On this special expanded format episode of the podcast, I'm joined by two internationally recognized thought leaders in the digital marketing space to share their insights in a back-to-back set of interviews. First, Greg Shelly, Vice President, Enterprise Digital Marketing at Canadian Tire Corporation, takes us inside the inner workings of one of the largest digital marketing teams in retail, with a masterclass in structuring teams for the modern era, attribution, digital performance across platforms and next level accountability. Next, Michael Klein, Global Director, Industry Strategy & Marketing - Retail, Travel & Consumer Goods at Adobe Systems, takes us through a 10,000-foot level view of the state of digital marketing. He walks us through systems and processes and delivers insights from the depth of reach that Adobe brings to consumers changing shopping patterns.
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
On this special expanded format episode of the podcast, I'm joined by two internationally recognized thought leaders in the digital marketing space to share their insights in a back-to-back set of interviews.
First, Greg Shelly, Vice President, Enterprise Digital Marketing at Canadian Tire Corporation, takes us inside the inner workings of one of the largest digital marketing teams in retail, with a masterclass in structuring teams for the modern era, attribution, digital performance across platforms and next level accountability.
Next, Michael Klein, Global Director, Industry Strategy & Marketing - Retail, Travel & Consumer Goods at Adobe Systems, takes us through a 10,000-foot level view of the state of digital marketing. He walks us through systems and processes and delivers insights from the depth of reach that Adobe brings to consumers changing shopping patterns.
It's a powerhouse episode, a little longer than usual but more than well worth the listen. And a note for the listeners and subscribers, as the summer is finally here, this is the final Monday episode of The Voice of Retail podcast for the summer - same great content, now moving to weekly with Friday episodes for the balance of the summer.
Let's listen now, starting with Greg from Canadian Tire and Michael from Adobe Systems.
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven’t already, be sure and click subscribe on your favourite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week, and check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and the Food Professor podcast. Last but not least, if you are into BBQ, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbeque, with new episodes each and every week!
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co! Have a safe week everyone!
About Greg
Greg Shelly is the VP of Enterprise Digital Marketing at Canadian Tire Corporation. As VP, Enterprise Digital, Shelly is responsible for all of the digital marketing efforts across the entire corporation. His portfolio not only encompasses the Canadian Tire brand, but he is also responsible for the digital efforts across various banners (such as Marks’ and SportChek).
In his day to day, Shelly ensures that all of Canadian Tire Corporation’s digital marketing efforts are delivering sales growth, brand value and overall company success. Canadian Tire is consistently pushing the needle when it comes to our digital efforts and Shelly spearheads these innovations.
Prior to joining the CTC team, Shelly came from an extensive background of business insights and analytics, with a strong focus in digital as well as e-commerce. Shelly’s past experience involves providing marketing and analytics solutions for brands such as Dell and McDonald’s.
About Michael
Global Retail and Consumer Goods business leader with over 30 years of merchandising and marketing experience with a focus on digital marketing for the past 20 years. I have worked with a wide range of consumer brands over my career, driving positive results for shareholders, team members and customers. Creative with a keen eye for details. An effective leader who manages his direct reports with an emphasis on mentoring, not micromanaging. Excellent negotiation, communication, technology and analytical skills.
Adobe Site Catalyst
Adobe Test & Target
adobe Merchandising
Adobe Search & Promote
Merchandising analysis and assortment development.
Direct marketing campaign management.
Vendor Negotiations and Management
eCommerce
Inventory Planning & OTB Management
Project Management
Training & Education
Team Leadership
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide. Michael was recently added to ReThink Retail’s prestigious Top 100 Global Retail Influencers for a second year in 2022.
Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Most recently, Michael launched Conversations with CommerceNext, a podcast focussed on retail eCommerce, digital marketing and retail careers - all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and all major podcast platforms. Michael is also the producer and host of the “Last Request Barbeque” channel on YouTube where he cooks meals to die for and influencer riches.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:10
On this special expanded format episode of the podcast, I'm joined by two internationally recognized thought leaders in the digital marketing space to share their insights in a back-to-back set of interviews.
Michael LeBlanc 00:21
First Greg Shelley, Vice President, Enterprise Digital Marketing at Canadian Tire Corporation, takes us inside the inner workings of one of the largest digital marketing teams in retail, with a masterclass in structuring teams for the modern era, attribution, digital performance cross platforms and next level accountability.
Michael LeBlanc 00:39
Next, Michael Klein, Global Director of Industry Strategy & Marketing, Retail, Travel & Consumer Goods at Adobe Systems, takes us through a 10,000-foot level view of the state of digital marketing. He walks us through the systems and processes and delivers insights, the depth of reach that Adobe brings to consumers changing shopping patterns.
Michael LeBlanc 00:57
It's a powerhouse episode, a little longer than usual, but more than well worth the listen. And a note for the listeners and subscribers, as the summer is finally here. This is the final Monday episode for the Voice of Retail podcast for the summer. Now moving to weekly with Friday episodes for the balance of the summer. Greg, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How you doing this afternoon?
Greg Shelly 01:18
It is great to be here, Michael, how are you?
Michael LeBlanc 01:20
I'm fantastic. Thank you. I have been looking forward to this for a while you and I, we talked about how we met in the before time at an event and, and we wound up on the mic here together. So, so, so great to talk to you. So, thanks again for joining me.
Greg Shelly 01:34
Yeah, it really is my pleasure to be here. It certainly was a different world back then. But you know what, there's a lot to be positive about now. And, and looking around, I'm, I'm feeling pretty good about things.
Michael LeBlanc 01:45
Fantastic. Well, listen, let's jump right in and tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Canadian Tire.
Greg Shelly 01:50
So, I'm Greg Shelly, Enterprise, VP of Digital Marketing. And what that really means is there's three key areas of responsibility that I that I have, first off; performance marketing, which is a function that we have a team that's dedicated to driving sales demand to both bricks and mortar, and to our eCommerce channel, using digital and digital ads. And so, we have, we have a function there. And within there a team that's actually dedicated to acquisition of new customers and our ecosystem, which is very exciting.
