Unlocked Podcast Crossover with Elizabeth Donovan & Austin Leonard

0:00Austin Leonard: Brand 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.

0:50Austin Leonard: That's salesforce.com slash consumer goods. Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys podcast, set at the intersection of commerce and tech. Your hosts, Peter V.S. Bond and Sri Rajagopalan, explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in an increasingly digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys.

1:19Elizabeth Donovan: Welcome to Unlocked with Austin and Elizabeth. Very special episode. Very special. I'm your host, Austin Leonard. I'm here with my co-host, Elizabeth Donovan. Elizabeth, where are we today? We are at AdWeek 2026 in New York City. And normally we'd like to do these remote. It's nice, comfortable in the home. But as you can see, we have two other folks in the room with us. Who do we have today? The one. Well, the two. The only. The two and only. The two and only. CPG guys. His hat says CPG. Hey, hey.

1:53Austin Leonard: We're going to unlock the CPG guys today. What's up, Shree? Aren't they Cosby kids? No, we're not. Definitely not.

1:59Elizabeth Donovan: We're working on the name of the collab still, but the good news is...

2:02Austin Leonard: It is a crossover event.

2:04Elizabeth Donovan: It's a crossover event. One of the main things that helped drive us to actually get this going was listening for many years to our good friends, Peter and Shree on the CPG guys. So we can't thank you guys enough for joining us. Congratulations on the success, having the guts to launch it, doing what you do, being who you both are. and getting through this many episodes. We know it's not easy. Well, you inspire us every day. And I always said, I know we're making it when we have the CPG guys on the pod.

2:33Austin Leonard: We're honored to be here. We're big fans of what you guys are producing, both professionally and we love you guys personally. You're family to us. And we've created this little podcast community. We're so happy to have you as a part of it. We don't, everyone asks, why do you talk about or promote other podcasts on your podcast? And what I say is this is not a zero sum game. A rising tide in podcast lifts all ships. I think I know from talking to you guys, you agree. Our goal is to try and get people to use podcasts as a method to both entertain and educate them. And if all they ever do is listen to the CPG guys, they're going to get bored of us pretty quickly.

3:13Austin Leonard: But if we are in a rotation of podcasts where you get different perspectives and different approaches, that's what we're looking for. So we are so happy to have you in this community that we're all a part of.

3:26Elizabeth Donovan: He came for the ships and tides. I came for the ad week gossip. All right. I'm in for all of it. Perfect. Give me the tea. Ships, tides, and gossip. Live from New York City. Live from New York City. It's Unlocked with Austin and Elizabeth. With the unlocked people. With the CBG guys.

3:42Austin Leonard: You guys got a new logo. Yeah.

3:45Elizabeth Donovan: We're working on it. We're working on it. I've seen the drama for a while.

3:48Austin Leonard: To quote the eternal Mel Brooks from Space World, it's about the merchandise. It is. It is. It's about the merchandise.

3:55Elizabeth Donovan: Unlock merch. I can't wait.

3:56Austin Leonard: Unlock merch. We want some swag. Bring us some swag. Okay.

4:00Elizabeth Donovan: You got it. You'll be the first one to get it. Well, we appreciate that. And for those listening, the thing that I love about that is that's not just something that Peter and Tree say on the air, behind the scenes. They've been super supportive. They're always willing to give advice. help. And they're giving up a lot of time during a very busy week. So we appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. For those that haven't listened to Unlocked, because we do know that we're reaching a new audience, we are Unlocked with Austin and Elizabeth. We have been building this as a way to help give back to the community.

4:29Elizabeth Donovan: What we like to do is really talk about the history of retail media, because what we have learned is that helps us really guide into the future. So we're actually going to flip the script on the guys today and let them make it a little easier Instead of them having to host and moderate, Elizabeth and I are going to ask them the super tough questions. Right, Elizabeth? Bring it. I don't think these guys have any tough questions. They know their stuff. Well, before we do that, don't underestimate our ability to disappoint you, but we'll do our best. But before we do that, Sri, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself for the five people that listen to our podcast that don't know who you are.

