Mondelēz International's Rick Shuman & InMarket's Stan Turek - Measurement-Led Joint Business Planning

Stan (00:00)

Hi, I'm Stan Turek, General Manager of InMarket's Measurement Business.

Rick (00:03)

And

I'm Rick Shuman Customer Director of Omni Channel for Mondelez, and you're watching the CPG Guys Podcast.

Sri (00:08)

Hello folks and welcome to this episode of the CPG Guys Podcast. I'm of course Sri, your West Coast co-host and also CRO and co-founder at Think Blue Consulting. Please do listen to my younger daughter Lara Raj of the Bank Katseye, who are now a full tour this fall arenas across Europe, US.

Nominated for two VMAs at the time of this recording and will be also the key performer on Saturday Night Live this weekend. My older daughter Rhea Raj is now a Mac cosmetics girl and surprised me by being plastered all over the MTA New York subways this week. She's also the face of the Toyota EV and soon-to-be Kiss Nails this fall. And she recently signed with Republic Records and Hype USA labels. I'm joined by my East Coast co-host and co-founder PVSB, who, like me, is a fellow adjunct professor of business at the SC

Johnson School of Business at none other than Up in Ithaca, Cornell University. Peter, two and a half days at Groceryshop We've been back to back to back. We've had a happy hour, hosted a bunch of dinners, we got a few more events to do. How you doing? How you keeping up?

PVSB (01:10)

Sri, we came out of Labor Day, San Diego, Northwest Arkansas, Vegas, New York, San Francisco. It's a blur. yeah, I got a lot of frequent flyer miles, but but other than that, I I really would like to sleep in my own bed more than like three days this month. I know.

Sri (01:28)

Not gonna happen.

I think it's 2027. Maybe it's the holiday break that'll enable that. To our audience I want to thank all of you that listen to us as sponsors. Without do this podcast doesn't exist. Thank you.

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InMarket doesn't stop at measurement. InMarket holds every campaign accountable to outcomes, proving not that just sales happen, but which sales were incremental, broken up by retailer, while the flight was still in air and running.

Rick Shuman of Mondelez International and Stan Turek of InMarket joined the CPG guys here today to unpack how retailer level incremental measurement is changing the conversation. CPG customer teams have enjoyed business planning across key retailers and how in-flight optimization closes the gap between what a campaign correlates with and what it actually causes in the first place. And so today we're going to do something a tad different. We're pairing a measurement provider with one of its CPG clients to see the same story but from opposite sides.

Of the table, a service provider and a brand. Stan Turek is general manager of measurement at InMarket, where for more than 15 years the company has powered measurement, as I mentioned, in-flight optimizations for some of the largest dining, retail brands, publishers in the country, and increasingly for CPG. Stan brings more than two decades of measurement expertise and analytics leadership from PepsiCo, and I've had the pleasure of working together with him in a past life actually at PepsiCo. But then numerator Catalina Marketing joins us.

Us as Stan takes on a new seat on the IAB Board of Directors for Measurement. Congratulations to him. Thank you. Joining him is Rick Shuman, Customer Director Omnichannel Activation at Mondelez International, who brings nearly two decades in shop and marketing and commerce from L'Oreal Kao. And great to how Mondelez activates its Brand Across Key Grocery Partners. If you want to understand what it actually takes to walk into a retailer JBP with proof points instead of a pitch,

That's what this conversation will enable. So Stan and Rick, busy week at Groceryshop. You guys have a lot going on. Welcome to the CPG guys.

Stan (04:32)

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Rick (04:33)

Thank you.

We're super excited to be here.

Sri (04:35)

Awesome to our audience, check out the digital show notes of this episode.

You can find hyperlinks to Stan Hendrik's LinkedIn profile and to the InMarket website to learn more as we carry on with this conversation, which I will actually kick off with our first question, and it's going to go to Stan. Stan, let's just start with the basic premise over here. Proving incremental return of ad spend is now the hardest thing marketers have to do. It's a challenge. 67% call it their top challenge ahead of the investment and costs. And only 22% say they can act on a measurement insight in time to matter. Why is incremental the number that

matters and where's the industry stuck in a black hole.

