Grocery Chains Pivot To Data And Away From Blunt Shopper Marketing Deals; Will iOS Open Up?

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

Shelf Life

Many CPG brands have become iconic through the twin marketing pillars of TV advertising and in-store shopper marketing. The latter includes shelf positioning, aisle displays and end-caps, among other strategies. But linear television is steadily eroding, and access to prime shelf space is squeezing traditional brand staples, The Wall Street Journal reports. Whereas heavy-hitter brands have traditionally paid for the the best shelf space, grocers such as Walmart and Kroger now take a more data-driven approach, taking in footfall and video-tracking data to create metrics for brands they carry. A product that’s often added to a cart first (it’s the item they’re there to buy) and is then part of larger transactions might get favorable shelf space, instead of defaulting to “category captains” such as Kellogg’s, Kraft Heinz and General Mills. A brand with a fraction of the sales of a category captain could also unseat the incumbent brand if it’s growing faster. “It used to be more of a personal relationship,” one Kroger exec said about retail trade marketing deals. “It’s become cold, hard facts that make decisions.” More.

Apple Opener?

Apple may allow third-party web browsers and mail apps to be set as iPhone defaults instead of Apple’s own Safari and Mail apps, Bloomberg reports. The discussion is in the early stages and may not move forward, according to the story, but if Apple did let users replace the browser and email app, it would mark an important change for the iOS ecosystem. Even if someone uses Chrome and Gmail on an iPhone, when they click a link from an email or text, they’re taken to Safari. If someone taps an email address, it opens a new message in Apple Mail, with no option to default to a different app. The big winner in this scenario would probably be Google. More.

UK Data In Focus Post-Brexit

Google will transfer its data storage on British citizens to the United States – and out of the control of EU regulators – in response to Brexit, sources tell Reuters. Google is moving the UK data out of EU jurisdiction in Ireland, where it has its European headquarters, as Britain decides whether it will continue to enforce GDPR. Ireland has one of the strictest approaches to data privacy, and British authorities will be more easily able to access data for criminal investigations if it’s stored in the United States. But it’s still unclear which way the British government will land on GDPR. “There’s a bunch of noise about the UK government possibly trading away enough data protection to lose adequacy under GDPR, at which point having them in Google Ireland’s scope sounds super-messy,” said Lea Kissner, Google’s former lead for global privacy technology. More.

But Wait, There’s More