[00:00:00] Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf, where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age.
[00:00:16] Hello everyone Peter Crosby here with our first ever podcast with a live audience of humans from
[00:00:23] the Digital Shelf Summit in Nashville. Summeteers, let the poor unfortunate souls
[00:00:31] Yes! You poor unfortunate souls who couldn't be here live with us. Poor unfortunate souls.
[00:00:41] Anyway we are so delighted to be here. Rob, hi. So this is our 250th freaking episode.
[00:00:51] How does it feel? Can you believe it? Oh man, I love how far this whole community has come.
[00:00:57] I remember when we started doing this thing we thought man if more than just our mothers listen
[00:01:01] to the episode it would just be an absolute success and we're sitting in a room with hundreds of people
[00:01:07] and last night I was meeting folks that were just right at the beginning of this journey
[00:01:12] with us. I was thinking about how eight years ago this e-commerce thing in Amazon was just
[00:01:16] like a niche worry in most companies right and in most of the community here. Almost an annoying
[00:01:21] worry. An annoying worry. Yeah no one wanted to spend money on it. The margins were terrible
[00:01:25] even though the growth was good and I remember Patrick and Chip from Flywheel would have these
[00:01:30] hackathons in Seattle and some of the people that were in those rooms where literally dozens
[00:01:34] of us are getting together to try to figure it out are still here and Andrea was just on
[00:01:39] this stage. I saw Eric Heller last night, I saw Chris Perry and his magnificent purple
[00:01:44] sport coat. It's a signature. It's a signature and it's just so great that the community has come
[00:01:50] this far where there's just you know hundreds of people working to deliver great experiences
[00:01:55] and went on the digital shelf and learn together and have fun and it's just it's just awesome
[00:01:59] that we've come this far. Well let's get to a great example of the people the humans
[00:02:03] that we are talking about. We have an outstanding guest today and her title should give you
[00:02:07] a little bit of a glimpse as to what we want to talk about. Deanna Maciya is director of global
[00:02:14] Omni commerce capabilities at Kallinola and that's right Omni commerce her title hints at a massive
[00:02:22] and really necessary organizational shift that is required to drive the kind of a growth and
[00:02:27] efficiency needed across the entire business not by channel or in store versus e-commerce.
[00:02:33] That's why I've titled this episode those silos ain't going to bust themselves. So Deanna is here
[00:02:40] to share the journey that Kallinola has been on to ensure all their Omni commerce boats
[00:02:45] are rowing in the right direction so audience please give a warm DSI welcome to Deanna Maciya.
[00:02:50] Deanna thank you so much for being with us here today live on stage it's amazing to have you here
[00:03:05] thank you so much. What an honor I'm feeling a celebrity today but 200 first ever live podcast
[00:03:12] this is amazing thank you. Well yeah we'll probably do it every year from now on come back
[00:03:18] so you have extensive e-commerce experience from P&G to Kimberly Clark and now Kallinola
[00:03:24] which as I believe you put it you're a global snacking powerhouse. We are. I love that I want a
[00:03:31] t-shirt so you've seen the evolution that this industry has taken and in your role now you sit
[00:03:36] in a global Omni commerce team which is relatively new in the organization I think right
[00:03:42] and so why don't we start there and tell us about your role and what Omni means for your organization
[00:03:49] absolutely. So I'll start with really sharing where my role sits in the organization so I'm part of
[00:03:55] the global growth and marketing excellence organizations big title but really we are
[00:03:59] leading the digital marketing transformation for the enterprise so very exciting and I came
[00:04:04] into this role almost two years ago and as you said I was excited to have a new title
[00:04:09] a very interesting title and I was very curious to see what was going to find as I walk into the
[00:04:15] organization. To my good surprise there were already changes happening in the in the organization from
[00:04:21] a structure standpoint so even our North America team had restructured and created an
[00:04:28] Omni commerce team for North America so for the first time really breaking those silos and
[00:04:32] bringing e-commerce and shopper marketing together so that was great because I come from a global
[00:04:37] perspective I cannot drive that by myself but having seen those changes in the organizations
[00:04:42] gave me a light of like this can really happen and let's define a little bit of Omni really what
[00:04:48] that means I would take it as a two-fold one is really bringing that more seamless shopping
[00:04:55] experience right so from a shopper perspective how do we bring online and offline together
[00:05:00] right traditionally we spend a lot of times in the organizations creating these big e-commerce
