# S2 E24 T44 - Albertsons Groceryshop

S2 E24 T44 - Albertsons Groceryshop 

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[00:00:22] Tom: Welcome to the Middlemen. This is going to be our first of three interviews that we have, from grocery Shop 2025. . This one was a lot of fun for me. With Brian Monaghan of Albertsons. He's the new, head of retail media there. And just for the audience, I used to work with Albertsons very closely when I was a quotient, and I think people don't realize that it's really. 

[00:00:45] Tom: It may be called the Power Regional. It's really a national, uh, brand of companies. It may be Vons in Los Angeles, it might be, uh, jewel Osco in Chicago, STAMA in Boston. You've got Acme or [00:01:00] Acme here in Philly. So people really think of it as their local brand and a lot of times they don't realize how big it really is. 

[00:01:06] Todd: One thing I think that's, that's meaningful and you know, we, we started talking about with Sarah Manzano about the scale of Albertsons and the amount of people it reaches, right? It, it stores cover 180 million, which is 60% of the US population. I think they have 80 million people in their loyalty program and. 

[00:01:24] Todd: When we think about the, the 15% of retail media that is not Amazon and Walmart, that 15% is gonna grow like gangbusters because you look at the scale of some of these businesses like Albertsons, it just, I, I don't, I don't think people, I think we undersell, I much more retail media can grow because of the scale of some of these entities. 

[00:01:44] Todd: Brian talks a about. How, even though retail media has existed at Albertsons for a few years, many years now, as he steps into the role of running Albertsons, the work that still needs to happen in terms of consolidating those 23, uh, operating [00:02:00] divisions under a holistic retail media platform. 

[00:02:03] Todd: And Brian is clearly looking to embark on how do I consolidate the operations and help use that to scale. Business in a really meaningful way. And I think Brian really brings some good energy and perspective. And I think one of the most important aspects about Brian, he's been at a number of agencies. And a senior exec at these agencies and he mentioned home talk about it. We started as a media planner. So I think as we think about how do we scale that 15% and grow that business, and one of the things you and I have talked about before is how do we bring agencies into the mix? 

[00:02:39] Todd: How do we get them to be buyers? And I think Brian's got some interesting thinking and, and you know, we have some interesting discussion around what is it gonna take for retail media? To work with agencies and how do we bring them in and how do we scale? And this isn't about stealing share, like stealing business from Amazon and Walmart. 

[00:02:56] Todd: It's about growing the pie so that 15%, Amazon and [00:03:00] Walmart might grow 5% a year as a retail media business. But then these other retailers will be able to grow 15, 30, 50% year over year. And that's really gonna grow. That end of the market. So it's, it's, I think that's where the, there's such upside as you look at some of the scale of some retailers still to really embrace and now grow and scale retail media. 

[00:03:20] Todd: It's gonna be fascinating to watch. And what's interesting is, um, really Brian and I crossed paths. 10, 15 years ago when he ran the Microsoft business at Universal McCann, 

[00:03:29] Todd: and so it's fun to have someone in my background, not just the question, but he's, he's a non Quotient mafia member of your retail media. I think that's really one of the interesting things is we have a non quotient alumni running Albertson's retail media business now. 

[00:03:42] Tom: Yeah, let's, let's be clear. Brian May have the best resume in retail media right now. 'cause he came from the Walmart business and then, uh, he ran Dentsu Merkel and their retail media capabilities. Um, and you know, to your point, he's not from the Triad Mafia, he is not from the Dunhumby Mafia. 

[00:03:58] Tom: He is not from the Quotient Mafia. [00:04:00] So. All, all of that is to say that, um, a new perspective is welcome here. And let's be fair, Albertsons has had retail media since really like 2017. Um, and what has been, I think a challenge for them. Is that they are bigger than some of the power regionals, smaller than, uh, Amazon and Walmart. 

