General Mills, Loblaw Advance Talk Retail Media Team Sports
General Mills, the maker of such historical brands as Cheerios and Lucky Charms, as well as emerging brands like Larabar energy bars and Annie’s all-natural organic food line, is on a journey to maximize retail media opportunities.
This effort has involved shifting mindsets, adopting a "team sport" internal structure to retail media planning, and building partnerships in closed-loop measurement with retail media networks (RMNs) — directly linking spend to tangible results like customer conversions.
The company shared insights into this journey on Feb. 19 in Toronto at the second annual Retail Media Summit Canada. Jeevan Grewal, associate director of omni-channel at General Mills, joined Rohit Sriram, VP and GM of online grocery and retail media, Loblaw Companies Limited, for the opening fireside keynote.
Loblaw’s retail media arm, Loblaw Advance, harnesses its PC Optimum loyalty program, which boasts 16 million active users, along with its e-commerce platforms, which engage 11 million unique digital shoppers weekly. Together, these loyalty and digital channels offer brands a powerful way to influence the 8 million monthly shopper visits at Loblaw retail banners.
Citing data from Loblaw, Grewal said that more than 53% of consumers engage with a digital platform before making an in-store purchase. “It’s an on-demand world,” he said, which is why his focus is on bringing to market “very holistic, seamless campaigns, knowing consumers are shopping in a very multi-fashion.”
To better support the development of these campaigns, General Mills merged its e-commerce and shopping marketing teams into one unit two years ago. “A few weeks ago, we took it one step further and moved the team up into marketing to ensure that we have a closer connection with our brand experience counterparts,” he added, “all while remaining with very strong connections with our sales counterparts.”
Characterizing retail media “a team sport,” Grewal told attendees at the sold-out event that these structural changes have ensured strong cross-functional collaboration. “Retail media comes to life in so many ways, across so many teams, that if you don't have teams that are fully bought in on the consumer trends and how the industry is changing, then it's going to be really hard to [be successful],” he said.
The other big shift has been made in adapting to all the rich data retail media provides versus traditional media, said Grewal.
“Retail media is a lot more data-driven. We’ve had to build a lot more in-house capabilities,” Grewal added. He emphasized the importance of close partnerships in retail media, noting with the right partners on the journey, the goalposts keep shifting. “This space is so dynamic, and we’re working to keep pace with it.”
In addressing the mindset shift, Sriram said you need buy-in from the C-suite. This requires highlighting measurement that illustrates retail media’s business impacts.
“It helps at the senior level when you can show them really strong data points,” he said. “But then you need senior leaders to communicate with other departments at that level saying, ‘Here’s what we’re observing.’”
By doing this, Sriram said, an entire organization’s thinking becomes better aligned, with teams working in a more flexible manner.
“Naturally, you have an opportunity to receive so much more engagement from leaders on both sides,” added Grewal about retail media sitting at the intersection of sales and marketing. “For us, a lot of those wins are shared in a variety of forums.”
Wins that have been most transformative, he said, have been in “boosting conversations.” Rather than just a quick email, “which we sometimes have to do,” he suggested going deeper, potentially by bringing in a partner and walking through case studies with leaders from across the organization in a single room. “That can spark some really good conversation and potentially move to ‘test and learns.’”
