Lunch and Learn: More Than Commerce: How CPG Brands are Building Direct-to-Consumer Engagement

Now, you may be thinking that traditionally CPG brands have had little direct engagement with their customers. Primarily sold through brick and mortar retailers, perhaps. But recently, with the growing value of first-party data, there has actually been a huge shift as CPG brands move more to direct-to-consumer. And today we're going to hear from a panel of distinguished CPG leaders who are successfully using omnichannel and personalization to build deep consumer relationships in conjunction with their more traditional sales channels. Now, it's wonderful to have a fabulous panel. It's even better to have such a distinguished host to run the panel for us. And our distinguished host is Don Brett, who also acts as the host of the CPG View Podcast Host. Don's background has over 20 plus years of omnichannel and e-commerce experience, including his time at Newell Brands, which is a consumer goods leader with over 100 global leading brands. Today, he's going to host this fantastic panel and pull insights out of some people in the industry whom he respects and knows well. So with that, it's my very great pleasure to hand over to Don. Thank you, Sara, and thank you to the Emarsys team for having us today. As the panelists come online, I wanted to start off by saying two things. One, it is incredible to see in the attendee chat folks from Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Southampton, the UK, Italy, America. It's fantastic. So I hope everyone who is listening, is able to extract value from this. And I'm extremely honored and privileged to have some of my great friends on, with me, today. So first, I wanted to start, before we dive into our questions here, I want to just start and ask, could each of you briefly describe your role, and can you share an overarching goal that your team is focusing on this year with regards to D2C engagement? I'd like to start off with Diana, with you and Andrew, and then we'll go to Jamie Decker and Jamie Schwab. Absolutely. What a pleasure to be here, everyone. So I'm the CEO, the global director on ecommerce capabilities for Kellanova . And, you know, I think is, is part of my role is really kind of driving what is the next generation of capabilities in the market, driving our marketing excellence. And I love this topic because really, as we think about marketing, to become a real growth driver is putting the consumers at the heart of everything we do. So one of our, you know, our North Star is to put people at the center of sustainable brand growth by harnessing a variety of trusted and unified consumer data, and we unlock that a little bit more. But the idea is to leverage that to drive deeper insights, being able to support AI-based decisioning. And at the end, right, the goal is to deliver personalized and connected experiences that really get us to become the world's best performing, snack-led powerhouse, which is our big goal. And when we talk about putting people at the heart and at the center of everything, that's rooted by a very strong first-party data set that we're trying to get, and having also enriched that with three partnerships. So our markets, you know, we're trying to as the global center team, we are really putting a lot of tools in the hands of our marketers. We are creating a lot of playbooks and a lot of best practices on how we do this from a crawl-walk-run perspective? What are the best channels? What are the touchpoints? What are the different strategies to collect that first-party data in a very responsible way? I love what Sara was saying, right. We owe to our consumers and shoppers to protect, to care and protect. And I think that's part of our strategy is like bringing what I said, right, is trusted data. So that's very important to us. And that's one of our big goals today at Kellanova. Awesome. Andrew, over to you. Yeah. Good afternoon. Morning, evening. Depending on where you are. It's a pleasure to be here as part of this session. My name is Andrew Gallo. I'm the Chief Omnichannel Officer for American Greetings, and I have responsibility for a couple of different businesses. One is our direct-to-consumer websites and companion apps. We operate three websites: americangreetings.com, bluemountain.com, and jacquielawson.com. And we have companion apps that allows consumers to access the same assets through mobile. And then I also operate our e-commerce, channel, which is really the sale of any physical product that we offer, as an organization, but is sold on somebody else's platform. That can be an in-store platform, like a brick and mortar retail partner, or it could be, one of their websites or even a pure play, online retailer. So that's the scope of the responsibility that I have. I think consistent with what Diana has said and likely what you'll hear from all of us is that everything has to start with the consumer. You know, our biggest challenge is when we don't have direct access to the consumer, but have to do that through somebody else's platform. It's how do we gain enough understanding of the shopper and their journey and their behavior on somebody else's platform, whether our brick-and-mortar store or online, so that we can then either partner with the retailer who has access to that consumer directly to develop unique campaigns and personalized or customized campaigns, which often results in things like understanding segments of consumers, bringing