[00:05:04] teams and then the sales offline teams right here so really now is how do we bring those two together
[00:05:12] so that's a first approach in Omni I think the other big part is how do we embed Omni
[00:05:17] into the broader organization right and how we start thinking about Omni commerce execution
[00:05:23] upstream so think about a lot of the work that we've done is even bringing Omni lens
[00:05:29] into our briefing process so when we are briefing our agencies to create experience plans we are
[00:05:35] bringing already our shopper lens through it so we are coming out now with plans that are fully
[00:05:41] integrated experience plans meaning they're really accounting for every touch point and every channel
[00:05:48] that our brands are going to be lead through so as you know it's kind of bringing the shopper
[00:05:53] and the consumer to the center of this and seeing whatever you're going to experience our
[00:05:57] brands now we're connected we're talking to each other we're trying to have a more connected not
[00:06:02] seamless because I don't want people doing all we're going to copy paste or do the same but a
[00:06:06] connected experience so that kind of the two lenses that we think about Omni uh ikela nova
[00:06:12] and where where did the the energy come for that amount of change because that's not something
[00:06:18] that just sort of bubbles around in the bottom of the organization I'm imagining I'm guessing
[00:06:23] there's huge executive yeah I think there was saying that disconnect right that it's a ton of
[00:06:29] duplication of work a lot of disconnect between the organizations and that's kind of the driving
[00:06:34] energy to make an actual change the structural change to bring those together if I
[00:06:41] I just love that the company has done this for a long time brand manufacturers treated digital
[00:06:46] as a channel as totally totally separate right and I feel like the Omni commerce Omni channel
[00:06:53] approach it just sounds like it's the right way to do it what what when you make an investment
[00:06:57] online it's going to impact in stores and you make an investment in stores can impact online
[00:07:03] but you know your company has been doing business for quite a long time
[00:07:08] where we're what kind of friction do you come up against when you're trying to take
[00:07:12] the Omni commerce philosophy and bring it through the rest of the organization like how
[00:07:17] to Peter's question like how do you how is that energy manifesting itself in terms of change
[00:07:23] management throughout the throughout the company so I think it's been because we're going through
[00:07:28] a massive transformation I think people are more open doesn't mean there's no you know mindset
[00:07:34] shifts that are need to happen but even the way I have approached this you know is I created a
[00:07:41] global Omni commerce council so what I did is I brought together all the leaders regional
[00:07:46] leaders together in a room and create a community of people that we have started to tackle this
[00:07:51] as a collective group right so we started really by thinking who are all those people so not only
[00:07:58] e-com but not only Chopper but all of the people that really touches across the Omni space
[00:08:04] and then coming together with them and define what our agenda was going to be like what were
[00:08:09] the things that we were going to drive for the organization the initiatives so we brought
[00:08:13] together all the strat plans that every region had identified what were the key areas where we could
[00:08:19] as a global team so far and so think about you know retail media being one content being another
[00:08:27] one capability building huge and we identify initiatives and the initiatives then we will
[00:08:35] tackle as a as a group whether we had regions that were leading already so think about
[00:08:40] different levels of maturity in the different markets so we have regions that were ready to
[00:08:45] lead because they have best practices or they had pilots they are the ones bringing kind of that
[00:08:50] thought leadership into that community or if we had real gaps then we started piloting
[00:08:56] and that's where I will partner and I have some of my partners in crime here in the room
[00:09:00] where we start partnering and building those capabilities together so that's kind of the
[00:09:05] way we started really seeding this Omni thinking throughout the organization by having all
[00:09:10] those regional leaders kind of paving the way to do that you know I'll talk about you know one big
[00:09:18] initiative that we have and I love in the panel before us for before us is Chelsea talking about
[00:09:23] capability building that is being the cornerstone of what we've been doing and the need of how do
[00:09:30] we move from having these little e-commerce subject matter experts in this room and everybody
[00:09:36] else has no idea what's happening right but everybody else is making decisions that are
[00:09:41] impacting this little team here right so whether it's a budget decision from the brand
[00:09:45] whether it's a self-decision on our channels or do we have a location or not of products
