“How Can We Get More Product Content to the PDP Faster”?, with Carolan Di Fiore, Digital Content Deployment Manager at Hershey

Transcript

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Peter Crosby (00:00):

Welcome to unpacking the Digital Shelf where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age. Hey everyone. Peter Crosby here from The Digital Shelf Institute. How can we get more product content to the PDP faster? That question is top of mind every day for Carolan Di Fiore, digital content deployment manager at Hershey, drawing from her prior experience in e-commerce and digital roles at other global companies like Bebo Bakeries. Carolan hit the ground running at Hershey a year and a half ago and joins Lauren Livak Gilbert and me to describe the strategies that she and a cross-functional group of marketing, sales, data and technology leaders are implementing to deliver answers to that core question. And in doing so, speed, time to market, accelerate performance and delight the consumer. Welcome to the podcast, Carolan. We are so excited to have you share all of your e-commerce knowledge with us. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Carolan Di Fiore (01:05):

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm super excited and humbled that I was asked,

Peter Crosby (01:10):

Oh, we are humbled that you said yes, you've had the opportunity to be part of digital transformation at multiple companies and you know what it's like to be the cheerleader, the teacher, the instigator of the importance of the digital shelf and how it works into an overall omnichannel strategy. I mean, you've been at the epicenter of a lot of that. So we'd love to start off just by hearing what you're thinking about the digital shelf today. What is it like to be trying to win on it every day?

Carolan Di Fiore (01:44):

Yeah, I think that's a great first question. I think how I think about the digital shelf, I'll kind of begin by thinking about when people outside the industry ask me, Hey Carolan, what do you do for work? How's work going? And I think kind of stripping it back to how I view the digital shelf in that sense, how you explain it to folks outside the industry. I mean, we're all consumers. At the end of the day. We all, most of us shop online, whether it's chocolate or bread or anything. I think if you can answer that question to adequately describe that to people outside of our industry, I think, and have it resonate with them, I think it makes it even more impactful. Because whether we realize it or not, everyone does kind of know what the digital shelf is because nearly everyone's an online consumer.

(02:39):

So if you think about it in that way, what I do and what my team does on the digital shelf is we try and replicate that in-store shopping experience in a digital way. So think about your in-store shopping experience. You're going into the store, you're the aisles, you're glancing at all of the products on the shelf, you're picking it up. You are in the food space, you're reading the nutrition label and all the claims. You're feeling the product in your hands. You're smelling it. And it's our job to replicate that experience online, which is no small feat. So if you think about it that way, it's very basic level. The digital shelf is really an integral part of the online shopping journey, and we try and replicate that as much as possible on my team at Hershey. And then switching gears, if you think about it from a more business point of view, I see the digital shelf as becoming an increasingly larger part of the conversations with external customers as well as just my day-to-day stakeholders internally and externally.

(03:55):

So I know I myself, I work with all of our omni customer teams to report out on how is our content performing at each retailer? What does the digital shelf look like on your Walmarts, your targets, your Ag, b's, DoorDash, versus what is it supposed to look like based on what my team is publishing? How long does it take our digital content publishers to go live? How easy or difficult is the deployment process? And I think arming my cross-functional partners with these actionable insights to bring back to their retailers, they really drive some productive conversations. We're breaking down barriers and ultimately enabling growth in the overall business, most especially for retailers that are prioritizing digital and are really hungry for more information on driving digital growth. And I think that really goes a long way.

Peter Crosby (04:54):

I love that. I love that part about you using the data that you have to drive more productive conversations. I'd love to just dig into that a little bit because it seems like a superpower that is just now really starting to be used more aggressively. And it seems like also, particularly in these days of retail media, you have a little bit more perhaps influence or negotiating power with your retailers and the ability to bring data to the table, I imagine is pretty powerful. Yeah.

Carolan Di Fiore (05:28):

Yeah, Peter, I mean, if we're, and not just Hershey, there are companies that are spending so much time and investments on retail media, but if you're driving to a page that has not great content, it's kind of a waste of time and waste of dollars. And not only that, it just kind of dilutes the overall consumer experience. So I think, yeah, content is a huge piece of the overall digital puzzle that I think really the players and the brands that are doing a really good job at the whole picture are really prioritizing content. And really, I think the last, I guess part of the last piece of the question is how I viewed the digital shelf is that it really can make or break your digital success. People, especially leaders ask me all the time, Carolan, how do we quantify the or attribute content or the digital shelf's impact on sales share conversion rates? And it's a, I've been in the content space for almost five years, and content has always been sort of a black box in terms of like, okay, we're spending all this money on creating all of these beautiful images to making sure that the copy is SEO optimized that we're getting. We have the resources to get all the content to the shelf. What is the return on all of that time and investment and content?

