This week on the podcast, Brent is joined by fellow Walton College colleagues, Andy Murray, Molly Rapert, and Rod Thomas, to discuss their newly released white paper on retail media networks. The conversation dives into their research on retail media networks over the past few years, especially highlighting what exactly constitutes a retail media network, and emphasizing its omni-channel presence, utilization of first-party data, and closed-loop reporting. They continue on in the episode with a conversation around the transformative power of these networks in providing targeted marketing efforts and detailed insights into consumer behavior. They also stress the growing understanding and significance of retail media networks in the business landscape. Tune in to this episode for an enlightening exploration of this intersection between retail and media, and the unprecedented opportunities it presents for advertisers and marketers alike.
Podcast Episode
Episode Transcript
Rod Thomas 0:00
With retail media, you have the ability to be very focused. They can track not only
what you saw and were exposed to but what you actually bought.
Brent Williams 0:01
Welcome to the Be Epic Podcast brought to you by the Sam M. Walton College of Business
at the University of Arkansas. I'm your host, Brent Williams. Together, we'll explore
the dynamic landscape of business, and uncover the strategies, insights and stories
that drive business today. Today, I have with me three of my Walton College colleagues.
I have Dr. Rod Thomas, who is Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management. I have
Dr. Molly Rapert, who is Associate Professor of Marketing. And I have Mr. Andy Murray,
who is the Executive Director and Founder of the Customer Centric Leadership Initiative
at the Walton College amongst some other things, but well, welcome to the Be Epic
Podcast.
Molly Rapert 0:48
Thank you, Brent, we're happy to be here.
Andy Murray 0:49
We're excited.
Brent Williams 0:50
Well, today, we're highlighting a piece of what I would call industry focused research
around retail media networks that, that the four of us have been working on for over
a year now. We've published a white paper last September that we called Realizing
the Promise of Retail Media Networks. We have another one recently published. And,
and then we've got some on some academic work that's underway. So I want to get to
kind of that whole process of industry focused research, but maybe let's just start
with the research itself. For many listening might not know what we mean by a retail
media network. So we probably should start there. Andy, I'm gonna start with you.
Tell the audience here while I introduced you as the Executive Director of the Customer
Centric Leadership Initiative, you've had quite an industry career. And, you know,
have sort of a lot of your career bridged this gap, a little bit between practice
in in academics. But so maybe I'll start with you. Tell me what a retail media network
actually is?
Andy Murray 2:03
Well, if I can only define it with such, you know, clarity that everybody could understand.
It'd be amazing. But you know, that's an interesting question. I was at the beginnings
of the shopper marketing world and one of the first questions was, what is it? And
it took forever to define it, which I think is one of the challenges we have with
retail media networks, I think you when you look at that question, you almost have
to define it from the set of common core elements, and then let it build out from
there. Because the edges are a bit murky in terms of where's that line and how you
define it. When we did the research, we probably got 30 different responses to you
know, what is a retail media network. But I do think there's some common elements
that we find that's really important, that guided this research. We were looking primarily
at omni channel, it was looking at these advertise as an advertising platform that
had first party data, closed loop reporting, where it really at the two core elements
in its ability to measure and be able to get that kind of clarity of what's really
happening in the in the transactional space of advertising.
Brent Williams 3:06
We're really talking about a advertising platform, if you will, that the retailer
is, you know, providing for itself and for its partners. And I think that's a fair
statement.
Rod Thomas 3:19
Yeah. When Andy said first party data, what do we mean by that? First party data refers
to our shopping history, right? Traditional media with a lot of advertisement, we
look globally, did we get a sales lift or not? With retail media, you have the ability
to be very focused. They can track not only what you saw and were exposed to but what
you actually bought. And that what you actually bought, that's the closed loop piece
that he was talking about. So it is a micro targeted, or gives you the ability to
be very micro targeted with your marketing efforts. You know, exactly if Molly was
exposed to an ad last night, whether or not she bought. If Andy was exposed to an
ad, whether or not he bought. And that level of feedback gives you the ability to
target consumers more effectively. And it also lets you kind of constantly experiment
with the ad you're giving everybody. So to me, it's the ultimate marketing tool, but
I'm not the marketing expert, Molly jump in.