[00:04:19] Tom: But to your point, they really do have the scale to be a player and grow. And so I, I would think that's a reason why Brian would want to go in and take the helm here is because it is a really great asset, um, as a, as a grocer. Sarah Marzano explained the in-store, you know, opportunity of 2300 store versus 600 for, for Amazon. 

[00:04:40] Tom: There's a lot of great stuff here. But it's gonna take, moving it to the next level and, and being easier to buy. , And there's a lot, there's a deep bench at Albertsons with Li Liz, Roche on the measurement side. Um, lots of other, you know, players here who are looking to show their self-service capabilities, their digital outta home [00:05:00] capabilities, all the things that they talked about at grocery shop can bring to bear on this sort of holistic solution. 

[00:05:05] Tom: For me, this was a great, coming home episode of The Middlemen. Um, get to, you know, talk about a business I used to work on. Um, and it was great to hear Brian's vision for the future.  

[00:05:16] Todd: Brian's really a thoughtful and engaging, person. And I, to your point, I think Albertsons, did a great job hiring someone like him and bringing a, a little different perspective to this space. And I, I, I really enjoyed talking to him. He is an extremely articulate and thoughtful person, and it'll be fun to watch what he does with Albertsons and it's good to bring some of that, that point of view and energy and ideas to retail media with a platform like Albertsons. 

[00:05:48] Todd: To help us continue to grow this as as a sector, and so it'd be fun to watch what he does with it for sure. 

[00:05:53] Tom: Great. Well, let's get to the discussion. 

[00:05:55] Tom: [00:06:00] [Mic bleed] didn't work. Because you worked in the Albertsons Oh, yeah. Yeah.  

[00:06:14] Tom: I mean, I was a product guy, so I was across everything. But I remember  

[00:06:18] Tom: working  

[00:06:18] Tom: with Albertsons, you know, when we started to launch sponsored products and it was like, let's do Affinity Baskets and see like, you know, if somebody buys chips, let's show them salsa. 

[00:06:27] Tom: And like  

[00:06:28] Tom: it was a lot of  

[00:06:28] Tom: fun back then. It was kind of like this is a total greenfield thing.  

[00:06:32] Tom: Um,  

[00:06:32] Tom: and then. Since then,  

[00:06:34] Tom: things  

[00:06:34] Tom: have moved more and more professional. We, we, you know, they brought in somebody from Dunhumby, Christie Gellan,  

[00:06:41] Tom: uh,  

[00:06:41] Tom: to sort of, you know, relaunched the business, but now they're bringing in people from the media world, somebody from Merkel, Densu, somebody who actually knows what the agencies are thinking. 

[00:06:51] Tom: So we wanted to talk to you. 

[00:06:53] Tom: Well,  

[00:06:53] Tom: welcome home soldier.  

[00:06:54] Tom: Thank you.  

[00:06:56] Tom: I'm excited to be  

[00:06:56] Todd: I'm excited to be here. Yeah. Yeah,  

[00:06:58] Todd: no, we'd  

[00:06:58] Todd: love to 

[00:06:58] Todd: hear your, you know, [00:07:00]  

[00:07:00] Todd: understand to  

[00:07:00] Todd: Tom's point, Brian, in that,  

[00:07:02] Todd: you know, I think  

[00:07:03] Todd: what's fascinating if you look at the retail media landscape  

[00:07:05] Todd: are the, the changes and the people who are being brought in to run these efforts. Lisa Valentino at Best Buy, coming from espn.com and your background in the agency and other RMNs.  

[00:07:15] Todd: Um, is I think, unique journey. So I think it's good to kind of understand the perspective. It's not the izing person running RMNs anymore, it's  

[00:07:21] Todd: people from the media world who are now the people who are selling a media business. It'd be great to hear,  

[00:07:26] Todd: you know, your story and how you ended up at  

[00:07:28] Todd: Albertsons.  

