News Briefs

Walmart has become the exclusive retailer of another celebrity backed brand. VitaHustle, actor/comedian Kevin Hart’s nutritional wellness brand, recently launched on Walmart.com and in stores nationwide.

The product — which uses plant-based ingredients and includes VitaHustle ONE superfood protein, ONE superfood greens, electrolyte hydration drink mixes and gummy vitamins — is stocked in the vitamin aisle in stores. Prices from $11.98 to $24.98.

VitaHustle also operates its own standalone website, offering DTC delivery and a subscription model.

Hart’s partnership with Walmart allows VitaHustle to reach a broader audience, particularly with a retailer that shares its goal of making wellness more accessible, according to a media release from the brand.

"We are thrilled to work with Kevin and bring VitaHustle to Walmart," Vinima Shekhar, Walmart vice president of merchandising, wellness, said in the release. "Together with VitaHustle, we will empower our customers to explore products that elevate their wellness routines to save money and live better."

Walmart is no stranger to forming exclusive partnerships with emerging, DTC and celebrity-backed brands, such as Betr Remedies, the socially conscious OTC medicine brand co-founded by actor Ellen Pompeo. In 2021, the mass merchant also became the exclusive retailer for several DTC cosmetics brands with huge social media followings, including KAB Cosmetics, a brand co-founded by former "Real Housewives of Atlanta" star Kim Zolciak-Biermann.

Marketing company Vericast, in collaboration with Intel, has designed, deployed and tested a new programmatically enabled digital in-store retail media network.

Powered by Vericast's intelligent targeting technology and Intel's Edge software platforms, the network serves contextually relevant advertising and product information throughout the shopping experience, according to a media release. The collaboration is part of a larger industry effort/trend to modernize retail and tap into the digitization of the physical store, which some are calling the next big thing in retail media.

Vericast recently tested the network by piloting an advertising campaign for a global beverage company across 50 individually operated convenience stores in Dallas and New Orleans. The two-week test featured eight different advertisements deployed on in-store digital displays and beverage cooler screens. According to the release, the purpose was to validate the technologies and system, capture data and discover learnings in a real-world environment.

The campaign says it delivered an estimated 350,000 verified customer impressions; captured zero-party data (or data that a consumer intentionally shares with a brand); tracked sales by SKU; and measured consumer sentiment. Additionally, about 85% of consumers who visited a custom landing page created for the pilot opted in to provide data.

The in-store network leverages Vericast's new “privacy centric” contextual advertising solution that serves relevant digital ads to consumers as they shop and measures their behavior with proprietary campaign data analytics. The hardware consists of multiple-sized display and cooler screen panels that utilize IoT sensors and computer vision technology to capture anonymized analytics and enable Vericast to measure consumer engagement in real-time, per the release.

"The digitization of in-store signage and its use in programmatic advertising is a natural extension of Vericast's commitment to relevant, responsible and measurable omnichannel impact," Hans Fischmann, vice president of product management at Vericast, said in the release.

Vericast has recently expanded its in-store retail media network with multiple regional grocery chains, fast casual restaurants and made a 1,700-store commitment from a global convenience store brand.

EnsembleIQ, the parent company of the Path to Purchase Institute, has been recognized as one of the “Best Companies for Career Growth” by workplace evaluation firm Comparably.

This honor was based on ratings voluntarily and anonymously submitted to Comparably by EIQ employees between May 2022 and May 2023. The survey asked questions about the company’s professional development opportunities in areas including meaningful career advancement, mentorship, challenging work and frequency of valuable feedback from direct managers on how to improve. 

“Our employees are the lifeblood of our company,” EIQ CEO Jennifer Litterick said in a company media release. “As our most valuable asset, we are committed to investing in their careers. We believe in creating a positive culture that encourages, supports and celebrates our employees. Promoting from within boosts morale, energizes employees and enhances our organizational intelligence–improving our performance. We are proud to be recognized by Comparably as a top company for career growth.”

Previously, EIQ was honored by Comparably in 2022 as a “Best Place to Work in Chicago,” where the company is headquartered in, and in the “Best Leadership Teams” category, for driving a positive culture change.

Additionally, in Canada, EIQ is featured in “The Career Directory 2023,” which tells recent graduates that EIQ is a great place to start their careers.

Retail marketing firm Neptune Retail Solutions is acquiring Quotient Technology, the parent company of Coupons.com, for $430 million in cash.

The merger will bring together Quotient’s technology platform, extensive digital promotions retail network and proprietary data with Neptune’s broad in-store network and data-driven shopper marketing insights across in-store and print media.