(07:02):

I've at least found it very challenging to isolate content as a variable that, okay, this consumer bought this Hershey bar because the content was so great, and if anyone knows how to do that, please call me. Because I've been trying to answer that question for five years. But really what I've started telling people is kind of a different kind of spin on that is I can't tell you how content drives the, I mean, I know organically it helps, but I think I can tell you the impact of the digital shelf on the business if it's done wrong or it's done incorrectly. So increasingly in my experience, both at Hershey and other places, customers are asking that the digital shelf be set up and ready to go before they'll even authorize a product to be ordered. So if you don't have the images, if you don't have a marketing message, they'll pull it right off the shelf. So maybe I don't have a hard number to say there are general numbers out there, but I can tell you the risk of if content is not there on the business.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (08:17):

And does that resonate with the cross-functional partners you were talking about? Because let's say someone on the sales side who traditionally would've sold brick and mortar and needs to understand the digital shelf and needs to understand this story, is that the storyline that you can share with them that really resonates? Or is there something else that they're like, oh, that's an aha moment and I really need to care about this?

Carolan Di Fiore (08:37):

Oh yeah. The minute that they hear their customers saying, we'll, pull this off the shelf, if the content's not there, that's when they'll care. Either that or we'll find you if it's incorrect, or I think that's really kind of the harsh reality in the importance of content, not just within the overall consumer experience, but also just on the customer relationship side, making sure that the content is really at the forefront of digital success

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:07):

And the

Carolan Di Fiore (09:07):

Retailers are asking

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:08):

For it. That makes it really important. So

Peter Crosby (09:11):

Carolan and consumers, the consumers demand it. I mean,

(09:15):

Yes, I think I totally understand looking at the amount of resources that are being put into something like digital shelf operations and saying, is that paying off? How can we calculate that makes total sense to do that. But as you said, it is very difficult to do. But there's just, I mean anybody, I was thinking about how you started out saying, I start out with sort of how I describe it to my friends and family, and anytime I do that, and I say, when you go shopping on your phone and you're hoping that the answers are there so that you feel confident buying somebody, you can just consumers know the difference between a delightful experience and a crappy one. The difference is content. The answers are there on the page, and I can find them. And particularly as we get more and more to where the answers are coming from an AI agent instead of from a product page, having that content out there available is just going to be so much even more important in the coming year.

Carolan Di Fiore (10:28):

Yeah, we do a lot of work back with our brand teams, and it takes a lot to, we want the story to our consumers to be told by us. We know our products best. We know, especially in the food and beverage space, we know that shoppers are increasingly looking for a certain type of dietary. We sell a lot of sugar-free products, organic, different allergens. So we get that data internally and then just making sure that either through an attribute that we send to a customer or in an image or in a bullet point that we're kind of telling that story and we're making sure that our consumers are making an informed decision, not just we want to surprise and delight them with our products, but also just kind of give them the facts about what they're getting.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (11:28):

And Carolan, you said you've been on this content journey for a couple of years now, and where are you today in your digital shelf journey? Have you come a long way? Are you changing? Are you moving towards omnichannel? Where are you right now in that journey?

Carolan Di Fiore (11:42):

Yeah, I'll say I've been at Hershey for about a year and a half. When I started at Hershey back in 2023, I was so delighted at just the incredible people, processes and technology that they already had that I can't take any credit for, because I was very grateful to come into a team that had a great foundation underneath them in terms of the digital shelf. They invest a lot of time and resources into their digital content team and just really proud to be a part of it. But I mean, last year we kind of found ourselves at a bit of a crossroads. So while we did have that great foundation and that really, I've heard it described as a complex, delicate dance of delivering to the digital shell, well said, there are definitely still clearly opportunities for optimization. One of the goals that I have for my team is really how do we get more product content to the PDP faster?

