- 14 minutes ago
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00When we decided to get behind and have Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl, not everybody liked that, right?
00:06We liked it.
00:08Yeah, so did I, by the way.
00:10The most streamed artist in the world.
00:20So what is the fastest turnaround time for, like, conversion data or sales data
00:26that also reflects some of the modern tools?
00:29I'd be curious to know, like, how quickly are you able to get insights?
00:35And do those insights then even influence, you know, next phases of campaigns, I would imagine?
00:42I mean, for us, we can provide it next day.
00:45Wow.
00:46I mean, that's the speed.
00:47But, you know, we're marrying those measures up with viewership measures and other things.
00:53So we'll look at the results of the, you know, response to content.
00:56And those may not be on the same timeline.
00:59So I'd really put the question to Han.
01:01I mean, because she's buying media.
01:03Her teams are looking at media across, probably across NFL, across retail media networks like Walmart, across Spotify.
01:09So how is it that you, you know, normalize those things or try to, you know, make sense of investments
01:15across many different content types to a specific event, like a sale of a product?
01:21Right.
01:22I mean, I would say that speed is not necessarily the single most important criteria when we talk about, like,
01:29getting...
01:29That's interesting, too.
01:31Well, let's say that it's really important if we're in the lower part of the funnel and we're trying to
01:35optimize for the outcome of that campaign
01:38or optimize for performance, and in which case we sometimes have real-time feedback around whether or not we'll do
01:42a lot of testing.
01:43Okay, is this particular audience for this particular creative, you know, working?
01:49And so you want that real-time feedback.
01:50I would say that I think the point that Seth made about the fact that we can't just focus on
01:56performance, right?
01:57And I think that, you know, we're maybe all coming out of this moment where we were really all collectively
02:03seduced by what is possible
02:04if we all just focus on performance and forget about the reasons why a consumer really loves a brand.
02:12And they don't necessarily just fall in love with product specs, right?
02:15Like, this thing has five more grams and this thing does one, you know.
02:18And I think if you do, it's a very transactional relationship that you have with that particular brand, that product,
02:23that can very easily be replaced.
02:25And what we're all talking about are love brands.
02:28And I think to be a love brand, and coming back to your original question about why it's so important
02:32to be a moment of culture,
02:34is that, you know, we are, like, sometimes I think when we go too far down the performance funnel,
02:39we only see that this consumer as somebody who's clicking the add to cart or putting an actual physical product
02:46in the cart.
02:47We stop seeing them as actually a full-fledged human being who has interests, who has passions, who has friends,
02:52who, you know, obviously care about protecting their skin, but also loves sports, loves basketball, loves NFL, and many, many
03:01other things.
03:01And I think this is why this idea of finding those things that your consumer really, really loves and is
03:08passionate about
03:08and making sure that your brand shows up in that moment authentically and really has an interesting perspective to say.
03:14That's what makes this incredibly important.
03:16And coming back to my point about speed, those, the outcome of this type of love is really measured in
03:21years.
03:22And it's something that's hard for a marketer to be able to wait.
03:25I was going to say, that takes so much discipline.
03:27Sometimes when we look at, truly, did this campaign have a brand lift?
03:31We wait 12 months.
03:32We wait, and then there's another six months where we do this study, and we think about the long-term,
03:37you know, impact of this.
03:39And L'Oreal is a company that's been around for 115 years.
03:41And so I don't see my job as, like, the next quarter or the next year.
03:44I see my job as making sure that the next generation of marketers also have beautiful brands that can speak
03:50to their consumers.
03:51And it's really about both the upper funnel, the love, but then also making sure that when you're putting money
03:56into market
03:56and you're trying to optimize for that immediate conversion, you have that real-time insight,
04:00which, like, Walmart has been a fantastic partner in helping us to do that in a way that's also omnichannel,
04:05which I think is really unique in terms of your size and scale.
04:07Can I just make a quick comment?
04:09Sure.
04:10The CMOs, what she just said there, that care as much about the futures I do,
04:14the present, that's pretty cool.
04:16And that's important.
04:18I don't think, and I, quite frankly, I don't think every CMO does that.
