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The CPG Guys

7 Oct 2026 · 35m · 16 chapters

Episode artwork

Liquid Death's Benoit Vatere - Brand Disruption in the Agentic Age

In short

Liquid Death’s retail media strategy at Grocery Shop 2026—how to win shelf and dot-com growth using retail media, fandom, and emerging “agent/LLM” shopping interfaces, while handling inventory/out-of-stock and quick-commerce realities.

Guests

Benoit Votard, Chief Media Officer at Liquid Death (digital-native brand; previously discussed “Reach vs Trust Economy” and disruptive marketing). Hosts: Peter (PVSP co-founder; Cornell adjunct) and Sri Raj (Cornell adjunct; also mentions daughter Ria Raj signed by Republic Records/Hybe USA).

Key claims

Retail media spend is now majority (mid-funnel) because consideration near conversion drives trial; Liquid Death focuses on fewer big networks for impact. Fandom helps retailers because it’s an engaged audience that can be directed to specific store availability (e.g., Walmart-only “Scream Soda” LTO). Organic “agent” visibility is uncertain; paid placements in AI/LLM responses are expected to monetize soon. Quick commerce needs “theater” off-platform, fulfillment on-platform. Retail media must bridge off-site to on-site; inventory accuracy remains a gap.

Notable examples

Walmart-only Scream Soda; CTV sports (Super Bowl/Olympics/FIFA/football) for incrementality; out-of-stock ad suppression works on search but not display; Amazon quick delivery example (earbuds in ~21 minutes).

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

1:50

Industry Updates and Personal Anecdotes

Hosts discuss personal experiences and recent announcements in their businesses.

“My older daughter Ria Raj as well, who's now recently signed by Republic Records with Hybe USA, and is plastered all over the New York City subway system as I speak.”
4:00

Podcast Overview and Audience Engagement

Hosts encourage listeners to subscribe and engage with their content.

“And the other one is on digital and e-com.”
5:41

Introduction of Guest Benoit Viter

Introduction of Benoit Viter, discussing his role and the topic of brand disruption.

“This time he's lied from Grocery Shop 2026.”
6:52

Navigating Retail Media and Brand Strategy

Discussion on Liquid Death's approach to retail media and brand positioning.

“To our audience, check out the digital show notes of this episode.”
10:00

Trust Economy and Audience Engagement

Exploring the shift to the trust economy and how it impacts marketing.

“I am pleased to report that the Bond household in Guilford, Connecticut, has a plethora of liquid death energy drinks, including Orange Horror, Murder Mystery, Subliminal Lime, all of them.”
14:00

Building Audience Engagement

Learn how Liquid Death leverages its audience to drive sales.

“So from an off-site perspective, they say, okay, they have a big audience, excited to have them part of what we do.”
15:11

Navigating AI in the Shopping Experience

Discuss the challenges of optimizing brand presence in grocery apps using AI.

“But I want to talk to you about shopping agents showing up inside of the shopping experience for grocers, be it in-app assistance, list filters, reorder predictors.”
17:02

Content Strategy and Brand Perception

Explore Liquid Death's strategy for improving brand perception online.

“is paid in those results, in those prompt response, right?”
18:49

Quick Commerce and Consumer Expectations

Understand the impact of quick commerce on consumer expectations and brand storytelling.

“on our different PDPs to try to reduce the noise around our marketing campaign, but increase the noise about the RTBs of our products.”
21:08

Retail Media for Shelf Space

Learn how retail media functions as both a defensive and offensive tool for brands.

“I did a little bit of FIFA, but I did a lot of football.”
Show all 16 chapters
22:41

Challenges in Media Optimization

Discover the challenges brands face in media optimization and inventory management.

“Today matters much more in grocery than in general retail or general merchandise.”
24:32

Bridging Off-site and On-site Marketing

Examine the gap between off-site and on-site marketing efforts in retail.

“Retail media, most of retail media networks now let me conquest, right?”
28:00

The Current State of Retail Media Networks

Explore the realities and challenges faced by retail media networks and how they need to evolve.

“I mean, they have a lot of smart people in those retail media networks on the tech side now.”
29:00

The Shift Towards Digital Savviness

Discuss the necessity for merchants to embrace digital tools and the implications of e-commerce growth.

