Advertising in Everyday Moments with DoorDash's Vassili Samolis

The CPG Guys are joined in this episode by Vassili Samolis, Head of Ad Product at DoorDash, one of the world's leading local commerce platforms that helps businesses of all kinds grow and innovate, connects consumers to the best of their neighborhoods, and gives people fast, flexible ways to earn. 

Follow Vassili on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisamolis/ 

Follow DoorDash LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/doordash/

Follow DoorDash Ads online at: https://advertising.doordash.com/en-us/cpg

This episode is sponsored by DoorDash.

Vassili answered these questions:

1. Talk to us about this evolution. How has DoorDash transformed into a platform built for everyday moments—from a weekly grocery shop to flowers for a holiday?
2. How does DoorDash capture that high-intent demand differently than a traditional retailer's dot-com site?
3. How do DoorDash Sponsored placements actually unlock discovery for consumers, helping them find local grocers, fresh food, and everyday products seamlessly?
4. What does the playbook look like for an emerging CPG brand trying to unlock incremental audiences on your platform versus a legacy CPG enterprise?
5. Why do you believe the industry needs to redefine how retail media effectiveness is measured today?
6. Everyone uses the word incrementality, but few actually prove it. How is DoorDash advancing transparent, outcome-based standards to prove that your ads are driving truly incremental revenue for CPG brands?
7. How should brand marketers rethink their ad creative and targeting to align with these specific, occasion-driven everyday moments on DoorDash
8. Fast forward three years: how does DoorDash continue to differentiate itself as the winning commerce media platform for CPGs in an increasingly fragmented landscape?

CPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.com
FMCG Guys Website: http://FMCGguys.com
SheCOMMERCE Website: https://shecommercepodcast.com/
Rhea Raj’s Website: http://rhearaj.com
Lara Raj in Katseye: https://www.katseye.world/

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Transcript

Vassili (00:00)

Hi, my name is Vasili Simolis. I'm the Head of Ad Product here at DoorDash and you're listening to the CPG Guys.

Papa Raj (00:06)

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the CPG Guys podcast. I'm of course Sri, your co-host and also CRO and co-founder of ThinkBlue Consulting, your trusted partner in your omni-channel development journey. Get in touch with me at Sri at thinkblueconsulting.co. Of course listen to my older daughters music at www.rhearaj.com and follow Lara Raj, my younger daughter, as a member of the world's fastest growing global group Katseye, who are actually touring for Lollapalooza South America. And as I speak in about three hours, they're about to go live on stage at Sao Paulo, Coachella is next in April. look forward to that. Of course, I'm joined today by my cohost and co-founder of PVSB who moonlights a set of industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the Commerce Acceleration Division at Omnicom, and I know he was doing something special yesterday down at the beach. What were you doing, Peter, at the beach?

PVSB (00:55)

Well, it was the beach, but it was the beach in Rhode Island in March. So it was pretty cold, Sri. But I took my daughter down for a little, I was with my daughter, Nadia. We did a little daddy daughter adventure. She's on spring break. You know, we were in Orlando last week with you, but I still had another week of spring break. So I figured why not just pop out. It's great because you can stay at these beautiful beach resorts. There's nobody there. It's about a

Papa Raj (01:01)

Who are you with?

PVSB (01:21)

quarter of the rate and they had a wonderful indoor swimming pool. So we had it all to ourselves. It was a great couple of days down in Newport, Rhode Island.

Papa Raj (01:27)

You know what I was reflecting on Peter this year? When the kids are older like mine are 25 and 20 now there is no spring break, there's no fall break, there's no summer vacation. Your notion of vacation suddenly evaporates and I just realized I haven't had a single day off and Q1 is already behind me because it's just not up in the mindset to plan Coachella will be my day off. you, I'm going

PVSB (01:48)

Yeah.

Papa Raj (01:49)

Rhea is performing at Arizona and Phoenix at an arena on the third, so I'll be going with her. That's my day off just to be with her. But in any event, Peter, hear the CPG guys are doing residency at Cannes Lions this year. And so spill the tea, what's going on?

