The rapid growth of retail media networks has led to an increase in walled gardens, posing challenges for brands like Campbell's Soup Co. The lack of set standards across measurement and ad formats has resulted in more closed ecosystems. Efforts are being made to address these issues, with the Interactive Advertising Bureau/Media Rating Council releasing retail media measurement standards. Retailers like CVS Media Exchange have aligned with these standards.
Campbell's evaluates its media buys weekly to measure campaign performance. Steven Frey, planning director for Media by Mother, highlighted the importance of getting specific on the use case when discussing retail media. Retail media has been part of Campbell's strategy for years, but Google's third-party cookie deprecation is boosting retail media networks.
Walmart's Vizio acquisition potentially opens up more inventory and bridges the gap between brand and retail dollars. However, the key challenge remains: streamlining and measuring campaign effectiveness across multiple retail media networks. Until this issue is resolved, retail media growth could stall, as 42% of global advertisers don't plan to change their retail media ad spend due to the lack of standardization. Data clean rooms could be the next step in addressing the walled gardens issue, but setting them up is challenging. Advertisers need to understand how to best leverage each network and its ecosystem.