Austin Leonard: Awakening America's Secret Retail Media Giant in an Al world
- 7 days ago
- 35 min read
Dollar General might be one of the most underestimated media businesses in America.
With more than 21,000 stores, over two billion transactions annually, and 75% of Americans living within five miles of a Dollar General, DG combines enormous physical reach with high-frequency customer relationships, rich first-party data, and access to audiences that advertisers often struggle to reach elsewhere.
In this episode of Signal & Noise, Krish Raja sits down with Austin Leonard, Vice President and General Manager of DG Media Network, to explore how Dollar General is turning those assets into a sophisticated advertising business—and how AI is helping accelerate the transformation.
Austin brings experience across radio, eBay, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Rakuten and Epsilon. Today, he’s applying that combination of media, retail, identity and technology experience to a company whose advertising potential is much bigger than many people realize.
Austin explains how identity acts as a spine connecting transaction data, MyDG membership, digital coupons and other customer signals. That foundation gives DG the ability to better understand customers, build relevant audiences and connect advertising back to real commerce outcomes.
DG is also making those audiences easier for advertisers to access through partnerships and integrations including The Trade Desk and DV360.
One of the most interesting innovations is DG’s expanding in-store radio network. What started as a 6,000-store pilot is growing to roughly 12,000 locations. Working with QSIC, DG is using AI alongside inventory and sales signals to help determine the right store, day and time for advertising—and optimize campaigns based on performance.
The audience opportunity is equally compelling. Austin says that in work with The Trade Desk, adding DG audiences to campaigns has generated roughly 50% unique reach beyond audiences reached through other third-party data providers and retailers.
The conversation also explores Austin’s refreshingly practical view of AI. With more than two billion transactions annually, AI can help DG analyze signals faster, automate media planning and operational tasks, improve targeting, accelerate measurement and ultimately use predictive analytics to better anticipate customer needs.
Austin calls AI something of a “superpower” for a lean organization—especially when it eliminates manual work and allows teams to focus on higher-value problems.
Underlying everything is a simple philosophy: great retail media needs to create value for the retailer, the advertiser and the customer. It can't just be another revenue line.
And Austin closes with a great leadership principle: maintain a high “say-do ratio.” Don't just talk about what you're going to build. Deliver it.
In this episode:
Dollar General’s massive, underestimated media opportunity
First-party identity and closed-loop measurement
The Trade Desk, DV360 and easier activation
AI-powered in-store media
Reaching rural and underserved audiences
AI for targeting, insights and automation
The future of retail media
Austin’s “say-do ratio”
#RetailMedia #DollarGeneral #DGMediaNetwork #AdTech #MarTech #AI #FirstPartyData #CommerceMedia #ProgrammaticAdvertising #RetailInnovation #CustomerExperience #DigitalAdvertising #Omnichannel #MarketingTechnology #SignalAndNoise
Read the full transcript below.
Krish (00:01.938)
All right, we are on signal and noise today and I have a very special guest with me. I have Austin Leonard, Vice President and General Manager of Dollar General Media Network. Now, I'm obviously not from the US as you can probably imagine and hear from my accent. So once I figured out my lay of the land and around the US, it's very clear to me that DG and DG Media Network is...
is almost one of the most underrated media businesses out there. And I'm very lucky to get to talk to the guy that's, know, 12 to just over 12 months in and really building the helm of Dollar General. So welcome, Austin Leonard. Thank you so much for being with me.
Austin Leonard (00:48.524)
Yeah, Chris, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to to chat through everything going on in our industry and spend a little time on D G as well.
Krish (00:56.05)
Absolutely. And you've just come back from Cannes. You've hosted Dollar Generals in overall attendance at the Cannes Festival. So tell me about that. What did you think of it? How did DG show up? And what surprised you the most?
Austin Leonard (01:13.314)
Yeah, it was an awesome time. So it was the first time that Dollar General had ever been to Cannes. And, you know, candidly, a lot of people said point blank, like, you know, DG would never go to Cannes. Why would they show up there? You know, what what business does does a US only retailer, especially in the in the value segment, have being out there? And having been there before, one of the biggest things that I saw is that it's it's an excellent opportunity for business discussions, for sharing innovation, the the feeling of creativity that comes from the core.
The original event, as I like to call it, is it really is infused throughout the week, but the amount of of tech partners that are there and the amount of of announcements that are happening, it's it's almost feels like you have to be there. And and and I feel like most major retail media platforms showed up there this year. there was there was a couple other where it was also their first year. And and we really wanted to show up in in an authentic DG way, but we've got a lot to talk about on on the innovation front, the tech front, we're
Also as a retailer, we're new in the omnichannel space. We've, you know, been at 17,000 plus of our 21,000 stores have had DG delivery since last November. We're now well over 18,000. So, you know, talking about our DoorDash partnership was was a lot of fun. But you know, we we sent two people. We I was myself and and my boss, the CMO.