04:20Is that kind of your, like, your job?
04:22You're the protector of the brand, right?
04:22Your job, like, my job is not to ensure that people come watch a football game every day.
04:26My job is to ensure that the NFL is still a leader and has the prowess it has today and,
04:31like, five, ten years from now.
04:32Right?
04:33So, like, I'm constantly looking, like, how do I build that fan base for the future?
04:36Of course I drive people to subscribe to our apps and to, like, engage with us and to, you know,
04:42to show up and watch a game.
04:43But what they really pay me for is to ensure that we have the diversity of our fan base that
04:50is growing over a time period
04:52and that we can see that we're going to be successful down the road and not just today.
04:57And then the other thing I would say is that the importance of understanding the why behind the data is
05:04always underestimated because you have all this data.
05:09This is what happened.
05:10This is what we did and so forth.
05:11And then you have the CEO or the CFO who looks at you and goes, okay, why?
05:17Why did they do that?
05:19Or why did they not do that?
05:20Or why did that happen?
05:20And too often you're like, I don't know, I don't know, that's weird, right?
05:25Like, you know, you have to be able to really, that's why I think bringing all that data and insight
05:31together
05:32and going deeper into understanding these things is incredibly important.
05:36So there's so much opportunity to get data today, but understanding the why and the implications
05:41and, like, therefore the judgment of what you do about that data has never been so important.
05:47I heard somebody earlier today said demand more from your data, and it seemed like that is the kind of
05:53watcher.
05:53After your people analyzing it.
05:54Yeah, exactly.
05:55Dusty, you plug in kind of nicely here in terms of Spotify because you're both a platform or you're talking
06:02to brands,
06:02but you also have built a brand.
06:04You are, you know, synonymous with streaming music.
06:07Where do you find, and we were talking about efficacy of campaigns,
06:12and how do you know that you've really reached your consumer?
06:15What are the metrics that you look at to say, you know, whether it's from a sales platform perspective
06:20or from a subscriber perspective, you're coming at it a bunch of different ways.
06:24Yeah, so for us, I mean, Spotify has almost 800 million monthly users.
06:29So the massive, the scale is just massive.
06:31And we're in 184 countries, so we get a lot of data and insights.
06:36We were just talking about that.
06:37So new music is released every Friday.
06:39So we call it New Music Friday.
06:40We have a playlist around this.
06:42And so we can see immediately what's happening with an artist.
06:46Is it working?
06:47Is the new music working?
06:48How is it doing compared to the old catalog?
06:51Is someone new trending?
06:52And so Olivia Dean is a great example.
06:54We've been watching Olivia for four years.
06:56We've been putting her on playlists and seeing her start to succeed.
06:59And we do series called, we call them The Come Up, where we go into an artist's history
07:05and we sort of pinpoint that moment that the artist broke.
07:08What was the playlist?
07:09What was the moment?
07:10Could be a cultural moment that they performed somewhere.
07:12It could be something that happened on our platform.
07:14But we get a lot of insights into it.
07:17We also know if our users don't like something.
07:19Because fandom happens on Spotify.
07:22It's not just users.
07:23It's true fandom.
07:24And so I'll give you an example.
07:26Has everyone here heard about Wrapped?
07:28Wrapped is something we do every year where we wrap up your listening.
07:31And we give you data stories.
07:33So in the first year, in the first day of Wrapped this year, we had 250 million shares of Wrapped.
07:40And so again, the scale of something like this is massive.
07:42But in 2024, we had cut back on spent.
07:46And we got a lot of feedback that people thought the experience was a little disappointing.
07:50And so this year we did your listening age.
07:52And so to your point about...
07:54That's what everybody was talking about.
07:56Yes, people loved it.
07:57And lost their mind over being really young or really old.
08:00I was just in the car with someone who was still arguing with me about their listening age.
08:04And saying, is it working right now?
08:06I mean, should I play someone younger?
08:08I was like, yeah, that will help.
08:10Stop listening to the older music.
08:12But again, I will say, we get a ton of feedback.
08:15So we know, does something resonate?
08:16Does it not resonate?
