Category: Advertising

• A top Unilever ad exec told Insider the CPG giant is looking for new ways to measure digital ads.
• Unilever wants retailers to adhere to standards on how their ads are measured.
• She said that the brand is also structured to account for bigger ad budgets moving to retail media.

Unilever, one of the biggest spenders on e-commerce ads, is pushing for retailers to adhere to the same measurement standards.

Speaking to Insider at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Marco Island, Florida, this week, Soumya Donkada, head of digital, media, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and wellbeing brands in North America, is angling for retailers to measure ads to use the same metrics.

Unlike most of digital advertising, retail media does not have standards that allow advertisers to compare the efficiency of Amazon, Walmart, and Target, for example. The lack of standards gives retailers a competitive advantage and a way to pitch advertisers unique offerings, but advertisers have called for more alignment. 

For example, advertisers want retailers to measure attribution — a key measurement that tracks if someone bought something after seeing an ad within a period of time like a week or a month— the same way. Donkada said Unilever is also interested in standards around the APIs that advertisers use to buy retail media ads through software and data about the audience that they reach on retailers’ websites.

Donkada said such specifications for Unilever’s retail media ads would likely look similar to standards Unilever created for brand safety and also take into account privacy.

She said Unilever is also looking for new ways to measure digital ads more broadly as third-party cookies and other tracking mechanisms go away. More specifically, Unilever is looking for ad partners that can fill the gap between multi-touch attribution — a method that credits sales to every ad seller that a consumer saw before buying a product — and marketing mix modeling — a method that also takes into account non-advertising factors like price and location into sales over a long period of time.

She’s also interested in figuring out how to build long-term brand awareness through retail media. The bulk of retail advertising is performance-focused to drive sales for packaged goods brands. But retailers’ newer ad formats like data used to targeted ads on streaming TV platforms are interesting for Unilever because they are aimed at increasing brand loyalty and equity, she said. 

“Now we’re looking at retail media as any other channel,” she said.

One of retailers’ biggest challenges with retail media is getting new ad dollars from brands like Unilever that isn’t tied up in so-called trade and shopper marketing budgets that brands negotiate into distribution deals with retailers.

Unilever’s internal structure helps solve for some of those challenges, Donkada said.

Donkada leads three teams that handle all advertising, technology, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and well-being brands like Dove, and Liquid I.V. The ads team manages both national and retail media spend, meaning that one Unilever team can tweak retail media budgets to be higher or lower. Donkada’s team also works with Unilever’s long-time media agency Mindshare to help carve out its budgets across multiple channels.

Unilever rolled out the structure last year to create one group responsible for overseeing all parts of growth.

“We sit at the heart of the business rather than sitting outside,” she said.

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJ1c2luZXNzaW5zaWRlci5jb20vdG9wLXVuaWxldmVyLWFkLWV4ZWMtc291bXlhLWRvbmthZGEtZWNvbW1lcmNlLWFkdmVydGlzaW5nLWRhdGEtMjAyMy0x0gEA?oc=5

• A top Unilever ad exec told Insider the CPG giant is looking for new ways to measure digital ads.
• Unilever wants retailers to adhere to standards on how their ads are measured.
• She said that the brand is also structured to account for bigger ad budgets moving to retail media.

Unilever, one of the biggest spenders on e-commerce ads, is pushing for retailers to adhere to the same measurement standards.

Speaking to Insider at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Marco Island, Florida, this week, Soumya Donkada, head of digital, media, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and wellbeing brands in North America, is angling for retailers to measure ads to use the same metrics.

Unlike most of digital advertising, retail media does not have standards that allow advertisers to compare the efficiency of Amazon, Walmart, and Target, for example. The lack of standards gives retailers a competitive advantage and a way to pitch advertisers unique offerings, but advertisers have called for more alignment. 

For example, advertisers want retailers to measure attribution — a key measurement that tracks if someone bought something after seeing an ad within a period of time like a week or a month— the same way. Donkada said Unilever is also interested in standards around the APIs that advertisers use to buy retail media ads through software and data about the audience that they reach on retailers’ websites.

Donkada said such specifications for Unilever’s retail media ads would likely look similar to standards Unilever created for brand safety and also take into account privacy.