[00:07:30] BrianMonahan: Yeah. And thanks for having me, Todd. So, um, listen, I I think retailers are realizing, um, having a media not just a nice to have, it's a must have, right? It's, and it's, it really. Forces the transformation of the core business. Yeah, Right. It's not, just a retailer with a media business off to the side. It's some sort of hybrid. So trying to bring some of that DNA into these companies that comes from the media world. [00:08:00] I mean, I'm a, i'm a proud, proudly trained media planner. That's how I grew up. I started as a spot television buyer and got into media planning, um, and went retail side and was at walmart when we. Launched walmart's retail media network. and um,  

[00:08:18] BrianMonahan: and then went to pinterest and, um, saw how media platforms were starting to figure out how to work with retailers', data and, and, uh, partner with retailers. And then for the past few years at Dentsu, I've been leading the retail media practice at Dentsu, so working with retailers and brands around the world. Trying to work together.  

[00:08:34] Todd: And that we've often had about media agencies and their role in retail media. It seems to be underdeveloped at this point in time. So it's interesting. That it was a practice you were building at Dentsu. And what exactly was Densu doing when they were working with brands and retailers in those engagements? 

[00:08:48] BrianMonahan: Well, I would, I  

[00:08:49] BrianMonahan: would say Dentsu was doing a lot of of different things for different retailers and brands around the world. But Agency's role in retail media is in in [00:09:00] many cases takin orders, you know, 'cause retail media hasn't really been planned. Right. Well, and that's it's been it's, been allocated. Right? It's like, hey, here's a percent of gmv. Right. Go forth. It hasn't really been planned to any sort of like addressable audience. And we have 175 million americans in Albertson's trading radius. Right. And we we don't set budgets off that yet. Okay. Okay? We, we basically are, you know, working off some allocation right. By and large. But that needs to change, right. Because. It's not how humans make decisions. There's a path to purchase. There's a full funnel customer journey, right? They weave in out of our retail ecosystem alongside others, we need a planning process that can bring all that to bear. And you know, we're here to capture our unfair share and drive more sales for our suppliers than the other retail customers they work with.  

[00:09:48] Todd: we've talked the re, Of the things I think. that has to happen to take retail media to the next level is the inclusion of agencies as planners, and especially if they wanna move, you wanna move top of [00:10:00] funnel. The brand agencies, the dens of the world, control those budgets. And so what are the things that the, you know, now that you're on the other side. How do you Make that easier? How do you include them as planners? How do you, is that a brand side? You know, you have to get their permission to, to include them as a planner. Because if we can unlock that planning piece of it and really include the agencies as a part of a tri pole element to this like it is in every other media business, yeah. That would be a huge unlock. So what's holding that back? You know, them as planners. Is it the, to your point, is it just allocation? We have to move to sell them differently?  

[00:10:30] BrianMonahan: You know, a lot of people would say the reason why brand and trade and shopper are different is because, you know, one's got a national and one's fundamentally focused on individual retail accounts. Mm-hmm. A, a, media planning shoe to drop, which is, how does a, someone with a national remit take. Data and surfaces from [00:11:00] multiple retailers and then thread it into some rationalized allocation. I think to be the bet we're making. It's gonna be multi-touch attribution, right? It's gonna, and we don't necessarily think it's multi-touch. We think it's more test to control, what have you, but nonetheless, it's showing the aggregate business sales lift, right? That you get when you layer multiple pieces of communication on top of each other, right? And that'll inform the overall allocation. I think we gotta work back into those budget allocation tools to help them make smarter decisions, not just on uh, efficiency, which is what they do now. right. Right, She is what they optimize for. Well,  

[00:11:39] Tom: yeah, I mean it was interesting to listen to Liz Roche talk yesterday talking about how Albertsons launched an API in January Pepsi is using it seemed like. Um, and you know, there was the idea types of demand models and things like that, so. It's interesting for because probably 2, 3, or [00:12:00] whatever the retailers. positioning was, there is no real access to data. This is just sort of like, you know, come and be a part garden. Um, having an API means that you're starting to give brands some Where is, is that part of how this changes? Is that the bottom up that you're talking about or is that something else? 

