Our second pandemic holiday shopping season is fast approaching. Because supply chains and consumer behaviour have changed fundamentally in the last twenty months, predicting the outcome of major retail events like Holiday is becoming increasingly difficult for retailer marketers. Join me in discussion with Jason Furlano the SVP of Commercial at MiQ, a programmatic media partner for marketers and agencies. Together, Jason and I unpack MiQ’s latest study titled ‘The Pandemic Effect: What Holiday Shopping Will Look Like in 2021.’
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Our second pandemic holiday shopping season is fast approaching. Because supply chains and consumer behaviour have changed fundamentally in the last twenty months, predicting the outcome of major retail events like Holiday is becoming increasingly difficult for retailer marketers.
Join me in discussion with Jason Furlano the SVP of Commercial at MiQ, a programmatic media partner for marketers and agencies. Together, Jason and I unpack MiQ’s latest study titled ‘The Pandemic Effect: What Holiday Shopping Will Look Like in 2021.’
We break down the study’s major findings, talk about key takeaways for retailers and marketers as the holiday season approaches. Stick around for our conversation about broader shifts in the marketing space - we cover the latest marketing innovations, breaking down the marketing silos and more.
Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we can continue getting amazing guests on the show.
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
Michael LeBlanc 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. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail, I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:10
Our second pandemic holiday shopping season is fast approaching. Because supply chains and consumer behaviour have changed fundamentally in the last twenty months, predicting the outcome of major retail events like Holiday is becoming increasingly difficult for retailer marketers.
Michael LeBlanc 00:23
Join me in discussion with Jason Furlano, the SVP of Commercial at MiQ, a programmatic media partner for marketers and agencies. Together, Jason and I unpack MiQ’s latest study titled ‘The Pandemic Effect: What Holiday Shopping Will Look Like in 2021.’
Michael LeBlanc 00:38
We break down the study’s major findings, talk about key takeaways for retailers and marketers as the holiday season approaches. Stick around for our conversation about broader shifts in the marketing space - we cover the latest marketing innovations, breaking down the marketing silos and more.
Jason Furlano 00:54
We are seeing some nuances within the Canadian market and there was a lot that got, kind of, uncovered. But, I think, you know, to base it down to three key learnings that were uncovered in the report. I think the first was, for me at least, Michael, the gap between online and offline is shrinking.
Michael LeBlanc 01:12
Let's listen in now. Jason, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing this morning?
Jason Furlano 01:18
I'm very well. Michael, thank you for having me on the podcast this morning.
Michael LeBlanc 01:22
Well, it's my pleasure. We were talking off mic, you're in wonderful, Eastern Canada, where the population is blooming and it's a wonderful place to be, yeah.
Jason Furlano 01:30
Halifax, Nova Scotia is a tremendous place this time of year and definitely enjoying the food and weather headed into the fall season.
Michael LeBlanc 01:39
Yeah, Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, listen, thanks for, for joining me, you've got a great background. This study you and your shop put out, really interesting stuff. And let's just jump right into it. First of all, tell us about who you are, your background and your role at MiQ.
Jason Furlano 01:56
Well, as we've alluded to, my name is Jason Furlano. I'm the SVP of Commercial at MiQ here in Canada, which means I oversee our key relationships with external partners, as well as the local marketing department. Now, prior to joining MiQ, I lead programmatic sales at a little output, that you may have heard of, Yahoo, which was then acquired by Verizon, and has since in the last couple weeks become Yahoo again, and made them move about five years ago, when I started to see the trend in the digital media space, moving from transactional digital executions to something a little bit more lead with like insights with regards to media activation. And that's really our focus at MIT, Michael.
Michael LeBlanc 02:38
Now, you said a million-dollar word there, programmatic. So, I'm familiar with it, but my audience is made up of a mix of folks, some of whom may not be steeped in the world of what the heck that means. So, in 30 seconds or less, or a couple of minutes, tell me what programmatic is.
Jason Furlano 02:58
I'm going to aim for the 30 seconds or less route on this one. Programmatic media is the auction-based process of placing a digital advertisement in front of a particular consumer. So, everything that you're buying or seeing online, with regards to advertisements. It's there in a real time bidding process and we place those ads for our advertising partners.
Michael LeBlanc 03:22
So, we're talking display ad and what happens is there's a, you know, this, there's we're talking in the millions of ads being served. So basically, as I understand it, programmatic kind of says, who is that person that I'm serving an ad to? And what's the best ad to serve them at the best time? And it's all done by machines, right, like, it's a lot of, it's a lot of programming, because there's just literally millions of these things done, right?
