Episode 295 / Nikita Kucheryavy / Mars Petcare / Digital Activation Head
Data Driven Marketing as a Sport & the Exciting Future of Retail Media
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Nikita Kucheryavy is the Digital Activation Head of the Digital Business Unit within Mars Petcare, based in Amsterdam. He’s been with the company ever since the graduate scheme and travelled through countries and roles, gaining an important perspective in doing so.
Nikita’s multinational career background is also his best investment. Switching roles and countries has enabled him to:
Build cultural intelligence and adaptability, valuable for working with global brands
Develop resilience
Adopt a curiosity and growth mindset.
When it comes to data, he likens it to sports because “you need to approach your data driven capability as a muscle, not just a one-off.” Good data doesn’t just happen overnight, it is worked on and practiced. You need to “warm up” properly with the right questions to avoid injury or disappointment. And you need to strive for data quality, akin to how you’d need to develop good technique in sports.
Finally, we talked about why retail media is Nikita’s shiny new object. Despite having a history of being “unsexy,” it’s actually a rapidly developing space where retailers are creating new advertising opportunities and where brands can put together unique consumer experiences. But it’s also “messy” because of inconsistent approaches across different retailers, with no unified framework for how retail media networks operate. Nikita sees great potential in retail media's ability to create better brand experiences and provide closed-loop attribution, allowing brands to track media investments more precisely. He believes retailers will likely develop a foundational unified inventory while also differentiating themselves by leveraging their unique ecosystem strengths.
Tune in to learn more!
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Nikita Kucheryavy 0:00
If you come to a training without a warm up, or if you come to a lot of data without a question in mind, you know you will be lost and a high likelihood of injury. Data is not a project or one off, it's a muscle that you need to build.
Speaker 0:11
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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 podcast about the future of data driven marketing. Every week or so, I have the absolute pleasure and privilege of interviewing one of our industry's leaders about looking into the future of data driven marketing and where we're going. And today is no different. I'm in Amsterdam. i'm in Mars Pet Nutrition's office here. Mars Pet are a client of Automated Creative so I'm very much on my best behaviour, but I'm I'm here with Nikita Kucheryavy, Nikita, please tell everyone how to say your name correctly.
Nikita Kucheryavy 1:28
It's pretty good, pretty good.
Tom Ollerton 1:30
Almost got there. Thank you for coaching me on getting there. And Nikita is digital activation head of the Digital Business Unit here at Mars Petcare. So Nikita, can you tell the audience a bit about who you are and what you do?
Nikita Kucheryavy 1:44
Yes, so first of all, thanks for having me and looking forward to our chat today. I'm pretty sure it will be quite fun and interesting. So my name is Nikita. I'm the Digital activation head, and basically my team is responsible for retail media for our pure players in Europe. So we work with customers like Amazon, zoo plus. And my team is responsible for off site and on site, retail media. But before that, I had quite a fun journey with Mars, because this year I become 10 years with Mars in September. So my anniversary year, congratulations. I refer to myself as the Mars baby, because Mars is my first company right after university. So over the course of the years, I was shifting from, you know, more traditional marketing roles, because I started on a grad scheme at Mars, back home in Russia, and after three years, I moved to the regional team as a brand and innovation manager looking after the regional strategy, communication and our product innovation. And then I moved to our to our direct to consumer business, because at that time, Mars decided to launch direct to consumer websites, and I was helping to build this and develop our capabilities in this space. So you know, things like loyalty programmes. And I think that's when we might have started to partner with you guys as well. So good old days.
Tom Ollerton 2:59
Good Old Days indeed and what a journey. Yeah, sorry, current, but I didn't realise you be here since the grad scheme. That is a massive win for Mars.
Nikita Kucheryavy 3:07
Yeah, exactly. So there was a fantastic way to meet the company, meet the culture and yeah, for my regional role, I moved to the UK, and you know, that's where, from where I joined our director consumer business as well. And now I took my role last year, and now I live in Amsterdam. So with Mars, I travelled not only through the functions, but also through the countries.
Tom Ollerton 3:30
Oh, God, there'll be lots of people listening to this being very, very envious indeed. Okay, so in that Mars career, yep, what's been the best investment of your own time, your own money or your own energy in your career?
