# S3 E14 T69 - Parbs - CVS

S3 E14 T69 - Parbs - CVS 

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[00:00:07] Tom Limongello: We're back from Possible, and we have an exciting conversation with CVS, CVS Media Exchange coming up. Todd, how you been? 

[00:00:15] Todd Sawicki: I'm good. Possible was good. You know, one of the interesting things about Possible as it's, you know, outside of Cannes, one of the largest shows, one of-- the largest in the US by far, I think at this point, when you look at the announcement of new things happening, and our talk with Parbs is a part of that, right? CMX launched some new features we're gonna talk about, is that when we looked at the announcements at the, at the show, they almost entirely seemed to be RMN related, right? 

[00:00:42] Todd Sawicki: In my opinion, the, this nexus, the center focus of online media right now is retail media. And I'm not saying that because we cover retail media, I'm saying that because it is. Like, I think we started covering retail media and talking about it because you and I both believe it is now the, the 

[00:00:59] Tom Limongello: Yep. 

[00:00:59] Todd Sawicki: [00:01:00] for online advertising. 

[00:01:01] Tom Limongello: Yep. 

[00:01:01] Todd Sawicki: And I think it just continues to show that, and our conversation with Parbs and the announcements that CMX is making, I kind of think speaks to that. If you're paying attention to online media, first and foremost, you should be paying attention to what's happening in retail media. 

[00:01:15] Tom Limongello: Yeah, for me, this has been, one of the retailers we really wanted to have on the podcast because we've known some of the people who, who work there. Um, it's also, like, for me, my- it's my daughter's favorite store. I feel like it's kinda like the dad retailer. You, you go in and you, you know, you find these, these things across different categories. 

[00:01:33] Tom Limongello: You feel like a hero when you come back home. You know, you very quickly were able to score some big wins. So, you know, this is one where, you know, we're excited about not only the fact that they're a big retailer, and Parb's gonna show us, like, how big they are and how big ExtraCare is. Um, but it's also they've got a lot going on, and the stores are all different. 

[00:01:51] Tom Limongello: So, um, they're working on, uh, you know, ways of making it easier to deal with all that complexity that they're managing. 

[00:01:59] Todd Sawicki: Well, I, I think [00:02:00] it's... The, the issue isn't so much that complexity per se, right? It's that... And complexity, what we mean is they have online ads, they have offline in-store ads, and their store layouts are not 

[00:02:17] Tom Limongello: Right. 

[00:02:19] Todd Sawicki: footprints and different models and different sizes, and that's that complexity, which is there's no, like, one screen in every store in front of every one of their users. 

[00:02:26] Tom Limongello: But it's also, you know, uh, you know, based on the zip code that you're in, if they might stock higher or lower priced items, all sorts of things like that. 

[00:02:35] Todd Sawicki: no. Where I was going with that is the, the, the point as an advertiser, you don't give a rat's patooie about that complexity, 

[00:02:47] Tom Limongello: Well, that's true. 

[00:02:47] Todd Sawicki: your job to manage as the, quote-unquote, "The publisher is the seller of advertising." 

[00:02:51] Tom Limongello: Yeah. 

[00:02:53] Todd Sawicki: and what I mean by that is that we've talked a lot about this, which is how is our RMNs going to [00:03:00] continue to grow? How are they gonna move beyond their core vendors? 'Cause those people have a bit of a gun to their head to spend with the different vendors at some level, right? So it's a little bit-- the growth of RMNs have been a little bit aided by that too, 

[00:03:11] Tom Limongello: Right. Yeah. 

[00:03:12] Todd Sawicki: But now as they are e- the scale of these audiences, right? 

[00:03:18] Todd Sawicki: And Parb's gonna talk about their DAU, which is in the millions in terms of their in-store DAU, which is crazy. 

[00:03:24] Tom Limongello: Yep. 

[00:03:25] Todd Sawicki: as an advertiser, you want access to large audiences and sophisticated audiences and ones you can target. And, you know, the challenge is, but you're not gonna-- you don't wanna deal with that complexity. 

[00:03:36] Tom Limongello: Right. 

