Happy Shoppers, Happy Retailers, Happy Creatives
Typically, a headline serves as a summary of what you're about to read. But, in this case, it's more of a spoiler or takeaway of these thoughts. It's interesting — I was born in Argentina and have lived across different countries in Latin America. Yet the complexity of understanding how retailers work in North America is on a whole different level in terms of size, compared to the southern part of the continent.
Take Walmart, for example. In Latin America, it operates as a hypermarket or superstore — commonly referred to as modern trade — with its digital platform seeing significant growth after the COVID-19 pandemic. In the U.S., however, Walmart functions more as a full retail channel, with digital operations as robust as its brick-and-mortar presence. This even includes a subscription model through Walmart+, which is somewhat comparable to Amazon's model.
For creatives, this is music to their ears. It's like navigating a map with endless routes for developing transactional ideas. Consumers shop 24/7, practically wherever they want. But working on national campaigns, knowing each retailer has its own way of operating, is truly exciting. A single campaign can keep the same essence and spirit while adapting across the country, depending on each retailer's style — whether it’s the "no QR codes in-store" policy, "clean store" requirements and more. This adaptability presents both new challenges and opportunities as each retailer's nuances demand tailored approaches.
What I often tell our partners is that our practice offers an incredible opportunity to not only drive transactions, basket-building and incremental sales, but also to enhance brand-building. Our creative ideas are always measured with conversion in mind. We grow brands by increasing margins and strengthening brand presence. The challenge is that commerce programs may not always look like brand-building initiatives — but that's changing. The best measure of success comes from both sales results and brand recognition, and that’s because we work with cultural insights that go beyond just the channel. Naturally, this leads to award opportunities, as commerce ideas can win big, not just at the Effie Awards but also at Cannes.
For that to happen we created CTA — no, not Call to Action, but our own framework for ideation from top to bottom. CTA stands for Culture, Transaction and Amplification:
- C represents culture, ensuring relevance to people, their values and their lifestyle.
- T is for transaction — this is where we address a key tension or insight through a conversion-driven idea.
- A is amplification, focusing on how our ideas can scale, generate buzz and build the brand.
This framework ensures that we aren't just focusing on conversions; we're building a brand that resonates. I emphasize the CTA because there's a misconception that commerce ideas are solely about transactions. To move from a tactical idea to a fully developed commerce concept, you must always consider cultural relevance and the broader impact of our efforts. When our partners recognize that commerce is about CTA, they see that brand building and conversion can work together, creating disruptive and relevant ideas. It's a win-win: Brand growth + business growth = concepts merging into one powerful combination.
Of course, the classic debate remains — what the consumer wants versus what the retailer needs and what our clients are requesting. But that's the beauty of CTA: a framework that helps us be strategic in generating creative ideas that are relevant to consumers and appealing enough to keep retailers satisfied. By gaining those incremental displays, we also keep our clients happy. When everyone is happy, my team of creatives at Momentum, the strategy team, business leaders and myself are happy as well.
About the Author
Adriano Lombardi is the SVP, executive creative director of commerce across North America for Momentum Worldwide. Lombardi is an award-winning leader with a wealth of experience in the sector. He has led commerce initiatives for Coca-Cola across Mexico and Latin America.