insights to the retailer who holds the actual data, and showing them that we understand our product or category better than they will, because that isn't their expertise. And if we bring those insights, then it influences them to share with us the insights so they can get from the data that they hold about the consumer in themselves. So it's truly a partnership on our direct to consumer sites where we do have that data. It's a very different answer. You know, we know something about each of those, visitors to our sites, and we can customize that experience based on prior usage or existing, you know, real time clickstream type of data. And we can customize our outreach to those consumers in real time. Awesome. Great. Thank you. Andrew. Jamie Decker will head to you. And then, Mr. Schwab. Yeah. Hi, everybody. It's such a pleasure to be here. My name is Jamie Decker. I lead omniactivation for Del Monte. And for us at Del Monte, omniactivations made up really three facets. It's one is all of the e-commerce selling elements. So whether that's through retail .com, the pure play networks of Amazon, or delivery networks in Instacart and Shipts of the world. And then we also have our omni activation organization. So that's anything within the marketing funnel that ties back to consumer purchase at a retailer. And then we've got all of the data and reporting that supports all of that. You know, in regards to the consumer specifically, I think Andrew said it perfectly in regards to the areas in which we are leaning in, in a big way, and it's working with our retailers specifically on the first-party data that they have. And to Andrew's point, how can we make sure that we're leveraging that first-party data with our retailers and then bringing the insights that we have to really influence how we have to think about that differently and in different ways in which we go about it? You know, and as we look further into the consumer engagement path in 2024, we're going to be placing a heavy reliance in regards to how can we engage with the consumer and influencers through the social content, and how do we further build out what that looks like and have this two-way engagement through social leveraging AI, to really get after our consumers and engage appropriately. Thank you, Jamie and Mr. Schwab, would you mind introducing yourself? Yes. I also go by Jamie. So we'll see how this goes today, Don. It's a pleasure to be here and speaking with everybody from around the world. Really appreciate that. My name is Jamie Schwab. I'm the VP of Global Digital Commerce at Colgate-Palmolive, sitting in our, global digital organization. So I've got some colleagues who, I'm gonna be here representing today in some respects. But within my role, what we're trying to do is help build capabilities across all digital commerce, whether or not it be pure play, omni-customers, DTC, along the way and how that can help drive things at a local level. And we're excited to be able to touch so many different businesses and categories around the world. We got a very good chance to understand how to build those capabilities based on the life cycle that any of our given products are. We sell pet food through the Hill's Science and prescription diet business. We have a few, facial skincare brands around the world, as well as, the household goods that many are familiar with between Colgate and toothpaste, Palmolive dish soap, and so on. So thanks for being here. Yeah. Thank you, thank you, Jamie. And, you know, I do think we'll go to the next question in a moment. But a lot of what we learned as marketers early in our career are very consistent, I would say, with what we're facing now. But in the spirit of transformation, things are changing. You know, we learned about the 4Cs, or 4Ps in marketing when we were in school. And I'm sure, there's still learning about that in universities today. We learned about the 5C's. I think this is all very, very relevant to the space we're in. And Sara covered it, mentioned it earlier. You know, when we were thinking about transformation in many of our earlier roles in our career, it was very much focused on… As e-commerce was growing, it was actually similar to what Sara said it was, can you get the product? Can you ship the product? Will the product arrive on time? I think the point with regards to personalization is can you get the right message to the right consumer that's contextually relevant, and can you do it consistently? And I think data, and to Jamie Decker's point, the personalization component, is very real. Well, I wanted to flip, and ask one more question of the group, what's maybe not keeping you up at night, but what's one of the most significant challenges at the top of your mind as you think of about DtoC or direct to consumer engagement. Andrew and Diana, we'll start with you. Awesome. So I think, you know, one of the biggest things for us is how do you create a value exchange that really resonates? And how do you ensure that the value exchange is dynamic over time? Right. So if you think about, you know, of course the relationship with the consumer is going to change. How do we make sure that as we are creating these personalized experiences, how do we evolve them as the relationship with our consumer evolves? Right. So if you think about, even in the funnel, right, somebody becomes aware of it and they buy it and they become loyal. They are expecting different exchanges throughout the journey. And creating that process to enable