Instacart's Ali Miller and Tim Castelli - Live from Cannes Lions 2026

0:00Brand marketing has one plan. Key account managers have another. The field team is doing something else entirely. Sound familiar? Our sponsor, Salesforce, can help. You can't win at the shelf if your internal systems are fighting each other. With Consumer Goods Cloud, you finally connect trade promotions, retail execution, marketing, and service. Everyone, including your AI agents, is working off the exact same data. And the best part? No massive IT headache. Keep your ERP. Keep your data where it is. Keep working in Teams, Claude, or Salesforce. Drive growth from warehouse to checkout with Salesforce at salesforce.com slash consumer goods.

0:51That's salesforce.com slash consumer goods. Hello from Ken. I'm Allie Miller, the general manager of advertising at Instacart. And I'm Tim Castelli, VP of Global Advertising, and we're with the CPG Guys. Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys podcast set at the intersection of commerce and tech. Your hosts, Sri Raja Goplin and Peter Villaspan, explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in a digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys. Hello and welcome to this episode of the CPG Guys podcast. Of course, Sri, your vice-coast co-host, and also CEO and co-founder of Think New Consulting.

1:33You have trusted partner on your Omnichannel journey. You can get in touch with me at Sri at ThinkNewConsulting.co. So please do listen to my younger daughter, Laura. I'm the main cat's side. Over now, I'm the full tour in the fall of Europe and U.S. This time it's arenas. So I hope you're able to get a ticket indeed. And I'm joined today by my East Coast co-host and co-founder, Mr. PVSP, who also moonlights his head at industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the Commerce Acceleration Division of Omnicom. Peter, here in France, we're hosting breakfast, lunch, dinners, happy hours, panels, so much more, parties, whatnot.

2:07but this is a fun one we're getting ready to do here. And it's in AC. I know. I like the climate control finish. I'm a little upset because you talk about this concert tour and I can't get a ticket, Sri. What good are you to me if I can't get a ticket? Live nation. I know. You know, it's fun. I am having a good time, Sri. I got here yesterday. You put me right to work. I was like stocking the wonderful Coleman Snap and Go coolers that they sent us to display at the CBG guys, La Residence. And we host it. We have a student event. We get tomorrow. Tonight, we've got a happy hour. Tomorrow, we've got a whole slew of schedules coming together.

2:44It finishes off. We're going to do a little happy hour with the Women in Commerce Media, one of our favorite groups with Ana, Laura, and Emma. But all's good here. It's great to be in Cannes for our, I think this is our fourth time together. Indeed. So let me thank all our listeners and our sponsors. Without you, this podcast doesn't exist, of course. Thank you. Make sure you're subscribing to our podcast. on your preferred listening platform, we can get our latest episodes and go back and consume some of the 600 plus episodes we've already published. Episode 600, of course, was Tony Rogers, the CMO of Dollar General.

3:18We had full C-suite lineup to it, including$5.99, which is the CEO of Noel Grant, Chris Peterson himself with a fabulous conversation on AI. So we'll jump into our conversation with our guests, Ali and Tim. I don't know who they are, so we're going to get introduced. But let me say something. having the dynamic executive engine of instacart live at their beachfront studio had to lay much how do i say peter limits you got that right yeah that's good caroline is an absolute blockbuster event peter pull up a deck chair fire up your analytical brain are we on blow down are we are we doing are we doing some bravo tv here You know what?

4:04Next year we should shoot for that. We should do that. Yeah. We should make a move. Full blow-down. I think we need to bring that whole flavor to Cornelbus. I'm not sure. It would fit right in. Up in upstate New York. So no pulling up your deck chair. But you can fire up your analytical brain. Because today we're looking at how Blackphone went from a digital picker app to the economic substrate of modern omni-channel grocery cards. You like my English, Peter? You brought the grammar today, Shreem, probably. Quite grandelic one, I'm going to say. Instacart. There's a massive transformation happening right now where retail media, programmatic personalization, immediate fulfillment are colliding into a single unified loop.

4:52Marketers here at Cannes are just trying to figure out how to buy ad impressions or cheap reach. They're trying to figure out how to anchor their brand strategy and dynamic marketplace that's moving at the speed of the shopper with all the volatility we have in the industry. But to help us cut through the noise and find the true commercial signal, we're joined live at the La Residence of Instacart by two absolute heavy hitters who actively apologize to the audience. Oh my gosh, Sri. That's right.

