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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.
Sean Cheyney: [00:00:00] I would go to a trade show and I would talk to a retailer and it was always funny to go, you know, chat with a retailer and for them to swear up and down. We will never put advertising for anybody, even our suppliers across our website, our app, our email, our in, in our store. We will never do that. And then these are the retailers that today are some of the biggest players in retail media.
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. Uh, today's episode is a little bit of a first for us. Uh, we spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about. Uh, digital commerce media, [00:01:00] onsite, offsite, sponsored listings, programmatic, uh, but there's a huge part of commerce that doesn't really get enough attention, uh, in like, in these conversations we're having.
And that's the actual physical store, like where I still go and get my groceries every single week. Uh, I don't order 'em online. Still old like that. But Sean, I'm happy to welcome Sean here, who's the, uh, EVP of Global Business Development at Cusic. Uh, and he's focused on something I think is really interesting, turning in-store audio into real measurable commerce media.
Sean Cheyney: Thanks, James. I'm excited to be here, ch chatting with you today, especially in the few years that we've known each other and, uh, you know, when we first met on that, uh, airplane coming back from Shop Talk,
James Avery: I was gonna mention that. I was, uh, when we, I, I basically like get a, get on the plane, on Shop Talk. I, you know, big American Airlines guy, so I got my upgrade.
Was happy about that. I think it was going through like Austin. Uh, and I go to sit down and there's this guy sitting next to the seat where I'm gonna sit and he is just wearing this hoodie with this giant citrus ad [00:02:00] logo on it. And I'm like, all right, okay. And so I go sit down and I'm like, ah, gotta sit next to the enemy.
Uh, and I think your words were, oh, do you work for Criteo? And, uh, and I was like, no, no. I'm like, Keble. Uh, and they were like, you were like, oh, cool, we like you guys. And then we proceeded to talk for like two and a half hours. Um, it's always an example of how I talk about, like, how competitors should treat each other.
Like, you know, we just had a, had a great conversation for like two and a half hours.
Sean Cheyney: Exactly. And it's funny because we, we all move around and we all go to, or you haven't moved around, obviously, but the, you know, a lot of us have moved around to different companies and it goes to show within the industry, you never know where people are gonna show up.
It happens with clients all the time.
James Avery: Yeah, no, I mean, there's so many times where it's, uh, you know, somebody is at a, at a retailer. Goes to a vendor, ends up back at a retailer, you know, it's a like a round trip. Uh, so I, I agree. It's always, it's a, and then, you know, then we've gotten the hangout of conferences since then, so it's pretty awesome.[00:03:00]
Sean Cheyney: Exactly. And no matter what company we're at, anybody in this space across retail media loves talking retail media for hours on end.
James Avery: Yeah, I remember we sat, it was fun 'cause we like, we're just going through deals and it was like, yeah, you guys won this deal. Like, what, what, what had happened here? How'd you guys do that one?
You know, like it was, it was fun to hear the other perspective and you know, you've spent, you know, 20 years growing revenue. Across kind of online, offline media, you know, how you think about, you know, in store, outta store, all this kind of stuff. But, you know, it's been, I think you were at Triad back in the day.
So you've been, you've been through the, the kind of whole path of retail media. Like, uh, did you expect this? Like, did you expect it to kind of get to where we are today?
Sean Cheyney: It was funny because when I joined Triad I, I had spent the first half of my career on the brand side, so I was on the buy side of media, so it allowed me a different perspective when I got into retail media and back then, 13 years ago, nobody, the term retail media.
Um, except that it was triad retail media, uh, in, in the name of the company. That [00:04:00] term wasn't really widely used. It was more talking about just using the term monetization more than anything else. And it was a tough go. I mean, we had some big clients like Walmart and eBay, uh, at the time and, and, and several other retailers.
