By Simpactful Senior Partner, Heather Burgess
According to e-Marketer, Retailer Media expenditure could top $61 Billion in 2024. Surprised? Don’t be. Most retailers are following Amazon’s success model and investing heavily in media networks. Platforms have become more sophisticated in the past year with better targeting, improved self-service tools and an expanded number of offerings. Retailers recognize the opportunity to help shoppers find better products and deals, and to generate valuable profit that can be reinvested back to fund innovation or enhance margins. Accordingly, they have staffed with resources skilled in both building the platforms, and selling and negotiating for the media. Joint Business Planning for the year is well under way and negotiations for 2024 Merchandising and Media plans are being finalized with most retailers. It can be daunting to assess all investment requests. Here are three questions all CPG brands should be able to answer:
- Do my Sales, Brand, and/or Omni Shopper team have the skills to negotiate escalating asks effectively? As retailer asks continue to climb, it is critical that Sales, Brand, and Omni Shopper teams have the skills to negotiate the asks with both internal and external teams. This requires both the media understanding, as well as the negotiation skills. First and foremost, these resources must understand the media tools at a sufficiently deep level, as well as their promised utility and actual performance vs alternative national or shopper investments. They must also understand the national Brand, Marketing and Media strategy and whether, and how any Retailer Media investment could align to and fuel that strategy. Similarly, the Sales and Omni team must understand the stakeholders and motivations within the retailer and how to translate investments into JBP wins. With this information, they should be able to assess the value of the media vs alternative options, develop a preferred investment plan, consider strategies to secure merchandising and other JBP wins, raise or address objections, and determine the negotiation approach for the internal and Retailer discussions.
- Do we know how to secure a plan that shows partnership without trading off on performance? Many of our clients complain about the high degree of variability across media networks. Capability and costs differ dramatically across platforms, and there is general distrust of Retailer-reported media performance. Marketers report pulling back investment commitments over fear they will be locked into inefficient spend. Fortunately, with a bit of planning and finesse on engaging the right stakeholders at the right time, there are absolutely negotiation strategies Brands and Sales can use to hold Retailers accountable for media performance.
- Are we structured to succeed as the asks escalate? Retailer Media is becoming an integral part of Brand Media tools and tactics, along with Sales JBPs as the capabilities and offerings continue to improve. However, bringing these two functions together to make collaborative decisions is easier said than done. New internal structures, scorecards, engagement and approval processes, decision authority, budgeting, agency models and creative tools need to be considered. Our team of Marketing, Sales and Retail Experts are in touch with these trends, benchmarking best practices, and studying new models.
If you answered “no” to any of these, are not certain your investment is working as hard as it could, or have concerns about the longevity of your current ways of working, Simpactful can help! Our team of Brand and Retailer Experts would be happy to assess your brand vs versus best practices and benchmarks in the areas of capability, investments and negotiation wins. With this information, we can recommend optimizations or even to help you restructure your Retail Media management approach. To learn more about Simpactful’s capabilities, contact the team today at contact@simpactful.com or 925-234-6394.
Visit www.simpactful.com
By Simpactful Senior Partner, Heather Burgess
According to e-Marketer, Retailer Media expenditure could top $61 Billion in 2024. Surprised? Don’t be. Most retailers are following Amazon’s success model and investing heavily in media networks. Platforms have become more sophisticated in the past year with better targeting, improved self-service tools and an expanded number of offerings. Retailers recognize the opportunity to help shoppers find better products and deals, and to generate valuable profit that can be reinvested back to fund innovation or enhance margins. Accordingly, they have staffed with resources skilled in both building the platforms, and selling and negotiating for the media. Joint Business Planning for the year is well under way and negotiations for 2024 Merchandising and Media plans are being finalized with most retailers. It can be daunting to assess all investment requests. Here are three questions all CPG brands should be able to answer:
- Do my Sales, Brand, and/or Omni Shopper team have the skills to negotiate escalating asks effectively? As retailer asks continue to climb, it is critical that Sales, Brand, and Omni Shopper teams have the skills to negotiate the asks with both internal and external teams. This requires both the media understanding, as well as the negotiation skills. First and foremost, these resources must understand the media tools at a sufficiently deep level, as well as their promised utility and actual performance vs alternative national or shopper investments. They must also understand the national Brand, Marketing and Media strategy and whether, and how any Retailer Media investment could align to and fuel that strategy. Similarly, the Sales and Omni team must understand the stakeholders and motivations within the retailer and how to translate investments into JBP wins. With this information, they should be able to assess the value of the media vs alternative options, develop a preferred investment plan, consider strategies to secure merchandising and other JBP wins, raise or address objections, and determine the negotiation approach for the internal and Retailer discussions.
- Do we know how to secure a plan that shows partnership without trading off on performance? Many of our clients complain about the high degree of variability across media networks. Capability and costs differ dramatically across platforms, and there is general distrust of Retailer-reported media performance. Marketers report pulling back investment commitments over fear they will be locked into inefficient spend. Fortunately, with a bit of planning and finesse on engaging the right stakeholders at the right time, there are absolutely negotiation strategies Brands and Sales can use to hold Retailers accountable for media performance.
- Are we structured to succeed as the asks escalate? Retailer Media is becoming an integral part of Brand Media tools and tactics, along with Sales JBPs as the capabilities and offerings continue to improve. However, bringing these two functions together to make collaborative decisions is easier said than done. New internal structures, scorecards, engagement and approval processes, decision authority, budgeting, agency models and creative tools need to be considered. Our team of Marketing, Sales and Retail Experts are in touch with these trends, benchmarking best practices, and studying new models.
If you answered “no” to any of these, are not certain your investment is working as hard as it could, or have concerns about the longevity of your current ways of working, Simpactful can help! Our team of Brand and Retailer Experts would be happy to assess your brand vs versus best practices and benchmarks in the areas of capability, investments and negotiation wins. With this information, we can recommend optimizations or even to help you restructure your Retail Media management approach. To learn more about Simpactful’s capabilities, contact the team today at contact@simpactful.com or 925-234-6394.
Visit www.simpactful.com