Brent Williams 4:24
Well I was gonna jump to Molly there. You know, Molly, you are the marketing expert,
you and Andy. And you've not only that you've really engaged industry throughout your
whole career in your classroom, which I think is something that you've done so so
well. But as you've gone through this process of the research on retail media networks,
I just wonder, what are a couple of things that stood out to you?
Molly Rapert 4:50
I'll say with respect to the definition, what was really interesting to me from the
viewpoint of having talked to industry experts a year ago and then now this past year
was how the specificity changed. I felt like last year in our conversations, people
just refer to retail media networks, but no one was defining it in the same way as
Andy said 30 disparate definitions, most of which had descriptors like the wild wild
west attached to it. And now I feel like there has been some convergence of what it
is, and they've moved past that into, okay, exactly, what do we expect from it? And
it's happened with a great deal of velocity.
Brent Williams 5:37
Yeah. Well, you know, maybe I should ask this, why is this such a big deal?
Andy Murray 5:43
Well, it's really a fundamental shift in the way, advertisers can go to market and
connect with customers. And it's new, I mean, Amazon, when they published in 2019,
a $32 billion take in ad spend, which hadn't really been pulled out on the P&L and
reported that way, a lot of jaws dropped collectively in CMO land around the world
of retailers saying that's a big one, something's happening. And so if you look at
what makes it a big deal, part of it is the money that's been moving into the space
of the velocity it's been moving, could be well over 100 billion globally, in 2026.
So that's a lot of money moving into this space. And when you get that kind of money
moving, something's happened, right? I mean, and to pay attention of what is that
thing that's happening is really the question we've been asked to kind of look at
or been tasked to look at, and then excited to try to explore of just what is happening
that's allowing this to, to emerge so quickly.
Molly Rapert 6:44
And I'll add to that, that, if we look at the broader context of what's happened over
the course of our collective careers, it's considered the third wave. And I think
Andrew Lispsman with insider intelligence really put it well, when he said that first
wave took 14 years to get from 1 billion to $30 billion when we're looking at search,
and we go to the second wave of social, that took 11 years to go from 1 billion to
30 billion. They've made this move in five years to get to that. So the traction,
the velocity, the way it's entrenched, along with everything else, Andy said, is really
what's keeping it on our horizon.
Rod Thomas 7:26
The other reason I'll say it's a big deal, it gives you that rare triple win for consumers,
if retail media is operating properly, I'm not getting ads for women's coats, right?
I'm not getting ads for things that are not appropriate for my age or my tastes, it
is a customized solution for me, it doesn't waste my time. For suppliers, for the
brands, it gives them an opportunity to market their goods and products and services
in a way that is so targeted and so bogus, it should increase their sales volume.
For the retailers, it's an incremental revenue stream. And the key is it's not always
a big dollars like Andy said, it is higher margin, much higher, the margins on retail
media are much higher than product sales. And that's why you're seeing retailers so
aggressively pursuing this right at spotting a lot of the omni channel, omni channel's
expensive from a supply chain perspective, home delivery is really expensive from
a supply chain perspective, retail media offsets the lower margins with that supplemental
margin.
Andy Murray 8:37
And I think the other thing that's important why we wanted to study this is that this
is not getting born like a TikTok or a Meta, where, you know, it's a media organization
dealing with a new channel that's emerging, even those are huge channels. This is
this is being born inside of an existing commercial relationship, that just up ends
everything in terms of now the retailer is also a seller, you know, and the client
and who's the client who's the buyer roles have shifted, and you put that kind of
organizational change into a pretty established ecosystem with the way things work,
it can cause quite a bit of disruption inside the organizational frameworks.
Brent Williams 9:17
We organize our research around the promise and, you know, gaps to the promise and
ways to move forward. And I want to get there in just a moment. But but maybe, maybe
we'll back out for just a second and just talk about this research process and maybe
why we did this right, you know, so this is absolutely an emerging phenomenon. And
we decided as a group that this needed an academic look, but it also needed it pretty
quickly. Right? You know, we didn't feel like we had a lot of time to get the thought
out into market and you think about the Walton College, when I think about our vision,
you know, I really just break it down into two core components. One is transforming
lives, we tend to think about that, of course, as our students every day, when they're
on our campus and, and throughout the other aspects of their lives with the but, thought
leadership is also a core component of who we are. And this was a real opportunity
it seemed to provide thought leadership in an area that was emerging. And we did that
through qualitative research methods. And Rod you are, you know, the expert on our
team, at least in these methods. So talk a little bit about how we went about this
research.
