Episode 293 / Georgia Riley (Retail Media Propositions Strategy & Development Manager) & Jemma Haley (Proposition Strategy & Development Lead - Retail Media) / John Lewis Partnership
Creating a Business Within a Business
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For Georgia Riley and Jemma Hailey, the retail media revolution is a shiny new object. The John Lewis Partnership Retail Media marketing leaders shared how they are creating a business within a business with their work.
Working across strong brands like Waitrose and John Lewis, Georgia and Jemma leverage unique insights and to drive forward change within their organisation. This comes with challenges and the continued need for empathy - particularly with their own colleagues.
Understanding other teams’ goals and showing them how your own align to theirs for a better overall outcome is a theme that’s been coming up quite a bit on the Shiny New Object podcast. As Jemma and Georgia put it, “there are two parts to influencing people: one is helping them understand retail media to begin with, then really unpacking and understanding their world and challenges and how our retail media programme can align with that and help drive value there as well."
Tune in to the podcast to learn more about the retail media programme development within the John Lewis Partnership, hear what’s been the best investment for each of our guests, and get important data driven marketing tips about accessing and harnessing the right insights.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Jemma Haley 0:00
I think my big learning is never assuming that someone knows our world well, because a lot of the time they don't, and there's
Speaker 1 0:06
nothing in retail media, which is whack it on and make it work. So I think there's a lot of having to educate people on that as well.
Speaker 0:17
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Tom Ollerton 0:50
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative, the creative effectiveness ad tech platform. And this is a regular podcast about the future of data driven marketing. So every week, I get to interview some people at the top of the game to talk about where they think this part of our industry is going. And this week is absolutely no different. I'm on a call with Georgia Reilly, who is retail media proposition strategy and development manager at the John Lewis partnership, as well as Jemma Haley, who is proposition strategy and development lead retail media also at the John Lewis partnership. So it's been literally years since I've interviewed two people at once. So let's see what happens. But before we jump into the shiny new object, Jemma, Georgia, can you give us a little bit of background on who you are and what you do?
Jemma Haley 1:37
Yeah, sure. So I'm Jemma, and obviously I'm the proposition development strategy lead at the John Lewis partnership. So what that means is, effectively, I'm kind of head of Proposition strategy, so everything to do with how we're evolving our retail media propositions across both John Lewis and Waitrose and my team is responsible for driving that change. A little bit about me. So I spent a good proportion of my kind of early career in kind of media sales, various different media sales roles for different media owners, and then spent eight years of time at dunnhumby, which is a leading customer data science company, working in a number of roles, from kind of commercial media planning with the likes of Tesco media, working with brands like PepsiCo and Coca Cola to help them deliver insight led media planning, and then moved into more specific media product roles, looking at owning our data science engine that powers personalised offers to programmatic digital media. And then the last few years of my time there in consulting so working with different retailers help them better understand their capability and come up with a kind of blueprint for how they should operate moving forward. So that's a little bit about me, in a nutshell.
Georgia Riley 2:47
And I'm Georgia, so I also work at the partnership. I work on offline channels, as as I mentioned, when we talk about offline channels, we're thinking about things like in store propositions. My team often take the mick out of me that I have a weird obsession with plugs. There isn't a plug. I'm not interested. And I've been at the Partnership for just over a year now. So before then, I was working in roles at Ocado, and then also five years at Tesco media.
Tom Ollerton 2:47
And of course, we met each other at the figure out digital event. Was it late last, last November, and I enjoyed your presentation. And I think, I think I think it's always telling that I can't remember exactly what you said or exactly what you talked about, but remember thinking, Oh, that was really interesting. I need to get those guys on the podcast. I really appreciate you guys being here. So we're going to kick off with a couple of questions. So So Jemma, in that very interesting career, what's been the best investment of your own time, energy or money in your career?