08:17But to your point about not just looking at engagement,
08:20you could look at the data and say, oh, 250 million shares, we're killing it.
08:25But if you dug into the data in 2024, a lot of those shares were people saying,
08:29this isn't as good as it used to be.
08:32And so I do think you have to really listen.
08:35And not just allow an agency partner, in this case, to say, oh, it's all going so well.
08:40It's like, actually, no.
08:42This, I can't imagine words that would just strike fear in the heart of a marketer more.
08:47This isn't as good as it used to be.
08:49Like, that would just be so hard, you know, because you just, the climb up is that much higher.
08:56Yeah, but people have really high expectations, especially for, as you were talking about,
09:00for brands that they love.
09:01Yeah, that's right.
09:01We know that there's different metrics.
09:03There's old, old, old-fashioned Nielsen linear ratings.
09:06There's comm score streaming ratings.
09:08There's all different kind of metrics.
09:09How do you square them across different platforms?
09:14Like, is an impression on Instagram worth the same as, you know, getting, you know,
09:20100,000 viewers on a traditional, you know, 30-second spot in an episode of Grey's Anatomy?
09:26Like, how do you, and this is not just for Han, but for everybody,
09:28how do you sort of square the old metrics, the old traditional measures of,
09:33well, I have Nielsen numbers that show me I reach this many people versus the,
09:38I mean, you know, when you can rack up those kind of views on social platforms in 48 hours,
09:43it's astounding, but how do you, what does it all add up to in the end?
09:48I mean, I think you're talking about, like, the unicorn of deduplicated reach,
09:54which I don't know if it's ever going to be possible,
09:58and I guess the way that we look at it is not necessarily old versus new,
10:03but we go to the consumer, and what is the consumer doing?
10:08And what we would love to be able to do is to make sure that we're tracking this consumer
10:13in their life cycle and serving them the right message at the right time,
10:15which I know we've said this since the dawn of marketing,
10:18but to actually be able to, let's say, target somebody when they are watching their favorite show
10:24on their favorite streaming platform and then bring that person all the way down
10:28into the store level and make sure that that transaction completed,
10:32that would be, I think, something that would really help us to be better marketers, right?
10:38And it would help to reduce waste.
10:40It would help to make sure that we make better creative.
10:43So, and I think this is something that, you know, Seth,
10:47I hope that we're going to partner very closely making this happen
10:51because you are one of our most important retail partners
10:55and obviously have a lot of understanding of how that consumer is moving through the shopping journey.
11:00What else is in their basket?
11:02What else do they care about?
11:04It's summertime.
11:04What are they doing?
11:05Are they doing something in their backyards?
11:07Should we be thinking about those type of things?
11:09And we've worked together a lot in the last 12 months
11:11to make sure that there's an intersection, both from a branding perspective
11:14and making sure that our products are showing up in the right adjacency.
11:17So when they make that one trip, beauty is top of mind
11:20in addition to their weekly necessities.
11:22Yeah, and maybe to build on that, the, you know,
11:25we need to think about the different content types
11:28where we apply that data and agree that those are the places we want to play.
11:35So to use your, you know, Nielsen example,
11:40we may find that, like, social media, like, content creators and influencers
11:43are a group of, you know, content or content creators
11:48that we want to speak to and help understand, like,
11:51how Walmart fits into what they can do to speak to their audiences.
11:56And many of them have a lot more scale than what we see
12:00in more traditional measures of, like, linear TV.
12:03And playing or having an offer there where our brand shows up well
12:07and then we can work to feature L'Oreal brands, for instance,
12:11is an important part of a strategy that we would put together
12:14to help, you know, realize Han's vision.
12:16If we only focus at the bottom of the funnel,
12:19then, you know, our partners would tell us, like,
12:23hey, that's the, you know, you're just capturing demand.
12:26You're not generating it.
12:28So we're oftentimes talking about what are the ways we can work together
12:31to generate demand, and those may be, you know,
12:34in the more visual sort of content creator,
12:37like social influencer or connected TV format types,
12:41or even audio for that matter because, you know,
12:44the measurement there is different.
