# S3 E18 T73 - Kroger - Christine Foster - Cannes

S3 E18 T73 Kroger - Christine Foster - Cannes 

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[00:00:07] Tom Limongello: we are back from c- yeah, back from Cannes. And your favorite thing to do in our intros is to talk about the weather. So tell us about the experience we just had 

[00:00:16] Todd: Well, this time it's appropriate because it was 97 degrees and 105, is what it felt like. So it was hot as heck. So I'm glad at least our hotel rooms or Airbnbs, I mean, um, had functioning air conditioning, so we, we survived 

[00:00:30] Tom Limongello: We interviewed Christine Foster for the second time on the podcast, this time live in Cannes, and, it was a great discussion. My takeaway initially was that this was the, , the promise of all the stuff that we talked about last year, bringing in-store into the equation, mobilizing their audiences, all that kind of stuff. 

[00:00:50] Tom Limongello: This was a conversation where she was relaxed. She was talking about the fun that she's having running this retail media network. What were your thoughts? 

[00:00:58] Todd: One of the key things they were announcing at [00:01:00] Cannes was they're integrating their audience data with TikTok, which, like, who isn't gonna wanna do something like TikTok's so, such a big channel but it, it, it's interesting actually what they're really doing is they're connecting to TikTok to allow marketers who love the social networks like Instagram and TikTok, they've done Instagram previously, but then use that, to your point about in-store, to then effectively retarget those users in-store so a marketer can start a campaign on TikTok and now retarget those users or extend those campaigns to the in-store environment. 

[00:01:37] Todd: And we'll hear some stats about why that's important, but I think that's a really interesting unlock, right? How they're really enabling marketers to build full-funnel campaigns, not just top-of-funnel. We learned the acronym's apparently not a three-letter acronym, it's a four-letter acronym, TOFU, meaning top of funnel, and BOFU, not BOGO, but 

[00:01:56] Tom Limongello: Bottom of the funnel. 

[00:01:57] Todd: meaning bottom 

[00:01:57] Tom Limongello: Very good. Yeah, no, 

[00:01:58] Todd: Yeah, so we got two new[00:02:00]  

[00:02:00] Tom Limongello: I think you caught that. I didn't 

[00:02:01] Todd: new ones for us. 

[00:02:02] Tom Limongello: for picking that one up 

[00:02:03] Todd: Um, I was, I was like, it took me a second. We were talking, and I was like, "Oh, that's a cool one. Um, I'm gonna call that one out." But it-- so they, they start with their TOFU marketing on TikTok, and then they're pushing to a more transactional environment in store. 

[00:02:15] Todd: And to your point about leveraging what they launched last year, they're expanding it aggressively. It's gonna be in a lot more stores, and the ability to do full campaign, full-funnel go to a, a, brand budget, a non-endemic budget for their endemic advertisers. And so it really also calls out two portions of non-endemic that retailers are gonna be interested in selling campaigns to. 

[00:02:39] Todd: There's non-endemic advertisers, and then there's non-endemic budgets within endemic advertisers. And I think that's a really important unlock, which is you can win budgets from non-endemic areas of your existing advertisers. And I think this is an example of how they're orchestrating that by providing this, this linkage, this [00:03:00] data linkage, and this audience linkage. 

[00:03:01] Todd: And, and as we've explored, right? We talked about goPuff recently in terms of doing a great job of winning campaigns from, again, non-endemic budgets. And this is another example of how they're building out the infrastructure to enable that type of, of 

[00:03:15] Tom Limongello: Yeah, and I think what's interesting for me is when I was back at Quotient and we were doing, uh, social campaigns through Ahalogy, the acquisition that we had, the thing that was really challenging was this was not sort of an e-commerce play. You have a social campaign, you're discovering a new product, but if it's a CPG product like a can of soda or, you know, even cosmetics, some of them are high enough price where you would get it delivered to you. 

[00:03:39] Tom Limongello: But most of the time it's all about influencing a purchase that would happen in store. Um, and so, you know, the idea that bringing in TikTok to get somebody to see this new product and get, you know, get interested in it and then bring it to the store, the retargeting and the-- and bringing those extra channels in to do the blocking and tackling to finish the sale [00:04:00] is really important. 

[00:04:00] Tom Limongello: It's kind of... It gets missed because in the D2C world it's always, oh, you got targeted on, on TikTok, and then they just hammer you until you finish the sale through say, you know, TikTok shops or on Instagram through a Shopify in- integration. But this is really like a product that I'm never gonna buy, you know, like hummus. 

