How to Merge Retail and Media Ecosystems

Increasing competition and price-conscious consumers are driving the need for effective joint business planning to optimize advertising budgets and drive success. 📊 Both brands and retailers emphasize the importance of data sharing to understand shopper behavior and improve strategies, with finance and supply chain playing critical roles. 💸 Budget Fluidity: Brands often struggle with unclear budget allocations for retail media and JBP efforts, needing a holistic strategy across trade, shopper, and brand spend. 📌 Have a collective conversation with all budget owners to develop a flexible budget strategy. 🧩 Role Clarity: Both brands and retailers find it challenging to identify and involve the right functions in JBP conversations, leading to misalignment. 📌Start early, define roles clearly, and ensure all relevant functions are up to speed on the broader strategy. 📉 Data Standardization and Sharing: Different measurement standards and reluctance to share data create difficulties in understanding ROI and building cohesive strategies. 📌 Leverage industry standards like those from the IAB, and ensure transparent data sharing between brands and retailers to enhance collaboration 🤝 Misalignment between Merchant and #RetailMedia teams: Internal alignment between merchandising and retail media is often cited as a pain point, with merchants needing to see the value of retail media. 📌 Connect with the merchandising team to showcase the benefits of retail media for growing merchant metrics like sales and margin. Retail media teams should align with merchants around goals and tactics to help reach those goals . Download The Digital Shelf Institute and Microsoft report “Joint Business Planning (JBP) Between Retailers and Brands: Effective Optimization Strategies for Collaborative Growth” https://lnkd.in/eKXKuP9H

Retail Media’s Next Chapter: Turning Fragmented Channels to Unified Brand Experiences Retail media isn’t just about ads anymore. It’s about impact. But with dozens of retail media networks competing for attention, CPG brands are asking: How do we make it all connect? Kathryn Mazza, SVP - Chief Marketing Officer, President of RedMedia at Hy-Vee, Inc., is answering that question head-on. On a recent episode of The CPG Guys podcast, she laid out a clear vision: Retail media is evolving into an experience multiplier, blending digital, in-store, and community touchpoints to drive not just awareness, but action. Here’s how: 1/ A shopper discovers a product through a surprise and delight sampling moment at her local fitness studio, college campus, etc. She’s surrounded by her community. A memory forms. 2/ She sees the product again on the personalized Hy-Vee app. (Maybe at the event, she was prompted to clip a coupon on the app). 3/ On a routine stock-up run, she sees the product spotlighted above the endcap via digital screens. 4/ She hears it mentioned over in-store audio. 5/ Maybe she samples it again at a branded in-store demo. These aren’t just media tactics. This is an orchestrated brand moment, rooted in experiential. RedMedia is leaning into sampling through eComm, surprise-and-delight campaigns, and community activations that go beyond the aisle. For Hy-vee, it’s retail media that builds memory, not just metrics. For CPGs navigating a crowded media landscape, this episode offers a clear signal: Experience isn’t a channel; it’s the strategy. 🔗 Full episode link in comments.

What does the $2.4B acquisition mean for the CMOs and eCommerce leaders in lifestyle brands? 1) Dick's Locker? Dick’s brings robust omnichannel infrastructure, integrated mobile apps, online inventory visibility, and click-and-collect at scale. Foot Locker adds sneaker and streetwear positioning, with deep cultural capital. A creator commerce engine (via its Impact.com-powered platform), enabling influencers to run affiliate storefronts and drive authentic community-driven sales. Combined, this creates an end-to-end commerce funnel from awareness (influencer storefronts) to transaction. An opportunity for brands to plug into a richer, more socially connected eCommerce channel 2) Foot Locker’s creator platform is one of the most advanced social commerce plays in retail. Under Dick’s, expect to expand across new categories (not just sneakers). Integrate with Dick’s app, website, and loyalty ecosystems. Increase brand visibility via influencer partnerships tied to measurable conversion metrics. 3) This merger also creates a more powerful retail media network and digital storefront. Enhanced search, paid placement, and promotion tools for brands. A competitive edge for those who can pay to play and optimize digital shelf presence. 4) Post-acquisition, shoppers will expect to: Browse online → try in-store → buy from either channel, frictionlessly. Use loyalty points, discounts, and customer profiles across Dick’s and Foot Locker seamlessly. Benefit from smarter fulfillment, such as buy online, pick up at the nearest store. Naturally, expect major tech stack consolidation #ecommerce #retail #omnichannel

🏷️𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝘂𝘆 + 📱𝗖𝗡𝗘𝗧: '𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗼 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹.' Huge RMN news this week, with Kathryn Lundstrom of ADWEEK reporting yesterday on an innovative partnership between Best Buy and CNET. "The deal represents the first time a publisher and retailer have combined data in this way, said independent industry analyst Andrew Lipsman, and it could mark a turning point if more retailers and publishers partner in the coming months." (I was referring to category-specific digital publishers. We've already seen RMNs partner with other digital publishers like social media platforms.) One thing that makes the Best Buy-CNET tie-up so cool is that it brings together content and commerce in a bi-directional manner between retailer and publisher. 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝘂𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱-𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽 𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗡𝗘𝗧.𝗰𝗼𝗺. “The ability to understand whether somebody who’s exposed to ads on CNET then actually went and purchased through Best Buy—the ability to close the loop … that’s a totally new innovation,” I note in the AdWeek article. Advertisers also get to extend the audience reach of their campaigns by running concurrently on Best Buy and CNET content. 𝗖𝗡𝗘𝗧 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗽𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝘂𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀. This gives in-market shoppers the relevant content and information they need to make better-informed decisions in the aisle. This could represent a key step toward more interactive experiences in store (e.g. accessing CNET content on your smartphone via in-aisle merchandising features) to drive product engagement. CNET content will also appear on Best Buy's O&O ecommerce channels, so it's a truly omnichannel capability that can influence every phase of the path to purchase. The partnership creates a win-win-win-win for the retailer, the publisher, advertisers, and consumers. It's also a great example of a leading RMN executing the retail media flywheel that I wrote about in my inaugural Media, Ads + Commerce article. [link in comments] At the time, I wrote: "RMNs can also now control their own destiny, much like Amazon does with its sizeable media portfolio. By acquiring digital publishers—especially at current valuations—RMNs would gain access to scaled audiences and contextually relevant content that maximize campaign effectiveness while lowering customer acquisition costs. It’s not hard to imagine the potential pairings: grocery chains + recipe sites, pharmacies + health info sites, home improvement retailers + how-to sites, department stores + fashion sites, and sporting goods retailers + sports news sites." What will be the next RMN-digital publisher domino to fall? Share your guess in the comments! #retailmedia #retailmedianetworks https://lnkd.in/gbmH6hsE