# S2 E25 T45 - Skai S2 E25 T45 - Skai [00:00:00] Introduction to the Middlemen Podcast [00:00:00] [00:00:00] Tom: You are listening to the Middlemen podcast with​ [00:00:20] Tom: Hey Todd. [00:00:23] Todd: Hello. [00:00:24] Meet Jeff Cohen: Ex Amazon's Evangelist, Now at Skai [00:00:24] Tom: So today we're gonna be talking with Jeff Cohen and we started to, , know him when he was at Amazon earlier this year. And, what was interesting for me was that he came from, he was, he was basically like the evangelist for Amazon. Bringing all of those brands together and, and going all over the world and trying to evangelize what Amazon's retail media could do for them. [00:00:48] Tom: I had a lot of fun on this discussion, hearing sort of his story. [00:00:53] Todd: Well, I think also part of the fun is it dates back to your, your early involvement in retail media. Though not a quotient person per [00:01:00] se, obviously touches the world that you guys were, were a part of. And you know, again, speaks to your roots, deep, deep roots in, in this space and this ecosystem. And, uh, if you, you are like, to me, honestly, we should, we can rename the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game when it comes to Hollywood actors to the six degrees of Tom Limongello when it comes to retail media. If you can't get to someone in retail media with like six step, like honestly two steps with you, I'd be, oh my gosh, it'd be shocked, right? I think this is part of that story of, of how interconnected, um, your quotient slash coupons.com was and, and your background. So anyway, that's just a little bit of a side of, [00:01:36] Tom: Yeah, but I wasn't, so, yeah. [00:01:40] Todd: But you were, it turns out, you know, only a degree or two away. [00:01:42] The Rise of Retail Media [00:01:42] Todd: But I think what's nice about Jeff's story is we've talked about the rise of retail media and where does it, where did it come from? And it just didn't happen overnight. And we haven't really heard the story of the rise of Amazon per se. [00:01:53] Todd: Right. In terms of where did it, why did it become so successful? What drove it success from someone who had been, was inside the firewall [00:02:00] at, at Amazon and, and Jeff was, and. He can give perspective as to what he thinks led to the rise of, of Amazon and why it was successful. Especially now that he's no longer at Amazon, he can give perspective and, and to be clear, Jeff's not saying anything that, um, is proprietary or confidential or, or anything like that, and is giving his sort of own personal opinions as to what led sort of generally speaking to the rise of Amazon. [00:02:23] Todd: And so I think that's an important discussion point and story for people to hear. And understand of how did we get here to where we are. And I think that's a key part of what Jeff and and and us talk about , [00:02:34] Jeff's Transition to Skai [00:02:34] Tom: the key, uh, thing that we wanted to know was, , hey, you're leaving Amazon. What could be better than being at Amazon? Um, he's moving to Skai or he's moved to Skai as Chief Business officer there. Um, what does he see as the opportunity for a platform like Skai? [00:02:52] Todd: And. What, in terms of speaking about the future of retail media, I think we're gonna hear a lot about [00:03:00] this in terms of, all right, what happens to that 15% as it moves from 15 to 30 or probably 50% of retail media. And that's, again, not stealing share. It's stealing share from Amazon, but not stealing dollars. [00:03:10] Todd: Like the whole space is gonna grow and just gonna grow disproportionately, we think in that 15%, the non-Amazon, non Walmart 15%, and I think one of the [00:03:18] Tom: I mean it's kind of the discussion that we had with Brian at Albertsons. It's, you know, doing a better job of the time spent with those retailers. [00:03:27] Challenges in Retail Media Fragmentation [00:03:27] Todd: Exactly, and I think now if you're a retail media buyer, the challenge is gonna be the perceived fragmentation, meaning there's gonna be a lot of players. That 15% is gonna be two or three, it's gonna be 50, a hundred, right? There's 400 retail media networks. So how are buyers going to deal with that fragmentation? [00:03:45] Todd: And programmatic doesn't exist in, in the same way it does in the open web across retail media. So what does that orchestration layer look like? And, and platforms like Sky and others are [00:04:00] looking at providing solutions so the buyers can buy more se plan more seamlessly, buy more seamlessly. And by the way, reducing friction. [00:04:08] Todd: We'll allow more dollars to go to that space and, and if we want agencies to show up here, they're gonna need platforms like again, sky and Che and others. And I think that's, you know, where it becomes interesting is how do we make sure that, that it's easy to buy and spend dollars effectively, right? Not just give dollars away. [00:04:28] Todd: Uh, so that buyers can touch as many as re these retail networks as make sense. I think that's where a lot of the growth will come from. [00:04:35] The Future of Retail Media [00:04:41] Todd: So that's really important to look ahead and see where platforms like Skai will help reduce that friction, and so people like Jeff. Are gonna be important and Sky are gonna be important to help enable growth and outsize growth in that 15%. [00:04:51] Todd: And so in a lot of ways, Jeff's moving to I think, where the puck is going. We've talked about this in terms of that 15%, turning into 50% is, I think we're gonna [00:05:00] be, a lot of the interesting actions gonna be and, and it'll be important to, to follow companies like Sky is, they help try to make it it as easy as possible to go from 15 to 50%. [00:05:09] Tom: Yeah, well Jeff, with his roots of, uh, being, you know, really close to the, the buyers and the brands, he's the kind of guy who pays it forward and is always talking about what's coming next. So, um, let's get into the discussion with him and see what he is talking about at grocery shop. [00:05:25] Tom: [Mic bleed] Yeah. [00:05:29] Tom: Appreciate it. [00:05:29] Tom: Glad to be joining you [00:05:30] Tom: guys. [00:05:31] Jeff Cohen: So how many grocery shops your [00:05:33] Todd: first This is my [00:05:34] Todd: first grocery shop. [00:05:35] Jeff Cohen: Yeah. Okay. It's my first since 2018, so [00:05:37] Jeff Cohen: it's really good. It's my [00:05:38] Jeff Cohen: first ever shop [00:05:39] Jeff Cohen: talk I've been to many times. But [00:05:40] Jeff Cohen: first grocery shop and grocery shop is [00:05:42] Jeff Cohen: run by the same people who run shop [00:05:43] Jeff Cohen: Talk. So to be clear. [00:05:45] Tom: So we're, we're excited to be here. I knew you because you were at Amazon, right? And was just about the time when Amazon was gonna [00:05:52] Tom: launch its capability for ads retailers who were not Amazon, be on the platform. [00:05:57] Jeff's Journey at Amazon [00:06:03] Tom: So let's, let's, talk about your tenure at Amazon. You were an evangelist for the seller community, then you were sort of there for the rise of AMC. So tell us, tell us that story. [00:06:09] Jeff Cohen: Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate it. [00:06:11] Jeff Cohen: Um, I spent, uh, a number of years before Amazon, um, building ad tech [00:06:17] Jeff Cohen: that third party sellers were using to manage advertising, which, uh, built me a lot of, um, in In the Amazon ecosystem [00:06:25] Jeff Cohen: Yeah. So we were competing against, uh, pacvue, Perpetua [00:06:28] Jeff Cohen: Downstream media, some of the early [00:06:31] Jeff Cohen: or players in the space, but