“I was very comfortable saying that, and any merchant is welcome to challenge me on that, and they'll have the debate.”
31:05

Integrating Retail Media into Business Strategy

Learn how disruptive brands can leverage retail media to enhance their customer experience.

“Like you look at, let's say, One by One.”
32:21

Takeaways from the Conversation

Summarize key insights from the discussion on leveraging retail media for brand success.

“understanding what retail media networks are and aren't and using them for where they should fit into your media plan.”
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Transcript

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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.

0:50That's salesforce.com slash consumer goods.

1:20Now, here are the CPG Guys.

1:50in that life. My older daughter Ria Raj as well, who's now recently signed by Republic Records with Hybe USA, and is plastered all over the New York City subway system as I speak. I'm joined today by my East Coast co-host and co-founder of PVSP, fellow adjunct professor of business at the SC Johnson School of Business, just like me at Cornell University. Go figure, Sri. You and me, academic types. Who knew? How did that happen, Peter? We're big thinkers, my man. Big thinkers. I'm just thinking to myself, why wasn't I a guest at the Cornell program this year? I don't know. Why? We got to solve that for next year.

2:26Okay. That said, how are you doing, though? I'm good, man. Join Grocery Show? I am. I haven't set foot on the show floor. Don't even know if I have a badge. You have a badge, but you're not going to have the time. I don't even know if we'll get over there. We're doing the badge. Badges. We don't need no stinking badges. But no, it's great tree. We had our kickoff party last night. A lot of great people came. We had dinner. We got another dinner tonight. We're going to the Sphere tomorrow night. Another dinner. That was another dinner. We are. And then you're bugging out right after the Sphere to fly home, and I'm heading out Thursday.

3:03I'm going to Chicago for the present. I have those small clients. You're a busy man, Papa Raj. And no, everything is really good tree. We've got a couple of things happening. We announced earlier today that we've acquired two consumer packaged goods share groups from our dear friend Ken Coogan at Coogan Partners. As Ken is approaching the golden age of his career, he was looking for a couple of guys to take over their digital and shopper marketing share groups. And we were more than happy having participated with his groups over the last 20 years. It was very natural for me. I know you were very excited when we made this announcement and we're going to be running some share groups.

3:44I'll be the first one to admit that I really wanted to do this. It was a big thing. It's also a natural part of our expansion that we participate in important conversations in the industry. So we have two groups, Peter. I'm not going to get into it lengthen this podcast, but just at the high level. One is on shopper marketing and shopper insights. And the other one is on digital and e-com. So much more to come in the following weeks. And we look forward to working with all of you in the industry. But to all of you that listen to us, I want to thank you to our sponsors. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

4:13Without you, this podcast doesn't exist. Make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on your preferred listening platform where you can get our latest episodes, go back and consume some of the 620 plus episodes we've already published. To our audience, if you're getting value from these conversations, we have three quick asks of you. First one, straightforward. You listen to us now, all you got to do is subscribe on the platform you're listening to, whether that's Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever else you get your podcast, just hit that subscribe button. Not that hard. That way you'll never miss an episode.

4:42Second, leave us a rating. Takes a few seconds. Makes an enormous difference in helping other CPG and retail media professionals find us. We build this community one listener at a time. We believe we've earned your trust. If we have, give us a five-star rating. Give us a five. I was trying to be nice. I'm not going to be nice. And no more Mr. Nice Guy, Sri. Give us a five-star rating. Just scroll down and do it. He thinks he's Mr. Five Guys himself since he likes the French fries. So five-star rating. Five-star rating. Five-star rating. Five-star rating. Five guys. I'm a five-star guy. Give me five.

5:15Five-star rating will ensure that we can keep growing. And the third and important one, too, is follow us on LinkedIn. Between episodes, we're, of course, publishing a lot of thought leadership, industry analysis, content you want, finding you where else, or built for CPG and retail communities that you're a part of. Search for us on LinkedIn. Hit follow. Click the link in the digital show notes. That easy. At the end of the day, it's three things. Subscribe, rate, follow, three actions that bring you more of the conversations that matter. Now to our special guest. Benoit Viter returns to the CPG guys.