Nikita Kucheryavy 3:44
Yeah, yeah. And to be honest, I think I hinted this already, but you know, for me, when I look back at my career, this decision to build international career was the best investment. And some people would say, Well, how is this an investment? But I would say, you know, as a person who moved to countries and worked across different regions and different parts of the business. It's hell of investment, right? You leave what you know behind you, and you move to completely new country, new culture, new landscape. And you need to, you know, invest a lot of time and effort into this. Sometimes it's money as well, but you gain a lot from this. And for me, the reason why I think that this is a fantastic way for my, you know, fantastic investment for my career as a marketeer is, is mainly three main things. So by building the international career, you build your cultural intelligence and adaptability. Because every time you move to new country, you need to start from scratch, and you need to adjust and adapt and find, you know a new way of living in this reality. But also you know every time you move jobs, you face a new market. You knew you face a new category. You know new behaviours, new way how people work, new processes, new systems, and you constantly need to learn there. But as an output, you have a fantastic like perspective. And you appreciate, you know, these cultural differences and how culture and history impacts shopper behaviour. And then being a marketeer, you know you really need to pay attention to this. The second one is really that you build resilience, because you always face, you know, a lot of different challenges, and there are highs and lows in building international career, and it learns you to be a bit humble and question yourself. I remember my second week in the UK, I was standing on the bus stop, and I was waiting for the bus for 15 minutes, and the next one was like, in 30 minutes, and then I saw the bus coming, and it just passed by and didn't stop. And I was like, Oh, well, maybe then I need to do something differently. So that's how I learned that you need to raise your hand to stop a bus in the UK, because it's not, not a thing in my country, you know. And this just reminds you that you take sometimes things for granted, and the same goes for your corporate world and for your career. You know, you need to be mindful of this, you know, aspects and specifics of the country when you work with this, especially when you're in the global team or in the regional team, you know, you will look at this from a regional perspective, but there are local nuances, local execution, and that's where you need, you know, your people on the ground, to make it happen. And then the last one is really just curiosity mindset and growth mindset, because you learn hell of a lot about yourself, about, you know, the how people work, and you reapply this knowledge to your career. And I think as a result of this international moves and international career, I became way more resilient by nature. I was always very curious. But now I also, you know, channel this into into work, and I have changed multiple functions in my career. It's hard to say that I had a very linear career as well. I jumped, you know, from function to function, and I think that that's part of this resilience and growth mindset that that really helps, you know, with with marketing career.
Tom Ollerton 6:46
So that's lovely career advice. I think many people will be keen to follow in your footsteps. But can you give me your best bit of data driven marketing advice? What is that kind of one thing that you've picked up in your journey?
Nikita Kucheryavy 6:58
When it comes to data and, you know, data driven marketing, maybe it will be a bit of a cliche, but I believe that data is not a project or a one off it's a muscle that you need to build. And I'm a big sports fan as well, and in sports enthusiast, and, you know, I think you need to approach your data driven capability as a muscle, right? So you need to warm up before the training, and which is more about what's the question I'm trying to answer? And you know what I'm trying to find out with this data? Because if you come to a training without the warm up, or if you come to a lot of data without a question in mind, you know you will be lost and a high likelihood of injury. But then also, data is about this compounding interest, and it doesn't happen overnight, you know, and it's the same, you know, this classical story when people do sports, and it's first of January, New Year, you know, you decided, yeah, this is the year when I will do half marathon. And you go out, you run eight kilometres, and the next day, you're destroyed, and you never come back to running. So with data, you know, if you just go and jump into it right away. I think sometimes it can be overwhelming because amount of data, and the more data you have, the more choice you have. It's some sort of, sometimes it's paralysing you. So really trying to build the mindset and building the behaviour, you know, through the tools that you start using, you know, through the questions that you ask, How do I dig deeper into this data? You know, you start with this big question, and then you get the data points to prove all right. So am I going in the right direction? Does it answer my question? Do I need to do few more tests to get there? And the last one is about the quality of the data. Again, you know, probably quite obvious for a lot of people, but I'm a big believer in this. You know, it's like with technique in every sport, if you don't have a right technique, there is a high likelihood that you will get injured. Same goes with the data right so if you don't have your data set up in the right way, or you do not trust your data, it will probably lead to the wrong conclusions, or there is a high likelihood of, you know, taking the wrong conclusions from decisions and eventually impacting your business. So we had, like, example recently when we were evaluating one of the campaigns, and, you know, we were looking at the media investments and the return on ad spend and the sales uplift, but like team did not separate like promotional data from it. And then, you know how the question from my side was, what do we measure here? Guys like, do we measure the full bunch of it? Or, you know, doing to separate this, because you cannot measure your media efficiency if you have promo in the mix, right, and you just have wrong conclusions, wrong results. So always like coming back to this. So what question and quality of the data is, is the fundamental part of it? So, yeah, look at it as as a muscle, and be patient, you know, stay curious and and ask, so what?