And it was an awesome opportunity to talk to partners, to brands, to our agencies, and obviously have an opportunity to get to speak and can they get inspired. There was, there's a lot of energy there.
Krish (02:44.169)
That's awesome. mean, talk about spreading yourself thin. got a lot of, you had a lot of ground to cover and you you, said that you wanted to go there and show up the DG way, but also I guess you're going through a bit of a repositioning and you're showing potential customers and partners a version of yourself that they may not, they may have misinterpreted in the years gone by. Is that correct?
Austin Leonard (03:08.428)
Yeah, yeah, I think that you know, just the history of of Dollar General, we've been around for eighty-five years. and we've evolved as a company. And where what really spoke to me, and and as you mentioned earlier, you know, I just celebrated my one year anniversary in retail years that that they're like dog years. It it feels like I've been here for five years plus. And and that is a a very good thing. I you know, it's the culture of DG has been very welcoming and just their desire to really advance and innovate and in many ways reinvent the the company.
It's just been really energizing for me. It's inspiring. And and specifically, you know, having the the large footprint that we have and covering so many areas, 80% of our stores are in rural markets. And so people automatically say, okay, so they're they're a rural only store. Well, with 21,000 stores, that means we have over 4,000 stores that are in suburban and urban areas. So we cover pretty much everywhere in America. It's actually
Krish (03:54.995)
Hmm.
Austin Leonard (04:03.424)
Seventy-five percent of Americans live within five miles of a DG. It's a stat you hear me say a lot. And and it's one that, you know, people are starting to really understand that when you look at the retail landscape out there, we bring a unique audience. We have that national reach. And because of our format, there's also a high frequency of how we're talking to our customers, how we're reaching our customers, and how often they're visiting our stores. So it does give us a unique perspective on the lay of the land. And also from a DG Media Network standpoint, it gives us
a a really strong foundation that we've been building off.
Krish (04:34.805)
And loyalists too, right? You say 75 % live within a proximity of a Digi store, they're, you know, one thing that I was surprised to learn is that, you know, they come back and come back and come back and there's a lot of loyalty there too.
Austin Leonard (04:49.752)
There is, yeah. We we're part of our customers' daily lives and their communities and their routines. we're we're America's general store. And and that for us is showing up in all those neighborhoods and all those communities where we're easy, we're close, we're convenient, and we carry all of the major brands out there. So our our customers really count on us for a lot of their essentials. and whether that's in, you know, we're the only store in town or we're one of the stores on their route, that's something that we see as
our job to help serve them and and you know can give them great value but also make it really easy for them to shop the stores.
Krish (05:24.755)
Yeah, okay. what, so, so that, so when you talk to about, this and the high levels of DG, as well as some of the things that surprise even me, you know, like the, rural versus, you know, national piece, were there any, were there any moments in Cannes where you had to maybe correct someone or someone, someone just had a completely different approach, which was maybe a bit funny or a bit just like, all right, let's, let's,
Let's change that perception particularly.
Austin Leonard (05:56.451)
Yeah, I think that is the perception that we are a dollar store and and that we have, you know, simply only dollar items. But the reality is is that we're so much more than that. We have we we again our core DNA is we want to save money for our customers. And so we do have lots of items that are under a dollar. We have thousands of items. and and we continue to that continues to be a growth driver as we talked about.
But we also carry all of the full product assortment. So, you know, whether that's health and beauty, whether that's your laundry essentials, of course, we've got a great food selection. The other thing is they they also didn't know that we have over 7,000 stores that have fresh produce. So, you know, when you think about the ability to shop a full basket and make it really easy, that's something that a lot of people didn't know existed for Dollar General. And and it's opened a lot of eyes of hey, that this is a really good opportunity.
Especially when you add in the fact that we've now got e-commerce and we can reach so many Americans very quickly. I like to call it bringing the last mile of e-commerce to the last mile of America because many of the markets that we have served have been underserved by the big boom in same-day delivery. And and we're seeing the the ability to reach those customers very quickly as as a way that brands sh see and look at us as a growth partner.
Krish (07:05.578)
Yeah.
Krish (07:13.865)
Yeah. And this now sort of translates into all of the work you're doing. Now, Austin, you are, I guess, by your career, by your experience, you've worked in the identity space, you've worked in the retail space before. Tell me a little bit about yourself from a more, from a not a DG perspective, but I guess your life in chapters, as it were.
