But that doesn't mean we can't work together to help my members.
Every dollar spent to influence a purchase buys the same thing: attention. A place on a shelf, if you make it. A circular on a doormat, if you sell it. An impression in front of someone who might already be your customer.
What you actually want is narrower and worth more: a household that buys someone else, or shops somewhere else, choosing you instead.
That has never been for sale. Not because nobody would sell it, but because nobody could see it.
I can see it. And when your money moves one of those households, it does it by lowering what they pay... not by buying attention.
Your customer is the store, and the consumer at the shelf is someone you reach through them. What you are buying here is a switch: a consumer who chose something else last time and chose you this time.
The consumer is your customer, and what is at stake is the whole trip rather than one item. What you are buying here is the basket: becoming the store my member actually goes to this week.
You sell to stores, so the household is someone else's customer. You can see what shipped. You cannot see who stopped buying you, or what they bought instead.
You know your own aisles better than anyone. What you cannot see is the trip that never arrived, or the one that went down the road.
You are both blind in the same direction: outside your own walls. I am not.
Not attention. A switch.
A coupon has to be offered to everyone, because you do not know who buys your competitor. So most of the discount goes to people who were going to buy you anyway. That is why so much promotional money loses money.
I know which members buy which products and where they buy them. Because that is the backbone of the service I provide to save them money. If you knew what I know, your marketing dollars would go further.
I make switching worth it for one member at a time, and only when price is what is actually stopping them. When they choose not to switch, that money comes back the same night and goes to work on someone else shopping tomorrow.
Knowing which member, which product, and how much would change the answer is the hard part. It is also what I am for... and it is why your money goes further here, and why I can show you exactly what it did.
You pay me when you put money in, not when a member picks your product. I earn the same whether my member buys it or walks straight past it. So the outcomes I report to you are measurement, not commission.
Two rules. They are built in, not promised.
It becomes a lower price wherever they shop. I cannot point it at one chain, and I could not if you asked me. So funding this never puts one of your retailers ahead of another.
No supplier is behind it. So nobody can say you received something your competitor was not offered.
Those two never mix. That is a rule in the code rather than a clause in a contract... and I would rather show your lawyer the test than the clause.
Call it MDF, co-op, trade, shopper marketing... whatever your finance team calls it. What matters is which line it comes out of, and this is not a channel program: nothing here asks you to treat me as a reseller, and I neither buy nor resell your product.
Ask me for soda for the first time and I will show you sodas... that is the job. But which one lands on the list is the member's pick, and your money cannot become it. What your money can do is stand next to it: your cola at a better price, or the same one cheaper at your store. They see their choice, they see the alternatives, and they decide.
When a member locks a product (e.g. brand favorite), it stays, at any price, until they unlock it. When they tell me to avoid a store, I avoid it. No amount of funding moves either.
The code that recommends products to my members cannot see your market development funds or be influenced by you. Not suggested to ignore you... never given access. That is how I'm built to serve my members, not a policy added on top.
You can lower what a member pays, and directly influence what gets bought and where. It's the entire premise why I exist: to save my members money.
You can make a difference (and measure it).
The world is changing and retail is changing faster than ever before. Households need lower prices, and the members I serve are ready to buy your products and shop your stores. You can make a meaningful difference in American households and I'm here to help you be successful.
Omnichannel incrementality has been the goal for years and nobody has reached it, because every closed loop closes inside one retailer... and that is the one place a shopper does not live. I follow the household, not the store. Here it is not the frontier. It is the floor.
Tell me who you want to win. I ask, you pick... people who have never tried you, people who tried you and liked it, people who buy your rival every week. Households with a dog. Two cars, one of them on premium.
Then I work out the smallest amount that would actually change each person's mind, and spend that. Not one discount for everyone... just enough, one member at a time. That is the difference between incremental growth and subsidising demand you already had.
And you get it back in a sentence, not a spreadsheet. Something like:
Households that buy a competing cola every week and have never tried yours. Most of the money goes to the heaviest buyers, and none to anyone who tried you and rated you poorly.
Households that split their basket between you and one other store, within ten minutes of your door. Nothing goes to the ones who already shop you first.
You never get a member, a household, a shopping list or a basket. Not for any price, and not as an upgrade. If you want to reach my members, the one lever you have is a better offer.
That is the point. The integrity that protects my member is the same thing that makes what I report to you worth having.
No proof-of-performance packet. No screenshots, no tear sheets, no sign-in rosters, nothing to submit and nothing to be rejected over a formatting note. I bind the receipt line myself, because I am the one who saw it happen.
Not a lift estimate against a baseline somebody argued about in a meeting. The households, and what it cost to move each one.
The next time someone asks what the money did, you will not be talking about impressions.
You have been saying for years that AI would eventually make this possible. You were right.
Registering commits you to nothing. It gets you an account and someone to talk to... what you spend is a separate decision, and a later one.
With your work email. It takes a minute, and it tells me who you are and where you work.
Every business gets one. Here it is me. I do not sleep, so I do not have a calendar: you can text me from your kid's soccer game (at half time, obviously) and get an answer right there, not next Thursday. And when something needs a person, there is always one in the conversation... open a case any time, about anything, and someone picks it up. The best of both: someone who answers instantly, and someone who answers for it.
This might be what the category has been waiting for. It is also new, and I know it. So nobody is asking you to move your budget in one go. Start small. One brand, or one store. See whether the receipts back it up. If they do, do more. If they do not, you have lost very little and learned something you could not have learned anywhere else.
I take one flat fee on what comes in, the day it comes in. I never take a cut when a member buys. It is the same rate for everyone: no volume discounts, no special deals, no negotiated exceptions.
Everything else you put in becomes lower prices for my members. I do not spend it on ads, or shelf position, or anything you cannot measure.
How it works, what it costs, how to fund your account, documentation for your developers... it all comes from the same place. Say hi. I will answer what I can, send what you need, and bring in a person when that is the right call.
I am the account manager. Ask me what this would look like for your business and I will answer right now, not next Thursday.
💬 Say hi to Maya