Inside the Shopper’s Mind: What Every Brand Needs to Know

Retail media is rewriting the rules of marketing, and Cyndi Loza is here to break it all down.

As Senior Editor at Path to Purchase Institute, she shares what brands need to know about AI, shopper behavior, and why in-store still matters more than you think. Cyndi also reflects on her journalism roots, defining influence, and navigating work-life balance as a parent and professional.

Episode Highlights

• How retail media is reshaping the marketing funnel
• What shoppers really want in-store
• The role of AI in measurement and optimization
• Why social content is showing up in TV ads
• Advice on career growth, failure, and finding your voice

Connect with Cyndi Loza on LinkedIn

Connect with Path to Purchase Institute on LinkedIn

Learn more about Path to Purchase Institute

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Shopper Marketing
• 2:34 Meet Cindy Loza from P2PI
• 4:40 Understanding Retail Media Networks
• 6:24 Evolution of Marketing Channels
• 11:04 Research on In-Store Shopping Experience
• 15:37 Cindy's Career Journey in Journalism
• 18:15 Advice for Aspiring Journalists
• 20:12 Closing Thoughts on Influence and Career

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

One thing I found interesting and I think it speaks to the importance of the in-store environment is there are various in-store activations that encourage shoppers to locate a product in-store or online and think about buying it.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome back to the show. Hope you're all having a great week so far. So if you're like me, you probably make a few trips to the grocery store each week. Maybe it's a Walmart or a Target or a Publix or a ShopRite. But have you ever thought about how those stores and the brands on the shelves, like Hershey or Campbell's, how those retailers, the stores and the brands work to get your attention while you're shopping? That's what's called shopper marketing. It's a type of marketing that focuses on the in-store experience. It looks at how products are placed and they're promoted and they're packaged to influence what you might buy. It's all about really understanding how we shop and using that to guide what we might see in the store, how we move through the store and what ends up in our shopping carts. So today's guest is someone who knows that world quite well.

Speaker 2: 1:26

I'm talking with Cindy Loza. She's the senior editor of Path to Purchase Institute and she covers the evolving space of what's called retail media, so what happens within a retail store to get people to want to go into those stores and buy products there, and how brands are using artificial intelligence, social media and in-store strategies to connect with shoppers. She also shares some insights from a recent study that her team conducted on how shopping habits are shifting and what that means for people like you and I who are shopping. We also talk about her career journey and how she got into this very interesting field. I think after hearing Cindy's story and Cindy's insights, you will walk into a store with a very fresh set of eyes and a better understanding of how brands connect with shoppers like you and I. So with that, I'm going to let you hear my great conversation with Cindy. Here we go.

Speaker 2: 2:34

Cindy, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Well, I'm looking forward to talking with you. We're going to get into the research part of what you do, but you know how much I love some research, so I'm excited to talk with you, have our audience learn more about who you are, what you do and also this amazing research report that you just recently shared. So let's start with your current role. You are the Senior Editor for Path to Purchase Institute, also known as P2PI. For those who may be familiar with that, who are listening, what is P2PI? For those who are not familiar with it, and who do you serve?

Speaker 1: 3:13

The Path to Purchase Institute is a publication and member-based organization that's been serving the needs of the commerce marketing community for more than 30 years now, and we do this in a variety of ways. We have share groups, on-demand educational courses, webinars, newsletters and our website, pdpicom. Our website hosts thousands of in-store and digital images, some of them taken by me so you might see my children next to an end cap. But we also have campaign case studies, proprietary research reports, news stories and in-depth profiles on more than 30 leading retailers in the US and Canada. We also stage in-person industry events. I serve on the editorial team as senior editor. My day-to-day varies and looks different depending on the time of year, with what editorial project we have going on research report on the field or in-person event we're gearing up for, but I'm involved in a lot of the retail media-focused editorial projects and contribute to the editorial strategy and content for p2picom, as well as the events we host, which also includes Retail Media Summit, retail Media Summit Canada and our fall event, p2p Live and Expo.

Speaker 2: 4:27

So for those who are listening who may not be as familiar with what retail media means, can you just give a quick explanation for them of what is retail media?