[00:04:17] Tom Limongello: I'm not gonna buy it online. I'm gonna buy it when I'm in the store. So that's for me the big unlock where what you're talking about, the top of funnel needs a connection to the retailer to be able to put it through its normal attribution window of seven days, 14 days, 30 days.  

[00:04:33] Todd: I think that your comment about TikTok Shops is really important. And, and there's a good discussion about the amount of users who discover things that they wanna try or buy as a result of being exposed to in a social channel like TikTok. 

[00:04:43] Todd: It's really high, which is why those non-endemic TOFU advertisers are interested in that. And you're right, they can't buy it in TikTok Shops, so they need to buy it in-store. And so connecting those dots, I think, is a really important, uh, solution, and it's something [00:05:00] a, a retailer and retail media can really only solve for. 

[00:05:02] Todd: So that's, we're gonna be talking more and more about this, of how do you win these non-endemic budgets? Well, this is a good example. Stitch these things together, make those offerings available in-store, and magic will happen 

[00:05:14] Tom Limongello: further ado, let's see the discussion that happened on the rooftop, that Kroger set up on the croissette So we are here live in Cannes with Christine Foster at Kroger Precision Marketing. I just wanted to say thank you for having us up on the rooftop. Uh, I heard from Brian Spencer it is, seven degrees cooler on the seventh floor up here, so I take every one of those degrees. Thank you. Yes. 

[00:05:41] Tom Limongello: It's very hot on the croissette.  

[00:05:42] Todd: It i- and for those at home, it is literally... France is the hottest place in the world this week. Yes. Literally. So- Like, it's like 105 degrees in Paris. Very hot out there. It's like 97 and 100% humidity here in Cannes. 

[00:05:52] Tom Limongello: Kroger brought the heat, um- ... last time. You are... This is the second time you've been on the Middlemen podcast, so thank you- Welcome back 

[00:05:58] Tom Limongello: for coming. Thanks for having me. Um, last [00:06:00] year it was all about in-store. We wanna talk about that, but I think this year's news is about audiences everywhere. Mm-hmm. And so I want you to give us a feel for that news. What are the cool new things that Kroger is doing with TikTok, and what does audiences everywhere mean? 

[00:06:15] Christine Foster: Yeah. Well, we see that our customers aren't just spending time on the Kroger website, right? They are out in the world discovering, um, you know, different products through, uh, a new and evolving consumer journey. Our focus is to make sure that the brands we support can meet them there. So audiences everywhere for us really is a, is a, um, focus on breaking down the silos, making sure that the intent and the purchase signal data that we have is connecting brands with those consumers wherever they are in their journey. 

[00:06:52] Christine Foster: Um, we believe very strongly that retailers are becoming the platform of trusted signals, and that's very [00:07:00] different, and it's a big shift, um, from kind of the channel-based, identity-based approach of media in the past. And so we're excited to keep moving in that direction, and you'll see a lot of new integrations from us going forward. 

[00:07:13] Todd: Well, in, in addition to the TikTok announcement news, you had been previously already connected to YouTube, and it sort of shows you evolving and getting in more places. I- Was this driven by just your own idea, or was this really something as you worked with brands is that they said, "Hey, how do-- We, we wanna be over here, too, and how do we connect that, that data," right? 

[00:07:36] Todd: That really important retail and, and other purchase data you guys have to these other places that they already are interested in marketing.  

[00:07:41] Christine Foster: Absolutely. I mean, our studies are showing that fifty percent of the impact, um, and conversion kind of decisioning happens not at the moment of purchase, but you know- Of course. 

[00:07:52] Christine Foster: Yeah ... what we've historically considered mid and upper funnel. Obviously, as a retailer, those audiences are super powerful, but if they're not [00:08:00] there, then how do we expect them to work throughout that consumer journey? So again, going back to the consumer journey, it really drives so, you know, everything that we're doing from a product innovation standpoint. 

[00:08:10] Christine Foster: But also to, to answer your direct question, yes, um, the brands on our shelves are pushing us and asking us, "Can we make sure you're here? Um, this is where we are buying a lot right now, and we need those signals in order to know did it actually work?" And I think this is an inflection point for the industry, and I'll answer the unasked question here- Right 

[00:08:30] Christine Foster: which is, um, how are we seeing kind of the retail media network approach shift from shopper and omni teams into more brand awareness and activation? Every organization is going through that transformation in their own way, at their own pace right now. But when we think about, um, why those questions are being asked by CPGs, right? 

[00:08:53] Christine Foster: Why they want us on YouTube, why they want us- Right ... on TikTok, it's because they need to show [00:09:00] that the f- the upper funnel, historically upper funnel, funnel is dead. But historically upper funnel activations and tactics actually connect all the way through. And because we have this incredible closed loop reporting, we're able to show that very directly. 

