,what makes a particular person
want to interact with something,whether it be, you know, the
objective art on a wall in amuseum or the packaging design

(02:28):
of a product you find in thestore, like a pack of Skittles.
I always loved uh, you know, oneof the things that uh, and this
is not this is not a uh a pushfor this particular product, but
one of the things that alwaysreally gener uh generated my
interest in advertising and thecreative side of it um and got
me into actually graphic designwere those ads like the Skittles
Rainbow commercial when it wouldrain Skittles.

(02:48):
These are the types of thingsthat made me so excited and and
really made me think like thisis really this is a really cool
field.
And so through my graphic designum education, I essentially
found I don't really find mypassion is building the
creative.
My passion is figuring out howis this particular creative

(03:10):
going to be situated, where isit going to target?
Who is the consumer I should usethis creative for?
And how do those creativesbucket together?
Because you need so many of themto drive the right story, and
that that professional work thatI got to do within my education
allows me to have that keen eyefor visual design, and that
really set me off into my pathfor advertising.

SPEAKER_00 (03:31):
I love that.
I think there's so many aspectsfrom different parts of our
careers that you know you findthese avenues, you know, to
express your passions, yourexcitement, right?
I think I would I would hopethat anybody that's in this
business of advertising,marketing, retail media, what
have you, you know, really wantsto be excited about it, right?

(03:52):
They probably got into itbecause they're excited.
I know when I transitioned intomarketing, I did it because wow,
that's cool.
That looks like fun.
I want to be involved in brands,I want to do all of those, you
know, those amazing things andyou know, have my have ads, you
know, sh that I've worked onshow up at different places and
and influence people um in agood way, of course.
And so like I I feel like yeah,that's that's why a lot of us

(04:15):
get into it.
Now, you spent your early, youknow, spent early part of your
career at AOL.
I'd love for you, like, youknow, I I'm I'm guessing that if
most of the people that arelistening to the podcast at
least have heard of AOL.
Um, but I mean AOL was reallybig, especially in the in the
2000s.
Um, but you know, you wereobvious sounding like you were a
little bit on the advertisingside.

(04:36):
I'd love for you to dig in alittle bit on your AOL
experience.

SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
Yeah, it was uh it was definitely a unique one and
really helped set the stage forwhat I would do in the future
and what where my passion wouldbe.
Um and you know, we at AOL itwas actually really interesting
to see some of the the newerfeatures they worked on and you
know where they were uhexcelling in the advertising
space, but then some of thoseyou know kind of core
competencies that they werealways known for that shocked me

(05:01):
that they still existed at thattime.
Um when I was at AOL, I alwaysremember uh one of the first
statistics that was given to mewas that over six million users
still used their dial upconnection capable.
Yeah, and they just shut theywere just shutting that down,
right?
And they yeah, they just setthat down.
So that that always shocked me.
But their advertising is whatreally kept them going.
They had a large pup largepublisher network, um, a great

(05:23):
connection to a lot of differentvery large um brands.
And more importantly than that,they did the right acquisitions.
I actually started very, veryearly on at Millennial Media,
which was a um ad tech providerfor uh essentially a supplier uh
for um placements on app.
They were one of the first uhapp suppliers for um app

(05:44):
advertising, and so that gotacquired by AOL, which brought
me over to AOL.
I like to joke even today thatAOL is uh it's the cockroach of
advertising.
And that sounds mad, but it'sactually a good thing.
They refuse to die.
It does not matter how thingsevolve, it does not how matter
how the landscape changes, theyare still around and they will

(06:05):
continue to be around.

SPEAKER_00 (06:07):
Yeah, and I also would imagine that a company
like AOL has a treasure trove ofdata that is very uh of interest
to a lot of advertisers andother other companies as well,
right?

SPEAKER_01 (06:21):
Exactly.
Yeah, and a massive amount ofuser data, uh, an absurd um
selection of the ability totarget different users and be
able to do some geotargetingthat I actually haven't seen in
a lot of other advertisingagencies even today.
This was you know 10 years ago.
Um, and today that all rollsinto what what everyone knows is

(06:41):
Yahoo.
And Yahoo now has all of thosecapabilities and those feature
sets as they all did multipleacquisitions and and multiple
mergers.

SPEAKER_00 (06:48):
Yeah, yeah, it's really, really interesting.
All right.
Let's uh let's do a couple oflittle fun questions as well to
get to know you a little bitmore.
So all right, so Toby, what'syour morning routine?
What is what does morning looklike for Toby?

SPEAKER_01 (06:59):
Yes, uh I have a I have a four-year-old at home.
Uh so my morning right there.
My mornings are typically uhwake up with him.
We I do mornings with him.
He's uh big big energy in themornings.
Uh at least two cups of coffee,uh, maybe a wordle to to get my
brain started, and then divinginto uh what's happening in the
in the advertising space.

(07:21):
Uh what really gets me energizedevery morning is a cup of coffee
and the ability to just readsome blogs and some articles and
catch up because it's it's a lotto to take in every day.
It's changing constantly.

SPEAKER_00 (07:33):
Yeah, that's that's that's great because you know,
in I had a I had a coffee with auh a student from University of
Arkansas here just recently andshe was talking about you know
what she was looking to do inthe next stage of of her career
or basically starting hercareer.
And I and you know, one of theand she asked me for some tips,
and you know, one of the tips II said was like you've got to be

(07:54):
immersed in the industry thatyou're gonna get into.
So if you're gonna be a media,you've got to spend time with it
every single day.
Um, you know, whether it'swatching YouTube videos, whether
it's listening to podcasts,reading blogs, and sign up, you
know, reading newsletters,whatever that looks like for
you, based upon you know how youlike to uh get your information,

(08:15):
you've got to do that.
And you think you have to thinkcritically about some of those
things.
I think also, you know, I'vealways always talked about like
leaning back and leaningforward.
Like if you're leaning back,you're kind of just casually
taking in information.
But if you're leaning forward,you're more actively critically
thinking and it about whatyou're reading and and trying to
really comprehend and thinkthrough what the possibilities
are.
I think you know, evenunderstanding and and taking in

(08:36):
that information and more of alean forward action versus a
lean back is absolutelyimportant as well.
And so whether that happens foryou first, you know, first
moments of the day, or ithappens to you right before you
go to bed at night, which youknow a lot of people say don't
don't take in that blue screenlight before you go to bed, but
you know, what have you anyway?
Um or you do it at lunch, right?

(08:56):
So it depends on on where youget that.
So do you listen to music?
Do you have a playlist?
What do you what what kind ofjams are you uh do you listen to
that get you uh going in thedeck?
I love that question.

SPEAKER_01 (09:07):
Uh so yeah, the in in the vein of personal uh about
Toby.
I I'm a huge music lover, uh bigcollector of vinyl, uh, which I
know you and I have have bondedover a little bit in the penis.
Um and so uh I tend to leantowards classic rock, uh older
music, uh typically in the 70sera.