She said Unilever is also looking for new ways to measure digital ads more broadly as third-party cookies and other tracking mechanisms go away. More specifically, Unilever is looking for ad partners that can fill the gap between multi-touch attribution — a method that credits sales to every ad seller that a consumer saw before buying a product — and marketing mix modeling — a method that also takes into account non-advertising factors like price and location into sales over a long period of time.

She’s also interested in figuring out how to build long-term brand awareness through retail media. The bulk of retail advertising is performance-focused to drive sales for packaged goods brands. But retailers’ newer ad formats like data used to targeted ads on streaming TV platforms are interesting for Unilever because they are aimed at increasing brand loyalty and equity, she said. 

“Now we’re looking at retail media as any other channel,” she said.

One of retailers’ biggest challenges with retail media is getting new ad dollars from brands like Unilever that isn’t tied up in so-called trade and shopper marketing budgets that brands negotiate into distribution deals with retailers.

Unilever’s internal structure helps solve for some of those challenges, Donkada said.

Donkada leads three teams that handle all advertising, technology, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and well-being brands like Dove, and Liquid I.V. The ads team manages both national and retail media spend, meaning that one Unilever team can tweak retail media budgets to be higher or lower. Donkada’s team also works with Unilever’s long-time media agency Mindshare to help carve out its budgets across multiple channels.

Unilever rolled out the structure last year to create one group responsible for overseeing all parts of growth.

“We sit at the heart of the business rather than sitting outside,” she said.

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJ1c2luZXNzaW5zaWRlci5jb20vdG9wLXVuaWxldmVyLWFkLWV4ZWMtc291bXlhLWRvbmthZGEtZWNvbW1lcmNlLWFkdmVydGlzaW5nLWRhdGEtMjAyMy0x0gEA?oc=5

In-game advertising startup Anzu has secured a pivotal patent for tech that can measure ad viewability in 3D worlds.

Anzu – which counts among its backers WPP, Sony Innovation Fund, NBCUniversal, HTC and Bitkraft – has been on a mission since 2017 to make advertising in games better. Recently, it has been making waves as studios cross a once-dreaded line to create ads in 3D games. As the only licensed in-game ad provider for Xbox, it has made headway on a product that will ease marketer concerns about the viability of in-game advertising.

In March 2022, Anzu partnered with Oracle Moat in a ‘first-to-market’ deal to develop tech that will reveal whether gaming creative has been actually viewed by players. Less than a year later – and after five years of product development – it has secured a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for ‘An Object Viewability Determination System and Method’.

With game studios now embedding ad inventory in their titles (similar to outdoor billboards), they – like their real-life counterparts – will have to prove its effectiveness. This is a strategy being considered by everone from the leanest of mobile studios to the console giants PlayStation and Xbox.

The patent is for a system that can measure the percentage of the creative on-screen in a 3D world, accounting for the size of the ad, how long it is in view and the angle it is viewed at. If said creative is a video, the duration of the view also comes under scrutiny. In short, viewability requires much more work to prove in 3D than it ever did in 2D.

The system collects viewable impressions and viewability. It also adheres to MRC standards of what actually constitutes a view, the slightest glimpses at an obtuse angle in a speeding car won’t make the cut. And then there is data about the lifecycle of each individual piece of inventory, like their average screen coverage, occlusions, virtual world position and orientation in relation to user view. In short, it will make it easy to find the most lucrative spots across a slew of titles. With this feedback, less effective inventory can also be optimized.

Anzu’s co-founder and CEO, Itamar Benedy, explains: “Five years ago, when we were first building our patented 3D ad tracking technology, gaming was not seen as a serious ad channel. We knew back then, though, that for advertisers to treat gaming seriously, they would need everything they are used to from other channels.”

This meant creating a process that provides the KPIs the trade is used to. Meanwhile, the patent brings more than protected status to the idea, he says. “It shows our innovation and proves our position as the in-game advertising leader in the market.”

On whether this seemingly intensive tech could cause in-game lag or performance issues (which gamers will not tolerate), Benedy says it is built into the tech and is “highly optimized”. “It is lightweight in size and performance, with low impact on final build size, RAM and CPU, meaning it does not impact the game’s performance in any way.”

As a final pitch to advertisers, Benedy makes a compelling claim about gaming: “As gaming is a 3D environment, the viewability is better than other traditional digital mediums and, due to the nature of gaming, players are fully engaged with the medium, offering amazing attention rates as there is no second screening.” The same cannot be said of TV.

