Robbie Thain
Founder, CEO
AI-generated illustrative image. Not an official campaign image.
Makai examines the ANA’s CPG data shift and what it means for field staffing, retail readiness, event flow and business-focused measurement.
On October 25, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) published an article describing a shift from collecting CPG data to using it across media, retail and personalization. Updated October 26, the article highlighted Procter & Gamble, Nestlé and Coca-Cola.
The immediate change is one of purpose: data is being framed as an input to business decisions rather than an asset to accumulate. The ANA summary describes that direction. The operational work is connecting it to the brief, the retail environment and the eventual business scorecard.
In a September 2026 company post, P&G executive Jacques Hagopian argued that retail media should be judged by profitable retail sales growth. Impressions and clicks can serve as diagnostics, but they are not the whole business scorecard.
In an October 2026 EMARKETER interview, Chobani’s senior director of shopper marketing Erica Culley described several years spent building and implementing an internal media mix model. She said the company was working toward business growth priorities rather than return on ad spend alone.
These are practitioner perspectives, not independent evidence of improved outcomes across the market. The ANA article supplies no detailed company case evidence, and P&G’s example supplies no quantified sales result.
Makai’s stance is simple: keep the welcome warm and give the evidence a business job. A completed event and an answered business question are different deliverables. Attendance and samples distributed describe activity; they do not establish sales impact.
That distinction matters for food and beverage brands that rely on physical experiences to support pipeline. A friendly interaction has value, but the commercial objective still needs a defined place in the plan. In our view, disciplined measurement protects the human experience by keeping reporting focused on a useful question rather than collecting everything possible.
We design consumer events around interaction, emotion and engagement. We also create experiential campaigns and trade show activations intended to generate qualified leads for premium CPG brands. Those are connected ambitions, but participation and qualified pipeline should not become interchangeable labels.
We have delivered more than 1,000 campaigns across all 50 states for more than 200 brands. That range shapes our view that a useful business question should hold across formats, even when execution changes. A retail demonstration and a consumer event need distinct plans without losing sight of why the investment exists.
That is the thinking behind giving real-world conversion a clear role: define what the interaction is meant to accomplish before deciding what evidence will represent success.
P&G says planning for some retail-media programs begins 12 to 18 months before consumers encounter them. The relevant lesson is early alignment around consumer insight and the journey, including demand creation and product availability. We would apply that principle to field planning without treating its timeline as a standard event schedule.
Early alignment also changes when measurement decisions get made. Our recommendation is to settle the business question while the experience is being planned, rather than hand an undefined evidence task to the field team at launch. That follows the coordination principle in P&G’s account without treating its retail-media process as an event playbook.
We believe ambassador staffing should serve the experience and the business question together. P&G’s focus on consumer insight supports recording observations that help explain an interaction. Culley’s concern about disconnected metrics supports separating those observations from claims about commercial performance.
For a retail-linked program, a useful brief can distinguish consumer engagement from product availability. The staff assignment should make clear which observations are relevant and who receives them afterward. It should not turn an ambassador’s impression of purchase intent into a verified sale.
Clarity of responsibility matters more than asking every staff member to gather every possible detail.
At a trade show, our view is that product interaction and lead capture should support each other rather than compete for the same moment. Makai plans and manages trade show spaces that attract attention and start conversations. The business question should guide how participation connects with a qualified lead.
We integrate QR codes and mobile technology into retail, event and tour experiences. For this shift toward decision-useful data, we see those tools as connections between the physical interaction and a relevant next action. A scan belongs in activity reporting rather than being labeled a purchase.
That makes footprint flow a reporting issue as well as a design issue. The plan should distinguish where people try the product from where they choose to continue the conversation. We favor a clear reason for each interaction over a booth that looks busy but leaves the commercial question unanswered.
P&G’s emphasis on supply and product availability has a direct planning implication: record whether the product was available where and when the activation occurred. That context belongs beside engagement reporting when teams assess a retail-linked experience.
Our storage and logistics service covers sampling product and event gear through nationwide shipping, tracking and delivery coordination. That handles activation materials, while P&G’s point about retail availability concerns the shopper’s ability to find the product. In our view, those are related planning responsibilities that should remain distinct in the report.
Chobani’s Culley called for more standardized cross-retailer approaches to proving incrementality. The practical implication for field teams is to agree on reporting language with retail and media partners early. A useful brief separates:
Qualified leads belong to pipeline reporting. A claim of incremental sales needs supporting measurement rather than a busier event recap. Our discussion of connecting event performance with retail sales addresses that commercial distinction.
Culley also framed personalization around usefulness, transparency and consumer control. That supports a restrained approach to event data requests: connect the information collected to a clear purpose for the participant. A related planning lens is building consumer insight through in-person participation, with the value exchange kept visible.
For us, the discipline is deciding which evidence will inform the next investment. A longer form or a larger dashboard is not the objective. The objective is a clearer connection between what happened in the field and what the business should do next.
P&G’s Rico’s Tacos collaboration with Albertsons offers a concrete example of insight informing an experience. P&G says the short-form series combined shopper-trip and shopping-mission data with storytelling and commerce experiences inside Albertsons’ ecosystem.
The field lesson we draw is about sequence. Start with the consumer context and the business objective, then decide what participation should look like. Do not treat the creative idea as fixed and ask data to justify it afterward.
For a consumer event, that means judging the proposed interaction by its relevance to the intended audience and its role in the commercial plan. It keeps creativity connected to the job without reducing a human moment to a spreadsheet.
Before the next brief is approved, name the decision its evidence is meant to support. Then align that question with the retail and media teams whose information will be needed to answer it.
Keep the aloha in the welcome and discipline in the evidence.
As CMO or VP of Marketing, which investment decision will your next activation help you make, and what must change in the field now for its evidence to earn that role?
After a data-informed field brief comes the consumer event itself, with Makai handling the design of live experiences for CPG marketers and food and beverage brand managers. Makai’s consumer event service uses interaction and emotion to connect people with brands through engagement.
30 Years Experiential & Retail Activation Partner for CPG & Beverage Brands | Multi-Market Demos, Roadshows & Costco/Club Programs That Actually Sell