PVSB (01:58)

Pretty good stuff. Can you believe it Sri. Well, in partnership with our friends at the FMCG guys, we've secured a residence that is a block from the Palais in downtown Can Lyons. It's got a huge indoor space and an outdoor space. We're going to be doing all sorts of activations, networking breakfasts. We'll have some content presentations. We'll have some happy hours and even some late night evening parties.

⁓ All courtesy of the FMCG guys and the CPG guys. So ⁓ stay tuned follow our LinkedIn page You'll learn a lot more about it in the coming days We've already started to tease this a bit But we're looking very forward the CPG guys and the FMCG guys are going very big at can lions this year shrink

Papa Raj (02:53)

And Peter, who should get in touch with us to partner? I know we've already got a bunch signed up, but who should?

PVSB (02:58)

Yeah. I mean, if, if you're, if you're, if you're a service provider and you're looking to do some activations at Cannes Lions, it's all about location, location, location, and we have the location and we also have a very beautiful location. So reach out, talk to us. we would love to be able to, collaborate with you at cam lions.

Papa Raj (03:18)

All right, make sure you're subscribing to our podcast, Preferred Listening Platform, where you can get our latest episodes and go back and consume some of the 580 plus episodes we've already published. And now, a welcome to our guest.

Today we're talking about a platform that is completely redefining convenience as we speak and is now reshipping the grocery in the CPG landscape. In fact, I used it last night. This is exactly right Mr. PVSB. When most people hear the name of our guest company, they immediately think of restaurant delivery. That's what I used it for last night, but I was able to, let's give away the plot. Double dash, get it Peter? Double dash and also get some groceries that I'm gonna use tonight to make my dinner.

⁓ But the reality of this platform has evolved into a massive high-growth commerce media engine We're going to dive deep into how brands can capture high intent demand Why true incrementality needs to be at the center of retail media evaluation and to break it all down? We're thrilled to bring such a guest who's gonna do all of that for us on this show of the CPG guys Welcome Vasili Samolis from door-dash facility. How you doing man? Welcome to the CPG guys

Vassili (04:26)

I'm doing great. Sri, thank you. Thank you for asking and thank you for having me here, guys. What a journey. I'm a big fan of the podcast. So it's a great joy to be here.

Papa Raj (04:35)

Welcome indeed, but it's not every day that we can sit here and talk to a VP of product at DoorDash specifically. That's a very interesting title to have and I'm thinking back now to my experience yesterday where

After I just ordered my home delivery dinner and I got the prompt of, of course I have a dash pass, needless to say. I got the prompt of double dashing and my wife and I would, and I got a whole 10 minutes. So my wife and I were chatting about what we're going to do for dinner today since now the kids are around and we came up with what we want to make and we need groceries. I'm like, wait a minute, we can double dash and get this within the next.

hour as well and then we don't have to go to the store tomorrow or open an app or do anything of that sort and that's how it worked out basically and somehow I believe a VP of product at DoorDash must have had a viewpoint into building things like that. What an interesting title. Tell us more about the job like what is the life of the VP of product at DoorDash mean? What does it mean? What is your everyday job?

Vassili (05:34)

That's the question, isn't it? Look, as a product manager or VP of product, like a product leader of any level, our job at the end of the day is to stay close to our customers and translate their needs into actual products that we can build. So my day's look, I'm either in the market talking to customers, and this can be like merchants, restaurants, large retailers, CPG brands, of course, or...

I'm in the office with engineers, talented designers, building the products that can help them achieve the things that they want. My particular focus is on ads. So my job is to build the products that help any and all businesses grow in the marketplace. It's a fun job. It's a fun job.

Papa Raj (06:21)

That my friend is awesome. And of course in the digital line of notes of this episode, we'll include links to your LinkedIn profile and to the company's corporate websites for listeners to access while we go on with our conversation. So I'm gonna jump right in Viscely and hit you up.

with the first one. DoorDash has historically been synonymous with restaurant delivery as I just explained I used it last night but I was able to get groceries as well from multiple choice. I had a choice of stores to pick from but you're now firmly positioned as a growth engine for grocery and CPG brands. Talk to us about this evolution. In fact, virtually I could even get product from you guys, convenient products from you like ice cream, snacks, I didn't even have to pick a store. That good.