5:07Elizabeth Donovan: Well, we actually have a thousand listeners. We have a lot of listeners. My point was not that we don't have a lot of listeners It's just that everybody knows Peter and Tree But for the few that don't I'm so literal I remember our thousand It came in 2021 It was a magic moment Congratulations Thank you I even cut cakes and did social media for 5, 10, 15, 25 We're about 1.5 away from 50 Which on LinkedIn will be a very magic moment I can't wait to get that cake from Elizabeth Cake. I actually do make cakes with no preservatives and no dyes. I want a cake with red dye.

5:52Austin Leonard: I mean, we live for, look at us. We live for a preservative. White flower. We need to be preserved.

5:58Elizabeth Donovan: Okay, I'm going to give you a red dye. We are six minutes in and we are already completely off the track. That's what makes it great.

6:05Austin Leonard: I want to look like that M &M guy. That's how red I want to be. Okay. Okay. Ad week, yes. But seriously, who are you guys?

6:12Elizabeth Donovan: We'll start with you, Papa Shree. We're the CPG guys. Peter and I, we've been doing this about six years, give or take, 650-odd episodes in, thrice a week. Every Tuesday, we kind of do a recap of what the latest happenings in the industry, from earnings announcements to promotions to new executive appointments, things of that nature, things that are meaningful M &A. We release two episodes a week. Usually one is with a brand or retailer and one is with the network of service providers that exist in our community. And 650 episodes later, we're doing other things as well, such as doing keynotes on stage, hosting dinners for many of our partners.

6:49Elizabeth Donovan: Our goal is to make the industry a better place where people can network freely, can work with each other. And at the end of the day, Peter and I are comic relief. We call the podcast edutainment. Oh, I love that. Anything to add?

7:05Austin Leonard: Yeah. Sheree and I have known each other 30 years. We met at the artist formerly known as IRI back in Norwalk, Connecticut when we were working. Wow. Something. That we were old school. And it was in 2019 that Sheree came to me at a conference in Chicago and said, would you like to do something together? I was thinking about us co-authoring a weekly blog. And for reasons that transpired thereafter, we weren't able to do it. But at the beginning of the pandemic, Sri called me up and said, hey, that idea about doing a blog, we should revisit that because I don't know if you've seen these companies like Instacart and Grizzly just exploding.

7:45Austin Leonard: We should be talking about that. And I said, well, I love the idea, but I think a blog is a little last millennium. What do you think if we did a YouTube channel? So we just started using Zoom to record conversations where each week Sri and I would take turns asking questions. And after we recorded about five episodes, we decided that one, we needed to move to podcast format so people could consume on the go. Two, as much as we thought of ourselves as subject matter experts, after five episodes, we'd exhausted our expertise and we probably needed guests. And last was that the original name we came up with, Consumer Engagement in an Omnichannel World, was just a little too not rolling off the tongue enough.

8:23Austin Leonard: So we came up with the CPG guys, and those were kind of the three big catalysts that set us in motion. To Sheree's point, we are very much about educating. We understand that in this industry that we're in, understanding what a DSP versus an SSP is can be very dry. And we do lean heavy on the entertainment. Sheree and I are always joking around, kidding around, because to us, it's kind of the Mary Poppins approach. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. So we're always joking with each other, but it's so that people can gravitate to what we're talking about and just laugh and learn at the same time.

9:03Austin Leonard: I'm very fortunate. My background was primarily on the retail side. I spent four years at Dunhumbi during their partnership with Kroger. I ran the Extra Care Loyalty Program at CBS for three years. As Sharia's fond to mention all the time, I'm the person responsible for the six foot long register receipt you get when you buy a bottle of soda. and as Sri cut his chops on the CPG side from Petsico to J &J to Revlon and then most recently the CCO at General Mills, we bring a practitioner's approach to what we're talking about. And we love it because we get to invite our friends on, friends like you, to talk on the podcast and we've built a community.

