Great Brand and Retailer Collaboration Starts and Ends with the Flywheel, with Brooke Chambers, Director of Growth & Strategy Merchandising at Kroger

Transcript

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Lauren Livak Gilbert (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.

Peter Crosby (00:22):

Hey everyone. Peter Crosby here from The Digital Shelf Institute. A successful collaboration between brands and retailers relies on a shared understanding of the importance of getting the fundamentals right. There's a lot of noise and upheaval in commerce today, but according to Brooke Chambers, director of growth and Strategy merchandising at Kroger, the strongest relationships come when there is a shared understanding of the consumer's flywheel at that retailer. That fundamental insight becomes the North star for joint business planning and brings clarity to the drive for growth. Brooke, welcome to the podcast. We are so excited to have you. Thank you so much.

Brooke Chambers (01:01):

Thank you so much for having me, Peter and Lauren, it's exciting to be here today.

Peter Crosby (01:06):

So your career of retail experience from Sears to Walmart to Chewy and now Kroger, you've been on the front lines of change in this industry and so much of it has been focused around collaborating with your brand partners and all across the DSI properties, we talk about that importance of collaboration and how important it is for the rising tide lifting all the boats. And we would love to just start with that. From your experience across all that work, what does great brand and retailer collaboration actually look like?

Brooke Chambers (01:45):

Yeah, great question, Peter. I think from my background, it's been really interesting and I was just talking to someone in the industry a few weeks ago about everyone's diverse perspective of experience. When you start to look at e-comm and retail now, if I even echo back to the summit you all hosted earlier this year in New Orleans. I think one of the open aligners from your co-founders was a decade ago what everyone's backgrounds looked like in e-comm and how everyone was being scrappy to looking at it. Now, it just looks so different, right? Everyone's kind of molded into these really great digital professionals. And for me what's been really exciting as well, my background has been specifically in third party marketplaces, what Kroger has started to put into my professional repper far as how does brick and mortar and that whole experience of how you bring the physical and digital to life has been just really rewarding for me.

(02:57):

And even in the new that I'm taking on working in core merchandising now, it's just been really exciting. And when you start to think about it in the perspective of marketplaces and then you look at the perspective of your suppliers, your vendors, about how your flywheel gets activated, there really isn't different nuances and really what it comes into is just how do you activate that flywheel work into those partners, which we'll talk about a little bit more in the conversation, but it's, it's a really important perspective and I think I've taken away so much from my time at Sears, my time at Walmart in so many different ways, my time at Chewy, and interestingly enough, so much was learned in terms of how you talk to a customer from a category specific retailer. It's so different. The conversations are so focused around the customer, which is the pet and the pet parents. And so that whole vitality, and now it's really around the whole perspective of feeding and doing that whole journey with our customers about food and how you tell that story and how that drives into partnerships. So it's so much tied to that where I'm just really excited to chat with you all about it today on how that journey and my experience and how it's developed over the past decade plus of how that comes to life. Yeah.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (04:47):

And Brooke, you mentioned, I love how you mentioned combining the physical and the digital. I would love to dig in a bit on that, especially because you've been on the retail side and you've seen kind of the evolution of this bringing digital experiences in store, going from just the traditional in-store type of shopping. What would you say, especially putting your retailer hat on and thinking about how brands should work with their retailers about this, it's different teams, it's different strategies, it's different placements in store. How should they start thinking about that more omnichannel experience in store and what conversations should they start having with their retailers?

Brooke Chambers (05:28):

I have this concept, it's more of an analogy. Every retailer is very different because every retailer has this different specificity on what's important to them. I think any brand really needs to focus on what's the flywheel at that particular, at the retailer that they're partnering with. Because there are the core facets in terms of what's public, which is sales, retail, media, content optimization. But there's also the background of the flywheel of things that aren't made public as well too, which are the ethos in terms of sales growth and margin growth. And I think quite frankly, the thing that we don't talk about a lot, which are aren't the most attractive things to talk about, which is supply chain. It doesn't get as much credit as it does. But when you start to think about the physical, that becomes so important because the digital shelf is virtual, but the physical shelf, you still have to worry about brick and mortar and how that is playing into it.