our audience was more on the third party. [00:06:34] Jeff Cohen: Side than where they were more, more targeting the first party sellers And [00:06:40] Jeff Cohen: what I learned from that was that the industry needed a lot of [00:06:45] Jeff Cohen: Yeah. Um, back in the early days, 2016, people didn't even know what a keyword was or what a search term was or the difference between a keyword and a And so, um, I started building a personal reputation for doing a lot of around [00:06:58] Jeff Cohen: what is Amazon ads, how do you use it? [00:06:59] Tom: [00:07:00] it? [00:07:01] Tom: where [00:07:01] Jeff Cohen: you make investments? [00:07:02] Jeff Cohen: How do you tell the investments are worthwhile? [00:07:05] Jeff Cohen: Um, you know, we were all making up these terms in the industry, tacos and ACOs and other things that [00:07:11] Jeff Cohen: didn't exist beforehand. What about [00:07:13] Jeff Cohen: right? Like, as a, as an acronym. Um, it, it's a, it's a lot more playful than a lot of traditional tech or [00:07:19] Jeff Cohen: ad techy acronyms like [00:07:20] Jeff Cohen: roas, [00:07:21] Todd: right? [00:07:22] Todd: But tacos sounds cool. [00:07:23] Tom: Tacos Sounds [00:07:23] Tom: like fun. What does tacos [00:07:25] Tom: total [00:07:26] Tom: cost of sale. It was when we realized that you needed to take all of your ads, [00:07:31] Tom: um, and your nons spent, your ad spend and [00:07:35] Tom: your total sales, [00:07:36] Tom: and divided by your ad cost, not just your advertising cost divided by conversion. [00:07:41] Tom: Right, and you know, we were making up terms, for lack of a better [00:07:46] Tom: word, we were making up terms in the industry [00:07:49] Tom: to help people understand [00:07:51] Tom: how to see whether their ads were working, whether their investments were paying off. Um, you know, whether they should be continuing to double [00:08:00] down on this thing called sponsored products. [00:08:02] Tom: Um, that led me to get recruited by somebody and I made a joke. I said, well, the only job I would ever take is if Amazon paid me to fly around the world and teach people about Amazon advertising. [00:08:12] Tom: And, um, about three months after that, I was interviewing for a job as a tech evangelist for Amazon Ads. [00:08:19] Tom: Uh, and so when I first joined them, I joined the partner organization working with developers as a customer, so a very tech evangelist type of role with developers as But that [00:08:31] Tom: kind of quickly grew into working with the whole partner community. So I worked with our 3,500 partners worldwide. [00:08:39] Tom: Everything from Pacvue, flywheel to the Skais, and [00:08:46] Tom: to the smaller, you know, upstart companies like an ad brew or a trellis who were, you know, building new technology, [00:08:53] Tom: um, that didn't exist in the space [00:08:57] Todd: One of the fascinating things I think. You [00:09:00] know, as, as we as a [00:09:01] Todd: as a [00:09:02] Todd: podcast have heard a lot about people attacking Amazon and we haven't been Amazon 50%, maybe 60% of retail media spend, [00:09:10] Todd: Walmart being in second place and 15% for everyone else. [00:09:15] Todd: What do you think led to Amazon doing so well in terms of building out their retail media [00:09:20] Todd: the [00:09:20] Todd: point where they are the 800 pound grill at this point and, you know, [00:09:24] Todd: what's your, what's your perspective on how they got to [00:09:26] Todd: where they got? [00:09:26] Jeff Cohen: Yeah. I [00:09:28] Jeff Cohen: think how they got to where they got was a combination of right place, right time, right. Technology. Mm-hmm. Right. [00:09:35] Jeff Cohen: Um, Amazon was growing, the third party marketplace was growing. [00:09:39] Jeff Cohen: And if you think about the simplicity of Amazon ads 10 years ago, it was search, find, buy. [00:09:45] Jeff Cohen: Right. It was just simply enter in a search term, look at the results and buy and sponsored products almost worked [00:09:54] Jeff Cohen: too well, [00:09:56] Jeff Cohen: right? The conversion rate from early days of sponsored [00:10:00] product ads were really high and advertisers saw [00:10:03] Jeff Cohen: a great return on their investment. For every dollar that they put in [00:10:07] Jeff Cohen: as. [00:10:08] Jeff Cohen: Competition grew right as the cost of ads, um, started to go up. Right. Which is natural that it's going to happen. [00:10:15] Tom: right? [00:10:15] Tom: They [00:10:15] Jeff Cohen: Bidded, marketplace saturation, this is what [00:10:17] Todd: Exactly. [00:10:18] Todd: Um, advertisers found it more difficult and so well, naturally you go and you blame [00:10:24] Todd: the [00:10:24] Todd: Platform. Right? Right. It's, it's Amazon's fault that [00:10:27] Todd: that cost have gone up. [00:10:28] Todd: Well, it, I don't think it was really Amazon's fault that the cost went up. I think it was just a natural progression of what happened [00:10:33] Todd: it happened [00:10:34] Jeff Cohen: in Google too with and Facebook and [00:10:35] Todd: Exactly. And if you were there early, you got clicks for pennies on the dollar. Um, [00:10:41] Todd: as, and then maybe there [00:10:42] Jeff Cohen: was [00:10:43] Tom: potentially others hadn't caught up. So that was still, well, I'll put all my money in Amazon 'cause that's more performance [00:10:49] Tom: Yeah, [00:10:50] Todd: think [00:10:50] Todd: that, I think that was part of it. But I think the other part of it was there was a challenger mentality at Amazon, or there is a challenger mentality at Amazon. It hasn't gone away. Mm-hmm. [00:10:59] Todd: And so you [00:11:00] get these upstart brands like a poppy. [00:11:02] Todd: Who lean into Amazon as a Amazon first [00:11:07] Todd: company, right? And [00:11:09] Todd: everything that they're doing is to build audience reach sales on Amazon. [00:11:15] Todd: then you have [00:11:17] Todd: Incumbent brands [00:11:19] Todd: who are, who have more restrictions in their, in their ad budgets and in how they're measuring [00:11:25] Todd: who aren't making those investments. [00:11:28] Todd: And so it's, I don't wanna say it was easy to steal market share, but it's, it is because [00:11:34] Todd: when I was working with third party sellers, [00:11:36] Todd: third party sellers literally looked at Amazon ads or they look at Amazon ads [00:11:41] Todd: ATM machine, if I put a dollar into it and it spit $3 back, [00:11:45] Todd: I'm gonna keep putting dollars in as fast as I can. [00:11:47] Todd: Right. Well, enterprise brands have a budget. They have a budget that they're gonna spend for the month, and then they're going to annualize that. as a per day. [00:11:56] Todd: And if their ads are exceeding their expectations, they don't increase their [00:12:00] budget. [00:12:00] Todd: That's their limitation for the day. [00:12:02] Todd: And so that creates, uh, an environment where challenger brands can take market share. [00:12:07] Todd: And that, I think is what led to a lot of the excitement around Amazon as, [00:12:12] Todd: um, a brand growth platform. [00:12:15] Todd: And advertising was just a way to accelerate the growth of your brand even faster. [00:12:20] Jeff Cohen: When did the, you're now at [00:12:22] Jeff Cohen: Sky. [00:12:22] Todd: Yep. [00:12:22] Tom: Right? [00:12:23] Todd: And feel free to give a description of Skai for the [00:12:25] Todd: audience who's not. Everyone's [00:12:27] Todd: familiar with that. [00:12:29] Todd: you now can give a [00:12:30] Todd: good outsider's perspective on Amazon, right? You're no longer [00:12:33] Todd: under employee NDA and and so forth. [00:12:36] Todd: And so I'm really curious, you