Episode 254 / Brett Richardson / Chobani / Director of Media and Marketing
The Unparalleled Benefits of Retail Media for CPG Companies
For Brett Richardson, working closely with retailers holds huge advertising opportunities and can provide CPG brands like Chobani with lots of extremely useful insight. That’s why he’s chosen retail media as his shiny new object.
Leveraging Retailer Insights for Targeted Campaigns
Data driven marketing for CPG brands needs to rely on retailer insights. “We know our consumers better than anyone else does in our marketplace. But our retailers know their shoppers better than anyone else.” The breadth and depth of shopper data can help brands gather insights, validate campaigns, and build better targeted marketing strategies.
Getting Your Hands Data Dirty
Marketers need to be unafraid to “roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty” with data, according to Brett. This can feel like learning a new language within a data source, but it’s invaluable data driven marketing advice. Brett explains how Chobani has been using insights from retail chains like Walmart and Krogers to do just that, understanding where they should invest in advertising.
Off-site Media is Changing CPG Marketing
Traditionally, retail media was all about a simple search function for shoppers to find their groceries. There would be on-site advertising opportunities and nothing more. However, off-site media is making it more interesting than ever for CPG brands looking to learn more about consumers and target them more effectively. Through access to anonymised information and data sharing partnerships, the likes of Chobani can test hypotheses, understand what brand messages have good return on investment, and more.
Listen to the full episode to hear more tips from Brett.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Brett Richardson 0:00
It's all about getting your hands dirty and understanding how to manipulate data, being uncomfortable in learning new things and trying to learn a new language within a data source. These are things that I think really will help anybody.
Tom Ollerton 0:17
Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of the creative effectiveness, ad tech platform, automated creative and this is a weekly podcast about the future of data driven marketing. And every week I have the pleasure and the privilege of speaking to one of our industry's leaders, and this week is no different. I'm on a call with Brett Richardson, who is senior Media Marketing Manager at Chobani. So Brett, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do. Could you give us a brief background on how you got here and what you do today?
Brett Richardson 0:49
Yeah, absolutely, Tom, and thank you so much for taking time to discuss the world of media and marketing with me really happy to be here. So I work at Chobani, which for those who don't know, is a US based, but internationally covered food maker with the mission of making high quality and nutritious foods accessible to more people. We are the number one selling yogurt brand in the United States. And well We're known for our yogurt products. We also make other products including Coffee creamers, oat milks, and we have some exciting innovation within our product roadmap strategy. In my role today, I am responsible for Chobani's paid media investment as well as digital strategy. So thinking through ways to future proof our media investment, and look to leverage our website, as well as email marketing as key digital channels speaking to our Chobani loyalists and fan base. So I've been at Chobani for about three and a half years now. I've loved every minute of it. It's really a fantastic company to support not just in the fact that we make fantastic products, but we also stand for a lot outside of our products and what brand values and humanitarian pillars we bring to the table and to our local communities. So yeah, it's been it's been a really great journey thus far.
Tom Ollerton 2:16
If you had to spend the rest of your life just eating one single to buy any product. Which one would you choose?
Brett Richardson 2:21
That's a question that I wouldn't want to have to pick just one product. Oh, come on, I think about my, my day to day and I do love our black cherry fruit on the bottom yogurt. That's absolutely delicious, as well as our less sugar blueberry yogurt. Two products that I can eat for breakfast every day, definitely have them as snacks on some days. But the great thing about Chobani is we have so many different flavors, innovations, different prolong sales. So So Sorry, sorry, I literally have not drank the Kool Aid. I've drank the coffee creamer and eaten the yogurt so to speak.
Tom Ollerton 2:59
So if you're gonna give a student some advice on how to make it in this industry, and assuming that we're doing all the basics, right? What What advice would you give them to get ahead, get that first job and get moving?