Talk to us about this evolution for grocery and CPG brands and how has DoorDash transformed into a platform built for everyday moments from a weekly grocery shop to instantly flowers for Valentine's.

Vassili (07:16)

Yeah,

it's been the journey of a lifetime, right? I think you mentioned it, but the origin story of DoorDash was third party food delivery, right? And we became the market leader in the US in that. But more and more, right? Talking to our consumers every day, people on our platform ordering food for their families or for themselves while in the office. The thing that was clear was that there was no boundary, right? At the end of the day, people want everything that their neighborhoods have to offer.

And they want it quickly, they want it cheaply, and they want it there at their fingertips. So, DoorDash has come a really long way. We evolved from delivering food to other impulse categories like alcohol and convenience. That's, that's like your double dash use case, right? Like, which is like, hey, I'm missing something. I want to cook at home, right? Or I just realized that we cook dinner, but maybe we don't have the bottle of wine that we want to share. But more recently, right, like we've evolved to

pretty much everything where the leading third party delivery platform on both retail and grocery in the United States, more recently, like we've expanded into delivering retail and everything you can imagine, right? Like the world is your oyster. Sri, you mentioned Valentine's. Here's a fun fact for you. And I hope you guys did the right thing this Valentine's Day. I know I did.

one in third, one in three of all flower orders that were placed online this Valentine's Day were on DoorDash. Isn't that crazy? Right, like that just gives you a sense.

Papa Raj (08:49)

Whoa whoa,

stop the press. One in three? That is insanely good man, congrats. You're reaching the right audience.

Vassili (08:52)

One in three, Yeah, it's

crazy. And they were good flowers. My wife loved them. At least I can tell you as ⁓ a data point of one. But for me, look, a lot of your question was framed through the lens of the consumer, right? It's like, what can we deliver to people? The other evolution of DoorDash, and maybe one that is closer to home for myself, is we are also a technology platform, right? What that basically means is,

We help any and all businesses run their operations and grow. And that's huge, right? Because helping businesses compete in the 21st century and giving them the tools means that we can retain the fabric of our communities, right? Like I grew up in a small town in Greece and I remember knowing by name the local businesses that made up my neighborhood. So for me, that's something that's very close to home. And that also is like a foray and kind of like a direct to what I'm doing right now.

Right? Like businesses, starting with restaurants and most recently, grocers and CPG brands, they started realizing the power of DoorDash. They were seeing the business and the growth that they were getting on the platform. And there's one thing that every business has in common, right? They want more and they want to grow. And that's kind of like the origin story, if you may, of our ad club.

PVSB (10:13)

Sri, I don't remember getting any Doordash flowers from you this Valentine's Day. What did you, did you mess up my address again? Is that what happened? That must, they were sent to not, that's why she got flowers. We were wondering who they came from.

Papa Raj (10:21)

They were sent, but they were sent to Nadia. Yeah. Your Nadia the consideration

set, always goes to the daughters first. Then the wife. As a packing order man.

PVSB (10:30)

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. All right, Vasili welcome

I Understand Vasili welcome to the podcast. It's it's great to have you with us today I want to talk to you a little bit about one of our favorite topics on the CPT guys, which is retail media It's a very crowded field right now Practically every day somebody's launching a new platform

Vassili (10:36)

Yeah.

PVSB (10:53)

DoorDash often talks about having the ability to reach and influence consumers at the exact moment of decision. So my question to you is, how does DoorDash capture that high intent demand differently than a traditional retailer's dot com website, like a typical grocery storefront online? What's so unique about the DoorDash platform?

Vassili (11:16)

I think for me, like DoorDash is special and I'm obviously biased, but like for three main reasons, right? The biggest one is the skill. And we talked, we touched on this a little bit, right? Like we're the leading platform.

