# S2 E26 T46 Ace Hardware _ Red Vest Media

Ace Hardware / Red Vest Media S2 E26 T46 

[00:00:00] Cold Open: But what are YOU doing, Retailer?! 

[00:00:00] Molly-Ace: All right, but what are you doing retailer? To drive your awareness and to drive my category forward? Like don't put that full burden on me. 

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[00:00:30] Tom: All right. We're here for another episode of the Middleman. How are you, Todd? 

[00:00:35] Todd: I'm good other than its fall is here. 

[00:00:38] Tom: Yeah. Is it finally getting 

[00:00:39] Todd: Oh, it's, it's 50 degrees and rainy the way the, the monsoon season has started. For sure. We're gonna get like multiple inches of rain this weekend. 

[00:00:46] Tom: Yeah, my daughter is fighting with us to wear her new winter jacket all the time, even though it's, it's far too warm to, to wear exactly the, the puff AST coat that she has. This week we are talking to Molly Hjelm. She, [00:01:00] comes from way back in, uh, in the Dunhumby Mafia and then. She was at dg, uh, their media network. 

[00:01:08] A new type of Retail Media Network 

[00:01:08] Tom: Um, but she's starting something new. She is at ACE Hardware and she's starting the Red Vest Media Network. 

[00:01:16] Todd: And to me, what's really interesting to talking with Molly is she's 

[00:01:22] Todd: launching right, a, a retail media network. And I think we're gonna see this wave of. Next gen retailers in terms of like, you know, in publishing, say tier two, tier three. And we're gonna see this wave of, of retail media networks emerge and launch. 

[00:01:38] Todd: And I think it's really to anyone who's a listener who's in this space, um, I think Molly has some practical advice about what does it take from a tech partner standpoint, from a, a logistics standpoint of how you sell this in, what does this look like? So I think it's an interesting story given, you know, her background and having been at, at lots of other interesting places in the retail media landscape to now being someone who's the [00:02:00] person launching this effort and rolling out, you know, red Vest Media and I, I, I think it's, it's, and it's funny because you and I were talking about like the stats, um, if you wanna repeat the, the 

[00:02:10] Tom: Yeah, so Ace has, Molly told us that. Has 50 million monthly site visitors . They got 70 million loyalty program members, and then 6 million app users. 

[00:02:22] Todd: And if you are a publisher. Those would be killer stats and you would be a good size publisher. And it's funny, in the retail world, you're kinda like, eh, I don't know. It's kind of small. And I hear that as a media publishing guy. I'm like, holy crap, that's really good. And I think that's the other thing is these quote unquote smaller retailers. Ace have national footprints and are getting tens of millions of visitors. And if you are in that bucket, you would be a very large publisher in the online media world. And so there's still heft coming to the market and still [00:03:00] some substantial new players coming to the market. And I think that's really fascinating of, there's still a lot of growth ahead of us in retail media as things like, again, a national chain like Ace. 

[00:03:09] Todd: Now is launching a retail media network. This is somewhat substantial. I think this is kind of fun and and interesting. As a result, 

[00:03:15] Why Ace waited to launch: the coop / franchise model 

[00:03:15] Tom: Yeah. And I think, um, what's interesting to me is kind of like a, a nuance. To it. But, you know, we just talked to Albertsons and they are a holding group of companies. They have a whole bunch of like 14, 16 divisions. Um, they're national, but there's all these different names. It's like Acme and Safeway and Shaws. 

[00:03:32] Tom: Um, in the case of Ace, I think the reason that potentially it wasn't launched right away, um, obviously the grocery guys were always first, but in the hardware space, , this is a very large and national brand to your point. Um, but it's a franchise model. And you know, for me, seeing a franchise model show up in the retail media world, I'm like, well, how's this gonna work? 

[00:03:55] Todd: I think that's, you know, it's interesting 'cause as a non-retail guy, I was like, I don't what is franchise? I don't give [00:04:00] a, you know what that 

[00:04:01] Tom: Well, I mean, it's kind of like, and you know, we heard this from, uh, from Albertsons, that they're doing like BOGOs uh, or buy one get one free's, um, to pair up enterprise marketing with the marketing that's being spent by the vendors, the, the brands. Um, in the case of a, of a franchise model, you've gotta figure out, you know, like, how are you going to. 

[00:04:23] Tom: Amass all of these, you know, sort of entrepreneur owned businesses and make sure that, you know, if you're running retail, you wanna run in-store media. Um, how do you, how do you make all of this happen? And so marshaling that spend coordinating across all of these, uh, retail locations. You know, I, I have a, an ace within two minutes walking distance from my house. 

[00:04:45] Tom: I mean, these are everywhere. And so, you know, that, that's a lot of complexity. But I think that, you know, it seems like the retail world is ready for this. And , somebody like Molly who's coming in after going to retailer to retailer and launching these programs, she knows [00:05:00] that, you know, she can take on this new challenge. 

[00:05:02] Todd: I think that it's an interesting story. E to your point of, of the logistics of what it takes to grow these retail media networks as they evolve into other types and forms, right? You mentioned a franchise based model and there's restaurants and there's other things we're gonna see. And if you look at smaller businesses and these chains, there's a huge, uh. 

