Remember when WPP CEO Mark Read said he wanted the holding company to be known for creative transformation?
That need to evolve has finally hit Triad, a company WPP acquired in 2016 that sells paid media on ecommerce sites.
On Tuesday, Triad rebranded from Triad Retail Media and launched a consultancy to help brands increase attention on their ecommerce properties. While it will maintain its traditional focus on ecommerce media sales, Triad will also start solving more complex business problems for both retailers and brands.
“We’re certainly not moving away from retail,” said Triad’s CEO, Sherry Smith. “But we’re forming different partnerships that will help us serve the needs of our retail clients as well as brand partners.”
For instance, Triad recently deployed a data management platform for Sam’s Club so that brands selling products through the retailer can use its first-party loyalty data as well as browsing and purchase behavior to target, optimize and measure media spend.
Triad is also helping other retailers deploy personalized creative units and develop reporting designed to help advertisers measure their sales.
“As retailers become media properties, it’s important that our offering evolves so we’re providing them with the specific services they need,” Smith said.
Triad is also building products for marketers that work across retail sites, regardless of whether that retailer is a Triad client. Retail Response, for example, allows brands to optimize their media plans across ecommerce platforms based on a known customer’s shopping activity.
While Triad plans to hire more talent with consulting backgrounds to round out its consulting expertise, it will mainly leverage its existing talent across media and creative to delve into more consulting work for brands. Being owned by WPP helps the company access data partnerships, talent and technology that it wouldn’t be able to on its own, Smith said.
“We will continue to see how this business grows, but the sky’s the limit,” she said. “We have 15 years of experience building retail expertise, so consulting comes naturally for us.”
Triad’s capabilities are also becoming a bigger focus for WPP as its clients become more interested in ecommerce solutions. With Amazon as a growing force in the space, brands and agencies are doubling down on full-funnel ecommerce advertising strategies.
“If anything, we can bring the power of WPP to retailers,” Smith said.