[00:09:15] Christine Foster: So brands can take this kind of measurement very directly back to their CFO and show the link between YouTube, between TikTok, and the conversion that happens on the Kroger website. 

[00:09:25] Todd: Right. Well, I think part of it is you guys have some interesting research with your shoppers, which is they use social media in a huge way to discover products. 

[00:09:35] Todd: Like, and the importance... And that's what's driving this, right? Yes. It's like your, your, your vendor's like, "Wait a second, the shopper journey starts over here. We need you to be here, too." And so it'd be great to kinda share some of the stats that you were talking about with us. Yeah. 'Cause I think it's really interesting data to, to discuss. 

[00:09:48] Christine Foster: Yeah. 68% of shoppers have told us, and we can see from our data, are discovering those products on social. Um, and so that's-  

[00:09:57] Todd: which makes total sense as to why they really wanna be there, [00:10:00] right? Buying ads, 'cause th- that's the moment of discovery- Exactly ... is now it's all on social.  

[00:10:02] Christine Foster: Exactly. Exactly. 

[00:10:03] Christine Foster: And now you can prove it, right? Right. It's one thing to tell us that you're discovering products in social, um, and at that high of a rate. It's another thing to be able to connect it in directly to measurement.  

[00:10:14] Tom: Yeah. I mean, I, I think one of the things that would be interesting, though, is that the, the use of TikTok, I think people really got to the understanding, oh, this is where I found the product. 

[00:10:25] Tom: But I think you were talking a little bit about how- Seeing it once isn't enough, right?  

[00:10:29] Christine Foster: Exactly. I mean, the, the data shows, our data, eMarketer data shows that it takes six to 10 plus times to see that- Right ... uh, product.  

[00:10:39] Todd: By the way, that's not a controversial stat. Right. In the ad world, we've always said seven X. 

[00:10:42] Todd: Yeah, exactly. You gotta see an ad seven times-  

[00:10:44] Christine Foster: Exactly ... before it sinks in. Frequency is important. Um, and this kind of closed loop approach and using the same audience signal throughout the consumer journey across every tactic is an important way to show that all of those signals together actually resulted [00:11:00] in the right conversion. 

[00:11:01] Christine Foster: So that 68% is a high number, right? Everyone's discovering new products and new- It's a, it's a really... It's an amazing number. It really speaks to this, the power of the social platform for discovery, but also why they're, they want you to be linked because they're like- Yeah ... look, that's the, that's the center of gravity now for consumer discovery. 

[00:11:17] Christine Foster: E- exactly, and why that six to eight per- plus, uh, touch point matters is because  

[00:11:21] Christine Foster: we also hear, and, and the data shows that 36% forget. They forget to buy- Right ... the thing they saw and loved. And so-  

[00:11:29] Todd: This is a hugely interesting stat, right? In terms of- Right ... I, oh, I saw it, I did it, and maybe, but the ability-  

[00:11:34] Christine Foster: I was inspired to purchase- Right 

[00:11:35] Christine Foster: but then I forgot about it and never went back for it. Right.  

[00:11:38] Todd: And now you can target those forgetters.  

[00:11:40] Christine Foster: Now we can target those forgetters. Right.  

[00:11:41] Christine Foster: But I think-  

[00:11:41] Todd: Which I think's the coolest from a media planning standpoint. Like every... This is, this is the line in every RFP response, every proposal back on the brand side that your sellers are gonna include. 

[00:11:51] Todd: And on the buying side, I'd be like, "That is the... Holy crap," 'cause if I can get a 36% lift in sales as a, from a media campaign- Yeah ... I'm a hero. I'm getting promoted, [00:12:00] right? Exactly. But it, yeah- This is a, this is a really cool ability to do that, right? Really influence that 36% who aren't purchasing.  

[00:12:05] Tom: But it's not, uh, it's not something that's that easy to implement because you have a situation where a lot of the times on the RFP, the question is how many times are you frequency-ing this person? 

[00:12:14] Tom: How m- how often are you hitting them? And a lot of people are like, "Oh, well, if it's a high number, it's bad." And I think that moving from the retail media, you know, thinking around, oh, well, maybe you're gonna hit them four times over a month, to think about a TikTok frequency, which could be seven, eight, 10, 12 time... 

[00:12:31] Tom: Like, how do you square that circle? 

