Omnicom banks on Walmart, Instacart in latest commerce expansion

• Omnicom Media Group (OMG), the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc., has partnered with Walmart Connect, the retailer’s media network, according to a press release. 
• The first such agreement between Walmart Connect and an agency holding company spans pricing, agency support, product feedback and more. It allows for cross-screen planning against Walmart audiences in Omni, the agency’s operating system, and uses the Omni ID to connect first-party advertiser data to the Walmart demand-side platform.
• In addition, OMG announced a partnership with Instacart, which includes account management, product first-looks, product roadmap consultation and a plan to work within Omni’s clean room infrastructure. Both partnerships seek to deepen Omnicom’s connect commerce offering.

OMG made two announcements at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity last week that both speak to the desire of the agency holding company to ramp up its offering around connected commerce. The company saw its commerce and brand consulting segment grow 13.8% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2022, outpacing its 11.9% organic revenue growth, with CEO John Wren noting that he had not seen any deterioration of e-commerce, despite some recent research.

The partnership with Walmart Connect demonstrates the increased activity around retail media networks to entice advertisers that are seeking to reach consumers across the entire purchasing journey, especially as other changes to the ad ecosystem constrict how they can target and track campaigns.

“As marketers prepare for the deprecation of third-party cookies, we’re building a platform and ecosystem that leverages the scale of Walmart’s first-party data and strong customer relationships to help them deliver strong ROI in an increasingly fragmented environment,” Walmart executive vice president and chief revenue officer Seth Dallaire said in a press release.

Along with allowing Omnicom’s agencies to deliver experiences across media and commerce platforms within owned, earned and paid environments, the partnership could lead to increased investment efficiency and effectiveness by optimizing supply paths and inventory planning. 

Connect first-party advertiser data and new identifiers across ad ecosystems is also a key focus of OMG’s Instacart partnership. The delivery platform is building a roadmap to work with Omni’s clean room infrastructure, which allows for privacy-safe data sharing and analysis. Previously, Omnicom has partnered with media giants NBCUniversal and Disney around clean room technology. By adding Instacart to the Omni clean room, the platform can help CPG brands better utilize their first-party data and insights.

“In the future, a home cleaning supply brand can better understand how its ads on Hulu drove purchase of its products on Instacart. We can also dive deep on basket analysis and content consumption trends with Omnicom to help that brand understand which products resonate most with audiences,” Instacart’s vice president of ad sales Ryan Mayward said in a press release. 

The new partnerships build on Omnicom’s previous moves around commerce. OMG in May launched the Supply Chain IQ Score to help marketers better connect media spend to product availability. Previously, it partnered with a livestream commerce platform and a programmatic marketplace for point-of-purchase screens, and acquired a digital experience consultancy to build out various capabilities.

Walmart’s global advertising business grew 30% year-on-year in the most recent quarter as the company scaled up Walmart Connect with an expansion of self-service capabilities and new products. Instacart this year has also ramped up investment in its ad platform, adding shoppable video and display units. The company also launched Instacart Platform, integrating a range of new digital services for grocers and retailers including fulfillment, insights and advertising options.