[00:03:37] Todd Sawicki: you know, we were talking about this, the rise of DSPs starting about a decade ago, and programmatic, because it made buying online advertising across hundreds of publishers as easy as could be. Because pre-previous to that, you, if you wanted to run a campaign across hundreds, if not thousands of publishers, you would have to sign individual IOs for that, and that was just untenable. And [00:04:00] DSPs made it easy. I could run huge campaigns across lots of placements and publishers with the click of a button in one central dashboard and, and make that happen. And now we're seeing with RMNs and, and what the, the capabilities they're building out, and really cool capabilities, 

[00:04:17] Tom Limongello: Yep. 

[00:04:17] Todd Sawicki: AI-driven and so forth, like, like CVS is gonna talk about, are how do I make it as easy as possible to run sophisticated campaigns on my platform? And that's important for advertisers and agencies especially, which is if it's easier to buy, 

[00:04:35] Tom Limongello: Yep. 

[00:04:35] Todd Sawicki: I'm more likely to buy. 

[00:04:36] Tom Limongello: Well, and I think that's what we're seeing with a lot of these retailers. If they have an advantage, if they're a large enough scale to, to have demand, um, their job is to make it easier to buy. But I guess the nuance is that, you know, when it's just a single website, um, that, you know, has, has some scale to it. 

[00:04:53] Tom Limongello: But when you think about their stores, which is so much, such a big part of where people buy, those stores have [00:05:00] differences. And that- that's sort of the part of it that because I'm coming from the retailer side of things, um, making those easier to buy and st- and not losing the differences, um, is, is I think where CVS is going a little bit with its new AI capabilities. 

[00:05:14] Tom Limongello: So lots to, lots to think through here. Let's hear from Parbs  

[00:05:18] Tom: This episode is brought to you by InStore Marketplace. Now, we talk a lot on this show about new tech in retail media, and we admit that we tend to chase it. But we had ad tech veteran Paul Brenner from InStore Marketplace, and Michelle Dooley from Catalyst Media, who's a former Target Roundel exec, on the podcast recently. 

[00:05:38] Tom: And they told us about a new piece of research that they're working on that looks at this problem very differently. They said this is not a measurement problem. It's that no one agrees on what the success of in-store retail media actually looks like. So if you're looking at this purely through a retail media lens, of course you're missing how the rest of your organization and the brand is evaluating it. 

[00:05:59] Tom: [00:06:00] Merchandising, shopper marketing, agencies, and the brand all use different scorecards to judge the same activity. So the research that they're introducing, brings a concept called shopper purchase rate or SPR, and that's used to connect these different perspectives and scorecards. Really interesting stuff. 

[00:06:16] Tom: They've had, a collaboration with the IAB, including Colin Colburn, to think about how to bring this more consistently across the industry. So, if you're working in the space, I think this is definitely worth checking out. And you can find the link in the show notes 

[00:06:30] Tom Limongello: . 

[00:06:30] Tom Limongello: Welcome to the Middleman Podcast. We are here with Parbinder Dhariwal, also known as Parbs. He is the GM and VP of Media Exchange within CVS Health, which is also known as CMX. Thank you for being  

[00:06:48] Parbs: Thanks for having me. Looking forward to this. 

[00:06:50] Tom Limongello: So we are too because we, uh, you know, there's trust by association. You, your whole team or people that we've worked with in the past. Paul Lentz Todd has worked with, I've worked [00:07:00] with Gretchen Reisner Quotient, . So we just don't know you yet. Uh, we met last year, I think, if possible. 

[00:07:07] Tom Limongello: Um, and actually the, we dug up an article that, uh, the drum wrote about you saying that you were. entrepreneur, your family has, uh, your family lives in Nunny. I've never heard of that place, but it sounded cool. Um, but that you're, have an entrepreneurial background. And the first, question we wanted to ask you was, how does that color, how you are building, this startup within CVS Health? 

[00:07:29] Parbs: Yeah, that's, um, the, the Nunny reference is Gordon Young going off on one and, and putting his, uh, Scottish, uh, twang on the, uh, on the town that where I did grow up, which is actually Nuneaton in Warwickshire, uh, which is Shakespeare's County. But the, uh. Yeah, I, I guess, we come with, an entrepreneurial spirit here within CMX and, and, um, all of the people that you mentioned on, that you obviously have good and strong connections with across the team. 