(12:53):

And in just the last six months, we've been working to get ourselves on a path where we can achieve that goal. And I'll borrow with pride, something that one of our Hershey leaders has recently said in a digital content meeting that really stuck with me. And something that I kind of harken back to in discussions is, what got us here won't get us there. And I think that directly ties back to what we're trying to do with our digital shelf program. If we become complacent with what we've built in a rapidly evolving space like e-commerce and omnichannel, it's inevitable that we will eventually get left behind. We all know how often the space changes, especially in the content world. So we have to regularly be looking towards the future and identifying how we might iterate on our current processes and just constantly improve and build upon our current program. That's what we're doing at Hershey, which is super exciting.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (13:57):

Carolan, I love what got us here. Won't get us there. I absolutely love that because I think with AI and with the rapid changes of the retailer needing more personalized content, that's going to change the amount of content you need to create the resources that you need in order to be able to support that. But to that point, how are you building out your plan moving forward around people, process and technology? Are you thinking about expanding your team to be able to support that or are you thinking about supplementing with AI because you'll need to change some of those things in order to be able to compete? So how are you thinking through that?

Carolan Di Fiore (14:36):

Yeah, I would say we do have a pretty strong team in terms of team size. We work with an onshore managed services team for a lot of our day-to-day syndication work. I think really what I'm trying to do with my team is trying to identify where can we shave off time in our current processes to become more efficient, and how can we be improving data flow? How can we be automating using workflows in SPY or something? How do we get more agile with our planning and how do we open up more capacity to take on supporting more retailers to adding more products in the always growing Hershey portfolio? In terms of ai, I would say we work with our PXM partner Salsify. They're really doing a great job of investing in how can they use AI to make syndication faster. We're definitely open to exploring a lot of the AI capabilities to make syndication more efficient.

(15:52):

I'll say from an AI generative content perspective, creating copy, creating images, it's something that we're looking into. I think it really, it's not as easy as just saying, Hey, we're going to use AI to create an image in a company like Hershey. We do have a lot of regulatory things that we need to make. We can't just put anything out there. There are a lot of processes and regulatory guardrails in place to make sure that if AI is creating it, is it compliant to all of the things that we don't want to put something out there that's not correct or misleading to the consumer. So while we are definitely looking into ai, I think we're waiting for the right opportunity to hopefully be able to help us, like I said, shave off more time and open up capacity to grow our support model.

Peter Crosby (16:54):

I love the way that you're thinking about that. I think it's absolutely, again, rational, especially in a place where if people are eating ingredients that they're allergic to, there's real danger in that, let alone compliance issues and fines and all of that. You're in the food business, so that's super important I think. So thinking about it from the perspective that you have, which is looking at it, making sure that everybody involved in the process has a voice in it, and how do you keep humans in the loop and what are the safeguards and that that becomes clearly outlined and then you try a little pilot. I think AI in that way is really anything else you have to figure out a plan for how do you move forward and how do you evaluate progress and how do you set up the right guardrails? And it's just one that happens to be happening at a really fast pace, which can be overwhelming

Carolan Di Fiore (17:57):

And a crawl, walk, run on that type of stuff. But yeah, it's definitely, there's so much out there and there are so many different companies that are doing AI and there's new ones pop up every day. So we definitely are monitoring it and we've got eyes on what capabilities are out there, and it's just doing strategically, doing test and learns and testing and learning and scaling up and out from there, depending on what works for us.

Peter Crosby (18:30):

It's so funny sometimes when I've used the phrase, what got you here won't get you there. I feel like sometimes people want to smack me in the face because they're like, oh my gosh, I'm already overwhelmed and you're telling me that everything needs to change. And the fact that you folks are leaning into that and are actively making it your job to figure it out, what that looks like next, I think is super exciting and speaks really well to the team that you have at Hershey and to use of course.

Carolan Di Fiore (19:04):

Yeah, and I think digital, I've heard it said before, digital, there's no clear finish line. You're just constantly, you clear the hurdle and then it's onto the next one, which I think is a blessing and a curse. The good news is there's always something to do, but the bad news is you're never done. But I kind of like it. I mean, I've been in the digital space for a long time, so I'm kind of used to it. And there's definitely, you do it in sprints, so you get past, and I'm a runner. I'm not a hurdler, but I am a runner. So you get over the one hurdle and then you prepare for the next one. So I kind of like it.

Peter Crosby (19:46):

That's great. And so when you think about what are some of the initiatives or programs or processes that you're using that have made you successful that you think might be interesting to our listeners, what are some of those things that you think about that are notable for working for you?

Carolan Di Fiore (20:06):

Yeah, I would say one of the, I'll say I can narrow it down to three words, and that's cross-functional partnership. That's something, it's an initiative that has been successful in my short time at Hershey and also in other organizations that I've worked at. It really does take a village to execute with excellence on the digital shelf. I have a great content deployment team, a larger digital content team, but we can't get it done with just us. I will kind of go through the different cross-functional partners that I've been able to develop really strong, productive working relationships with just to kind of help us grow and optimize our digital shelf program. So the first is obviously our sales team. So we've established a really great working relationship with our omni sales, our customer sales team at Hershey. So we've talked about, we've kind of alluded to the ever evolving retailer requirements.