5:45This time he's lied from Grocery Shop 2026. For round two on what it actually takes to run a disruptive, culturally native brand inside the grocery aisle. Since Cannes, the retail media map has kept shifting. More grocery specific networks. More AI agents standing between shoppers and the shop. More quick commerce delivery windows squeezing when and how a brand gets discovered. This conversation digs into how Liquid Death is navigating all of it without losing its soul. Today, we're bringing back a fan favorite. We get a chance to catch up with Benoit Votard at Cannes Lions. He gave us one of the most quotable episodes we've ever recorded.

6:19The Reach Economy vs. The Trust Economy, Machine-Proferred Brands, The Case for Never Running a Focus Group Again. He's, of course, the Chief Media Officer at Liquid Death, where he spent the last several years, proving that a genuinely disruptive, culturally native brand could still win at mass retail scale. Now we're looking at the grocery side at Grocery Shop, where the conversation is in canned beach abstraction. It's the actual grocery media networks, actual quick commerce apps, shelf that LiquidNet has to win every single day. If you want to know what changed for Benoit's team since June, let's hear straight from him.

6:52Benoit, welcome to the CPG guys. Good to have you back. Thanks for having me back. Looking forward to this one. To our audience, check out the digital show notes of this episode. To find a hyperlink to Benoit's LinkedIn profile and to the Liquid Death website to learn more. And of course, as we carry on with this conversation, which I will kick off now, you can begin your quest of what Penwar is up to by looking him up online at the digital show notes. Penwar, last time we kind of chatted was at the Can Lions beach-like philosophy. Now we're grocery floor philosophy. I might add one which infuriated us because we couldn't get our hands on any Liquid Death over in Europe.

7:30You? Part of that in Las Vegas. Not a problem in Las Vegas, but I will take a boat from New York right into the Mediterranean, past Iraq and Gibraltar, and I will have liquid death at Cannes next year come hell or liquid death water. We'll ship ahead of time next year for sure. There we go. We needed some water this year for sure. Yeah. I thought it was hot. He was on us. Hot. Jeez. So anyway, last time was Beach Philosophy. No, it's grocery, reality at grocery shop over here. What's changed for Liquid Debt's retail media approach in the month since, four quick months, and what hasn't changed?

8:08What hasn't changed, it's still core to what we do. What has changed, we're spending more and more money with them. Congratulations. That's what has changed. And we're about to spend a lot more next year. So we're in planning mode and 2027 looks heavy on retail media. So what is heavy? Like 80 % of your mix? Like what does that mean? Definitely majority of the spend is over 50%. And so what drives that? Because it works because we are on our end at a time where consideration matters. And consideration happens as close as you can to conversion point. And as a digital native brand, the retail media makes a lot of sense because I was actually talking with a retailer earlier today.

8:53And retail media is what basically display used to be in the store. And so for us as we're trying to grab consideration from the big awareness that we have, retail media is the go-to. And to be fair to all the retailers, those platforms are getting better and better and better. So when you say retail media, the budgets can go up, investment is going to go up. Are you looking at all pieces, which is awareness driving, consideration, as well as the lower funnel piece? Yeah, the full funnel. From an awareness standpoint, obviously leveraging their audience off-site. And then mid-funnel, both off-site and on-site.

9:32And lower funnel, on-site. But you need the full funnel. We're probably going to be a bit lighter on the upper funnel next year because we have so much awareness already. and much more than we actually need at the scale we're at. So right now, our dollars are definitely going to go mid-funnel consideration. We need people to at least try the product. To get in the basket. To get in the basket that we want. After that, we'll take care of their repeats, but at least let's get to try it. And we have now in four categories, so, you know, they have choice. Benoit, welcome back to the podcast. I am pleased to report that the Bond household in Guilford, Connecticut, has a plethora of liquid death energy drinks, including Orange Horror, Murder Mystery, Subliminal Lime, all of them.

10:14We are digging the flavors and a big fan. So thank you for adding to the repertoire of our nourishment and satiating our thirst. Thanks for drinking it. It's my pleasure. So let's talk about retail media in the grocery space. The number of grocery predominant retail media networks, Kroger Precision Marketing, Albertsons Media Collective, Instacart, all of them, they just keep multiplying. The super regionals have them. The regionals are starting to build them out in a major way. As a brand that guards its identity fiercely, how do you decide which of those networks are actually worth your investment against them versus which are just more standardized inventory and aren't going to let you tell the story you want to tell?

