Kenyatte Nelson, CMO, Co-op writes there’s shopping and then there is convenience shopping. We all know there’s a difference because the majority do both every week – whether that’s a repeat online grocery shop, a planned trip to the supermarket on Saturday morning, or a more frequent, convenient trip into a local store on the way home from work.
The convenience experience is quite distinct. It is usually an unplanned shop. Rarely is a shopping list involved. Yes, it can be about plugging a grocery gap at home, but often it’s an impulse action and can result in experimentation and inspiration with the chance to try something new.
Now that this distinctive human experience has become a media channel, we are beginning to understand its impact on shoppers in more detail, and we are starting to prove that convenience shopping has to an extent, a symbiotic sales relationship with other forms of retail.
The omnichannel experience
Much is being said about the stella growth of retail media and its ability to influence the path to purchase by connecting in-store and online retail experiences, leveraging sales, loyalty and CRM data.
In the context of uncertainty about cookies, the measurability of social channels and the fragmentation of TV audiences, the emergence of retail media ecosystems offers a hugely exciting additional route to reach people during the moment of intent.
When you overlay in the grocery space, 65-85% of FMCG retail sales (95% for convenience) happen in-store, it presents a huge opportunity for retailers and FMCG brands to drive conversion so that is where innovation, investment and attention is focussed.
But in truth, retail media is still at a very early stage and proof of its performance is at a premium. And although the fundamental advantage of retail media, that delivering ads at the point of intent amplifies attention and engagement, is clear it is also the case that different retail experiences inevitably produce different media opportunities.
Co-op’s Media Network: a new opportunity
The creation of Co-op’s Media Network is the first time that the convenience experience has been brought to market as a retail media opportunity, and what we’re learning is that it is not just a performance medium. It is a brand builder too. Its influence reaches way beyond the immediate store in which a brand message is seen.
Our recent study in partnership with Circana reveals that FMCG ads shown in our stores, don’t just boost sales in Co-op, but also in competitor stores in a surrounding catchment area. In effect, it shows that retail media advertising is a brand builder and a purchase influencer with legs.
People are remembering what they’ve seen, what they bought in a smaller pack size (perhaps for the first time) and then purchasing it again in larger format during a later planned shop. Importantly, the data from the study has shown that the uplift in the non-Co-op stores represented four times the total incremental sales value seen in the Co-op stores alone.
The study looked at multiple campaigns run in Co-op stores across confectionery, beer and ice cream categories and found the same pattern. One of the retail media campaigns reviewed within the study – a global beer brand – generated a brand sales uplift of 12 percent in Co-op stores, and Circana was able to identify that it drove a further three percent uplift in non-Co-op halo stores.
For any retailer used to competing with other store brands, this is perhaps an unusual piece of news to promote. But Co-op is now a media owner and so our role has evolved. As a retail media owner, our main goal for the brands that advertise with us is to generate sales regardless of where that customer purchases the product.
It also speaks to the unique role of convenience in the shopping mix. If you shop at Co-op, you will shop at other grocers too. In fact, we know that shoppers who use a Co-op store will also shop in around nine other retailers as well. We therefore have a very interesting and extensive influence footprint.
Analysis by Circana suggests the increase in sales value in other stores was in large part due to people buying bigger packs in those larger retailers which highlights the influential role convenience plays. But overall, it shows retail media can do the job TV is often employed to do – it builds brands. However, rather than doing it by storytelling, it does it through experience.
Integration with other media channels
No one is saying that retail media will replace TV or online marketing as a brand builder and a vehicle to engage audiences with a story. But convenience retail media is clearly very much more than an ‘in the moment medium’ that boosts a brand at a single point of sale. The fact that it can increasingly integrate a range of different media including CTV and out-of-home into a measurable closed loop of shopper data, points to the new emerging complexity of marketing.
What this study may do, is encourage FMCG marketers and media planners to examine how retail media fits into a marketing mix alongside online performance and conventional advertising channels. For FMCG brands, it may result in a substantial re-think about the way they invest in advertising and plan their marketing, promotions and launches. Retail media may be upgraded from a niche to mainstream priority channel.
Kenyatte Nelson, CMO, Co-op
Hear more from the Co-op in the latest episode of the Retail MediaX podcast.
Dean Harris, Head of Co-op Media Network and Rosie Houston, Managing Director of UK Partnerships at SMG outline how convenience retailers have a key role to play in retail media and how that differs from what is seen across the rest of the grocery sector.
This brand new series also sees Asos, ITV, Stonegate Group, Asda and SMG share their retail media insights.
Stay informed
Our editor carefully curates a dedicated Retail Media newsletter on a bi-weekly basis, filled with up-to-date news, analysis and research, click here to subscribe to the FREE newsletter.