(21:10):

Sometimes they want six images, sometimes they want five images, different types of images, different types of bullet points. Having really close relationships with our internal sales team. They're the ones they're talking to their customers every day. They're the ones who are learning about these changing requirements in real time. So the closer relationship that we have with them, they're able to communicate those things with us and sooner they communicate them with us, the sooner we can update what we need to, we can get ahead of it. And I think that really helps, I guess mitigate risks down the line. Having a close relationship with our internal sales teams also helps us if we need extra support in troubleshooting syndication issues. So our sales partners are really our best advocate for us. If and when we hit a wall or a dead end, the content isn't going live, content's reverting, it's taking longer than the retailer SLA.

(22:16):

The closer we are to sales, the better our overall process works. And then another piece of the sales working relationship is that our digital content creation and syndication process starts when an item is entered into our customer authorization list. So that's an internal tool that we use Our team, our team doesn't know what type of content to create or where to syndicate an item unless the list is regularly being maintained by our sales team. So I have an analyst on my team who has done an incredible job fostering relationships with the authorization list owners to make sure that if a new innovation item is sold in at say a Walmart, that item gets added to our list as soon as they know. So the sooner we know about it, the sooner we can get the content created, we can get it loaded up and syndicated so that when the product goes live on the physical shelf, it's also ready to go on the digital shelf with all of that content ready to influence the shopper to buy.

Peter Crosby (23:24):

Getting ahead of that process. And like you say, early notification, it goes to that point about you shaving off time, not only shaving off time in your process to get there, but making sure that you're not wasting days of sales because that notification didn't happen as early as it could have. So that's an impressive process I think.

Carolan Di Fiore (23:48):

Thanks. And on the other side, if an item is discontinued, we need it removed as well. There's always one or two times when we're creating content for an item that's no longer sold anywhere. And I think we've done a really good job on our team of just maintaining those really good relationships just so that this list is top of mind for our sales team because they know that we create really great content and they want it to be there on the digital shelf as well as the physical shelf.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (24:21):

There's a big piece of education around that as well. I remember my brand days and we had a list like that too, and I had to go find the person who owned the list and then become friends of the person who owned the list and then understand how the enlist got updated. But you have to educate why that list is so valuable to the end result of what you're doing. So was there that kind of education when you first got connected with that sales team to be like, Hey, this is why this is so important?

Carolan Di Fiore (24:48):

Yeah, that's a great call out. I think we meet with our sales team at least once a year to go over our syndication calendar for the year. And then we say, Hey, by the way, here's our list and here's why it's important. It's also a sort of mandated part of new sales training. So this is on my team who owns, who's the subject matter expert, the product owner of this homegrown system. Part of the new sales person's onboarding is that they're meeting with this person, they're seeing how it works. And I think it kind of segues well into my next cross-functional partnership because we're also working with our sales team to understand what are some of the pain points in this system, how can we add items easier? A lot of just UI things like how can we make it easier? Yes, it's an extra step, but it's an important extra step, and how can we make a three minute exercise, a two minute exercise or something like that?

(25:53):

And that is really, we can't do it without our IS and tech partners. So whether it's day-to-day things like maintaining this list or more broad digital shelf optimization, big picture transformation, it's so important that we're not only covering our business goals and objectives, but that they're lining up to the goals of those who own our broader internal tech stack, which is partners. So we're working as a team to just reduce our overall technical debt and streamline as many systems as possible to make our processes faster and more efficient. And I'm so lucky to have, we have a group of incredible IS resources at Hershey who over the last six months as we embarked on this journey, they're becoming experts in what we do on our team and are doing a fantastic job just helping us overall level up our PXM data model. So we go to these folks when we need a UI enhancement in our internal catalog, or we're looking at our Salsify data model, how they're really jumped in kind of open-minded to understand how we do what we do on our team and help us kind get from here to there. So it started as more of informal learnings around things like Salsify and other digital content fundamentals really has turned into, it's really kind of brought on a life of its own. So we met last week to kind of formalize digital shelf optimization work streams that are going to include things like regular scrum ceremonies and cross-functional touch bases to accelerate this transformation. And I think that's one of the things that having close relationships with those stakeholders are going to play a key role in just leveling up our tech stack and things like that.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (28:05):

When you're partnering with it, is that a relationship that you foster on a quarterly basis for planning on a yearly basis for planning? Because I know when it comes to working with it, you need to make sure that they're supporting the initiatives that you have at digital, but they also have the rest of the company. So can you talk a bit about that kind of relationship and how often you meet with them to talk about all of the vendors for digital and all of the capabilities you need to plan out?