[00:09:50] so that was a huge need of how do we really increase the digital IQ of the organization so
[00:09:57] we work on an Omni commerce training certification so we work with a digital
[00:10:05] learning platform we curated a set of lessons and we have now a certification plan that we're
[00:10:11] rolling out globally and when we think about the people that get trained this is really to kind
[00:10:16] of create that common language right because that's the first thing it was like how do we make sure
[00:10:20] that when we're in the room and we're talking to each other or we're talking about read the
[00:10:24] media at least people understand the concepts right so that was kind of that does the plan
[00:10:30] it was really kind of going after a cross functional team and across multiple layers of
[00:10:36] the organization so we're not talking about practitioners here we're talking about really
[00:10:40] training our directors senior directors in the marketing sales organization to have them make
[00:10:45] them aware so when they're making a decision about the decision or not they understand the
[00:10:51] impact that that has across the Omni channel space so that was one of the big ones and I
[00:10:58] think that's helping I guess to your question is you know do we do you find that world block
[00:11:03] to those people don't want to change I think education is the key and the core to overcome that
[00:11:11] and we have I think we're achieving that through through that program so I think often with global
[00:11:17] teams there's often that little versus regional teams or local teams it's in the middle that
[00:11:23] can speak to some of the tension that can arise of you know so how do you think about
[00:11:30] like how do you set your agenda as a global lead and and what is the mindset that you need to be
[00:11:36] able to provide the value that you want to but without sort of getting in the way I don't know
[00:11:40] yeah absolutely and I love that I you know I said my I've been in three main companies in
[00:11:47] e-commerce and I think I flipped the switch at some point because we always have the vision
[00:11:53] and it depends on the company like PNG being very global as you probably guys know is like a
[00:11:57] top down type of organization but as soon as you walk out of PNG across all the other companies
[00:12:03] is very different so kind of coming with that vision of like we're global we're telling you
[00:12:08] what to do and we know best does not work anywhere else so it really it started with
[00:12:15] we need to take a bottoms up approach right and that's where when I said the teams like hey what is your
[00:12:21] strike plans tell me what your needs are so I'm not my agenda is not the global agenda my
[00:12:25] agenda is the needs of the global and the regional teams becomes our global agenda those
[00:12:30] are things that we want to solve for together again I'm not telling them what to do we're
[00:12:35] building and co-creating what's best practice look like so you know we have a program called
[00:12:42] Omni Amps and Amps right hopefully everybody understand the acari but assortment merchandise
[00:12:48] in pricing promotion shelving so we started rolling out that program it is a training program
[00:12:54] but what we did from a global perspective I built 80 percent of the content right and then
[00:12:59] I start really working with the regions to customize that 20 percent because every region
[00:13:04] is different we have very different nuances different type of retailers different type of
[00:13:09] capabilities even government government issues right so we think about content I cannot say the
[00:13:15] same thing in Latin America that I can say in Europe so we then co-created with those teams
[00:13:20] was that extra 20 percent to help us customize that program so when we're rolling out that program
[00:13:24] in that region people are very receptive because we're speaking their language and I'm not the
[00:13:29] one deliberately by the way right so I partnered with my regional leads and I empower them
[00:13:36] you know you own this thing I'm helping you to kind of build the you know framework the bottom part
[00:13:42] and then they will be the ones rolling out so even as you think about receptiveness of the market to
[00:13:49] that kind of content is well taken because it's not that global lady coming to talk to me is my
[00:13:56] fear that sits next to me providing that capability so the focus of your role really
[00:14:03] is how to drive marketing capabilities to the next level and AI is going to be a big part of that
[00:14:09] yes I'm saying that proudly I'm not really shy about talking about AI because we've been hearing
[00:14:15] so much for your poor unfortunate souls out there we've been hearing so much of real AI
[00:14:21] like sort of no hype AI already happening in this environment so it's maybe very I'm just
[00:14:27] going to say AI is a big piece of that so how are you paving the way for AI in your organization
[00:14:33] yeah I love we have to talk AI but yes I think of course and everybody would say the same right AI
[00:14:39] is being part of the core capabilities of many companies for many years right especially