[00:05:22] Todd: Fleet of them to use, you know, use that term. And I think if we're gonna onboard them, as we again think about in store, right, that's still something you and I care about. Still a landscape that just is gonna be ripe for innovation. So much is gonna happen there. This world has to get figured out. So I look to today, they're gonna start with online, um, and on offsite, but eventually in store, and how they loop. 

[00:05:43] Todd: These in, and, you know, they're gonna start with like analog things. I think she talks about as an example of maybe as a starting point for them. But I'm really fascinated to see where this goes and, and we're gonna have to conquer this type of retailer. We're gonna conquer in store to its NS degree for sure. 

[00:05:58] Todd: So there, there's a [00:06:00] lot that I think, you know, folks can learn from Molly and, and the, the red vest media story and, and what's happening with ace. So I'm, I'm pretty excited about what this means, again, for the continued growth of the space. And to see new players emerge again from national brands you think would already be there, but they're all now showing up and bringing some interesting heft to, to the retail media space. 

[00:06:22] Tom: Well, let's get into the discussion with Molly. Well, welcome to the middleman, Molly. It's great to see you. Um, we were talking just before and I learned that you know, your storied career in retail media started at Dunnhumby, but you were there straight outta college. So tell us about your background, and you've been doing retail media longer than pretty much anybody I know, but you're fairly young. 

[00:06:45] Tom: So tell how did you get into this? 

[00:06:48] Molly-Ace: Yeah. Uh, great question. Great place to start this conversation. Thank you guys for having me. Um. I feel so lucky that I had the opportunity to get exposure to what was [00:07:00] at the time, a very new and novel practice. You know, 15 years ago, um, Kroger was using their loyalty card data to make more informed decisions at retail, and I was studying marketing at the University of Notre Dame and they came into our classroom and, um, told us what they were doing, that there was this opportunity out there to be able to give customers what they want. 

[00:07:24] Molly-Ace: Uh, through the language of their data understanding and interpreting their, their purchase behavior in their data. And so that, um, that ability to anticipate customers' needs using data as the source, um, as opposed to customer research or more qua, uh, qualitative research. Um, I was so enamored of that and, um, so much so that I moved sight unseen from Minnesota to Cincinnati, um, in order to, to go and start in this discipline and. 

[00:07:53] Molly-Ace: I, uh, I knew even at that time that when you've got a seat of that type of customer [00:08:00] information, there's so many places that could take you as far as data overlays and partnerships and, um, retail media ended up being, um, one of the coolest applications that I experienced while I was there of. Of that customer data. 

[00:08:16] Molly-Ace: Um, but I've just followed the thread of that, what what has been so, you know, exciting and interesting to me, but I followed the thread of that to now. 

[00:08:24] Todd: So what are you doing now? 

[00:08:26] Molly-Ace: So I'm at Ace Hardware now, um, and we've just launched Red Vest Media, our retail media network. Um, we're coming to the scene, you know, four or five years after some of our leading competitors, 10 years after the dawn of retail media. Um, and. At the same time. 

[00:08:44] Todd: not late. Like, I wanna be clear, like you're saying it like, oh no, we're late. Like, it's not like, I think we're actually at, you know, sort of, I'd say inning three out of nine. Right? In terms of what I'd say the evolution of retail media is. So, um, it's, but I think that the, to your point of getting into Ace and [00:09:00] its time and, and we're excited about the layer of companies like Ace getting into this space. 

[00:09:05] Todd: So I think it's actually a great time as we see this space really start to evolve and get everyone in 'cause and so it's great to see Ace launch. So you're, you're launching Red Vest Web, by the way? I Is it required in the hardware space that you have to have a color in the name like Orange Media, the Red Vest Media. 

[00:09:22] Todd: Did you like, is that like a little checkbox, like you've got, okay, the name must have a color. It must have some reference to hardware. 

[00:09:29] Tom: It's a colored article of 

[00:09:30] Todd: Media, right? We have Red Vest and Orange Apron Media, like is it required to, to do 

[00:09:34] Molly-Ace: I love that. I'll let 

[00:09:35] Todd: the naming, was there sort of a rubric that you 

[00:09:37] Timing is everything: Ace’s national scale 

[00:09:37] Molly-Ace: bloom there, but we'll comment on that specifically. I love that you said that. I love that you said, you know, it's not you. It's not a bad thing at all to be late to the game. And in fact, I'm shouting it from the rooftops because I think there's no better time for a company that has the foundational elements, has the data, which is of course what I, um. 

[00:09:58] Molly-Ace: Have love from the start have [00:10:00] significant scale. Um, we've got 5,200 stores across the us. We've got, um, a a 50 million monthly site visits. We've got a huge and growing e-commerce business for a company that has the fundamentals and for like us, have a, has a loyalty program, um, 70 million, uh, total lifetime members. 

[00:10:20] Molly-Ace: Um, this is a great time to get in because if you've been in retail media. Uh, for a long time you've experienced the blood, sweat and tears that go into those original pioneering media networks, building it out, the baptism by fire of forging relationships across different publisher partners, creating their own measurement, building their in-house data science practices. 