Greg Shelly 02:27
We have a second area of the business, which is our in-house, digital media agency. And we do all the buying and selling for all of our we call them internal clients, across our brand marketing teams, or loyalty groups. CTFS, which is our financial arm, and of course, you know, supporting the all the banners.
Greg Shelly 02:49
And then the third key area that we're focused on, and we're spending a lot of time on these days is our retail media business. And it's, it's in it’s in nascency, but we're really excited about the opportunity in front of us there. And we think we're really well positioned to do extremely well in this space. But we are we are very much taking a very methodical approach to that one. And it's a small team today, but we're excited for what the future holds.
Michael LeBlanc 03:17
And what's your background? How did you get into digital? Did you, you always were you always digitally savvy, or at least digitally curious? Or did you find your way into it? Because you were a performance marketer? How did how did you find your path?
Greg Shelly 03:30
Now it's an interesting story. And, and t-, t-, to make a very long story short one, I thought that my path was going to be in technology. I did my Microsoft systems engineering, I thought definitely that was my path out of university, I took a job at Dell, which was you know exactly where I want to be. While I was there, this would have been in the early 2000s, I actually made a lateral move into the eCommerce Department, which really was the start of my journey in digital. Eventually, that eCommerce profile really did migrate into ads, and started a little bit of some of the on more on the media side, started looking at demand generation and a lot of the partner relationships we had with the Intel's and Microsoft's of the world. And I did that, that was that was my first gig.
And what I realized near the end of my time was I was very interested in what some of the subject matter experts did, who would come and support our business and I said, you know what you know, I, I kind of want to go deep in an area and really get to know it.
Greg Shelly 04:35
And so, eventually I left and I took an analytics job at McDonald's. Basically, we as a team and my accountability as senior manager there was business insights, marketing, analytics, demand, planning and forecasting of products and optimizing our promotional calendar alongside with marketing to make sure that you the campaign's we were doing, the products we were bringing to market were relevant, and that we were driving lift in the business. And so, that's where I really learned about how analytics and being data driven, can drive such material results. And really, it's a different language you speak. And so, I, I had a few fantastic years there, I think I was there about four years.
Greg Shelly 05:23
And then I then I made the move to Canadian Tire and that was done. My mentor and great friend, Jason Blanchette, he was he was the one who had brought me into McDonald's, and he left to Canadian Tire just ahead of me, so you know how these things go. We spoke, you know, about opportunities over there. And within about a year, I'd gone to Canadian Tire.
When I started there, I, I, you know, really did start in a similar field, to what I was doing at McDonald's and then fast forward, and they said, you know, what, the analytics work has been good. But we could really use your help in digital. And that's really how, what got things started. And I think we were a team of, I think we had two people on marketing or digital marketing when, when we started on all the demand channels. And, you know, we've, we've grown that performance marketing function significantly and layered on, like I said, the in-house agency, and we've grown that way. And now with the retail media side, we've had some real growth.
So anyway, that's, that's a story of how I kind of came to be in the position I am. So, thinking I was going to be in technology, I suppose I am in a way and took a very different path to get there.
Michael LeBlanc 06:33
Well, and, and of course, this podcast, is not a history lesson. But for those who may not remember, I mean, Dell, you're talking about Dell, Dell was a powerhouse selling online. I mean, I remember full page ads with custom URLs. I mean, they were early leader, early pioneer in direct-to-consumer selling. So, that's a great pedigree to bring to any background. You know, they, they did, they did as the kids would say, bank. in terms of you know, a lot of units direct, I bought, I bought a few of them myself.
Michael LeBlanc 06:59
You know, for the for the international audience, because there's no one in Canada who wouldn't know the answer to your question, but just describe Canadian Tire a little bit because you've talked about working at the Enterprise level and you've talked about so you know it a little how many banners and, and I guess, we include that your scope of work, does it cover all banners and all brands just give us a chalk the field for us a little bit.
Greg Shelly 07:20
The, the reason why, why it is called Canadian Tire is the original store is about 100 years old. It's our we're actually celebrating our 100th anniversary this year, but we have 500 locations of the Canadian Tire retail brand in Canada. And over the years, we've begun to make acquisitions. So, when we talk about Enterprise, we talked about some of the acquired companies over the years, things like so Canadian Tire to describe Canadian Tire clearly started with tires and an automotive focus.
Greg Shelly 07:55
But what the, the founders had seen over time, the Bellows brothers was that customers were typically on their way on a vacation or doing whatever it is that life in Canada was all about. And they would catch these customers as they were preparing for their road trip and getting themselves ready. And they started to widen their assortment to meet the needs of their customers before they would go. And so, we've over the years expanded the assortment, and, and now actually it's quite a wide offering across anything that's living, fixing, playing seasonal and gardening and automotive. So, it's, it's, it's a store that you walk in. It's a large store, a wide array of product but you know why Canadians know what we're all about? And it's a bit of a unique thing here.
Michael LeBlanc 08:43
I was sharing off mic that I was touring some Australian retailers this weekend in Toronto, and of course, Canadian is always on the stop and, you know, they just they're just a little bit, (inaudible) wide eyed when they walk in because nothing quite like it right. I've heard it described as a European hypermarket for men, which isn't really a fair description either. You know, I just started laying on them, you know, probably the biggest retailer of kitchen appliances, and they're like, what, it's Canadian Tire, isn't it at all automotive like it, it really turns their heads around a little bit because there's nothing quite, quite like it so yeah, so, so that's the base foundation. And you were about to say, also, we've got some banners that are supported right.
Greg Shelly 09:20
Yeah. And you know, over the years, there have been acquisitions that have made have been made. One of them is a is a, a sports retailer called Sport Chek. That would be similar to your American audience for, for a Dick's, I suppose would be the most comparable. We have an industrial clothing retail chain called Mark's. Having said that Mark's has made quite a transition into more casual apparel, and is doing extremely well at that and huge owned brand penetration as well at that retailer and so they have the best of national brands and quite a quite a booming owned brand business as well.
Michael LeBlanc 10:04
Wow, I've heard Mark's sells more Levi's than anyone else in the country. Is that just a rumor? Or is that? Can you validate that for me? It sounds about right, heh?