But you would talk to retailers. I would go to a trade show and I would talk to a retailer. And it was always funny to go, you know, chat with a retailer and for them to swear up and down. We will never put advertising for anybody, even our suppliers across our website, our app, our email, our, you know, our, in our store.
We will never do that. And then these are the retailers that today are some of the biggest players in retail media.
James Avery: And it's funny because tying this into, I think what we're gonna talk some about, like the in-store piece, like they've always done that in-store, right? Like I, I walk into, you know, my local Harris Teeter and it's like, there's an end cap and there's a, you know, sign over here and now there's some digital media and, you know, and, and even before that though, like there was [00:05:00] always, you know, advertising in the store.
It is funny to think that they would think the website and the app would be like the, the sacred, the sacred position, that they wouldn't cross that on.
Sean Cheyney: Yeah, and I think it's because of the separation that happened right out of the gate, and I think it, it started with Walmart and, and you started to see this across others where you had this big separation between this new online team or this new retail media team separated completely and siloed off from the merchandising team and the things that, you're right, all the things that happen in store that was happening through the merchandising team, through trade dollars or co-op funds.
All the time. And that's been happening for decades.
James Avery: Yeah.
Sean Cheyney: And not that retail media is, is that much different. It's pulling from different buckets of money. But because it was happening, at least in the US it was happening more online. Um, it became this. You know, everybody started, you know, pulling back and saying, no, this is mine.
And becoming in, uh, becoming, going into [00:06:00] protector mode and just saying, no, I don't, I don't want to talk with these people. What we're doing is different when we all know if you take a look at it, it's the same thing. It's maybe just a different channel. Um, but the executions, a lot of it are very similar.
And so it was just kind of funny that the, the way that they were looking at it, and I think it was just the merchant team. The merchant team's just holding on and trying to protect their, their shelf space, even if that shelf space was digital.
James Avery: Yeah. Well, and I think you still, you know, that's still still an ongoing battle at many retailers today.
The, uh, the, the, you know, merchant trade teams versus the, the retail media team. And so I don't, I don't think that's, that hasn't finished yet. We'll, we'll see how that, it's, it's getting
Sean Cheyney: better though.
James Avery: Yeah. It is getting better. Yeah. I think once the, once the retail media team kind of started to show. Show the money that can be made, then I think it kinda kind of ended the argument.
Sean Cheyney: Yeah, and I've had, I've talked to some people who have, you know, when I've asked them how they solve for this equation and the ones that are [00:07:00] doing it well have said they, they go to the merchant team and they present themselves as a resource and they say, Hey, we know your team doesn't want to do operational execution.
Especially for anything online or anything digital, what, what your merchant team is good at are getting dollars or securing dollars and presenting value and getting those dollars in from your, from our suppliers. Let us be your execution arm. You go out and do all the things you do well and let us just execute for you.
And let us be that resource. And for the retailers that are, that are operating, using, uh, sort of that, that approach, those retail media teams are having a lot more success and a lot more cohesiveness, uh, between the teams. And then you look to Europe and they look at what's happening in the US and they say, what are you talking about?
Our teams have been working as a, as a, as a cohesive. Group for, for, for decades. This is Bongers that, that your teams don't work together. We always look and say, let's start with a strategy and let's look holistically. [00:08:00]
James Avery: Yeah. Yeah. And actually it's a good, it's a good, uh, further good tie into getting into in-store is, I remember last time I was in, I was in Europe, I was touring one of our customers, uh, stores, uh, continental in Portugal.
And the first thing I noticed was. So much more in store media than that we have in the us right? Like, like digital end caps, you know, that kind of digital along the top of the, like the soda aisle, right? It was like a whole, whole like Coca-Cola thing. Um, and then, uh, you know. Then you just still don't see that in most of the us.
But I think that's starting to change and I think we're starting to see there's like more of a focus on, on how do we bring, how do we bring in-store kind of up to speed with, with the rest of the industry?
