Explaining Nestle's Renewed Focus on In-Store

As the retail media landscape has evolved, so has Nestle’s approach to retail media. And at the Retail Media Summit last week, Nestle director of shopper marketing Renee Hadley explained that this now means a renewed focus on in-store.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed shoppers to e-commerce and the digital path to purchase, but "since then we started to see behavior really start to normalize, and we see a return to in-store," Hadley said. "We see more excitement about our consumers going on treasure hunting missions, looking for new food down the aisles. They're looking to be wowed by retail theater, so I have to take that seriously, and we look at our brand investment. 

"We need to make sure that we're right-sizing those levels, and that we aren't just overspending in the digital landscape. We need to be spending on our budgets where consumers are actually shopping, and to make that kind of data-driven decision."

Nestle is increasingly turning to in-store retail media to meet shoppers at the point of purchase.

Ameet Srivastava, VP, CPG growth, at Quad and a co-panelist with Hadley in a Summit session moderated by P2PI Senior Editor Cyndi Loza, tried to put things in perspective with regard to in-store.

"We've all been trying to drive distribution and visibility of brands in-store for the whole of our CPG careers, right?" he said. "The newness of it is: I don't even like to call it in-store retail media. Actually, I like to call it modern merchandising, and that's in part because, for the first time ever in the retail media ecosystem, we're actually working with the merchants.

"We're seeing this future of in-store retail media as there's more and more solutions and options to do in-store. … It's dynamic, it's digital, it's measurable, and we're able to prove out the ROI of the in-store digital campaigns for Renee and brand teams."

The discussion turned to the importance of in-store media in omnichannel strategies, highlighting its role in connecting different shopping behaviors. Then, the panelists gave their opinions on the role of content, or creative, in in-store media.

"I'm looking for content that is adapted to the right technology and to that right medium, so a static product image, for instance, it might be digital by nature, but it's not going to be dynamic enough for this specific capacity," Hadley said. 

"We think about communication hierarchy from a brand point," she continued. "I've got so much more real estate to play with, to talk about more information, to empower my consumers for stronger decision-making at the shelf with that sort of dynamic ad placement. It's also super contextually relevant. We have our shoppers that are in this point of purchase. We have this medium that can reach them right where they are. 

"We talk about a frequency with our consumers and digital ads. They need to be touched outside of the store with digital placements across social and above the line. And right here, this creative can really help meet us in that moment at purchase."