Austin Leonard (07:37.901)
Yeah, so you know, I was fortunate enough. I I actually started minor league baseball and then and then because I enjoyed the the advertising sales aspect of it, actually got referred and recruited to work in radio for a number of years in Atlanta, Georgia, which was an awesome experience. Learned a lot about the different types of businesses, whether you're working with Coca Cola in Atlanta or you're working with a mom and pop barbecue restaurant. And so you you really get that experience of how do you solve business problems? And that's kind of
been what has driven me throughout my career is media is such a great tool to to help spread the word, connect with customers. And you've kind of seen that throughout my career as as that shifted to digital. I actually moved moved out west, worked for a company that got purchased by eBay. So I got to be in the eBay ecosystem very early on, which is, you know, one of those big retailers that has had media, media network and advertising services for a long time that people don't talk as much about. But that helped me get a lot of the the tech foundation.
and and as you mentioned, you know, I've worked worked at a couple of the retailers, both both Walmart and Sam's Club. and from the tech side, had you know had an opportunity to to work deep in the in the affiliate space and the omnichannel measurement space at at both eBay and at a company called Rackitan. And and most recently, before I came to Dollar General, I was fortunate enough to be in the Publicis family, working in the Epsilon business, specifically helping retailers tap into all the data assets that Epsilon has to be able to really
identify their customers better, market them more clearly, build clear measurement and and also obviously monetize that from a retail media business.
Krish (09:12.755)
Wow. Okay. So this, this really sounds like the almost like the coming together of all of those different chapters, doesn't it? It's, it's, I guess, a role, which you can be an identity expert. can be a retail expert. but I think that maybe it comes back to the start of your career is, figuring out how to solve a business problem, right?
Austin Leonard (09:38.785)
Absolutely. Yeah. And and it all comes full circle with both the power of media and and I was challenged early on in my time at eBay to to really learn the tech. And and not only did I say, that that's a good move for my career, but I really got interested in, you know, how are the ads actually delivered? How do the tech platforms work together? And so I've I've always been a a sales forward and tech forward type of of leader. Just I'm I'm naturally curious and
When you introduced me into the retail ecosystem and I get to learn how products actually get to the shelves that normal consumers and myself included, you always take that for granted because you don't know how that actually works. And then you think about that being in the advertising industry, how does that actually turn into something that is is a is a great media business in a and Kennedy a a core part of a lot of what retailer growth is coming from? that that's been, you know, really fascinating for me and
You know, candidly, it's it's also part of why, like you said, that this this feels like such a perfect time and a perfect fit. Dollar General is, you know, behind the scenes, people would not know this, but we're very sophisticated on our data science, our analytics. We've built out a very robust network from an identity standpoint to help be able to, you know, connect a lot of those purchases together, you know, whether they're in cash or in credit. And
In the spirit of being able to understand what how our customers like to shop our stores, how do they shop the app, how do they use the website, that allows us to really help serve them better. And it also allows us to help the brands serve them better by making it easier for them to message them, making it easier for their investments to actually measure the incremental amount of sales that are out there. and and we're moving very fast, you know, whether it be through some of the things we're doing on the Media Network or how we partner with enterprise marketing.
There's there's just a lot of those pieces that that are driven by the sophistication that people wouldn't expect from Dollar General.
Krish (11:30.899)
Amazing. Okay, and I want to get into this. I want to get into the makeup and the, I guess, the way in which you see all of these pieces coming together in a second. But I just wanted to ask you one question about yourself, actually, and just interrogate where that curiosity came from. Is it something that you got in your first job? Is it something you can remember even earlier than that? And what was that? it a desire to...
always a desire to look under the hood or deconstruct stuff. Tell me a little bit about what sort of made you like that.
Austin Leonard (12:06.552)
Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is, you know, I I come from a family of very math heavy folks on on my dad's side. He's an actuary, his dad was a math professor, my grandma was a librarian. So early on there was there was this infusion of, hey, reading's really important. And, you know, I know it this will be audio, but you I'm I'm a big reader. So folks that that's that that do a lot of zooms or webinars with me, they they see my bookshelf behind me. And so that curiosity and continuing to learn kind of came at an early age.
I'm also a middle child. So when when when you have an older brother and two younger sisters, you you kind of fight for attention as a middle child anyway. So, you know, just asking how things work has has kind of been natural to me. And what what I found is that especially early on in the sales part of my career, is the more I knew about how things worked, the easier it was for me to bring a solution that not only would work for the customer, the advertiser that I was talking to, but that I also I could stand behind and that I believed in.
Krish (12:38.26)
Ha
Austin Leonard (13:04.628)
And that kind of just continued to accelerate. And, you know, I I got my MBA working evenings and in while I was working full time. I was I got it evenings and weekends when I was in Atlanta and and got to to go to class with, you know, folks and executives that were at Home Depot and Coca-Cola and Georgia Pacific. And that extra power of learning continued to just kind of challenge me to to really ask all those questions. And and again.
figure out how things work so that I could succeed and and and also partner better with my internal partners and and everyone that that I do business with.