9:43Austin Leonard: And at the end of the day, when people stop us anywhere we are, most often it's at a conference, but I mean, I was in Tokyo two summers ago walking through downtown and this guy just walked up to me. I wasn't wearing any swag. I said, you CBG guy and sat there and I know it's a little, it's a little crazy. So we're so honored to be in this industry. This podcast has been a blessing to us. Nobody learns more about this industry from this podcast than we do because we get to ask the questions we want answers to. So that's, that's

10:14Elizabeth Donovan: the only thing i'd actually just that little bit yeah we get to learn every day that's the learning

10:18Austin Leonard: you're unlocking friendship unlocking friendships you're unlocking learnings and you know do you guys know the story of how austin and i know we want to know though we want this story we want

10:30Elizabeth Donovan: the origin story the meet cute so to speak when i first met austin it was at the ascended network And this is even before. Which year? Long time ago? Right after it started. Right after. 2023, the first year. Okay. So he was just talking. Were you at any of those?

10:49Austin Leonard: I didn't. I never went to an Ascendant event. I only went to one of their cocktail parties at grocery shop.

10:55Elizabeth Donovan: Well, that community is very special to us. That's where I met Austin. That's where I met a lot of the builders in this industry that really inspired us to do this podcast. And I was really thinking about how can I have my childhood dreams come true? Because I always went, you know how some people... You wanted to go to Dodger Stadium too? That's so cool. And you're in New York. I don't know. Oh, sorry.

11:16Austin Leonard: Oh, different dream.

11:17Elizabeth Donovan: Different dream. But I would say, you know, some girls dream about their wedding. I dreamed about always having a microphone. And I was on stage, but I was alone. But I knew I could never be alone because I love people so much. So I started thinking about writing this podcast. And then one day, you know, I was looking and looking and I was like, I don't know who could be my co-host. But he was right in front of me. All these. There he was. There he was. Hilarious. I was going to say quirky, but not really. Quirky? All right. That's a new one. Not quirky, but really so smart and knowledgeable and just a builder just like myself.

11:56Elizabeth Donovan: And I said, you know what? As usual, Austin and I are never playing by the rules. We're always talking too much. rules who who cares for rules forget the rules i thought he was only there for the looks now i know a lot more i went outside go on and i just came right up to him i'm totally ignoring this i went right up to him i said austin i'm making a podcast and i want you to be my co-host i asked nobody else in the world i told nobody else about it and austin pulls up his phone i've been writing a podcast and we compared notes we're like and so let's do it let's do it And the time it was perfect in the energy that we have and the fun that we have with it.

12:34Elizabeth Donovan: That was the part that makes it obviously a fun side hustle and allows us to start to build this fun thing that we're building. But again, you guys were part of that motivation, that inspiration for us to do it. You are the bar. Was it a lady?

12:47Austin Leonard: You should, full disclosure, you should know at this point, we only stay together for the kids. But you go ahead. Very shortly. Live the dream. Muppet something Waldorf. Do you guys remember the Muppet show? I am no. Remember Waldorf and Statler, the crotchety old guys up in the balcony? That's us.

13:03Elizabeth Donovan: We love it. That's us. I don't know this. Definitely not Miss Piggy. No. No, no. We're not part of their Muppet show. No, no. It's our Muppet show. They are up on our balcony. They are jumping in here. We also do video because we do podcasts because of our radio faces. It's like perfect fit. We are starting to get into things. Fanny steps. We have an Instagram handle. Ooh. We are going to post. We will share soon. it's taking a while as you need to you need to talk to it come on maybe this is the first episode that we air a few clips there we go no myspace yeah i was gonna say myspace i didn't know how to code those somehow i had fewer followers than our instagram so you know what i would love to bring back the top eight there we go you know oh speaking of top eight just to get us back on show we do actually we do have a week we wanted to give a couple Well, before we get to ad weeks, we will get there.

