# S2 E10 - Vistar - Sean Cheyney

S2 E10 - Vistar - Sean Cheyney 

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[00:00:13] Tom: hang on one second. Hello? You pick. You pick. Okay. Let's try 'em both. All right, so we're recording. Oh, 

[00:00:24] Tom: You on air sign isn't on. Yeah, it's right. I should have turned the on air sign. Sorry. On, 

[00:00:34] Tom: is it good? No. Interesting. I'll take this one. This is the the Erewhon next door, the Erewhon knockoff smoothies.  

[00:00:45] so on the Middleman Podcast, we like to make corrections when we make a mistake. And you just heard me call that smoothie that I received from my wife an knockoff. Some as you can see on Reddit are [00:01:00] calling these Smoothies Dupe. They're made by River Rewards, which is a produce forward and indie brand friendly grocery format that's in Old City and, Fishtown in Philadelphia. 

[00:01:11] Tom: And I couldn't be happier that they supply me with smoothies throughout the week, so I wanna apologize. They have built their own smoothie reputation. They're not dupes so. Let's call this A PSA. I'm not gonna make that mistake again, and I'm truly sorry. Let's get back to the podcast. 

[00:01:29] Tom: . we are gonna be joined today by Sean Cheney. Who has , just recently joined Vista Media. 

[00:01:37] Tom: he comes from a company that was at the beginning of retail media called Triad. And so when I was introduced to him at Shop Talk, I was super excited to get him on the podcast. Even though this is our fourth interview with somebody in the in-store media world, I thought that actually it would be a good capstone to that whole series because. 

[00:01:57] Tom: Sean has been in it from the beginning and he could probably tell [00:02:00] us why is it taking so long and where is it going. 

[00:02:03] Todd: In store. I, as we have focused on this, the last few conversations. To me is gonna be the most interesting aspect of the growth of retail media over the next couple of years because I think it's really the first time digital media is expanding in new and interesting ways. We're gonna see new formats, we're gonna see new KPIs, we're gonna see new ways of judging this, and I think there's gonna be new experiences that come out of this that gonna be really fascinating. 

[00:02:30] Todd: As a long time digital media guy I'm really looking forward to. What happens and what comes from this. And it is been fascinating also to think about digital retail media has taken so long to get to in-store and it's, I think we we touch on why, and I think you've got some good perspective because it really is the thing that differentiates the retailers from a lot of other digital advertising channels. 

[00:02:57] Todd: And yet it's just [00:03:00] now starting to take off. 

[00:03:01] Tom: Yeah, and I, think some of the reason for why that's happened is it was probably 20, 20, 21 when you started to see digital out of home become the sort of new and shiny thing for retail media, but it was a tough fit. It was something where could you really measure it? Could you really buy it in a one-to-one fashion? 

[00:03:24] Tom: Could and it was also a little safer because it was outside of the store. But if you bring that technology into the store, it's both super exciting because it brings upper funnel opportunities, but it's also. Really scary because if you ruin the in-store experience, that consumer experience with an ad that doesn't belong there, that's a real challenge. 

[00:03:47] Tom: So I think maybe that's the reason it hasn't happened yet, but I think we're both excited about the idea that maybe its time is now. 

[00:03:56] Todd: I very much agree that the in-store advertising [00:04:00] experience is now, but I think the other aspect of the why now is the retailers are now building out the retail media capabilities . They realize that in store can be unique and as they turn to in-store, there's another advantage. We're dealing with mature startups at this point. They've been around. I not even calling 'em startups is maybe appropriate where they've been around for 10 years, like QSIC and 

[00:04:24] Tom: Yeah, Vista is pretty much in all aspects of digital at home and connected to retailers and the gas stations and things like that. We'll learn a little bit about this from Sean these companies are already battle  

[00:04:35] Todd: right.  

[00:04:36] Tom: that's the table stakes. 

[00:04:38] Todd: The good news is you have a retailer and you're embracing this and the fee and making sure you hit it outta the park in the first try. There is no redo. You can't ruin the in-store experience is you have the benefit of working with companies that know what they're doing. They're not rookies, they are veterans, and there could be a lot of comfort in terms of, leaning on them as to what should be the right experience. 

[00:04:57] Todd: And it's not just slapping a screen in a, [00:05:00] store. You have to be strategic about. Where, it's placed and the KPIs around it. And I, Sean talks about , how they plan out a build out and what goes into it. And they know what they're doing. And I think that is, is comforting to retailers looking to lean into this. 

[00:05:16] Todd: And I think you're gonna see some interesting experiences and we've talked to other retailers who are revisiting this like Best Buy. And there are other retailers who are leaning into this. One of the QSIC talks about the convenience store is a real interesting battlefield when we've talked to them. 

[00:05:32] Todd: And I think you look at others and now Vistar has got lots of other retailers, and so we're beginning to see the diversity emerge. So there's a lot that could potentially happen here. And, I think it's interesting to get Sean's perspective going, given his long tenure, going back to the triad days, really the beginnings of early retail media or commerce media as it's sometimes known, in his case, a triad. 

[00:05:56] Todd: And where we end up today. 

