Retail Media Vibes
Retail Media Vibes is your marketing lens on the world of shopping, commerce, and culture. Each episode brings fresh conversations with industry insiders who break down the stories driving how brands reach shoppers and how shoppers connect with brands. From big retail moments to the latest shifts in digital media, it’s your front-row seat to the strategies shaping the future of commerce.
We keep it smart, energetic, and actionable, mixing sharp analysis with good vibes so you walk away informed and inspired. Whether you’re a retail pro, a marketer looking for an edge, or simply curious about where the industry is headed, this podcast is made for you.
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Retail Media Vibes
Ep. 11 - Breaking Silos, Building Retail Wins | With Toby Willse
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The most expensive mistake in retail media isn’t bad targeting, it’s planning in silos. We sit down with media leader Toby Willse to map how the field evolved from banner buys to agentic commerce, why teams still talk past each other, and what it takes to turn retailer-specific wins into brand-level growth. From his design roots to ad tech tours through AOL and Millennial Media, Toby explains how creative strategy, data access, and relationship management shape outcomes more than any single tactic.
We unpack the headliners from CES and NRF, including Google’s momentum in AI shopping, retailer partnerships, and the coming wave of sponsored prompts. Expect smart provocation on the “collapsed funnel” narrative: CTV with QR codes lowers friction, but it doesn’t magically become a conversion channel. Instead, think of new side doors to the bottom of the funnel and measure accordingly. We lay out a realistic framework for attribution that pairs platform signals with retail POS and modeled incrementality, while admitting there’s no silver bullet and AMC is a powerful slice, not the whole pie.
This conversation also goes human. Retail media teams juggle overlapping retailers, expanding JBPs, and constant change. We share practical ways to fight burnout, from using AI agents for repetitive work to establishing daily learning habits and grounding decisions with store and site walks. And if we could fix one systemic issue? Tear down the walled gardens to enable privacy-safe, interoperable measurement and smarter creative orchestration across channels.
If you care about better KPIs, cleaner alignment between brand and sales, and making AI work for your team instead of against it, you’ll find plenty to steal here. Follow the show, share it with a teammate who’s buried in dashboards, and leave a quick review to tell us your number-one retail media headache.
Welcome And Guest Background
SPEAKER_00What's up, Party People? BV here, and welcome to another episode of Retail Media Vibes, a doing business in Bentonville podcast. I am recording at Podcast Video Studios here in Rogers, Arkansas. As you can see, this is a little bit of a different format than what you're used to for Retail Media Vibes, where I will be doing an interview virtually with my new best friend, uh Toby Wilsy. So welcome to the show, Toby. Great to have you here today. Great to be here. Looking forward to the conversation. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's uh been a pleasure to get to meet you and get to know you a little bit over the last uh few months and you know learn a little bit about your background and some of the things that you are passionate about here in retail media and just the retail, you know, retail industry in general. So why don't you you know share with uh the audience a little bit about yourself and how you found yourself to where you are today? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, so my uh my background is very much in uh digital media uh holistically. I actually went to school for graphic design, um, which is a little bit tangential, but found myself always really interested in the advertising field uh and really wanted to get into more of the analytics and the customer-facing side. I've always loved to talk to individuals and help them understand how to really articulate what their strategies should be and figure out where things are broken, how to fix them. And so through a decade of working in that industry and getting the opportunities that many don't uh to be able to work within startups and in large uh corporations like AOL, I've really been um very, very lucky to be able to get to work through uh the many roles within the industry, working from uh an entry-level uh sales planner to today uh chief media officer at Ad Fury. Um so it's been uh a really wonderful journey.
SPEAKER_00What was some of like you say you started off at graphic design, right? So what were some of the things you may have learned in graphic design that you think really set you on your path to in in media? Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question.
SPEAKER_01You know, when when working uh in that that particular field and going through that education process, I always found myself to be very creative first. I'm a visual thinker. Uh, I'd like to find, you know, what makes a particular person want to interact with something, whether it be, you know, the objective art on a wall in a museum or the packaging design of a product you find in the store, like a pack of Skittles. I always loved uh, you know, one of the things that uh, and this is not this is not a uh a push for this particular product, but one of the things that always really gener uh generated my interest in advertising and the creative side of it um and got me into actually graphic design were those ads like the Skittles Rainbow commercial when it would rain Skittles. These are the types of things that made me so excited and and really made me think like this is really this is a really cool field. And so through my graphic design um education, I essentially found I don't really find my passion is building the creative. My passion is figuring out how is this particular creative going to be situated, where is it going to target? Who is the consumer I should use this creative for? And how do those creatives bucket together? Because you need so many of them to drive the right story, and that that professional work that I got to do within my education allows me to have that keen eye for visual design, and that really set me off into my path for advertising.
From Graphic Design To Ad Strategy
SPEAKER_00I love that. I think there's so many aspects from different parts of our careers that you know you find these avenues, you know, to express your passions, your excitement, right? I think I would I would hope that anybody that's in this business of advertising, marketing, retail media, what have you, you know, really wants to be excited about it, right? They probably got into it because they're excited. I know when I transitioned into marketing, I did it because wow, that's cool. That looks like fun. I want to be involved in brands, I want to do all of those, you know, those amazing things and you know, have my have ads, you know, sh that I've worked on show up at different places and and influence people um in a good way, of course. And so like I I feel like yeah, that's that's why a lot of us get into it. Now, you spent your early, you know, spent early part of your career at AOL. I'd love for you, like, you know, I I'm I'm guessing that if most of the people that are listening to the podcast at least have heard of AOL. Um, but I mean AOL was really big, especially in the in the 2000s. Um, but you know, you were obvious sounding like you were a little bit on the advertising side. I'd love for you to dig in a little bit on your AOL experience.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was uh it was definitely a unique one and really helped set the stage for what I would do in the future and what where my passion would be. Um and you know, we at AOL it was actually really interesting to see some of the the newer features they worked on and you know where they were uh excelling in the advertising space, but then some of those you know kind of core competencies that they were always known for that shocked me that they still existed at that time. Um when I was at AOL, I always remember uh one of the first statistics that was given to me was that over six million users still used their dial up connection capable. Yeah, and they just shut they were just shutting that down, right? And they yeah, they just set that down. So that that always shocked me. But their advertising is what really kept them going. They had a large pup large publisher network, um, a great connection to a lot of different very large um brands. And more importantly than that, they did the right acquisitions. I actually started very, very early on at Millennial Media, which was a um ad tech provider for uh essentially a supplier uh for um placements on app. They were one of the first uh app suppliers for um app advertising, and so that got acquired by AOL, which brought me over to AOL. I like to joke even today that AOL is uh it's the cockroach of advertising. And that sounds mad, but it's actually a good thing. They refuse to die. It does not matter how things evolve, it does not how matter how the landscape changes, they are still around and they will continue to be around.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I also would imagine that a company like AOL has a treasure trove of data that is very uh of interest to a lot of advertisers and other other companies as well, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah, and a massive amount of user data, uh, an absurd um selection of the ability to target different users and be able to do some geotargeting that I actually haven't seen in a lot of other advertising agencies even today. This was you know 10 years ago. Um, and today that all rolls into what what everyone knows is Yahoo. And Yahoo now has all of those capabilities and those feature sets as they all did multiple acquisitions and and multiple mergers.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, it's really, really interesting. All right. Let's uh let's do a couple of little fun questions as well to get to know you a little bit more. So all right, so Toby, what's your morning routine? What is what does morning look like for Toby?
