CANNES — In the dynamic world of digital media, PepsiCo is learning from its mistakes and iteratively building its strategy.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Zach Lain, the Director of Global Data Partnerships at PepsiCo, gives an insight into the company’s digital transformation.
He highlights the importance of “leaning into data clean rooms” and the power of data collaboration across the organization.
Data Clean Rooms: The Catalyst for Change
Lain sees clean room technology as the collaboration layer that PepsiCo needs to extract meaningful insights and push their product suite forward.
Clean room suites allow organisations to match-up and analyse consumer data without necessarily sharing details that would breach data privacy regulations. They are one of the hottest emerging parts of the ad-tech stack, and PepsiCo has been using Habu’s clean room solution.
Lain is passionate about data collaboration, viewing their data clean room engagement as something that spans the entire organization. “We’re working with bottlers, we’re thinking about better ways to understand and enrich bottler data, bottler consumer data, bottler customer data in new and novel ways,” he says.
The company is also using data collaboration to understand its food service partners better. Through this, they hope to “jointly grow, enrich, cluster and ultimately extract meaningful insights from customer and consumer and hopefully sales data.”
Overcoming Technological Barriers
PepsiCo is aiming to overcome technological barriers in markets where data collaboration is tough.
“Our proprietary data stack has a whole bunch of unlocks. Audience creation, optimization has an insights play here that is all stood up, that is all crafted, that is all modeled in the data clean room,” Lain explains.
He also emphasizes the growing interest in data collaboration among companies that have not monetized their data in the past. “It speaks a lot to the strength and breadth and depth of the PepsiCo-Habu relationship that we’ve leaned so heavily.”
Getting Started with Data Collaboration
For those just beginning their clean room journey, Lain offers some advice. “This gray area is an exciting place to get in on the ground floor, make your voice heard, and really shape that dialogue that the industry is facing,” he says.
He encourages brands to “jump in, start experimenting, get your hands dirty, play with the data, start having these conversations, and build these relationships with the different partners involved.”
Lain’s insights provide a glimpse into PepsiCo’s digital transformation. From the creation of a data analytics function to the embrace of data clean rooms, PepsiCo is on a journey towards becoming “digitally nimble”, Lain says.
You’re watching coverage of the Global Retail Media Summit at Cannes Lions 2023, presented by Criteo & Habu. For more videos from Beet.TV’s Cannes Lions 2023 coverage, please visit this page.