Jason Furlano 03:43
Yeah, you've got it, there's a lot that goes into that to the algorithm that decides what ad needs to go in front of what user, whether it is their browsing behaviors, content that they had been looking at historically, interests, you know, all the way down to the postal code in which they live on that is kind of taken into account before that ad is placed in front of a particular person.
Michael LeBlanc 04:04
And this bidding process always fascinated me because it just it basically what to pay when so it's anyways, not exactly the topic of our discussion today but, I wanted to make sure everybody had some kind of framework for programmatic and if you want to, if you want to dive in, I'm sure you can connect with you. And you guys can spend a couple hours explaining all that algorithm. Fun. Right on, but anyway, it works. It's pretty, it's pretty revolutionary, right, I mean, in the past five years, it's pretty much revolutionized what you do for a living, kind of, thing, right.
Jason Furlano 04:31
The, the advertising space, it's kind of crazy. My goal, like, you know, what's happened, especially like we say, last five years, I'll say last 18 months. The innovation that's been required for, you know, what was historically considered like traditional media channels. Now being moved into the programmatic space has just been really expedited as a result of the pandemic. And now we're seeing, you know, like we just talked about, like digital assets, those banners or videos that we were talking about.
Michael LeBlanc 04:59
Yeah.
Jason Furlano 04:59
Now, you transact audio ads. So, historically, where it was just placed through terrestrial radio, or out of home ads now in the digital home space, even TV ads moving from linear television, into the connected TV space, are all really happening at like kind of warp speed and are going to continue to progress pretty drastically over the next couple of years.
Michael LeBlanc 05:21
Now, it's interesting, I think we could do a whole podcast on the acceleration of different things, ecommerce, and just the, so many people changing their habits, but we're actually going to touch on a bit of that in your report. Now, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, tell us about MiQ. Again, anybody who's a retail marketer would, would know of you and know what you do, but give us a sense of who MiQ is, scope, scale and all that great stuff.
Jason Furlano 05:45
Okay, I'll give you a quick synopsis. And I'll do a little bit of the scope and scale and then I'll finish it off. The easiest way for me to ever tell someone what we do, Michael, is by giving a bit of an example. And, I'll give one in the retail space in particular. So, MiQ is a digital media partner. We specialize in providing insights, analytics and solutions for marketers. Those solutions are really customized based on the particular client's core business objectives or challenges, which in the case of most retailers, we know Michael is converting sales or raising awareness through digital advertising.
Michael LeBlanc 06:17
Yeah.
Jason Furlano 06:17
We're a lot less focused on media KPIs, or those key performance indicators of click through rates and completion rates. Those are kind of table stakes, we're a lot more focused on like the tangible outputs that we apply to everything that we do. Simply put, everything that we do as a business helps our partners increase their, their businesses or their scale, and help them sell more things, if I can baseline it down to one thing and then scope and scale. Here in Canada, we've got offices here in lovely Halifax, where I am today, we're HQ'ed out of Toronto, but we've also got representation in Toronto, sorry, Vancouver and Montreal, and then globally, you know, London, LA, Sydney, New York, all the big places you'd expect us to be.
Michael LeBlanc 07:03
And, where's the head office, where's, where's the, kind of, where did it all start?
Jason Furlano 07:06
It all started with two guys with a credit card in London, England. And it re-, it remains there. Our co-founders are truly spectacular individuals and very much still involved in the business. You know, I speak to them quite regularly to be honest with you and it still definitely feels like a startup even though there's about 800 of us globally. 100 of which, almost all are sat here in Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 07:30
Wow, big shop. All right, so speaking of big shop, you guys just published a very timely study, the Pandemic Effect: What Holiday Shopping Will Look Like in 2021. Let's talk about that study. First of all, give us a sense of, of its scope and, to use scope twice in the same interview, but, you know, what, what, what was the objective of the study and what does it cover and then we'll kind of start peeling back a few layers on what you're trying to do.
Jason Furlano 07:54
Let's start with, like, a generic overview, because the title does do a pretty good job of summing it up, but obviously the pandemic and lockdowns have altered, you know, several aspects of people's lives, but with Canadian spending a lot more time at home, consequently, and unsurprisingly, there's been a massive uptick in online shopping. But there's been a lot of other shifts in spending habits and the study also delves a lot into that.
