[00:00:00] Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf, where industry leaders share insights, strategies, and stories to help brands win in the ever-changing world of commerce. Hey everyone, Peter Crosby here from the Digital Shelf Institute.
[00:00:25] AI is already rewriting how consumers find products, and brands that aren't paying attention are going to feel the impact. Ideen Rahvar, Manager of Ecommerce Data and Analytics at Beiersdorf, saw it happen in real time. A live conference demo of ChatGPT recommending Sunscreen skipped right over Coppertone.
[00:00:46] That moment became his wake-up call, and he's spent the time since decoding how AI evaluates brands and teaching the rest of his organization to do the same. Ideen joins the podcast to unpack why search is the golden metric of e-commerce. How AI is upending it, and what brands need to do now to stay visible. Welcome to the podcast, Ideen. We are so looking forward to this conversation. Thank you for having me. I'm also looking forward to it.
[00:01:14] So, you've spent your entire career in data and analytics and at multiple CPG companies, and just so much has changed in the data space and will continue to change in the wake of AI. So, we'd love it first if you just tell us a bit about your background, sort of how you got here, and then how you see this moment is evolving your role, sort of as we speak.
[00:01:40] Yeah, so as you said, I've been in data analytics my whole career and then CPG for most of it. So, I've been in this exact space of e-commerce data and analytics for CPG since June 2018. I remember very clearly because it was a World Cup back then, and now I have seen three World Cups while working in e-commerce data and analytics. And before that, I was doing consulting, but also for data and analytics, but not in CPG.
[00:02:10] And a big reason why I came to CPG is I love that feeling of, you know, you walk into Target, Walmart, you're like, that's my product, like, there's my brand. And then, like, that's the competitor that, like, my director is asking me about. And, like, oh, here's a brand that nobody heard of, but I see it at Target. And it's just very exciting. Exciting, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's amazing. And then, so, how have you seen that role that you've had sort of evolving in this present moment?
[00:02:38] So, I think the timing was excellent, I would say. I always strive to be in areas that are kind of hot focus, have innovation. And I like to work on things that at least matter to me, and I can tell matter to my stakeholders. And when I started in e-commerce, it was just about getting out of the rounding error phase of, you know, e-commerce is just, you know, it's like a few percentage points. It's nice to have.
[00:03:08] Like, it's not really breaking the bank for anyone. It's just kind of a passion project for the VP or whoever. And then COVID came. So well said. Yes. Over and over in his or her corner. I'd say all they had done in here. But, yeah, we've all experienced it. And then COVID came. And COVID was like, just kidding. Like, if you don't have e-commerce, like, you're, you know, good luck.
[00:03:33] Like, anyone who did really focus on that passion project, like, you got to reap those rewards during a crazy time in history. That really boosted how everything was seen. And then all of a sudden the conversation started changing of, okay, you have a rounding error to now you're a meaningful part of the business. And, oh, no, you're not as profitable as the other parts of the business. So what happens now?
[00:04:00] And a classic one I always use is Netflix Blockbuster. I say, you know, Blockbuster was the big player. And they were slow to react to what Netflix was doing, what the consumer wanted. And as CPGs, even the biggest brands, if enough consumers are shifting in a certain direction, there's only so much you can do about it. So at a certain point, you have to lean in.
[00:04:26] And from my perspective, I've always been trying to educate my team, stakeholders, everyone on what is e-commerce? What are the different channels within it? How can we, how can it help us in our business? Along the lines of education, like, how have you helped your organization go on that journey? Like, I'm curious if some people, like, you didn't have as many people talking to you. And then you had a ton of people talking to you. And now they're like, hey, I Dean, I have a question. I need this data. I need this or that.
[00:04:56] And even in the world of AI, like, how has that changed? Yeah. So I think I have two different stories, one for the e-commerce part, one for the AI part. You want both? Yeah, let's do it. We love stories. For the e-commerce one, it's very interesting because there's such drastic levels, different levels of expertise. And being in e-commerce, you just assume people know what a buy box is and, you know, what does share of search mean?
[00:05:25] And why is share of search different than share of voice? And but once you start talking to someone who's an experienced CPG leader who isn't, doesn't have as much e-commerce specific experience, you start to quickly realize, I just threw a lot of jargon at this person very quickly. And perhaps they don't know the difference between those things. And you kind of have to level set.