Jemma Haley 3:38
I think for me, it's been taking the time to really learn something new and outside of what I was doing. So I spent, as I mentioned, obviously, that in my early day, early years in sales. And, you know, I enjoyed it, you know, I felt like I was good at it. And I certainly enjoyed the time when I was at dunnhumby looking after, you know, the likes of PepsiCo and Coca Cola. Was there kind of plans, but I kind of felt like I'd reached the kind of ceiling of where I could go with that. And there was kind of two options open to me, you know, I loved dunnhumby at the time, and I could have kind of tried to go for a promotion, which is what I think a lot of people tried to do. Or I could have invested some of my time to learn something new and try and do a sideways move within the organisation, which is what I kind of did. So I invested time getting to know all the different other teams around the business, of which there are loads at dunhamby. It's quite easy, when you work on Tesco media, to only kind of see that world, because it's fast. But we have loads of global capability teams who do all kinds of amazing things with customer data science for retailers around the world across various different aspects of retail. And that an opportunity came up for a product manager role, which would have been a side step for me at the time, working on the DSP that they had acquired, and they're running loads of interesting tests using cut, you know, first pay, first party data from loyalty schemes to power programmatic campaigns, and then use that data to then understand customer behaviour in a kind of closed loop way. So they're doing some really interesting things there. But obviously I hadn't been a product manager. I had limited technical experience in that field, so I spent a lot of time, my spare time, getting to understand that level of detail. And I did a product manager course, and I went for this job interview, and I really had to demonstrate that I had up skilled myself, and that I was prepared to take on that challenge. So luckily, it paid off, and I got that role and enabled me to pivot in a completely different direction. And as soon as I did that, I was actually doing something that I really, really enjoyed. And I think when you're doing something you really enjoy, and you feel challenged every day, and you're learning naturally that passion shows through and you and it's recognised. And through my time of doing that, I then was promoted, and it led to lots of other really interesting roles, which was absolutely fantastic. So for me, I've always remembered that time in my career as being no one's ever going to come to you and offer you that next step that's really interesting, or your dream job, you have to seek out opportunities, you have to invest in your own personal development in order to get recognised and have those opportunities. So for me, I always think about that moment, and it feels like it was a pivotal time in my career to go off into a direction that really, really interested me. So I'm always glad at that.
Tom Ollerton 6:22
Yeah, it's odd, the expression of sideways moves, and it's always followed by, like, an intake of breath, isn't it? Yeah, it's a sideways move, if it's a sideways move into a into a much faster growing stream or or bigger, you know, I love the way that you did a course, and you and you put the work in, and you went into the interview and had to, had to prove you can do it, versus just trying to, you know, upgrade your salary by staying where you were is admirable. So I'm keen to know Georgia, do you think that's good advice? Is that the kind of thing you would share with a student? Or do you have a other advice for people who want to follow in your guys' footsteps?
Speaker 1 6:53
No, I think, I think I agree with Jem hugely, actually, because I think Jemma, you often remind us of that saying which you have the years that you learn and the years then you have the sweet spots where you get a bit of both. And I think my advice to students or people trying to get into the industry really would be try a little bit of everything for a while. I think there's a huge amount of stigma around you do a role, and you cut your teeth in it, you don't move. And I think actually, thinking about, especially with retail media, how it's moving so fast and a whole new pockets popping up all the time, actually move around until you find something that interests you. And I especially did something myself, kind of similar where I left Tesco and went to Ocado for a couple of years because I thought digital was where all the cool stuff's happening. And actually you want to make your millions go and get really hot in digital. And after a couple of years at Ocado, I ended up moving over to John Lewis to work with John Lewis and Waitrose. And that's when I started on in store media. And actually, in store media was a bit of a revelation to me at the time. And now, actually it's I think that fascinates fascinates me the most. And I think there's huge amounts of growth within that. And think about how my brain works and for the things that interest me, I've never enjoyed a job more. And I actually see a possibility where this is something I really want to grow within, whereas before, I was kind of dodging around a little bit. So I think it's that bit now where I now feel happy to apply myself, where it's taken me a good few years to get there. So I think you have to actually, I've talked to some of my colleagues as well. They think in store's super dull, and I think what they do is super dull, so trying things and work out what's right for you, even though it's within the same industry.
Tom Ollerton 8:22
Yeah, I love that. It's always like, what is the thing that you think is fascinating that everyone doesn't want to do and then you can really, you can really own that. And you reminded me of I can't remember where it came from, but this idea that you should always try and get into a small but fast moving niche that's going to be massive in three to five years or 10, whereas, like, you know, if you're go, if you want to go into straight, straight down the middle, traditional, you know, TV ads, then you know, that's, that's a that kind of is what it is, and very competitive. Whereas what is going to be huge in that time period, and if you get on that train at the right time, then you can be one of the biggest players in that space, which sounds like you guys have pulled that move off very successfully. So we're going to move on now, and I'm going to ask about any specific advice you have for data driven marketers. So you've had a lot of perspectives on this, so I'm keen to know which of those lessons about data driven marketing that have stuck with you, what things you pass on to your team most often?