know, what, what is your perspective on [00:12:40] Todd: the [00:12:40] Todd: the, strengths And weaknesses of Amazon's [00:12:42] Todd: ad platform today as a third party, as you know, a company like Skai who helps give insights to, to advertisers around Amazon. [00:12:48] Todd: It would be great to kinda get your [00:12:49] Todd: your perspective on Amazon, today. Yeah. [00:12:52] Todd: Yeah, its [00:12:52] Todd: it's, strength and weaknesses as [00:12:54] Todd: an RMN [00:12:55] The Omnichannel Halo [00:12:55] Jeff Cohen: Well, thank you. Um. [00:12:56] Jeff Cohen: Skai is an omnichannel management platform for search, [00:13:00] social, and commerce. [00:13:02] Jeff Cohen: And I think that kind of leans towards, maybe, I don't wanna say the weakness of Amazon, but maybe where, my interest in moving to Skai from Amazon came from, which is the idea that. For brands to be successful today, they need an omnichannel approach. They need to understand how their ads are impacting their particular channel that they're advertising on, but also the other channels. And so one thing I saw at Amazon was that when you were advertising on Amazon, and Amazon grew their inventory [00:13:32] Jeff Cohen: for middle and upper funnel ads and the, uh, expansion of prime video, right? [00:13:36] Jeff Cohen: We were seeing incremental growth that was occurring on your D2C site, on your other channels, even your in store. [00:13:46] Tom: So there was a halo [00:13:47] Jeff Cohen: there's definitely a halo. 100%. [00:13:49] Tom: That's what everybody says there is. but [00:13:50] Tom: but [00:13:51] Todd: yeah. Right. [00:13:51] Todd: heard Well, the the critics family said and questioned that, right? In terms of it's, but your data says there was Right, and you're now a part of a company that's now looking at that every day. [00:13:59] Jeff Cohen: [00:14:00] Right. And so when I was at, when I was at Amazon, what we would do is we would take the first party data from your website. We would then integrate it in through an AMC clean room to understand what type of incrementality was occurring on your website, um, versus what was happening on Amazon. And you could see that. So you could see that halo effect was there. So the question that brands have. To answer, is if I have a dollar to spend, where do I wanna spend it? And so where do other retail media networks come in? Well, there's a lot of incrementality that's out there as you're growing within your digital shelf or within your category, or if you're trying to expand and build your own category. Right? And I actually think that the brands that have been the most successful are the ones that have been able to build their own category, right? Think about like non-alcoholic, uh, drinks and, and the expansion of that category in the last two years. And i'll go back to Poppi as the example, right? They created a whole new category for their product and we've seen a number of brands do that. And [00:15:00] so you need to have this omni-channel approach of what's happening, uh, within. Your main channels, but also where can you go deep where your audience is already shopping. It's meeting your, your shoppers where they are, uh, and investing your dollars at that, at that omnichannel, to get the overall impact that you want across your brand. And so like that's where Amazon doesn't play today, right? Um, that. You know, a, a tool like Skai and and, and others in the space can give a brand that more holistic view of, of what's happening. that's, I think, the challenge. There's two big challenging that I think. Brands are facing today. One is, well, there's a lot of challenges, right? But in particular, in particular, to this topic, there's two. One is, uh, organizationally, [00:15:48] Tom: right? [00:15:49] Jeff Cohen: Uh, brand. We've heard that [00:15:50] Jeff Cohen: been a common theme for the last year since we started this [00:15:52] Jeff Cohen: podcast. [00:15:52] Todd: Brand [00:15:52] Todd: dollars, brand dollars and performance dollars are, are intersecting and you need to, [00:15:58] Jeff Cohen: trade right, as another component, right? That's [00:16:00] there's brand performance And [00:16:01] Jeff Cohen: trade on in addition [00:16:02] Jeff Cohen: to, need [00:16:03] Todd: to be able to see how one is impacting the other. Uh, so that's, that's clear too, is that, [00:16:09] Todd: you know, shoppers are shopping where they're comfortable and you need to go out and you need to reach them in their [00:16:17] Todd: We, you know, it's interesting you, you talk about that. 'cause Tom and I, um, had this conversation with Sarah Marzano for eMarketer and, and earlier in the, that [00:16:25] Todd: we talked, yesterday we talked to Brian Monahan from Albertsons, [00:16:28] Todd: who's now running their [00:16:29] Todd: retail media network. [00:16:31] Todd: And [00:16:31] Todd: what's fascinating is [00:16:34] Todd: that how. [00:16:36] Todd: are not capturing their percentage of spend. When you look at that like they're [00:16:40] Todd: shopper time spent, shopper dollar spent, [00:16:42] Todd: like they're under [00:16:44] Todd: capturing those [00:16:44] Todd: dollars, much like digital did 15 years ago. Yeah, Right. We always talked about digital's time spent and it was underrepresented. Mary Meer would, every year at her report would, [00:16:51] Todd: state of the internet would talk [00:16:52] Todd: about this. I think we're at that same level, and so what's interesting you talk about that, which is [00:16:56] Todd: what is the unlock that helps unlock that? [00:16:59] Todd: where [00:17:00] those dollars can go. 'cause [00:17:00] Todd: you're like saying, Hey, we're Skai We wanna spend where the shopper is. Yep. Is it, is it a, is it a product challenge? Is it a, what was, like, what's the challenges to, to enable that [00:17:09] Todd: spend with those [00:17:10] Todd: that those other retailers? [00:17:11] Todd: So it's not 15% of of retail media spend that they capture, but maybe [00:17:15] Todd: 50% or 60 or 70%. 'cause Amazon's percentage of total retail spend is like [00:17:19] Todd: 5%. [00:17:19] Todd: Right. [00:17:20] Todd: Not 70% [00:17:20] Tom: What, [00:17:21] Tom: what we're hearing in grocery [00:17:22] Tom: shop, [00:17:22] Tom: you know, we had a chance to talk to [00:17:23] Tom: Bobby [00:17:24] Tom: Watts over Ahold Delhaize [00:17:26] Tom: And what he was saying was. [00:17:27] Tom: was, [00:17:28] Tom: if you look at [00:17:28] Tom: the old retail [00:17:29] Tom: media model during the pandemic, you [00:17:31] Tom: know, when I [00:17:31] Tom: was a quotient. [00:17:32] Tom: We would work with them [00:17:33] Tom: and we'd have, you know, the, the [00:17:35] Tom: category [00:17:35] Tom: buyer. The brand buyer was [00:17:37] Tom: six months old, two years old. [00:17:39] Tom: That type of data, you [00:17:40] Tom: would never [00:17:40] Tom: see the Poppi [00:17:42] Tom: buyer. [00:17:42] Tom: Yep. Because [00:17:43] Tom: they, There was no Poppi before. There was fiber [00:17:45] Tom: drinks or prebiotic drinks. [00:17:47] Tom: Same [00:17:47] Tom: thing with GLP ones. There's all sorts of different categories that they should be into. [00:17:51] Tom: And when talking to a lot of people at grocery shop, know, everybody's saying new to brand is really big. A lot of people are saying new [00:17:56] Tom: to categories and [00:17:57] Tom: Even more important. [00:17:58] Tom: So is [00:18:00] that something that Amazon was good at [00:18:02] Tom: or not [00:18:02] Tom: good at? And then to Todd's point [00:18:05] Tom: Is what [00:18:05] Tom: brands are looking at [00:18:07] Tom: to maybe spend with Ahold or Albertsons