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Unlocking Retail Media is the essential podcast for leaders and marketers navigating the rapidly evolving world of retail advertising. We move beyond day-to-day operations to explore the strategic future of the industry, covering major investment trends, the shift to hybrid marketplace models, and the existential disruption posed by Agentic Commerce. Host James Avery brings in top industry veterans and visionary founders to analyze how ground-breaking technology is transforming customer journeys, influencing product catalogs, and forcing retailers to rethink on-site, in-store, and digital media strategies to remain competitive in the modern age.
Matt Vignieri: [00:00:00] If one of your products is, is doing well or your competitor's out of stock in a number of locations, you don't wanna just go, "Okay, I'm gonna run to my Amazon Ads console, then to my Walmart one, then to my Kroger one," et cetera, and start to boost those campaigns, right? To drive because of, of, of something that's happened in the market.
You wanna be able to do it in one place. As well as when you see, like, there's opportunities, you wanna be able to leverage those across all the retail media networks
James Avery: Welcome to Unlocking Retail Media, the podcast where we explore the evolving world of retail media from data strategy to monetization and everything in between.
This is where we break down how retailers can build smarter data-driven media networks by aligning with what brands truly need from scalable ad solutions and meaningful metrics to cross-channel attribution and programmatic strategy. Welcome to Unlocking Retail Media. So we, we spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about retail media from the retailer's perspective, like how do you build it, how do you scale it, how do you get the measurement [00:01:00] right?
And that's great, but there's a whole another side of the table that doesn't get enough airtime, which is, what does it actually feel like to be a brand trying to operate across all these different networks at once? I always joke that we're gonna, we're gonna be the company that launches a thousand walled gardens.
Well, what does, what does that mean for the brands trying to operate across these thousand walled gardens? And that's where Matt comes in. Matt is a chief growth officer at Skai, which for anyone who doesn't know them, think of it as a command center for brands trying to make sense of all this retail media at scale.
They're helping advertisers manage campaigns across Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Kroger, you name it, all in one place. And Matt gets to see what the most sophisticated brands are actually doing, what's working, what's frustrating them, where the whole ecosystem still needs to grow up a little bit. So we're gonna dig into all that, what brands are really asking for right now, where the measurement conversation is actually going, how AI is changing the way people run campaigns, and probably get into some agentic commerce stuff because we can't seem to avoid talking about that a little bit.
Uh, but Matt, thanks for joining me today. [00:02:00]
Matt Vignieri: Thanks, James. Thanks for having me. And just for, for posterity's sake, everybody calls me Vig, so let's, let's go with that-
James Avery: Vig,
Matt Vignieri: love it ... if you don't mind. Yeah.
James Avery: Perfect.
Matt Vignieri: Yeah.
James Avery: Uh, you can tell I didn't try to pronounce your last name, but I should have. Matt Vig- Vignieri?
Matt Vignieri: There you go.
James Avery: Perfect. You
Matt Vignieri: got it.
James Avery: See, I should have done it. All right, Vig. Uh, so tell me about your, uh-- Let's, let's start with, like, what's the, uh, kinda your path to Skai? Like, uh, where, where you, where you kinda started out and, and how you ended up here.
Matt Vignieri: Oh, God. You know, so, um, first there was the super compute...
Well, no, actually the mainframe, and then, um, and then technology moved along a little bit. I actually started out in the, in the, um, uh, on the, uh, compute side of things, right? But then moved into, uh, Oracle, where I started to work with, uh, around customer relationship management solutions, loyalty solutions.
Um, and it got me thinking, you know, uh, what if I applied some of those skills towards, um, you know, marketing, right? And I'm not a marketer by, by trade or [00:03:00] by, by education. But, um, and so, uh, at the time, a friend of mine was working at, at a company called Kenshoo, which is now Skai, and said, "Hey, you should check this out."
And, uh, well, 13 years later, here I am, uh, working as a, a, in, in the marketing world, uh, with a lot of great brands and a lot of great partners.
James Avery: Awesome. And so yeah, let's get into a little bit about, you know, I know, uh, I remember Kenshoo. I think most people now just know it as Skai. Uh- Yeah ... but you know, Kenshoo kinda came from the kinda more search and, uh- Uh, you know, kind of running across Google and Bing and, and all the other search people out there.
But now Skai is, you know, like focused on retail media or has a lot of retail media. So give us, give us the, the kind of pitch for Skai.
