Opella's Philip Durocher & CMX's Kristen DiCorleto: How Brands are Showing Up In-Store

Hello and welcome again to the CPG Guys podcast. I’m your co-host PVSB who also moonlights as head of industry & client engagement at Flywheel, the commerce acceleration division of Omnicom. My co-host, is the co-founder of ThinkBlue consulting, the father of pop stars Rhea Raj and Katseye’s Lara Raj. Their fans of course call him Papa Raj, but to me, he’s my BFF Sri.

This past June, Sri and I attended the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Today’s episode is the recording of a conversation that took place at La Residence, our home on the Riviera. More on that in a moment.

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Today’s episode came from an activation we hosted with CVS Media Exchange, the retail media division of CVS Health. This panel is called: Full Funnel - How Brands are Showing Up In-Store

It features my conversation with

Kristen DiCorleto, Head of Marketing for CVS Media Exchange and

Philip Durocher, Chief Marketing Officer at Opella

Now, let’s get to the conversation!

PVSB (00:00)
First and foremost, we are so happy to be working with CVS Media Exchange on today's panel. I have a history with CVS from 2014 to 2017. I led category personalization for the extracare loyalty program. So, yes, I am the person responsible for the six-foot-long register receipt. Sri tells me no matter what I do the rest of my life, that's what's going

on my tombstone to which I respond, the tombstone's gonna have to be six feet tall, otherwise it won't fit. So this is very near and dear to my heart. My heart is still in Woonsocket though I am now living in Connecticut, So let me introduce our guest today for this conversation. First, Philip Durocher and if you're asking, could he possibly be related to the late great Leo Durocher manager of the Dodgers, who was the very first manager

of my idol Jackie Robinson, the answer is yes, he is. He serves as the chief marketing officer, brand innovation for- Wait.

Papa Raj (00:59)
You're related to Jackie Robinson?

Philip (01:03)
trying to do it.

PVSB (01:06)
I get it.

Papa Raj (01:10)
What is going on?

PVSB (01:15)
Here's the great thing. People ask me why I hang out with Sri. Most people don't know this. The IRS considers him to be a charitable deduction. I can take the time I spend with him off of my taxes.

Philip (01:27)
Report in.

PVSB (01:28)
So what I was saying, Opella is the $5 billion consumer self-care company behind iconic OTC brands including Allegra, Icy Hot, Dulcolax Qunol and Cortizone 10.

Formerly spun out of Sanofi, Opella operates with what Philip has described as a challenger mindset, pairing the scale of a global portfolio with the speed and agility of a startup. Prior to Opella, Philip held senior leadership roles at Galderma and Colgate-Palmolive, bringing deep experience across consumer health, personal care, and brand building. Kristen DiCorleto

She's head of marketing at CVS Media Exchange, better known as CMX, the health and wellness retail media network division of CVS Health. One of the founding members when it launched in 2020 six years ago, Kristen brings more than 20 years of experience in marketing and media across retail and financial services. She helped build CMX from the ground up, starting with 10 people, growing the team to the nationally recognized force it is today. Before CMX, Kristen held a series

of progressive roles at CVS Health and digital marketing omni channel in health services. So, Phil, Kristen, welcome.

So I've got questions, They've got answers. Does that work well? That's good. All right. So let me set the landscape. Increasingly in a fragmented media landscape, brands and retailers are recognizing the physical store as a full funnel media channel for engaging consumers. The challenge is managing a balance between digital saturation and in-store influence.

Kristen, my first question is retail media data has largely been defined as digital. Most retail media started as owned and operated on site kind of product search ads, but it's gotten so much bigger. What is change that makes the physical store such a critical channel right now?

Kristen (03:30)
I think one for CMX is that we've always looked first at where the extra care customer behavior is. And so we actually built CMX off-site first because we know that 90% of our transactions still take place in our CVS pharmacy retail locations. And so we are first using, and we still are today, really performative off-site channels to drive customers to CVS.com, and we know that over half

Half of those customers that visit CVS.com actually go into a CVS pharmacy location within 48 hours to make a purchase, which is very in line with US customer behavior overall. I think it's 80% plus consumers still make most of their transactions in store, and we actually see that that's even more significant for CVS pharmacy customers, where it's around I think 62% exclusively shop in store.