[00:05:49] And I've my style is always to over explain and then tell them, you know, please stop me if I'm telling you something you already know. But I try to simplify concepts as best as possible. And I always try to relate to them as the consumer they are, because just as I started, we are all shoppers. Even if you're not shopping e-commerce personally, you do you have an experience of shopping and how, you know, how that works.
[00:06:15] So when you relate to them personally, it lands much better. I can go into the AI one. Yeah, so that's the e-commerce story. Let's hear the AI story. The AI story. I was fortunate enough to go to NRF for the first time this year at Javits Center. And it's actually a very lucky coincidence for me, a little unlucky for my boss. He got pulled into a mandatory training and he's like, hey, I'm, you know, signed up to go to NRF. And all of a sudden I can't. Are you able to go?
[00:06:44] And I was like, yeah, I'll definitely go. So I go to NRF and then I'm sitting in one of the keynotes. And all of a sudden that's Jason Goldberg. And he pulls up, he has a recorded video where he pulls up ChatGPT, has his phone on the shelf in store and is talking with ChatGPT. And he says, hey, ChatGPT, I'm going to Hawaii. Which sunscreen do you recommend of everything you see here in the frame?
[00:07:09] And then ChatGPT goes on is explaining about, you know, ReefSafe and this and that. He mentions two brands. He goes back again and mentions something else. I like quickly grabbed my phone, get like a pretty bad recording. But he did it all of us a favor by posting his keynote on YouTube. So I screen record this little one minute clip. And then this just did the rounds in my organization, like Wildfire. We have Coppertone as one of our four core brands.
[00:07:36] And immediately everyone was like, whoa, why wasn't Coppertone recommended? What's going on here? And then, you know, it gave me the platform to explain, you know, many of the things that Jason was explaining there and go even further into, you know, why is that the case? Like why wasn't Coppertone mentioned? And what can you do to get ChatGPT to understand your brand correctly?
[00:08:01] And then that kind of sparked just the personal, I would say intellectual curiosity where I started researching more and more about many of those questions. And then started sharing as much of my learnings as I could with the broader organization. And it sparked so many conversations and projects, which is something that I really feel energized about when I go to work.
[00:08:27] And just, you know, for the decade or more I've been in e-commerce, so many stories of, you know, the CEO happens to go shop for something and realizes there's a picture and a bullet. And then all of a sudden it becomes a corporate priority. So often it's those moments where it's, you know, there's a little bit of a, you know, oh. Exactly. Exactly.
[00:08:54] So many work streams projects start from just that, that CEO got that moment. Exactly. They asked the question, but. Something about something rolling downhill. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But I, didn't you also do like education, right? Don't you? Yes. Is it emails or what do you, how have you seen it be helpful, like to share this information with a broader group inside your company?
[00:09:17] So I've done, I started with emails and really just sort of actually the first, first one was a presentation. So when I went to NRF, I compiled all of my learnings and did a presentation. And fun fact, ChatGPT helped me a lot with that presentation. I showed up to NRF and on my way there, I'm chatting with ChatGPT and I'm like, hey, you know, my leadership team is sending me to a conference and they want me to present back to them.
[00:09:46] What do you think they would like to hear? And one concept they gave me was hype versus reality of, you know, when you go to the conference, there's going to be a lot of people who have really bought into their specific domains. You know, this is happening right now. It's all going to change. And, you know, just kind of dissecting what is actually, what's hype, what's reality. And then how does it really apply to your brands? So that was, I would say, the beginning of it.
[00:10:15] And then through that process of kind of creating the presentation and actually presenting, I started researching a lot. And from there, I started sending out newsletter type emails where I would take a bunch of the things I learned and read, try to make it as concise as possible. They just kept getting longer and longer each time. If you're very curious, I posted, I think, maybe two of them in my own LinkedIn. So you can go read them.
[00:10:44] And that was Lauren's advice to me when we met in person, which I love that. You did great. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. So, you know, I think those opportunities to educate are so vital right now because it's all moving so fast. It's changing so fast. And, you know, people learn from repetition and they learn from examples and specificity. And it gives them clarity to sort of how can they play.