SPEAKER_00 (09:26):
Um I am I'm listening to a yacht rock
playlist right now with like 70ssoft rock, 70s, 80s soft rock
right now that I'm just enjoyingquite a bit, actually.
It it gets me energized everytime.

SPEAKER_01 (09:37):
A little bit of like electric light orchestra or
moody blues always uh alwaysputs me in the right mood.
But I've been recently Oh, goahead.

SPEAKER_00 (09:45):
I know I just had a little ambrosia.

SPEAKER_01 (09:47):
Yeah, oh yeah, little ambrosia in there always
gets I've got three of uh threealbums uh from Ambrosia and I I
listen to it quite a bit.
Um the uh what's really got meexcited though recently as a
Spotify user as well, uh, isI've discovered that day lists
are pretty accurate to me.
So I'll often do my morning daylist.
Um it tends to work pretty wellfor me, uh, particularly in the

(10:09):
mornings.
They really nailed it.

SPEAKER_00 (10:11):
Awesome.
Well, it's great to get to knowyou.
We're gonna obviously get toknow you a bit more as we talk
through some things here uh inthis in this episode.
Um, but wanted to jump into alittle bit more around around
the retail media space.
You know, again, you've got anuh extensive background, you've
been in media for for quite along time, you've been working
in this space for a bit.
So I think the audience wouldreally love to hear from from

(10:33):
you on you know some of yourphilosophies and you know how
you approach uh retail mediaspecifically, which has been the
world that you've been in uhextensively over the last few
years for sure.
So, you know, when we thinkabout retail media and kind of
its evolution, what is reallyyou feel like were really the
big changes in retail media thathave really influenced this

(10:55):
acceleration that we've seenover the last few years?
You know, I'd love to hear moreabout that for you.

SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
You know, my my general POV on retail media uh
is really the expansion ofadvertising capability
throughout the differentplatforms and the very
intelligent aggregation of someof those platforms into unique
tech providers.
I think that retail media as awhole is going to continue to

(11:22):
grow pretty rapidly.
Um, but I do think that there'sa lot of headwinds that it faces
um with a lot of tailwinds aswell.
Uh, you know, for me, when Ithink about the way that it all
comes together and and what Ithink is is success within the
digital media and retail medialandscape is being able to
understand, which is a verychallenging right now for so

(11:44):
many brands and agencies, whereall of these things
intrinsically click together andwhere silos need to be removed.
I think it's the probably one ofthe biggest uh blockers today
for retail media is a lot of thethat siloed nature within the
space, both within agencies andbrands, and it prevents what
could be a much morepersonalized um user experience

(12:05):
for the consumer, but also forthe brand and creating much more
efficiency.
So I get a lot of energy helpingbrands understand where they
need to adjust their retailmedia strategies to be much more
thoughtful with their ad dollarsand be less myopic to how do I
make ex retailers succeed, andmore big picture of how do I
make my brand succeed.

SPEAKER_00 (12:26):
Yeah, it's very interesting too because as you
know, retail media budgets havecontinued to expand, you know,
brands obviously want to have alot more control over how that
money is spent.
And obviously, there's you knowa lot of discussion.
We'll talk about measurement alittle bit later on, but there's
a lot about measurement and andso forth.
But it is it is interesting tome because you know, retail
media has been around for awhile.

(12:48):
You know, you know, there's beenyou know what we've had you
know, triad retail media thatused to do advertising, you
know, on be you know, with withWalmart Connect, or well it's
not Walmart, it wasn't WalmartConnect at the time, but they
were doing it for the yeah.
Walmart media group back then, Ido believe.
They might not have had a fewiterations uh for sure.
And then Amazon, likeeverybody's had media, right?
But the but the budgets and whatpeople were spending, and like

(13:09):
nobody really cared too much.
But now there's this you knowproliferation of all these
different tactics and spendscontinue.
And I was like, oh, wait asecond, this is impacting my
budget now because a lot of alot of these dollars.
And so, like the conversationsthat I've had quite a bit recent
you know recently, or we'll sayover the last year or so, is
really about trying to get thecustomer teams or the retail
teams on the same page with thebrand teams, and there's you

(13:31):
know, there's seems to be notnecessarily friction, but a lot
of times misunderstanding of ofwhat it takes to perform on
retail.
What has your experience beenon, and I know you you said you
know you you you really enjoytrying to get brands under
understanding the space, butlike what have you what have you
seen and heard from yourexperience that really helps get
everyone on the same page on onwhat the true opportunities are?

SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
Yeah, it's uh it's a great question, and I'm I'm very
curious of your perspective ofthis.
The um the way that I find thatin my experience that brands and
sales have been able to get ininto a better rhythm, and it's
not always perfect, uh, tends tobe a greater understanding of
the space and what it means tobe in store versus on the

(14:19):
digital shelf, and what are thelevers that can be pulled to
help juice that particularimpact and the relationships
necessary.
Often the two teams tend todisagree or have that friction
because there's two differentfocus points relationship and
sales growth.
And one team is very focused onI need to grow my sales for very

(14:40):
particular items or for myportfolio.
The other team is very focusedon I need to maintain my
relationship with thesemerchants and this retailer, I
need to ensure that I'm drivingthe right traffic to this
retailer and it's our premierchannel.
Often that is driven by thesiloed natures of uh brand
setup.
Brands set up their teams to befocused on particular retailers

(15:01):
or particular advertisingavenues, and unfortunately, that
creates artificial silos whenthey're not speaking.
Many of these brands rely onlarge agencies, holding
companies, etc., to do that forthem and find the menagerie and
help them create that thatjustification.
Unfortunately, that that doesn'toften work as well as they'd
like, and we've seen that.
That's why this model's existedfor so long, and it's why the

(15:24):
space is continuing to evolve.
It wouldn't be evolving on howteams work together and how
agencies interact if it wasperfected.
Uh, right.
So that is where I've seenbrands succeed and where I've
seen agencies succeed, isremoving the person X will
handle this for me and saying weneed to figure out the crux of
the issue and bring these teamstogether and still offer and

(15:47):
allow the capability for thesedifferent brands and these
different team members to beable to focus on their core
competencies or their coreresponsibilities, but understand
that camaraderie and teamwork isneeded here to ensure that the
communication streams areconsistent and that these
different individual teams areoperating holistically versus

(16:08):
singularity, and then you cometo a bottle of the funnel where
everything starts to crowdtogether, and now you have uh
you know disjointed strategiesand what effectively becomes
very inefficient ad spend andoften creative visuals.
How do you feel about it?
Have you seen them beingsomewhat similar?

SPEAKER_00 (16:28):
Yeah, and I think it's I mean, it's just I think
it's one of those things whereyou know convert conversations
have to continue and andeverybody it takes time, right?
It takes time to absorb you knowthe true opportunity, plus you
know, you're trying to get yourarms around something that's
growing immensely, and and thedemands are are increasing, you
know, the JBP commitments arecontinuing to increase, they're
wanting more.