And I think that matters, right? Because if you have a finite amount of chips to put and a finite amount of time and employees and resources to invest in, investing in the ones that have the scale is important, right? Like if you were going to get mileage out of your dollars. The second one, and again, like this is not nuclear science guys, right? Like these are obvious things is the audience itself. So when you look at like who's shopping on DoorDash, two things are key. One is we have a lot of like,

consumers that are shopping online for the first time. They're placing their first grocery order online. That could be because they're young, right? Like Sri's daughters, right? Like maybe this is like the first time they're shopping groceries and the first time they do that is on Dordash. Or it could be that they are like just folks who have traditionally went to the store and now they're flipping online. And when you look at that kind of like new to market or first time online, we are the dominant player. And that matters.

because that's when folks are the most open-minded. And kind of like one of my favorite stats that our research team did internally was 60 % of consumers on Doordash state that they are very open to exploring something new. And I think that's huge for brands, right? Because again, you talked about retail media being crowded, the CPG space is also crowded as well, right? There's a lot of incredible companies, there's a lot of like new younger companies dynamically entering the space.

So reaching folks who have an open mind and are ready to consider is huge for me. The last thing that I'll say is, goes back to Sri's point, it's the multi-category, right? Like we don't do one thing. We bring everything that your neighborhood has to offer, right? Like, and what that means for a CPG brand or an advertiser is that we can collect the data and make those connections that I think very few others do.

Papa Raj (14:04)

One correction, the Raj family has been used whether it's real or Kavita or Sri, we've been using dashers for five years plus now and all of us have our own dash pass at this point. So, and in that context, I'd love to experience, shopper experience particularly, right? Ad placements can feel intrusive if it's not done very well, like for example, on one such platform where a lot of us...

Vassili (14:15)

I it.

Papa Raj (14:28)

shop for general merchandise, there are too many sponsored ads that showed up when you search for something and that's actually quite annoying. So as the captain, you know, one of the captains here, a product in the industry period, not just DoorDash, how do you think about sponsored platements for unlocking discovery for consumers, whether it's a grocer, whether it's fresh food and just everyday products because today Dashers can get you everyday products.

Vassili (14:36)

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, yeah. this is, would say, almost an obsession of mine. Like my, my, my team trolls me sometimes by, starting comments with, Vasili would ask, what are we doing for the consumer? Right. Like, and, and I'm being facetious, but it is the most important thing, right? Like at the, at the end of the day, the health of the marketplace depends on whether or not we're serving people.

And then that is the best leading indicator in terms of serving our customers as well. Right. Like because the only way I can deliver a performant outcome for my advertisers is if people actually shop. Right. For me, like I think that the industry sometimes gets this wrong and thinks of it as like this dichotomy. Right. Like that you can't have both. But my personal read is that like it boils down to a few simple things. Right. Like one is

advertising or any promotional content has to be native. Right. Like you can't be shopping for a shampoo and I'm showing you a video ad for tax software. Right. Like that's when like advertising gets disruptive. The second one is it has to be contextually relevant. Right. Like not just from an interest standpoint, but also aesthetically. Right. Like it can't be that like you're looking at a product.

And then there's a flashy banner with a noisy video wrapping it around, like telling you about a new brand or a new whatever. And that's like where I think actually like the industry and a lot of the investment right now in AI is gonna help a lot because it's gonna make it a lot easier. And I think we should get an award because we're like 10 minutes in and this is the first time we mentioned AI. So let's give us a round of applause. And look like the last thing is...

I think we should find ways to give value to the consumer beyond just discovery. And I think that's where promotions and affordability plays a key part. But to bring it home, Sri, this is key. And if you're trying to build the generational business that will succeed over the next couple of decades, that creates lasting impact to your customers, I don't think you can screw the end consumer. That is going to come back and bite you.

PVSB (17:04)

Vasili, kudos on lasting as long as you did without mentioning AI. That was it.

Papa Raj (17:08)

The one thing I'll also add to Vasili,

we didn't really plan to get into AI in any meaningful way today but one of the things I do want to ask you is, technically AI should make the personalization experience significantly improved and not just serve you.

and then there's a but I see that as a double-edged sword for brands. One is on a platform you'll be serving exactly what the consumer wants to see but a brand is also curious and putting new things in front of the consumer that they may not want to see. As a product captain of the industry how would you navigate that because it's not an easy challenge whatsoever because brands do at the end of the day they want 80 % contextual 20 % new exciting teasing things of that nature. An AI may be able to

to rope all that down to contextual only. Or am I wrong? I could be wrong on this.