[00:11:10] So the fact that you invest in that kind of on top of your day job, of course, is, I think, is incredible. And it's sort of where the, you know, the sort of the fuel for the next generation of leaders is coming from are the people that actually dig into this. And so it's so exciting to hear you do that.
[00:11:30] And sort of drilling down into your particular area of expertise is so the knowing how to measure the success of e-commerce. And everyone's it's always an argument and a, oh, who metrics, not my metrics. And I was just wondering, as the person who's probably taking a lot of the incoming from various teams that might have various sort of different metrics that are important to them.
[00:12:00] How do you think about making that dashboard or that the way to define success? Is it sort of one golden metric or is it some combination of multiple? Is that changing in this moment? What how do you think about that right now for your teams? So I was telling Lauren in the prep for this that I do. I'm personally I'm a fan of the one golden metric.
[00:12:23] And the one thing is that ever since our prep call, I've been thinking about this one a lot and researching this time chatting with Claude, not ChatGVT. And the one that is used as an example all the time, especially for golden metrics, is Uber, Instagram, TikTok platforms like this, where for Uber, it's a number of rides. For Instagram, it's the time spent on platform. Same for TikTok.
[00:12:51] And one thing I learned while thinking about it even more was platforms like that. Everyone thinks, yes, that's because they have a first party data. They own the platform. They know what you're clicking on and et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, it's not the same playing field for us. You know, we have to work with our retail partners, et cetera. And then so when I was chatting with Claude, I said, you know, imagine if I had all my first party data, et cetera. But, you know, what happens then?
[00:13:20] And it brought up some excellent points. And the main point is that for my categories and skin care, the need is not met the first time you use the product. Right. So for Uber, you when you when your ride is completed and you get dropped off, your need is met. You went from point A to point B. You were either late on time, nice car, not nice car, et cetera. But everything is done at that point. Then you can give your rating and tip.
[00:13:49] Instagram, Netflix, TikTok, similar. You know, you kind of you want to be entertained. You log in, you're entertained or not, et cetera. But it's done when you close the app. But things like skin care, it's a much more long term trajectory of when, you know, when is that need actually met? So it just it makes the whole thing a lot more complex. But to simplify for e-commerce actually does give us an avenue to simplify versus in store.
[00:14:18] E-commerce, the part that I see as a kind of like catch all. And I actually learned this in a webinar and it was years ago. So I really want to remember who it was to give him credit. But at this point, I don't even know how to figure that out. But it's search. Search is a catch all for making sure that your e-commerce is working correctly.
[00:14:40] And retail partners like Amazon are amazing at combining all metrics together to make sure that they're servicing products that are going to meet consumer needs. So if you have an issue with your reviews, your search ranking is going to slowly start going down. If you have an issue with your pricing where, you know, it's not matching where I don't know, you have like different sizes and there's an issue with that. Or just maybe your pricing is not really in line with your competitive set.
[00:15:08] All of these things are encapsulated into search. But then my favorite part is that it's a leading metric. It's, you know, if you're really on top of your search, your search is going to change before your sales and before your market share. Because everyone always says, OK, you know, eventually sales will level out and you'll figure it out by the sales. And then like if not, you'll figure it out by the market share. Because then, you know, if you grew faster or slower than your competitive set.
[00:15:37] But there's a lot of things that go into all of those. And then, but the search is the one that's the leading. And then the more sophisticated the retail partner you're working with, the more value there is in that metric. I love that because if you can't find it, you can't buy it, right? So like it's a great, like it's a great metric to look at. But along the lines of search, right? It's not just traditional SEO anymore.
[00:16:02] We're now in the world of AEO, GEO, name the acronym that you choose. But basically answer engine optimization. So how are you thinking about the impact of AI on e-commerce? And how are you trying to measure that? Or do you have a way of measuring it? Are you kind of waiting and seeing? I'm curious. Yeah, well, I'm thinking about it a lot. We all are, right? Both as a consumer, as just in my professional life.
[00:16:30] But I just think it's extremely fascinating because I see a lot of juggernauts kind of going head to head. And they have this, it's like an innovation race to see who's going to be the best at it. How are they going to shape it, influence it? And what you said there, measurement, right? So I think the first part of your question was, okay, for e-commerce, what is the golden metric? You have these different teams, different metrics.