12:45But we know that our customers are using each one of those different formats,
12:49and if we just limit ourselves to what we see in our own app
12:52or our own owned and operated store environments,
12:56it doesn't meet the promise of a brand, you know, the L'Oreal brands.
13:00There are some things that are very easy to detect
13:03in terms of, like, lead to a sale, right?
13:06And the whole area of attribution is really interesting
13:09because, of course, marketers often lean into things they can prove, right?
13:14And then they can show their CFO, like, look, look at what we did here.
13:18But then they undervalue all these other touch points
13:21that are helping lead them to that point, right?
13:25And I think this area of attribution we need to really embrace
13:28as a community, a marketing community,
13:32because if we're not careful,
13:34we're just going to be doing things that we know that won't get us fired
13:38and not doing the things that should be driving our businesses forward.
13:43The other thing I would say is I learned a lot when I was in the gaming industry.
13:48I was at Activision for many years before I joined the NFL.
13:52And understanding the value of one touch point or engagement
13:55really was enlightening to us
13:58in terms of getting more of share of wallet and so forth
14:01from an individual gamer
14:03because if you knew through a lifetime value model and so forth,
14:06if you knew that if they played online
14:08or if they, you know, they bought this or they bought that
14:10or they got this vanity item,
14:11that that would lead to something else
14:12which got you even more value from them down the line,
14:15then you could begin to,
14:16which I think Spotify does quite well, by the way,
14:18but then you could then to that decision tree.
14:20You could then to, like, push people towards different areas
14:22which you knew would ultimately not on just a short-term basis
14:25but on a long-term basis
14:27make that gamer or that audience member much more important.
14:31The more you serve them, absolutely.
14:32Give us a granular example of a partnership
14:34that you think was very effective
14:36where your brand,
14:39and we have some incredible brands represented here,
14:41your brand plugged into another brand
14:44or another moment
14:45where you felt like it was classic
14:47one plus one equals three.
14:49You were excited.
14:50Or share something that maybe didn't come out quite as well
14:53but you learned something from it.
14:55I'd love to jump ball for anybody who wants.
14:57I'm mixing my sports metaphors.
14:59Football, soccer, now basketball, but...
15:03I'm happy to start.
15:04All right, Han, go for it.
15:06Well, I think that the way to find
15:10that right kind of intersection of the brand and the moment,
15:14it has to start with an insight, right?
15:15Because as much as we want, as marketers,
15:18want to just force our brand
15:19into anything that is cultural
15:21that's happening at the moment,
15:22it doesn't work, right?
15:24So I think the example that I wanted to share
15:27and we just came off of an absolutely fantastic NBA season,
15:31at least it's true if you live in New York,
15:34is that we...
15:36Go next!
15:36That was an easy applause line, right?
15:38Go next!
15:41Missed the parade because I was here, but that's okay.
15:43You were there in spirit.
15:44I was there in spirit.
15:46So is that we, you know, a couple of years ago,
15:49our social listening team was, you know, going through X,
15:52going through a lot of the social media platforms,
15:54and there was this funny meme that was going around
15:56where people were making fun of Kevin Durant's ashy legs
16:00and basically saying, you know,
16:02dude has a lot of money but can't buy moisturizer.
16:04And you know what?
16:05We thought that was really funny.
16:07Sarah V thought that was very, very funny.
16:08And then we also married that up to one of our strategic goals
16:11at the moment, which was that we really needed to de-feminize
16:15or be more gender-neutral, be more appealing to men.
16:18So we took that insight and we said,
16:20hey, why don't we sign Kevin and make him the new face of legs,
16:23which is exactly what we did.
16:25And I don't know if some of you have seen the campaign.
16:27We're actually up for many, many awards this week
16:30and have some outdoor going on this week.
16:32So I think the answer to the question is,
16:34what is it that is really at the intersection of what is cultural,
16:40what the fans of this cultural moment want to talk about,
16:42and does your brand have a role to play in that moment?
16:45And with Sarah V, I think what we have found out is
16:48when you hit just that right note,
16:51what we saw was fantastic engagement
16:53when we launched the campaign on the first 24 hours.
16:55There was 85 million organic views of our teaser spot with Kevin.
