Carat recently released a report titled CPG Marketing at the Algorithmic Crossroads that explores how CPG brands can achieve shared scale, maintain relevance, use algorithms for positive social impact, and how they can win in this new era.
We conducted a LinkedIn Live panel discussion to dive into some of the insights from the report. The panel was moderated by Sam Browne, Global Client President, Carat, and included Jack Cantwell, Global Client Lead and Head of Digital, Data & Tech, Carat, Hamish Kinniburgh, Chief Strategy and Consultancy Officer, dentsu Media, and Bram Meuleman, Global Head Strategy, Carat. Our special guest was Olya Dyachuk, Global Media & Data Director for The HEINEKEN Company.
Bram kicked off the discussion with an overview of CPG brands in the Algorithmic Era. “CPG brands know two fundamental rules of marketing better than literally any other category out there. The first one is that brands have to be easy to think of and find in buying situations, I mean, mental and physical availability. Those rules were literally written for CPG.
“The second [rule] is that brands become more profitable and drive more profitable growth when they create shared experience and fame moments. What's interesting about the interplay between mental and physical availability and fame is that the media landscape [where] you build that [interplay] very much informs the degree to which you can accomplish it.
“AI is going mainstream. Algorithms are increasingly driving the majority of ads and advertising across all touch points, and that's what we mean with the Algorithmic Era. We think it's got really big ramifications for marketers but it's also fundamentally changing the way in which people connect with one another.”
The conversation covered four key themes.
- Winning the battle for algorithmic availability. Jack defined this as, “How brands can take back control of ensuring their communication reaches the right person.” He went on to say, “Brands ultimately need to navigate algorithmic availability - and that’s capabilities, technology, tools, workflows, etc. - to be able to take them beyond what’s stock, what’s in the platform, what’s out of the box, to become more customized, more nuanced, more applicable to the wide range of platforms and media.”
- Reimagining the retail media value exchange. From her perspective as a brand advertiser, Olya said, “When it comes to driving growth, of course, mental availability and physical availability are important. They both contribute, but, in reality, people have seconds to make a decision when they are in store and how you show up, where you show up, that is critical. The same rules apply on the retail website. Are you the first one or not? Is your packaging looking great? Is the description good enough?”
- Finding growth audiences in the Algorithmic Era. How should CPG brands approach this challenge? Bram explained how brands can use culture and commerce signals to get a full understanding of how those different communities come together. Hamish added, “A lot of the thinking we’ve been doing around the Algorithmic Era at dentsu has been inspired by some of the things that are happening in the most advanced algorithmic markets. What we found is that this idea about bringing together strategic growth data with short-term immediate culture and commerce signals is actually really compelling because you get that long-term growth perspective, but you also get the real signals that demonstrate how people are living their life today.”
- Growth mapping. How do we make sure we always think of scale? Olya says, “By generating good insights we will be able to find those communities at the global scale. … I would hope that the technology and the fact that insight teams are going to spend less time crunching data is going to bring better quality Insights, which means we will be able to then find those growth audiences. Next step, how can we create the brand ideas that land everywhere and execution that lands everywhere? … The algorithmic approach helps us uncover those audiences and helps our creative partners to come up with ideas and executional concepts that are lending better and that truly play into the global strength of the brand, and then localities and local nuances of the brand.”
To hear more from these industry experts, watch the LinkedIn video replay on demand here.
Download the CPG Marketing at the Algorithmic Crossroads report here.
