Tale of Two Cannes (Lions) with Retail Media Breakfast Club's Kiri Masters

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0:50The CPG Guys: That's salesforce.com slash consumer goods. Hi, I'm Kiri Masters, host of Retail Media Breakfast Club, and I'm here 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 V.S. Bond, explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in a digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys.

1:47The CPG Guys: Mr. PBSB, who also Moonlight Industry and Client Engagement at Flywheel, Commerce Acceleration Division of Omnicom, you're here at Cannes. We are actually wrapping up four days of hectic activation that included panels, meetings, podcasts, walking up and down the crossroad, 100-degree weather, yacht rides, yacht events, yacht parties. Dinner's on La Plage. It was quite exhilarating, Sri. Indeed. But I'm excited to be here, Sri. And who better to take away our thoughts and ideas coming out of this a great event than the industry foremost and now reigning champion of the rumble. the rumble for royal rumble of retail media we'll we'll get to her in a second but shri i always enjoy doing this this is a big year for us at can we have a huge space we did four major activations recorded another 10 podcasts on top of that it was exhausting but i loved every second of it and i mostly loved it because i did it with you man and you realize it's not going to be any different next no hopefully the temperature cools thanks for leaving me the hour and a half to walk up and down the closet.

3:00The CPG Guys: It was really wasn't an hour half. It was more like an hour. But I had a premonition it's going to be 100 degrees and I saved you inside the AC atmosphere. That's what I think. Thank you for that. Let me thank all of you that listen to us and our sponsors. Without you, this podcast doesn't exist in the first place. Make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on your preferred listening platform where you can get our latest episodes and go back to consume some of the 600 plus episodes we've already published. Episode 600, of course, was Tony Dodgers, the chief marketing officer of Dollar General.

3:27The CPG Guys: And we had a full C-suite lineup leading up to it, mid-May through mid-June. CMO, CEO, CEO, you name it. We had him, CRO, chief growth officer. Now let me jump to our guest. Shree, by the way, we've done 600 and it took us six years to get there. Our guest does five a week. It's not going to take her that long to catch up on this. Maybe four in a week, but still. She's going to catch up. 150 weeks, three years or less. We're watching. She's well on the way, so it's not three years. There's more like two now at this point. So let me welcome to the show none other than, as Peter said, the champion of the Royal Rumble of retail media.

4:04The CPG Guys: The boss herself created an agency, sold it, and now having way too much fun with her own podcast, which I'm going to ask you to take a second and describe right here. She's a legit influencer. Absolutely. The boss herself, Miss Kiri Masters. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I don't have an abbreviated title, though. Can we come up with them? Why can't we see the boss herself? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Just the boss. Kitty Masters, the boss. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. You know what? I've been in and out of your house at Cannes this whole week. I was a bit worried.

4:44I was running over here for this. I had to grab some food because at Cannes, it is literal feast or famine. It is. There's days I've eaten nothing except half a bag of chips and some chicken McNuggets on the tray. You'll love exactly what you mean. Other days, it's like three-course meal back-to-back.

5:02The CPG Guys: She did the McDonald's. I did. My God, you did. I did. Wow. And with no kids in tow. That's amazing. You know, they're not going to be happy. Mommy left them. Okay, so when you do go out to dinner here is my first question. Does it ever last less than three hours? I mean, speed is not primary element of dinner in Cannes. I don't have a problem with the speed of the food coming out. It's getting the check. Oh, my God. It's like, I don't want you to pay. There's no waiter to be found. Yep. Yep. You know, I do have to apologize to all of your lovely and loyal listeners out there because they're just thinking, cry me a river.

5:40First world problem.

5:42The CPG Guys: But, Katie, so let's talk. Let's jump right into that. First of all, let's acknowledge who Katie is. It is no joke to curate an agency in the mid-2010s. and then be able to sell it off, and then now completely be able to get, be in the middle of the conversation on retail media. You're one of the most sought after speakers on the circuit, panelists, you know, call it what you may. Podcast is so meaningful. It's so concentrated on retail media. If you're in retail media, you must start your day with the Retail Media Breakfast Club. It's a quick hit. It's like, boom, a double shot. Snackable. It's very snackable.

6:19Thank you guys. I really appreciate that. So there's no better person.

6:23The CPG Guys: We talked about who we should invite to kind of talk about how Can 2026 went and then what didn't happen. What didn't happen, what should happen with 3Tail Media. There's nothing to do with Can. We can't think of a better guest for the episode. And both of us looked at each other and said, it has to be 3Masters. And then I got the task of pinging you. Thankfully, you didn't say no. We thought it should come from me because we thought you might say no to him. I believe it actually came from Suze. Yeah, that's how we got it, Shree. That's how we got it. That's because now that we have an MDM, we were disciplined.

6:56The CPG Guys: And Suzanne said, everything goes through me. And we said, we're better off that way. She's a taskmaster. Yes. She keeps us in line. The trains are running on time in Suzanne's world. Suzanne, shout out. It's an honor to have you here in the studio with us to wrap up. Nervatious studio. Before we dive into the hardening topics that we want to cover today on the closeout, Let me tell our audience, please check the digital show notes of this episode. We'll drop the LinkedIn hyperlinks for Kiri, of course, as well as a link to the actual podcast itself. And while you're there, not me, but Peter insists you must smash that five-star rating either on Apple or Spotify.

