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10 minutes of expert insights every weekday. Your morning ritual for staying ahead in retail media.
Parbs - CVS - snips version
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[00:00:00] Speaker: Most retail media executives talk about growth trajectories and untapped opportunities, but Carpenter Daral, who is the vice president and general manager of CVS Media Exchange, would rather talk about what the [00:00:15] industry is getting wrong. Here's what he said earlier this year on the CBG Guys podcast,
[00:00:21] Parbs: I think what the challenge that retail media has, it has a PR problem.
[00:00:25] Um, and the PR problem is, is that we've, we've gone in, [00:00:30] um, as we've built certain retail media networks and we've gone in and we stronger arm the, the, the marketing departments, um, to spend money. It's like, Hey, you gotta spend money. And if you don't, there's ramifications.
[00:00:41]
[00:00:43] Speaker: that's a big admission from someone [00:00:45] running the retail media arm of America's largest pharmacy chain, But pubs as he's known, industry-wide, believes that the reckoning is overdue. His His argument is that if retail media networks can't prove efficacy for every dollar [00:01:00] spent, the industry's explosive growth will stall before it reaches its full potential.
[00:01:06] This confidence to be so candid might stem from pub's 25 years in digital advertising, including [00:01:15] stints at Spotify CBS, and most recently Walmart Connect before joining. CVS media exchange. That background gives him perspective on how advertising channels mature and how they can also [00:01:30] squander their credibility.
[00:01:31] Parbs: There's a lot of modeling that happens as well across our business, uh, in retail media. And it gives retail media, uh, a, a rough ride. And I think we've gotta be more transparent about where we're modeling and where we're not modeling.
[00:01:44] Because [00:01:45] if we, you do not provide that level of transparency. It doesn't matter whether you're a brand or you're a shopper marketer or anywhere in between. You're not gonna trust the numbers. Yeah. Right. And we've gotta help people trust the numbers and, uh, and I [00:02:00] believe that the IAB and the work that Jeffrey Bustos is doing, um, the work that Andrew is doing Yeah.
[00:02:06] In the market is incredibly important for ev for all of that transparency.
[00:02:09]
[00:02:11] Speaker: This foots with recent findings from the Path to Purchase Institute [00:02:15] whose annual survey found that the share of brands that view retail media as just a money grab by retailers has more than doubled from 2024 to 2025. It went from 8% of people agreeing with that statement to [00:02:30] 19% of people agreeing with that statement.
[00:02:33] The key challenges are higher spend requirements, poor data transparency, and weak performance.
[00:02:41] This skepticism may hold money back from existing budgets, but the [00:02:45] stakes are even higher when we consider where future growth in the retail media industry could come from. Retail media has predominantly been funded through trade marketing and shopper marketing dollars.
[00:02:56] These are dollars that brands allocate specifically to individual [00:03:00] retail partnerships. But the real prize is national brand budgets, the larger pools of money controlled by CMOs.
[00:03:07] To capture those dollars, retailers have to prove that they're genuine media partners, not just another line item in a joint [00:03:15] business plan. Here's pubs again, talking on the Beyond the Shelf podcast.
[00:03:20] Parbs: We're also seeing, um, that need for greater transparency now on the supplier side, because suppliers, if we wanna move into the [00:03:30] brand dollars, we've also gotta be able to connect with, um, the same metrics that, as I mentioned before, that, that we're also, that, that, that we're being judged against, right?
[00:03:40] Like if, if we're gonna, if, if a supplier is gonna move a dollar from, [00:03:45] um. Platform A to retail to CMX, what's the efficacy of that particular buy? And, and those, those things are, are, are, are, are moving relatively fast. The piece that always stands out to us [00:04:00] and, and I think that sets retail media networks outside of what.
[00:04:04] Other platforms can do is we can drive efficacy. We understand audiences and we understand the way in which their purchasing behavior is within the, within the store footprint. [00:04:15] How do we build that level of closed loop reporting that that really sets as a. Part sets us above and beyond what some of the other platforms can offer.
[00:04:25] And, [00:04:30] Did you know that leading retail media networks drive 85% of their ads through mid and long tail advertisers?
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[00:05:10]
[00:05:10] Speaker: One of the elements of the CMX playbooks that pubs talks about [00:05:15] being essential is transparency, and here is an excerpt from the Floor nine Podcast where he talks about it being a pillar of CMX.
[00:05:25] Parbs: Yeah, look, transparency is a pillar of CMX. Really follow suit with the. [00:05:30] Brand equity that we have with our consumers. We provide our consumers a level of transparency, and CMX provides our brand partners a level of transparency.
[00:05:39] And what we mean by that is we adhere to all of the IAB standards. I would say we, we [00:05:45] definitely move towards the gold standard of the IAB measurement standards for retail media. That is. Dear to us, it's important, I believe, for the industry, just even if you look at our partnership with Reddit, we're bringing [00:06:00] together two very, very large platforms and providing that level of transparency around measurement for the dollars that are being spent on our platform over the long run, that's gonna give us a lot more ways in which we can engage brands and drive more growth in dollars [00:06:15] across the retail media network.
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[00:06:17] Speaker: Now CVS also has an asset that a lot of other retailers lack a loyalty program with genuine scale and purchase attribution. Cv S'S extra care program counts [00:06:30] 90 million addressable members with what Pars describes as a 90 plus percent, one-to-one match rate on transactions.
[00:06:39] And finally in store. In store retail media has been getting a lot of interest and [00:06:45] attention, and CVS is really paving the way with a huge rollout of. Front entrance screens, pharmacy waiting area screens, digital end caps, and in-store [00:07:00] audio.
[00:07:00] Pubs says Candor about retail media credibility reflects a broader industry tension. Growth is decelerating from about 15.6% in 2025 versus. [00:07:15] 25.1% in 2024, according to the IAB brands are scrutinizing every retail media dollar, the easy money is running dry. So for retail media networks outside of the Amazon, Walmart, [00:07:30] duopoly Proving clear value on a different value dimension is necessary, and Par seems to understand this. His big bet is that transparency and standardization will differentiate.
[00:07:42] It is a virtuous cycle [00:07:45] if networks are willing to be held accountable. At least that's the PR bet that Pars is making.
[00:07:52]