Jemma Haley 9:13
I think for us, both of us, I mean, we're both ex dunnhumby and we both spent time doing those kind of commercial media planning roles with big, big, big, you know, suppliers. So Georgia worked with Unilever quite a while, and I worked with PepsiCo and Coca Cola. And we were working with, obviously, their brand trade shopper marketing teams, all who have very good grasps of data insights and where they want to kind of go with their plans. But I think that one thing that always sticks with me is that you would have planning sessions with them. They might have a very kind of specific view of what they feel they wanted it and where they want to invest their money. But the beauty of having access to the kind of insights that we had at dunnhumby around customer behaviour through their tools, really helped to shift the conversation with those suppliers and really add more value. So the amount of times I would speak to a supplier and they say, Oh, this is what we want to do. But then you'd run a few reports and you say, well, actually, did you know that this is a kind of problem for this particular product within the category, and this is what customers were actually doing, which sometimes would be a surprise to them, and then you were able to kind of shape use that insight to actually redirect that plan so that it actually helped solve business problems, and it was therefore more impactful for them. So I think for me, it was always around. If you're able to as a marketer, if you're able to get access to the right insights, it really helps you to make sure that you're putting together most meaningful plans to drive impact with customers and drive change. And before, I'd never, kind of ever have access to that kind of insight. So for me, it's always around. It has to start with the insight, and that's where you really add value and change.
Tom Ollerton 10:04
And that seems like your dream scenario, right? Where you've got a massive spender sorting out their media plan, where the investment is going to go, and then you pop up with a great bit of data they didn't know existed to say, ah, that's not a great idea, which is, that is as romantic as it gets in our game, right? Whereas in reality, a lot of the time is, there's tonnes of dashboards, tonnes of decks, tonnes of insight, tonnes of reports, tonnes of best practice, and there's a tonne of noise, there's lots of data, there's lots of information. But I'd love to know how people who listen to this podcast can make sure that they're delivering insight that inspires that action, because that's that's a great story where they saw your data and they were inspired and went, ah, right now, I know that I will do this, but that isn't always the case with data, is it?
Speaker 1 11:35
No, I think, and I think data sometimes can sound really intimidating. It sounds like big and scary that you must be really good at. And I think also, you go to a data meet, you go to a meeting where people are expecting insights. They expect tonnes of data, which actually is bit dull. I think for us, it's often about using the data to bring to life our brands, and then show our brands being John Lewis and Waitrose, then showing how our suppliers can sort of grow their brands within our brands. So example of that would be, we use our insights to show although a John Lewis partnership customer, so someone who shops Waitrose and John Lewis tends to kind of be they seem the same. They shop very differently. So our Waitrose customers tend to come into shop 27 times a year. They're looking to do their core shop, but also be inspired by a few things along the way. Our John Lewis, shopper comes into store about seven times a year, or they shop with us online around seven times a year, and their shopping mission is much more about a life stage. So they could be coming in to buy something for nursery, and then they might come back the year after to buy something for a first year birthday present, and then a year later, it might be a friend's wedding gift. So actually, it's how do we use our data to show what these shopping missions are, and how the two shop, how the same shopper two different missions, what life stages they're at, and then start applying sort of further insights on top of it on how they're behaving and what they might be buying. And then think about purchasing behaviours on top of it.
Tom Ollerton 12:56
So we're going to move on now to your shiny new object, which is creating a business within a business, the retail media revolution. So that's quite a long shiny new object title, but I'll take it so it kind of makes sense to me. But can you give the audience a bit of insight into why you've chosen that as your shiny new object and what it is?
Jemma Haley 13:16
Yeah, sure. So just to give a bit of context, I guess, you know, we're lucky enough to kind of work across, you know, two iconic retail brands with with both John Lewis and Waitrose, and they've, you know, there's two individual businesses for the last 10 or 10 years or so, have monetized different aspects of the customer journey with our suppliers, and kind of gradually built that over over time, and obviously interest and appetite in that has grown steadily in line with what we see in the in the wider market when it comes to retail media. And it's only really been the last few years that the partnerships kind of recognise the opportunity here. And you know, our reason to be as a team is to really help, I guess, create an identity for retail media at the partnership and drive forward transformation that space. So it's on, I guess, because we're on this to kind of transformational change with the business, what we're looking at is, how do we kind of, we've created a new identity for this business, which is kind of JLP, insights and media, and we're trying to drive forward this change within the organisation to kind of better understand insights and data to help drive that business, both from a kind of media planning point of view of how we engage with suppliers, but also the capability that we launch as well, so ensuring that we're more data driven in terms of what we're launching to customers and suppliers. So driving forward transformational change in that space is our kind of shiny new object.