(06:36):

So I think the first ethos is how are you activating the flywheel from retail media and how you're investing? Because when you think about it, that growth trajectory until 2030 is now somewhere 60 billion for the United States. If I'm quoting the statistic that I just recently read. The other part is how are you building your brand assortment tied to the retailer? I think a lot of times it goes without saying that product development also doesn't get a lot of play. How can you start to be cohesive with your retail partners about that as well in terms of how am I building the right product assortment with you for your digital shelf and your physical shelf to bring that to life? And the third one is really just around supply chain. How are you keeping in stock? How are you representing across the board so that offline, that physical and that digital is moving at the same pace when it comes to an omnichannel or what I like to say unified commerce experience.

(07:55):

And then lastly, there's so much work. I feel like over the past maybe eight years, that retailers have put a lot of focus into data and analytics behind how either a supplier or vendor is working with you. And then it goes to say, with even marketplaces, how much data are you serving up so that both of those parties can make those really robust decisions. So I think it really comes into place about how you're looking at the entire business portfolio from pre supply chain and that post down to how the customer is checking out. But I do think it's a duty of us at retailers and our partners and brands to really ask some core questions, which is, how can I help you meet your objectives as a company? I think that without saying that, sometimes brands put a lot of pressure on retailers to say, grow my business, grow my business.

(09:02):

And I'm just using this as a very laxed analogy, but I think the question from the brand perspective is how can I help you grow as well? How can I help you with that strategy? How can I help you with that activation plan? I think we could abuse sometimes, I think abuse is the wrong word, but you can change that word. I think we get underutilized in terms of how we are taking that and also making that partnership into a two way buy way versus this singular component. And I think JVPs are great, right? Joint business planning is necessity. It's almost like merchandising 1 0 1, it is brands and portfolio management 1 0 1. But the second part to that is how are you moving in tandem? And I think those that were really, really tight partnerships regardless of the channel come to life in the right way.

(10:08):

And it's both honestly being transparent and collaborative and how they're able to share that growth patterns trajectory with both. And I think as consumers, we see it play out in different ways. If you take out who works at retail and doesn't, you go shopping and you see it come into life when you're going and you're just shopping across categories, right? You'll see certain new product lines at certain retailers, whether that's in fashion and apparel or you see a new alternative nut-based milk someplace versus not another place. It just really is interesting across how you've seen the ethos of retailers coming together with the brands from that point of view. So now that was a little long-winded, but that's just a little bit my perspective of that.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (11:02):

So I love that you mentioned JBP Brooke, so is JBP season, right? It's a really powerful opportunity for brands and retailers to come together. One of the things that I often observe though is that the brands don't necessarily know who to talk to on the retailer side, and the retailers necessarily don't know who to talk to on the brand side because there's so many different players. So from all of your JVPs, which gosh, I'm sure you've had many, many JVPs, what would be your top two things that you would say on the brand side, like, Hey, come prepared with these two things and then the conversation will be much more beneficial with your retailers.

Brooke Chambers (11:45):

I'll flip it a little bit versus the two things to come with. It's the people that should be at the table when you're doing it. Yeah, go. And I think those two to three things will come from that. So I think the people that need to be at the table is merchandising the digital team, retail media and supply chain. And when you think about both physical and digital, those are the folks who are really important to there. I think one of the segues after that comes into marketing because any marketing team at a retailer is really, they want to understand what's the merchandising strategy. And they also want to understand if we start building a marketing plan robustly, are we going to have the things when we need them when we market? And that's why that whole component of having merchandising supply chain in your digital teams at the table for that JBP is important is because of that foundation.

