The electronics show is back in Las Vegas, and there are some serious subjects the ad industry needs to hash out

By Michael Burgi, Digiday. Published on January 5, 2023.

As if to prove commerce media will play a more central role than ever before in the media investment strategies of marketers, Omnicom Media Group (OMG) will announce at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas an exclusive partnership it struck with Albertsons Media Collective, Digiday has learned.

The partnership enables access to the media agency network’s inventory via The Trade Desk’s platform, using the grocery giant’s shopper database to target and measure that buying. (Albertsons is on the verge of becoming a shopping giant as it moves to close an acquisition by grocery chain Kroger.)

By tying first-party data to The Trade Desk’s inventory, retail media networks can alleviate some of CTV’s data shortfalls problem by “closing the loop” for brands investing in CTV. Ergo, brands can tailor advertising spend to Albertsons shoppers and measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns at the register within TTD’s platform.

“TV historically has been measured on GRPs, but never measured on sales. With this colliding of retail media and connected TV, it’s changing that,” said Megan Pagliuca, OMG’s chief activation officer. “We can actually have an understanding of online and offline sales when working with the largest screen in the household.”

Pagliuca added that the deal gives the media agency network “first to market capability of targeting and measurement” when combining Albertsons’ datasets with Omni’s audiences.

Kristi Argyilan, svp of retail media at Albertsons Companies, added that the partnership moves the retail media business forward. “We’re not just about running campaigns that carry price and promotion and a product,” said Argyilan. “The more advanced capabilities of a retail media network applied to other channels like CTV really shows what retail media will be bringing to the marketplace longer term.”

Argyilan, a longtime media veteran who’s been a media agency CEO (at IPG’s Magna) and a head of marketing at Target (and later, Target’s retail media offering, Roundel), said it’s the potential to improve TV, where so many marketers’ budgets still go, that has her excited. According to a recent Insider Intelligence report, CTV ad revenue is expected to grow more than 27 percent in 2023 to $26.92 billion.

“Showing performance based on impressions that are delivered, versus performance that shows a business outcome is really what this [partnership] is all about,” she said. “From my perspective, having come up on the media side of the industry and always wishing the channel that we all spend the bulk of our ad budgets on can be more accountable. This is us finally getting there as an industry.”

As for working this partnership through only TTD’s inventory, both Argyilan and Pagliuca cited their respective companies’ existing partnerships that allow for a triangulation of sorts. “We have a deep partnership with them, and we’ve actually co-developed tools together, and work very closely on innovating,” said Pagliuca. “So we kind of view them as one of our key strategic partners alongside Google and Amazon.”

“To be able to start to answer some of these questions on how television can drive sales in a more real time fashion, instead of having to wait until your marketing mix modeling can prove it after the fact is, to me, the holy grail in terms of what retail media can bring to key partners,” added Argyilan.