And we see that 67% of those people actually make a transaction once a week in our store. So just the frequency of touch points that we're able to make with our customers in stores is significant. And if brands are trying to reach those extra care customers and drive brand growth at CVS, they can't solely reach them through digital channels. They need to ensure that that's a really connected experience.

Philip (04:50)
What I would add to that is that especially for discovery, find that having the combination of online and then going to see something in store allows that shopper to see what's new, to touch it, feel it, and decide whether or not maybe they'll consider it. And if it's a repeat purchase, I can understand why people get more into that rote behavior of ordering online, but what it's the point of innovation and discovery.

and looking for maybe new brands and products, that think is nothing that replaces that experience.

Kristen (05:20)
Definitely.

PVSB (05:21)
So, Kristen, you've talked about the store as being a point of decision making. What does that actually mean in practice for brands? we'll ask Philip to comment on that too.

Kristen (05:32)
I think just building off with what Philip just mentioned as well is that oftentimes we find that customers have a list that they might start actually building online and then they come in with a very intentional mindset to shop a category to shop a brand, but it's the moment of decision making that that Philip just talked about and how can we actually drive conversion and brand switching behavior at the register or at the point of

shelf and at CVS we have multiple points of intersection to deliver that brand message so with our front store screens that we recently introduced with our digital signs in our drive aisles our waiting area screens at pharmacy and most recently our checkout ads as well so the brands now have multiple points of engagement not just the price and the shelf tag at the moment

Of decision. I think there's a lot of brand messages that can go into leading up to that decision at shelf.

Philip (06:35)
And I think that's a great pivot for CVS because I think people were in probably a behavior looking for either the offer or coming in with an offer. And now I think there's a chance to really engage with that shopper at multiple touch points in the store and really get them to think beyond just, OK, what's a yellow tag for the week or whatever and really start to think about how that brand or that product can make a difference.

PVSB (07:00)
One of the challenges I have to imagine you as a brand marketer are facing is the old days of running a couple of national advertisements on TV and dropping a couple of FSIs is fundamentally changed. One, people don't get the Sunday paper delivered to their home anymore. And two, people are cutting the cable. But as Kristen kind of illustrated with the data, they're still going into physical stores and they're going in at scale. And that presents you with a huge opportunity to engage

consumers up and down the funnel from discovery all the way to consideration and conversion.

Philip (07:35)
100%. I think of it as two ways. It's like there's what you try to do mass to bring as much awareness as possible, but then there's the as the starting point for many people to engage with, whether it's your packaging, engaging with claims that you make. So being able to really try to have almost a if you will, line that a thread that goes from shelf to mass media all the way.

back and forth is probably the way that we're trying to win today. It's just trying to make sure there's a continuity of contact.

PVSB (08:12)
Yeah.

Kristen (08:14)
I just building off that

too, it's definitely it's like the old right time, right message. Right. But how do we really connect all those touch points as well so that if someone sees something on the way out of the store that that brand's message is continuing to permeate through the digital channel so that they can constantly have that brand and that product top of mind for the next time that they're going back into store to to

PVSB (08:37)
next question comes with a visual, I'm going to move to the... Ooh, it worked, it worked! Alright, so let's start at the very beginning, Kristin, how are front-entrance experiences reshaping the way brands show up?

Kristen (08:53)
Yeah, I think that the front entrance screen is really your your first impression when you walk in the store. We know at CVS the average trip time is around seven, seven and a half minutes. So people are, you know, these are mission-driven moments, but we know that sixty-seven percent of customers are seeing and actually finding value in the content in the front entrance screens when we actually do intercepts and surveys with our customers to make sure that the

Experience isn't slowing them down to get to the category, get to the product, get to the shelf that they need to make that purchase app, but they're actually informing them. We've also really taken the customer feedback and our knowledge of our extra care customers and 144 million customers that come into our store every year. And we're not just putting brand billboards up there either, we're also mixing it with CVS Health and CVS pharmacy messages that.

Are educational, that are talking about seasonal moments that are relevant to the customer, and we're then amplifying that with relevant brand messages as well.

PVSB (10:00)
You know it's interesting when I think of CVS, when you're on the outside it may not occur to you but to a large degree the store is a pocket of different marketplaces. There's the front end non pharmacy. There is the pharmacy in the back and increasingly there are health services, everything from the minute clinic to hearing aids to all sort of eyeglasses. Everything is kind of happening in store and to your point everybody has a different type of mission when they walk into the store.