[00:10:46] Molly-Ace: There's so much that, you know, uh, had not caught up to where we are now, which is. That you have so many more tools at your disposal to be able to launch a media network more seamlessly than ever, giving the best [00:11:00] outcome to vendors and, um, uh, making it a lot, uh, more seamless for a retailer. 

[00:11:08] Tom: Um, well, there's, there's a, I think maybe a reason why Ace didn't come online immediately was that you have a different model. You have a, a franchise model, basically, right? And so, you know. This McDonald's like franchise, uh, structure that we talked about in our, our preparations with you. Tell us what that means when you're trying to launch a retail media network. 

[00:11:27] Molly-Ace: Yeah, it's a good question and most people aren't aware of this, but ACE is a co-op. So we have 50, almost 5,200 stores across the us, across all 50 states, and they're independently owned. Um, and a lot of these folks have had these businesses in their families for generations. Um, we. Give the, those retailers, those, um, independent store owners have so much autonomy, a surprising amount of autonomy. 

[00:11:56] Molly-Ace: Uh, and, and in that, um, world, we are not [00:12:00] as similar to a McDonald's like franchise. We're, we're, um. We allow our store owners essentially to have full control over assortment decisions. So they might have very unique and localized assortments specific to their, um, neighborhoods and their communities. They can decide what marketing elements they wanna opt into from headquarters, and so, um, we really, at a headquarters provide the utility of wholesale purchasing power for our ACE retailers. 

[00:12:27] Molly-Ace: Marketing that drive and the branding of Ace that drives people into the stores. Um, but outside of that, they really are running their businesses the way they see fit. 

[00:12:37] Tom: Yeah, that assortment part is really hits home for me is somebody who is, you know, from New York and, you know, I like to walk to the hardware store. It's kind of like the convenience model almost in the hardware world where it's like I discover pro. Products there, it's, it's fast. I'm buying one thing at a time. 

[00:12:52] Tom: It's, um, it's very different from the, the Home Depot shop or you know, let's say the Lowe's shop. And it [00:13:00] really, for consumers, it's not really for small businesses. So there's a lot of differences there. But certainly there can be some advantages I think. 

[00:13:07] Molly-Ace: Definitely some advantages. And you know, there's complexity too because it's not, you know, pushed down from headquarters and everybody adopts things, whether that's assortment decisions, pricing, uh, you name it. Um, but in our case. I, I like to look at it as just, we've got so many testing, um, a microcosm of testing that's happening across our environment. 

[00:13:29] Molly-Ace: We've got retailers that are, that have screens in their stores where they're, um, you know, messaging to their customers or they're experimenting within store audio. And so what this creates is all these different data points that we can look at and see what's working for. Our best, most performant retailers and think about how that could be applied within, uh, retail media space. 

[00:13:53] Molly-Ace: Uh, so as far as evaluating the, an expansion, a portfolio expansion for retail media, it actually presents some really [00:14:00] interesting opportunities there as well. I. 

[00:14:02] From retailer to publisher: 50M visitors & DIY reach 

[00:14:02] Todd: When you think about, the retail media network, and you talked about 70 million. Profiles, 50 million, uh, monthly visitors to , the website. One of the interesting factors as as a media guy, as a publisher, have you said. If you went to the old comScore top 100 list N 50 million monthly uniques, that would put you in the top 100. 

[00:14:21] Todd: So I think what's fascinating is in the retail world, ACE is like, oh, we're like this little thing. We get 50 million people a month. Like, and you know, whereas from a publishing world, and I think this speaks to why the, the rise of our men's is really fascinating, is you're a top 100 equivalent publisher and if you are a top 100 equivalent publisher, you're a big 

[00:14:40] Molly-Ace: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:40] Todd: And I think that's kinda one of the interesting factors here is. You know, we've, we've thought retail media has been this 85% Walmart, Amazon, 15% for everyone else. And I go, yeah, but that's not because it's truly 15%. That's just 'cause they're getting started. On that end of the, the scale, if you look at Amazon's market share, it's like 5% Walmart's, like 5%. 

[00:14:59] Todd: [00:15:00] And the scale of what retailers like yourself. Bring is, I think, so much bigger. And I think it's like you've all been so in some ways beaten down by the competition, whereas from a media standpoint, you have way more scale than I think people realize. And from a publishing world, when you say 50 million monthly unique, that's a heck of a big business. 

[00:15:20] Todd: And you know, and, and so I think this is where it gets exciting in terms of the, like, where's retail media going? And the next step is we're onboarding the equivalent of top 100 publishers now. To this, to this world and this landscape. And I think that's really, really fascinating in terms of like the, the, the growth I expect to see out of that quote unquote tail, it's not really a tail, um, of the retail media sector is where I think there's, there's a lot of opportunity and the scale that you're bringing isn't small. 

[00:15:49] Todd: It's actually really meaningful. 