Sean Cheyney: It is. And what you're seeing is sort of a me is a meeting in the middle, whereas. In Europe, they started with retail media more in the store, and then they're playing more catch up for online.
Whereas in the US it was starting entirely online and now they're quickly trying [00:09:00] to play catch up for all the tactics in the store.
James Avery: Yeah. So let's get into, uh, so, uh, Cusick, like I, when I saw, I, you know, like, uh, I think they're probably not the, the biggest name yet, but, you know, I saw you go there and I had to go quickly learn about, uh, where, where my buddy Sean was going.
But give us the, give us the rundown. What's the, what's the elevator pitch for Cusick?
Sean Cheyney: Yeah, it was interesting, you know, for Cusic, uh, I'll give the elevator pri pitch and then what really drew me, uh, to them. But what Cusic does is we deliver in-store audio and our approach is really about maximizing the customer experience while also being a retail media performance engine.
And then at the same time, we can also enable customized. Messaging down to the individual store level, and when we do this, we solve the two biggest pain points that retailers have when it become, when it comes to in-store retail media and those, it's funny, any retailer I talk to anywhere in the world, it always comes down to these two pain [00:10:00] points.
It is the challenge around creative. The cost with creative, the time that it takes with creative, with making edits, with customizing down to the store level and the cost associated with all that. And then the second piece is, um, measurement. Yeah. So if you ask any retailer, you say, how's, how's your in-store measurement?
How's your screen measurement going? They look at you and they say, well, we know an ad plays. Uh, and that's about it. Sort of like the early days that, that we all went, came up through with, with online we say, well, there's an impression that took place, or
James Avery: Yeah,
Sean Cheyney: a click. Somebody saw an
James Avery: ad, like what else do you want?
Yeah,
Sean Cheyney: exactly. Exactly. And that's sort of where we are with the in-store. In store was very. Early on and, and there's that lack of measurement. Um, I remember before I came over here to Cusik, I was, I worked for a, uh, a company called Vista Media, one of the leaders in the, in the screen space. And I remember talking with a retailer and they [00:11:00] said, you know, what we really want for measurement is we want the same things that we've become used to for online.
Yeah. But we want that for in-store. And when I started to take a look at Cusick and some of the moves that they made, um, they actually enabled. Those, that level of measurement, um, to happen with a very tight dwell time down to whatever the average dwell time is in the store, um, for the measurement and being able to measure not only the total number of units, uh, that are sold, but full closed loop measurement, including incrementality and incremental roas.
And I didn't think, if you would've asked me that question a year before I joined Cusic, I would've said it's not even possible.
James Avery: Yeah.
Sean Cheyney: And so being able to that, that's what got me really energized to say, Hey, Cusic is really solving a major pain, the major pain points here in the industry. And then. While we are [00:12:00] a, there are a lot of companies that say they're AI companies.
We are an AI forward company, meaning we use ai, um, in the advancement of solving these big problems. So we use that in terms of measurement for natural language search. We close the loop to enable better forecasting and media planning for audio, um, by using the AI to, uh, you know, to query the measurement.
Uh, the measurement tool using natural language search to be able to look for the answers you're trying to find, uh, that you have questions about. And then tie that back into the forecasting and media planning with predictive measurement to be able to kind of have an idea of what your campaign or how your campaign is gonna perform by looking at performance of each individual store, because we are ingesting the POS data, right?
So solving those problems and then. Using AI in the creation of the advertising as well with voice talent, um, that we have [00:13:00] their voice trained to, and being able to adjust that, whether that's at accents for different parts of the country, cadence of how fast people talk in certain areas, or even different languages as well.
So using those AI tools to be able to have good, quality, creative, um, and then be able to measure. All the performance, all the way down to the store level and use the data to make the best decision. So all of that got me really excited over here to come, uh, come over to Cusik. Um, I had met Cusik, uh, over a year before the founders of Cusik over a year before I came here.