7:34The CPG Guys: What's that about? Free. If you want to, well, you wouldn't know because you don't eat meat, but if you were to get a hamburger, do you go to three guys? No. Do you go to four guys? My world's most favorite French fries. You go to five guys. Five is another. And we've got natural French fries. Listen, the way our podcast gets found by industry contemporaries is the rating system. It's true. It makes us more findable as people go to search for things. So you give us a nice rating, share it with your colleagues. That's how our podcast and this community we've built continues to thrive. So smash the five.

8:09I think we need a, you know, you have the different national days, national hot dog day. National podcast day? you know national but can we do a national podcast review day yeah i feel i feel this is the day would you like to do one with us i think that we should start the trend i will go and write podcast reviews you will go write podcast reviews we'll create a movement i think let's do that

8:34The CPG Guys: yeah so you know the cbt guys every couple of months produces our its list of must listen to podcast. And of course, Breakfast, the Retail Media Breakfast Club is on that list. So I'm thinking what we do is we publish our list and a CTA to on the day that we've designated as National Podcast Review Day. Make sure with hyperlinks to each of them in Apple and Spotify, go write your review. Yeah. You know what? You guys do amazing swag. I've seen your t-shirts. That's, I've seen your socks. We could do some kind of swag. Giveaway prize. That's right. Take a screen, because you've got to take a screenshot when you write the review.

9:18Otherwise it disappears while they review it.

9:20The CPG Guys: Or we asked them to include a specific hashtag, which we can go and search for in the reviews. And we know the date it was written and the hashtag that's going to be. To me, it sounds like there's a plan. We're going to figure this out, but I love this idea. there will be a award for a lucky lucky winner too they'll get some really cool swag yeah and will help create this and advance this community are we good enough for meeting you don't like meeting people that is true you're kind of grouchy that is true i talk to the wall i know or in this case what is this called a step and step and repeat yeah and now we're just you know my original pitch yeah the topic of this podcast yeah can we talk about like some behind the scenes podcast.

10:05The CPG Guys: Why don't we migrate there? So let's get started, Kitty. Let's talk about behind the scenes podcast stuff and then let's migrate into what we didn't see, what we saw here. Okay. Well, first of all, one observation, everyone has a podcast. You've seen it. There's podcasts that are popping up at activations. There is podcasts that are being done in sprint events on the street. I actually think that's a really good idea. What differentiates most of those from say what retail media breakfast club or the cpg guys do well she's the boss so that differentiates everything well look i think that there is no wrong way to do it but you need to do something different and it needs to be consistent so you guys are very consistent and you're very good at bringing in big names profiles you know like a volume of content you do things your way My way is I had an interview-style podcast previously, and when I was looking to start this, I was like, you know what?

11:08There are so many great interview-based podcasts out there. I don't need to do another one. We don't need another one with the same folks coming on. You guys do a fantastic job of that. And so I do more editorial POV. It's something that I have sat down and thought about. Or sometimes this is actually a great format that I wish more people would do. is I listen to, sometimes it's one of your podcasts, other people's podcasts. I'm like, hmm, that got me thinking about this. And I'll take some snippets from that. I'll promote the original podcast, of course. And I'll say, hey, I listened to an interview with so-and-so on this podcast.

11:46Here's what I thought about. It made me think about this. Go have a listen. And then that's kind of like a curation as well, right? Yes.

11:56The CPG Guys: That leads to some further examination. That's right. And because there are so many podcasts, I think people appreciate that. Oh, I haven't heard of that one. I might go check that out now. You know, here's my take on, I think, I know it separates you and I believe us as well as so many of the podcasts that are out there are extensions of the business that they're selling. It's a blog. It's a blog. It's not as strong. It seems to be just more a marketing channel, not so much. Whereas you're not selling anything. You're not in doing the retail media breakfast club. You're truly trying to bring thought leadership to the industry.

12:37I don't think I had a blog for many years when I owned my agency. I had a podcast as well. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying it's different. But do something a little different is the point. And I don't see anything wrong with doing a podcast instead of a blog. but please do something different. Please do something interesting.

12:56The CPG Guys: And the other challenge is when it is a company-driven activity, it unfortunately refines the scope of conversation and tends to center around exactly what that company does. And that's limiting from my perspective. Can I ask a slightly more awkward question? Yeah. Okay. The bigger the name, the bigger the company, the less they will tell you. How do you deal with that? How do you deal with that? You guys have a lot of big names. I'm not going to say that there are a lot of people that come on and they're like, just ask me whatever you want. And on the fly, we had a CMO the other day came on and he's like, no, I don't need to read your question.

13:34The CPG Guys: So one thing we should share, Peter, since he asked us the one thing, we originate all the questions. We don't allow someone to give us a script. It's just not allowed. Yeah, we start now. Will they ask us? They'll come back. But they script their answers out, though. Here's our belief on that. Yes and no. Yeah, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Here's our attitude. We're not trying to be investigative journalism, right? We're trying to educate the industry. And the best way for that to happen— They're not 60 minutes? We are not. We are not. We're not even 30 minutes. By the way, we haven't been fired by the overlords.

