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Discussing retail media’s rapid evolution with Kimberly-Clark and OMG

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with two of our client-side partners at the annual Tesco Media Upfront. Scott Bodie, UK Digital Lead at Kimberly-Clark, and Prateek Gupta, Managing Director of e-Commerce and Retail Media at OMG Transact, were kind enough to join me for a wide-ranging discussion on retail media, advertising as a whole, and the power of partnership.

Below are a few of the headlines and highlights from that session.

The past two years have been transformative for retail media

“A year ago, I wouldn’t have been sat here.” That was how Scott framed the scale of the change that we’ve seen over the past 12 months, referencing the fact that his digital marketing background would previously have precluded him from speaking at a retail media event. That shift, he continued, has primarily been driven by a growing appreciation of retail media as a truly full-funnel opportunity.

Prateek agreed, noting that the conversations OMG is having with its clients today are entirely different from the ones they were just a few years back. Even as recently as 2020, he said, retail media was seen as a way to use up leftover budget, with most brands taking the stance of “let’s see what happens”. Today, the most substantial contracts that the agency wins have retail media at their core, he noted.

Our guests were quick to point to other key changes in the past two years, from the growing number of non-endemic (i.e. not consumer-packaged goods) brands engaging with retail media through to customer data’s growing importance to overall brand strategy.

Retail media is bringing internal marketing teams together

Perceptions aren’t the only thing to have changed in the past couple of years, according to Scott. Reflecting on the silos that are typically associated with a cross-discipline activity like retail media, he noted a distinct shift towards cohesion and collaboration. As proof of that, he pointed to Kimberly-Clark’s recent decision to bring its digital, retail, and e-Commerce teams together under an overarching “performance” banner.

As well as helping to boost transparency, Scott noted that doing so had also created a better connection with the brand’s commercial team – something that he cited as a huge positive in terms of creating a connected strategy.

Measurement is now about much more than ROAS

Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) is a critical metric for any marketing initiative. And, for the avoidance of any doubt, it remains so for retail media, too: “the first dollar being spent on retail media is still ROAS-heavy,” acknowledged Prateek, particularly for those brands at the lower end of the retail media maturity spectrum.

At the same time, he said, there is a growing appetite to have a “constructive conversation” about retail media and its impact on wider brand goals like category share and new-to-brand customers. Prateek pointed to one recent campaign that used dunnhumby data and Tesco audiences to reach out to a very specific group of lapsed and competitor buyers via Google Display & Video 360. “The space is rapidly evolving in terms of the KPIs,” he said.

Scott concurred, noting that “ROAS is a lead-in metric, but not necessarily our North Star”. He used the fact that retail media is now being planned with Kimberly-Clark’s central media team as evidence of its applicability to wider marketing goals.

Current challenges will define the changes that come next

Asked how they thought the industry might evolve in the next couple of years, both Scott and Prateek said they felt that the focus would be on fixing some of the common challenges currently associated with retail media.

“Incrementality is a problem,” stressed Prateek. “The measurement and attribution piece is still sticky,” he continued, with the different attribution windows and post-campaign analysis practices across retailers providing clear room for a more standardised approach. The good news, he said, was that “where there’s a great challenge, there’s a great opportunity”, too.

For Scott, the focus is very much on the data side. “We’re on a journey,” he pointed out, stressing that being able to connect zero, first, and second-party data was a priority. Authentic and connected sofa-to-store experiences are beneficial to customers, he said, but delivering on that promise also means being able to measure consistently across the whole.

Start small, stay agile

“Keep pushing your vision”, said Scott when asked what advice he had for the other brands in attendance. Retail media can be quite an easy sell internally, he stressed, but there also needs to be a clear direction for people to get behind as the operation evolves. Having the right executive sponsorship is also critical, he added.

Prateek agreed, adding that it is important to give retail media the time it deserves. “Take one campaign where you bring your trade, brand, and performance marketing teams together, set KPIs, agree to try out different retail media solutions, and give it a proper chance,” he said. “Start small, but do start.”

Retail media is the future

Rounding off our time together, I posed Scott and Prateek one final question: what was it about the future of retail media that excited them most? For Prateek, the answer was clear: his belief that it “genuinely is” the future. “Over the next 24 months, all digital media will have retail data involved in it,” he posited.

Scott agreed, though mentioned that he was equally excited about the opportunities of a truly connected customer experience. “It unlocks a lot of potential,” he said, which is a sentiment that I share wholeheartedly.

Thanks once again to Scott and Prateek – and to all of our guests – for joining us at the Tesco Media Upfront. If you’d like to know more about what went on during the day, why not take a look at some of the amazing campaigns that we celebrated during our 2023 Upfront Awards?