17:01Again, without a single dollar of paid media,
17:04we were at the topic of conversation.
17:05And of course, what we saw in terms of when we looked at our brand lift
17:08was that actually it made moisturizing your skin
17:11a much more approachable, because of the humor, topic for men.
17:16We saw that our relevance with our key demographic
17:18that we're trying to target with men just absolutely explode.
17:21So that's just an example that came to mind
17:24when we were talking about this backstage.
17:26That is a terrific example.
17:28And it just, like, moment meets opportunity meets...
17:31You said it starts with insight.
17:33You had to have a goal.
17:34That's fantastic.
17:36Tim?
17:36That makes me feel bad about myself.
17:41I do not moisturize enough, clearly.
17:43Everybody's very self-anxious about ankles now, right?
17:45So you can help her KPIs by just ramping it up.
17:50Let me give a little example of something I did a long time ago, actually.
17:55So when I worked for Volvo, I lived in Sweden for a while, and I worked for Volvo,
17:59and we had a partnership with Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney.
18:03And, you know, you could have easily just done some cheesy commercials
18:06and thrown the car in there somehow, awkwardly.
18:08But we thought, like, let's do something really, you know, unusual and cool
18:12and sort of like, you know, use technology in a way that really stretches what's possible.
18:17And so we did this – we took an XC90, which was very relevant to the U.S. market,
18:23and we literally did a global treasure hunt, and we buried a car in the Caribbean.
18:29And we first – we did – and we did a global hunt online.
18:32So there was a digital treasure hunt, and the winners of that treasure hunt,
18:38which coincidentally – we didn't do this on purpose – were literally from all over the world.
18:42So they were from Japan and from Germany and from the U.S. and everywhere.
18:45And we brought all these folks to this little island in the Caribbean,
18:49and then we had a physical, right?
18:51We buried this car.
18:52We hermetically sealed it.
18:53We had no idea if the damn thing was going to start or not when we did it
18:56because at the end of it, we were going to, you know, dig the thing out and then drive it
19:01away.
19:02And sure enough that it started.
19:05And it was just a really cool thing because, like, the download – think about this.
19:08It was like 2003.
19:09The download times at that point, right, for video was very difficult.
19:13And then technologically to do that digital treasure hunt where somebody couldn't hack it
19:17or anything like that was also really, really difficult to do.
19:19But Volvo drivers see themselves as smart people.
19:23Any Volvo drivers in the place?
19:25No smart people in here?
19:26Okay.
19:27And, you know, it spoke to them, and sure enough, it was an incredible success.
19:32And so the storytelling behind it was actually quite interesting.
19:35And talk about fan engagement and the whole thing.
19:38And, I mean, that's a lot – that's bold for – to promote a car with something
19:42where you don't know where that car is going to start when you – that is pretty bold.
19:46You must have exhaled.
19:48Awesome.
19:49Seth, give us an example from the – I mean, such a wide world that you're working with.
19:54I'll start with a sports example.
19:57You know, we're doing a lot of work with soccer.
20:00You mentioned soccer tourism.
20:01I checked with Tim.
20:03There wouldn't be a penalty for mentioning soccer.
20:05Been NFL panelists.
20:06Panelists, but –
20:07Offsides.
20:08Sorry.
20:08Yeah.
20:08Couldn't have missed.
20:10But we, you know, we want to talk to U.S. Hispanic consumers.
20:14We recognize that as a really important audience for our business.
20:18And William White and his team sort of saw that as an insight.
20:21How do we speak to that audience?
20:22And then where are the places – what's the type of content where Walmart could naturally bring its brand to
20:27that content?
20:28And then help make it better.
20:30And that partnership has really been, I think, probably following the example of the NFL in terms of putting together
20:36marquee matchups for the teams in ways that the league maybe hadn't considered before.
20:42So getting the rivalry games together, building sponsorship where Walmart's inappropriate, like Soccer Saturday, sponsorship to those marquee matchups, the
20:53rivalries drive the audience up.
20:55I think the audience, William told me before, up 67% in terms of viewing year over year, which, you
21:02know, that's the type of content the soccer, you know, viewer, MLS fan wants to see.