[00:12:20] BrianMonahan: I think it, I think it does. Change. We have to figure out how we integrate into those tools that are looking across the totality of the media landscape, right. At the same at work at making our little hedged garden work as hard as possible. I mean, I think we're all headed towards some version of p max or advantage Plus. Right? Right. take the, the signal we sit on top of all of touch points that we can. Control and make, try to make really smart decisions on what to show to whom, when and what drives the sales lift.  

[00:12:56] Tom: But in the short things like buy one, get one for retail [00:13:00] media planning. So you're, you're using some tactics to try to stoke the the market, right?  

[00:13:04] BrianMonahan: Yeah. I mean, yes. So, you know, it's retail. that doesn't love a bogo? Yeah, but what, what I think it's cool about that. That, that program, Tom. Is, it's the first time I've, to my knowledge that you've seen a retailer align its enterprise spend with a RMN advertiser spend at the audience Right. So what we've fall that advertisers that buy an impression through the collective, we will match that impression of that same audience with one of our enterprise audience, right? Yeah. So like a, you know, football tailgating, drive to store enterprise campaign with a, you know, item based AMC RMN campaign to the same person, right. So just trying to line up. Some frequency, right? 'cause that's how humans and kind of prove this whole path model right. At the same time. Correct. Correct. And listen, we, we at the collective are really trying to live up to [00:14:00] our name, right? Right. Albertsons Media Collective. What's gonna drive collective growth for our advertising partners, our merchant colleagues, and our shared end customer. Right? Right. She'll, she'll vote with our pocketbooks. Yep. We'll know if it works or not. Right? But we need to start bringing more to the table. Other than just asking for money and saying, here's an impression, we have other assets we can bring. In this case it was our enterprise campaign, so we could do the bogo, and you know, we're excited to do a lot more of that in the future.  

[00:14:30] Todd: I mean, that's an that kind of full funnel interest and demand. Historically speaking, I think retail media has been, oh, we're just gonna be just like shopper this bottom of the funnel, larger conversion base. Digital incentive based. And I think the promise of retail media has been, oh, we can get brand dollars. That's a real lift to the margins of retailers and to their business and capture that. And I think what's been missing is the, it's kind of like the, uh, the underpants gnomes of, you know, step one and then question mark, step two, and then three step. Profit, right? I [00:15:00] think that's been a large part of our meds of like, oh, we didn't get the brand dollars. That's like step three, right? But we haven't figured out the steps necessary to pull that off. And I think now that retail media has reached a certain scale, we have to get smarter and better about how we're gonna rationalize how we sell. And, and fundamentally, I'm super excited about retail media as someone who's been in, so I ran into Brian back 10, 15 years ago and he was at, um, running a Microsoft account and I've been selling ad tech stuff and related things for a long time. And you know, so brian's got a huge deep network in the digital ecosystem and we've sort of seen this from, and I think one of the things that we look back on is when digital started, it fundamentally wasn't its fair share of media dollars based on time spent. 

[00:15:40] No one: Mm-hmm.  

[00:15:40] Todd: And we were talking with Sarah eMarketer recently, and she brought up kind of the same thing. If you look at in-store traffic and the amount of time spent with retailers, both digital and physical, like the in-store environment. Retailers today are the equivalent of what digital was 15 years ago. It is not capturing its fair share of dollars based on time [00:16:00] spent. And so I think 

[00:16:02] Tom: what's further to that, she basically showed us a slide that said, you know, Amazon's only got 600 stores, uh, because of Whole Foods. Um, but you have 2300. And so if you're running in-store media, you have a, a, a comparative advantage to Amazon in that, in that case. So. Know, that you're really, you're pulling on? I know I saw that you had a partnership 80 stores. 

[00:16:25] BrianMonahan: Mm-hmm. So it's a new it's a pilot. Yeah. 