14:09Yeah.

14:11The CPG Guys: So we're not investigative journalists. we are we are trying to educate the consumer the consumers that listen to our podcast and we we do a couple things one we joke around we kid with each other because to some degree that's who shrie and i naturally are but we also find that it's it's kind of like mary poppins a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down right some of the stuff you know we cover it's pretty dry right advocating for sugar and so we're not advocating for sugar but the point is back to the actual scripted questions. We want them to know what questions they're getting because we want them to come prepared with answers.

14:49The CPG Guys: The greatest gift that Sri and I have, as he said, we decide the questions because guess what? We're asking questions that we genuinely want answered, not questions that their PR has said, can you ask him these questions? And rarely do the comms teams of some of these large fortune fighter companies change their questions. Mostly they'll say, he's not that's not his area of expertise. Can you just remove that question? It's not for one like, no, that's an inconvenient. Now, if, okay, so let's say we're talking to someone at Kenview and they're in the midst of being acquired by Kimberly Clark. We know we're not supposed to talk and ask questions about that because they're just going to say we can't talk about that.

15:33The CPG Guys: We're smart enough to ask questions and we've worked with enough corporate communications organizations that we know how this works. Saying we're smart. Smart. And it's just after 600 episodes, like we were sitting dinner with some people last night and we were talking about how much we love working with Walmart corporate communications. And they were aghast. They said to us, my God, we have such horrible time working with them. So we've just figured out how to do it. And a lot of that has to do with just your passion for the business, your appreciation, understanding what the people on the other side of the table need.

16:08The CPG Guys: and we find a way to make it work. And at the end of the day, if we're delivering meaningful, entertaining content that educates our audience, then we think we've done our job. Yeah. So, Keri, I'm going to migrate us a little bit into why we're here in the first place. You and me and Peter are not going to sit here and recap everything we saw, but let's just talk about some highlights. And then also let's talk about what didn't happen over here, but should have, especially with retail media, right? This is, I don't know, the fifth or sixth year of retail media showing up in a big way and owning a lot of the conversations, but it feels to me that the conversations still are not migrating.

16:42The CPG Guys: It's the same stuff. Let's talk about measurement. Let's talk about incrementality. Let's talk about data. Let's talk about personalization, hyper-targeting. This after COVID, when this started again in 2021, 22, I forget, those were the topics. Why has it not changed? Did you observe anything different? Well, I actually think that we shouldn't stop talking about those things. I don't think they're ever going to be fully solved. And the reason why they're not going to be fully solved is that we're moving into new ways of acquisition, new ways of buying. And that means that we need to then go back to the drawing board sometimes and look at how we're actually measuring these things and doing personalization with AI-enabled shopping journeys being the big one.

17:23This is the next frontier for retailers to think about, well, how, if I'm not seeing that my AI referred traffic come in with any indication about what that conversation looked like before they landed on my site, what do I do with that? And how am I going to think about my ads business, which was historically so dependent on sponsored product ad units shown in the search results page from a keyword search, then we do need to rethink about personalization and measurement from almost, almost again, from scratch because the consumer journey has changed.

18:01The CPG Guys: I think, Kiri, what I was trying to say is not the topics need to change. I feel like they're talking, like you gave an example of if the consumer journey has changed, the way search has changed towards AI, that's what they should be talking about with incrementality. But they still go back to, I don't know how to measure it. Shree, my bigger issue, and this is a component of it, is I still don't believe that while this place is populated with CMOs, that most of them have anything more than a cursory understanding of all the capabilities that retail media has and commerce media have today. they're still here because of the creativity awards that it's still not part of their most of their dna that they are relying on agencies they're relying on junior people to them they you and i've talked about it i'd be surprised if 20 of them had tiktok on their phones so let me ask you that question this is the festival of creativity those awards are going out tonight Thursday.

19:03The CPG Guys: 90 % of the, I don't know the exact number, so I'll make it up, but it's a very large proportion of the number that come here are US-based companies. Maybe global in nature, but primarily from headquarters. Most of them are either gone this afternoon or they're leaving tonight. They're not here for the creative awards. It's a tale of two cans because I was actually just at the Palais in the press room, rushedly trying to get an article out. It's a semi-can kind of life? No, I'm not going to use that line. I can't take that one. You don't like the semi-can? It's a tale of two cans. There's two halves.

19:42A tale of two cans.

19:43The CPG Guys: A tale of two cans. I'll go with that. Can I keep that one? Yes, yes. Okay, all right, cool. So there is the brand can, and then there is the behind-the-scenes tech can. And I think they're here for different purposes, but there is a feeding frenzy mechanism happening. So the creative work that's being judged at the Palais that the CMOs are here for, and we have, you know, these amazing celebrities on stage talking about authenticity. Oh, the irony. Oh, the irony. Talking about something that's been, you know, done to death and has... Anyway, let's move on. So we've got the... I got a family of celebrities now, so I'm going to plead the fifth on that one.

