Following its recent launch, the new IPG Mediabrands’ Unified Retail Media Solution, led by Glen Conybeare, Global President of Reprise Commerce, has made its way into several industry publications.
Digiday noted the scale of opportunity in Retail Media for brands, agencies, and retailers, whilst pointing to the challenges posed by the walled garden approach retailers have taken when launching their own Retail Media Networks.
“We’re trying to unify audiences, measurement, optimization — the whole lot — because if we can therefore make it a lot easier for brands to understand which retailers are working better or worse than others at a campaign level, then we start to give the brands the information they need to truly know the incremental value of the budget,” Glen Conybeare told Digiday. “That opens up the opportunity to see which budget, which spend is working better than others.”
Digiday also noted the close partnership between the Unified Retail Media Solution, led by Conybeare, and Jeriad Zoghby, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer across all IPG, who is responsible for the broader commerce agenda across the parent company and had the following to say about walled gardens:
“It’s not like we’re breaking the walled gardens, but we are starting to find more intelligent ways to bring insights over the walls of the walled gardens. And audiences are the secret sauce for doing that in a more intelligent way in saying cleanrooms are wonderful, they’re core to our strategy, [but] this is how we get broader intelligence beyond just what clean rooms provide.” Added Zoghby.
Read the full article in Digday (paywall)
Ad Age covered the launch of the new solution by pointing to the lack of standardization across Retail Media Networks, suggesting ‘each network requires a different set of tools, metrics and assets.’
“Each network operates as a closed-loop system which makes it really difficult to drive ROI effectively,” Glen Conybeare told Ad Age, “With dozens of retail channels as part of many clients’ investment strategies, it has been difficult to compare their relative performance.”
Read the full article in Ad Age (paywall)
Marketing Interactive focused on how the Unified Retailed Media Solution will be able to sift out the retailers who are performing at their best and automate cross-retailer activation and optimization, shifting media spend between retailers to increase sales and profitability.
Marketing Interactive also covered the data available to brands through the solution. Brands will be provided with the option to augment their existing audience data through Acxiom data sets, and the platform will automatically aggregate the cross-network data using IPG’s AI-powered tools.
“With our platform, we have standardized a key part of the process, allowing our clients to make the optimal decisions both within and across Retail Media Networks based on facts, not hunches,” Conybeare added.
Read the full article in Marketing Interactive
Axios paid close attention to the tech platform underpinning IPG Mediabrands’ Unified Retail Media Solution, noting data is pulled from each of the Retail Media Networks.
“This is then measured and can be compared by audience type, such as new parents who buy natural products.” Glen Conybeare told Axios.
“It works with brands’ existing tools and complements their capabilities,” he added, “and helps brands decide how to shift media spend between [Retail Media Networks] to maximize sales. What we’re building is not intended to be a self-service tool but rather a managed service,” Conybeare says.
“However, we are creating client interfaces that will help bring much-needed clarity for brands, including multi-retailer, multi-channel dashboards,” he added.
Read the full article in Axios (paywall)
As noted in VideoWeek, the concept behind the new business unit is to help brands determine which retail media network is performing best.
The Unified Retail Media Solution will do this at the SKU (stock keeping unit) level and enable brands to move budget between retailers quickly and easily to maximize sales.
A key element of the offering concerns audiences. Mediabrands has created a library of unified audiences that advertisers can target across RMNs, with plans to expand to 10,000 by the end of 2023.
Brands can either target these audiences directly or bring in their own predefined audiences via their customer data platform, and then layer in Mediabrands’ audience to bolster this data. Advanced audience solutions from IPG’s Acxiom can also be used.
Read the full article in VideoWeek
Elsewhere on the web…
Agency Moves: IPG Mediabrands, Chemistry, Quad and More
Business Wire: IPG Mediabrands Launches Unified Retail Media Solution
MARTECH SERIES: IPG Mediabrands Launches Unified Retail Media Solution
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