Ace Hardware's Kim Lefko & Molly Hjelm - RedVest Media 2027 Upfront

KIM

Hi, I'm Kim Lefko, the Chief Marketing Officer for Ace Hardware. 

MOLLY

Hi, I'm Molly Hjelm. I lead retail media for Ace Hardware, and you're watching the CPG Guys Podcast!

PVSB

Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast.I am your lovable co-host PVSB. I also Moonlight as head of industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the Omnicom Acceleration Division. I am so excited to say that we are recording today's episode from on top of the Chicago Cubs dugout at historic Wrigley Field, the site of the 2027 RedVest Media Upfront. More on that in a few minutes.

My co-host, he is the father of pop stars, Rhea Raj and Katseye's Lara Raj. The fans call him, of course, Papa Raj. He's also the co-founder of Think Blue Consulting. Please join me in welcoming the man known as Sri. Sri, We've had a couple of big baseball-related bucket list items this summer. I took you up to the Hall of Fame. We saw the baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony. And how could we top that? We are recording an episode inside iconic Wrigley Field here in Chicago.

SRI

This is huge. what do you what do you have to say? First of all, you know what's comical? That I have half a million followers on social media as Papa Raj, Sri. But that said, I wanna first thank Molly. About a month and a half ago she sent us a message inviting us to be Upfront here for RedVest Media. And then we chatted about a podcast and how we'll do this. And a month and a half later, thanks to you, Mali, and to you, Kim, CMO of Ace Hardware, you and I making a bucket list moment come true. Earlier this year, what Peter and I got we're baseball nuts. You'll you'll find that out pretty soon. As I, evidence by our CPG guy's jerseys. Is an homage to the Yankees mind of the dollars. All that said Thank you. very soon I think we're also getting a RedVest jersey. That said, we gotta do a one two thing this year, which is we made a stream of mine come through another Bucket List moment, which is go to the actual Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Coopertown and I was a kid in a candy store going to the actual Hall of Fame and just buying up more memorabilia than a truck could tell. But more on that more on that later, but this feels like the icing on the cake.

Really special. I mean, we're literally sitting here at the home of the iconic historic one of the few remaining original stadiums, the home of the Chicago Cubs. And we're two feet away from where the players sit. This is insane guy. You want to start swinging? Already gosh. If I had a chance, you know I'd do it. You're gonna pull an Aaron Judge on Us? No, I'd do it. I know.

KIM

We saw Pitches during our event today.

SRI

Hey, hey, hey, we did. We saw tomorrow's starter. There we go. I that was pretty good.

PVSB

All right. before I get our guests, I'll just say three things to our audience. One, subscribe or follow us on whatever platform you listen to. Give us a rating when you're there. That helps make our podcast more findable. So subscribe, rate, and and then tell your friends about us. That's what we're not gonna ask for the five star reading? okay, the five star. Give us a five star. You know, likes the number five. Okay, where do you do you where do you go to get hamburgers? Four guys? No. Five guys. You wanna listen to good music? Do you listen to four for fighting? No, you listen to five for fighting. Smash the five people.

MOLLY

I didn't know where that was. going!

PVSB

Okay. Subscribe, rate. follow.

MOLLY

Setup setup. I thought you said where do you go to get hammers?

SRI

Peter's not the only one who could throw surprises at you. 

PVSB

Follow us on LinkedIn. That's another important thing. We publish a lot of content there. We've got tremendous stuff. Make sure you're following us on LinkedIn. Okay, subscribe, rate, follow. All right. Our guests, as I mentioned, the open, we're doing something special. We're here at Wrigley Field home of the Cubs. And this is the site of the inaugural RedVest Media Upfront event. If you've been following the story, you know RedVest Media is Ace Hardware's retail media network.

And we've covered its journey before. Why ACE got into retail media in the first place, the co-op model that makes it unique, among other hardware retailers, the launch portfolio, the tech stack that they showcase today as we record this. We're just at the tail end of the upfront. And of course, the measurement philosophy, they all built right from day one. this is chapter two. we're not relitigating the launch 

SRI

We actually learned though that Molly exceeded the budget.