[00:16:28] Tom: Yeah. Is that a big unlock , is this a big carrot to the media buyers, or is it. Like, is it a fundamental way to sort of rethink your trade marketing? Like what you, how do you look at this?  

[00:16:41] BrianMonahan: Well, stores are a media canvas, right? They're a that reset for the digital era. Yeah, right? Like the unlock for digital retail media has been addressability and attribution. Right? Um, [00:17:00] it the same digital in store, but that's the key, right? It's like how do you get some approximation of who saw what and what went in the basket. So stores  

[00:17:12] BrianMonahan: need  

[00:17:13] Tom: reimagined. Our little digital screen pilot that you referenced, tom as a step in that direction, right? We've got some great timestamped serving that happens there. Right? We've got incar beacons, right? Oh, you do? Okay. Interesting. Yeah, that  

[00:17:27] Todd: sounds wicked  

[00:17:28] BrianMonahan: We have to. Run the, regulatory Allowances around that instore tracking and whatnot. But there's, there's a lot we can learn, frankly, in the US from outside of the US I mean, other retailers that haven't been able to get fat and happy with the offsite audience extension stuff have gotten much smarter with what they do in store with their signs and screens and whatnot. And so yes, we've got a lot to do in the US to unlock the power of our and the time spent. A harvestable, it's so, it's so, it's so valuable of an [00:18:00] opportunity It's. it's so valuable. I've always taken issue with that whole time spent thing because it's like, is it great they're there, is it attentive? Is it harvestable time spent? And that's where I to do. So for example, fair for example, when you place a e-commerce order with Albertson, now, you, you go up to, we call it Drive Up go, yep. So you drive up, you you check in, and we promise that we're gonna have your order out in five min schlep Well, you're sitting there that's 5 minutes. Right. that should be programmed, like should reimagined, Right? Right. So  

[00:18:31] Tom: Just in the same way that Uber's doing in the back of the cab or whatever. We're in the back of the cab,  

[00:18:35] BrianMonahan: We, you know, we've done some stuff. program, um, a little while ago flavor Adventure and essentially was like a. Gamified scavenger hunt around the store. Mm-hmm. So using like points from our loyalty program, incentives, nudges, getting people down aisles, like that's another way we should be like rethinking the can the media store footprint. Right. And making that time spent. Harvestable [00:19:00] I that term.  

[00:19:01] Todd: harvestable. Yeah. Right. Like I think that's a good way of imagining it. Like there's a grooming aspect to it, right? In terms of farming and maintaining a field and growing it, And so yeah, it sounds grocery.  

[00:19:10] Todd: yes. Yeah,  

[00:19:11] BrianMonahan: yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very noisy right now. People are there to shop and so we gotta figure out how we show up in a additive way.  

[00:19:20] Tom: Well, I mean, I think, you know, we had an episode with an ex P&G guy who's now the head of Thrasio, and he was basically saying, look. It would be to have in-store media because the packaging has to do so much work right now. And that's the only thing we've got really. We've got the price tag, we've got the packaging, and then that's it. And there's there, you know, there's, there's no way to dazzle or discover those so, you know. 

[00:19:43] Todd: Yeah, I mean, I think look at all the, the the things we were just talking about in terms of the, the, landscape of an RMN digital offsite in-store. And more importantly the, the addressability of it. 'cause going back to your background in digital [00:20:00] media, I think the challenge with publishing and, and digital ads historically has been attribution because of third party data has been difficult. Mm-hmm. The lack of registration, like all the con, all the the, if you think about media mix modeling around digital advertising was sort of a struggle. And what I love about retail media is it solves that, right? You have a verifiable purchase. Verifiable customer records. Like it's a landscape that that exists that I think solves a lot of the challenges of digital media, that that existed for 20 or 25 years in a really interesting way. And so I find what's great is like people like you coming into the RN world of, we can now layer on top of this really interesting landscape years that exist around around data, around transactions. And if we can bring a media lens to that, that could be part of the unlock, like I think the way you're thinking about it, re-imagining the, the. Experience of shopping digitally, physically, and thinking of of how do I make that into a, a canvas?  

