More people are shopping online than ever before, and this shift in consumer behavior is changing how brands promote their products. In 2021 for the first time, digital advertising accounted for well over half of global ad spend.  

While brands have become accustomed to targeting audiences as they browse social media or research products on their browser, now is the time to take advantage of retail media, data and connect with consumers.  

In the second episode of OMD Digest: Retail Media, Chrissie Hanson, CEO of OMD USA, is joined by Dru Sil, Global Commerce Lead, Annalect, to discuss trends in brand & commerce, brands perspective, and challenges and understand how Omni solutions can solve client challenges, build growth, and connect previously siloed data sets.  

Chrissie and Dru identify data fragmentation, the rise of the conscious consumer, and connected data as trends driving retail media this year. Dru explains that “brand data and retail data has typically lived in different silos, making united measurement and growth difficult in the past.” By reconciling data, brands can create connected data through media and messaging and avoid distinct, separate, and diverging strategies where the exclusive focus on the backend can take you into a very operational realm. Chrissie explains that the backend is still a crucial component, but the marriage of front and back is critical for growth through connected data sets.  

One of the biggest challenges brands face is “cannibalization in a business.” Chrissie explains that if the “role of our agency is to identify growth, then conversations in one area of the business and not the other can result in growth being siloed.” By creating clear visions of working and implementing concrete capabilities, including clean rooms and connected data sets, agencies can simplify the complex and articulate what a vision is to drive greatest growth.

“Our ability to carve a better path is how clients seek our advice, and we guide them into the next phase of retail and culture and experience that has greater meaning” Chrissie Hanson, CEO, OMD USA.  

Omni solutions can solve clients’ challenges and drive exponential growth for brands catering to a range of consumers. Dru identifies four key areas that Omni can assist in, including operational and data-led solutions, productization of data into clear paths, real-time data measurement, and clear objective setting from the freshest data.   

By creating connected data sets in ‘data lakes’, using real-time data across multiple categories, and uniting previously siloed data areas, exponential growth and opportunity can be unlocked in brand & commerce. 

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