Krish (13:37.461)
That's awesome. It's a, it's, think it's a skill that, may have gone underrated until now. And, with the, with the insertion of AI into everything, I think a lot more businesses will look for those people that don't just do the thing, but, figure out why the thing works the way it does, because a lot of, a lot of
the way we work, lot of how we do things, a lot of why things work the way, or, even in a complex ecosystem like DG, for example, how, you know, how a different technology connects to one another, how identity intersects it all. All of these things are fundamentally uprooting from the ground up. And so I presume you're now exercising those old, those long, long form skills from, in not just doing what you do, but maybe
rewriting the playbook as well at Dollar General, right? You've been there over a year now. And so I imagine that's of starting to accelerate.
Austin Leonard (14:38.73)
It it is, yeah. And, you know, it started very early. I asked a lot of questions to Tony and and to to Emily and our COO, you know, before I took the job. And and obviously one on on day one I was I was like, all right, I'm here, let's get behind the scenes. I want to get under the hood and see how everything is connected. And you know, part of it is the tech side, but the other part is really how do you work within the org to help accomplish the goals of everyone? It's it's been talked about a lot and and it's something that I truly believe in, but
Retail media, and it's part of the reason that it got me really excited when I when I first started retail media, you know, more than 10 years ago, it's one of the few opportunities in the advertising world where because it's a three-sided equation of you've got the advertising big piece of it, you've got the brands and the advertisers, and you've got the merchants. If it works well, everybody wins. You you can actually deliver better results. You can create a revenue stream for the retailer that allows you to reinvest in the experience.
So that you can actually do build a better shopping experience for the customer. And you have the ability to help show that you're bringing tangible results through the closed loop measurement that we have, through the incrementality measurement. So it's to me the that base of how you can bring value to the equation for internal and external stakeholders, that allows you to really come in and be a have a seat at the table and be a great partner to drive results.
What we're doing at Dollar General that's that's different than how some of the other retailers work is I reported to the chief marketing officer. So we're part of the marketing team. And he previously reported into chief merchant. Emily got promoted. She's now the COO, but we work very closely with our chief merchant officer Brian and his whole team to say, okay, what do we need to do as a business? How do we help our customers learn about the new products? Learn about
the weekly promos plus, you know, the the things that we think are important happening in the store and allows us to reinvent the model of what can retail media do to drive the total business versus just be seen as as a a revenue line item.
Krish (16:42.58)
love that. Okay, so let's unpack that a little bit. what is one of the, you know, you've been there, is it just over a year now? Yeah, yeah, again, congratulations. What
Austin Leonard (16:50.562)
Yep. Yep. This is month month number thirteen, but I I promise everybody after I hit month twelve I'd I'd stop counting them. But to be clear, it's not because I w was counting them in in any other way other than I I need to keep that in my back pocket to play the new guy card. but but certainly it's in retail there's just so much going on and and we work long days and and we love what we're do, but you know, you can get a lot done in a short amount of time.
Krish (17:18.036)
Absolutely. Maybe it's like having a kid you count in months until they're two, right? So maybe you've got a few more months of counting in months. But tell me a little bit about what some of it want to talk a bit a little bit about the, you know, firstly, I love the way you think about triangulating the value in between all the different parties that come to it because in a lot of instances in our industry, you know, there's a, it's almost like we've become a bit detached from.
Austin Leonard (17:22.178)
Yeah.
Austin Leonard (17:26.67)
I hadn't used that.
Krish (17:46.697)
the value and what actually people want from this equation. And ad sales just becomes about packaging something up and selling it to someone. then we forget that there's a customer at the end and ultimately the customer needs to be served. in traditional, I guess, publishing, that's a bit different because there's not so much of a customer expectation. They're not sitting, they're not...
They're not buying a physical product like they are with Dollar General. So I'd love to hear a little bit about, you you've spoken a little bit about that value and making sure you keep your eyes on that prize. How does, with what we just talked about earlier, which is how things are changing, how things are going to change from a technology perspective, what were a couple of things that you've come in over the last year and gone?
Look, are some not, I say, would say easy wins because that's, you know, undermining the hard work it is to do all this stuff. But in your mind, what are the things that you're proud of over the last year that you've gone right? Look, we've, I've come in and you know, these are, these are some ideas I brought to the table. some maybe philosophies or some technology ways of thinking, you know, to name specific technologies or anything like that, but just ways of orchestrating those technologies that you think.
are the future or a good step forward.
Austin Leonard (19:14.188)
Yeah, I'll I'll slice those a couple of different ways. So I think first and foremost from a people perspective, I'm I'm really excited about how the the team has really evolved over the past year and and how we've both internally and externally, how we've come across as as partners and really worked hard to to become more consultative and really think strategically. integrated planning is is something that is is thrown about a lot, but the reality is it's hard. Like you you have to plan ahead. You have to think ahead.
