Brands must be fully prepared when retailers are ready to align retail media with the rest of the enterprise.
By Courtney Crossley, Mars UnitedSM Commerce
Among the key trends outlined in our recently published Retail Media Report Card Global Yearbook was that retailers are starting to facilitate connected commerce by embracing a more holistic approach to planning with brand partners, bringing merchants and marketers directly into the discussion to more tightly link media investments with in-store, trade, and ecommerce activities.
We’re definitely seeing more retailers leaning into this practice, at least having dotted-line, JBP-ish conversations with brand partners if not formally linking their discussions. But there is one critical point that I’d like to flag — underline, highlight, and boldface, if you will — for the industry: Even when retailers are willing and able to facilitate these conversations, they will only be successful if the brand is equally ready to participate.
In my past life on the retailer side of the table, and here at Mars United where I work across all our clients, I’ve found that the brands most successful at driving connected commerce discussions with retailers are the ones who come to the table with a well-rounded group of participants who are all fully prepared for the conversation — and not simply showing up because they were invited to the meeting. They bring the sales team, the digital team, the measurement team, maybe even a creative partner and the owner of a key brand or product that will be a big bet for that retailer in the coming year. They’re then ready to have a comprehensive conversation that addresses all aspects of the relationship.
All too frequently, brands are still flying by the seat of their pants in these meetings, with only the day-to-day stakeholder and maybe a single partner showing up to have a connected commerce conversation. They don’t lose entirely when this happens, but they’re only able to cover a few key topics.
But when given an opportunity to address their full presence at the retailer, brands should bring the whole army, so they can start talking about bigger-picture issues like joint learning agendas, cohesive targeting, and comprehensive measurement plans. It might also allow them, in nuanced ways, to leverage their hero brand to better position a challenger brand while you’re talking to both the category manager and your digital partner at the retail media network.
This kind of holistic approach has become even more important as we’ve experienced a resurgence of retail media at the point of purchase in the last two years. A key watchout I always stress with clients is making sure their digital presence echoes what they’re doing in the store. You can run the best campaign ever on connected TV, supplementing with search and onsite advertising that gets your products added to numerous shopping lists. But that won’t mean a thing if those shoppers can’t find your product in the store because the endcap program wasn’t executed — or even negotiated.
And let’s be honest: retail media is expensive. One major reason why it’s ultimately worth the investment is the impact it can have on the rest of your retailer relationship. You need to make sure the conversation you’re having with the category manager about in-store opportunities — screens, endcaps, secondary displays — are connected back to your retail media planning.
So, yes, retailers should be facilitating connected commerce conversations. But brands need to come prepared for these discussions by knowing exactly what they’re looking to achieve across every facet of that retailer relationship.
About the Author
Courtney Crossley is Vice President of Commerce Media for Mars United, where she develops holistic, business-led strategies across all client touch points with the goal of driving top-line results. She brings a wealth of end-to-end experience from prior roles at Kroger Precision Marketing, where she helped brands better connect with shoppers, and at Google, where she advised c-suite leaders across a diversified client portfolio on adopting a digital mindset. Reach her at [email protected].
