Michelle Weiskittel on Albertsons’ Retail Media Evolution & Efficiency Gains | NRF 2025

Anne Mazinga: 00:00:00

Hello, everyone.

Anne Mazinga: 00:00:01

This is Omnitok Retail.

Anne Mazinga: 00:00:02

I'm Anne Mazinga.

Chris Walton: 00:00:03

And I'm Chris Walton.

Anne Mazinga: 00:00:04

And we are coming back.

Anne Mazinga: 00:00:05

the Fusion group booth number: 4938

Anne Mazinga: 00:00:09

Here it's day two of NRF and we have another wonderful guest.

Anne Mazinga: 00:00:13

Joining Chris and myself here in the Amitak recording booth, we have Michelle Weiskitel, Albertsons Media Collective's head of media creative and operations.

Anne Mazinga: 00:00:24

Michelle, welcome.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:25

Thank you for having me.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:26

It's exciting to be here.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:28

Of course.

Chris Walton: 00:00:28

So, Michelle, let's start off.

Chris Walton: 00:00:30

Tell us about your background and also I want to know what media creative and operations, what does that actually mean?

Chris Walton: 00:00:34

Like what are you actually in charge of?

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:36

All the things, all the things that deliver a media product to our customers.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:40

My background is in media.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:41

It's probably right.

Chris Walton: 00:00:42

Right.

Chris Walton: 00:00:42

It is.

Chris Walton: 00:00:43

It's like the Jack of all trades for media.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:45

Yes.

Chris Walton: 00:00:45

All right.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:47

So my background's in media.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:49

I had the opportunity to really become focused on, on performance media and programmatic.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:00:55

And as I was doing that, I really thought about the importance of the customer and the measurement around that and had the opportunity to go to a retailer, Safeway at the time which had rich privacy conscious loyalty data.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:10

Still.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:11

Does you like that?

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:12

Privacy conscious?

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:13

I love that.

Anne Mazinga: 00:01:14

Adris.

Anne Mazinga: 00:01:15

Yes.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:17

And it's really fun because you can really build a total media product from end to end with insights, media solutions and measurement.

Anne Mazinga: 00:01:26

Well, the retail media landscape is changing a lot.

Anne Mazinga: 00:01:29

We've already had some good conversations about that today.

Anne Mazinga: 00:01:33

successful in the industry in: 2025

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:41

I think it's no different.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:43

When we started, we are a media company and we are a retailer.

Chris Walton: 00:01:46

Okay, interesting.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:47

And to do that, you put your customer first.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:49

Those goals are mutually aligned.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:01:51

As a retailer and a media company, we both want to drive solutions for our shoppers and then have that return on sales.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:02:01

So we have mutually aligned goals.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:02:03

In doing so, we need to think about the customer journey.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:02:06

And that customer journey is really omnichannel.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:02:08

And so much of what we're seeing here at the show is around in store, but it's also connecting that digital experience.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:02:15

We also plan with our merchant teams and really think about the whole four Ps of marketing, going back to school, throwing in that four Ps.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:02:24

But it's truly important to really think about the relationships with our merchants, what's going to be in store, why it's in store, and then planning the marketing promotions around it.

Anne Mazinga: 00:02:35

Well, and Michelle, I'm Curious from that makes complete sense.

Anne Mazinga: 00:02:38

From the customer perspective, how has that changed your organization?

Anne Mazinga: 00:02:42

I mean, you started in media.

Anne Mazinga: 00:02:44

How does the retail organization look?

Anne Mazinga: 00:02:46

Different.

Anne Mazinga: 00:02:47

Different.

Anne Mazinga: 00:02:47

Now that you have retail media.

Anne Mazinga: 00:02:48

Like you said, you're a media company and a retailer, how are you set up internally to support that?

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:02:54

That's a great question.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:02:55

I think one of the biggest changes is our reporting structure and we have the same leader as our merchant team.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:03:03

So we report into Omar.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:03:05

He is our chief digital and merchant officer.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:03:08

So both our retail media network and our merchant teams and our enterprise marketing team all report into him to make sure that we have united goals for the company.

Anne Mazinga: 00:03:19

Great.

Chris Walton: 00:03:20

So similar question to that too.

Chris Walton: 00:03:21

I want to click into the operations side of your job a little bit too.

Chris Walton: 00:03:24

So I'm curious, and we always love when we can learn from the executives that we get to interview, having been former executives, you know, at a large retailer ourselves.

Chris Walton: 00:03:31

So operationally, how has what you're doing at Albertsons changed, say over the last, you know, two or three years or said differently?

Chris Walton: 00:03:38

Are you, Are you doing things?

Chris Walton: 00:03:40

Are you putting in place new tools and processes that didn't exist before that you can share with our audience?

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:03:45

Absolutely.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:03:46

I think right now it's the volume of machine learning and automation.

Chris Walton: 00:03:53

Oh really?

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:03:54

That we have in place.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:03:55

So we have a really robust roadmap.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:03:58

It's all centered around our customer and really driving that efficiency and effectiveness.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:03

But we have a very robust roadmap and you have to understand how you operate first and foremost.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:12

So we have very documented workflows, which I know sounds really boring to some, but it excites me.

