Retail Advertising

Academy Sports and Outdoors, a sporting goods chain founded in 1938, is trying to get trendy.

Over the past couple of years, thousands of retail industry trends have been flying around like loose threads. But, through it all, one fact stands above all other mere trends: to the biggest go the spoils.

Walmart and Target each had a similar warning for investors when they reported earnings this week. The two major US retailers expect a modest Q4 and spoke of early signs that consumers are dramatically changing their shopping patterns (yet again).

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. A Jeff Of All Trades The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green touted retail advertising as a major growth opportunity at a presentation to TTD investors this week. Green says the market could soon reach $500 billion (retail media currently makes maybe $50 billion per […]

Bill Michels knows programmatic data. For the past couple years, he’s led The Trade Desk’s entire product group. Now, he’s headed to Moloco, where he’s starting as general manager of the company’s retail media business unit.

Kroger Precision Marketing, the grocer’s advertising and data business, announced an expansion into CTV and video inventory channels. “It’s critical to … move into these channels that are increasing with respect to where advertisers are investing their dollars,” Kroger SVP Cara Pratt told AdExchanger.

Walmart has The Trade Desk. Target’s Roundel uses Index Exchange as an SSP and taps Criteo and CitrusAds on the demand side. Quotient lost the grocery chain Albertson’s but signed exclusive contracts with AutoZone and Hy-Vee. CitrusAds picked up part of the Albertson’s ad tech business. The new varieties of retailer walled gardens are built on a foundation of open ad tech.

Consumer habits and changes among retailers themselves have reshaped the agency landscape around a new form of commerce media. The trend wasn’t as obvious a few years ago, when online retail media opportunity looked scattered with an emphasis on discounting: think cash-back apps and the heady days of Groupon sales, or CPGs on Amazon Fresh. Now, a brand that sells online faces a different landscape and an entirely different team of partners helping them.

Walmart uses its “growth algorithm” – adding high-margin advertising and its third-party marketplace businesses as it simultaneously invests in low-margin businesses (namely, groceries and ecommerce fulfillment). Macy’s is pursuing its Polaris plan, an overhaul built around its new customer lifetime value measurements. The mall-based fashion brand EXPRESS has an EXPRESSway Forward plan. Across categories and shopping channels, US retailers have reshaped their businesses.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Working Their Retails Off Retail media is in growth-stage limbo. Retailers have flooded the category with no guarantee advertising will pay off.  The latest is the craft store Michaels, which launched a retail media platform on Wednesday in partnership with Criteo. Amazon sets the […]