5:24So, Sri, I think there may be some highlights in the transcript. Yeah, right. It's like great violence. Post captions? Post captions. No, but in French, it works at Instacart. Instacart. Yeah. It's like I got it. Right. Okay. So I almost cut through the noise and find the true commercial scenario, but join live by two heavy hitters who are actively architecting future of retail media and advertising in general. She's the general manager of advertising at Instacart, Ali Miller, second time on the show. Yes. And he's the vice president of global advertising sales. Finally, we got Mr. Castelli himself.

6:03Welcome to the CPG guys. Live here, Ken. How are you both doing? Doing great. Doing great. Thanks for having us back. Two in the bag. Three more. You get the jacket. Oh, hey. I cannot wait. So yesterday we were doing an event with eMarketer and Sarah Marzano, who had been on our podcast earlier this year, came on. She goes, by the way, I'm doing four panels today. That gets me my jacket. Oh, yeah. I didn't think about that. Although it's not the last thing we need. Actually, Sarah was very explicit. She's the first person who came to us and said, I like it, but I want my varsity jacket in satin.

6:37Oh, I like that. She's insisted when the jacket goes to her. I do have to say, though, this is my second time as well. We did this one together. You know what? I was supposed to say that both repeat guests. We don't want to see how it is. We had one RMM and the girl came on and said, She said, where's my jacket? And I said, well, you've only been on 24. She said, well, no, I had the three people from my company. I was like, no, no, no. That doesn't change. You don't get to count. I don't go anywhere with that alley. Yeah, exactly. Wherever the box is whatever, we're going to go through it. You're going to sit in a moment and be loud.

7:14Wow. That's a mess. What is the crew? What crew are over there? I guess what we do, I think I may have to do an area. Here she'll throw it. Try the veal. See, the problem is, look, it didn't come through here. That was great. Wait, you're a karaoke singer? She can bring it in. I chose a double. There's no talent here. That's a whole other conversation. That'll be a different podcast. I know nothing about music. Thank you for making time live here and what's arguably a busy, busy schedule for all of us. Yeah, thank you. Before we jump into the hardening strategy, a quick reminder to the audience, check out the digital show notes of this episode.

7:53We've dropped the LinkedIn hyperlinks for Ali and Tim Along with Instagram and Instagram platform links So you can multitask while you're listening By the way, while you're there on Apple or Spotify Peter insists that you must hit the five story Smash the five Like and subscribe Smash the five That's crazy, that's a t-shirt I like that number Smash the five, quote unquote Five for fighting So Ali, we're going to kick it off with you Okay Massive macro trends. That's what I'm going to go straight out. We read Nick Modi from the latest RBC Capital Report, Modi's Musings Volume 4. Theme number one.

8:32It's out of traffic, by the way. Okay, so we're in the chat. Borderline center. Hashtag goals. Okay. Hashtag goals. Ooh, hashtag goals now. Don't guess the name. Can you still say it? I don't know. So Modi's Musings Volume 4's theme number one. cultural relevance is what's going to help develop brand equity. Meaning scale alone doesn't protect you anymore. You got to turn online platforms into an active economic substrate from identity, transaction flow. How was Instagram evolving its ad tech stack to let legacy CPG giants quickly move at the speed of a viral TikTok trend or cultural moment, turning immediate social media inspiration into a converted grocery basket?

9:16it's something we talk about a lot that the consumer journey of course is no longer this linear path it's a completely collapsed funnel where inspiration is a spider web a spider web oh creepy um where yeah friendly friendly neighborhood friendly neighborhood spider web yeah i'm a little erapophobic so um we'll roll with it though rolling in english language but you know inspiration purchase discovery all these things are kind of happening all at the same time in a spiderweb, non-brapey. And it's something that we've really embraced too. So from the very beginning, we were really focused on building out the foundations of our platform.

9:56And that includes, of course, all the foundations of online grocery itself over 14 years of doing this in this business that Instacart's been around. And, you know, so that's building a strong data foundation. That's building the ability to understand what's happening across what are now 2 ,200 retailers on our marketplace. So understanding that breadth and depth of selection, catalog hierarchies, everything that needs to come together in terms of shaping the purchase journey and shaping the groceries that are actually delivered to your door. That requires a lot of data fidelity and strong data foundations.