Rod Thomas 10:42
We went into our laboratory, a chemist goes into a lab and starts mixing chemicals.
Our lab is industry professionals, and their corporate settings and what they're doing.
And it's really, it's, it's awesome to be involved with a brand new industry, cutting
edge industry. And we're on the forefront of that, where we got to talk to dozens
of industry leading experts, and get their insights on this. So qualitative research
in general, is we go talk to people not structured, right, we will have an interview
guide and some standard questions, but we want to take it wherever it wants to go.
Where, whatever they need to talk about. And then we come back, we go through, we
call it coding. But essentially, we look for patterns. We look for common themes and
what they're telling us. And we try to identify those, and then try to look at how
those things link together. And overall, what we're trying to do is describe it, a
new phenomenon would be the academic term for it. But for industry, let's get our
arms around what the heck are we talking about retail media, right? Just defining
that is difficult, describing what's involved with that, and that we went to the next
stage of okay, how are we gonna get better. And we're pinging all kinds of people
from different backgrounds. It wasn't just suppliers. It wasn't just retailers, it
wasn't just third party providers. It was all those things in those different perspectives,
from big companies, small companies, whatnot. And when you talk to enough people,
you start to get redundancy. And that's kind of where we said, okay, we got enough
to publish. Let's get those insights out there for everybody to learn from. But a
big part of what we're doing upfront, is describing it, defining it and differentiating
it. How can how can these retail media networks be most successful? How can they differentiate
themselves from the competition, because although there's over 600 of these right
now, they're not all going to survive, right? We're hearing more and more from our
suppliers, there's gonna be we're gonna count on our hands, how many of these are
really gonna thrive five years from now.
Andy Murray 12:49
I think from an academic side of this, that was a new process for me, Brent. And I
probably struggle the most coming from industry, because I'm like, well, I got all
these specific questions I'd love to ask and Rod and Molly, especially last year,
the first time through, we're like, no, that's not how we do it. We can't go that
route. Yeah, but I really want to know about this, or that. And it's like, you can't
do that, you know, that's not the academic approach and letting this breathe and letting
the insights unfold from, from some very macro questions that had no leading biases
in them. It was just completely, you know, macro, I thought were that we're not going
to get much out of this. Let's get to the specifics. And I was totally wrong, I mean,
it really was fresh to see that. And I see a lot of industry research published. But
the value of this coming from an academic model approach really makes it a bit different.
And it was something that I had to learn how to adapt to. And now I totally appreciate
the value.
Brent Williams 13:46
Yeah, I mean, it was so much fun to have you. And I might call you a quasi academic
now on the team, and so Molly, from your standpoint, you know, you've worked on many
academic research teams you've worked with, with, with industry professionals, your
whole career, but we got a chance to kind of blend that on this team.
Molly Rapert 14:08
Right. And I think that that is, to be honest, the beauty of Walton, it's what attracted
me here in the first place. And I think that this is a great example of it, but it's
certainly not the only example. I think it pervades everything we do from having the
Customer Centric Leadership Initiative, to business integrity centers to, I have an
advisory board for my class that picks the articles that my students read. I run the
retail advisory board, that is industry executives from around the world. I think
this is who Walton is, it's this is a natural extension of that. And so then to be
put in a setting, that is part of our daily responsibility of doing research, but
carrying that same philosophy into that setting. It's my favorite research hands down,
where we're looking at exactly what is happening in industry, putting our frameworks
and our understanding with that. And I don't think it gets any better than that in
academia. But I also don't think it gets better than how Walton is positioned to bring
these entities together in the proximity that we can.
Brent Williams 15:23
You know, Molly, I completely agree, I tend to say that this industry engagement that
the Walton College has the ability to do and is fortunate enough to have is our superpower
of maybe for a lack of better way of saying it. And, you know, in this community,
and in this state, I feel like it's, it's not only that industry is here, it's that
they want to engage. And so they want to engage with students, our students want to
engage with them, our faculty want to engage with them, industry wants to engage in
thought leadership. It's just a really unique thing about the Walton College of Business,
Northwest Arkansas and Arkansas more broadly.
Molly Rapert 16:08
I think it's more unique than maybe the audience would even realize, because it's
so common sense. I mean, why wouldn't you have academics working with people in industry,
but the reality is, it doesn't happen, and certainly doesn't happen to the extent
that it happens at this table and in our college.