[00:12:32] Christine Foster: Well, now that's where Audiences Everywhere matters, right? Because now you have that linkage. You have the same audience, you have the same connectivity all the way through the consumer journey, um, historically that funnel, and can kind of see and track exactly where, and have a strategy for that retargeting, um, message, and how you wanna approach them differently across that consumer journey. 

[00:12:56] Christine Foster: That's been the historically, difficult thing for any of us [00:13:00] in media to do because you had all of those teams trying to do that and build up that frequency of messaging in their own stack, in their own silo. And so that may have been a different audience that you're using, which means that those same people aren't seeing it. 

[00:13:15] Christine Foster: You're just a- approaching the, kind of the product messaging from your direction, from your silo, and hoping that the chain of events matched up so that it, it resulted in a sales lift for the brand.  

[00:13:26] Todd: I mean, what- what's cool here, and, you know, one of the challenges with frequency capping and management within media, and this is a very inside baseball sort of discussion, is that it was only managed through if you were buying on the same exchange or the same platform and, and cookie m- matching and targeting, and it worked okay, right? 

[00:13:44] Todd: Problem with cookie deletions have made that, um, problematic. But what's fascinating about this discussion is you can really map a full consumer journey from TikTok to the store, and other publishers that you have a relationship with- with- through your data, um, exchanges. 

[00:13:59] Todd: [00:14:00] And you can help the- the media planners really design a full consumer journey campaign. Exactly. And by the way, we've been talking about wanting to do this in digital media- Yeah ... for 20 years, right? Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that, like, oh, wait, we can actually do this. 

[00:14:12] Todd: We know they're going to TikTok or YouTube first. Yeah. And then they might go to another site, and you can target them with- with your Audience, Everywhere data. And then on platform- Not just even online, but in the store. Yeah. Right? This is such a cool concept of the ability to target ads across that entire consumer journey, map the creatives, and I know we wanna, uh- Yeah. 

[00:14:34] Todd: Talk about the formats.  

[00:14:34] Tom: We're gonna wanna talk a little bit about the Barrow screens. We wanna know, you know, how many stores you're in now, we wanna know what that creative looks like. Um, so tell us a little bit about how in-store has evolved.  

[00:14:46] Tom: Yeah, so we launched our partnership with Barrows last year in Cannes, actually. 

[00:14:50] Tom: This year we're excited, uh, about the continuation of that rollout and being in more stores. Right. Um, it's a pretty sizable component. I-  

[00:14:58] Tom: And by the way, and great [00:15:00] screens, sizable screens. S- Like, we, we talked last year- Yeah ... about the stadium style screens, like, they're awesome.  

[00:15:04] Christine Foster: Such impactful and, and really, um, fun visuals that are peppering the store and the, the consumer experience. 

[00:15:12] Christine Foster: And, and at the end of the day for us, that partnership and, and the reason we're rolling out in this manner has to do with driving better customer experiences. Um, and, and by the way, the data is proving it out. We're seeing department lift and store lift in the stores that we've already rolled out. Um, so it is about, I- I- in addition to the brand lift, right? 

[00:15:31] Christine Foster: The, the brand lift is, is obviously a piece of it. Right. For us, it's about the holistic approach. And the reason we're seeing that lift has to do with better consumer experiences. Really meeting, um, and evolving, and, and in, in a generation that is used to screens- Right ... in a way that is native and, um, supports that, you know, uh, experience in the aisle and in the store in a way that, static and, and, and kind of like clings don't- Yeah 

[00:15:58] Christine Foster: don't really do.  

[00:15:59] Tom: But it's not [00:16:00] exactly just, you know, porting a TV commercial, porting, uh, a TikTok, you know, reel in there. Um, what I'm seeing on some of these screens, maybe a price and item at the top, and then it's layered over lifestyle video. So I think it's a really interesting setup that you have. 

[00:16:16] Christine Foster: It's such- And it's different. Yeah. It is such a creative space, and I think it's gonna be fun to work with brands on how to meet, um, a new kind of environment. It's not exactly digital out of home, it's not exactly social. It's not just a CTV ad. Right. It's kind of a combination of a lot of, of all three. 

[00:16:35] Tom: Yeah. And- It's, it's helping you navigate the store ...  

[00:16:37] Christine Foster: it's a, it's a white space for brands to think differently, and also figure out what works for them and, and match that customer need. Because like I said, it is having such a powerful lift in all of these different areas, brand, department, and store. Um, so it's really helping, you know, both Kroger and the brand grow and, uh, and that is due to the fact that customers love it. 

[00:16:59] Christine Foster: [00:17:00] Customers are really engaging with these screens in the right way.  