us to be dynamic. Right. Of course. And that's how the power of all these data comes in, where we understand where you are in your journey and how they're changing and, you know, as they go into different journeys, how do we then create a different communication, that different exchange? So personalization is not a one off, right? I'm like, oh, this is Diana up with so-and-so years old and like Pringles is well, you know, she's now in a different stage. So being able to dynamically evolve, as their relationship changes, I think is one of the biggest challenges, because it's not like you have your, your person, your first-party data, at any minute, any time, those people can sign off, right? They can say, well, I unsubscribe, I don't want you to talk to me anymore. So it's kind of that keeping that constant engagement live and exciting. And of course, this is a is a reciprocal exchange with the consumer. Yeah, I would build on that and say that, I think the biggest challenge is that there are so many ways to reach consumers today that it can almost become an overwhelming canvas or landscape, and you're forced to make decisions on where are you going to invest. And that includes not just payment to get access to those folks through different channels, but also the development of creative content that's feels relevant and unique and authentic to the person that's receiving that. And so for me, the biggest challenge is trying to find a way to measure the effectiveness or reaching consumers through all these different points of contact. Some are going to be less efficient, but maybe very important strategically because one of your goals may be I want to acquire a broader customer base. And that's a whole different set of tactics and ways I'm going to measure success than if the other one is, I need to be very focused on a specific audience, and I have to drive profitability with that consumer segment, and that that sort of begs a different set of tactics. And then all of them require the ability to try to measure in some way attribution. And that's a very challenging thing to do when you don't have first-party data. So, that's the thing that keeps me up at night is how to keep coming in and spending the company's money in the appropriate way to meet our financial goals. It's a real. It's a real challenge. Jamie, we head to you. And then. Miss Decker. I can dovetail off both of those, because I think the word complexity is the biggest thing that keeps me, you know, engaged and thinking and worried all at the same time because the speaker system that's evolved that, both Diana and Andrew were just speaking to, there's so many choices that that need to be made as you go through any given part. And the other side of it is the emerging piece. I don't know how much it's emerging, but what's the profitability of a direct-to-consumer business model look like? Right. I think we've all seen an arc in terms of the investment, the PE-backed businesses, the ones that have come in and done that. And how do you build something that is profitable? Right. Because from a long-term standpoint, but also how are we valuing the data that we're trying to collect or trying to engage consumers to get? Like, how does that fit into that same equation? So there's just a lot of math in the whole thing, right? When you try and lay it all out from a journey standpoint to engaging in that journey and then to ultimately monetize it, which is what we're here to do. Right, Miss Decker, over to you. Yeah. I mean, I think everybody hit on the main points really, you know, from a D2C standpoint, it is, to Jamie's point, it's what is the role of direct to consumer from a profitability standpoint to what insights can we get on our customer at the end of the day to make sure that we are engaging appropriately and using that data and learnings from that information? But then to kind of sum up, you know, some other things that have been said throughout this morning so far, it really comes down to, for me, it is this information superhighway that is being thrown at the consumer on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis. And how do we make sure that the information, the content, the personalization that we are serving up is going to stick, right? How many times do you actually have to serve a consumer to make sure that they are getting your message and they are choosing you with all of the information that's coming to them at any given time on the three different screens that they're utilizing as they're, you know, listening to their podcasts, listening to the radio? It's just so much information. So how do you make sure that your information is sticking and keep that consistency that we've been talking about this morning? Yeah, that's a great, that's a really good point. I wanted to ask the group get your perspective on first-party data strategy. You know, as we talk about this, you know, the backbone of D2C engagement is obviously data. And many CPG brands face challenges today, and various degrees with limited transaction visibility, which does require to you all's point, and Jamie, maybe it was keeping you up at night, is to find ways to collect the data and leverage the data at scale. As I guess maybe for this group, and maybe we'll have two members contribute, on this one, and we'll keep it moving. I want to make sure I've seen actually some questions come up in chat. And some of them are really interesting. And I would love the group to maybe chime in