[00:05:57] Tom: Yeah, it'll be great to have [00:06:00] retailers hear. The conservatism that comes through when Sean talks about it you don't have to blow out a million different screens. I think he has a lot of things that retailers would like to hear. And he's somebody who who's been in this industry a long time and he is really trying to make this whole ecosystem move forward. 

[00:06:16] Tom: And what I'm most interested in hearing, what he talks about today and as we keep in touch with him, is the fact that as T-Mobile has acquired Vista. How does this become bigger and become potentially easier for smaller and smaller retailers to engage in this new technology? . 

[00:06:33] Todd: See, and I'm an ad guy so I can talk about these things, whereas you retailer people don't know what the hell you're talking about. 

[00:06:39] Tom: So that's why we, that's why the middleman. Yeah. 

[00:06:42] Todd: You're the retailer I'm the ad guy. I had no idea what Wobblers or warblers or whatever the hell you call those damn things were until Shop talk. 

[00:06:50] Tom: But yeah, you're there to tell us when we overstep our understanding of ad tech, and 

[00:06:55] Todd: I'm willing to admit I know nothing about retail and have learned a lot and it's [00:07:00] fascinating as retail. It goes down the ad tech bath and tries to understand it. But to the point we were making the other day, which is retail media eating trade or is trade eating retail media? And more and more, I'm of the opinion that trade is eating retail media. 

[00:07:16] Todd: That it is the dog and retail media is the tail and the dog is gonna be wagging the tail. 

[00:07:23] Sean Cheyney: So in every retailer is a merchant driven organization, and so re the merchant team is always going to lead. From that perspective. But when done right, retail media and and merchandising all trade, they should work together really well. It was funny years ago when I was when I was at Triad Retail Media, I. 

[00:07:45] Sean Cheyney: We went to Walmart. That was our biggest client at the time. And I think in their history and had been working with Walmart for a long time, they were very siloed and we said, this is ridiculous. You're having your joint business planning, you're having your JBPs and [00:08:00] retail media is not sitting at the table. 

[00:08:01] Sean Cheyney: We said, watch what'll happen. We'll do this with a few of your brands and watch what happens when everybody sits at the table and. You'd have the merchant that would say, Hey, here are our goals. Here's why we need you to invest in this. And the brand person would say, okay, this is great. 

[00:08:17] Sean Cheyney: We were, we're gonna invest in trade this amount. These are our objectives. We're fo focusing on pricing, we're focusing on promotions, we're doing these different things. And then you'd turn to the folks that we're controlling the national media budgets. And they'd say, oh, we have a new product launch. We have a, we have this, we really wanna focus on outreach. 

[00:08:36] Sean Cheyney: We want to get eyeballs, and we want to drive adoption of this new product. And then you'd have the merchant person saying, oh, I didn't realize that was the case. We should. And then the conversation would go, how can we support each other? And so you may go in with a total cumulative amount that's being adjusted, that's being invested on both sides of 10 million. 

[00:08:58] Sean Cheyney: And then you get done and all of a sudden [00:09:00] it's a 14 million investments. And the retailer is sitting back and going, wait a minute. What just happened? How did that happen? And it's because everybody's saying, oh, we didn't realize because we're not chatting all the time. We didn't realize that you're doing this initiative that we should be supporting and vice versa. 

[00:09:16] Sean Cheyney: So E, everything ends up rising because they're just, because they're talking and they're in the same room supporting each other. So from that respect, I would say there's not really cannibalization that's going on. It's really the opportunity to unlock incremental. Dollars on both sides. 

[00:09:34] Todd: Yeah, I think the point about trade eating retail media is not about cannibalization. It's about. That the merchant and the merchandising teams have realized that at the retailer, they're the most important and they need to be leading the conversation and pulling in people as necessary and not having these one-off conversations. 

[00:09:53] Todd: And I think that it should be coordinated. And exactly your point, by the way, what you just described is still a rarity 10 years [00:10:00] later. That's crazy as that sounds it. It's just, we're just hearing about this coming together and partly it's, sometimes it's the merchandiser realizing they have to bring in the retail media person. 

[00:10:08] Todd: Sometimes it's on the vendor side realizing they need to bring in the national marketing person versus the trade person and they don't always coordinate. And so I think that's it. It's fascinating to hear about these conversations 'cause I agree with you that coordination is important. And the fact that it's taken this long to happen or it happened before and kinda got lost to history and is coming back, is amazing to me. 

[00:10:32] Todd: That it has worked out this way and we're getting back to it because I agree with you, it's the right way to do it. Like it, it makes total sense. They serve different purposes. There's different placements, different formats, different objectives, but it should be done in a holistic fashion. 

[00:10:43] Todd: I think we all agree with that. 

[00:10:44] Sean Cheyney: Yeah. The funny thing and Tom, I'll just I'll just mention and Todd the big thing there is, even though you said it's a rarity, is we see, because Walmart got good at it. What we see is any folks that came out of and in [00:11:00] retail media, the joke is, know, you can trace everybody back to one of, a handful of companies to Triad, Criteo Walmart and Target and Amazon. 

[00:11:08] Sean Cheyney: Basically, everybody goes back there, either as working at that company or. Or being a client of one of those companies and anybody that came from Walmart the retailers that I see that do this really well, when you find that somebody is leading retail media who came from Walmart for example, they inherently come in and they say, Hey, let me show you what worked really well at Walmart and it, all you have to do is say. 

