News Briefs

The Hershey Co. has named a new chief customer officer: Tiffany Menyhart, who will lead the company’s U.S. confection sales team.

Menyhart joins Hershey from Kraft Heinz, where she spent nearly five years managing strategic accounts and growth channels as area VP. Prior to that, she was the VP of U.S. category leadership at Mars Wrigley — a role in which she developed a category development strategy across all channels while accelerating category growth across the $7 billion U.S. confectionary business, according to LinkedIn. 

Her background includes diving into trends and analytics to develop merchandising strategies that drive conversion of incremental, basket-building products and transforming and upskilling teams. She was hired for her track record in driving growth and transformation and elevating retail partner relationships.

Andrew Archambault, president of U.S. confection at Hershey, said Menyhart’s extensive experience across confection and snacking categories will help the company focus on the customer while meeting the needs of retail partners and consumers. 

Archambault recently joined the company, tasked with overseeing brands such as Reese's and Jolly Rancher. He took over for Michael Del Pozzo, who departed the company on Dec. 12 after just a few months in the role. 

Menyhart's is the latest leadership announcement amid a series of moves following news that CEO Michele Buck would be retiring effective June 30, 2026.

Aldi is betting on automation to enhance and expedite the delivery of product descriptions on its digital touchpoints, including its website, mobile app and email.

Through a partnership with Digital Wave Technology, the discount grocer will leverage generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) solutions to create on-brand, customer-focused product copy and marketing content for Aldi’s digital channels in the U.S.

Digital Wave’s AI Copywriter creates precise, search-engine-optimized product descriptions and multilingual marketing copy. 

The AI Product Attribution solution extracts key product attributes from images and packaging, closing data gaps to improve digital discoverability, according to a media release.

The companies also said automated product attribution will increase search visibility, organic search rankings and website navigation, reducing customer confusion and improving operational efficiency.

“Our AI-native solutions will integrate with the existing Aldi digital infrastructure, driving revenue growth and improving profitability while delivering exceptional product experiences,” Lori Schafer, CEO of Digital Wave Technology, said in the release. “We’re excited to support Aldi as it continues to set benchmarks in the grocery sector.”

Jivox has launched a compliance tool that uses advanced AI automation to reduce delays caused by creative approvals in retail media ads. 

The marketing technology solution provider's Creative Compliance Checker minimizes the expensive and time consuming work involved in ensuring retail media ads are compliant with each retail media network guidelines on which the ads will run.

"The growing demand for retail media combined with the proliferation of retailers and retail media networks make creative approval a new and significant challenge for both retailers and advertisers," said Diaz Nesamoney, founder & CEO of Jivox, in a news release. "The solution lies in an autonomous approach to checking creative compliance by using AI to do the work for us — quickly and easily — that will help us save time while reducing costs and potential revenue loss."

The tool is powered by an agentic AI workflow that incorporates retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to ensure that any retailer's guidelines are followed by any ad creative being analyzed.

Compliance rules, guidelines and ad specifications can be uploaded to the compliance checker in plain English text. Next, creative files can be uploaded for compliance checking. Within a few seconds, the tool produces a compliance score along with a report detailing rules that have not been adhered to, along with actionable insights about the creative.

"This tool further enables brands and agencies to scale up their retail media efforts without the lengthy back-and-forth creative approvals, the associated costs and potential loss of sales — all because they have not been able to launch promotional campaigns on time across multiple retailers," Nesamoney said in the news release.

The compliance checker ensures retailers and advertisers' efficiency by quickly flagging the most obvious non-compliant issues without having to deploy an army of people to do this work manually.

This capability is a significant new addition to Jivox IQ DaVinci, a platform that enables retailers and advertisers to generate creatives and activate retail media campaigns using pre-approved templates to ensure creative compliance from the start. Brands and agencies seeking bespoke creative can also use IQ DaVinci to develop them and then use the compliance checker to ensure that bespoke creatives also meet retailer creative compliance requirements.

Jivox is allowing each brand, agency and retailer user to test drive the tool at no charge.

Dollar General has entered a partnership allowing advertisers on its retailer media network to utilize experiential sampling opportunities to reach shoppers in their local communities. 

An exclusive partnership with Recess enables Dollar General Media Network (DGMN) brand partners to employ the Recess Experiential Network to hyper-target Dollar General customers through community-driven sampling programs to build brand trust.

Through Recess' program, brands will be able to build top-of-mind awareness and product recognition by integrating products into consumers' daily lives before they enter the store. The targeting capabilities allow advertisers to execute experiential sampling programs where community members and leaders distribute products to their attendees — creating an endorsement halo around the trial experience, according to a news release from Recess. 

Recess' platform includes audience-targeting technology that advertisers can use to target locations with a high index of shoppers who frequent more than 6,000 retailers.

"We're excited to offer this first-to-market experiential retail media unit that will allow our advertisers to reach more than 90 million Dollar General customers in their daily lives," Charlene Charles, head of DGMN operations, said in the release. "Having a predominantly rural footprint with approximately 80% of stores serving communities of 20,000 or fewer people, Dollar General stores serve as a local pillar, and Recess will help extend DG's reach deeper to support advertisers in building brand loyalty and awareness."

In-store retail media technology company CoolerX (formerly Cooler Screens) has officially launched a spin-off venture, RPM Labs.

RPM Labs, which is led by CEO John Gomez, will power marketing and retail media for merchants on screens in stores and in customers' digital wallets, according to a media release.

RPM Labs’ first launch is RPM Wallet, a mobile wallet marketing solution that turns digital payment wallets into direct retail media and merchandising touchpoints. 

RPM Labs' AI Intent Engine analyzes point-of-sale and contextual signals to develop AI predictions, matching them with relevant content. This content is deployed in mobile wallets and on screens within stores to capture shopper attention and enhance the customer experience.

With RPM Wallet, merchants with “established” retailer media networks can utilize this new inventory to enhance their e-commerce retail media sales efforts and develop stronger relationships with their customers, the company said. Customers will receive personalized offers and be able to receive and use digital coupons and passes in real time in their digital wallets.

"We're applying our technology in an entirely new way, bringing retail media capabilities to an unexplored frontier," Gomez said in the release. "By leveraging the deep retail media expertise we’ve cultivated, we're uniquely solving both customer and merchant challenges in-store and unlocking new retail media inventory. Digital wallets represent an untapped opportunity for the industry, and we're pioneering this new space."

Ahold Delhaize USA is doubling down on its use of data to drive growth by renewing its strategic partnership with market research firm Circana. 

“Circana’s platform enables Ahold Delhaize USA companies to provide both CPG partners and internal teams with the tools and insights needed to make data-driven decisions,” Keith Nicks, chief digital officer, Ahold Delhaize USA, said in a media release. 

Circana is the preferred data provider for Ahold Delhaize USA chains. The firm supplies analytical support to strengthen decision-making, improve supply chain efficiencies and better understand shopper behaviors. 

[Also Read: Ahold Delhaize USA Replaces Digital Coupon Provider]

In 2025, the partnership will introduce new enhancements to further this work, including:

• A unified common product hierarchy (CPH) to ensure consistency and precision in data analysis.
• Enhanced reporting that simplifies collaboration with streamlined insights.
• A comprehensive and holistic performance view across all Ahold Delhaize USA brands.
• Innovative tools and resources, such as a weekly shopper promotional evaluation tool and supply chain forecast for more accurate demand planning and promotional effectiveness.

This renewal ensures ongoing access to advanced analytic tools that encourage innovation and deeper collaboration with consumer packaged goods companies.