PVSB

See I know. Well, you know what? Yeah, if you if you're you want the leather seats, you're gonna have to pay extra. But she was ahead on ahead on time. You want the seat warm you want the seat warmers? That's more. You want the sports spoil package the outside? Right. Hey, that's I I built what you want, but if you want a little more, it's gonna come with a little more capability.

SRI

What can I say?

PVSB

we're here today to talk about what's happened since they launched. What surprised the team, what work, what they do differently, and how a year of blessings from advertisers and merchants is shaping their 2027 roadmap. So to do that, we've got two guests who've been at the center of it. Joining us are Kim Lefko Chief Marketing Officer at Ace Hardware, and Molly Hjelm, CVP and head of retail media at Ace, the architect behind RedVest Media. Both have been past guests on the CPG guys. Kim brings a career built on the brand side before yearly a decade at Ace, giving her a front row view Of how the organization and vendor community have responded to retail media. Molly has spent the last year building RedVest from the ground up. And today, fittingly, on Upfront Day, she and the team are unveiling a broad new set of capabilities from measurement enhancements to audience library that really got my attention to expanded social and influencer office offerings and a headline-making DoorDash partnership. So grab a seat. We're at Wrigley Field, the upfronts just wrapped.

Pull out your cracker jacks. We're gonna get right to the source. Kim, Molly, welcome to the CPG Guys! How are you doing?

KIM

Thanks for having us. Doing great. Thank you.

MOLLY

We are so excited to be here. 

PVSB

Thank you for the invitation, Molly. Anytime I get to spend with you is extra special. But to do it here at Wrigley, wow, you had me at hello. You had me at hello. This is so exciting to be here. we're gonna get into this. I'm gonna mention to our audience, in the digital show notes of this episode, you're gonna find links to both the LinkedIn profiles of Kim and Molly and to RedVest Media's corporate site where they can learn more about what we're talking about today.

So I'm gonna get us started off.

Kim this is gonna go to you. We're recording at Wrigley Field following the inaugural. Sri and I know what this moment represents to us, but what we more importantly wanna know is what does this moment represent for Ace and for the brands that are going to grow with you through what you talked about today?

KIM

Yeah, it definitely is two iconic brands here in Chicago, with Ace just over a hundred years and you guys probably know the exact year of Wrigley. What is it?

PVSB

1914

KIM

Yeah. Okay, there you go. and so when you look at iconic brands coming together, that's kind of the foundation of us hosting the event here. But we also like the idea of baseball and ace and springtime.

you naturally think of shopping at Ace, and that is Americana. And we believe the brands go together really, really well. It was a little bit of ingenuity when Molly and I were saying it's one thing to host a retail media upfront event, but our vendors travel across the country and go to these events all the time for what do we say, 200 retail media networks out there. What can we do to just level up and do something really disruptive? And I think we did it. I think we hit it out of the park. I think we did.

SRI

Let me first congratulate you both on your first upfront. What a big moment, to understand that you pulled this off in a year is insane. Like congratulations to you both. Peter and I get to go to so many upfronts in a year. This one was special. The content that you had, all the announcements you had on all the new partnerships, the social one especially I think was very special 'cause that's the future of how things will be traded in this world.

So obviously people walking away from here, the brands are gonna have some buzz. Like you meant like several of you mentioned on stage, they're gonna walk away, they're gonna tell stories, they're gonna talk about capabilities, bottom line, they're gonna be excited. So, Kim, let me ask you a question first. So as the person responsible for the perception of Ace hardware and how customers actually engage with the brand, what differentiates the ACE customer from other customers?

KIM

Yeah, we talked about that as a huge competitive advantage for the vendors investing in RedVest Media. we have a really special network of customers in our Ace Rewards program. And, there are retailers out there with 200 million members in a retail program. And I think they set the pinnacle. we're close behind with 80 million members in Ace Rewards. What makes that customer so special is they're very sticky.

we have a retention and a requalification of Ace Rewards customers at 96%, meaning 96% of Ace Rewards customers choose to shop ACE year after year after year. And they're our best customers, representing over 60% of our sales. So for a vendor investing in retail media to be able to have a network and data insights of that magnitude, that's sticky.