[00:11:34] Sean Cheyney: Something worked well at Walmart and everybody pays attention. And so they go in and they affect change in their organization because they end up seeing the same results. But you see those ties. You say, wow, this is interesting. You're doing this. It is a rarity. And you go, oh this person over here used to do it at Walmart. 

[00:11:49] Sean Cheyney: Okay, that makes sense. 

[00:11:51] Tom: Yeah. And I think this is a good a good as time as any to introduce who we're talking to on the middlemen. You all joined right in the middle of it. Sean Cheney [00:12:00] started out at Triad, and if I oversimplify what triad was that was I. Display ads on walmart.com. And then he moved to Citrus, which is when I think retail media started to hit its stride, where it was sponsored product listing ads. 

[00:12:14] Tom: And, that basically covered many retailers. And after being acquired by Publicis, he's now looking at the in-store world with Vista. Which came from out of home technology. And I think, to your point, Todd, about, did was the collaboration lost to the world. 

[00:12:33] Tom: I think it's that every time we bring in a new channel, it gets harder and harder to keep all those people in the room. So I would love to hear, actually, as we start to get into this now that you're a vista, tell us what made you join. Who was there from the companies that you know of in, in the retail space that brought you over there? 

[00:12:51] Sean Cheyney: Yeah, it's interesting and thank you . For that intro it's interesting when I came over to Vista, I was familiar with Vista for a long time and Michael Provenzano who [00:13:00] started one of the founders and the founding CEO of Vista. Back years ago, even before I got into retail media, I was on the brand side. 

[00:13:08] Sean Cheyney: And I was one of the early adopters of programmatic and Invite Media, which was Michael's first company that he ended up selling to Google. Was somebody who I was working with and how I got into the programmatic space. So everything became full circle. So I was familiar with Michael, but really what ended up happening was about two years two years before I decided to join before I made the decision to join Vista. 

[00:13:30] Sean Cheyney: I really saw where the direction was going with the importance that it was gonna play for in-store to play a role in retail media. And I was seeing retail media sitting the in-store piece, just sitting off by the side being controlled solely by the merchant teams. And I looked at it and I said, this is crazy. 

[00:13:46] Sean Cheyney: Most transactions are happening in the store. It needs to play a bigger role, and it needs a way to be integrated and tried to get tried to get Epsilon to do a integration with the citrus, a platform. It just, there were other [00:14:00] priorities that needed to take place at the time, and that gave me introductions to several people at Vista. 

[00:14:06] Sean Cheyney: But it turned out that one of the folks who was at Vista used to be my client when he was at GameStop and I was at I was, I was at Triad, a guy named Jordan Fraser, and by this time he had been at he had been at Vista for several years, and he called me up and he said, Vista's leading the world is the world's leader when it comes to powering digital out of home especially in the ad serving and in the programmatic space, and. 

[00:14:31] Sean Cheyney: Now we're looking to make a concerted effort and form a division around retail media. We need somebody who can come in and do that. And that was very interesting to me, especially since I've been shouting at the top of my lungs, the need for this integration of in-store into retail media, businesses that the retailers were building. 

[00:14:50] Sean Cheyney: So that became very important. So that got me excited. Met with the team, found their philosophy and their their ways of doing business, their culture, very [00:15:00] aligned with the way that, that I'm used to working and my personal beliefs and the way that they're really structured as an organization to grow, build, and more importantly, solve problems, be the solution for any media owner in the digital out of home space, or in this case for retailers who are looking to better integrate digital out of home. 

[00:15:19] Sean Cheyney: Into their stores as well as use it as a springboard to reach people off their as an extension play as well to drive people in. 

[00:15:26] Tom: I think you shared some stats with us 'cause just thinking, okay, digital at home is huge, but it's also varied. You had the JC Decos of the world, I remember Norm from U BMO used to call that paper and glue and there's the real digital screens, but even those have a lot of variation. 

[00:15:41] Tom: And you shared some stats that like if somebody's working with Volta, they're really working with Vista. So can you explain that world a little bit for our 

[00:15:48] Sean Cheyney: it's funny as I started diving into the guts of Vista I like to describe Vista as the company that most people work with and don't realize it. So we are the ad platform for for [00:16:00] folks like. Gas Station tv, or Volta for their ev charging stations. We do a lot of work with powering, especially on the programmatic side with companies like Clear Channel and Lamar Advertising and Outfront Media, all these different companies. 

[00:16:14] Sean Cheyney: We play a role with grocery tv. Starlight with all these different companies all across the world. And because of that, such a large percentage I don't remember the exact number. It's more than half of the programmatic. Digital out of home that's transacted, flows through our pipes. 

[00:16:32] Sean Cheyney: But because we're integrated with all these different all these different platforms, we're talking hundreds of media owners which represent over a million screens worldwide that were integrated with and powering. So it's a pretty substantial number. And just in North America alone. 

[00:16:49] Sean Cheyney: 35% of all digital out-of-home media owners are powered by the Vista Ad platform. So it's a pretty substantial amount. We're by far, no doubt we're the leader in [00:17:00] this space. And we operate on a global basis. We're operating in South America. We just opened our Brazil office. We have all across Europe. 