11:02Yeah. And like, for me, it's more than, And because I'm not too worried about the messaging with them, because I can pretty much display whatever I want to display. Besides, obviously, crazy stuff that we do that anyway, we wouldn't be able to do anywhere besides polysocial. For me, what I'm looking is what is going to move the needle. Like I said, I'm mostly going mid-funnel with them. And mid-funnel has to drive consideration. So who is going to do that? And if they do, is it really going to move the needle? Meaning like compared to my overall revenue, if I push with them, is it going to really be seen for my overall revenue?

11:34That means that right now, next year, I'm going to really focus with the big guys. So the smaller ones, yes, it's interesting. Yes, I want to support them to build better. But I cannot deal with 20 retail media networks. I can't. Is it true to say, relatively speaking, that the amount of effort it takes to execute at a mid-market retailer is as much as it is with a big national retailer? So you're going to go where the reach is? correct what the reach is, what the revenue is, and it's the same amount of work for sure. But also, if I start splitting the budget against 20 versus putting it all in four, obviously the revenue movements are going to be way different.

12:16And then the impact on moving the revenue is going to be different. If I move more products into a top retailer, the shelf is going to expand in front of a bigger audience. So that's why I'm spending there. Now, I think it's good that those guys are developing because I believe, and we're going to talk about this, but as we're moving into the agent world from, not from a shopper standpoint, from a media buying standpoint, as I can get more and more efficient at buying and ingesting data and I make decisions, maybe I can deal with 10, 20 down the road. Okay. But not right now. Okay. Fair enough.

12:48So, Akkan, although we couldn't get that episode out, we talked, Akkan, about the shift from the reach economy to the trust economy and having armies of fans who actually do the marketing for you. You know, maybe you should enroll Papa Raj as one of those. For sure. He's expensive, though. That's the problem. Now that you're negotiating with JVPs. What's that? Papa Smurf? No, what was that Muppet thing? Yes. He doesn't know. He's on my phone. He doesn't know what the Muppet is. He knows what the Muppets are. So anyway, now that you're negotiating JVPs with grocers, specifically not just retail broadly, how does that fandom of armies translate into conversations with retail like do they appreciate it do they know how to leverage it and how does that connect back into your investments in retail media they appreciate it they care about it they think it's very important do they understand it i'm not too sure but they definitely see the value of it because they understand that it's an audience that could come to their store so as they believe for good reason that we are reaching to an audience that is very engaged, if now we can tell them to go buy at their store, they see a lot of value.

14:03So from an off-site perspective, they say, okay, they have a big audience, excited to have them part of what we do. And definitely as we build JVP, as we build strategy, let's make sure that that's part of the picture. Let's make sure we drive that audience back to the store. And so, yeah, for us, especially for a brand that we are like, we're a disruptive brand, emerging brand, however you want to call it. we are at the scale in terms, we'll be good at most of those beverage brands in terms of social presence, right? We have a cross platform, across Instagram and TikTok, I think probably at this point, like 15 million followers.

14:34So this is meaningful for them because it's an US audience. And it's an audience also, like you said, a fan audience, an audience that trusts us. So if we tell them to go shop somewhere, because there is an LTO, for example, like a product that you can only find, let's take this example of Scream Soda that we launched at Walmart, was only at Walmart, right? Now we tell them that it's there. Guess what? They're going to go on Walmart.com and buy it. They're going to walk into that store, even if Walmart is not their destination of preference. Ben, why? 15 million is a good number to have. Yeah, 1 million is great.

15:05Yeah, 15 million is... See for you, I bet. Yeah. How long did it take to get to the topic of AI for questions entry? But I want to talk to you about shopping agents showing up inside of the shopping experience for grocers, be it in-app assistance, list filters, reorder predictors. And you and I have talked about the fact that you're about building a brand and there is so much household penetration to come in terms of your growth. So my question is kind of this. If one of those intercepts, a shopper, before they've even seen your brand page or had the opportunity to discover your brand, how do you think about making sure you're optimizing your brand to state machine preferred in grocery apps specifically versus say the broader retail context that we were talking about when last we connected?

