Skip to main content

How Albertsons Media Collective Is Working to Close the Loop

Liz Roche and Michelle Weiskittel share how the Collective is enhancing media effectiveness through automation, personalization and integrated measurement strategies.
group editorial director lisa johnston
Liz Roche
Liz Roche

Albertsons Media Collective is intensifying media and business effectiveness through automation with the help of a new exec. 

Liz Roche joined the organization as VP of media and measurement this month, in part drawn by its large appetite for testing and learning, she told P2PI during NRF’s Big Show in New York. Most recently chief data officer at Accelerate360, Roche has also held roles at Havas CX and Facebook. 

As her title indicates, Roche’s mandate includes further bridging media and measurement across the Collective. She said media should be executed with outcomes-based measurement in mind, and “when it comes to measurement, what we're hearing is incrementality, incrementality, incrementality. We're focused on closing the loop.”

In-store retail media is a big part of this loop and represents a growth initiative for Albertsons as a whole. 

“Media doesn't live in a silo, merchandising doesn't live in a silo, and trade dollars don't live in a silo,” Roche noted. “Shoppers don't shop on promotional calendars. These are all things that we've created very artificially.” 

Breaking down these silos means trade, media and merchandising dollars can blend. “What we're focused on, especially in the measurement space, is where there are opportunities for one plus one to equal three, and to really drive incremental returns by bringing together merch, trade, digital and media,” said Roche. 

[Also read: Learn more about Albertsons’ 2025 priorities] 

Transparency, naturally, is a key component in all of this, and Albertsons is among the ranks in favor of more standardization within retail media. It announced a partnership with TransUnion this month that intends to reduce friction in marketing mix modeling, while a new API lets advertisers integrate Albertsons campaign performance data into their own measurement models.

“It's tough because measurement tends to be a lot science and a little bit religion, but in order to really see retail media grow as a vertical, we need to reach more standardization,” Roche said. “We can't make it so complex for our CPG partners to decipher what's working and what's not working, and standardization is a huge piece of that.”

As part of this, they’re working to further standardization for brand safety, viewability and fraud, said Michelle Weiskittel, head of media, creative and operations. “Where the metrics can be similar is where we want to make it easier for our clients and our agencies to enact with us, whether that's our own technology or accepting third-party tags,” she said. 

Advertisement - article continues below
Advertisement
Michelle Weiskittel
Michelle Weiskittel

Creative Automation

Given its multiple banners, Albertsons’ creative process can be complex, said Weiskittel. “We are a very localized company, and that leads itself to personalization and what we know about our customers. … We want to make sure that we are treating our customers to what they deserve in that local market.”

The company just rounded the first year of a partnership with Capgemini to improve business efficiency and effectiveness through automation. This includes launching a creative automation tool that saves one business day from their time to market, said Weiskittel.  

“The end result to the client is that we can process more creative, faster, to drive back that personalization and localization,” she added. 

While they’re not yet using AI to develop creative — “Our CPGs really have strong brand guidelines,” noted Weiskittel — they are using it to more easily test copy, creative and other basic elements. 

[Related: See where Albertsons Media Collective sits in the Omnichannel Landscape]

Looking ahead, both Roche and Weiskittel see AI playing a heavier role within operations and creative at the organization. They’re doubling down on their use of machine learning within measurement, as well as exploring where generative AI can be applied appropriately.

For example, Weiskittel pointed to the potential of using generative AI within media planning — thanks to its natural language and rapid data-analysis capabilities — while maintaining human oversight of creative. “It opens up the opportunity to have more creative versions being more personalized.”

The ultimate goal for all of these efforts is straightforward: to make it as easy as possible for their partners to work with them. 

“We want to make it easy to understand their results, but we also want to make it easy for them to execute campaigns with us,” Roche stressed. 

X
This ad will auto-close in 10 seconds