[00:14:43] when we think about machine learning and some of the other AI capabilities
[00:14:48] what we're gonna really pave in the way here is more about the part of generative AI
[00:14:53] and I love it because a year ago I was at shop talk and you know somebody asked about that it's like
[00:15:00] what do you guys think about jnai for for your company I was like not gonna happen
[00:15:06] like you know legal is not gonna allow it but we have come a long way and now what we're doing
[00:15:12] and you know it's great we have created at our kello nova we have our AI council
[00:15:17] and our AI council is a cross functional team and we have legal we have it we have data
[00:15:23] governance we have security and they would approve use cases so what I've done is looking at kind of
[00:15:31] all our initiatives that we have in the global agenda and identifying the areas where we have
[00:15:35] gaps so make really aligning a use case with a real business name and we have come up with
[00:15:41] what capabilities can help us solve for that of course you know big areas are content and is you
[00:15:47] know coffee and imagery is kind of the big ones which still kind of low risk but high value and we
[00:15:54] actually present our use case we tell them like what the situation is how is our you know a
[00:15:59] solution we're proposing technology we do a lot of due diligence and understanding
[00:16:04] what is especially the data exchange that we have right I think that's the key part in this
[00:16:09] right when we like these open AI sources or not is how we're treating our data and we provide that to
[00:16:14] the council and they do all the check and balances for us right which is great because I'm like I don't
[00:16:19] want to sign up my head for that um so they do go investigate figure out ask a ton of questions
[00:16:26] but that what that's doing is really accelerating the process of how kello nova is moving to that
[00:16:30] space because now the council has been able to provide guard rails so now we have like
[00:16:35] a marketing guard rails so the next team that comes to have like some in new use cases now we
[00:16:41] have a baseline of what are the things I need to watch out for what are the things I do some
[00:16:46] downs from each of the areas of capabilities so we're moving faster into the space um this is
[00:16:52] great and now we have use cases that have been approved and one of the things we might try to
[00:16:56] make sure is for example if we work something with North America can we make sure that these
[00:17:00] capabilities are enabled for global so instead of every region or every team going after the same
[00:17:06] thing now we have use cases we have a proven technology and an approved use case by the AI
[00:17:13] council and that helps us move faster and you know really unlocking the AI piece now with AI you
[00:17:20] all have some of the most recognizable brands in the world and it's taken many decades to
[00:17:26] build brand equity and and I can imagine the marketers are want to have kind of more control
[00:17:32] over the descriptions and over how the brand is shown everywhere on the digital shelf and everywhere
[00:17:37] on the physical shelf and so how are you when you're running these experiments when when the AI
[00:17:42] council gets together and they green light something around generative AI how do you find
[00:17:47] the balance between you know human creativity and traditional brand building and traditional
[00:17:52] content development and you know stuff the computer spits out um it's risky we we we talked to some
[00:17:58] brands that have just flat-out said no AI right now they're not doing it it's just like a flat
[00:18:03] ban throughout the company and but you all are moving forward so where's that balance between
[00:18:07] the human and the machine in in protecting the brand and making sure that that you move forward
[00:18:12] with it so I think first of all we we have already said very good processes of how we kind of
[00:18:18] run creative as an example right so what we're trying to do is really bringing AI to enhance
[00:18:24] some of those processes right so when we have a lot of manual tasks or like low value-outed
[00:18:30] tasks like creating a ton of copy for 800 items as an example right can we move that process faster
[00:18:37] but we what we do make sure is we have human touch points throughout that process right so it's
[00:18:42] starting for like the beginning it's like what is you inputting before you can create a
[00:18:47] piece of copy we are already talking about inputting everything that we know from our brands
[00:18:52] into that system so it's not going to speed out something crazy but then even after the fact now
[00:18:56] we have copy it will go through our process of like legal approval as well right so that's
[00:19:02] an example so we're enhancing these piece of the process but we still keep our human touch
[00:19:08] at the beginning at the end when we talk about imagery and you know we'll probably
[00:19:12] you will see it on on LinkedIn soon but we're looking about some imagery and if it's something
[00:19:18] very specific to a brand we are going to a step to probably train a model right so we are giving