And, uh, some of my former, uh, some of my, uh, former colleagues at both Triad and uh, and Citrus a, uh, had come over here. And so it was a. A good opportunity to join a company that was doing things that I, that I believed in strongly and that shared the same approach and philosophy while also getting the band back together.
James Avery: Yeah, that sounds sounds [00:14:00] awesome. So like, yeah. What's the level of, uh, kind of, you like, I guess, dy dynamic ability for, for this, right? So it sounds like, you know, you can create a lot of these custom creatives that can be targeted down to an individual store. You know, to say like, this, this store's in this neighborhood, so we're gonna, we're gonna run it this way, this store's in Alabama, so we're gonna do it this way.
And, and kind of all that level of, of kind of, uh, you know, I guess specificity
Sean Cheyney: really just in a matter of minutes. So when you're creating the ads, for example, you can put in just like we're all used to when we create emails and you have variables in there that are in the, in the brackets. Um, when you're creating ads, you can do that with things like city.
Or, um, you know, price, lots of different variables that you can put in there and create thousands of ads just in the touch of a button. Yeah. So it allows to you to do that customization very quickly. And then also we have an incr. I, I, I just came back, uh, last week from spending [00:15:00] two weeks in Australia. Uh.
Music is a company that was born out of Australia, just like, uh, it was when I was at, uh, when I was at Citrus a before that
James Avery: the, the weird hotbed of retail media innovation. Yeah.
Sean Cheyney: You, you, you never know. And, uh, so it was fun being out there in Australia. I mean, not only is, is it a great place to be, but the people there, especially around.
The creative development are so passionate about what they do and so good at what they do and improving that. So if, if you would've said, ask me e even five years ago, what is an ai? You know, what does AI creative sound like? I'd laugh and say, it sounds like, uh, you remember the days of like Max Hera for
James Avery: Yeah, yeah,
Sean Cheyney: yeah.
Just like a total, total computerized or
James Avery: something. Yeah, yeah,
Sean Cheyney: yeah. Or, or at best it sounds like Siri. Right? And, and, uh, or, or, or like your, your GPS. And you know, what we've done is you take actual voices and then you, uh, use AI tools to modify those down to the, down to [00:16:00] the individual level. But being able to do that quickly is the key because no creative team wants to spend the time and effort it takes to be able to do that.
Um, and the way we view ourselves, we've all seen those. Images of recording artists that are in the studio, and they're always sitting with their sound engineer with the gigantic, uh, mixing board. And we view ourselves as the, as that engineer working with the artist, which in this case is either the talent or the retailer or a combination of both, um, to produce.
Content that is gonna be the best experience for the customer while also getting, having the ability to customize that down to the, down to the local level.
James Avery: And how do you, how do you get the thing that always scares me about in-store? Uh, you know, 'cause largely we, we focus on, on, you know, digital online.
Yep. Um, you know, we, we, we do some in store where, you know, obviously our APIs can be called by anything. [00:17:00] So you can, you can kind of call us that way. Uh, but it's like actually like the hardware side of it. Like how do, how do you guys deal with the, you know, do, do you actually have to go put devices into, to stores?
Like how, what's the, what's that look like?
Sean Cheyney: Yeah, we do. And, you know, coming from the screen side where, uh, and, and in, in. Integration or an implementation for screens is very bulky. Usually have to do that after hours. Um, and it does take,
James Avery: yeah, you get power, you gotta get internet and all those things, and
Sean Cheyney: there's so many things that you have to do.
On the audio side, it's not as much. Now we go through and we do a site survey, so we're looking at all the stores and getting a good understanding of what's already in place. In cases where a retailer already has good speakers in place, if they're good enough. Great. We can use those existing speakers.
Generally what we're coming in with is we're coming in with our media player, which we call our qubit. It's about the size of, uh, of stacking a couple of iPhones on top of each other. Uh, that [00:18:00] gets plugged into the internet, plugged into the speakers. Um, real simple that doesn't require anything off hours.
