The trend of “Retailers as Publishers” continues to grow as new entrants and new capabilities come into the marketplace. How can CPG marketers evaluate these opportunities in order to drive virtuous cycles of mutual benefit for their retailer partners, the shopper and their internal stakeholders? Georgia-Pacific will share its early lessons as it navigates the new retail media terrain. How is GP evaluating the total value of these media opportunities, reorganizing internally to leverage them, and pushing these channels to become more effective tools for across the user experience journey?
GP is the largest company you have never heard of. Talk about total portfolio including building materials and that between our branded and private label business, GP is the largest paper manufacturer in the US.
GP is the largest company you have never heard of. Talk about total portfolio including building materials and that between our branded and private label business, GP is the largest paper manufacturer in the US.
Big 3 Things
Why the trend is happening
How to get involved
How to evaluate
Big 3 Things
Why the trend is happening
How to get involved
How to evaluate
More commonly this trend is called Retailers as Publishers. But for a few reasons (mainly that it confuses my internal stakeholders) we have rebranded this to Retailers as Media and Data Providers (right to the point!). More consumers are using these retail sites to not only buy products to but do things that they would with a publisher. They are researching products and even adding their own content in the form of ratings and reviews.
Depending on the study we see reports showing that anywhere between 40%-70% of shopping trips (whether final purchase is online or in-store) starts online.
Retailers are now becoming large publishers. According to comScore, Amazon and Walmart are now both in the top 20 most viewed websites with others like Target not far behind. Also worth monitoring the significant growth of some concierge platforms like Instacart.
More commonly this trend is called Retailers as Publishers. But for a few reasons (mainly that it confuses my internal stakeholders) we have rebranded this to Retailers as Media and Data Providers (right to the point!). More consumers are using these retail sites to not only buy products to but do things that they would with a publisher. They are researching products and even adding their own content in the form of ratings and reviews.
Depending on the study we see reports showing that anywhere between 40%-70% of shopping trips (whether final purchase is online or in-store) starts online.
Retailers are now becoming large publishers. According to comScore, Amazon and Walmart are now both in the top 20 most viewed websites with others like Target not far behind. Also worth monitoring the significant growth of some concierge platforms like Instacart.
For GP: When managed effectively, manufacturers have seen an increase in sales as a result of better integration with retail media. Additionally, for CPG companies like GP that don’t have a robust D2C business, the retailer holds most of the 1P data for the category. That 1P data enables better targeting and better measurement of the effectiveness of the campaigns.
For Retailer: Retailers are using their media and data capabilities as an additional revenue stream. Just look to the recent news with WMG moving away from Triad and bringing their media capabilities in-house. They looked at how Amazon Advertising has been showing tremendous growth rates in revenue for Amazon and are looking to mirror that model.
For Consumer: Relevancy of messaging/content enhances the consumer experience for shoppers. Additionally, with this trend retailers are investing in their digital platforms to provide a seamless/frictionless experience for their consumers to engage.
One primary benefit is better targeting, better measurement which then leads to better optimization.
Depending on the retailers, they have these capabilities across all major channels including search, display, video and are more recently expanding into Social Platforms. Large trend is pushing into the OTT space with enhancements to Amazon Fire TV, Vudu and others.
GP is leveraging these abilities to try to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our campaigns with quicker feedback loops.
Investments in Retail Media have been outpacing digital as a whole across the CPG landscape
GP has followed this trend as retail media has grown as a percentage of our total digital investments YoY
As mentioned before, one of the main reasons we have followed this trend is the ability to leverage the retailer’s first party data to more effectively reach the right target audience with the right content (or creative message) in the right context (environment, place within their shopping experience)
Investments in Retail Media have been outpacing digital as a whole across the CPG landscape
GP has followed this trend as retail media has grown as a percentage of our total digital investments YoY
As mentioned before, one of the main reasons we have followed this trend is the ability to leverage the retailer’s first party data to more effectively reach the right target audience with the right content (or creative message) in the right context (environment, place within their shopping experience)
Investments in Retail Media have been outpacing digital as a whole across the CPG landscape
GP has followed this trend as retail media has grown as a percentage of our total digital investments YoY
As mentioned before, one of the main reasons we have followed this trend is the ability to leverage the retailer’s first party data to more effectively reach the right target audience with the right content (or creative message) in the right context (environment, place within their shopping experience)
Investments in Retail Media have been outpacing digital as a whole across the CPG landscape
GP has followed this trend as retail media has grown as a percentage of our total digital investments YoY
As mentioned before, one of the main reasons we have followed this trend is the ability to leverage the retailer’s first party data to more effectively reach the right target audience with the right content (or creative message) in the right context (environment, place within their shopping experience)
Where retail media fits in the brand experience journey
While we often look to compare Retail Media opportunities to other national media alternatives in the marketplace (like a Facebook or Google), it doesn’t show the full picture. We are in the process of developing a scorecard to share with our key stakeholders on a quarterly basis. Here are some of the key areas:
Data: What unique data is the partner able to provide including more information on the consumer (demo, repeat, behavioral) to help with our strategy at the retailer. We also look for the ability to track from online to in-store.
Targeting: Purchase-Based, Behavioral, Keyword, Contextual, etc. that is differentiated from national alternatives.
Integrations: Do these partners have the ability to tie into our existing platforms like our DMP. Moving forward we also look for willingness to include open API’s to enhance other areas like reporting and automation.
Measurement: Ideally closed loop sales lift attribution leveraging control and exposed audiences but we also look for partners to add additional measurement tools or partners such as NCS or IRI helping with total market sales impact.
Relationship: How are these investments integrated into the P&L. Are we able to make different decisions with our Trade or other investments if we invest more in Media. Are we able to leverage the spend to get incremental activity such as feature and display.
Value: It all starts here. These would be the most common metrics including ROI, Efficiency, Viewability and even the ability to do alternative pricing models (like a CPA).
This space will continue to grow and with it, the Retail Media team at GP continues to expand.
The space is growing in two ways.
Retailers are building out additional capabilities like self-service so we have brought in display traders. Measurement opportunities also continue to grow.
More retailers are also entering the space. There are several fast-followers that look at the success of Amazon, Walmart, Target and Kroger and are looking to get into the mix. It is important to assess all capabilities and compare it to your other alternatives in the marketplace. Additionally, I have had the opportunity to talk to a few retailers as they build these capabilities out and I would highly suggest looking at the scorecard to ensure you are creating the maximum value for their potential investors.
Also an opportunity for retailers to think bigger like Amazon has. Amazon has just as many endemic and non-endemic advertisers. An example is a company like BMW. According to Kantar competitive spend tracking, they invest advertising into Amazon. Not that you can buy BMW’s on their platform but they are leveraging Amazon’s robust 1st party data set for better advertising and driving it to their own properties.