Rhonda Hiatt

Retail media is no longer an “add-on.” For many food and beverage brands, it is becoming one of the most controllable levers for growth.📈   At Effective, Retail Media Networks are a core part of how we build modern media plans, and Instacart is one of the most important platforms in our toolkit. Food and beverage companies often ask us to model paid media investments to achieve revenue milestones. The almost guaranteed revenue of RMN investments allow us to forecast ecommerce sales and then develop plans to drive brick and mortar sales.   Instacart Ads stands out by combining high-intent shoppers, real purchase behavior, and closed-loop measurement in one place, making it especially valuable for teams looking to improve paid performance while keeping spend accountable.   What makes Instacart Ads so effective in the mix: > Reaches consumers at the decision moment, when they are actively searching and building carts > Improves digital shelf visibility through sponsored placements across search and category browsing > Enables optimization using retailer-first signals tied to actual purchase outcomes > Creates a clear testing loop for products, creative, and offers with scalable learning   How Effective adds value: [x] We combine dashboard and customer support requested metrics to gain new insight on average order value, average customer value, average new to brand cost per sale (CAC) [x] With these unique views of performance, we optimize investment allocation - For example not increasing investment in display, known to drive higher new-to-brand sales, as the cost for new to brand order was lower on sponsored products [x] We balance proven and experimental approaches. Effective was one of the first users when Instacart Ads went self-serve. And we are the first to try new products when they make sense for our clients. We will build a base of the highest ROAS approaches with options for tests like the new retailer-specific campaign for Sprouts to deliver the best plan for long term, sustainable growth. Effective is the performance layer you need to maximize Instacart performance, understanding and control. More at: https://lnkd.in/gsQfWNza DM for an audit of your existing program or a feasibility assessment of a future investment.    #RetailMedia #MediaBuying #InstacartAds #PaidMedia #PerformanceMarketing #MarketingStrategy #EffectiveMarketing Thank you to Joelle Kaplan Katie Doebler Kion Noori at Instacart for their partnership!

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I love the principle here that “a great headline is just an interesting thought, said like a human” and then wonder about training synthetic audiences to tell the difference. Felipe Thomaz , Annie Hou and I were recently chatting about tasking synthetic audiences with looking for semantic similarities. We’ve been running several different parallel runs looking at human response vs a “digital twins” - often ones built on the same humans we interviewed. We’ve experimented with qual and quant and found that while the synths are often very accurate at simulating response to broad concepts, like a creative platform, they diverge when getting to the nuance of subjective specifics like headlines or images. In one recent test, on a B2B sample, the AI diverged from hunas on several messages and headlines. The digital twins endorsed lines were snappy, smart writing, a bit poetic or alliterative. The humans converged around a different set of headlines and the consensus reasoning was essentially: “it sounds like something you might hear in a meeting and then think: I wish I’d said that” (among other similar comments). But here’s the interesting extra thing: once we’d refreshed the model with that information and broad principles of what worked, it was able to accurately match new lines, having corrected its assumptions. That might sound like biasing a respondent - but we’re just doing what any good model does and updating the inputs to get more accurate output.

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From navigating demographic mismatches to maximizing cultural relevance, small- and medium-sized brands are refining their approach to collaborations. Chobani H&M https://lnkd.in/gCjzujJf

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This week on IN CLEAR FOCUS, I’m joined by Henry DeVries, an authority on story-powered marketing and author of “Persuade with a Story.” Henry explains why facts tell, but stories sell, especially in professional services. We discuss how to move beyond the "curse of knowledge" to craft client-success stories that build immediate trust. Henry also shares his framework for the eight types of stories every leader needs and how to use a book as the ultimate marketing tool to establish authority. A timely conversation on the enduring power of narrative. #InClearFocus #Storytelling #ContentMarketing

