June 21, 2023 | By Michael Bürgi

Building on an initial partnership they announced back in January at CES, Omnicom Media Group and Albertsons Media Collective are escalating their relationship around investing in connected TV, Digiday has learned. It’s a continuation of a series of deals Omnicom and its units are unveiling this week at Cannes Lions to attempt to cement its position as a leading holding company active in commerce media.

This deal, which the companies announced this morning at Cannes Lions, centers around multi-party clean-room technology that allows for multiple data streams to be melded in order to power enhanced cross-channel video investment. It’s been enabled by new technology from clean-room provider Snowflake, and is housed in Omni, the holding company’s operating system. Data flowing into the clean room includes Albertsons’ first-party consumer purchase data, Videoamp measurement data and will include data from several video publishers, including Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBC Universal. Other publishers will be added.

The partners conducted beta tests across two CPG categories (one that involves client PepsiCo) in Q2, which delivered significant increases in performance across channels with use of the data set.

“How we’re approaching video measurement, planning and allocation is really evolving, to now start to have this kind of deterministic [element] with the retail media data,” said Megan Pagliuca, OMG’s chief activation officer. “With Snowflake’s multi party clean-room capability, it’s going to allow us to do cross-publisher deduplication, across all of the key TV networks. We can all connect to each other without actually moving the data around.”

Added Kristi Argyilan, senior vp of retail media at Albertsons companies, “This is really where retail media is capable of changing the media landscape overall, because we have this accountability loop that I know for OMG is a really important part of how they service their clients. So to have this accountability loop, or one of the largest spends that CPGs in particular have is a really a great breakthrough for the industry.”

Ensuring the safety and privacy of the data is another key element to the deal, noted Bill Stratton, global head of media, entertainment and advertising at Snowflake. “We want to make sure that Albertson’s data is obviously protected, along with the other participants,” he said. “And we want to make sure that we have the governance and the privacy that governs how it can be collaborated upon.”

Some of the big video sellers are taking advantage of the opportunity. “The TV industry has a key role to play when it comes unlocking data interoperability in a privacy compliant manner to advance the efficiency and efficacy of cross-platform media planning,” said Jim Keller, exec vp of digital ad sales and advanced advertising at Warner Bros. Discovery.

John Lee, NBC Universal’s chief data officer, noted that the closed loop element to the partnership gets the industry closer to determining outcomes. “This next-generation, industry-wide partnership with Albertson’s Media Collective will leverage real-time shopper data to close the loop and unlock TV and video media performance for advertisers like never before,” he said, “all while keeping privacy and security standards top of mind.”

In all, it comes down to having more accountability to all the players in the video buy-sell equation, said Argyilan. “When you look at the largest CPGs, who also have the largest budgets to spend in television, to get to a place where we have the pieces in place now to start to understand how you drive accountability is going to be very interesting,” she added.

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