SPEAKER_01Yes, uh I have a I have a four-year-old at home. Uh so my morning right there. My mornings are typically uh wake up with him. We I do mornings with him. He's uh big big energy in the mornings. Uh at least two cups of coffee, uh, maybe a wordle to to get my brain started, and then diving into uh what's happening in the in the advertising space. Uh what really gets me energized every morning is a cup of coffee and the ability to just read some blogs and some articles and catch up because it's it's a lot to to take in every day. It's changing constantly.
AOL, Ad Tech, And Data Lessons
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's that's great because you know, in I had a I had a coffee with a uh a student from University of Arkansas here just recently and she was talking about you know what she was looking to do in the next stage of of her career or basically starting her career. And I and you know, one of the and she asked me for some tips, and you know, one of the tips I I said was like you've got to be immersed in the industry that you're gonna get into. So if you're gonna be a media, you've got to spend time with it every single day. Um, you know, whether it's watching YouTube videos, whether it's listening to podcasts, reading blogs, and sign up, you know, reading newsletters, whatever that looks like for you, based upon you know how you like to uh get your information, you've got to do that. And you think you have to think critically about some of those things. I think also, you know, I've always always talked about like leaning back and leaning forward. Like if you're leaning back, you're kind of just casually taking in information. But if you're leaning forward, you're more actively critically thinking and it about what you're reading and and trying to really comprehend and think through what the possibilities are. I think you know, even understanding and and taking in that information and more of a lean forward action versus a lean back is absolutely important as well. And so whether that happens for you first, you know, first moments of the day, or it happens to you right before you go to bed at night, which you know a lot of people say don't don't take in that blue screen light before you go to bed, but you know, what have you anyway? Um or you do it at lunch, right? So it depends on on where you get that. So do you listen to music? Do you have a playlist? What do you what what kind of jams are you uh do you listen to that get you uh going in the deck? I love that question.
SPEAKER_01Uh so yeah, the in in the vein of personal uh about Toby. I I'm a huge music lover, uh big collector of vinyl, uh, which I know you and I have have bonded over a little bit in the penis. Um and so uh I tend to lean towards classic rock, uh older music, uh typically in the 70s era.
SPEAKER_00Um I am I'm listening to a yacht rock playlist right now with like 70s soft rock, 70s, 80s soft rock right now that I'm just enjoying quite a bit, actually. It it gets me energized every time.
SPEAKER_01A little bit of like electric light orchestra or moody blues always uh always puts me in the right mood. But I've been recently Oh, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00I know I just had a little ambrosia.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, oh yeah, little ambrosia in there always gets I've got three of uh three albums uh from Ambrosia and I I listen to it quite a bit. Um the uh what's really got me excited though recently as a Spotify user as well, uh, is I've discovered that day lists are pretty accurate to me. So I'll often do my morning day list. Um it tends to work pretty well for me, uh, particularly in the mornings. They really nailed it.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Well, it's great to get to know you. We're gonna obviously get to know you a bit more as we talk through some things here uh in this in this episode. Um, but wanted to jump into a little bit more around around the retail media space. You know, again, you've got an uh extensive background, you've been in media for for quite a long time, you've been working in this space for a bit. So I think the audience would really love to hear from from you on you know some of your philosophies and you know how you approach uh retail media specifically, which has been the world that you've been in uh extensively over the last few years for sure. So, you know, when we think about retail media and kind of its evolution, what is really you feel like were really the big changes in retail media that have really influenced this acceleration that we've seen over the last few years? You know, I'd love to hear more about that for you.