Speaker 1: 4:40

Well, it's hard, you know, it's something that's kind of hard to define. And then some people are trying to define what commerce media is too. Looking at the commerce marketing space these last few years, so much has happened and I believe a lot of it is a result of the meteoric rise of retailer media networks lot, but it's hard to ignore when you're considering the evolution of the commerce marketing space these last couple of years. I joke with my colleagues that in the current landscape that we're in, the only thing I'm certain of is death, taxes and retail media's continued growth. One example when I first started at PDPI I came to understand CPG brand organizations had teams for trade, brand and shopper marketing. Brand marketing used mass media to work the top of the purchase funnel, shopper closed the sale at the bottom and, to quote our old editorial director, never the twain or budget shall meet. That's just not the case anymore. We know that While retail media networks early on might have been primarily seen as lower funnel plays, they can be leveraged for upper funnel objectives too, especially as some have since expanded their offerings with CTV and offside solutions. All that said, cpg brands are re-evaluating their internal organizational structures. In our recent trends report, nearly a third of CPG brand marketers told us they recently restructured or implemented organizational remapping to overcome silos, and nearly half told us they're either in the process or have plans to do it. Of course, that's just one outcome from these last few years. In the same report, we found a majority of CPG brands pointing to AI technology as the next frontier or up-and-coming area within the retail media space. No surprise there, because we probably didn't come out of any conference this or last year without hearing about AI, and I think it'll be interesting to see the impact it has within the space when it comes to things like audience segmentation, campaign optimization and measurement and reporting. At our P2P Live event in November, we're actually going to have a session on how AI shopping agents are transforming the consumer journey and rewriting the path to purchase, and I'm excited about that because it's going to be led by Carrie Masters, an industry analyst who I follow and I'm really excited to meet in real life.

Speaker 1: 7:06

Measurement continues to be a hot topic amongst the commerce marketing community and it will continue to grow in importance as more retail media networks and related partners enter the space. Now we have travel media networks and financial media networks. I think there's been some significant efforts to standardize measurement by organizations like the IAB, but hurdles still need to be jumped. In another recent study that we did and fielded, we found CPG brands and organizations and agencies had different definitions for incrementality, for example. There are other areas we're following, of course, like CTV streaming, gamification, social advertising. In fact, when we asked CPG brands and aging professionals which marketing channels were important to them recently, social advertising was deemed at least very important, if not extremely important, by more than 90%. We surveyed there with retail media. So, lastly, I'll just say that we are always keeping a close eye on the in-store environment and it'll be interesting to see how in-store retail media evolves and CPG brands and retailers and how they weave it into their marketing mix. I mean.

Speaker 2: 8:23

That is amazing to see how much the social advertising has grown, because I remember not that long ago you would have a conversation with the marketing team and you'd be going through what are all the activities we're going to do?

Speaker 2: 8:42

And television above the line television always got the most attention.

Speaker 2: 8:47

And then you know some of the other channels and all the way down on the bottom of the agenda was digital media, digital slash social, and now it's almost inverted right. And not that brands aren't doing television spots, but it has changed and evolved so much in terms of how that's done and even thinking about how social content now is being used in above the line television spots, which is such a change. Back in the day when I worked at a big brand, in a million years we would never consider not doing the big production for the television spot that you had a very regimented way you did that. Now brands are getting really creative and innovative and using social content frequently for those some of those, those above the line television spots and in other places as well. It's so interesting to see that evolution and sounds like it's consistent with the report that you released that said that social advertising retail media are very much important in terms of what people say they're going to be spending budget on and what they're going to be focused on.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Yes, and I'm personally. I have an eight-year-old and a five-year-old and I can't tell you how often they come to me during the days showing me their YouTube videos and how a little you know, like a child is playing with a certain a specific toy that they want, and they may want to make sure that I get that exact toy. All the way to my husband, who we follow, an influencer for coffee. His name's James Hoffman, and if he endorses a product we go and buy it.

Speaker 2: 10:41

I will say you can go down a rabbit hole on coffee influencers. I mean, it makes the coffee I make at home look like not at all interesting compared to what they're doing. Well, I want to talk a little bit, if we can, about this research that P2PI recently released that was dedicated to retail media. Can you talk a little bit about this report? It was about the evolution of the in-store shopping experience. So what happens when I'm in-store, like at any kind of retail that I might be in? I know there's some really interesting information in there and there's a lot of information in there, but can you maybe give us two to three highlights that you thought were really interesting?

Speaker 1: 11:29

Yes, I'd love to. So we surveyed a thousand shoppers in February to get their perspectives and insights on the in-store shopping experience. This is actually our fifth year doing the survey, which we produce in partnership with Great Northern In-Store. The report had so many good insights and we dive even deeper to see how those we surveyed answered, based on things like generation, gender and household income, in the full report available to P2PI members on the website. Some findings just validated what we suspected.

Speaker 1: 11:59

Shoppers surveyed, for example, who use retailer mobile apps while shopping in-store, told us they use the apps often to look for coupons and promotions, reference their shopping lists, wayfinding or check product availability.

Speaker 1: 12:16

Shoppers also continue to tell us they primarily shop in-store to interact with products hands-on, avoiding shipping fees. The ability to look for promotional offers and the instinct gratification that comes with shopping in-store also drives consumers to shop in physical locations, and that's consistent with what we've seen in the past. One thing I found interesting and I think it speaks to the importance of the in-store environment is there are various in-store activations that encourage shoppers to locate a product in-store or online and think about buying it. Specifically, we ask survey takers how often seeing or hearing types of products, displays or messagings inside stores encourage them to locate the product in-store or online and consider purchasing. We found that a variety of tactics encourage a majority of those surveys to do this, at least some of the time. This includes informational or inspirational content on TV screens, temporary seasonal displays, large displays of products at the front of the store and displays at the end of the aisle, displays near checkout. Content on TV screens and in-store audio are especially more likely to encourage shoppers to locate the product online and consider purchasing.