Greg Shelly 10:10
You know I could definitely validate denim. But I would have to ask our President or one of our VPS over there about Levi brands specifically. But I can tell you that from a Denim perspective, we would be the largest in Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 10:11
Right on. Okay, so but 17 under (inaudible) and all of these Sport Chek, Mark's and Canadian Tire proper fall under your remit? And I guess that it's also the credit card business that's around it, right. So, that all falls in, under what your team oversees in terms of driving demand, yeah?
Greg Shelly 10:38
That's right. And so when you look at the bank, and that's a great example of another one of our of our, you know, treasured assets, I suppose you would say, the, the bank, we have a credit card, through the bank, as well as some other financial products that are available. And so, it's a very, it's a wide swath of brands. But our, our, our brand purpose is really, it's about making life in Canada better. And I think with the brands that we have, and, and the way that we go to market, we're very true to our identity, and we know the role we play. And so, that has to come to life through the work at the end of the day.
Michael LeBlanc 11:18
Right on, let's talk about how your team interacts with marketing and brand teams, because what intrigues me and always has, you know, I've been part of, you know, single teams or shared service teams or common platform teams, how do you interact with that a little bit of your tradecraft, how you interact with brand marketing folks? And how does this all roll up into what you do? And how you how you do it? And, and how, you know, in terms of performance metrics, how you're gauged and all and how you get on each and every day, doing what you do?
Greg Shelly 11:49
Yeah, no, it's, it's a great thing to ask. Because when you go and you start to go down the path of being an in-house service provider, it certainly changes the dynamic of how you, you work with your peers. For us, it was a good change.
The thing that we do that's a bit different would be, because we are part of the, the corporation, when we're supporting our clients, I think the nature of the work shifts from being an outside consultant that maybe doesn't have the full picture of everything to, we're able to bring opportunities based on the data, based on systems where, where if you were a third party, you wouldn't necessarily have access for privilege for that type of data.
And so, what we're able to bring is a very, or, or what we have is a very tight partnership built around, really what we understand what the strategy of the business, we understand how the data comes together, we have the direct connections into other parts of cross functional teams to be able to make change happen. So, at the end of the day, it's a different working relationship when you start to support a brand team. But we're all on the hook for NPS. We're on the hook for brand health, we drive awareness and consideration and drive the value and the revenue opportunity chain together. And when, when they miss we miss and when, when, you know, we hit homeruns, they hit homeruns. It's all the same team. So, it's, it's a different relationship. But it but it's been very successful so far.
Michael LeBlanc 13:28
And putting all that together allows you to get that scale, right. And you get you're able to hire the expertise that you need, right? Because that's, that's, I remember, I had an internal team. And the challenge is I needed one analyst and it's hard to hire one analyst because then, you know, what's the career path and all that stuff. So, you, you get that scale by serving all the banners, right. And having that as you said, that broad swath of, of responsibilities that must be helpful for you, yeah?
Greg Shelly 13:51
It's extremely helpful and it's a everything very practical things like having the scale to support vacations, or if someone's on leave, or you know, if someone has an opportunity somewhere else in the company and wants to take a role. We have a steady pipeline of really impressive talent, that, that we're able to move into these roles. And it's not like they don't understand the company when they come in. And that's, that's what makes it work. And that's what makes us very agile, and, and able to sort of meet the needs of our client and also drive the outcomes that we're at the end of the day all sharing we're all on the hook.
Michael LeBlanc 14:33
So, you said something really interesting I guess this is part of your day to day life but you serve both performance for the physical stores and for online eCommerce. Now online eCommerce is a little more I guess straightforward kind of sorta but talk about this you know, in this increasingly hybridized retail environment the attribution riddle I mean everyone what drove what kind of stuff that must be really complicated given all the moving parts or what happens to the some someone at the Tire, they walk in the door. or, you know, they decide they're going to do a curbside, or they're buy it online or vice-versa. How do you connect those dots to understand performance along those two lines? Or, or do you just see it as one harmonized result? How do you how do you look at that?
Greg Shelly 15:14
Yeah, I think I think we, we definitely don't see it as one harmonized result, we have to treat, we have to be customer centric. And, and that might sound generic, but I'll unpack it a bit. Because the actually, you know what, maybe one more history lesson I know, we talked a little bit about the 100 year old retailer, one more history lesson, and that's the Canadian Tire money program. So, for your international audience, if you forever, I believe it's probably 60 years, at least, where we've had paper money, that you get printed by the Canadian Mint, I should also footnote. And so, when you would get change from the cashier, they would give you some Canadian Tire money. It's a it's it was an early form of a loyalty program. Not uncommon in Canada, for most households, or at least a lot of them to have shoe boxes full of Canadian Tire money, -
Michael LeBlanc 16:10
I'm sure I still have dollar or two in my glove box of any car I've ever had. I mean, it's, -
Greg Shelly 16:15
I came across a full dollar the other day myself, and I was pretty sure that, that that's a good one to have. You know what, though, it is interesting, though, because it is a, it really does exemplify what Canadian Tire is and how penetrative we are now in the Canadian market, and so fast forward, because the question is about attribution.
Greg Shelly 16:35
So, we digitized that program in 2012, I want to say, and what that gave us was a, a rich dataset. And we started to understand customers and individuals, and how behavior of how customers shopped us, what categories they liked, who was spending and where, as a digital marketer, that becomes very valuable information it allows us to unpack a lot of things.
And probably one of the if not the biggest benefit on a campaigning perspective, if you think of from, from a corporation, perspective, is the ability to expose and control customers to ads and being able to look at the omni-channel picture is provided through our loyalty programs. So, that really lets us start to say, what happens from our search ads, what happens from social media, what happens when we do X or Y. And when you connect that capability with an agile operating model, and a that can be a little a agile, really, what you get is an iterative approach to getting better every day, using a very customer centric approach to campaigning.
Greg Shelly 18:01
And we can talk dollars and cents as it relates. And we can talk about incremental as a result of our ads, moving away from the years of talking about clicks and impressions and things like that, that listen still matter. But when you're able to convert that to a conversation internally, and you start talking about the dollars and cents that you made incrementally in margin, it's a very different conversation.
