Retail Advertising

Academy Sports and Outdoors, a sporting goods chain founded in 1938, is trying to get trendy.

Over the past couple of years, thousands of retail industry trends have been flying around like loose threads. But, through it all, one fact stands above all other mere trends: to the biggest go the spoils.

Walmart and Target each had a similar warning for investors when they reported earnings this week. The two major US retailers expect a modest Q4 and spoke of early signs that consumers are dramatically changing their shopping patterns (yet again).

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. A Jeff Of All Trades The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green touted retail advertising as a major growth opportunity at a presentation to TTD investors this week. Green says the market could soon reach $500 billion (retail media currently makes maybe $50 billion per […]

Bill Michels knows programmatic data. For the past couple years, he’s led The Trade Desk’s entire product group. Now, he’s headed to Moloco, where he’s starting as general manager of the company’s retail media business unit.

Kroger Precision Marketing, the grocer’s advertising and data business, announced an expansion into CTV and video inventory channels. “It’s critical to … move into these channels that are increasing with respect to where advertisers are investing their dollars,” Kroger SVP Cara Pratt told AdExchanger.

Walmart has The Trade Desk. Target’s Roundel uses Index Exchange as an SSP and taps Criteo and CitrusAds on the demand side. Quotient lost the grocery chain Albertson’s but signed exclusive contracts with AutoZone and Hy-Vee. CitrusAds picked up part of the Albertson’s ad tech business. The new varieties of retailer walled gardens are built on a foundation of open ad tech.

Consumer habits and changes among retailers themselves have reshaped the agency landscape around a new form of commerce media. The trend wasn’t as obvious a few years ago, when online retail media opportunity looked scattered with an emphasis on discounting: think cash-back apps and the heady days of Groupon sales, or CPGs on Amazon Fresh. Now, a brand that sells online faces a different landscape and an entirely different team of partners helping them.

Walmart uses its “growth algorithm” – adding high-margin advertising and its third-party marketplace businesses as it simultaneously invests in low-margin businesses (namely, groceries and ecommerce fulfillment). Macy’s is pursuing its Polaris plan, an overhaul built around its new customer lifetime value measurements. The mall-based fashion brand EXPRESS has an EXPRESSway Forward plan. Across categories and shopping channels, US retailers have reshaped their businesses.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Working Their Retails Off Retail media is in growth-stage limbo. Retailers have flooded the category with no guarantee advertising will pay off.  The latest is the craft store Michaels, which launched a retail media platform on Wednesday in partnership with Criteo. Amazon sets the […]

Street Appeal Outbrain will acquire Video Intelligence, a contextual targeting startup focused on video and CTV, for $55 million. It’s Outbrain’s first big move since the content recommendation company IPO’d in July. The deal makes sense. Web advertising isn’t dying, despite reports you may have heard. Then again, it’s also not in an impressive growth […]

The retail data revolution is constrained by its laser-focus on advertising, if you ask Brian Archey, Conagra Brand’s sr. director of data science and analytics. Clean room data environments are the playgrounds of digital marketers, who use them for audience extension and analytics. But these cloud-based services hold more promise as business intelligence tools, Archey […]

Whose Free Lunch? Amazon may rebrand IMDb TV, its free ad-supported streaming service, because employees fear the clunky name is a drag on sign-ups, The Information reports. The waffling between IMDb TV, Freedive or some variation of Free TV is amusing. But perhaps the most interesting morsel comes at the very end. “While the business […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.  Today’s column is written by Andrea Leigh, VP of strategy and insights at Ideoclick. Brands reimagined their media plans during the pandemic, and many must now reconcile their previous approach with emerging digital ad opportunities […]

Retail media networks are having a moment, because they’re positioned to add relevance in a cookieless world, says Luke Kigel, VP of Walgreens integrated media and head of the Walgreens Advertising Group (WAG). Walgreens put a bow on its retail media network, dubbed WAG, in early December. But the launch is part of a larger […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Programmatic Merger Kepler Group has acquired UK-based Infectious Media for an undisclosed sum. Read the release. The combined global programmatic agency company has 400 professionals across London, Singapore, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and Costa Rica. The firms’ combined client roster includes Hasbro, […]

The COVID-19 crisis has sent Criteo spinning with a mix of headwinds and tailwinds. Criteo earned $438 million in Q2, a 17% decline from the same period last year, according to its earnings report on Wednesday. By comparison, Criteo’s Q1 2020 revenue had dipped 3% year-over-year. And the company attributed $100 million in lost revenue […]

Pinterest made $272 million in Q1 this year, a 35% jump from the same period in 2019, but its net loss increased by $100 million because ad spend crumbled in March. The company “began 2020 on strong footing,” said Pinterest CFO Todd Morgenfeld during the company earnings call Tuesday, but April ad spend declined by […]

A year ago, if you overheard someone say “BOPIS is all the rage,” you could be forgiven for mistaking the reference for obscure ’90s-era slang. But nowadays, “buy online pick up in store” is as normal as, well, doing groceries. And it’s going to change retail advertising forever. Publicis Groupe forecast in 2019 that it would […]

Google released a slate of new shopping ad products on Tuesday, upping the ante in commerce marketing as Amazon, Facebook-agram and Adobe ramp up their shopper ad businesses. Google’s new shopping ad formats, unveiled at Google Marketing Live in San Francisco, tie formerly siloed properties within Google, such as YouTube and Maps, into a more […]

Walmart Media Group (WMG), the retailer’s data-driven advertising business, took another step forward with its in-house advertising program on Thursday with the acquisition of Polymorph Labs, a San Francisco-based ad tech startup. Walmart did not disclose terms of the deal or how many employees it will add with Polymorph. Polymorph, formerly AdsNative, raised a total […]