Speaker 2: 13:35

I will say that just as a shopper. That does not surprise me. It does surprise me a little bit some of the reasons that people still say they want to shop in-store, because we did a lot of surveying during COVID and then after COVID and definitely found that the reasons that people were wanting to be in or not wanting to be in store had evolved a bit. I think because we all got so much more used to buying things online when COVID happened because that was one of the key options. We had Some of the hurdles that maybe existed before that the people maybe just didn't feel as comfortable buying certain things online. They got way more comfortable doing that and the convenience factor we found is the thing that really was dialed up.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Well, I could just add to what you were mentioning. Anecdotally, I can say that convenience is still very important and I feel really seen and heard with your comments, because my son was born on May 2020, that the height of you know shutdowns and everything. So I remember being so little with with him and thinking, being so thankful for going to Target and be able to pull up where I don't have to take him out of his, his car seat, but also not go into a store right and be able to get his formula and his diapers and the things that I needed.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Yeah, I think there's some universal experiences there for parents of young children. So, moving to a different area, I want to take a step back, if we can, and talk a little bit about how you got started in your career, because you are basically in still in somewhat that same field that you started in, journalism. So can you talk about what drew you to journalism, why this was the area that was interesting to you and how it's kind of held your interest all these years?

Speaker 1: 15:37

Yes, definitely. Well, it's held my interest because there's just so much to talk about, right, you know you can just really go down a deep rabbit hole with all the you know the complexities of commerce, marketing space, but I do still consider myself a reporter. Yes, you're right, just covering a specific industry, I think. Joining the P2PI editorial staff early on, I knew there was going to be a learning curve. I had to get up to speed on the world of shopper marketing, merchandising and P2P. But I embraced the challenge and I'm so happy I did. And I have to say that I also wouldn't have gotten so far or up to speed as quick without the help and support of those at P2PI. Shout out to Patricia Milonowska, our Director of Retail, and Tim Bender, our executive editor, for all their support since I started in day one now have a child in college.

Speaker 2: 16:24

She's in a communications field and one of the things that they are talking a lot about is what is the future of journalism? What is the future, what does the future hold for young students who are interested in journalism? Going out into the world? What do you think someone who is starting, and maybe early in their career, or thinking of a career, in journalism, what should they know about? What skills are important for them now if they're going to be coming into this field?

Speaker 1: 17:11

Yeah, I think that it's definitely important to have a curiosity, that's really important to ask lots of questions. Also, I would say that you know, when I first started, I started at the College of Communications and it's now been renamed to the College of Media a lot. But also, you know, there's just so much information out there and making sure you verify, I think, has been probably more important than ever. You know that the information that's out there.

Speaker 2: 17:41

I think that is excellent advice. I mean, it seems to me that in some ways, the job is so much harder because it's like trying to drink out of a fire hose. There's so much information coming at you. How do you know, how do you determine or coming up with the right set of questions to your point about curiosity, coming up with the right set of questions to determine what is really important to focus on while all of this stuff is coming at you. I think that's such good advice. This podcast stuff is coming at you. I think that's such good advice. This podcast Women of Influence.

Speaker 1: 18:22

I was hoping you could share with us what influence means to you. Yeah, so I think influence to me and I don't know if I'm wrong but it means kind of like inspire or encourage or help move the needle. I think that I work in a lot of the proprietary research reports that I produce or help produce with P2PI and I hope that in the work that I do I help as far as inspire but also help kind of validate some of the things that are out there or help give statistical guidance. You know, I think that's kind of what I would hope for my career, the work that we do.

Speaker 2: 18:54

I love that definition. That's why I love asking people what their perspective is on influence, because everyone has a slightly different element in terms of how they think about it and, given your background, I think it sounds like one of the things that's important to you is really being able to have the data to back up what your perspective is or what you're talking about, and when you have that data, it helps influence. And I think maybe that's the connection I'm hearing when you're talking about influence with the validation of information, and I could not agree with you more. So my last question for you if you could go back and tell the young Cindy that was just getting started in her career one piece of advice, what would that be?

Speaker 1: 19:50

It would be. Don't dwell too much on mistakes. Learn from them and move on quickly. Something that I've learned recently is that having a perfect work-life balance isn't this tier or permanent status or state that you achieve. Sometimes my work requires a lot of attention and sometimes my family does, and it ebbs and flows and that's all right as well.

Speaker 2: 20:12

I think we remember when we get something wrong and we can really marinate in it, and I can't tell you how important it has been for me in my career to recognize that failure is actually part of the process. I wish I understood that younger and earlier in my career. It definitely would have saved a lot of heartache. Well, cindy, thank you so much for spending this time with us. I am grateful for your insights and I am excited for people to hear all your great thoughts and the research and advice. Great Thanks again for having me my pleasure.