or [00:18:11] Jeff Cohen: My [00:18:11] Jeff Cohen: answer to that [00:18:12] Jeff Cohen: question is, is that I think Amazon is good at it, but they didn't realize they were good at it. Okay. Right. [00:18:17] Jeff Cohen: Like Amazon was creating categories or was [00:18:21] Jeff Cohen: Amazon has been a place where categories have been able to [00:18:23] Tom: be created. Yeah. [00:18:25] Tom: and [00:18:26] Tom: is that because like the reviews and the other things that the retailers didn't have I [00:18:30] Jeff Cohen: think it's [00:18:30] Jeff Cohen: also [00:18:31] Jeff Cohen: because of search context. Yeah. And how, how people are finding and discovering Right. And it's [00:18:38] Jeff Cohen: maybe like, it's [00:18:41] Jeff Cohen: it, wasn't a deliberate, it wasn't deliberately. [00:18:44] Jeff Cohen: Well, part of the, of the process. But when you walk into, [00:18:47] Jeff Cohen: you know, I always like to say, when you go back to the And you, you walk into the store, you go in and you, you look for what you're specifically looking to buy. [00:18:56] Jeff Cohen: And the beauty of the is that [00:18:58] Jeff Cohen: you can [00:18:58] Jeff Cohen: be looking for what you're [00:19:00] specifically looking to buy, but you can be finding other tangentially, [00:19:03] Jeff Cohen: uh, connected to that [00:19:06] Jeff Cohen: maybe peak an interest to you And [00:19:10] Jeff Cohen: Amazon, right? People bought this, also [00:19:11] Jeff Cohen: bought [00:19:11] Todd: Yeah. I mean, Amazon [00:19:12] Tom: bottom really the Amazon [00:19:13] Tom: page, right? [00:19:13] Tom: Amazon on like those carousels [00:19:14] Tom: of like, you know, taking [00:19:16] Tom: your behavioral, [00:19:17] Tom: you. and purchase [00:19:19] Tom: and saying like, what about this? What Right? [00:19:21] Tom: 'cause [00:19:21] Jeff Cohen: if you do [00:19:21] Jeff Cohen: it in, if you do it in a physical store, you have to go to a totally different aisle to be able to find those things. Maybe there's an end cap that's doing it or something like that, but [00:19:29] Jeff Cohen: so it's I think it's one of those, [00:19:31] Jeff Cohen: back to the specific question, I think Amazon was inadvertently categories [00:19:36] Jeff Cohen: as search [00:19:38] Jeff Cohen: Behavior was changing. [00:19:40] Tom: Yeah. [00:19:40] Tom: had more fluid shelves, [00:19:41] Tom: I [00:19:41] Tom: guess. [00:19:41] Jeff Cohen: Right. [00:19:42] Jeff Cohen: And [00:19:42] Jeff Cohen: so, you know, the consumer was the one that ultimately won [00:19:46] Jeff Cohen: because the con, [00:19:47] Jeff Cohen: you know, I would like to say that the, the strongest signal at Amazon was that you search for something, you found it, you bought it, and you, and you wrote a review. [00:19:55] Jeff Cohen: Right? It's the strongest signal that Amazon has, [00:19:58] Jeff Cohen: and as that [00:19:59] Jeff Cohen: process [00:20:00] continues to [00:20:02] Jeff Cohen: to repeat itself, [00:20:04] Jeff Cohen: that then builds itself into a category. Every time people are searching for these types of things, they're, they're buying these and they're happy. [00:20:11] Jeff Cohen: I [00:20:11] Todd: think what's interesting is we look to. Broad in retail media. Right. I am 100% convinced that 15% today will be [00:20:20] Todd: 50 or [00:20:21] Todd: 75%. Right. More representative of their share of retail [00:20:24] Todd: Mm-hmm. Right. The [00:20:25] Todd: dollars should [00:20:26] Todd: to where the per the purchases are, [00:20:28] Todd: where the time spent [00:20:29] Todd: is, and obviously in-store is this huge unlock over the next five to 10 years. Like that. Tom and I get super excited about that [00:20:35] Todd: Yeah. [00:20:36] Todd: and, but also I think part of it is to your point of like even working at Skai now. [00:20:40] Todd: is [00:20:41] Todd: How do I make it easier to spend across [00:20:44] Todd: these [00:20:44] Todd: retailers? If the person is going into store A, how easy is it to buy [00:20:47] Todd: in store A Yep. And buy media for store A versus store B? And I think the reality is a lot of those systems are, [00:20:53] Todd: are, [00:20:54] Todd: it's hard to do cross retailer buys until things like Skai to get more embedded, more a guy grew up in ad tech, [00:21:00] right? [00:21:00] Todd: My background's, I'm an ad tech guy. I build A DSP. [00:21:02] Todd: I'm [00:21:02] Todd: a very successful DDSP. [00:21:04] Todd: And so what [00:21:06] Todd: made programmatic take off was as the tooling got better [00:21:09] Todd: and easier. [00:21:10] Todd: the buyers, especially in agencies, they could buy cross exchange and buy cross publisher. [00:21:15] Todd: It enabled slew of digital media spend. That was the unlock for digital media was for the rise of And I'm [00:21:21] Todd: not saying programmatic specifically in the case of [00:21:23] Todd: retailers, but tools like Skai have to become more [00:21:25] Todd: popular. And I think the third [00:21:26] Todd: party tools that Amazon made it better, [00:21:28] Todd: like it made it so easy to [00:21:29] Todd: buy whoever you to buy. Yep. It was Amazon plus a hundred other two. [00:21:32] Todd: tools. [00:21:33] Jeff Cohen: now [00:21:34] Todd: those a hundred other tools, as they get plugged into these other retailers and their platforms, maybe that unlocks it. [00:21:38] Todd: And I think that's, to me, we have to make it [00:21:40] Todd: easier to buy. We have to make it easier for agencies to buy, be part of planning and to be part of what [00:21:45] Todd: happens. And so, I dunno if you have that same perspective on [00:21:48] Todd: is [00:21:49] Todd: right, is that third party platform [00:21:51] Todd: ecosystems now starts [00:21:53] Todd: integrating with the rest of retail [00:21:55] Todd: media. Yeah. [00:21:56] Todd: Is that the same unlock that maybe [00:21:58] Todd: helped Amazon too? [00:21:59] Jeff Cohen: Yeah, I think [00:22:00] that's where the unlock of AI is gonna come in. Mm-hmm. Right? Is is that ai, you can ask these very challenging questions too, of like, if I'm gonna spend more money, where should I spend it? [00:22:09] Jeff Cohen: Um, and I think that, [00:22:10] Jeff Cohen: that, [00:22:12] Jeff Cohen: We've [00:22:12] Jeff Cohen: been developing AI for the last two and A half years. And yeah, when it first came out, like a lot of AI in the system, that AI was designed to have high operational efficiency, but as we've trained it at the [00:22:24] Jeff Cohen: um, at the user level, the hands-on keyboard level, it can now answer the difficult questions [00:22:30] Jeff Cohen: that you have [00:22:32] Tom: So, when you're talking about ai, are you talking about helping media buyers buy. campaigns or like set up and do ad ops or [00:22:39] Tom: is it something [00:22:39] Tom: else? [00:22:40] Jeff Cohen: Yeah, ma mainly right now, our AI is around [00:22:42] Jeff Cohen: the planning and [00:22:44] Jeff Cohen: the, [00:22:44] Jeff Cohen: you know, the measurement. But activation will definitely come over time. [00:22:49] Jeff Cohen: Yep. right? [00:22:50] Jeff Cohen: It is. No, I think that that's a good point, right? [00:22:52] Jeff Cohen: That it's the, how your, your point was easy to buy at Amazon, put in a [00:22:57] Jeff Cohen: keyword, you put in a little bid. [00:22:58] Jeff Cohen: Yep. It felt like Google. It was easy.