Vassili (17:59)

Yeah, yeah, look, the we should talk about it guys as much as you like, like, because I do think it's appending the industry in like so many ways. But but you're right. Like one of the biggest ones is is personalization. And I think that there's a couple of interesting things to unpack about personalization, right? Like because it's not just showing the consumer the right thing, the most relevant thing, but it's also like about being able to personalize the creative, right? Like you can imagine

Maybe like the three of us are using the same kind of like razors, but like the ad and the creative could be very different based on our own personal tastes, preferences, and kind of maybe even the moment that we're in, right? Now, like Sri, to your question, I think that the context and the setup matters, right? Like there are moments where consumers are more open to discovery and there are moments when they're not. And I'll just walk you through a simple example, right?

⁓ If you've already placed your food order, right? Like and you're going back to the app to maybe check where the Dasher is like that that is a moment where you're open to recommendation So maybe if I recommend an ice cream or a wine or some flowers You're open to that because you're coming with an open mind and not the specific job to do But like if I take a counterfactual, which is let's say, know, you want to order Shampoo for the household

and you know what you want, right? Like interjecting in that extremely high intent moment where you're trying to do a specific job, I think would be detractive. So for me, like that's what it boils down to. It's finding the right state where the consumer or the person is more open to that discovery.

But it's gonna be a balance, right? And I think that's what makes the job interesting.

Papa Raj (19:47)

No debate there for me.

PVSB (19:47)

Absolutely.

So we get a chance on this podcast to talk to brands of all sizes, leaders from these brands. it's been stated that DoorDash is a growth engine for all categories, delivering action for brands, regardless of their size or their objectives. So guess my question becomes to you, Vasili, what's the playbook look like for an emerging?

CPG brand trying to unlock incremental audiences on your platform versus a more legacy CPG enterprise of significant scale.

Vassili (20:26)

Yeah, that's a good one. Thank you, Peter. I think the big guys, and we all know the names and the brands, are the most formidable marketers in the world. So for me, the game there is about building trust, like getting to know your customers. And then again, building all the bells and whistles that they need to both understand their audiences and expand them.

flip, that script gets flipped completely, right? Like when you talk about like new brands, right? Like emerging CPG brands that are trying to break. And I think one thing that's very interesting about the platform is exactly because of the demographics that we talked about before, this kind of heavy skew towards younger in conjunction with the mindset. Like we do see that even without any action right now, DoorDash is a place where a lot of like CPG brands break and kind of like make their mark. For me, like when I talk to these folks,

generally like a couple of consistent themes come up. They're overwhelmed. They're like wearing more hats, right? Like this might be the CEO if we're talking like very small or like a one team CMO, right? So they're overwhelmed. They don't have time. They don't have like a lot of resources. So a lot of what I think we can do for them is take some jobs off their hands. So.

When I think about building product for smaller customers and kind of like that state, it's all about just making it easier for them to set up campaigns, right? Like with smart creatives and whatnot, right? Like removing a lot of complexity that it might actually be detractive if you don't know how to use it. And like, I'll give you one example, right? Like bidding, right? The large advertisers want full control over how much they bid by product, by category, by skew, by surface, right?

It's madness. But like, if you're a smaller brand in 2026, AI and a well-designed auto bidder, which we have, can help you compete in like a cost-efficient way with one click. So for me, that's what it boils down to, Peter. It's like, can I help them simplify it by simplifying the product, removing the friction, and then giving them the tools to compete basically.

Papa Raj (22:40)

That is awesome man that there's a role for some of these smaller CPG brands, of course the larger CPG brands, but it's kind of a platform where anybody can break. So one such topic that Peter and I are very passionate about, in fact, you know, leading a retail media advisory board on this topic for Nielsen IQ and my ThinkBlue hat, which is measurement. You know, Nielsen IQ is actually authoring

⁓ trying to author the first set of measurement standards in the industry and Doordash holds a strong POV. You publicly said it that retail media must be evaluated on true business impact and tell us more on measurement effectiveness and where you're headed in that space with Doordash.