13:59Elizabeth Donovan: Let's take that look back moment first. So because you guys have been in the industry for a while, you guys were at the forefront of like, hey, we need to be talking about retail media and commerce media. But what was that moment? What's that first moment that really said, hey, this is going to be huge. We think this is important for the industry. We think this is important, most importantly, for actually driving business results. What was that first moment that you guys want to talk about?

14:22Austin Leonard: I can tell you when I knew that what we were doing was resonating, we had invited on a fellow by the name of Josh Ryder. Josh was at the time working for Seth Dallaire when he was at Instacart, and he was getting prepared to launch the Instacart ads platform. We had gone to Josh and said, we'd love to have you come on the podcast. And he kept pushing us off because PR was getting ready to give a big push behind Instacart ads. But remember, it's the summer of 2020, and they kept signing more and more retailers. So every time they'd sign a big retailer, Pierre would push him off. And after about six times getting pushed, he finally called us up and he goes, I don't know if I'm ever going to get a slot.

15:03Austin Leonard: So I want to come on your podcast because I need some amplification. So he came on and we talked to him two weeks after the episode. And we just wanted to see if he got any feedback. And we called him up and Josh said, oh, yeah, I got some feedback for you. I can name at least 20 brands that have signed on to the Instacart ads platform because they heard your podcast episode.

15:22Elizabeth Donovan: So we knew that day we're already getting reach. But then I also had the privilege of working for a very large market cap CPG company where I was dealing, working with a ton of retail media networks. And very early in 2021, I felt this is going to be a phenomenon of extraordinary scale. Remember, COVID happened. And there was a massive movement in the grocery industry from about 2%, 3 % penetration of e-com to 15 % overnight when COVID hit. Like within one week, that changed. And so the industry had to gravitate. Retail media was built full of, I'm talking back then. Today, retail media is a full funnel mechanism.

16:02Elizabeth Donovan: Four years ago, five years ago, it was more a lower funnel mechanism. It was all on site.

16:08Austin Leonard: Display ads and search.

16:09Elizabeth Donovan: Even search came later. It was really display ads. Display ads. It made sense to us on day one through knowledge, experience. Josh doesn't know that. We learned now he'll know publicly that that was a unique moment. But we know we had reach. And then we knew we really had reach when about a year into the show, and I'm going to give credit to our very first sponsor. Heather Murray Udo called us. From Shoppable. From Shoppable. And she said, I'm willing to sponsor an episode of the show. and said, Peter, somebody actually wants to.

16:44Austin Leonard: We had talked about when we thought we would have a large enough audience that we could possibly approach a sponsor at the rate we were growing our followers on LinkedIn because that was the only metric we really had that we can measure against. And so we said it's going to be December of 2021 before we thought we'd have a credible enough audience size. And she came to us in February and they kept coming. They kept coming. And we were completely inbound sourcing of sponsors for the episode for the better part of three years.

17:19Elizabeth Donovan: Today, it's a different ballgame. We're booked out our inventory right now. What are we sitting here in early October? We don't have a slot for another podcast in February. Wow. Yeah. Booked out. Guys are in high demand. I do remember those early episodes, though. So you guys did a very wide range, even thinking about how does supply chain work in a time when it was the first time anyone on the consumer facing side cared about supply chain. And then there'd always be this like, and now we're going to go to Shree's favorite topic, retail media. And then it just consumed us over time.

17:53Austin Leonard: You guys were the only ones talking about it.

17:55Elizabeth Donovan: That was the first time that anyone I was actually talking about retail media at the scale that you guys ended up building. I do think we have a unique perspective or a privilege more than anything, an honor and a privilege of having been raised in this industry as practitioners. Like I've run retail media budgets. He's run loyalty programs. So we come deep with that coaching background. We've done it as a job. So when someone sits across the table as a guest, we kind of anticipate what's on their mind. And that's how we shape all our questions for them based on if we were doing their job, what would they care about the most and what would the message they want to get out to the industry.