Tom Ollerton 14:43
What have been the kind of initial roadblocks and problems that you've had to overcome? What were those kind of early wins that set you up for success?
Jemma Haley 14:50
I'd say some of the kind of first things that we've done is we we brought in insights, capabilities. We've been very clear from the start that we in order to transform the business, we need to work with the right partners out there. You know, I don't think anyone can. No retailers can do this alone and build everything in house. So we've wanted to kind of ensure that we're working with the best in class partners out there who can help us on this transformation journey. So one of the first things we did was build out a relationship, a partnership with dunnhumby, so that dunnhumby are helping support us with with two key aspects of driving this kind of change within the business. So first of all, we have a partnership with them where we've launched dunnhumby shop, which is a well, very well known global tool, but for us, it's helping our business better utilise and leverage customer insights, not just to help make better business decisioning across things like category management, but also to help improve our media planning kind of capability as well. But they're also providing us with personalised offers capability as well, so injecting customer data science into our office programme across both of those brands to ensure that we're personalising our offers to customers in a much more customer centric way. So those, I think, were the first two things that we did which which really helped articulate to the business the importance and value of becoming more data driven and having personalization capability. So I think that's been the kind of, I guess, jewel in the crown in terms of being our anchor. What's the word anchor proposition, I suppose, within our business, and helping set the direction of where we're trying to go?
Tom Ollerton 16:44
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I've got a lot of respect for the fact that you've built this business within a business, because what you're talking about is it's pure innovation really, to kind of really change the nature of and a product within the partnership. So you must be coming up against people who have very kind of fixed ideas about the way the business should be and was. And why are we doing this new thing? Because, you know, selling innovation, in my experience, is one of the hardest things to sell, right? Because can often be unproven and a bit of a bit of a reach. So I'd love to know how you've how you manage that going forward, when you meet resistance in the business, how do you talk people around and how do you carry on getting investment in what you guys are doing so you can grow the proposition?
Jemma Haley 18:00
It's a very good question, and it's something that, you know, we cover, come up against all the time. And we work our team works cross functionally across so many different teams, across both those brands. You know, the work that we do touches, data teams, product teams, store teams, online teams, sales teams, you know, to name but a few. And as you said, you know, sometimes it's easier for some areas to get on board, and other other teams, it takes a bit longer. And I think the one thing, I think, continuous, thing that we've all tried to do as a team is is to better understand those teams' goals. What are they trying to achieve? And help align those goals with with, you know, the value that our work can bring. But sometimes it takes time, and a lot of it has been around education as well. And I think it's sometimes when you when you when you're knee down, when your head's down in a project. And for all of us, we're, I guess, experts, or we know retail media well, but we forget, actually, there's, there's two parts to kind of influencing people. It's helping them understand retail media to begin with, and you shouldn't. I think my big learning is never assuming that someone knows our world well, because a lot of the time they don't. So there's a huge education piece that you need to do kind of upfront about that. And then the second bit is then kind of really unpacking and understanding their world and challenges and how our retail media programme can align with that and help drive value there as well. So I think, from my point of view, those are some of the things that I think about.
Speaker 1 19:36
Yeah, I think leading onto your point about understanding other teams as well. I think it's build your business within a business you are going up against everyone else's work streams as well, and everyone's got the overarching objective of make Waitrose and John Lewis awesome. But then if you think of building things about what is everyone else trying to do within it? And one of the things I'm looking at the moment is sort of our digital in store programme over the next few years. And the first thing that's come up is branch managers going, hold on, if you put digital screens in my store, what's going to happen to my electricity bill. And then you've got other people going, well, if you put that over there, you're taking away from our ranging. And then you've got the visual merchandising teams thinking, Well, hold on. If you put that there, I can't put my big pop up bar over there. And I think it's that element of having to do a real conversational piece with other teams to really show that actually we're not here to disrupt, we're here to support but also we have our own objectives within that as well. So I think it's a lot of testing and learning, to be honest, and I think there's a lot of patience. And I think also we were discussing this other day. I think lots of people look at retail media as a bit of a cash cow of being actually, if you want to get this off the ground, I'll whack some media on it. Then we can prove ROI, and then we'll do more of it. And there's nothing in retail media, which is whack it on and make it work. So I think there's a lot of having to educate people on that as well.