(12:49):

Once that foundation is built, you really then can activate with marketing as some follow-ups to build out that annual or that five year JVP, I think the right timing for joint business planning. From a timing perspective, they all need to be three years at minimum, five years to be real healthy because nine times out of 10, those things are still going to stay intact in terms of how do you need to grow the business? And that's going to account for growth acceleration in whatever capacity, whether that's sales and then how you're bringing things to life. And it's different for brands because new product lines are emerging, but what's not going to change is that growth that every retail channel needs to have, whether that's in adult beverage, whether that's in apparel, whether that's in grocery and consumer goods, whether that's in a home or electronics category, because innovation is moving so fast now, everyone talks about AI at the speed of light and so many different facets of business from operations.

(13:58):

It's pretty much optimizing everything, but what's never going to change is the speed of how are you moving at the pace of the retailer and the pace of the retailer really comes into perspective as what newness are you bringing from a brand perspective to the retailer to do those things with you, right? So it's just really interesting. I think I'll just use an example. We are on this protein craze in America right now with protein coffee. I'm like, how much protein can we all consume, right? Protein chips, protein popcorn, everything, protein, protein, protein. So even with that, that's one of those new trends regardless of grocery, I mean the coffee brands are even doing it and how retailers are leaning into that and that space. It's really important. And I think the same thing. I think one of the best categories that does innovation really well is electronics, right?

(15:00):

And it's not just the apples of the world. I mean, if you look across the sphere, it's like they bring innovation, just go to CES every year. You see how frequent, and I'm pretty sure when everyone descends upon Las Vegas this year, it's going to be something totally different from an electronics and a digital footprint point of view for 2026. So that's where that speed of agility really comes into place and how you all take that into account from a brand perspective working with retailers and that table is so important. Those are the folks who are going to help drive that cohesion. When you think about planning and optimizing for a successful relationship,

Peter Crosby (15:48):

It's really refreshing to hear you talk about the three to five year time span being sort of well understood because we live right now in such an environment of chaos and uncertainty it feels like. But I think what you're saying is reminding me that in some ways that's on the margins and that the fundamentals of commerce are going to keep marching forward no matter what craziness we're in right now. Is that

Brooke Chambers (16:17):

Yeah, yeah, you're right. And I think the best example is what I think everyone who is in consumer products, whether that's retailers or brands, is the whole tariff situation. And that is the perfect segue, Peter. You have the chaos and then you have the fundamentals that never change, and that's where that real clear synergy comes into place about the fundamentals are not going to change, which is conversion. People walking through your doors, whether that's brick and mortar or walking through your digital doors and how everyone's dealing with the immediacy is always going to be there or whatever that immediacy is, it'll have different flavors of it, but it's not going to fundamentally change what merchandising is. It's going to continue to remain the same, which is how can I bridge physical and the digital to grow sales for my brand and how is that going to be represented with my retail partner?

Peter Crosby (17:26):

When I think of your evolved role in the merchandising realm, I'm wondering what are the characteristics of a really good brand partner in your role? What is it that you want them to bring to the table to help you do your best job for the Kroger consumer and product? What does that partnership, the best partnerships feel like to you?

Brooke Chambers (17:53):

Yeah, I won't speak for everyone at Kroger, but I'll speak for the voice of me in terms of what I feel like it looks like. Because listen, I'm going to say this grocery is such a wonderful category and you learn so much from it, but I'll just give you the point in perspective with me. It's really how are you keeping in stock? That really comes back to that supply chain component. It's that frequency of making sure customer's needs are met, who wants to go into an empty shelf? So supply chain is so important from that point of view. So folks who really lean into that really understand what an omni experience is because you're not just fulfilling online, you're fulfilling both. When you do buy online, pick up in store, you want that item in the shelf, you want those pickers to pick alternative products.