And by the way, a nice caveat is ninety-one percent of them own their home. And when they own their home, they're willing to spend more, they're willing to invest in the high quality brands, which is really what a vendor community is looking for when they make investments into retail media. So I we have a special, a special group of customers, that's for sure.

SRI

No debate and I'm one of those that actually owns a home and the store is actually close to my house. It's just too convenient. I still like going in store. Molly, the next one's for you. Let's talk about purchase based audiences. Today you talked about the audience library. So let's get to that. How does that differ from what you've traditionally been doing for the last year? The audience based library.

MOLLY

It's a great question. So first party data, our loyalty data that Kim was just talking about, has always been at the center of our targeting from day one with no extrapolation. We're our vendors are getting the benefit of that deterministic targeting that is the true value of retail media. But we've been doing it differently than I think they're accustomed to with many other retail media networks in that

We're starting with a highly relevant first party data audience, the buyers of their brand and those that are predictive to buy their brand. Maybe they shopped a category, maybe they shop an adjacent category. We put those together as a pool of customers and we allow AI, we've been using AI from day one, to optimize the campaign from among all the highly correlated variables available in retail data towards the outcome we seek for that campaign, which is typically conversion.

Now that's revolutionary. That's an amazing application of retail media. It's the amazing evolution of purchase-based targeting in retail media. It also doesn't fit cleanly with the way that everybody wants to plan their media. you guys both know as people are planning allocation of national budgets, oftentimes they have a brief or oftentimes they have specific cohort-based objectives where they want to engage a specific customer. And so now we're having them the best of all worlds. We know that the way that we have been targeting is extremely performant.

It's 7X, the ROAS that we see of manual targeting. And yet we also want to be able to say yes and answer to that call as well. it also allows for our first quarray into engaging non-endemic brands. And so we're really excited to be able to offer Kim is had just shared 91% of ACE customers own their homes. ACE wants to be there with that trusted relationship between homeowners and

And the brands that help them maintain, enjoy, and continue to to fix up the biggest asset.

PVSB

My goodness, as you talk about the non-endemic opportunities, my head starts to race and I have so many more questions that could probably keep us here for hours. It's not the heat. No, but I think that's really great. You know, there's no ball game today here, it's tomorrow, so we can be No, I know that. But Sri, can you envision a day when the Raj sisters are playing a concert here at Wrigley Field? Wouldn't that be better? There we go. I I think that could I let's let's table that for another discussion. Kim, back to you.

Now you obviously spent, as I mentioned at the beginning, spent a career on the brand side prior to ACE, and you've now been here for a decade. So you bring both sides of the table to the conversation. I'd love to know from your perspective, what stood out for you in this first year of RedVest Media? Did and did anything surprise you about how the organization and vendor community responded to the introduction of RedVest Media?

KIM

Yeah, it was very impressive. I think the ability to be a hundred-year-old company, you know, over a $20 billion dollar at retail, were large. And to be able to move nimbly and quickly to launch something is quite impressive. And to go from idea to launch in less than a year is outstanding and in large part to Molly's vision, her fortitude. She's a builder and she's done this before. And I think there's great learning for anyone listening when you enter into

A new initiative, go find an expert that can come in and execute and build because they've done it before. They run faster. And Molly definitely has done that for us. a vendor has to go first. And you heard that during the upfront panel. And a shout out and kudos to Steel, Rustoleum, and Black & Decker to be the first one saying, Hey, I'll jump in. Someone needs to go first. And they were major advocates, and you heard it on the panel today.

here's my thing. My takeaway from what we offer, and this is my big learning coming out of our first year is Molly and I talked. We were late to the party, and that was our you know podcast conversations leading up to now. But it amazes me that the top five retail media networks out there today collecting millions and billions of dollars into retail media and they're building their own brands and they're touting.

private label and house brands and it is a significant and and for my well

That's Make you feel as a brand.the thing that's is my past life spending over 20 some years sitting in that seat of a vendor and selling to retail that's different at Ace. we love the brand and the product and the innovation and the exclusivity and we get the features and benefits and our Red-Vested heroes actually use the product. that is a major differentiator and we grow

if our brands grow. And we don't grow and then take the insight and try to build out a private label inside. And that's really, really special, but says something about the value of integrity, but also a just a fight to win at ACE.