21:07And if our brand can be around that and help bring exposure there and then speak to the audiences that
21:11are watching it, that's, I mean, really important for us.
21:15The granularity is oftentimes with a retailer, like how much should we sell as a result?
21:21How many – our operators will ask, you know, how many people came into the store?
21:25What were the results in terms of traffic?
21:27And those are the types of measures that we hold ourselves to when we're evaluating, you know, those investments.
21:32I think a lot about this from a slightly different perspective because I really need the reputation of our company.
21:39And so I'm always looking to understand not every impression is certainly created equal, but you never know when something
21:46will start and it seems really small and very isolated and then it goes everywhere instantly.
21:51Speaking, again, about, you know, cool brand moments, we recently changed our logo to celebrate our 20th anniversary.
21:57We turned it into a disco ball, but clearly not everyone is into glitter.
22:02And so there was a lot of feedback to this.
22:05And we have two new CEOs at Spotify.
22:07And so I get this slack.
22:09It's a weekend.
22:09I'm walking.
22:10And he's like, call me right away.
22:13And he's like, we are working on a plan to take this down.
22:16And I was like, oh, no, no.
22:19We dream about moments like this.
22:21When the world is talking about our brand and our logo, let's just enjoy the ride.
22:27And he was like, but Dusty, you talk about this.
22:29Not every impression is a positive one.
22:31And I was like, yes, but they are talking about our brand and our logo.
22:34This is not a panic conversation.
22:37This is I love you so much that I'm really annoyed that the logo changed.
22:42And so I do think, like, in that moment, there were billions of impressions on the logo.
22:48Billions.
22:49Like, you could have freaked out as a new leader.
22:51And I was so grateful that he allowed us just to, like, ride the wave of it and leaned in.
22:57But it started really small on a TikTok account.
23:00And it was an account with a tiny number of followers.
23:03And it exploded.
23:05We, I mean, a variety, we've seen that.
23:07Like, a little thing comes from some, and you think, like, how many people could see it?
23:11But if there's a kernel of truth in there, it will travel.
23:16Okay, now I have to ask you, as marketers, when you get that, imagine yourself in Dusty's shoes.
23:21You get that call on a weekend, something like, what kind of discipline does it take for you to say,
23:28let's roll with it?
23:29Or would you think, would you have recognized in the moment, like, this is what we live for, is people
23:36talking about our brand?
23:37I mean, I have those maybe once a month.
23:41There are 38 brands.
23:43So there's a lot of opportunity for these small things to happen.
23:45But one of my most memorable ones was I was actually on an airplane about to land.
23:49And one of these calls was trying to come through.
23:51And I'm, like, panicked because I don't know what it's about.
23:55We did a fantastic partnership with NBCU during their SNL 50 season, which was last year.
24:01I mean, two years ago.
24:03Yeah, all time is bleeding together.
24:05And thanks to that partnership where we really, there were two brands, CeraVe, Maybelline.
24:10We were in the writer's room with them on how to just make fun of ourselves, right?
24:15And these are well-known brands.
24:16And thanks to that, there were two, completely disconnected, by the way.
24:20I think Mark Marshall really would want me to say this, that it was not a pay-to-play.
24:23We had two cold opens during that season, one of which, actually, no, one, sorry, one cold open and another
24:30skit, which was Lady Gaga, where she was making a fake L'Oreal Paris mascara ad.
24:35And it was called Easy Run because it's for everybody's stressful lives where, basically, when you want to show somebody
24:41that you're not well on the inside and you've been crying, you put your Easy Run mascara on.
24:45And the reason why it runs is because it's made from printer ink.
24:50So, you know, so I get this heads up, right, from NBC, and I'm like, oh, my God, we just
24:55got the script.
24:55It says it's made from, it's a bad mascara made from printer ink.
24:59What are we going to do?
25:00I'm like, you know what?
25:01I actually think we have a sense of humor.
25:02I really do.
25:03We're a French company.
25:04I really believe in the sense of humor of my executives.
25:07Of course I got a call on Sunday, like, saying, what is this?
25:11So, I need to explain, SNL, skits.