Brett Richardson 3:11
Yeah, so I think the first piece of advice I would give to any student, regardless of what industry they're going into is in many ways, your career path is not going to be linear is not going to necessarily be clear. And that one should be comfortable in that ambiguity and, and be excited for perhaps shaping their path in a in a nonlinear manner. I looked at my my own career path to beginnings, and I graduated from college with a dual degree in a business and environmental economics. I knew that I didn't want to pursue economics, because ultimately, I was going to end up being in a forest somewhere in the Pacific Northwest plotting out the valuation of timber, to a big timber company. And I knew that it was a great place to study a great area to study but not necessarily what my passion was calling to for for career. Marketing and media really fell into my lap based on friends and peers who had great things to say about the industry. Great things to say about how data and creativity are really two of the big tenets of of this world. And yeah, I was fortunate enough to start my career within the digital media space, specifically working at an agency called Essence, which was started in the UK and is now globally the media agency of record for among other clients, Google and YouTube. But to get back to your question, Tom, I think what advice would I give to someone who is smart, who is data driven and is trying to get into marketing? I think it's it's really threefold, maybe four fold one is to build a solid foundation and develop the skills necessary that that are pervasive throughout different facets of marketing. So understanding the basic principles and theories and concepts through courses classwork educational materials, I think is super important, right, just just absorbing as much as possible in your studies, directly related to marketing, but also against adjacent areas as well, such as research, qualitative quantitative studies, digital marketing, product brand strategy, there's, there's so many areas that I think can just make one, much more well rounded, and be able to have better connection, better collaboration across whatever company you're in. It might even spur you know, different careers to build towards, right. So the more you know, the more you can kind of help shape what direction your career will go into. I think also developing your personal brand. And networking is super important within marketing. So attending events, conferences, just generally meeting people, and finding mentors who can can kind of share their insights and help guide their journey. I think there's so much you can learn from people who are advanced in their career, who have gone through the same trials and tribulations as, as you might be facing currently, or will face early on in your career. And then personal branding, right, like showing off your skills showing off within your network, thinking through ways to kind of showcase your accomplishments on LinkedIn, these are things that I think are really helpful to building your clout and, and also attracting people like mentors who might be excited by someone who's young in their career, and bring great thoughts to the table. And then of course, experience, right, so reaching out within your network thinking through internships, volunteer opportunities, within marketing roles, these are all things that I think will really help to give someone not just a solid foundation, but get them really comfortable in speaking the language of marketing, while also, you know, kind of developing the necessary skills to enter our industry.
Tom Ollerton 7:21
So assuming someone's got the job, and they're moving forward and progressing, and so on, what's your kind of best bit of data driven marketing advice you find yourself sharing?
Brett Richardson 7:30
Most often, it's all about getting your hands dirty, and understanding how to manipulate data and engage within data sources, right? I think you have to be comfortable and understanding how this metaphor sometimes cruel crude, but how the sausage is made, right? We, we live in a marketing world where there is so much data available to us. And you have to understand how to manipulate it so that it can best serve you and your business or your clients. Right. So I think about, for instance, one project that I was recently tasked with, which was to think through how to map out our various marketing data sources, so that we could utilize them for a campaign reporting dashboard. And coming into the project and the ask, I could certainly list out our various sources like Nielsen, Salesforce marketing, cloud, stratum, etc. But I didn't necessarily have I didn't necessarily have spent and really dug into how those data sources can lead to an understanding of how our campaign data can be best suited for this campaign dashboard. So for me rolling up my sleeves, spending hours within these different platforms to see what's available. how data can be manipulated, pivoted, etc. What insights can potentially be gleaned, or what key questions can be answered from these different sources, I think really helped me to not just work cross functionally with our data engineers to produce a good campaign dashboard. But now I also have a better sense of how our data can be utilized not just for reporting, but across planning, audience identification, assessment of investment, etc. So, yeah, rolling up your sleeves, getting your hands dirty, being uncomfortable in learning new things. And in trying to learn a new language within a data source. These are, are things that I think really will help anybody no matter how progress they are in their career.
Tom Ollerton 9:37
So let's get into that a little bit. So give me an example of getting your hands dirty within the data sources or a new data source because we had Tina Tonielli from Haleon just published just this week, and she said a similar thing where it's just like, you just gotta get you've got to, you've got to get up to your elbows in this stuff, but I'm curious to know. Sure. Okay, let me that kind of makes sense, right. get into the detail that devils in the detail get in there. But give me an example of how you've done that. And what was the outcome of that interrogation of that data?