there. But the question here for two of you is, with the crumbling of cookies and not always having access to the customer transaction journey, how are you all thinking about your first party data strategy in 2024 and 2025? Sure, happy to chime in. So definitely, I think we are one of those. We don't have a lot of direct-to-consumer websites, so we have a variety of touchpoints that we use to capture that data. And of course every single one gives us different level of attributes. But think about we have brand-specific promotions. That's one we have connected packaging that we have used a lot, and we starting to use more and more, with the use of QR codes, shoppable media, where I think that's a big experimentation. We continue doing our own websites, with some D2C engagements that we have for some, like, you know, special packs and a special customized product. We have also consumer surveys and pulse sampling ratings and reviews, and consumer affairs. So we have a broad variety of touchpoints that we are planning. And we are aligning that a little bit to understanding what attributes you need. And we are guiding things to say. It depends on if you need psychographic data versus behavioral or transactional. These are the different touchpoints that you can use to unlock a little bit of that collection. We think about first-party strategy or first-data strategy. It's really about engaging consumers in the channels that we can control first. So, you know, we have a set of social channels where we are communicating regularly with our followers in terms of our company, our mission and purpose, new product launches, etc. So we're in the space of digital celebrations and physical celebrations both. So, everybody in the market has a reason to celebrate something or somebody. And so by staying connected and being relevant in that space, reminding folks that there are events in their lives that they want to celebrate and they don't want to forget, that's a very natural and authentic way to stay connected to folks. And when they do connect with us in social channels, they're sharing things, too. We can watch what they're sharing, what they're saying, what their comments are, and start to get a little bit of a feel for are we meeting their needs? The second thing I, as I opened up, I shared that we have three different direct-to-consumer websites, and companion apps. And we can see that behavior directly. We know when consumers come to our sites, what their, you know, clickstream looks like, what they're using and sending. And so we can use that information to serve up a more customized, personalized experience when they come back to us. But I would tell you, we tend to focus an awful lot on digital. And that's critical because when consumers are shopping on digital channels, but we shouldn't throw out or alienate some of the tried-and-true ways of getting insights from consumers as well. And we don't. So we collect a lot of first-party data through quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. And that can be then used to go back to our retail partners who hold perhaps some of the data on an individual transaction at a consumer level. We can share insights that we're getting about our category and how consumers feel about it. And that's how you influence the folks that may have direct access to some of the first-stream data to share insights that we can then leverage. I love that one of the things that, you know, and I wanted to tee this over to, Jamie Decker and Jamie Schwab. But one of the things that I also think about a lot that comes up in conversations, even on the podcast, and we interview several members in our community pretty regularly, is the notion that the future. I've said this a few times. So, ignore if you've heard it. It's the future is going to bring a compression of time rather than an elongation of time, and our ability to synthesize data and act on that data to capture and create value will separate companies that are top tier from those that are not. And I think it's a question that all of us, anyone listening, or even just those in our community, have to really be assessing and taking a step back and understanding all of us in some permutation one way or another, have said the customer, the consumer is the heart of it all. So finding ways, capabilities, and systems to enable us and your brand to stay very close to he or she will be critically important in order to position yourself for the best in class and future. Jamie Decker, Jamie Schwab, anything you wanted to add to this point? Before we keep moving? You know, I don't know that I necessarily have much more to add, but I think time to just kind of layer on to your point is, obviously this is new-ish. It regards to the data that's out there and how rich it is. So I think it's, you know, there's this portion of it where it's how do we leverage our community, to really understand what are the best tools that are out there because so many of them aren't new. What's the most relevant, what's going to set us apart? And how do we work together, to really understand where to focus and where to invest. Great. Awesome. All right, with that being said, what we're going to do is we're going to move to the next question I want to talk about for us to talk about. Yeah. As we think about customer or consumer experience and personalization, first off, there's this concept of value exchanges between brands and customers, our consumers. And we all know these exchanges are