Andy Murray 16:27
I'd like to also add, I think the diversity of the research team was really important
and didn't probably manifest itself until this round we had where, you know, what's
the supply chain logistics guy going to be added to a very complicated retail media,
technical thing. But then as we got into it, and started asking questions, one of
the executives we interviewed said, they only hire into retail media network roles,
supply chain logistics grads. And that's the point, I thought Rod was gonna, like,
just come out of his chair in excitement,
Rod Thomas 16:27
I think it was I told you so, Andy.
Andy Murray 16:29
I think so too but then you said, you know, retail media is a supply chain problem.
And I had never thought of it that way before. But you know, Rod saw it right away.
And I think you've been saying it's a supply chain problem for the last couple of
years. But I don't think that would have come up without that academic diversity that
tried to bring this team together to explore this problem.
Brent Williams 17:18
We got to tell the audience a little story here about trust, I think. This is under
the cover, look at their research team. Andy or Rod. Let me start with Andy.
Andy Murray 17:36
Yeah.
Brent Williams 17:37
What did you learn about trust?
Andy Murray 17:38
Well, this is such an interesting story. I can't believe you're asking me this. But
the first round through as we're doing the coding, we started talking through themes.
And and I can't remember if it was Molly or Stephanie, or I don't think it was Rod,
it might of been Rod, said, you know, what we're dealing with here is a theme around
trust. And I like trust, I don't hear that word in the professional circles I run
in and these other things that sounds soft, that sounds ambiguous. And, you know,
we can't put that in the research. And I couldn't have been more wrong as I started,
explore that. And we had some pretty heated conversations around trust. And it does
it really manifest as a construct. And over time, as we kept working through it, and
then I got my hands on Stephen Covey's book, The Speed of Trust, and it broke down
all the things that we were talking about in just different language. And so it was
quite an epiphany, and what did we have some vigorous conversation on that. And I'll
be in first say I was wrong.
Brent Williams 18:35
Well, I will say, that's probably the only place that you were potentially wrong during
this. But it was really just such a fun part of this story that we picked at each
other at throughout it, but no, but it was this, you know, this blend of someone really
rooted in practice with with, with researchers that are really rooted in academics
that like being able to work through those issues really made this word much more
meaningful.
Molly Rapert 18:35
And my memory is, I think, I honestly don't remember if it was Stephanie or myself
that just flippantly said it, but it was Rod that went and pulled the trust literature,
I remember this and started bringing out the dimensionality of it and showing up with
an academic article on it or saying, I really think you need to think about this.
And then next thing I know, I'm seeing Andy on LinkedIn talking about a trust tax.
This is the beauty of it.
Rod Thomas 19:35
I'm filing copyright infringement. The power of qualitative research is it is interpretive.
And we do need to have those conversations we need to make sure those themes that
we're talking about are really there and need to go back to some of them later on.
We were asking some of our people we were interviewing are the trust issues, absolutely
it came up, right? We didn't beg the question. You didn't start out with, we're going
to make this about trust. So going back to when you were talking about academic research,
we're supposed to be unbiased, we're supposed to be neutral. We are scientists, we
don't go into it with an agenda, like a business person, or even a journalist would.
And that's powerful. And the trust vetting came up, nobody explicitly set it up front.
But that's okay. Right, they were to show that they're talking all around it. There
was a lot of mistrust up front, because it was unknown. People didn't know what retail
media was. A lot of these suppliers were just like, where's this going to end? How
much is it going to cost me? How is this going to impact my business? They were fearful.
And then there was this element of is my investment gonna pay off and all that so
there was the credibility dimension of trust, there's also this benevolence, dimension
of trust of, are they just using this as another way to tax me or generate money.
So they were talking all around it. And we finally got them on board. And people started
explicitly saying, as well, and then we could dive into it very directly. But it was
fun. It took me back to my industry roots as well. And Andy, and I look at each other
hard time. So it was a great context to do that.
Andy Murray 21:21
And I think I got stuck on the benevolence side of trust, and not really understanding
lack of capability, as everything was new is a trust issue, because you don't you
can't trust it, this decision is going to work. Right. And I'd never really looked
at it that way. So thank you, Rob, for disabusing me.