Some are very intentional for one focus and the goal it seems like is to expose them something that makes the trip a little bit more interesting and delivers extra value beyond just their primary purpose of walking in.

Kristen (10:47)
That's exactly

right. We're there to create value. And with our waiting area screens within the pharmacy as well, it's a perfect opportunity for us to deliver educational messages as well that they can then become aware of our full product portfolio in the store, exactly what you just mentioned, the front of the store, to the back of the store, the back of the store, to the front of the store. And it's a great opportunity as well for many of the OTC brands, especially the ones that Opella has within their portfolio.

to then also talk about some of the you know side effects for some of the pharmacy products and scripts that people might be picking up as well. So how can we together improve that the outcomes that our customers are coming in every day for.

PVSB (11:31)
Phil, what do you think about the opportunity to engage consumers that they're walking into the store? Not necessarily to buy a product that Opella produces, but to actually expose them to a message that could help them. Maybe not even on that journey. It just builds as a multi-touch attribution of the customer.

Philip (11:52)
100%. So many of the categories of brands that we have at Opella have only about a 30 % penetration rate. And the need is in the 60s. there's a gap of about 30 points. And an opportunity to intercept and store, to engage, to educate, to talk about the benefits potentially of adding this product to your regimen. For example, a lot of people don't even know about topical

pain relievers. They default to systemic and pills and whatnot. They're like, actually, my elbow hurts. I don't know why I'm ingesting. So those kinds of opportunities to say, hit pain where it hurts, not the whole body. So those are all, and they're basket builders, potentially, because you still need a systemic pain reliever, but you might also want to stack it with the topical pain reliever

So there are tons of opportunities like that in a story.

PVSB (12:52)
After this, you and need to talk because I've got this acute pain. It's called podcast co-host. I've just found out that he's building an agent to replace me.

Papa Raj (13:04)
You

Philip (13:04)
It is a mess, man.

PVSB (13:05)
I need to know if there's anything you've got that can help me in my...

Philip (13:09)
head, We'll talk.

PVSB (13:11)
thank you. All right, so we start at the beginning, we walk in the store, let's flip the script and go to the end of the journey, which is the checkout, one that having been responsible for those register receipts, is near and dear to my heart. Why is checkout such a powerful and historically underutilized media moment?

Kristen (13:29)
Yeah, it's actually really interesting because you would think that the your basket's already full of products and that this isn't another opportunity to talk to a customer that they're already you know have finished their shopping and they're on their way out the door. But I think one of the biggest things that we've heard from our customers is that it's a captive moment and it actually helps to reinforce their decisions. so very similar to when you're at a restaurant and you say you place your order and the waitress says back to you.

Good choice, or that's my favorite. You then feel really good about what you just ordered and it was the right decision. and the same thing with the checkout screens, right? When you have a product in your basket and you see that brand and that product come up, and it has all of the reinforcing messages around why you made that decision to put that product into your basket, and now you're taking it home with you, it gives you that reinforcement that you made the right decision, that you picked the right brand, the right product at shelf.

It's also a great opportunity for our brands to introduce themselves to you. So you might actually have a competitive product in basket, and it actually then gives you that opposite effect of maybe I don't have the right product in my basket, and maybe I should run back and switch it out, or maybe next time I come in, I'm gonna try that other product. and it's also great for complementary products. so what are those synergistic products?

That you might have something in your basket, you know, you might have a face wash, but you didn't put the moisturizer in your basket that time. And so, how do you start to again build that basket, build that behavior so that the next time that person comes in again, we have that really high return rate at CVS with our customers, you know, over 60% coming in at least once a week. So, how did that next trip that they come in that that product is?

PVSB (15:20)
build on that, as you think about those complementary products, you're not just guessing. You have very rich insights from tens of millions of extra care loyalty members to understand when this is in the basket, these other items are also typically found in the basket. when you present those opportunities to consumers, it's highly informed.

Kristen (15:41)
That's right. I mean you just almost teed up our exact tag line. It's not guessing it's data.

PVSB (15:46)
There you go. I like that one. I want to follow up. What are you seeing in terms of impact, especially thinking about reinforcing decisions or driving future purchase behavior?