[00:17:09] Sean Cheyney: All across US and Canada, across Southeast Asia, different parts of North Asia Australia and New Zealand even South Africa. So we're touching all around the world which is exciting for me. I'm a very much a global thinker and have built businesses on a global scale. So for me, that gets me really excited. 

[00:17:28] Sean Cheyney: Also when I was able to step into environment a, into environment, saying, alright, the technology's in place. I don't have to build. Technology because that's a whole other, that's a whole other thing. All I needed to come in from a retail media perspective was to operationalize it. 

[00:17:44] Todd: What unlocks retail? I in store retail media? It's been this thing that we've been talking about forever. 

[00:17:51] Sean Cheyney: Oh yeah. 

[00:17:51] Todd: And it's the thing that by the way, Tom is most excited about in terms of some of the projects and things that we work on in our day jobs. And the, so I think [00:18:00] that's one of the questions is one locks like Best Buy is deprecating the original solution and trying to figure out what to do next where you see conversations. 

[00:18:06] Todd: And I think it's been one the phrase for one of the startups I worked at, one of the investors, a guy named Fred Wilson, used to say, is zero billion dollar markets, meaning lots of hype. Not a lot of revenue, I think in store has been one of these zero billion dollar markets. But what unlocks it? 

[00:18:18] Todd: What turns it into the business? I think we all imagine it should be like, I walked into Best Buy this past weekend and I was expecting to see screens all over the place, talk about a place that should, and just a bunch of glow in the dark end caps was the best that they had. They didn't even have ads running on their TV, in their TV section. 

[00:18:36] Todd: Like it's crazy to me. So what unlocks. Instore retail media finally what's I just dying to know like that, that the straw that breaks the camel's back, so of this business opportunity. 

[00:18:46] Sean Cheyney: Yeah. So a lot of it is Ed is a combination of education and infrastructure. So you take a lot of retailers, they say, Hey, we have screens in our store. And you say, great, how is that being run? And they say, okay, it's our merchant team that does [00:19:00] it. And I'll always ask how is that being executed? 

[00:19:04] Sean Cheyney: And when I first started at Vista, the first thing I did was interview about 35 retailers and tell 'em, Hey, I, I just wanna learn. I'm just gonna ask questions. I just wanna hear about what the role that in-store is playing right now with your digital signage and what you're doing, how you're executing it. 

[00:19:18] Sean Cheyney: And a very large percentage gave the answer. Of the way it's run today is we have Joe and Joe comes in on Monday morning and he has his Excel spreadsheet and he goes into the CMS and he loads it up and he lets it run. And then next Monday he's gonna take those out and he is gonna put the new ones in and basically turning the digital screens into a. 

[00:19:40] Sean Cheyney: Essentially into a digital photo album at that point. So really not a lot of learning behind it. I heard one retailer recently refer to it as a dumb player and he wanted the same sort of infrastructure and the same sort of flexibility that he has with ad serving online. And so infrastructure plays a big role. 

[00:19:58] Sean Cheyney: The other thing that plays a [00:20:00] role is education. When you have people within the organization, when I talk about education, there's really. Usually the retail media team has a better level of education. They're typically not the ones that need to be convinced within the organization. They're usually banging the drum and saying, Hey, we need to do this, but you need to be able to appeal to the chief merchant because the chief merchant is gonna say, great. 

[00:20:23] Sean Cheyney: If we do this, how is it gonna unlock value for our suppliers? And how can, as a result, we generate more trade investment. Incremental to what we're doing 

[00:20:32] Todd: Yep. 

[00:20:33] Sean Cheyney: That's one thing. And then the chief marketing officer is gonna have some form of Hey, how is this gonna improve the customer experience? You mentioned, Hey, there are a lot of screens in Best Buy. Just because a retailer has screens in their store doesn't mean they're good. And you have a couple of rules of rules of thinking when it comes to the screens. The hardware companies are coming in and saying, you need to have 20, 30, 40, tons of screens in your stores. But that's not the [00:21:00] case. 

[00:21:00] Sean Cheyney: Just because if you have two screens doesn't mean if you have four screens, you're gonna make double the money. And so there's an equation that plays a lot of inputs that play a role like. The number of people that are going in your store. So foot traffic, increasing more screens doesn't mean you're gonna get the, incremental amount of eyeballs. 

[00:21:20] Sean Cheyney: So you need to think about you need to think about that and then put that into a format that you can go to the CFO. 'cause the CFO is gonna look at it and say, okay, if we're gonna invest, if we're gonna invest in new screens, if we're gonna invest in, if we don't have screens at all, we're gonna invest. 

[00:21:35] Sean Cheyney: What does that payback period look like on the CapEx? Because ultimately that's gonna go back to the the individual store owner. They're gonna look at their p and ls and say, I'm spending all this money over here, and if they're not getting the payback, it's not gonna last very long. So I'd say the big thing, education education infrastructure, and then an actual realistic model that paints a realistic picture.[00:22:00]  

[00:22:00] Sean Cheyney: That can be communicated. And from a financial perspective, everybody feels good with. So you don't end up in a situation where you have, 30, 40 screens per store, a bad experience. Online I used to joke and say, Hey, we're not trying to turn your website into a NASCAR jumpsuit. It's the same thing with the store. 

