Life in Programmatic Digital Out-of-Home
00:16:44 · Jon Mundy
[00:16:44] S1: Yeah, that agency is suddenly waking up to the fact that they have to start talking to retailers as media owners, as sources and as data partners is fascinating. Actually, it's already happening. If you look at the stuff that Publicis has done with Carrefour in France and that sort of evolution, is an absolute shift. Every major agency group has got a head of retail and a severe focus on retail and a strong focus on retail media. And it's not just a you know, it's not the same old same old sort of media buying thing. It is very much a focus on the sort of the shopper marketing story. And I think we do get consumed by online retail as a story, and it's been the thing. But actually, it's that point that the biggest opportunity is in bricks and mortar. It always has been and always will be. It's not going to go away. I remember ten years ago, everyone was talking about, oh, the death of the high street. And the high street's changed, but people still like to buy things in person.
00:17:51 · Dan Larden, Jon Mundy
[00:17:51] S2: I think that's right, but I'm gonna challenge you there a little bit because I like to, you know, There is definitely two worlds emerging in retail media. And again, this comes down to definitions, but I think we're moving to if you think about the area that we're in, in terms of anyone can spin up a TikTok shop, anyone can spin up a Google Ads account, anyone can spin up a Meta shop, but just a credit card. People can do a bit of marketing here really quickly on these platforms. People can set up a shop and also do all the logistics. So to be a challenger D2C and sell to people, you could argue you'd do it in a day and you can arguably... You no longer need to be a CIPD accredited marketing professional, and you no longer need to have a big load of money to start logistics. I think some people would argue retail media is being actually the biggest boom of retail media is Amazon, being able to sort of being the sort of big 80% of facilitating that and potentially the social media platforms in the shops. But I... And so this is where the things get conflated and the way it's really hard to have this conversation just in a sort of, you twenty minute podcast because that world seems to be growing a huge amount. And, you know, you'd add Google into that as well. You've just... I think they just reached 200,000,000,000 revenue in a year sort of thing, and Amazon is crazy. [00:19:13] S1: And they like Shopify.
00:19:13 · Jon Mundy, Dan Larden
[00:19:13] S1: And they like Shopify. [00:19:16] S2: And they're a massive part of it. But I do think what you're saying is also true in that there is I think there is a premium retail media ecosystem which is sort of developing in its own right and very interesting for big brands and for big supermarkets and for people like yourself who have really great quality infrastructure on performance. And then there's this other world, is developing, which is fast direct to consumer shopping, which is also retail media, like it or not. And I think that's really interesting because I think Unilever, they've just lost 30% of their workforce. And I'm not saying that it's directly related to the fact that you've got lots of these different B2C challenges coming up who are now selling similar products to them, but it's not hard to say that it's a little bit linked. So I do think you've got this very interesting. In the next ten years and probably beyond, gonna have the brands are gonna have to really figure out, okay, how do I make use of this incredible brand? And how can I make use of this the out of home piece and the traditional broadcast bit, but make it more sophisticated and retail and data driven? Because you know that the person that's doing the DTC challenger, who's just set up their TikTok shop in half an hour, they're not gonna be a buying out home. That's what I think is a very interesting conversation. And you'll definitely be part of that conversation, I imagine, a lot because it's it's a premium retail media ecosystem, which definitely has out of home versus this
00:19:16 · Dan Larden, Jon Mundy
[00:19:16] S2: And they're a massive part of it. But I do think what you're saying is also true in that there is I think there is a premium retail media ecosystem which is sort of developing in its own right and very interesting for big brands and for big supermarkets and for people like yourself who have really great quality infrastructure on performance. And then there's this other world, is developing, which is fast direct to consumer shopping, which is also retail media, like it or not. And I think that's really interesting because I think Unilever, they've just lost 30% of their workforce. And I'm not saying that it's directly related to the fact that you've got lots of these different B2C challenges coming up who are now selling similar products to them, but it's not hard to say that it's a little bit linked. So I do think you've got this very interesting. In the next ten years and probably beyond, gonna have the brands are gonna have to really figure out, okay, how do I make use of this incredible brand? And how can I make use of this the out of home piece and the traditional broadcast bit, but make it more sophisticated and retail and data driven? Because you know that the person that's doing the DTC challenger, who's just set up their TikTok shop in half an hour, they're not gonna be a buying out home. That's what I think is a very interesting conversation. And you'll definitely be part of that conversation, I imagine, a lot because it's it's a premium retail media ecosystem, which definitely has out of home versus this [00:20:49] S1: But it's fascinating.
00:20:49 · Jon Mundy, Dan Larden
[00:20:49] S1: But it's fascinating. [00:20:50] S2: This challenger piece on the digital side.
00:20:51 · Jon Mundy
[00:20:51] S1: But it's fascinating. You you talk about you talk about that, you know, you look at... I was just walking past one of our screens earlier, as you do all the time. But... And there was there was a bloody great ad for Shein, the the the Chinese online retailer that has grown... The fashion retailer that's grown out of nowhere, it seems, in the last couple of years. And they're spending very big money with us right now, advertising in the run up to Black Friday and talking about that. And, you know, the the the the retail... The fascinating thing about retail is that it is constantly evolving, that there is the ability for anyone to pop up and start selling something to go into Shopify or Amazon Marketplace and start selling. And the logistics are there and managed and everything can be done. And equally, you know, there's there's there's there's huge evolution in the way the supermarkets are working. And, you know, the way that, you know, the department stores have sort of somehow changed. You know, John Lewis is still running, but you've seen the sort of demise of Debenhams and HMV and other stuff in the last few years. It's it's just a very interesting space as it changes. And I think what we're seeing as a as a media owner is is, you know, we're we're on the back of a huge year. We've seen massive growth in revenue. The iPhone is probably stronger now than it has ever been. Our malls are doing brilliantly. We're seeing massive traffic in those foot traffic in places like Westfield and Bluewater is through the roof. And those sites are, you know, where we're seeing, you know, retailers where we're seeing and where we've got some the most successful large format and small format out of home placements we've got in the country. So it's it's really interesting. It is a it is a very, very fluid ecosystem. I think it's probably almost as exciting as programmatic digital out of home, but I can't say that because I'm contractually obliged to say that programmatic digital out of is the single most exciting media format in the world. But aside from that, it's quite cool.