[00:20:57] BrianMonahan: Yeah.  

[00:20:58] Todd: Is really an interesting way of thinking about it. [00:21:00] Yeah. And can unlock a lot of this. So I get really excited about, I, I've been very much a believer that ENSs are the future of media because of of what I was just  

[00:21:07] Todd: Well, it's 

[00:21:07] BrianMonahan: because of the customer view. Right. And I mean, Todd, a lot of your been how to use technology to, to insert a message a journey. Journey. Because, because like, you know, you can say the funnel is dead and people make decisions in an and that is all true. But there generally is a cognitive process, right, how You learned about become, you built some preference, how you get some purchase intent. Like yes, we 60, not often, not often, right? There's often a lot of this mental availability, physical availability. You gotta line it all up. And it's like, how do we start using technology that sits on top of data  

[00:21:44] Todd: Right,  

[00:21:45] BrianMonahan: and learns. learn, Right? Mm-hmm. It's gotta learn like what actually, what combination led to the and then how do we get smarter and plan of that. I, don't know how this is all gonna solve for the great big, vast world of media [00:22:00] planning. We want to participate in that. We're happy to share our, our, data, but for the world we control, we're gonna try to get really smart about all those surfaces and those audiences that we know intimately 

[00:22:12] Tom: starting another promotion, uh, to bring travel into Albertsons, and so that's an exciting one before we even get into it. I mean, I was just thinking based on what you were saying, um, the problem with grocery at this point is that the loyalty program probably has one member, but it's but it's for a family know, I have to make sure that the other people in the house or my wife needs to figure out, do we to buy these things? If it's a new thing. That's a, that's an actual decision versus what we bought every other week. Right. And so travel, um, you you start to know more things about, uh, what these people are doing outside of the store. I is that, is that something that, that, that comes through with these sort of non-endemic partnerships?  

[00:22:51] BrianMonahan: Yes, we get to households and their needs more. What, What, I think is really interesting about [00:23:00] the albertsons chain that's different other national is we're. We're more diversified of the number of banners that are customer shop. Oh yeah. 22 Six of them years or more. Right. So these have fed families for generations. Yeah. We also have a real estate footprint. Right. In the big box strip mall. right. right. We're more urban. So the result the, the sort of legacy relationship and the real estate availability means we see a different type of trip. So we have like this 

[00:23:41] BrianMonahan: taxonomy now of 25 different missions, 25 different trip types of why somebody shops us, you know, the grocery shop, that we could go shop, the stock, uh, the nightly meal solution, what have you. have you. And so understanding the needs behind that to understand more of the, [00:24:00] the needs of that household are gonna help us make smarter about recognizing the mission in the moment and like what the message is that might be helpful of why they're there. 

[00:24:10] Todd: Have you translated those missions into. Targetable or actionable sort of media signals because that's really cool. Like, I mean, as a guy who sold to media planners like Brian back in the day. This is this type of stuff that we can geek out on for the retail people who listen to us. This is how media planners talk. Yeah. And guys who sell media like it to say, oh, can I actually target one of those 25 different missions? That's really cool. And you can start thinking how that could really impact a media plan and how you buy and how you think about moving people. From discovery to conversion. Right. Right. So, right. It's.  