Kristen (16:00)
Yeah, I think for us it's really about building out a really cohesive experience. So how again how are we connecting in store on our website, on our app, and then with the digital experience and then how do we start to think about bringing that experience out of the store as well? So really creating those multiple touch points, multiple brand moments, but it all has to be connected together and be really personalized, not only for the customer, but for the media.

media asset and the media channel. And that's one of the things we work really closely with our brand partners on as well is that a in-store placement is not just resizing a programmatic digital ad, either in how do we get really scientific based on the data that we have to be able to really help the brands understand the customer behavior and the customer mindset to put the best messages forth in a really concise and consistent way.

PVSB (16:56)
And Phil, on that, how do you as a brand think about the message that you want to efficiently deliver as they're getting ready to leave the store and complete the transaction?

Philip (17:07)
for us

it's one it's you know has to be punchy it has to be and often it is hopefully to affirm the purchase that they make the right decision but potentially also maybe a little bit of education on what it's for or other uses for it so that they're they're thinking of use up rate also not just hey I bought it but now I need to go use it and what am I going to use it for and how often.

think it gives us that opportunity to make it exist.

PVSB (17:40)
Alright, I'll start with Phil and then I'll ask Kristen to comment. Beyond entrance and checkout, how are you thinking about stitching together all in-store touch points into a cohesive customer journey experience?

Philip (17:52)
So,

we're purely in store. think, clearly we can get product off shelf sometimes. Obviously it makes a big difference also in terms of catching people's eye, especially when it's new, especially when it's seasonal. So trying to find another interception point, maybe one or two in store beyond just the shelf can help that shopper on their journey and just kind of maybe help seal the deal. Even if they don't buy it off the display.

And they made them go, actually, I do need that. But I went to the shop to see if they have the one that I want.

PVSB (18:25)
is critically important to you. Delivering a message and not having product in the store is a failure to launch, so to speak. You've built in the enticing communication to the consumer and then they get disappointed that it's not there. working with CVS to make sure that the inventory is showing up on the shelf is critical for your activations.

Philip (18:51)
That is something we are obsessed about. I know in the history of sometimes store labor can be an issue in putting up product or restocking the shelf. And I think it was probably a major shopper pain point, probably starting with COVID and then maybe things have recovered now. But I think working together with CVS to make sure that obviously we have surety of supply, it's in stock, it's in store, it's well-shelled.

And that, from a shopper's standpoint, is magical, right? When they can find what they want, where it's supposed to be.

PVSB (19:27)
And

Kristen, I have to imagine that in order for this all to happen, your team has to be very closely tied with the merchandising group to make sure they understand what you're activating against so that everything comes together, the inventory is all in store, and the consumer gets that comprehensive and delightful experience.

Kristen (19:50)
I think it it what we we call it our one heart approach and so how do we really bring always together CMX, the merchant and the marketing team together and it really helps us not only bring the best experience forward to the customer

brand partners and how do we all sit around the table together and really strategize and look at the data and the insights that we have around the extra care customer, making the right decisions for the brand together in the right approach, the right messaging strategy, the right channel strategy, the right audience strategy, and then coming together to really support that campaign and bring it to market together end to end, which having the inventory on shelf and also driving that performance at the end of the campaign.

It is so important.

PVSB (20:37)
Kristen, you've got 9,000 plus stores. How do you balance that scale with relevance at the local level?

Kristen (20:46)
Yeah, it it really is all about scale and relevance. We have 7,200 standalone stores but 9,000 stores in the in the total portfolio and each of those stores is completely located to that.

So the way that you might visit a store in one city is going to be completely different in a different town and state that you might visit on vacation. It has a localized assortment and it really feels like that community's neighborhood store. And it's really important that we make sure that again we have the right products on the shelf within that store, but that we also have the right messages to those consumers as well, and we can take a

Really targeted and strategic approach as to how we bring that brand messaging to life within those local communities as well.

PVSB (21:34)
All right, visual number two. Let's see. Yes! All right, Phil, let's move from in-store to out-of-store. You participated in one of the first ever experiential activations at the Boston Marathon. What made that opportunity so compelling for a pal to lean in?

Philip (21:54)
So background on the brand Xyzol, which is a brand that you take at night to relieve your allergy symptoms and basically have a productive next day. So

PVSB (22:05)
Good.