Jemma Haley 20:52
Georgia and I always say nothing is plug and play. You kind of feel sometimes with the industry that everything's especially, I think, more on the ad tech side, it's kind of seen as, you know, oh, just, just work with this ad tech provider. And, you know, the money comes rolling in. And yes, it can, but actually, there's a huge process that goes behind, beyond just plugging in some technology, and also it's never plugging in. There's a huge amount of integration work, and teams are involved in that. But it's, it's the whole go to market. How do you get traction with suppliers? And also, another thing is, you know, how do you ensure that the capability or launching is matched with ensuring our commercial teams understand it and can engage with suppliers on it and helping suppliers understand that capability? So, yeah, nothing's plug and play, and managing expectations on how quickly you can realise things is another thing.
Speaker 1 21:46
Yeah, and I think that's when you can really start using data and insight to prove your value. Because I often think everything is bit of an exchange. So even if you're online or in store, if you're looking to put something in, something usually has to come out. So it's that kind of piece around actually, if you put what is the value of the media that we're doing to justify us taking over from what someone else is doing? So an example for a Waitrose could be actually in laundry. We could do four times more ranging, or we could put in a digital screen like space is space. So you need your insights and data then to sort of back up your decision.
Tom Ollerton 21:46
I've really noticed a change in your tones of voices when you talk about this subject, this idea of plugging in and people expecting, like, instant results. So can you tell me a suitable for work story about what's made you realise that, or what's got you to this state where you're having to manage expectations? Because it sounds like sometimes the business go, can we just like, you know, fire this silver bullet and everything will be great.
Jemma Haley 22:41
Yeah, I'd say I think the one thing that really strikes when I think about this situation, my biggest learning, and I've loved going through this journey with my team, because I think we've learned so much, is introducing ad tech to both Waitrose and John Lewis. So many years we were doing a lot of our ads in the way that a lot of retailers had done over the years, you know, in terms of kind of using a CMS to place a tenancy ad, and that would just run across the site. And obviously, over the last kind of 5-10, years, there's been loads of ad tech players who have exploded on the market offering solutions for retailers to monetize their online estates, whether that's the critio or citrus ad, etc, right? IQ, there's so many different options out there which are open to retailers. And obviously some retailers have been much quicker to accelerate their capability in this space, and others are still playing catch up. And there was a huge opportunity for us to drive efficiencies in how we were doing this at the partnership. So we were really excited to kind of launch ad tech, CitrusAd through our capabilities. And I suppose my again, I had, I came into the situation thinking, well, once we've got, we've kind of gone through that initial integration period, we've got it set up. You know, suppliers are au fait with this capability. They see it across other retailers. It will, you know, should, should land pretty well and quickly, and we should obviously be maximising and realising the benefits from it. But actually, the journey that we had to take suppliers on was actually quite different. So with Waitrose, a lot of our supplier base were quite au fait with that capability, because it's quite well widespread with other grocery retailers around the world. But in non food, it's not quite as advanced. So it's there, but it's it's the suppliers were less, I guess, aware of that kind of capability and how to best leverage it. So we actually spent invested a lot of time in terms of driving traction with the supplier base. So there was a lot of upskilling that we had to do webinars in terms of understanding the basics of that new the new placements where we were running the self serve technology, how to get the most out of that situation. The same with the sales team, and really. Being everyone excited about it, and gradually, over time, that that has paid off, and we've built the kind of penetration of that capability with our supplier base, and they're actively using it. They're seeing, you know, the results from it and the benefits of it. But I had massively under underestimated how quickly that would happen. And again, it was a huge learning of when you're launching capability with either those you know, the different brands we're working with, you really have to think about that go to market bit and supplier understanding, and how quickly you can realise the benefits there. So that's been an interesting journey, I think.
Tom Ollerton 25:42
So who do you look up to in this space when you see what they're doing and you go, Oh, why are you doing that? I wish we were doing that. Who creates envy? Or are you at the top of the tree and everyone's looking to you?