[00:22:19] Sean Cheyney: You, you still have to think about customer experience. That still plays the Paramount role. Any amount of advertising isn't going to fix a bad customer experience. So that plays the number one role. And then it's really how do the screens play a role in enhancing that customer experience. 

[00:22:36] Todd: You talked about the financial model, and I think that's a good one to touch on just briefly, which is what? What are the KPIs that advertisers are thinking about in terms of in-store? And if you're thinking about, oh, how much revenue can this generate? I'm not sure. Maybe part of it's, to your point about education, the retailers don't know how to model. 

[00:22:53] Todd: The revenue potential. Is it feed, is it screens? Is it like I, I think that might be good to think about and drop some seeds [00:23:00] in terms of educating people about here's how you should think about modeling it out, and here's the inputs that KPIs that are most 

[00:23:05] Sean Cheyney: And the problem that I mentioned before and I was talking about this at an event last week, is that we saw this calculator that some company was touting. It was a hardware company, and they were touting a. Their calculator. Just, move these sliders and you can see how much money you can make. 

[00:23:22] Sean Cheyney: And we said, okay, let us play around with it. And we put some inputs in and it's saying we're gonna generate $600,000 per screen per year. And we're like, that is just not gonna happen. Not even remotely close. And it illustrated. The problem that's out there in terms of they're not good inputs. 

[00:23:39] Sean Cheyney: So when we talk to a retailer, we ask for certain inputs and they always ask why is that? And it gives us a good chance for education. So we're asking for what is the total foot traffic, how, what's the average number of either daily or monthly people that are going into a store? Because if you have two screens, one screen, four screens, that doesn't change the amount of [00:24:00] people that are coming in store. 

[00:24:01] Sean Cheyney: So it's the amount of eyeballs. Number two, how are those screens laid out if they already have screens or if we're recommending screens, do they have one at the entryway, which is a great place for it because everybody's seeing that as they walk in. Everybody tells to come into the store. So that's one thing. 

[00:24:16] Sean Cheyney: Or is it in zones? If they have a screen, let's say in the liquor section, maybe only 30 or 40% of the people are going there. Retailers are really good to know what the foot traffic is at different parts of their so that's an important piece. Store hours play a role. So how long are these ads gonna run? 

[00:24:32] Sean Cheyney: What is their desired, if they already have it in place, what's their desired of length of the spots? Are they gonna be 15 seconds, 30 seconds? Because that also plays a role in the equation. How many ads are somebody gonna see? When they're there. And as a result, dwell time plays an important role. 

[00:24:48] Sean Cheyney: You're probably gonna have a little bit lower dwell time at the store. Think about it, when you walk into a grocery store, you walk into the grocery store, maybe you're gonna see the screen, you're gonna get your cart. Maybe you're talking about 30 seconds. [00:25:00] But if you're in a. Fresh section, or if you're in the liquor section and you're paying a little bit more attention and really selecting what you're gonna see, you're gonna have a little bit more dwell time in those sections. 

[00:25:10] Sean Cheyney: Maybe your dwell time's gonna be as high as two minutes. But I'd say at least 60 seconds. So dwell time is important. And then understanding if they already have screens, the number of screens they already have and where they're located, that's gonna be important. Otherwise we can make recommendations. 

[00:25:28] Sean Cheyney: And then we also like to ask if there. If they don't have any screens and they're looking for a, get a better understanding, or what is the CFO looking for in terms of time to recoup their CapEx? That's another piece. The other thing we ask is are they open to non-endemic advertising that gives an OP option there for programmatic revenue as well, and if so, what percentage are they okay with? 

[00:25:54] Sean Cheyney: Most retailers are fine with 15 or 20%, which is great. Knowing that they can pick and choose [00:26:00] and they can be selective and approve all the campaigns. They still have total control, but what percentage that is, and the last one is what percentage of the screen time do they wanna reserve for their own content? 

[00:26:12] Sean Cheyney: Because now we know what we know, what true amount of screen time do we have available for advertising? If they come in and they say, oh, 50% is gonna be house messaging and content. We know, we now know that we have half the amount of spots that we can monetize, so that's gonna play a role in the equation. 

[00:26:34] Tom: Yeah, and that's worse when you're using a screen that's already supposed to be there, like a television or something, and you're trying to put content in there that may not be a house, that might just be 4K, eight K content to try to show off the quality of the screen. I. 

[00:26:48] Sean Cheyney: Exactly. Exactly. So all of that plays a role. And then as we dive deeper, we'll ask questions about availability of electricity and things like that you need to think about with screens, but [00:27:00] really just the inputs of the foot traffic. The dwell time the length of the spots, the amount of available available share for advertising. 

[00:27:10] Sean Cheyney: And if they're open to programmatic, if we know that information, we can come back to 'em with a really good a really good number in terms of here's what you can expect. And more importantly, we do it in a transparent way so we can show the methodology. And I think that's key. And more and more companies are doing this, but. 

[00:27:29] Sean Cheyney: When a hardware company comes in and just shows a linear model with transparency, it's come on, I, my, my 13-year-old can do that on a on her computer in Excel. So it's getting a little bit more really down into the numbers and using some practical practical things. 