Greg Shelly 18:27
And so, we are able to at this point, now, coming right back to your question, if we want to understand the impact of certain activity on eCommerce, it just becomes an exercise of setting up the experimentation, to isolate on a variable and being able to understand what the impact is. And so, that's very much I would say, in our DNA, as a as an operating group. And it doesn't always mean it can be Brand Lift, it can be anything you want. It doesn't have to be always about transactions or revenue. And frankly, we are, you know, we have one, in a cust-, a, a customer that shops, multiple brands is still just one customer. And we need to understand that customer and understand how they shop us and why they shop us. And the more we unpack that stuff, the more we understand Canadians, the better the results are, and the better the experiences. And so we've just been very focused on that.
Michael LeBlanc 19:21
Fantastic now within your team within your role within what you do every day, is let's talk about the blend of art and science. Is there, is there a role for you know, the, the kind of instinct or judgment of course, there's role for judgment, but talk about this art and science or is it all just mostly analytics and the numbers of the numbers play out? How does, how does that actually work in your team? And how do you think about them?
Greg Shelly 19:46
Yeah, I think I think what it is is, is technology. I think sometimes people make the mistake thinking that when they are procuring technology, they're, they are procuring a silver bullet. And the truth is there is no silver bullet, you need to understand what problems you are solving for or what, what is the outcome that you are looking to achieve with your ad dollars, with your brand messages of any kind, they can be on site, they can be anywhere they are. But I think what it comes down to is the creativity will come through understanding what it is you're trying to solve, and then looking at the solutions, right.
Greg Shelly 20:26
And so, it might not be hunched where we ran a campaign. And my hunch is that it was really good. But it might be a hunch that says, ‘Hey, we have this segment of customers that have done X or Y, and we need to do something special for them. And we need to treat them differently, or we need to show them something’. And I think that that's kind of where it's been.
And I think we're all that is going is, is clearly technology is going to solve for some of that, where you're where you're saying, you know, there are, you know, decision engines and things of that nature where, where you're literally talking ML and AI, but you still have to point them at the problem and you still have to develop your use cases based on what's important your customers, and what's important to you as an organization. And so, that's where the hunch comes in. And that's where the, the creativity will continue.
It's not going to be necessarily my hunch is that, that campaign was great, but it will be there are areas of huge value here and wins to be had and having the right judgment to know what to do first and when and how to go about it. And I think it's just a different shape of creativity. But you know, and what's being asked of that individual, but the tools are just going to be so much more powerful.
Michael LeBlanc 21:45
Well, it's a nice segue to talk about tools, Michael Klein will be on the back part of this podcast from Adobe. So, tell me about your marketing tech stack? And, and does Adobe have a role what role that has and, and all the different? You know, building that tech stacks pretty proprietary stuff, but just give me a sense of, of what you work with and what kind of tools impress you.
Greg Shelly 22:05
Yeah, no, and I, I think that's a, that's a great topic. You know, we use Adobe Adobe's a phenomenal partner of ours at CTC we use them that we just re-platformed our Canadian Tire website with Adobe, and using, -
Michael LeBlanc 22:20
I noticed using, I noticed, by the way, as a user all of a sudden that changed and my store change. I like it, I like it a lot. It's congratulations again, to you and the team as a user.
Greg Shelly 22:31
Yeah, well, I, I you know, personally, I can't take any credit for that one. But those are those are my, my partners in crime that I work day in and day out with. And they've been working very hard on this for, for quite some time. So yeah, and so a experienced man-, an Adobe Experience Manager was our solution there and, and being on the right cloud platform to be able to give us the scalability when we need it. Reliability, and at the same time, integrating everything we've learned about our customers in the experience improvements, we've frankly made, our websites come light years, over the last few years, it really coincides with I will, I will call it our obsession, on monitoring on getting feedback on making changes. And it's, it's every day I go to work, I'm still just blown away by how quickly we're able to move, when it comes to addressing any points of customer friction, or insights or feedback we get where we need to do something differently. It's unbelievable to, to see the, the engine that, that we built collectively it's, it's a it's a really, it's a very exciting time.
Michael LeBlanc 23:47
Right on, right on. Well, let's, let's turn our mind for last couple of questions to advice. So, advice to the digital marketers listening to folks who do your role or aspire to perhaps build a team like yours, two starts one stop, also, you know, what should they should leave behind for 2022? And what they should start doing but how do you, how do you think about based on your experience and you know, what we've just been through from a COVID era, a digital acceleration and all that stuff. Two things they should probably start doing and maybe one thing that they should leave behind and, and stop doing?
Greg Shelly 24:18
Yeah, I think I think that is, you know, we could talk we could do. I don't know how many episodes on the lessons learned through COVID. But I will say a few simple things. I think, first and foremost, it's always important to do your own math. The when it comes to someone who might promise you some sort of performance, or an increase in, in ROI or whatever it is. If you don't have a basis for doing your own evaluation, you know, it becomes very difficult to, to sort of understand what's real, wha-, what's the smoke and what's the mirror, when you have data that's accessible, and you have the talent, to and the teams to be able to, to interpret the data and make, make out whether it be an analysis, and you can do your own math. Like I said, or, or pull insights, being able to do that in-house just makes you a much smarter client, and leads you down the right path gen-, more than not. So, I'd say, you know, first and foremost, do your own math. And if that's not a capability you have if you struggle with understanding, whether it be did that campaign, yeah, it looks great in Google Analytics, did it deliver anything incremental to the business? Or would we have all had that? Would we have had those sales anyway? You know, those are the kinds of questions that you want to be able to answer.
Greg Shelly 25:54
And, so yeah, and so I think that that's that, that that that's, that's one thing, and I think, you know, one of the dependencies to be able to do that leads me to my second point, which I'd say, it's really important to build out your own ecosystem of experiences, and capture, capture the, the user event, and essentially, whether that be a sign-in, a an opt-in whatever that might be, being able to have a direct line to the consumer.
