The Single View

Speaker 1: Welcome to Business Marketing. My name's John Horsley, host of the show today. We're recording live at Cannes Lions in the beautiful surrounds of the, the Depp's Secret Garden. Uh, I'm joined by Troy Townsend, who is Chief Executive Officer and co-founder at Zitcha. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: Thank you, John. Very nice to be here.

Speaker 1: Hey, look, I, I normally ask this conversation, um, or sorry, I normally ask this question, and that is, what attracted you in the first instance to the world of, you know, marketing, advertising, media, et cetera? What was it that caught your attention and drew you in?

Speaker 2: I mean, I think I've always, you know, um, from the early days of university known that I wanted to be in this field. Um, and I was actually really specific to, you know, doing my degree and getting a, getting a job specifically in marketing and advertising. Um, so I think I, I sort of set the tone early on that I wanted to be in the space and, um, the things that attracted me to it, I think, was, you know, I think media as a whole, I think advertising, it was... There was something that I felt, you know, going through school that was, you know, creative as well as analytical and something that I just tend to like.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I've, a number of people I've spoken to have given similar responses in the past, kind of, you know, were more interested in watching the ads on telly than the, the telly, uh, or kind of collected, you know, and they were collectors, so they would, they would, you know, create scrapbooks and things like that. Did you do those kinds of things?

Speaker 2: No, you know, not really, but I, you know, I think I, I was always more, I think I was just more business-led than creative in, in my, my, my view of the space. So, um, you know, I don't think I- I, I definitely didn't get into the space, I got a more of like, right, hey, there's a, there's a big opportunity for, for a job in this space, so, so let's, uh, let's have a, have a crack at it.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So you've worked across, um, social, um, you've worked across sort of local operators might be a nice way of describing things. Uh, now you're in retail media. So when you look perhaps at this viewpoint that you've got at, at the market today, what tells you that it's, you know, it's still kind of early, early doors? Um, yeah, so what, what impression do you have of the market at this point in time and where we're at?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I, um, I sort of, my last business was very focused on, um, SMBs and building scaled SMBs, um, through technology. And I worked, I worked really closely with, um, with, with Facebook back then as a channel, 'cause I saw in the early days that, that Facebook was gonna be a, a big channel for marketing and advertising. So I sort of jumped on that train really early. Um, and sort of, I spent a good 10 years in, in that ecosystem as it went from the very infancy to the mass growth that, that you see today. Um, and when I, when I sold that business, um, Meta, um, then started to talk about a product they had within the, the retail and the brand space that, that, um, that was starting to get some traction. And I saw pretty quickly the connection, um, that this space was gonna have similar to the growth that, that Meta and the Googles had when they started in social, and so, so I, I sort of jumped pretty heavily into it at about five years ago.

Speaker 1: And, you know, where you look at the space at the moment, you know, as it is starting to mature a little bit-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... what's still broken? What, what can be solved? What could be, what could work better?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, there's, there's a lot of things that, um, that the space is still working through. Um, I think, you know, omni-channel is a big one. Um, you know, I think we're all still trying to work through the measurement structure. You know, is measurement the same for everyone? Is it different? You know, like I think we've, we've got a lot of, a lot of growth in, in the measurement space. Um, one of the things that I've sort of really narrowed into is, is, um, for most retail media networks, um, they're starting to, especially the ones that are a few years down the track, they're starting to mature. Um, their, the needs for growth is changing. You know, a lot of networks start with just top line growth. It's new, new money, uh, high margin, let's just grow it as it grows. Um, as you get a, a few years in, all of a sudden it becomes very focused on like margin pressure to make sure that you're hitting your numbers top and bottom line. And what, what, what I'm starting to see is a lot of the, the merchant and the, and the media team starting to, um, the two siloed parts of the business and that needs to, to start to connect in, in to be, to be a single view, um, through a lot of these networks that are trying to grow something for the long term.