[00:17:02] Todd: Well, I... the fact you said it's, it's not just lift for the brands that are being featured, it's lift at the store and department level. That's f- I haven't heard that data from anyone else. And that's a fascinating talking point- it's helping us beyond just that brand.  

[00:17:15] Christine Foster: It's turning the end cap into an inspirational touch point- Yep ... um, across the consumer journey in a way that, um, again, maybe you couldn't do in the past with analog. 

[00:17:27] Christine Foster: Um, and I'm excited to see these numbers. You know, transparently when, when the numbers started coming through after our, initial launch, it, it was super exciting for us because it was a hypothesis that we bet on. Yeah. Yep. And, and now seeing that that is accurate, and that customers are engaging with it in the right way, and that we're seeing the lift in all of these, in these three important ways for us, again, back to the evolving customer expectations of where they shop, how they shop, and who they engage with  

[00:17:58] Todd: Right? 

[00:17:59] Todd: I mean, what's fun about [00:18:00] this is I can imagine, and I'm putting my old-school media seller hats. I've been in ad sales and, and this environment, and so this really speaks to that experience, which is I can totally in my head imagine the PowerPoint that's getting put together for the CMO or the VPM at the brand, right? 

[00:18:16] Todd: Talking, showing the, the TikTok journey, and then showing the ads and how they're in different digital environments. And then the in-store piece of it and the visual of what that would be, like the mock-ups of what that journey would be. And if I were a CMO, that's a really cool media plan, right? Exactly. 

[00:18:31] Todd: It's, And finally seeing the execution, but in a way that's very brand-enhancing. Yes. Not just brand-friendly, but brand-enhancing, and then ultimately sales-enhancing with verifiable purchase data. 

[00:18:41] Todd: Exactly. This is killer stuff.  

[00:18:43] Christine Foster: Yeah, and I... That's where I would encourage brands to think differently, too. Like, take what you're doing on social, take what you're doing on CTV- Right ... craft it or, or use it and test and learn what works well in the store for you. Right. This is an in- this is a space to be inspirational, but also, then you're at the [00:19:00] point of sale. 

[00:19:00] Christine Foster: You have a real opportunity to put that item directly in the basket- Right ... in the same way that you do on digital, but directly in an offline environment. And that is an awesome moment that you don't get with CTV, that you don't- Right ... always get with social. 

[00:19:14] Todd: I'm geeking out on this a little bit because I think it is wicked cool, and it goes back to what we always talked about the promise of digital being in terms of purchasing. 

[00:19:21] Todd: And, you know, working with Tom here on the podcast and his retail background where you, you, you're like, you probably just assumed this always works like this. And as you learned, it didn't- Yeah ... and it was very separate.  

[00:19:33] Tom: Well, I think, um, that probably brings up an- another area of innovation that you guys have been working on that I think is very interesting. 

[00:19:40] Tom: And so, yes, there are PowerPoints to the CMO, but there's also the daily, uh, work with Stratum, with your Agent Monday, um, imagining sort of, or reimagining what campaign creation, planning, all of that cycle measurement, what does that look like now? Now that you have all these cool new touch points that are outside of sponsored [00:20:00] search- What does that new daily workflow look like? 

[00:20:03] Christine Foster: Yeah, isn't this fun? Yeah. Isn't this a fun time- Yeah ... to, to be in this industry? Um, I think, you know, taking, uh, the insights that a retailer can provide at the level and granularity that we can provide- Right ... um, as you mentioned, Kroger Precision Marketing operates Stratum, which is-  

[00:20:23] Tom: Yeah, tell us what that is. 

[00:20:24] Christine Foster: Yeah Yeah ... which is our insights platform. So we are able to use customer purchase signals and data and slice them and splice them in all different sorts of ways. Initially, that tool was created for CPGs directly to see what- Right ... what was happening in the store and offline- Right ... or on and offline. 

[00:20:45] Todd: But, but traditionally more of a sales tool, not necessarily a marketing tool-  

[00:20:48] Todd: Correct 

[00:20:48] Todd: that like the marketing side of the vendors- A product ... got access to. 

[00:20:50] Christine Foster: A product, product movement, a product innovation tool- Yeah ... very specific to CPGs understanding what and how they were moving their business and what they needed to [00:21:00] do as a result to move their business forward at Kroger. What we have seen and, um, and have worked on, um, over the last couple of years is the evolution of that product to be also enabling marketers to- Right 

[00:21:15] Christine Foster: know what next steps to take. This is also an opportunity for brands directly to partner more internally. It goes back to kind of the, the breaking down of silos and- Right ... figuring out-  

[00:21:24] Todd: Which we've been talking about even with you guys- Yes ... last year, for the last year and a half. Yeah. This is what I say. 