Marketers …….

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZ2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWRydW0uY29tL25ld3MvMjAyMy8wMS8yMy90aGUtbW9zdC1pbXBvcnRhbnQtcGF0ZW50LWV2ZXItZ2FtaW5nLWFuZC1tZXRhdmVyc2UtYWR2ZXJ0aXNpbmfSAQA?oc=5

• A top Unilever ad exec told Insider the CPG giant is looking for new ways to measure digital ads.
• Unilever wants retailers to adhere to standards on how their ads are measured.
• She said that the brand is also structured to account for bigger ad budgets moving to retail media.

Unilever, one of the biggest spenders on e-commerce ads, is pushing for retailers to adhere to the same measurement standards.

Speaking to Insider at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Marco Island, Florida, this week, Soumya Donkada, head of digital, media, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and wellbeing brands, is angling for retailers to measure ads to use the same metrics.

Unlike most of digital advertising, retail media does not have standards that allow advertisers to compare the efficiency of Amazon, Walmart, and Target, for example. The lack of standards gives retailers a competitive advantage and a way to pitch advertisers unique offerings, but advertisers have called for more alignment. 

For example, advertisers want retailers to measure attribution — a key measurement that tracks if someone bought something after seeing an ad within a period of time like a week or a month— the same way. Donkada said Unilever is also interested in standards around the APIs that advertisers use to buy retail media ads through software and data about the audience that they reach on retailers’ websites.

Donkada said such specifications for Unilever’s retail media ads would likely look similar to standards Unilever created for brand safety and also take into account privacy.

She said Unilever is also looking for new ways to measure digital ads more broadly as third-party cookies and other tracking mechanisms go away. More specifically, Unilever is looking for ad partners that can fill the gap between multi-touch attribution — a method that credits sales to every ad seller that a consumer saw before buying a product — and marketing mix modeling — a method that also takes into account non-advertising factors like price and location into sales over a long period of time.

She’s also interested in figuring out how to build long-term brand awareness through retail media. The bulk of retail advertising is performance-focused to drive sales for packaged goods brands. But retailers’ newer ad formats like data used to targeted ads on streaming TV platforms are interesting for Unilever because they are aimed at increasing brand loyalty and equity, she said. 

“Now we’re looking at retail media as any other channel,” she said.

One of retailers’ biggest challenges with retail media is getting new ad dollars from brands like Unilever that isn’t tied up in so-called trade and shopper marketing budgets that brands negotiate into distribution deals with retailers.

Unilever’s internal structure helps solve for some of those challenges, Donkada said.

Donkada leads three teams that handle all advertising, technology, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and well-being brands like Dove, and Liquid I.V. The ads team manages both national and retail media spend, meaning that one Unilever team can tweak retail media budgets to be higher or lower. Donkada’s team also works with Unilever’s long-time media agency Mindshare to help carve out its budgets across multiple channels.

Unilever rolled out the structure last year to create one group responsible for overseeing all parts of growth.

“We sit at the heart of the business rather than sitting outside,” she said.

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJ1c2luZXNzaW5zaWRlci5jb20vdG9wLXVuaWxldmVyLWFkLWV4ZWMtc291bXlhLWRvbmthZGEtZWNvbW1lcmNlLWFkdmVydGlzaW5nLWRhdGEtMjAyMy0x0gEA?oc=5

• A top Unilever ad exec told Insider the CPG giant is looking for new ways to measure digital ads.
• Unilever wants retailers to adhere to standards on how their ads are measured.
• She said that the brand is also structured to account for bigger ad budgets moving to retail media.

Unilever, one of the biggest spenders on e-commerce ads, is pushing for retailers to adhere to the same measurement standards.

Speaking to Insider at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Marco Island, Florida, this week, Soumya Donkada, head of digital, media, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and wellbeing brands, is angling for retailers to measure ads to use the same metrics.

Unlike most of digital advertising, retail media does not have standards that allow advertisers to compare the efficiency of Amazon, Walmart, and Target, for example. The lack of standards gives retailers a competitive advantage and a way to pitch advertisers unique offerings, but advertisers have called for more alignment. 

