Advertise on podcast: The CPG View

Can you walk us through your career journey and the key experiences that led you to where you are today as CEO of Advantage Solutions? With the shelf now extending from in-store to digital retail media networks, how is Advantage Solutions evolving its capabilities to help brands win both the physical shelf and the digital shelf? Many CPG brands struggle to connect strategy at headquarters with flawless execution in stores. Where does Advantage add the most value in closing that gap today? The retail and CPG industries are being transformed by AI, retail media, data, and changing consumer expectations. What developments are you most excited about over the next three to five years, and where do you see the biggest opportunities for brands to win? As we wrap up, if you could leave our audience of CPG and retail leaders with one piece of advice or one challenge to help them build stronger businesses and better teams, what would it be?

We spent our last conversation talking about how quickly commerce is changing. As brands move from understanding that shift to actually responding to it, where do you think they should be placing their biggest bets today? As AI becomes embedded across media, content, retail and commerce operations, do you think the traditional boundaries between those functions start to disappear and what does that mean for how organizations should be structured? There are more platforms, signals and opportunities competing for investment than ever before. How should leaders determine what is truly driving incremental growth versus simply shifting dollars or attribution from one channel to another? As more decisions move from human-led workflows toward AI-driven and eventually autonomous systems, what decisions should brands be comfortable handing over to technology and where does human judgment remain critical? If we look three to five years ahead, what does a truly AI-native commerce organization look like—and what will the companies that win have done differently from those that struggle to keep up?

You’ve had quite the journey across beauty, FMCG, e-commerce, and omnichannel. Take us back a little how did your career evolve, and what eventually brought you to leading E-Commerce and Amazon across Europe for L’Oréal Luxe? Luxury beauty is such an interesting category because the experience matters just as much as the product. How do you bring that sense of discovery, excitement, and luxury into an online environment while still driving performance? You’re working across more than 27 European markets, which sounds exciting and probably a little complicated. What have you learned about scaling a big e-commerce strategy while still leaving room for what makes each market and consumer different? Amazon, marketplaces, TikTok Shop, retail media—the commerce world keeps adding new places for brands to show up. Which areas are you most excited about right now, and where do you think brands sometimes get distracted by the next shiny object? You’ve had a front-row seat to a huge transformation in how people discover and buy brands. Looking ahead, what excites you most about where commerce is going and what’s one thought, lesson, or piece of advice you’d love to leave our listeners with?

Every company says they want to build long-term customer value, but then the annual budget shows up and suddenly everyone is focused on this quarter. Why is it so hard for organizations to invest today for a return they may not see until another budget cycle? Let’s talk about CLV for a minute. The concept makes perfect sense on paper, but the models can sometimes assume a level of customer loyalty that simply doesn’t exist. Where do you think companies get overly optimistic when they try to put a value on a customer? In highly competitive categories, are we even thinking about the “lifetime” part correctly? If consumers are constantly being won, lost, and won back, should brands start thinking less about Customer Lifetime Value and more about something like “Customer Leasehold Value”? Once you have a more realistic view of what a customer is actually worth, how should that change the decisions being made around acquisition, retention, promotions, retail media, and where the next dollar gets spent? So bring it all together for the executive sitting in that budget meeting: if the goal is to build a stronger commerce business rather than simply hit the next reporting period, what questions should leadership be asking before deciding where to place their bets?

You've said a shopping journey that used to take 19 days can now take just 19 seconds. What's driving that shift, and how are the best brands leveraging TikTok to launch products, drive discovery, and accelerate sales?You have a unique vantage point across Beauty and Food & Beverage. What separates brands that are truly winning on TikTok from those still trying to figure it out? Which brands are doing it particularly well, and why?Brand safety remains a top concern for larger brands. What do you think brands misunderstand about brand safety on TikTok, and how are leading brands managing it without becoming so cautious that they miss out on culture and opportunity?How are the best brands thinking about ROI on TikTok, and what are they measuring beyond in-app conversions to understand the broader impact on their business?How are leading brands approaching the creator ecosystem? How do they identify and select the right creators, and what technologies or tools are helping them make smarter decisions?