Stan (05:12)

So incrementality matters really because sales happen anyway, regardless of media at the store. So consumers go, they shop, they buy. The media can influence that. And in I know you guys have talked about a lot the ROAS metric, return on ad spend. Well that's simply giving an attribution for a sale that may or may not have already happened without actually saying what's incremental. And especially for a marketer, as budgets get tight, budgets get squeezed and budgets get pressured, it's really important.

To show that you drove something incremental. So if you're going to defend your budget with your CFO or your CEO or even your CMO, you have to come back and say to them, like, this is what you get for every dollar you gave me. This is how much incremental sales that I can prove I generated with using causal data. And your other part of the question was really about why it's why the why the bottleneck in the industry? And a lot of that is structural. it usually weekly measurement is not something seen to

Typically in CPG. But a big part of it is it takes a lot of work to optimize in-flight So that's one part of it. And then the other part of it is like how do you hold everybody accountable to that metric? So there's probably some structural things, and I think AI is going accelerate that in the future, but for now that's the world we're kind of in. But incremental return on ad spend is really the key metric to prove the value of the media investments.

PVSB (06:28)

Gentlemen, welcome to the CPG guys. Rick, from your perspective at Mondelez can you walk us through what a joint business planning conversation looks like today when one of your customer teams sits down with a retail customer? What's missing when a brand shows up with a blended sales number instead of proof of what the media actually drove at that specific retailer?

Rick (06:51)

as we get into the conversations with with our retail partners around JBPs, the conversation obviously starts with, here's our trade ask, here's our RMN ask, here's our data ask, but we really try to take it to a broader place to say, how is our business truly growing at that retailer, right? You know, I think when we look at, over the last five years and you look at the investment that's poured into a lot of retailers, right, you have to step back and say, for my brand, where is our market share gone?

Over those five years, right? If my investments increase 300%, what has happened to my market share? And if it's not increasing, it's a hard conversation internally to sell the idea that I should invest more here, And when we just blend things, it makes it very difficult to really say channel by channel and retailer by retailer, where do we have opportunities? Where are we losing? and I think the point about incrementality, you know, this mindset I think was very prevalent within if you take, you know, take a step back, go back to

years ago when a lot of the commerce budgets were focused on coupons, right? FSIs, digital coupons, the first question I'd get when I'd go to a brand team is, is this incremental, right? Are these units moving anything incremental or would they have already happened? So I think that that mindset hasn't been prevalent within commerce and it's starting to become much more common. Back to the point of you know attributing a sale, when I look at a brand like Oreo, where do I find someone that has not been exposed to an Oreo ad?

Right, I can attribute a sale to Oreo very easily to any piece of media. I'm never gonna get a poor ROAS on Oreo, right? And so then it leads you to the conversation to say, if everything I'm doing is so great, then why are my business results not matching? How do we align media metrics with business outcomes and really try to change that conversation to growing with that retail partner?

Sri (08:35)

Speaking of Oreos, one of my favorite episodes was the conversation we had with Matt Foley a few months ago on the BTS collaboration. And Matt did not know that BTS was created by Bang and Hype Labels where my daughters also signed. That's a problem.

Rick (08:50)

That's cool.

Sri (08:52)

So

I'll swing over to you, Stan. In market sees actual purchase transactions from real people across the retailers that matter most to CPG. Some of the big ones like Walmart, Costco, SamsClub, Target, Amazon, Kroger, Aldi, Albertson, Dollar General with augmented coverage across C stores. Talk about how that data turns one blended IROAS number into a retailer barita incremental breakdown and why that granularity actually changes the conversation.