[00:07:59] Parbs: [00:08:00] You know, they're have that entrepreneurial spirit too. Um, my background is, you know, I, I, I was born and raised in the UK to immigrants. Uh, my parents were immigrants from, from India. They ran and built, uh, built and ran, I should say, a manufacturing business, a clothing manufacturing business in Nuneaton. 

[00:08:18] Parbs: Um, and, uh, incredibly successful. And, and it was just awesome to see that and be a part of that as I was growing up. And, you know, the, the. I guess the thing that I take away the most from that, first of all, my parents were incredibly hardworking and um, that has certainly rubbed off on me and my siblings as well. 

[00:08:41] Parbs: Um, but also I. In a manufacturing scenario, understanding how the widget is made and all of the different constituents to the widget are always an important aspect. And similarly, as we translate that to, to what we're doing here at CMX [00:09:00] and and retail media. We've really understood how the widget's made. 

[00:09:03] Parbs: We've watched other retail media networks build what they've built. We've, we've got a lot of experience and a deep bench of experience across our organization from different retail media as well as advertising and digital publishing. How do we think about bringing a lot of that expertise into our organization, but more importantly for us to build a bigger, better product? 

[00:09:23] Parbs: And, uh, and I think we're really doing that. We're, we're just on the, uh, you know, we're. Early, early stages. You know, we've been around for five years. I've been, uh, with the business for about three and a half. We're, we're on an incredible journey and, uh, enjoying it very much. 

[00:09:38] Todd: Your background predates that in terms of, of like myself, a long time, um, ad tech background. What made you get interested in the opportunity at, at CVS and, and building CMX and what sort of, what made that jump and, and what, what was appealing about the world of retail media? 

[00:09:55] Parbs: Yeah, so when, um, when I moved outta the manufacturing business, my, my parents' business, uh, [00:10:00] which I did spend a little bit of time in, um, the, um, I did move into, into advertising, print advertising, actually, uh, it was like early internet days, uh, and, uh, worked on a B2B magazine, but then. Worked after a couple of years there, I worked really in across internet advertising and the, the promise, you know, an internet advertising has always been, I'm gonna give you and show a customer an ad, a consumer, an ad, and I, as a result of it being digital, we'll be able to track everything that happens with that ad. 

[00:10:35] Parbs: And then we will also be able to report on the ROI, whatever that ROI metric is, and. We've not really done that in digital advertising until I would say the admin of retail media came along. So where you have a plethora of customer data and understanding of how customer behaves right the way through to the transactional data, that connective tissue across that [00:11:00] consumer. 

[00:11:00] Parbs: Uh, journey is something that is very unique to, to retail and, and that's really the reason why I wanted to get into it. So, you know, for the last seven or eight years I've been in retail media, um, with, uh, with Walmart, and now obviously with CVS. And this is the future. This is the way in which advertising. 

[00:11:19] Parbs: Continue to grow retail media and platforms such as ours will, will be the foundational layer for brands as they communicate and connect with consumers. And then also report on the ROI, um, of, uh, of the performance of that, that, that advertising dollar. 

[00:11:35] Todd: If I, and we had this discussion before we jumped on, which is. Kind of where you're going with that. If we had to start over with online advertising and online media, we'd realize that we'd start with retail media and not end with it because retail media solves so many of the problems that publishers have been chasing for forever. 

[00:11:55] Todd: It solves identity, it solves attribution. And it, it, [00:12:00] it, it's surprising it took us this long to get there, but now that we're there, I think we're gonna see this interesting golden age of advertising now powered and built by retail media because you can do that connective tissue that we were talking about, right, of identity. 

[00:12:14] Todd: Of attribution and, you know, it it in terms of some of the things you guys are wanna talk about and are launching and the tooling is sort of catching up. But it's, I think it's gonna be fascinating to, to see this next wave of how retail media sub Soons publishing, and I think all the innovation is really happening in retail media platforms like yours and what you guys are building and, and launching. 

[00:12:35] Todd: So maybe good to hear about what, what tooling your guys are bringing to market right now, especially around ai. 

[00:12:41] Parbs: Yeah, I, so let me, uh, lemme just build real quickly before I answer the, the question around the tooling. I think it, it's a yes and to everything that you're saying and the, and is, it's also not just about publishing, but it's actually connecting social media as well because of the signals that we have and the way in which we know that [00:13:00] customers are responding to content that they see in their social feeds. 