Speaker 1: Yeah. That's interesting. You talked to metrics at, at the start of, of that answer. What kinds of metrics matter to the clients you're working with at the moment? I mean, there's some, some obvious ones in my mind, but I'm thinking are there also metrics that are slightly less tangible?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think, um, I mean, the key metric that the, the media side, you know, if you think about this space, there's two sides. There's the media side and then there's the retail side and, you know, media coming into retail, um, the core metrics were similar to what we see across all of the publishers, you know, ROAS, conversion, click through rate, all of those like tr- traditional, uh, metrics but, but what you start to see, um, occur in this space is like there's metrics like sell through velocity and, um, you know, things that are actually moving metrics in, in the store, off the shelf. Um, you know, I think brand is still a, is still a metric. Um, incrementality is, is, is metrics that we're starting to, to sort of look at. So I think, I think we're still going through this transition of the media metrics coming in and then the new metrics that need to, to come in and make this space really tangible, which at the end of the day, most brands are spending money here- To sell product, you know?

Speaker 1: Absolutely.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, m- in my mind, okay, yeah, performance metrics of course. Um, but you touched on it. I mean, you've obviously talked to brand there as well. Is that more recent in terms or is there more of a groundswell towards brand?

Speaker 2: Well, I think brand opens up a different type of m- uh, budget as well. It's like, you know, you can be... You know, we talk all about performance, all about conversion, and I mean, this space is built to convert, right? Like, you've got, you know, you're as close to that customer purchase decision as you're gonna be anywhere, whether it's the e-com journey, whether it's the, the in-store journey. Um, so performance is absolutely critical. Um, but, but you know, you can only sell so much beer in winter, right? So f- for that as an example, you know, like, do you run performance media when you're actually not gonna move the needle of selling beer when people don't wanna buy beer, right? You can put as much media behind it, but that's not gonna move the needle of sales. So, so, so if we start to look at that as a brand to go, well, you know, do I do MPD in winter? Do I, do I run brand over the winter months so my incrementality of growth in summer grows far greater than my other, the other brands that I'm competing with? So I think, I think we're, we're, we're gonna start to see the value of the performance in the, in the periods that will drive the incrementality, and I think we'll start to see the brands start to come in when I start to understand when should I use brand in context of the retail, um, infrastructure that I'm, that I'm buying through.

Speaker 1: Sure. Um, when you're looking at, uh, retailers and, you know, they're probably at early stage, for instance, of, of saying media business, what is it that they are underestimating or perhaps are, are there common pitfalls and challenges or assumptions that are made that are just not right?

Speaker 2: So I mean, you know, one of, one of the, the biggest things that most retailers underestimate is... Well they, num- they, they have two things. One, they overestimate the amount of revenue they're gonna make, and they underestimate how hard it is to sell it. So, so, you know, you're coming from a, a retailer that has been great at retail, and then moving into, into media where you've gotta sell your inventory, you've gotta, you've gotta be able to package it in a way that, that, that adds incremental value. Um, and I think, uh, I think a, a lotta retailers underestimate the amount of work that the sell side actually, um, actually does. So, so what you're starting to see within the space is you're also starting to see programmatic start to come in, where, where they can bring external demand, where it takes a little bit of the pressure off the retailers to go and sell their inventory. You're starting to see different retailers look at, um, look at sales in different ways. So, you know, the, the, the tier two, three, and four retailers, you know, they need to lean heavily on their merchandising teams to be able to sell a lot of the inventory that they have. Um, whereas you've got your tier ones that are typically going and standing up their own media, media sales teams and, you know, you'd see a lot of them here in Cannes, um, where they've got, you know, a standalone media business and, you know, they're actually f- they're, they're focused on sell, sell, sell. So I think, I think in the early days of RMNs, um, that's the thing that they probably underestimate. Um, and also, you know, standing up a media business from scratch is not, it's not an easy thing to do, right? Like there's, it's, you know, sales is the, is the easiest thing for me to sort of, you know, pick up, but, you know, you know, being able to get your data in the right, in the right structure f- to be able to do measurement right, um, getting the, the business internally, like the change management that sits between the media teams and the m- the core merchandising teams and the marketing teams. You know, like, there's, there's multiple things that, that need to be tied together in order to, to get that. And, you know, I think, I think you see a lot where it needs to be bought in by executive. For, for the RMNs to really work, you know, it needs to be bought in by the CEO down as like, "This is gonna be a core structure. We're gonna, we're gonna buy into this for multi-year long-term view rather than quick money." You know, where quick money is like, "I don't wanna spend as much, I wanna be cheap to build a network", you, you find, you know, they, it gets stagnant pretty quick. Um, so it needs to have that sorta core structure from the top down that, you know, this is a, this is a core part of a retailer's business now over time. You know, without that media part of the business, right, they're gonna f- they're gonna find it hard to compete against retailers that have that as a core component of, of their offering. So, so I think, you know, there's lots that, that sort of retailers will go through in that first 12 to 24 months as they learn, um, and they build their networks, bu- build their teams, build their technology stacks, um, and sorta get moving.