20:25The CPG Guys: For sure. They're authentic, though. They are that. We wouldn't know any other way if you follow my Instagram or TikTok. So we have the brand awards that are also very heavily involved with the agency world as well. Creative, production, strategy, right? So that is the creative that we see. And then there is the part of advertising, which is which audiences do you then go and get that creative in front of? How do you know that it worked? what are the different formats and so that is this sort of sub ecosystem that i think kind of gets looked down upon a little bit for me personally you know for better or worse probably for worse i would like to spend a little bit more time here i don't i don't see all of the brand stuff because it's not really my world yeah and i've only got so much time and attention that i can focus on my my job is really more about that um distribution side of the creativity than the creativity itself and so i therefore do not spend that time much time in the palais i spend more of it on the croissette talking with retailers and tech companies i don't think it's such a bad thing but there is a that that is the tale of toucan that we have the brand and the actual deployment sort of sitting often away from it there are thousands of people who come here for that second can that you and I don't get the chance to visualize native brand equity development.

21:54The CPG Guys: I would argue that this year reinforced it for me. Last year, it was evident. This year, just proved it, is that I don't think that the retail meeting, the tech side of it, is necessarily in the background or in the underground of this. They are prominent components of the entire experience. Just walk along the closet and see the tent activations. Look at what's going on at the Majestic, at the Mondrian. It's heavily tech-focused, right? A lot of creators are here, much to my chagrin. Some of them a little too crazy as far as I'm concerned. But the point is, in conversations we've had this week with at least four RMNs, they all confirmed, I put the hypothesis out to them and they confirmed it.

22:37The CPG Guys: They are now gravitating around two industry-integrated events. One is CES, that's where they kick the year off, and CAN is where they do their mid-year assessment and plan out for the rest of the year. They all come heavy. Like it used to be, it used to be shop talk. It is not shop talk anymore. They used to bring their full cadre of senior leadership. Now it's a handful of people go to those events. They're really not going there. CAN and CES are where people go in large numbers and spend the big bucks to activate against commerce media. Bust, bust. possible possible is emerging that's what they said that was what they said yeah they said those two and they said possible is emerging yeah you know i went to possible its first year and i thought it was such a dud yeah because there were the only brands that showed up were on stage and they'd walk out of the green room to the uber waiting for them and they were gone to the airport i think possible kind of it's like can without the palette the fontaine is not bad the vanity component is missing top end of the fontaine well there's vanity and muck all over that place No, the vanity component of the Pellet.

23:45The CPG Guys: I was at the Pellet. They were young. I went to six boat parties and I collected a bunch of wristbands. I actually mean more of like the creativity awards and like the work. If I flip back two years before retail media, retail media came to possible for the first time only in 2025 in any meaningful way. But if you go prior to that, I was asked to guest speak several times if possible. It was always about a campaign. And that's what all the conversations were about a successful media campaign. So it was like the baby making of the big Can Creative Campaign Awards. This is more vanity about I created the best campaign and here's why it was successful.

24:26The CPG Guys: And look at my impressions. And that's what it was about. So, Kiri, I want to get a little behind the scenes on Can for you personally. In the best of ways, Sri and I would say you are a hustler. You do a great job of building a business. And I was going to say, so tell us, share with our audience, what were your objectives here? And give them a flavor for all the stuff that you were doing at Cannes. Because, you know, we look at you and say, wow, you've built a brand around yourself and your podcast and what it takes to kind of grow that at an event like this. Yeah, absolutely. And then I want to come back to what you guys did at the ZPJ Guys house.

25:07The CPG Guys: because speaking of hustling, I saw you pulling out coolers and carrying trays and trying to fix the AV. So that's, you know, it's all relative. Mike Hen, this year I was sort of locked in a bunker doing interviews a lot of the time. Panels, I assume. Panels. Yes, I did a few panels. I actually have a really close collaboration with The Drum, the media pub the marketing publication and so i do i contribute a column there once a week and i work on a lot of sort of content projects with them as well we actually have speaking of podcasts we have a short-run podcast series that is that is sponsored by cusick it's a comedy podcast it's called basket case now that's different it is different and yeah absolutely so that's that's a it's an eight-parter.

26:04So we filmed a lot of content for that.

26:05The CPG Guys: You know, there is plenty of comedy in retail media. Oh, you can't watch this. Yes. Well, actually, since you mentioned it, something that I have kind of fallen into recently that I have enjoyed so much and it has received such a good response from the industry is short-form comedy videos about retail media. Have you seen things? No, I have not. We need to urgently procure these videos. Yeah, we've got to start because we want to contribute to the community. So it is, you know, we've talked about some of these silly things that we keep complaining about. Why are we still talking about measurement?

26:40We talk about last touch attribution, how silly that is. We talk about CMOs coming in and making up their own metrics that they want to see. We talk about brands telling retailers that they need this custom dashboard. The retailer goes and builds it. The brand never uses it. You know, there's all these things that we hear. That's a good one. Haven't got to that one yet. So I turn these sort of annoying, frustrating moments that we have in our industry and I turn them into skits. And it's really fun. LinkedIn. I have put a few on. I clearly don't spend enough time on LinkedIn, Shree.