Tom Ollerton 9:39
So your shiny new object is retail media.
Nikita Kucheryavy 9:45
Yes.
Tom Ollerton 9:46
So retail media has been around for a little while, but it's changing so much every conference I go to or everyone I interview on this podcast about that topic, it's it was kind of the media that was a little bit unsexy, a little bit forgotten, a little bit left to the side, despite its huge financial importance to every brand that sells specifically online. But we're, we're seeing it hugely change. You know, our opinion of retail media is, it's going to act and behave in the same way that your your paid social or your display is, you know, the optimization, improvement, insight, all that stuff. So I'm really interested to know what, why you've chosen retail media as your shiny new object. Why is it shiny? And why is it fascinating you at the minute?
Nikita Kucheryavy 10:31
Yeah, so as you rightly said, you know, I wouldn't say it's a new object, because, let's say, let's take Amazon, they've been doing this for years, right? I think. But it's definitely shiny, because there is so much investment, so much hype, so much noise about it, and at the same time, it is quite messy area. Everyone is trying to figure out what's what's going on, what to do with it. And, you know, a lot of people jump on this train and into this conversation, and that's what really excites me because, as you said, you know, there is so much development happening right now. And in the past, we mainly had online players in the retail media field, and now a lot of like grocery players and, you know, Omni channel players entering this space. So what excites me is the speed of development of retail media and where we will go with this, like excited about the opportunities to create a better brand experiences for consumers through the retail media, because, again, I come from the more traditional marketing background, and now it's bit closer to the performance marketing, you know, the way I see it, And I think retail media is a fantastic way to connect the upper funnel media strategies with with the point of sale and like, track it and have a closed loop attribution, because in traditional model, you know, with your in store, you're not necessarily can measure every every bit of this. And I think that's historically the challenge. I mean, we get better at this as marketers right with different models and different tools, but retail media gives you an opportunity to connect this full funnel experience, and that's really exciting about it. Because, you know, right now it's really in the digital space, but I think in the next few years we'll start, start see retail Media Development in in store. There's a programmatic out of home coming our way already, and, you know, being implemented anything that will only continue to develop. So again, what makes me really excited about this is a fantastic opportunity for brands and retailers to partner in this space, really, to connect the dots and connect media data with sales data and prosperity data that we have with the retailers to create fantastic experiences.
Tom Ollerton 12:50
Right. So many questions. So first off, you described retail media as messy, yeah, what do you mean? I think I know what you mean, what do you mean?
Nikita Kucheryavy 13:01
I mean that there is no one framework that you can apply when it comes to retail media, and there is a lot of inconsistency between different retail media networks. You have the best of of those, you know, great examples, starts with A, starts with A, ends with n retailer, you know, best in class, and the Rolls Royce of retail media, in my opinion. And then you have some other, you know, more traditional retailers like jumping on the train and trying to implement new capabilities, give new opportunities to the brand. And to some extent, this what makes it messy, because when you as a brand, when you look at it and you decide where to invest and into what you know, into what retailers or retail media networks to put your money into. You cannot compare across retailers the data because, you know the attribution models are different, you know the inventory is different, and it's sometimes hard to say what channel will drive the best investments for me, right? And that's what makes it a bit messy, because it's quite fragmented. And you can see that different approaches across the the retailers and retail media networks, but also you can see different approaches by the brand. I mean anecdotal example, last year, we spent quite some time in our team to rely on one definition of retail media, because if you ask people, What is retail media, you will get different answers. I mean, that's a good example why it is messy.