Speaker 1: Yeah. It's also make- making me think about capabilities and competencies as well within those teams. Um, do they sometimes overlook some of the skills and, and capabilities that are, are actually required to, to make this work, to turbocharge things?

Speaker 2: I mean, I think, um, again, it, it's a very... It's, depending on the retailer and depending on the, the types of people that they have within their business, um, I think it's, you know, bringing a media view into the retailer is, is a critical thing. Um, but also you can't, you can't just bring in the media piece and think that you're done. Like, the, the, the core retail structure needs to understand media, right? They need to understand the, all of the different parts. So, so I think it's, it's sort of how, how that sort of change management happens within, within the retail ecosystem in order to make sure that the RMN is stood up correctly. Um, but I think, you know, the cr- the critical components, you know, a good, a good leader that leads and, and understands the space is, is a, is a critical, critical hire for most of these RMNs. Um, then making sure that, you know, they've got the, the right Tech and data infrastructure in place in order to, to be able to create the spine of their networks, and then sales teams and, um, you know, delivery teams that happen within, within that are also pretty critical. So I think, you know, I feel like a few years in, you know, now we're sort of starting to get more people that have done it, and it's easier for networks to sort of find the right people and, you know, go through that process. But early doors, you know, it was like, "I'm gonna pick you because you've worked in an agency. I'm gonna pick you because you're in, you're in media." You know? It was very much throwing these people together. But I think now the space is legitimized to a point where there's enough people that have sort of spent a year, two, three, four years in the space that sort of, you know, they're starting to find a bigger... They're pulling from a bigger pool that have done it before, so.

Speaker 1: So that means you, you, you got people with developing as operators now who understand, um, uh, I gu- I guess the workflows-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... everything else that needs-

Speaker 2: All the standards

Speaker 1: ... needs to be in place.

Speaker 2: Definitely.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1: Where are the friction points still?

Speaker 2: Um, I think the friction points come in, I mean, I still think one of the biggest friction points and one of the things that we've been really focused on trying to solve is, is the, is the, the media teams and the merchant teams. I think there's a, there's still a friction point of what you start to find within RMNs, a lot of RMNs, depending on where you are geographically. So, um, one of the things that you find in Europe is that Europe started heavily in the store. They have the store as a core component of, of their RMN, and then they've, they've started to build out to, to e-com and they've built out to offsite. In the US, they started heavily, um, focusing on fast following Amazon, so, so a lot of the RMNs there went really, really hard in, um, building to e-com and sort of building that muscle and now they're sort of coming into the store, and the store is typically not owned by someone that's siloed on the outside. It's owned by the merchants. They've, they've controlled the stores, um, and the, the deal flow and the relationships of that for years. Um, and, and you're sort of starting to see those things become friction because who owns that? That's, that's a relationship that I have. Is that the media relationship or is that the merch relationship? So, um, and, and Australia, uh, and APAC's a little bit different as well, where they've sort of gone, you know, like, "We're gonna start our RMNs," trying to connect all of the dots at the start, right? So they've sort of taken their time to get into the market to sort of, to, to connect those pieces. But, but friction definitely, um, lies between that within the internal teams. Um, and then external it becomes like what are the agencies doing? What are the brands doing? How do they wanna buy, right? Do they wanna buy, um, programmatically? Um, do they, you know, how do they buy across multiple RMNs, right? Like, there's this whole fragmentation journey that we're also going on. So there's 280 RMNs in the world now, so, you know, how, how many do I buy from? Um, and how do, how does that become easier if I'm an agency or a brand? Um, and I think, I think the, the one thing that we have this friction between media and, and retail, is that retailers don't wanna conform to be the same as everyone. Right? Retailers are built and their DNA is built off the back of being different, of having a different store layout, of having different SKUs, of, of, of sort of having different locations that they control. Um, so, so them trying to conform into this like everything needs to be the same as their competitors, they find quite hard. But the media, media structure, you know, do I wanna buy the store because the store's, you know, not gonna give me the same analytics that I get or the same measurement that I get from buying across digital? Um, you know, there's different friction points that come up through that journey as well, and I think those things are still getting worked through, you know, in, in the evolution of, of, of sort of where this space is moving, you know? You know, I would, I would say the journey to solve that when it's just e-com is a lot easier. But, but what you're seeing now across the space is that e-com is saturating. Margin needs to come from other spots, so margin now needs to come from the players like Meta and TikTok and Snap and Google and, you know, what happens offsite through programmatic, and it's like the store, which is a high margin, high margin product, is digitizing. So I've got screens, I've got audio, I've got things that are coming into the store that are, that are gonna be really, really important to, to maximize the value of my RMN. Um, and they're all measured different, they're controlled different, and they, the retailer wants it to be, to, to be different, to differentiate through that journey. So, so I think we're gonna f- it's gonna be still a bit of a journey as that, as that sort of works through.