10:25And that supported the rise of our initial on-platform ads business. So we needed to make sure we were building those foundations. But now, especially looking at what's happened to e-commerce, it's no longer all about on-platform, right? It's about supporting the use of that powerful first-party data that we have, digital first, representing 2 ,200 retailers, representing this incredible breadth and depth of selection across everyone from your local favorite grocer to some of the largest national and regional grocers, and allowing that to be more of a capability that CPGs can take with them and use to target, to drive purchase, and to drive closed-loop measurement, importantly, really across any surface.

11:07So that includes TikTok, as you mentioned. It includes YouTube, Meta, the Trade Desk, Roku, NBC Universal, so many other places. And what I love about this is that I like to refer to kind of taking this e-commerce data out of its own little corner. It's no longer about just on-platform advertising, one specific stakeholder, one type of person who needs to care about retail media. This is now a layer or capability that can inform all types of advertising and make that experience much more relevant and targeted to the consumer. give them a chance to buy that item, get it delivered to their door, get that product in their hands within an hour.

11:42And it allows the CPG and agency to close the loop and understand the downstream impact of purchase. So I think we're really at this moment where commerce and discovery is really converging and retail media data is making that possible. You can't come to CAN without a press release. So Tim, let's talk about some news you at Instacart have announced that CAN list this week. Let's start with your AI shopping assistant. Yes. What makes Instacart's AI assistant different? You're right. You have to come to Canada with a press release or several press releases. Yeah. I just come up with the father of Pop's.

12:18No, that's true. That's all I got. He always has news. Can you tell me a little bit? Yeah. No, don't worry. Yeah. So it's funny. I think last can, again, was kind of a buzzword. AI was kind of a buzzword. It's still a buzzword, but I think there's real substance this year. I think that was changed. It's like people have actually built real things using AI to add real value to their whole ecosystem, which is what we built and we've been working on in and outs, right? So that's interesting. I don't know about your house, but a common conversation in my household every day is what's for dinner? What are we making?

12:52What's going on? In fact, there was this recent Harris poll, right? Three out of four Americans are more stressed about what's for dinner and more difficult deciding what's for dinner than actual making dinner, right? So that friction is what I think we can really solve uniquely. So this year, we've been working on it for a long time, but we announced Instacart's AI assistant. And I think what makes it different is it's not just a surface-level search agent, what's for dinner, but it's the depth of the machine learning infrastructure and the data behind this. Maybe we've been at this for 14 years, 1.6 billion transactions, over 100 ,000 storefronts.

13:28And that level of data and infrastructure feeding that tool, I mean, it's inventory aware, based on your local retailers. It has all your preferences and its history. It knows what the household and how it shops. So it's that level of detail that I think makes us different. And it learns every transaction, every shopping experience, what they like, what they don't like, what they reject, what they buy. It refines. It's constantly learning, constantly making a better customer experience, which leads to bigger baskets, which leads to better brand experiences. So that's where I think it's the what's underneath these AI tools that feeds it, that makes it different.

14:03I think makes us different. So speaking as the only member of the household who cooks and the primary member of the household grocery shops, I know that while I'm here in Cannes, Instacart is a primary driver of feeding the family. It's great. Well, we're happy to have you here. Thank you for your business. Anything we can do to make you look a little bit easier to order that. What are you doing? I'm ordering it. Exactly right. But as Tim said, I think one of the things, too, that's really helpful about this background and the data and the online grocery capabilities that we have is for brands, this means it's not a blank slate.

14:36It's based on everything that's already driving discovery on Instacart. It's based on our own individual purchase behavior that's shaping recommendations. And it's helping to support these more complex needs and these true underlying needs of consumers to be able to express, hey, I need to figure out a recipe for four that only takes 25 minutes to cook. and satisfies all the dietary restrictions in my family. Oh my God, everyone's got their own lifestyle. That's right. So it can be a real game changer. And being able to do that in a much more easier, more intelligent and seamless way, it's a game changer.

15:09Yeah. So you know what? Now you guys are making me think, because every person we meet in our corporate work life, they always tell us the same thing when we eat food and cooking comes up. They always say Instacart, if they're two working spouses or partners, they always say Instacart is my answer to getting the grocery home. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's the whole thing. It saves you time so you can spend time on the other things that are more important. It's such a convenience. Such as with your pets. Especially if you have a dog. I agree. Absolutely. We also need to eat. We also need to eat.

