As retail media evolves beyond basic search ads to include full-funnel campaigns that include digital, social and in-store digital screens, many CPG companies risk creating fragmented marketing that overlaps in some places but misses other essential engagement opportunities with consumers.
To ensure food and beverage brands are able to efficiently and effectively connect with the more than 26 million customers who shop at Ahold Delhaize USA stores, the retailers’ media arm – AD Retail Media – will launch in January a new ad platform that will tear down advertising siloes and bring all media channels under one vehicle.
AD Retail Media’s Edge is a “one stop ad shop” that uses agentic AI to bring together disparate traditional advertising tools, including a media plan, commercial plan, shopper marketing plan, loyalty program, enterprise marketing and more, said Bobby Watts, senior vice president of AD retail media, digital merchandising and marketing for Ahold Dehlaize USA.
“The secret sauce of retail media is obviously the data and being able to measure or close the loop on performance by tracking definitively and deterministically when a consumer sees an ad if they then go to a store or online and buy that product,” he said.
But, he added, tracking that path to purchase becomes difficult if retail media, commercial, shopper and enterprise marketing and loyalty data are siloed.
How Edge outperforms other retail media options
AD Retail Media’s Edge not only brings marketing tools together, but because the platform was “made by grocers for grocery,” it is optimized to deliver best-in-class relevancy on sponsored search from grocery consumers and products, he added.
He explained that unlike other “global platforms” made for multiple industries that “are trying to serve multiple masters,” Edge offers only what is best from the grocery industry.
“When we are thinking about targeting on-site display ads, how do we make sure that the machine learning and the algorithms that are running the targeting for on-site displays are doing it through the lens of a grocery consumer, including the purchase frequency of grocery categories, which behave very differently than someone buying a washing machine or a computer,” he explained.
“Well, Edge is the way to do that,” he added.
Edge offers higher ROI
He explained Edge’s tailored approach is built on grocery data, which means it will generate more relevant results and ultimately a higher return on investment.
“If you are serving more relevant products to the consumer, they are going to drive higher engagement, higher conversion. They are going to click on things more because it is more relevant. If I am serving irrelevant things to the consumer, or a likelihood that something is less relevant, then that is going to have a negative impact on the ROI for the advertiser,” he said.
“And so for us,” he added, “the foundation is by driving higher relevancy in the platform, we can drive better returns for the advertisers because the algorithms will match consumer needs.”
Self-serve model offers simplicity and saves time
AD Retail Media’s Edge also is self-serve and allows brands to monitor on-site and off-site ads in one place, which Watts said will save CPG brands time managing campaigns.
“With this platform, we believe that they’ll have a much easier way of managing campaigns with less resources, which drives efficiencies. And then they can put those dollars instead of in human resources. They can put those dollars into activating media. And then hopefully, in turn, what they all want to do is sell more cases and drive market share, just like we want to do,” he explained.
Connecting with the consumers of tomorrow
With the launch of Edge, AD Retail Media also is adopting a new operating model that is less about selling adds and more about engaging with “the consumers of tomorrow,” Watts said.
He explained that 60% of baskets are influenced by Gen Alpha, but brands cannot yet advertise to this group because they are too young.
However, with Edge, brands are better positioned to connect with consumers who are “extremely digitally engaged,” by “bringing digital merch, enterprise marketing and retail media together to create a symbiotic relationships with the category merchandising team,” which is what the next generation of shoppers will look for, said Watts.
“They are going to be looking for genuine, authentic content. They are going to be looking to be connected to the overall plan” and to be inspired by relevant content, “which is what we aspire to offer with the Edge platform,” he added.