Stan (09:18)

Yeah, so this this is what kind of makes things unique. So the the data we use for our our our household level measurement is really consumer sourced. And consumer sourced from receipt capture, from opt-ins for emails to get receipts and submit receipts, and loyalty card scraping. And then also we have augmented C Store that's also done from loyalty card scraping. So when you put those sources together, what that really enables, especially as we we support our our brand partners and our agencies and publishers, is really we can give you the

Incremental IROAS a number, but because we see the sales at the Costco, at the Walmart, at the at the Kroger, we could break out that incremental return on ad spend by a retailer, which could help with JBPs to say, hey, this national ad also impacted incremental sales at you, Mr. Retailer. So that could really bring it to light there. And then the other thing this enables is working with an RMN. Like I'm a big fan of the RMNs. I think they have a huge audience, a great media channel to work with. I think the big challenge.

is a lot of times when they do their measurement they could be underestimating the value of their impact because you can serve me an ad at Kroger and I can go still buy it at Costco or Walmart or Safeway. So so the the media has to work really hard to make a consumer actually buy the product the the product you're s you're advertising to them at that retailer. And I think the RMNs have a bigger impact than what they're probably even company ending.

PVSB (10:43)

Stan, I've talked

to retailers that have told me the fact that when they when they stop advertising on Amazon, their in-store sales at CVS take a hit. And they're starting to think about that. But they're not they they need the tools to be able to actually prove that they think it's correlated, but they need the causal element of that.

Stan (11:01)

Yeah, for sure. And and one of the things that we offered to to to help augment that for for our our advertisers is really it it's as simple as we could s deselect Kroger from our control selection with the control methodology and measure every other retail but Kroger. So we can say that that Kroger media went to you know drove this much incremental sales of other retailers, thereby you know and if you think about it too, retail media networks get dinged kind of a couple times on on not getting the full value because they're highly targeted media and the true

North for any advertiser and brand is media mixed modeling. Media mixed modeling is well known not to pick up on highly targeted media very well, and it almost discounts it. So they're getting hit on their incremental measurement by saying not getting the full credit for what they're doing, and then the double whammy is really on the MMM because the MMM is kind of not giving them the full credit either for the R impact.

PVSB (11:55)

so Rick, when inMarket arms you with that retailer-specific incrementality number and they walk in to talk with the retailers, how does that change the dynamic? Does it elevate what you are able to ask for and or even what the retailer is willing to give back?

Rick (12:10)

I think it does. It really changes the conversation. It gives us credibility to our investment decisions. We can speak confidently in the methodology on how we're getting here. It's no longer a you know a feeling-based or emotion-based conversation, right? We're presenting the fact to them. Just and you know, I think the other piece within this is brands have to continue to grow. We have to be growth-minded, right? And yep, you know, the reason that Oreo is successful is because Oreo, right, the brand is successful. It tastes good too. It's an amazing product, right? I mean I'm obviously partial.

PVSB (12:37)

Darn good.

Stan (12:38)

Bigger stuff, especially.

Rick (12:40)

no. We can all have a focus screen for after those.

PVSB (12:43)

I have a friend of mine who lives in London and whenever I come over to visit, she's she lives a gluten free lifestyle. She's like, I am going to give you all the flavors that you have to put in your suitcase, bring a second one. I need to stock up on my Oreos.

Sri (12:56)

well.

Rick (12:56)

I love it. So, you know, when I when I think about that, you know, from that lens, right, I have to be showing that I'm growing this category. Right. When I think about the retailer conversation, if I'm talking to an RMN,

They want the revenue in retail media today. If I talk to a category manager or a buyer, they want me to grow that category, Long term, So when I'm bringing them data that's showing really what is incremental, that's how we move the conversation to say, you know, we're gonna grow this category together, and we're not gonna focus on short-sighted investment and a tactic that's not doing that, right? Because it doesn't help any of us. So I think that's where we're headed with that conversation. Obviously, the retailers, there's value in their measurement. They're gonna push us as well on hey, why is your incremental?

measurement better, but it's a it levels the playing field. I think like gone are the days of retailers grading their own homework, right? We've got to have some type of third party that can also come in here and help us really understand what's incremental.