[00:23:00] [00:23:00] Jeff Cohen: And I think [00:23:01] Jeff Cohen: as multi retailer purchasing shows up and I think ultimately [00:23:04] Jeff Cohen: that has to happen. Right? That is the unlock. Just like, again, programmatic made, multi publisher buys [00:23:08] Jeff Cohen: super [00:23:08] Jeff Cohen: easy. Yep. [00:23:09] Jeff Cohen: followed your audience around wherever they [00:23:11] Jeff Cohen: went and, and, to your point, maybe that's a bit, but [00:23:13] Jeff Cohen: you're. maybe solves for some of the integration and [00:23:16] Jeff Cohen: operational challenges of how do you set up a campaign? [00:23:18] Jeff Cohen: I don't even know what [00:23:20] Jeff Cohen: retailers to add if I want to target a particular product or audience or category. Like who's strong in these areas? [00:23:25] Jeff Cohen: And I'm not sure the retailers have unlocked that data [00:23:28] Jeff Cohen: in the same way. [00:23:28] Jeff Cohen: Like is it [00:23:29] Tom: hearing [00:23:29] Todd: well, or category buying is a great example. Like if I wanted to buy across a category, [00:23:34] Todd: do the retailers all use the same definitions of what a category is? [00:23:37] Todd: Probably [00:23:38] Todd: not [00:23:38] Jeff Cohen: They don't. Right. So [00:23:39] Jeff Cohen: there is [00:23:40] Todd: That's [00:23:40] Tom: That's why Instacart is kind of winning hand over fist there. well, and [00:23:42] Todd: what's [00:23:42] Todd: interesting is that [00:23:43] Todd: IEB on the [00:23:44] Todd: programmatic side solved this because [00:23:45] Todd: there's an IEB [00:23:46] Todd: like standard category list that made it [00:23:48] Todd: easy to do. [00:23:48] Todd: Now audience buying became more of a challenge, [00:23:51] Todd: but there were cross, [00:23:52] Todd: there were, you could buy from third party audience vendors who were cross publishing. Yeah. [00:23:56] Todd: But that doesn't [00:23:56] Retail Media and Loyalty Programs [00:23:56] [00:23:56] Todd: really exist in the retailers. [00:23:58] Todd: 'cause you wanna buy the [00:23:59] Todd: actual like[00:24:00] [00:24:00] Todd: Loyalty [00:24:00] Todd: program. People matched to an email again through cleaner rooms. [00:24:03] Todd: Yep. [00:24:03] Todd: Um, [00:24:04] The Need for Standardization [00:24:04] [00:24:04] Todd: But if the category names are different, who's creating the master category? Mapping? And, and [00:24:09] Todd: May, [00:24:09] Jeff Cohen: well, maybe this is my chance to ask for what I [00:24:11] Jeff Cohen: want. [00:24:11] Jeff Cohen: Right, right. Which [00:24:12] Jeff Cohen: is, which is that [00:24:14] Todd: do we get [00:24:14] Todd: standards? [00:24:15] Todd: Is that what [00:24:16] Jeff Cohen: Right? Well, I think I do think we need right? I think standards are gonna come over time. They usually are delayed. does [00:24:21] Todd: does [00:24:21] Todd: IBE maybe step into [00:24:22] Todd: here [00:24:23] Todd: a [00:24:23] Todd: way [00:24:23] AI's Role in Retail Media [00:24:23] Jeff Cohen: Well, they, they just. [00:24:24] Jeff Cohen: They just [00:24:24] Jeff Cohen: announced. They just announced the ai, [00:24:27] Jeff Cohen: an AI board. [00:24:29] Todd: That's [00:24:29] Todd: but not like retail media specific, like this category. [00:24:32] Todd: Like, okay, let's normalize categories. Let's come up with a standard to, you know, [00:24:36] Jeff Cohen: But I think what technology for this, [00:24:37] Jeff Cohen: I I think what we're gonna need is signals coming from. [00:24:40] Jeff Cohen: The retailers that help train the AI to say, when you're seeing this and this and this, Like using Instacart as an [00:24:47] Jeff Cohen: example, when you're seeing this and this and this, [00:24:50] Jeff Cohen: that is an indication that [00:24:52] Jeff Cohen: you should be investing in, you know, long tail [00:24:56] Jeff Cohen: retailers Instacart is your opportunity to do. it.[00:25:00] [00:25:00] Jeff Cohen: And then you implement a [00:25:01] Tom: a [00:25:01] Tom: test and learn. [00:25:02] Jeff Cohen: well [00:25:02] Jeff Cohen: I mean, I [00:25:02] Jeff Cohen: remember [00:25:02] Tom: So you can get, talk abou [00:25:03] Data Analytics and Brand Indexing [00:25:03] Tom: t [00:25:03] Tom: this on the data analytics side. It was all about [00:25:05] Tom: like, how well does the brand index on [00:25:07] Tom: that specific retailer? [00:25:08] Tom: Like [00:25:09] Jeff Cohen: right, [00:25:09] Tom: you [00:25:09] Tom: might be, you know, a beauty [00:25:11] Tom: brand, um, [00:25:12] Todd: and [00:25:13] Tom: you know, you [00:25:14] Tom: you, [00:25:14] Tom: get [00:25:15] Tom: incredible brand index [00:25:16] Tom: at [00:25:16] Tom: like, [00:25:17] Tom: Sephora, Ulta, whatever. [00:25:19] Tom: but you're also at Albertsons or they're also at, you know, CVS. [00:25:22] Tom: But where I, [00:25:23] Tom: and, and you have the situation where [00:25:25] Tom: size [00:25:25] Tom: of [00:25:25] Tom: store and [00:25:26] Tom: the amount of [00:25:26] Tom: transactions that, [00:25:27] Tom: flow [00:25:27] Tom: through there, you look really [00:25:28] Tom: small Comparatively. [00:25:30] Tom: Right. So like [00:25:32] Tom: those signals would be [00:25:33] Tom: great. But [00:25:33] Tom: are, [00:25:33] Tom: is anybody gonna share those? [00:25:35] Jeff Cohen: I, I think they will over time. They're not being shared right now, [00:25:38] Todd: Albert. [00:25:38] Todd: just announced their API for data for the first time. Maybe. That's a, that's a huge, by the way, that's a huge step because they're really such a large grocery player. It's not one of these long tail guys doing it. It's a major [00:25:48] Todd: player [00:25:48] Todd: doing [00:25:48] Jeff Cohen: Yeah. it. [00:25:49] Jeff Cohen: It's, [00:25:50] Jeff Cohen: for, [00:25:52] Jeff Cohen: as AI is making more decisions on our behalf and helping us to, [00:25:57] Jeff Cohen: get the data that we need, right. I I, a [00:26:00] true believer that needs to be a human in the loop. These aren't just like black box type of decisions. [00:26:05] Jeff Cohen: the retailers will start to provide the [00:26:08] Jeff Cohen: additional necessary, [00:26:09] Jeff Cohen: either clean room to clean room type of conversation, or just. [00:26:13] Jeff Cohen: know, signals of, of what type of audiences are available. [00:26:17] Jeff Cohen: Yeah. Um, [00:26:17] Jeff Cohen: you know, one of the things I learned at at Amazon was, um, every time I learned about a new product at [00:26:23] Jeff Cohen: I was always blown away because you'd like, oh, okay. Like I'm now learning more about podcast. And all of a sudden you're talking to the podcast team and you find out that podcast has a 40% incrementality [00:26:34] Jeff Cohen: of people who are, um. [00:26:36] Jeff Cohen: Are not watching [00:26:37] Jeff Cohen: Prime video or streaming television. [00:26:40] Jeff Cohen: And at first I hear that and I'm like, well, that's a really high number. And then I stop and I think about it and I'm like, wait, that's my wife. [00:26:46] Jeff Cohen: Like my wife, my wife doesn't watch streaming television. Right. She reads books and she listens to podcasts. [00:26:51] Jeff Cohen: And so as we, we can think about that from, uh, an audience type of perspective. And if the [00:26:57] Jeff Cohen: retailers can give us the [00:26:58] Jeff Cohen: signals [00:27:00] help us indicate [00:27:01] Jeff Cohen: where those. [00:27:02] Jeff Cohen: of signals would match to shopper intent. Yep. Then the AI can become more intelligent [00:27:07] Jeff Cohen: to make the decisions. [00:27:08] Jeff Cohen: And [00:27:09] Jeff Cohen: ultimately, at the end of the day, [00:27:11] Jeff Cohen: uh, retailers need to be doing continuous test and learn. [00:27:14] Jeff Cohen: Yep. And that's how they're, they're all growing and expanding of what they're doing. And, and if AI can help them make more intelligent decisions, you can speed up that process. [00:27:24] Todd: Well, I think what's