Carolan Di Fiore (28:32):

Yeah, that's a great question. So we meet as a team quarterly to go over not just in our team, but what digital projects are coming up and just making sure that we're advocating that there are resources carved out to get us where we need to go. So I think there's a level of transparency, not just at these more formal quarterly meetings, but we have mid-quarter meetings to say, okay, here's all of the things that we said we were going to accomplish in Q1. Where are, what are some of the contingencies of these getting done? Are there risks for these things not getting done? I think we do a really good job at just making sure that there is that level of transparency and kind of formalizing using a Jira or a rally to kind of formalize all of that. I think it's something that I definitely had to learn as I started at Hershey, but I think it's just keeping everyone kind of abreast of what's going on is really helpful.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (29:42):

And last but not least, I think we had one other function around data and governance that was part of your cross-functional collaboration.

Carolan Di Fiore (29:49):

So that's kind of the last one. And I think it's last but not least. So my team on the content deployment side, we're sort of the last stop on the train before it goes out the door to the PDP. We're a receiver of the data, but we don't own the data. So we have to rely heavily on upstream systems for data quality and integrity. So we have all of this different data, things from images to copy, to nutritional data, to just basic product information. It's coming from all of these different systems upstream in kind of the Hershey data systems. And there are many different cross-functional owners of that data. So this is something that I think was kind of highlighted as an opportunity for me since I started the role is I really have to be an advocate for the data by going out and building relationships with our PLM team, with our IS team, with our category management team, all of these owners of the data throughout the organization and help explain to them why we need the data and understanding how we best retrieve the data. So I think it, it's an opportunity at Hershey, but it's also an opportunity every people I talk to in other categories where places where I've been in the past, but I think we're headed in the right direction. And I think it's really about that relationship building and having just really being an advocate of the importance of this data, it is eventually going to go in front of the consumer to help them make that informed buying decision.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (31:43):

And Carolan, when you're thinking about the future and what the future holds for digital, which none of us can really predict and we have absolutely no idea, but how are you preparing for digital transformation moving forward and what are your big focus areas for 2025 and even 2026?

Carolan Di Fiore (32:00):

Yeah, great question. First I'll say I am so excited about what's to come around digital shelf optimization and transformation at Hershey going into 2025. I'm definitely really motivated and I see what can be for the digital shelf team at Hershey, and we were able to align on our goals to achieving this vision at the end of last year. So I believe that we have the right people in the room and the cross-functional engagement to get there. So going back to something I mentioned earlier in the talk was one of the things that I'm focused on is how do we get more content to the shelf faster? So we do support a lot of retailers already on our team. We support 20 plus, but we would love to have that list grow, especially as digital becomes more and more mainstream. We have some of those smaller retailers, more retailers want to support digital shelf.

(33:09):

So I'm trying to figure out how do we get retailers that we're maybe operating as more of a self-service model where the customer teams were just downloading images and uploading them into a system. How do we elevate them from self-service to fully supported on our team where they're getting that white glove service? And that kind of goes back to how do we shave off time from our current processes to open up capacity to take on more retailers, more products. And I think the work that we're doing to streamline our data flow, to reduce our technical debt is going to help us achieve that. So that's, it's one of the big rocks that I have my team focusing on this year is just how do we get more content to the shell faster? The second thing that we're focusing on is just continuing that education, that education piece for stakeholders that we work with, the sales team, the IS team, the MDM data governance team around the importance of digital shelf excellence.

(34:20):

One of the things that I started last year that I'm excited to continue doing this year is I meet with a number of our supportive retailers quarterly with, I call them state of the shelf decks, which it's at your Walmarts, at your Kroger's, like here's the state of the digital shelf at Kroger. Here's, it showcases everything from profitero content appliance scores. Here's what should be on the shelf, actually on the shelf at Kroger. Here's some deployment statistics. Here's how long it's taking content on average to get to the digital shelf versus the retailer SLA. Here's here are some of the big wins. We were able to increase speed to market by X percent. Our first time accuracy improved from 50% to 75%. I'm just making this up, but communicating wins and then also communicating the biggest opportunities from a content perspective. I think these are types of conversations that help keep content top of mind for our internal customer teams and also arms our teams with data and insights to bring back to their customers, either their digital buyers or even better, sort of like their category buyers.

