Industry Spotlight Q&A With Alex Crowe, Head of Asda Media Partnerships, Asda

The Drum and InMobi recently sat down with key experts to get industry viewpoints to help retailers prepare for and capitalize on the retail media revolution. Here is our interview with Asda's Alex Crowe. 

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What do you think retail media can deliver for advertisers that other channels cannot?

Retail media offers FMCG brands the opportunity to talk to customers at the point of purchase. Most FMCG items are low involvement decisions, meaning purchase decisions are made on a customer’s shopping journey at the shelf (both in store and online). As a retailer, we are in a unique position to understand what customers are buying, be it by store, day of the week or time of day, and with what other items. So with the dynamic assets and rich data you can drive customer relevancy at the point they’re making decisions then provide comprehensive reports on the success of the campaign, both soft measures but also harder metrics like the impact on sales.

Do you expect to see more ad budgets being allocated to retail media?

I’ve long advocated (seven years in January) for that to be the case and looking at the trends of the US market, I would suspect it is highly likely. Ultimately, that decision rests with the brands we support and their appointed media agencies, but it’s fair to say it’s an exciting time to be involved in retail media as it gravitates to the front-of-mind of key decision-makers.

Who do you see as the major players in the retail media space right now?

The retail media space is growing fast across the globe: Apple’s Search Ads are growing in prominence, Uber has launched Uber Ads, and Walmart launched Walmart DSP. We’ve also seen Target, Gap, Home Depot, Trip Advisor, Kroger and Best Buy all launch their own media networks. Given enough time will every company try to have an advertising proposition?

Any other interesting trends you are seeing in this space?

There are numerous data and rewards trends. We’ve been spending time looking at how we make shoppers’ experience more engaging, unlocking the power of data to drive relevance in communication, while enabling advertisers to deliver their brand objectives in the physical retail environment. We’ve done some pretty cool stuff with key strategic partners and in a couple of stores: Milton Keynes and Stevenage.