15:44No debate. So another announcement that you just made is the vertical video feeds. Yes. Tell us all about the vertical video feeds. Yes. Sure, I can take that one. So you mentioned up top the speed of TikTok trends, right? So we're all in our lives when we're not actively grocery shopping, we're browsing and enjoying content. I think the term is doom scroll. But not for food and recipe. It's got 20. I was talking about when they're not doing that. They're on other social media. This is what we call cleansing the feet. Yeah, exactly.

16:28vertical video feed so yes when you when you need to take a break from the doom scrolling and you want to consume amazing inspirational recipe and grocery related content what form does that tend to take vertical video and so that idea of kind of inspirational snackable video can now appear on instacart so we have this beautiful immersive feed that is really building on some of the more inspiration forward formats that we've launched over the last year or so so sponsored recipes sponsored occasions now you can create that inspirational shoppable content to kind of inspire outside of the aisle and kind of shape that intent of what folks might be interested in discovering and buying and now you can pair that with vertical video so when you look to engage with brands on that mechanism do you want them to come to you with a fully baked plan they you know, your ad product and just do this?

17:15Or are you actually looking at them and saying, no, come to us with what your problem is and let's figure out how we solve that together. All of the above, I would say. Excuse me, we definitely want to be flexible in terms of what brands want to come in the door with. We're very excited about collaborating on big moments. So you can maybe share more about that. But if there is already a vision, if there is already fantastic discovery-oriented content, content that brands are collaborating on with creators, We think that this is an awesome opportunity to bring that to life in a way that's going to resonate with consumers on our platform.

17:49But beyond that, we're also so excited and, you know, being here and celebrating a lot of the marketing and advertising work behind, you know, this entire place. And we're also very excited to bring that to life for, you know, in partnership with brands. Can I say one more thing about the immersive piece? I think what's great about the vertical video in the short form and bringing that, you know, inspiration into the platform. And we've been slowly releasing more inspiration and formats for shopper video and the recipes and occasions, you know, cross-sell merchandising. But the video, if we can start tying inspiration into commerce, inspiration-led commerce.

18:24Because what's so unique about our platform is it's a contextually relevant platform. People come there not only for the content, but they're already in the mindset of looking for food, looking for inspiration, looking for shopping. So the more you can inspire on this platform, it's going to lead to more purchasing for more brands. So I think that's just the next level of tying that into a platform, which brands are super excited about. I'm going to go back to you, actually, just for both of you. As consumers look to collapse choice complexity because of low mental energy, rising anxiety, pricing, the visible shelf is shrinking from 50-plus items down to one or two AI-curated recommendations, and Tim was already going there.

19:03How does this radically compressed digital real estate change how you're thinking about the ad business strategy and join business plans that you have with brands you're aware of? Then you mentioned you're intentionally not running ads and AI experiences yet. Walk us through how you're thinking about the product. Walk us through your everyday conversations with brands. So maybe we'll kick it off with you first. So absolutely. So we talked about obviously so much excitement about AI. We're very much investing. We're all in, you know, internally, in terms of tools and capabilities we're building for brands and other partners to make it easier for them to activate with Instacart behind the scenes to improve ranking and relevance and personalization on top of what we already do with machine learning, which remains very powerful and interesting even in the age of generative AI.

19:52But then we get to, of course, chatbots, chat-based interfaces, conversational commerce, all kinds of names for this experience. And we're so excited to be bringing this to life as Tim mentioned, you know, leveraging that 14 plus years of grocery experience and all of the data and personalization behind that. So there's so much potential here, but we're also really early in terms of how this is taking off in the online grocery space in particular with consumers at scale. So what I'm excited about is consumers have this ability to come to us with more complex needs, with the need behind the grocery list.

20:25I need to figure out what to make for dinner. I need to figure out which personal care products are right for me, whatever it may be. And we have a really powerful way to help drive that kind of research and discovery, recipe, occasion, basket building. But we still need to figure out what's really resonating at scale with consumers. And having been in ads for a long time, both of us, it's how do you make sure that ads are resonating with consumers? Will you build them on top of a consumer experience that you understand? And so this early stage of rolling out and expanding our AI assistant on Instacart to millions of consumers, we're going to be getting so much fantastic feedback.