[00:24:42] BrianMonahan: It's, we're working on because coming soon. Yeah, because it's, it's, or something, it's, it's fluid. Right, Right. It's like you're not in the same state perpetually. Right. Right. Like you're in a different mission at different point in time. It's not like. like. I know what you bought in the past. I [00:25:00] know demographics. I know what, those things are  

[00:25:03] Todd: run mission versus the weekly shopping mission versus I totally get It. Makes, it's a, it's a really cool concept. Yeah. And from a media planning standpoint, if you can target that, that's, again, it's kind of the cool stuff that's, I think happening with our mens that never existed. With traditional  

[00:25:16] BrianMonahan: Yeah. Digital advertising. it may be up to the machines to solve. Okay. It may be. So we, you know, um. We've got a that we're just, we've got an mVP Mm-hmm. With closed beta with a couple partners. Uh, the end be. More like p max advantage plus what Tencent has in China. Like you know these optimization. Totally. machine, i'm gonna have to ask you  

[00:25:42] Tom: about what tencent has in  

[00:25:43] Todd: China, but yeah, sounds good. It's, well no, it's just, it's max. It's like the digital buying and optimization. That's what that's always referring to. Yeah. They were original. We Just. Tencent got a real big AI program that's figuring all this out. 

[00:25:55] BrianMonahan: Yeah. By dance. All the super apps in china, right? That's how they roll. Um, and [00:26:00] it works, you know, you go, when say, give us give us your brand, tell us your allowable KPI, and we'll it from there. Okay. You  

[00:26:08] BrianMonahan: and  

[00:26:08] BrianMonahan: that's like  

[00:26:09] Todd: app loving's doing  

[00:26:10] Todd: on the digital download  

[00:26:12] Todd: side,  

[00:26:12] BrianMonahan: Right?  

[00:26:13] Tom: Very much so. Yeah. You, you've been at the Are you now for how long?  

[00:26:16] BrianMonahan: Two months.  

[00:26:17] Tom: Two months. So really early.  

[00:26:19] Tom: you're in the honeymoon phase. So, um, what do you think, like,  

[00:26:23] Tom: you've been on both sides already, but like what do you see the need to sort of overcome over the next year, I guess to make sure that you take Albert's ZI  

[00:26:32] BrianMonahan: we've got at at the collective, right? We've got national scale, right? We've got over 170 million that live in our trading radius. We're the number one or number two grocer and 13, to 15 largest DMAs. We've got over a hundred million addressable IDs. We've got over half a billion trips, like so we've we've got scale, We have to get better at. The ease [00:27:00] can access it, right? So we gotta make, make it easier to do business with us so we're faster, more reliable, well, that's sort of good stuff. We have to make it easier to do business with us all up as Albertson's Inc, right? Mm-hmm. So the across our divisions and merchants,  

[00:27:17] Todd: at. Brand level than before Is versus the level,  

[00:27:21] Tom: when you say like,  

[00:27:22] Tom: uh,  

[00:27:23] Tom: brand, you mean banner, like Acme Jewel Osco versus We call 'em  

[00:27:27] BrianMonahan: divisions, but Yes. Okay. Yeah, so there's the divisional dynamic. There's how you work with merchants, there's how you work with the rm. So we have to get easier to work with. And, and then I think the other thing we have to get better at is transparency and, and a common understanding of what. Drove categories, what drove category growth. I think we get all wrapped around the axle of like stack and racking roas, right? Yeah. well, turns out there's, we published a white paper. This, there's 11 different variables that go [00:28:00] into how you can calculate a roas. Your, your number for the same campaign will swing 30 60% depending on how you set those Yep. And I don't, I don't think any, not many people in the industry actually. Have the time to do the homework to compare one's ROAS to the up to the next. We gotta look at incremental roas. We've gotta get really good at synthetic controls so we can do it cheaper. And faster. We gotta. do new to cus new to uh, category. New to brand, yeah.  

[00:28:27] BrianMonahan: yes.  

[00:28:27] BrianMonahan: Lifetime value. Like we  

[00:28:28] BrianMonahan: to get better signals. 

[00:28:30] Tom: So yes. I have a question about new to brand because I get a little wrapped around the axle. 'Cause I came from this business when it was all about all very simple one-to-one. Yeah. Um, targeting. So tell me about what is new to brand mean? Does it mean. They already shop just not that brand? Or is it, are there, are you you even targeting people who are not even shoppers at Albertson's? Or like what? What does it mean? 