[00:27:44] Tom: I think you know anybody coming from the ad tech world. Things are a little more simplistic when, the consumer owns the device. But when it's in store and there is no sort of consumer feedback, you need to be able to, wipe the, whatever programming [00:28:00] was remotely. You need to see what's going on on these screens. 

[00:28:03] Tom: There's that complexity. There's also the wifi complexity you mentioned, electricity, all that kind of stuff. I think I'm going all I'm going through all this because. I think the reason we wanted to chat with you is, we were we heard the news that T-Mobile acquired Vistar and that for me, rang all sorts of bells, all sorts of opportunities. 

[00:28:25] Tom: Tell me what does it mean to now be part of T-Mobile and what does that do for those challenges? Just wipe away all these hardware challenges. 

[00:28:34] Sean Cheyney: It doesn't wipe them away. Every retailer is still going to choose solutions that work best for them. And, had the it was funny, back in September I was at the Ascendant  

[00:28:43] Sean Cheyney: Conference, the Ascendant Retail Media Conference in in Palo Alto, and I had an opportunity to meet. Cherry and Thomas and August Hansen who run the retail media business for T-Mobile and develop a relationship with them. 

[00:28:55] Sean Cheyney: I didn't know it was gonna be foreshadowing, but and see really what they were doing. So that was [00:29:00] exciting. Also, T-Mobile's been a client of our, of Vistas for years, and so they're using our. Our platform as well. It's another one of those places that, that is using our platform. So we were very familiar with each other from that perspective. 

[00:29:14] Sean Cheyney: But when I was doing my interview with retailers, a lot of retailers were saying that connectivity was a problem for them. And the first thing that came to mind for me when I found out the news of the acquisition was, ah, we now have a very easy solution for the connectivity problem, but also T-Mobile brings. 

[00:29:33] Sean Cheyney: Not just connectivity, they bring hardware solutions as well. They bring some data solutions. If, I mean as a big. As one of the big telcos, they have access to a lot of data, which is fantastic. All things that play a role when you're talking about retail media and in the store. So it really gives a couple more options. 

[00:29:52] Sean Cheyney: You could have one option that's all in, and that T-Mobile team brought. Built a really good solution modeled on what they're doing in their own [00:30:00] stores. So they use their own stores as the test bed and said, Hey, here's what works really well for us. And now they're templating it saying, oh, we can turn this outward and avail these opportunities to other retailers as well. 

[00:30:13] Sean Cheyney: So they have a solution, which includes the hardware, includes the connectivity but some retailers they don't. On the far opposite end, they may say, Hey, all we need, we got the screens, we got a CMS in place. We're good. We just need the ad tech, the SaaS solution to to, to power the screens. 

[00:30:29] Sean Cheyney: We don't need anything else, so it's a matter of being flexible. But what T-Mobile brings is that added hardware and connectivity piece that a lot of retailers, especially a lot of mid-size retailers. They need that. They don't have that solved, so they need that, and it provides an easy button for those retailers to bring in a T-Mobile solution. 

[00:30:51] Todd: So you brought up a, we were, as we're getting on, getting prepped for this, we were talking about, you mentioned ascendant talking about events, and I think it's fun to dive down that's not an event I'm as familiar [00:31:00] with. So in the scale of like retail media events, we met at Sean and I met for the first time at Shop Talk. 

[00:31:06] Todd: Which is an interesting event, because it's been I remember Shop Talk Port moved to Vegas, like it originated in San Jose, and Tom was like, really? I'm, oh yeah, it's old. It's an old school like e-comm event Magento and all those big guys used to be there, and now it's migrated as a huge event to Vegas 

[00:31:21] Tom: Yeah, I. It as grocery shop, and so then 

[00:31:24] Todd: There you go. Like an offshoot but it, shop Talk has, it, you go there and it's like shopping cart and logistics tech and search and, and different experiences and, you were there and it's the beginning. You saw other tech vendors who focus in retail media. So retail media showing up now there as an event. 

[00:31:42] Todd: I think it's a secondary. Event for retail media. And then, you've got, there's Shop Talk Barcelona coming up. You mentioned, path to purchase is coming up. We've, we're going to possible, which is turning into the can light of the us and you're, and you know you're not going, but other people are going. 

[00:31:57] Todd: It's more demand side. So we can talk about the different events and [00:32:00] what we like and don't like. 'cause I think it's fun to talk about where the hell are we all gonna be over the next 12 months. what are some of favorite retail media events? 

[00:32:07] Sean Cheyney: it's funny, the ascendant, so years ago when I, especially when I was on the brand side and my first couple years when I was at Triad I was a big supporter of a, an event that was happening in the US by an organization called iMedia. And  

[00:32:20] Todd: I Media stuff was great back in the day. 

[00:32:23] Sean Cheyney: it was amazing. 

[00:32:24] Todd: I loved it as a format. 

[00:32:26] Sean Cheyney: Yeah. And so that format and the way they ran their events. 

[00:32:30] Sean Cheyney: Was just incredible and I got involved with iMedia in 2005 and I turn and 

[00:32:36] Todd: probably doing I media events 2009 to 2016 kind of era. 