18:35Elizabeth Donovan: And that's the key, right? You know your guests, you understand your guests because you've been there. You've done that. Yeah, a lot of people don't, I think, comprehend for every single episode the amount of energy and effort. Peter and I put in pre-show to write the right script, to introduce the person with the right language.

18:53Austin Leonard: You guys know this. We may look like that swan gliding effortlessly across the pond, but if you go underwater, there are some legs furiously kicking. Sri and I spend an inordinate amount of time, as I know you guys do, prepping, getting ready, figuring out what you want to talk about. We don't phone it in. We don't ask the same 10 questions to every single person. And our goal is to get questions answered, but to do it in a way that our guests feel welcome and want to be open about what their subject matter expertise is.

19:31Elizabeth Donovan: Also, before we had a team, Peter and I were doing everything ourselves.

19:35Austin Leonard: I had to teach myself how to post a podcast, how to record, how to edit.

19:40Elizabeth Donovan: We're still doing.

19:41Austin Leonard: But you know what? It made me appreciate what it takes for people who now do those roles to do so that I know when we hire a video editor, we had an episode we recorded in Las Vegas. I gave it. He came back from vacation yesterday. I gave him a very concise document of everything. He had no questions and he produced the episode. I saw it this morning and he did it perfectly. So operationally, it's because we actually did the work ourselves that we can make sure that the work gets done as we pass it on to people that are probably more appropriate to do it than we are so that we can focus on some of these new things we're getting involved with.

20:21Elizabeth Donovan: There's so much that goes behind the scenes. Like, look at this amazing setup, right? And look how quickly you did it because you're practicing. You've done it so much. Like for us, you know, J-Lab actually sent us some microphones. That was so nice. That is so cool. Yeah. So I spoke on a panel. I think it was at CES. And I met the chief marketing officer, Tara. And she said, you know what? I love the vision of your podcast. And she sent us some head equipment. That's awesome. So now I'm like, okay, we see this set up. Austin and I are like, we need to continue to invest because we're growing.

20:55Elizabeth Donovan: And we're at 8th week this week.

20:58Austin Leonard: To assure JBL or any other electronics company that wants to curry favor with the CPG guys, you can send us anything you want. Yes, and I'm not going to ask them for a sponsorship. I want some of that too.

21:10Elizabeth Donovan: You can send the sponsorship. We just need some startup cameras. Hey, the one thing we'll pass on to you all when you're newer, you guys have been doing this more than a year at this point. So I'd still call you newer in the ecosystem. Don't chase perfection. Don't chase the perfect video. Don't chase the perfect audio. When you've scaled like us, you don't have a choice. You have to have perfection. I'll never say perfection. The quality has to be very high.

21:37Austin Leonard: I can't tell you how many podcasts I've seen out there come with the perfect studio and lighting the great equipment and they make it 12 episodes and they're done.

21:46Elizabeth Donovan: Yeah, because the conversation is horrible.

21:47Austin Leonard: It's the conversation that matters.

21:48Elizabeth Donovan: Focus on the quality of the conversation that you guys are having and also with the guests you choose to bring versus I need perfection, audio quality, and my video quality. The other thing is we started only one episode a week. Now we're three episodes a week and hot off the press. We do one a month. So we'll get there. And part of the press, we're starting a second podcast on November 2nd called On The Rise to give brand founders an opportunity to also reach the industry so retail can hear them now that we have merchants. Congratulations, you have a spinoff. Yes, a second podcast. Our big event for that next year

22:27Austin Leonard: is going to be Expo West because that entire room is filled with early stage startups. And I do want to share that.