For example, advertisers want retailers to measure attribution — a key measurement that tracks if someone bought something after seeing an ad within a period of time like a week or a month— the same way. Donkada said Unilever is also interested in standards around the APIs that advertisers use to buy retail media ads through software and data about the audience that they reach on retailers’ websites.

Donkada said such specifications for Unilever’s retail media ads would likely look similar to standards Unilever created for brand safety and also take into account privacy.

She said Unilever is also looking for new ways to measure digital ads more broadly as third-party cookies and other tracking mechanisms go away. More specifically, Unilever is looking for ad partners that can fill the gap between multi-touch attribution — a method that credits sales to every ad seller that a consumer saw before buying a product — and marketing mix modeling — a method that also takes into account non-advertising factors like price and location into sales over a long period of time.

She’s also interested in figuring out how to build long-term brand awareness through retail media. The bulk of retail advertising is performance-focused to drive sales for packaged goods brands. But retailers’ newer ad formats like data used to targeted ads on streaming TV platforms are interesting for Unilever because they are aimed at increasing brand loyalty and equity, she said. 

“Now we’re looking at retail media as any other channel,” she said.

One of retailers’ biggest challenges with retail media is getting new ad dollars from brands like Unilever that isn’t tied up in so-called trade and shopper marketing budgets that brands negotiate into distribution deals with retailers.

Unilever’s internal structure helps solve for some of those challenges, Donkada said.

Donkada leads three teams that handle all advertising, technology, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and well-being brands like Dove, and Liquid I.V. The ads team manages both national and retail media spend, meaning that one Unilever team can tweak retail media budgets to be higher or lower. Donkada’s team also works with Unilever’s long-time media agency Mindshare to help carve out its budgets across multiple channels.

Unilever rolled out the structure last year to create one group responsible for overseeing all parts of growth.

“We sit at the heart of the business rather than sitting outside,” she said.

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJ1c2luZXNzaW5zaWRlci5jb20vdG9wLXVuaWxldmVyLWFkLWV4ZWMtc291bXlhLWRvbmthZGEtZWNvbW1lcmNlLWFkdmVydGlzaW5nLWRhdGEtMjAyMy0x0gEA?oc=5

In-game advertising startup Anzu has secured a pivotal patent for tech that can measure ad viewability in 3D worlds.

Anzu – which counts among its backers WPP, Sony Innovation Fund, NBCUniversal, HTC and Bitkraft – has been on a mission since 2017 to make advertising in games better. Recently, it has been making waves as studios cross a once-dreaded line to create ads in 3D games. As the only licensed in-game ad provider for Xbox, it has made headway on a product that will ease marketer concerns about the viability of in-game advertising.

In March 2022, Anzu partnered with Oracle Moat in a ‘first-to-market’ deal to develop tech that will reveal whether gaming creative has been actually viewed by players. Less than a year later – and after five years of product development – it has secured a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for ‘An Object Viewability Determination System and Method’.

With game studios now embedding ad inventory in their titles (similar to outdoor billboards), they – like their real-life counterparts – will have to prove its effectiveness. This is a strategy being considered by everone from the leanest of mobile studios to the console giants PlayStation and Xbox.

The patent is for a system that can measure the percentage of the creative on-screen in a 3D world, accounting for the size of the ad, how long it is in view and the angle it is viewed at. If said creative is a video, the duration of the view also comes under scrutiny. In short, viewability requires much more work to prove in 3D than it ever did in 2D.

The system collects viewable impressions and viewability. It also adheres to MRC standards of what actually constitutes a view, the slightest glimpses at an obtuse angle in a speeding car won’t make the cut. And then there is data about the lifecycle of each individual piece of inventory, like their average screen coverage, occlusions, virtual world position and orientation in relation to user view. In short, it will make it easy to find the most lucrative spots across a slew of titles. With this feedback, less effective inventory can also be optimized.

Anzu’s co-founder and CEO, Itamar Benedy, explains: “Five years ago, when we were first building our patented 3D ad tracking technology, gaming was not seen as a serious ad channel. We knew back then, though, that for advertisers to treat gaming seriously, they would need everything they are used to from other channels.”

This meant creating a process that provides the KPIs the trade is used to. Meanwhile, the patent brings more than protected status to the idea, he says. “It shows our innovation and proves our position as the in-game advertising leader in the market.”