Uh, very simple and easy to do. Uh, and that can be online immediately. And then generally, we will recommend a smart amp. Uh, to go there as well. We also have, uh, a smart amp that we call Ava. It is a decibel reader, so it's measuring the ambient noise, uh, the ambient decibel level, and adjusting the sound level of the music or the ads, uh, combination, um, in relation to the level of the ambient noise.
So have a lot of people in the store. Yeah, it can, it's gonna play it a little bit louder. The store's empty. It doesn't need to play it as loud. You have, you know, you're in a location where you have jackhammers out front, then it's gonna, you know, raise that up. But it's, it's measuring and it's a reader of that decibel level and the ambient noise.
So those [00:19:00] are, those, those are hardware pieces.
James Avery: Yeah. Somebody who's stocked, who stocks shelves at night at Kroger. Uh, after high school. I, I appreciate that. 'cause we would, they would just blast Christmas music at us in the empty store at 3:00 AM Yep. Uh, and it was real test of your sanity. Uh, so I, uh, the, the smart amp, I hadn't heard about that, but it makes total sense, right?
Like you're in, you know, Thanksgiving versus, you know, Thanksgiving day or day before Thanksgiving grocery store versus 3:00 AM you know, different levels of audio that you need to make sure that the ads are still heard.
Sean Cheyney: And I'm glad you brought up, uh, you know, being stocking shelves at Kroger because oftentimes companies forget and sometimes we have to remind the retailer that one of the other customers and the customer experience also is the employee experience.
James Avery: Yeah.
Sean Cheyney: And the last thing, and you may have had the, this experience, I've had this experience in jobs when I was younger, where it's the same music, it's playing on loop. Over and over and over again every single day. Yeah. And it [00:20:00] drives you nuts. You know exactly what the next song is and you're sick of it, and nobody wants to hear that.
And it, it, it drives employees absolutely nuts. And that's why having the ability to customize the music, have it, not just be on a loop, but have playing a wide playlist. Right. And be customized toward the likes and dislikes of the. Area as well. So you, you know, Austin, Texas, for example, people probably have different likes and dislikes of music than they do, let's say in the Bronx,
James Avery: right?
Sean Cheyney: And, and it's, or in downtown Chicago. And so it's gonna be very different. So being able to adjust. And customize that music at the individual store level and make those changes by season as well, so that it's not the exact same music that you can adjust for seasonal, uh, seasonal differences as well.
James Avery: Yeah, and we can start, we can start a petition to not start Christmas music before Thanksgiving.
That was the other thing that drove us crazy when we were there, is just. Just nonstop. Like, [00:21:00] uh, exactly, Chris, it starting in like November 1st, but yeah, that's, that's awesome. I think, I think there's probably, there's a, there's employees around the world that appreciate, appreciate the sensitivity to their, uh, you know, it's like, it's like seeing the same ad seven times on a, on a CTV, uh, you know, experience.
It's like nobody, nobody wants to just hear the same song, same playlist over and over and over again.
Sean Cheyney: Yeah, so we always look at the employee as, as, as one of the customers that, that are, that are as a stake, a stakeholder that needs to be happy with this as well. One of the other pieces that we've added is, is messaging, so that if you're a regional manager, um, and you want to send out messages to the employees, let's say, you know, 20 minutes before the store opens or whatever it is, you can have that ability through the system to do that as well, uh, you know, before everything's kicking off.
So it is. Very flexible and solves a lot of different needs.
James Avery: Uh, so I think we've, we've kind of talked some about like how, how the retailer implements it, you know, how, how it works. [00:22:00] Let's switch and think about like the brands, right? Like how are, how are the brands thinking about this? Right? It's, it's, it's something they've, they've probably, you know, have done some of this in the past, right?
Probably not as addressable or measurable in any way. They, you know, how do, how do they think about it from a, an opportunity standpoint? Is it part of a larger retail media strategy? Is it, is it a, you know, a unique offering? Like what's, what are you seeing from the brands?