Morning Routines And Music Break
SPEAKER_01You know, my my general POV on retail media uh is really the expansion of advertising capability throughout the different platforms and the very intelligent aggregation of some of those platforms into unique tech providers. I think that retail media as a whole is going to continue to grow pretty rapidly. Um, but I do think that there's a lot of headwinds that it faces um with a lot of tailwinds as well. Uh, you know, for me, when I think about the way that it all comes together and and what I think is is success within the digital media and retail media landscape is being able to understand, which is a very challenging right now for so many brands and agencies, where all of these things intrinsically click together and where silos need to be removed. I think it's the probably one of the biggest uh blockers today for retail media is a lot of the that siloed nature within the space, both within agencies and brands, and it prevents what could be a much more personalized um user experience for the consumer, but also for the brand and creating much more efficiency. So I get a lot of energy helping brands understand where they need to adjust their retail media strategies to be much more thoughtful with their ad dollars and be less myopic to how do I make ex retailers succeed, and more big picture of how do I make my brand succeed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's very interesting too because as you know, retail media budgets have continued to expand, you know, brands obviously want to have a lot more control over how that money is spent. And obviously, there's you know a lot of discussion. We'll talk about measurement a little bit later on, but there's a lot about measurement and and so forth. But it is it is interesting to me because you know, retail media has been around for a while. You know, you know, there's been you know what we've had you know, triad retail media that used to do advertising, you know, on be you know, with with Walmart Connect, or well it's not Walmart, it wasn't Walmart Connect at the time, but they were doing it for the yeah. Walmart media group back then, I do believe. They might not have had a few iterations uh for sure. And then Amazon, like everybody's had media, right? But the but the budgets and what people were spending, and like nobody really cared too much. But now there's this you know proliferation of all these different tactics and spends continue. And I was like, oh, wait a second, this is impacting my budget now because a lot of a lot of these dollars. And so, like the conversations that I've had quite a bit recent you know recently, or we'll say over the last year or so, is really about trying to get the customer teams or the retail teams on the same page with the brand teams, and there's you know, there's seems to be not necessarily friction, but a lot of times misunderstanding of of what it takes to perform on retail. What has your experience been on, and I know you you said you know you you you really enjoy trying to get brands under understanding the space, but like what have you what have you seen and heard from your experience that really helps get everyone on the same page on on what the true opportunities are?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's uh it's a great question, and I'm I'm very curious of your perspective of this. The um the way that I find that in my experience that brands and sales have been able to get in into a better rhythm, and it's not always perfect, uh, tends to be a greater understanding of the space and what it means to be in store versus on the digital shelf, and what are the levers that can be pulled to help juice that particular impact and the relationships necessary. Often the two teams tend to disagree or have that friction because there's two different focus points relationship and sales growth. And one team is very focused on I need to grow my sales for very particular items or for my portfolio. The other team is very focused on I need to maintain my relationship with these merchants and this retailer, I need to ensure that I'm driving the right traffic to this retailer and it's our premier channel. Often that is driven by the siloed natures of uh brand setup. Brands set up their teams to be focused on particular retailers or particular advertising avenues, and unfortunately, that creates artificial silos when they're not speaking. Many of these brands rely on large agencies, holding companies, etc., to do that for them and find the menagerie and help them create that that justification. Unfortunately, that that doesn't often work as well as they'd like, and we've seen that. That's why this model's existed for so long, and it's why the space is continuing to evolve. It wouldn't be evolving on how teams work together and how agencies interact if it was perfected. Uh, right. So that is where I've seen brands succeed and where I've seen agencies succeed, is removing the person X will handle this for me and saying we need to figure out the crux of the issue and bring these teams together and still offer and allow the capability for these different brands and these different team members to be able to focus on their core competencies or their core responsibilities, but understand that camaraderie and teamwork is needed here to ensure that the communication streams are consistent and that these different individual teams are operating holistically versus singularity, and then you come to a bottle of the funnel where everything starts to crowd together, and now you have uh you know disjointed strategies and what effectively becomes very inefficient ad spend and often creative visuals. How do you feel about it? Have you seen them being somewhat similar?
Retail Media’s Rapid Evolution
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think it's I mean, it's just I think it's one of those things where you know convert conversations have to continue and and everybody it takes time, right? It takes time to absorb you know the true opportunity, plus you know, you're trying to get your arms around something that's growing immensely, and and the demands are are increasing, you know, the JBP commitments are continuing to increase, they're wanting more. And I think you hit on something early on on in your response where which is really important because there's there's sales and there's a relationship, right? There is you know return, you know, a return that drives the business from a numbers perspective, and then there's a drives the business because of a relationship, right? So there's you know, and and that we used to call that return on relationship. The challenge is it's hard to quantify return on relationship, but to be honest, that might be the most impactful way that you drive your business. If you are building the right relationship with you know your merchant and you are, you know, doing the things that the retailer needs you to do. And obviously, there's gotta be a give and take. So I'm not saying you just say okay to everything, but there's a lot of give and take and you have a lot of good communication. I think that that goes a long way to things that aren't always as clear as I saw an ad, and I since I saw that ad, I resulted in this sale at this retailer at this moment, right? So, but everybody loves that, right? And that's why everybody loves retail media because the the idea is that's you can measure all of that, which again we'll talk about measurement later on, but that that's that's obviously not always the case. So, you know, it is it is still, I think, a work in progress. I think as brands understand and they get more involved in the space and they have uh an understanding. And I would also encourage brands that may not necessarily have access to a specific retailer because of their location or whatever, to go and visit that retailer and go on a store walk with somebody and at least you know, and I understand we talk a lot about e-commerce, but I think you can get a lot of perspective about e-commerce by walking the store. And so because it is a multi-channel experience for most shoppers, right? Omnichannel, right? So it's a multi-channel experience. So you have to understand the store, you have to even do a sidewalk, right? So do a site walk and and which is probably a little more convenient than finding a store and going there if you if it's not in your area. But I think you know, having that having some of those experiences definitely will, you know, help that understanding between brand and customer team or brand and retail team uh in order to really drive some of the the opportunities because those those are the things that happen in the margins, right? It's like these are the things because we feel good and we work together, we trust each other, we all all trying to be on the same page. Those are the things that come come together because of some of these other activities like site walks and store walks and you know, having conversations, having lunch, talking about these things. And so it's still a very relational business, even if we, you know, we're talking about dollars or ones and zeros, right? Couldn't agree more.
SPEAKER_01And I think that you know, when you think about that, like the other side of the spectrum is for you know, that's that's um, you know, as you go to the more of the sales team and you think about uh and then you know e-commerce teams, depending on the the company you're talking about, oftentimes one of the things that's also really good to put yourself in, particularly for a brand team, take one step back and think to yourself, particularly if you're in charge of certain retailers or segments, what is actually gonna drive a consumer to purchase? And again, not looking myopically to the retailer, but thinking greater scheme of your brand. What is gonna drive a consumer to purchase and where is their channel overlap? You know, met all of us shop at multiple stores, right? And so So what I found is one of the biggest blockers as well for brands and where they struggle again with those team conf conflicts is when to invest in retail media and when to start to use those investments. And of course, to you to a comment you made, every retailer is gonna say, oh, you've got to be investing here. You've got to be putting money into the platform. It's totally worth it. You should see our user base. So true, right? But guess what? The user base for Walmart is often overlapping with the user base for Kroger. It's often it depends on the region. Where do you sit? What grocery stores do you shop at? In Bentonville, you probably aren't overlapping too heavily with a lot of other grocers because Walmart is the main grocer available. But here in Baltimore, I have 16 different grocery stores within a 10-mile radius of me, not even including Walmart, right? So my overlap is dramatic. And that means that you don't need to target me across seven different retailers. You hit me on one and you've now captured my interest. And I might go purchase it at a different retailer. But when you look at the bottom line, you made the sale. You capture the consumer and you made the conversion and you've built loyalty. And so I think taking that step back often helps teams better coordinate because you stop saying, Well, I have to have this investment in this brand. My retailer is the one that's important. And instead, you say, This retailer is really going to help us, and this is why to accelerate the brand holistically. And now you're making an investment decision that's much more thoughtful and more aligned to the entire team versus creating that conflict.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, yeah, I feel like we could talk about this for for hours, but we're gonna we're gonna get to a few other other topics. So um this this other this next up uh topic. So CES concluded recently, and so like you know, CES is always an interesting one, right? It's the first really big conference starting the new year. Um it's the consumer electronic show. It's been mostly known over the years for you know TVs and and electronics and and iPhone cases and all of that stuff, right? But it it's really started to become more retail media has really started to become a lot more involved in CES. Um, I was at CES last year and the ARIA, I had you know, Walmart Connect was there, Instacart was there, like there was a lot of conversations, a lot of a lot of um uh sessions that were taking place that were very retail media, retail media focused. So, you know, why do you think there's such a a strong presence for retail media at you know a conference like CES, which is known for electronics?