[00:13:03] Parbs: And then ultimately, uh, transacting with said retailer. I think the other piece that really comes to, to fruition here is. Not just about how do we see through the lens of our, our, uh, stores and CVS stores, but how do we understand how the consumer behaves across total retail total category? Because I know that I send an ad to a consumer that I, who is in market for a particular category or product. 

[00:13:32] Parbs: However, I also am a realist in the, sometimes those consumers don't always purchase at CVS, they purchase somewhere else, B based on their use, use need, uh uh and at that particular time. Or they might be passing another store or they might be in another store at the time. So we've gotta really think about actually bring all of that. 

[00:13:52] Parbs: So, but, but can I just touch upon some of the tooling? I think the tooling piece is really important because. In the advent of ai, I think [00:14:00] we're, we're really seeing, uh, an opportunity for us. Um. Um, to, to continue to build best in class tooling for, for our brands and, and for the market that drives more efficiency. 

[00:14:14] Parbs: We've, we're talking a lot about efficiency and what retail media brings for, for advertisers. Uh, we are. In the process. And, and by the time this goes out, we launched it, which is around CorIQ. So CorIQ is, is gonna be our, um, in intelligence intelligent marketing platform. Um, it's gonna, we've been working on this in the background. 

[00:14:37] Parbs: It's been, we've been, it's been in working on campaigns for the last year. Um, it's there to design and design to make and help teams move faster, work faster, be more confident in the decision, but then also. Drive more personalization with precision and we, 

[00:14:55] Tom Limongello: you are, wait, are you saying that you actually built something and launched it before you [00:15:00] announced it? That's not very retail media like. 

[00:15:02] Parbs: we, um, we have. 

[00:15:04] Todd: just retail media, it's just, I think ad tech in general. It's, we all, you know, vaporware is our lives in, in online advertising. 

[00:15:12] Parbs: the, so let me just take a step back real quickly. The work that we've been doing over the last two or three, two to three years is really h rehousing and, uh, populating our ExtraCare data set. The, the unique experience that that CMX has above, I would say most other retail media is that. I have one of the largest, if not the largest loyalty program across retail media. 

[00:15:37] Parbs: It's 90 million extra care consumers. I have signals on those consumers as they move from digital to physical, physical to digital. I really have a clear understanding of that, that, that, that use case and, and we've been building that. So naturally the progression for us, once we have that data set in a very, very good place right now. 

[00:15:58] Parbs: Um, is for us to build AI [00:16:00] tooling. We built AI tooling on, on this back at the beginning of 2025. We've been using it in the background in order for us to become much more effective on our campaign structure. And it's three things really that the CorIQ brings, number one. It brings insights to our media planning process so we can easily query, um, what the objectives are at the campaign level, um, or at the, at the, at the brand level, and build a media plan off the back of it. 

[00:16:29] Parbs: The second thing that it does, it enables us to build audiences in real time. Um, so rather than, you know, waiting 1, 2, 3 days in order for us to, to drive, uh, an audience and push an audience into market. And then the third piece, which is where we, we drive more efficiency with our brands is. 

[00:16:48] Parbs: How do we, it's called an audience, optimize a tool, but it, it's essentially in real time, um, replenishing audiences, um, in, in market. So for example, if we need, if we [00:17:00] know that we've sent a message to a consumer and it's we're over frequency, uh, showing that ad 

[00:17:05] Parbs: to consumer. We, used to hit people way too many 

[00:17:07] Parbs: Yeah, exactly. So we'll remove that person from that audience if we know that they're not reacting. Similarly, if we've shown a message to a consumer and then they've been in and purchased in our stores, we'll remove those individuals too. So there's many different other use cases here, but hopefully you get the gist of it. 

[00:17:25] Tom Limongello: Yeah, I mean the, the specific use case of removing somebody if they've already bought it is what people don't really get about retail media, which is. This is the problem that retargeting created where everybody  

[00:17:37] Parbs: Yeah,  

[00:17:37] Tom Limongello: and Hey, I already bought this thing. We can actually do this. 

[00:17:41] Tom Limongello: And what's funny is that we said we could do that, and I don't think it really happened. And it sounds like you finally have the data infrastructure to do that. Is that right? 