Brent Williams 21:37
Rod, let me ask you this question. Oftentimes, research gets said it's either industry
focused, kind of white paper research, or it's academic. It's truly possible for research
to to be disseminated both ways and so how do you do it?
Rod Thomas 22:00
It's not easy. It's difficult to do. But I think we've done it here. Because it is
such a new industry. Because it's such a new phenomenon. We can go to the academic
literature and go, hey, industry's doing this, we need to get out in front of this,
let's define it, describe it, talk about the theoretical implications where we understand
what's going on, we can predict what's going on. And on the industry people love it
to be because we're giving those participants in our interviews a voice, we're able
to say things in a neutral manner, that they probably couldn't say to their retail
partners. Or we can say in a neutral way where everybody knows it's coming from an
unbiased place. If I'm a supplier, if I make a comment to my buyer, there's usually
an agenda behind that, right. And vice versa, there's usually something behind that
we're unbiased, we're neutral, we are all about providing trustworthy information
we'll bring trust back in. And so I think you can do both, it is difficult. But we've
shown we have white papers out there now, you and I did a supply chain variant in
more of a practitioner oriented journal. And now we're working with one of the leading
academic journals on describing, defining, and differentiating this. So to me, this
is the holy grail. But it's difficult.
Brent Williams 23:28
Yeah. Well, I'll come back to now the work itself. As I said, we we sort of started
with the promise and as we've gone through a couple of iterations, so and I should
remind, you know, those listening, you know, we did a round of interviews over a year
ago. More recently, we've done a second round of interviews, and really looking at
what to had changed, you know, but but I'm gonna ask you all to help me blend those
things together, you know. So, Molly, I'm gonna start with you. Just we've talked
a little bit, we almost kind of got into the promise of retail media networks, but
not quite. So as you've listened over the last, let's call it 18 months working on
this, what as you think about? What is the promise? And how is it evolved?
Molly Rapert 24:21
So I loved working on this part, I think we actually each ended up getting to work
on our favorite part. But this was it for me. To look at the possibilities that exist
as companies are investing in this more and more, and it's becoming a stronger part
of the ecosystem. So we really looked at it from a triadic point of view, what's the
promise for the consumers, for the brands and for the retailers, so I'm going to hang
it in that framework to have some consistency with our first white paper. So I think
there's an colloquial phrase that comes from Thailand it says same same but different.
And that is just what kept resonating with me after every interview, we had this second
round, there were things that I would write down and say well that was the same, that
was the same, but boy, that's changed that's different over the last year. So I'll
give you an example coming out of consumers, a consumer remained at the forefront,
the consumer, the promise for the consumer was that they would receive this personalized,
relevant, timely message that helped them as they were in their journey that remained
the same. But what was completely different was the specificity of the promise with
round two. And you know, it, we did not do quantitative research. So we haven't really
explored what caused that specificity to emerge, I would guess it's that companies
are investing so much money, that that means in turn, they're expecting more out of
the promise but whatever the cause that specificity did emerge there so that it no
longer became about Rodney, getting a personalized, relevant message. But the promise
that was articulated to us in 2023, was they expected Rod to get an email prompting
him based on what is relevant to him first thing in the morning, and that email, and
that messaging, whether it's social media or other platforms would constantly adjust
throughout the day, iterate based on data that's close loop and going back to adjust
what he's receiving. And that it's not only taking place, this was a big difference
not only taking place in the digital space, but tying into the physical store. A great
quote from a an individual he said I want our amends to influence physical merchandising
as wel so that my shopper is reached no matter where they are, what they're doing
in store online, in between, and actually referred to it as a tightly integrated,
curated set, a seamless fabric of Rod's life, that was a different narrative than
what we heard last year, which was personalized, relevant, timely. So the same, but
different.
Rod Thomas 27:20
Much more nuanced.
Molly Rapert 27:21
Much more nuanced.
Rod Thomas 27:22
Much more informed, much more sophisticated. The suppliers went from a year and a
half ago of the fear of the unknown to, okay, we're getting our arms around this now,
we're going to drive this, this is what we want, this is what we need, this is what
we expect. And if you're going to be a media network, we're gonna treat you like a
media network. And we expect things that we would get from traditional media, right?