15:54Yeah, I mean, it's very challenging, but it's very interesting because definitely people say, no, it's different. I don't think it's different. It reminds me of the SEO days versus the SEM days, right? It's like, what can you intercept organically versus what you can intercept with beta? And so the organic side is what is challenging because what is DLM ingesting about us? and what are they saying about us. It's very, very difficult right now to know what is exactly ingested and we are going to, you know, get back to the shopper. Especially like, you know, maybe a chat GPT, maybe an anthropic is better than to understand what an Amazon one is doing versus what a Walmart one is doing.

16:34So it is difficult. There are a lot of tools out there that are trying to help, but I must say at this point, people that says, I know how to do it, lie. It's on a daily basis that you are trying to figure it out, and it's an unknown. I think the best that you can get with that is lucky. Now to be lucky than good. Correct. Yeah, correct. So you have to try. At that stage, you try. It's a wide, wide west, and you're trying. But what works today probably won't work tomorrow, so you're going to have to try again tomorrow. Now what is coming into play that I think is very interesting is paid in those results, in those prompt response, right?

17:10And the same way as with Google top-up search, you could get an ad above the organic response while the same thing is starting to happen in ChatGPT. The same thing is starting to happen in the Amazon Asia. It's only a matter of time. So at that point, I may not worry too much about what happens organically, but I'm going to really care about what happens from a paid side. What I hear you saying is that the LLMs are going to figure out how to monetize this and they're going to want to offer this to me as a brand. So I'm going to let them figure it out and then I'll make my investment decisions.

17:39Exactly right. Because at that point, I will make sure that I show a top of search, top of response. Got it. Are you concerned by what's going on inside those LLMs and the fact that, you know, erstwhile, even with retail media, you were in control at the end. It's your choice to make the investments. LLMs may or may not be that way. From an organic standpoint, you may not. Yeah. So I'm concerned. Organic is what I'm referring to. Yeah. I'm concerned as much as I'm concerned about what Google is going to serve back to when you search for liquid death or anything like that. So I'm concerned, yes.

18:10now how I feed them is what I'm really the most concerned right now because I don't know what I can feed them. But behind the scenes, are you starting to think about content, just your everyday? Yes, we do. At least we knew what the PDP needs to look like. Yeah. And we don't. We don't. And for us, I think I mentioned that at some point, is for us, if you look at the content that is out there, it's a lot about our marketing more than it is about our beverage. So when people are talking about liquid death, what the LM ingest is all the crazy marketing campaigns that we've done. instead of how healthy our beverages are.

18:43So to try to revert that is not easy, especially when we don't know exactly what they're picking up versus what they're not picking up. So yeah, we're doing a lot of work right now on our website, on our different PDPs to try to reduce the noise around our marketing campaign, but increase the noise about the RTBs of our products. So the next one is an interesting one. I'm going to ask you something about quick commerce. I'll give you a real life example, how real this has become. I got a call from Laura, my younger daughter today. She's leaving for New York. Why is she going to New York? For SNL.

19:14SNLs? So, sat in her life. Oh, okay. So, she says, Dad, I lost my EarPods. I need new earphones. But I don't want AirPods because I'll lose them again. I want the wired one. But it must be only Apple. And you have 30 minutes to get it to me. Good luck. I'm scratching my head. Can you hear the Mission Impossible music going in the background? I found something interesting today. And that's why I'm going to bring up quick commerce. My natural knee jerk was I'll go to DoorDash and do my best. Best buy. Yeah. I decided to go to Amazon just to see how long it'll take. 24 minutes it offered me. $25 basket.

19:50That's all I needed. The headset itself was$19.99. Apple made one directly from Apple. And then I needed some, I added some batteries. And in 21 minutes it was home. And this is Amazon. Yeah. So using some sort of a courier. So quick commerce is here. 30 minute grocery delivery windows. they're going to pop up all over the place. You start looking at, and they're already there on Instagram and DoorDash, but you start looking at a brand like yours, which is a lot of storytelling. It's got an army and a fan base, and it's got theater. None of these platforms are built for theater. No. They're only built for fulfillment.

20:24So how do the two mesh together? Well, you need to do the theater outside of their platform. So in the moment that they need it, dispense with the theater. Correct. Just make your product visible. Correct. Exactly, yeah. So they keep you top of mind, Yes. When it comes to a fulfillment need. Correct. What's the best way to do that? You already talked retail media, so we got that. What else? Big screen. So what do you pick for big screen? CTV. CTV. And why? Why is also because I can bring retail data in. 100%. Is sports important to you? Sports it is because sport is where you engage the most. People don't move away from the screen during live sports.