On whether this seemingly intensive tech could cause in-game lag or performance issues (which gamers will not tolerate), Benedy says it is built into the tech and is “highly optimized”. “It is lightweight in size and performance, with low impact on final build size, RAM and CPU, meaning it does not impact the game’s performance in any way.”

As a final pitch to advertisers, Benedy makes a compelling claim about gaming: “As gaming is a 3D environment, the viewability is better than other traditional digital mediums and, due to the nature of gaming, players are fully engaged with the medium, offering amazing attention rates as there is no second screening.” The same cannot be said of TV.

Marketers …….

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZ2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWRydW0uY29tL25ld3MvMjAyMy8wMS8yMy90aGUtbW9zdC1pbXBvcnRhbnQtcGF0ZW50LWV2ZXItZ2FtaW5nLWFuZC1tZXRhdmVyc2UtYWR2ZXJ0aXNpbmfSAQA?oc=5

In-game advertising startup Anzu has secured a pivotal patent for tech that can measure ad viewability in 3D worlds.

Anzu – which counts among its backers WPP, Sony Innovation Fund, NBCUniversal, HTC and Bitkraft – has been on a mission since 2017 to make advertising in games better. Recently, it has been making waves as studios cross a once-dreaded line to create ads in 3D games. As the only licensed in-game ad provider for Xbox, it has made headway on a product that will ease marketer concerns about the viability of in-game advertising.

In March 2022, Anzu partnered with Oracle Moat in a ‘first-to-market’ deal to develop tech that will reveal whether gaming creative has been actually viewed by players. Less than a year later – and after five years of product development – it has secured a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for ‘An Object Viewability Determination System and Method’.

With game studios now embedding ad inventory in their titles (similar to outdoor billboards), they – like their real-life counterparts – will have to prove its effectiveness. This is a strategy being considered by everone from the leanest of mobile studios to the console giants PlayStation and Xbox.

The patent is for a system that can measure the percentage of the creative on-screen in a 3D world, accounting for the size of the ad, how long it is in view and the angle it is viewed at. If said creative is a video, the duration of the view also comes under scrutiny. In short, viewability requires much more work to prove in 3D than it ever did in 2D.

The system collects viewable impressions and viewability. It also adheres to MRC standards of what actually constitutes a view, the slightest glimpses at an obtuse angle in a speeding car won’t make the cut. And then there is data about the lifecycle of each individual piece of inventory, like their average screen coverage, occlusions, virtual world position and orientation in relation to user view. In short, it will make it easy to find the most lucrative spots across a slew of titles. With this feedback, less effective inventory can also be optimized.

Anzu’s co-founder and CEO, Itamar Benedy, explains: “Five years ago, when we were first building our patented 3D ad tracking technology, gaming was not seen as a serious ad channel. We knew back then, though, that for advertisers to treat gaming seriously, they would need everything they are used to from other channels.”

This meant creating a process that provides the KPIs the trade is used to. Meanwhile, the patent brings more than protected status to the idea, he says. “It shows our innovation and proves our position as the in-game advertising leader in the market.”

On whether this seemingly intensive tech could cause in-game lag or performance issues (which gamers will not tolerate), Benedy says it is built into the tech and is “highly optimized”. “It is lightweight in size and performance, with low impact on final build size, RAM and CPU, meaning it does not impact the game’s performance in any way.”

As a final pitch to advertisers, Benedy makes a compelling claim about gaming: “As gaming is a 3D environment, the viewability is better than other traditional digital mediums and, due to the nature of gaming, players are fully engaged with the medium, offering amazing attention rates as there is no second screening.” The same cannot be said of TV.

Marketers …….

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZ2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWRydW0uY29tL25ld3MvMjAyMy8wMS8yMy90aGUtbW9zdC1pbXBvcnRhbnQtcGF0ZW50LWV2ZXItZ2FtaW5nLWFuZC1tZXRhdmVyc2UtYWR2ZXJ0aXNpbmfSAQA?oc=5

• A top Unilever ad exec told Insider the CPG giant is looking for new ways to measure digital ads.
• Unilever wants retailers to adhere to standards on how their ads are measured.
• She said that the brand is also structured to account for bigger ad budgets moving to retail media.

Unilever, one of the biggest spenders on e-commerce ads, is pushing for retailers to adhere to the same measurement standards.