Sri (13:49)

Very well said. Gone are the days of retailers grading their homework and with my friend Stan here on the IAB board, I know he'll hold them accountable. So let me remind our audience that we're speaking with Rick Shuman, Customer Director of Omnichannel Activation at Mondelez International and Stan Turek, GM for measurement at InMarket. So Rick, going back to the brand side, if you had access to the data Stan has described in flight, middle of the campaign, how would that change the conversation or the actions you would consider?

consider taking.

Rick (14:20)

Yeah,

absolutely. You know, less waste via a few types of optimum optimizations, right? Creative optimizations, our targeting, our tactic selection. I think creative is something we don't spend enough time talking about within retail media, right? These are we're spending massive amounts of dollars on the promise of how we target and speak to the shopper. But we're not honestly speaking to them that differently in a lot of situations. It might be one size fits all creative. I'll talk about an Oreo LTO as an example. We had a Marvel LTO that we launched this year.

Marvel partnership as well as blue color changing cream inside the Oreo for the first time, right? You lick it and it turns blue. Two very different messages that we could give to the shopper. We can't fit all that into one message, right? So we lead with Oreo Marvel as our message. Let's say halfway through this flight we understand it's not resonating with our shopper. We need to switch the messaging to focus on the blue color changing cream, right? That's what's unique and interesting, especially with the context of limited edition products, These only have shelf life of eight or twelve weeks because the next one's

rolling right in. So the importance of getting that real-time optimization, it's critical, right? We otherwise we've missed it and we're looking backward and trying to make ourselves smarter for the next limited edition product, but it might be very different, BTS Oreo is going to perform very different than a Marvel Marvel Oreo. Very different audiences. Peter.

PVSB (15:36)

Yeah, Stan, Maestro, which is in markets AI powered optimization engine, can actually flag incrementality lifting and what's not in time to act upon it, not long after the campaign has been executed. How does that actually work and how much of that optimization is automated versus an actual human decision?

Stan (15:56)

So like Rick mentioned, like speed is is is really critical for optimization. And we know you you mentioned the stat earlier from eMarketer that that only twenty-two percent of marketers can really act on the actual insight and measurement and campaign. if you think about what's happening with AI, imagine the the flywheel of of media where you have the dis the the purchase side or the execution side that's creatives, audiences, media buying, and then you have the decisioning side, which is the measurement and the optimization, AI's gonna come in and it's already

Starting where the creatives are going to be optimized and built rapidly by artificial intelligence. That's going to take that flywheel and speed it up. So, what could be a potential drag on the flywheel is that if the decision side can't take in all that data at the speed that the creative or the execution side is actually delivering it, and it could back things up. So, what Maestro is that's kind of our answer to we've already been in doing LTOs for dining for years and years and years. I mean, that's important to get as

fast results as we can because that LTO is only around for a certain amount of weeks for for dining clients of ours. If you think about what Maestro has to solve for is that's how on the execution side we're really going to mitigate the and be able to take in the signal from the the execution the the execution side speeding up the decision side maestro's job is really to measure that incrementality make up for the fact that we have not resourced to to optimize all those different dimensions that are happening and all the creative optimization

and give the human in the loop the option to say, here's what I recommend as an optimization, here's what I'm saying, do you want to go execute it? And then be able to go talk back to the DSP or the publisher platform.

Sri (17:37)

Peter, I know you've been waiting to ask a question on the decisioning side, so go for it.

PVSB (17:42)

yeah, actually Stan, y you said the decisioning side is where this breaks

And fixing that inside a big CPG is frankly a long road. Reorganizing teams and processes don't happen not overnight and certainly even not in a quarter, right? So what can a brand do tomorrow while that longer work is underway? Where should they be holding their agencies, their publishers and their retail media networks accountable? And what should they stop taking at face value?