(18:55):

You want to be able to service the customer and all of those fundamentals that go into that have to be met. And that's a supply chain function of making sure the retailer has your product and you all are working tightly there. The second one is understanding the nuances of the retailer's customer at that particular time for where they're growing. A lot of times retailers call it different things, customer lifetime value households, how do you make customers sticky? But I think the best relationships is when those two parties understand that customer perspective with the retailer, what are they trying to do? And so that joint understanding for that channel is so important.

(19:46):

The third perspective is I think brands need to have a great voice on the digital point of view, and this comes in multi-category perspective. I think general merchandise is probably nuanced, and so is consumer electronics about how are you speaking from a checkout perspective? And what I mean by that, it really comes into place of pre-ordering and buy now, pay later, and it comes into point of view of how you're speaking aspirationally from a merchandising standpoint. And that voice really is important. I think retailers want to hear it in terms of what your brand equity and your knowledge is of how to speak to the customer. And I think brands who do that really well, both on the own side and in marketplaces, really succeed and advocate at the same time, and those are really good makings. I think I'm missing a part of your question, but I think I hit the points, but

Peter Crosby (20:54):

No, you totally did. You totally did. I think that piece of it, which is understanding essentially what delights the customer and what are the ways in which they can shop and purchase and pay for the products that they're getting from you, I think is a really complex one, and brands need to be a part of that conversation. I was just wondering how that happens when it's sort of at its best. So yeah.

Brooke Chambers (21:21):

Yeah, I think it happens then it really, we've got a couple partners at Kroger where I feel like we do that really, really well. But speaking, I just think as a whole, from a retail point of view, it really just has to tie into how you're doing that really, really, really, really tightly with one another.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (21:43):

Brooke, do you have any other examples of maybe a conversation or a partnership or collaboration that went well or even didn't go well and what you learned from that, or even what the brand learned from that experience? Examples are always helpful for our audience so that they can relate.

Brooke Chambers (22:01):

Yeah, I think it really kind of ties on the delivery experience side, and it ties on that supply chain side. A lot of times brands or third party sellers, they understand it. There's a point in time, this is well before the pandemic, but there was this interesting time around 2016 and 17 where two day shipping was like a thing, and there was this part of the world, specifically Asia, that was doing hours next day. It was this foreign concept to us in the United States, but that whole concept of delivery experience that turned people, and I'm going to say not people but brands, whether you were selling first party or third party on their heads, because retailers had this really unique problem to solve, which is how do I get items to people faster than three to five days if they were buying online? And what that whole trajectory changed for consumers, not for consumers.

(23:22):

The consumer experience was really around a third party seller or a manufacturer really coming in and saying, how do I do this? Either get into a warehouse so that they're able to do that, or how am I shipping this out in an appropriate time? And quite frankly, it was difficult for a lot of people, and you flash forward now, now we're in a space of how those different forms of shopping well buy online pickup in store is so much more mature than it was a decade ago. You have retailers now who were doing immediate delivery. You have Instacart now, you have DoorDash and Uber Eats in that mix too. And when you think about even those third party shopping integrations, you see how important it's to be in stock. You see how important it is because not only it's not you doing it, you want to make sure that channel is being fulfilled in the same way. So that rigor about a decade ago where people were, that supply chain component of complexity has now manifested into a very strong muscle for everyone in the space, whether that is third party seller, brand manufacturer, and how that translate to retail because you really want to make sure that those things are there. But I think the delivery experience side of things and supply chain has played so much of a part, and you go back even a little bit further than that.

(24:56):

That's really been the big thing once online has become such a bigger component of the shopping experience. It was easier to masquerade when you just had a real deep focus on physical store, but you throw that complexity in there. That's one of the bigger examples that I could give, and I can be transparent in my experience. It was painful for some folks, very painful, but it was a working and learning lessons, and I think a lot of companies put a lot into how does that experience pie very, very seamlessly into the whole journey of shopping.

Peter Crosby (25:41):

Again, it's hiding under all the hi. Agent commerce and AI and all this stuff really are the fundamentals that no matter how the storefront changes or evolves over the next decade, you still have to get the product to the people when they want it, where they want it.

