- IPG Mediabrands has launched Unified Retail Media Solution, a recent unit to assist its clients manage investments across the growing channel of retail media networks, the agency said in an announcement.
- Clients’ retail media buys shall be evaluated across audience, measurement, optimization and intelligence to find out which networks are performing best. Automated cross-retailer activation will optimize campaigns by moving media amongst various networks.
- The launch comes as marketers are increasing their calls for standards as more retailers construct digital media networks for selling ads.
IPG Mediabrands’ Unified Retail Media Solution, like other recent pushes for standardization within the quickly growing retail media space, is an try and construct a robust foundation that addresses among the concerns which can be already beginning to emerge before it’s too late.
Retail media has seen tremendous growth over the past few years as retailers like Amazon, Walmart and others have ramped up their ability to sell digital ads to brands. The market has been booming whilst broader ad spending has begun to slow, and the sense is that now could be the time to avoid the mistakes of the past, when recent channels were flooded with money, but quickly became opaque and confusing, resulting in frustration as marketers tried to reconcile disparate data.
IPG Mediabrands says its Unified Retail Media Solution can discover which retailers are providing the very best results and robotically adjust spending based on that information to optimize retail media campaigns. The platform has already been beta tested by clients within the CPG, gaming and OTC sectors. It has lots of of audiences already built out, with a road map to have 10,000 by yr’s end.
“Brands activating in retail media face the challenge of navigating through multiple closed garden networks, each with their very own data approach, metrics and ROI methods,” said IPG Mediabrands’ Global CEO Eileen Kiernan, in a release concerning the recent unit. “This complexity is amplified for brands that also sell their products through these retailers. Therefore, it’s crucial for brands searching for to maximise their investment to leverage data and insight across networks with a capability to make intelligent decisions in real-time about what’s working and never.”
News of the brand new unit, which shall be led by Glen Conybeare, follows on the heels of Albertson’s Media Collective, the retail media unit of Albertsons grocery chain, proposing a framework that it said would bring greater unity and transparency to the budding retail landscape.
Retail media has seen a big amount of client investment over the past few years. GroupM estimated the channel accounted for $88 billion in revenue last yr and can reach $101 billion in 2023, representing 18% of all global digital promoting spending.
Still, many marketers are questioning the worth of those investments. A January report from the Association of National Advertisers found many marketers were “reluctant buyers” of retail media, with many marketers feeling heavily influenced by retailers to purchase on their networks. More than half of marketers felt standardization across platforms was the channel’s biggest problem and 44% said the walled garden approach was its second biggest challenge.
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