ROI, an understanding of what our investment represents, what services are you going
to provide? One of the most unique things that came out of our research is the buyer
supplier relationship inverts here. Typically, the retailer is buying something from
a supplier. With retail media, it's just the opposite. The suppliers are buying media
services from the retailer. And those relational dynamics flipping like that the power
dependence relationship fundamentally changes. And that presents some challenges,
right? You go from one meeting where you're kind of in the driver's seat and saying,
I want this to go down the hallway, somebody said, and now it's my turn. Right.
Brent Williams 28:29
You know, Andy, I felt like you have your head really around how we see this, you
know, you said same, same but different, right? I'm gonna kind of go to the different
because because there are some points where I think we also we heard, you know, a
year ago, 18 months ago, people were really just kind of getting their head around
this, what is this phenomenon? You know, how are we going to approach this? We feel
like in some areas, the gaps have closed over the last year or so. In some areas they
haven't. What are some places where you really see some substantial change?
Andy Murray 29:08
Yeah, Brent I think there's three things that are different from last year that are
a bit of closing the gap that we heard and the first is around conversations. The
second is around clarity. And the third is around competence. And if you look at the
point of conversation we heard quite a bit of we're having different conversations
today than we had a year ago between the suppliers and the retailers. And I think
that's important conversations around the importance of incrementality or measurement
and those conversations are more transparent, which those conversations as wasn't
necessarily happening back a year ago. We weren't hearing about those conversations.
On clarity we saw a lot more strategic clarity emerge over the last year. And what
I mean by that is the clarity around everyone that we talked to had some form of an
assessment process to be able to assess capabilities. They all had a segmentation
that allow them to understand how they're going to interact with the different retail
media networks and that clarity was really important. And they also had a better understanding
of which brand objectives are going to work better with retail media networks, and
then other brand objectives. And that's a lot of strategic clarity. And there was
probably a bit more clarity around their macro game plan, I think a year ago was we
don't know what we don't know. Now, it felt like there was a lot more clarity about
what their roadmap needs to look like in terms of the challenges to overcome or whatever
the next conversation really needs to be. On clarity, there was also an operational
clarity, more understanding around what tactics work better than other tactics, what
work processes need to get reinvented. And a lot of the companies have been really
working on that. And then the last one is on confidence, I think we saw a lot of confidence
in the language and in the, in the approach that we didn't see before, in the competence
coming usually from upskilling, that every organization has done a quite a bit of
upskilling over the last year. And that has resulted in a competence in terms of how
they approach the the retailer supplier relationship, or how they approach the changes
they need at the organization. So confidence was really markedly different. But it
wasn't systemic, it had a lot to do with who was who took what individual role, and
took it upon themselves to provide that leadership. And a big company might have very
different outcomes. If the, if the key actors working together weren't really on the
same page and didn't didn't really align, then then the outcomes when the individuals
themselves just leaned in and you can you could feel the leadership coming from them,
their outcomes could be completely different. So it wasn't systemic, it was very individual.
Is that what you guys thought?
Molly Rapert 31:46
And I would add in, it, it was very difficult to separate our areas, because the promise
was the same but had changed. And then trying to identify whether that change was
truly in the promise or in the reality and that which is what Andy just discussed.
But I think they really went hand in hand that as these changes were made in the reality,
as people became more aware, especially of bifurcation between early entrance and
later entrance, I think the narrative of the promise changed, as well. And we are
hearing almost two tracks laid down the track that we heard last year, very general
conceptual in nature, and then the track this year, which was especially for the early
entrance into it much more specific, much more strategic. So the promise became almost
an elevated set of expectations that they needed to happen in order to be satisfied.
And like, one of the quotes and I'm sorry, I know, I love leaning into the words of
others, but one person said, The only value proposition that retail media networks
have is measurement. So within a week, I should be able to run a number of tests and
be so far ahead of where I would have been a month or a few months ago. And that is
the implied promise. And they're saying that were last year, they would say the promise
is measurement closely purporting.
Brent Williams 33:16
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. You know, this is what this level of specificity
really is what makes this phenomenon really, really exciting. You know, Rod, something
that don't we should have talked about a little bit earlier is a sample, you know,
how do you put a sample together? Because, you know, we talk to a pretty wide variety
of people intentionally that had lots of experience. And so, you know, there's many
different brands represented and different retailers, different regions of the world.
And so this was pretty a pretty broad look, that we're taking right?