(16:48):
And I think you hit on somethingearly on on in your response
where which is really importantbecause there's there's sales
and there's a relationship,right?
There is you know return, youknow, a return that drives the
business from a numbersperspective, and then there's a
drives the business because of arelationship, right?
So there's you know, and andthat we used to call that return
on relationship.

(17:09):
The challenge is it's hard toquantify return on relationship,
but to be honest, that might bethe most impactful way that you
drive your business.
If you are building the rightrelationship with you know your
merchant and you are, you know,doing the things that the
retailer needs you to do.
And obviously, there's gotta bea give and take.
So I'm not saying you just sayokay to everything, but there's

(17:31):
a lot of give and take and youhave a lot of good
communication.
I think that that goes a longway to things that aren't always
as clear as I saw an ad, and Isince I saw that ad, I resulted
in this sale at this retailer atthis moment, right?
So, but everybody loves that,right?
And that's why everybody lovesretail media because the the
idea is that's you can measureall of that, which again we'll

(17:52):
talk about measurement later on,but that that's that's obviously
not always the case.
So, you know, it is it is still,I think, a work in progress.
I think as brands understand andthey get more involved in the
space and they have uh anunderstanding.
And I would also encouragebrands that may not necessarily
have access to a specificretailer because of their

(18:14):
location or whatever, to go andvisit that retailer and go on a
store walk with somebody and atleast you know, and I understand
we talk a lot about e-commerce,but I think you can get a lot of
perspective about e-commerce bywalking the store.
And so because it is amulti-channel experience for
most shoppers, right?
Omnichannel, right?
So it's a multi-channelexperience.
So you have to understand thestore, you have to even do a

(18:34):
sidewalk, right?
So do a site walk and and whichis probably a little more
convenient than finding a storeand going there if you if it's
not in your area.
But I think you know, havingthat having some of those
experiences definitely will, youknow, help that understanding
between brand and customer teamor brand and retail team uh in
order to really drive some ofthe the opportunities because

(18:55):
those those are the things thathappen in the margins, right?
It's like these are the thingsbecause we feel good and we work
together, we trust each other,we all all trying to be on the
same page.
Those are the things that comecome together because of some of
these other activities like sitewalks and store walks and you
know, having conversations,having lunch, talking about
these things.
And so it's still a veryrelational business, even if we,

(19:16):
you know, we're talking aboutdollars or ones and zeros,
right?
Couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
And I think that you know, when you think about that,
like the other side of thespectrum is for you know, that's
that's um, you know, as you goto the more of the sales team
and you think about uh and thenyou know e-commerce teams,
depending on the the companyyou're talking about, oftentimes
one of the things that's alsoreally good to put yourself in,
particularly for a brand team,take one step back and think to
yourself, particularly if you'rein charge of certain retailers

(19:42):
or segments, what is actuallygonna drive a consumer to
purchase?
And again, not lookingmyopically to the retailer, but
thinking greater scheme of yourbrand.
What is gonna drive a consumerto purchase and where is their
channel overlap?
You know, met all of us shop atmultiple stores, right?
And so So what I found is one ofthe biggest blockers as well for

(20:03):
brands and where they struggleagain with those team conf
conflicts is when to invest inretail media and when to start
to use those investments.
And of course, to you to acomment you made, every retailer
is gonna say, oh, you've got tobe investing here.
You've got to be putting moneyinto the platform.
It's totally worth it.
You should see our user base.
So true, right?
But guess what?
The user base for Walmart isoften overlapping with the user

(20:26):
base for Kroger.
It's often it depends on theregion.
Where do you sit?
What grocery stores do you shopat?
In Bentonville, you probablyaren't overlapping too heavily
with a lot of other grocersbecause Walmart is the main
grocer available.
But here in Baltimore, I have 16different grocery stores within
a 10-mile radius of me, not evenincluding Walmart, right?
So my overlap is dramatic.

(20:46):
And that means that you don'tneed to target me across seven
different retailers.
You hit me on one and you've nowcaptured my interest.
And I might go purchase it at adifferent retailer.
But when you look at the bottomline, you made the sale.
You capture the consumer and youmade the conversion and you've
built loyalty.
And so I think taking that stepback often helps teams better

(21:07):
coordinate because you stopsaying, Well, I have to have
this investment in this brand.
My retailer is the one that'simportant.
And instead, you say, Thisretailer is really going to help
us, and this is why toaccelerate the brand
holistically.
And now you're making aninvestment decision that's much
more thoughtful and more alignedto the entire team versus
creating that conflict.

SPEAKER_00 (21:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
So, yeah, I feel like we couldtalk about this for for hours,
but we're gonna we're gonna getto a few other other topics.
So um this this other this nextup uh topic.
So CES concluded recently, andso like you know, CES is always
an interesting one, right?
It's the first really bigconference starting the new

(21:48):
year.
Um it's the consumer electronicshow.
It's been mostly known over theyears for you know TVs and and
electronics and and iPhone casesand all of that stuff, right?
But it it's really started tobecome more retail media has
really started to become a lotmore involved in CES.

(22:10):
Um, I was at CES last year andthe ARIA, I had you know,
Walmart Connect was there,Instacart was there, like there
was a lot of conversations, alot of a lot of um uh sessions
that were taking place that werevery retail media, retail media
focused.
So, you know, why do you thinkthere's such a a strong presence
for retail media at you know aconference like CES, which is

(22:33):
known for electronics?

SPEAKER_01 (22:34):
Yeah, it's a great question.
It's an interesting one.
No, it's it's definitely umperspective based.
The to me, I think it really isdriven by um beret and location.
You you have this opportunity atthe top of the year when often a
lot of um vendor negotiationshaven't completed, uh agency

(22:54):
negotiations haven't completed,agencies are are deep in hunt
mode uh for their their next bigclient uh relationship.
And at CES, a lot of the largestopportunities exist there,
particularly opportunities thatare much harder for retail media
today.
Retail media was born and grownmore effectively on CPG, right?

(23:15):
And so CPG is one that has avery different strategy and a
very different approach than anykind of hardline, which is you
know, CES is bread and butter.
And so brands, I think, are moreeffectively starting to take up
CES uh with agencies becauseagencies now have this
opportunity to showcase why theycan help support um a hardline

(23:36):
client with their needs throughretail media, where all of a
sudden these these CES uh brandsare starting to be much more
effectively online than just instore and in the the court
retailers.
Um, then secondarily, it's allabout those vendor
relationships.
You know, privacy previously atCES, you would rarely see an
Amazon or an Instacart at CES,and now they're all known force,

(23:57):
and that's because of thosevendor relationships and those
negotiations they want to start.
Um, there's a reason why I'vealways noticed that you you
mentioned the ARIA, they'realways very separate.
The actual CES uh entirelandscape and the show floor is
30 minutes down the strip fromwhere all of the uh e-commerce

(24:17):
work is.
You ask 80% of the people whoare who sit in digital media and
e-commerce, did you go see theshow floor where you were at
CES?
All of them say, No, we nevermade it.

