Retail Media Made Simple

Retail media has become a real buzzword over the past couple of years, but despite it being on the rise, rapid developments in the space mean there are often misconceptions on what it actually is and the opportunities it offers to brands today. 

Our team at Nectar360 continues to play a big part in driving the growth of retail media, with one of our key missions being to make retail media more accessible and understandable to everyone through the power of education. In this blog, I’ll be looking to debunk some common retail media myths, showing just how straightforward, affordable and effective it can be as an essential marketing tool.

The Truth: Traditionally, shopper marketing teams have been responsible for marketing activity at point of sale (POS), but digital off-site propositions now enable brands to utilise rich, first party retailer data to ensure they are targeting the most relevant people as part of their social, digital and CTV campaigns. These new capabilities mean retail media provides a brilliant solution to drive targeted awareness and consideration for brands too. With 22 million members now part of the Nectar loyalty programme, alongside our growing number of partnerships with Sky, Meta, DV360, to name just a few, Nectar360 now offers an omni-channel solution that works with both agencies and clients directly to deliver the best results.

The Truth: All the talk around data cleanrooms, new platforms and an overwhelming number of acronyms can often make many think retail media is more complicated or costly than it actually is. This is not the case! 

At Nectar360, we make retail media easy, exciting and accessible for all. On our self-serve eCommerce Media Platform, our flexible pricing model is made to build on-site campaigns with real-time reporting analytics within the platform allowing you to directly measure the sales driven by your activity. Using Nectar data as part of off-site campaigns, helps to reduce wasted impressions and deliver a relevant, personalised message to customers, maximising the impact of your digital activity and making the most of every penny.

The Truth: With all the headlines focusing on new digital developments within retail media, if you’re new to the industry, you’d be forgiven for thinking all retail media is digital. Head into any Sainsburys store though and you’ll see the amazing in-store activations from the brands we work with, signposting new products with aisle fins, sampling, or bigger formats like our recent store-wrap with Britvic and PepsiCo. With the majority of shoppers continuing to do their weekly shop in-store, these activations remain a core part of brands’ shopper marketing plans, driving interaction right up until the point of purchase. 

The best campaigns take into consideration all customer touchpoints, using off-site to drive targeted awareness, in-store and online to inspire and convert. Our recent work with Diet Coke is the perfect example of this:

As retail media continues to gain momentum, one thing is clear: we need to continue to educate. Retail media is not an exclusive, high-cost marketing tactic built to suit large corporations. It’s an all-accessible strategy that can be tailor-made to fit all types of campaigns, businesses and clientele. 

We recently shared some of our retail media knowledge in our ‘Retail Media Essentials Webinar’ in partnership with the Alliance of Independent Agencies. Attendees heard from Camilla Ray, Laura Farrell and myself on how retail media has evolved and how we can use new and existing formats and data capabilities to build effective, data-led campaigns. It was the perfect webinar to attend if you’ve ever found yourself looking for answers to the following questions: 

• What exactly retail media is and how it has evolved?
• How can Nectar360 data inform your strategy and help identify and target the most relevant customers for your brands
• An overview of available formats and how to decide which is best based on your campaign objectives
• How to measure the effectiveness of your retail media campaigns

Members of the Alliance can re-watch this on their website here:

Home – Alliance of Independent Agencies (allindependentagencies.org)

To wrap it up, I’m hoping that whether you’re a business looking to enhance your marketing or an independent agency eager to expand your services, this blog has been helpful in not only dispelling some of the myths of retail media but demonstrating why it should be an essential part of your marketing plan. As retail media is growing in popularity, there’s no time like the present to educate and explore the doors it could open for you. 

If you’re interested in discovering more, feel free to get in touch with myself or one of the Nectar team!