Brett Richardson 10:09
Yeah, I can definitely give you another recent example. And that is, here at Chobani. We've been trying to think through ways to utilize our various data sources to derive Audience Insights. Right. So, for instance, a CPG company with the majority of our, of our sales taking place in in brick and mortar in store, we're trying to think through some of our key customers like Kroger and Walmart, and some of their data sources available so that we can better understand who's buying our different products, who's being retained as a customer who's switching across the category to multiple brands, and really helped to understand who is the kind of lowest hanging fruit that we should be spending investment against to get them to hopefully be switched to a Chobani loyalist. Um, so this is all all very pertinent, something that I'm currently working through. And what I've what I've been tasked with is to dig into data sources like Kroger's stratum, which is a syndicated data across retail measurement and scan data as well as, yes scan panel data. So showing against their 90% of shoppers that use their loyalty cards, what are they putting into their baskets? What are they? What modality are they buying products, whether it be just online just in store, Omni channel, and stratum ultimately gives us a wealth of data across shopping patterns, audience demographics, audience behaviors, etc. And so really trying to just with no clear background into what stratum can offer, open up the platform and just start to click around, start to formulate reports about not just Chobani, but the broader category. And look at the different ways to filter out the data and produce various reports that have have, I'll say over the course of the last couple of weeks helped us to shape who matters most for our coffee creamer audience. So in this case, we've been spending a lot of time myself, as well as our insights team to think through. How are these Audience Insights derived at Kroger? How can they be extrapolated to the broader marketplace? How can we think through a more refined process to pull in Stratum data into our total marketing process and for every product campaign really dig in and use a key customer retailer customers data source, this case stratum, to inform future strategy and also future media investment, which is really exciting. We have now a very clear path to who we want to spend money against. And what we want to learn in flight which will you will see reflected back in stratum data that will ultimately point us to hopefully have a more refined approach that we can really kind of replicate not just across Coffee creamers, but other products as well.
Tom Ollerton 13:30
So how do you prevent yourself being the annoying guy with loads of slides with loads of bar charts and graphs on them? And that she gets to the thing that guys like ignore everything else? This is the one thing that we need to pay attention to, because it's going to change the fortunes of the business?
Brett Richardson 13:44
As I think about constructive criticism and feedback from my peers. Tom, that is certainly something that I continue to need to work on. I recognize that right? Like, how do we as marketers take the firehose of data and actually pull out what matters? I think it's it's important that you come into any data sourcing and insight generation with a true understanding of what are the key questions that we or the collective group are trying to answer, right. So what are the hypotheses that we want to prove or disprove? What is the prioritization of those hypotheses? So that we can ultimately as we dig into the data and present it back, say, here's the one thing you need to know based on pulling out stratum, here are the three things you need to know and if you have time, here are the five to 10 things you need to know. Right? So synthesizing against what is the most important priority. And making sure that we are are have all of the details if the details are asked about but really distilling and boiling out what matters most is definitely as a skill, a practice something that I continue to work on. But when you can and simplify the complex you are ultimately going to unlock so many great kind of relationships within an organization, especially for people who don't necessarily speak the world of media speak the world of marketing. Right? And how can you translate that insight to the other departments and teams that are not proficient or fluent in you know, the lingo of marketing.
Tom Ollerton 15:31
This episode of the shiny new object podcast is brought to you in partnership with Madfest, whether it's live in London or streamed online to the global marketing community, you can always expect the distinctive and daring blend of fast paced content startup innovation pitches and unconventional entertainment from Madfest events, you'll find me causing trouble on stage recording live versions of this podcast and sharing a beer with the nicest and most influential people in marketing, check it out at www.madfestlondon.com.
So we're gonna come on now to your shiny new object, which is retail media. So fairly self evident what that is, but can you help us understand what that means to you specifically, in terms of your your business and your role and your interest? And why it's your shiny new object?