The consumer is generating more signals than ever, but more data doesn’t necessarily mean more clarity. What are the signals you believe executives should be paying much closer attention to right now? We often talk about understanding what consumers are doing, but the harder question is understanding why. Where are you seeing the biggest gaps between traditional consumer measurement and what actually explains behavior today? As consumer behavior becomes more fragmented across stores, digital channels, platforms and generations, how should brands rethink the way they define their consumer and identify where their next source of growth will come from? AI is dramatically changing how quickly organizations can analyze and act on consumer intelligence. Where do you see AI fundamentally changing the insights function versus simply making existing research and analytics faster? Looking ahead, do you think the biggest competitive advantage will come from having better consumer data—or from an organization’s ability to connect those insights to decisions faster than everyone else?

For years, commerce teams have been trained to look backward. What sold, what worked, what changed. What happens when intelligence starts telling us what to do next instead of simply explaining what already happened? There are hundreds of decisions being made every day around pricing, assortment, promotions, content, and inventory. Which of those decisions should we actually be comfortable handing over to AI, and where does human judgment still matter most? Here’s where it gets interesting: what happens when every brand and retailer has access to increasingly similar AI capabilities? Does competitive advantage come from having better technology or from asking better questions and acting differently on the answers? We’re also moving toward a world where AI agents may increasingly influence or even make purchase decisions for consumers. How does commerce strategy change when brands aren't only trying to win the shopper, but potentially an algorithm shopping on their behalf?If we fast-forward a few years and AI is simply part of how commerce operates, what do you think the best companies will have learned to do exceptionally well that most organizations aren't doing today?

1. How are you and your team at Dentsu helping brands adjust to the collapsed funnel, where discovery, consideration, and conversion can happen in the same session?2. Where does agentic AI fit into that shift, and how should brands be thinking about agentic commerce, media, workflows, and team structures?3. As you build the commerce organization at Dentsu, how do you structure teams so budgets can move fluidly toward what is working instead of staying locked into channels or trade calendars?4. How are brands balancing the need for speed with brand safety, legal approvals, and organizational gridlock?5. When a sale can’t be attributed to one channel, who should actually own the outcome inside the organization?6. With media evolving faster than many brands’ ability to manage and report on outcomes, what does the measurement stack need to look like by 2027?7. Before brands can budget by outcome instead of by channel, what capabilities need to exist first, and are brands ready to make that switch?8. If you had to give a CMO one sentence to put at the top of their 2027 plan, what would it say?

You’ve built your career across platforms, agencies, publishers, and now retail media. Looking back, what were the pivotal moments that shaped the way you think about data, measurement, and commercialization today? Albertsons Media Collective’s iROAS research found that campaign outcomes could vary depending solely on methodology, with the campaigns shifting from positive to negative based on how performance was measured. What did those findings reveal about the current state of retail media measurement, and why do you think the industry has struggled for so long to align on what “impact” really means? Incrementality has been discussed in retail media for years, but it feels like the conversation is finally shifting from theory into operational practice. What has to change organizationally, technologically, and culturally for retailers and brands to truly measure demand creation instead of just demand capture? The Martinelli’s campaign is a fascinating real-world example — a 33% sales lift, 65% new-to-brand buyers, and $7.45 in incremental ROAS. Can you walk us through what made that campaign successful and what it taught your team about identifying media that is genuinely driving new customer behavior? When you look ahead at the future of retail media, data collaboration, and measurement innovation, what are you personally most excited about — and where do you think the biggest breakthroughs are still ahead?

When product experience becomes an enterprise priority, where does the transformation typically begin? What needs to change internally—from ownership to processes to ways of working—before the technology can really deliver value? For executives making the case for investment, how should they measure the business impact of product experience? Which metrics best connect these capabilities to revenue, margin, market share, or other outcomes the C-suite cares about? Many large organizations are dealing with years of accumulated technology, fragmented systems, and processes built around different teams and channels. How should leaders approach simplifying that complexity while still keeping the business moving? At the same time, speed has become a competitive advantage. Whether it’s launching a product, onboarding a new retailer, or entering a new market, where can the right product experience infrastructure have the greatest impact on speed and agility? If you were advising a CEO or Chief Digital Officer beginning this transformation today, what would you tell them to prioritize over the next 12 to 24 months—and what might feel urgent but can actually wait?