Rod Thomas 34:00
Yep. Yeah. It's not Sam's quantitative sampling, where your sample sizes thousands
or millions of people. But even with qualitative research, you want to get a broad
representation. We want different levels of an organization, we want different members
of the retail ecosystem. And it's important to have that because we didn't want this
to be just about one retailer. We're just about one CPG company. We want it to be
generalizable enough that it'll, it'll impact or those insights could potentially
impact everybody. Right? And qualitative research is not going to be as generalizable
as when you're crunching big datasets with econometric models. But I think our sample
because we did have different regions of the world and different players really did
give some insight that could help a wide range of people. So qualitative sampling,
you start out with, the first criteria is it has to be somebody willing and able to
talk about what you're interested in talking about. So we couldn't have people that
weren't playing in this area. So they had to be experts, or at least have work experiences
in there. And from there, you kind of try to provisionally test what some of the themes
are. So we might start out with a handful of people from contacts that Andy knew,
let's be honest, that's what it was, it was contacts Andy knew. From there, though,
we started to see things and we said, huh, I wonder if this is just a US base, then
what's with all these people in Europe or Asia? Hmm, I wonder if this is just a supplier
thing, let's go talk to some providers or some retailers. And we were truly trying
to push the boundaries of what we were seeing. So with qualitative research, some
of the sampling you do is a provisional test of what you're starting to find and themes
from the data.
Brent Williams 35:52
Well, and, kind of going now I guess back to the final stage of the paper itself,
the way forward? What are some key thoughts? Not only did we describe, which we did
a lot, we did a big focus on describing. But there's also some insights about the
way forward.
Rod Thomas 36:12
Like Molly was saying, because they are being more specific, and describing what they
need and all that, we could be more specific and prescribing the way forward. So measurement
was a big area. Right? And to Molly's point in the past, we just said we need better
measures. Now it's very clear. No, no, no, we need log level data. We need to know
what time Mary Sue logged on, how long they looked at the ad, what ad they saw, did
they purchase online that evening? Or did they come back into the store the next day?
It's a much more micro targeted measure, under measurement as a part of that, too,
was make it verifiable, right, because back to the trust issue, right? Don't just
tell us with summary recording retail media is great. No, no, no, let's, let's see
what's going in behind this reporting. It was the raw data was what we were hearing
from a lot of the bigger suppliers, alignment continues to be a big issue, both both
sides of the relationship. So for a retailer, it was hey, if we're going to, if we're
going to invest in retail media, let's make sure our merchants, our store ops, and
our retail media is all on board. So we can get synergies of the phenomenon saw on
retail media, and then reinforce that and still work. Reinforce that with something
the merchants are doing. For the suppliers. You know, there's this big distinction
between upper funnel and lower funnel levels. Retail media is agnostic to that. They
don't care whether you're driving sales of existing customers or acquiring new customers,
retail media helps. So those people need to blend those roles and be a little more
aligned. The integration piece came up in terms of information and systems, retail
media data, one of our big recommendations should be available to everybody, right?
Internally and externally, there are a lot of key stakeholders that can benefit from
having access to that information. So one of our recommendations is give them access
to it. Even internally, it shouldn't be just a retail media manager type of information
piece, the merchants needed it, store ops needed it, supply chain folks need it. So
let's make that more widely accessible. On the last piece Andy touched on is the human
capital. There's a different skill set here. It is a new industry. It is, it does
combine cross functional areas. So there's a need for training on just kind of what
retail media is and what the capabilities can be. As well as very specific pieces
of art, very specific types of capabilities. Now, there's probably a need for more
data scientists, or the marketing that there's probably a need for people that understand
the whole spectrum of the funnel of marketing. So there's clearly a human capital
investment in certain types of skill sets and cross training that's there. So those
are really our four key points moving forward, recommendations to make retail media
networks better.
Brent Williams 39:11
Well, this human capital discussion gives me an opportunity to pivot us back to the
college and in the classroom. So we talked about our vision of being a thought leader.
And then we also said, you know, a huge part of our vision as a college is transforming
lives. And so Molly and Andy actually here, because you you actually partner. Here's
another beautiful part of this work. This makes it way back into the classroom. How
does it do that?