Vassili (23:24)

Yeah, the this is the age old question, right? Like our industry, think like 100 years ago, right? Like the quote was termed, which was like, half my media is wasted. I just don't know which half right. Like, and I feel like even until very recently, I think that's generally true. And in but if you ask business owners, right,

they've always wanted that, right? Like the the constraint was technology. It's not like we suddenly woke up in twenty twenty six and decided that like now we should measure true performance. Right. Like it's just that initially we would proxy it with, I don't know, boxes on TVs on people's homes, then by like trying to count cars on a highway. But look, like the beauty of retail media networks is that we are most of us, at least are.

closed loop and I'll get back to this point in a second. But like, let's just agree for a second on what true performance means. For me, it's the answer to the following question. Would I have gotten this sale or this customer had I not invested? It's like as simple as that. I hear you, I see you nodding. What do you think?

Papa Raj (24:35)

No, no, I agree with you. So the word incrementality is thrown around in the industry quite a bit. And every brand you talk to will tell you the exact same thing. Now, the only thing I want is incrementality. Brands are unable to define incrementality on their own or what that actually means. Some will say, well,

PVSB (24:35)

Absolutely.

Papa Raj (24:53)

new to brand, then you try to get into what is new to brand. Is it new and you've lapsed them over COVID in the last five years because of all the pricing elements you took? Is it truly they have never tried your brand, they haven't tried it for a year? So when it comes to incrementality, I'm very parochial on the definition. The first question I asked back is what's the definition? Well, here's the good news, Regardless of what the definition is, if you're shooting for new, you're headed in the right direction. I could not agree more.

Vassili (25:23)

Exactly. And look, I think the work that you're doing is incredibly valuable, right? Like because I can sit here and tell you, here's my definition, right? Like, which is like using statistical inference and A-B tests, right? Like in long-term holdouts and whatnot. But like one of the biggest challenges in the industry is the fragmentation right now, right? Like, and then like when you start looking across platforms, right? Like attribution windows are different, right? Like the underlying methodologies through which people try and measure incrementality are different.

Like the very definition of new to brand is different across most platforms and actually like customers also have their own personal preferences. So, so Raj look for Sri sorry for me, look the, the answer is was this incremental to you? And then the key thing with retail media networks today is that because they are closed loop, we don't have any excuses left, you know?

It's up to us, the onus is back to us to measure it in a way that our customers believe and trust us. And I think one of the big challenges that thankfully you're working on is the fragmentation, because right now everybody does it a little bit different.

Papa Raj (26:32)

Yeah, so Vasili, I don't want to undermine however the work you're doing on the A-B testing and things of that nature. I see it as a dual-pronged where a set of standards is to be established, but then the work has to be done by R &N providers like you, which very much does include the analytics and the rigor of testing. Under no circumstances will I have advocate for not doing that.

All right, reminder to audience, we're speaking with Vasili Simolis, Vice President of Product from DoorDash. Over to you, Peter.

PVSB (27:05)

Sri, love the fact that he used the classic John Wanamaker reference about wasted half of your marketing spend. Little tidbit of history, Sri. When I was going to school outside of Philadelphia in the early 80s, I used to go shopping at Wanamaker's in downtown Philadelphia before it went bankrupt in the late 80s. But yes, that's a part of my history. Now.

Papa Raj (27:27)

Is there one episode where can work with you where you don't have to give

away our age and data? One episode please.

PVSB (27:31)

I'm totally I'm giving away my age.

I'm giving away my age. All right, so I want to talk I want to I want to talk about incrementality. No, no, I will talk about Woolworth. That was my first job out of business school was working for a hearts pet care and their biggest client at the time was FW Woolworth. But that's another story. Sri will save that for another episode. Listen, I want to talk about incrementality, right?

Papa Raj (27:37)

Should we talk about Sears next?

Woolworth

PVSB (27:58)

Vasily you put it incrementality at the core of your offering everyone, you know, everyone's using that term But actually few actually prove it. How is door- really advancing the transparent outcome based standards to prove? That your ads are truly driving incremental revenue for CPT brands. What do you do? You talked about what everybody wants? How are you delivering against that?

