News Briefs

The Home Depot’s retailer media network, Orange Apron Media, has partnered with retail media technology company Pentaleap Inc. to enhance its sponsored products strategy.

Orange Apron Media has incorporated Pentaleap's retail media technology to deliver more relevant, timely ads that align closely with shopper needs during their shopping journey, according to a media release. 

Pentaleap’s Fluid Relevancy Engine, which utilizes an algorithm that processes extensive contextual data, helps Orange Apron Media dynamically position ads to the right customers at the right time.

"By integrating sponsored products with the intelligence that powers our site's relevancy, we ensure our advertisements are tailored to our shoppers,” Babcock added. “This approach boosts both customer satisfaction and advertiser experience.”

Advertisers have already been leveraging these enhanced sponsored ads, and Home Depot says it has already observed a “notable uptick” in returns on ad spend.

Pentaleap’s Retail Media Platform

This news coincided with Pentaleap unveiling its modular retail media platform, which creates an “open, efficient ecosystem” for advertisers and RMNs, including existing partners Staples, THG, Casio America and Pague Menos, according to a company statement. 

For RMNs, the Publisher Manager portal gives “full control over site monetization” with tools like the Fluid Ad Server, SSP and yield management, designed to drive additional revenue without sacrificing relevancy, per the statement. 

For advertisers, the Campaign Manager streamlines campaign creation, allowing them to tailor bids to priority terms, products and audiences with dynamic pacing, suggested bids and real-time reporting.

"We believe retailers should have the freedom to connect with any demand partners, fostering more open, efficient bid auctions," said Andreas Reiffen, CEO of Pentaleap. "Our goal is to make retail media accessible to all brands while ensuring seamless purchasing experiences. By promoting non-exclusive partnerships, we're committed to helping retailers thrive and compete with giants like Amazon."

"Amazon and Walmart have set a high bar for search ad coverage, consistently leading the way in showcasing sponsored products,” added Andrew Lipsman, independent analyst & consultant at Media, Ads + Commerce. “By closing the gap, other RMNs can accelerate their monetization simply by unlocking the potential from their existing inventory."

Pentaleap is currently in contract discussions with emerging RMNs in North America, South America, Australia and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Market research firm Circana has entered into definitive agreements to acquire NCSolutions (NCS), the joint venture between Nielsen and Catalina designed to improve advertising effectiveness, as well as Nielsen’s Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) business.

Nielsen’s MMM business enables the CPG ecosystem to assess the impact of their investments, understand what’s working and optimize marketing budgets accordingly. NCS is a purchase-based ad targeting and measurement firm serving the CPG industry.

With these two acquisitions, Circana will expand its media measurement capabilities while also increasing its marketing mix modeling, unified measurement solutions and footprint, according to a joint statement. As a result, clients of all three organizations will gain broader access to audience targeting, media measurement, in-flight optimization and clean room solutions. 

Both businesses eventually will be integrated into Circana’s media team, which works with advertisers and their agency partners to plan, target, activate, measure and optimize media spend. Its media solutions portfolio is built on an enterprise technology platform with CPG and general merchandise shopper, sales and causal data sets, and advanced analytics. 

The transactions are expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2024.

“We are excited to welcome NCSolutions and Nielsen’s Marketing Mix Modeling business to Circana to expand and enhance our media capabilities for our clients,” Kirk Perry, president and CEO of Circana, said in the statement. “Both businesses have incredible expertise, solutions and clients that, when combined with Circana’s data and technology assets, will fuel clients’ growth.”

“NCSolutions and Nielsen’s Marketing Mix Modeling are strong businesses that deliver spectacular value for clients,” added Karthik Rao, CEO of Nielsen. “As Nielsen focuses on expanding its leadership position in audience measurement and content data, we’re thrilled that the tremendous leadership and passionate teams at NCS and MMM can continue to accelerate their growth through synergies within Circana.”

Data and technology company Inmar Intelligence has appointed Ranjana Choudhry as senior vice president, media and data platforms. Choudhry brings more than 25 years of media experience across retail, CPG and agency sectors to the data and technology company’s MarTech leadership team.

Choudhry most recently served as vice president of advertising and social media at Wakefern Food Corp., where she built an internal advertising agency to power campaigns, drove the retailer’s digital transformation and spearheaded the launch of its retailer media network, Wakefern Media Exchange, according to a statement from Inmar. 

At Inmar, Choudhry leads the company’s media solutions, encompassing Moments Media, social and retail media networks. Her core priorities include harnessing Inmar’s data insights to deliver highly targeted campaigns that resonate with consumers, driving overall business growth and ensuring a more seamless consumer journey. According to her LinkedIn profile, she started at Inmar in July.

“I am thrilled to be joining Inmar as the new lead of the company’s media solutions,” Chouldhry said in the statement. “Leveraging Inmar’s expansive data sets and strong retail partnerships, I’m excited to start developing efficient and impactful marketing campaigns, and ultimately solving global business challenges for our customers across retail sectors.”

