The Sunscreen That AI Forgot, with Ideen Rahvar, Manager of Ecommerce Data and Analytics at Beiersdorf

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. 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 e-commerce data and analytics at Beiersdorf saw it happen in real time. A live conference demo of ChatGPT recommending sunscreen skipped right over Coppertone. That moment became his wake-up call, and he 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.

 

Ideen Rahvar (01:11):

Thank you for having me. I'm also looking forward to it.

 

Peter Crosby (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 at first, if you just tell us a bit about your background, how you got here, and then how you see this moment as evolving your role as we speak.

 

Ideen Rahvar (01:41):

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. And a big reason why I came to CPG is I love that feeling of you walk into Target, Walmart, you're like, "That's my product. There's my brand." And then that's the competitor that 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.

 

Peter Crosby (02:29):

Exciting, yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's amazing. And then, so how have you seen that role that you've had evolving in this present moment?

 

Ideen Rahvar (02:39):

So I think the timing was excellent, I would say. I always strive to be in areas that are kind of hot focused, 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 e-commerce is just, it's like a few percentage points, it's nice to have. 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

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (03:17):

Said.

 

Peter Crosby (03:20):

Over in his or a

 

Ideen Rahvar (03:21):

Corner. I see all the head nodding here. But yeah, we've all experienced it. And then COVID came and COVID was like, "Just kidding. If you don't have e-commerce, good luck." And anyone who did really focus on that passion project, 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? And a classic one I always use is Netflix Blockbuster. I said 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.

 

(04:23):

So at a certain point you have to lean in. 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 it help us in our business?

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (04:41):

Along the lines of education, how have you helped your organization go on that journey? I'm curious if some people, 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, Ideen, I have a question. I need this data. I need this or that." And even in the world of AI, how has that

 

Ideen Rahvar (04:59):

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,

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (05:07):

Let's do it. We

 

Ideen Rahvar (05:08):

Love

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (05:08):

Stories.

 

Ideen Rahvar (05:09):

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 what does share of search mean and why is share of search different than share of voice? But once you start talking to someone who's an experienced CPG leader who 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. And my style is always to over-explain and then tell them, 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.

 

(06:08):

Even if you're not shopping e-commerce personally, you have an experience of shopping and how that works. So when you relate to them personally, it lands much better. I can go into the AI one now. Yeah, so

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (06:22):

That's the e-commerce story. Let's hear

 

Ideen Rahvar (06:24):

The

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (06:24):

AI story.

 

Ideen Rahvar (06:25):

Well, the AI story, I was fortunate enough to go to NRF for the first time this year at Javits Center. And it was actually a very lucky coincidence for me, a little unlucky for my boss. He got pulled into a mandatory training and he is like, "Hey, I've signed up to go to NRF and all of a sudden I can't. Are you able to go?" And I was like, "I'll definitely go." So I go to NRF and then I was sitting in one of the keynotes and all of a sudden that's Jason Goldberg and 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?" And then ChatGPT goes on, is explaining about Reef Safe and this and that, mentions two brands.

 

(07:16):

He goes back again, mentioned something else. I quickly grabbed my phone, get a pretty bad recording, but he did 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. And immediately everyone was like, "Whoa, why wasn't Coppertone recommended? What's going on here?" And then it gave me the platform to explain many of the things that Jason was explaining there and go even further into why is that the case? Why wasn't Coppertone mentioned? And what can you do to get ChatGPT to understand your brand correctly? And then that kind of sparked just a 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.

 

(08:19):

And it sparked so many conversations and projects, which something that I really feel energized about when I go to work.

 

Peter Crosby (08:29):

For the decade or more I've been in e-commerce, so many stories of 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 there's a little bit of a.

 

Ideen Rahvar (08:52):

Exactly. Exactly. So many work streams projects start from just that CEO got

 

Peter Crosby (08:58):

That moment. Oh, moment.

 

Ideen Rahvar (09:00):

Exactly. They asked the question.

 

Peter Crosby (09:02):

Something about something rolling downhill. I don't remember.

 

Ideen Rahvar (09:05):

Exactly.

 

Peter Crosby (09:06):

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:07):

But you also do education, right? Don't you? Yes. Is it emails or how have you seen it be helpful to share this information with a broader group inside your

 

Ideen Rahvar (09:17):

Company?

 

(09:20):

I started with emails and really just. So 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, my leadership team is sending me to a conference and they want me to present back to them. What do you think they would like to hear?" And one concept they gave me was hype versus reality of when you go to the conference, there's going to be a lot of people who are really bought into their specific domains and this is happening right now, it's all going to change. And just kind of dissecting what is actually, what's hype, what's reality, and then how does it really apply to your brands?