Jason Furlano 08:18
We're aiming to help provide retail and CPG marketers a better understanding of Canadian shopping habits as we're heading into this crazy season where we're talking about shortages and logistical challenges of getting products in front of people. But the insights that we've highlighted in the, in the study, Michael, really aren't just for the planning, activation and measurement of the holiday rush season. They're, they're truthfully meant to help act as a bit of a map, or a guide towards the the future of the retail space in particular.
Michael LeBlanc 08:49
And it's a great study, you know, I'm just kind of paging through and I've been paging through it for a couple of days, what, what are the kind of key observations that that jumped out at you by the way, we should tell the listeners that there's Canadian data in here, too, which is not always the case. So, it's a really, it's a great perspective, that's, that's great to see a global company, also including Canadian data, so good for you guys.
Jason Furlano 08:52
It was, it was so important to make sure that we got a Canadian lens on this. And, you know, it's great, because with a sample size that was, was large enough, we're able to find like statistically relevant information form marketers to understand, you know, some of the things that are happening globally, are definitely seeing those trends here locally in Canada, or alternatively, we are seeing some nuances within the Canadian market. And there was a lot that got, kind of, uncovered, but I think, you know, to base it down to three key learnings that were uncovered in the report.
Jason Furlano 09:41
I think the first was, for me, at least, Michael, the gap between online and offline is shrinking and why that divide is now closer than ever before, we really kind of like hammer that one home and we just talked about the fact when we're talking about programmatic, everything is now becoming biddable and as a result of that that gap is closing. The second for me was how the holiday shopping timeline is shifting, and what that means for media activation in campaigns. And then the last piece was to highlight to retail marketers the need to understand a little bit more about the inventory and channels to begin running their media campaigns to deliver that primary KPI for retail marketers that are all listening in here, which is really return on ad-spend or return on investment.
Jason Furlano 10:24
Yeah, I mean, and we should probably tell the listeners, I guess we can put a link to this study in the show notes. Yeah, you can make it available to the people.
Jason Furlano 10:31
Absolutely, we'll make sure that the studies available to everyone afterwards, as well, as you know, perfectly hear from some folks around specific cuts with regards to their brands.
Michael LeBlanc 10:41
You know, I'm looking at the one thing, I mean, there's lots of things to dig into, but as you said about timing, was really interested, I think you guys did an amazing job. You go all the way back to 2016 and you, it's dramatic when you compare 2016 to 2020, or even practically 2019, right, I mean, if you look at a lot of retailers are looking at their year, this year, compared to 2019 because 2020 was a bit bonkers, right, like, it was just such an outlier and you look at the shift between decision making that's marked up like a hockey stick in 2016 towards the end of December, and it just dives in 2019 and 2020. Like that's been just a huge shift. So, I guess, you're, you must be getting calls a lot earlier and having meetings a lot earlier with your retail clients about Listen, you got to get in the game now, way earlier than, you know, even a few years ago, right, so, that's, that's a big call out from the study for sure.
Jason Furlano 11:33
Massively. So, we saw, you know, the increase in that, that timeline that's required is like, we're getting people who are now starting that holiday shopping season or research, at least in September, where historically it's been a thing. So, moving and post-Thanksgiving, that Black Friday, kind of, timeframe.
Michael LeBlanc 11:50
Yeah.
Jason Furlano 11:50
And even to me, at least, those people are well ahead of the game, that requirement is there really, Michael, because of the amount of research that people are now doing. Historically, you know, people have been a little bit more compulsive with regards to their shopping habits and kind of gone out and not required that lead time. But we're, now we're seeing people are being a little bit more fiscally responsible. They're doing a lot of that due diligence prior to that purchase, and this is giving marketers a good insight into when you need to be talking to them because historically where you could have waited, you know, now you've got to get in early enough to make sure you, they're even part of that consideration phase.
Michael LeBlanc 12:29
It's interesting to see Boxing Day in any survey. So, I can tell that you were based in, in, in London, because that's a, that's a British thing, but it, I'm sure you've observed and certainly retailers have observed this shift over the last decade notwithstanding COVID were Black Friday, and Cyber Monday is shifted this purchase earlier. I remember being in retail, Hudson's Bay back and, you know, the in the 2000s and it was just a mad rush, right at, you know, the two weeks before Christmas, but it feels like, you know, thanks to COVID, I think, you know, that's some unusual patterns, and people are kind of shopping earlier. I wonder if it's going to start going back the other way at some point, you know, where people, you know, as you said, purchasing right now is very purposeful, right, I go online, I look, I probably don't want to linger too, too long in a store, certainly last year, more so this year. I don't know, it feels like over and it'll be interesting to see the numbers.