And being able to start to segment your customers is critical. If you're not doing that, really what you're doing is talking to everyone in the exact same way. And you know, you're different than I am, you're going to be shopping for barbecue parts, probably, and I'm going to be in there, maybe I'm looking at brake pads, because I, I have a car that's going to need a service coming up soon. And I like to do that in my driveway, that what's going to make or break us as an industry, not specific to CTC, but as an industry is going to be the ability for digital marketers to be able to make that leap, to be able to, to control and the data to respect privacy.
And at the same time continue to drive yourself forward. And in a world where cookies are going away. And in a world where privacy is being protected. You know, whether it's through legislation or technology like Apple, it's the direction it needs to go.
But at the same time as a marketer, it's okay, well, that actually makes us have to up our games. And so build your own ecosystem of whether it be IDs, opt-ins, app users, get an ecosystem of data, pull it together, and start getting insights and start to treat your customers differently, because they're all individuals, and don't rely on a third party to do it. You're going to have to, though that that's your data. It's actually the customer's data, and they've trusted you with it. And it's just so important to, to do the right things with it. But it's also the upside is enormous from a business and an opportunity perspective. So, it's a win, win for the consumer and for the for the business, it's just, it's, it's going to be a high bar for some to get to and that's why I, I recommend start now.
Michael LeBlanc 25:56
Yeah, you know, the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago, right, next best time is today.
Greg Shelly 28:08
That's exactly that's exactly it, right. And so, (crossover talk), just, just get started if you're not
Michael LeBlanc 28:24
Yeah never too late now, for something maybe that you you're no longer doing that maybe you know, technology or experiences proved doesn't work. Any advice around what folks should stop doing, as they think about, (crossover talk), -
Greg Shelly 28:45
I think we have to break down the silos between traditional teams and digital teams, I think we have to break down silos between upper funnel and lower funnel like, you have to understand your customer and start there. And does that customer know you? Do they not? Do you know what they like? Do, are they already telling you what they want? I think I think we have to stop thinking about channels like we do. I think we have to think about each customer, each segment each, whatever it might be, and have teams that are looking at those segments and watching them and thinking about them in a omni-channel, multi-channel, traditional digital, everything I just said. I think that's the leap. And I think digital back when we were talking about the early days and pioneering things, it made a lot of sense to get a digital team. It was like this alien thing that people were doing.
Michael LeBlanc 29:45
Well, (crossover talk), I mean, there's, there's a whole bunch of reasons you needed it right. I mean, from, from, you know, evangelizing to you know, inculcating that type of DNA and the rest of the organization but those days are probably You know, they should be long gone, yeah?
Greg Shelly 30:01
Yeah, and they should be. And I think I think if you're still planning by channel like, and there's a difference between having tactical plans where we have to, you know, anticipate how much we're going to be spending in channels, but if we lead with that, we're missing the boat, you have to, you have to start with the customer, and then build the strategies around them. And it should include, I mean, I'm a digital person, by, by trade, the power of traditional is still there, there is there is massive value to be had in traditional channels. So, really, it's, you can't just think about even, you know, I'm a digital marketer, traditional marketer. It's, It is it is that is the leap, I think that's what we have to stop doing. And I think we have to really shift and I keep saying it, but, you know, my teams will say, oh, my God, you're a broken record, but it's true, we have to become customer centric. And that's more than just a guiding principle that is, should be foundational to how you plan and how you go to market.
Michael LeBlanc 31:05
operating principle, right. I mean, anybody listening to this in the digital space should be pretty excited at this point about what you're doing now it I'm sure in one way, it's not hard to hire people with such a great mandate and the other it's always hard to hire the right people, any open positions, kind of the mic is yours, should they go seek out opportunities? Are you looking for folks just since we got a nice audience any, any, any opportunities, (crossover talk), -
Greg Shelly 31:29
we're going to have some, some postings around retail media, in various capacities as that's a growing and expanding area. As well, in our performance marketing and ad-ops areas, we have openings coming on board for so if you want to be in a performance marketing role, and start to understand the cause and effect of digital ads, and understanding how to move audiences around and measuring outcomes and all those sorts of good things.
Greg Shelly 32:02
So, there's always something on the go. It's such a vibrant space, it's growing space, you can always check us out on our website @canadiantire.ca. There's, there's a link at the bottom to go to our corporate site and you can you can look up those postings. I'm on LinkedIn, you can also add me or, or send me a message, Greg Shelly, you'll find me there. And as well. greg.shelly@cantire.com, if you want to reach out with a resume or any questions for me, and I'm happy to happy to happy to fill those.
Greg Shelly 32:02
We have performance marketing role that will be live, I'm hesitating to tell you that the title is we're still sort of figuring some out last minute details. But yes, there's going to be a performance marketing role on, on our Master brand coming up, as well as, like I said, operations roles and as you know, social and, and potentially search and things like that.
Michael LeBlanc 32:47
Well, Greg, it's a very generous offer and thanks so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail, a great discussion. I think we can have several discussions like this because it's such a broad reaching, interesting topic, and, and you're really doing very forward leaning stuff. So, congratulations to you and the team on just the work you're doing just by listening to your description. And once again, thanks for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast it was a real treat to chat.
Greg Shelly 33:22
Yeah, I had a lot of fun. Thanks, Michael, I appreciate the invitation.
Michael LeBlanc 33:27
Michael, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing this afternoon?
Michael Klein 33:31
I'm doing well. Michael, how are you?
Michael LeBlanc 33:32
I'm, I'm fantastic. Thank you. Now we're abouts am I finding you today. I think you're on the West Coast, right?
Michael Klein 33:38
Yes, I am a transplanted New Yorker based in the San Francisco Bay Area, specifically in Oakland, California, in the hills here.
Michael LeBlanc 33:49
Wow. So, would you ever go back? Like do you like the lifestyle? Would you ever go back? I mean, the two very different lifestyles in one way. What do you think?
