Being a challenger brand in the highly competitive baby formula category is not for the faint of heart. To the contrary, at HiPP Organic it takes a lot of heart, built from the family founders who needed a formula that their own child could tolerate. They now own 7% of the formula milk category in the UK and growing. Emily Jones, Ecommerce Channel Controller at HiPP Organic, joined the podcast to walk us through the omnichannel journey that is intensely focused on the needs of the parents and carers that they strive to connect with, wherever and however they want.

Retail media is attracting more investment than ever. Budgets are increasing. Networks are expanding. Expectations are rising. But one big question still sits underneath all of it: what actually drives performance?

Because for many brands in the APAC region, retail media still feels like a black box. There are metrics. There are case studies. But there isn’t always clarity on what actually drives growth and which levers brands need to pull to shift performance.

To answer that question, Coles 360 partnered with Circana to test a series of hypotheses around what truly drives retail media performance. Through the research, they identified eight potential growth drivers. Five were proven through the data and are now shaping how Coles works with suppliers across planning, scorecarding and growth.

That’s exactly what today’s episode is about.

Download the full Retail Media Best Practices Playbook:

https://www.circana.com/perspectives/retail-media-best-practices-playbook-breaking-the-myths-and-building-the-future

After one of the first gatherings of some ecommerce leads that I helped put together around 10 years ago, I will never forget what one of the attendees said to me - “thanks to this, I found my people.” From that sentence, the seeds of the Digital Shelf Institute were born. The desire to unite a community to figure all this stuff out together. Now the DSI is most fortunate to have another leader from ecommerce join our ranks to put her expertise, passion, and energy to work on growing and inspiring the DSI Community. Our guest today is Jamie Clapper, who brings almost two decades experience in omnichannel commerce to the DSI as our new Community & Content Manager. She has some things to say.

EyeBuyDirect sells millions of pairs of glasses every year on their website, which makes every instant a shopper spends on their site a moment of truth. Sunny Jiang, CEO and President at EyeBuyDirect Inc, saw the potential of AI to use data to bring the insights of those millions of consumers to actionable life for every corner of the site and for every employee at EBD. She joins the podcast along with Sonal Gandhi, Chief Content Officer at The Lead to outline the details of an AI strategy that is laser focused on taking AI action for measurable results.

The beverage alcohol industry is a complex beast with an intense regulatory environment and shifting consumer preferences. The foundational fuel for driving sales is product content that is always accurate and increasingly adaptive to the consumer’s context - an occasion, a specific meal, their budget. With 700 - 1000 new SKUs a year, Bailie Duncan, Product Manager, Marketing Systems at Jackson Family Wines has rallied a small but mighty digital shelf team to make data a secret weapon that meets the consumer where they are, and steers them toward the right product at the right time.

As someone who grew up in New England, 100 year old Jordan’s Furniture was a brand that stood out among the rest. Eliot and Barry Tatlemen were the brothers at the head of the company who dominated my childhood TV with the funniest and most memorable ads, and their stores became destinations. In the present, the company now known as Jordan’s is continuing to evolve to create the next generation of brand, product, and omnichannel shopping experience to drive even more loyalty and growth. One of the main forces of this change management is Paige Chilson, their Director of Site Merchandising, and she laid out the playbook and the humanity that will drive Jordan’s forward.

There are lots of consumer polling out there about why and how shoppers are using AI in the buying journeys, but you can’t trust what people say, you have to know what they do. Bring in the IAB. They, along with TalkShoppe, put together research that took direct signals from hundreds of shopping journeys to understand what is really happening out there between shoppers and their agents. And what is not. Caroline Giegerich, VP, AI and Marketing and Collin Colburn, VP, Commerce and Retail Media at IAB, came armed with the facts to help you shape your AI and agentic strategies.

With a career spanning brand management at P&G and Danone, to 9 years at Amazon building out retail media globally, and now leading retail media at Tesco, Florian Clemens is a human representation of all sides of omnichannel marketing and consumer experience. He brings this deep perspective and insightful data to a rollicking conversation about how brands and retailers have ever better opportunities to drive incrementality. It’s as simple, and as hard, as putting each shopper in control and being their support system for what they are trying to get done.

What happens when your brand doesn’t own the transaction, but still needs to influence the path to purchase and build a direct customer relationship? Ryobi is sold exclusively through Bunnings, which means the retailer owns the checkout. Vera Skocic, Head of Customer and Strategy (Consumer & Commercial) at Techtronic Industries, shares how Ryobi has built the right to play across the full customer lifecycle, from pre-purchase consideration to post-purchase onboarding and maintenance.

We unpack how extended warranty became a powerful value exchange to grow first-party data, how lifecycle journeys and maintenance nudges extend the experience beyond the PDP, and how intent signals like wishlists, product comparison tools and add-to-cart integration help qualify demand and drive higher-converting traffic into Bunnings. Vera also walks through the foundational stack underpinning this work and explains why she’s taking a cautious approach to CDPs in an increasingly composable, AI-shaped landscape. If you’re a brand operating in a retailer-led ecosystem and looking to use data to strengthen customer experience and drive commercial outcomes, this episode is packed with practical insights.

Some of the most inspiring stories in our industry are when a company who has been a leader in their category for more than 100 years can find the grit, determination, and change management energy to transform to meet today and tomorrow’s shopper however and wherever they want. Like, say, Whirlpool. Marilia Moreira, Whirlpool’s Digital Marketing Director, has spent 18 years at Whirlpool, and is now focused on bringing their digital and agentic product experiences to life for consumers on every touchpoint. She shared the people, processes, and metrics they have devised to continually elevate their ability to help their consumer choose Whirlpool.