[00:15:51] Molly-Ace: Yeah. I'm so glad you said that. 'cause I, I believe in retail media, not because of, you know, it's the buzzword of retail media, but because of the [00:16:00] value that it will bring to. Ace's endemic community of vendors, but also to your point on the size and scale of the properties, the ability for non endemics and uh, to benefit from this ecosystem is absolutely there as well. 

[00:16:15] Molly-Ace: Because this is not just retail media, it's it's media and it's marketing that's gonna connect with this unique set of customers. This, these DIY customers that are in a, um, immediate consumption type. Need state where they need something now and they don't wanna drive far away to get it. They wanna leave their doorstep and walk five minutes, which is my experience. 

[00:16:34] Molly-Ace: But, we are within 15 miles of 75% of Americans. There's true value in, in the scale and the reach that we can provide. 

[00:16:44] Tom: Very on brand with the true value. Um, so I think that. Well, I think what's interesting though is, you know, tracing your career back to Dollar General, 'cause that was a retailer that I worked with a lot, and the value proposition there [00:17:00] was getting to local environments that were very non DMA. They were very hard, they were rural basically. 

[00:17:07] Tom: Um, and I feel like are you, is, are those the learnings that you're taking to this model with Ace? But with Ace you have a situation where you have a much larger. Um, and more frequent, uh, loyalty base, um, than you did there. Um, and so, I mean, obviously there can be arguments about how you, how you deal with that data. 

[00:17:26] Tom: There's a lot of cash transactions, um, credit card transactions, maybe without loyalty at dg, but going to Ace if you have, you know, I mean, ACE is like big on like Apple Pay and stuff, so it's a, it's a little more tech forward and it's a little more. Uh, you have more to work with. So like what are you sort of bringing to this and are, you know, I'd love to hear about that. 

[00:17:47] Tom: I'd also love to hear about how do you bring in these, these, uh, brands who potentially, you know, maybe not Stanley and DeWalt, but other ones that maybe don't have a retail media buying practice. Like how do you get them involved? 

[00:17:59] Molly-Ace: Yep. [00:18:00] Well, I'll start where you started. You know, I was. Thrilled to come over to Ace and have the full breadth at my fingertips of an a huge scaled e-commerce business. The 5,200 stores definitely mirrors that ecosystem I had come from where you've got, you know, full national reach and that geographical footprint and, um, kind of being on every corner. 

[00:18:25] Molly-Ace: It is a really important function that retail media plays because it, it is, plays that different role versus, uh, pure play e-commerce, retail, where people who wanna go in and touch and feel a product or they need it right then in the next hour, they can get their hands on it through us, either as a fulfillment model or as as a store. 

[00:18:46] Molly-Ace: Um, and so I was, I did come here feeling like, wow, I've got a bigger breadth of, um, portfolio elements to work with here that are gonna be highly valuable to this vendor community. And it, whereas in the prior [00:19:00] role I was in, it was all about. Providing incrementality and increased audiences in rural areas that couldn't be reached any other way. 

[00:19:09] Molly-Ace: Um, here it's both that we have giant scaled offsite audiences that will be meaningful and valuable for people trying to reach a DIY consumer audience. And we've got these, uh, highly valuable publisher like properties, um, with our 6 million app users and 50 million monthly site visits. So for me it meant this opportunity to stand up all at once in these, in these six months that we've, that I've been here and we've been working to launch this. 

[00:19:38] Molly-Ace: What is the equivalent of a mature portfolio with offsite in-store and onsite, uh, media tactics? Um, that's so valuable for our vendor community, big and small vendors, because it just gives them more options to intercept people at different areas of the purchase fund and consideration funnel [00:20:00] to respond. 

[00:20:00] In-store opportunity: signage, screens & scale 

[00:20:00] Todd: What do you. Go. No, no. I was gonna to just touch on the, the in-store piece of that, right? 'cause I think that's an area that Tom and I have been talking a lot about recently. Um, in a recent conversation like Sarah Marzano , the of eMarketer brought this up in terms of, we've been talking a lot about in-store and it's interesting 'cause one of the things I was going to wonder about, given the 5,200 and the co-op model, um, how. 

[00:20:23] Todd: How do you think about Instore? Is that, is that something you're really hoping to build into your, your model and, and offering? And I, it's both. Tom and I are very excited about the, about that opportunity 'cause the ability to reach 70 million people, 75% of the US population. Instore. I think one of the fascinating things about Instore is the amount of time spent is significant. 

[00:20:42] Todd: Hasn't gone down with the rise of e-commerce. E-commerce has just added to retail. It hasn't replaced in store. And 

[00:20:48] Tom: As a non buyer of hardware, I spend an incredibly long time in the store. 

[00:20:54] Todd: it's, this is and and that's a unique environment for retailers, right? It is. It absolutely differentiates them. In terms of [00:21:00] other media and the ability, as you said, to be onsite, offsite in store with media programs across a large footprint of the United States, I was curious to sort of hear of how much of a focus will in store be. 

[00:21:13] Todd: And how do you think about it? How do you see it sort of playing out? Because we've been talking about it for a very long time, but we haven't necessarily seen a huge, large footprint in store in most retail media programs. And so it's been one of these things where you look at time spent by the average consumer. 