21:03So feedback at scale on what consumers are actually asking when they come back, when they don't come back, what are they finding value in, in addition to qualitative feedback that we hear. And so that's going to really set the foundation for ads experiences that feel natural, that feel useful, that feel additive, and will actually add value to consumers and brands alike. And so that's really what we're looking forward to is, you know, towards the second half of this year, we'll be building experimentation. We'll be looking at what resonates and we'll be using that to kind of develop our ad strategy in these new surfaces.

21:37So I know we will get there and, you know, we're already building these inspirational ad formats. We have sponsored recipes. We have great basket building content. We have promotions and deals that brands are leaning into. These are things that I expect will resonate with consumers in a sponsored context when they're using our AI assistant, but we want to make sure that it's really ready to start rolling that out. So that's really how we're thinking about it. Like Ali said, through the IATA part, when you're sitting in GMP, well, no, like Ali said, well, like if anybody has been sitting here and we were podcasting, they've got this figured out on the AI experience, I think they're lying.

22:17So, because like, the worst thing... I think her is optimistic. Well, I'm sorry, optimistic, yeah. Maybe a little naive, right? Yeah, we got a couple.

22:27So, look, one of the things I love about working here is it's a very consumer-led company, right? It always has been. Even from the way we look at the marketplace, we don't care where our consumers shop as long as they're buying our brands in whatever channel they're buying, right? And the consumer has to lead the way that's how you build a durable platform, a durable company, a durable proposition. If you just jump to assumptions that the advertising is going to interact and consumers are going interact with ads in the same way, the way we've been doing it, that may not be the right assumption.

22:55So we're going to learn, we're going to just along the way, we'll let the consumer lead the way. What is the right experience? And then integrate an organic brand experience into that, because that's going to be good for all. So brands accept that. They don't want us to jump too far. They're patient with us. And we'll bring them along for the journey with us as well, which will be great. That test and learn mentality is going to be really key for literally everybody working in this ecosystem right now. So let's double click on the immersive feed component. and it feels like to some degree it's been a bit of a direct response to how people are actually engaging in social media, right?

23:29So I guess my question is how do you make sure that the experience feels additive and not just another ad unit? And does this foreshadow more to come with media publishers and creators from your perspective? Yeah. I mean, I think I'll check and then we'll add on to it. So I think consumers are used to scrolling or getting inspiration from different places in their feeds and video, et cetera. All we're doing is, again, try to compress that from inspiration to transaction and make that easier and seamless. So I think we're going to learn here as well. So we're piloting it right now. Can we make that inspiration in a contextually relevant place, and it's shoppable, and it's instantly measurable?

24:12I'm excited to work with brands to see, okay, which content is actually driving the behavior that they think it's driving, which one is purchasing, which one is then adding to lifetime value. We're guessing a lot of that by trying to connect different platforms. Here in one place, if you can look at that different content and follow it all the way through, I think we're going to learn a lot with brands along the way. Absolutely. And I'd say, you know, in the context of just making sure we're not adding just another ad unit, I think a lot of this comes into the type of content that we're promoting, what we think will resonate with each individual as a consumer based on past purchases or interest in different categories.

24:48And we really, you know, with every single thing we launch on Instacart, we make sure that we run lots of A-V tests, we understand the impact on the consumer experience, on the brand experience, and really kind of tying it together with the approach we just talked about with our AI assistant. We're really trying to build in the direction of value. And what we see is, of course, vertical video content, especially when you think of recipes and when you think of demonstrations of how to use products. It's so natural and it's so resonant to a consumer. So the ability to just have that information in context and quickly add those items to your cart is going to be really, really simple.

25:20And then when you further look out at where we're doing these integrations with platforms like TikTok and Meta, it helps to really bring that whole story together. This is exactly the behavior that we can help to drive when you are in a more kind of discovery-oriented, inspiration-forward platform, which can also benefit from tying to that purchase and giving the consumer that choice to add something to their cart on Instacart. And now we're kind of bringing that full circle, bringing it back on the platform. I absolutely think that the contextual aspect of it is going to dramatically improve the shopping experience.

25:51I've always said one of the reasons I had historically avoided shopping online for events like Fourth of July was it was spearfishing. I just want to say, I want to throw a party for my friends in the backyard. And I want the platform to come back to me and tell me, maybe ask me a couple questions in return. Yeah. You've got to include people coming to get me, blah, blah, blah. Here's how many people, here's what you need, and the right quantity. That's right. And again, it's that contextual relevance, and it's that mindset of the consumer and the mode they're in while they're there, right? And what they're looking for.

