Vol. 1, Issue 4: OMG, RMNs
To paraphrase Billy Madison, “you ain’t cool unless you have an RMN”
It’s big in the supermarket segment, with both Kroger’s and Albertson’s launching RMNs in the last 18 months and making key hires to support them. Walmart and Target have been in this business for some time as well.
Clothing and other big box stores? Check! Macy’s and the Gap have also created RMNs in house to support their massive online and brick and mortar retail presences. And with Macy’s recent Toys R Us expansion, how long before that’s part of the fold, if it isn’t already?
Best Buy and Criteo had an event *last night* in support of their relationship as part of Best Buy Ads, which launched earlier this year. Lowe’s is in the game too.
It’s been a buzzing topic in the industry for some time - how can a brand who has tons of customer information based on voluntary authentication to a website or property, purchase history and other endemic information from their ad serving tech of choice leverage and control that information in a way that drives more sales?
That can manifest itself in a bunch of different ways. A brand could work with a data partner to warehouse and segment that information and pass it into either the ad server or the DSP in a compliant, safe way and then use that to target or retarget people across the open web. That’s a fairly standard practice.
But with an RMN, the brand is bringing functions that were traditionally externally managed and directed into the organization and spinning up a marketplace that can leverage the data they have and bid intelligently and do it across supply partners of their choosing (including *their own supply*). They can curate their supply partners and control distribution. That’s kinda game-changing IMO*. And any time there are fundamental shifts in the business that are like this, I find it fascinating to think about.
*I’m working on my understatements
There’s a bunch of noise in the marketplace though. How do RMNs work? What happens to the ad agency? What tech is responsible for it? Do they build? Buy? Partner? White label? And what kind of overhead exists to manage all of this? If I’m a Fortune 1000 brand (as opposed to a Fortune 100 brand), can I even afford to do this? Can I afford *not* to do it?* I can’t really answer all of these questions, but there’s a lot of information out there to help.
*I sometimes picture myself in the pivotal scene in a movie where one of the main character’s close confidants asks a purely rhetorical question that somehow spurs the conclusion of the third act.
“Main character: I just don’t know if I can put myself out on a limb like that
Secondary character we’ll call Gregg: Can you afford *not* to?
Camera cuts to MAIN CHARACTER, back to SCWCG who opens his eyes slightly wider, back to MAIN CHARACTER who quickly nods. Cut to …”
Sorry, I’m writing my whole movie here.
To their credit, identity and data management company Audigent has released their Retail Media Playbook - a downloadable white paper that does a great job explaining the basics. To sum it up briefly*, invest in cookieless data solutions, make sure they operate across multiple sets of identifiers, curate your supply intelligently (i.e. make it an actual focus, because supply quality is important) and get the most granular information possible about your users to inform the first three. I highly recommend downloading and reviewing the Retail Media Playbook if you’re interested in them or in building one.
*And probably not entirely correctly, though I think that’s built into the word “briefly”
It’s been a priority for a long time for publishers to get closer to the brands and understand their strategy to execute their brand strategy to meet their KPIs. This hastens that transition and makes it even more important than ever. And publishers that own (or have access to) large pools of first-party data now look even more attractive to brands, because they can make a shidduch* and bring their data together in a clean room and match very nicely, all in service of audience extension and improved reach.
*This is a Yiddish word for matchmaking.
Long time friend of Wolinetz and The Media Trust’s resident expert Gavin Dunaway pulled together a really nice summary for DCN about how publisher’s can tap into and be a part of brand RMNs. One of the very salient points that Gavin makes in this article is that on-property advertising is “easy”. Target, for instance, controls all of the inventory on Target.com. But going off-property isn’t just about audience extension; it’s also about brand extension. So via the communicative property*, brand safety is a big deal, which means pubs have to clean it up and premium pubs have a leg up.
*The transitive property? I think I failed Logic in college. Or dropped it to avoid failing it.
To try to answer some of the hypothetical questions that I posed above, at the risk of being wishy-washy, it just depends on the brand and the goals. But practically speaking, if you’re a brand with some loyalty and affinity amongst your customers, why wouldn’t you at least try this in some measure? Partner with your friendly neighborhood DSP and see what kind of clean room you can spin up to unify your inventory across platforms, come up with some ID match and find your consumers that way. Leverage a company that can use your data to find audiences that you may not even know that had interests that are aligned with similarly-minded folks who already buy from you. There’s myriad scenarios where you can increase sales well above the investment that it would take to execute. Start small and grow big, like an oak tree or something. I don’t know.
But what I do know is that if you’re sitting on a trove of data and know a whole lot about people and their purchase history and affinity, there’s a lot of value to everyone, including the consumer if you act on it. I obviously have a favorable view of advertising, especially intelligently informed advertising*, but it seems to me that most people prefer relevant advertising to advertising that makes no sense or impact.
*I do not care for those ads on social networks that say something like “Hey, XX aged person who lives in YY, do we have the dentist for you!” Those ads are creepy. Stop doing them.
Trivia Of The Week: Who Is C.F. Frost?
If you grew up a million years ago like me and also have a borderline psychopathic obsession with the most minor possible details, you probably noticed that fake American Express card in their advertising has the same name on it: C.F. Frost. And you probably wondered, who the hell is C.F. Frost. Well, wonder no more:
C.F. Frost was an account executive at Ogilvy & Mather who came up with the original “Do You Know Me?” campaign idea (you can find my favorite homage to that here). As the article notes, that’s not his real card number*
*Although it didn’t stop me from trying to order a Craftmatic Adjustable bed with it
That’s all, folks. See you next time.