Speaker 1: Yeah. What are the questions that a, a retailer should be asking themselves when looking to work with a business like yours?

Speaker 2: I mean, I think the, the big questions that, um, that we get are how do I see all my inventory? Like really s- some, some really basic questions, right? So, so when I'm, when I'm building a network that is getting broader, how do I control, how do I control it, number one? How do I govern it? How do I know, um, that I can see all of my inventory? I understand sell through, my sales teams understand that. My brands understand what they can buy and what they can't buy. So, so number one, when we look at, look at the space, um, we look at how do we help orchestrate all of the bits? How do we make it easier for retailers to move from what traditionally a lot of RMNs start with and, and are still doing today, is managed service. Um, how do we get that into one spot? How do we get managed service to self-service, right? So if you look at the major publishers and their growth, it doesn't just come from your top tier spenders. It comes from the, the torso and the tail of your, of your advertisers. So, you know, you obviously don't want to manage serve people that are spending $5,000 on a, on a campaign with you. You want that to, to, to, to be self-service. So, so I think a lot of retailers when they, when they come to a business like us, they're like, "Right, how do you, how do you help?" ... connect all the dots in our business, how do you help us scale our business from where it is today? Now, that can be you going from zero to one, how do you help us start the process of doing it? Or it's, you know, I've been in business for, for four or five years, you know, we need to, we need to really focus on gross, whether it's gross media margin or the margin that's come- that media's pushing into, into our retail environment, um, how do you help us do a better job of that? So technology is now starting to, to sort of really connect the dots and, and sort of make retailers' lives a lot easier as they scale.

Speaker 1: So when you typically engage with a client, you know, retailer, um, early days-

Speaker 2: Yep

Speaker 1: ... you would often then provide them a, well, fully managed service, uh, and help them understand, help them on the journey, and then perhaps drop back to part managed and then self-serve-

Speaker 2: Well-

Speaker 1: ... type thing

Speaker 2: ... we're a te- we're, we're, we're basically, the thing about us is, like, the way that we... Number one, we plumb up their system. So we're the technology that basically turns them into the media network. So we do the ad serving across their, across their websites, we do their, um, ad serving across their screens and to their audio in their stores, um, and we do their ad serving across Meta and Google and Snap and TikTok. So, so thing about us is, like, we, we become the, the plumbing layer, and then as you, as you, a retailer gets, gets the plumbing, then you can decide, right, we're gonna have a managed service team that's gonna sit on top of that, that, that makes it easy to, to deliver, or we open that up to our brands to, to fully self-serve. Um, so, so we, we sort of sit with retailers at the very start of that journey. We sit with retailers as they've gone, uh, "Right, I've built a, you know, a Frankenstack of different things that now I need to bring into one." Um, and they can be further down the journey of, of where we, where we talk to them. Um, and now you've got the, the, the growth of AI that's coming into this space as well. So there's a, there's a bunch of new, I don't want to say new problems, but new opportunities that, that these retailers are gonna then start to, start to, to try and fix and, and utilize and, you know, how do we collapse a lot of these decisions that have been very hard to collapse in the past, right? So we're, we're sort of starting to move into, into the new era of, like, um, how do we create models for retailers that basically can bring all of the data that they've been sitting on for years and make the media decision a hell of a lot easier? How do we automate that decision a lot more? How do we sort of move to, from this process of people doing all of the parts into being, you know, people in the loop of, you know, having a machine next to them to help them solve these problems quickly and optimize these things quickly, where, you know, they've lost margin through the journey because they've just had a whole heap of managed service people doing those things for them.

Speaker 1: Yeah. On the, the client side, where they're perhaps a little bit more mature, are they innovating as well? Are they also developing their own, um, technologies?

