# S3 E13 T68 - Possible Recap S3 E13 T68 - Possible Recap [00:00:00] [00:00:00] [00:00:04] Welcome Back from Possible [00:00:04] Tom Limongello: we're back from possible, and this is the first host only episode we've done in quite a while, right? [00:00:11] Todd Sawicki: I don't know if this is a full episode, more of a, a bridge between other episodes that we're doing as a, as a quick recap of our, you know, attendance at, at possible. And, you know, which means we were in Miami, were in Miami in late April, Miami in late April is hot. It was, [00:00:29] Tom Limongello: Oh, yeah. [00:00:29] Todd Sawicki: it was nice and sunny. [00:00:30] Todd Sawicki: It's, it was hot and humid. people were taking extra showers. And [00:00:36] About the Possible Conference [00:00:45] Todd Sawicki: for those who haven't gone to Possible, Possible really is now at this point, the largest sort of online media conference in the United States. Um, it is, it, it is the closest thing we have in America to Cannes right, to what that conference represents. And, you know, to its credit, it attracts thousands of people. I think I, we heard that there were 7,500 registered [00:01:00] attendees at It's really [00:01:03] Tom Limongello: Yep. [00:01:03] Todd Sawicki: on the brand and agency side over the last couple years. Again, it's not quite there in terms of cans, like, I don't know, 100,000 people. [00:01:09] Tom Limongello: Yeah, but you, you know, you saw the cabanas were there a day earlier. Eden Roc was activated, so it was bigger physically as well. [00:01:16] Todd Sawicki: show, lots of, of media networks, commerce networks, RMNs, ad tech [00:01:24] Tom Limongello: Yeah, and I remember I, I ran into my, my good friend from Quotient, uh, who's now at Pathformance, Susan Bennett, and, you know, we were talking to another ex- quotient person Nick Minnick was like, " I don't know everybody here. I, you know, I think at ShopTalk you might know everybody or grocery shop, you might know [00:01:39] Todd Sawicki: the online retail world, for sure, right? That's your world. [00:01:42] Tom Limongello: everybody." [00:01:43] Tom Limongello: Yeah. [00:01:43] Todd Sawicki: world and the, you know, ad tech or martech background, like everybody is, is there, [00:01:48] Tom Limongello: Yeah. [00:01:48] Todd Sawicki: for a few years, um, and it's great. And I think one of the real n- nice things about Possible is it's hosted the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach and it has a real central point. [00:01:59] Todd Sawicki: Like [00:02:00] the lobby is this cross section of humanity and your ability to just bump into people in the space is probably as high as anywhere at any conference you're ever going to attend. [00:02:11] Tom Limongello: Yeah, it is not the one where you schedule every last second of your [00:02:14] Todd Sawicki: need to. You're gonna bump into [00:02:16] Tom Limongello: day. [00:02:17] Todd Sawicki: and you're gonna have ... If you're looking to conversations and you haven't scheduled them, you can, you'll still have them. You'll find those people. [00:02:24] Tom Limongello: Oh, yeah. [00:02:24] Todd Sawicki: Into them. They're easy to track down. And I think that's one of the nice things that there's sort of like a, a concentrated element. Now, the downside, of course, is the lobby at the Fontainbleau is insanely loud with these thousands of people coming through during the day. [00:02:37] Tom Limongello: If you're an Apple Watch wearer, you will have the loud, uh, notification on your, on your watch all day long. This was a great, show for me because I got to see many, many of the guests we've had on the podcast, many of the, retail media network GMs, commerce media network GMs, and we had, got to spend really good quality time with, with all of them at dinners and, you know, in between the [00:03:00] days and, and at their sessions. [00:03:01] Tom Limongello: And, um, one of them we just had on the podcast, if you haven't listened to the episode with Marco Steinseck, uh, who is now, running Backpack Media from Sally Mae, um, he was once at Sephora and he was telling me, you know, I am really sort of impressed with the, the main CPG retail media networks, the demands that they get from the brands like Coke and Pepsi and Procter & Gamble Unilever and, you know, all of the, sophisticated, CPGs, the demands that they have are much, much greater, and they've been at this much longer than, say, if you're in a specialty retailer space and it's lots of DTC brands that were the retailers making their story for them. [00:03:47] Tom Limongello: He was kind of like, hats off to some of the things that, you know, the Albertsons and, uh, Kroger's and Costcos are doing right now because there's a lot that they're doing from the product perspective, right, [00:04:00] Todd? [00:04:00] Todd Sawicki: Uh, the, [00:04:01] RMN Product Sophistication [00:04:07] Todd Sawicki: the product story that the RMNs are telling is getting much more sophisticated, right? Marco's comment about the demands that he was hearing from these CPG companies if you ran an RMN, you weren't used to that, it sort of was blowing their minds about the functionality and, and that these, these very sophisticated advertisers and these very sophisticated agencies who represent them are used to, right? [00:04:26] Todd Sawicki: If you've been in buying online media at a high level of scale for the last 10, 15 years, there's certain audience targeting, there's reporting, there's advanced tracking and campaign management, all very [00:04:39] Tom Limongello: Self-service, API access, MMM functionality, all of that stuff. [00:04:44] Todd Sawicki: functionality that's available to these buyers that are used to getting. And when they show up to the RMN world and they're like, "What do you mean you don't have this functionality? Are you ... I, well, then I can't buy." [00:04:55] Tom Limongello: Yeah. [00:04:56] Todd Sawicki: I think that, that story has gotten to [00:05:00] the RMNs, at least, right? I think the tier one RMNs, and they're really investing in their platforms and their product development. [00:05:07] Todd Sawicki: And I think that's what we also saw in some of the announcements that were happening in and around possible [00:05:13] Tom Limongello: Yep. [00:05:13] CVS CMX & Albertsons AMC Announcements [00:05:13] Todd Sawicki: maturation of these platforms. And to me, the innovative announcements were coming from the RMNs. Interestingly enough, it just wasn't random ad tech companies. It was tier one RMNs making real interesting product announcements and showing the sophistication of their efforts. You know, we, we're, we're gonna be, releasing episodes Parbs the head of CVS', CMX, RMN platform. We're gonna talking to Evan, who's the product lead for Albertson's Media Collective, and their announcements are real, sophisticated product announcements, showing maturation. And I think that's kind of cool that we're seeing the RMNs being where this innovation is occurring. [00:05:56] Todd Sawicki: And, you know, as, as we'll get into when we talk to, to Parbs, [00:06:00] they're releasing cool AI functionality that I would say is cool for any ad tech [00:06:05] Tom Limongello: Yeah. [00:06:05] Todd Sawicki: just in RMN. [00:06:07] Tom Limongello: Yeah. We'll talk about that in detail in the episode, but they call it the core IQ, so core meaning heart. Um, so on brand for the CVS, CMX exchange, the thing for me is that it really gets to the nature of retailers who have very high ID transactions or really strong loyalty programs have been in the sort of pole position for developing products. [00:06:34] Tom Limongello: And I think a lot of the other RMNs have had to do things like make sure they can identify everybody. And so they're, they're working on their data infrastructure, but I think the certain, uh, retailers who have already figured out their identity are now moving into making it easier to buy. So using additional DSPs like DV360, um, and, you know, enabling, to your point [00:07:00] with, with CVS, uh, an ability to make campaigns easier to manage, but also give the nature and the texture of their store network, give that flavor and, and, and, and dynamically enable personalization in tho- in those ways. [00:07:14] Tom Limongello: And so, so for me, it's just fascinating to see. [00:07:18] Todd Sawicki: Well, I think the, the follow on there is that, CMX and Albertson's Media Collective, AMC, not the, [00:07:27] Tom Limongello: Not the other [00:07:28] Todd Sawicki: not the other [00:07:28] Tom Limongello: yeah. [00:07:30] Todd Sawicki: have sophisticated product leaders, and they are people who know how to build real legit product functionality, Evan and Albertsons and Paul and Melissa at CMX are world-class product people we have known them directly for a long time and can speak to their bonafides in terms of the, whether they're at these RMNs or elsewhere, they'd be great product leaders anywhere in the [00:08:00] online media ecosystem. [00:08:01] Todd Sawicki: Again, it, the, the CMX functionality that they're releasing is cool AI functionality, not just cool for RMNs, but cool just for online media. And what, you know, what Evan is, is, we'll be talking about is how do I go to where the buyers are? And on, and I think that's the other realization that's important is, yeah, I realize I have to enable what the buyers want. if you were an online publisher and you were selling media, you better be a first class citizen within the Trade Desk ecosystem and within the Google ecosystem, DV360 [00:08:31] Tom Limongello: Right. [00:08:33] Todd Sawicki: um, for those not familiar, that's what Google calls its DSP, its online media ecosystem, its platform is built off, uh, DV, and so it's called DV360. [00:08:43] Todd Sawicki: And so, you, they will be a first class citizen in this environment, and they're basically saying, "Look, we know you buyers wanna buy within this, and we want all you buyers, as many, and the most sophisticated buyers to all buy in DV360, because by the way, if you wanna by YouTube, we have to do it through [00:09:00] DV360." And so I think it's really, you know, a big unlock. [00:09:04] Tom Limongello: Right. [00:09:04] Todd Sawicki: about this with me in the past, and I think that's, you know, we're, we're seeing publish- the RM's going, "All right, we're just not gonna wait for Google to invite us. We're gonna show up anyway and figure it out. " [00:09:14] Tom Limongello: Another way to look at this is to think about what's the future that they're creating.. So obviously easier buying but in the discussion we had with Evan, he's looking forward to enabling new capabilities, he's like, ok, we've done chapter 1 of retail media. We're solidly in chapter 2 but chapter 3 also becomes more interesting. We're not so worried about the ways that you want to buy, but once you are buying with us and once this gets bigger and it's more full funnel, what does it look like. And I think that one of the best parts of the content at Possible that we saw was some really quick commentary from Mark Williamson. We had him on the pod I think a month ago talking about how they were [00:10:00] extending to Google for Product Listing Ads. And his whole Velocity tech stack that he's calling it is moving VERY quickly into new