[00:28:53] BrianMonahan: Well, we can only see what happens in our footprint. Yep. For our partners, we want to help them. [00:29:00] drive new to brand all up.  

[00:29:02] Tom: And those partners may be working with data outside of your system to make sure that they don't also buy it on Amazon or something like that. Right. Because  

[00:29:10] BrianMonahan: we, we know from, you know they can't just be the same way, same way. I don't necessarily wanna prioritize one of our, one of our advertisers just taking share of existing traffic we've got. I want them to make the pie bigger. Right? same dynamic for our advertising partners. Like they just don't want to just shift a sale from costco to bonds. Right, we need to. But although you would take that well, I I would I would take it, I mean, same as they would take like getting so it's a dance, but. We have to figure can bring their own data to it. We're, we've been willing to share our conversion data at the clean rooms so our partners can do some modeling on top of it so they can see it themselves. But you know, we'll work with the data we've got visibility to.  

[00:29:56] Todd: Great. Of an investment to your about making it easier [00:30:00] is, is the mandate then that Albertsons is gonna have to radically increase its investment in the product development of the its platforms to pull off what we were just talking about, right? Make it easier to think level the amount of. And as again, as a ed tech guy, I could geek out on the data and systems, what you're talking about. Does albertsons have a lot of that already, or is it now gonna be investing in the build out of that, whether in-house or partners over the next however many months, years, what have you, 'because that's a lot of, a lot of product development. I mean, really cool product development for media geeks, like probably you and I and money. But that's, I mean it's, it's I think could probably like to be money well spent. Like I totally get the roadmap and I think you're. Right. We have to make it easier for, to make people to do business with albertsons. We have to take advantage of our scale. We have to, to pull all these data signals, these really cool data signals that get us a long term digital media guy I've been dying to get to for 20 years. So I see it. And so is is that the mandate now to build all that out? 

[00:30:55] BrianMonahan: One of the things, todd, that's been the biggest change for me coming back to [00:31:00] media 10 years after I. Ran the the RMN at Walmart. 

[00:31:04] BrianMonahan: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:04] BrianMonahan: Is the amount of inbound, um, pitches I get from partners, ad tech partners, they wanna like, help us make money. Of course it's, it's ' 

[00:31:15] Todd: cause the publishing world's dying and it's, it's, our ends of their only hope.  

[00:31:18] BrianMonahan: It's unbelievable. It's so overwhelming. Um, and I the propositions, it's just we've only got so much time Agreed. And so many resources to, so, so, we're, we're going to own the brain and rent the pipes. Right. Okay. So it's like, what the thing that's really important to us is, is our relationship with the household that shops and understanding, more dimensions. Yeah. To your point, Tom, about sort of the partnership with Expedia and say, get some visibility to their travel patterns, like we wanna more about our customers, then we will work with some smart partners that can fire off different pieces of communication at different times. [00:32:00] We don't dilute ourselves, I mean, we've just opened up an engineering team Bangalore. so like we, we, Are you gonna be  

[00:32:07] Todd: building an. an. engineering  

[00:32:07] Todd: team in Silicon Valley like Walmart did with Walmart  

[00:32:10] Todd: Connect.  

[00:32:10] BrianMonahan: Yes. And Walmart Labs Okay. And uh, so we're gonna see albertson Labs then. we'll we'll, you know, we'll see. I mean, you know. Yes. that's your, at least your idea. Your interesting how we did it back then with a bunch of acquihires. Yes. And so. Um, you know, I think that model does work. 

[00:32:22] Todd: I had friends who got aqua hired into walmart Connect. 

[00:32:25] Tom: So we're, we're, we're at time, but I think we're gonna have to let Brian get back to it 'cause he has a lot of work to do. It seems. So thank for joining middlemen.  

[00:32:33] BrianMonahan: Happy to be here. 

[00:32:34] BrianMonahan: It was fun. Thank you. 

[00:32:35] ​