Speaker 2: Um, so are you talking about the brand side, or you're talking about on the-

Speaker 1: Uh, on the retail-

Speaker 2: No, I mean, I think-

Speaker 1: ... could be brand as well. Could be a mix. It's the ecosystem, right?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I think, I think there's definitely retailers that are innovating and building, and building their own tech, building their, their own, um, own core, whether it's ad serving, whether it's orchestration. Like, there's no doubt that some retailers are going about that and building their own stuff. Um, a little bit what you see is, you know, the tier ones are, are getting into doing a lot of the build stuff themselves. They have the team, they have the expertise, and they have the growth that they're seeing to, to be able to do that. I think then you get into sort of, you know, tier two, three, and four, where, where that problem statement starts to change and, you know, they want speed to market. They wanna... They, they don't have the resourcing and the allocation of technology to be able to go and build those things. So, you know, you're sort of still working with technology that's moving at speed of light and retail that is not moving at that space, at that pace, right? So I think you're still- you're gonna have, um, a structure of retailers changing a lot of their internal systems and working on that in order to catch up with how the media, media and the technology is sort of moving around them.

Speaker 1: Are there particular conversations that have really accelerated over the last couple of years? I mean, you know, we're talking about, you know, we're at the speed of AI now as well, which is just nuts. Um, and I imagine the conversation will be very different in three months, six months and, and, uh, you know, eight to 12 months' time. Um, but what's significantly changed or, or kind of shifted over the last maybe two to three years?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing is, is just the breadth of the media that they're, they're trying to s- they're trying to, to build to and they're trying to sell. They're, they're definitely, I think the significance of, um, the value of retail media for the retailers has, has absolutely hit its, hit, hit the nail on its head for, for the expectation. Um, I think now it's, like, the breadth of delivery, right? Like, how do we deliver at scale, right? How do we, how do we have more inventory, and how do we make that inventory connect? Um, so I think, I think a lot of the things that, that, um, that retailers and brands are expecting is that, "Hey, I wanna, I wanna buy more from you, but I wanna make sure that that buy is connected. I wanna make sure that if I'm connecting the store and, um, and what's happening on e-com, that I'm getting, you know, a single view of that and it's easy to do." So, so I think there's no doubt the RFPs from retailers are getting much broader than they were, you know, four years ago. They were very specific to like, "Right, how do we ad serve to an, to a sponsored product ad?" Whereas now it's, it's a much broader remit of the expectation, even if the expectation of, of that reality isn't straight away. But the expectation and the reality is that as they build over time, they're gonna need, they're gonna need the breadth as they grow as a, as a network.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's a sign of them growing up and maturing-

Speaker 2: It is

Speaker 1: ... uh, and, and the market, uh, being, being ready.

Speaker 2: I don't... I... And, you know, talking about the speed of AI, I mean, I think- I don't, I don't know if the retailers are fully... Like, I think it's just another big shift, not only for, like, y- you th- you think about that specifically to how will AI change the space of retail media, but, like, there's a much broader discussion for a retailer, I mean, and probably for all of us for that matter, around like how does AI affect my entire business, right? Like-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... what are the things that I need to do as a retailer that utilize AI for, um, how I price or, you know, how the supply chain works, right? And I think-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... you know, where d- where does retail media fall within, in the decisioning tree of, of how that affects their decisioning for- for that space. So I think there's a, there's a much broader, um, piece of how AI's happen- what's happening and how, how a retail environment's gonna, is gonna shift that. Like, you know, the questions of will people even come to our website anymore, or will it be agents, right? Like, and I think they're the things that retailers are grappling with at, at this moment when they think about AI versus, right, how do I collapse the buying decision in media?

Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you know, clearly one of the burning questions of a board of any business at the moment is sh- you know, we're, we're losing lots of traffic. There's this zero-click search thing.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: There's AI answers.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Help. You know?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: That's, that's where people are at.

