MARCO ISLAND, FL — With the proliferation of first-party data, retailers are no longer mere sellers; they’ve transformed into full-fledged media companies, wielding personalized messaging and closed-loop measurement to capture both online and in-store insights.
This significant shift has brands and smaller retail platforms alike rethinking strategies to maintain relevance and drive consumer engagement.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Jeffrey Bustos, VP, Measurement, Addressability, & Data Center, IAB, gives insights on the trend.
The Opportunities for Smaller Players in Retail Media
As the retail media landscape burgeons, smaller players are finding their niche through localized messaging. “You start thinking about the smaller retail media platforms as a way to how can I differentiate my messaging and create more of a local messaging play,” says Bustos.
While larger entities offer scale for broad branding, smaller platforms provide a unique touchpoint for shopper experiences that resonate on a community level, he argues.
That’s not the only new development. “We’re seeing a lot of these retail media aggregators launch, which makes it very easy for brands to activate retail media,” Bustos explains.
Best Practices Around Measurement
In pursuit of clarity and standardization, the IAB has been proactive in shaping the metrics that matter. “We worked with the MRC to develop the retail media measurement guidelines,” Bustos shares, emphasizing the importance of an explainer in layman’s terms crafted in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group.
The final version of those guidelines was just published in January.
This initiative aims to make the guidelines accessible to those who strategize and fund retail media ventures.
“What the IAB said, based on the MRCs outcome standards, was that outcome needs to be attributed to a viewable impression,” Bustos states. This focus on viewability ensures that brands can trust the metrics they receive, knowing they’re based on consumer interactions that matter.
Shoppable Video: The Buzzword of Today and Tomorrow
Shoppable media is the buzzword on every marketer’s lips, blending the traditionally separate worlds of brand awareness and performance marketing.
Innovations like shoppable video and sponsored products are blurring the lines between advertising and immediate consumer action. Bustos highlights Amazon’s QR code-enabled ads during a football game as an example of this trend. Such integrations offer the instant gratification of shopping while watching, a potent mix for today’s consumer.
“It’s the opportunity where you can engage with the consumer to create that contextual consideration, that connection, and then you can use retail media data to then revisit that consumer,” Bustos adds.
You’re watching ‘Digital Media in Transition’, a Beet.TV Leadership Series at IAB ALM 2024 presented by Sharethrough. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