26:28And if you can start using AI to think like you're thinking, you know, holistically, I We just need that or inspire using contextually relevant content, you know, whether the brands bring it, whether we eventually get to create our content and start tying that, all of that just makes it a richer experience and more relevant. Yeah. Ali, are you seeing it play out more where actually in the number of characters that are appearing in your search term are starting to grow as people are getting comfortable with contextually conversing with brands? We've definitely seen some of that. And this, you know, even dates back to some of the conversational search and general AI enhanced search that we were piloting over the last couple of years.

27:02So, you know, we've been at this for a little while, like learning what's resonating with consumers. And definitely, I mean, we've been all trained to have very specific search terms, very narrow search terms that will help us get exactly what we're looking for. But yes, as people get more used to working in conversational interfaces, we're demanding a little bit more of our search engines. And I think as you see that kind of popping up across the industry in grocery or not, or beyond e-commerce, a lot of that can be reflected on our platform. And just to give a shout out to all the non-food CPGs, I think one of the things I love about this sort of occasion-based shopping is, hey, I'm doing a summer grill.

27:39What do I need in addition to the meat and the condiments and the buns and everything? You need your bug spray. You need your lighter fluid. Sunscreen. You know, sunscreen. Exactly. So it's really helpful to kind of tie together this idea of truly authentically useful basket building that helps to kind of touch every part of the aisle. You know, my daughter came to me the other day, and she was from the Northeast when it was sunny outside, and she walked up with a tube of sunscreen and said, Daddy, would you smear me? Smear me. That's really funny. Give me a smear. Yeah, yeah. This one's for you, and it's ads to yours.

28:15Yes. Another press release. Yeah, there we go. Essentially, the way we see it, you're opening up Instacart's own marketing engine. Yes. And partners. Yes. What made you confident enough that that internal capability of yours, you're actually to turn it into a commercial offering? Yeah. So we've been at this for a little bit, right? In fact, Laura Jones, our CMO, is fantastic. She's built an incredible marketing team, an incredible marketing machine. And in fact, our in-house agency, Local Produce, just won at age, number one in-house agency. Right. So best in the last. Unbelievable. Right. So we thought, hey, look, we should be tapping into this creative engine and all of the knowledge we have of our consumers and all of the knowledge of our brands to work together to elevate and accomplish marketing goals as well.

29:07And we've already started doing this. There's about 200 brands. We've done probably about 400 different campaigns. And we see great results. So when brands integrate into our moments, our seasonal moments, we're seeing like 80, 90 % new to brand impressions bringing into the fold. So probably the biggest example of this was two years ago at Super Bowl, where we had all of our brands delivering the groceries as part of our Super Bowl commercials. We leaned hard into a lot of ancillary content with that. So I think it's bringing that expertise to help brands and whether it's we're leaning into our seasonal moments or things we're doing or we're actually creating bespoke creative campaigns, offering that capability.

29:46That's what our brains are looking for. So it's really using us for not just the performance, yes, but the full funnel capabilities and how we can add value. And the great thing too is that all of this is underpinned by this rich first-party data to help inform the full funnel based on what's online, what's off-platform, and all closed-loop measurement to drive performance. So it really is, from a marketer standpoint, and the brands that are really getting us are starting to look at us that way, I think we could be much more than just a lower-fellation. No debate. But let me remind our audience who's speaking with Ali Miller and Tim Castelli from Instacart.

30:20And we're live at Cannes in France. Over to you, Peter. Let's talk about new revenue streams and business models. CBG brands, Tim, are desperately trying to evolve from old school, unit-driven transaction models towards ecosystem-based monetization. with Instacart Kaper cards rolling out, smart screens right into the physical brick and mortar aisles. You guys have built a literal physical digital loop. Yes. Right? How should brands rethink co-created real-time physical store experiences using your connected hardware? We're super excited about what's going on in store with Kaper. So first of all, and you guys know this, like in stores will continue to be, is a massive opportunity, where most of the transactions are as fast as e-commerce is.

31:05Even if people are cutting their cables, and then maybe now I'm watching cable TV the way they used to it. They're still selling. And most people are omnichannel, right? So having a strong offering or finding a way to tie these two worlds together in-store and online is really the beauty of Capra. So we bought this company, invested in CapraCart, and it's on fire right now. We have like 3X deployments. We're in 100 cities across 15 states and growing. and your ability to, you know, develop a relationship, say, you know, bring everything you love about the digital space into that personalization, the physical space, know where that shopper is in store and be delivering an ad or offering.

