Tesco’s retail data science firm dunnhumby has this week launched Sphere, an all-in-one ‘customer first’ retail media platform.
dunnhumby Sphere is described as an end-to-end retail media platform that takes users from brand insights to campaign billing through its fully integrated set of modules, helping to unify audience targeting, media booking, forecasting and measurement across a range of retail media channels.
The platform, available to firms looking to build their retail media capability, is claimed to allow retailers to scale and maximise revenues from retail media, while advertising partners will benefit from enhanced collaboration and the ability to plan, book, measure and pay for campaigns across online and in-store channels.
Retailers will be able to use dunnhumby Sphere to increase the sophistication of their omnichannel media offerings without any of the complexity or cost that such change usually involves. And as a modular solution that integrates with the broader ad ecosystem, dunnhumby Sphere will also allow retailers to incorporate their existing retail media technologies.
dunnhumby Sphere is already used by Tesco to power several of the retail media products offered as part of the Tesco Media and Insight platform, which was recently launched in the UK to help Tesco suppliers and agencies engage with customers and understand their evolving needs.
“Retailers are finding out that building their own retail media business is complex,” said Julie Jeancolas, head of media and customer engagement products, dunnhumby. “The retail media ecosystem is highly fragmented, making platforms difficult and expensive to develop. This often means that the value of data gets trapped, with some third-party data platforms serving unusable data to brands and agencies, which undermines the point of a self-service platform.
“Brands need a single point of access for all their measurement reporting to compare the relative performance of each channel, while retailers need a way to validate the long-term impact of Retail Media on the customer experience and sales.
“And that’s where dunnhumby Sphere will make a real difference. It allows retailers to efficiently manage a complex ecosystem, unlocking the value of their data by making on-demand AI-based audiences easily accessible to CPGs, whilst still allowing the retailer to measure the true impact of media on their core business.”
NAM Implications:
- Given ‘80% of shoppers are now doing half or more of their shopping online’ (Kantar)
- It follows that brands that boost their visibility on the ‘digital shelf’, have to benefit….
- Ads need personalising.
- Retail media tying of ads to sales helps.
- This new Retail Media Platform could simplify the process.
- Watch this (digital) space…