critical to capturing data and enriching the experience. There's nothing worse. We've all experienced it where we get served an ad for maybe a brand that we were thinking… Oftentimes I feel like our phones actually extract our thoughts, but that's another thing. Anyway, but as we're thinking about something, a brand, I was looking for actually some soccer cleats for my son the other day, and it was a pretty disappointing experience when you get served, I got served an ad that wasn't at all the types of cleats that I was looking for. It wasn't his age. It wasn't the demographic. It wasn't all these things. So it really kind of missed the mark and put me off a little bit to… Did they actually understand me and what I'm searching for, or should I actually just go somewhere else and buy the product? So I think that's a very real concept that we have to be aware of as marketers and make sure that we have the best capabilities and the best systems in place. We're not always going to get it right as marketers, but we should aim to get it right much more than we get it wrong. So I guess I want to ask this next question, maybe to Jamie Schwab and get your thoughts too. Can you give us an example of where you're creating a specific type of value exchange that has encouraged consumers to share, perhaps more personal information, enabling you all to deliver a better personalized experience, the opposite of my soccer cleats. Well, that's the goal, right? Just to not have that experience go. Yes. Well, one thing that we're doing that's a good example of this, and you're right, it has to start with a bit of consumer empathy for what is it that we're trying to do on that side. And that gets into the complexity. So how do you do that? Right. So we've got this program. We launched it in Mexico recently, where we went out to acquire and enrich data around oral care routines. Right. And so what we did is we went with that empathy to say, "We want to seek to understand your routines and build upon that so that we can better serve you overall." So we promoted this quiz. We put a quiz out. We promoted it through email, through other means of pop-up, and things along those lines. But when we were seeking out that information from consumers, we found the willingness to give it and offer it. We blew away the benchmarks. On emails, we got over 90% completion rates. On pop-ups, we got over 50% completion rates. So the ability to acquire that information, when you approach it with an open hand towards, "we're trying to help." And from that side was really wonderful. You also have to take that scale part that we said and understand, how do you put a foundation in place to put that information so you can then action it on the other side? So as we went through this entire process and we've continued now to roll it out in other countries around the world, you know, that's the mindset that you have to go in. Not only am I going to do this in a consumer acceptance way, like, how am I going to get information that I can turn around and then share how our products can help you achieve what it is that you're looking for? Hit the soccer ball a little harder, I guess, right? But how do we do that? And at the same time, how do we ingest that information? Where do we put it? And then how are we going to turn around and use it? Like all of this has to be sorted throug as we move forward. I could add something. We have a unique product category that we participate in because it is almost always purchased to then be given to somebody else rather than be consumed by the person making the purchase. So, that gives us a natural ability to talk to our consumers and address some of their pain points. So, for example, the number one reason why folks forget to use one of our products, or don't use one of our products, is forgetfulness. And so we have a natural way to ask a person when they come to our direct-to-consumer websites, when you're connecting with somebody else to celebrate a birthday or say, "I'm thinking of you," or to share a sentiment, it's going to somebody else, and we can ask them, hey, if you're celebrating a birthday this year, you'll probably want to celebrate that same individual's birthday next year. So let's set up a reminder so that you don't forget, right? The number one pain point we can solve by simply asking them, would you like us to send you a reminder next year? And so we've been able to create interactions that are very authentic and very personal. And a very large percentage of our members use that feature. Thank you. And, I think that was that was really insightful. We have a couple of questions from the audience and I think we should talk to. And then I want to hand back to Brett quickly. So I think we've got a lot more to cover here. But we've got a really interesting question that's coming from the audience. The examples that all of you are talking about are primarily consumer brands, that are adding channels and strategies into a mix. Do you guys have any thoughts on how a company that's predominantly B2B should think about moving themselves closer to a B2C environment? And there's a subsidiary question about should brand development proceed channel strategy in this case, or should they perhaps go hand in hand? I'll take a first pass at this. And then fellow panelists, please add on. I would say for a B2B or B2C, it really, it not trying to oversimplify here, but it doesn't matter. You we have to stay as close to the customer and consumer as