Seen & Heard at Retail Media Summit 2024
The Path to Purchase Institute’s sold-out Retail Media Summit gathered the commerce marketing community in Chicago for the third straight year to help CPG brands and retailers navigate the complicated, rapidly shifting media landscape.
[Also Read: Scenes From P2PI's Retail Media Summit 2024]
From June 25-27, retailers, CPG brands, solution providers and other thought leaders explored the industry’s most innovative entities and cutting-edge solutions and strategies related to retail media and the ever-evolving world of omnicommerce. One of the most prevalent topics at this year’s conference: the growing in-store opportunity.
Here’s a roundup of insights, advice and highlights our editors saw and heard during the event:
In-Store Retail Media/Digital In-Store Media
In a session titled “Insight to Impact: Using In-Store Data for Retail Execution Strategies,” Tyson's Director of Category & Shopper Strategy, Matthew Roughton, said, “Understanding what is happening in-store and building great relationships with retailers helps Tyson Foods unlock the opportunity to do more and pursue great strategy building exercises with our retailers.”
Katie Vogt, Senior Director, Marketing Partnership and Client Success, Walgreens Advertising Group (WAG), revealed that the retailer will pilot in-store digital screens at store entrances and in the pharmacy department this fall. Vogt said Walgreens is bringing in-store and online data sets together. “A single view of the customer is really important.”
Alongside Vogt, Bobby Watts, SVP, Executive Lead of Retail Media and AD Media Group, said Ahold Delhaize is expanding digital screens in stores this fall as well. He said, “Come on the journey with us. We’re all learning in the AI space. … We’re all focused on the same outcome.”
In a session titled “Unifying In-Store RMNs and Programmatic Advertising to Unlock New Revenue Streams,” Wovenmedia’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Jeff Karnes, said, “We need to focus on unifying online retail media and in-store retail media. Hopefully next year we’re just talking about retail media. ... The customer is in both places. If we market to one, we need to market to the other.”
In the same session, Jason Shao, COO of Place Exchange, added, “We’re out of the concept stage [with in-store retail media]. We need to figure out how to connect things end to end. ... The infrastructure is there and ready to go for retail media networks in-store.”
Pamela Young, Head of Sales at CVS Media Exchange (CMX), shared several findings from CMX’s latest consumer study done in partnership with P2PI, including that free standard shipping is the most motivating factor for shoppers to join a retailer or brand's premium loyalty program. She added that, “94% of transactions for us take place within the store” and “It’s important to be thoughtful and not creepy.”
In a panel discussion on the evolution of retail media, Ollie Shayer, Director of Omni-Media Marketing at Boots UK, shared how Boots has added more digital screens across its store footprint, increasing experiences for brand advertisers through Boots Media Group. By the end of July, Boots will have deployed 600 screens across 450 stores. Additionally, Boots plans to deploy large-format screens to 100 flagship stores, bringing digital signage to 88% of the U.K. population.
In that same panel, Robin Neufeld, Director of Business Marketing, Advance Powered by Loblaw, said “In Canada particularly, investment in CTV and retail media is outpacing digital ad growth overall.” Plus, she said Lobloaw is actively investing in digital out-of-home advertising.
In terms of the next era of retail media, WHSmith North America’s Chief Commercial Officer Stuart Mitchell said that he’s most excited about technology, not just AI, and “bringing more interaction to customers in stores and selling more because of it.”
The key to understanding consumer behavior and effective marketing is sensor-based technology, Quividi’s SVP of Sales for North America Mitch Wade said during a panel discussion on unlocking in-store impressions. “These cameras, or vision sensors, capture anonymized, privacy compliant data and accurate impressions. This combined with persona and frequency data is the key to making good marketing and measurement decisions.”
"In order to obtain accurate insights and deploy dynamic omnichannel campaigns for brands, there needs to be a foundation to understand how many people are in the store and what the flow of traffic is before we can even talk about optimization and effectiveness of campaigns,” Paul Brenner, SVP of Retail Media & Partnerships, Vibenomics, added.
Media, Ads + Commerce’s Independent Analyst & Consultant Andrew Lipsman, Grocery TV’s CEO Marlow Nickell and Kinesso’s Amie Owen shared how brands (and retailers) can grow with in-store retail media:
- Physical retail is the new TV, with top retailers’ in-store audience comparable to major broadcast TV networks.