27:13The CPG Guys: Shree, here's what you need to do. When you get to Kiri's page on LinkedIn, upper right-hand corner of the bell, you change it from the page. I'm going to change that bell. You need to go to always on. And so everything QGRI publishes, make sure everything QGRI publishes. But this sounds great. Not all of it's good. That's the thing. That's what I like to say when people are like, I don't understand how you do so much health tech. They say, well, here's the truth. I am fixing it now. As an Australian, you may not appreciate this, but Sri does only because of his love of the game. You can strike out two thirds of the time and still make the baseball hall of fame, which we are going to visit in a couple of weeks.

27:52That's the beauty of algorithms, right?

27:55The CPG Guys: Did you do it? Just like that, we have fixed it. So if you go actually down here, you'll see. If you go to videos, there we go. Awesome. Basket Case. Basket Case is the new podcast with the drum and Cusick. And then there's some short form that I've been doing. Shree's now lost in immersion looking at the comedy videos. Did you notice how Shree is talking about himself in the third person a lot? No, it's Shree. It's not the CPG guys. That would be the third person. Shree is the first person. All right. Now let's talk about CPJ guy's house. Yeah. Oh, boy. This is the first time you did that. I believe it's called La Residence.

28:32Thank you for the courage. The House of Consumers and Retail.

28:35The CPG Guys: La Residence. La Residence. Absolutely. So Shree and I have been coming to Cannes now prior to this three years. And last year, we just said, okay, we think we've got a handle on what's going on here. How can we do something that fits well into this experience, but we do it with a little more independence and authenticity than everything else? Like you walk onto one of the big advertising hold co spaces on the Quasette and it's, you know, come on, it's all the, they're just, it's all about showing client love. It's just about showing. I mean, you know the game. I do. And I don't fault them for that.

29:13The CPG Guys: But my point is, I said, we've built a great community. How do we how do we partner with companies that are in our community and authentically help them tell some stories that we know are stories that are important to tell and bring the community together, not just to hear a panel, but to actually spend some time and interact. And we wanted to create one rule. Number one, location, location, location. What is the way? And we looked at it from a commerce media standpoint. We said, where does most money in a dollar go against commerce media? It goes against the people in Seattle. We made sure our residence was within a block of Amazon port.

29:54The CPG Guys: That was very important. You know, that would be a central place for everybody to go to. Two, we needed it to have enough indoor space to have conversations, but we also wanted an expansive outdoor space so that people could extend that out afterwards and have conversations. And we wanted to work with inviting people on who are actually advancing some of the thought leadership, more cutting edge aspects. So we kind of brought that all together and we said, we're going to partner with different companies throughout as opposed to we necessarily own everything. we're going to work with them because some of them have great ideas and great connections.

30:31Yeah.

30:32The CPG Guys: And inclusively. And so what we ended up doing is bringing together three corporate sponsors and one community sponsor. And by that, I mean, we worked with a marketer, we worked at Dollar General, we worked with CVS, but then we also worked with an organization that Sri and I are so happy to be associated and allied with, which is the Women and commerce media. So, yeah. And then, you know, we had someone, who are you talking to? You don't have to name the names, but what did they say to you about the CPG guy's house this weekend? We won't mention him. We won't mention him. But he did. This is a great story.

31:07The CPG Guys: But he did. The quote that came back to was, he said, what's going on? The CPG guys really own the Quasette this year. That was high praise to us. I have some learnings. I'm not going to sit here and say we were the best under any circumstance. Here's what we observed in the past few years that even prompted us to do the hustle, as you mentioned, Katie. We'd walk into all these, and I'm not going to just call it whole course. It doesn't matter who. Peter and I walked up and down those tents in La Crosse. We've been to every yard at some point. All 21 of that stand there every year. There's one company that claims to be very innovative around brands that doesn't necessarily...

31:46The CPG Guys: I'm not going to name a single one. I know, that's my point, is that... No, we're not going to name a single file. But generically, here's the observation. People use all those spaces for meeting rooms. Yep. Getting a cool atmosphere to sit down, grab some snacks, get some beverages, booze, call it what you may, and then do private one, two people conversations. There are panels running through the day. Like, there's no, I don't see a cohesive conversation. It's just panels running through the day. Here's our product. there's only 15 chairs in front of those panels and it's eight or 10 people occupy them most of the chairs are empty and people stand around these tables and are chatting and it's so distracting yeah all that stuff is taped 15 people pan yeah watching the panel and that's what they release is a big success i know but that when that you get the angle just right with the camera Looks like everyone is there You kind of nailed it There are three cameras There's three cameras in there It looks like I would hope so That's a key What we wanted to do is Create You know how we started this conversation?

32:54The CPG Guys: We're not talking about the right stuff I didn't mean we're talking about the wrong topics We're not talking about the right stuff Within those topics So we were hoping to Generate that conversation Of course Peter and I did not anticipate So many partners would want to be sponsors and go piece and piece of piece. All of a sudden, we had like 20 pieces of conversation. My single biggest takeaway for the House of CPG guys next year, the CPG guys would put together the conversation topics and source who should talk. Yeah.

33:24The CPG Guys: We had some over successful panels. And I think you know which ones those were. You were on those. When you had Andrew Lipsman, you and Sarah Marzano on the same panel, you just can't go wrong. But what if we had four of those? How would that have gone? We only had one of those. Why? Right. Well, you know, it's very difficult because, look, being at Cannes is very expensive.