Charlesbank Capital Partners, a private investment firm and current majority investor of Neptune, will be the majority investor of the combined company, Neptune and Quotient announced in a June 20 media release. Neptune CEO William E. Redmond Jr. (Bill Redmond) will be CEO of the combined business.

“Today’s announcement is an exciting next step in our journey in the growing retail media industry and enables us to create more scale as a combined company,” said Matt Krepsik, CEO of Quotient. “Neptune and Charlesbank are ideal partners for Quotient, and we look forward to entering into this new chapter.”

The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2023, at which point Quotient will cease to be a publicly traded company.

“Quotient's merger into Neptune unites two retail marketing innovators and represents a milestone that builds on our successful May 2020 carve-out of News America Marketing, and the transformative operational focus and growth spearheaded by Bill Redmond that created Neptune as it exists today,” Brandon White, managing director of Charlesbank, added.

Quotient Technology was founded in 1998 and operates marketing platforms offering consumers digital promotions. The company partners with advertisers, publishers and retailers, including Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, CVS Pharmacy, Dollar General, Ahold Delhaize USA, Amazon and Microsoft.

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Quotient also has offices across the U.S. as well as in Bangalore, Paris, London and Tel Aviv.

Neptune Retail Solutions’ platform includes in-store marketing rights in North America’s top grocery, dollar and drugstores, including Ahold, Albertsons, CVS, Family Dollar, Kroger, Loblaws, Publix, Rite-Aid, Southeastern Grocers and Walgreens. It also owns and operates cashback app Checkout 51, generating first-party shopping data via receipt scans from key retail locations across the U.S. and Canada.

Seattle-based AdsPostX has launched OmniSDK, a solution enabling retailers to monetize behavioral and intent signals across a shopper’s journey, according to a media release. The solution factors in the most opportune moments to serve applicable ads and offers across the path to purchase and beyond.

AdsPostX is a post-transaction ad platform that delivers personalized offers through proprietary targeting technology Nexos. Its OmniSDK technology collects sophisticated signals with rich insights for more relevant actions and campaign optimization, per the release. As a result, the upper-funnel technology aims to deliver incremental growth from the virtual front door to post-transaction.

The smart serving signals can indicate relevancy for product pairings to cross-promote based on items being browsed. While grocers and CPG brands have successfully cross-merchandised items for years in brick-and-mortar stores, OmniSDK helps retailers do the same thing but with more personalization online in real time, per the release.

“There are many signals across the shopper journey that can be collected to determine and deliver relevant offers and ads at key moments,” Roj Niyogi, chief product officer at AdsPostX, said in the release. “This moves beyond basic keyword and cart history data, leveraging site location and dwell time on product pages and many other advanced signals based on shopper behavior to offer up smart media placements. Our drop-in, small-footprint OmniSDK provides the ability to easily unlock relevancy factors that will mature retail media into a new era and provide true incremental growth opportunities for brands and retailers alike.”

The OmniSDK is open to retailers looking to extract learnings that occur within online shopping moments across the path to purchase, such as pre-checkout, browsing patterns, reviews and returns.

Earlier this year, CitrusAd and AdsPostX partnered to enable retailers to provide relevant ads throughout a customer’s complete shopping experience, including the confirmation page after they checkout.

British-based cosmetics and skincare brand Revolution Beauty and joined forces with Epic Games to bring to market a "Fortnite" beauty collaboration inspired by the sandbox game. The limited-edition “Revolution Beauty x Fortnite” collection launched exclusively on May 27 at Walmart stores and online via the retailer’s website and RevoltuionBeauty.com.

Fortnite’s first foray in the health and beauty space, the Revolution Beauty x Fortnite collection spans 27 products, including skincare, cosmetics and product applicators such as beauty blenders and brushes. The collection was inspired by the game and its popular characters (e.g., Peely, Supply Llama and Cuddle Team Leader) and appeals to both the players behind the game's 500 million-plus registered accounts worldwide and Revolution Beauty's customer base, according to a media release.

"Pairing Revolution Beauty's competitively priced and high-quality products with this globally recognized game for their first-ever beauty collaboration, we are appreciative of the opportunity to engage with this incredible gaming community that also values creative freedom and color play,” Sara Staniford, president of Revolution Beauty USA, said in the release.

The collection’s “key SKUs” include the Peely banana mousse mask, the Supply Llama 9 pan shadow palette and the Cuddle Team Leader nail polish, according to the release. Each product in the collection is priced at $12 and under and is cruelty free.