possible, and ways in which we can can do that… Emarsys has a great type of solution for this. There's numerous ways in which we can stay close to the consumer, but the opposite of what we want to do, or what we're trying to do, is make business decisions not based on data, based purely on qualitative, kind of gut feels and hunches and what we've always done. So that's the one piece I would mention, fellow panelists. Anything else to add there on that B2B B2C question? I can jump in with something because I smiled. I don't know if anybody can see me, but I smiled at the question because, I've been finding myself trying to dig in deeply and get very strategic in terms of how we build an omni-mindset in an omni-capability here on a consumer business. And most of the information I find is written in B2B language. So I'm replacing the word customer with consumer as I go through and I'm trying to articulate how do we do that. So I also think the D2C model, direct to consumer, and that profitability point, you know, it had such a clean, clear visibility where you could stay super focused on the consumer at the end. And then you had attribution models that were built, whether or not you appreciated or loved them, you actually had more visibility to that consumer journey as you went through with the various tools that were available. And now we put up walls between us, or we don't have as much closed loop attribution. So the challenge is how do we get there? So I kind of feel like we're all trying to get at the same thing, but notice everyone's using consumer centric, customer centric, like, what are you trying to do? Who are we here to serve? And then build off of that as you move back through their journey. I think it's very, very important that the brand organizations, if you're in a large organization or small organization, it's important for the brand teams to be working very, very closely, with understanding the consumer quite well. It doesn't really matter the size of the brand or the history of the brand. That's point one. Point two would be making sure that there's a clear channel strategy in order to best serve that consumer. And it really comes down to that. It's as simple as that. And the best way to serve that consumer is oftentimes making sure you have the right capabilities and the right systems in order to best serve that consumer. So I would say it's not one or the other. It's actually two in the same working very closely together. It's not something that the brand organization does that the channel or trade or revenue growth management or whatever term anyone wants to use. It's not they're not done separately. They have to be done together and they have to work as one. I'll chime in through that. And I think, you know, when you think about it and we think about end-to-end content creative and product, you know, a strategy is when you start with strats right at the beginning of the year. Part of that is defining what is that consumer need, right. What are the, gaps that you're trying to solve for? And that should unlock all your strategy all the way from new product, new packaging, and what channels are you going to use to kind of serve that need. So again, it's putting that consumer, that shopper at the heart of everything we do, because when we're doing strategies, that's what we are trying to do, is we're trying to solve for an unmet need. Right? That gives us that growth that we want to deliver. So it is one and the same. Like you're not doing one thing or the other, is like, it's all comprehensive with that consumer and shopper lens at the center of everything and every decision that is made. Right. So again, if you think that type of consumer is more in one specific channel or different channels, how are you going to create that strategy to serve with the right brands, with the right pack, architecture, right, to serve those. So it is a connected strategy, right? And again, sometimes it doesn't work as great because there's a couple of silos in the company. But in the ideal world that's kind of you know, the common thread is you have to serve that need, with brands and channels. And I'll say just what we're going to move into the next and final question here is we have about ten minutes. I think the headline here for all of those listening for anyone in our community, and this is why I'm honored to have friends sharing the virtual stage with me today is the. This is. Pretty basic. It's what we've all learned. All of our careers. Whether you're a junior member in your career, whether you're a mid-level member, whether you're a senior member. The point that is very important is we as the where-to-play and how-to-win choices evolve in any organization, the capabilities needed to enable those choices have to also evolve. I happened to be, you know, fond of what the team as Emarsys has been able to do with their capabilities. However, it's really important for any brand and any leader to take a step back and ask themselves, do we have the right capabilities to enable our where-to-play and how-to-win choices? To Diana's point, it all starts and ends with strategy and the choices and the corresponding investments needed to find those choices. So again, not trying to oversimplify, but would also just encourage everyone listening to take a step back and think quietly in a room and ask yourself, do we have the right systems and capabilities for our evolving landscape and our evolving ambition as a company? And if you don't, that