As Walmart Goes, So Does The Ad Economy?
If you’re wondering why Retail Media is where it is in the ad ecosystem, consider how Walmart presents its earnings to investors:
Big companies sure love those ‘durable profit sources.’ And that’s how they view advertising (it’s not driven by a love of Cannes Lions or images of Mad Men, for sure). So I’d expect more emphasis of RM by the likes of CVS, Target, Walgreens, etc…at least for the foreseeable future.
Of course, at this point, every one of these companies is going to run out of room shoving ads into their owned sites – and are going to have to push to bring their data and ad products ‘off platform.’ There is seemingly endless opportunity to bring RM to the open web, TV, and pretty much every other media vehicle.
The thing is, the further you bring retail media targeting and data from the point of transaction, the less effective it’s likely to be. Which means it probably will be profitable, but not as ‘durably profitable’ as those killer ads on your eCommerce site.
Which is fine for most media businesses. But for these non-media CEOs who’ve suddenly fallen in love with advertising, will they be as enthusiastic about such tradeoffs?
Other interesting stories this week:
The commerce media stack - Ari Paparo [Marketecture]
Ad gamification is here - Jasmine Sheena [Marketing Brew]
Meet 16 Execs Building Ad Businesses From Brands Like Chase and Home Depot - Kathryn Lundstrom & Lauren Johnson [Adweek]
How Amazon's massive TV deal with YouTube's top star turned sour - Lucia Moses [Business Insider]