[00:16:56] And then I think the way I describe it to people is like what AI is doing here. It's like I tell my executives, imagine life before Amazon and then life after Amazon. Pretty big difference. And I'm not old enough to have been in, you know, working in CPG during that time before Amazon. But I can imagine like, you know, when e-commerce was either, even before it was a rounding error, right?
[00:17:24] I could, it's just much more personal relationships and just kind of, you know, like the marketing four Ps and these kind of things. There was no five Ps, six Ps. And then I think I see AI as extremely similar to that disruption that Amazon brought.
[00:17:42] I think it's going to be that except like not times 10, not times 100, like some exponentially factor more disruptive because it's going to be integrated into so many aspects of the whole shopping journey. Yeah.
[00:17:58] I mean, people are using AI and they don't even know, like if they're going to Google and they're Googling, they're probably getting an AI summary and they're working with AI and they're reading it, but they don't know that they actually are. So I'm curious, like as a brand, how are you considering, like, are you looking at share of citations, share of prompts? Like, is there, do you have any metrics that you're looking at or are you just kind of waiting and seeing kind of how it all plays out?
[00:18:28] Yeah. So we do, we do check, we do have different metrics that we check. And I think it's very similar to how brands will go about checking, you know, your, your share of search. You have like branded, unbranded, you want to be systematic about checking, you know, similar things so you can see if it changed or didn't change.
[00:18:47] But me personally, I'm trying to get, I'm trying to really reverse engineer what the AI is doing and explain that back to my team so they can understand, you know, how is the AI thinking? And what, what factors is it weighing, which one matters more so that they can understand what levers they can pull to then show up in the right way, have the right fundamentals.
[00:19:14] So AI can understand their products, our products correctly. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, you were talking about, you know, your, your partners and, and your teams and, and who you're trying to educate. What, who, who are your cross-functional partners? Cause, and do they go sort of all the way back to supply chain and product development?
[00:19:39] You know, are they inclusive of sort of the entire customer service life cycle in a way, you know, sort of consumer life cycle. And are you finding that you're able to engage with all of those groups that really need to have an understand, a shared understanding of where the business is going? Yes.
[00:20:01] I, one excellent question and it's, I've seen different versions of it at different organizations, but my VP here said it the best is that for e-commerce to work, you need all aspects to work correctly. And you kind of touch every single part of those cross-functionals that you mentioned. So there is, there's certain teams where there's much more exposure to just more natural, you know, dotted lines, or you, you know, you have maybe a shared VP or something.
[00:20:29] So it makes it a lot more seamless, but I do, I pretty much interact with all, all of the ones you mentioned. And the one I will give as an example is, I know e-commerce makes a lot of my cross-functional partners lives harder. Let's start, let's start with that. I think a lot of them are, you know, Hey, if there's, if there's some scenario where we could just turn this thing off, you know, I may, might be worth it.
[00:20:57] And it's the annoying, it's the most annoying youngest child, but it's going to grow up. It's going to be big. Yeah. It's one with potential. Yeah. So it's the difficult one that has a lot of potential. Yes. Let's say it that way. And so one example is the wild, wild west of third parties being able to sell on e-commerce.
[00:21:17] And this is across many platforms and being a global brand, any global brand you have experienced, you know, you have cross-border sellers, you have people who are buying expired products. You have people who are, you know, counterfeiting. It's, it's not great. Right. So as a brand, you, you want to protect your brand as best as possible and make sure that the experience for the end consumer is, you know, it's always up to high standards.
[00:21:47] So one I work closely with is we, our legal team is internal. And then we, and then also the RGM team who wants to make sure that, you know, there's the marketplace impact and they're protecting, you know, different retailer strategies and that it's, you know, meant to plan in terms of from like a joint business partnership.
[00:22:10] But this gets extremely convoluted with this third party seller dynamic, who they don't have any joint business party, joint business partner plans or anything. And they kind of are able to operate under, I would say a lot of autonomy. So what happens here is I, I partner with these teams and I enable them with data and education.
[00:22:33] So the first part is just educating on why does this exist, you know, why it's, what is it a byproduct of and how can we handle it? And, and then in terms of the data of, you know, how can we protect ourselves by understanding what's happening?