Michael Klein 33:57
I get that question asked quite often. I go back quite a bit for both perf-, personal and professional reasons. So, I don't think I would go back full time. I, I enjoy visiting but I also enjoy coming back to the West Coast and opening up my sunroof and driving back from the airport. So, -
Michael LeBlanc 34:20
yeah, that's hard to give up, -
Michael Klein 34:21
but I, I love the energy of New York and growing up there but I don't see myself living there full time again.
Michael LeBlanc 34:29
All right, well listen, thanks again for joining me. Let's, let's jump right in and tell me a bit about yourself and what you do for a living and what you do at Adobe.
Michael Klein 34:37
Yeah, I often will always talk about that I am a merchant by trade. I grew up in the retail industry started on the shop floor in New York City for some well known food retailers, Dean & DeLuca, Balducci's and then had been fortunate to be working for other great brands, Williams Sonoma, wine.com have worked side by side with Chuck Williams actually, for quite a while, editing cookbooks. And for the past 14 years, I have now been on the tech side of the world, specifically I'm the Global Director of Industry Strategy for Retail Travel and Consumer Goods at Adobe Systems. What that means is that I'm responsible for Adobe's point of view and messaging in those three industries of commerce, retail travel consumer goods. So, I've been really fortunate to be part of the journey we've been on for the past 10 plus years, -
Michael LeBlanc 35:43
I guess it's a different world, pre-COVID versus today, you, you probably travel or fly a lot less than you used to, yeah.
Michael Klein 35:50
with, without a doubt, I, I am on calls at all hours of the day and the evening. And I used to travel quite a bit, probably almost 50% of the time. I do miss that some of that travel, but I am focused on North America with a global remit on you know, making sure that what we're doing here in North America is being adapted by our, are different industries and
Michael LeBlanc 36:23
and vice versa. And vice versa, right? Best Practices kind of travel around and oh, -
Michael Klein 36:28
oh, yeah, definitely we we have hubs in Australia, London, all over the world and always collaborating with my partners in all parts of the globe.
Michael LeBlanc 36:41
Yeah, do you do you look in your tradecraft, do you look to Europe to try to forecast how privacy is going to roll out because obviously privacy has a big impact on how you design and think about the work you do.
Michael Klein 36:55
Well, certainly GDPR was a leader before we had the all these acronyms, the CCPA. You know, so the, -
Michael LeBlanc 37:08
California right, California is the leader of the US, -
Michael Klein 37:10
Consumer Privacy Act, yeah was an offshoot from the GDPR. That was implemented in, in Europe. Yeah, we, we certainly see different nuances even within the European Union of how folks are looking at privacy, what they're willing to share, what they're not willing to share, how that leads into personalization and the experiences that one can deliver. So, you know, I, I would certainly say that we are keeping an eye out first and foremost, to what is happening in, in Europe, and how that's affecting some of the privacy governance issues that we're seeing crop up and consumer sensitivity to how data is used.
Michael LeBlanc 37:59
Right, right on. So, let's talk about Adobe just for a few minutes. I mean, there's nobody listening to this who would know Adobe, they might, they might just know it as the purveyor of their PDFs. But more importantly, tell us a little bit about the scope and scale of, of Adobe and how you connect to the retail industry.
Michael Klein 38:17
Yeah, that is, I, I don't have to explain as much as I, I did 10 years ago that I'm not the Photoshop guy. So, yes, Adobe has been changing the world through digital experiences for over 35 years. We're not far away from our 40th year anniversary. And we acquired two companies back in 2007 and then 2009. The first company called Scene7, which is a dynamic media and content solution. And then where I came from was Omniture, the acquisition that we, Adobe made in 2009, of the leading digital analytics solution. So, ever since then, we have been building out our digital experience side of the business which is one of our three major clouds the other being the Creative Cloud, which is where everybody thinks about us first and foremost, when it comes to Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, etc, and some other video capabilities, -
Michael LeBlanc 39:27
(crossover talk), I got a scripture to myself, I It's very useful for just, you know, taking care of my PDFs and doing fun stuff, -
Michael Klein 39:34
Yeah, well, we're all in the cloud now so, (Crossover talk), Yeah, it is. When I first joined we were still selling boxed software, -
Michael LeBlanc 39:45
Yeah, yeah, (crossover talk), on trend, boxed software, right?
Michael Klein 39:48
Yeah, if anybody has any that boxed software out there, you should hold on to it because it's probably very val-, very valuable. It's a collector's item.
Michael LeBlanc 39:59
Build yourself a table out of it in Adobe offices once you go back to the office, -
Michael Klein 40:04
Yeah. So, for the past 10 years since th-, that acquisition 10 plus years in 2009, we have really been focused on building out our experienced business for the Enterprise, which is the foundation of digital cont-, content, the analytics piece, the, the orchestration of marketing and offers and really helping retailers in particular, and as well as all the other industries really understand what it means to drive great experiences for Enterprise and SMB businesses. And we're very well entrenched in retail, we measure 80 of the top 100, internet retailers, businesses from a digital analytics perspective and, you know, very well entrenched in building out their experiences for websites, mobile, (inaudible), even if you walk down the strip in Vegas, and you see large billboards, some of that is actually being run and managed by Adobe technology.
Michael LeBlanc 41:15
Well, you know, speaking of which, we just listened to an interview with Greg Shelly from Canadian Tire talking about his world of Enterprise Digital Campaign Management. So, I guess we should call that out as a, as a great client, and, and big announcements with Canadian Tire lately, right, putting $3.4 billion, boy, what a, what a, what a badge of confidence in the future of retail. So, you know, I couldn't think of a better timing for, for our discussion. That was, we're recording this mid, mid March.
Michael Klein 41:46
That's my phone. Sorry.
Michael LeBlanc 41:50
So, so let's, let's talk about so let's talk about a couple things in specific, and then we'll get to some things in general. So, I was looking at a couple of reports that you sent me, and I'll put links into these reports. And the first one I want to talk about is the report that was done, just kind of a look back at holiday 2021. So, I don't want this to be a history lesson. But I'm wondering if you could share just specifically to that report, any insights that you think are valuable to the listeners, to the retailers listening, that they should take forward to 2022?