Philip (22:06)
our target is basically Gen Z, Millennials, and we, it's a relatively good brand. It's less than 10 years old. It was launched in...

So it's kind of you know, it's a young brand it's the newest allergy medication and So what we've already done before the Boston Marathon is participated in music festivals. So we said, okay, that's where we're gonna engage Experiential marketing we have a mascot Nigel was an owl that people like love taking pictures with So we've got this sort of little flying wheel in music and we said, okay, you know

We're not in the northeast, no festivals are actually in the Boston area that we participate in and I think this opportunity came along and we said, okay, how can we surround this? How can we really make the Boston Marathon relevant to allergy, which it is from a seasonal standpoint and obviously, you know, people who run have to train all winter long and in the spring and they have to be outside running. So how do we sort of treat their symptoms leading up to the marathon?

and then obviously pop in store with activation, with Omni, with display, and really be able to create a wow event, I think, at the Boston Marathon would seem to have gone really well.

PVSB (23:34)
From your perspective, what did that activation unlock that traditional media probably would not have?

Philip (23:40)
Yeah, so the way I like to think about it is you may remember an ad, you do remember a festival or a marathon you went to live in person. And if you are surrounded by sights of an owl that you're going to now remember, you see a booth that you now remember, you see colors that you now remember, so there's nothing like a real in-life experience, and I think that's what we're

PVSB (24:09)
Kristen,

Kristen (24:17)
first thing is being a a Boston resident myself is that the the Boston Marathon is our the biggest and best day in the city every year. but i it really was a great example of again our one heart approach. So when the merchant Dan, actually brought us this opportunity to CMX he said, you know, Xyzol is partnering with the Boston Marathon. They have a team of runners and they wanna be able to bring the brand

To life during this really special moment. Our team quick on the CMX marketing side quickly got to work to really identify where are all of the CVS stores along the 26.2 mile route. And we found that our Newbury Street store is just a block away from the finish line. And so that was the perfect opportunity for us to then work with our CVS real estate team and the

The merchandising team to then say how can we actually utilize this store and elevate the experience for Xyzol and for our customers and for the entire Boston community around this amazing weekend. So, what we what we did, and you can kind of see some of the examples here, is we actually brought Xyzol out of the store onto the sidewalks of Newbury Street, take advantage of the amazing foot traffic over this weekend. They actually closed down.

Newbury Street. So it actually gave us even more room to work with. The Xyzol team set up a tabling event where people could create signs for the runners. They were branded with the Xyzol branding. They could create customized signs

As Philip mentioned, take pictures with the owl, which was a huge, huge hit with all of the families that were in town for the marathon as well. But on top of creating these really memorable experiences for our customers and for the Boston community, it actually improved time spent within the store as well. So we were almost doubling the time spent in store, the dwell time.

just with the event was upwards of ten plus minutes. So people were really staying, activating, talking with the Xyzol team, talking with the CVS team, learning about the product, and then they were going in to purchase, which was the ultimate goal.

PVSB (26:43)
Well time equates to increased transaction volume and frequency

Kristen (26:49)
exactly. And so they were really not only just kind of like stopping by and but they were actually really going deep in in conversation around the brand and the benefits of the brand and actually having those moments to talk about what Xyzol is and why it's different and why it's it's a unique product within the category itself.

PVSB (27:09)
Philip, experiential is gaining momentum but it's still very early for many brands. So if you're talking to some of your colleagues and other companies in this industry, what's pulling marketers back?

Philip (27:23)
art of the possible and really working cross-functionally. with marketing, sales, shopper team, know, everybody, all the merchants at CVS were really, really engaged. CMX was all over it. So I would say, and we just did it once for now, and like we're already thinking like, oh, how do we do it better? know, like what could we add next year? And to me, it's like a muscle, right? Once you start to do experiential marketing, you learn on each event, like what to do best.

next time and whatnot. that's it's like get started if there's a sweet spot for your brain.