21:03So yes, now it's expensive, but it's worth it. I just finished a lot of testing on results of the sports by the I've done this year. FIFA? I did a little bit of FIFA, but I did a lot of football. I did a lot of the Olympics. I did, obviously, the Super Bowl. The life sport is very, very strong from an incrementality standpoint. And still delivering value. Probably the best value out of anything you can get on TV. It's good to hear. So we're going to dig into that a little bit more later. But let me remind our audience who are speaking with Benoit Wouter, Chief Media Officer at Liquid Death. Over to you, Peter.

21:37Benoit, we've talked in the past about this concept of cheap reach, right? Grocery retail media networks especially love to sell CPG-sponsored search and banner wallpaper, right? Has grocery media gotten any better at supporting this kind of involved, culturally loud activations Liquid Death is known for? Or is it still a bit of an uphill fight for you with them? Not an uphill fight because I'll tell you why. We don't necessarily bring the craziness of the brand on site. So we get the craziness of the brand against their shopper with their data through their audience. But on site, because on site they are with all those banners, like you said, that they have.

22:14It's mostly tell the audience that has us top of mind to tell them now what they should try to product. Within their framework. Exactly. Because I'm actually not trying to get outside of their framework. At this point, I need to tell them this is healthy. This tastes like lime. This is the right pricing. I don't need to have Jason Kelsey ping on the data center on a Target.com website. So I can stick with their framework. And it works. Yeah. Fair enough. Real-time inventory. Today matters much more in grocery than in general retail or general merchandise. Out-of-stock water is a wasted media dollar, wasted media money.

22:53How tightly is your media optimization loops tied to actual shelf and delivery talk store inventory data today? Do you have the partnerships? Are you able to stay on top of it? Or is it still much of a guessing game? It's a guessing game. It's tough. And this is, like you said, a big challenge. Now, they're getting better to not serve ads if we're out of stock, which is... Do they do it automatically? Yeah, automatically. On search, they do it automatically most of the platform. On display, they don't, though. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the problem. Now, it's like if you're out of stock. Now, what can be good is the grocery store that have warehouses that can ship from warehouses.

23:30There are very few of them. But the ones that do that, then it doesn't matter. That's the same footprint. Exactly. But those ones, you know, the ones that live in Beninville, those guys, it doesn't matter if it's on the shelf or not. They can figure it out. They will ship it from somewhere. Yeah. Right? So now for the ones that don't have the capability, this is a challenge. And I wish I had real-time look back on inventory so I can turn on or off ads. Has your data collection over the years on AutoStock, have you been able to fine-tune when are the times of the year, seasonality, where you're up and down your media plan based on what you've learned or very difficult to execute?

24:05I can't. Very difficult to execute, especially for us. We're on a DSD network. So it's not even us controlling it. It's the distributors controlling it. And who knows if they're going to show up at the store or not, right? So I don't even have proper pattern of out of stock that I can plan around. So I just know that probably 20 % of my media will go away because of out of stock, unless I'm with a retailer that can ship from anywhere. Let's talk about share of stomach fight that's taking place in physical retail. we're talking about ready to drinks functional wellness as the younger generation is moving away from alcohol having non-alcohol even having like mocktails ready to drink it is a crazy crowded physical shelf in this day and age is grocery retail media a defensive tool to protect space on shelf or is it still purely offensive for you it is both okay so yeah for for in-store shelf space retail media is defensive because he has me to keep momentum on key skews that pull from the shelf i need to keep having that velocity okay it's offensive from things that are not even in stores sometimes or that are in stores that I can start and conquest against competitors.

25:27Retail media, most of retail media networks now let me conquest, right? So now I can go and bid against my competitor and start selling market share. By stealing market share, that increased my velocity in stores will let me gain shop space. Why do you think that there was this Radisson's offer conquesting out of the gate? Was it so that the brand felt safe and now they're hungry? Why suddenly is everybody offering Conquest? Because before there were brown nosing all those big guys. Okay. Right? None anymore because they know that now the emerging brand like us are carrying some good amount of gas.