Sean Cheyney: So it becomes a bit of a unique offering because for the most part, when.
When retailers have implemented audio, it's pretty much just been radio that has not had a whole lot of accountability, uh, in many cases, not even advertising that's playing through it because it doesn't have that capability. And when it is, there's no measurable, uh, there's no measurement component to it.
It's just, it plays and it sort of goes to, um. The way a lot of brands were in, uh, were, and in some cases still do invest trade dollars. Well, oh, some of this is gonna be an end cap. Some of this is gonna be in the circular. Some of this is gonna be [00:23:00] over here. Um, and it's not really measured, uh, tightly, if at all.
In a lot of cases. And so what we're doing is when we bring in and say, no, everything's gonna be measurable. You're gonna know exactly the performance. You're gonna have closed loop measurement, you're gonna get incremental roas. Um, you're gonna get it down to the store level, down to the region level, down to all these different levels that you're not used to receiving.
It becomes a key component of the retail media because oftentimes where brands and their agencies, they're looking and they're saying, oh, we kind of tapped out this channel over here. We've tapped out sponsored products, we've tapped out banner ads, we've tapped out email, we've tapped out all these other channels, but 85 to 90% of transactions are still happening in the store.
Yeah. We need to be there. And so it's not it. It's, they've been used to. Deploying dollars through in-store screens. That's been happening for a little bit longer. They haven't been getting the [00:24:00] measurement, uh, from it for the most part, other than just the fact that, that that an, that an ad served. Um, but they're looking at it and saying, all right, we've deployed in screens.
There's so many pieces that are competing for somebody's visual attention. When you walk into a store, but nothing competing for audio, uh, and, and, and sound. And so they're looking at it. Brands and agencies are always looking for ways to break through the noise. Yeah. Um, and, and sort of break through and, and have their message heard.
And this becomes a way to appeal to a sense that hasn't been used, uh, before, and in a way that can be done in a, in a smart way where it's not. Overwhelming with ads. It's still the music. We typically will recommend, um, somewhere between four to four and a half minutes per hour that are spent on, uh, ads.
So the, uh, predominant
James Avery: is way lighter. That's lighter than I expected. Like I, you know, [00:25:00] loads
Sean Cheyney: and more
James Avery: ads in there. Yeah,
Sean Cheyney: I mean, some go as high as six or seven minutes, but. You don't wanna have it just blasting that. They'll also throw on their in-store promotions and in-store mess, normal store messaging and seasonal events and other events that are happening.
They'll, they'll layer those on, which is great. But for the most part, it's the music and it's the customer experience. Um, but when brands know that they have accountability, um, in the media. They have proof if something's gonna work or not. They're more apt to allocate dollars toward those channels. And that's what we're finding today.
So we're finding this, um, when it's packaged in with the joint business planning, then it works extremely well. But now brands and agencies are starting to say, now there's an education because they're used to this not being a, uh, a performance channel, but that for them to look and say, oh, I can get all this measurements.
This is something I haven't had before. Okay. Let's put dollars in and see how it performs.
James Avery: Yeah, and I [00:26:00] imagine for some of them it's, it's, you know, retailers that there really wasn't a great way to address 'em before, like, like a c store, like, you know, like a gas station, right. It's like, you know, I'm sure people use a gas station app, like I'm not one of those people, right?
It's like you're, you're going in, you're grabbing something quickly on the way out. Maybe there was a store, a screen in there. Um, but this is a, like, you know, it's, it's, it's a group of retailers they probably could not really access previously in some cases.
Sean Cheyney: Yeah. It's a good way And, and there are a lot of retailer, uh, there's a lot of C stores, for example, uh, especially ones that have fuel screens.
