News Briefs

From Aug. 1-14, select Best Buy stores will serve as temporary PokeStops as part of Niantic's Pokemon Go, the free augmented reality mobile game that lets players catch and fight digital monsters based on their real-world location.

For two weeks, Pokemon Go trainers can visit more than 800 Best Buy stores turned PokeStops to find and collect essential items, like PokeBalls and Pokemon eggs.

Best Buy is also drawing attention to the latest collection of Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG) products, which mostly launched in June, including:

• The Pokemon Go Elite trainer box expansion, including 65 card sleeves featuring Mewtwo, 45 Pokemon TCG energy cards and a collector’s box for the cards.
• The Mewtwo V or Melmetal V Pokemon Go V battle decks in multiple styles, including a 60-card deck, three reference cards and one code card to play online.
• The Alolan Exeggutor V Pokemon Go collection, including four booster packs and one code card for Pokemon TCG Live.

INEO Tech Corp., the developer and operator of the INEO Media Network (a digital advertising and analytics solution for retailers), in July entered into a programmatic partnership with Broadsign, a platform provider for digital-out-of-home (DOOH) programmatic advertising. 

With this agreement, advertisers and media buying agencies who utilize Broadsign's Reach platform will gain access and be able to purchase ad space on INEO's Media Network of display screens located at the front entrance of retail stores.

"Teaming with Broadsign allows us to make our inventory more accessible to advertisers looking to reach consumers at the last mile,” said Kyle Hall, CEO of INEO, in a news release. “We're thrilled about the new revenue potential this partnership provides and look forward to continuing to grow the INEO Media Network and increasing our advertising fill rates."

"Connecting with consumers in-store can influence purchasing decisions and help grow brand loyalty when the right messages are put forth. INEO's network is highly desirable to advertisers as interest in reaching retail audiences at the point of purchase continues to grow, and we're excited to onboard this inventory to Reach to benefit media buyers," Broadsign sales director Karim Kanji said in the release.

Surfside Solutions Inc., a data and marketing platform servicing the cannabis industry, made its end-to-end marketing technology generally available to Canadian dispensaries and brands in July.

Surfside combines its first-party customer data platform and a demand side platform to provide an "all-in-one" solution for cannabis businesses. The businesses will be able to activate customer data by advertising to new and existing customers across websites and mobile apps, according to a company news release.

"By giving us the ability to advertise to local cannabis consumers with digital ads and track the results for both e-commerce and in-store sales, Surfside helps make sure that every ad dollar we spend is helping us grow," Will Alexander, head of marketing at Burb, a British Columbia-based dispensary chain and cannabis brand, said in the release.

The Surfside platform enables cannabis businesses to:

• Advertise to cannabis consumers across more than one million websites and mobile apps.
• Reach custom and lookalike audiences based on some-25,000 behavioral attributes.
• Track in-store and e-commerce results from ad campaigns in a performance dashboard.

"We have been building our presence and capabilities in Canada through a series of partnerships and campaigns over the last twelve months and we can't wait to start helping more Canadian clients grow as we invest more heavily into this important market," said Travis Scadron, vice president of business development at Surfside, in the release.

Music, media and technology company Stingray has partnered with Geopath, a nonprofit organization that provides audience metrics for out-of-home advertising, to measure retail-based digital audio out-of-home (AOOH) advertising impressions in the U.S.

Geopath will utilize verified third-party audience measurement data, technology and media research methodologies — using a holistic integrated approach — to provide tools enabling advertisers to quantify this new retail media format as part of the company’s media mix.

Stingray Advertising’s retail-based digital AOOH advertising network connects brands with highly qualified consumers during their in-store shopping journey. This is achieved with contextually relevant audio messages that are digitally ad-served (directly or programmatically) to shoppers. While this category is applicable in various retail sectors, it is currently expanding, particularly in grocery and convenience stores, where brands can have an immediate impact on consumers' decisions.

Stingray’s network includes Ahold Delhaize, Albertsons Cos., Brookshires, CVS Pharmacy, Jean Coutu, Metro, Rite Aid, Southeastern Grocers, Tops Markets, Walmart Canada and Weis Market, with coverage across Canada and every designated market area in the U.S.

"Location-based AOOH cuts through the cacophony of in-store messages, giving the advertiser an undiluted share of the space and access to an unrivaled composition of principal shoppers while they shop," said Ryan Fuss, senior vice president of Stingray Advertising, in a news release. "Brands can share their voice and tailor ads to precise location proximities, conquesting strategies and consumer journeys, all through the power of retail-based digital audio advertising."

Stingray Advertising’s in-store audio advertising network reaches 140 million shoppers each week in over 20,000 grocery retailers, superstores, discount stores and pharmacies in North America, according to the company.

"[Geopath’s] ability to use and combine both mobile data and first-party transactional data gives Stingray the ability to deploy quickly and ensure accurate measurement across our inventory," said Philippe Cote, VP of technologies at Stingray, in the release. "For the first time, advertisers will be able to access Geopath-measured audio inventory directly at the point of purchase while benefiting from Stingray's industry-leading audio ad verification technologies. This is a game changer."

Emerging CPG brand Egglife Foods recently revealed it has gained national distribution with Sam's Club.

Sam's Club stores across the U.S. will stock 12-packs of Egglife everything bagel egg white wraps, a tortilla substitute made with cage-free egg whites, garlic, onion, poppy and hemp seeds, and sea salt.

"We're so excited to expand the reach of this better-for-you product to families across the country," said Stephen Koehler, senior buyer at Sam's Club, in a news release. "Our members are always looking to discover the next big health innovation, which is why it makes perfect sense to stock Egglife at our locations nationwide."

"Sam's Club is a perfect environment to test new and unique products, and nothing is more innovative than Egglife," said Ross Lipari, chief sales officer at Egglife Foods, in the release. "We're looking forward to seeing where this partnership takes us."

In the past 18 months, Egglife says it has earned a 500% growth in retail doors, with its egg white wraps now available in over 10,000 stores across the country as well as on Instacart or online at EgglifeFoods.com. Egglife’s line of simple and fresh foods are high in protein, but free of sugar, fat and gluten, according to the company.

Walmart Connect, the retail giant’s closed-loop omnichannel media business, has partnered with Omnicom Media, the media services division of Omnicom Group. The partnership marks the first such agreement between Walmart Connect and an agency holding company, according to a news release.

Making the announcement at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Walmart executive vice president and chief revenue officer Seth Dallaire said, "As marketers prepare for the deprecation of third-party cookies, we're building a platform and ecosystem that leverages the scale of Walmart's first-party data and strong customer relationships to help them deliver strong ROI in an increasingly fragmented environment. Our partnership with Omnicom illustrates Walmart Connect's focus on driving growth, improving product capabilities and educating the industry on the role retail media platforms have in delivering measurable solutions that connect clients with omnichannel shoppers."

Spanning pricing, agency support, ongoing product feedback and ground-floor opportunities, the partnership particularly enables cross-screen planning against Walmart audiences in Omni (i.e., Omnicom's open operating system that facilitates the entire consumer purchasing journey). This allows Omnicom's agencies to serve up connected experiences across media and commerce platforms within owned, earned and paid environments.

Planners can identify domains, apps and screens with the most effective reach and cost for Walmart audiences. Additionally, using the Omni ID, they can also push advertiser's first-party data to the Walmart DSP where it combines with Walmart audiences.

Walmart Connect and Omnicom first collaborated in 2021 with Omnicom Media Group's participation in beta tests for the Walmart DSP's frequency cap function.