Kristen (28:00)
And I and I think you Philip and and mentioned exactly that is that experiential is still so new. only thirty percent of brands are actually doing experiential right now and I think the biggest thing is that a lot of brands are spending a lot of money on sponsorships, but they're not actually able to always then prove out the ROI right and directly correlate it back to to sales, to product sales. And that's one thing with partnering with CMX and being able to do an experiential activation and building on

Of a sponsorship or a larger partnership that's happening at that same time is that we can actually correlate back the brand sales. And we actually saw, I think it was over a 400% increase year over year in a sales lift for the Xyzol SKUs And we also, when we then looked at the next six weeks, we then saw almost a 40% sales lift for Xyzol in the six weeks actually following the event at

as well. So to be able to then prove back that we're moving units, we're driving brand engagement is is a really powerful message to brands around as they're thinking about testing out experiential and how to do it, we can really test and learn together.

PVSB (29:13)
So clicking down since you opened the door on measurement, measurement has always been a challenge in physical retail. How are you helping brands like Opella understand true impact happening now?

Kristen (29:28)
Yeah, everything that we do at CMX has always been rooted in data and measurements. but it's really hard, right? Because the expectation of retail media is that we're measuring one-to-one, and that's not always possible with in-store. And so we have partnered with the IAB, we follow the IAB's measurement standards and best practices, and we're still learning together, not only with the brands but with a lot of our technology partners run in-store as well, as to really how do we

We marry back that exposure so we know who was in our stores, what media was running on those screens or on our audio units, and then we can look back at where those placements were or where they were in store, and then what did they purchase and be able to correlate a little bit of that back and being really transparent with our brands though up front about what we can truly measure, how we are measuring, and then what the performance and outcomes were. And if we're being really transparent.

transparent each other and trying to get better together and and continuing to have great brands like Opella push us on that. We're just gonna continue to move in the right direction.

PVSB (30:37)
Philip, you are responsible to your board and by extension your shareholders to deliver brand equity and long-term value. So you're responsible for delivering both the quarter and the decade. Kind of seems a little challenging to you. So my question is,

What do you need to see to keep investing in in-store and what metrics matter the most to you at Opella?

Philip (31:05)
mean, bottom line is retail sales. We want to see consumption. So that's obviously the first pull, the first signal that we want to see. But beyond that, like you said, we're in this for the long haul and that brand has to keep building equity. Particularly for Zizel, it has very low awareness still as a nine-year-old brand. So the more we can put it in people's head, what's our point of difference? you take that one at night. Okay, that's

than the other ones. you know that penny will eventually drop amongst more households, more shoppers, and then we can grow the brand that way. Short and long.

PVSB (31:46)
and Kristen, from your perspective, how do you feel CVS Media Exchange is enabling brands like Opella to do exactly that to get what they need to make the investment continue and expand?

Kristen (32:00)
I think it's all about great partnership which is kind of what we've been talking about from the beginning is making sure that we're sitting down together and having those really strategic conversations about what are the goals that they're going into the year, the quarter looking for for each of their brands within their portfolio and then working together with us to identify the right audiences, the right media channels, the right time of year to deploy that campaign.

and it's really about that intelligence intelligence and that integration and how we come to market together.

Philip (32:35)
you

PVSB (32:35)
So as we close this out, I'll ask Philip first and then Kristen and second. In a sentence, what do you think will define the next era of in-store media?

Philip (32:49)
I think it will become even more connected in the sense that we're all carrying portable devices. So what are the signals that will happen for each individual shopper and how do you really make it like your store visit and really be able to try to take that to the next level and make it really, really great.

PVSB (33:09)
And the closed loop system of measurements with all of those signals coming together really help you stitch.

Philip (33:15)
that together. It will make us believe it more.

Kristen (33:20)
I think digital in store will continue to grow. I think we just have to find the right balance, right? to not also impede but actually add to the customer journey. But I think with the data that we have we'll continue to be able to use that in smarter ways that are more contextually relevant and really continuing to drive exactly what Philip said that a connected journey experience throughout the store together.

PVSB (33:45)
Philip, Kristen, we want to thank you for stopping by the House of Consumer Goods and Retail here at Cannes for the 2026 Festival and sharing your thoughts on the in-store and beyond. Thank you.

To our listeners and the over 46,000 followers on LinkedIn — thank you for doing what you do every day. Whether you're building brands, driving retail partnerships, deploying technology, or shaping the future of commerce — you are the industry we cover, and this podcast exists because of you.

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Until next time — keep pushing the conversation forward. I'm PVSB, on behalf of my co-host PAPA RAJ, this has been the CPG Guys podcast!