[00:17:49] Parbs: you can't do you, I don't think you can really do this. If you don't have the, the kind of data set that we do with ExtraCare, you can't do this [00:18:00] if you don't have the signals off a off a Loyalty programs such as we do. Because if you are modeling data based on. Whatever, whatever models that you are using or whatever lookalikes that you are building, if you don't have a one-to-one understanding of the consumer, how do you truly know that that was the consumer that came in and purchased a product and therefore you stop delivering them a message. 

[00:18:24] Parbs: You just really, you don't. Um, and that's why we, we, we are in the position that we are and, uh, bringing this tooling to market. 

[00:18:33] Todd: What gets exciting, I think about this too, which is we, we as a category, retail media, have been talking about the need for more brand buyers, meaning advertisers, more agent, right? Those agencies that, that manage those campaigns for those brands being involved in retail media, and I think that lack of tooling in retail media has been holding that back. 

[00:18:54] Todd: And so I do think it's exciting to hear retailers like yourselves, right? [00:19:00] Building a very sophisticated platform to, to buy and manage campaigns in a way that I think is really, you know, on par best in class, whether you're a retail me media network or a publisher like this is, I think that's what's exciting is, you know, if you're, if you're a brand advertiser. 

[00:19:17] Todd: The tooling is now there, and this is a great example I think, of what that is to help unlock this hugely important category of advertiser, of marketer to engage with platforms like CMX. 

[00:19:30] Parbs: Yeah, I, I agree. And, and our launch of CorIQ is, you know, in the, in the managed service layer right now. Um, but our aspirations quickly is to bring this in, in, into other areas as well, that, that our advertisers can get their hands on these tools. What I will say is. I do stand behind this with moving very, very quickly at, at CMX. 

[00:19:55] Parbs: Um, you know, what we have managed to build over the last three [00:20:00] to five years is testament to the work that the teams have done and the way in which we can not just, this is not just about lifting up CMX, of course, I want us to continue to see the growth that we're seeing, but this is actually about lifting the entire industry. 

[00:20:17] Parbs: And, and, and really setting the bar higher every single time on what brands, what advertisers can be expecting from retail media and platforms such as ours. So if this tooling enables some of that, then yes, let's continue on that level. But yeah, we we're, um, I think we need to level up the entire business if we are gonna become that foundational layer for the advertising ecosystem. 

[00:20:43] Todd: I, you, I'm not surprised. You know, we mentioned some of the people we know as a, as a group on your team and even yourself, like you all have deep domain expertise. Our world class individuals on, on, you know, with regards to online advertising. And I'm [00:21:00] not surprised to see the execution and what you're bringing to market. 

[00:21:03] Todd: Right? One of the things we do, we have talked about, right, Tom and I have talked about, which is retailers need to bring in folks like your team. And you all are a testament, I think, of what I point out, like, yes, you all should do what CMX is doing. Like look at the people they have who are building this out, and if you're surprised that they're building these world class. 

[00:21:19] Todd: And very capable things. Again, they're on par with what online publishing has, has built, and I think it's a real testament to where the, the industry is and as a category, and so this is, I think you all stand up as a great proxy for what everyone should be doing. And you know, as, as other retailers start realizing that and pulling in the talent, like what you have already there at CMX, I think could be a testament to where the industry is, is going and what it can achieve. 

[00:21:46] Todd: Build the tooling and platforms necessary to capture a lot more of, of the dollars. The other thing is kind of a, an interesting point of the value, and this is where Tom and I love to geek out, is the, the store aspect of it. And I don't wanna lose [00:22:00] that piece of it because if you have world-class platforms with a world-class asset. 

[00:22:05] Todd: I think the in-store piece here with, with CVS is a great example, 9,000 stores. What's the stat you were telling us about the, the daily active shoppers in store? 'cause it's really an amazing stat that I think the world should understand and realize the audience that exists in an environment that is super cool and really, I think in me where a lot of innovation now starts to happen in terms of, of the stores and the physical retail. 