SPEAKER_00 (24:25):
It's hard it's hard.
Never got out of the Ori.
That was my that was mychallenge last year because
there were sessions all over theplace that I wanted to attend or
places I wanted to be.
And so just even you know,getting an Uber or the or the
monorail or whatever to get fromone place to another.
I mean, it take takes so muchtime that you missed the session
by the time you got from oneplace to to the other.
And you're you're right.
I I did cover all of it lastyear, and it, you know, I got I

(24:49):
got quite a few steps in, let'slet's put it that way, right?
So, like just from you know,some all obviously the news
around CES is kind ofpercolating into uh percolating
right now.
So what were some of the thingsthat you kind of heard about uh
um or saw uh related to CES, Ithink that that could impact um
our business in the in the yearto come?

SPEAKER_01 (25:11):
Yeah, I mean I I think some of the outside of the
technology um that was releaseduh within the CES show floor,
which many of which are I thinkgoing to impact our industry
more so from a sense of you knowwhat are the hot products, where
consumers buying um consumer youknow, cinnamon and shopping
habit.
I do think that's gonna impactthings.

(25:31):
But for us, and you know, moredirectly related to retail
media, I think some of thebiggest things that I saw
released that I'm I'm reallyexcited about um are some
network releases uh and newfeature sets that I think are
gonna create some competition,particularly within the
programmatic space.
Reddit creating their own uh adnetwork while you know seeming
small, you know, in the grandscheme of things, because many

(25:52):
are creating their own adnetworks.
Reddit is massive.
Reddit is where a large portionof LLM data is housed right now,
where it is pulled from.
It is what scary in some ways.
Yeah, very scary in some ways.
Very scary how big Reddit isnow.
And so for Reddit to releasetheir own advertising platform
and your ability to advertisedirectly within that ecosystem

(26:14):
versus having to use aprogrammatic partner, which is
today the the only real optionto hit uh Reddit more
aggressively, I think is goingto be a bit of a disruptor.
Um, secondarily, the thingthat's obviously very exciting
that everyone's on everyone'smind is you know, AI uh based
work, agenic commerce, and AIagents.
And uh many of the the wholecodes released their own AI

(26:36):
news, um, which was big and Ithink will uh impact different
relationships than what brandsneed more effectively, because
brands are going to start tochoose their holding
relationship based on the AItechnology available because
each have very differentofferings today.
They will become more mergedover time, but right now they
are very unique.
Um, but and I think more nearholistically to everybody, it's

(26:59):
the retailer AI capabilitiesthat they're integrating with
and the way that Agenic Commerceis shaping up.
I think Google's uh new protocoland Walmart's and Target's
partnership with them was apretty massive announcement.
Now that came slightly after CESduring NRF, but they all kind of
merged together.
We're talking days difference.

SPEAKER_00 (27:18):
Are we able are we able to call a winner now?
Google is now the the winner ofagent of AI shopping.
Are we able to do that yet?

SPEAKER_01 (27:26):
If you've heard anybody, uh if any of the other
AI's heard us say that, they'dbe like, that is not true.
You are jumping the gun, but I Ithink realistically Google is
likely gonna eat this up.
It's gonna be just like thesearch bar wars.
Bing exists today.
There are other search bars outthere, but not many people use
Bing.
Google holds the holds thecandle there.
If you go out of country, youstart to see Bing being more uh

(27:47):
aggressively utilized due tosecurity features.
And I think the same thing'sgonna be here, where we'll see
the other AIs continue to beeffective and utilized because a
combative market is what's gonnacreate the best consumer
experience, frankly.
I don't want Google to owneverything because if they do,
you create you remove theability for the consumer to get
exactly what they want.
However, I do think Googlestands to own this.

(28:10):
They have the infrastructure,they have their own supply
pipeline to be able to actuallymake their AI function more
appropriately through datacenters, whereas everybody else
has to partner.

SPEAKER_00 (28:19):
Yeah, I mean the comeback for Google, right?
So, you know, I I I use I useChat GPT every single day,
right?
So I use, I mean, that's mynumber one go-to.
Uh Google Gemini is my second.
Um, and then I tinker with theothers.
You know, where Google was,we'll say two years ago compared

(28:40):
to where Chat GPT and OpenAIwere at that time and in and to
continue to push, you you justwondered, was Google was Google
ever going to catch up.
I would say that this isdefinitely one of the it is a
notable comeback by Google uminto this space.
They're they're they you areabsolutely right, they have a

(29:03):
hundred percent a chance to winor the right to win because of
their infrastructure, the numberof people who have Chrome
browsers, the amount of datathat they have, the access to
your email, who doesn't have aGmail account?
Right?
Like they have all of thisaccess while Chat GPT and OpenAI
have to go and collect this,right?
And at the end of the day, youknow, the sh the shopper, you

(29:25):
know, wants to wants frictionfree, right?
So if if they're a chat GPTshopper, definitely they want to
be able to to to shop and buythrough their through that app.
If you're a Google user andyou're in Google, and it doesn't
mean you're not both, right?
You could be a Google user andyou could also be a ChatGPT
user.
You just want that thatstreamlined functionality to be
able to discover and purchaseall within, you know, that uh

(29:48):
within that environment,whichever environment you're
working at.
So I kind of put some of theGoogle I almost say the Google
comeback at this point isreminiscent of the comeback by
the QR code.
Right?
Was there any bigger comebackthan the QR code in in the
space?
I I highly doubt it.
And but I do think Googledefinitely is rivaling that on

(30:09):
obviously a much bigger scale.

SPEAKER_01 (30:10):
I I very much agree.
I mean, I couldn't tell you howfrequently I use Gemini before
Gemini 3 released.
It was very infrequent.
I was much more heavily leanedinto Chat GBT and Claude.
Um, I find Claude to beexceptionally powerful for uh
anything that involves you knowany type of math or or
analytics.
Um, it's also much more datasecure.

(30:32):
Uh so I'm I'm a big Claude fanfor those reasons.
But when Gemini 3 came out, itreally killed my usage of Chat
GBT.
I still use it fairlyfrequently, um, but Gemini 3
tends to have uh better answersthat hallucinates less often,
and I'm able to guide it to domore data analysis.
I mean, we could have an entireconversation and get the right

(30:53):
information online.
We could have a wholeconversation about you know the
the falsehoods of AI today andwhere it still struggles um and
how users need to use it,because I think that's also you
know a very scary thing is thefact that today AI, very similar
to when you people search thingson Google and there's always
been that expression for thelast 15 years, don't believe
everything you see on theinternet.