would be a great starting point. I would recommend. So we have seven minutes left. I wanted to ask this to the group I want to start with my Jamie's. And then Jamie Decker goes first, as always. Who worked with her for years and was lucky. She actually trained me. So digital transformation initiatives. So I hear you laughing, Jamie. These issues are critical in adapting to any evolving consumer landscape. As you think about this, the initiatives are also pivotal in improving how brands interact with consumers across not only digital, which is what we've been talking about, but also physical to Andrew's point, touch points. I guess. Jamie, I want to get your thoughts with every brand focusing efforts on getting closer, better understanding the consumer, delivering a better experience while driving more efficiency and revenue on the business, which is all what we've been talking about. What's the top digital led initiative you're working on this year? Yeah. For us it's really just about continuing to expand that user experience, right. Getting more targeted with everything that we do or just continuing to get closer and closer to the consumer and making sure that we are serving up the right information, the right content, the right marketing, the right advertising at the time that it makes the most sense. And then from there, it always comes down to learning what we're getting out of it and making sure that we're using those metrics for continued optimization. Great. Jamie Schwab, before we hand it over to Diana and to Andrew. I'll keep it brief and I'll throw a few stats out there. Retail media is the transformation area that's got a lot of, my and my team's energy, within the organization. Insider Intelligence released yesterday. They're now calling it omni retail media, omnichannel retail media. And how that ties together that by 2028, it's going to be about 25% of total media spend in the US. So if you just, like, pause for a second and think about that and where it's going and what it's doing, along with coupled with the emergence of marketing clouds, whether it be AMC or Walmart Connect now connecting, as they've announced to their Luminate data set and everything that's happening there. The visibility and potential of the consumer journey is being enabled and empowered with retail media. And so this is a must focus area on how we can leverage that and then I saw a question in the inbox about first-party data. Can we pair our data into that. Right. Can we also see what we know and combine it in clean rooms with, with what the closed loop retailers have on their side as well? There's just, there's a lot to sort out, figure out and action here that can drive towards, consumer centric efficiency. That's great. Andrew. Andrew and Diana. Anything to add here? We've got about, 3 to 4 minutes. I would double down on what both of Jamie's have said. You know, optimizing the consumer experience is critical. I think leveraging retail media networks or omni retail media networks is going to be critical as well. I think doing all of that is really important. I think what we're really focused on is trying to figure out, how do you make the point of engagement as close to the transaction as possible? And so removing friction at the time that I'm talking to and engaging with the consumer and whatever channel that is, how do I get that moment to be as close to the the point of transacting as I can and making that as seamless as possible so the friction is removed? That's I think we're always trying to understand how to how to do that as best we can. Great. Diana, anything to add here? You know, I guess when you talk a lot about the transformation initiatives. You know, I think we are also in a bigger path as well as a corporation to change a lead the life a lot more than just marketing. So, you know, we are definitely one big priority for our marketing transformation. But we are also looking into our GM, and we're looking into procurement. And I think that's key to enable a lot of the changes that we need. Right. I think we talk a little bit of our GM in this conversation about, you know, what's first brand product, how you serve. And if you think about it, having those also digitalize, having the right data, the right technology into all those aspects is what's going to help us kind of really provide those great experiences. Right? Because an experience. Yeah, marketing is amazing. There's going to be a huge lever for us to have that right communication. But if you don't have the other things working alongside with you, we are not going to be able to serve the right products as an example, right, at the right time. We're serving our retailers in the right, appropriate way. So we are really having a little bit more comprehensive transformation because, we need to, you know, work as an entity to all be realized, use that data driven approach to be able to solve for that, consumer needs. So we need to be true about like putting the consumer at the center consumer. We say consumer products, consumer, customer, shopper at the center of everything we do. Yeah, I think common theme for us, in this panel, I hope everyone got today is, to Diana's point, the consumer, customer, shopper, keep them at the center of all that you are doing. I saw a note from, I believe, Tom, which channels are you looking to activate your first party data in a better place? I think what anyone who has any questions about this, feel free to ping me or any of the panelists