fascinating here also is you think about RMNs, RMNs are evolving [00:27:31] Todd: in the world of ai. Mm-hmm. [00:27:33] Todd: Where [00:27:34] Todd: RMN, like Amazon or programmatic did not, it was pre ai. [00:27:38] Jeff Cohen: Yep. [00:27:38] Todd: And it required a lot more [00:27:42] Todd: sharing And [00:27:43] Todd: topology and standards. [00:27:46] Todd: And, and to your point, maybe a [00:27:48] Todd: helps this evolution go faster [00:27:51] Todd: to go retailer [00:27:52] Todd: to retailer [00:27:52] Todd: in a way that we hadn't [00:27:53] Todd: necessarily had had before. And so I think it's [00:27:55] Todd: an interesting use case of like, why, how does AI help unlock [00:27:58] Todd: AI help [00:27:58] Todd: arm ends[00:28:00] [00:28:00] Todd: faster? Right. Because I think the, the biggest [00:28:02] Todd: question and, and I want for that, [00:28:04] Todd: It, the the, the long today, [00:28:06] Todd: the. [00:28:06] Todd: long tail, that 15% of, of RM and spend, that the everyone but Walmart and [00:28:10] Todd: Amazon [00:28:10] Todd: represents [00:28:11] Todd: is going to grow substantially. It's gonna grow 10 x, [00:28:15] Todd: they're gonna be, they're, they're, [00:28:16] Todd: they're [00:28:16] Todd: 50%, 70% of retail transactions and time spent, and it's gotta go there [00:28:21] Todd: and [00:28:22] Todd: does [00:28:22] Todd: RM [00:28:23] Todd: you know, I think to your use case of our AI can help you push those into all those pockets of inventory so much faster than if we wait for. [00:28:30] Todd: Five years of standards [00:28:31] Todd: discussions to like [00:28:33] Todd: Right. [00:28:33] Jeff Cohen: versus just [00:28:33] Todd: also AI [00:28:34] Tom: it immediately. There's, there's lots of in-store data signals that are being [00:28:37] Tom: used. Right. Right. There's a ton. There's so much, there's so much that's happening. But, but [00:28:41] Tom: you [00:28:42] Tom: at [00:28:42] Omnichannel Strategies [00:28:42] [00:28:42] Tom: Skai [00:28:42] Tom: you're an [00:28:43] Tom: omnichannel guy, [00:28:44] Tom: but [00:28:44] Tom: so much [00:28:44] Tom: opportunity in the [00:28:46] Tom: Why would you worry about [00:28:47] Tom: in store at this point, right? [00:28:49] Tom: so [00:28:49] Tom: what, what is [00:28:50] Tom: the, [00:28:50] Tom: the disposition of Sky in terms [00:28:51] Tom: of being omnichannel [00:28:52] Todd: today? [00:28:52] Jeff Cohen: I still, I still believe that [00:28:56] Jeff Cohen: you ha the [00:28:57] Jeff Cohen: the [00:28:58] Jeff Cohen: What's happening [00:29:00] online is driving what's happening [00:29:01] Jeff Cohen: in store. [00:29:02] Jeff Cohen: Right. And if your brand is in store and you've got physical shelf, you're making the online investments, you're driving [00:29:11] Jeff Cohen: And vice versa. True as well, right? We've all, we've all sat at the store, looked at something and bought something. [00:29:17] Jeff Cohen: Right. There's all that. So, so all of that has ha is and has to be at play. And with that, you know, in mind, ultimately comes down to the point that [00:29:27] Jeff Cohen: you have to be able to measure your [00:29:29] Jeff Cohen: investment and you have to be able to understand what the impact of those investments are. Right? I mean, at the core of [00:29:36] Jeff Cohen: at the core of our technology, um, [00:29:38] Jeff Cohen: sits measurement. [00:29:40] Jeff Cohen: And, um, when you onboard onto our technology, [00:29:44] Jeff Cohen: a lot of our time and investment at the beginning is around making sure we understand how you [00:29:50] Jeff Cohen: look at [00:29:51] Jeff Cohen: perceive. [00:29:52] Jeff Cohen: Operate your business. [00:29:54] Jeff Cohen: Um, so that, [00:29:56] Jeff Cohen: it's gotta be clean data in to get clean data out. [00:29:59] Todd: Right. Biggest [00:30:00] believer in da, you know, garbage and garbage out when it comes to [00:30:03] Todd: data. [00:30:03] Jeff Cohen: Exactly. and so by being, by, by taking that as like the core [00:30:09] Jeff Cohen: and building upon that, you can then start to, you know, build and grow [00:30:13] Investing in Enterprise Tools [00:30:13] Jeff Cohen: . One of the things that I've in, in my short time at Skai, I haven't been here a long time, [00:30:17] Jeff Cohen: but one of the things I've, I've learned is that Skai is one of those, [00:30:22] Jeff Cohen: Enterprise tools [00:30:23] Jeff Cohen: that you've gotta, as a company, you've gotta make an [00:30:26] Jeff Cohen: investment into. [00:30:27] Jeff Cohen: You don't just [00:30:28] Jeff Cohen: plug and play and the tool just does you, right? You've got to invest your time, your energy, [00:30:34] Jeff Cohen: uh, your, oh, I think that's true it is. [00:30:36] Jeff Cohen: It is. [00:30:37] Jeff Cohen: One of the things I learned way before I even joined Amazon. [00:30:40] Jeff Cohen: We We, would have people who we were in a, low end SaaS product, right? We were selling, um, ad tech software for under a hundred bucks, [00:30:48] Jeff Cohen: and people would sign up and they would buy our software [00:30:51] Jeff Cohen: and they would run us for our 30 day free trial. They'd pay for a month and [00:30:56] Jeff Cohen: when you would ask them why they canceled, they'd say, well, your software didn't work. [00:30:59] Todd: [00:31:00] And we say, [00:31:01] Todd: at, at, at my DSP, we had a, we saw this all the time where people would run it for 30 days and, nah, it's not so good. [00:31:07] Todd: And [00:31:07] Todd: I'd be like, you know, our best customers are ones who are, you know, they get about 10% of the way there in month one, [00:31:12] Todd: 30% of the way there in month two. [00:31:14] Todd: 60 more percent. So they're at 90% month three, and then a month, you know, [00:31:17] Todd: four [00:31:17] Todd: is right. [00:31:18] Todd: Really? you [00:31:18] Todd: it, it hone in. And so you're, [00:31:20] Todd: it's funny, you [00:31:20] Todd: have that same experience, which is [00:31:22] Todd: I think at a lot of platforms there's a [00:31:25] Todd: test and learn [00:31:25] Todd: evolves over [00:31:27] Jeff Cohen: And you want you, well, you want an instant gratification And it just doesn't, it, it doesn't happen. [00:31:32] Jeff Cohen: It's rare. You have to make the in invest, you have to make the investment [00:31:35] Jeff Cohen: of your, your hands on keyboard team learning it, your leadership team learning it. [00:31:41] Jeff Cohen: continuing to reinvest in it. [00:31:43] Jeff Cohen: So our best customers, the ones that have been with us for a really long time, are the ones [00:31:47] Jeff Cohen: who are understanding our product roadmap. They're explaining to us what they need from. [00:31:52] Jeff Cohen: from. [00:31:53] Jeff Cohen: our roadmap, [00:31:54] Jeff Cohen: they're going through training, right? They're continuing [00:31:57] Jeff Cohen: to learn. And you know, this is, this is the case of whether [00:32:00] you've ever used, you know, HubSpot, um, Salesforce, right? [00:32:03] Jeff Cohen: If they take it out of the ad tech world, this isn't anything that's unique to our space. It's [00:32:08] Todd: Complicated [00:32:08] Todd: software is complicated. Right, [00:32:10] Todd: right. And when you Means [00:32:12] AI in Execution and Ideation [00:32:12] [00:32:12] Jeff Cohen: And I think one, again, like where I think AI is going to is gonna help is that AI with systems operations procedures is actually where it like shines right? [00:32:21] Todd: Right. Execution. I've, I've read this where AI is best at execution, not at the ideation, [00:32:27] Jeff Cohen: Correct. [00:32:28] Todd: so to your point of like, oh, [00:32:30] Todd: these [00:32:30] Todd: channels, find me [00:32:31] Todd: this very specific thing. It's good at doing the investigative. [00:32:35] Todd: heavy correct. [00:32:35] Todd: dirty work that is humans [00:32:37] Todd: would get bored at [00:32:38] Todd: doing [00:32:38] Todd: Right. [00:32:39] Todd: Versus okay. But it doesn't do a great job of identifying, well, what is the signal I need to look for? [00:32:43] Todd: Right. [00:32:43] Todd: And humans [00:32:43] Tom: humans [00:32:43] Todd: better [00:32:44] Todd: at novelty and, and understanding it. and then tasking [00:32:47] Todd: sort of the robot army to go execute [00:32:49] Todd: the repetitive task. [00:32:50] Tom: So I think we're, we're coming to a [00:32:52] Tom: place where, you know, and this would be interesting to hear, I don't know if you [00:32:54] Tom: have perspective, [00:32:55] Todd: you just joined there, but it used to be kenchi. [00:32:57] Tom: Mm-hmm. And it was the [00:32:58] Tom: leader in, you know, really a [00:33:00] keyword [00:33:00] Tom: based, uh, search, you know, search. [00:33:02] Todd: Yeah. [00:33:03] Tom: Sponsor [00:33:03] Tom: search [00:33:03] Tom: capability. Right. So since you [00:33:05] Tom: guys have been in [00:33:05] Tom: this for so long, what is the thinking [00:33:07] Tom: about how do [00:33:07] Tom: you move [00:33:08] Tom: from keywords [00:33:09] Tom: which are gonna break very soon [00:33:11] Tom: to [00:33:12] Tom: broader [00:33:12] Tom: context? [00:33:13] Jeff Cohen: Yeah. [00:33:14] Jeff Cohen: Um. I, I'd love to say that I know that answer, [00:33:18] Todd: but it's fine if you don't. [00:33:19] Todd: Right? Yeah, yeah. To I think it, I mean, listen, we, [00:33:22] Jeff Cohen: A huge announcement was made [00:33:24] Tom: yesterday GBT. It was, yeah, [00:33:26] Todd: right around, um, a agentic shopping and a direct connection. Pretty [00:33:30] Jeff Cohen: It's just, they just have a card attached to their app. [00:33:32] Tom: an [00:33:32] Tom: cart's. [00:33:33] Todd: Right. Step one, step one, step one. no. no. Great agentic shopping. [00:33:36] Jeff Cohen: It is a step in that direction [00:33:38] Jeff Cohen: And I think that, [00:33:41] Jeff Cohen: One of the things that I think you have to keep in mind is also [00:33:45] Jeff Cohen: generationally, this is gonna all be applied differently, right? So how, um, how I shop is gonna be different than how my parents shop, which is gonna be different than how my children shop, right? [00:33:55] Jeff Cohen: But it's something I was already noticing. [00:33:57] Jeff Cohen: Um, you know, my kids. [00:33:59] Jeff Cohen: Are buying [00:34:00] from Amazon because at the end of the day, I've trained right to go to Amazon and they're both in college and or two of the three are in college. And the third one would get mad if he [00:34:11] Jeff Cohen: Um, [00:34:12] Jeff Cohen: two of the three are in college and they. [00:34:15] Jeff Cohen: When they need something, they're buying from Amazon for the you buy from Amazon. It's, it's quick, it's [00:34:20] Jeff Cohen: and it's delivered to the [00:34:21] Todd: door. Amazon, always said Amazon, [00:34:23] Todd: at its heart is a logistics [00:34:24] Todd: company, [00:34:24] Jeff Cohen: correct? And so I think when we look to the future and, and what, [00:34:30] Jeff Cohen: search and the intersection [00:34:34] Jeff Cohen: commerce is gonna look like, it's, [00:34:36] Jeff Cohen: Really an unknown. [00:34:38] Jeff Cohen: There may be some visions for how, [00:34:40] Jeff Cohen: um, chatGPT and, and, [00:34:43] Jeff Cohen: perplexity and others have a vision of it. But I'll give you a a great example. [00:34:47] Jeff Cohen: Uh, when I graduated college, not to date myself, but it 1997, my friend, I'm older. Don't worry. My friend's. First job was a company. It might have been a co, maybe a second job was a company called cosmo.com. [00:34:58] Todd: Oh yeah. Oh, I remember [00:35:00] [00:35:00] Todd: We had a, uh, I lived in Seattle or still live in Seattle, and we had a competitor at in Seattle called My [00:35:05] Todd: Lackey. [00:35:05] Jeff Cohen: Yes. [00:35:06] Jeff Cohen: And so and so cosmo.com for those people that don't know would, would deliver your dvd. Its before [00:35:12] Jeff Cohen: Right. it delivered your DVD and it deliver. And it was goPuff before goPuff, right? [00:35:16] Jeff Cohen: Like it was delivering convenience goods and it was delivering your DVD. [00:35:21] Jeff Cohen: And [00:35:23] Jeff Cohen: my friend [00:35:23] Jeff Cohen: always laughs 'cause he's like, man, I, I could have been a multimillionaire, [00:35:28] Jeff Cohen: but he ha But that co he, it wasn't his idea, he just worked there. But like it was a product that was before its time. Oh yeah. Yeah. [00:35:33] Jeff Cohen: And so I think we're going to see quite a bit of things that come that are products before their time. Because AI is moving so fast [00:35:41] Jeff Cohen: that I don't think the market is ready to move as fast as this is happening. [00:35:46] Todd: I, think that's fair. Even from an ad planning, management, buying, you know, on RM ends it, I think there are people who are trying. AI and [00:35:55] Todd: to help with this. And I think there are people who are [00:35:56] Todd: skeptical and I think we're at that early stage where [00:35:59] Todd: we don't know.[00:36:00] [00:36:00] Todd: But I'm to the, to the larger point of what Tom and I believe in, [00:36:02] Future of Retail Media Networks [00:36:02] [00:36:02] Todd: which is how do we unlock [00:36:04] Todd: the larger [00:36:04] Todd: ecosystem? Yeah. [00:36:05] Todd: Yeah. Which [00:36:05] Todd: Sky, by the way, I think Sky, and, and I think the [00:36:07] Todd: tools that help make it easier to do [00:36:09] Todd: cross retailer buying are a huge [00:36:11] Todd: unlock. [00:36:11] Todd: Yep. [00:36:12] Todd: Yep. So I'm super [00:36:13] Todd: excited about companies [00:36:14] Todd: like Sky as they tackle that [00:36:15] Todd: problem. And we've been talking [00:36:16] Todd: about this as a [00:36:17] Todd: area for opportunity for companies, right? It's a [00:36:19] Todd: huge unlock. [00:36:21] Todd: Um, I've talked a lot about it. [00:36:22] Todd: it. [00:36:22] Todd: We really have to make it easier for [00:36:24] Todd: agency planners to [00:36:25] Todd: to buy retail media at scale. [00:36:27] Todd: I think it's the key to the open web. [00:36:29] Todd: I think retailers are gonna be buying or [00:36:31] Todd: partnering with publishers. [00:36:32] Todd: Yep. [00:36:32] Todd: Yep. The [00:36:32] Todd: data, like this is just the future and [00:36:35] Todd: it's gonna be fascinating to watch it evolve and [00:36:36] Todd: emerge in outside of Amazon. 