Retail Media Trend Report: July 26
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. Google Drops Cookie Deprecation
It really happened - after four years and three delays, Google is dropping its plans to deprecate third-party cookies. This comes after years of agencies, brands, and especially retailers building plans to be able to identify off-site shoppers in a cookieless world.
Google has announced, instead, a plan to capture consumer consent. No plans have been released of what this will actually look like. It could potentially be an opt-in, similar to Apple’s ATT, or something else entirely different. Regardless, this is especially shocking news for brands who have worked to lessen their reliance on third-party cookies.
Ultimately, though, the deprecation of third-party cookies was one of multiple concerns that CPG brands and agencies faced in an ever-changing digital marketing world. Just because cookie deprecation is no longer on the table for Google, doesn’t mean that consumers aren’t still concerned about privacy, or advertisers aren’t struggling with delivering messaging in brand safe environments.
Plus, the impact of opt-outs on identifiable audiences is still uncertain. Retailers will most likely still move forward with many of the cookieless ID solutions they have built, considering that many users may opt-out of using cookies anyway. After all, Apple’s rollout of ATT saw a 30% opt-in rate, which means most users are still untrackable.
Continuing to partner with platforms that leverage contextual commerce media will also be important for RMNs regardless of Google’s decision. These partnerships could help RMNs reach shoppers at scale, and drive increased awareness to an exclusive network of brand-safe, contextually relevant content.
2. Sam’s Club Continues to Build Its Retail Media
Sam’s Club’s retail media network, Member Access Platform (MAP), is continuing to grow its capabilities and offerings - it announced on Wednesday the launch of display ads in its app’s Scan & Go feature.
The ads will appear specifically on the cart page of the app, targeting late-stage audiences ready to buy. Sam’s Club is looking to not only provide relevant content for more easily discoverable products, but also carve out new ways to measure shopping behavior and in-store ad performance.
The Scan & Go display ads are currently available in all clubs for select members - Sam’s Club is looking to roll it out to all of its in-club shoppers over the next few weeks, according to the press release.
This is one move in a growing trend of in-store retail media, which has advanced in the first half of 2024 with offerings like aisle screens, digital kiosks, and end-cap displays. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that grocers are interested in connecting digital retail media capabilities with the in-store experience.