22:34Elizabeth Donovan: You're answering the question already. I know, there's no pros. There's such pros. That'll be weekly. But more importantly, what I do want to share, which Peter and I are very proud of that new podcast is every even episode, so episode two, four, six, eight, we're going to be discussing what I feel is a topic we should be discussing in the industry, which we don't approach as an industry, which is human adaptability. AI is about to set upon us and already is set upon us in spectacular ways. What we are here for is ad week. It's going to affect how an agency does work every day. It's going to affect jobs, positively or negatively, TBD.

23:14Elizabeth Donovan: Also, yesterday I was talking to an executive. He was talking about stress management. Those episodes will entirely be about human adaptability, how to be a corporate athlete. While Peter and Anna experts who are partnering with somebody will announce that shortly as well. I have a feeling. Those episodes kick off November 2nd. That's so cool. I'm so excited. We're going to invite you on that show. Oh, I can't. On the Rise is the name we need to showcase you as On the Rise. Well, I would love to. And thank you so much. So you talked about some new themes. Let's think about Adweek. What are we hearing for 2026?

23:49Elizabeth Donovan: And, you know, who else would you want to bring on On the Rise?

23:53Austin Leonard: In terms of the overall theme, of course, you can't step on stage now a week without talking about AI, AI, AI. My bigger issue is not what we're hearing. It's what we're not hearing. Exactly. What we're not hearing is the measurement aspect. The decisions that are being made to invest in commerce media and retail media are increasingly going from customer teams to CMO up to the board, right? And the CFO doesn't want to make recommendations to whole scale change how they how they reallocate their marketing budget for advertising without having strong measurement. If you don't come to the table to talk about how you are showing that the efforts that you're putting into it financially and what have you are delivering measurable results, you're you're not going to get the outcomes you're looking for.

24:51That's the one thing I absolutely urge people to do.

24:56Elizabeth Donovan: I feel today is day two of Adweek Tuesday. There's literally conversations taking place through the entire network here at many off-site locations, not just the West 33rd Street one about agency models and AI and how they're completely transforming already. So AI, there's enough conversations. I got one which we should be talking about a lot more. And Elizabeth, it's squarely in your everyday job because you represent a big partnership with Axiom. We are not talking enough about data. We're not talking enough about the core data foundation about master data because unified master data equal to good data, equal to good LLM, equal to good AI.

25:38Elizabeth Donovan: And last thing I heard about two weeks ago from one of those AI founders, you don't have a good LLM, AI can annihilate the world. So the four of us need to prevent annihilation of the world.

25:48Austin Leonard: And I, wait, you've gone all Terminator on us already, Sri?

25:52Elizabeth Donovan: It's us against the world. Draconian view. And we're here to sideways.

25:55Austin Leonard: So you're saying no Skynet?

25:57Elizabeth Donovan: No Skynet. No Skynet. Okay. No, but my point again was, why are we not talking enough about clean data, good data, unified data? Oh, I've been talking about it free. You got to come to my panel. Yes. But Elizabeth, you're one of those. No, it's true. It should have been a whole team. I would say that I've been to several, you know, work sessions recently and part of some studies. And it kind of scares me about the lack of this foundation. And even before being here at Axiom, people don't know my origin story at AccuWeather. In 2015, I had the best data analysts, 50 plus years of weather data. Do you know what I did?

26:46Elizabeth Donovan: And this is not a sponsored AccuWeather post, but I will say that what they let me do so early on is I said, can I go and do politicals with our data and how to get out the vote based on zip code and how the weather patterns have been in the last 50 years? And do you know what happened? They said yes. And you know what I did? I got on the Acela to D.C. And I did cold calling like nobody ever did before. And you know who I met? The super tax. I went into, I don't even think you know. I've never heard this story. I went into the super tax. And I connected with heads of campaigns. So much so, I was in Brooklyn.

27:28Elizabeth Donovan: We did both sides, by the way. Left and right. Because we didn't.