Brett Richardson 16:23
Yeah, I am really excited to talk about retail media with you, Tom. Because as we think about the definition, retail media is ultimately our retailers or retailer customers, and the utilization of their breadth of shopper data, that can be then activated against with advertising dollars, right. So it's, it's really thinking through the owned and operated spaces that our retailers have at their disposal, the various marketing channels that they play in. the various consumer touchpoints that they have to our consumers, Chobani's consumers and how can we ultimately take their data to make good decisions that allow us to talk to the people that matter most to us and hopefully influence them to, in many ways, be aware of a Chobani product for the first time try a Chobani product for the first time and hopefully become a loyal consumer? And I think to the second part of your question, why am I excited? I think the excitement really is derived from a couple of things here. One is, we just need to recognize the breadth and weight of retail media. And that is just to throw out a couple of figures, an industry that is rapidly or exponentially growing. It's estimated that I think by 2027, we're going to hit in the United States alone $100 billion in retail media sales, to not just CPG clients, but a variety of different brands, industries and verticals. Moreover, that scale, I think, can be confounded just by the fact that we as a CPG company, food and beverage company, we know our consumers better than anyone else does in the marketplace. But our retailers know their shoppers better than anyone else in the marketplace. And I think retail media is really fascinating in the sense that we're able to tap into that wealth of knowledge and data and insights that our retailer, customers and peers have, so that we can best connect our consumer insights into the places that we can hopefully best influence our consumers. Right and that for me is just such an extremely exciting opportunity and especially knowing that retail media is not just now on site when you search on walmart.com for a specific product but it's now increasingly off site I think off site retail media represents roughly like 20% of all available inventory today and every every consumer excuse me database says that you know retail media is going to expand off site quite exponentially in the coming years and so for our ability to think through growing from just not just now a point of conversion like search, like around product detail pages, but grow off site and really think through full funnel the power of retail media is super exciting.
Tom Ollerton 19:55
Just park on that, park on that point for me. Help me understand where you think the future of this growth in off site is going, what it will look like in a year. Two years?
Brett Richardson 20:04
Yeah. So I will say to maybe forecasts into the crystal ball and what will what it will look like in a couple of years, it's important to look to the past, and just for those who maybe aren't as well versed in retail media, showcase how it has grown over the past, you know, 5-10 years, retail media originally started out as search, so very much. So fundamental, branded search, non branded search within a retailer website. What retailers have done is over the last 5-10 years, they've started to recognize that retail media is actually a revenue driver for them, in addition to selling groceries, or products. In this case, they actually, most retail media networks typically need to spend $100, or excuse me sell $100 of grocery products to get back the same margin of profit as $5 of ad sales. So the razor thin margins of grocery in the United States at least, is is one where it's so cutthroat that now they recognize that revenue can be generated just from selling advertising. So they are increasingly trying to think through new inventory sources, not just search, where they can plug a brand or advertiser dollars into so on site is definitely the kind of second area outside of search that has grown in the last number of years, thinking through banners, videos, shoppable inventory, again, highly targeted to either brand keywords or non brand keywords, in many cases, or consumer interest segments, etc. And the final frontier, I would say is off site, right. So thinking through how a retailer can utilize their shopper data, but haven't activated through the trade desk and programmatically or activated through a partnership with roku. And ultimately, they're unlocking such new sources, which are in many ways more mid to upper funnel, consumer touchpoints, but still grounded by shopper data and insights. And so it's really a no brainer that offsite media is I'll say, able to exponentially increase because they're not constrained by supply restraints within a retailer site. So yeah, I think offsite media is going to be really interesting, especially as we think about kind of the convergence of retail media to, I'll say, more traditional brand or above the line media sources, and how can you just leverage retailer data from the ground up or throughout the funnel? It's really going to be exciting to see. And I think we're just beginning to see some of the more established retailers in the space, unlocking those sources. But I expect that to be the norm in the next, let's say five years.
Tom Ollerton 23:29
So say if someone was kind of new to this off site, top and mid funnel approach that you're you think they'll become commonplace very quickly. Can you just talk us through the basics of how that works for someone who's not as experienced in that way of thinking that might think, oh, that might work for our brand?