SRI

The next one's for you, Molly. But wait. You have pulled up a banger for brands. Y'all actually set on stage you're and you're the first retail media network to do this. Mm-hmm. How on planet Earth, Victim, this is unscripted. Convince your chief merchant that you will connect retail media to increase distribution. That was epic. That was epic. I will give you that. And never heard that. I love that never heard that.

KIM

Yeah, and Molly has said it and and she can speak to it so much better. But the merchant community, here's something that you don't see or know about the ACE culture. We say the name on the front of the jersey is way more important than the name on the back of the jersey. And that's the way we show up inside the culture at Ace. And so the merchandising team and the marketing team, we cross lanes to do what's best for the company and what's best for our vendor partners. And I think that's what you saw play out. Yeah. Can I build?

Co-op model, there's a lot of complexity. You heard it, you heard it on stage. I think it was SBD that was saying, you know, Ace's biggest advantage is that they're 5,300 stores. Ace's biggest disadvantage is that it's 5,300 stores. As a vendor, that can be challenging to navigate to try to grow your distribution, but also it can present a challenge for our merchants too, because the buck doesn't stop with the merchants here within our corporate ecosystem. It's really these independent store owners.

And so the bottom line is that retail media and the retailer reach solution that we offer is actually a helpful tool, not just for vendors, but also for the merchants at Ace.

SRI

Y'all can say what you want, but what you pulled up to the brands listening, brands that attended today, you have no idea what a big deal it is a first in the RMN space to actually connect to digital first to market. Wow.

KIM

Well we will say that there are a lot of internal discussions of all hands in when we select which brands, which products are going on retailer reach.

SRI

What the advantage of late mover advantage? Yeah. You can just bypass a bunch of things and just jump to it. So Molly, here's my original question before the unscripted one. About a year ago you were on the show. You were literally recruited to start Red West Media. As you were preparing to launch, did you think you'd have an upfront a year later that too at Cubs, Wrigley Field?

MOLLY

This has totally exceeded my wildest dreams. It

PVSB

So it was not on her bingo card.

MOLLY

It was not in my bingo card, especially to do just 10 months post launch. There's so were so many things, that have stood out to me. I mean, the fact that we launched on time in six months, the fact that the performance was there from day one. we're doing third party MRC accredited real-time measurement that we don't see before a vendor sees it. And so

In those early days, the fact that the measurement worked is not a given. And then the fact that the performance was there, that was one of my biggest surprises. the merchant community, how quickly they ran to embrace this as a tool in their toolkit also surprised me. And then how many vendors were quick not just to invest that first dollar, but that next campaign and the next one, really predicated on the performance. We now have hundreds of brands investing in our first year, and I think that's the thing.

I'm most proud of thank you. That that the performance is there, that it is a toolkit that drives business growth, and that the the vendor community and the merchants have embraced it.

PVSB

Molly knows that my hometown Ace Hardware store is Paige's Hardware on the Green in coastal Guilford, Connecticut. And my daughter Nadia, who's in the audience, hi Nadia. Hi, Nadia. There we go. She likes going there because the RedVest Heroes, they hide a stuffed hammerhead shark called Finn and move it around the store. And the minute she runs in,

She goes hunting for the shark and if she finds it she gets a Tootsie Roll. So right there you've got an ace hardware shopper for life

MOLLY

My kids go to the most dangerous power tools that they can get.

PVSB

What an example of local community. yeah. Reaching out to customers, making it fun. Yeah, no, absolutely. If you want to get a nice Guilford, Connecticut t shirt, the only place to get it is at the Ace hardware store and pages. They sell them there. It's great. Makes you feel very local, very community. All right. Now let's get down to talking about your big announcements today. Molly. RedVest already had a full funnel portfolio. Now you've announced a broader set of new capabilities this morning.