[00:21:32] Todd: We use that old rubric in terms of, we've talked a lot about, recently about the, the monetized. Time spent in store is really low. And we used to say that about digital in terms of onsite back in the day. And today it's fully monetized. And so it seems like it's a huge opportunity for retailers to monetize that in store traffic in a way that it's not, I think re that. 

[00:21:53] Todd: That to us is a big unlock for the next five to 10 years around Rito Media. So I'm curious your perspective on in store and how is it gonna fit into your [00:22:00] retail media strategy? 

[00:22:00] Molly-Ace: Yeah, I agree with you that it's incredibly important and it was incredibly important to me at launch that we had something that we could launch with that would. Allow kind of the cohesion of the campaign that we're executing offsite or onsite to come through to the customer and have that ability right at the point of decision to be able to continue that, that messaging and that influence. 

[00:22:25] Molly-Ace: Um, we're starting with printed signage and that it seems so basic, you know, everything old is new again, but at the same time, there's 

[00:22:34] Tom: measure. That's 

[00:22:36] Molly-Ace: Yeah, it's, it's tried and true. It's, it gives you that opportunity to create digital, in-store engagement through QR codes and things like that, and it gives you that ability to not lose them at that final moment. 

[00:22:50] Molly-Ace: And I think there's, like when we were, we talk so much about media, we think so much about e-commerce and there is just that the limitations of [00:23:00] media are that you can drive someone into the store and if they come to the store and they don't feel, if they're not helped in the right way, if they can't find what they're looking for, if they get there and they're influenced by a different price point or a different marketing message, then you've lost them through no fault of, of the marketing. 

[00:23:16] Molly-Ace: Um, and so I'm, I'm assured here, reassured here that we've got, you know, such a, a large footprint. So we're convenient that we've got an, an incredibly trained, um, red vested, uh, we call 'em our red vested heroes in our stores who are, um. They are trained to be helpful. They're trained to take you by the arm and take you to the aisle where, um, you're gonna be able to get the product that you need. 

[00:23:39] Molly-Ace: And so we've got that experience here of like a toolkit for our vendors, for them to invest in, to engage customers, and then they can trust that when they get to the store, they're gonna be stewarded to the product that they're looking for. And when they get there, if they can have an in-store sign component that helps, you know, further elucidate what's going on with that [00:24:00] brand. 

[00:24:00] Molly-Ace: Um, then. That's all you can ask for, but I see. Um, 

[00:24:03] Todd: the fact that you, you brought up this analog, right, the printed, because I think a lot of people have gotten stuck in retail media land that if it's not digital, it's not retail media and Right. You're, you're sort of waving the flag very interestingly, like, guys, as I can get you in store, it's fine, it's analog, fine, it's printed. 

[00:24:20] Todd: Um, but it's still a component of the campaign. Significant scale and it, and because I think that's been like Kroger launching, um, they're in store with two test stores and. Best Buy, relaunching their in-store around a handful. And so the question from Sarah Manzano and eMarketer was when we talked to her was like, when is, how are we gonna get from two stores to hundreds of thousands of stores in anything less than 20 years? 

[00:24:45] Todd: Like people, how do we, how do we do better and make this faster? You know, I like the, the fact that you're sort of raising like, well, why not 

[00:24:53] Tom: You. 

[00:24:53] Todd: analog? I mean, it's a, it's a, it counts, right? It's like, it's, it's interesting to think of, we could still do this [00:25:00] and, and try to deliver again. It's a great first step and I think very practical. 

[00:25:04] Todd: Um, and so I like. Your point of view here in terms of why let it be a limitation? Let's just embrace the parameters that we have, the, the constraints, and still build a program and then it can, as there's revenue, it means to just justify. You can transition to screens and so forth. But I think it's a great idea. 

[00:25:20] Tom: So in this world, so I don't know the hardware space as well, and so I'm, I am, I'm interested in actually how far did trade get, was it as similar to say a grocery where they had blades everywhere and stickers on the floor and all of that? Or is trade less. Penetrate. 'cause the reason I would ask is that the reason you're not seeing that in-store digital screen happening overnight is because not only just the, the cost of the installation, it's the fact that the budget's already there for the trade and we have all this stuff and you know, maybe it's good enough. 

[00:25:53] Todd: I pray Tom by being practical. 

[00:25:55] Tom: Oh, sorry. 

[00:25:57] Molly-Ace: You know. 

[00:25:57] Todd: But no, actually, actually, excellent point Tom, in terms of, you [00:26:00] know, oh, 

[00:26:00] Tom: Yeah. We're here to learn, 

[00:26:01] Todd: actually stolen. No, no, that's a great point. Like traditionally trade has owned that printed sign versus retail media being part of it. And that trade versus retail media dynamic is one that we see or hear and talk a lot about. 

[00:26:13] Todd: So it's a fair point, Tom. 

[00:26:14] Molly-Ace: Yeah. I don't know for sure. We're so early on that I don't know what to expect there. But as far as what it looks like at ace, we have not monetized signage, not through co-sell partners, not 

[00:26:27] Todd: So it's a greenfield. 

[00:26:28] Molly-Ace: So it is, it's like the first obvious, most helpful step that we could make available to partners. 

