News Briefs

Travel retailer WHSmith North America (WHSNA) has thrown its hat in the increasingly diversified retail media space with the launch of its own network, which combines in-store, out-of-home and digital out-of-home advertising touchpoints.

WHSNA operates more than 340 retail stores in the U.S. and Canada, including under Marshall Retail Group (MRG) and InMotion banners, located in airports, train stations and resorts. 

WHSmith North America Media Network (WHS Media) is designed to combine its digital and physical placements with audience data and insights to enable advertisers’ off-site campaigns and engage the millions of travelers who pass through North American airports each day. These customers are primed to accept last-minute messaging for CPG essentials and have an average dwell time of around 40 minutes, Stuart Michell, chief commercial officer, WHSmith North America, told P2PI. 

WHSNA currently has a network of nearly 200 digital screens located in-store and plans to double its in-store screen network this year, he said. Its relationship with North American airports also enables campaigns to be activated beyond the store footprint. 

The network was created with retail media agency SMG. Through WHSNA’s partnerships with The Trade Desk and Meta, the network offers geotargeting capabilities offsite, as well as targeting across social media and the web. 

Mood Media has introduced an advertising services entity, In-Store Marketplace (ISM), designed to simplify digital in-store advertising and address the growing demand for standardization. 

ISM, which operates separately from Mood Media, provides a centralized platform for digital in-store media integration that streamlines how retailers, brands and solution providers activate and manage their in-store advertising campaigns. 

While in-store digital advertising grows, implementation has remained complex and fragmented. In a media release from ISM announcing its enterprise solution, the company cited a 2023 Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) study, stating nearly 70% of retail media network buyers cite complexity in the buying process as their biggest obstacle to digital in-store investment growth. 

ISM's platform addresses these barriers by providing a single integration point that connects merchants with their preferred solution providers (both audio and screens), standardizing the process of launching and measuring in-store media programs, per the release.

"The next phase of retail media growth demands seamless integration and scaling capabilities," Bobby Watts, senior vice president, executive lead AD Retail Media, Ahold Delhaize USA, said in the release. "[ISM’s] enterprise platform provides the control and flexibility we need to expand our in-store media offerings while maintaining focus on what matters most — delivering value to customers and brand partners."

At launch, ISM said its platform is “already transforming” how retailers approach in-store media, offering standardized integration with existing retail technology, unified inventory access and streamlined campaign management through programmatic, self-service or managed services. The company debuted with an established presence in global markets across the U.S, Europe, Australia and APAC.

"Until now, merchants have faced unnecessary complexity while developing a standardized plan for in-store media programs, forcing them to choose between revenue potential and operational efficiency," added Brent Oakley, president of ISM. "Our platform eliminates this trade-off, enabling retailers to easily transform their physical stores into powerful digital marketing channels."

ISM's market entry is led by Oakley, a co-founder of Vibenomics, also a Mood Media company. Oakley brings experience in both retail operations and advertising technology to ISM.

Additionally, Vibenomics’ Paul Brenner and Hannah Parsons have also both joined ISM, holding the same positions they held at Vibenomics: SVP global retail media & partnerships and director of marketing, respectively. 

AdAdapted, a consumer packaged goods media partner, is expanding its partnership with digital shopping platform Flipp and will extend its reach into Canada.

The Flipp advertising network lets retailers and brands create, curate and distribute visual merchandising to more than 100 million shoppers across the U.S. and Canada, reaching shoppers at the decision-making stage of the path to purchase and letting them quickly add promoted products to their Flipp List through AdAdapted’s AddIt technology.

AdAdapted has been the exclusive partner since 2022 for Flipp display advertising inventory in the U.S. The collaboration has enabled CPG brands to reach in-market, head-of-household shoppers through advertisements on the Flipp app’s home screen and flyer screens. In 2024, push notifications were added, letting brands further engage shoppers.

Building on the success of the collaboration, the companies are introducing desktop web inventory across the U.S. and Canada. AdAdapted clients now can serve display advertisements in the Flipp app and desktop web platform in the U.S., and on the desktop web platform in Canada. 

"Our collaboration with Flipp reinforces AdAdapted’s position as a trusted partner for CPG brands looking to engage with active verified shoppers," Molly McFarland, founder and chief revenue officer at AdAdapted, said in a news release.  "As the only third-party solution with access to this inventory, we’ll be uniquely positioned to get products onto shopping lists and into carts — helping brands win at the shelf."