[00:21:26] Christine Foster: Right. This is such a fun time because- Right ... to your point, the things that have been discussed or desired for a long time are actually now possible. Right. And so in, uh, Stratum gives us that, um, that daily view almost near real time, um, for, for brands and their marketing teams to come together on what they're going to do next. 

[00:21:45] Christine Foster: Right. What are they going to do about this data? Right. What are they go- what kind of insights do they need to pull from it? And then you mentioned Agent Monday. It's a lot of data, right? We, we talk about data all over this industry, and it's super powerful, but at, at the end of the day, it's only as [00:22:00] powerful as it gets turned into an insight. 

[00:22:02] Christine Foster: Right. It's data, data everywhere and not an insight defined in some cases. And so we are taking down the complexity or the lift of finding that insight with our new AI feature that overlays Agent Monday, which is a, a Monday morning email to all of those brands that are engaged with Stratum. Um, and it tells them very quickly what happened over the last week. 

[00:22:27] Todd: Well, you, I mean you... Tom, your experience at Unilever, you were right on that side, and you were, I, I think, more on the sales side, and so you always had access to this data, but this didn't always go to the marketers side of, of the, the CPG companies, did it? 

[00:22:40] Tom: I mean, I think, I think the, the difference today is the granularity of the data. 

[00:22:45] Tom: Like, I think it was very Nielsen focused. It was, you know, it, it was sort of aggregate. And this is really getting to a place where you can use the data. But to your point- Is everybody trained to use this data? You know, you need a helping hand Right I think the, the Agent Monday thing [00:23:00] sounds like a lot of fun to be able to play with. 

[00:23:02] Tom: Like, how does that change- how these vendors or brands are gonna interact with you? Does it mean you get to have better conversations with them? Like, what, what ends up happening? 

[00:23:13] Christine Foster: You know, position marketing ... the feedback on Agent Monday itself has been super positive, and that's just the start, right? Right. Like, that's a first pass at making, um, the data easier to understand, less complex, somewhere to start first thing on a Monday morning. 

[00:23:26] Christine Foster: Right. So just the, the bare minimum. To your, to your question, how is this going to evolve and where do marketers and, and brands need it to go? Lots of different directions. I think there's so much opportunity with this. Again, I won't- I'm, yeah ... scare my product team here. 

[00:23:41] Tom: I'm, I'm sort of laughing because I'm also kind of, like, is this keeps them from being embarrassed about not going into the platform, right? 

[00:23:47] Christine Foster: Correct. Like, e- you know, if, if, if not being a data scientist- Yeah ... or not being, not having an analytics background- Right ... um, is the thing that stops you from s- you know, reviewing the data to figure out what to [00:24:00] do with the data, then we wanna take that down. Right. We wanna, we wanna remove that as a barrier right off the bat. 

[00:24:05] Christine Foster: And so this is a place to start. Uh, it, it will not be the end of the journey for us, but the, but the feedback has been super valuable. 'Cause what this also does is, like, if even if you do have an analytics background, and you do have, you know, a more data kind of driven approach to your work, um, it takes you hours. 

[00:24:23] Christine Foster: Yeah. Right. It takes you, it, it-  

[00:24:23] Todd: It's the time savings aspect of, yes ...  

[00:24:25] Christine Foster: it can take days to get to this nugget, right? And so what, what this AI layer is doing is giving you that right off the bat. So now you can do the more strategic and/or in-depth work- Right ... that you wanted to anyway. Um, but you don't have to look for the highest level nuggets. 

[00:24:42] Christine Foster: Uh, those are just gonna be served to you. Yeah. You're going to get, here's what happened, here's what we're seeing, here's what the kind of AI is telling us. Now, you can double-check that. You can then go deeper.  

[00:24:51] Tom: Yeah, this is, this is, you get to bat it around instead of-  

[00:24:53] Christine Foster: E- exactly ... instead of trying to generate, yeah 

[00:24:54] Christine Foster: instead of trying to get to that first place- Yeah ... y- we're just gonna give that to you.  

[00:24:58] Todd: Well, it's funny you talk about breaking down [00:25:00] the silos. I think it'll go back to your Unilever experience, uh, and your re- your CPG experience, which is I don't think we appreciate the, the way silos worked on the other side- Yeah 

[00:25:08] Todd: like the brand side. I mean, that's what we're interested in hearing. Where those marketers- Yeah ... would go out and pay for lots of third-party data because the salespeople were the ones talking to the retailers, and they would g- they would see some spreadsheets every month or quarter from the sales team would give them some in- some perspective on what's going on. 