Jemma Haley 25:52
I think you know what. You can learn so much from so many different retailers around the world who are doing this in different ways. Obviously, if you look at Amazon, obviously, who the biggest in this space and certainly make the most money when it comes to kind of retail media. I've always been envious of the pace that they're able to change and adapt and do new things, but then they are obviously just an operator on a single channel. There's other retailers like Kroger in the States, who've obviously done a great job with kind of creating a holistic retail media proposition and really kind of championing that insight led approach and using first party data. I think there's there's things that you can take and learn from loads of different retailers and verticals. But I, what I really like about what we're doing at the partnership is that although we're playing catch up with a lot of our capabilities, I really feel that we have such a unique place within the market because of our brands and what we're able to do and how we can curate propositions in this space that make sense for the identity of our brands and our customers in a slightly different way. And when I kind of, when I make that comment, it's kind of saying, for example, the way and the recognition that, for example, the John Lewis brand has in British culture as a brand. So I mean, it means that we can play in a slightly different way. So, for example, our Christmas campaign is quite iconic, and with that, because it's so well known, it provides us with a really rich, amazing retail media proposition opportunity for our suppliers, for them to be part of that. And I don't see that same opportunity being like necessarily, as strong with other retailers, perhaps or not, in the same way and the same with Waitrose, our customer base is so unique in terms of what they're interested in, and you know, they're very passionate foodies, it enables us to create really exciting events which players can be part of, like our food festival, for example. And again, that's the space which, again, I think very few other retail brands can really credibly play in. So I feel like it's great learning from different retailers out there, and you can take aspects of it, but I'm really excited about the USP that we can kind of curate here.
Speaker 1 28:17
Ialso I think it depends on what you find inspiring. And I think Sainsbury's are a really interesting one to look at. So Sainsbury's, their retail media, has really exploded over the last couple of years. And some people say that's so bold, because basically, as a brand, you can pretty much do anything within Sainsbury's world and for and some people go for a brand that's really empowering. So if you are a PepsiCo, or you're a Unilever or whatever, you can go and do really cool, exciting new stuff in Sainsbury's, and then you've got the other side of the coin of people going, Sainsbury's really lost their brand identity. When it comes to retail media, brands can just do anything. And so it depends if you think, if you're inspired by fast paced retail media, Sainsbury's are really cool, if you are more like brand identity for retail is really important, then you're going to think that haven't done a good job. So I guess it depends on where you look at it. And I always like, okay, when I go down a game when I go down a motorway, because I'm an absolute loser, is when you see supermarkets on the side, it's kind of like just look through the windows and see if you can work out which supermarket is, just by the kind of office size. And I always think that shows when a brand's doing really well in terms of a retailer understanding and owning its identity.
Tom Ollerton 29:19
That is quite the confession.
Speaker 1 29:20
And I was gonna say, my other favourite game is when you play the game with the services when you gotta guess whether it's a service station or a British cheese.
Tom Ollerton 29:26
I don't know what you mean, go on.
Georgia Riley 29:27
So you basically everyone in the car, you say, you say either the name of a cheese or a name of a service station. You ought to guess whether it's a cheese or something.
Tom Ollerton 29:34
A cheese or Wow, I'm gonna I was not expecting to get there on a Monday morning, but Monday afternoon. But here we are. What a thought, what really struck me when you both answered that last question is, yeah, you talk about your brands, what your brands mean in British culture, and here we are arguing that point on a podcast about data driven marketing. And I think that's the what the lesson I keep on learning. You can talk about ad tech as much as you like. You can talk about ad technology as much as you want, but it's actually the softer, brand stuff, the GUI human stuff, that only really comes from empathy and understanding that allows you to become a better data driven marketer. So thanks for the reminder of that. If anyone wants to get in touch with you, where is the best place to do that and what makes a message that you will definitely reply to?
Jemma Haley 30:20
Oh, I mean, I would say, like, LinkedIn is a good, a good channel to do it, but just, I think, just an original message. I know that sounds really laughed, but like, it's amazing how many messages that we get. I think would you, once you work for retailers, I certainly noticed a shift in how many people like reach out to us, but I think just being different and genuinely thinking about the journey that we're on and how they can give value. But also, it's not just about that. We're always keen to network and connect with people who are in our industry and are interested in sharing learnings as well. Like I'm a great believer in us collectively, getting together and sharing learnings for the greater good and how we can help each other.
Speaker 1 31:04
So yeah, I think it's much more about conversation. I think we get sales pitches at left, right and centre for product, like buy this product or make your retail media. We can sell we can help you sell four times more retail media if you set up by this. And actually that doesn't help us think about our journey, and what we're doing is actually having a conversation to be like, What are you doing? And this might help or just starting off, an objective is way better.
Tom Ollerton 31:26
That is great advice. Thank you, and I'm sorry we have to leave it there, but what a brilliant and revealing podcast. Thanks so much.
Georgia Riley 31:32
Thank you.
Jemma Haley 31:32
Thank you.
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