Molly Rapert 39:49
It absolutely does and in a variety of ways. First and foremost for me to have somebody
like Andy who's willing to invest his time, come into my classroom. Other people who
were involved in my class who will be willing to speak on this subject. So the students
are hearing about it before, they're I mean, there's definitely not a textbook written,
can't even hardly find academic articles written on it yet. And so we have to hear
from individuals who are boots on the ground doing this. I think also, this has given
us ways to learn about what is being discussed at conferences, I don't think you can
go to a conference right now in our field, where they're not talking about measurement,
talking about retail media networks. Andy's great about bringing so much of that information
back to us and posting on LinkedIn. But we also have collaborations with the IAB.
And I'd like to think that a lot of that push of the IAB comes out of our recommendations
from last year where we said, these individuals are clamoring for measurement. So
when all of those relationships become almost institutionalized people that we can
now call and talk to, we can bring that back into the classroom, and, and give our
students a leg up on something that is not being discussed at other institutions,
where we have marketing majors, but we're talking about it, I know I'm talking about
it in my class, maybe even more than they want me to, but I talked about it all the
time. And they're going to come out very literate in this area, and very well aware
of another employment career path.
Andy Murray 41:41
Yeah, and I think what we're seeing with retail media networks, is that it's a leg
of the stool, to a bigger stool called Connected Commerce, really. And so if you look
at what's happening with social commerce, advertising, marketing, there's going to
be a time where we get to there's no dead ends, where everything you see could actually
turn into a transaction or a purchase opportunity. And I think that plays out for
students in one of the things Molly does in the marketing class, which I think is
brilliant for the students is take, take them on store walks, and prepare them for
store walks, and go on store walks to see the customer journey, with a retailer, a
buyer, with a supplier, and very few students get that opportunity. But now they can
go through that opportunity with a connected commerce vision ahead of time, and they
can ask different questions because they, they understand the importance of what's
happening digitally first, understand how that space might be searched before it's
actually shopped in store? And how do you look at that through the eye, a fresh set
of eyes, the connected commerce, for students, and I think they're getting very practical
and very unique experiences that come from similar learnings from this particular
research.
Brent Williams 42:51
Yeah, and these students that are that are taking these classes, you know you mentioned,
they have a leg up, I believe that fully to be true. Because they understand the context,
they have a leg up in knowing the context that they're about step into and contribute
to. So you know, I hear time and time again, where where our students, you know, are
ready, you know, whether it's an agency, a consumer products company, or retailer,
a company focused on supply chain management, like they have the context, and they're
ready to contribute really.
Molly Rapert 43:27
I think Rod is a great example of this, because he has been saying since day one,
let's look at the supply chain implications of this, you know, so what if we give
somebody a personalized, relevant message and get them to the shelf to reach for a
product that oh, isn't there? You know, and so he's discussed this. And I know he's
taken that back to the classroom too and his supply chain students are hearing about
how they fit into this ecosystem. I guarantee that conversation's not taking place
on other campuses, but he's been living and breathing this project. And then taking
it back to his very fortunate students.
Rod Thomas 44:07
I have, right and I teach a supply chain strategy course. And we talk about capabilities
that we need to meet in consumer needs. That's why supply chains exist, to meet those
needs. So my master's students have heard about it, my undergrads have heard about
it and they get excited, and it's reinforced across the curriculum, when they're marketing
as well. I think that ties back to what you're talking about earlier, the value of
research. Our research should inform and drive our teaching. Right? And if if we're,
if we're doing good research that's relevant to industry, by all means, let's bring
it into the classroom. And if we're out in front of the industry on this, it really
does set up our students.
Brent Williams 44:48
Industry focused research that involves multiple disciplines, academics and leaders
from practice that's impacting thought in industry, will impact the academic literature
and is impacting current students. Win win win win?
Molly Rapert 45:09
More than a trifecta.
Brent Williams 45:11
Yeah, that's right. Well, Rod, Andy, Molly, thank you for what you've been doing for
the college for pushing this research forward this knowledge forward. I really enjoyed
working with all three of you on this project.
Rod Thomas 45:26
Ditto.
Molly Rapert 45:26
Absolutely.
Andy Murray 45:26
Thank you, Brent. Really enjoyed it.
Brent Williams 45:30
On behalf of the Walton College. Thank you for joining us for this captivating conversation.
To stay connected and never miss an episode. Simply search for Be Epic on your preferred
podcast service.
Brent D. Williams is the Dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.
With a deep commitment to fostering excellence in business education and thought leadership,
Dr. Williams brings a wealth of experience to his role, shaping the future of the
college and its impact on students and the business community.