Brooke Chambers (25:59):

And you bring up a great point because the thing that I, even with social selling and a Gen X shopping, if the item's not there, how you converting? And that's why I say the fundamentals of merchandising doesn't change, and that's why everybody's got to nail 'em and that nailing of it, it just makes the process that much easier.

Peter Crosby (26:29):

And you don't want to piss off an agent once you train an agent that you can't deliver. They have long memories, Brooke.

Brooke Chambers (26:41):

Oh my gosh, that's so spooky. I just felt like the world was a whole tron situation coming at me with It's not there. The world is ending. Exactly. But yes, it really ties into that and really just being so tight, so prescriptive in terms of while you're bringing that point of view together, and I think on the retail side of things, sometimes even the whole sourcing and private label won't go into that. That's a whole conversation in itself that I'm not even equipped to bridge on too tightly. But even that, that's such a great other perspective because there's the whole merchandise and flywheel of that as well in terms of how you have to be cohesive in that side of the business too when it comes to retail. But yeah.

Peter Crosby (27:35):

Well, Brooke, to close out, it's always great for our listeners to take a couple of nuggets that they can do, particularly as we are in JBP land and certainly everyone trying to figure out what's going to be happening over the next couple of years. What are a couple of best practices that you might want to share with them to make sure that they are being the best partner that they can to a retailer like Kroger?

Brooke Chambers (28:03):

Yeah, I think it's your assortment and in stock and how are you supporting the flywheel of retail media, right? It's so important when you start to think about the growth of what you're doing in Q4. Think about that really, really tightly. I think immediacy right now is like have a strong Q4, but as you're in the midst of doing that planning, because hopefully everyone's not waiting until September, but hopefully everyone's at the conclusion of it. But as you're going through this time period, it's really about what do you want to change in the coming year? How are both parties showing up in terms of change and activation? Those are the bigger things to really dive into, and that's going to help with some of the noise that we just talked about with what everyone, that immediacy of what's happening, and then really take a step back and really look with your retail partner about what and how your brand positioning and how you're growing and how you want that retailer to feel important in that journey.

(29:24):

Just as brands want to feel that level of collaboration from who they're selling with. Retailers also want to feel that level of collaboration at the same time of growth that you as a brand want to partner with us more tighter, and how you built those bridges going into that is really important. Going into joint business plan and season and concluding it, and the last one is really that investment of how you're showing up in line and in store. I can't advocate for that enough because quite frankly, in my own individual intellectual property school of thought, it really just comes into, I think retail is going to take this really, really sharp shift with how planning with brands is going to become even more important to that in terms of that level of importance, even more so. I think some retailers are doing it really strictly now, but I think it's going to play a bigger component because retail right now, consumers want what they want, when they want it, and quite frankly when they want it is what's going to drive some of this change? Is it hours? Is it minutes? And then how you're doing that to serve it up and why a customer should stay with you. I think I said this at the summit, retail right now is a fight for the customer, and you want to keep your customers within your footprint and how you're bringing that to life. Yes, it's the retailer's job to build that robust experience, but it's also all those great partnerships that help frame that as well too.

Peter Crosby (31:15):

I love that. What a great way to close. Brooke Chambers, thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on your new role at Kroger and for sharing your expertise always with the Digital Shelf Institute community. We're super grateful.

Brooke Chambers (31:28):

Well, thank you. I appreciate it, and this is fun as always. It was exciting to talk to some of these topics and points. Thank you.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (31:36):

Thanks so much, Brooke.

Peter Crosby (31:38):

Thanks again to Brooke for bringing her experience to the pod, preparing for growth, and great retailer conversations all depend on how your entire organization works together. So head on over to the resources page to digitalshelfinstitute.org for Lauren's latest report, reinventing the organization for omnichannel success. Just select research on the search dropdown, and it's the first thing there. You'll be glad you did. Thanks for being part of our community.