Michael LeBlanc 13:27
And, your, you, at this point, you should be asking, Is there a question in there, Michael, It feels like, it feels like this, kind of, impulse will come back in some way shape or another, anyway, just it's great and, again, for the listeners, it's a great, very dramatic chart to put up. You know, the other thing that jumped out at me, one of the great general observation kits, it's a global study. I mean, I'm looking at data from Germany, Canada, UK, US, China, Australia, India, Singapore, is it's not a lot. It's actually not very different from country to country. Like, there's some differences for sure, when you get to, to Singapore and India, but a lot of the countries like that the changes in consumer behavior have been remarkably comparable, around the world and us a big, you know, global company must see that, right. So, when you have discussions with your counterparts around the world, you go, yeah, we're seeing that too, right?
Jason Furlano 14:16
COVID definitely leveled a bit that playing, I think, where historically we may have seen some differences or nuances. So, I always think about our neighbors to the south, and the importance of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and that Thanks, that US Thanksgiving period. COVID, kind of, put us all back on the same page, you know, it forces all to be inside it forces all to move towards, you know, probably a bit more of a focus on ecommerce.
Jason Furlano 14:44
And, as a result of that, I think what's, what we'll see, Michael, the trend that we're seeing, at least is the world is never going to go back to the way it was, you know, ecommerce is now here it needs to be considered and, you know, every retailer and marketer that I speak to is definitely, you know, starting to think about the evolution of ecommerce, because e commerce now isn't even what it was, you know, when it started. There's, you know, things like live commerce now and, you know, influencer based comm-, there's just so many different touch points in the space that I think what we'll see is the globe, now we'll hit a bit of a reset, and I think you'll see that trajectory of us all kind of being on the same page, a little bit more consistent going forward.
Michael LeBlanc 15:26
Let's talk about different advertising, or marketing vehicle. So, there's a great page, page 24, for anyone who might, at this point, have the study in front of them and it lists the different, you know, from print to social to email to word of mouth, TV commercials, shopping platforms, and online advertisement. And it's interesting, I want to and this is where I really want to tap into your, your wisdom, I mean, the marketing mix, right.
Jason Furlano 15:48
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 15:49
Is changing. And, what I thought was interesting, just as a jumping off point was how, how strong TV commercials were, like TVs not dead at all. I mean, in some ways, it's comparable to social. Talk about how you think of this marketing mix and, I mean, we started the conversation by you saying, you know, these, all the different media is being activated and programmatic and very sophisticated. So, how do you think of the marketing mix when you talk to your clients, and, and what kind of questions are they asking you about?
Jason Furlano 16:16
Yeah, we often get that question like, is, is TV dead, and TV is not dead. It's just, it's changing. It's a natural evolution that it is destined to go through. And I think the way that we kind of approach that the media makes it is kind of tearing down the silos. So historically, the way, you know, advertising campaigns have looked is you've had an out of home component or radio component,
Michael LeBlanc 16:41
Yeah.
Jason Furlano 16:41
TV component, and a digital component, and they've kind of all done their own things. And, you know, whether it is mass or very targeted, that never, that doesn't have to be the case anymore. The case can be this is like you can utilize and understand a lot more about your, about your television campaign. And, then, you know, you can begin to retarget households that have been exposed to your TV CAMP, and we actually offer a product at EMI cue called Advanced television, and we can actually understand through, you know, something called ACR, or automated content recognition, ads that have been served to a specific household. And, in that instance, we may not have to serve an ad to that home.
Jason Furlano 17:23
Or alternatively, we can now like retarget them with, with digital ads, so you can't click on a on a TV commercial for, you know, a new t-shirt, but guess what, if I put the ad in your hand on a mobile device that you're probably utilizing while you're watching that TV spot, all of a sudden we have that ability to really, kind of, cross those, those boundaries and borders. And that is really like the evolution of media. It's not about silos anymore. It's tearing down the silos and just reaching consumers like we, kind of, kicked the conversation off, Michael.
Michael LeBlanc 17:55
Right.
Jason Furlano 17:55
This is the best time possible.
Michael LeBlanc 17:57
Wow. Like, that's, that's incredible, right. So, that, you, there's a technology that would detect what I'm watching on television or from a sample group, unpack that one just for a couple minutes.
