Retail media: delivering precision at scale

Beyond com­mer­cial growth, how has retail media devel­oped in recent years?

The indus­try is evolv­ing, not just grow­ing. We’ve seen the launch of a num­ber of new retail media net­works and plat­forms, giv­ing adver­tis­ers greater con­trol and vis­i­bil­i­ty over their activ­i­ties.

There’s also mar­ket cohe­sive­ness, mov­ing from a col­lec­tion of dis­joint­ed and dis­parate prod­ucts to a more con­nect­ed ecosys­tem where adver­tis­ers can con­sis­tent­ly reach cus­tomers from sofa to store. Retail media now works across the mar­ket­ing fun­nel, online and off. It’s a fun­da­men­tal­ly smarter and more effec­tive propo­si­tion.

What have been Tesco’s advances in this area?

Over the past decade, Tesco has built a track record of inno­va­tion and suc­cess­ful sup­pli­er part­ner­ships in retail media. Twelve months ago, we launched Tesco Media and Insight Plat­form, pow­ered by Dunnhum­by, which is the next step in the evo­lu­tion of our offer­ing.

It’s a suite of prod­ucts across online and in-store media, as well as cus­tomer insights, help­ing brands improve engage­ment with Tesco cus­tomers for more per­son­alised expe­ri­ences. It also offers self-serve capa­bil­i­ties, which we know is increas­ing­ly impor­tant to brands and agen­cies.

Tesco’s week­ly media reach rivals some of the biggest online plat­forms, and that’s com­bined with data and insights from over 20 mil­lion Club­card hold­ers. All of this allows brands to focus on cus­tomer groups that mat­ter most to them while still being able to com­mu­ni­cate at scale.

How can retail media suc­cess­ful­ly reach cus­tomers?
We offer effec­tive mass broad­cast media chan­nels to dri­ve aware­ness and con­sid­er­a­tion. Tesco Mag­a­zine is the most-read print pub­li­ca­tion in the UK, and Tesco has the largest out-of-home dig­i­tal dis­play net­work with­in the retail indus­try. Our recent­ly launched part­ner­ship with ITV, allow­ing brands to reach Tesco cus­tomers on ITVX, is anoth­er inno­v­a­tive way for adver­tis­ers to deliv­er pre­ci­sion at scale.

Nuance is key, though. Retail media is at its best when viewed through a strate­gic lens, with dif­fer­ent chan­nels and tac­tics achiev­ing dif­fer­ent goals. If you want to com­mu­ni­cate with mil­lions of shop­pers at once, you can, but you can also tar­get an exclu­sive group of cus­tomers.

To deliv­er this pre­ci­sion, it’s huge­ly impor­tant to us that we look after all the data our cus­tomers choose to share with us. We only use data that cus­tomers have opt­ed to share, and we want cus­tomers to be con­fi­dent that all data is safe, secure, and used to offer a more rel­e­vant 
shop­ping expe­ri­ence.

How does it influ­ence deci­sion-mak­ing from sofa to store?

Retail media gives brands access to a diverse range of chan­nels and acti­va­tions. In store, for instance, you have tra­di­tion­al for­mats like print­ed point of sale, radio, mag­a­zines, and sam­pling, all of which can help to inspire cus­tomers when they’re mak­ing their minds up about what to buy.

Online, there are almost unlim­it­ed ways to engage. It’s pos­si­ble to do every­thing from sur­face-rel­e­vant spon­sored prod­ucts in search results to pro­vid­ing per­son­alised offers designed to pro­voke a spe­cif­ic response.

We have also struck sev­er­al part­ner­ships with oth­er media brands, allow­ing adver­tis­ers to reach Tesco cus­tomers on oth­er plat­forms such as Face­book and Google. This will enable rich­er for­mats like video to become a key com­po­nent of a media plan.

In-store and dig­i­tal are no longer sep­a­rate strands but parts of a con­nect­ed adver­tis­ing envi­ron­ment.

What impact can this have on mea­sure­ment and ROI?

Retail media helps brands under­stand why shop­pers make deci­sions. First-par­ty data from loy­al­ty pro­grammes like Tesco Club­card enable action­able insights into cus­tomer behav­iour, which is invalu­able for brands because it gives a com­plete pic­ture.