26:00So they're like, there's no risk to them. Correct. Interesting. After that, it was just the big guys bullying the retailers. Interesting. So you're here at Grocery Shop, just like us. You're listening to grocery tech vendors specifically. when you look at the landscape of all the partners, tech vendors in the industry, what's the biggest gap you see between how grocery retail media talks about innovation and what it's actually been able to deliver for a brand like yourself? For me, the biggest gap right now is the bridge between off-site and on-site. It is a very, we can leverage the audience to talk to their shopper off-site.

26:38There's no real bridge. There is no real bridge. The bridge would be to move people, what I call exposed audience, from off-site and target them on-site. Exactly. Bring them into on-site and target them when they show up on-site. Most of those folks don't do it, but they are working on it. How do you do it? Well, I don't. If they don't have the capabilities. They don't have the capabilities. But the pipes are here, right? The live ramp of the world, the data clean rooms can make that happen. I'm beta testing it with some big retailers. So I've seen it working. Obviously, Amazon is doing it all day long, right?

27:17But now the other guys are trying to do it. So it's coming. But right now, the best you can do is to target, let's say, sparking water buyers from Kogor. I target them on CTV, and I'm going to target that exact same audience on their site. But I know that on TV, I'm probably going to reach only 50%. So there's 50 % that didn't see me on TV that I'm still going to target on their.com. Is it bad? No. Is it the most efficient? No. Either. If I could move those audience from off-site to on-site, I could bridge the gap. Fun project for you. Go forward. Yeah. And they honestly are all working on it and care about it.

27:57They understand it. Good news is they understand it. They do. They do. I mean, they have a lot of smart people in those retail media networks on the tech side now. A lot of, I know you have some of them coming on your podcast. Like I think on a, I should probably not share the names, but you have some good retail media guys showing up on the podcast that know what they're talking about. Maybe the interviewers are good too. They know what they're talking about too. True. Maybe, I said maybe. Maybe. You will judge yourself. So Benoit, besides you, there are a lot of other CBG media leaders here at Gross Region walking the floor.

28:32You're running into them all day. We already talked about some of the connections. Strangely enough, they're all waking their way up to the CPG guys studio here at Mandalay Bay. The Mika. It's where it's happening. But in theory, they're all really trying to modernize their grocery retail media strategy. But as you talk to them, what's the reality check that they really need to face in terms of stop playing it safe? What do they need to start doing to move the ball forward in a big way? They need their retail counterpart to work with them. so it's no longer in there's a merge side they are you got a partner you got the partner and i think it's honestly that they want to the merch guys don't because they still think that the retail media is just some kind of margin that they can add but now the smart ones on the retail Merch side understand that growth Comes from dot com What drives dot com Growth?

29:33Retail Media, so they need, and I see Them now on the floor, you see the retail Guest showing up, where even if it's A media event, because they realize That oh okay, if they invest That is going to move the product On the dot com, which I'm Incentivized to grow right now for my CEO Yeah, so yeah Listen man, I call on retail for 30 years for some of the largest brands in the world, whether Pepsi, J &J, Revlon, General Mills, most merchants, I'm so sorry to say it, they're not digitally savvy. Forget about retail media. For sure. The next level of incremental learning. Yes. I was very comfortable saying that, and any merchant is welcome to challenge me on that, and they'll have the debate.

30:13It's just the reality. It is the reality, but I think this year is the year that they all understand, I need to really start to learn this. The margin is attractive. But I think what, so when COVID hit, e-commerce kind of forced the dialogue to try and embrace digital. AI is not going to force. If you don't, it's just going to disintermediate you as a merchant. Correct. And then good luck. Correct. And I think you realize that. Yes. I think the time has come and the realization has definitely begun. There's no doubt about it. Correct. But I would love to see merchants embrace retail media as well as overall e-commerce.

30:53but more importantly, above and beyond. Those are all pieces and meals to an end, execution vehicles. Embrace the shopper who's not 80 % digital, is 100 % digital. Correct. And spends hours digitally every single day. But look at that. It's happening, right? Like you look at, let's say, One by One. Look at who is leading Walmart Connect. It's Seth. It's coming with massive digital background. Look at Kroger. They just hired a dot-com guy, right? Look at Rondell. It's full of Google people. Like they understand that, right? The dot-com is coming heavy into all those employees. I never doubted the digital side of the fence at retail.