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YOUR MARKET SHARE IS MOVING WHERE YOUR MEDIA CAN'T SEE. Most CPG brands buy media at the national level, maybe the city level, then wonder why the share needle won't budge. Here's the part nobody's saying out loud. The growth isn't happening at the national level. It's happening neighbourhood by neighbourhood, household by household. Buy broad and you spend broad, measure loosely, and miss the incremental wins that actually move the number. The brands pulling ahead stopped averaging their whole country into one plan. They found the zones where they win and doubled down there. Press play. NOEL GEER, CEO, Connected #HyperlocalTargeting #PurchaseData #CPGMarketing #MediaPlanning

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So, why is there a global matcha shortage right now? It’s not just hype — it’s a crisis of identity. Matcha’s rise in the West has been explosive (and as a lifelong lover, I get it). But when demand grows without appreciation, storytelling, or acknowledgment of its roots, it edges into exploitation. Prices in Japan are already up 70%, making traditional tea ceremonies — a centuries-old practice — increasingly inaccessible, even in the country that created them. Loving matcha is easy. Honoring where it comes from takes more work. That’s what I explored in my latest piece for The Observer: the difference between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation — and why the matcha boom is both exciting and dangerous. https://lnkd.in/ewa8-4m3 #matcha #oped #wellness

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Last year pushed me to think differently about visibility. The patterns I relied on even two or three years ago are shifting, and the brands that I see standing out are the ones that show up with consistency, cross-functional alignment, and a clear point of view. Search is no longer about keywords alone. Consistency, citations, source depth, and category authority are becoming just as important as traditional SEO mechanics. Visibility is built across more touchpoints than marketing owns. Product experience, sales messaging, executive communication, customer communities, and even employee activity on social platforms are influencing visibility. I, and many I’ve talked to, are spending a lot more time aligning these inputs to create a coherent story. Consistency is outperforming high-effort bursts, especially with AI increasing the output volume. Visibility is becoming a function of rhythm and repetition rather than individual moments. Human-led storytelling still matters. The messages that travel furthest often come from executives, founders, customers, and practitioners. I’m getting asked often to support other leaders in developing and amplifying meaningful, grounded perspectives. As you plan your visibility strategy this 2026, what are you prioritizing?

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Many top brand experts believe that the agency/client model is broken. At New Balance, we disagree. In a marketing landscape where brands habitually change agencies in search of the next great idea, this year New Balance celebrates 10 years with VML, the longest-standing AOR relationship in our brand’s 120 year history. This decade has taught us invaluable lessons about what makes an agency partnership win. Five principles abundantly stand out: 1. Mutual accountability. Great work is a shared responsibility. From the quality of the brief, to the quality of the idea, to the execution of delivery, both sides have to own the outcome. 2. Patience. Creative excellence is built over time. Institutional knowledge compounds. Consistency creates confidence, and confidence gives greater license to innovate. 3. Trust, candor, transparency. The best partnerships are rooted in honesty, trust, and a shared commitment to better work. Share your goals, challenges, and ambitions. The more your agency understands your business, the better positioned they are to help shape its future. 4. Invest in the people. Chemistry matters. Take the time to understand each other’s people and cultures. The strongest partnerships are ultimately built between people, not organizations. 5. Solve problems together. Things will go wrong. Strategies will change. Ideas don’t always work. Don’t point fingers. Be on the same team. Too often, brands view agencies as service providers, searching for the silver-bullet campaign or transformational idea that will suddenly unlock growth. The best agencies are something very different - an extension of your organization. Over the past decade, VML has worked alongside us across global brand campaigns featuring some of the world’s best athletes, digital transformation, data, insights and analytics. As our brand has evolved, they have evolved with us. And everyday we have strived to be a partner that enables and facilitates greart work. Thank you to our partners at VML for 10 years of trust, creativity, candor and shared ambition. Here’s to the next chapter. 📝 #branding • #marketing • #advertising • WPP • WPP Production

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After reading five articles on the Omnicom–IPG restructuring, I still can’t keep the new, overlapping Omni-clature straight. But the agencies that were sunset or merged? Those names I remember. They mattered in a way that a corporate "Branded House" naming architecture never will.

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