Michael LeBlanc 42:20
I mean, you know, we're all wondering a little bit about exactly how many lessons can I learn from these strange COVID years, you know, like, in, you know, here in, in Canada, we had a lot of retailers pull the business very aggressively forward into November, purposely, you know, do very, very different things from, from a flyer perspective, you know, they weren't sure they were going to get their items. So, they had they, they, you know, they left a bit of money on the table, some of them because they couldn't have that kind of certainty of having the flyer items and all that kind of stuff and relied more on digital. But if we sit back and say, okay, out of all that, from what you observed, from what Adobe observed, from all their many clients, what, what lessons should, should retailers take forward as I think about holiday, 2020?
Michael Klein 43:02
Yeah, I think first as you as you indicated, Michael, we talked a lot about the tale of three seasons. And the lengthening out we've, we've often talked about cyber week are cyber days with Black Friday, Cyber Monday here in the US. And I know, Thanksgiving is a little bit earlier in Canada than it is here in the United States. But nonetheless, as we think about the, the 61 day time period, from November 1 through December 31, we certainly see a, a, a big shift in consumer dollars going earlier in the season. And consumers making sure that fear of missing out the FOMO, that they're not going to get that great item that they were looking for, for their kids or their family members or loved ones, co-workers, whatever it may be that they're making sure they're and also hearing from the media, certainly, the supply chain issues that we're all well aware of that, that are happening out there.
Michael Klein 44:12
So, the ability to make sure that you're in position with inventory, early, we typically that report that you've indicated, historically has run November 1 through December 31. We did that again this year. But I would envision in future years that we'll probably going to start to open the aperture and start to include some of the October numbers as well in our holiday report because people are getting out there both on the consumer as well on the brand side sooner ,earlier than they have ever in the past.
Michael LeBlanc 44:50
So, did we learn from that and do you think that's going to stick around? I mean, 2022 is probably will now definitely thanks to the, the war in Ukraine, another complicated year in supply chain. But do you think that that's a habit that's going to stick? Because, you know, if you and I cast our minds back, you know, when you and I were, you know, 10 years ago, December was a big month, eCommerce, these other things have moved it but you think that's a permanent shift that this, this bring forward of sales? Or do you think at some point it might normalize? I mean, I don't know, we're trying to make up history as we go here, what do you think?
Michael Klein 45:22
I, don't, I don't think it's going to completely go back to where it was beforehand, in any way shape or form, we had already been seeing a little bit of this shift occur. And certainly the current situation with supply chain and pricing, availability of raw materials, as well as finished goods, that may be alleviated a bit as we come into 2022 holiday season, however, I think we've all become a little bit more conditioned to making sure that we have that item. And we've been tracking out of stock, we've seen 5X increases in out of stock messages over the past few years. So, you know, it, it may not be as drastic as it has been, but I, I don't see us going back to previous years where December was so heavily loaded, and we're going to see that shift continue ever so slightly.
Michael LeBlanc 46:27
I tell you, I wouldn't call that, you know, five years ago wasn't that was in a space on my bingo card where I would have said, you know, consumers are going to be bummed become better planners and less ad hoc, because I thought, and it may pan out this way that you know, as you get to same day, next day internet experience, efficiency delivery, consumers are just going to keep waiting, but it's not (inaudible) of you know, for a whole bunch of reasons not, not exactly panning out this way, kind of surprised me.
Michael Klein 46:52
Yeah, I think the other thing, which we certainly have seen is not just the supply chain issue of the materials, but the bottleneck in the other than a few retailers. Obviously, Amazon in particular, that are promising fast fulfillment. But whether it's United Postal Service, you know, you know, UPS, Federal Express, Canada Post all of the different fulfillment options, they're also seeing their own bottleneck. And in here, my neighborhood, I, Isee the United Parcel trucks running at nine o'clock at night during the holiday season. And you know, those guys have to go home at some point in time in the day, and there's only so much that can go on the truck.
Michael Klein 47:40
So, it's not just the, the materials, but it's also the carriers, and can they actually get that product to you. I think it's also kind of dovetails quickly into the numbers that we see the increase in buy online pick up in store, as we get closer to Christmas, because while somebody may promise that they're going to get you an item in two days, or 48 hours, whatever it may be 24 hour instant delivery, that, that we may not always trust that. So, being able to recognize inventory, and then be able to get in the car and go to the physical location and pick up an item, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 48:24
Particularly an order on the holidays, right? I mean, it's a gift, right? So, you know, it's particularly what we used to call in, in the retail trade, trip assurance. I know I'm going to get it. All right, let's talk about this Digital Insights 2022 report that you wrote, clearly, we see from the report, and I'll make the report, I'll put a link into it in the show notes, you know, surge of digital, we all know that all kinds of new customer journeys. And I'm trying to figure out as many are from that report, kind of similar question as holiday. You know, what, what can we take from that report looking at current behaviors during the COVID era that we can say, yep, those behaviors are now set. We can expect those to happen again, what were your insights for that?,
Michael Klein 49:08
Yeah, the first thing I'd want to call out is mobile. And it also kind of ladders back to some of the data we saw in the holiday report. And maybe I'll first cover, cover that off real quickly before I segue into what we saw on the Digital Trends report. So, we, we had made certain assumptions when work from home COVID really started setting in that the desktop would have somewhat of a resurgence in terms of the trends that we had been seeing for a few years beforehand that folks would be on their desktop more, they'd be transacting more on desktop and actually we saw the opposite occur.
Michael Klein 49:55
Desktop held a little bit flat if not started to continue to lose ground to the mobile device, we now see over 40% of revenue going through a mobile device where we already had eclipsed traffic, over 60% of traffic is going through the mobile device. And I always talk about mobile being the perfect bridge between the online and the offline space being able to go from the, the home. We also know I think there's a lot of statistics, not our data that folks are working from home, they're in front of their laptops, eight, nine, ten hours a day. And they're basically sick of it. They don't (inaudible). When nighttime comes around, and I'm sitting on the couch, I don't have want to have my laptop. So, we see a lot of commerce happening in the mobile space, even with this whole work from home COVID shelter in place that we've had to deal with over the past couple of years. So, mobile is continues to be a really important space, I believe, as we go forward, because that's where consumers are going to continue to look for their commerce. We also know the devices are getting better there. The speed is getting better, -
Michael LeBlanc 51:20
Right, right. Payment, payments are getting better, right? Payment is getting better used to need three arms to pay on a mobile device, right? Well, yeah,
Michael Klein 51:27
Well, yeah, and you can do it one click, I think Apple Pay is a great example of that. So, when we had our study, we asked where are you investing in mobile applications for in-store shopping come out as one of the top, as the top area for retailers of how they're going to improve their mobile experience, contactless payment number two, social commerce.