[00:26:35] Molly-Ace: We produce our signage today and we send it to our opted in stores. And so making that inventory available and being willing to put our creative resources behind vendors that wanna be in our store with our kind of, with our oversight and with our voice just made too much sense. So it's a little unique to us, but to answer Todd's earlier question, like, I think there's so much [00:27:00] potential for in-store to make it, to take beyond this first step to evaluate. 

[00:27:05] Molly-Ace: Audio and screens and uniquely here at Ace while everybody else is having that conversation about the CapEx opex expense. Of course, we'll have to have some level of that conversation as well. I, I mentioned earlier, but we've got all of these independent store owners that have made the investment in one screen, you know, in their store or ha have decided that they want to have, you know, audio playing, um, programmatically in their stores. 

[00:27:34] Molly-Ace: And so we actually have a really large footprint of screens and in-store audio that we could kind of start to lean into and make available with the right messaging with our retailer. 

[00:27:47] Opening retail media to more brands 

[00:27:47] Tom: That's great. So I wanted to get back to the, the earlier question about, um, how are you getting people, I, I asked two questions at once, that wasn't fair. Um, but how do you get back to, um. You know, [00:28:00] there's obviously the experienced retail media brands. Where maybe they're already investing in Lowe's and and and Home Depot and other places, and Ace is a great addition because maybe you get different geographies and things like that, so maybe it's an easier sell. 

[00:28:15] Tom: I don't know. Then the traditional ACE vendors where maybe they're smaller, they've never bought media before. Are they even in A JVP, do they need to be educated about that? Like what, how do you look at those? Because you run sales for, for Ace Red Vest, right? 

[00:28:33] Molly-Ace: Yeah, I leave the network. Yep. I, I just hired ahead of sales. Yep. 

[00:28:38] Tom: okay. So yeah, for putting on your selling hat, how do you approach those two as Ace and, you know, like, do you just focus on the first one for now or is it, is it a fast follow on, on the, the smaller 

[00:28:50] Todd: Well, and maybe lemme follow up a more practical way, Tom, of, of where you're going, which is like, so obviously large brands or enterprise sales from media standpoint and smaller brands [00:29:00] traditionally have ended up, like you see, whether it's Amazon or Walmart Connect or other platforms, sort of a, a. 

[00:29:05] Todd: Self-serve model and you know, I think that's where you're going, which is a, are you looking for this to be a more enterprise sales model or is it open to the world and everyone can log in and start buying retail media sponsored search or whatever it has through a self-serve portal. Right. Is it more practical? 

[00:29:23] Todd: Is the media guy who's built platforms like that? That's kind of, I think, where you're, you 

[00:29:27] Tom: Why we're a. 

[00:29:27] Todd: of how do you. 

[00:29:28] Molly-Ace: have the playbook. Yes. So the beauty of this, and especially the beauty of this at age. Is that all of our vendors have the opportunity to participate in it. And that's important for us in particular because we, with our marketing, our enterprise marketing efforts, we put a lot of assets, media and marketing behind kind of our top. 

[00:29:53] Molly-Ace: 12 best brands we call them. So there are these big names, Stanley Black and [00:30:00] Ducker Weber that you, you know, to associate with ace. We have some level of, you know, exclusivity with those partners. And so in marketing them, so goes ace's opportunity. Um, and what that has meant is that we've got a lot, a lot of vendors at Ace. 

[00:30:16] Molly-Ace: Who have lacked the ability to connect with an ACE customer to share their message in a big way, um, and then measure the impact and optimize, you know, through the path of their own choosing. And so I have been talking about this internally and externally with our partners about just. The breath of fresh air, it is to have a toolkit available to you that's both incredibly precise and comprehensively measurable in a way that we haven't had available within our ecosystem that allow you to have more control than ever before into kind of growth levers and putting tailwinds behind your business. 

[00:30:55] Molly-Ace: Um, and that's what continues, like going back to the very beginning of my career, [00:31:00] that's what continues to excite me, is that you can identify a pain point. You're losing customers or you wanna, you know, you're not seeing the trial that you wanted on your innovation. Now we can take that data and reach those customers and drive the behaviors we seek, share back with the merch team. 

[00:31:16] Molly-Ace: Here's what we did, here's what we invested, here's what it, uh, garnered for us. And then, uh, be able to optimize in the future. And so that toolkit, making that available to this vendor community, which has, as, um, Thomas was mentioning varying levels of familiarity with this toolkit to begin with, um, is what's so exciting to me and what is, what builds my passion for this. 

[00:31:39] Tech stack decisions & why Ace chose Epsilon 

[00:31:39] Todd: Who are the, uh, who are the partners or, and vendors that are powering your underlying platform? Um, in terms of, of who you selected and kind of, kind of the what and why of, of why you selected who you did. I, that's what people are. Your peers are wondering this too, 'cause they're, we were just talking to someone the other day. 

[00:31:56] Todd: He was like, Todd, please help me. I'm getting like 10,000 inbounds for all these [00:32:00] tech platforms and I don't know if there's anything new or interesting I should be paying attention to. So your peers are very much interested in terms of who you picked to power your platform, you know, why you selected, who you selected, um, 'cause they're going through as they think about this, those same decisions and thinking of do they replatform, do they look at new, new partners? 