And and we've worked really hard with the team to s to sit down, especially with with some of the the the core partners that are like, hey, we're excited what you can do here. We see the potential. If we can get ahead of of of the quarter and and next year, it's easier for us to actually help find those opportunities and bring those unique ideas to life. So I'm really proud of of of the team and and how they're they're working to to help really raise the the profile of what we're doing. we joined the IAB last year. It was a big step for the business that, you know, we're
We're in the ecosystem, but we don't always get a chance to to get back to it. So by by joining IAB as an official member, we're able to contribute more to, you know, obviously the the standardization that's happening and the trends that are happening. we also had to do some basics. You know, we we built up we're building on a really strong foundation, but our media network was built off site first. And now because digital commerce is growing, we've got a unique opportunity compared to other retail net media networks to to really be able to
help our on-site tools get a lot better and and also deliver more value. So we've been really focused on some of the basics around third party on-site tar tagging, audience targeting, you know, really up leveling the measurement and insights that we can provide. and and part of that has has really shown itself in the results and and how we're delivering better performance year over year. And and then I think the other part that is is really exciting to me is because we're part of the marketing team.
We've built a model now and we we worked really hard at this, but we've built an integrated marketing model where we can work with our partners and brands and really bring the power of what we're doing as an enterprise from a marketing perspective and have that be coordinated and orchestrated together. I call it a little bit of the harmonization of retail media. but when you bring those together, we can then show up better for the advertiser.
Austin Leonard (21:35.095)
And it also allows those brands to be more authentically integrated into what we're doing for back to school or or for for holiday. and and that also allows us to help the overall enterprise objectives and also bring you know tremendous media value and and sales value to those brands. So for example, we we've got a program that that just went live. we're partnering with iHeartMedia and the number one country music DJ in the US, his name is Bobby Bones.
And we put together a a really awesome program for our yellow grass, our yellow glasses program, which is part of the DG Literacy Foundation. And we're able to help PG and our partners at Incom and some of the other partners that have have partnered with us to really tap into the power of audio within our stores and outside of our stores to help tell this great story of around how we're partnering to help our communities and do in a way that during back to school, we can keep their brands top of mind. And
You know, that that type of integrated approach where enterprises is is doing a big national radio campaign, we're able to tie in the brands that our customers care the most about is is a really a new way of of doing things. And it also brings a a lot of value to to how we show up in the market.
Krish (22:49.813)
Right, okay. what, and, and, you know, I mean, this is, you're standing up new channels, you're standing up new value propositions that span multiple divisions of your business as well. At the center of this must be a need for a stitch. And, you know, you obviously come from Epsilon, which is an identity business that, that
You know, these types of thinking of stitching together customer profiles and identity is really critical. So I guess I'd love to just ask you that how do you think about identity in your businesses? Does it show up as a collection of signals across the dollar general media network, or would you prefer to think of it as a spine that everything else feeds off of?
Austin Leonard (23:42.851)
Yeah, I mean I think that it's it I would fall in the second category around it's a spine that connects it together for the entire organization, not just for DG Media Network, but it's the like I said earlier, the the sophisticated data science and analytics work that we've done to help connect the the credit card transactions, the folks that are logging in with their My DG membership, the folks that are using the digital coupons. We have been able to really tie all those pieces together so that holistically we can get a a great view of the customer.
learn what it is that that they're they're trending towards from a category perspective, an individual SKU perspective. so it the same spine that we use for DG Media Network is is leveraged for a lot of things across the org, including the enterprise marketing team. And so that allows us to really take all those signals and and be able to to more efficiently deliver media, to also close the loop better, to, to learn more about what's working from a a media and from a customer standpoint.
And and that spine really helps us deliver value across the origin.
Krish (24:45.972)
Okay. And, you know, this is a really big moving target. Obviously, LiveRamp just got acquired by Publisys as well. And so this area is a huge moving target. You've obviously come from Epsilon where first-party IDs in the ad server was essentially that pitch. The open web is going through a real challenge at the moment with identity that feels fractured and feels fragmented.
Where would you say retail media essentially becomes almost like the new gold standard for pursuing what has always been thought of as the gold standard in identity over the last 10 years?
Austin Leonard (25:32.935)
so I hesitate that on that because for a couple reasons. One, the the generally the answer is yes. it depends obviously what what the outcome and what the goal is you're looking for. I think that we have a relationship and an obligation to our customers. so we we want to respect that data. We also have the ability to because it's first party data, we we need to protect that. We have a responsibility to protect it. but we also have the ability to to talk to our customers.
in a more deterministic way than than other data providers do. and that does allow us to connect channels together differently than than maybe some of the other providers that are out there. So when you're when you're talking to a brand that doesn't have a lot of first party data or any first party data, the what I know the CBG partners are really looking for is, hey, what's selling? You know, what's that conversion signal?
And and that is what I think is is the the gold power of as you call it the the gold of of retail media, the gold standard. And that is why it's growing so fast. It's the ability to close the loop. but it also allows us to to make sure that we're creating these opportunities across different platforms to to leverage the great inventory and the audiences that they have that are also our audiences in in a way that that other mediums can't do.