Brett Richardson 23:45
Yeah, absolutely. So I think it really manifests in probably two main ways. One is through programmatic inventory, where programmatic platforms such as the trade desk, are connecting a retailer's data and audience segments that can then be activated, I'll say just across digital spaces. The second is around more direct data sharing partnerships between a retailer and a media vendor or platform. So a good example of this one that Chobani has utilized in the past and we've seen some great incremental sales lift is Kroger has a partnership. Kroger being a regional US grocer, for those who are not based in the US. Kroger partners with Roku, which is one of the largest CTV OTT partners vendors in the United States. And Kroger and Roku partner to share Kroger shopper IDs to Roku devices so that Chobani can come in and and say, Hey, we want to talk to people who have purchased our Chobani Oat Milk in the past 52 weeks. But we also want to talk to people who have bought within the oat milk category in the last 52 weeks, we can then based on Roku inventory, spend money serve ads connect to the shoppers that matter most. But I think importantly, also unlock some really interesting measurement tied to this retail media partnership, where we're able to look at then Kroger shoppers, and measure incremental sales lift over a given campaign period to see our our ads and is our investment, actually driving business success. And that kind of 360 year closed loop view of our investment is one that I think retail media really shines compared to other tactics that do exist not to say that it doesn't exist elsewhere. But I think retail media really stands out based on retailer data that can be used to validate a an investment or a campaign.
Tom Ollerton 26:13
And some people listening to this might be concerned in these data privacy GDPR times that that could become a bit difficult. So can you help reassure people how that works in a compliant way that you've got, you've got good progress data and ideas, then you've got rocky user and IDs and syncing those two things up with or without consent, just to help the audience understand how that happens in a compliant way.
Brett Richardson 26:36
Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up, Tom, because I think we as marketers, we do need to be consumer first in our thinking, right, we need to make sure that there's benefit to the people who are buying our products, but also who we're serving ads to. And the great thing is that this retail media exchange is built on, in most cases, a grocery retailer's loyalty card, so if you go into your local grocery store, and you are a loyal shopper at this retailer, and many places, you will have a loyalty card, or your personal data share so that you can unlock savings and get groceries for cheaper, which in a period of inflation is especially interesting and valuable to the consumer. Right. So that data exchange is one where it allows the retailers or the grocers to ultimately use those loyalty segments and the shopper data tied to a specific loyalty card that can then be passed through so while I Brett shop at a regional grocer like Publix, Publix knows my loyalty card ID they don't necessarily connect or share who I am as an individual to third parties, but the third party can then activate on that like a Roku. And then the retailer keeps the kind of private data on like who I am, and does not share that across to the media vendor. So there's many experts who know better than I do on this, I will say it's something that I continue to learn on. But it's ultimately one where there's there's kind of privacy built into the exchange just based on how shoppers are using their loyalty cards and not necessarily sharing personal information. And then that exchange is restricted as the retailer engages with other media vendors.
Tom Ollerton 28:54
I kind of feel we could carry on talking for ages. But unfortunately, we've come to the end of the podcast that we've gone over, which is rare for me, because it's been so enlightening. And I appreciate your time. If someone wants to get in touch with you, where can they do it? And what should they say to you? And what makes a message that you will actually respond to?
Brett Richardson 29:10
Yeah, I think outreach emails or LinkedIn connections are always probably the best way to get in touch with someone like myself, I think in general, just being you know, personable, showing value to the people who you're trying to build a connection with. And ultimately also show empathy, right? We're all limited by our time showing that you can be additive or beneficial as opposed to just a service I think really helps. Helps on least on my eyes for individuals or companies to stand out. The number of like b2b software programs that I see come through my inbox is sometimes astonishing and like, maybe one day I'll be interested but not today.
Tom Ollerton 29:54
Hey, Brett, you know, we've got to eat you know?
Brett Richardson 29:57
Yeah, that's true. But yeah, Tom really appreciate the time today when I was a pleasure, I am so excited by retail media. I'm so excited by the future of media. And what is that next shiny object? So a fan of the podcast a fan of hearing my thought peers thoughts. And yeah, thank you again for your time today.
Tom Ollerton 30:18
Thank you so much Brett.
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