Prior to her role at Wakefern, Choudhry served as chief client officer and managing director of Red Fuse Agency, where she was responsible for managing all Colgate-Palmolive brands globally. She has also held roles as regional managing director, Latin America, and global account director and general manager, India at Young & Rubicam. She’s also an adjunct professor at New York University. 

Rob Weisberg, president of MarTech solutions at Inmar Intelligence, added: “[Chouldhry’s] deep understanding of the media landscape will be instrumental in driving business outcomes and delivering a seamless customer experience.”

This new hire, according to Inmar, continues the momentum from the company's partnership with Northeast Grocery Inc., the parent company of Price Chopper/Market 32 and Tops Markets, announced in July. It also follows 13 industry awards for excellence in social media, technology, business, data and marketing the company received in 2024, including the Path to Purchase Institute’s Women of Excellence Award for Business Excellence.

Integrated commerce agency Harvest Group has partnered with Stackline, a retail intelligence and software company, to offer more data-driven insights related to sales and marketing performance on Amazon. 

This collaboration gives Harvest Group’s client partners access to Stackline's data solutions. Harvest Group will integrate the data into its Amazon service offerings, enabling more “accurate and actionable” analytics to inform brands’ Amazon strategies, according to a joint statement.

The Stackline datasets that Harvest Group is incorporating into its Amazon offerings includes sales, spending patterns, keyword search trends, and traffic and conversion analytics, spanning more than 1 billion products available across the retail landscape. 

“Our partnership with Stackline allows us to combine the best retail and shopper insights that exist in the marketplace with our best-in-class managed service that helps clients accomplish their growth goals,” Harvest Group CEO Ross Cully said in the statement. “Data and technology create competitive advantages as commerce and media converge.”

“Our collaboration with Harvest Group marks a significant milestone as we strive to enhance the success of our brand and agency partners worldwide,” added Michael Lagoni, CEO of Stackline. “We will leverage our collective [knowledge, data, insights] and retail technology to help every client accelerate performance and drive sustainable growth across their entire business."

Ahold Delhaize’s The Giant Co. has promoted Rebecca Lupfer to senior vice president and chief merchant, effective immediately. In her new role, Lupfer leads all aspects of merchandising for the company as well as commercial planning and pricing, reporting directly to The Giant Co.’s president, John Ruane.

Lupfer joined Ahold Financial Services in 2005 as a business analyst and held various positions before joining Ahold Delhaize USA in 2016 as a portfolio lead for seasonal merchandising, according to a statement. She joined The Giant Co. in 2018 as director of merchandising planning and has held various positions over the last six years, including VP of merchandising - center store, VP of the company’s Mid-Atlantic division, and, most recently, chief financial officer. 

“With nearly 20 years of retail grocery experience spanning nearly all areas of the business, [Lupfer] brings a tremendous amount of expertise to the table as well as an incredible passion for building strong teams that deliver results,” Ruane said in a statement. “With her strong knowledge of our business, team and customers, I know The Giant Company will continue to be the grocery store of choice for customers and team members alike.”  

Lupfer currently serves on the board of directors for the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, and the Academy of Food Marketing and The Food Marketing Educational Foundation at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. 

In addition, she serves as the executive sponsor of the company’s women’s business resource group. 

Experiential retail media company Freeosk is enhancing its in-store discovery platform through a new integration with Place Exchange, a supply platform for programmatic out-of-home (OOH) media. 

The partnership offers agency and brand advertisers access to programmatically plug into Freeosk’s in-store digital video inventory and activate messaging on the discovery kiosks through the same demand-side platforms (DSPs) they already use, according to a media release. The inventory/technology will initially be available at Wakefern’s ShopRite.

The ad solutions include verified traffic sources based on real consumers actively shopping at physical stores, where a majority of purchases and shopping decisions are made. The most recent quarterly report from the U.S. Department of Commerce indicates that in-store commerce represents over 84% of total U.S. retail sales.

“The demand for in-store retail media activation is surging as marketers push for incremental growth opportunities,” Ari Buchalter, CEO of Place Exchange, said in the release. “Brands want highly motivating, immersive experiences to make lasting impressions that promote trial and build CLV (customer lifetime value).”

The Freeosk platform engages shoppers often in high-traffic aisles midway through a shopping journey, offering product samples, opt-in trials and little experiences at the kiosks. A rotating loop of dynamic media on the kiosks is designed to engage shoppers and influence in-store decisions and buying behavior. 

“The integration will meet the growing demand for highly-effective in-store retail media campaigns and drive more ad dollars from national brands to retail environments,” Matt Eichorn, president, co-founder, and CEO at Freeosk, added. “Together we are making product discovery easier while reducing risk aversion for shoppers.” 

Freeosk’s solutions are expected to scale in both the physical and programmatic worlds, per the release.