Give us the lay of the land and what you announced

MOLLY

Absolutely. Three things guiding our roadmap today and going forward. the first is we want to be launching we're not like every other retailer and we want launch things that are uniquely ace. We also want to enhance the level of insights available to our vendor community to help them manage and grow their business at ACE. And three, we want to engage with advertisers and with customers wherever they're spending their time in the systems and in the platforms where they already are.

And our innovation announcements today sit cleanly within those themes, of course, by design. we announce some of the elements we've just been talking about. We've been talking about scaling our retailer reach program, category drivers, which are integrated merchandising campaigns that multiple vendors can take part in. Our weather-triggered programmatic campaigns fit very cleanly in with ACE's value to our communities, where we're there for them in times of weather.

we made some sizable announcements on enhancements to our measurement. launched real-time measurement from day one. That's been fantastic. It's part of why this network has scaled so quickly. but it was never going to be enough. And so we launched new to brand reporting that's standard in our wrap recording. We launched incrementality test versus holdout control.

PVSB

What's your look back period on the neuter brand? You take talked about it earlier. That's that's not like twelve months.

MOLLY

So the beauty of it is that no matter which way you as a business define new to brand, we have a granularity of cut that allows you to do that look back window in three month increments all the way back to twenty four months.

PVSB

Wow.which is phenomenal. Now people don't always defineThe purchase Cycle of a lawnmower is fundamentally different than mulch that you're getting for your garden.  yeah, exactly. And that's why you need a longer look back window.

MOLLY

Precisely. And we found we were able to share some data on stage today on average, thirty percent of the customers that have converted as a result of RedVest campaign were net new to the brand, had not bought them in the last year.

SRI

I did thirty percent net new. I had a bunch of incredible numbers across the three hours we were here. Yeah. the ones that retained in my mind the most were the ones that ended in an odd number. 

PVSB

That's what that's what Kim told me today. People remember

MOLLY

It's true.

PVDB

People remember odd numbers.

sMOLLY

We're not even our most exciting announcements. Our most exciting announcements today were the partnerships that we announced. I mean personally.

PVSB

I saw some logos on the screens

MOLLY

There are some logos on the wall. on stage here at the upfront, we announced our influencer network, our Ace Hardware Influencer Network. Vendors now have the ability through a partnership with Influential to tap into data driven but also Ace vetted influencers.

the landscape of customer trust is shifting to content creators and we want to be right there at the nexus of customer trust.

SRI

Did we also hear that your partnership with DoorDash, most of the customers on the platform are net new?

MOLLY

actually I invite Kim to talk a little bit about our beautiful relationship with Doordash and I can talk about what we've just announced. 

KIM

Yeah. So you know, we I think it was two years ago, we saw a trend happening with marketplaces. And this is inside even before retail media. And there was this big question of they're a competitor, keep at arm's length, and we made the complete opposite decision.

we got to know DoorDash quite closely and said we wanna be on the cutting edge and do some testing. Door Dash is right there. There they are. Let's go DoorDash.

PVSB

Let's go, JR. Doordash start the wave, please.

KIM

DoorDash, they are a progressive partner. And, you know, as we sat down and talked about our business needs, like Ace Rewards and being able to collect that information, they were really passionate about that. As we got into retail media and said it would be wonderful to be able to offer retail media placement in DoorDash for Ace Hardware. They were excited about piloting and testing that. So don't run from where there's tension, pay attention to the tension because there's probably an opportunity for innovation.

when you have the right partner and DoorDash has been outstanding. we found on the whole that the data supports that 90% of the customers that convert on the Ace storefront on DoorDash are new to Ace hardware. 90%. 90%. And so what's thrilling about what we launched today, which is our advertising partnership with DoorDash available to our vendor partners starting right now.

is that they'll have the ability through our toolkit to be able to engage with new customers to ACE and be part of the

site that's bringing new customers to ACE. Kim is running a marketing engine that's tasked to do that and now vendors can be part of it.