Breaking Silos Between Teams
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a great question. It's an interesting one. No, it's it's definitely um perspective based. The to me, I think it really is driven by um beret and location. You you have this opportunity at the top of the year when often a lot of um vendor negotiations haven't completed, uh agency negotiations haven't completed, agencies are are deep in hunt mode uh for their their next big client uh relationship. And at CES, a lot of the largest opportunities exist there, particularly opportunities that are much harder for retail media today. Retail media was born and grown more effectively on CPG, right? And so CPG is one that has a very different strategy and a very different approach than any kind of hardline, which is you know, CES is bread and butter. And so brands, I think, are more effectively starting to take up CES uh with agencies because agencies now have this opportunity to showcase why they can help support um a hardline client with their needs through retail media, where all of a sudden these these CES uh brands are starting to be much more effectively online than just in store and in the the court retailers. Um, then secondarily, it's all about those vendor relationships. You know, privacy previously at CES, you would rarely see an Amazon or an Instacart at CES, and now they're all known force, and that's because of those vendor relationships and those negotiations they want to start. Um, there's a reason why I've always noticed that you you mentioned the ARIA, they're always very separate. The actual CES uh entire landscape and the show floor is 30 minutes down the strip from where all of the uh e-commerce work is. You ask 80% of the people who are who sit in digital media and e-commerce, did you go see the show floor where you were at CES? All of them say, No, we never made it.
SPEAKER_00It's hard it's hard. Never got out of the Ori. That was my that was my challenge last year because there were sessions all over the place that I wanted to attend or places I wanted to be. And so just even you know, getting an Uber or the or the monorail or whatever to get from one place to another. I mean, it take takes so much time that you missed the session by the time you got from one place to to the other. And you're you're right. I I did cover all of it last year, and it, you know, I got I got quite a few steps in, let's let's put it that way, right? So, like just from you know, some all obviously the news around CES is kind of percolating into uh percolating right now. So what were some of the things that you kind of heard about uh um or saw uh related to CES, I think that that could impact um our business in the in the year to come?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean I I think some of the outside of the technology um that was released uh within the CES show floor, which many of which are I think going to impact our industry more so from a sense of you know what are the hot products, where consumers buying um consumer you know, cinnamon and shopping habit. I do think that's gonna impact things. But for us, and you know, more directly related to retail media, I think some of the biggest things that I saw released that I'm I'm really excited about um are some network releases uh and new feature sets that I think are gonna create some competition, particularly within the programmatic space. Reddit creating their own uh ad network while you know seeming small, you know, in the grand scheme of things, because many are creating their own ad networks. Reddit is massive. Reddit is where a large portion of LLM data is housed right now, where it is pulled from. It is what scary in some ways. Yeah, very scary in some ways. Very scary how big Reddit is now. And so for Reddit to release their own advertising platform and your ability to advertise directly within that ecosystem versus having to use a programmatic partner, which is today the the only real option to hit uh Reddit more aggressively, I think is going to be a bit of a disruptor. Um, secondarily, the thing that's obviously very exciting that everyone's on everyone's mind is you know, AI uh based work, agenic commerce, and AI agents. And uh many of the the whole codes released their own AI news, um, which was big and I think will uh impact different relationships than what brands need more effectively, because brands are going to start to choose their holding relationship based on the AI technology available because each have very different offerings today. They will become more merged over time, but right now they are very unique. Um, but and I think more near holistically to everybody, it's the retailer AI capabilities that they're integrating with and the way that Agenic Commerce is shaping up. I think Google's uh new protocol and Walmart's and Target's partnership with them was a pretty massive announcement. Now that came slightly after CES during NRF, but they all kind of merged together. We're talking days difference.
SPEAKER_00Are we able are we able to call a winner now? Google is now the the winner of agent of AI shopping. Are we able to do that yet?
SPEAKER_01If you've heard anybody, uh if any of the other AI's heard us say that, they'd be like, that is not true. You are jumping the gun, but I I think realistically Google is likely gonna eat this up. It's gonna be just like the search bar wars. Bing exists today. There are other search bars out there, but not many people use Bing. Google holds the holds the candle there. If you go out of country, you start to see Bing being more uh aggressively utilized due to security features. And I think the same thing's gonna be here, where we'll see the other AIs continue to be effective and utilized because a combative market is what's gonna create the best consumer experience, frankly. I don't want Google to own everything because if they do, you create you remove the ability for the consumer to get exactly what they want. However, I do think Google stands to own this. They have the infrastructure, they have their own supply pipeline to be able to actually make their AI function more appropriately through data centers, whereas everybody else has to partner.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean the comeback for Google, right? So, you know, I I I use I use Chat GPT every single day, right? So I use, I mean, that's my number one go-to. Uh Google Gemini is my second. Um, and then I tinker with the others. You know, where Google was, we'll say two years ago compared to where Chat GPT and OpenAI were at that time and in and to continue to push, you you just wondered, was Google was Google ever going to catch up. I would say that this is definitely one of the it is a notable comeback by Google um into this space. They're they're they you are absolutely right, they have a hundred percent a chance to win or the right to win because of their infrastructure, the number of people who have Chrome browsers, the amount of data that they have, the access to your email, who doesn't have a Gmail account? Right? Like they have all of this access while Chat GPT and OpenAI have to go and collect this, right? And at the end of the day, you know, the sh the shopper, you know, wants to wants friction free, right? So if if they're a chat GPT shopper, definitely they want to be able to to to shop and buy through their through that app. If you're a Google user and you're in Google, and it doesn't mean you're not both, right? You could be a Google user and you could also be a ChatGPT user. You just want that that streamlined functionality to be able to discover and purchase all within, you know, that uh within that environment, whichever environment you're working at. So I kind of put some of the Google I almost say the Google comeback at this point is reminiscent of the comeback by the QR code. Right? Was there any bigger comeback than the QR code in in the space? I I highly doubt it. And but I do think Google definitely is rivaling that on obviously a much bigger scale.
