From Instagram To The Aisles: Meta's Vision For Omnichannel Retailing

Hello everyone, this is Amitalk Retail coming to you from Grocery Shop 2024.

We are at the Meta and BCG press breakfast where I had the lovely opportunity of interviewing this woman.

To my left, the head of retail and e commerce at Meta, Alicia LaBeouf.

Alicia, thanks so much for your time this morning.

Of course, of course.

Good morning.

Good morning.

How's grocery shop going so far?

Been great.

Yeah, it's been amazing.

Yeah, you're just, this is like you're part of your world tour.

Part of my world on your world tour.

I love grocery shop.

Yes.

Let's talk a little bit about kind of some of the key themes that we identified this morning.

We focused on what we've heard so far at grocery shop.

We're on day two today.

One of those big themes was, of course, AI.

I'd love for you to share with our audience at home a little bit about what we talked about this morning, about how Meta is really using AI right now, most successfully and in partnership with your retailers and brands.

Sure.

So at the breakfast this morning, I talked about AI is not new for meta.

So in fact we've actually been using AI since 2006.

People might remember it from the Facebook newsfeed.

Oh yes, that was sort of our first entree.

But may I is incorporated across every single one of our products.

In terms of automation, it's changed a lot when you think about AI.

People think about it in two ways.

They think about machine learning and they think about Gen AI.

So machine learning being how do you personalize and automate tools to make things more efficient, better, faster, for whatever you're trying to create?

And Genai is sort of like all the fun stuff.

So how do you make images, text, things that can essentially make your creative process a little bit better as you're sort of serving ads to your customers and your guests.

So those are some of the things that we've talked about in terms of AI.

And actually just today we announced some new gen AI tools that are very much focused on video.

So video being, I'm gonna actually look at my notes here because that's important.

I want to get this announcement right since it was just released today, image animation, which is huge expansion where you can generate unseen pixels in each video frame to expand aspects of the ratio for a more immersive and native experiences.

So these are, were just hot off the press announced today and were going to keep adding to our AI portfolio to make it easier for advertisers and creators across the platform.

Well, thats a major area of focus.

I cannot tell you how many retailers and brands weve talked to here at grocery shop who are kind of using like marketing will use it as a larger, more broad term, but who are really using genai tools in marketing for the first time because they're seeing the quickest return on investment.

They're able to personalize in a way that they weren't before.

Talk a little bit more, Alicia, about how the creators that you are so important in the process of connecting the creators with the retailers and then connecting that to an in store experience.

Talk a bit about what this enables those creators to do now that they couldn't do before.

Yeah, I would say creators are at the heart and we think about creators a lot when we're creating these tools.

So creators use them obviously when they're thinking about our platform, how they want to create.

And just to caveat, like AI is not meant to take place of creativity.

It's meant to fuel and also sort of help make all the foundational things much easier.

So for a creator, maybe you don't want to spend your time on making sure your video is absolutely right or the setup is 100% perfect.

You want to spend your time on the, you know, the creative aspects of what you're trying to land.

So when I think about creators and retail and retail media networks, I think it's a huge opportunity in a huge white space.

So think all the creators.

For example, we're at grocery shop, all the creators that focus on food, recipes, meal planning.

How amazing is that when a brand is working with a creator and then that creator is sort of helping to drive traffic to the store or to a brand.

So it's a big white space.

We think we are the platform, the home for creators.

And so having this relationship between the creator, the brand, the retailer and meta, super important.

And so we want to facilitate that relationship.

Yeah, I want to kind of venture into the next area that we focused on today, which was omnichannel retailing, this creator partnership, or kind of the ability that meta has to kind of, one, connect creators with the right brands and retailers, two, to kind of help facilitate that.

I saw something when I was scrolling Instagram, I liked that recipe, and now I want to go buy the bundles or the, the ingredients for that recipe at my closest Albertsons, for example, talk a little bit about kind of how meta is able to help retailers understand the ROI from some of these investments in online and social.

Yeah.

So, you know, all roads lead to like roas, right.

So from like a retail media network standpoint, we've proven that for like every dollar invested, there's a $4.4 roas return, omnichannel return.

So that's in store and online.

When you add creators to that, just think, my favorite creator posts something, they're working with a brand.

You buy it, it goes into your car, you buy it, it gets shipped to your home.

That's something that you can measure.

You can measure the conversion.

The store piece is a little bit more, is a little bit more challenging.

Right now, we are building an omnichannel network of tools to be able to measure in store actions and how you see an ad.

And that drove a purchase in the store.

Another way that we thought through that is, I mean, think how the industry is changing.

Like now you can go into a store, you can see an end cap with a creator.

Right?

