Retail Media Trend Report: August 9
Welcome back to Chicory’s Retail Media Trend Report! The boom of retail media has made industry news, especially for grocers, hard to follow. Our bi-weekly recap aims to help you navigate this ever-growing world.
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Industry Happenings
1. Checking in With Cookie Deprecation
In the last edition of the Retail Media Trend Report, we covered Google’s controversial decision to drop its third-party cookie deprecation plans. It’s been a few weeks now, and Digiday spoke with a few agency executives to get a temperature check.
The first insight is that some execs still feel unclear around Google’s plans in the face of keeping third-party cookies. Jennifer Kohl, chief media officer at VML ad agency, says “you never know when Google is going to issue another statement that might be, maybe not a complete 360, but a little left turn.”
Some speculate that Google could potentially implement opt-in, similar to Apple’s ATT. If this is the case, it’s important to note that Apple’s rollout of ATT saw a 30% opt-in rate, which means most users are still untrackable.
“Ultimately it [Google’s decision] buys a bit of time, a temporary relief, I suppose. But ultimately, the road has already been started,” says Callen Johnson, digital media operations director at SMG.
Google first announced its cookie deprecation plans years ago - meaning many marketers set in motion plans to wean themselves off third-party cookie reliance. The deadline for cookie deprecation already had brands and agencies looking for alternative ID solutions.
Cookie technology is just one piece of the overall shift. The grocery industry has seen growing consumer concerns around how they are advertised to and how their data is used. These are concerns brands and agencies still need to be aware of moving forward - cookie deprecation or not.
For RMNs themselves, continuing to partner with platforms that leverage contextual commerce media will continue to be important as well. These partnerships could help RMNs reach shoppers at scale, and drive increased awareness for brands across an exclusive network of brand-safe, contextually relevant content.
2. New Forecasts
This past week, eMarketer shared new insights and forecasting into retail media spend and trends - two key insights they unearthed revolved around in-store retail media and off-site targeting.
Source: eMarketer
Forecasts show that ad spend on in-store retail media will remain less than 1.0% of total retail media ad spend in the US through 2028. Still, growth will be steady. One key reason why growth might not be as intense could be due to in-store retail media often requiring heavy investment in new technology. Brands and agencies might still look to rely on established formats instead.
To that point, experts also predict over $10 billion in growth for off-site retail media spend - just in the next year alone.
Source: eMarketer
Forecasts show US ad spend on off-site retail media will grow 27.1%, reaching $13.52 billion in 2025. Experts predict over 55% of marketers worldwide plan to increase their spend on off-site retail media ads.
Contextual commerce media solutions have risen to complement these growing interests in off-site targeting. These solutions help connect retailers to a network of recipe publishers and CPG advertisers to extend retail media networks’ off-site tactics. For the grocery industry, these tactics include leveraging high-intent environments like digital recipes. As interest in off-site targeting rises, so will interest in ad suites that help fulfill that growth.
3. Ahold Delhaize USA Teams Up With Havas
In a press release this past Tuesday, Ahold Delhaize USA announced plans to partner with Havas Media Network to scale media buying and planning for four of its brands: Giant Food, The GIANT Company, Hannaford, and Stop & Shop.
This news builds on updates Ahold had earlier this year, when its in-house retail media network partnered with sales platform Placements.io to streamline sales, advertising and finance operations. This efficiency seems to be a constant at the heart of Ahold’s retail media partnerships.
“As we continue to equip our brands to compete in their marketplaces, being efficient with media not only enables our brands to be where their customers are with relevant offers — but save to reinvest in more of what their customers want,” says Keith Nicks, chief digital officer for Ahold Delhaize USA.
Ahold’s in-house retail media network, like many other players in the space, has also been looking to simplify the end-to-end ad campaign launch and measurement process for CPG partners. Still, while RMNs have valuable insights into on-site shopper activity, off-site visibility is a bit more scarce.
In the face of this, RMNs have partnered with contextual commerce media platforms to build out a more holistic view of their end-to-end audience journeys. This has allowed brands to tap into off-site channels to reach high-intent audiences, and even new and lapsed consumers.