[00:22:53] And when we show up when, when things don't go, you know, you're in your products are not being represented in the light that you want it to be having as much data as possible to show, you know, this is not happening one time. This is not happening 10 times. It's happening, you know, hundreds, thousands of times, et cetera. And doing your best to resolve that.
[00:23:13] I'm curious, is there an element of like a closed loop that you've been able to create with where you can get insight from what people are talking about, like in reviews or on Reddit or like your consumer care center? Like a lot of what you're talking about cross-functionally reminds me of like, hey, someone said this about my product and then we need to update the package or we need to change a formulation or something like that.
[00:23:40] Like, have you been able to get to a place with your cross-functional partners where they like really understand that omni-channel kind of loop? Yeah. So I, I'm actually kind of living this right now, I would say, and I am, I've made more progress than I've ever made before. So fingers crossed, that will continue. And I, it's, I think, and they, because of AI, they are seeing the impact of those things.
[00:24:08] Like you mentioned the reviews, Reddit, this and that. And, you know, just because one person said this, it's, you know, okay, but now it's kind of getting amplified. And then the people who need to be looking at it and acting on it are really like when that email comes from either me or someone in my team, oh, I saw this, I saw that. There's much more leaning in and action happening. So I can, I can see how the future in exactly what you just said is, is brighter than, than the past.
[00:24:38] Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think that that really points to the importance of all those teams working together sort of from the same hymnal and that, that brand marketing or, or communication, the comms team or whoever sort of is monitoring out there in the world.
[00:24:56] And then has the rapid response teams to figure out how best to, you know, pursue the, the, the truth, the narrative and sort of knock down some of the falsehoods that may be living out there in the world that are causing brand, brand harm.
[00:25:13] And so I think making those collaborations happen more effectively and driven probably more and more by the rapidity of your data, being able to alert people to that, I think is going to be very powerful. Exactly. And I, a classic one is people have this joke of, you know, if the insight is not actionable, I don't want it. And it's very fair, you know, okay, you're going to tell me, oh, everyone said this on Reddit, but I can't reply to them.
[00:25:41] So, you know, it's maybe it might've been better if I didn't know, but the, the one example I've thought of recently having kind of hit this wall over and over and over again is what is the metric that probably every human being checks the most in their personal life? The weather. You can't change the weather, but you always check it because it affects you. And you have to operate within what's happening with that. We don't, do I need to bring an umbrella? Should I bring the jacket? Is it going to be hot?
[00:26:10] You have, that's going to affect you and how you operate. And I think it's a similar concept in disregard of how people talk about your brand, see your brand. Yeah. I can't reply to that Reddit post right now, or, you know, there's not much I can do about that really bad review on Amazon at the moment. I already did what I could, but now you, you have it in mind for the future, you know, your future PR, future, you know, product launches and these kinds of things.
[00:26:39] And that's where I think that there's room for further innovation. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of air conditioners going into France right now that, you know, a couple of years ago, they never would have thought they needed. But over time, and then you have to build your strategy to, okay, how are we going to make sure that in the next three years I get to be cool? And I think there's something to that.
[00:27:04] You may not be able to act on it right now, but when you see the pattern, then that encourages you slash forces you to figure out what control and what influence you do have, which I think is super important. So, Ideen Rahvar, this has been terrific. Like, to be able to have this conversation, you are the link between kind of the voice of the market in a way, the reality of the market, out to the folks that need to then act on that.
[00:27:31] And I think making that, to your point, you know, making it actual, making it understandable, making it, and then also being sort of the thought leader within your organization. It's a real inspiration to our audience because everyone wants to be able to kind of earn the attention that this really needs for your companies to continue to grow. So, thank you so much for sharing this with our audience. We're really grateful. Well, I would say thank you so much for having me on.
[00:27:58] First time I've ever been on a podcast in my life, so not that one out. You did great! And I really enjoyed the content that you all put together. A lot of times I listen on my way to work and it kind of sparks a lot of good ideas. So, thank you for the work that you're doing. Oh, man, that's really kind. Thank you so much. Thanks so much, Aideen. Thanks to Aideen for sharing his journey with us. Make your next journey to digitalshelfinstitute.org and become a member while you're there.
[00:28:28] You'll be glad you did. Thanks for being part of our community.