(35:45):

I would love to be able to put this in front of a customer to say, here's all of the things that we've done to help improve the consumer experience at Walmart, using our content and kind of help drive conversations, break down barriers, and just grow the digital business. So I think just continuing to educate the business around the importance of digital shelf excellence. And then finally just continuing to improve our core capabilities, decreasing technical debt, smoother data flow from upstream to downstream systems. Talked a little bit about retailer attribution. It's interesting over the last couple of years, we're finding that retailers don't just want images and copy on the, you think about digital content, it's the images and it's the copy. But now we're finding that retailers want a lot more information about the product. They want to know what are the claims and in food and bev that's big, is it gluten-free, is it organic, et cetera.

(36:54):

They want to know what the flavor is, the occasion, and these are things that will help the consumers get a more well-rounded picture of the product. But they're things that we don't traditionally have in our wheelhouse of things that we're sending to retailers. And what I'm trying to do, and one of the things I'm focused on is just how do we grab that information from Upstream Systems because we obviously have the information and just automate that data flow down to RPXM system to get that to the retailer to a lot of this attribution is becoming prerequisites of sending content. So sometimes we can't even get the imagery that my team's creating to the shelf without first knowing what the flavor is or the claims or something like that. So really trying to help kind enable that publication speed to market. And I think just to kind of put a bow on all of this, going back to what I said at the beginning about how I view the digital shelf, it's really about replicating that in-store experience online. So the attribution piece of it is we're sending more information to ultimately the consumers so they can make an informed decision. They are inspired to buy our products. And that's kind of what we're doing on the digital shelf is just we're trying to replicate that, not only replicate that experience that shoppers are seeing in store, but also enhance that experience and just bringing it to the next level.

Peter Crosby (38:32):

I think it's been so great to listen to you talk us through this because to me, and you can tell me if this is true or not, so you've been at Hershey's a little over a year and a half and a year and a half can feel really long or it can be really short. And what it feels like is that in that year and a half, you've created such strong relationships and with your teams identified where you really want to have an impact. And now it feels like this job that you've taken on, you understand it. You have the backing of your cross-functional team members. A lot of that I'm sure has to do with how you've put yourself out there. So for me, for our listeners, this is such a great roadmap for how you reimagine or think of how to extend digital shelf capabilities and then set about putting in a plan to make it happen. It's super inspiring to hear you, one, to talk about it and how Hershey works on it, but also just your clear enthusiasm for the job that you've taken on, which is awesome.

Carolan Di Fiore (39:46):

Thanks. And I'll just add to that, Peter, that I've been at Hershey, like you said, a relatively short amount of time. I wouldn't have been able to make those connections without really leader advocates. So I report into the lead of the digital content team who's been at Hershey for a long time. She knows a lot of people. So knowing who to talk to get you make those introductions. So I think finding leaders in the organization and getting buy-in from them I think will really go a long way. They're the ones, I didn't know half the people I know when I started, but I knew people who knew people and really kind of getting buy-in at the leadership level and getting that sort of the advocate or the project sponsor. I think that's something that also has helped in prior organizations getting that executive level sponsorship. If you're thinking about if someone is listening to this from another company and they're thinking, where do I even start? I think it's getting, finding that leadership buy-in and getting them to help you network through the organization to get the message out there.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (41:13):

The digital shelf is still all about people and relationships and how you work internally. So I absolutely love that. And I love how you broke down all the cross-functional partnerships, such a critical element to being successful. Thank you for sharing your journey.

Carolan Di Fiore (41:28):

Of course, ai, well, not yet. They can't crack that code yet. And I'm a communications major at heart, so definitely may not be doing what I went to school for. But the communication piece is so important.

Peter Crosby (41:47):

It's critical. It's critical. And the array in which you can see that coming to life and how you're building all this work at Hershey is really, really impressive and grateful that you came here to share it with our listeners. We really thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Speaker 4 (42:05):

Yeah, this was so fun. I could talk about this all day, but I won't. Thank you for Yeah, thank you for having me. This was so fun.

Peter Crosby (42:12):

Of course, we look forward to the day long podcast coming soon. Tune in.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (42:19):

Thank you, Carolan.

Peter Crosby (42:21):

Thanks to Carolan for sharing her work at Hershey with us. And as always, thank you for being part of our community.