Chris Walton: 00:04:18

It's kind of how you do the work at the end of the day.

Chris Walton: 00:04:20

So you've had to put in place and document the processes as you've stood this up, right?

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:23

Correct.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:24

And then that allows you to bring in the machine learning.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:26

It allows you to then bring in the automation and really have the human oversight to make sure that you're driving that customer value.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:35

Customer value.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:36

Where it makes sense.

Chris Walton: 00:04:37

And where does the machine learning come into play?

Chris Walton: 00:04:39

We talked to somebody yesterday.

Chris Walton: 00:04:40

Does it come into play on the insights?

Chris Walton: 00:04:42

Does it come into play on the activation or is it both?

Chris Walton: 00:04:45

Yes.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:45

And it's yes.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:47

And throughout the process and it's used in different ways.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:04:50

We are piloting using our both our in store and digital sales in our in flight optimization process.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:05:01

And then we will continue to learn from that, building both optimization strategies for our brands and the category through our media approach.

Chris Walton: 00:05:10

Interesting.

Chris Walton: 00:05:10

Okay, that makes sense.

Chris Walton: 00:05:11

Yeah.

Chris Walton: 00:05:11

Brand and category is important.

Chris Walton: 00:05:12

When you think about it from a grocer's perspective, that's interesting.

Chris Walton: 00:05:15

I haven't heard that before.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:05:16

Especially when you think about how everything ladders back up into a category and how the brands itself are dependent on the category insights.

Chris Walton: 00:05:25

Right.

Chris Walton: 00:05:26

As a grocer, you want to grow not only the brand but the category particularly.

Chris Walton: 00:05:29

Right.

Chris Walton: 00:05:29

Yeah.

Chris Walton: 00:05:29

Makes sense.

Anne Mazinga: 00:05:30

Well, Michelle, we're here at nrf.

Anne Mazinga: 00:05:33

I'm curious based on all of those things that you have going on right now, you mentioned that you are looking into LLMs and other automation for your work.

Anne Mazinga: 00:05:42

What do you hear?

Anne Mazinga: 00:05:43

Like what's on top of your list of places to check out or technologies to explore or content to go to while you're at the show?

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:05:51

I'm just excited about this show.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:05:53

One of the things that is the most exciting, it is so retail centric and I love being in retail.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:05:59

It's really fast paced and the amount of focus on retail media with its own track on Saturday was just amazing to see the evolution of those two coming together.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:06:12

We've had huge executive presence with Omar.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:06:15

We've had our head of our product from Albertsons Media collective also speaking.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:06:22

So we've just had a great presence and it's fun to interact and see all the innovation.

Anne Mazinga: 00:06:27

Any big takeaways from that session?

Anne Mazinga: 00:06:29

Because we were not at that but we've heard a lot of good things about it.

Anne Mazinga: 00:06:33

Yeah.

Anne Mazinga: 00:06:33

Like any key highlights that people should be paying attention to or try to find that content if they can.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:06:40

Yeah.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:06:40

I would really suggest listening to Omar's content.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:06:44

I think he brings a very interesting perspective.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:06:47

As I mentioned, he is our chief digital officer at and merchant lead.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:06:52

So the way the insights that he brings, coming from a background of Amazon and other tech forward companies into now overseeing a very media centric business, shows how both technology and the overall business operations are coming together to form a holistic media solution.

Anne Mazinga: 00:07:13

Right.

Chris Walton: 00:07:13

Wow.

Chris Walton: 00:07:14

Three shout outs for the boss Omar today.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:07:17

I hope my review, I hope this is being recorded for my review.

Chris Walton: 00:07:20

I haven't met.

Chris Walton: 00:07:21

We haven't met Omar yet.

Chris Walton: 00:07:21

We're gonna have to get him on the podcast here at some point.

Chris Walton: 00:07:24

Yeah.

Chris Walton: 00:07:24

So open the invitation to Omar because he got three shout outs.

Chris Walton: 00:07:27

All right, well let's let you out of here with this.

Chris Walton: 00:07:29

So: 2025

Chris Walton: 00:07:31

We're in the second week of January.

Chris Walton: 00:07:32

What are you excited about in your job?

Chris Walton: 00:07:34

What do you really want to accomplish this year?

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:07:37

As I mentioned, we just have a really strong roadmap and partnership with our product engineering team and we have set goals around efficiency and effectiveness.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:07:47

We achieved a 20% productivity gain around effectiveness last year, but we are much more focused on driving both efficiency and effectiveness this year.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:07:59

And so I'm very excited.

Chris Walton: 00:08:01

Got it.

Chris Walton: 00:08:01

So it's about standing up the retail media side, and it's also about making it as effective as possible.

Chris Walton: 00:08:06

All right.

Chris Walton: 00:08:06

Awesome.

Chris Walton: 00:08:06

Well, Michelle, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:08:09

Of course.

Michelle Weiskitel: 00:08:09

Thanks for having me.

Chris Walton: 00:08:10

We hope you have a great rest of the conference.

Chris Walton: 00:08:12

, which you can find at booth: 4938

Chris Walton: 00:08:19

And Anne, as always, be careful out there.