[00:32:42] Sean Cheyney: Right to the end there of iMedia. And it was interesting because, I look back and the growth of my career and every, things I've learned and the connections I've made, a lot of those happened in the early days in iMedia. 

[00:32:54] Sean Cheyney: And it's because of the way they structured their events. So when you go to an event like Shop Talk, it's [00:33:00] a huge event and it de definitely has, its has its place, but there are 12,000 people there. You have to go in highly organized. Knowing who you want to meet, you set up your meetings. What's nice about Ascendant? 

[00:33:11] Sean Cheyney: Ascendant is run by Susan McDermott, Marty Marty Funk and others that were involved and that were running iMedia back in the 

[00:33:20] Todd: Oh, I remember Sue McDermott. Yeah, totally is when you bring your name up, I'm like, oh, for sure. Interest. I didn't realize she was working on ascendant. 

[00:33:26] Sean Cheyney: Yeah, Susan is running that, it runs that event. She's the head of that group and it's she patent. Patent and took a lot of things from that worked well from iMedia. The biggest thing is everybody's in a safe space. I. At that event, and they use the term friend that, hey what's told, said in the room, stays in the room. 

[00:33:48] Sean Cheyney: And I think that format works really well. And because of that, obviously not sharing any specifics, but because of that, I. You have all these retailers, you have brands, and you have agencies, and they also make sure there's a good balance [00:34:00] there, that it's not, all, vendors as an example. 

[00:34:03] Sean Cheyney: And for this one, for the retail media bootcamp, they do a few different types of ascendant. They do their digital ascendant, they do a couple other ones. But for the retail media bootcamp there's 125 people in that room. So it's all people who are heads of retail media for retail, for retailers, or for the agency or the brand. 

[00:34:22] Sean Cheyney: These are people who are in it up to their ears every day, and it's the people who are the decision makers. And it's great because as people start sharing, you realize that everybody has had either has had or currently has a problem that somebody else is talking about. And what's also nice is somebody in that room. 

[00:34:42] Sean Cheyney: Has solve whatever the problem is. And so everybody freely shares and it's a great way you walk out of two days there and your head is spinning. You just walk out and go, okay, I just increased my to-do list tenfold. But it's all the right things. So it's really and because it's a close [00:35:00] group and your networking and you're networking and you're going out to dinner, it's a great place to build relationships. 

[00:35:05] Sean Cheyney: So they a phenomenal event. 

[00:35:07] Todd: what you like path to purchase too. And then of course there's the granddaddy in a lot of ways in the us, CES as another. Shop Talk, another big show that has everyone and anyone who's related to media there My  

[00:35:20] Tom: mine was the first, was this 

[00:35:21] Todd: You went and you were shocked at how relevant it, the amount of people you ran across in terms of your background from Quotient. 

[00:35:27] Todd: Tom crazy. So 

[00:35:29] Tom: I on the, when I was at Crisp and then Quotient, I was on the younger side. And so I ended up going to South by all the time. I basically beat that conference to death and went, 10 years in a row. And I was a little bit shocked that, yeah it felt like the same idea. 

[00:35:43] Tom: I didn't have to book any meetings. I just ran into people. Totally the reverse Shop Talk and I think Todd might actually want to kill me after how much I planned at Shop Talk. But 

[00:35:53] Sean Cheyney: But that's happens at can as well. So at can, I always joke with people being in the Chicago area, I would say I run into [00:36:00] more Chicago people in the south of France than I do in Chi on the streets of Chicago. And it's it's because everybody's in one place and, can is another one of those just huge, enormous events, kinda like CE even more so than CES and. 

[00:36:14] Tom: So is there a play to get ketchup and Hellmans and whatever that program is about Chicago allowing ketchup on hot dogs? Is that something that's gonna show up in France now? 

[00:36:24] Sean Cheyney: I know. I hope not. Ketchup should not be on a hot dog. a, I'm not an original. I didn't grow up in Chicago so I just had to adopt that from moving here from Southern California. But yeah, can is a great event. Different shop talk has a different feel to it. I look at Shop Talk, not as much for the content. 

[00:36:41] Sean Cheyney: I look at it for more of the the meetings and the networking and being there, and I had more than 20 meetings in three days at CHOP Talk because I planned ahead and that's great that event. Whereas Ascendant, it's a good blend, but the content there is second to [00:37:00] none. 

[00:37:00] Tom: Because in-store is burgeoning and new, it is a topic at a bunch of different events, but out of home, in-store, are there specific events for that or is it good idea to do specific channel events or is that kind of over. 

[00:37:13] Sean Cheyney: There is a in-store specific event for path to purchase. My thought, and I've always been talking about I started off talking about this, that retail media for in-store is a part of the overall retail media ecosystem. Yes, you can have some time that's dedicated to it, but would you have a conference around sponsor products? Pro, probably not. It's a piece of the overall equation. And so I like when it's a, maybe it represents 30% of the content for an overall retail media event. Path to purchase does a pretty good job of this as well with their content planning that it should be a component. We've done a good job. 

[00:37:53] Sean Cheyney: We recently had an announcement a few weeks ago where we're, we did an integration with placements.io, [00:38:00] which is a order management system  

[00:38:02] Todd: Yeah, we know them well. 