27:33Austin Leonard: Why not up and down? You were a nonpartisan data source.

27:37Elizabeth Donovan: A data source. That's right. But guess whose campaign that I worked on? Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. And they utilized the weather patterns for active get-out-the-vote targeting. I would have never guessed political campaign weather. And guess what the data said?

27:53Austin Leonard: You should have people in Pennsylvania or Michigan.

27:56Elizabeth Donovan: And we called and we said that. They didn't listen, did they? That I cannot say. But what I would say is AccuWeather still gets those political dollars because they— That is a fabulous story. You can trust the— And that was 2015, and that's when my love for data and how I curate Omni Channel— But you're not wrong with it. The problem is that that's the less exciting side of it. It's not sexy. It's not sexy. It's not. And I can definitely say from my past experience, that's something that people, they especially the folks that are more on the sales side of things they're more focused on how do we deliver on the revenue how do we hit the goals that were given to us they they are trusting that their teams on the back end are working on that but it's it's an important topic that i don't think people give enough time so i want to ask you both a question now or we know you both are on a panel today tell us all about what the panel was what did you guys speak about and how was the audience reach?

28:54Elizabeth Donovan: Well, the amazing thing was that it was standing room only and they didn't even let everyone in because there were so many people. Despite him being there for the looks. He's there for the looks and the brain. Hashtag I can't. This is so nice. I love this. Brain candy. It was called The Next Frontier of Commerce Media. We were talking about how data identity and curation is the foundation. Data identity. With measurement. But you know why it was so important? It was important for the audience to hear how Dollar General is doing it, how Marriott is doing it, how other companies like Magnite from that lens is supporting.

29:37And then we had such a panel

29:40Elizabeth Donovan: and everyone was taken away with something to learn, to bring back to their companies on how to get their data clean, but also how to utilize it for measurement across the omni-channel solution and i would say it was the best one and i think that uh you know especially in an ad week setting like you don't get to get into how as much as you'd like and certainly enough time there's enough well and there's there's also dynamics but we had we were up there with obviously the illustrious elizabeth donovan so which is the mastermind man on the panel we had x1 mobile up there we had Marriott Media up there.

30:17Elizabeth Donovan: We had Magnite. And, you know, I was lucky enough to get to represent Dollar General. And so it was a really cool cross section. Now, part of the future edge of that panel was we were talking about things that are happening in store, especially because that's where not only is that where a lot of the action is and that's what people are really interested in. That's also where I think that we can bridge the gap from a measurement standpoint that it helps to bring those pieces together. So it was a lot of fun. Congrats, guys, on the panel. Thank you. It was great. Shaping the industry, that's what matters.

30:46Austin Leonard: You got a speech. Sri and I have not... Sri, actually, you have actually appeared at Adweek. You did that a couple years ago in your role at General.

30:53Elizabeth Donovan: You appeared, Peter. I saw you out on the street right next to the DeLorean with your bags. And people were taking pictures with you. You don't need to be on the stage, guys. You are the stage. I have been on a panel.

31:07Austin Leonard: I was on a panel in 2022 with Wes Rolls from Fetch. I remember that. I forgot.

31:13Elizabeth Donovan: I've been on the list three years.

31:14Austin Leonard: But I want that DeLorean. Okay, there was a DeLorean parked out front.

31:18Elizabeth Donovan: I called it the Mandalorian. The Mandalorian. Different type of DeLorean. Wait, wait, wait. I want to get to that. What do you call it? A Mandalorian. You know, from Star Wars. I know. I'll help their digital out-of-home payoff. So it was sponsored by a company called Tracksuit. Tracksuit, yes. I still don't know what they do, but they did have the DeLorean out front in Adweek. So there you go. I know.

31:40Austin Leonard: Shree loves to rock a good Tracksuit. I will give him that. Particularly if they're like

31:44Elizabeth Donovan: I don't know if it's a fashion brand or not

31:45Austin Leonard: but that's a good fact. I wore the 90s.