'cause I think that's where the innovation is gonna be and where you're playing [00:36:41] Todd: in the non-Amazon, [00:36:42] Todd: um, part of the [00:36:42] Todd: world. [00:36:43] Todd: And [00:36:43] Todd: by [00:36:43] Todd: the way, [00:36:43] Todd: we say [00:36:43] Todd: Amazon loses share, [00:36:45] Todd: that [00:36:45] Todd: doesn't mean its growth rate and it ads will go [00:36:47] Todd: down. It just means there'll be a bigger [00:36:49] Todd: growth on that last Right. [00:36:52] Todd: We [00:36:52] Todd: talk [00:36:52] Todd: about this, it's [00:36:53] Todd: that these retailers are gonna steal [00:36:55] Todd: from Amazon, they're just gonna [00:36:56] Todd: grow more of that spend in their direction. Yeah. It's, and I'm, [00:36:59] Todd: [00:37:00] anyway, [00:37:00] Todd: we're [00:37:00] Todd: super excited. [00:37:00] Todd: The, the pie, the pie is getting [00:37:02] Todd: the pie. [00:37:02] Todd: The pie is getting bigger. bigger. Right. Just [00:37:04] Jeff Cohen: in 1,000 x [00:37:05] Tom: bigger. [00:37:05] Jeff Cohen: Right. And [00:37:06] Jeff Cohen: I [00:37:06] Jeff Cohen: think, listen, I think that's some of the moves that Amazon's making too, is to, to, be able to participate in, in that, [00:37:11] Todd: And That's [00:37:11] Todd: bought the DSP. [00:37:12] Todd: That's what they're seeing is like they see the future and the DSP isn't about buying. Random ads. It's about how do I enable [00:37:19] Todd: The [00:37:19] Todd: broader ecosystem. A [00:37:20] Todd: little bit of a [00:37:20] Todd: competitor to Sky in that [00:37:21] Todd: regard. [00:37:22] Todd: Yeah. [00:37:22] Todd: Um, but there's [00:37:23] Todd: plenty of people who aren't gonna [00:37:24] Todd: trust Amazon to manage their spend [00:37:26] Todd: for [00:37:27] Todd: competitive and other [00:37:28] Todd: reasons. [00:37:28] Todd: So. [00:37:28] Todd: Yeah. [00:37:29] Jeff Cohen: Well, and listen, if [00:37:29] Jeff Cohen: again, watching the in type like [00:37:32] Jeff Cohen: there, there is a lot of use cases where you can use the technology on Amazon. [00:37:38] Jeff Cohen: There's a lot of use cases. You can use the technology on Google when you want that omni-channel, right [00:37:43] Jeff Cohen: View and you want to be able to play in, in, in different RMNs, [00:37:47] Jeff Cohen: then you need tools to be able to bring all that right back together. And so [00:37:51] Jeff Cohen: there is value. Um, [00:37:54] Jeff Cohen: you [00:37:54] Jeff Cohen: have to, as a business, no matter what you do, you have to build differentiation, right? And, um, a lot of [00:38:00] companies learn this in the early days of search, just trying to keep up with Google. And a lot of companies learn this in the early days of Amazon trying to keep up with Amazon. Like you have to build true differentiation of your product. ' [00:38:09] Jeff Cohen: Uh, cause Amazon wants to make a self-service product and there's nothing wrong with Amazon making a self-service product 'cause a lot of their customers ' [00:38:17] Jeff Cohen: are only selling on Amazon and a self-service product [00:38:19] Jeff Cohen: meets their needs. [00:38:20] Jeff Cohen: And [00:38:21] Jeff Cohen: there's nothing wrong with that, [00:38:23] Jeff Cohen: I. [00:38:24] Jeff Cohen: I don't know if I had that attitude two and a half weeks ago because I supported all of [00:38:28] Jeff Cohen: the, the, market. [00:38:30] Jeff Cohen: Um, but I've always been a believer in any company that I've ever talked consulting I did through, through Amazon or before was [00:38:38] Jeff Cohen: if you're not building differentiation, [00:38:41] Jeff Cohen: then the retail media network could put you out of business. [00:38:44] Jeff Cohen: Because they're gonna continually innovate. That's one thing I I saw over and over again at Amazon they're continually pushing the envelope and trying to because they want to make it [00:38:55] Jeff Cohen: um, faster, [00:38:56] Jeff Cohen: less [00:38:57] Jeff Cohen: expensive, and they want to be able to demonstrate their [00:39:00] value back to [00:39:00] Jeff Cohen: as well. [00:39:01] Todd: And I think that's a fair point. And I think we're, as Tom and I talk with more and more RNs, they're really starting to [00:39:06] Todd: see this as. [00:39:07] Todd: A product development task. Mm-hmm. Like talking with Brian at Albertsons and he, he is the first to [00:39:13] Todd: admit they have a lot, a big roadmap to make it easier to buy across Albertsons and their 23 brands and [00:39:19] Todd: how they make this [00:39:20] Todd: more like an [00:39:21] Todd: Amazon Like experiences. And part of it's gonna be partnering With companies like Skai and. [00:39:24] Todd: part of it's gonna be, they have to do more in [00:39:26] Todd: their own infrastructure. [00:39:28] Todd: it's gonna be exciting to see where this all ends up. [00:39:31] Todd: the next three to five years, and we're gonna see a huge wave of innovation. As the spend grows, the retailers get into this business. [00:39:38] Todd: They're looking to do new, new and better and different things. [00:39:40] Todd: And so it's an exciting time for long time ad tech folks like myself. [00:39:44] Todd: it's [00:39:45] Todd: the next big, it's the first big wave of change, I think probably in 10 or 15 [00:39:48] Todd: years. [00:39:48] Todd: Yeah. Since [00:39:49] Todd: of programmatic. [00:39:50] Todd: I [00:39:51] Todd: I [00:39:51] Jeff Cohen: think that [00:39:52] Jeff Cohen: I was actually having this conversation last night. if I was giving advice to my kids, a great place to This is This is a great [00:40:00] industry to be in. It's got so much runway, [00:40:01] Todd: gonna be awesome. Yeah. It's gonna [00:40:03] Todd: much change and what we're gonna see. [00:40:05] Tom: Yeah, it definitely feels fun Again, [00:40:06] Todd: Yeah, it [00:40:06] Todd: does. Oh [00:40:07] Todd: no [00:40:07] Tom: think it was like, [00:40:07] Tom: Absolutely. Like there was a, there was a two or three year period in there where, at [00:40:10] Tom: least in the, the [00:40:11] Tom: non-Amazon Walmart, where they were kind of, everybody was just changing partners. [00:40:16] Tom: Yeah. [00:40:16] Tom: They [00:40:16] Tom: Yeah. like [00:40:17] Tom: switching out ad servers and things like that. [00:40:19] Tom: And at least for me, [00:40:21] Tom: hearing, uh, the [00:40:22] Tom: measurement. [00:40:23] Tom: discussions that are happening now, I'm like. [00:40:25] Tom: that is a [00:40:26] Tom: sign that the [00:40:27] Tom: smart people are back at the [00:40:28] Tom: table [00:40:28] Tom: and they're [00:40:28] Tom: ready [00:40:29] Tom: to work with [00:40:29] Jeff Cohen: Yeah. So, [00:40:30] Jeff Cohen: yeah. [00:40:30] Jeff Cohen: Well that was something I've learned over over my [00:40:33] Jeff Cohen: career as well, is [00:40:34] Jeff Cohen: that, you know, everything has to work backwards [00:40:36] Jeff Cohen: measurement. [00:40:38] Jeff Cohen: because if it's not measurable, then [00:40:39] Jeff Cohen: the investment occur. [00:40:42] Tom: And [00:40:42] Jeff Cohen: that's where I. the [00:40:44] Jeff Cohen: way you build tech is that you. build the measurement piece and then you build. [00:40:48] Jeff Cohen: the campaign planning side, and then you build [00:40:51] Jeff Cohen: the, the [00:40:52] Jeff Cohen: management side. Because if at the end of the day you [00:40:54] Jeff Cohen: need a bid, you can [00:40:56] Jeff Cohen: into a system and change [00:40:57] Jeff Cohen: a [00:40:57] Jeff Cohen: bid, [00:40:57] Jeff Cohen: right? It, it maybe isn't the [00:40:59] Jeff Cohen: convenient [00:41:00] way [00:41:00] Jeff Cohen: way to do it, [00:41:01] Jeff Cohen: but you can, you can do that and you [00:41:02] Jeff Cohen: don't need to keep up with every [00:41:04] Jeff Cohen: campaign, you know, bid function that [00:41:07] Jeff Cohen: exists. But [00:41:09] Jeff Cohen: To be able to have that measurement that's giving you the clear picture of what's happening and then be able to put an AI layer [00:41:15] Jeff Cohen: on top of it to give you a secondary level. [00:41:18] Jeff Cohen: Of intelligence [00:41:19] Jeff Cohen: is, [00:41:19] Jeff Cohen: uh, opening up [00:41:20] Jeff Cohen: all [00:41:21] Jeff Cohen: new kinds of worlds that [00:41:22] Jeff Cohen: didn't [00:41:22] Jeff Cohen: before. [00:41:23] Tom: Well, [00:41:23] Tom: we are excited that you came to, to talk with us [00:41:27] Tom: And so I, I think it would be great to catch up in, you know, in six months and let's talk again. [00:41:31] Tom: Great. Appreciate you guys having me. Thank you. All right. Enjoyed it. ​