25:15Finally, at some point, my boss decides that he's just going to call the CEO because there's a lot of
25:18people who are really upset about this, right?
25:21The CEO looks at it, laughs, says, this is fantastic.
25:25So then I said, hey, if you have a problem with this, maybe you can ask because everybody seems to
25:30enjoy it.
25:31And that was really the last thing that I heard.
25:34And I actually think that experiences like this where we're able to take these iconic brands, and when you have
25:39an iconic brand, you have to have thick skin.
25:41You have to know that there's so much love, that there is, and there are also things just having, like,
25:46a good sense of humor.
25:47And with every experience, I think we become better and better at knowing when is that line where your consumers
25:55are having fun with you.
25:56They're poking fun with you together, and there's a line where it's like, okay, maybe something is really wrong.
26:01Thankfully, I haven't really had a true, true, true crisis, but we've learned a lot about how to be a
26:07part of culture.
26:08And being a part of culture means that not everything is scripted, and you have to be okay with these
26:12little bumps.
26:13Yeah, that seems to be the watchword of social media is, like, you've got to give it up and let
26:18the fans take it where it may go.
26:21Tim?
26:22Yeah, we have a crisis, like, every week at the NFL, so, like, I don't think I would prescribe to
26:28the, as long as they're talking about you, it's cool.
26:32Because it's often not cool at all.
26:36But I will say this.
26:38I think, you know, as you can imagine, and I'll give the example that everyone in the room can probably
26:43relate to,
26:43when we decided to get behind and have Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl, not everybody liked that, right?
26:50There's a lot of...
26:51We liked it.
26:52Yeah, so did I, by the way.
26:53The most streamed artist in the world.
26:57Rocking at SoFi, it just, in Los Angeles was where I'm from, it just couldn't have been better.
27:02But yes, it was a brave decision.
27:04I was at the ANA, and I made the mistake in the Q&A session to say, Bad Bunny's effing
27:09awesome.
27:09And that ended up as a headline in the New York Times.
27:14So, you know, I can tell you my comms guy was not happy with me.
27:18Tough day.
27:19But the reason I bring it up, and we've done other things, too, which a lot of our audience did
27:24not like,
27:25you have to be willing to make some people uncomfortable, right?
27:28And you have to be willing to do things that you know will get some blowback and controversy from segments
27:33of your audience,
27:34and even, like, important people within your company.
27:37Like, not every, you know, we have 32 billionaires who own our teams.
27:40Not every one of them like all the stuff that we do, which is actually helping us grow, right?
27:45It might make a segment of our audience really grumpy, but it is helping others come to the league and
27:53become fans and grow our business.
27:55And you have to be willing to do that in order to sort of, you know, to grow.
27:59Absolutely.
28:00And if you've noticed, in the last seven or eight years, that you've seen a lot, especially in the NFL,
28:05you've seen a lot more of the players with their helmets off.
28:09Yeah.
28:09That's Tim.
28:10Tim brought that in and said, hey, we need to know these people as humans,
28:13not just like the centurions that they can be on the field.
28:17Well, this is, I mean, this conversation, we could go so many threads.
28:21But before we leave, I do want to ask for one of the things that we haven't touched on,
28:25and I think it's great for Seth and for Dusty, is, you know,
28:29a lot of people here are talking about the value of retail networks.
28:32I mean, for both of you, you know, Spotify's footprint in music, like, it just doesn't get bigger.
28:38Walmart in retail.
28:39How do you find that you all best leverage your in-house, your built-in advantages in this day and
28:47age
28:47in terms of the types of brand partnerships, the interesting things that you can do?
28:51Have you found, I mean, I know that footprint is enormously valuable,
28:54but are there things that you can do with partners, like, just with signage in stores,
28:59that is enormously valuable to that partner as well as to Walmart?
29:02Yeah.
29:03I mean, again, everything comes back to how much we can sell.
29:08I mean, that's when brands start working with us on the,
29:11when we're selling advertising as a retail media network.
29:15We can prove what your investment, the impact of your investment.
29:20And that's the core of any retail media network, is can you prove that,
29:24and then how much scale do you have?