Matt Vignieri: Yeah, I think so, I mean, you know, we did start out in the, in the Google search space actually. The, the, the double O in Kenshoo was an homage to Google. Um, and we moved into, um, social media marketing with Meta, uh, at the time Facebook.
Um, and it really got us thinking about cross-channel. And then [00:04:00] in 2017, uh, Amazon came calling and said, "Hey, can you guys do what you're doing for search and for social, for retail media?" And here we are, you know, 20 years later, uh, with over 200, uh, retail media networks, uh, that, that flow through Skai, through an API connection, uh, and still continuing our, our work in search and social As well.
So when you look at SKAI, you kinda need to think of us as, as a, as breaking through those walled gardens that you spoke about and giving that m- uh, the marketers the advantage that they wanna have across networks.
James Avery: Yeah. I really like when, you know, when I, when I talk to retailers and we talk about walled gardens, I think at, from a retailer perspective, you want a walled garden, but you want access into it, right?
You know, it's like the, you know, people have said like the moat or the, you know, the drawbridge or whatever, like all the different analogies people use, right? But it's like you, you know, you can get the benefit of a walled garden where you get to keep your data, you get to, you know, control the relationship.
But then, but then SKAI makes it possible for that brand to buy [00:05:00] across 10, 20, 50 different, different walled gardens kind of in one, one interface, right? E-
Matt Vignieri: exactly. And think of, you know, if you, if you woke up one morning and you could only shop at one store for your groceries, right? You know, m- sure you'd get used to it at a point in time, but sometimes there's some things you want from a specialty grocer, right?
Or some things that you want from, you know, you happen to be in a different neighborhood, right? And so for a brand, it's like, I wanna see what the world looks like. I wanna see what my consumers are doing. I wanna be where the consumer is, not where, you know, necessarily the retail media network wants to put me.
And so our job is really to get that brand close to the consumer, uh, at the time that the consumer wants to interact or transact.
James Avery: Yeah. And we've, and we've talked about where, you know, you might have like grocery's a good example where, you know, you might have a brand who's, who's manually doing their campaigns.
They might say, "Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna buy on Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons." And then we're like, "All right, we're kinda done." Like that's already, we got, we got people putting hands on keyboard on four different [00:06:00] networks. Um, but you know, if you go to, uh, you know, go to SKAI, you could say, "Okay, we're also gonna buy across, you know, your Giant Eagles and your, your Wegmans and your, and your Food Lions and your," you know, there's probably 30 other grocers in the US if you actually wanna cover, you know, all of grocery retail media for the US.
Matt Vignieri: Exactly. Think about it as a brand, right? You know, if, if one of your products is, is doing well or your competitor's out of stock, uh, in a number of locations, you don't wanna just go, "Okay, I'm gonna run to my Amazon, uh, you know, ads console, then to my Walmart one, then to my Kroger one, et cetera," and, and start to boost those campaigns, right?
To drive because of, of, of something that's happened in the market, right? You wanna be able to do it in one place. And so, uh, and as well as when you see like there's opportunities that are happening in, in say Amazon, right? You wanna be able to leverage those across all the retail media networks. And to do that, you know, by swivel chairing from console to console to [00:07:00] console or, or alt tabbing or whatever you do- It, it, it's inefficient, right?
It's ineffective. And, and, you know, the brands that master this, you know, this, this understanding how the interaction of the consumer and the retail media network works are gonna be the ones that win.
James Avery: Yeah. And so and you, uh, you get to see... You kinda get to see things from that brand side. What do you think that the retailers are missing, kind of in the brands?
The brands who are out there, and like when they, they come to you, I'm sure, and they're complaining about different networks, and what's missing, and what, what they wanna see. Like, what's... If, you know, if I, if I'm over here running a retail media network, like, what would you-
Matt Vignieri: Yeah
James Avery: It's like what are the top pieces of kind of, you know, feedback that you hear?
Matt Vignieri: Yeah. It's all about audience data, right? I, I mean, that's what it gets down to. Um, and you know, that, that first-party data that the, that the retailer owns I- is valuable to them, right? And so you don't necessarily wanna share that across, um, you know, y- to the brand across other retail media networks, right?
It's, it's got value, and so but the [00:08:00] brands are saying, "Look, that data is important to us that we can, we can, you know, mold, and drive, and, and, and enhance our campaigns around it." And so some, you know, some of the retail media networks like Amazon are taking advantage of that and saying, "Okay, we'll put you in a cleanroom," right?