[00:22:29] Parbs: Yeah, I. I, first of all, thank you for the compliment on the team. I think we, we have an incredibly passionate team who, who care deeply about what it is that they're building. Um, and that resonates with whether it's CorIQ that we're building or. To your point around the store experience and, and we've been on a charge around store experience for a while, but the stat that you were, that you were looking, uh, that we were talking about, I have 5 million customers who come through a CVS store every single day, [00:23:00] 5 million. 

[00:23:00] Todd: It's an amazing stat, right? If we, again, in our world, right, the advertising 5 million DAU is an insane number, right? That's a really cool, big number and would put you on par with like the largest publishers in the world in terms of their DAU. 

[00:23:13] Parbs: You, you've got pretty much every single customer who comes through our doors. They come in for a reason to purchase something. They are. 

[00:23:22] Parbs: Primed for the way in which we can deliver message to them or create positive friction in their experience with us. And that's where we, that's where we see a true opportunity. And, and I, I've talked about this sort of ad nauseum, not all retail is created equal. Right. We, we, we are not, it's not always about the e-comm play. 

[00:23:44] Parbs: It's not always about fully the in-store play, but you do really need to understand where your consumers are and how they engage with your brand. 

[00:23:53] Tom Limongello: Well, two things there I think are that would be interesting is one is you talked earlier about loyalty as the connective tissue and [00:24:00] what I'm hearing, you know, a lot of the chatter right now in the industry is commerce, media networks, trying to come in and be like, yeah, you don't really need a loyalty program. 

[00:24:06] Tom Limongello: We could just do this. Um, and I, I think that, sets you apart because you have, what is it, something like 80 plus ID transactions, something like that, um, for people in your store. The other part of it is your stores are not the same. It's not the same store every time. A store in a, in a high end village, you know, I don't know what the store looks like. 

[00:24:27] Tom Limongello: You know, if it were be, if it were in none versus, you know, here in Philadelphia, like, you know, those stores are completely different. And I think that's probably why you needed  

[00:24:36] Parbs: there, there, there is a, um, uh, there's a big, uh, work stream underway around localization, um, for each of those communities. 'cause it's not just about the ad experience here. Let's just put that to one side. It's about providing. The bright level of service for our customers within their communities and, and you know, CVS is that community pharmacy. 

[00:24:57] Parbs: We are prevalent across [00:25:00] America. You know, we do have, you know, we have 144 million US adults, who come into a store. Who shop with CVS every single, every single year, right? Like, that's a significant number of customers that we're, that we're working with and, and, and who trust us, who trust us for their health and wellness needs. 

[00:25:21] Parbs: What we wanna do is, 

[00:25:23] Tom Limongello: Don't forget the kids. My, daughter's favorite store is CVS, so 

[00:25:27] Parbs: I think that's the trust factor, isn't it? 

[00:25:28] Tom Limongello: Well, no, there's that, but there's also the Claire's and the, you know, all the, all the other things that you guys are doing to, to get the kids to love it. Um, but I, I think that, know, there is a broader store story here, which is obviously the store is really valuable, as Todd mentioned. Um, but there's also, you know, we had Mark Williamson on, uh, for the second time, uh, a couple of weeks ago, and he was talking about how he's moving to try to be in the higher level intent signals. 

[00:25:56] Tom Limongello: So he's moving to Google to do product listing ads, things like that. [00:26:00] Um, you guys have some really interesting partners with Reddit and Pinterest, and you have a very interesting signal to try to surface, which is people trying to figure out. you know, how to diagnose themselves, figure out their own health, all that kind of stuff. 

[00:26:13] Tom Limongello: So like how does, how do those types of partnerships get amplified now that you have an ai, uh, data infrastructure layer, for lack of a better term? 

[00:26:23] Parbs: Yeah, so Reddit we announced last year. Um, we have, you know, strong relationships with the other social media platforms, Pinterest matter as well. And first and foremost, whenever we do and run a partnership, the, the most important thing for us is number one, um, how can we, uh, create. The right level of partnership that's gonna add value to, to the customer, uh, to the ad brand advertiser, and also to CVS as well, right? 

[00:26:54] Parbs: And obviously the, the, the social platforms are gonna wanna make sure that that adds value to them. The second [00:27:00] piece for us here is. Um, where can we be a little bit more unique in terms of the signals that we, that, that, that we're looking for? Reddit is a great platform for that. You know, there is a significant number of conversations that start on Reddit. 