channels. We're gonna play a clip for you here of him talking about the way he sees their Merchant ethos or the item level merchant, way that they stock their stores and create the treasure hunt. He's looking to a future where that level of merchant thinking, becomes algorithmically enabled in an AI environment. [00:10:32] Tom Limongello: For retail media and for those buyers. So have a listen to this. [00:10:37] Mark Williamson: Costco's Merchant-First Vision [00:10:37] Mark Williamson: In, in data usage. The first principles in retail is, is really what's governing a lot of our decision, uh, and how we're architecting things right now. Because as retail media shows up and it becomes very buzzy and very exciting, the first thing that retailers have tried to do is become media companies instead of becoming better retailers. [00:10:55] Mark Williamson: And one of the great things, uh, about Costco, the reason why there's so much brand love from [00:11:00] members is because our merchants and operators are so good at understanding what members want. And the algorithm exists inside of a warehouse manager's mind, where he looks at sales in real time, looks at what merchandise is moving, which isn't moving and makes decisions independently. [00:11:18] Mark Williamson: There is no central authority back at the home office saying where to put things, uh, when it's more about reacting to what is happening every hour, every minute. As a way of optimizing for sales, uh, sales velocity. I think that's the idea here. Within retail media, we can do the exact same thing because of the tools that are available to us in a traditional media publishing perspective, we can't do that. [00:11:39] Mark Williamson: We're chasing keywords, we're chasing audiences, we're chasing context, which isn't unimportant. It's definitely part of the equation. But fundamentally, we're chasing sales, uh, which is the same thing that our advertisers are chasing. So if we can put the data in the right spot, we could process it in as in real time faster than even a warehouse manager could, and have that influence how things show up on our website, [00:12:00] how things are merchandised, whether it's paid, it's organic, it's private label, whatever it may be. [00:12:04] Mark Williamson: Uh, that's, that's really the goal here, is to optimize for sales conversion [00:12:08] Tom Limongello: , [00:12:08] Looking Ahead to Cannes & Wrap-Up [00:12:08] Tom Limongello: I think if you really internalize what all of these leading retail media networks are are moving towards, it's an exciting time. And we're already a little bit privy to some of the news that's coming out at Cannes and we're gonna be there, Todd you're gonna be there early and I'm gonna be there late, but very excited about a lot of the new upcoming episodes and we're just happy to be in the mix with all of these Retail Media GMs And if you've been on the episodes before, now writing a Substack and I'm gonna be reaching out more often to you to get your takes on what's changing and what needs to be talked about. [00:12:45] Todd Sawicki: In terms of talking to those retail media GMs and, and learning more about their platforms, if you were looking at possible and the announcements from companies in the online media space, we didn't see a lot of announcements, [00:12:57] Todd Sawicki: Yeah. [00:12:58] Todd Sawicki: like, the key announcements were [00:13:00] these. These were the [00:13:01] Tom Limongello: Yeah. [00:13:01] Todd Sawicki: and that's what's cool about the RMN space, is it really is becoming the primary layer of online media in, in many ways. And, and these announcements speak to that, right? Sophisticated announcements, sophisticated products, the, the product leadership at these companies is world-class, and they're building great platforms, and as they continue to invest in this, right, if you're a brand buyer, if you're a, and someone who's been maybe in the CPG space, and you've been, "I don't know, RMNs are just sponsored search," they are not. They're so [00:13:34] Tom Limongello: Right. [00:13:35] Todd Sawicki: that now, and their ability to be, I think, a great partner and a great outlet for advertisers, it's truly there. You can really do the things that you're used to doing, and I think that's an important thing. And, and, you know, I, I'm not just puffing up the retail media landscape just for the sake of retail media landscape, as you and I have talked, that I fundamentally believe [00:13:58] Tom Limongello: Right. [00:13:58] Todd Sawicki: That RMNs are the future of [00:14:00] online media, because they solve attribution, they solve identity, they solve a lot of problems, and I believe in the open web, I want an open web, I believe in the democratization of publishing, and anything that sort of helps power that, I think, is important. And so this is, like, a proof of that in, in where they're going and what they're doing, and they're really trying to be a sophisticated partner and player, and help achieve their goals in interesting and meaningful ways. And I, that's, that's where this goes for me, I think , we're seeing that. The RMNs are the future of online media in many ways, and their continued investment in growth, and what we're seeing in these announcements, I think, continues to point to that, and, and sort of, kind of prove my point. [00:14:42] Tom Limongello: In addition to possible being huge, the drum was there as well across in East Miami, and so it was, there was a lot going on. [00:14:50] Tom Limongello: Um, and so it's gona take us a little while to untangle and, and give you all the updates, but a lot more is coming from the Middlemen [00:14:57] ​