They developed AMC, and they've created this, this data safe environment. Um, others are gonna, are doing the same now, and so we'll start to see that, that become prevalent. The challenge we're gonna have there, James, is we're gonna have, you know, how many cleanroom s- uh, solutions are gonna be out there- Right
you know, to be able to, to, to be able to curate and, and, and secure this data. And so this is where w- uh, I'm sure we'll get to the topic of AI, where AI's gonna come in and just, you know, make us all better at it.
James Avery: Yeah. And how do y- And, and from the, like, kinda cleanroom first-party data, do you s- do you see that for on-site, or is it largely for off-site?
Matt Vignieri: Both.
James Avery: Both?
Matt Vignieri: Really. Yeah, both. I mean, they, they, they wanna be able to leverage it for, you know, for, for on-site visibility, but, but a lot of it drives out of off-site. And, you know, [00:09:00] interesting fact we're starting to see, though, speaking of off-site, is, um, a lot of media dollars are starting to shift, um, to off-site, which to me, um, you know, is kind of a It, it, it's, it's a little m- um, head-scratching because, you know, a performance channel to me is on-site, right?
Right. This is where it's intent-driven, the consumer, it's keyword-based or however you... When you get off-site, you kind of like, you know, are, are you buying eyeballs? Are you, you know, uh, how is that working? And, and so in the end, um, dollars are shifting there, and I think that Amazon's leading that n- that, that push because of all the investments they're making in, you know, connected TV and DSP and so on.
And, you know, now, you know, Netflix has got an ads r- right, right, an environment. And so we're gonna see more and more dollars go off-site, but I think the data is, is, is valuable on-site as it is off-site.
James Avery: Yeah. Well, on Amazon, you know, they kinda ran out of on-site inventory, so they had to- Well,
Matt Vignieri: and there's-
they had to
James Avery: kind of make the- [00:10:00] And there's that ... make the push to off-site. Um-
Matt Vignieri: Yeah.
James Avery: But I do think it's interesting, too, 'cause I think off-site, off-site is like a, you know, a big, you know, broad brush of a, of a whole all different types of, of retail media. Like we'll see, you know, you might call it off-site when you're buying on Meta with a retailer's data.
Yeah. But that could be a lot more performance. Whereas if you're- Sure ... buying on Netflix, like, you know, I think they wanna make it performance, but we all kinda know it's, it's, it's probably a lot more, you know, branding than it is, you know, driving a... It's not really driving a click at this point.
Matt Vignieri: Right.
Right, right. Yeah, but ultimately, like I said, you know, the brand wants to be as close to the consumer at the time of purchase, and you just can't do that, you know, with a single-channel focus.
James Avery: Yeah. Going, going back to the clean room side, do you see brands that are bringing, bringing their own data and wanna- Yeah
combine that? Like-
Matt Vignieri: It, 100%, and in fact, one of the things we announced a couple weeks ago was something called Data Hub, and the intent of Data Hub is to build this unified, uh, [00:11:00] data environment that is brand-specific, meaning it's your language, it's your data, it's harmonized in the way you wanna see it.
And, you know, the, the intent there is that, is that when we talk to a, a brand, uh, particularly CPGs, um, large CPGs, they've got data everywhere.
James Avery: Yeah.
Matt Vignieri: And, and they wanna be able to bring it into a single environment, you know, harmonize it, rationalize it, and then use it to create insights. And so it, it's probably, you know, of everything Skai's doing, it is foundational to where we're gonna go in this, in, you know, in the, in the, in the remaining, you know, five, or what is it?
Four years of this decade and the next decade.
James Avery: Yeah. And how does that... And so do you-- Does that also-- Does Data Hub kind of bring the retailer? I guess it would work with a clean room where you'd have to push that data to a clean room with the retailer to kinda get that, that joined data.
Matt Vignieri: Yeah, you have to push it t- to a clean room, but, but then, you know, with, with, um, some of the things we've done with the Data Hub, you know, the idea is, is [00:12:00] really to get the retail-- uh, the brand's data, should say, in a single environment and make it actionable.
James Avery: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. What, uh, what do you, what do you think brands are, you know, what are they kinda getting wrong about retail media? Like, where, where do brands still have, you know, still have room to, to learn?