33:50You need to pay the bills. The places down on the closet as well, they're trying to bring in business. They need to either get enough deals coming through in those private meeting rooms, or they can bring in panelists who are willing to pay to be there as a way to kind of fund that experience. It's a tremendous financial burden. Just a quick pivot though, what I think is very interesting is the projection of wealth for service providers in your life, whether that's personal or professional. If I have a private banker or insurance agent or something like that showing up with a crazy Rolex and a Ferrari.

34:33I'm like, this is where my money is going. And I think what's very interesting about two retailers who showed up for the first time as media networks this year, showed up with like two or three people. And that was Gigi and Costco. Mark Williams. Yes, exactly. I have a funny story for him. They're not here to kind of like have a cabana and say, guess what? We're revamped. We're big. We're going big. They're like, no, we're a value retailer. So I think it's interesting. You know, I love what you did. It's something new. It's something different. Obviously, people are stoked to be here. There is a, you know, there is a cost associated with that.

35:12You have to find a way to pay for it. And then just seeing like, who is here kind of being scrappy on the cheap and using that as a marketing sort of message.

35:23The CPG Guys: I could not agree more, right? The thing, again, And my head gravitated. So last night, again, today's Thursday, the closer can. So Wednesday night, I spent three hours on some of the yachts last night. While those were yacht parties, I was able to have some very meaningful discussion with three or four CEOs and CEOs. And they're effective with service providers. And I asked them that very question. You know, getting a yacht is a$750 ,000 minimum commitment here for the, and you have to take it from weekend to weekend, whether you use it or not. That's just the way the model works. And so I said, first of all, you get done on Thursday.

35:58The CPG Guys: What happens on Friday and Saturday? And they said, we just casually hang out as a team, get a bunch of meals, that kind of stuff. So the ROI for that, unless you're doing teamwork, which none of them really told me they are, it's just casual. You can come and go as you please on Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And so I said, you all hosted a bunch of panels. You had a bunch of meetings. How did that go? Four out of four. Four CEOs, a bunch of CMOs. So these are all service providers. said the same exact thing to me. We couldn't get the audience or the people we wanted on our boats in our tent. It just became glorified meetings and I'm not so sure I got anything out of it.

36:36The CPG Guys: Well, two things. One, and when they go to renew next year, will they remember any of that or are they just going to blindly go and say, yeah, we got to do that boat thing again? I'd argue that. But for us, what we, what I think made it very appealing for people to want to come and talk on our platform was the fact that post-can that little conversation may appear in a LinkedIn clip somewhere and that's about it. We recorded content that becomes a podcast that goes out to the CPG guys audience, which is very large and very vast. And for them, that provided an additional amplification. It wasn't, it wasn't completely about the people sitting in the room.

37:16The CPG Guys: It was understanding that this message was going to be carried to a much, much larger audience. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? You saw you at the CPT guys, I was like, as you mentioned a couple of times, if not more, what do you think? It kind of goes back to the question I was asking you before about, you know, you get a big name on the pod and I love your point about the questions and those are important to you. You can't really control what someone says. Yeah, we can't tell them. How interesting that's going to be. And, you know, you can be super prepared as an event organizer as a moderator for a panel.

37:50And it does ultimately come down to who gets on stage and what they're allowed to say and how practiced they are at, you know, sharing an interesting message. And you guys would know more than anyone, there's a lot of terrifically smart, experienced, opinionated people in our industry that are not allowed to say. Oh, yeah, they're not.

38:16The CPG Guys: No, they're not. So that is, and that's not going to change, whether it's a panel or a podcast. Problem, Loki, but that's an issue because we're not. Let's take incrementality for a reason. Incrementality is very important. It should be one of the hottest topics in retail media, no matter what trade event we go to, in my opinion. We should do half a day of programming on incrementality and how to truly build. What is incrementality? Incrementality, I get 17 definitions. People can't even articulate to me what it is. What do you want? Like, why do you say incrementality? So let's have that conversation.

38:52The CPG Guys: And then is there a common definition of incrementality and then hold those that sell incrementality against it? Hold them accountable. Well, I think that there is a lot of playing nice that happens in public and the real conversations happen behind closed doors. Liz Roche from Albertson, she's a... She's a master class. And she was telling me how, you know, you get the data scientists from the retailer together in the room with the data scientists from the brand in the room. If they can sit down for six hours, they'll come to an agreement. But they're like doing that across the board for all of your big customers.

39:32And that was actually some Albertsons research that they did. she alluded to it on the panel, which found that depending on how you actually do the math, what does the denominator look like? Then incrementality can swing from positive to negative just based on what kind of factors you put into it. So again, I don't think that necessarily it's going to be a problem that is solved because every category has a different sort of attribution.

39:56The CPG Guys: I want to talk a little bit about your comment on interesting people not allowed to say things. And I've got two relevant stories that relate to my podcast partner in particular. The first is... This is bitter. I'm replacing it with an AI agent. No, no, no. At General Mills. This guy works several days a week. General Mills, Shree had already started the podcast when he joined General Mills, and he made it a non-negotiable. I'm not giving up the podcast. And the CEO said, okay. But the head of corporate communications, after hearing of this Faustian bargain that had been arranged, added some caveats saying, listen, that's fine, but you can never talk about General Mills or mentioned that you work for General Mills on the podcast, that's fine.