 

(10:12):

So that was, I would say, the beginning of it. And then through that process of creating the presentation, actually presenting, then 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. And that was Lauren's advice to people when we met in person, which I love that. You did

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (10:49):

Great.

 

Ideen Rahvar (10:49):

Awesome. Thank you.

 

Peter Crosby (10:51):

So I think those opportunities to educate are so vital right now because it's all moving so fast. It's changing so fast. And people learn from repetition and they learn from examples and specificity, and it gives them clarity to how can they play. So the fact that you invest in that on top of your day job, of course, I think is incredible. And it's where the fuel for the next generation of leaders is coming from or the people that actually dig into this. And so it's so exciting to hear you do that. And drilling down into your particular area of expertise is so knowing how to measure the success of e-commerce and it's always an argument and a, oh, your 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 different metrics that are important to them, how do you think about making that dashboard or the way to define success?

 

(12:07):

Is it sort of one golden metric or is it some combination of multiple? Is that changing in this moment? How do you

 

Ideen Rahvar (12:14):

Think

 

Peter Crosby (12:14):

About that right now for your teams?

 

Ideen Rahvar (12:16):

So I was telling Lauren in the prep for this that I do, personally, I'm a fan of the one golden metric. 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 ChatGPT. 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. But 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 it's not the same playing field. For us, we have to work with our retail partners, et cetera.

 

(13:13):

So when I was chatting with Cloud, I said, imagine if I had all my first party data, et cetera, what happens then? And it brought up some excellent points. And the main point is that for my categories in skincare, the need is not met the first time you use the product. So for Uber, 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. Instagram, Netflix, TikTok, similar. 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 skincare, it's a much more long-term trajectory of when is that need actually met. So it makes the whole thing a lot more complex.

 

(14:11):

But to simplify for e-commerce actually does give us an avenue to simplify versus in-store. E-commerce, the part that I see as a kind of catchall, 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 catchall for making sure that your e-commerce is working correctly. And retail partners like Amazon are amazing at combining all metrics together to make sure that they're surfacing 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 it's not matching, where, I don't know, you have different sizes and there's an issue with that, or just maybe your pricing is not really in line with your competitive set.

 

(15:09):

All of these things are encapsulated into search. But then my favorite part is that it's a leading metric. 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, okay, eventually sales will level out and you'll figure it out by the sales. And then 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. But there's a lot of things that go into all of those. 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.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (15:52):

I love that because if you can't find it, you can't buy it. It's a great metric to look at. But along the lines of search, it's not just traditional SEO anymore. 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 or are you kind of waiting and seeing? I'm curious.

 

Ideen Rahvar (16:21):

Yeah. Well, I'm thinking about it a lot. We all

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (16:25):

Are, right?

 

Ideen Rahvar (16:26):

Both as a consumer, as just in my professional life, but I just think it's extremely fascinating because I see a lot of juggernauts 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. 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. And then I think the way I describe it to people is 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 working in CPG during that time before Amazon, but I can imagine when e-commerce was either, even before it was a rounding era.

 

(17:24):

It's just much more personal relationships and just the marketing four Ps and these kind of things. There was no, oh, five Ps, six Ps. And then I think I see AI as extremely similar to that disruption that Amazon brought. I think it's going to be that except not times 10, not times a hundred, some exponentially factor more disruptive because it's going to be integrated into so many aspects of the whole shopping journey.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (17:58):

Yeah. I mean, people are using AI and they don't even know. If they're

 

Ideen Rahvar (18:00):

Going to Google

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (18:02):

And they're Googling it, 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, as a brand, how are you considering? Are you looking at share of citations, share of prompts? Do you have

 

Ideen Rahvar (18:24):

Any

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (18:24):

Metrics that you're looking at or are you just waiting and seeing how it all plays out?

 

Ideen Rahvar (18:29):

Yeah, so we do have different metrics that we check. And I think it's very similar to how brands will go about checking your share of search. You have branded, unbranded, you want to be systematic about checking similar things so you can see if it changed or didn't change. But me personally, I'm trying to really reverse engineer what the AI is doing and explain that back to my team so they can understand how is the AI thinking? 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 so AI can understand our products correctly.

 

Peter Crosby (19:22):

Yeah. So I think you were talking about your partners and your teams and who you're trying to educate. Who are your cross-functional partners? And do they go all the way back to supply chain and product development? Are they inclusive of the entire customer service life cycle in a way, consumer life cycle? And are you finding that you're able to engage with all of those groups that really need to have a shared understanding of where the business is going?