Matt Vignieri: So there's some that are, that have kind of broken down the silos And, and as I see, you know, as I work with those brands, um, they're getting a lot more bang for the buck.
There's, there's no doubt, right? It's not the Amazon team or the Walmart team or the Tesco team, whatever. It's, it's... They're, they're pushing that brand, that category, uh, across all the channels. I think they're getting it right. Yeah. Um, you know, the ones that, that, that tend to work in, in silos, you know, the Amazon team, I still think are missing out on opportunities because, uh, the, the, the data sharing across...
When you get a complex organization, right, um, and you know what it's like to just [00:13:00] communicate in a complex organization, what's it like to share data across that organization? What's it like to share insights and, and recommendations? And so I, I think from, from a brand perspective, the better they get at consolidating the s- or collapsing the silos, consolidating the data, putting it into a single environment, the more effective they're gonna be in the market.
James Avery: Well, and if, and if you had, you know, I mean, I think that kind of goes to the kind of what Skai is doing in the market too, right? It's like if you, if you had a team that's an Amazon team, and you had a budget that's an Amazon budget, then you're just, you're just kind of siloing everything off, and you can't, you can't say, "Oh, look, right now we can get Dollar General.
This is working better. Why don't we move the budget over to Dollar General because we just have KPIs that we have," right? Like it's like
Matt Vignieri: there's- I'll tell you. Yeah, it's something funny, James, sorry to interrupt you there, but, but the interesting part, and, and I'm glad you brought up the Dollar General example, is they're not shifting dollars.
Like, they're not saying, "Okay, we're gonna take this Amazon budget and move it to DG." What they're actually saying is, is that, "We've [00:14:00] got this opportunity with, um, uh, that's, that's, uh, growing on Amazon. We need to put more money in DG because we see that there's a, there's a, you know, um, there's evidence that we can grow the, uh, the business."
James Avery: Yeah. So where... Is that, is that net new money, or is that coming from, is that coming from traditional ad spend, or where do you think that comes from?
Matt Vignieri: Uh, the-- Where the money co- I'm, I'm a bit baffled on where the money comes from, um, to be honest. Like, I know that, uh, the CFOs are now part of the, uh, uh, they're part of the, uh, the whole process here, more so than ever.
Um, so it, it, it, it... I couldn't give you a good answer because I'm a little bit baffled by it.
James Avery: Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess the thing with, uh, you know, as somebody who, you know, controls our own marketing budget, working with our marketing team, whenever you can, you can show me that a dollar is gonna become two dollars, then the budget magically appears, right?
Like, so I think when you have, when you have solid performance and you can back it up, then, [00:15:00] then there really isn't a, you know, usually a limit to the budget, right?
Matt Vignieri: Yeah, for sure.
James Avery: How does it work when you, when you think about, you know, these... You know, you're a brand, you're using Skai, you're working with 20, 30 different networks, let's say.
Every network, you know, or I guess not everyone, but a lot of them are still measuring differently, reporting differently. You know, how, how does that, how does that come together?
Matt Vignieri: It's, uh, and everybody's got different, um, nomenclature and ad types and, and formats and, and all that. Um, this kinda gets back to what we've done with, with, uh, Data Hub, right?
Uh, so we've-- what we've tried to build is basically the, a way for us to harmonize that data, to make sense of it so that, you know, a, a, a six-pack that's sold at, let's say, um, Dollar General versus a 30-pack that's sold at Costco is still measured the same way, right, as a single unit. And so a lot of that data rationalization that has to go on [00:16:00] is being inherently, you know, uh, becoming part of the Skai platform.
Uh, and we think we're, we're, we're, we're, we're making things easier for, for the marketer, uh, when they, they speak the same, you know, when the data speaks their language.
James Avery: Yeah. That makes sense. And going back to a little bit on where the money comes from, thinking about trade versus performance versus do you, do you hear those terms from retailers or brands?
Are they, are they thinking about this as trade versus performance dollars, or are they just focused on the results?
Matt Vignieri: I don't-- There, there-- A few years ago, we, we heard, you know, like, the trade guys, um, you know, would, would, uh, were, were, were keeping hold of their monies, and they didn't wanna give it up. Um, today, I think it's all kinda-- I, I, I think it's collapsing into, into one, one budget, right?
So, um, and so when you go in and do a JBP with, with-- a brand does a JBP with, with, say, Amazon or... They're looking at [00:17:00] those dollars and saying, "That's our total investment. We're gonna take it from trade. We're gonna take it from performance dollars. We're gonna take..." You know, that, for the most part, is, is what I'm seeing with some of the more advanced brands.
