Happy holidays? Why festive planning is earlier than ever this year

Brands love reaching their most passionate customers. As a former retail CMO myself, I get it. When you reach early planners, you reach the CEOs of the household—an audience that buys and spends more. Reach them first, and you have a shot at being their first choice when it’s time to shop.

And yet, for as long as marketers and advertisers have been prioritising planners, they’re making some seriously incorrect assumptions about this key audience right now. I heard from a CMO...

7 July 2020 | Branding

AI retail software market set to touch $10bn by 2025, says Omdia

Analyst firm Omdia has predicted that the expenditure on AI software for retail uses across the world will grow to $9.8 billion (£7.96bn) in 2025, compared to $1.3bn in 2019.

The report, titled Artificial Intelligence for Retail Applications, also says that retailers will have invested $37.3bn on AI-driven solutions from 2019 through 2025 globally.

Plenty of use cases are driving the artificial intelligence market within retail, such as reducing cost and improving the...

7 April 2020 | Automation

Kroger launches offering focusing on more precise attribution for brands and suppliers

Retail giant Kroger has announced the launch of a new product which aims to provide brands and suppliers with more transparent sales attribution.

The new feature, from Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM), the company’s media advertising business, will mean brands can view in-store and online sales results attributed to campaigns across Kroger properties, with Kroger applying only 100% verified transactions from in-store and online customers.

For marketers hoping to...

14 February 2020 | Advertising Technology

Staying competitive in tomorrow’s retail space: Seven technologies for 2020 and beyond

2020 will see the rise of experience as a differentiator. Gartner predicts 81% of all purchases in 2020 will be based on customer experience and this is largely due to the boom of eCommerce. Today, logistical issues of shopping such as lengthy queues, limited opening hours and heavy bags have seemingly vanished.

Shoppers are armed with extensive product and pricing knowledge – available through effortless online research – to identify the most desirable products and...

27 January 2020 | Advertising Technology

Eight ways to make potential customers feel safer browsing your site

Shoppers going to brick-and-mortar stores have clear signals that the environment they’re in is safe and secure: manicured storefronts, security guards or cameras, helpful employees, well-ordered check out stations and other intuitive cues all create a sense of comfort and safety, helping put shoppers at ease. 

But when shopping online, these physical cues don’t come into play. Without such signs, how can we create a sense of safety for customers, especially when it...

6 November 2019 | Commerce

How Mastercard is leveraging its sonic identity – and evolving brand security in the process

In February, Mastercard issued a press release which announced the launch of what the company called its ‘sonic brand identity.’ The result was touted as ‘a distinct and memorable melody with adaptations across genres and cultures.’

Naturally, there was also an audio press release sent out where the tone was played (1:04) and further described as the ‘sound equivalent’ of the company’s red and yellow circles. “What you just heard was...

30 October 2019 | Advertising

Salesforce explores the rise of the connected shopper – and what retailers need to do

Retail continues to be an area where the consumer is king. Engagement channels are changing, tech-enabled customer experience has never been more vital, and the battle between traditional retail and online marketplaces is well and truly joined.

Salesforce’s latest Connected Shoppers Report aimed to explore the relationship between bricks-and-mortar and digital retailers – and found that while the former still has its place, the latter’s continued dominance is...

16 October 2019 | Commerce

Fashion retailers have multi-channel elements in place – but need to accelerate to omnichannel

Omnichannel may be the buzzword du jour right now when it comes to retail – but like many of these here-today terms there is often more than a kernel of truth. Where omnichannel differs from multi-channel is through its threading. A multi-channel retailer may have distinct presences both in its website, on social media as well as its physical store – but omnichannel truly links them together for a seamless customer experience.

With this in mind, a new report from Veeqo...

13 August 2019 | Advertising

How Amazon’s ad network fuelled the 2019 Prime Day – and will continue to do so

The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, has even more reason to celebrate. Amazon’s 48-hour Prime Day event this year just provided a glimpse of what ecommerce — and most likely, all commerce — might look like in the years to come.

Almost half of online shoppers in the US now begin their product searches on Amazon, compared with 35 percent who turn first to Google. Bezos is also pushing to broaden Amazon’s influence in brick-and-mortar operations,...

25 July 2019 | Advertising

Interview: Making the marketer’s leap from B2B to B2C with Albert Heijn’s Eva Vree

The differences between B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing can be chasm-like.

On the one hand (if broadly), B2B purchases are more likely to be driven by logic and an eye on demonstrable ROI. B2C purchases, on the other, are more probably driven by a consumer’s emotion.

Eva Vree is a senior creative content specialist for the online arm of Dutch supermarket giant Albert Heijn, and notably made an internal leap from the B2B side of the...

22 October 2018 | Commerce