40:38The CPG Guys: Okay, you're a corporate officer. They don't want association responsibility for content that they have no control in scripting. But the other one was the fact that he can't talk about the podcast within the walls of General Mills. And here's how that plays out. And we talked about this. There were a lot of companies that we desperately wanted to get on the podcast. We wanted Meyer on the podcast. We wanted SC Johnson on the podcast. These are notoriously privately owned companies. H-E-B is another one. We did get Natan, right? Ashwin. Ashwin. Yeah, the head of Morgan. Yeah. But if you were to ask the head of retail media at Bayer, he would die to get on our podcast.

41:20The CPG Guys: We had to beg to get someone from Roundel on the podcast. And this comes down to corporate policy. Who are they willing to let on the podcast? So back to my thing on Shreed. He wasn't allowed to talk about the podcast. And what would happen is Sri would get engagement scores from his direct reports up his chain of command. And invariably, some junior level person on Meijer, right, would some junior level, some junior level person on Meijer would write in that Sri tends to play favorites in terms of which of our retail customers he invites on to the CPG Guys podcast, having no knowledge of the fact that we have sent countless messages to the teams and they just can't get permission to come and talk to the podcast.

42:10The CPG Guys: So if you're out there and you're listening and you wonder why we haven't had somebody from a very big retailer or a very big brand, I promise you we've asked and I'm telling you that they just won't do it. And that's their decision. Okay. A couple of things to add onto this. Very interesting. I've also spoken with some senior people who can't do a traditional press interview with me because I'd contribute to these major press publications as a columnist and they can't do the traditional press profile. They can do podcasts though. What's the difference? It's just the... Your reach on the podcast and that could be any less.

42:51It's the whims of the comms team, ultimately.

42:54The CPG Guys: Yeah, it's amazing how much corporate comms control messaging. Old school way of thinking. Another one is I have made an editorial choice with my own publication. I don't really cover announcements. Yeah. And sometimes I get sucked into covering an announcement. Sure, big ones. And it is always something I regret. because I will cover one retailer's announcement and then the next one will get upset. Why didn't you cover ours? You're not covering ours. And I think when I explain that to people, they understand. But, you know, look, I think you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Sometimes we're trying our best.

43:39I try not to play favorites either. Often it just kind of things happen that are outside of our control.

43:46The CPG Guys: So we're doing a piece now for about a year. Every Tuesday, it's called the Commerce Riff. Okay. So where Peter and I pick four newsworthy articles in the industry, and we cover it in two, three weeks. And we give our opinions on it. And we give our opinions on it. Now, it's a 15-minute show, snackable. So the problem is we have to pick and choose. And in that algorithm of pick and choose, we're going to disappoint somebody. But here's the good news, Kiri. It's our decision. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, where we started this episode was world's smallest violin about the food at Cannes. I think that's also, you know, we have with great power comes great responsibility, right?

44:28Yeah. Yeah, it is. I know everyone's like, okay, you know, good for you. But it is difficult. And sometimes, you know, what I try and do with my content is I have a POV. Not everyone agrees with me. I understand that I don't like disappointing people or upsetting people. I'm sure it happens sometimes because I do want to share a POV with what I'm doing by default. That means, you know, might not always be like super supportive or jazzed about an initiative or a change or something that someone is or isn't doing. But that is the, you know, trying to keep it real and have a POV, I think you're going to disappoint some people.

45:11The CPG Guys: What did we not see again that you were expecting to see? Or wanted. Yeah, you wanted to see. Or you wanted to see. What about you, Peter? I just didn't see enough of it. I spent, this is the first year I spent most of it within our own activations. I honestly enjoy walking. The price for being a hustler. It is. I enjoy being, I am in Malcolm Gladwell's vernacular, an art type connector, right? So making those run-ins on the Quazette. I love that. I actually do. It's quite enjoyable to me. And to a lesser degree, I got to do it. And I curated some of the people that I was able to do that with here at the house.

45:46The CPG Guys: But I do enjoy doing that. And this is the first year I really didn't get a chance to engage in that kind of open collaboration and connection. What about you, Kitty? There are a couple of standout events for me that were standouts because they were refreshing in their approach and POV. And that is the rumble we talked about. It was like a silly debate that I've done for two years now with Andrew Lipsman and Colin Lewis. And it's not an academic debate. It's name-calling, hair-pulling, dirty, you know, like just… We got to attend this next time. Yeah, it was kind of more like a roast. And that's a fun format.

46:26The CPG Guys: Well, we like it because we know you're scrappy and you've got a low center of gravity. You can take those guys. I mean, it was easy to crush them. okay you can you can try next um and then the other one was we did with the women in commerce media collective and affluent yes the retail media couples therapy and we had is sort of like an improv session where we had someone playing a brand someone playing a retailer someone mediating the troubles and dramas of these relationships as a therapist and that was a really fun format Again, not educational. We weren't there to teach anyone anything, but it helped people kind of feel like, okay, they're talking about stuff that I understand.