Jason Furlano 18:07
Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, it is actually probably it's, it is the, the fastest growing division of MiQ, but the media landscape in general, and it's called, yeah, it's called ACR. And, it helps you detect not from a sample size, but from a chip that lives inside of the hardware that you've got at your, on your TV, exactly what content is being streamed and it's not just being streamed over some of those, you know, those connected channels like a Netflix or a Prime You can also tell you if you're watching, you know, the news at 6pm or, you know, bless them, I wish I could say a Jays game at this point.
Michael LeBlanc 18:46
But he had a good run they had a good run and, you know, tough season didn't, didn't you know, it's tough to play in somebody else's stadium for
Jason Furlano 18:53
really, I couldn't help but work it in there. But that's what ACR data allows you to do,
Michael LeBlanc 18:58
Yeah.
Jason Furlano 18:58
and we're helping marketers make the most of their, their TV budgets through the utilization of this tool. And it's going to be, I'm telling you right now, Michael, it's going to be the hottest, the hottest product that we work with next year. If you think about some stats really quickly, a marketer just released a report on their digital video saying that there's 27 point 7 million digital viewers in Canada in 2021. They didn't expect to hit that level for another, you know, two and a half years until 2024. And concretely, you know, we're seeing a bit of a decline on households that are paying to subscribe to TV that's hitting the about eight to eight and a half million marker at this point. So, as we're getting that, that decline in, you know, traditional ways of consuming television, we're just augmenting that space with, with connected TV right now.
Michael LeBlanc 19:51
So, fascinating. When we think about and what occupies many minds today is the difference or trying to begin, to understand the difference between a reaction from consumers to unusual times, the COVID era versus behaviors that are going to stick you've touched on a couple of them is anything in the survey jumped out at us saying, and I think you've mentioned a couple of times, we're not going backwards, but some uses I'd think, would ebb and flow. And, some are just going to be accelerated, you know, as you think about, again, sitting down with your retail clients and saying, Listen, as you think about this year, fine, but as we start to think about the year going forward, probably working on some budgets right now for 2022 and beyond what, what are those kind of markers that say, listen, this isn't going to change, this has been moved forward, it's not going backwards, whether it's technology or user behavior that was accelerated, what, what are those, kind of, key things that retailers should be paying attention to?
Jason Furlano 20:44
Yeah, I think it is just embracing the, the eCommerce space, it requires a completely different strategy. If I, if I'm being honest, Michael, if you're trying to get somebody into a brick & mortar store, which we are seeing, there will still definitely be, you know, a time in place for, you'd need to have a completely different strategy for your ecomm versus driving people into store.
Jason Furlano 21:07
And then, you know, just the devices in which everything is being consumed. Historically, you know, we've always built advertisements for a laptop or a desktop, but understanding the, the importance of mobile devices, if you look at some of the emerging markets that are well ahead of the Canadian trends in Asia, in particular, the penetration rates of like mobile devices is so significant that like, we just can't help but not pay attention to what's happening there and using it as a bit of a crystal ball and saying, Listen, marketers you need to embrace mobile every year as marketers, we always say is the year
Michael LeBlanc 21:43
We've been saying that for 20 years, yeah.
Jason Furlano 21:45
20 years, and it's coming on the, the 21st consecutive, it's going to last longer than the match before you know it. It's a it's definitely something that I think that we just need to take a little bit more of an understanding of, and then the impacts of, you know, consumer privacy, like iOS 15, like, you know, the way in which you track consumers, and a lot of that stuff just is going to change, you know, Google announcing cookie-less, you know, coming probably towards the end of 2022.
Michael LeBlanc 22:12
And, how is your industry reacting to all that, because you're, in some ways, predicated on just understanding the user through all this data or is there alternative ways to understand the user, is that what's, what's happening, give us an open window on that one a little bit.
Jason Furlano 22:24
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question, Michael. there's a there's a multitude of ways in which we're doing it we've been we've been doing it with, you know, some of our biggest retail clients, to be honest with you, is how do we identify some of the offline data sources that we can utilize to assure that once the deprecation of the cookie happens, once, you know, the iOS stuff, kind of, begins to settle, do we still have a large enough sample size, which we do at MiQ,
Michael LeBlanc 22:49
Right, right, right.