Before launching K2O, you spent seven years helping scale MaryRuth’s. What did that experience teach you that emerging CPG brands often learn too late?K2O sits at the intersection of celebrity, wellness, beauty and functional hydration. How do you turn that initial excitement into an enduring brand with staying power?Celebrity can generate awareness quickly, but repeat purchase ultimately determines whether the brand succeeds. How are you translating Kylie’s audience into loyal K2O customers, and what early signals tell you that it is working?K2O is operating across DTC, TikTok Shop, Amazon, iHerb and Target. How do you decide where to invest while keeping the brand, pricing and customer experience consistent across channels?If you were building K2O again from day one, which data, creative-testing and AI capabilities would you put in place immediately?

You’ve had a front row seat from Mars and L’Oréal to now leading Barrows Connected Store what were the key moments that really shaped your career and point of view? You’ve said stores are becoming high performance media channels but most in store experiences still feel cluttered and ineffective. Are retailers getting this fundamentally wrong today? Was there a specific moment when you saw the convergence of digital media and physical retail and realized this was the space to build in? As you scale Barrows globally how do you balance technology creativity and commercial impact without losing the shopper experience? Looking ahead what excites you most about where in store and retail media is headed over the next few years?

1. Retail media has become a strategic priority for both retailers and brands, but not every organization is realizing the returns they expected. From your experience, what separates the companies that consistently outperform from those that struggle to generate meaningful business impact? 2. As retail media budgets continue to grow, executives are looking beyond campaign performance and asking how these investments influence the broader business. How should leadership teams evaluate retail media's impact across sales, customer loyalty, category growth, and long-term enterprise value? 3. Retail media has traditionally focused on sponsored search and on-site advertising, but the ecosystem is expanding rapidly into off-site media, in-store experiences, connected TV, and other channels. Which of these emerging opportunities do you believe will create the greatest competitive advantage over the next few years? 4. Collaboration between retailers, brands, agencies, and technology partners has become increasingly important. What are the characteristics of the strongest partnerships you've seen, and where do organizations most often create unnecessary friction that limits growth? 5. If you were advising both a retailer building its media network and a CPG brand investing across multiple retail media platforms, what three strategic priorities would you tell each of them to focus on over the next 12 to 24 months?

Tell us about your journey. What led you to co-found BetterBasket, and what did you see in the grocery industry that made you believe there was an opportunity to build something different? Grocery has always been a business of tight margins and complex decisions. Where do you see AI having the biggest impact today across pricing, promotions, and assortment—and where are grocers still leaving opportunity on the table? BetterBasket brings together AI optimization and competitive data. How does better intelligence actually change the decisions a grocery operator can make, and can you give us an example of what that looks like in practice? As AI becomes embedded in more grocery decisions, how do you see the role of the merchant or operator changing? Is AI primarily about automating decisions, or is the bigger opportunity helping people make smarter decisions faster? Looking ahead, what are you most excited about for the future of grocery and AI? And if there’s one idea or takeaway you’d like listeners to leave this conversation with, what would it be?

Once a brand can identify the specific visual, messaging, and creative attributes associated with conversion, what becomes possible that simply wasn’t possible with traditional content analytics? How much can content intelligence tell us about why a consumer chooses one product over another—not just whether a piece of content performed—and where are brands beginning to uncover insights they didn’t know to look for? One of the interesting opportunities is applying these insights before content ever reaches the consumer. How do you see predictive intelligence changing the way brands develop campaigns, product pages, packaging, or other creative assets upstream? Brands are sitting on years of creative assets and performance data. Is there an opportunity to turn that historical content into a strategic data asset, and what could executives learn from looking across that body of work rather than evaluating campaigns individually? If a brand becomes significantly better at predicting what will convert before its competitors can, where does that advantage ultimately show up—speed to market, customer acquisition, retailer performance, market share, or somewhere else entirely?