Uh, some of the more old-school brands still have, you know, that kinda like trade versus, you know, everything else.
James Avery: Yeah, so it kinda just speaks to, like, what you said earlier about it's, it's kind of, uh, just like retailers are on this, like, maturity journey of how mature their retail media network is, brands are kind of on the same maturity journey of how they're thinking about retail media, right?
Like, some of them, you know, the old-school ones might be-- have a, you know, single team for Amazon, single team for Walmart, be thinking trade versus performance dollars. And it sounds like the, the kinda more mature is, is, you know, thinking, "We have a retail media team." They have a large budget that, you know, is just being, you know...
Whether that counts as trade is just whether it's in the JBP or not, right? Yeah. But it's, it's just dollars are dollars, and how do we get the best performance we can out of retail media?
Matt Vignieri: Yeah. True. True. And you know, one [00:18:00] of the things that, um, a brand said to me, uh, last year at Cannes, actually, was, uh, 'cause we were talking about the, uh, JBP and, and one of the retail media networks, was like, "Look, you know, you're not gonna spend more money with us just because we're using Skai-- you're, you, we're connected to Skai.
Tell me wh- you know, rationalize this for me. Tell me why would I, why would I do this?" And the brand said it best. They said, "Look, the JBP dollars are dollars that I have to give you. I'm gonna fight as, as hard as I can to give you as little as possible to get my positions, right? To get where I wanna be.
The dollars I invest through a platform like Skai are, is the money I wanna give you- Right ... because it's demonstrating performance and value, and, and, and it's meeting my KPIs." And so, you know, I think as, as brands and retail media networks start to evolve their relationship, the, the, the JBP is gonna become that baseline that, that we work to together, but the overall investment is gonna be what, what, what the brand needs to drive, right?
What, what is their-- W- what's their measurement? Is [00:19:00] it turnover? Is it, you know, uh, is it ROAS? W- you know, that's, that's where I think the shift's gonna happen.
James Avery: Yeah, it makes sense. JBP kinda becomes the, the minimum, minimum spend to get whatever shelf space we wanted or other, other- Yeah ... you know, kinda commitments and pricing.
Uh, but then- Yeah ... there's, there's more room to grow. Makes
Matt Vignieri: total- The membership fee, basically.
James Avery: Yeah, the membership fee. Yeah.
Matt Vignieri: Yeah.
James Avery: Uh, so you mentioned, you mentioned measurement a little bit. Um, something we always like to always touch on too is, uh, incrementality. Where is it going? How are brands thinking about it?
Uh, you know, what's the, what's the, what's the latest you're hearing on incrementality?
Matt Vignieri: Yeah. Well, so we started, you know, kind of when you think about it, we talked about Data Hub a little bit, right? And, you know, one of, you know, the things that we, um, w- we actually just recently announced as well is a whole something called Measurement Hub, right?
Which, which can give the brand, um, the ability to bring in their data and, and, and create a, a, a basically a unified measurement, uh, environment. The trouble with that is, is that, [00:20:00] um, there is no one mathematical equation that everybody agrees on. Right. Right? You know, we thought it was iROAS first, and then another brand goes, "No, I want sales," and, you know, the, the, the...
or new, or new-to-brand or lifetime value. And so what, what we're seeing is, is that there is not a one size fits all, right? That, that, that basically we're gonna have to take measurement, which is a very-- and, and incrementality, which are two very complex, you know, problems to solve, and figure out a, a way to solve them using multiple, you know, uh, paths to get there, right?
So Skai may have its own incrementality solution that brands can apply, but they may then wanna use that against, you know, a, a third-party tool, right? That, um, you know, gives them the, the kinds of measures they want. And so what we need to do, um, as a platform, right? Is consume all of these measurement, uh, capabilities, if you will, put it inside a s- a single location, a- [00:21:00] and then let the brand leverage it to create those insights, uh, and the, and the recommendations they want from it.
Uh, frankly, I think, you know, um, this is a com- it's gonna be a complex problem even with AI Um, but AI's gonna help us get there, you know, f- faster. Um, but the clearly, you know, um, it, it's gonna be a, it is a PhD level problem. Yeah. Data scientists are not gonna be replaced overnight.
James Avery: Well, and also you can't...