29:26And it's more efficient than even any, this platform or that platform.
29:30It is, but the, I mean, measures of efficiency registering, you know,
29:34like a cash register ring are pretty consistent across retail partner.
29:38It's really more just how many can you drive?
29:40And then do you want to spend your time and attention with 150 of them,
29:43or do you want to spend your time and attention with four or five of them?
29:47But the thing that's unique about Walmart is that we do have a physical store footprint
29:51with 4,600 stores.
29:52We have hundreds of clubs, Sam's Club.
29:55We activate in those stores for our customers as well with brands.
29:59I mean, that's an important part of the shopping experience in the store
30:02is what we bring to the customer when they're shopping with us physically.
30:07And that's maybe an unknown or less discussed topic when we talk about retail media networks
30:14or just the experience that we bring to the Walmart customer or the Sam's Club member.
30:18The aura for both brands.
30:20Like Walmart has put this in front and center in its store.
30:23Even if it's subconscious, it makes the consumer think, oh, you know, it gets that attention.
30:29Yes.
30:30And then, you know, that's one sort of vector, if you will.
30:33The other is that we're buying a ton of media.
30:35So the retail media network, Walmart Connect or Sam's Club Connect,
30:39we're out selling to suppliers like L'Oreal.
30:41But then we're also working with the NFL.
30:43We're working with Spotify to drive traffic into our stores and clubs.
30:47And so that, you know, has a different sort of dynamic to it that is very content-oriented
30:54and also has the same discussions that you were talking about.
30:57Hey, prove to the CFO, prove to the CEO, what's the efficacy of the investments?
31:01I mean, William and I have a lot of scar tissue around those conversations
31:05because there's a lot of proof as a retailer that you expect because you sell stuff.
31:10Like, is it driving traffic into the store?
31:12So we live by that, you know, on two sides.
31:16It's one, in the ads that we sell, and then two, in the marketing investments that we buy.
31:23And we do a number of brand partnerships, but one of the fun things for my team is,
31:27so I have all the policy work, I have trust and safety, I have PR communications,
31:32and then they give me events.
31:34And I think they give me events because they give me all the tough stuff.
31:36So they're like, okay, you could throw a party.
31:38Even if you can't attend, you can look at photos of the party.
31:40And so one of the ways we've been activating with brands is through a program we call AUX.
31:44And so the idea is you're plugging into Spotify.
31:48And so the concept is that we host an event together, and we announced a partnership today with Coach.
31:54And Coach is really tapping into Gen Z and Millennial.
31:57And so they've really refreshed their brand.
32:00It's exciting when you see what's happening there.
32:01And we look at a brand like Coach and we say, okay, this makes a lot of sense for us.
32:05And so what we're going to do together is we're going to do a road trip with artists up and
32:10coming from around the world where we go and do a series of events.
32:14And so we're using the concept of a tangible event to celebrate these two brands coming together.
32:19And that's on top of advertising on the platform.
32:21And so we look at what makes Spotify Spotify.
32:25And music has so much cultural relevance.
32:28But there's nothing like, and we all know this feeling, like sitting in a live venue, listening to an artist
32:33that you've never heard of before and going, holy shit, who is that?
32:37And pulling out your Spotify and saying, okay, I want to be a part of what this artist is doing.
32:41I want to follow this artist.
32:43That moment of magic we think brands can share in more and more.
32:46So we're really excited to get to do some of these.
32:48In every bit of this conversation, and not to really hammer this theme, but it all does come back to
32:57storytelling.
32:57It's not logo slaps.
32:59It seems that the impression discussion is only as good as the storytelling behind it.
33:05And I so appreciate this really good discussion about just how you're tapping different sources of info and different platforms
33:13and just thinking about talking to the consumer in a different way.
33:16I think much more, the more thought is put into it, I think the better it's received by people who
33:23don't, you know, don't always want to be sold to.
33:27So this has been a really great conversation.
33:30I so appreciate your time and really appreciate everyone else here hanging out with us.
33:34And it's just, again, there is such an array of things or even just to watch the boats go by
33:40is wonderful.
33:41We really want to thank Walmart for their support.
Comments