SRI

You guys sound like a success in numbers paradise for brands. That's it, Kim. This one's for you.

you had over two hundred and fifty people here in the audience today for your first upfront. I'm sure this is only gonna grow and grow and grow as we are. So I'm gonna ask you to take a second, not do the boots that Molly has, but put yourself in the shoes of your

MOLLY

Yes. Yes.

PVSB

Those boots are made for walking. Wow. Not for running the base not for running the bases right now.

KIM

They look pretty fast.

SRI

Everyone who is here though will go back, share these updates. Lot lots of exciting new announcements, you know, you'll shade precise numbers across the board. If you were a CMO at a vendor when you listen to all this and you engage with RedVest Media,

What Should be the first call you put into your teams or to you maybe Kim and say let's do blah. What resonates the most?

KIM

Right. There's a there's a lot. I do like a couple of, you know, the three points that differentiate Molly walk through those. the first I have to start with, and I know I've stated this earlier, I've been in their shoes and there's a lot out there. We lead with trust and high integrity, and the level of transparency in building campaigns and showing the results of the campaign is something you absolutely get with us.

And marketing's changed. It's no longer, you know, 50% of my marketing investments working. I just don't know which 50% it is. And that used to be the mantra 20 years ago. but now you know what works, and you know, for every dollar invested, what you're getting in a ROAS back. And we work hard in a level of transparency to grow that number with our vendors. The second I mentioned it before, we grow when our brands grow. And that's you know, that's a differentiator. And I hope.

When they go back and have discussions internally of we have high pre-tell media networks we can invest in, I don't rec top because the major differentiators we care and we care about the number one thing that is the sustainability of life for their company, their brands, and their products. so I would say those are a couple of things. We measure what matters. We're very, very transparent in high integrity on the campaign builds.

And their brands are equally as important to us as they are to them. Those would be the key points of conversation in a boardroom deciding where to invest next year.

PVSB

Okay. Molly, it was very clear to me today that measurement was front and center in the conversation. So let's talk about that. You are very passionate about measurement. I've known that for almost fifteen years now, and have data as an undercurrent in in our shared career paths. How are vendors and merchants responding to performance so far and what will these enhancements do for the dialogue as you look to build out RedVest Media further. Yeah.

MOLLY

So in my early days, earlier this year, I was at a a leadership meeting, a merchandise and leadership meeting, and I was sharing our amazing campaign results. I was showing them averages by tactic. And our chief merchandising officer Brian turns to me and he's like, Yeah, yeah, that's great. what was the total business lift as a result of running this campaign? He's like, That's what I care about. I need to see that if our brands are investing in this tool, that we can see it at a macro level.

And you know, we hear that all the time in retail media, no one's gonna say as a result of this media campaign conducted here that your entire business is gonna move as a result. They shy away from it. But as a result of that direct conversation, I said, let's bring into our wrap reporting for the merchants and for the vendors, let's just put in our wrap reporting total business results. We're gonna show

What happened your business during the campaign versus the pre-period and versus year prior? We're gonna also show you the campaign level results. But at the end of the day, if over the long term this media is not actually moving the needle for your business on a macro level, then we should have that conversation. We should be aware of that. We should have that front and center because that is the goal. It is not a successful campaign. It is a successful another hundred years for your business.

SRI

Kim, as a CMO you have a tough job. You know, earlier we already talked about the fact that you represent the brand. But in the world of retail media that you guys are now a year into and you're already in this great venue, year one doing an upfront. Obviously you're successful. We've discussed metrics, partnerships, things of that nature. But big question I have for you is the world of retail media as far as the brand see is a clutter. Lots of buzzwords, measurement isn't clear, and so

The best way I'll summarize it, it's modern noise on retail media How do you guys ensure that you can separate meaningful opportunities from retail media noise?

KIM

Yeah, I it's it's a good reason the way that we started. You know, all along we weren't going to join and just be me too in the market with retail media. And we entered saying, Hey, we've got a couple of major points of difference. Let's lean into those. And we want to operate differently. We want to operate with the vendor at the center of what are their goals and ambitions with the program. And we also we're leaning on Molly to say, we need innovation. We need a product roadmap.