(31:14):
That could not be more true ofAI.
And the problem is that peopletrust AI because supposedly it's
searching the web for you, it'sdoing the work for you.
And so you believe what it'stelling you.
But as advertising gets into AI,as you start to see ads,
particularly in the retail mediaspace than AI, all of a sudden
what's being suggested to youcould be a paid placement, it

(31:36):
could just be a partnership.
AI has a uh that particularcompany, Gemini or ChatGBT, have
a greater relationship withthose particular retailers or
those websites.
And so you start to really haveto have this fine time line of
is what's being provided to mereally the best option if I'm
looking for a product, or am Ijust being given the options
that the AI recommends?
You can avoid it.

(31:57):
You can prompt properly to getwhat you want, but a lot of
users don't know that.
They just take for grantedexactly what's given to them at
face value.
And I think that's where for me,Google has done a better job of
giving you a face value uhproposition that is more factual
than Chat GBP has, and that'swhy I'm I'm very um bullish on
what Google's doing right nowwith Gemini.

SPEAKER_00 (32:18):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I think the the wave ofadvertising is coming for sure
in this space.
I have no doubt in my mind.
I s I recently saw an articleabout Walmart uh testing
sponsored prompts within theiruh their chat, their Sparky, uh,
their Sparky chat interface uhas well as they're doing some

(32:38):
testing there.
So you know, I think there's alot of work being done to try to
figure out what is the right uhadvertising uh format and uh
something that's not necessarilygoing to uh be super uh I don't
want to say disruptive becauseevery all advertising should be
disruptive, but disruptive tothe shopper experience, right?

(33:00):
So you know, not necessarilymake it feel like sewing your
face.
You know, I think that's gonnabe important um through that
process uh as well.
So I imagine AI is gonna be partof this answer, but what are
some of the things you thinkabout for the year ahead with
retail media and and what we cancan expect expect?

(33:20):
I think again, I think I justtouched on a couple of things,
but you know, what are what aresome of your thoughts on you
know where things go with uhwith AI and retail or just
retail media in general?
Yeah.
It's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 (33:31):
Um, I think some of the the exciting ones that I
think will make an impact uhthis year, um, and it's not just
you know spoken mirrors or or umyou know clout uh is going to be
Agenic Commerce in the way it isutilized.
I think we'll start to see a lotmore consumer buying directly
through the platform and muchbetter articulation from the AI

(33:55):
to help guide the consumer tomake their purchase.
Um, I also think that what we'regonna see a lot more of is the
integration of uh AI agents intoagencies and brands.
I think that that, frankly, Ithink that's the big one that's
gonna happen most this year isthat Agenic Commerce is just
gonna continue to evolve fromwhere it was.
It's evolving rapidly, and butit was already in this state, uh

(34:18):
call it Q4 of last year, it wasstarting to move in this
direction more aggressively.
That trajectory will continue.
We'll see advertising come in.
I do think when advertisingcomes in, there's gonna be a
massive conversation about umuser privacy, data security.
Uh right now, I personallywouldn't advertise on an LLM.
Um, if I even if I had theopportunity, maybe within a

(34:39):
closed-door one like Sparky orRufus, outside of that, I would
be very careful about that if Iwere a brand, because the the
data security that needs toexist really doesn't today.
Um and I would be, I personallywould be very nervous about
that.
So I think where you're gonnasee more of it this year as they
work through some of those umidiosyncrasies, which I think

(35:00):
will take some time and we'llstart to really see that rise in
2027.
This year I think it's gonna beagencies and brands taking AI
technology in and starting toactually utilize it.
So many brands I speak to umoften tell me we haven't really
started to bring in AI yet.
We leverage blank blank brand uhtechnology provider and they

(35:23):
have an AI tool we use.
Or some of the other ones, andthese are the ones that have a
lot of work to do, havestipulations that their team
members can't even use AI.
They cannot access a Chat GBT ora Gemini or an internal tool set
that's been developed.
So I think agents are gonnabecome much more consistent
where instead of just having aconversation, you're gonna see

(35:43):
actual AI agents that performthe automation for you perform
the task.
And that's gonna be somethingthat's gonna be much more seen
and consistently utilizedthroughout each and every brand
and agency provider that we seein the space.
There's also gonna be a lot ofconsolidation.
There's, you know, what 70,000AI startups that exist right now
in some capacity.

(36:04):
And I think that you're gonnasee a lot of these AI agents, of
course, many of them in thesecompanies will fail, but I also
think a lot of these companiesare gonna get gobbled up this
year, and you're gonna see a lotof integration because so many
different users are creatingdifferent tool sets with such a
powerful baseline.
And so you're going to see manyagencies, many brands say, Why
would I rebuild this?

(36:25):
This has just been built, it'samazing, it's excellent, and
they're gonna purchase that andbring that in.
So I think a lot ofconsolidation and acquisition is
gonna occur this year.

SPEAKER_00 (36:33):
Yeah, to your point about you know brand use with
with AI, I as I was in aconversation just yesterday with
a brand and we were talking uhtalking to them about their AI
usage, and they said, Well, wehave co-pilot, and that's their
that is their AI uh their AIsolution.
They're not using AI in anyother way.
They have co-pilot.

(36:53):
Um when I had access to copilot,and I don't use copilot nearly
as as much as any of the otherplatforms, but it always,
especially in the enterprisecase, always seemed very watered
down and very difficult to trulyget productive with it.
Um but here's the thing thoughas soon as you go to your home
computer, you can use whateveryou want.

(37:14):
So I I do think there's gonnahave to be some I don't want to
say a reckoning necessarily, butthere's gonna have to be
something that's gonna happenwhere you know, and I'm not
trust me, anybody that'swatching or listening, I am not
advocating that you take yourwork information and you put it
on your home computer and use AIagainst your company's policy.
So just want to get that clear.

(37:35):
But with AI being so, so much apart of it's in your it's in
your phone or will be in yourphone if it's not there already,
it's in your it's in your homelife.
Like it's gonna be hard not tohave AI involved in whatever
work you're doing in some way,shape, or form in the in the
year to year to come.
So I do think brands are gonnahave to figure that part out and

(37:56):
make those tools a little bitmore accessible and then also
provide the right type oftraining to go from a level one
user to just get them to a leveltwo user.
Everybody is pretty much, youknow, everybody I talk to, 90%
or more of marketers are thatlevel one where they're just,
you know, they have a uh theyput in a single prompt and they
get a single response, and youknow, maybe they go back and

(38:18):
forth a little bit and thenthat's it.
They don't, you know, thatthat's that's the end.
So I do think that there's uh ahuge opportunity, uh huge
opportunity in that space.

SPEAKER_01 (38:27):
Could not agree more.
I think one of the things that Ithink is really pro that you
mentioned that I just wanted tohit on real fast, um, that I
think is very pertinent is thethe the the take-homing of a of
a of work and then using aseparate laptop.
You know, you joked and you werevery clear.
Not recommending that.

SPEAKER_00 (38:44):
Not recommending disclaimer here.