SPEAKER_01I I very much agree. I mean, I couldn't tell you how frequently I use Gemini before Gemini 3 released. It was very infrequent. I was much more heavily leaned into Chat GBT and Claude. Um, I find Claude to be exceptionally powerful for uh anything that involves you know any type of math or or analytics. Um, it's also much more data secure. Uh so I'm I'm a big Claude fan for those reasons. But when Gemini 3 came out, it really killed my usage of Chat GBT. I still use it fairly frequently, um, but Gemini 3 tends to have uh better answers that hallucinates less often, and I'm able to guide it to do more data analysis. I mean, we could have an entire conversation and get the right information online. We could have a whole conversation about you know the the falsehoods of AI today and where it still struggles um and how users need to use it, because I think that's also you know a very scary thing is the fact that today AI, very similar to when you people search things on Google and there's always been that expression for the last 15 years, don't believe everything you see on the internet. That could not be more true of AI. And the problem is that people trust AI because supposedly it's searching the web for you, it's doing the work for you. And so you believe what it's telling you. But as advertising gets into AI, as you start to see ads, particularly in the retail media space than AI, all of a sudden what's being suggested to you could be a paid placement, it could just be a partnership. AI has a uh that particular company, Gemini or ChatGBT, have a greater relationship with those particular retailers or those websites. And so you start to really have to have this fine time line of is what's being provided to me really the best option if I'm looking for a product, or am I just being given the options that the AI recommends? You can avoid it. You can prompt properly to get what you want, but a lot of users don't know that. They just take for granted exactly what's given to them at face value. And I think that's where for me, Google has done a better job of giving you a face value uh proposition that is more factual than Chat GBP has, and that's why I'm I'm very um bullish on what Google's doing right now with Gemini.
CES, NRF, And AI Momentum
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think the the wave of advertising is coming for sure in this space. I have no doubt in my mind. I s I recently saw an article about Walmart uh testing sponsored prompts within their uh their chat, their Sparky, uh, their Sparky chat interface uh as well as they're doing some testing there. So you know, I think there's a lot of work being done to try to figure out what is the right uh advertising uh format and uh something that's not necessarily going to uh be super uh I don't want to say disruptive because every all advertising should be disruptive, but disruptive to the shopper experience, right? So you know, not necessarily make it feel like sewing your face. You know, I think that's gonna be important um through that process uh as well. So I imagine AI is gonna be part of this answer, but what are some of the things you think about for the year ahead with retail media and and what we can can expect expect? I think again, I think I just touched on a couple of things, but you know, what are what are some of your thoughts on you know where things go with uh with AI and retail or just retail media in general? Yeah. It's a great question.
SPEAKER_01Um, I think some of the the exciting ones that I think will make an impact uh this year, um, and it's not just you know spoken mirrors or or um you know clout uh is going to be Agenic Commerce in the way it is utilized. I think we'll start to see a lot more consumer buying directly through the platform and much better articulation from the AI to help guide the consumer to make their purchase. Um, I also think that what we're gonna see a lot more of is the integration of uh AI agents into agencies and brands. I think that that, frankly, I think that's the big one that's gonna happen most this year is that Agenic Commerce is just gonna continue to evolve from where it was. It's evolving rapidly, and but it was already in this state, uh call it Q4 of last year, it was starting to move in this direction more aggressively. That trajectory will continue. We'll see advertising come in. I do think when advertising comes in, there's gonna be a massive conversation about um user privacy, data security. Uh right now, I personally wouldn't advertise on an LLM. Um, if I even if I had the opportunity, maybe within a closed-door one like Sparky or Rufus, outside of that, I would be very careful about that if I were a brand, because the the data security that needs to exist really doesn't today. Um and I would be, I personally would be very nervous about that. So I think where you're gonna see more of it this year as they work through some of those um idiosyncrasies, which I think will take some time and we'll start to really see that rise in 2027. This year I think it's gonna be agencies and brands taking AI technology in and starting to actually utilize it. So many brands I speak to um often tell me we haven't really started to bring in AI yet. We leverage blank blank brand uh technology provider and they have an AI tool we use. Or some of the other ones, and these are the ones that have a lot of work to do, have stipulations that their team members can't even use AI. They cannot access a Chat GBT or a Gemini or an internal tool set that's been developed. So I think agents are gonna become much more consistent where instead of just having a conversation, you're gonna see actual AI agents that perform the automation for you perform the task. And that's gonna be something that's gonna be much more seen and consistently utilized throughout each and every brand and agency provider that we see in the space. There's also gonna be a lot of consolidation. There's, you know, what 70,000 AI startups that exist right now in some capacity. And I think that you're gonna see a lot of these AI agents, of course, many of them in these companies will fail, but I also think a lot of these companies are gonna get gobbled up this year, and you're gonna see a lot of integration because so many different users are creating different tool sets with such a powerful baseline. And so you're going to see many agencies, many brands say, Why would I rebuild this? This has just been built, it's amazing, it's excellent, and they're gonna purchase that and bring that in. So I think a lot of consolidation and acquisition is gonna occur this year.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, to your point about you know brand use with with AI, I as I was in a conversation just yesterday with a brand and we were talking uh talking to them about their AI usage, and they said, Well, we have co-pilot, and that's their that is their AI uh their AI solution. They're not using AI in any other way. They have co-pilot. Um when I had access to copilot, and I don't use copilot nearly as as much as any of the other platforms, but it always, especially in the enterprise case, always seemed very watered down and very difficult to truly get productive with it. Um but here's the thing though as soon as you go to your home computer, you can use whatever you want. So I I do think there's gonna have to be some I don't want to say a reckoning necessarily, but there's gonna have to be something that's gonna happen where you know, and I'm not trust me, anybody that's watching or listening, I am not advocating that you take your work information and you put it on your home computer and use AI against your company's policy. So just want to get that clear. But with AI being so, so much a part of it's in your it's in your phone or will be in your phone if it's not there already, it's in your it's in your home life. Like it's gonna be hard not to have AI involved in whatever work you're doing in some way, shape, or form in the in the year to year to come. So I do think brands are gonna have to figure that part out and make those tools a little bit more accessible and then also provide the right type of training to go from a level one user to just get them to a level two user. Everybody is pretty much, you know, everybody I talk to, 90% or more of marketers are that level one where they're just, you know, they have a uh they put in a single prompt and they get a single response, and you know, maybe they go back and forth a little bit and then that's it. They don't, you know, that that's that's the end. So I do think that there's uh a huge opportunity, uh huge opportunity in that space.