31:29My point is still on merchants. Yeah, but look at that. Those guys are coming in because the CEO says, we need those guys in. The CEO is saying now - One is obviously progress leaps and bounds, and it's way ahead of the - But even the other ones. Is the integration of those two to align and actually work together predicated upon them having common KPIs that they're both responsible for? And the common KPI is happening right now. digital penetration. Yeah. That is it. That is the first time there is, before digital penetration was single digit. Yeah. Most of the retailers are double digits and big double digits number in digital pen.

32:03And they need to get higher and higher because this is where the growth is coming from. So now the Merch are incentivized on digital pen and they are obviously, the retail media is, but also they know that they need retail media to make their thing work. So I think that's why there's something moving right now. Okay. A full circle moment is what I'd call it. So Peter, what's your big takeaway? Yeah. understanding what retail media networks are and aren't and using them for where they should fit into your media plan. You just because you are a disruptive brand like with Liquid Death, do not expect to use every element of your disruptive playbook to play out in a retail media network.

32:40Use them for what they are, understand what customer experience you want, and save your efforts that are more disruptive for other channels where it makes sense. For me, Peter, it's the sustained role of the army of fans and now connecting those fans back to merchandising in everyday retail and for the retailers to embrace what that means and to be able to leverage that in the everyday business to drive volume and eventually share up the line. Well said. So, Benoit, thanks for making time for us at Grocery Shop. Great to have you back on the CPG, guys. Thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it.

33:14Absolutely. away. Anytime for our audience, if today's conversation sparked something for you, a new idea, perspective, a reminder why there's industries worth showing up for every day, share it, tag us, tell a colleague. The more voices we bring to this community, the sharper all of us get. To the LinkedIn followers that we have that trust us to inform, educate, and entertain you about industry, thank you from the bottom of our heart for your trust and encouragement. Until next time, let's keep pushing these conversations forward on retail media as well. I'm Sri, and I'm from my host, PBSB. This has been the CPG Guys podcast.

33:47See you soon.

34:01The 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.

34:37The 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.

From the publisher

The CPG Guys are joined in this episode by Benoit Vatere, Chief Media & Digital Commerce Officer at Liquid Death, one of the fastest growing non-alcoholic beverage brands, Liquid Death uses comedy and entertainment to make health and sustainability 50 times more fun. 

This episode was recorded in Las Vegas at the 2026 Groceryshop conference.

Follow Benoit on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benoitvatere/

Follow Liquid Death online at: https://liquiddeath.com/ 

Benoit answers these questions:

  1. What's actually changed for Liquid Death's retail media approach in the months since, and what hasn't?
  2. As a brand that guards its identity fiercely, how do you decide which of these networks are actually worth Liquid Death's money versus which are just more standardized inventory to say no to?
  3. Now that you're negotiating Joint Business Plans with grocers specifically — not just retail broadly — has that fandom leverage translated the way you expected?
  4. AI shopping agents are showing up inside the grocery experience itself now — in-app assistants, list builders, reorder predictors. If one of those intercepts a shopper before they ever see your brand page, how is Liquid Death optimizing to stay “machine-preferred” in a grocery app specifically, versus the broader retail context we discussed at Cannes?
  5. How do you run a Liquid Death-style disruptive activation inside a delivery experience that's built for speed, not spectacle?
  6. Has grocery media gotten any better at supporting the kind of involved, culturally loud activations Liquid Death is known for, or is it still an uphill fight?
  7. How tightly are your media optimization loops tied to actual shelf and delivery-dark-store inventory data today?
  8. Is grocery retail media a defensive tool to protect your space on that shelf, or still purely offensive for you?
  9. What's the biggest gap you see between how grocery retail media talks about innovation and what it's actually able to deliver for a brand like Liquid Death?
  10. For a CPG media leader walking the floor here at Groceryshop trying to modernize their grocery retail media strategy, what's the single biggest reality check you'd give them to stop playing it safe?

CPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.com
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SheCOMMERCE Website: https://shecommercepodcast.com/
Rhea Raj’s Website: http://rhearaj.com
Lara Raj in Katseye: https://www.katseye.world/

DISCLAIMER: The 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 CPGGUYS, 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 CPGGUYS, 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.

CPGGUYS 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 presented in this podcast. 

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