- In-store retail media outperforms other major media touchpoints in terms of ad experience and ad attentiveness.
- In-store ads bolster physical availability by making brands easier to find.
“In-store is the next phase we want to penetrate with retail media,” Ryan Burns, Head of Strategy for Sam's Club Member Access Platform (MAP), said. “We have the opportunity to engage shoppers in a meaningful, complementary way that inspires them.” Burns added, “30% of members are leveraging Scan & Go while in-club today, so engaging members with in-club display screens, including mobile devices through the Scan & Go app, with 15-30 second videos can be part of MAP’s omnichannel campaigns.”
In addition, for Sam’s Club’s next phase (Retail Media 3.0), Burns’ team is betting on experiential marketing, product sampling and closed-loop attribution across formats (e.g., its partnership with Freeosk).
Artificial Intelligence
“The power of AMC [Amazon Marketing Cloud] is not just on Amazon. It can help you off Amazon,” Boiron’s VP of E-Commerce & Digital Sha Atakhanov said in a session titled “Elevate Your Brand: Mastering Amazon Ads with AMC and AI.”
In the same session, Xmars’ SVP of Sales Joon Choi added, “This is the worst AI is ever going to be.”
[Also Read: RMS Keynote Centers on AI]
“Technology is moving at such a [rapid] pace that evolving your technology stack is absolutely critical, as is thinking about how that technology will impact the industry in the next year, three years or five year's,” Sam Knights, CEO, Threefold, said in a panel discussion. “Think about AI — how’s that going to impact our industry in the next year? It’ll get smarter at planning, take over some day-to-day tasks we don’t like, we’ll use ChatGPT. … But in five years, when AI evolves to a personal assistant that actually chooses where to buy things for you, how will retail media play into that world and how does personalization happen when you have AI personal assistant bots?”
Advance Powered by Loblaw’s Neufeld said, “AI and machine learning could really accelerate the promise of retail media.”
“On the brand side of things, you don’t have to have AI in-house. It’s nice, but you don’t have to if you have partners that can serve it up for you,” Clorox’s Conlon said.
Data & Personalization
Beth Gross, Senior Director of Global Commerce Media, Yahoo Advertising, said Yahoo receives over 1.4 trillion purchase receipts a year. Now when working with Kroger Precision Marketing, it can layer data from the retailer's audiences. “We have to be scientific about it and leverage those insights,” Gross said. “Being able to rinse and repeat and do good for the next time. I do think it’s this whole 360 process. It’s really going to help us be smarter as we provide these benefits to our brand advertisers.”
Albertsons Media Collective’s Senior Client Success Director Amanda Kramer enthusiastically talked about Retail Media 3.0. “We are creating a growth accelerant platform. It’s all about personalization and leveraging data. ... Our ambition is to create customers for life, and we can’t do that without our CPG partners.” Additionally, Albertsons has “trust-based partnerships” with its technology partners.
Stratacache CEO Chris Riegel said, “Shoppers are audiences – retailers partnering with media companies and data can capture the value of these audiences. … Winning the consumer with personalization, relevance of message and assistance in her journey at every point is essential in driving return trips and the retail relationship.”
"From my perspective, marketers are still heavily reliant on third-party cookies,” Meghan Howard, Chief Revenue Officer, Chicory, said. “So, I think there's still this gap in understanding how we're going to fill that void ... and that's a lot of where contextual commerce can play and help."
“Point-of-sale data has been wildly under utilized in retail media,” Gopuff’s AdTech and Data Partnerships Lead JR Crosby said. “It’s always been kind of a separate thing. But the way we look at it, it’s kind of the CEO of the Gopuff business.”
Bailey Conlon, Associate Director, Personalized Consumer Experiences at Clorox, honed in on one stat in particular on stage: “71% of consumers are frustrated when their shopping experience isn’t personal.” One way Clorox has personalized to meet different consumer needs recently is through new product launches, such as the seven new Hidden Valley ranch flavors the brand launched in the last year. Conlon said Clorox will continue on this path.