 

Ideen Rahvar (20:00):

Yes. One excellent question, and 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's certain teams where there's much more exposure, there's just more natural dotted lines or you have maybe a shared VP or something, so it makes it a lot more seamless. But I pretty much interact with 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 with that. I think a lot of them are, "Hey, if there's some scenario where we could just turn this thing off, it might be worth it." It's the most

 

Peter Crosby (21:00):

Annoying youngest child, but

 

Ideen Rahvar (21:01):

It's going to grow

 

Peter Crosby (21:02):

Up. It's going to be big.

 

Ideen Rahvar (21:04):

Yeah, it's one of potential. Yeah. So it's the difficult one that has a lot of potential.

 

(21:09):

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. And this is across many platforms. And being a global brand, any global brand, you have experience. You have cross-border sellers, you have people who are buying expired products, you have people who are counterfeiting. It's not great. So as a brand, you want to protect your brand as best as possible and make sure that the experience for the end consumer is always up to high standards. So one I work closely with is our legal team is internal, and then also the RGM team who wants to make sure that there's the marketplace impact and they're protecting different retailer strategies and that it's meant to plan in terms of from a joint business partnership. But this gets extremely convoluted with this third-party seller dynamic who they don't have any joint business partner plans or anything.

 

(22:22):

And they kind of are able to operate under, I would say, a lot of autonomy. So what happens here is I partner with these teams and I enable them with data and education. So the first part is just educating on why does this exist?

 

(22:39):

What is it a byproduct of and how can we handle it? And then in terms of the data of how can we protect ourselves by understanding what's happening and when we show up, when things don't go, when your products are not being represented in the light that you want it to be, having as much data as possible to show this is not happening one time, this is not happening 10 times, this is happening hundreds, thousands of times, et cetera, and doing your best to resolve that.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (23:13):

I'm curious, is there an element of a closed loop that you've been able to create where you can get insight from what people are talking about in reviews or on Reddit or your consumer care center? A lot of what you're talking about cross-functionally reminds me of, "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." Have you been able to get to a place with your cross-functional partners where they really understand that omnichannel kind of loop?

 

Ideen Rahvar (23:49):

Yeah. So I'm actually kind of living this right now, I would say. And I've made more progress than I've ever made before. That's awesome. That will continue. And because of AI, they are seeing the impact of those things. Like you mentioned, the reviews, Reddit, this and that. Just because one person said this, it's 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 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 see how the future in exactly what you just said is brighter than the past. Yeah.

 

Peter Crosby (24:39):

And I think that that really points to the importance of all those teams working together from the same hymn knowing that brand marketing or the comms team or whoever is monitoring out there in the world and then has the rapid response teams to figure out how best to pursue the truth, the narrative, and knock down some of the falsehoods that may be living out there in the world that are causing brand harm. 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.

 

Ideen Rahvar (25:28):

Exactly. And a classic one is people have this joke of if the insight is not actionable, I don't want it. And it's very fair. Okay, you're going to tell me, oh, everyone said this on Reddit, but I can't reply to them. So maybe it might've been better if I didn't know. But the one example I've though of recently having 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. Do I need to bring an umbrella? Should I bring the jacket? Is it going to be hot? 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.

 

(26:21):

Yeah, I can't reply to that Reddit post right now or 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 have it in mind for your future PR, for future product launches and these kind of things. And that's where I think that there's room for further innovation.

 

Peter Crosby (26:45):

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of air conditioners going into France right now that a couple years ago they never would've 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? Absolutely. And I think there's something to that. You may not be able to act on it right now, but when you see the pattern, then that encourages you/forces you to figure out what control and what influence you do have, which I think is super important.

 

(27:17):

So Ideen, this has been terrific. To be able to have this conversation, you are the link between the voice of the market in a way, the reality of the market, out to the folks that need to then act on that. And I think making that, to your point, 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 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.

 

Ideen Rahvar (27:56):

Well, I would say just thank you so much for having me on. First time I've ever been on a podcast in my life, so knocked out one off the bucket list. And I really enjoyed the content that you all put together. A lot of times I'll 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.

 

Peter Crosby (28:17):

Oh man, that's really kind. Thank you so much. That's amazing. Thanks

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (28:19):

So much, Ideen.

 

Peter Crosby (28:21):

Thanks to Ideen for sharing his journey with us. Make your next journey to digitalshelfinstitute.org and become a member while you're there. You'll be glad you did. Thanks for being part of our community.