Speaker 2: And I think, again, like if you, if you sorta take, take the step back five years ago in, in this sp- in, in retail media, you know, there wasn't a lot of people that had all the answers, right? Like, there were pi- the people that were pioneering in the space, that were building and, and sort of working through the process, and I think we're at that same point again with this, this, this growth of AI within. People are just like, "Right, tell me what I have to do." Like, what's gonna happen to my business if, if agents are gonna, a- are gonna take the majority of the, of the spend and the, and the majority of the traffic that we're sort of starting to hit, right? So, so I think, you know, as a business, you know, even, even as a SaaS business, we're, we're moving to, to that being the, the core focus of our business to get that maturity and get that understanding so we can help. You know, we have to move with the speed of AI, and then we, we have to make it comfortable and easy for the, for the retailers and the brands to come at their own pace. You know, I think, and I think that's probably the thing that a lot of people are grappling with is like, what's the timing of this? You know, how quickly do we actually need to move, change, change management and sort of get AI into our business? But retailers are, are, are normally pretty slow at moving those things. They've got, they've got traditional things of, you know, how they've done for, for many years to build their business and, you know, I think it's sort of helping them through the process of getting them to be able to do that their own time. And the question that I have is like, which I think everyone has, is like how quick is that gonna be? Like, you know, we're seeing, we're seeing AI move so quickly, but how, how quickly will the s- the traditional structures of like retail as an example, how quickly will that move? Will they adopt it really quick? Will they adopt it the same way they adopted digital and we've still got 5 to 10 years, 20 years to, to be able to do that, you know? It's the, that's the biggest question that-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... that we sort of play with.

Speaker 1: Well, nothing like that.

Speaker 2: No.

Speaker 1: You know, is adapt or... Well, it's like the survival of the species, right? Adapt or die, you know, that's it.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Of course.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It's, it's gonna be, um, you know, it's, it's gonna be an interesting, I think, 12 months, you know. I think coming here, you know, one of, one of the things that, I mean, even most of the events that you're going to, you're sort of hearing so much more about AI and like what's the journey, what's the timeline, what's the expectation? Um, but you're start- you're starting to, to see that it's, it's, it's gonna... It should commoditize quickly. It should be something that just falls into the background, you know, quickly and gets moving. But it's still, you know, I think there's still a lot of questions that, that a lot of traditional business, businesses like retail are, are still asking, you know?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting enough, I mean, I, I redeveloped my home. Uh, I use ChatGPT frankly to understand a lot of things because I'm not an expert at development and various other things. Uh, I'm not an architect. Uh, I didn't understand all the materials that would be required, the bloody paint that you're meant to put on the steels and, and whatever else, right? Um, so I'm using it to help me with, with design, architecture, thinking, um, kind of planning through the space even though I had a, a vision for it in my mind, uh, and the materials that were required and, and the finishes and the fixtures and, and whatnot else. Um, and clearly, you know, "Hey, ChatGPT, uh, I'm gonna need this." Um, whether it's something crazy like some bloody glue, uh, or, um, nails or, or, or, uh, a door or, or, um, flooring or-

Speaker 2: Anything

Speaker 1: ... whatever, right?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, and what I noticed was the mainstream retailers were not showing up. Uh, it was the ones that were niche. And I'm looking at that thinking, well, that's because they've got expertise around the, that particular thing, and they've must have been generating a lot of content around tiles and whatever else-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... and so on, so they're deemed as authoritative-

Speaker 2: Yes

Speaker 1: ... retailers.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: Are you... How's, how... Yeah, how is that shift then gonna be affecting the, the larger merchants and the, the larger retailers?

Speaker 2: I mean, you probably, you, you probably hit the nail on the head around like the content that's generated, which are the LLMs are obviously trying to find and track and, and bring you back the most relevant journey and retailer for your, for your request, right? For the things that you're asking. And, you know, like one of, one of the... And this, this is, you know, if you think about the value creation and the things that retailers are needing to do, right? So product feed, right? So the SKUs that I, that I sit on, how it moves, what I've got in stock, there's a, there's a heap of work that will start to happen around that, right? A product feed, you know, it's typically right, like here's the product, here's the price, here's the description. But, but we've gotta get into the point of going, right, well how do I generate more content around that SKU? Like, what are the things that, that that product feed needs to do in order to show up within the LLM, right? Then, but it's also, you know, if you, if you question and bring it back to retail media, not only is it like the work that a retailer needs to do in order to become relevant in the age of LLMs and, and agentic commerce- But it's also like what's the opportunity that sits in front of them to, to monetize that, right? So if, if we're moving to a, to a space where, um, an agent's gonna buy, like i- for example, if Claude's giving you a list of 25 things and you're like, "You know what? Go and buy them for me and send them to my house and, and let's go," then the retailer needs to be able to intercept that journey, right? And they need to be in control of how they're doing that, um, in order to get your, get your agent to come to their shop rather than other shops, right? So, um, so I think, I think, you know, there's a, there's a big opportunity, and this will, you know, when you, you sort of go through list of priority for, for retailers now as they get their heads around this is like, right, well, you know, I need to put some real focus on the content that I drive around my product catalog, and I need to put some real content around not just, right, what's, what's written and what, what I can search on, but like what's on, what's on third party s- like video sites like Google, YouTube. Like, like how do we, how do we start to look at that as a, as a holistic spine of value that sits within the retailer? Um, you know, so I think even that is one bucket of, of, of, of work that retailers need to do is gonna be really critical.