SPEAKER_01Could not agree more. I think one of the things that I think is really pro that you mentioned that I just wanted to hit on real fast, um, that I think is very pertinent is the the the the take-homing of a of a of work and then using a separate laptop. You know, you joked and you were very clear. Not recommending that.
SPEAKER_00Not recommending disclaimer here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, could not agree with that more, but brands need to realize it's happening. They they are pulling wool over their own eyes if they think that their team members aren't doing that because it makes their lives easier. Brands are much more um future forward, and frankly, they create better data security if they create their own in-house LLM arena and ability to use their own, uh use LLMs within their technology or within their security parameters, than to just poo-poo the whole thing and create restrictions and unability. Because what's gonna naturally happen is you are going to have team members that take it home. And then you create liabilities that are much harder to deal with because these liabilities are now adjacent from your actual work.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. So we'll see what happens there. It'll be very, very, very interesting. I'm glad I work for an AI company where I don't have to worry about that. Mean too. All right, let's let's uh let's touch on measurement, right? We've referred to to it a couple of times. It's always usually the you know, that in and agentic shopping, AI shopping is always a a big conversation on this podcast, but measurement has become one as well. I'd love to hear a little bit about your philosophy with with measurement. You know, as as I've talked about a lot, you know, the The measurement story really has become one that is very data focused, very performance-oriented type of measurement. And not all channels within the retail media uh ecosystem are as easily measured as you would have with, you know, let's say a sponsored placement with uh in inside of an Ingrid on a on a search, right? On Walmart.com or Amazon or Target or whomever, right? And so I think everybody's fall had fallen in love with that measurement of that that direct last click attribution during, honestly, during COVID, right? When everybody was locked down, e-commerce blew up, right? Everybody and everybody got high on that, on that, on that measurement. Well, then the expectation is, well, if it's retail media, they all should be able to be measured that way. Not such the case in some of the channels, and we've talked about that, but I'd love to hear like what your philosophy is on measurement and how you've had those conversations with you know brands that you've you've worked with. Yeah. Um, it's a really good question and a very complicated answer.
SPEAKER_01Because I don't think it's the right answer.
SPEAKER_00That's a very complicated question.
Agentic Commerce And LLMs
SPEAKER_01Sorry. Um, to me, I think that when you when you look at measurement, one of the biggest things you need to look at is what are you actually trying to achieve first and foremost? What is your goal? And so many brands don't actually know what their goal is. They will say, Oh, well, I'm trying to bring in more loyalty, I'm trying to build household penetration. Um, I want to increase my market share. And then you say, Okay, so that's your goal. What are you what are you measuring against? Sales. Sales of the retailer. My answer immediately is, well, you're not going to ever get a clear measurement story. You're you're you're looking at two very unique data streams and you're trying to connect them together and say this indicates X, X indicates Y, right? And they don't. They don't intrinsically play together. You then have to just make this even muddier by layering in the fact that most brands, especially large brands, still leverage very, very old and archaic MMM modeling. And while it has um evolved in a lot of different ways, many brands have created their own MML MMM models that um are evolved to layer in e-commerce insights, things of that nature, and those data sets that didn't exist before, as you mentioned, it's not a perfect science. And unfortunately, that means that there are multiple different ways to measure today and multiple different uh viewpoints on what the right measurement is, but none of them really tell the whole story. To me, the best way you can measure is still a very classical approach. You need to take all your potential uh impactors to what would drive your growth, your KPI that you're looking for, and you need to then marry it across your your overall sales and then your channel sales. And you need to view each of those uniquely and individually, but then look at them at the holistic level and be able to actually see the trajectory change of your total sales volume, your unit volume, your market share, whatever KPI you're looking at, based on all of those different factors and those impactors. I think today nobody really does that. They look at them all siloed, they try to use AMC. Like AMC is so powerful and it's so impressive, and I love the tool. But AMC is not a solvable. A lot of agencies, a lot of brands claim it is, they act like it is. It's it's it's a very, very powerful.
SPEAKER_00They want it to be the answer, right? Because they want it to be the answer everyone wants, right?