Speaking to Insider at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Marco Island, Florida, this week, Soumya Donkada, head of digital, media, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and wellbeing brands, is angling for retailers to measure ads to use the same metrics.

Unlike most of digital advertising, retail media does not have standards that allow advertisers to compare the efficiency of Amazon, Walmart, and Target, for example. The lack of standards gives retailers a competitive advantage and a way to pitch advertisers unique offerings, but advertisers have called for more alignment. 

For example, advertisers want retailers to measure attribution — a key measurement that tracks if someone bought something after seeing an ad within a period of time like a week or a month— the same way. Donkada said Unilever is also interested in standards around the APIs that advertisers use to buy retail media ads through software and data about the audience that they reach on retailers’ websites.

Donkada said such specifications for Unilever’s retail media ads would likely look similar to standards Unilever created for brand safety and also take into account privacy.

She said Unilever is also looking for new ways to measure digital ads more broadly as third-party cookies and other tracking mechanisms go away. More specifically, Unilever is looking for ad partners that can fill the gap between multi-touch attribution — a method that credits sales to every ad seller that a consumer saw before buying a product — and marketing mix modeling — a method that also takes into account non-advertising factors like price and location into sales over a long period of time.

She’s also interested in figuring out how to build long-term brand awareness through retail media. The bulk of retail advertising is performance-focused to drive sales for packaged goods brands. But retailers’ newer ad formats like data used to targeted ads on streaming TV platforms are interesting for Unilever because they are aimed at increasing brand loyalty and equity, she said. 

“Now we’re looking at retail media as any other channel,” she said.

One of retailers’ biggest challenges with retail media is getting new ad dollars from brands like Unilever that isn’t tied up in so-called trade and shopper marketing budgets that brands negotiate into distribution deals with retailers.

Unilever’s internal structure helps solve for some of those challenges, Donkada said.

Donkada leads three teams that handle all advertising, technology, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and well-being brands like Dove, and Liquid I.V. The ads team manages both national and retail media spend, meaning that one Unilever team can tweak retail media budgets to be higher or lower. Donkada’s team also works with Unilever’s long-time media agency Mindshare to help carve out its budgets across multiple channels.

Unilever rolled out the structure last year to create one group responsible for overseeing all parts of growth.

“We sit at the heart of the business rather than sitting outside,” she said.

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJ1c2luZXNzaW5zaWRlci5jb20vdG9wLXVuaWxldmVyLWFkLWV4ZWMtc291bXlhLWRvbmthZGEtZWNvbW1lcmNlLWFkdmVydGlzaW5nLWRhdGEtMjAyMy0x0gEA?oc=5

• A top Unilever ad exec told Insider the CPG giant is looking for new ways to measure digital ads.
• Unilever wants retailers to adhere to standards on how their ads are measured.
• She said that the brand is also structured to account for bigger ad budgets moving to retail media.

Unilever, one of the biggest spenders on e-commerce ads, is pushing for retailers to adhere to the same measurement standards.

Speaking to Insider at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Marco Island, Florida, this week, Soumya Donkada, head of digital, media, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and wellbeing brands, is angling for retailers to measure ads to use the same metrics.

Unlike most of digital advertising, retail media does not have standards that allow advertisers to compare the efficiency of Amazon, Walmart, and Target, for example. The lack of standards gives retailers a competitive advantage and a way to pitch advertisers unique offerings, but advertisers have called for more alignment. 

For example, advertisers want retailers to measure attribution — a key measurement that tracks if someone bought something after seeing an ad within a period of time like a week or a month— the same way. Donkada said Unilever is also interested in standards around the APIs that advertisers use to buy retail media ads through software and data about the audience that they reach on retailers’ websites.

Donkada said such specifications for Unilever’s retail media ads would likely look similar to standards Unilever created for brand safety and also take into account privacy.

She said Unilever is also looking for new ways to measure digital ads more broadly as third-party cookies and other tracking mechanisms go away. More specifically, Unilever is looking for ad partners that can fill the gap between multi-touch attribution — a method that credits sales to every ad seller that a consumer saw before buying a product — and marketing mix modeling — a method that also takes into account non-advertising factors like price and location into sales over a long period of time.