But the impli­ca­tions for ROI go far beyond mea­sure­ment. Brands can tar­get high­ly spe­cif­ic audi­ences based on the like­li­hood of them tak­ing a cer­tain action, so adver­tis­ers can be more sophis­ti­cat­ed in their spend­ing while demon­strat­ing the impact of their activ­i­ty.

Retail media typ­i­cal­ly deliv­er strong returns on invest­ment. On aver­age, we deliv­er a ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) of £6.60 for every pound spent across the Tesco plat­form, com­pared to an all-adver­tis­ing return of £3.80, accord­ing to pub­lished research from Mag­ic Num­bers.

How can retail media advance brand vis­i­bil­i­ty beyond end-of-fun­nel?

Retail media is pur­pose-built to help brands beyond the end of the fun­nel, and there are two things at play here: insights and acti­va­tion. Data lets brands devel­op a deep­er under­stand­ing of shop­pers’ behav­iours and then devel­op a range of ways to act on that infor­ma­tion.

Say you have a group of cus­tomers show­ing the same ten­den­cies as those who recent­ly switched to a competitor’s prod­ucts, or per­haps you have shop­pers who spend a lot with­in a par­tic­u­lar cat­e­go­ry but don’t buy your brand. Insight-dri­ven retail media helps you spot this and plan your cam­paign accord­ing­ly. Nat­u­ral­ly, this infor­ma­tion both informs strat­e­gy and allows for it to be acti­vat­ed at scale.

Retail propo­si­tions, on-and-offline, are busy envi­ron­ments; how do you achieve cut-through?

The main thing is a brand’s abil­i­ty to put cus­tomer needs first. Think about rel­e­vance, time­li­ness and how you can be most use­ful or help­ful. Will it make a person’s shop­ping trip eas­i­er, faster or cheap­er? If not, think again.

Anoth­er thing to con­sid­er is mind­sets and mis­sions, and how best to align with them. Sea­son­al and cul­tur­al events are a great exam­ple because they give brands clear oppor­tu­ni­ties to tap into what mat­ters most for dif­fer­ent groups of shop­pers dur­ing those peri­ods and own the moment.

How does Tesco work with brands to achieve a suc­cess­ful part­ner­ship?

Brands are huge­ly impor­tant to Tesco and its cus­tomers, so we work hard to ensure they get the best from our rela­tion­ship; we believe our media offers a ‘win-win-win’ for cus­tomers, brands, and Tesco.

First­ly, in terms of mea­sure­ment, we help adver­tis­ers close the mar­ket­ing loop by mak­ing it very easy to track the impact of their activ­i­ties. We link what peo­ple see to what they buy so that brands can under­stand the true incre­men­tal­i­ty of their media cam­paigns.

Sec­ond­ly, from a rep­u­ta­tion­al stand­point, Tesco is one of the most trust­ed brands in the UK. We offer a brand-safe envi­ron­ment in which to adver­tise via our online pres­ence and phys­i­cal store estate.

Then there is our focus on self-serve. We know that many brands and agen­cies want the con­trol and flex­i­bil­i­ty that comes with being able to plan, man­age and mea­sure cam­paigns on their terms.

The value of loyalty

A suc­cess­ful retail media strat­e­gy empow­ers sup­pli­ers with insights that help them to get to know their most loy­al cus­tomers and reach them via a range of media chan­nels. “It helps us deliv­er on our strate­gic pri­or­i­ty through I Love my Tesco Club­card to bet­ter engage our cus­tomers and pro­vide them a more per­son­alised and respon­sive offer. We aim to use our unri­valled dig­i­tal plat­form and cus­tomer base to cre­ate addi­tion­al val­ue and increase loy­al­ty, mak­ing sure that the more cus­tomers use Tesco, the more use­ful it is to them,”  explains Tash Whit­mey, mem­ber­ship and loy­al­ty direc­tor at Tesco.

For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it dunnhumby.com/tesco-media-insight-platform/

Beyond commercial growth, how has retail media developed in recent years?

The industry is evolving, not just growing. We’ve seen the launch of a number of new retail media networks and platforms, giving advertisers greater control and visibility over their activities.