Loblaw Companies Ltd. banner Shoppers Drug Mart has agreed to sell its 42 Wellwise by Shoppers locations to Verillium Health Care.

Wellwise by Shoppers is a retail concept introduced by the the drugstore chain in 2017, designed to help Canadians stay healthy and active as they age. It offers specialized active lifestyle products including supports and braces, CPAP and sleep therapy, mobility, and low-impact fitness products. 

Verillium owns and operates several North American healthcare companies with the stated goal to improve, nurture and grow them through implementing best practices and new technologies.

"We are excited about this opportunity and what we believe we can bring to Canadians through these locations," Dezso Farkas, director of acquisitions and chief investment officer of Verillium, said in a media release. 

"The evolution from Home Health Care stores to Wellwise by Shoppers was all about helping Canadians as they looked for more ways to support healthy active lifestyles as they age," Jeff Leger, president of Shoppers Drug Mart, said in the release. "This next evolution for the business is about finding the right company to focus on its continued growth, while making products and services more accessible to Canadians. We believe Verillium perfectly suits that objective."

Shoppers Drug Mart will continue to operate the stores until the transaction closes, which is expected sometime in the first calendar quarter of 2025. The financial terms of the sale were not disclosed. 

T&T Supermarket is opening a second location in downtown Toronto on Feb. 13.

The Loblaw-owned Asian supermarket's store was first announced last September. It will be located at 20 Edward St., near Yonge-Dundas Square, in the Pando Condos building.

The 31,000-square-foot store will offer T&T's usual fare, including self-serve hot foods, a street food section, sushi, PaPa Chicken, Egg Tart, Asian snacks, produce and private label products. 

Toronto's first T&T store is located at the intersection of College Street and Spadina Avenue.

The retailer has been steadily opening stores across Canada, including in Montreal and Quebec, and it opened its first U.S. store in Bellevue, Washington, in December. It also plans to open additional stores stateside in 2025.

Marketing technology solutions provider Jivox has updated its self-service commerce media campaign management platform Jivox IQ DaVinci, adding deep API integrations with two retailer demand-side platforms — Amazon DSP and Walmart Connect DSP — along with other retailers that use The Trade Desk DSP, according to a news release. 

Jivox IQ DaVinci+ combines first-party audiences with creative and media in a single workflow with uniform measurement and reporting. IQ DaVinci+ was designed to eliminate current challenges around launching display and video campaigns across multiple retail media networks (RMNs) and different channels, such as display, video, social, CTV and in-store formats. 

For its Amazon DSP (ADSP) integration, Jivox IQ DaVinci+ offers advertisers a self-service platform to create dynamic display and video ad campaigns across all Amazon Ads touchpoints, including Prime Video, according to another news release related to the Amazon Ads integration. This enables advertisers to quickly launch a range of promotional messaging and offers daily or weekly.

Jivox IQ DaVinci+ unites creative, audience and media in a single workflow. Through the integration with Amazon DSP, marketers are able to match their Jivox creative to Amazon's audience segments and contextual targeting products and accelerate their retail media campaigns in three easy steps:

• Select reusable campaign template(s) conforming to Amazon Ads specification.
• Leverage ADSP audiences and contextual targeting within the same activation workflow without having to switch back and forth between the ADSP user interface.
• Select product content using an Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) and seamlessly and seamlessly activate and launch creatives and campaigns by leveraging Amazon Seller APIs, Amazon DSP APIs and Amazon Sponsored Ads APIs.

With the Amazon Ads integration with Jivox ID DaVinci+ brands can eliminate the manual work to create rich and immersive formats through automating ad generation and delivery.

"We are pleased to offer brands and agencies a self-service platform that accelerates campaign launches using pre-approved, reusable creative templates that can be populated with product content targeting first-party retailer audiences, all in a single unified workflow,” Diaz Nesamoney, Jivox CEO and co-founder, said in the release. “This eliminates the pain associated with the lengthy back-and-forth approval process and manual workflows with each RMN. These templates also give advertisers the ability to differentiate their products against their competitors' with unique branding elements like colors, backgrounds and resizing ability — merging lifestyle content with product content.”

Jivox is offering similar capabilities through our integration with Walmart Connect DSP and The Trade Desk.