[00:27:15] Parbs: Um, in order for us to be there and be within those, uh, environments, it enables us to. Um, to be much more, um, attuned to the type of content, not just the content that consumers are, are, are putting in, but also how do we create that positive friction with, uh, with the ad experience. And it, this is not just about intense signals and moving up and down the funnel, um, but it, it's also about how do we correlate all of the different surfaces and all of the different platforms. 

[00:27:46] Parbs: In order to really have a, a better understanding of how the consumer is engaging. Because when, when you're on Reddit, you're in a very, very different mode to when you are, you know, at our pharmacy counter, for example, right? [00:28:00] And, you know, we wanna make sure that, that the message is consistent across the board with, with that consumer. 

[00:28:06] Parbs: And we wrap our arms around that consumer. So we deliver the most personalized message for that customer always. And. I think some of the, the results that we're seeing and performance that we're seeing, if you lay a core IQ on top of that as well is it's, it's, it's there to be seen, right? Like we're seeing double digit increases in, in our overall performance. 

[00:28:27] Parbs: Um, and, and that doesn't always just have to be intent led signals. Um, it can be everything to do with the consumer and how they're behaving across different platforms. And, and then how does that correspond and relate to purchase behavior? 

[00:28:45] Todd: That campaign and. 

[00:28:51] Todd: Have you seen any changes in how campaigns are being evaluated? Is it just roas, is it others? Um, you know what, I think one of the, the interesting [00:29:00] aspects of retail media is it was so attribution focused initially. Right. Especially as it launched around sponsored search. And now it's evolving into a much broader platform. 

[00:29:10] Todd: You know, is it still just roas? What are the other, what are you seeing from the, the. Advertisers is how they matured and how they look and evaluate and think about retail media as a channel for them to advertise through. 

[00:29:24] Parbs: Yeah. Um. Well, it's, it's, it's a really interesting question 'cause, you know, the retail media gets kind of dinged all the time on different ways in which we should be measuring it. And there's always that new headline, which is, you know, attribution is the new way in which we measure retail media. And Oh, incremental ROAS is now the new, like 

[00:29:46] Todd: Right. 

[00:29:47] Parbs: I, I, I think first and foremost. 

[00:29:49] Tom Limongello: New. New in 2018.  

[00:29:50] Tom Limongello: Yeah. 

[00:29:51] Parbs: exactly. So, I it, a couple of things I th I would say on this, I think first and foremost, and, and I've been, um, [00:30:00] uh, flying the flag on this one, which is there, there needs to be standards and retail media needs to adopt the standards. That's it, right? Like there, there are standards out there. IAB are very, very clear. 

[00:30:12] Parbs: They spend a lot of time and then put a lot of effort into the standards, adopt the standards, and then tell the market that you're adopting the standards and there's different levels of a, a, a adoption that you can, that you can make. We have been always pushing because. I am very, very fortunate to have the data set that I do. 

[00:30:31] Parbs: I can be at the gold standard of those, of those, uh, uh, those standards. And we are, we're at the gold standard of those standards we're I see incrementality and incremental ROAS as the driving force here. That's one thing. And we see this where we, you know, we ran some campaigns for, um, for a consumer health brand, Zyrtec, Neutrogena, Tylenol. 

[00:30:53] Parbs: When we layered on Core iq, we see massive increases around, um, incremental roas. [00:31:00] We saw a 15% increase in, in I OAS when we, when we used our AI tooling with our data. I think that's the first thing. So how do we share, how do we share that information with the market and show how we are measuring and show transparency around how we're measuring? 

[00:31:16] Parbs: So this is gonna need to be something that the industry continues to grapple with and get a hold of, um, and show more transparency because without it, we're not gonna grow at the rate that our expectations are. 

[00:31:30] Tom Limongello: So since you're at the, the gold standard and you have this now, this new AI platform, what do you see the next couple of years looking like for CMX? 

[00:31:40] Parbs: Yeah, I, there's a couple of different things that we're, that we're looking at. I think we'll, we'll continue to, uh, we'll continue to scale and grow. Um, we, we. Truly understand, um, the health and wellness purchaser across America. Um, just given what we have, uh, from a, a volume coming into [00:32:00] our stores, but also the our loyalty program. 