Krish (26:50.644)
Okay, and where does that? So, and then that acts as a partnership mechanism as well, presumably you've done work with the trade desk to surface your inventory there. What's next? What's next for access to DG?
Austin Leonard (27:07.81)
Yeah, so we've got a great partnership with the trade desk. we we run our managed service campaigns there. We also have self-service options that are there through a a great robust integration. so we we've also now connected the the trade desk into Kevil. So we're doing some some piloting behind the scenes to to allow some of the inventory on DG.com and in the app to flow into the trade desk. So we're really taking the stance of how do we make it easier to buy? How are we in places where the brands and their agency teams and their media buying teams
where they want to access the audiences and do in a way that that still allows us to to make sure that we can get the right message and the right creative is showing up on the right page on our website plus outside in of the of our our ecosystem. we've also launched earlier earlier this year we announced the launch of our integration with db three sixty for for YouTube. So the ability to do SKU level reporting in D B three sixty is has been, you know
a really big investment for for us in terms of how do we create another channel for for our partners. I think the the biggest thing that that I'm really excited about that we've been scaling up over the summer here, it goes back to my radio days as part of when you asked me that question like it it's it it all comes full circle. and that's the DG in store radio network. And that's something where when I came in last year, they had been running a pilot across six thousand stores, which to me
also was like very DG of like we're just running a small pilots only in six thousand stores where we installed speakers and we were running music and running some ads and and it was good. But what our customers are telling us on the advertising side is we really need that to be more accountable, more measurable. And and we also need you to have more coverage across your store network if you want it to be an important channel for us.
And in as we did our due diligence and looking through all the things that we could spend tech time and different investment buckets on, what became clear to me is that given our store footprint and also the the size of our stores, an average store is about 7,500 to 8,500 square feet. So you can actually cover that with fewer speakers, but it also allows us to really change the environment, the shopping environment.
Austin Leonard (29:26.048)
And so when you have the ability to do that in a way that you can automate the volume controls, you can actually cover the store and bring music in. You know, it's it's silly things like our customers are are are telling us, like literally our customers and our store associates when I'm walking in stores, they're like, I love that there's music here now. I see customers dancing in the stores. I I actually had one of one of my my store associates last week told me point blank, Can you make it louder? We'd love to hear more of it. so I think that that's like the fun part of hey, we're
Krish (29:51.75)
Haha, awesome.
Austin Leonard (29:55.747)
When we say we're we're investing in the customer experience, to me, that's a very visible and audible way to help show that we're we're kind of putting our money where our mouth is. but by expanding it out to what and we're finishing up the summer, we'll be at 12,000 stores. It also gives us the opportunity to talk to our customers in in more sophisticated ways. we've actually built in a lot of tools around making sure that when we build a media plan for the in-store radio network.
it's actually plugged into our inventory feed and our and our sales feed. So we can build a media plan. And we do this using AI with our partner QSIC that actually will tell you what is the right store, what is the right day a week, what is the right time of day that you want your ads to be running. And then in flight, it optimizes against the performance so that it actually can move impressions across different stores based on if the inventory gets low in one store, based on performance. If there's a region that's performed better, it automatically can help.
Optimize that way. And we also have verification of how loud was the ad when it ran. so that's like some of the basics around how do you build that out. But the the the extra opportunity gives us is it's not just a how do we help our endemic partners tap into that, which I think they should because it's an awesome channel to to have your brand voice, the customers are in the buying mindset, but you can also then start to talk to non-endemic and what are the other things that we think our customers are interested in, whether it's
vacations, whether it's financial products, whether it's cars, and and it gives us the opportunity to to help advance our media business in a different way with a a pretty powerful twelve thousand plus radio network that can reach millions of customers every single week.
Krish (31:36.725)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm as, as the simple to I am, used to love, uh, walking into my favorite supermarket just because they had an amazing audio experience and my favorite tracks on it. you say, it's a simple thing sometimes that keep you there and, uh, give, put a smile on your face and, and, um, you know, that's not even withstanding, you know, what you're talking about is being able to, um, be able to expand offerings for, for buyers that want to.
want to tap into G to DG. And, know, there's always been, you know, this problem, whether, you know, I've worked in Australia, I've worked in the UK, rural areas and non capital cities are always under invested in. And it's always been very, very difficult to, to tell why, to be honest. And, and so that, you know, that must be, that must be a problem or a challenge, you know, given what we've talked about today and your passion.
it must be front of mind for you is how do you rebalance those scales and how do you figure out what the actual cause of the problem of underinvestment is.