I mean, part of the problem with, with incrementality and measurement is, is you could... You know, if everyone was willing to give you all their data, it's not that hard of a problem, but nobody will do that, right? Yeah. Every retailer's not like, "Yeah, here you go. Here's all of our purchase data and all of our ad data and, and you can decide what's incremental or not."
Right. Um, if you had that, then that's easy. But that's, that's not the world we live in, uh- Yeah, exactly ... where, you know, they're gonna give a brand that. Right.
Matt Vignieri: Yeah. Very cool. Uh, and that's, yeah, it's probably one of the more complex problems to solve, but I think we're start- we're starting to get [00:22:00] there because, um, going back to the CFO, the CFO is looking for, "Why am I giving you all this money?"
Right. "Prove it." You know? "Prove it that it had impact," you know, uh, on the, on the bottom. And it, it also brings into play, you know, kind of this multi-channel or, or, or, um, y- m- multi-channel environment, if you will, where, um, you know, am I counting this, the same purchase twice, right? Am I, am I getting the consumer, uh...
You know, would I have gotten the consumer anyway? Did I, did I spend that dollar and get more from it, or did I not need to spend that dollar? The- these are all things that, that opening up the walled gardens, which as we know, is not gonna be a, an, an easy task, uh, is gonna help us, you know, understand.
James Avery: Yeah.
And how do you, um... You know, when you're thinking about- Uh, brand spend. You know, we, we hear these rum- You know, we've heard directly, not directly, we heard through our retailers that there's brands that are kinda saying, or brands or agencies that are [00:23:00] saying, you know, "I won't, I won't spend unless you can prove the incrementality."
Like, do you see that-- Do you see on your side where there's actual brands or agencies kinda saying like, "This is, this is the bar. Like, if you're not at this bar yet, like, we're just not gonna spend"?
Matt Vignieri: I haven't heard that once. Okay. I have not heard- Yeah, yeah. I have not heard it once, like where a brand goes, "No, I'm not gonna give you any money unless you prove it's incremental."
No. For some reason, James, the money keeps flowing. Yeah,
James Avery: yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I think there's, there's always, uh, you know, we hear things secondhand, and there's, there's different, different reasons for brands maybe say that in one meeting, but then keep the, keep the money flowing.
Matt Vignieri: Yeah. Yeah. It's kinda like when you- when we initially came out with an incrementality solution, it was, uh, uh, geo-based, and it was like you had to turn, like you had to turn off the geo, right?
Or turn off the DMA and then, and then measure it against the other one. No brand in the world wanted to turn off any marketing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like it was just it was like a... It was a ridiculous ask to say, "Don't run any brand campaigns in New York City while you're testing this in LA." A- [00:24:00] and, you know, you get laughed out of...
We got laughed out of the room. So we stopped doing that.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, but that is kind of the, like the MMM model kind of works that way, but you have to, I guess you can't, you can't turn off an entire DMA. Like you gotta be a little more fine-grained or something. Um, maybe the zip, like the zip code level or something like that.
But yeah.
Matt Vignieri: And so, and some of the things that we're doing, right, and we're, we're, you can actually, you know, build environments that are not necessarily, don't require you turning things off, but actually take and, and, and create, um, for lack of a better term, lookalikes, right-
James Avery: Yeah ...
Matt Vignieri: that you work against. I mean, like I said, it's a complex problem, and I don't think o- there's one organization or one company out there that's gonna solve it and say, "That's it.
That's the gold standard," right? I think we're gonna have to have a, you know, multi-pronged approach to incrementality and measurement.
James Avery: Yeah. I totally agree.
Matt Vignieri: Yeah.
James Avery: So let's talk- Yeah ... about the, the, the, uh, topic du jour, uh, which I think you're gonna be at CAN, so this will just warm you up for how CAN [00:25:00] is just gonna be an AI fest.
How are you thinking about kind of agentic commerce and, and how is that gonna change the, the kinda retail media world?
Matt Vignieri: Well, it's go- you know, it, it's really interesting. So first of all, you know, we saw CAN go from like, um, last year was all about retail and, uh, and it just had this... Now it's gonna be all about AI, which is gonna be great.
Um, we just came off of, uh, we, we had a, um, kind of a hackathon approach this week at Skai called Agentic Week, where we just all sat in rooms for four days and built things with Claude and, and, um, and all sorts of tools. It was kind of an interesting exercise because we got to realize the power of AI. But we also realized that the power of AI only works with the power of a human behind it.