SPEAKER_01 (38:47):
Yeah, could not agree with that more, but brands
need to realize it's happening.
They they are pulling wool overtheir own eyes if they think
that their team members aren'tdoing that because it makes
their lives easier.
Brands are much more um futureforward, and frankly, they
create better data security ifthey create their own in-house
LLM arena and ability to usetheir own, uh use LLMs within

(39:11):
their technology or within theirsecurity parameters, than to
just poo-poo the whole thing andcreate restrictions and
unability.
Because what's gonna naturallyhappen is you are going to have
team members that take it home.
And then you create liabilitiesthat are much harder to deal
with because these liabilitiesare now adjacent from your
actual work.

SPEAKER_00 (39:31):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So we'll see what happens there.
It'll be very, very, veryinteresting.
I'm glad I work for an AIcompany where I don't have to
worry about that.
Mean too.
All right, let's let's uh let'stouch on measurement, right?
We've referred to to it a coupleof times.
It's always usually the youknow, that in and agentic
shopping, AI shopping is alwaysa a big conversation on this
podcast, but measurement hasbecome one as well.

(39:53):
I'd love to hear a little bitabout your philosophy with with
measurement.
You know, as as I've talkedabout a lot, you know, the The
measurement story really hasbecome one that is very data
focused, veryperformance-oriented type of
measurement.
And not all channels within theretail media uh ecosystem are as
easily measured as you wouldhave with, you know, let's say a

(40:16):
sponsored placement with uh ininside of an Ingrid on a on a
search, right?
On Walmart.com or Amazon orTarget or whomever, right?
And so I think everybody's fallhad fallen in love with that
measurement of that that directlast click attribution during,
honestly, during COVID, right?
When everybody was locked down,e-commerce blew up, right?

(40:37):
Everybody and everybody got highon that, on that, on that
measurement.
Well, then the expectation is,well, if it's retail media, they
all should be able to bemeasured that way.
Not such the case in some of thechannels, and we've talked about
that, but I'd love to hear likewhat your philosophy is on
measurement and how you've hadthose conversations with you
know brands that you've you'veworked with.

(40:58):
Yeah.
Um, it's a really good questionand a very complicated answer.

SPEAKER_01 (41:02):
Because I don't think it's the right answer.

SPEAKER_00 (41:04):
That's a very complicated question.

SPEAKER_01 (41:06):
Sorry.
Um, to me, I think that when youwhen you look at measurement,
one of the biggest things youneed to look at is what are you
actually trying to achieve firstand foremost?
What is your goal?
And so many brands don'tactually know what their goal
is.
They will say, Oh, well, I'mtrying to bring in more loyalty,
I'm trying to build householdpenetration.
Um, I want to increase my marketshare.

(41:26):
And then you say, Okay, sothat's your goal.
What are you what are youmeasuring against?
Sales.
Sales of the retailer.
My answer immediately is, well,you're not going to ever get a
clear measurement story.
You're you're you're looking attwo very unique data streams and
you're trying to connect themtogether and say this indicates
X, X indicates Y, right?

(41:47):
And they don't.
They don't intrinsically playtogether.
You then have to just make thiseven muddier by layering in the
fact that most brands,especially large brands, still
leverage very, very old andarchaic MMM modeling.
And while it has um evolved in alot of different ways, many
brands have created their ownMML MMM models that um are

(42:09):
evolved to layer in e-commerceinsights, things of that nature,
and those data sets that didn'texist before, as you mentioned,
it's not a perfect science.
And unfortunately, that meansthat there are multiple
different ways to measure todayand multiple different uh
viewpoints on what the rightmeasurement is, but none of them
really tell the whole story.

(42:29):
To me, the best way you canmeasure is still a very
classical approach.
You need to take all yourpotential uh impactors to what
would drive your growth, yourKPI that you're looking for, and
you need to then marry it acrossyour your overall sales and then
your channel sales.
And you need to view each ofthose uniquely and individually,

(42:52):
but then look at them at theholistic level and be able to
actually see the trajectorychange of your total sales
volume, your unit volume, yourmarket share, whatever KPI
you're looking at, based on allof those different factors and
those impactors.
I think today nobody really doesthat.
They look at them all siloed,they try to use AMC.
Like AMC is so powerful and it'sso impressive, and I love the

(43:13):
tool.
But AMC is not a solvable.
A lot of agencies, a lot ofbrands claim it is, they act
like it is.
It's it's it's a very, verypowerful.

SPEAKER_00 (43:21):
They want it to be the answer, right?
Because they want it to be theanswer everyone wants, right?

SPEAKER_01 (43:26):
There is no answer.
There's never gonna be an answerto measurement.
The day that measurement isfully solved, and we're we did
it, it's solved, we figured itout, is the day that you and I
don't have jobs anymore.
It's not gonna happen.
Not in our lifetime.
It will always be a verysubjective conversation.

SPEAKER_00 (43:44):
Yeah, I think one of the biggest work when I think
about measurement and one of thechallenges with measurement, I
think one of the biggest,biggest challenges is the word
and.
I want to measure this and Iwant to measure that.
Or I or my objective, evenworse.
Like our my objective is thisand this and that, and this
other thing, right?
So you've got three or fourthings you're conjoining
together and expecting to beable to show some sort of

(44:07):
relationship that drove the youknow, the outcome that you are
expecting.
And you know, the more ands youadd to your whatever you are
trying to achieve, the moredifficult it will be to measure,
right?
So and but it's hard, right?
Because you want to try torestrict re reduce that.

(44:27):
You want to make it a a muchmore of a finite um measurement
strategy, and it it's it's it'shard, right?
Because I get it, like of courseyou want new new new brand, of
course you want more, you know,uh sales, of course you want to
build awareness, right?
But all of those things, to yourpoint, aren't all measured the

(44:50):
same way.
They uh have different ways inwhich you accomplish them.
And so if you are looking at itas a holistic objective or a
holistic goal, you're you know,you're probably not going to
fully be satisfied with what youare being told at the end of the
at the end of a campaign.

SPEAKER_01 (45:08):
Yeah, I I I think you you really hit something
hard with the the end uh of itall.
You you're so right thatoftentimes the the goals
conflict so heavily with oneanother when you say end and end
and end that they you no longerhave a clear strategy.
I mean, we could again we couldtangent so hard on this, but

(45:29):
I'll keep it very short andsweet.
The one of the majorconversation factors coming out
of CES, going back to ouroriginal topic here, uh, is the
collapsing of the marketingfunnel and that you you now CTV
can be more of a conversionplay.
And I personally have a have abit of a gripe with that.
Um, because while I think thatthat is true, you create more

(45:50):
capability with some of yourother advertising tactics, and
you now have multiple avenuesfor the consumer to go.
So instead of having to go asingular approach, you can take
tangential approaches to thefunnel now.
I don't think that means thefunnel's collapsing.
I think you're you're being fartoo um over overly broad when
you say that.
And I think it confuses brandsbecause a very myopic point of

(46:11):
view, for sure.
Exactly.
Many brands to what you justsaid earlier, you know, they all
they're only so deep into this.
And so when they read thesethings online, they read these
things in articles, they see itin announced in CES, they see um
you know so-called experts onLinkedIn claiming these things
as well, you know, it's it'sfrustrating for me because it's
it's confusing brands and itonly creates more of this silo

(46:32):
issue we started thisconversation with.
So to me, I I think one of thebiggest takeaways I would want
to say just very rapidly uh toanyone listening to me, in my
opinions here right now, isdon't believe that hype of the
collapsing marketing funnel.
Instead, it's think of it as amarketing funnel that now has
tangential ways to hit theconversion space of the funnel,
the bottom of the funnel,without having to go through the

(46:55):
entire thing.
Doesn't mean it's collapsing, itjust means that there's now
alternate avenues.
I think that's a better way tothink about it because when you
think about it that way, yourealize you still need to have a
very clear and structuredmarketing strategy, but you now
have opportunities and optionsat your disposal to create
alternate avenues to get yourconsumer to get to the bottom of
that funnel.