Vassili (28:20)

Okay, so there's two interesting pieces to this, right? I know we wanna focus on measurement, but I wanna make a point before we dive in, which is, first and foremost, you gotta give folks the tools to achieve incremental results to begin with, right? And in my mind, that boils down to two things, right? Like extreme data transparency, and then two, the tools to act on the insights that you drove out of said transparency. And I think like here,

Our principle is that we will push transparency up to the point of respecting consumer privacy. That is the boundary condition and the one that we will never breach. 

And I could provide a laundry list of all the things here, but like it's not constructive. You can imagine things like deep customer insights, right? Like path to purchase, et cetera. So for me, step one is speak the language that my customers are speaking, and then build targeting and whatever other tools on top so that they can act because that is going to drive the incremental outcomes. Now, when it comes to incrementality measurement, look, it's

we put our foot where our mouth is in that I still remember a customer, he's a GM at a big CPG brand and he was joking that like we built incrementality measurement before we had a net manager, right? Like that is how important it has been for our strategy. But like how we prove it is in my view, the canonical and the best in class way to measure, which we launched this week is what I call ghost ads.

And again, for your audience, maybe to simplify what that means is the problem with traditional A-B testing is you don't know, you know, like what folks would traditionally do in the industry is they would look at the folks who saw the ad versus the folks who didn't. But the problem with that methodology was that you don't know if the groups were homogeneous enough, right? Like, or shared different characteristics. Maybe the folks who saw the ad were older, but the folks who didn't were younger. So.

So ghost ads is kind of like a state of the art methodology under the hood that truly tries to simulate whether or not somebody would have shown an ad. And it's like the purest form, I would say, of whether a result or not is incremental. So for me, like that, which we shipped last week is kind of like a starting point. There's a lot more work that we got to do. But then I think like, Peter, maybe the last key point in closing thought here is that every customer is a little bit different.

Right? Like in, in, in you at the end of the day, we're serving people in organizations and we have to meet them where they are. And, um, even like the same companies, uh, have different objectives based on their brands, right? Like if you're a CPG brand launching innovation product, you're going to goal your marketing spend very differently than your established product. So for me again, and I sound like a broken record, but I think that's good, which is give the tools to folks and the data to help them achieve incrementality in the first place.

best in class methodologies to try and measure lift, and then sit down with your customers and meet everybody where they are.

Papa Raj (31:45)

Could not agree more. So basically because DoorDash is built for everything from a Tuesday night dinner at home to last minute holiday needs. We certainly talked about Valentine's Day where we established I actually did get it right by sending flowers to the right person this year. Occasion based shopping is massive. I'm just kidding guys. But occasion based shopping is massive for you. How should brand marketers rethink their ad creative, especially in an aura of AI, which can truly improve the ad creative as well?

as well as targeting which can hyper target to align with the specific occasion driven everyday moments on DoorDash.

Vassili (32:40)

Yeah. Occasions are huge, right? And I would say they're not huge because DoorDash did something special. They're huge because that's how our families and our lives are built. They're built around these moments. It could be a Super Bowl if you're into American football. It could be a big holiday. could be a back to school if you have young kids like I do. So in many ways, what happens on DoorDash is, I think, a representation of what

human beings do in their communities and in their day to day lives. look, occasions have also historically provided best in class, right? Like opportunities for brands to communicate their messages. And in many cases have transformed moments, right? Like I don't think any of us can imagine Super Bowl as a moment right now without the ads. as a European whose mind can still fully not comprehend American football, like I look forward for the ads as much as I do to the game itself.

Look, for brands, success is, again, goes back to adding to the consumer in the moment, not trying to take away from it. So in Valentine's Day, was about most folks try to buy flowers. So how can I make flowers cheaper? How can I help you create a package where maybe you're buying a small piece of jewelry or you're adding some chocolates to that? Similarly, football and Super Bowl is...

is mostly like a shared moment, right? Like most of us watch it with close friends and family, which generally for Dordash means larger orders, right? Like, so if you're a brand, you can add to that moment by like either giving a bulk discount, right? Like, or adding alcohol to what is a food order. I think that's the essence, right? Like it's like, how does your commercial message or what you're trying to do as a brand improve and augment?

the moment for the end customer at the end of the day. And look, for us as a company, what that means is again, giving them the tools, the resources, the co-marketing dollars a lot of times, right? Like so that we can do that together again, because those moments are so important for our customers.