And so, um, but we're, we're doing some things that are, are preparing, you know, our brands for, uh, the agentic age, right? And so, um, you know, w- we're basically what we're calling is the, uh, um, agent native operating system [00:26:00] is what we're buil- we're building, right? So, and really for us, our vision is to really, you know, uh, create a structure or, or a hybrid structure where humans and, uh, manage, you know, intelligent agents while reporting and optimization, things like that are happening inside the workflow.
And so, you know, the first part is really is to, is to embrace, you know, how these agents work. And, and a year ago we announced Celeste, um, which was our marketing, marketer, marketing built or, or built for marketers agent. And over the course of the year, Celeste has learned so much, you know, that, um, now brands are relying on Celeste to ask questions like, "What's the impact of YouTube on Amazon?"
Or, you know, "If I invested an extra hundred thousand dollars, what would I-- where would I see that? You know, how can I see that money?" Yeah. "Where would I see that, or how should I invest it?" Um, to the point where now we're gonna have to... We're really gonna get into a multi-agent environment, [00:27:00] right? And so the ability to build agents, um, at scale is really where I think, you know, thing- things are going.
And so for us, right, um, and you'll hear more about, uh, about this, uh, probably through Ken, right, is, is, you know, we announced Skai Studio, right? Which is basically, uh, you know, a, a agent native environment, and allows you to build, you know, various agents to perform various tasks, build squads of agents to, to do those things, right?
Um, and, you know, they can go out and look... These agents can look at like, uh, anomalies or adjust budgets or, or, um... But really the marketer needs to be alongside that. So we're always gonna have the human in there. We're gonna go through, I think, uh, an era, uh, where there's gonna be a bunch of brands, um, in the back shop, in the back room.
They're gonna start using Claude to build their own marketing platforms. Um, and they're gonna realize how difficult it is, but they're gonna, they're [00:28:00] gonna basically, um, don't buy built.
James Avery: Yeah.
Matt Vignieri: And, uh, and what we're gonna find is, is that, uh, the retail media network is gonna end up supporting the brand with all these variants of, of, of agents that have built, that have been built by each of these brands.
I think that, that, that, that's gonna happen. We're gonna have a maturation in this, in this process, and I think what's gonna end up happening is, and I think our approach is, is, um, is unique but also very, um, uh, agent-focused, uh, is really to understand how AI is an enabler Um, across all of your retail media networks, across all of your marketing, you know, investments, uh, and work with partners who have capabilities that we don't have through MCP interactions, right?
Right. MCP connections. And so that's, you know, w- we've, we've... We're building [00:29:00] that and, and... But as we go through this, right, we're gonna have to have brands mature with us. Um, all the AI f- um, the lawyers are gonna be in the room, right, dealing with the AI data, and, and, and what are you doing with the data, and what does it mean, and all that stuff.
We're gonna have to go through all that phase. But, uh, I think, uh, we're, we're a little... We may be a little bit overzealous, but I think for the right reasons.
James Avery: Yeah. How far away do you think we are from... I kinda was always thinking about the benchmark will be when a brand kinda trusts an agent to go spend, like, a million dollars.
Yeah. Like, how, how far away do you think we are from, from that? I mean, I know... I, I think now there's probably still a lot of human in the loop, you know, uh, "Let me approve, let me approve that purchase." But at, at some point in the future, right, you're gonna kinda say, "Hey, I trust this agent enough that here's a million bucks.
Go, go spend it and show me, show me what you did."
Matt Vignieri: Well, I mean, you know, the, the... I, I can't... I, I don't wanna If I gave you a date, it'd be wrong.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah.
Matt Vignieri: [00:30:00] Right? You know, it's gonna be wrong. But what I, what I think's gonna need, gonna need to happen is we're, we're gonna have to start going back to that data foundation.
We're gonna have to trust the data. And if the data's good, then going to having an agent say, you know, "Hey, uh, this campaign is, is performing. Let's boost the budget," right, is something we would do today if you and I were sitting in a, at, uh- Sure ... in Skai, right? And go, "Hey, look, this campaign's doing great.
Let's boost the budget," right? If that... We're trusting that data. Once we can trust that the agent... That the data's right and the agent trusts it, then we can trust the agent with the data, I think that's what's gonna happen. So I think it's just, it's an evolution. Um, but the, I, I, I, I think there's always gonna be somebody, there's always gonna be a man behind the curtain.