You are in: Home » Retail Media » GUEST COMMENT Why Co-op’s retail media research could transform FMCG advertising
GUEST COMMENT Why Co-op’s retail media research could transform FMCG advertising
Katie Searles
Kenyatte Nelson, CMO, Co-op writes there’s shopping and then there is convenience shopping. We all know there’s a difference because the majority do both every week – whether that’s a repeat online grocery shop, a planned trip to the supermarket on Saturday morning, or a more frequent, convenient trip into a local store on the way home from work.
The convenience experience is quite distinct. It is usually an unplanned shop. Rarely is a shopping list involved. Yes, it can be about plugging a grocery gap at home, but often it’s an impulse action and can result in experimentation and inspiration with the chance to try something new.
Now that this distinctive human experience has become a media channel, we are beginning to understand its impact on shoppers in more detail, and we are starting to prove that convenience shopping has to an extent, a symbiotic sales relationship with other forms of retail.
The omnichannel experience
Much is being said about the stella growth of retail media and its ability to influence the path to purchase by connecting in-store and online retail experiences, leveraging sales, loyalty and CRM data.
In the context of uncertainty about cookies, the measurability of social channels and the fragmentation of TV audiences, the emergence of retail media ecosystems offers a hugely exciting additional route to reach people during the moment of intent.
When you overlay in the grocery space, 65-85% of FMCG retail sales (95% for convenience) happen in-store, it presents a huge opportunity for retailers and FMCG brands to drive conversion so that is where innovation, investment and attention is focussed.
But in truth, retail media is still at a very early stage and proof of its performance is at a premium. And although the fundamental advantage of retail media, that delivering ads at the point of intent amplifies attention and engagement, is clear it is also the case that different retail experiences inevitably produce different media opportunities.
Co-op’s Media Network: a new opportunity
The creation of Co-op’s Media Network is the first time that the convenience experience has been brought to market as a retail media opportunity, and what we’re learning is that it is not just a performance medium. It is a brand builder too. Its influence reaches way beyond the immediate store in which a brand message is seen.
Our recent study in partnership with Circana reveals that FMCG ads shown in our stores, don’t just boost sales in Co-op, but also in competitor stores in a surrounding catchment area. In effect, it shows that retail media advertising is a brand builder and a purchase influencer with legs.
People are remembering what they’ve seen, what they bought in a smaller pack size (perhaps for the first time) and then purchasing it again in larger format during a later planned shop. Importantly, the data from the study has shown that the uplift in the non-Co-op stores represented four times the total incremental sales value seen in the Co-op stores alone.
The study looked at multiple campaigns run in Co-op stores across confectionery, beer and ice cream categories and found the same pattern. One of the retail media campaigns reviewed within the study – a global beer brand – generated a brand sales uplift of 12 percent in Co-op stores, and Circana was able to identify that it drove a further three percent uplift in non-Co-op halo stores.
For any retailer used to competing with other store brands, this is perhaps an unusual piece of news to promote. But Co-op is now a media owner and so our role has evolved. As a retail media owner, our main goal for the brands that advertise with us is to generate sales regardless of where that customer purchases the product.
It also speaks to the unique role of convenience in the shopping mix. If you shop at Co-op, you will shop at other grocers too. In fact, we know that shoppers who use a Co-op store will also shop in around nine other retailers as well. We therefore have a very interesting and extensive influence footprint.
Analysis by Circana suggests the increase in sales value in other stores was in large part due to people buying bigger packs in those larger retailers which highlights the influential role convenience plays. But overall, it shows retail media can do the job TV is often employed to do – it builds brands. However, rather than doing it by storytelling, it does it through experience.
Integration with other media channels
No one is saying that retail media will replace TV or online marketing as a brand builder and a vehicle to engage audiences with a story. But convenience retail media is clearly very much more than an ‘in the moment medium’ that boosts a brand at a single point of sale. The fact that it can increasingly integrate a range of different media including CTV and out-of-home into a measurable closed loop of shopper data, points to the new emerging complexity of marketing.
What this study may do, is encourage FMCG marketers and media planners to examine how retail media fits into a marketing mix alongside online performance and conventional advertising channels. For FMCG brands, it may result in a substantial re-think about the way they invest in advertising and plan their marketing, promotions and launches. Retail media may be upgraded from a niche to mainstream priority channel.
Kenyatte Nelson, CMO, Co-op
Hear more from the Co-op in the latest episode of the Retail MediaX podcast.
Dean Harris, Head of Co-op Media Network and Rosie Houston, Managing Director of UK Partnerships at SMG outline how convenience retailers have a key role to play in retail media and how that differs from what is seen across the rest of the grocery sector.
This brand new series also sees Asos, ITV, Stonegate Group, Asda and SMG share their retail media insights.
Stay informed
Our editor carefully curates a dedicated Retail Media newsletter on a bi-weekly basis, filled with up-to-date news, analysis and research, click here to subscribe to the FREE newsletter.
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