PVSB (34:47)

Vasili, we like to end our podcast by asking our guests to pull out their crystal balls, give it a little polish and take a look into the future. You're committed to evolving industry standards for how retail media effectiveness is evaluated. If we look at three years, how do you think DoorDash will continue to differentiate itself as the winning commerce media platform for CPGs in an increasingly fragmented landscape?

Vassili (35:16)

So we want to be the best. And I know that sounds a little bit obnoxious, but that's where we're at. And I think the only way we do that over decades is if we are serving our customers, right? Like if we are the most trusted and performant place where you can deploy your dollars. So I think number one on the crystal ball would be we talk about measurement a lot more the next time we sit together.

Right. And there's a lot to do there. Right. And the more the more activity moves into retail media networks and places like DoorDash, I think the more we're to be able to get more scientific about true, true performance. The second one is is a I like a I is changing every single aspect of what it means to not just run, but also grow your business in marketing. It means that it's going to be a lot easier to create creatives, personalized campaigns, right? Like

showing the right thing to the right person at the right time is now a hundred times easier than it was 10 years ago, personalizing promotions, new ways to reach customers that were not available before. But the list goes on, right? Like we can have like an hour conversation on just AI itself. And then I think the last thing is becoming a network, right? I think we've talked a lot today about the fragmentation.

think that's sustainable, right? Like our customers, everybody I talk to, see it as a pain point right now. And I think it reminds me a lot of like the early days of the open internet, right? Like where you had like tens of difference of ad providers, right? Like, and things got consolidated to two, three winners that then became the networks that powered the open internet. I think the same will be true for retail media networks. And I want DoorDash to be at the helm of that.

We kind of took our first job at it and going offsite with acquiring somebody else's and Antic startup last year, but there's a lot more to come in that space. So performance, AI and networks.

Papa Raj (37:17)

and couldn't agree more with you. So let me remind our listeners you can find all of our content by simply going to a web browser and typing cpgguys.com as the URL. Of course, if you or someone you know is something to contribute to this ongoing discussion on the CPGguys, please drop us a line and contact at cpgguys.com. To our audience, we want to thank you for the clicks, likes, comments, direct messages, meeting us at trade shows, coming to our events, recording episodes with us, and all of our sponsors. We're always grateful for you. This show doesn't exist without all of you. You work with us

all your grateful to have you as your audience and partners. Thank you, thank you, thank you deeply from the bottom of Peter and my heart. Peter, pleasure doing this episode with you. What's that big takeaway you got from Vasili today?

PVSB (38:00)

It was very subtle, Sri. ⁓ Measurement is important. No, seriously. If there's one thing Vasili hammered home is that measurement is the center of conversations with brands. They understand that budget dollars are not going to shift unless measurement is demonstrated in a very transparent and meaningful way. And that every brand has different objectives and is at different places in their life cycle. And so they need to recognize that how they measure is reflective of what those brands' are.

So that's my big takeaway stream.

Papa Raj (38:32)

Hey Peter, well I wanna go in five different directions and talk a lot about AI and the convenience that DoorDash provides, just a variety of platforms being able to get you product, general merchandise as well, not just food and bev.

I think it comes down to measurement. The leader, the next chapter of retail media in this industry is going to be the one that can be very clear about transparent data sharing, which Vasili referred to already, closed loop measurement, which he also referred to, and then truly putting a definition of incrementality that's pretty solid in terms of what that is for the brand and working across all three of those spectrums to drive uniform measurement across the universe. So Vasili, I

Thank you for joining us on the CPG guys today. This has been fun

Vassili (39:20)

Thank you guys for having me. It's a pleasure.

Papa Raj (39:24)

That's a wrap of this episode of the CPG Guys.