Speaker 1: Of course, you can't just be thinking about your own site. It's about offsite as well. Um, and it's, you know, simple analogy, I mean, you walk into a pub, you maybe speak to an individual at the bar. They come out with something. Yeah, that sounds a bit of a buddy tos- tall story. Uh, maybe ask somebody else in there. "Oh, hey, blah, blah's just said this. Uh, is that correct?" Um, and then someone else will fact check it on, on Google. Yeah? Uh, and the LLMs are, are working in, in the same way. They're obviously not just gonna take your word for it. Uh, and they're looking for, uh, authoritative signals, um, that are rubber stamping what you're saying, whether that's product or a claim or, or so- or something else along those lines.

Speaker 2: Totally. Definitely.

Speaker 1: I, I mean, are people ready for this? And h- you know, are they, are they even thinking straight at this point in time?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I, I wou- I would say that not everyone would be thinking about that yet. I mean, you know, I think, um, I think just the, the, the pure understanding of that problem would still not be fully filtered through, right? I think, um, I think there's a, a majority of early adopters that, that are moving into the space that are using it like this better than it's not getting to that point yet of going, right, well, actually, how do I, how do I start to change the structures of my, the way I do business in order to capture that, right? Um, I think that is gonna move very fast. I think we're gonna see that and retailing will have to pick up on that journey. I mean, a lot of... I'm not saying a lot of retailers are not thinking about that right now, right? But I definitely think, you know, there's, there'd be a, a, a plethora of retailers that still just don't fully understand how that space works.

Speaker 1: Well, it also means that we need new technologies. So, you know, otherwise, if we stick with the traditional manual process, dealing with publishers and, and whatever, and it doesn't scale. You just scale cost by headcount.

Speaker 2: Totally. It do- I mean, you know, I, there's, there's no doubt like the, the businesses that are doing one, that have been doing one thing one way for, for a long time are gonna need to, to shift, you know? And we're, I mean, we're seeing that as a, as a f- a five-year-old SaaS business that you need to sh- like we need to shift ahead, right? We, we need to move what we had to, to where this space is actually is gonna go. Um, and we need to be there first in order to be able to pull everyone, all of our customers and all our clients along that journey.

Speaker 1: Do you think there'll then be tighter relationships with, I don't know, brands, uh, the retailer, publications? You know, so, you know, it could be any form of publication that has a relevant audience. Um, and do you think that people will have to go down the lines of being able to create very good editorialized content experiences and brand experiences around the product that is being shipped and shifted?

