dunnhumby, the leading retail data science organisation, has launched dunnhumby Sphere, an all-in-one customer first retail media platform.
dunnhumby Sphere is 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.
What exactly is retail media?
Ads that are shown on a retail website, application or any other online platform for retailers are known as retail media. It allows brands to advertise their products close to the point of sale, which in turn makes it easier to convert customers.
Retailers and advertising partners can try to build their own retail media networks and platforms, but due to the highly fragmented, therefore complex and expensive, nature of the channel, this doesn’t always work.
Julie Jeancolas, Head of Media and Customer Engagement Products, dunnhumby said: “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.”
Why is the platform necessary?
The platform, available to retailers looking to build and expand their retail media capability, allows the scaling and maximising of 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 transform their media business, increasing the sophistication of their omnichannel media offerings without any of the complexity or cost that this 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.
The platform is already used by Tesco in the UK 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.
The benefits of having everything in one place
On a platform like this, everything from insights to billing is controlled via one intuitive interface, covering all retail media channels. The platform makes it easier for retailers to optimise the performance of their retail media activity by providing an overall representation of their customers across every channel and campaign.
dunnhumby Sphere can also help retailers to access larger brand budgets, with access to new revenue from agencies who would traditionally be excluded from this activity.
Using data science, the platform gives access to simple but powerful AI powered audiences to predict the customer likelihood to buy any given product, resulting in up to twice the return on ad spend (ROAS) when compared to standard descriptive segmentation models.
Bringing together multiple sets of data, Sphere provides retailers and their advertising partners with a single view of all audience activations, providing access to AI-powered audiences to help brands find the shoppers they need to target in order to hit their marketing goals and deliver high return on ad spend.
The platform tracks the long-term impact of retail media on the shopper experience. Retailers can monitor the impact on customer lifetime value, loyalty, and basket size. At the same time, in-depth measurement helps to maintain campaign relevance as shopper needs change, while transparent closed-loop measurement gives advertisers the proof of incremental performance.
This development could be the first sign of what is to come in the retail media landscape. Improved ability to collaborate in what can be an especially fragmented channel and journey may encourage more retailers and advertisers to get involved.
We’ve heard it a thousand times – e-commerce is taking over – and developments such as the creation of this platform could increase this tenfold.