Uh, gas station TV is a good example. Yeah. Yeah. Where they, they have a, they have a lot of, uh, a lot of penetration in that market. Uh, and some other ones like, uh, you know, Gilbarco and some of these other ones that have good, good penetration across that market. So people are used to seeing screens when they're pumping gas.
Um, some retailers have done a good job, like, uh, circle K for example, have done a good job with their screens, um, in [00:27:00] the store as well with their lift screens. Um, and so there are some screens and other retailers. Uh, whether it's c source space or others of, you know, certain levels of sophistication and, and experience with their, uh, with their screen.
So there is a way to to, to reach people there, but the audio gives, gives, gives a way to reach people in a very quick way where people are gonna be listening and the, the likelihood of. Them hearing that ad and having recall for that ad and causing 'em to take action is very high. And then our ability to measure that, uh, in, in a very tight way, um, to a attribution window that is so short that nobody else is doing it.
Um, rere really opens, opens the eyes for the Branson agencies,
James Avery: is a big part of that. Just the, like, the reason it's so much easier or not easier, but that you can actually attribute it. Is because you can kind of assume anybody in the store heard this ad. Whereas if there's a screen on, you know, there's a [00:28:00] screen on the, uh, you know, on the cooler in the back of a circle K, like, you don't know if I saw it or not.
Even if I was in there, you know, I, I might have just walked in, grabbed something in the front and, and walked out. Whereas, you know, when this ad plays. If I'm in the store, I bought it and, you know, the average time people are in the store. So you can kind of measure the impact, right. Like
Sean Cheyney: Exactly. And because we're using holdout, uh, control and holdout groups, um, either at the store level or based on loyalty IDs, um, because we're doing that, we have a control that we're measuring against and we can measure the lift.
James Avery: Yeah. Awesome.
Sean Cheyney: And, and that's really, that's really the key because, um, what you don't want is if you're just measuring the total number of units. Um, say, Hey, if I'm going into a gas station, I'm gonna buy a, uh, you know, I'm gonna buy a Celsius, I'm gonna. Probably I, I, I'm, I may have been going in there for that purpose, but if you're, if you have that test and control, [00:29:00] then you can measure and you can say, okay, I have a good idea.
Here's, here are the people. This is what was gonna happen anyway. And now we're going above and beyond that. We can measure that incremental lift.
James Avery: Yeah. Oh, I love it. 'cause I think we, this came up with a, I was a conference at, I was at a conference recently and we're talking about, you know, that so much retail is still in the store.
Yeah. Right. Like, I, like in retail media, we focus so much of our time, you know, all of our time, at least on this side right, is on, on the digital side, and that's still only 25% of, of commerce, right? 75% of it's still happening in the stores. Uh, so it's a, you know, and I'm glad we're finally getting some innovation, uh, in this space.
And I think there's, there's a lot of opportunity.
Sean Cheyney: Yeah. And it's interesting because we're, we're, there's a lot of blurring lines now, and it's coming together to say. When, when a retailer, when a, when a brand is planning their campaigns with a retailer on the retail media side, they should be looking at all channels.
They should be looking at both in store and [00:30:00] online and seeing how, you know, what are our goals? What's our, what's our goal? What strategies are we gonna be able to use to achieve it? And then what channels help us ladder up to those objectives? And, and really start with the, start with the, with the goal in mind.
And that's, that's really how they do things in, in Europe. Um, when you ask them, you say, Hey, is it, you know, is this coming from trade? Is it coming from national media? Is it, you know, who's, is it coming from your retail media team who's coming up with the idea? And they say, well, we all come together and we come up with the idea, and then we go to the brand.
We present, we, we, we present the strategy all together. Um, the Nectar 360 team, uh, with Sainsbury's and in, uh, in the uk. Uh, they presented a year ago with a retail media X conference, and I was absolutely blown away. And this is the approach they took, and I think this was with Pepsi. They went and did it, and they did everything from stadium wraps to in-store screens, [00:31:00] to, you know, a lot of digital, uh, a lot of digital, uh, channels.
