News Briefs

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.

Ahold Delhaize USA is enhancing its digital coupons in its latest effort to improve personalization and the omnichannel shopper experience at its five local chains: Food Lion, Giant Food, The Giant Company, Hannaford and Stop & Shop. 

The grocery giant has partnered with Inmar Intelligence to provide its chains with enhanced capabilities, including a higher capacity for offers, access to new offer types, increased efficiency and an improved customer experience through more relevant savings, according to a news release.

“Advancing our capabilities in the loyalty space, and particularly with digital coupons, is key as we continue to increase overall digital customer engagement and deliver omnichannel growth,” Keith Nicks, chief digital officer for Ahold Delhaize USA, said in the release. 

[Also Read: Ahold Delhaize USA Names Media Agency of Record]

Inmar has replaced Neptune Retail Solutions (formerly Quotient) as ADUSA’s exclusive digital coupon provider. All five local banners currently live on the Inmar platform.

“Since our partnerships launched, together we have presented more than $141 million in savings for Ahold Delhaize USA brand shoppers,” Rob Weisberg, president and executive vice president, MarTech solutions, Inmar Intelligence, added. “This early success underscores the value to shoppers through seamless access to savings, while enabling Ahold Delhaize USA brands to deepen customer loyalty and drive measurable results at scale. We look forward to continuing to deliver high-quality savings to all ADUSA brand shoppers in 2025.”

Omnichannel advertising platform Skai and consumer and market research company NIQ (NielsenIQ) have formed a strategic alliance designed to enhance retail media performance with digital shelf intelligence and omnichannel measurement capabilities.

NIQ’s Digital Shelf insights — including data on product content, inventory, pricing and promotions — are now accessible in Skai’s platform. This allows marketers to make real-time, data-driven adjustments to campaigns and boost performance across retail media networks globally, according to a Skai media release.

“This collaboration unlocks capabilities we haven’t had access to before via any of our partners,” Harriet Dykes, retail media director at Dentsu, said in the release. “With metrics like total share of search, competitors’ paid and organic share and out-of-stock data directly accessible in Skai, we can set up automated, keyword-level actions for retailers across Epsilon and Criteo. This enables us to allocate budgets with precision and adapt in real time to outmaneuver competitors, marking a significant step forward in optimizing retail media performance for our clients.”

The alliance can also help marketers:

• Focus on keywords with low organic rankings and share of voice (SOV) for greater efficiency in paid media.
• Adapt bids and strategies based on competitors’ paid and organic activity.
• Leverage product quality insights to optimize content.
• Dynamically adjust campaigns based on product availability and competitor stock levels.

NIQ and Skai plan to expand on their collaboration, utilizing NIQ’s point-of-sales data to measure incrementality and exploring synergies between Skai Decision Pro’s forecasting capabilities and NIQ’s Media Mix Modeling solutions. These advancements aim to provide brands with a unified view of their media investments, enabling smarter strategies across the entire omnichannel commerce landscape.

“Brands and agencies now have the tools they need to capitalize on retail media opportunities while staying agile in the face of market dynamics,” said Andrew Criezis, president of NIQ. “This alliance offers a comprehensive approach to optimizing retail media investments with real-time, actionable data.”

“This collaboration is just the beginning, and we look forward to bringing even greater value and innovation to our clients in the months ahead,” added Gil Sadeh, president of Skai.