[00:19:24] a lot of the brand got rails we are providing creative inputs into some of the models to say
[00:19:29] this is the look and feel and the voice of our brand so whatever output you create it has to
[00:19:34] align with the voice of our brand so you know absolutely we are going to make sure that
[00:19:40] we keep our brand identity our brand you know fundamentals like what is the essential of the
[00:19:45] brand but we are trying to leverage AI to make us faster more efficient right so it's really
[00:19:51] enhancing the process versus anything else so Deanna I think to sort of close out here
[00:20:00] yesterday I described our audience our people here and then the people listening at home
[00:20:08] on their treadmills or whatever that they need to be the educators the cheerleaders sometimes
[00:20:18] even the bullies of the rest of the organization to make sure that they're set up for success in
[00:20:26] both a digital first and and an omnipresent organization like I believe many of our folks
[00:20:32] are fighting for this kind of merging of things so that they know their piece of business is going
[00:20:39] to be more successful and also I would imagine it gets to a place where the rest of the organization
[00:20:45] starts to understand the true impact of digital across the entire success of the business and
[00:20:51] so I'm wondering if you have any advice for them as we close out for if you are trying to
[00:20:57] be the tail that wags the dog of Omni what are the ways in which you've seen your role be able to be
[00:21:05] to come to life and then to be increasingly more accepted with the organization? Absolutely I think
[00:21:11] you need to build your thrive right like your community and if you think about it we talk
[00:21:16] about the Omni commerce organization in the global team is me so what I built is my thrive
[00:21:23] and my people and rebuilding that community globally of people that are supportive the people that
[00:21:29] believe the same like just like this like this is an amazing community is how do you think about this
[00:21:34] in your enterprise environment who are those people that are going to be helping you kind of
[00:21:40] spread the word because it's not you cannot be the one soldier right you need a little bit of
[00:21:44] an army and I think that's where I trust a lot with our partners I have a lot of IT partners
[00:21:49] actually today in the room they're amazing partner for us and then of course in the regions
[00:21:54] that's a big thing I think that's one right like build your community you can be doing this alone
[00:22:00] and it's beyond only e-commerce but you know how do you make other people believers and supportive
[00:22:06] because you know think about like we're building capability and a lot of these capabilities
[00:22:10] will touch much more than just e-commerce or omni right like you could go to the brand
[00:22:14] so really thinking of that and I think that the second part is just building the stories right
[00:22:24] and and I know my boss and my you know we're reported to our chief growth officer we have
[00:22:30] to be able to tell the story what are the numbers and what are the real real numbers that we're
[00:22:35] driving right because how we implemented this beautiful capability in fine markets
[00:22:40] what does that even mean is it saving us money is it making us more profitable and we spend a good
[00:22:45] amount of time on trying to track the set success criteria at the beginning is like great if we
[00:22:52] implement this what's going to be that end result that we're gonna track and how we're gonna track
[00:22:56] and make sure we have our data partners to help us track so you know we are enhancing our digital
[00:23:03] shelf that's amazing what is that doing is it driving more conversion is it driving more sales
[00:23:08] is it at least improving our search ranking so the success criteria it's important we need to
[00:23:14] measure and we need to have a storytelling we need to show those numbers because that's the only way
[00:23:20] others in the organization are gonna rally behind you because you can just say i'm going great
[00:23:25] you know we're trying to 200 people that's not enough right we need to show that this real
[00:23:30] value to the organization and you know what are the numbers they care for right of course sales
[00:23:35] market share whatever you know that they speak their language why we can now be in a little word of
[00:23:40] yes i improve our content health that what does that mean for people in the business saying is it
[00:23:47] dollars is it market share what is it love that so yeah it takes such a combination i would imagine
[00:23:54] a fortitude patience and data to keep making the case continuously to expand the impact you
[00:24:02] can have on the organization yeah i just want to thank you so much diana for coming on the podcast
[00:24:07] the 250th live in ashville we're really grateful that you took the time to be with us and share
[00:24:13] your experience thank you so much a pleasure thank you all right so as i close out every
[00:24:21] episode i want to thank you i want to thank you thank you all for being part of our community