Right.

It might be just the creator selling a product.

It might be the creator's actual product.

Right.

You're starting to see that.

That's another example of sort of closing the loop, creating the stickiness with customers, that it's not just, you know, me when I'm scrolling Instagram or Facebook, but you also are extending that relationship to the aisles of the store grocers.

I know we were on the panel with Albertsons this morning.

They know their customers.

They know what they buy, they know what their interests are.

So marrying that with advertising as well as sort of this in store experience is the holy grail to create that really hyper personalized local piece.

Well, yeah.

Let's dive into another topic of conversation this morning that's obviously been big.

There's a whole track dedicated to it at grocery shop here.

But retail media networks, a lot of people might ask, like, if the retailers which we talked about this morning are now media companies.

Like, how does Meta fit into that whole mix?

And what is kind of Meta's position there to continue to help retailers and brands take that catalog of information they have about their consumers and really understand more about how they're behaving outside of the store, outside of Albertson's ecosystem, for example.

Sure.

So just to caveat, first thing I would say is most retail media networks have been birthed in the last four years.

Very new ecosystem.

Right?

Very new when it comes to advertising and learning how to monetize their data and use their data in an effective way to essentially grow their top line revenue.

So when we think about retail media networks, we obviously want to be a big partner.

And the reason why is because we're already partnering with the retailer.

We're already partnering with brands.

And so when you think about sort of this try relationship, we have to be involved because we're already working with these brands right now.

The way that we're involved is kind of what we've been working through.

So foundationally, we know all retail media networks want scale.

They want to come to us.

We want to be their number one off site partner.

Right.

So, yes, after you've maximized all the inventory, your app, your website, the billboard that's in the parking lot, we know that when the customer leaves, they are going home to do what they're on our platform.

So we want to.

In their car or maybe even their car.

Right.

Or whatever it is.

Right.

And so we want to be the number one offsite partner.

And so with that, they want the scale to be able to reach those customers.

We think we can do that.

Second thing they want is measurement.

They want to be able to prove, they want to be able to go back to the brands and say, not only is your customer, we know what they're buying, but we also know what their interests are.

And so I think that relationship is super key.

And being able to be a part of this ecosystem is where we see a lot of value.

And so we're building tools and solutions to do that.

I love that part of it, too, because I think about, you know, not only how I shop for, like, grocery items in this case, but, you know, how I shop for fashion, you know, how I shop for my kids.

You like, you know, the, the kind of, the kind of ways that I'm engaging on the Instagram or Facebook platforms or WhatsApp, and you're able to kind of take that information and help me have a seamless experience when I'm going into an Albertson site.

And you have to think the brand and the retailer, I mean, their relationship goes back, what, hundreds of years, right.

It's a, it's the classic retailer brand relationship.

We're in that relationship, too.

Right.

But we see the brand and the retailers, both of our clients.

Right.

Because we have a lot of brands that advertise with us directly.

We also have a lot of retail media networks that advertise.

So our ability to say, look, absolutely use us.

We want to make sure that the rules of engagement are clear, that we're fair for everyone, that everyone is seeing the measurement and the performance, because we believe that much in our performance.

So I think as the ecosystem evolves, we start to see not just these foundational things, but some of the other cool things, like gamification, like creators.

Right?

And I think that's why there's a lot of opportunity for retail media networks as we go forward.

Well, Alicia, let's close with what you're most excited about.

We teased at the beginning, like walking down the grocery aisle wearing my ray bans and just being served up product as I'm walking hands free through the store.

What are you most excited about in the year to come?

Oh, what am I most excited about?

So I do think that we are, we are, we are at the point where we have a really great suite of retail media network solutions.

I think we, we have launched some.

We're going to come to market in a couple months and make those a little bit more clear.

So I think the foundational products that we have are going to be what we've been hearing brands and retail media networks want.

So that's number one, I think, number two, we're going to start to see some of these scale things.

We talked about bundle ads, we talked about creators.

So everything that our advertisers get from us when they advertise with us directly, I can sort of envision and see a use case for how they would apply for retail media networks in a very thoughtful way.

And so I'm really excited about that and I'm excited to co create.

Like, now we're not just working with the enterprise marketers, we're also working with the retail media network teams who are also trying to attract brands to their store.

So I think there's just a lot of opportunity for us in 2025 to continue nurturing this ecosystem so that we can make sure it continues to grow.

Well, I can't wait to see what you do, Alicia.

I know big things are ahead.

So thanks again to Meta and BCG for hosting us all at this morning's press breakfast at grocery shop.

Thanks to Alicia for sitting on the panel with me earlier and just now to give you all at home a recap.

And until next time, be careful out there.