James Avery: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes sense.
Matt Vignieri: To, to some level. To some level, right?
James Avery: Yeah. What about the agentic commerce side of things? Like, where do you think... You know, 'cause I think the maximalists kind of view it as, "Hey, like, agents are gonna buy everything. Retail media is dead," right? I think I'm probably [00:31:00] on the other side of it, which is I still go to my own grocery store, and I still, you know, I, you know...
I'm, I'm pretty heavily using AI, but I, I'm, I'm not really buying things directly from it. I'm using it to research. It's changing my... It's probably changing my search patterns a lot. Um- Yeah ... but, you know, where, where do you kinda fall on the, like, the future of agentic commerce?
Matt Vignieri: I think it's a matter of convenience, right, uh, what it gets down to.
Amazon's evolved, you know, to what they are because it's a matter of convenience. Um, I still like to go pick my own tomatoes- Yeah ... at the, at the, at the grocery store. But you know what? Uh, if I'm a little tired, or we got a big event going on, or my wife's just like, "Look, you know, just figure it out"- Going Instacart or DoorDash or whoever, right?
Everybody's delivering groceries now. I was like, "All right, you pick the tomatoes this week."
James Avery: Yeah.
Matt Vignieri: Right? So it's kind of somewhere in, in, in the middle. I would love for... I think part of it's, uh, is gonna be this whole su- you know, the subscribe and save I think is gonna change. I think my agents are gonna know my [00:32:00] usage, right?
And they're gonna go out and buy, you know, w- whatever it is, razor blades for me. But I think when it comes down to, um, you know, the, the, the full-on agent commerce, I mean, I, I, I just don't see it. And, and maybe I'm just a buildo- you know, a, an old fossil here.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah. We're the old guys that still like to pick out our tomatoes, but, but I think it's...
I mean, I think consumer behavior is, you know, hard to change, and people like to shop, right? Yeah. And so I kind of view it as, like, people, people enjoy shopping. Maybe they don't enjoy the, you know, "Oh, I gotta stop and grab this thing on the way home," but they, you know, when I go out to the, you go out to a, one of these new outdoor malls now, it's packed on a Saturday of people looking at clothes and trying things on and, you know, going into Target, right?
I don't, I don't think that's changing.
Matt Vignieri: Yeah. There's a... I mean, there's a whole social aspect to it, too, right? And like, I mean, on Saturdays, I like going to the farmers market.
James Avery: Yeah.
Matt Vignieri: You know? Uh, do I wanna send my robot to it? No.
James Avery: Yeah. We need some retail media at that- There's a social as- We need some retail media at those farmers markets though.
Matt Vignieri: At farmers markets, absolutely.
James Avery: Yeah.
Matt Vignieri: [00:33:00] Yeah.
James Avery: So what do you, what do you think about kind of wrapping things up a little bit, what, uh, if, if you're... If there's a retailer listening to this, you know, what, what should they be thinking about, uh, about how to, like, make their retail media network, you know, more attractive to brands, uh, to, you know, kind of get more spend?
Matt Vignieri: I think part of it is really is, is build a level of... Find a way to build a level of trust with your data, right? I'm not necessarily saying, you know, give your data to them or give it away or, or, or just put it in the cloud and let anybody download it. I'm saying find a way, uh, to build an environment where data can be, you know, trusted.
You know? Uh, and then, and then second to that is really, um... The conversation now that we're trying to have with our brands is with the retailer in the room. So, you know, understanding that, um, you know, the value that all the parties that are involved in the equation bring to it is, is, is really important as well.
[00:34:00] Um, and then build an MCP so we make life easy.
James Avery: Yeah. And they should make sure their inventory is available on Skai.
Matt Vignieri: That... We, we'll take that, too.
James Avery: Yeah. Awesome.
Matt Vignieri: Yeah.
James Avery: Well- Cool ... Vig, it's been great. It's been great having you on. Uh- Yeah ... I think we'll, we might, we may see each other at CAN. Um, but, uh- Yeah ... we'll...
I don't know if this will go live before then or not, but so this'll either be pre or post, but this- Yeah ... has been great.
Matt Vignieri: Well, I'll see, I'll see you in, in CAN, and, uh, appreciate the partnership that, that we have, uh, and for having me on today, so thanks a lot, James.
James Avery: Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to Unlocking Retail Media.
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