[00:32:03] Parbs: We see the, uh, a, a continued growth within the store environment. Um, we're, you know, we're in the process of adding more surfaces to, uh, to the store environment, uh, bringing new surfaces to the store environment, um, and, um, uh, and, and more to. More to follow up on that as over the coming sort of weeks and months we're, we're in some, doing some tests right now. 

[00:32:30] Parbs: And then the third piece is how do we bring core IQ as that intelligent marketing platform into the hands of our advertisers and, and developing much more of a, a platform based initiative. So customers, our advertisers can come in. Somewhat self-serve their own products across our, uh, across our network. 

[00:32:52] Parbs: So we, we, we see all of that as sort of the, the future. There's still builds to do, there's still, you know, you know, we're [00:33:00] keeping the light on. We're trying to reduce our overall, uh, tech debt, um, all the time. But over overall, we're, we're in a pretty good place to see that level of growth. 

[00:33:10] Tom Limongello: So, in the spirit of testing, we've been testing out a, a closing question. And it's really a getting at. Your experience at working at a retailer. What do you think are the boldest things that you've done in your career or, or seen done at retailers that you've worked with, um, that you think, you know, can move the industry forward? So the examples are Sam Walton, uh, put something called z uh, Zuri sandals on a desk in, uh, in his five and dime. 

[00:33:35] Tom Limongello: Those were flip flops, and he basically created that category and he did it by low pricing. Um, dollar General stuck a whole bunch of pink corduroys on a desk, and it was an overrun. They didn't know what to do with the corduroys. It turned into an ad that everybody in the town saw, and it, it grew their, their business, five below ships basketballs deflated so they can get more of them in the truck. 

[00:33:57] Tom Limongello: are the types of things where you're, you've been testing or you've [00:34:00] seen it at your, your past, at at Walmart, at CBS, et cetera. Anything that you wanna share that was a formational, you know, memory of something that was bold, 

[00:34:09] Parbs: I have seen the power of when an enterprise works together collectively on an initiative, how you can really drive that through and, and building that. 

[00:34:22] Parbs: And it's real, like we talk a lot about ai, but the connective tissue that you can bring together of people. Around a shared mission and a shared objective. To really drive forward a business is, I think is still the most powerful, you know, part of our worlds, whether you're in the ads world or or otherwise. 

[00:34:44] Parbs: And we were talking, you know, a little bit before we came on this, around in real life and, and how in real life and events at our stores and, and, and we've tested some just, you know, just this past week how that comes to, to effect. But my point around this is. The power of [00:35:00] the togetherness and the power of the enterprise working together. 

[00:35:03] Parbs: So the marketing organizations, the merchant organizations, our tech, uh organizations, the retail media network, the merchants business, our pharmacy business. When you start to pull all of those together. With the tremendous amount of trust that we have garnered with our consumers through our brand. That is a, a really, really powerful tool. 

[00:35:29] Parbs: And we are seeing the advent of that and we're seeing that really come to fruition. And, and I, and I would say that's something that when we bring, you know, whether it's. Uh, uh, a an event that we did at the Boston Marathon this week with one of our partners, or an event that we did a, a golfing event, uh, earlier this week. 

[00:35:50] Parbs: The power of all of that collective together is, uh, is gonna be the difference maker in this industry, um, and a difference maker for the consumer as well. 

[00:35:58] Tom Limongello: Very good. Well, yeah, I [00:36:00] think, um, you know, the experiment, the bold experiment of, of making CMX, you, you sold this yourself and we were prepping for this. It's not the main thing that CVS sells. So how do you, how do you do that? And that's pretty bold in and of itself. 

[00:36:12] Parbs: Yeah. Yeah, we have a lot of fun doing it as well. And I work with, uh, a tremendous amount of a awesome people. So when you get to get, get to do that, you're building a business in this sector and you're working for, you know, one of the most trusted brands in the health and wellness sector. And, you know, I have all these toys to play with. 

[00:36:30] Parbs: Uh, it's a pretty fun time. The sun's shining, so. 

[00:36:34] Tom Limongello: That's great. Well, we love, we love having you on, um, and we love seeing all your team and all the events that we go to, so thank you for being on the Middleman podcast. 

[00:36:42] Parbs: Thanks for having me.  

[00:36:44] ​