[Also Read: Hy-Vee’s Hendrix Talks the Evolution of Commerce Marketing]
General Mills’ Senior Manager of Measurement Activation Jenna Hernandez said during a session on the future of performance marketing and measurement that clarity, clear communication and a shared understanding of data and how something is measured is crucial. “Basically all aspects of our organization — doesn’t matter if it’s a trade deal or if it's a marketing initiative — is used to seeing a red, yellow, green process [when identifying data and metrics]," she said. “So, especially when we present data to a high-level leader who doesn’t understand all of the nuances, it’s not as hard to decipher all the metrics and decide what’s good, what’s bad, etc.”
Top Advice from the Experts
"Retail media is media. … There isn’t a national plan and a retail media plan. There's a consumer experience plan and experience of your brand. The role of the retailer is dynamically changing in that equation and that’s where the partnership has to come into play," said Luke Kigel, VP, Advanced Marketing Collective, Kimberly-Clark, during a packed session on "Demystifying How to Drive Increased Performance Across the Full Funnel."
Skye Frontier, SVP of Growth at Incremental, said, “If your competitors are optimizing toward ROAS they will be missing opportunities.” Looking instead at incremental return on ad spend (iROAS), sponsored brands and sponsored video are more expensive but deliver incremental returns. Branded keywords can also translate to merchandising, in that brand defense can generate incremental growth through cross-selling and upselling.
Matt O'Grady, President of the Americas, Dunnhumby, said: "Offsite is a critical component. It's one of the three legs of the tripod with onsite and in-store, and they all have to complement each other. ... Offsite finds you new consumers. You can't do it alone. You've got to do it with partners and it should be the big partners, and there's obviously concern with safety around the open web, which should be addressed as well, but I have great hopes for offsite. I just ask — and advertisers ask me all the time — for more transparency around the measurement component."
During a presentation covering P2PI and Goodway Group research, Angela Myers, SVP of Retail Media, Goodway Group, said, “For a four-week campaign, you don’t really need to have 15 KPIs. … It’s important to engage in an audit framework. Is the purpose of the KPI clear and understood by all? Does the KPI have the right criteria to indicate levels of impact? Does the KPI criteria score prompt action?”
Other Key Takeaways
In a session titled “On Box Advertising (OBA), An Emerging and Effective Ad Channel,” EFI’s (Electronics for Imaging) VP of Market Development Kerry Sanders said, “An important part of every e-commerce journey is overlooked: corrugate packaging. ... There is 4.1 times higher ad recall for on-box advertising than media campaigns. ... The opportunity: leverage on-box advertising to creatively engage consumers or monetize a new ad channel. ... Digital printing and on-demand packaging can now create custom-printed, ready-to-pack e-commerce shippers.”
David Young, VP of Shipt Media, and Harman Sodhi, Senior Director, global insights and demand strategy, Criteo, spoke about a challenger beverage brand that leaned in with Shipt to take a full-funnel marketing approach. The brand saw a 48% lift in median SKU sales rank, and two of the brand’s SKUs became the seventh and eighth best-selling SKUs in their category on Shipt’s platform.
“We start to see success and are using some of these metrics to help determine how impactful those new placements are, as we continue to build out our offering,” Young said. “So it works for the partner and it works for you as the network as well.”
"[It’s crucial to learn] from number one the [digital media/news] publishers, and from the people who've been [in the industry] for 10 or 15 year's and not repeat their mistakes,” Cory Schnurr, Head of Global Marketplace Innovation, The Media Trust, said. “I think retailers have done a great job of doing that by putting their audience first, but they may be lacking in putting the technologies and the tools first. It seems like often, they throw people at a problem, when they could be throwing tools at it and the way to scale it is going to be through that."
ROFDA (Retailer Owned Food Distributors and Associates) CEO Jeff Pedersen talked with Ideal by Design House co-founder Adam Zimmerman about the challenges independent retailers are facing and the opportunities for CPGs. Pedersen said that CPGs working with independents is most important because it’s the right thing to do. “I don’t think CPGs are intentionally leaving independents out, but they don’t want to be left on the sideline. It’s important that the family owned grocery stores, some in their fourth or fifth generations, have the support of the people who control the money too.”
