News Briefs

Wakefern Food Corp., the supermarket co-op and parent company of ShopRite, Price Chopper and The Fresh Grocer, is expanding usage of Freeosk’s interactive sampling kiosks to increase its multisensory retail media activations in stores.

Following a successful pilot, Wakefern is placing Freeosk display units in 95 ShopRite and The Fresh Grocer stores, according to a media release. The kiosks serve as in-store “discovery destinations” for new products and categories. They offer digital media space via large touchscreens as well as provide secondary merchandising space for product and dispense free samples.

According to the company’s release, Freeosk campaigns generate an average sales lift of about 50%, with 70% of buyers being new to the brand and 20% of the converted shoppers repeating purchases post-campaign. 

“Trial lowers barriers to entry for products and expands the shopper base for brands by attracting incremental users to the category while in-store,” Natalie Menza-Crowe, director of marketing and wellness strategy for Wakefern, said in the release. “By capturing the shopper activity, brands are provided transparent measurement and retail media opportunities to engage with emerging and renewed brand users.”  

According to Merkel’s 2022 Retail Media Research Report, just 9% of U.S. retail media networks offer in-store digital media for brand campaigns. However, that number is poised to grow as the connected store experience trends upward and more retailers and brands look to offer a more comprehensive approach to retail media offerings, including with multisensory in-store activations.

Publicis Groupe’s CitrusAd has introduced keyword bidding to help brands and advertising agencies enhance their campaigns and retail media strategies.

With the new bid-by-keyword capability, which is expected to go live in June, marketers will be able to include multiple bid strategies on each keyword within a single campaign, according to a media release.

Keyword bidding, also known as a pay-per-click (PPC) bid, represents the amount of money you are willing to spend for a single click on a given keyword or group of keywords to help secure top ad placements of search results.

CitrusAd offers a unified, self-serve platform that delivers shopper-relevant advertising experiences on commerce websites and across the open web.

The CitrusAd platform, powered by Epsilon, already suggests appropriate keywords and allows the advertiser to choose all keywords, while also showing the performance of each keyword within campaigns, with visibility into share of voice and percentage of impressions won. Now, brands and agencies can run campaigns on CitrusAd and optimize based on the performance of selected keywords. 

This new functionality is the first in a series of platform enhancements that CitrusAd is rolling out to help brands and advertisers easily create and manage campaigns.

“While a campaign may have had a [cost-per-click] bid across the board initially, it was incredibly clear on our platform that some keywords are more valuable to marketers than others,” Adam Skinner, managing director, retail media networks, CitrusAd, said in the release. “The new bid-by-keyword capability, allows marketers to weigh their campaigns by the most effective keywords for profitable results.”

On “National Orange Juice Day” on May 4, Dole Packaged Foods launched a petition to establish Aug. 17, 2023, as “National Pineapple Juice Day.”

Dole is putting its weight behind a cause it cares about, and time will tell if the American public cares too. The canned beverage manufacturer believes that pineapple juice is “naturally superior” to other juices due to its unique taste and vitamin C source, but that it doesn't get the recognition it deserves, according to a media release. And, after 90 years of producing canned pineapple juice, Dole thinks the juice deserves its own nationally recognized micro-holiday.

Dole is calling on all pineapple juice lovers (or at least 5,000 of them) to sign a change.org petition in favor of creating the designated holiday on Aug. 17. If and when enough virtual signatures are collected, Dole will take the charge to make National Pineapple Juice Day official. To sweeten the deal, from now until May 31, Dole will make a donation for each signature to Feeding America (up to $5,000) to support programs to end hunger as part of the Dole Promise. (As of the time of publication, the petition had received 33 signatures.)

"As the leader in pineapple juice, we strongly believe this tropical beverage deserves its own day to be celebrated," Orzse Hodi, senior vice president and managing director, Americas, Dole Packaged Foods, said in the release. "We ask pineapple juice drinkers to join us and help make Pineapple Juice Day real."

Omnichannel marketing platform Skai has expanded its partnership and integration with Snap Inc., creator of social media platform Snapchat, to make it easier for Skai clients to manage their Snapchat campaigns alongside all other publishers.

This expanded partnership elevates Snapchat to be an essential advertising publisher for Skai clients, as it garners more than 750 million monthly active users and reaches more than 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds in more than 20 countries, according to a media release from Skai, which calls it the “social platform of choice” for Gen Z and Millennials.