Michael Klein 51:54
I'm, I'm also guilty of this myself where I'll be on Instagram, and they certainly have enough information about me that I'm having more impulse sales probably than ever before, when it comes to social commerce. So, those are some of the areas the, the contactless payment, the ability to self service more than ever before. Mobile is certainly center of that, (crossover talk), that experience. So, it's intriguing what you actually good segue, you know, it's as I think about your personal experience, that you were just relating about shopping, you know, from Instagram, as you're buying old Adobe boxes that used to be on (inaudible) and building furniture from them or whatever you're doing. I think about the fragmentation of the customer journey that it has gotten worse, not better or more fragmented. Would you agree? And, and what's your advice to retailers about how to think about that?
Michael Klein 52:51
I don't know if I would use the word fragmented, myself, it's, it's disjointed, right? Maybe they're synonymous there. And it's all over the place, there is no longer a linear customer journey that we had beforehand, that was very easy to track and customer journeys are starting online. They're starting offline, they're starting, as you pointed out through social media. So, the and the Holy Grail for retailers these days is how do I make sure that when I have a consumer in front of me, how do I deliver an experience to them online or offline? That is as personalized as, as possible? How do I speak to them in their voice, and make sure that if I'm in a grocery situation, or a grocery store or grocery retailer, I'm not showing meat products to a vegetarian, I'm showing products for the right gender in anapparel setting.
Michael LeBlanc 54:00
You know, retailers we've been trying to do we've been trying to do this for a years. Are you surprised how long it took? Or is it is it, it's, it's just really complicated, but do you think we'd be farther along from where we ar today? It sounds like the tools that you're bringing to the retailer are really helping advance the, the cause.
Michael Klein 54:17
They are helping but the challenge is to your point is bringing together the, the data, the unification of that experience and bringing together online and offline data is a huge challenge. I think also how enterprises and organizations are put together, what is a center of excellence look like, or are we still siloed off between the online and the offline space? We see improvements in that area. But, you know, in our other research, we understand now that less than half of retailers that we're speaking to are personalizing more than 50% of the customer journey going from awareness through to retention. And part of the challenges there is not only the technology in the data, but it's how they've set themselves up organizationally. And the email team may be working on their programs in personalizing or giving great experiences through email. But are they actually connected organizationally, (crossover talk), strategically across the in-store people as well.
Michael Klein 55:36
And we see the one the customers that we're working with that are doing this well have some of this under control, they they've put in the center of centers of excellence, they've created a roadmap and a strategy that looks at the unified customer profile. And, you know, without getting into the technology, investing in data lakes and customer data platforms, to be able to really bring that data together and democratize it across the Enterprise.
Michael LeBlanc 56:11
All right, last question for you. Looking at the report, and from what you know, and you talk to a lot of retailers, talk about from the retail perspective, whether it's organization wise process, technology wise, advice around priorities, you know, where should they spend their last dollar of, of budget and their last minute of time? What's, what's in your mind is the number one priority? Is it, Is it this organizational piece, teach and train and get that down, and then let the technology the great technology take care of it from there.
Michael Klein 56:42
The first thing I would say is having a bit of self awareness. What I mean by that is, we have been in, in the world of retail, we have been dealing with commerce, eCommerce for more than 20 years, going back to the mid-90s, when things really started to take shape in terms of online commerce. So, everybody in this space is at a different part of their journey. And I think there needs to be a clear and we saw this in, in our personalization study. Because what the challenges that grocers are having are different than the challenges in a general merchandise or a big bo-, big box retailer may have. Because grocers for so many years, were relying upon the physical space, they had the luxury of over 95% of their business going through the physical store. And they didn't really think that this digital thing was going to be as big of their business as it has grown to today and will continue to grow.
Michael Klein 57:50
So, the first thing I would say is really have a clear understanding of where you are in this journey. Do you have the foundation of data and content in place, in order to have a unified profile and a customer experience? And alongside of it the people part of this, we always talk about people process and technology, but really understanding the people internally and externally. And again, going back to crawl, walk run. Don't try to do everything? What are the basic use cases that are going to drive my business? What is that low hanging fruit and really understand what the low hanging fruit is that is going to drive the needle. And sometimes it's as simple as suppressing marketing, or going in getting a better optimization of internal search on a mobile device, because that's a, a key use case for many retailers. So, self awareness, clear use cases of how I'm going to grow the business and organizational structure, I think are some of the key areas that retailers need to be thinking about as they go on this journey.
Michael LeBlanc 59:11
Well, all right. It's great advice. Michael, thank you so much for joining me. And last last question, I guess is where can folks get in touch with you are you a LinkedIn guy, and where can they go and find insights from, from Adobe?
Michael Klein 59:23
So, yes, I am. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm also on Twitter as Klein, the number four retail, klein4retail. And then of course, we have a ton of great content on adobe.com. In our industries and retail section, whether it's the reports we've discussed today, as well as customer case studies. It's been a pleasure speaking with you today, Michael, I appreciate being able to join you today.
Michael LeBlanc 59:57
All right, well, once again, thanks for joining me on The Voice Retail and I wish you continued success and a great rest of your day.
Michael Klein 1:00:04
Thanks. Have a great 22.
Michael LeBlanc 1:00:07
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and click andsubscribe on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically, twice a week.
Michael LeBlanc 1:00:17
And check out my other retail industry media properties the Remarkable Retail podcast, Conversation with CommerceNext podcast and The Food Professor podcast with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Last but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week.
Michael LeBlanc 1:00:36
I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company and Maven Media. And if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Have a safe week everyone
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
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