That shows new ways. And we have a philosophy at Ace where we say test, learn, refine, scale. And Molly's job with retail media, and she's done it very, very well in the first 90 days, is let's be testing these key initiatives that we think are very, very important with how people shop and how people live. And how do we bring that in and scale it for all 250 vendors in retail media as an opportunity for growth? And and good ones are social media.

We didn't have that. This retailer reach was a concept of there was a pain point, something our re our vendors were giving us feedback. And we're like, all let's see what that could look like. Run a small test. We've got something. Let's go ahead and scale it. So I no matter whether it's retail media or any marketing initiative, if the organization isn't spending 10, 20% on testing, that could be money, that could be people, that could be time.

We need to be testing rapidly to scale the best ideas and Molly and her team take that approach. And and the testing could be on our own with our own technology or it could be through other vendor partners, which is pretty cool.

SRI

Now I'm gonna ask you to look forward into the future. We do have two, three more questions for you, but let's do future forward. A year passes by. I have a part A and a part B. Part A, how the heck are you gonna triumph doing an upfront at the at a Wrigley field? And B what do you look forward to a year out from today? Because you kind of set a very high bar for all the RMAs.

KIM

there's something really special here and I bet we would get a larger audience after this really well executed, super fun, very nostalgic, beautiful day.

SRI

Well, the CPG Guys will tell the story for you very publicly quite well.

KIM

I love it. So I think we come back here and you know, Molly, I'm not gonna publish it here. Molly and I have had a lot of conversation about what the numbers look like and the vendor support. But here's a number that she and I talk at length about. I want vendor retention. And when we sit down for our weekly status or our monthly status and talk about the state of the business, I often ask how many of our vendors are reinvesting at the same rate or higher?

Because when they do that, it means there's something great happening here. And that's a metric we care about. 

SRI

That's because ace is the place.

KIM

That's right. Do you want to sing the jingle? from my perspective, year one, we've seen amazing traction, those first campaigns from a vast majority of vendors. If we're here again next year, when we're here again, exactly right here next year. I just I hope that even more of our vendor community will have had the opportunity to have their first campaign. And I also hope that everybody that was here in the audience today will have had their fifth, sixth seventh campaign under their belts that they will feel really confident in the learnings that they have for how to deploy not only our existing portfolio, but also the new solutions that we launched today.

PVSB

Molly, you talked a little bit ago about the big announcement you made around influencers. Social and influencers are huge right now. They are bigly, one might say. So tell us a little about why these felt so important to launch with your vendors here at the end of year one.

MOLLY

Well, we want to be where our customers are spending their time. We also are of extremely trusted brand. And so it just made sense as we think about launching things that are unique to ACE, as we think about being where our customers are, and as we think about the feedback we've received from our vendor community who are also shifting national budgets in favor of social. We really want to be at that kind of mm, I say, nexus of customer trust. We want to be

In the mix of authentic voices, interacting with product and and engaging in an authentic way. And influencers is where that's at. And so we wanted to be able to engage with our brands, to be able to respond to their their requests there, to be able to create mutually beneficial campaigns, and then to be able to amplify them to our customers and measure the impact. Yeah. When you think about how our customer shops and Doordash said this on the panel.

When someone goes to a marketplace like DoorDash, they know exactly what they're going to buy. And they're just trying to find out how much and how quickly they can get it. When I look at shopping today, when someone goes to the search bar in the past, they were looking for a product and availability. What's happening with social media is this unexpected discovery. I didn't know I needed that. And I need to go out and buy it because of what I saw in social media. And so there's a whole level of

product discovery, brand discovery, lifestyle discovery that's happening in social. And I love what Molly and the team has done to put us front and center and again, making ACE relevant with how people shop.

PVSB

It's so true because I I had no idea that Sri and I needed CPG guys branded baseball jerseys and yet here they are. So absolutely

MOLLY

Absolutely. Totally.

SRI

You know on that DoorDash partnership, JR is not the only one with a story. I'm building a Yankee shrine in my office. Like I mentioned with the Hall of Fame we collected a bunch of memorabilia. On Sunday, as I was putting stuff up on the wall, I do a lot of DIYs. I realized I need special screws for sheetrock and guess what I did?

