Asda is on a mission to disrupt FMCG advertising
Asda’s advertising won yet another award last week. The retailer though believes it may not be too long before it’s picking up awards in a very different category, as its long term aim to be a credible publisher takes shape.The retailer last week scooped the award for wwthe top Shazamed Ad at The Drum’s DADi Awards, for the use of 'Oh My Love' By The Score.Highly creative advertising will always be crucial for the company but Asda Media Partnerships head Dom Burch also believes it can also play a huge role in disrupting retail and FMCG brand advertising, as he outlines below.
For years Walmart has been a master in the art of driving unnecessary cost out of its supply chain.
It has one of the most efficient distribution models in retail, and is credited by many for having led the way on environmental sustainability in the US by working with its suppliers to reduce packaging, and introduce more energy efficient products.
More recently Walmart signalled its intention to drive unnecessary waste out of advertising and media, with a marketing strategy that will ultimately see it enter the business of media buying and selling.
As a result, Asda is on a mission to be at the forefront of revolutionising how retail media is sold in the UK.
Our long-term aim is to become a credible publisher alongside the likes of Google and Facebook, helping disrupt retail and FMCG brand advertising by removing millions of wasted pounds, which ultimately can be reinvested in lowering prices for our customers.
A recent OC&C and Google report estimated British online retailers are missing out on £1 billion worth of advertising revenues by choosing not to sell advertising space on their own websites.
The Creating Value from Every Visit report revealed that the practice is well established in the US, where eight out of the top-10 retailers use display ads, featured products and sponsored links to advertise goods and services to consumers on their websites.
Market opportunity huge for retailer publishers
Industry experts are now beginning to recognise the market opportunity for retailer publishers in the UK is huge, with only two of the top 10 retailers choosing to sell media space to third parties on their websites today.
The report highlighted that traditional British retailers have an untapped opportunity. Retail sites have an estimated 7.5 billion page views a month, yet digital media revenues from selling search, display and trade advertising amounted to less than £150 million for those websites, asw measured by OC&C.
By comparison, news websites in the UK made approximately £400 million in digital media revenues, despite receiving only three billion page views over the same annual period.
What's more, unlike news sites, retail publishers have a vested interest in the brand's advertising actually working.
Our measure of success ultimately is higher sales, not just reach, impressions or clicks.
Retail media owners like ourselves therefore have a unique opportunity to help brands reach their consumers in vast numbers, but also in an even more relevant and targeted way, with first party sales data that proves whether it worked.
Our websites have billions of impressions a month, which we use to gain insights into who our customers are, what they buy, and what they are browsing in between.
Our transactional data gives us access to a vast pool of rich insights that can enable brands to reach the right grocery shoppers with the right message about their products as close to the point of purchase as possible.
With the introduction of Google Doubleclick for Publishers (DFP) on our grocery home shopping site, Asda can easily locate an audience of shoppers and segment it by brand advocates or potential customers who shop for similar products.
We can then find those customers on our own media, or even on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter through our custom audience integration, or re-target them out on the open web or through in-app ad inventory.
We are already a significant digital media owner in our own right, and a successful publisher of digital advertising.
But with the rise in programmatic advertising retailers like ourselves also have an opportunity to seize the initiative, helping close the loop for brands wanting to maximise their return on media spend.