[00:25:22] Todd: But, and, and so now the ability for them to work with you- Yeah ... and get this data themselves, and all sides on that side are getting access to the same data in real time in meaningful ways, that's a, that's a bigger change than I think people who aren't on the retail side- Um, 'cause again, the marketers that I would sell to back in my brand days would be, would hire Nielsen and get all this third-party data on what the sales team had access from the, the retailer directly. 

[00:25:48] Christine Foster: Yeah, I completely agree. I think this is a, this ... Again, it's funny. All of these conversations goes back to org design. Like it- Uh, it's, it's ... Yeah, right ... in helping kind of pull teams together and, and [00:26:00] streamline where and how you have to get- Right ... to something. Um, a- and that's, that's definitely our intent, is really to take down the barrier to entry, to take down, , the work that it takes to get to the singular nugget, um, and where you have to go to get that, right? 

[00:26:17] Christine Foster: Right. Like, if you can work in, in one space, why wouldn't you? Right. 'Cause that's obviously increasing your effectiveness and your efficiency. And, um, for us, that's kind of w- we try to keep those two things in balance, um, as we're planning any product innovation or- Right ... any kind of future strategies.  

[00:26:36] Todd: Uh, it, it's, it makes complete sense. 

[00:26:37] Todd: I mean, even your organization has evolved, right? It might be good to talk about your perspective 'cause I actually think it's kinda cool what you guys have done, and it's actually much more leading edge from an org design standpoint than maybe if y- your bosses might not realize it, but from as an outsider perspective, kudos to what you guys have talked to us about in terms of how you've thought about the, the co- your organizational design. 

[00:26:58] Christine Foster: Yeah. Thank [00:27:00] you. Um, I think, you know, w- let's put our money where our mouth is, right? We're, we're forcing this- Right ... kind of org and siloed conversation with, um, the, the brands that we work with, uh, i- in some ways unintentionally just because of what we're talking about that that then calls to the table different elements from a brand or different teams- Right 

[00:27:20] Christine Foster: from a brand. Um, and, and, you know, everyone's figuring it out. But last year, early last year, we took steps to pull our, pull Kroger's commercial businesses all together. So that was our consumer insights- Yeah ... our loyalty marketing, and our retail media platform all into one and pull those teams together. 

[00:27:38] Christine Foster: And what we have seen over the last year happen very directly and, and sometimes when you look back indirectly where you're like, "Oh, wow, this is some- this is not a conversation we would have had two years ago." Um, the-  

[00:27:49] Todd: Which is the point. Exactly. This is the point. And, and by the way, this is something that Tom and I have been talking about for the entire time we've been, it, it-  

[00:27:56] Tom: Well, I mean, the whole- 

[00:27:56] Tom: working on this ... point of the middleman is to, to, to understand [00:28:00] that people like us who sit in between retailer, you have many banners. You have lots of different- Yes ... store types and- A lot of complexity ... yeah, you have a lot of complexity. Right. The brands have a lot, many brands. Unilever has, you know, something like in the hundreds of brands. 

[00:28:12] Tom: And, you know-  

[00:28:13] Todd: I've heard 200 business units globally.  

[00:28:14] Tom: Yeah. And so, so the idea of, you know, simplifying that- Yeah ... is refreshing.  

[00:28:19] Christine Foster: It's complexity upon pl- complexity. Yeah. And so if there... And that was for us a s- a first step. We could own this, right? Right. We can take this complexity out of the ecosystem. And- And very, uh, directly that looks like pushing people together. 

[00:28:35] Christine Foster: Right. And that is, um, a lot of the work that we did last year and making sure that we were having the right conversations, that people had the right exposures across the, the business and, and could find new insights even internally, um, to do something new with. And I think we've seen a lot of that come to fruition. 

[00:28:52] Christine Foster: I got an email from a team last week that actually just called out how a CPG had reached out to our team just [00:29:00] talking about how well that was going and how they were having different conversations. And so it is so fun to see those kinds of examples where you see it in real, in the real world, like the things you- Right 

[00:29:11] Christine Foster: thought would happen. And it's funny how often that just is lost. Like, org design is such an important part of actually being able to do the things that you need to do tech- technologically. Right. Because now people understand more of the problem or more of the opportunities.  

[00:29:26] Todd: Well, and I think it gets to, a- and, and it might get lost on people who aren't as familiar, like the TikTok or YouTube budgets are not owned by shopper marketing at the brand. 