31:48Elizabeth Donovan: I'm learning so much about all three of my guests here.

31:52Austin Leonard: All right. I like a little juicy couture. Never. I was going to say juicy. I love the other.

31:56Elizabeth Donovan: I hate to do it because I think we can keep going for another couple of hours. But at some point they might kick us out of your comic room. Oh my goodness. So let's go to the famous last. Ignore him. Go to the famous last question, Liz. Okay. What's in your survival kit?

32:11Austin Leonard: I'm going to go with Peter. No, Sri, you go ahead.

32:13Elizabeth Donovan: And just to be clear, this isn't end of days survival kit. This is how do you navigate a crazy world. Mine is very easy.

32:20Austin Leonard: See, my survival kit includes, I'm probably going to have, since I'm a little old school, I'm going to have a book. It's going to be Bill James' baseball abstract because I like data and I love stats. And that's going to be a big part of it. I'm probably going to have Don Drysdale's autobiography, Once a Bum, Always a Dodger. and I'm going to have since I have to be a little tech I'm going to have a subscription to MLB.tv that would be my survival kit Shree

32:47Elizabeth Donovan: it's pictures of my six children four of them are tattooed right here the other two are tattooed right here my three cats and my newly acquired puppy who's changed my life Bala I love that we get to end on a high note we want to hear yours too survival kits guys so if you're watching the video these are two things that are in my survival kit so everyone always asks me because there's definitely a lot of time on the road how do you make it through it well the first one is i hydrate a lot of water and then a fair amount of caffeine so but i will tell you the thing that drives me is is it's much to your point is like i got that little girl ava who's looking up and she loves to see when when dad's on stage and i'll watch the question my wife my wife nicole who's also super supportive of everything and you ask me every single time hey are you being a good dad and i said man i'm doing my best nicest thing about shrie is every

33:39Austin Leonard: conversation we have the first thing he asked before we do anything what did you do with nadia yesterday where did you go to the golf course did you do that our conversations always start with family it's never business first business is second or family is first do you know i just

33:55Elizabeth Donovan: realized we all have girls we are girl parents yeah girl parents yeah you want to hear your survival kit well my why are my girls everything that i do every breath that i take are from my beautiful daughters i my my oldest daughter keeps she's in drama she goes in the play the one that i should just show you the video isn't it a shocker she has a voice of an angel and people say olivia is dressed like you and i said no she's better because at her age at 10 11 and 12 i was never on stage. You know, let me share something. I have the voice of an emery board. Go ahead. There is simply no greater joy on planet Earth than seeing your offspring succeed and outclass you.

34:42Elizabeth Donovan: There is no greater joy. That's what I said. She was in Annie. She had Miss Farrell. 80 lines in sixth grade. Remembered everything with a solo. And I said, you know what? I could never have done that. And I'm so proud. I was crying like a little baby, of course. but it means we're doing our jobs right. That we're doing something right. Well, to spend some time with Liz is to get to hear about her beautiful daughter. So listen, I think all of our listeners know why we were so excited to finally get this crossover collaboration scheduled. So guys, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

35:16Austin Leonard: Our honor to be a part of this. Thank you. As we said, we're so glad to have you in the brother's sisterhood of podcasting. it's an important mechanism to educate our industry and connect ourselves into this community. And so all we want is incredible success for Unlocked. You guys are really delivering it episode after episode.

35:38Elizabeth Donovan: Congratulations again on hitting that magic 1K mark. Much more success to come, but that 1K is an important milestone. I remember it. We celebrated it. Let's go. Thank you. Liz, in honor of our 1000th, why don't you take us out? You know, I always love when you close it, but I'm going to close it today. Thank you for joining Unlocked with the CPG Guys. I'm Elizabeth Donovan, here with my co-host, Austin Leonard. Have a great day.

36:18Austin Leonard: 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 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.

36:54Austin Leonard: The 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.