Skai says the move will give advertisers more ways to connect their full-funnel Snapchat campaigns with lower-funnel sales on retail media networks. Within Snapchat, the partnership aims to improve analysis and amplify programs with essential editing capabilities that help assess, automate and activate campaigns in alignment with all other performance media, per the release.

"Snapchat brings a unique consumer experience and audience,” Paul Vallez, executive vice president of business development at Skai, said in the release. “We've seen tremendous demand from clients who are looking to manage Snapchat alongside all of their advertising channels on our platform. Skai's extended support enables marketers to measure the impact Snapchat has on the customer decision journey so they can align marketing budgets with business impact."

Skai says it will help marketers enhance their Snapchat campaigns by:

• Using Skai features such as dimensions, categories and tagging for organization; dashboards for visibility; Automated Actions for optimization; and cross-channel reporting.
• Automating formerly manual processes using features like Skai's BuildURL, which allows for tracking and attribution across social publishers and helps identify which channel is working best.
• Analyzing and optimizing creative using Skai's forthcoming Creative Center, which gives marketers AI-derived insights into creative performance across publishers and placements in one central location.
• Helping marketers decide where to allocate budgets to reach the right audience with the right messages using upcoming capabilities like Skai's omnichannel Executive HQ, Creative Center and Instant Reports. 

“With this partnership, we will enable advertisers to leverage Skai's expertise in campaign performance insights, ultimately helping our partners achieve greater success with their campaigns and driving growth and innovation in the industry,” said Ali Rana, global head of product & revenue partnerships at Snap.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) elected new officers as well as one member to its board of directors for the coming year during its annual meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, in April. Additionally, NACDS re-elected six board members whose terms were set to expire. 

Mike Wysong, CEO of CARE Pharmacies Cooperative (pictured), will serve as the new chair of the NACDS board of directors, succeeding Brian Nightengale, president of Good Neighbor Pharmacy, who completed his term and will remain on the NACDS board as a member. Wysong previously served as vice chair and as chair of the NACDS Political Action Committee.

In addition, Kevin Host, senior vice president of pharmacy, Walmart, was elected NACDS vice chair, and Rick Gates, SVP and chief pharmacy officer, Walgreens, was elected treasurer. Each officer will serve a one-year term.

“Mike Wysong will contribute strong and passionate leadership for NACDS at a time when the Association’s advocacy victories and business programming have never been more important for America and for the industry,” NACDS president and CEO Steven C. Anderson, said in a news release. “[Wysong’s] extraordinary energy, focus, insights, and passion are second to none. He will help NACDS sustain its tremendous momentum through this 90th anniversary and into the future. I am extremely confident that NACDS’ chain and supplier members will appreciate [Wysong’s] leadership, and that [he] will advocate effectively for NACDS’ pro-patient, pro-pharmacy agenda.”

David Warner, CEO of KPH Healthcare Services, was also elected to the NACDS board.

Six NACDS board members were also re-elected to three-year terms: 

• Brad Cochran, EVP, retail distribution, Medicine Shoppe International;
• Lynne Fruth, president and chairman, Fruth Pharmacy;
• Nimesh Jhaveri, EVP and chief impact officer, Health Mart;
• Brian Nightengale, president, Good Neighbor Pharmacy;
• Luke Rauch, SVP and chief merchandising officer, Walgreens;
• Mike Wysong, CEO, CARE Pharmacies Cooperative.

NACDS is a nonprofit organization that promotes and advances the interests of the chain pharmacy industry, representing traditional drug stores, supermarkets and mass merchants with pharmacies as well as their supplier partners.

Vanguard Companies, a Kansas City, Missouri-based marketing and merchandising solutions provider, promoted company veteran James Beard (pictured) to the position of CEO in April. Beard has been with Vanguard for more than 15 years, most recently serving as chief operating officer since 2015. Prior to that, he served as general manager for six years.

Beard took the reins Chris Stoler, who had served as CEO since 2021 (per his LinkedIn) after Mark Mathes, son of Vanguard founders Jack and Bobbie Mathes, stepped away from the role, which he had held since 2007.

Beard will be responsible for continuing to grow Vanguard through its company culture, customer base, new strategic growth opportunities and continued operational excellence, per a news release.

Vanguard said Beard’s extensive knowledge within the corrugated industry and history at the company will drive Vanguard’s continued focus on its customers and strategic growth trajectory.

Vanguard, founded in 1975, specializes in P-O-P displays, signage, packaging, digital printing, fulfillment services and program management capabilities.