SPEAKER_01There is no answer. There's never gonna be an answer to measurement. The day that measurement is fully solved, and we're we did it, it's solved, we figured it out, is the day that you and I don't have jobs anymore. It's not gonna happen. Not in our lifetime. It will always be a very subjective conversation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think one of the biggest work when I think about measurement and one of the challenges with measurement, I think one of the biggest, biggest challenges is the word and. I want to measure this and I want to measure that. Or I or my objective, even worse. Like our my objective is this and this and that, and this other thing, right? So you've got three or four things you're conjoining together and expecting to be able to show some sort of relationship that drove the you know, the outcome that you are expecting. And you know, the more ands you add to your whatever you are trying to achieve, the more difficult it will be to measure, right? So and but it's hard, right? Because you want to try to restrict re reduce that. You want to make it a a much more of a finite um measurement strategy, and it it's it's it's hard, right? Because I get it, like of course you want new new new brand, of course you want more, you know, uh sales, of course you want to build awareness, right? But all of those things, to your point, aren't all measured the same way. They uh have different ways in which you accomplish them. And so if you are looking at it as a holistic objective or a holistic goal, you're you know, you're probably not going to fully be satisfied with what you are being told at the end of the at the end of a campaign.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I think you you really hit something hard with the the end uh of it all. You you're so right that oftentimes the the goals conflict so heavily with one another when you say end and end and end that they you no longer have a clear strategy. I mean, we could again we could tangent so hard on this, but I'll keep it very short and sweet. The one of the major conversation factors coming out of CES, going back to our original topic here, uh, is the collapsing of the marketing funnel and that you you now CTV can be more of a conversion play. And I personally have a have a bit of a gripe with that. Um, because while I think that that is true, you create more capability with some of your other advertising tactics, and you now have multiple avenues for the consumer to go. So instead of having to go a singular approach, you can take tangential approaches to the funnel now. I don't think that means the funnel's collapsing. I think you're you're being far too um over overly broad when you say that. And I think it confuses brands because a very myopic point of view, for sure. Exactly. Many brands to what you just said earlier, you know, they all they're only so deep into this. And so when they read these things online, they read these things in articles, they see it in announced in CES, they see um you know so-called experts on LinkedIn claiming these things as well, you know, it's it's frustrating for me because it's it's confusing brands and it only creates more of this silo issue we started this conversation with. So to me, I I think one of the biggest takeaways I would want to say just very rapidly uh to anyone listening to me, in my opinions here right now, is don't believe that hype of the collapsing marketing funnel. Instead, it's think of it as a marketing funnel that now has tangential ways to hit the conversion space of the funnel, the bottom of the funnel, without having to go through the entire thing. Doesn't mean it's collapsing, it just means that there's now alternate avenues. I think that's a better way to think about it because when you think about it that way, you realize you still need to have a very clear and structured marketing strategy, but you now have opportunities and options at your disposal to create alternate avenues to get your consumer to get to the bottom of that funnel.
SPEAKER_00By putting a by putting a QR code on your connected TV ad does not make it a conversion tactic. Correct. Or being able to click on it and it takes you to Instacody, you know, depending on the system you're using, whether it's got a button or not. It it is still an awareness tactic. You're still trying to tell a story, you're still trying to build your per brand, you are still trying to educate on your product, right? Yes, you are providing an opportunity for if if somebody is ready to purchase, yes, you are opening up that opportunity for that that transaction to take place. But they also still have to be very motivated to do that. So you have to have done a lot of work before they get to that step. Very rarely in you know, in the worlds that we work in in CPG and some of the other in some of the brands that is somebody that motivated to stop stop that ad, mid-ad, for laundry detergent. Scan, oh yeah, I need I need to get that laundry detergent now and scan that QR code. Now I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I contend it's probably a bunch of marketers that are that are doing it. But you know, you know what I'm saying? It's still like I think your your influence on sales from that connected TV ad is going to be well beyond and it's a multi-channel story, as we've talked about before. The number of scans you get on that QR code and the number of ad-to-cards. Correct.
SPEAKER_01And I think that that's the exactly what you said is just nail on the head is for the the takeaway is don't change your KPIs. We go back to measurement. Your measurements for these types of ads should never be how many people scanned that QR code or clicked that buy button because you immediately put yourself in a position of failure.
Measurement Myths And Reality
SPEAKER_00Again, it's it's it's a great place to tell your story. Um and you know, there's definitely a place for that to occur. Um but just because you can add a cart directly from it doesn't necessarily mean it's a conversion, uh it's a conversion tactic. So um, all right, so let's we're we're we gotta move on, but uh good good conversation. So let's let's let's play the magic wand game for a second, right? So we've talked about a lot of stuff in in the retail media space. I love the magic wand game because there's no reality. So the magic wand game is if you could wave a magic wand and fix you know systematic issue with retail media today, what would you what what what would you what would your wish be? You got one wish, Toby. You got one wave of the wand. What would you try to what would you try to fix?
SPEAKER_01It's a tough question because there's so many things to fix. You could say measurement, right? But uh for me, I think it would be I think it would probably be um the walled gardens. If I could fix something, there's so many I would want to fix, but if I could just wave a magic rond and it would be the most impactful for everybody, it would be removing walled gardens from different uh agency and retailer landscapes and allowing data, uh user data to me to be more um uh adaptable and available to to brands and to advertisers to leverage. Um because today I think those walled gardens, frankly, create a lot of the siloed issues that we talked about throughout our conversation, and they are the the nexus point of it. And so if we could remove that, you you often solve a lot of the other problems that my magic wand would want to solve. But if I solve this one, I'm arguably solving a few of the others.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that absolutely love that. Love that because it feels like it has an opportunity to be, you know, a much broader opportunity to you know fix some of these challenges that we've hit on, uh hit on today. Um, all right, cool. All right, let's so retail media vibes is really, you know, part of part of this this programming has been based upon the human side of of what we do on the day-to-day basis. And you know, you've been in the space a long time, you've been a manager and a leader, I've been in the space a long time, I've been a manager and leader. We've seen kind of the how things have evolved over our tenures um in our respective uh roles and companies that we've we've worked at. Um and you know, for me, you know, one of the challenges that I've uh I've seen is just like the expansion of retail media and amount the amount of work and and and grind that I think a lot of a lot of people experience um in this space. Like the the pressure in retail media, I mean I would say media marketing in general that that exists, but I think the retail media it ratchets it up a bit because you have typically so many different retailers. We've talked about so many different you know channels. You have pressures on the retailer side, you have pressures on the on the brand side, and I think you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of overwhelm that exists, I think, you know, in in in this space. And you know, I talked to a lot of people who are either on the brink of burnout or they've or or they have in the past and you know trying to get back into it or have left the industry in general, right? And you know, that's not great for us. Like having people who are well experienced and they're leaving this this this world of of retail media makes it tough because there's there's all this world is expansive, expanding. Retail media is continuing to expand. So my you know, my question to you is like in in this world where there is all this pressure around retail media, um, you know, what your experiences have have been and you know when how have you advised people who have worked worked with you um or worked for you on how to handle some of the the pressures from the speed of retail?