Commerce Riff with Sri & PVSB - September 15, 2026

PETER: It's Sept 15th, 2026 — and this is the Commerce Riff, brought to you by the CPG Guys. Ten minutes of the news stories that matter in commerce this week. I'm your co-host PVSB, and I'm joined as always by Papa Raj, the father of pop stars, co-founder of Think Blue Consulting. Sri, you just finished the Katseye European leg of the tour, how was it for Papa EntouRaj?

SRI: [Response.]

PETER: [PVSB responds.]

PETER: Alright — this week it's a changing of the guard at Albertsons as Meg Whitman steps in as Executive Chair, Omnicom deals with the fallout from losing PepsiCo to Publicis, Kroger cuts its outlook as cyclospora and squeezed budgets bite, and Amazon takes its ad business straight into ChatGPT.

Story 1: Albertsons names Meg Whitman Executive Chair.

Albertsons Companies made a notable board move this week, appointing Meg Whitman — the former eBay and Hewlett-Packard chief executive — to a newly created role of Executive Chair. With the appointment, Kim Fennebresque shifts from Board Chair to Lead Independent Director, and the board grows from 10 to 11 members.

Whitman won't be running the company day to day — that's still CEO Susan Morris's job — but she'll act as an operations and strategic advisor to Morris and the senior team, with Albertsons pointing specifically to her experience streamlining technology and AI-driven operations as the reason for the fit. “Meg has a remarkable track record of helping companies strengthen execution, accelerate growth and create long-term value,” Morris said in the announcement.

It's worth remembering the resume here: Whitman took eBay from $30 million to more than $8 billion in revenue between 1998 and 2008, then spent the better part of a decade at HP engineering its split into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She's also done stints as U.S. Ambassador to Kenya and CEO of Quibi, and currently sits on the boards of CoreWeave, Motive Technologies and Fervo Energy — so this is someone comfortable around both enterprise tech and AI infrastructure.

The timing says a lot. Albertsons is trying to reverse softening sales and sharpen its execution at the same time competitors like Kroger are dealing with their own top-line pressure (more on that in a minute), and bringing in a board-level operator with a 40-year track record of turnarounds signals the company wants outside firepower on strategy, not just in the C-suite.

Story 2: Omnicom deals with the fallout from losing PepsiCo to Publicis.

PepsiCo stunned the agency world on September 2nd by handing its global media business, reportedly worth somewhere between $1.7 and $1.9 billion in annual spend across more than 200 markets, to Publicis Groupe without a formal pitch process, ending a relationship with Omnicom that ran close to three decades.

Omnicom's stock dropped as much as 5.8% on the news and executives have said they were blindsided, learning of PepsiCo's decision only hours before it went public. Omnicom still retains pieces of the PepsiCo relationship — PR, creative and some sports marketing work remain in-house — but the media loss alone is estimated at around $100 million in annual fees.

Speaking at a Goldman Sachs Conference this week, Omnicom CFO Phil Angelastro didn't sugarcoat it, saying the company is running a detailed “root-cause” review of what happened and what it could have done differently. He also confirmed something bigger: Omnicom is targeting a workforce of roughly 105,000 employees by the end of 2026, down from about 120,000 at the end of 2025 — a reduction of around 15,000 people, or roughly 12.5% of headcount.

Some context on that number — it's not purely a PepsiCo story. Omnicom closed its acquisition of IPG back in November 2025, and a chunk of the reduction reflects merger synergies and the removal of duplicate corporate costs from combining the two holding companies, whose workforces totaled about 128,200 at the end of 2024. Angelastro said the headcount changes have “very little impact on client-facing people,” except where staff move because an agency wins or loses an account outright.

Worth watching where this goes next: Angelastro suggested the PepsiCo outcome actually gives Omnicom more flexibility to pursue other opportunities — and pointed to Coca-Cola's North American media business, which Publicis is stepping away from, as one example of a large account now back in play.

Story 3: Kroger cuts its sales outlook, citing cyclospora and pressured shoppers.

If you remember a few weeks back we covered the cyclospora outbreak hitting salad kits and fresh greens — well, it's still leaving a mark. Kroger lowered its full-year same-store sales guidance to 0.2%–0.8%, down from a prior 1%–2% range, and pointed to both the outbreak and stretched household budgets.

CEO Greg Foran told analysts that reductions in SNAP benefits, higher fuel prices and softer consumer confidence are all pressuring budgets, and that shoppers are “buying more on need” — traffic was up in the quarter, but basket sizes shrank. Second-quarter same-store sales grew just 0.2%, below the Street's 0.8% estimate, and total revenue of $34.62 billion also missed.

On cyclospora specifically, Kroger said the outbreak shaved roughly 0.35 percentage points off same-store sales growth in the quarter, and while the impact has eased, it's still lingering into Q3. Layer on lower pharmacy drug prices tied to Inflation Reduction Act policy and softer egg prices year-over-year, and you've got several headwinds hitting at once — even as Kroger keeps investing in price. “It is something that weighs on my mind,” Foran said of inflation. “I would expect that the pressure is actually going to mount.”

Profit still grew — $641 million versus $609 million a year ago — so this isn't a company in crisis. But between Kroger's guidance cut here and Albertsons bringing in a turnaround-minded Executive Chair in the same week, it's a reminder that the conventional grocery channel is still fighting for share while value and discount formats keep pulling budget-conscious shoppers away.

Story 4: Amazon pilots ad services inside ChatGPT.

Amazon is taking its advertising business somewhere new: directly into conversational AI. The company is piloting a partnership with OpenAI that lets Amazon advertisers extend campaigns into ChatGPT, with Delta Vacations among the first U.S. brands testing the integration.

Mechanically, ChatGPT Ads inventory will be bought as a managed service through Amazon's demand-side platform — Amazon's team helps set up and optimize campaigns, available on both cost-per-click and cost-per-mille pricing — but OpenAI retains control of ad delivery decisions through its own systems. Ads will show up as text and image units beneath organic ChatGPT responses with sponsored labels, consistent with how OpenAI has run ads on its free and Go subscription tiers to date. The pilot is U.S.-only for now.

This matters on both sides. For Amazon, which neared $70 billion in ad revenue last year and runs the third-largest digital ad platform, it's a bridge into one of the most-used AI products in the world — and a way to bring nonendemic advertisers, brands that don't sell on Amazon at all, into its ad ecosystem via a new channel. For OpenAI, which recently crossed a $1 billion annualized ad-revenue run rate and is prepping for a closely watched IPO, landing the biggest retail media network as a launch partner is a meaningful proof point, especially with some marketers reportedly underwhelmed by ChatGPT ad performance so far.

One footnote worth flagging: OpenAI had reportedly been in talks with The Trade Desk, an independent DSP and an Amazon rival, earlier this year — so its choice to launch with Amazon instead is its own small story about where the leverage sits in this deal. OpenAI has also previously worked with retail media networks at Target and Albertsons, though Amazon's is by far the largest partner yet.

Wrap

That's a wrap on this week's Commerce Riff. If you haven't caught up on our recent episodes, go back and check out our conversation with Lauren Livak Gilbert from the Digital Shelf Institute, and our sit-down with Hershey's Jessica DuQuesne and Flywheel's Allyson Gill on “Scream for Reese's” — both are great listens.

If anything we covered today sparked a thought, drop it in the comments — we read every one. And if you're not following us on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube yet, now's the time. We're both in NW Arkansas this week for WDV Inspire, Sept 15–17, and then it's on to Las Vegas Sept 21–24 for Groceryshop. We'll see you next week.