[00:38:03] Sean Cheyney: And the reason is, the reason for doing that integration is being part of the overall ecosystem, being in a place to make less fragmentation and make it easier for retailers to operationalize the in-store piece. 

[00:38:16] Sean Cheyney: And allow buyers to buy however they're buying. So again, make it easier for everybody in 

[00:38:21] Todd: And that's the pitch of Zia, who we recently had on our is how do and I think one of the, that when I say trade is eating retail media, that's kinda the point, is Zia's trying to say, how do I get a dashboard? Of anything we can sell to a vendor, right? Both traditional trade and end cap is no different than a digital screen. 

[00:38:37] Todd: At the end of the day. They serve different purposes, but it should be pick and choose what's best for you, not just because person A sells it versus person B. I think this orchestration layer has been missing free retail media. It's like neon as a platform on the buy side, right? Coming outta Horizon Media as one of the first multi-channel. 

[00:38:57] Todd: Platforms to buy and orchestrate retail media [00:39:00] campaigns, because I think that's one of the other things is we're missing as retail media, which is if you're not getting the agencies to manage and execute campaigns, you are gonna be topped out at what you can do. And traditionally that they haven't been involved. 

[00:39:13] Todd: And I'm like as an ad tech person, I go, how can you not be selling to agencies? They don't play nuts because that's hard. 

[00:39:19] Sean Cheyney: have to make it easy them to buy as long as you make it easy. And I know you know, Troy and the folks, they do a great job and I've been very impressed by the way they've been able to orchestrate. It's simply creating that single front door. For the retailer to manage and for the brands and agencies to buy. 

[00:39:38] Sean Cheyney: If you do that, you're gonna be ahead of the game. And the retailers that have done that have done a good job. It also removes one of those barriers for in-store because again, it's not over here. It makes it more apart. Of what they're doing from a retail media perspective. So anybody who's doing an orchestration piece correctly, whether it be somebody like Placements or Scha on the commerce [00:40:00] on the commerce platform side they have a leg up because they're able to bring everything together and do that single front door that, that all brands, agencies, and the retailers eventually wanna move to. 

[00:40:11] Todd: So I guess one of the takeaways is clearly Vista is supporting that, whether it's the itches or placements and whatever. It's like you're trying to make it however it's easy to buy. We wanna be there. And I guess your programmatic background in DOH makes sense. 

[00:40:23] Sean Cheyney: Yeah, integrate and collaborate. That's our people over here hearing me sick of me saying those two words, but it's about collaborate and integrate . And, I'm really lucky at Vista that I. We have a very robust API ecosystem, and it goes back to where the company that all these comp, all these people work with and they don't realize it. 

[00:40:43] Sean Cheyney: We do, you do that with all these other, media owners and different platforms. We have a very strong API structure, so that allows us to do integrations within the retail media ecosystem very easily. And so that, that's how to get ahead and. With my background coming from Citrus, [00:41:00] which then Tom, as you mentioned, got acquired by Publicis Group and rebranded as Epsilon Retail Media. 

[00:41:05] Sean Cheyney: Now I was really working with Epsilon. I wasn't collaborating with Che or Top Sort or Criteo, for example. But I. Now I'm in a position where it's, I can wrap my arms around these people, and it's not, it's, the secondary fun part for me is that I've known all these people that are all these companies. 

[00:41:22] Sean Cheyney: I've known a lot of these people for a decade or more. So it's a lot of fun to say, all right, now let's actually collaborate. Let's work together. Let's help each other to really build here. And it becomes a symbiotic relationship for our two companies because those companies can go to their retailers that they're talking to and say. 

[00:41:40] Sean Cheyney: Which comes up in a lot of RFPs now as well. They can go to 'em and say, Hey, we have this capability because we partnered with Vista. And then for us, we'll have those same companies say, Hey Vista, we're working on this RFP, we'd love you to be part of it here and work with you. We'd like to introduce you to this company. 

[00:41:56] Sean Cheyney: So it becomes that symbiotic relationship. And ultimately the people [00:42:00] at benefits are the retailer and the buyer. 

[00:42:02] Tom: Great. Thank you so much. I think Todd has to hit the grocery store and see some of your screens. So I think we're run outta time, but I just really enjoy the conversation. I also really enjoy the fact that you've been there from the beginning and are able to now basically support the ecosystem that you've created. 

[00:42:18] Sean Cheyney: Yeah, and it's funny back years ago when I was at Triad, we would talk to some of these retailers and they'd say, not in a million years am I ever gonna have any advertising website or advertising in my  

[00:42:29] Todd: say never say never. 

[00:42:31] Sean Cheyney: And these are the same companies that are now have, dove in head  

[00:42:34] Todd: Absolutely.  

[00:42:35] Sean Cheyney: It's funny how things change once we hit that tipping point. And uh, you know, COVID was a good was a good catalyst for that tipping point with retail media. And now that we've seen that, it's fun to see the different types of conversations that we're having now versus the ones we're having 10 years ago. 

[00:42:50] Tom: Great. Thanks again for joining the middleman. 

[00:42:52] Sean Cheyney: Thank you. 

[00:42:53]  

[00:42:53]