31:45We're seeing people who use capers, build bigger baskets, spend more time in stores. The retailers like it. Consumers love it. So it's really been a unique part of our offering. And brands love it, too, because now they're starting to look at it. How can you tie physical and online together? And that's just opening up a whole new area of conversations and opportunities. And importantly, it's one of the only in-store touch points where you can fully close the loop on the individual transaction basket. Because you're building the card. Everything else is relevant. You're actually personalized. As Tim said, it really is bringing the best of e-commerce kind of back to where it all started in the aisle.

32:23And look, this video already happens. So Shikama tells us, even if you're exposed to an ad on Instagram but didn't buy, you're showing up 15 % to 20 % increase of buying those products in store, just an exposure. So these things are already happening. It's just how can we get more and more signals to tie them together and more touch points for consumers? Yeah. Multi-touch attribution, you have to understand, is part of the experience. Back to what you said, it's like consumers look at it holistically. We just look at it in silos and budgets of those types. Yeah, it's almost like we can break down those silos together.

32:54Yeah, break down. Look at those. Look at those. So I guess we're starting to deeper dive into the physical aisle, which we would call the ultimate frontier. Ali, we can't be here at Can Alliance without talking about our favorite word, closed loop measurement. That was three words. Maybe one was hyphenated. Hyphenated. That's fair. Close it. We took too much credit way too early for good English. marketers are completely burned out on self-attributed platform metrics oh yeah instacart's value proposition is anchored on receipt level purchase verified deterministic truth so for the brand marketers listening what got in the validation trap what does mathematically clean independent attribution look like over the next few years and then how do you actually enforce it yeah this is so huge for us and we were talking about kind of the incredible rise of course, of e-commerce and online grocery.

33:46And with that came this incredible number of retail media networks and this fragmentation of the space where, to your point, many different attribution methodologies, many different buying interfaces, varying degrees of kind of quality and trust around what those metrics are showing. And so kind of going back to the roots of what Instacart does uniquely well is everything is digital by nature. So not only do we have the receipt, we have the actual basket building details. We have how did a consumer actually build the basket. We have, you know, substitution preferences that they might be expressing to us if a product may not be in stock.

34:23They have, you know, all kinds of, you know, true competitive sets that they're essentially inferring to us based on what they're searching and what they're choosing from. So the level of fidelity that we have on this data is pretty incredible. And so that leads to a really strong measurement foundation. But of course, it's not enough for us to say it. We have really leaned into third-party partnerships and validation and verification. And we were really proud to be one of the first retail media networks that was accredited by the MRC. And so that's a very, very, very, very, very detailed auditing process to make sure that, you know, our core metrics are, you know, validated and trustworthy.

34:59And then as Tim was talking about, you know, we've worked with Sarkana and others to really prove out impact as well. And then the thing that I'm really excited about is that as part of our model of offering our ads technology to retailers or other e-commerce players in the space, we can take that strong foundation of measurement, that optimization that's powered by it, that accreditation and that trust, and we can offer that technology to retailers so they don't need to invest in what it takes to kind of bring all of this online at a level of fidelity and trust and expertise that obviously takes a lot of time and energy and money to build.

35:36And, you know, grocers may not want to invest in all of that end to end, but by working with us through our Caradots partnerships, they can gain access to all of that technology ready to go. And at the same time, we can help to then defragment and kind of simplify this retail media ecosystem by making it easier for brands and agencies to buy through Instacart ads, show up across the 2 ,200 retailers on our marketplace and the over 310 partners that are using our Caradot solutions. We've talked about all these great innovative capabilities, but at the end of the day, Tim, I know you understand this.

36:09If it's not moving volume off the shelf, physical or digital, it's noise. So the question to you is, what's separating the brands that are actually moving the numbers from those that are running the same 20-year-old playbook? Yeah, I think we've talked about this before, right? It's like, you know, so it's a couple of things. And I've always, you know, when I'm relatively new, I've been here about three years, and I was surprised by the silos and the level of the silos that exist in this part, and traditionally in the retail space. But it's here, and channel hit trips here, and partners here. Welcome to the marketing.