I already knew I needed special screws for Sheetrack. I went to DoorDash and guess what happened? It was Ace hardware.

KIM

Nice.

SRI

And then within two hours I got my Yogi Berra picture.

KIM

Love it. I do, I love the DoorDash partnership that we announced.

PVSB

So efficient. It solves the problem immediately.

MOLLY

It solves the problem. Well, as somebody who's doing in in the midst of a project, I think it's a fantastic amplification of the helpfulness and convenience of ACE because I in my I had the exact same experience as you, Sri. I was planting my garden earlier this year, realized I did not buy anywhere near enough soil. And I was able, while still in my gardening gloves, to place an order on Doordash for more soil from ACE and it was delivered twenty minutes later.

And I could continue and carry on with my project with no disruption. So not having to go to the store one more time.

PVSB

Kim, one more thing about social. What do you see from an overarching marketing perspective being the role of social?

KIM

Yeah, it's a I said it before, it's a new form of discovery. And we are in the past, here's been our social strategy. We have fifty three hundred ACE retailers across the country. Many of them run their own social channels for their local store. Wow. And so we gave the guidance of we want you to be present on social media. And the first priority for you is to care for your customers there. So if they're asking questions or they're trying to engage with your store or the brand.

You engage with them with a care lens, not a selling lens. And our stores have done an incredible job.

PVSB

Are they inspiring each other through

KIM

and some are fantastic, you know, and others have got opportunities. Yeah. Now we publish content that they could use, but now as we get to this stage of sponsorship and selling and being a platform of discovery, it changes the game a little bit.

And so you'll be seeing more from us, not just through influencers, but you'll be seeing more plays with us in social.

SRI

You know, Peter, as we close this out, I'm going to share a few observations that stood out. Number one, the social partnerships, awesome. That is the future. That's how things are going to be shopped. The sooner you bring them on board, creators, the better off customers will have it. Your partnership with DoorDash and the likes of Doordash as well, then not the only one, you've instacart as well. Realizing the immediacy needs of the customer, having that as an option.

is important and y'all have recognized it in year one of the RMN. Measurement transparency that you talked about, Kim, that's important as well. But the one that I'm gonna say is Yowza and you deserve a pinky up from Katseye for that.

PVSB

Pinky up.

SRI

Bingo. Merchandising to connect the only and the first retail media networks of your brand. Pepsi was here today. They don't have that with anybody else. No. Distribution opportunities. Yowza. Game changer What about your thoughts Peter? 

PVSB

Yeah, for me, Sri, it's a couple of things. I love the influencer component of it. The fact That the people who use ACE, the people who work at ACE can all contribute to the local community feel to it, that one community can inspire another. And that's what they bring to this game, the local relevance. You heard them say, you think 75% of the US is within a 15 mile drive of an Ace Hardware store. That's reached, that's relevance. and with the partnership with DoorDash and and the other last mile delivery marketplaces.

the sky's the limit in terms of your ability to to reach consumers and drive the brand growth of all the brands selling through your through doors. So thank you. Thank you for that. Kim, Molly, on behalf of Sri, the CPG guys, we are so grateful that you would invite us to Chicago for this epic, epic event. If you're looking to do a Road Show might I suggest Dodger Stadium in the future.

I know I'm a little biased in that respect. I know. We're gonna have that fight. It's our it's the east coast, west coast thing. But ladies, thank you so much. please come back and join us and tell us as new things develop what's going on at at RedVest and Ace. So much for coming. 

MOLLY

Thank you guys. 

KIM

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for always putting a spotlight on RedVest Media. It means it means a lot to us.

PVSB

To our audience, that is a wrap. I now have a date at the Hello Kitty Cafe with a beautiful little girl. high tea with Nadia. Sri, thanks for joining me. Mine is Boeing. It's O'Hare in America now. I know. You've got your Although I am getting to see Katseye tonight before they leave on tour. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. All right, to our audience, thank you for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of the CPG Guys Podcast. Goodbye.