[00:32:20] Todd: And so this is a sort of a very top of mind, um, talking point amongst your peer set. 

[00:32:25] Molly-Ace: It is, it's been interesting since I've come into this role and since I've talked publicly about our, uh, partner behind our tech stack, which is Epsilon Retail Media. Um, I've gotten a lot of inquiry from C-Suite elsewhere asking like, what went into that decision and is that the right decision for us as well? 

[00:32:43] Molly-Ace: And the, my answer to that is that this was the right decision for Ace. So we launched with Epsilon. Um, it made all the sense in the world to have this one sophisticated partner powering our IT resolution, our tech stack. They [00:33:00] had amazing interoperability with publishers. They have this MRC accredited, standardized measurement, um, all of these things to be able to take the best of ace our data, our loyalty information. 

[00:33:12] Molly-Ace: Um, our sales data and be able to put it into something that is sophisticated, that works, that will benefit right away from best in class. Made sense for the environment that I came into when I came here, and yet as I've talked like this is a very ecosystem dependent decision because go, if you're at dg, you're gonna, for example, when I was there, we had a different tech stack for, for reasons of where we had. 

[00:33:42] Molly-Ace: Invested internally, uh, the level of sophistication of certain areas of the org that had already, that were already stood up, how we were using our data at that time. And so the conversations I'm having with folks are really, really get to know the landscape of your data, the [00:34:00] structure of your IT and data science teams, the state of your CDP, um, and then. 

[00:34:06] Molly-Ace: What, what matters most to the vendors that are in your community? What's gonna, what's gonna matter to them as you make that decision? And just because I've made this decision and it's absolutely the right decision for this ecosystem, doesn't mean it's gonna be the same elsewhere. 

[00:34:21] Todd: I think that's fair. I mean, what's interesting, you know, um, what, how much of you know, because epsilon's a full service, tech and, and service solution and we've definitely seen them win other business as well, especially I think in your tier of, of quote unquote size. Um, and how much of the service offering was, was important for you in terms of starting out, um, in addition to the product and tech stack, because I think that's something people think of. 

[00:34:46] Todd: You know, Tom, to your point, used competed as quotient, um, against Epsilon and that model kind of went out of favor a little bit, I think in four or five years ago. But I think it's kind of coming back and 

[00:34:57] Tom: Yeah, you've had 

[00:34:58] Todd: epsilon's doing well. So I think [00:35:00] your perspective's good here. 

[00:35:01] Tom: different waves of in-housing, uh, seem to to happen, but it's sort of, it's like waves on the beach. They go in and. 

[00:35:07] Molly-Ace: Yeah, it's like it's a pendulum and I, I think there was an initial move away from that quotient model, and there was some, but. When you move away from it, you learn from it and those pain points can be addressed. I was actually, I was just having a conversation with A CMO yesterday about this same dynamic of why would you launch with kind of full stack with another partner, given some of the hurdles and pain points others have experienced. 

[00:35:33] Molly-Ace: And my learnings here are. You, the retailer, need to have full ownership and engagement with your vendor community. These are your long-term partnerships. There's nobody in it with your vendor partners like you are as the retailer, because your sales opportunity and your ability to grow them together are mutually tied. 

[00:35:56] Molly-Ace: The rising tide lifts all ships. No third party is gonna be [00:36:00] able to engage them in the right way. Um, over time or expect that kind of decades long relationship, um, that you have there. So it was important to me as a learning from some of those other models that we have our own in-house partnerships and sales teams that is accountable for the strategy, the penetration, the engagement of our vendor community. 

[00:36:20] Molly-Ace: From there, you know, that we are not, that our partners are not relying on a retailer's talent to. Buy the media on their behalf, measure the media where, you know, there's that dynamic of grading your own homework. So to me it feels like an evolution of those past models solving for some of the pain points there. 

[00:36:43] Todd: No, I think that's really fascinating. Um, and a good perspective in how you're kind of dividing the line between what you want in-house. Like we need to own this. And then there's the media piece, which maybe is a little less core to, in terms of operating it and so forth. And someone like the episode can really help out in terms of their expertise and, and product perspective.[00:37:00]  

[00:37:00] Todd: And so it's, it's good that I always like when people have a firm opinion of what they want and how they wanna structure their business and operations. And, you know, hearing that from you of like, you've got a firm idea of how you're thinking of building out the practice of retail media within Ace. And, uh, I think that's a, a really interesting. 

[00:37:18] Todd: Sort of a aligned between the two. And, and it's fascinating to see just kind of the re rise of Epsilon because I think everybody kind of forgot about Epsilon for a number of years and they've won a number of accounts. I think over the last couple of years. There's, there's a whole crew, ac, crew of ex quotient people, part of the Quotient Mafia, um, that seems to thrive across retail media. 

[00:37:35] Todd: And Tom is a part of, of that, and it's fun is Tom's whole. That's actually, you know, what helped start our, our, our podcast was Tom saying, let's go, just go talk to all my old buddies, um, from the space. So. 