And they really employed a lot of different channels to focus in the physical world and the digital world. Uh, to drive success of this campaign, and it was wildly successful.
James Avery: Yeah. Well, my next question was gonna be where, where do you think things are going in the next three to five years? But I think you just kind of answered it with, it's, it's how do retailers really start to offer this truly omni-channel campaign across in-store?
Probably in-store, on site offsite. Everything. Right?
Sean Cheyney: It is everything. So it's, it's really focusing and, and I think we're getting better at this with the retail media teams where they're looking and they're saying, alright, how do we, how do we provide the bigger campaigns? It's sort of like, why would you go to an, if you're a brand, what are you looking for from your agency?
What you're looking for, that big idea. Well, now the retail media team is an extension and they're, they're acting sort of as an agency to say, all right, we need to come. To these brands with the [00:32:00] big idea, with the strategy. Maybe we're going to their agency and we're working with them, but we need to have something that is gonna surround the customer.
This omnichannel approach has been talked about for years, but has never really been done, and it's been hard to achieve. Yeah, and so tho those are the different pieces that. That we're gonna see a lot more of now and we're gonna see the in-store play, uh, piece play a much larger role and in-store as it relates to both screens and audio.
Um, a year ago, I, when I was at, when I was at Vista, I went into the year saying 2025 was gonna be the year that retailers begin doing pilots with in-store screens. That largely, uh, came to fruition. It happened what I'm predicting for this year, actually, this is the first place I'm saying it, but all right, let's hear.
It'll see, you'll see some pieces written about this, uh, in the future. But 2026 is gonna be the same thing for [00:33:00] Instore Audio. This is the year that retailers, um, globally, but especially in North America and in Europe. Begin to integrate audio in, uh, into their, uh, into their retail media, uh, programs as one of their channels that starts playing a more significant role.
So you're gonna start seeing the integration in 2026, and you're gonna see sort of the full blown rollouts happening in 2027.
James Avery: Yeah, it makes total sense. And I think when you can, when you can offer the kind of real, you know, measurement to go alongside the rest of the, you know, the rest of the offerings in that, that plan.
Like it makes total sense. So everybody, you heard it, you heard it here. We'll check with Sean next year to see, uh, to see, to see if it came to fruition.
Sean Cheyney: Exactly. And the other piece on the measurement side that's interesting is retailers will say, when we show people what we're, what we're doing on the audio side, on the measurement and solving that pain point, they say, [00:34:00] ah, I wish, I wish I could get that with my screen data.
Yeah. Have
James Avery: for some screens.
Sean Cheyney: Yeah. And, and so what we've done now, uh, because of those asks, we've actually enabled our system to ingest. A retailer's screen data and provide the same level of reporting. Now, we're not an ad server for, for screens. We're, you know, we're, we're an audio, we're an audio business.
But all those same pieces and the, the, the forecasting and the, the, um, the analysis and the insights can then be taken out and being, uh, be able to be used for a retailer's screen data, uh, for their screen, uh, campaigns. But they'll have all the measurements. Uh, that they have for audio all within their screens.
And the beauty is they can see it all in the same place.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah. And you can start to see the, the combination of the two, right. When you're combining screens and audio and, and you know, bringing it all together.
Sean Cheyney: Exactly.
James Avery: Awesome. Well, Sean, it was great, great having you on. It was just like we're sitting on a plane except, uh, less, less free [00:35:00] drinks and, uh, about two hours shorter.
Uh, but it was great to have you here and we'll definitely, we'll definitely, uh, let the, we'll to do this again next year and see, see how their prediction came true.
Sean Cheyney: Sounds good. I'm looking forward to it.
James Avery: Awesome. Thank you, Sean.
Sean Cheyney: Thank you.
James Avery: Thanks for tuning in to Unlocking Retail Media. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and share this show with your network.
We'll be back soon with more insights to help you navigate the future of retail media. See you next time.