Tom Ollerton 14:31
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So is the problem the definition, or is it broad enough? Like, for example, if you say social, someone might say, does that include YouTube? And some people might say yes, and some people might say, No, Meta is different to Snap to a degree to but is, would you say social is messy in the same way, or is, or is retail just a completely different level of application?
Nikita Kucheryavy 15:35
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I think social is is not as messy. It may be messy in a different way. You know? Why I'm saying that the retail media is a bit different, because it's on this edge of, you know, retailer, retailer platform, and not always it's a pure media channel. And you see that with some retailers like Amazon, they treat it more as a media channel, right? And therefore you have, like, more media conversations with them. But with some retailers, they still see retail media, as you know, the marketing bucket in the JBP. So it's quite commercial. The data is commercialised. You know, they're asking money, or they do not share the data with you. And this inconsistency, you know, makes it challenging for the brands, you know, to build their strategies. That's that's why what I feel and what I experience in my team, right? Because we work with different customers, and for one customer, we have super clear view. You know what return on investment is, and you know how we can activate in Upper funnel, in lower funnel, and what does this do to our sales and with other customer? I mean, it's the same team, right? We have limited visibility on half of the inventory, and sometimes you just need to, like, figure out, right? Well, does it work? Like, should I continue to invest and then you have this, like, commercial element of it, right? Because it's not necessarily the immediate choice, because you need to think about it from a partnership perspective, with your with your partners, with your customers, as retailers. So that's what, what I think makes it more well, it makes it messier, because it's not a purely media channel. It's a mix of, you know, this, trade marketing and media, and it's very inconsistent if you look at different retailers.
Tom Ollerton 17:15
So do you think there's anything to learn from social? I mean, social well, social commerce, I guess, is, it's been around a while, but it's, it's much more like institutionalised now. But I said the argument before that, all social networks are quite different, but someone else might say, well, they're actually quite similar. You know, they the way that, they just copy each other and stuff. Do you think that's what will happen with retailer, that the inventory will end up being the same, there'll be like, the everyone will coalesce around, oh, there's this, buy, this bit of entry, that bit of inventory, this, this and that. And then, in the same way Meta and Google and Snap and Pinterest are always trying to come up with the new ad format, yeah, to try and get everyone to buy against that. So do you think that, do you think that retail media is going to get more and more and more and more fractured, and Amazon's inventory is going to be totally different to John Lewis or whatever else. Or do you think it's going to coalesce and all these retailers will end up looking and feeling the same from a from a inventory perspective?
Nikita Kucheryavy 18:14
Yeah, no, it's a it's a great question, as history tells people often are very bad with their forecasts. But what I think, and I will give my best shot, what I think, is that across the retailers, we will see some sort of foundational and unified inventory like as the basic one. So for example, sponsored search on the platforms and sponsored brands and some some sort of DSP. But then I think this is where the retailers will try to leverage whatever is the ecosystem. And I think for them, the opportunity will be to play to their strengths. So for example, if you're an omnichannel retailer, you know, you might double down on your in store, retail media offering and let the brands, you know, activate in that funnel, whilst you still have, you know, sponsored brand and sponsor search for your like website.com, or if you're purely online player, right? You can really go into off site media, like Amazon does these days, right? They really use their entertainment ecosystem, you know, through Fire TV, through Prime Video Ads, through Twitch, through podcast business that they have, you know, to really push this upper funnel opportunities for the brands, because they already mastered their, you know, lower funnel sponsored brand and sponsored search products. So I think there will be some sort of unified inventory, but then every retailer will try to create a competitive offering which will help them differentiate and, you know, prove value for the media advertiser advertisers and for the brands, why they should spend money exactly with this retail media network.
So tell me about programmatic out of home. How do you see that space changing in the next 12 months?
I think this one is quite interesting, and I wouldn't say I'm a big expert on it, because, like, I learn about it in a chat with some like friends in a bar, to be honest. So I don't have, like, a master degree in this, in this field, but what I find interesting, and to some extent, it's a bit scary, that there are no solutions that, you know, help to track out of home, attention and like, you know, consumers passing by the billboard. There is a camera in the Billboard, and then tracks like face and how many people stare at the billboard? It's a bit scary, but at the same time, it's great for abbreviation of of the media channel. And I think, you know, we already start to see some examples in programmatic out of home when people like when marketers be smart about personalised content, and, you know, changing their creative on the Billboard due to the weather condition or due to event that is happening at the stadium nearby. So I think it will just create more and more opportunities for the brand to personalise and tailor their messaging to make this impact and to stand out from the advertising noise we have every day.