[00:29:34] Todd: Correct. Right? They're owned, um, and I love this phrase, and it always kinda drives Tom nuts- Yeah ... a little bit, which is non-endemic budgets. Not an endemic advertiser- Right ... it's a non-endemic budget It's a, it's a non-endemic budget from a endemic advertiser. And we've seen some other retail media, uh, networks start to also win some of these budgets too, but if you're able to go on TikTok and YouTube and win those budgets, right, you're getting it from the brand side.[00:30:00]  

[00:30:00] Todd: That's non-endemic budget, which is what we've been talking about for retail media really to reach its apex, it has to start getting budgets across the brands.  

[00:30:07] Christine Foster: Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I think, you know, in- i- that's a very real example of the silos that exist throughout the industry, and, I've had multiple conversations this week around that very topic. 

[00:30:19] Christine Foster: I bet you have. Yeah. Um, and you have CMOs who are like, "Wait, my sales team now is part of my- Correct ... conversations around where my budget goes- Right ... and I wanna make sure it's the most effective." And good news, so do I. You know, this isn't, this isn't about, um, just, you know, assuming that i- it's all gonna work together and, uh, you just put it, you just put the money in this pot. 

[00:30:43] Christine Foster: It is about really rethinking strategic playbooks- Right ... across every organization so that it actually proves out in value, right? Brand budgets are, um, historically, upper, upper [00:31:00] funnel- Right ... awareness building, um, kind of that umbrella over top of all of the things that happen from a performance standpoint below. 

[00:31:08] Christine Foster: Right. But if they're disconnected with all of the things that happen below, then, then they're really not as, going to be as effective as they need to be. Right. It's not efficient. Correct. It's not efficient, and it's not effective. And so I think there's an opportunity, and the conversations that we're having around, okay, how do we make sure that we're not just pulling brand budgets, but it's, it's really helping you grow the brand, not just at... 

[00:31:32] Christine Foster: And that's the thing, right? Like, let's call a spade a spade. Those brand budgets are not just built to grow the brand at Kroger. They're built to grow the brand. Correct. And, and I think- Well, and yeah, and it- ... that's something retailers are, are learning. 

[00:31:44] Tom: I think we're trying to get past that era of retail media where everything was a proof of concept, and, oh, we'll get brand budgets to try it out is not the right way to think about it. 

[00:31:54] Christine Foster: Exactly. And it is, it does have to be connected, and we're finally at a place where, um, [00:32:00] organizationally, strategically, technologically, we're, we're able to do that more fully. And so that's the exciting... That's why I say it's such a fun time to be- Right ... a part of all of this.  

[00:32:10] Todd: Well, and I think the other thing from a technology standpoint is you're now plugged into all the pieces that you have to be to be a good partner from the non-endemic budget side- Yep 

[00:32:19] Todd: sorry, Tom- Nah ... uh, to the w- the more traditional endemic purchase targeting that you're used to doing in retail media, and you're now at all the places. I think one of the challenges has always been if you're not easy to buy- That they won't buy. And the agency, right, the, the planners and the traders and the, media operators or ad ops as they like to call it,. they can throw up their hands and say, "Oh, this is too hard. I'm just scratching this off the line item of the campaign. I can't make it work." 

[00:32:45] Christine Foster: Yeah. It's fun. I, I think this goes back to the, the audience is everywhere comment, right? Which is I think retail can really become the trusted signal for the ecosystem- Right ... in a way that is performance-enhancing for every media [00:33:00] company- Right ... out here on the cassette. And that's an exciting moment for us. 

[00:33:04] Tom: This has been an exciting moment for us, and I think to close it out, your thoughts on where Kroger goes next year. Anything you can tell us, sneak peeks, you know, for, for Cannes- Yeah, when we're coming back next year- 27 ... to talk about, what are we gonna hear? Or, or grocery shop- We haven't even finished- Yeah 

[00:33:21] Tom: 26. Yeah. 

[00:33:21] Christine Foster: We haven't even finished Cannes 26. Yeah. We're talking about Cannes 27. Um- We like to look ahead. I love it as well. I think what you can expect from Kroger Precision Marketing is more innovation of this type. We are looking to drive more efficiency and effectiveness throughout the ecosystem. 

[00:33:39] Christine Foster: We're looking to continue to kind of push the industry to look for the signals as the, as the baseline and find, you know, better ways of connecting with audiences through enhancing customer experiences wherever they are. Yeah. And I think that's, um, that's our opportunity, and we're, we're excited to be part [00:34:00] of that journey. 

[00:34:02] Tom: Well, we'll, uh, we'll invite you any time to be on the Middlemen, so thank you.  

[00:34:06] Tom: Thanks for having me, guys. As well.  

[00:34:09] ​