47:10There's lots of inside jokes that makes me feel part of the client.

47:14The CPG Guys: But to me, you acknowledge that there's couples therapy needed in the future. Yes, exactly. That's putting a dart on the pole. Yeah. So that was really fun. And that's what I would love to see more of, not just at Cannes, but at other industry events is do something silly, make fun of yourself. And not everyone is in a position to do that. That's why people like us who don't, who have a little bit more flexibility and leeway and what we can say and we can make jokes and things like that. What about missing? As Peter said, I don't know, fourth year, fifth year doing this. Now I have a, I'm coming here truly as a, I don't know, is it a journalist?

47:53The CPG Guys: You know, call us what you want, podcasters. Commentator. Commentator. Yeah. It's different than coming here with a brand lens from my prior life. Yeah. Do you find that hard to switch off? Not the least. It's dead to you. I'm done with my corporate life. I can just be as honest as... We can make fun of ourselves, can't we, Shreya? We have to have Kenny Holders. One of these. One of these. There we go. What do you think? There we go. This was... We love making fun of ourselves. I love how cheeky you look in this. He's quite cheeky. I do miss that we're not going inside the ballet. The other side I can.

48:27The CPG Guys: We are completely blinded. We're so focused on commerce and commerce media that we're blinded. This is about the festival of creativity. I'll give you a... How much longer before and will commerce dominate can? It already is. No, you need the little fish to get the big fish to get the big fish. So you need to have the brands here to get the retailers here to get the tech partners here. The insanity of those awards is what brings the brands in the first place. Given the fact that commerce is so prevalent and that where the budget sits, are CCOs missing out, not coming to Cannes? A chief customer officer, the head of sales.

49:08The CPG Guys: Because if you think about it, outside of Amazon and outside of Walmart, most of the retail media investment is handled by the customer team. You're asking a very important question because traditionally, as Kiri just pointed out, the whole reason brands come is the campaign award. Right. Right, creative awards. Historically, that's the way it's been for well before. My whole thought on that is even to the day, it's just the brands that are coming. No commercial team outside brand and brand leadership is coming, even though there's, as Kiri started this, there are toucans, the tailor toucans. The brands used to come for the erstwhile.

49:45The CPG Guys: Yeah. Tale of Cannes. They still come for the erstwhile Tale of Cannes, and now they're being forced into the second Cannes, into all these detailed media discussions. Some have control, some don't, some have budget, some don't. You need to see. call out to CCOs. You need to come to Cannes. Give it a try. You're going to find this to be extremely enlightening. And there's a lot for you to delve into here. It's not just about the media awards, the creativity awards. You can send your colleague, the CMO to those, but you should be here for the commerce conversations that are taking place. So the feedback I still get from many CCOs to the day is, oh, that's a marketing vanity brouhaha conference.

50:25The CPG Guys: Except the fact that All of their retail customers are here. As I mentioned earlier, all their senior people are here from a media standpoint. They need to be here. And also the other thing for retail media networks, they're sort of done with the performance budgets at this point. I think they are. And they're trying to get into the national brand budgets. That's why they want to be here as well. It's like, we're not just about sponsored product ads. We've got these audience segments you can activate on CTV and all of that. Well said indeed. So I think that's what's missing for me, that ability to see that other tail of the can, go to the ballet, sit down, and actually watch someone speaking.

51:07The CPG Guys: By the way, the times I have done that in a past life, those are fully attended. Yes. And there's another important tide rising, which has been for the last five years. and I think all of us talk about it passionately on the different places we have exposure to to go speak, whether it's podcast panels, things of that nature, journalism. And that is the rise of the digital creator. There are thousands of digital creators here. Most of them were not parapsubes, taking photos of themselves and looking, well... They're the ones who move units these days. Mm-hmm. Yep. Really interacting with them or paying attention to them.

51:45The CPG Guys: So I call it the tale of three cans, and that's how I'll close my thing. Okay. Kiri, thank you for taking time out of the close of Can Lions 2026 to spend time with these old curmudgeonly podcasters. We appreciate your fresh perspective on this event and everything. Please open up me. Thank you for having me. And, you know, this is a really good discussion, I think, around the horn about what we all weren't. We are also new media. Yes. That's here. Old guys, new media. And so this is, it is interesting kind of walking around and seeing how content is being done and thinking about like, what does that look like for us as B2B media companies?

52:27The CPG Guys: Please subscribe to the Retail Media Breakfast Club podcast. It's on every podcast platform that is known to humankind. Carrie, thank you again. Shree, as always, this journey is meaningless without my best friend on it. So I'm grateful for your camaraderie, your partnership, your big head, Papa Entourage. Papa Entourage. And to our audience, thank you to 45 ,000 followers on LinkedIn. who like, engage with all of our content. We are not a community without you. And we are grateful for all of your engagement. If you heard something in today's podcast you think was interesting, drop us a line, make a comment, whatever.

53:15The CPG Guys: We listen to it all. We really do appreciate it. Until next time, this is PBSB signing off. You have been listening to the CPT Guys podcast. Bye-bye.

53:27Thank you.

53:57The CPG Guys: 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. The views expressed by CPG Guys LLC do not represent the views of their employers or the entity they represent. CPG 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.