Speaker 2: I think you're gonna see some really, um, new ways of how content is created and why. So I think number one is just the, the core structure of the content that wraps around the products that you sell. I think you're gonna start to see more of that content start to, just to get more diverse and, and, and fuller, and to be able to be connected back to the, the product gets connected back to the retailer and, and the retailer can sort of control that. But al- I also think, like you're starting to see, you know, Albertsons yesterday launched that they're running a sitcom like in their stores that you can, you know, run a story against over time, right? Like that, that's so unique in, in a way of, um, how do I start to really think about content in a, in a way that, you know, isn't just, you know, put a, you know, here's a SKU, here's the, here's the content that runs around it, right? They're starting to think about it. So I think, I think we're gonna start to see a deeper connection with the store. I reckon we're gonna start to see a deep- deeper connection of content that happens around the store, um, and theater than we have in the past. Um, you know, I think the, the types of surfaces that are gonna be, um, monetized are gonna, are gonna change. You know, Uber, you know, spoke yesterday and they're, they're starting to go, "Right, well, we've got our app as a surface and, and we connect in that surface, but hey, we see a m- a massive opportunity in, in the physical space of, you know, when I'm moving through airports or when I'm moving through, through the, the journey from point A to point B." So they're trying to create new narratives around their network that isn't just stuck on one surface. So I think the content creation is gonna, is gonna get, is gonna get bolder than it has been over the, you know, over the past.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And do you feel it'd be hybrid as well rather than... I think there's a danger, isn't there, if, if, you know, all of them are now looking to use AI to create the content that they just get the same?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Same, same. Well, you know, we call it what it is. You know, sometimes it's the same slop that, that keeps coming out, right? Um, and I think that's why creative will never die. Um, you know, I think, um- You know, we're, we're going through this, like what happens to, um, creative, what happens to, you know, knowledge workers in the space. I think, I think, um, when I think about media, like there's gonna be always a need for creativity that's gonna be new and it's gonna be, you know, it's gonna be human. Um, you know, even, you know, even in the space now, I think, you know, it's still the human eye on how creative comes to bear is, is the stuff that, that stops, stops you mid-scroll, that stops you, you know, doing things. So, so I, I'm a, I'm a big yep because I think there's always a space that AI's gonna create content that is gonna do the job for the job that needs to be done. Um, but I think, you know, when you, when you're really trying to, to, to create concepts that are gonna capture a hu- like the audience that you want, you know, you're always gonna have the need for human-to-human idea creation and different ways for that to actually come into the physical or digital world.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So I'm, I'm just gonna start moving towards sort of close. Um, we're obviously here in Cannes. Uh, are there particular significant conversations that are happening at this point in time that maybe wouldn't have happened last year?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think, um, I think a lot of the conversations that are, that are moving in, in Cannes this year are into, you know, how do I, you know, going back to a lot of these like how do I really connect, um, my media team or my media org into, into my retail org? You know, I think a lot of the conversations that we're having is, is, is sitting in that and how do I start to move into a, into a space that's, that's gonna, um, make the process of our, our growth as a business, um, not only our media business, but also our core business be connected, you know? You know, media is, if you look at media by itself, um, media can add value. You know, you're making margin on every dollar that you're, you know, if you're selling a sponsored product, you're making 90 cents on that dollar. If you're selling a, if you're selling a, a Google campaign, you're making 30 cents, right? But what's happening on the shelf, right? Uh, is that, is that, um, product on price promotion where if you run media connected to it, you're actually losing money as a business, right? So I think we're starting to see margin happen not just as media margin, but also product margin and an overall bottom line retail margin. So, so a lot of the, a lot of the conversations that we've been having has been really focusing on those things and the value that media and, and merchandising or media and the commercial teams are doing together to add maximum bottom line impact to, to the retailer's P&L.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I wanna keep this one brief, so maybe sort of three bullets or, you know, could be a good way of thinking about it, but advice that you would give to a, a business obviously who, who are looking to set up, but, you know, could be three words, it could just be three bullets.

Speaker 2: Yep. Uh, target. So keep your target real. Um, set up with the end in mind first, and make sure you have buy-in across the org. They're, they're the three biggest things.

Speaker 1: And then, and this is a nice segue into the next question, normally finish the same way, but it's if you were advising a younger individual, could be your younger self, uh, or hey, you know, somebody who's just graduated university or perhaps at the start of their career, uh, who's looking to enter the world of advertising, media, marketing, tech, you know, et cetera, what piece of advice would you like to leave them with?

Speaker 2: I think lean into the future. You know, I think, um, don't, don't, you know, like I- I feel like innovation and, and future thinking has always been the, the biggest opportunity ahead. Um, so, you know, pick a path and, and also be really relaxed if that path moves. You know, this space change, is changing. Doesn't matter what decision you make today, you know, the path of where this space will go will move under your feet. So, so be agile and, and move with it and have, you know, I think have fun through your career. I think, I think that's the, that's the main part. You can sp- you spend, you're gonna spend so much time in this space, um, and it is such a great space. You know, like it is, it's full of creative people, great people, great thinkers. Um, you know, having fun through your career is probably for me the main thing, right? You can, you can get too caught up in what work is and you forget that actually, you know, you're here for a short time, not a long time. So-

Speaker 1: Yeah. That's exactly my, my attitude as well. You know, if you, if you're not having fun, hey, go do something else.

Speaker 2: Go do something else.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Seriously. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Brilliant. Troy, you've been an incredible guest on the show. Thank you so much for your time.