SPEAKER_00 (47:14):
By putting a by putting a QR code on your
connected TV ad does not make ita conversion tactic.
Correct.
Or being able to click on it andit takes you to Instacody, you
know, depending on the systemyou're using, whether it's got a
button or not.
It it is still an awarenesstactic.
You're still trying to tell astory, you're still trying to
build your per brand, you arestill trying to educate on your

(47:37):
product, right?
Yes, you are providing anopportunity for if if somebody
is ready to purchase, yes, youare opening up that opportunity
for that that transaction totake place.
But they also still have to bevery motivated to do that.
So you have to have done a lotof work before they get to that
step.
Very rarely in you know, in theworlds that we work in in CPG

(48:00):
and some of the other in some ofthe brands that is somebody that
motivated to stop stop that ad,mid-ad, for laundry detergent.
Scan, oh yeah, I need I need toget that laundry detergent now
and scan that QR code.
Now I'm not saying it doesn'thappen.
I contend it's probably a bunchof marketers that are that are
doing it.
But you know, you know what I'msaying?

(48:22):
It's still like I think youryour influence on sales from
that connected TV ad is going tobe well beyond and it's a
multi-channel story, as we'vetalked about before.
The number of scans you get onthat QR code and the number of
ad-to-cards.
Correct.

SPEAKER_01 (48:40):
And I think that that's the exactly what you said
is just nail on the head is forthe the takeaway is don't change
your KPIs.
We go back to measurement.
Your measurements for thesetypes of ads should never be how
many people scanned that QR codeor clicked that buy button
because you immediately putyourself in a position of
failure.

SPEAKER_00 (48:59):
Again, it's it's it's a great place to tell your
story.
Um and you know, there'sdefinitely a place for that to
occur.
Um but just because you can adda cart directly from it doesn't
necessarily mean it's aconversion, uh it's a conversion
tactic.
So um, all right, so let's we'rewe're we gotta move on, but uh

(49:21):
good good conversation.
So let's let's let's play themagic wand game for a second,
right?
So we've talked about a lot ofstuff in in the retail media
space.
I love the magic wand gamebecause there's no reality.
So the magic wand game is if youcould wave a magic wand and fix
you know systematic issue withretail media today, what would

(49:44):
you what what what would youwhat would your wish be?
You got one wish, Toby.
You got one wave of the wand.
What would you try to what wouldyou try to fix?

SPEAKER_01 (49:52):
It's a tough question because there's so many
things to fix.
You could say measurement,right?
But uh for me, I think it wouldbe I think it would probably be
um the walled gardens.
If I could fix something,there's so many I would want to
fix, but if I could just wave amagic rond and it would be the

(50:13):
most impactful for everybody, itwould be removing walled gardens
from different uh agency andretailer landscapes and allowing
data, uh user data to me to bemore um uh adaptable and
available to to brands and toadvertisers to leverage.

(50:34):
Um because today I think thosewalled gardens, frankly, create
a lot of the siloed issues thatwe talked about throughout our
conversation, and they are thethe nexus point of it.
And so if we could remove that,you you often solve a lot of the
other problems that my magicwand would want to solve.
But if I solve this one, I'marguably solving a few of the
others.

SPEAKER_00 (50:52):
Oh, that absolutely love that.
Love that because it feels likeit has an opportunity to be, you
know, a much broader opportunityto you know fix some of these
challenges that we've hit on, uhhit on today.
Um, all right, cool.
All right, let's so retail mediavibes is really, you know, part
of part of this this programminghas been based upon the human

(51:13):
side of of what we do on theday-to-day basis.
And you know, you've been in thespace a long time, you've been a
manager and a leader, I've beenin the space a long time, I've
been a manager and leader.
We've seen kind of the howthings have evolved over our
tenures um in our respective uhroles and companies that we've
we've worked at.
Um and you know, for me, youknow, one of the challenges that

(51:34):
I've uh I've seen is just likethe expansion of retail media
and amount the amount of workand and and grind that I think a
lot of a lot of peopleexperience um in this space.
Like the the pressure in retailmedia, I mean I would say media
marketing in general that thatexists, but I think the retail
media it ratchets it up a bitbecause you have typically so

(51:59):
many different retailers.
We've talked about so manydifferent you know channels.
You have pressures on theretailer side, you have
pressures on the on the brandside, and I think you know,
there's a lot of there's a lotof overwhelm that exists, I
think, you know, in in in thisspace.
And you know, I talked to a lotof people who are either on the
brink of burnout or they've oror they have in the past and you

(52:21):
know trying to get back into itor have left the industry in
general, right?
And you know, that's not greatfor us.
Like having people who are wellexperienced and they're leaving
this this this world of ofretail media makes it tough
because there's there's all thisworld is expansive, expanding.
Retail media is continuing toexpand.
So my you know, my question toyou is like in in this world

(52:42):
where there is all this pressurearound retail media, um, you
know, what your experiences havehave been and you know when how
have you advised people who haveworked worked with you um or
worked for you on how to handlesome of the the pressures from
the speed of retail?