Stan (18:15)

as that as that starts happening, it it it is true, right? It's hard for a CPG to to reorg, restructure, put resources behind it, to to take that the execution side that's speeding up and really optimize that data in flight. Traditionally some folks opt for conversion feeds, but that gets back to your first question about ROAS. And all a conversion feed does is say that you're sending impressions to people who already bought, you don't know if it's incremental. So then if you set an automated system today to okay

Send more impressions to people that look like these people that already bought, well, then you're getting ROAS, but it's not getting you incremental. So I've I've actually seen campaigns where up to 50% of the media spend went to an audiences and creatives that did nothing for incremental. So they went to heavy buyers that would have bought anyway. So the I think the world really needs to shift, and AI isn't enabled for that. But to answer your question, really about what a brand could do is really working with your agency partners, they they do have the cutting-edge technology.

and the capabilities to really optimize in flight. We work with a lot of them. They use our tools to do that. And I think the on the brand side, it's really about holding them accountable, saying, you know, how much optimization in flight did you do? Tell me what worked, what didn't work, and give me the granular detail for that.

Sri (19:29)

Rick, I'll flip this one to you. I waited 80% of this conversation to be over before I bought on the dreaded word here, AI. So let's look forward. I would say I should say fun word these days. So let's look forward, right? AI is about to make the execution side of media dramatically faster. There's no yes-no about this. It's like well on its way, right? So more creative, more audiences, more personalization, combos, test it all continuously. So if you start looking forward here, what would you want to be

able to do with measurement that you can't do today with AI and Stan. I'll come back to you and ask you what's the ecosystem that has to be built to enable what he's asking for. So go ahead Red.

Rick (20:09)

Yeah, absolutely. You know, understanding the incremental impact of our key marketing level levers in real time at the retailer level. rather than optimizing toward ROAS or cost per click or whatever medium metric that we have, really moving into you know converting that to a business impact. I think one of the really interesting examples within this space is you know, we all recognize there's times where I need to lean in to capture a new shopper, right? I want to get that incremental shopper, and that's gonna cost me more money to do that, right? But I can justify.

That increased expense, if I can with confidence state that this is somebody incremental, right? I'm bringing in the this new shopper, new to brand, exactly, right? The value of that, you know, because today we're all making educated guesses on where we think we're bringing in new to brand buyers and we're investing a little bit more to do that, right? But we don't have certainty that they truly are, right? As you know, to the point Stan's making, you know, 50% of this is gonna happen already. There's a lot of waste in here. So I mean I really think being able to lean in, especially when you think about a brand like

Oreo. We'll just keep using that as the example. We're tasked with growing this category and how do you find a new Oreo buyer, right? It's very difficult to do that. To find, you know, to the point we've all made here, who wakes up in the middle of their life and says, I'm gonna try Oreo for the first time? That's a challenge. But I'll pay a lot of money to get that person, right? I will lean in and spend significantly more to get them. So I think understanding that in real time to be able to say, hey, this is an audience that's it's significantly more expensive, but it's generating significantly more incremental output.

Sri (21:36)

Great example, by the way.

PVSB (21:39)

Okay, and how do we how do we how do we build to give Rick what he wants?

Stan (21:45)

Yeah, it's it it's probably gonna take a little time. we we know that sometimes CPGs can move very slow, but sometimes it takes mavericks that lean in and Rick is is one of those mavericks, but when when a maverick leans in and brings those results back, we've seen it before at PepsiCo too. When a maverick lean comes in with something new and innovative and and and everybody leans into it, everybody wants to be part of that that evolution

Sri (22:11)

You

and I have had the chance to do it in the past life. It may be two decades, but we've done it.

Stan (22:15)

Yeah, yeah, but but but but the unlock is really to find out who are those folks that are the mavericks that will lean in, try something new, try and experiment and say, let let's see if this works. Let's you know, let's let's challenge the status quo.

Sri (22:28)

Fair enough. Peter closes out, please.

PVSB (22:30)

Absolutely. So Stan, InMarket is picking up new recognition as Sheree mentioned in measurement space. You're stepping into a very prestigious role on the IAB board of directors. it's very important for our industry. We do have to get a handle. These decisions are moving from the customer team to the CMO and frankly to the board now in terms of the magnitude of investment, right? What's the biggest structural change you think needs to happen in how the industry measures retail media?