Jason Furlano 22:50
to make sure that we're tracking that and making sure that we're not missing out on anything, the primary focus for us as a business, really, is to assure that the results that we drive are not required to have cookies, or, you know, app tracking, all that stuff, everything that we're doing right now, foundationally is built on a cookieless environment, with privacy first compliancy at the forefront, but still, primary objective number one is helping our partners, you know, their businesses that
Michael LeBlanc 23:19
So, all these changes, and for the listeners, when we talk about iOS changes, it's if you haven't experienced, if you're not on iOS, you, you now many, it chal-, it provides you a challenge, would you really like this app to share your data and everybody's like I didn't know was sharing to begin with. So, it's, it's, it's pretty important, but it sounds like what you're working on isn't going to pop back the industry to the Stone Age, you hope. It's still going to be very data based, very results based, yeah?
Jason Furlano 23:44
Yeah, extremely. And now is the best time to be testing, I always encourage our partners, you know, we've got access to cookies and the ability to track a lot right now and that's great, but the best time to prepare and plan for what's ahead is, well, we've got access to that still. So, when that shift does change, and it will come, it's the tectonic shift. It doesn't need to be a tectonic shift. We need to be doing the work right now, to ensure that we're getting ahead of that. And some of the best marketers in the in the world, Michael, are doing it right now we just had a really great case study that will be available on our website afterwards, for the listeners, with Dell Technologies, but the utilization of cookie-less tactics to ensure that they were selling just as many computers and really focused on that return on ad-spend target that they've got.
Michael LeBlanc 24:34
All right, right on, right on. So, last question on budgets and planning and all that stuff for next year. You know, you talked about mobile, is it a mobile first, like, where do you start your, if you were sitting in the chair as you advise CMOs, is it a mobile first, start with mobile, and then spend, build your spend from there, like, like where do you, if you had a blank sheet of paper in front of you and you had $1 to spend,
Jason Furlano 24:55
Sure.
Michael LeBlanc 24:55
Is mobile the first place, you say look, build your base from there, is that what you're advising or is it more broad based on objectives?
Jason Furlano 25:02
Yeah, I would love to say I've got a definitive answer to that, but I will, I will give a very generic answer and really, to be honest with you, Mike, it depends on the marketer that we talk to,
Michael LeBlanc 25:13
Right, right.
Jason Furlano 25:13
You know, when we, when we talk to like some of our folks like if awareness levels are really low, like, you know, TV, but like, how do we be very concentrated or focused in television, if it's acquisition based, you know, how does your, your landing page look. So, there's a multitude of things, but I think the key trend that we need to focus on as an industry, really is in the omni channel space. And, again, that's that tearing down of those silos and making sure that you're considering all of those available channels that are now available programmatically and can be executed through digital teams and making sure that that's at the forefront because we can be so much more targeted in the messaging, you can be extraordinarily targeted in delivering, you know, to specific types of consumers. I think that that really needs to be the first piece, no further retailers and brands listening out there. I think we call it day-zero planning is like, we want to make sure that before you spend a penny on MMM, or anything along those lines, that you've just got a good sense of the data that is available in the space, potentially not to you through first party data, but is accessible through, you know, partners like MiQ and other ones in the market that can help you just, kind of, guide those conversations.
Michael LeBlanc 26:28
All right, so interesting. Well, my guest is Jason Furlano, the company's MiQ in the study is the Pandemic Effect: What Holiday Shopping Will Look Like in 2021. Again, I'll put a link to your, to the study on your site in the show notes and sounds like there's lots of other great information. Where can I find, where should people go, what do we point them to, who are listening and may just want to just scurry there right now?
Jason Furlano 26:49
Sure, yeah, the study will be made available at wearemiq.com. Alternatively, I'd be happy to get in touch with any of the listeners today, you can reach out to me directly. My email is jason@miqdigital.com. Shoot me a message on LinkedIn, I'd be happy to connect and make sure that, you know, whether it's the study itself, or you'd like to see a very specific cut for your brand or a retail organization, we, we'd be happy to facilitate that.
Michael LeBlanc 27:17
That's great and a reminder again to the listeners, there's Canadian data in there and global, so you compare and listen to brings a lot of great, great knowledge and wisdom to the market. So Jason, thanks for being my guest on The Voice of Retail, it was a real treat to chit and chat and talking about everything from programmatic to ecommerce to shopping. So, kind of, great highlight of the depth of your business and the fun that we're all having. So, again, wish you continued success in what you're doing and helping us all figure this out and thanks for joining me.
Jason Furlano 27:45
I appreciate you having me, Michael and to the listeners for tuning in. I know it's a hectic time during Q4, but, you know, keep your heads up and we'll all get there together.
Michael LeBlanc 27:54
Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy podcasts, so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show.
Michael LeBlanc 28:13
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co
Michael LeBlanc 28:22
Until next time, stay safe. Have a great week.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
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