Tom Ollerton 21:02
One of the innovation bits of work we did a while ago for a skincare brand was what they did was they they worked with our platform to generate a really large number of ads on Facebook. And what they did was tested lots of different hypotheses about which written and visual elements would work. You know, was it the model applying it? Was it the product on its own? Was, was the copy about looking good for yourself or looking good for someone else or an interview or a date or whatever, all these different messages? So this whole strategy behind it, and what we were able to do is work out on Meta, which ads drove attention, right? So when someone was flicking through like, you'd be able to work out, okay, that was the, that was the thing that drove attention, and then that creative went into the digital out of home.
Nikita Kucheryavy 21:51
That's really smart.
Tom Ollerton 21:52
Because digital out of home is an attention medium, right? Yeah, and, but the problem is, with out of home generally, is someone goes, I like that picture, I like the copy line. Cool. Let's run with that. Do you know what I mean? Or they have a focus group of 20 people who lie for free sandwiches or whatever. What we were doing was taking millions of data points and proving what captured attention, which is what digital out of home is. So I'm really interested to see how the programmatic out of home place shows up. You know, there's never enough. You know, people turning their heads and watching an ad, is that of the how many of those people do you need to get statistical significance? So I've a keen eye on that space. And then similarly, with in-store media, what innovation are you seeing there?
Nikita Kucheryavy 22:32
I think it really differs by the retailer and what's their strategy, right? So I think with in-store media, kind of the most obvious areas where the brands start to innovate is, is display and audio in store, right? And using this, you know, to show well, to let the brands dynamically talk to their consumers and create some like engaging experiences, not just the in store, classic BTL experience with the display of wobblers, but it's more interrupting the shopper journey through a means of digital and I think, you know, with the growth of different loyalty card programmes, and you know, Tesco is pretty good at this, and like Albert Heijn here in the Netherlands, they have like this bonus Albert Heijn bonus programme, and a growing importance of like self checkouts. Because, like in the Netherlands, a lot of people do self checkouts, and they will use the checkout, I think that that will give brands or retailers a platform right to advertise, you know, and maybe interrupt the shopper journey when you log in into this, you know, telling them, Hey, we have actually gone on on offer and like, what about this cross brand purchase?
Tom Ollerton 23:39
And you guys love a ... you can't get out the shop without the receipts. Yeah, I made that mistake at Albert Heijn I got the receipt, all right. Well, threw it in the bin, yeah? And I was like, how do I get out of this shop, you need the receipt? Yeah? Now I know. Now I know. See, maybe, maybe what, maybe what they'll have the next media will be, you have to watch this advert, or you can't leave the shop.
Nikita Kucheryavy 23:59
Well, yeah, maybe, yeah, like 15 seconds. Imagine that unskippable pre roll on a giant screen.
Tom Ollerton 24:05
Imagine that. Nikita. I'm really sorry, but we're out of time. It's been brilliant. Thank you for giving me your perspective on your career and showing the benefits of moving around and having an international career. And I loved your sporting analogy around data being a muscle and you know, not getting injured with it. I think it's fantastic. And to go deeper into your your excitement and knowledge and intelligence around retailer media. So if someone wanted to get in touch with you about any of the things you've talked to today, where do you want them to do that and what makes a message that you'll actually respond to?
Nikita Kucheryavy 24:41
I think LinkedIn probably is the easiest way. So you can find me on LinkedIn. The surname will be hard one to type in, but hopefully you will see it from, from the podcast title and and the message, well, there is a lot of noise these days, right? And so like tell me how you can help me, or how. I can help you. I really value the mutuality principle we have at Mars, so let's be mutual, and let's just be clear up front how we can help each other. Or if you're based in Amsterdam, I just recently started to play tennis, and if you want to play tennis, you can also text me, Hey, want to play tennis.
Tom Ollerton 25:14
So that is fantastic. In 300 episodes, no one has laid down a opportunity to play tennis. Yeah, I applaud. Thank you so much for your time.
Nikita Kucheryavy 25:24
Thank you so much for having me.
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