Austin Leonard (32:47.116)
Yeah, and and I think that given that most of the major media buyers are typically in major cities and they don't experience some of the stores that aren't in their cities at times, it's you do have to talk the the story a little bit differently. when you're thinking about how you put together a retail media buyer that covers the US, though, you can't cover the national footprint without having DG in there because of how many unique markets that we have. We we actually see this in some of the work that we've been doing with the Trade Desk where
when they add DG audiences to campaigns, we see about fifty percent of that is unique reach that they haven't been able to get with other third party data providers or or other retailers. And so we know that there's a unique audience there. And it's not just because the rural footprint, but that's a big part of, you know, even just helping to to reframe the conversation with our partners. But it's very simple. Like you you have a unique audience, we have a high frequency audience, and they're
in a buy in mindset. So it's it's something that we think is really valuable. And that national reach allows us to have a real seat at the table as as one of the major retail media networks that's out there.
Krish (33:55.135)
Wow, fantastic. These are the types of things that I guess when you're talking to your Cannes audience, they'll probably lift their eyebrows and go, didn't think of it like that. Yeah.
Austin Leonard (34:05.964)
Yeah. Yeah. I like to think so. And hopefully take out their phone and take a picture and remember. and then hopefully they'll go in a store and and check it out and and see, you know, how different the shopping experience is. And especially when we're in those markets where it's there's there's options where you can go to, but it this the person that works there, the store manager or the district manager, they're part of the community.
They they know the customers that are coming in there because it's that that very localized type of shop, but it's also, you know, that that national footprint that allows them to get the scale they need to to make it part of a a buy.
Krish (34:38.878)
Yeah, absolutely. what, know, Austin, I want to, you're, you're in charge of such a huge area and remit. I want to, I want to get your thoughts on the big buzzword, obviously AI as it intersects with things like identity inside a business like yours. I, I see both sides of the fence. see, you know, identity as a transaction, the methods between
buyer and seller, but to go down the avenue, think that you'd probably, you can correct me if I'm wrong, go down is how do you recognize a customer so you can add more value to their lives and make their experience better? I'm interested to hear your take on how AI is going to impact this and impact customer experience in so far as all the vendors you're getting pitched, all the
internal conversations you're having with your data science team. I'm going to leave the question kind of broadly open because I want to hear where you take this question and hear what your thoughts are on how AI intersects with particularly customer experience and identity.
Austin Leonard (35:55.533)
Yeah, so think first and foremost, when you think about retail in general, but especially in our specific ecosystem, we've got twenty-one thousand plus stores. We're seeing over two billion transactions a year. and that's spread out over the entire country. So the ability to take in all the signals is really hard. you know, that's that's a lot of data to parse through. And and I think there's especially as people as retail media was starting to grow and grow and grow.
There's lot of things that you could do with the data to personalize it. There's a lot of insights you could get. But now that we have AI coming into the ecosystem to really be able to parse those data and help our teams get to insights quicker. So they spend less time gathering the data and more time bringing unique insights and unique ways to activate against those insights. I feel like that AI gives us an advantage. and it also it helps you know, close some of the gaps in in how, you know, you you need to operate, especially in our environment where
We're never gonna have as many people as as other organizations. We we run a very lean chip. AI is a bit of a superpower for us because it allows us to to really cover more ground. It it also, as we're thinking through how do we automate some of the things that take up some of our team's time, whether it's, you know, media planning, whether it's how do you reconcile invoices, there's a lot of the back office function that can help us be more efficient there, be more accurate, because it's it's got it's there's less room for manual error.
so we're we're spending a lot of time on on the non-sexy stuff that AI can fix. we we also have you know a a really big initiative across DG to figure out what are the different areas where AI can help the entire organization. So we hired Sims Travis Nixon. He's our our chief data and AI officer. And he has spent, you know, 15, 20 years in AI before AI was was cool and in a buzzword. And so he brings the
the ability to create a framework that allows us to really unlock the power of AI. and so we're partnering with this team on like what the use cases to to help automate targeting? How do we help make the insights and closing measurement happen faster so we can get results back faster? What can we do with predictive analytics to make sure that and we're we're not just using some of the basic targeting that that other retailers are using, but we're actually starting to anticipate more what we think our customers will want to buy that allows us to actually deliver a a a
Austin Leonard (38:18.712)
better, more impactful message for our customers and for our advertisers. And so there's there's a lot that I kind of went through very fast, but you could tell we're we're excited about it. We're we're investing into it. And I I do feel like it's it's really transforming the industry. before you even get to things like how do you create AI agents for for your advertisers to make it easier for them to buy.
Krish (38:42.45)
Yeah, absolutely. think focusing in on, like you say, the unsexy stuff and ultimately even little things like resolving identity or making it more usable. I think there's so much opportunity in that space that people... I don't know if you share this sentiment, but I've worked in the industry for many, many years and...
for as long as I've worked, there are so many hidden fractures in any data set that once you try and make them usable, you sort of start to understand what those fractures are and the disconnect. I think, especially that must be something that you're thinking about a lot, right? Because retail media is probably one of the most fractured data sets, fractured because it fulfills the promise of something that
we're all trying to get towards, is omnichannel online to offline. These things that have been historically so hard for us to even think about. how do you guys think about that from a standpoint? How do you think about vendors? How do you think about build versus buy in the resolution of this stuff?