SPEAKER_01 (52:59):
Yeah, it's a it's a really good question.
You know, one of my um one of myfavorite parts about the job is
is being a mentor and helpingtrain individuals.
You know, I I was very luckythat I had a lot of good mentors
um throughout my career.
And what I try to tell anybody,whether they be someone directly
under me and on my team, or um,you know, someone in the space

(53:20):
that I know, or even don't thatwhen they just reach out and
want to talk, is it's almostlike being a doctor at this
point.
And I know that's such a weirdcomparison point because we're
not saving lives.
We certainly are not.
But what we are doing remind myteam of that quite often.
But what we do have to doconstantly is keep up with it.
If you're a doctor and you don'tkeep up with medical releases,

(53:42):
medical journals, etc., in fiveyears, you won't even be able to
keep your license.
You will you will you will loseit.
You will lose your ability topractice medicine because it
evolves so rapidly.
And I would say that that's verysimilar to to advertising,
unfortunately, for us in thedigital space, is that you have
to stay on top of it, or youwill become outdated very

(54:03):
quickly.
And that's hard.
It's really hard, especiallybecause when you think about if
you're a social commerceadvertiser, you have a very
myopic focus, it's social.
It is whether it be the contentcreation side, the influencer
side, the marketing side, it'sit's social, right?
Same thing with national media.
It's it's consistently been thesame thing for years.
While it's evolving, what youcan do with national media, the

(54:26):
concept is the same.
You are working within it.
Retail media is this weirdspider web.
It now touches everything.
It needs to play nice withnational, it needs to play nice
with social.
Social needs to be able to driveto retailers where you need to
have your retail media ready tocapture that consumer when they
get there.
So all of a sudden, if you workin the retail media space, you

(54:47):
have to kind of know it all anddo it all, at least lightly, or
you're going to fail.
And that makes it undeniablydifficult.
And so for anybody out therewho's in that position, it's all
about taking a step back andsaying, I am a human, I can only
do so much.
My job is to be the smartest Ipossibly can be at this and
focus on the retail mediaaspects and make sure I

(55:09):
understand the greaterecosystem.
But I don't need to be an expertin it, I just need to understand
it.
How do they all play together?
For leaders in the agency spaceand in the brand space who have
these people on their teams andhave, of course, high
expectations.
It's remembering again that theyare human and that you need to
create automation processes.
You need to use this is where AIis going to be the most helpful,
in my opinion, in this year, isgoing to be how can AI help

(55:33):
retail media in particular ande-commerce be able to become
much more of a systemizedprocess and speak to the other
avenues of advertising, social,national, etc., out of home and
be able to do that in a moreautomated fashion so that your
team members, your strategistscan focus on what really
matters, which is how do thesemarry together?
What is my strategy for retailmedia?

(55:55):
And how do I communicate thatappropriately, but in a more
automated approach with mypeers?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (56:01):
Yeah.
For me, you know, for me, youknow, um, you know, with the
individuals that I've I'veworked with, you know, it's
about for me, it's about beenabout empathy, um, you know,
having having uh an empatheticconversation with them, under
trying to understand what theirstruggles are and trying to, you
know, to do the best you can inorder to to to solve those those

(56:21):
you know challenges.
And I think that's you know,that's sometimes that's that's
helpful, right?
But at the end of the day, too,it's also, you know, you have to
figure out ways to to takeaction.
I do think, you know, not to saythat AI is the answer for
everything, but I do think thatum AI can definitely help with
reduction of the mental load togive you more space to do you

(56:43):
know other things or thinkdeeply or continue to research.
So I I do think there's somesome opportunity to reduce the
uh the overwhelm with AI, and Ithink that's you know what a lot
of people are are actually youknow hoping for and looking for
in the promise of of a of the AIto come for sure.
So good good stuff.
I appreciate you chase yousharing your your uh your

(57:03):
perspective on on that.

SPEAKER_01 (57:05):
So of course, yeah, and I and I couldn't agree with
you more.
I think any the anyone who'slike scared of AI, it's it's
right to be a little fearful ofit, but I do think that it will
naturally actually help our jobsbe easier as advertisers and as
marketers, uh, versus replacingyou.
I I think it would it couldarguably replace more of the
transactional lever pulling, butthat doesn't replace the human,

(57:27):
it just upscales the human intoa different role.

SPEAKER_00 (57:29):
Yeah.
Yep, absolutely, absolutely,absolutely.
So appreciate you sharing yourthoughts and your opinions.
Uh love, love all the answers.
Um, and I'm sure our audiencehas as well.
So we're gonna get into boldvibes, which is you know one of
the ways we like to kind ofconclude here on retail media
vibes.
So we're gonna talk, we're gonnado bold vibes.
So, Toby, I know you haven'tplayed bold vibes before, but uh

(57:52):
basically this is how it goes.
I'm gonna throw out some boldstatements about retail media,
some marketing, and just someother stuff as well.
You're gonna have to give meyour gut reaction to these
statements.
I have eight statements today.
Um, I want you know, just quickanswers, uh, no overthinking,
just like what do you what areyour thoughts?
All right.
Okay.
All right.

(58:12):
Are you ready?
Yeah, let's do it.
Okay.
All right.
First one the CD AOL used to getpeople to sign up for internet
was the best marketing ever.
Agree.
Agree.
All right.
CES is the best conference forthe retail media industry
because of timing, location, andattendees.

SPEAKER_01 (58:32):
I disagree.
I hate that it's the beginningof the year.

SPEAKER_00 (58:35):
Chat GPT will be more popular for new product
discovery than TikTok.
Ooh.
Uh I disagree.
LLMs will make more money fromaffiliate fees than from
advertising this year.
Agree.
More retail media networks willbe shut down than are created

(58:56):
this year.
Uh agree.
Unfortunately, I agree withthat.
Man, I'm bringing the heat.
I'm telling you.
All right.
AI-generated ads will becomemore prevalent and no one will
care.

SPEAKER_01 (59:08):
Also agree.
Yeah, I think people will carein the beginning.
I think within a year and no onewon't give a crap.

SPEAKER_00 (59:14):
All right.
AI will have a bigger financialimpact for retailers in the
supply chain than retail media.

SPEAKER_01 (59:23):
I also uh agree with that.
Very much agree.

SPEAKER_00 (59:26):
And finally, the last one retail media vibes will
be nominated for a golden globethis this coming season.
Oh, 100%.
Easiest, easiest question of thebunch.
Easiest question.
Good job.
Uh appreciate you going throughbold vibes with me, Toby.
I appreciate that.
So, all right, we are uh I'm atthe wrap for uh this episode of

(59:48):
Retail Media Vibes.
I want to a huge thanks to Tobyfor uh jumping on and chatting
it up with me today.
So, how was it, Toby?
How'd you meet me?

SPEAKER_01 (59:57):
Yeah, fantastic.
I really appreciate you havingme on.
Love this type of conversationand uh always happy to have
more.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:03):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So anything you want to shoutout or plug before uh we wrap
today?

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:08):
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it.
Um, main thing I would I wouldlove to shout out is just uh
you'll be seeing some news uh onLinkedIn here in the coming
weeks.
Um, but uh I am actuallylaunching uh my own consultancy
practice, which has officiallykicked off um, you know, kind of
a more dark mode for the lastfew months.
But we'll see McLean Advisory umwill be uh my consulting

(01:00:29):
practice that I'll be helpingbrands and agencies better
understand the landscape, um,how to be able to support the
their clients or for brands howto be able to better structure
yourselves and have the rightagency partnerships.
Um so looking forward to beingable to help brands and agencies
be able to really accelerate inthis age of agenic commerce and
what is a rapidly evolvinglandscape.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:50):
Awesome, awesome.
So thanks for listening, and asalways, I promise to do better
next time.
BV outfit, I think.