She’s also interested in figuring out how to build long-term brand awareness through retail media. The bulk of retail advertising is performance-focused to drive sales for packaged goods brands. But retailers’ newer ad formats like data used to targeted ads on streaming TV platforms are interesting for Unilever because they are aimed at increasing brand loyalty and equity, she said. 

“Now we’re looking at retail media as any other channel,” she said.

One of retailers’ biggest challenges with retail media is getting new ad dollars from brands like Unilever that isn’t tied up in so-called trade and shopper marketing budgets that brands negotiate into distribution deals with retailers.

Unilever’s internal structure helps solve for some of those challenges, Donkada said.

Donkada leads three teams that handle all advertising, technology, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and well-being brands like Dove, and Liquid I.V. The ads team manages both national and retail media spend, meaning that one Unilever team can tweak retail media budgets to be higher or lower. Donkada’s team also works with Unilever’s long-time media agency Mindshare to help carve out its budgets across multiple channels.

Unilever rolled out the structure last year to create one group responsible for overseeing all parts of growth.

“We sit at the heart of the business rather than sitting outside,” she said.

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJ1c2luZXNzaW5zaWRlci5jb20vdG9wLXVuaWxldmVyLWFkLWV4ZWMtc291bXlhLWRvbmthZGEtZWNvbW1lcmNlLWFkdmVydGlzaW5nLWRhdGEtMjAyMy0x0gEA?oc=5

• A top Unilever ad exec told Insider the CPG giant is looking for new ways to measure digital ads.
• Unilever wants retailers to adhere to standards on how their ads are measured.
• She said that the brand is also structured to account for bigger ad budgets moving to retail media.

Unilever, one of the biggest spenders on e-commerce ads, is pushing for retailers to adhere to the same measurement standards.

Speaking to Insider at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Marco Island, Florida, this week, Soumya Donkada, head of digital, media, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and wellbeing brands, is angling for retailers to measure ads to use the same metrics.

Unlike most of digital advertising, retail media does not have standards that allow advertisers to compare the efficiency of Amazon, Walmart, and Target, for example. The lack of standards gives retailers a competitive advantage and a way to pitch advertisers unique offerings, but advertisers have called for more alignment. 

For example, advertisers want retailers to measure attribution — a key measurement that tracks if someone bought something after seeing an ad within a period of time like a week or a month— the same way. Donkada said Unilever is also interested in standards around the APIs that advertisers use to buy retail media ads through software and data about the audience that they reach on retailers’ websites.

Donkada said such specifications for Unilever’s retail media ads would likely look similar to standards Unilever created for brand safety and also take into account privacy.

She said Unilever is also looking for new ways to measure digital ads more broadly as third-party cookies and other tracking mechanisms go away. More specifically, Unilever is looking for ad partners that can fill the gap between multi-touch attribution — a method that credits sales to every ad seller that a consumer saw before buying a product — and marketing mix modeling — a method that also takes into account non-advertising factors like price and location into sales over a long period of time.

She’s also interested in figuring out how to build long-term brand awareness through retail media. The bulk of retail advertising is performance-focused to drive sales for packaged goods brands. But retailers’ newer ad formats like data used to targeted ads on streaming TV platforms are interesting for Unilever because they are aimed at increasing brand loyalty and equity, she said. 

“Now we’re looking at retail media as any other channel,” she said.

One of retailers’ biggest challenges with retail media is getting new ad dollars from brands like Unilever that isn’t tied up in so-called trade and shopper marketing budgets that brands negotiate into distribution deals with retailers.

Unilever’s internal structure helps solve for some of those challenges, Donkada said.

Donkada leads three teams that handle all advertising, technology, and e-commerce for Unilever’s beauty and well-being brands like Dove, and Liquid I.V. The ads team manages both national and retail media spend, meaning that one Unilever team can tweak retail media budgets to be higher or lower. Donkada’s team also works with Unilever’s long-time media agency Mindshare to help carve out its budgets across multiple channels.

Unilever rolled out the structure last year to create one group responsible for overseeing all parts of growth.

“We sit at the heart of the business rather than sitting outside,” she said.

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJ1c2luZXNzaW5zaWRlci5jb20vdG9wLXVuaWxldmVyLWFkLWV4ZWMtc291bXlhLWRvbmthZGEtZWNvbW1lcmNlLWFkdmVydGlzaW5nLWRhdGEtMjAyMy0x0gEA?oc=5