3 Takeaways from the IAB Connected Commerce Summit: Retail Reimagined

We don’t have that crisp autumn weather in New York quite yet, but it still felt like back-to-school season as retail media leaders and technologists gathered at Convene this past week for a fantastic Connected Commerce Summit from The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Between the stages, breakouts, and hallway conversations, three key themes emerged as top of mind for retailers and their technology partners alike:

Retail media means business. Joint business planning, to be more precise.

Kavita Cariapa from Dentsu Commerce made this point incisively during her panel session with Kathryn Mazza of Hy-Vee, Paul Brenner from Vibenomics, and the lovely Andy Murray, new in his role as executive chairman at Saatchi & Saatchi X. The brilliant Sarah Marzano of eMarketer capably moderated the discussion.

Successful partnerships go beyond transactional relationships, emphasizing strategic collaboration to co-create solutions that drive growth. This collaborative approach helps align goals, share resources and ultimately delivers a more cohesive and effective consumer experience.

Specifically, Kavita made the point that joint business planning (JBP) extends beyond the traditional media planning behaviors that so many of us in the room may have experienced in the past. JBP drives to the heart of the retail media value proposition: Media has transformed from a cost center for advertisers into a source of revenue for retailers. This drives healthy gross profit in industries that have traditionally operated on thin margins.

That’s why I’m coining a new term: JBP SZN! It’s joint business planning season as we speak.

Retail media has to deliver more than the sum of its parts.

From the golden/olden days of co-op dollars to programmatically served advertising offsite and onsite, retailers are not strangers to media revenue from brands seeking to promote their wares at the moment of purchase.

What has changed, is the massive fragmentation not of buying channels but of touchpoints for the advertiser along the way.

Retailers have executed quickly to stand up digitally activated media offerings, but have struggled to deliver a holistic experience for their advertisers.

Stephen Chriss of Campbell Snacks may have delivered the zinger of the day when he summarized how the tables have turned between suppliers and their retail partners: When it comes to retail media, he’s now the client!

That means that retail media has to deliver on a value proposition that surpasses past media frameworks.

Meet customers where they are, always.

IAB’s Jeffrey Bustos led a fantastic breakout session with Melissa Baldwin from Google and Suzanne Skop of Instacart.

Suzanne made a comment that others had echoed throughout the week – her daughter is a digital-first shopper and is more likely to have items delivered than to set foot in a store.

In a different session, Hash Mian at PubMatic told a similar story about his young son, who “may never have stepped in a grocery store.”

The difference? Suzanne’s daughter is 23 years old and, in her example, was shopping at Sephora.

The contrast between the two shopper experiences emphasizes that the customer journey is not linear – and so delivery mechanisms for advertising need not be, either.

It is entirely possible that a shopper can start at the bottom of the funnel – for example, a child requests an item be added to dad’s grocery order – and then that child emerges as a shopper on his or her own at a different time and place.

That’s where the data comes in. Rich first-party data attached to the right campaign strategies means that brands can reach their customers where they are across any channel, anytime.

Cheers to IAB for a substantive, thought-provoking and inspirational Connected Commerce Summit!

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anne Hallock is currently head of strategic retail partnerships for Vantage, the orchestration platform for retail and commerce media. Past roles include chief revenue officer for e-commerce software platform Flowspace and head of global marketing for The Trade Desk. As a go-to-market leader, Anne’s work has been recognized internationally – most recently by Fast Company Magazine’s World’s Most Innovative Companies and Inc. Magazine’s Power Partner program, as well as Forbes, Deloitte, and other publications.

 

About the IAB

The IAB is comprised of more than 700 members from media companies, brands, agencies, and the technology firms responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital ad marketing campaigns. The trade group fields critical research on interactive advertising, while also educating brands, agencies, and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing. Learn more at IAB.com