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a it's a really good question. You know, one of my um one of my favorite parts about the job is is being a mentor and helping train individuals. You know, I I was very lucky that I had a lot of good mentors um throughout my career. And what I try to tell anybody, whether they be someone directly under me and on my team, or um, you know, someone in the space that I know, or even don't that when they just reach out and want to talk, is it's almost like being a doctor at this point. And I know that's such a weird comparison point because we're not saving lives. We certainly are not. But what we are doing remind my team of that quite often. But what we do have to do constantly is keep up with it. If you're a doctor and you don't keep up with medical releases, medical journals, etc., in five years, you won't even be able to keep your license. You will you will you will lose it. You will lose your ability to practice medicine because it evolves so rapidly. And I would say that that's very similar to to advertising, unfortunately, for us in the digital space, is that you have to stay on top of it, or you will become outdated very quickly. And that's hard. It's really hard, especially because when you think about if you're a social commerce advertiser, you have a very myopic focus, it's social. It is whether it be the content creation side, the influencer side, the marketing side, it's it's social, right? Same thing with national media. It's it's consistently been the same thing for years. While it's evolving, what you can do with national media, the concept is the same. You are working within it. Retail media is this weird spider web. It now touches everything. It needs to play nice with national, it needs to play nice with social. Social needs to be able to drive to retailers where you need to have your retail media ready to capture that consumer when they get there. So all of a sudden, if you work in the retail media space, you have to kind of know it all and do it all, at least lightly, or you're going to fail. And that makes it undeniably difficult. And so for anybody out there who's in that position, it's all about taking a step back and saying, I am a human, I can only do so much. My job is to be the smartest I possibly can be at this and focus on the retail media aspects and make sure I understand the greater ecosystem. But I don't need to be an expert in it, I just need to understand it. How do they all play together? For leaders in the agency space and in the brand space who have these people on their teams and have, of course, high expectations. It's remembering again that they are human and that you need to create automation processes. You need to use this is where AI is going to be the most helpful, in my opinion, in this year, is going to be how can AI help retail media in particular and e-commerce be able to become much more of a systemized process and speak to the other avenues of advertising, social, national, etc., out of home and be able to do that in a more automated fashion so that your team members, your strategists can focus on what really matters, which is how do these marry together? What is my strategy for retail media? And how do I communicate that appropriately, but in a more automated approach with my peers? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. For me, you know, for me, you know, um, you know, with the individuals that I've I've worked with, you know, it's about for me, it's about been about empathy, um, you know, having having uh an empathetic conversation with them, under trying to understand what their struggles are and trying to, you know, to do the best you can in order to to to solve those those you know challenges. And I think that's you know, that's sometimes that's that's helpful, right? But at the end of the day, too, it's also, you know, you have to figure out ways to to take action. I do think, you know, not to say that AI is the answer for everything, but I do think that um AI can definitely help with reduction of the mental load to give you more space to do you know other things or think deeply or continue to research. So I I do think there's some some opportunity to reduce the uh the overwhelm with AI, and I think that's you know what a lot of people are are actually you know hoping for and looking for in the promise of of a of the AI to come for sure. So good good stuff. I appreciate you chase you sharing your your uh your perspective on on that.
SPEAKER_01So of course, yeah, and I and I couldn't agree with you more. I think any the anyone who's like scared of AI, it's it's right to be a little fearful of it, but I do think that it will naturally actually help our jobs be easier as advertisers and as marketers, uh, versus replacing you. I I think it would it could arguably replace more of the transactional lever pulling, but that doesn't replace the human, it just upscales the human into a different role.
Funnel “Collapse” And CTV Truths
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yep, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. So appreciate you sharing your thoughts and your opinions. Uh love, love all the answers. Um, and I'm sure our audience has as well. So we're gonna get into bold vibes, which is you know one of the ways we like to kind of conclude here on retail media vibes. So we're gonna talk, we're gonna do bold vibes. So, Toby, I know you haven't played bold vibes before, but uh basically this is how it goes. I'm gonna throw out some bold statements about retail media, some marketing, and just some other stuff as well. You're gonna have to give me your gut reaction to these statements. I have eight statements today. Um, I want you know, just quick answers, uh, no overthinking, just like what do you what are your thoughts? All right. Okay. All right. Are you ready? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. All right. First one the CD AOL used to get people to sign up for internet was the best marketing ever. Agree. Agree. All right. CES is the best conference for the retail media industry because of timing, location, and attendees.
SPEAKER_01I disagree. I hate that it's the beginning of the year.
SPEAKER_00Chat GPT will be more popular for new product discovery than TikTok. Ooh. Uh I disagree. LLMs will make more money from affiliate fees than from advertising this year. Agree. More retail media networks will be shut down than are created this year. Uh agree. Unfortunately, I agree with that. Man, I'm bringing the heat. I'm telling you. All right. AI-generated ads will become more prevalent and no one will care.
SPEAKER_01Also agree. Yeah, I think people will care in the beginning. I think within a year and no one won't give a crap.
SPEAKER_00All right. AI will have a bigger financial impact for retailers in the supply chain than retail media.
SPEAKER_01I also uh agree with that. Very much agree.
SPEAKER_00And finally, the last one retail media vibes will be nominated for a golden globe this this coming season. Oh, 100%. Easiest, easiest question of the bunch. Easiest question. Good job. Uh appreciate you going through bold vibes with me, Toby. I appreciate that. So, all right, we are uh I'm at the wrap for uh this episode of Retail Media Vibes. I want to a huge thanks to Toby for uh jumping on and chatting it up with me today. So, how was it, Toby? How'd you meet me?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, fantastic. I really appreciate you having me on. Love this type of conversation and uh always happy to have more.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. So anything you want to shout out or plug before uh we wrap today?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. Um, main thing I would I would love to shout out is just uh you'll be seeing some news uh on LinkedIn here in the coming weeks. Um, but uh I am actually launching uh my own consultancy practice, which has officially kicked off um, you know, kind of a more dark mode for the last few months. But we'll see McLean Advisory um will be uh my consulting practice that I'll be helping brands and agencies better understand the landscape, um, how to be able to support the their clients or for brands how to be able to better structure yourselves and have the right agency partnerships. Um so looking forward to being able to help brands and agencies be able to really accelerate in this age of agenic commerce and what is a rapidly evolving landscape.
SPEAKER_00Awesome, awesome. So thanks for listening, and as always, I promise to do better next time. BV outfit, I think.