Stan (23:01)

Yeah, I I think structurally one of the big things is is definitely MMMs probably and the IAB produced a a paper on this perspective on this that was released you know early earlier this year. But to do good media planning and BCG endorses it, meta even talks about it, but you need to calibrate your MMM, don't just take it for face value because that's a correlation analysis. And you need to do it often. So you need to calibrate it often with causal data like incrementality.

Sri (23:28)

How how

often is often?

Stan (23:30)

the best providers or the best do it like at at least quarterly. Quarterly. And they readjust their media plans quarterly, and some are are adventurous as going and as as to monthly, updating their media mixed models and also the calibration. So it's important to that we make sure that those feeds and calibrations for causal goes back to the correlation to make it smarter. That'll give like retail media networks more credit for it. And also with the retail media networks, i as long I think the big thing is including the full impact of their media, not

you know, selling it short that just what happened at that retailer. I think you need to look at the holistic picture of what did that meet re that retailer actually drive, put it into the mix model, calibrate it, and then it'll give you in the intent the intelligent recommendation of where to invest the next dollar.

PVSB (24:15)

That sounds a lot like multi-touch attribution. The question is is you know l traditionally the word has been that MMM undervalues retail media undervalues multi-touch attribution. That's something that really needs to be built and addressed in where MMMs go f moving forward, yes?

Stan (24:34)

Absolutely. Absolutely.

PVSB (24:36)

Rick, my last for you is what's your advice to another CPG customer team that's still walking into a joint business plan conversation without the proof points?

Rick (24:45)

Absolutely. You know, broaden the conversation to shift it to a point of meaningful growth rather than an obsession on, you know, the short term, what is the retail media spend, what is the trade spend. right. Find a way to get to as much proof as you can. bring together a broader team on both the retail side and your side, right? Bring together the merchants, the digital team, the insights partners, the RMN, bring them in one room. It takes effort and understanding to really find where you're gonna unlock this growth, right? It it doesn't just happen by magically waving a wand, turning more media.

We all know that, right? There's a lot of smart people in this industry. So it really takes that shift in mindset to thinking about how we're going to grow these categories together with all of these levers rather than just focusing on what is you know what's the media spend, what's the trade spend. So that's where I would focus it, really broaden the conversation to how are you going to grow with your retail partners. That's what's important for all of us.

Stan (25:35)

Amen.

Sri (25:36)

So Peter, we've talked BTS, we've talked Oreos, we've talked MMM.

Stan (25:42)

Yeah, but

PVSB (25:43)

Mm Marshall Mathers? What is he talking? Was he

Sri (25:46)

Marketing mix models mm

adjusting mid campaign in flight. We've talked about ROAS. Mm. How do you stitch all this together and what's your big takeaway?

PVSB (25:56)

My big take was kind of early on. It's it's it's back to what Rick said about walking into a JBP conversation and the broad performance of media is is no longer acceptable. If you want to have a meaningful conversation and disrupt the way you've been doing business forever, bring retailer-specific media performance measurement. That is going to allow you to actually partner in treatment you and I talk a lot about moving from joint business.

planning to join value creation seems to me like that's a critical element.

Sri (26:31)

Very well pointed out. Stan and Rick in a busy conference. I want to thank you both for joining us on this this episode of the CPG guys. Thank you for doing that.

Rick (26:38)

Thanks for

Stan (26:38)

Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

Rick (26:40)

come back and rant about commerce measurement anytime you'll have us.

Stan (26:43)

Yeah, it is.

Sri (26:44)

So if today's conversation sparked something for our audience, new idea, a fresh perspective, or just a reminder of why this industry is worth showing up for every day, share it, tag us, tell a colleague. The more voices we bring into this community, the sharper all of us get. To the over forty-seven thousand plus followers we have on LinkedIn that trusts us to inform, educate, and entertain you about our industry, thank you for your trust and encouragement. Until next time, keep pushing the conversation forward. I'm Sri on behalf of my co-host PVSB.

This has been the CPG Guys Podcast. Goodbye.