36:42Yeah, we were. To the marketing side. Welcome to the marketing side. You're a secret you got now. Exactly. The marketing side is always about an audience, right? You know, versus, you know, and we're an audience first, consumer first platform, right? We didn't exist 14 years ago. We look at it that way. We all look at it in silos. It doesn't matter where he or she buys, it's the chief buys. So I think the best in class where I see organizations are breaking down those silos and looking at it more holistically. It's$1 trying to drive an outcome. So being in the meetings with not only the chief commercial officer, but with the CMO as well, looking at holistically.

37:16And you get enterprise commitment that e-commerce is important. So that's really best in class. So looking across holistically, prioritize it as a priority channel for growth, right? And then this mindset of being willing to test and learn and try the new things. Not everything's going to work, but you have to have that mindset because we're having to figure this all out, like we were talking about in the AI space. So be curious and see what works and then try and scale it from there. And I think that's where you get best in class in this marketplace right now. Tim, what are we going to do, man?

37:47We can no longer call you the media guy. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Proud, proud, proud. Welcome. I feel good to be here. So let me wrap this one up, conversation for both of you. So thank you for the provocative insights, getting into measurement in a pretty deep way in what you're building on the platform. Before we back up and head out back onto a beautiful sunny walk on the crosshead. So this place especially is very notoriously famous for the birthplace of massive landscape shifting partnership announcements. Enterprise platform reveals. Ali, Tim, this is only day two. Day two. So this means, what do you have to start cooking up under the hood for Instagram?

38:32Yeah, of course. You can uniquely share with the CPG Gas community life today. Yeah, let's share that confidentiality. The thing we were just talking about. I mean, I would say, you know what, I'm looking forward to a couple of things. We talked a lot about being sort of early innings, early days on conversational commerce. And so it is no secret, yet we still have a lot to figure out in terms of what the ad experiences are going to be here. And so for me, when I look ahead to the next six months, understanding what's working for consumers, understanding how to meet brands in terms of what they need, that to me is going to be a really exciting next step that we're going to test and learn together.

39:08And then similarly, as we continue to expand this ecosystem approach that we're taking, really looking forward to simplifying the fragmented landscape of retail media. We are not done there. There's definitely going to be more news on the horizon. And so I'm really excited about continuing to expand. Yeah. And like Ali said, I think you'll continue to play that role to simplify this complicated marketplace. We're going to continue to test and learn in the AI space together with brands. And then you'll continue to see us act more like a omni-channel full funnel partner to the CPGs that really get it, really lean in.

39:41and look at us not only just performance, but mid and full funnel using our data to wrap it all together in a closed loop management way. So I think that's the path you'll continue to see us on. He is full retail now. Oh, yeah. But on each now. Yes, yes. I'm still holding him. Not coming over to the store only. Give me time. It's all right. Let me remind the listeners you can find all of our content by simply going to a web browser or typing cpgguys.com as the URL. If you or someone you know of something to contribute to this ongoing discussion with CPGGuys, please reach out to us. Pretty straightforward.

40:20Drop us an email at reachus.cpgguys.com that's R-E-A-C-H-U-S at cpgguys.com to our audience. I want to say thank you for the likes, clicks, comments, direct messages, meeting us at trade shows, coming to our events. Thank you for responding to our DMs. MySpace DMs, that's what you like. MySpace DMs. Thank you for recording episodes with us like we've done today and to our sponsors. Always grateful to you. The show doesn't exist without all of you. You work with us all year. We're grateful to have you as your audience, partners. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Peter, it's been a pleasure doing this with you.

40:54Give me the big takeaway today. They're building a platform that enhances and complements customer experience. They see how consumers are behaving and they are building a platform that makes it very intuitive and very natural for brands to be able to engage consumers. My big takeaway, Tim is plunging into the detail world. He's joined the dark side. Yeah, he's in. Thank you, Peter. It's Dream the Making, guys. Lots of great announcements right here at Cannes. Looking forward to the next few months playing out as well and what you have cooking under the factory. Thank you both, Ali and Tim, for taking time out of your hyper-busy Cannes schedule to drop this masterclass with us live here.

41:39And to our audience, check out the digital show notes, click the hyperlinks, follow Instacart's ongoing ad product rollouts. Thank you guys. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Here we go. That's all we have for you today. See you soon in another episode after the CPD guys. All right.

42:06The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPG Guys LLC or the individual, author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPG Guys LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.

42:42The views expressed by CPT Guys LLC do not represent the views of their employers or the entity they represent. CPT Guys LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we present in this podcast.