[00:37:48] Tom: Um, I actually have one more, one more question for you before we go, um, because I'm starting to see, it's actually good that we did this after grocery shop 'cause I was. Able to read the news about Albertsons doing a BOGO or a buy one get one [00:38:00] from their enterprise marketing. So you buy some retail media that Albertsons will, will sort of do a match for you. 

[00:38:07] Tom: Um, now that you're at Ace, you know, you talk about the, the fact that the stores have their own liberty to have their own assortment. There must be a role of the enterprise to be able to provide them. You're already starting to talk about it. They're providing the signage, so they're making that instead of going to a Bestcom or somebody else, like a Neptune. 

[00:38:25] Tom: Um, what else is there from the enterprise perspective that ACE brings in this franchise model that might be unique or interesting for the listeners to hear about? 

 

[00:38:35] Molly-Ace: Yeah, we do a lot as an enterprise marketing team to support brands. Specifically, and, and most of that is, is surrounding our, our best brands and our categories that we wanna be famous for, like power and barbecue and paint. Um, but that has been a new dynamic for me that I think is, is great for a vendor community to [00:39:00] hear. 

[00:39:00] Molly-Ace: 'cause any vendor that is gonna engage in retail media has a burning question in the back of their mind, which is. All right, but what are you doing retailer? To drive your awareness and to drive my category forward? Like don't put that full burden on me. And we have some of the best and brightest at ACE doing that with a 40 person in-house creative team and, um, really sitting there 

[00:39:23] Todd: That's huge. 40 people's a 

[00:39:25] Todd: lot.  

[00:39:25] Molly-Ace: Huge I know, but wonderfully so because we're doing, you know, we're really heavily 

[00:39:29] Todd: No, no, that's great. That's a, that's an asset. Like, I'm like, that's great. 

[00:39:32] Tom: We like when people are leaning in, so that's good. 

[00:39:35] Enterprise marketing air cover & creative investment 

[00:39:35] Molly-Ace: Yeah. And so putting TV ads out there and putting, you know, really ensuring that our integrated aligned promotions are front and center with our customer across all the, the ways that we have to engage them, um, is something that's so refreshing as I'm coming into this environment versus other places I've been, because I can look partners in the eye and confidently tell them. 

[00:39:57] Molly-Ace: We've got you. We're investing incredibly [00:40:00] heavily in Google search and in tv. Like we are driving the foot traffic, we are promoting your category. And with the launch of red Vest now you have a toolkit at your disposal to be able to drive control of the specific message at the specific time featuring your specific brands and measure and optimize. 

[00:40:19] Molly-Ace: And so to have both really does feel like the best of both worlds. 

[00:40:24] Tom: What I heard there that's really interesting is that ACE is taking the lead on TV because I think it has been challenging, and correct me if I'm wrong, to get the advertisers to invest in TV because of the way retail media. Is normally measured. So that's an interesting one for me. Now, I said that was the last question, but we didn't ask you about the future of retail media. 

[00:40:42] Tom: So what are, what are your thoughts? You know, you've been in this a while, so you've seen it in a lot of different iterations. Where do you see it going? 

[00:40:49] Future of retail media 

[00:40:49] Molly-Ace: You know. I think this moment we, we kind of started here and it's good to come back to this at the end of this conversation. I think this is an incredibly exciting moment [00:41:00] for retail media because there was this quick, there was this dawn of it, there was this scale of it, and now there's a maturation point where the tech stack around it, the partnerships around it, the just collective intelligence around it and the ideation of where it can go is all getting to a point where. 

[00:41:20] Molly-Ace: We can plug in with a partner like this and be able to launch a mature portfolio in, in five months, which is, uh, which is nuts. So I think the speed of the sophistication of, and the, the beauty of national marketers kicking the tires of retail media over the last, you know, at least three years is helping us mature, get better, create more precise, and more, more precisely measurable. 

[00:41:48] Molly-Ace: Um, media out there, and then the dawn, of course. I mean, we can't talk about the future without talking about ai, but. What I, I love that large language models [00:42:00] and that AI put behind retail media can help bring the promise of retail media to life. It's always, for me, it's always been about the data and the data signals and what customers are telling us, and the ability to optimize a campaign on hundreds of variables in real time, thanks to ai, which is something that we'll be able to provide to our partners from day one. 

[00:42:21] Tom: Yeah. Getting back to me being vulnerable about my, you know, inability to shop for hardware. It's because, you know, it's very hard to do that with keywords. It's, it's really, this is a specific project I'm trying to work on. That context needs to be my. Much bigger. So I'm happy to hear that you guys are, are thinking about that. 

[00:42:36] Tom: Um, but thanks for thinking of coming on the middleman. Um, I know you have, you know, you're busy launching a retail media network, so we really appreciate it. 

[00:42:44] Molly-Ace: Thank you guys so much for having me. This is great. And you know, I'm learning a lot from you guys too, so thanks for having me. 

[00:42:50] Tom: All right, see you next time. 

[00:42:51] Molly-Ace: Yep.  

[00:42:51] ​