Unified Retail Media Planning: Aligning Across Partners and Teams

The session titled "Unified Retail Media Planning: Aligning Across Partners and Teams" at Groceryshop 2024, included a panel of experts discussing the complexities and opportunities of managing retail media within large CPG organizations.

The panelists included Francesca Hahn, VP of Digital Commerce at Mondelēz International; Udyan Khanna, VP of Marketing, Digital Commerce & Channel Marketing at McCormick & Company; Michal Geller, President of eCommerce & Digital at Newell Brands; and Katherine Black, Partner at Kearney.

Key Themes and Takeaways

Retail Media's Evolving Complexity

• The retail media landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years, transforming from simple search and low-funnel marketing into a multi-layered strategy that touches every stage of the consumer journey. The panelists agreed that retail media is no longer just about driving online sales but now spans upper-funnel awareness, middle-funnel consideration, and lower-funnel conversion.
• Francesca Hahn noted that the complexity of e-commerce has escalated. "E-commerce has transformed rapidly. Every person in the organization now needs to understand how to drive both brand and supply chain effectiveness." This reflects the growing need for teams to be well-versed in both media and operational strategy.

Budgeting Challenges

• The intersection of retail media with both sales and marketing functions creates budgeting complexities. Michal Geller explained that retail media has "two masters"—the sales and media teams—making it harder to allocate budgets effectively. He shared an anecdote where a brand successfully grew sales through retail media spending, but this came at the expense of upper-funnel brand-building activities, which later caused awareness issues.
• Udyan Khanna emphasized the slow but gradual progress in blending sales and marketing budgets to better support retail media, noting that the solution lies in continuous education across departments.