Austin Leonard (40:07.926)
Yeah, so lots unpack there. what I would say is that first and foremost is that the more that we can automate systems, the more that we can make less manual touches so that people can get access to the insights that they need, to get a campaign live, to deliver value for our advertisers or to give them self-serve access, the better off we can be as a partner and as a business, the more success we'll have as well. So, you know, I think that you you call that identity at the very beginning of that, which I think is really important is
because of the advances and how you can process data and leveraging AI to help connect more data sets faster, that does allow you to fill in some of those gaps. It also allows you to do simple QA, like to make sure that the data that you're using is in fact the correct data. And it's and it's working. So I think from from our standpoint, you know, all of the above, as you said, is is definitely things that we're working on and things that we think AI can help with.
and and that automation is key if we're we're going to be able to deliver more value and expand out to to any size partner that we have, endemic or non endemic.
Krish (41:16.564)
I love it. okay, so let's, let's do a little, I want to leave, I want to leave with, you know, a dream of an idea of yours that you've got a year a year in. Let's, let's assume, let's imagine you're, you're two years in to the role. You're counting your tenure and years now, and you're at Cannes again in 2027. What are you?
standing on stage and presenting that's different as a message to what you did this year.
Austin Leonard (41:51.853)
Yeah, so I I hopefully I'm able to talk a little bit more about the fun stuff that we're doing versus some of the foundational work that we're doing. the the stories that that I'd like to be on stage talking about are ones where we've been really able to take that idea that happened in, you know, a marketing planning meeting or a JBP meeting and like, wouldn't it be great if we could do XYZ? You know, how do we get that message out to customers as quickly as possible? And we can talk about the how fast to market we were to then deliver a program.
that you know showed value to our customer, that inspired them to buy and that moved the needle for for a brand while also doing it as part of you know how we bring those parties together, whether it's integrated marketing campaign for for you know new year, new you, or it's the ability to to help make sure that just the value of of delivering the the right promo, the right coupon to the right person that wanted to save some money and also try a new product. So hopefully that's a lot of what we're talking about.
I'm I'm really big on don't don't sh don't tell me what you're gonna build, show me what you've already built. So my hope is that I'll have partners up there saying it's so much easier to work with Dollar General Media Network than than it has ever been and perhaps better than than other partners that are out there. And the value that we get by working with them is is not just because the the tech works and the you know the the data shows that it works, but we're building impactful creative.
that helps them, you know, maybe they'll win a can lion, Retail Media Can Lion next year because of some of the work that we're doing together. Or maybe it just helps elevate the conversation to more around like how do we partner better together and and bring those unique things to our customers that they can't do elsewhere.
Krish (43:36.051)
I love it. think that's a, I read a few weeks ago is, there's a really good infographic I saw on, on what you just said there about, don't tell me what you're going to do. Show me what you did. And that, you know, is level five agency or whatever it's called. is there, is there, you know, is there a place that that really comes to life for you as you manage your teams? What's a, you know, regardless of your
the work you do with customers, are there good examples of that that you try to instill in the values of your team, that level five agency that you can talk through?
Austin Leonard (44:18.168)
Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing for me is I call it the say do ratio. I didn't invent it, but it's one one of my mentors, Steve Denton, who I've known for a long time, he actually instilled this and he was he was one of the the the folks that put me in my first leadership role is how many of the things that you say you're gonna do do you actually deliver on? And so what I try and work on with my team is hey, here's here's the stuff that we're trying to do, here's what we've already delivered. So when you're talking to your partners and you're sharing information, you know, when you make commitments.
Make commitments that that you know you can you can deliver upon, but also continue to have that high say do ratio so that you are a trusted partner. They count on you to get things done. And and that's one thing I'm I'm really proud of of the sales and the operations team that that we have here. And as they're continuing to learn and and grow and and we're pushing hard because we've got a lot of ground to cover as as we work to to really accelerate this business. But that's that's one where I think it and it's it covers any industry and and
in any use case, personal and professional, but try and have that s that high say do ratio so that people will count on you and it makes you more effective as as a leader or or as a a you know, just a a friend or a spouse.
Krish (45:32.468)
I love it. These are words to live by, not just to work by, right? That's a really nice place to leave the discussion. And Austin, honestly, it's a pleasure to talk to you. I love the way your career has moved and the way you intentionally move it. And I'm excited to hopefully, be there to see you next year in Cannes talking about all this stuff and showcasing.
Austin Leonard (45:37.368)
Right.
Krish (46:02.452)
the stuff that your partners have done with you rather than said they'd do.
Austin Leonard (46:07.928)
Perfect. Chris, thanks again for having me on. it was a pleasure being on here. Hopefully, hopefully we're bringing more signal than noise. and look forward to to sharing more as as we continue to grow here.
Krish (46:20.436)
Thank you so much, Austin. It's been pleasure.
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