offline. I'm sure we would be, willing to, to help you in any way possible. I would say ultimately, we have to continue to evolve capabilities here with regards to the first party data. We've said, I think we said it to this point, probably, nausea of how important it is to keep that customer, consumer and shopper at the center. And we all know that the first party data we want to get really understand him or her, get really close to him or her and serve him or her very, very well with our data and repeat, and that's how we'll create value and continued competitive advantage. So with that being said, I think we have 30s left. I want to say, Sara, is there anything that you want to add before we close ? Yeah, I've got one question I'd like to pose, if that's all right. And then we can let everybody get on with their days. And this is very much for our panel. Can you tell me about some of the uses that you're seeing for AI? And for marketers within consumer products specifically? I'd really be fascinated to know what you're seeing and perhaps what you're planning to do. I can go ahead and start, but I feel like Jamie Schwab is going to have a lot, a lot of really, really great insight around this. But, you know. I have to let you go. You know, for us, the big thing for AI this year is leveraging our agency partnerships and the tools that they've already had or that they already have and they've already built around AI. Where we're looking to potentially focus is how can we use AI through social learning and social responding? The one caveat to all of that is the opportunity need, willingness ability to be able to teach AI the right things on behalf of the brand, if you're looking at, you know, in-taking the information and having AI respond to certain things through social channels. But that's kind of that's a big area of opportunity for us as we look to this fiscal year. And on our side. At a at a high level, I think there's a couple of things we're really trying to understand where we can get, the most value, from a use case standpoint, particularly with Gen AI. I think AI is embedded similar to what JD said, there is embedded in so many different tools and so many different aspects of what a lot of our vendor partners or SAS providers are already doing not a little on the retail side of everything, but on top from a commerce standpoint. Right? I think understanding and figuring out how to create and develop content at scale is probably the most appropriate use case, that we're exploring. Andrew and Diana, anything to close out with on use case. I would say a couple of things. So we are looking at, you know, AI in many areas, of course. We are using a little bit of supervised machine learning as well to kind of harmonize data sets in a clean room environment and be able to find what are the most valuable addressable audiences that we have. So that's some of those use cases also in the generative AI piece on the content area, we are looking into, how does it help us to get faster at creating some more personalized content? So some, you know, we are training some models to start with, for some of the content creation piece. But we are also looking to copy to help us even get faster and better at creating that SEO product pages and product descriptions. But yeah, so we're we're testing it in many different places. We do have a very, comprehensive AI council that has to approve use cases to be sure that we are being, and protecting, you know, our data. But, we're exploring many, many areas. Great. Andrew. Anything to add? Just I would just add, you know, we're an IP creative company. So we really believe in the value of protecting IP, not just ours but others. So we're very cautious as we enter this space. We definitely see opportunities for looking for automation and efficiency that might come from it. I will end it with we were using a generative AI through ChatGPT right now in one use case, which is on our websites or our direct to consumer websites, that somebody is trying to determine what to write in a, as a message in a card. We've now offered up the opportunity for consumers to add some inputs into a ChatGPT model in what spits out is a very customized, personalized message, that has been generated through the help of ChatGPT. But it's, you know, it's the consumer entering that information, not us. So, we feel really excited about that and consumers are using it. Sarah and team and Emarsys team, thank you so much for hosting, having us on this panel. I did want to say that you could feel free to connect with any member of the panel. You can see the, fancy, QR codes the master's team has created for us. Please reach out if you have any questions, or there's one thing I would just say in closing. The reason that we started the CPG view, the reason we started the retail e-commerce club, is to help everyone when and when bigger and when together. And the way you do that is by leveraging a community, of leaders that you can lean into. And just wanted to say thank you to my panelists for joining me. I'm honored to have you. And thank you to the Emarsys team. Thank you very much. Don, Jamie, Jamie, Diana, Andrew, I think that was a fantastic session. I think we I know I learned a lot, so I'm guessing that other people took a number of gems from it, some definite tips and tricks and an insight into your industry that perhaps we all didn't have. So thank you very much again for your time, for your thought provoking suggestions and ideas.