According to a study by GroupM, Retail media could account for 15% of total ad spend by 2028. With this in mind, we spoke with Marta Gutiérrez, Senior Vice president at Ogilvy Spain & CEO Madrid, on the evolution of retail platforms and the resulting opportunities for agencies and brands.
In your opinion, what has been the catalyst for this explosive growth of retail media?
The same as the evolution of online shopping. As we become more familiar with online shopping, it is logical that retail media grows and becomes more sophisticated. In 2023, Spaniards made online purchases an average of 3.4 times per month with an average spending ticket of 82 euros, exceeding 20% the data of 2022. With this volume, it is logical that retail media grows since brands always seek to be close to where the customers are and, above all, the closer to where the purchase is made, the better.
Retailers are becoming media owners. How will this impact brand strategy and media planning?
In my opinion, I believe that it will have little impact on brand strategy. Brands seek audiences and affinities, and that is what a retailer offers you. What is certain is that business negotiations will change, naturally in favor of retailers who own media, but it is also an opportunity for a brand's presence to be more comprehensive and go from mere product exposure to being part of the content.
What opportunities do AI and CX data offer brands in the customer journey?
Artificial intelligence is not a passing fad; it is a companion for brands. Everything that allows us to automate processes, make predictive models more efficient and faster, and launch more personalized content based on everything we can measure about a person. The customer experience will increasingly be marked by the individuality of each customer. We are on the verge of a model change where almost certainly we will have as many customer journeys as customers.
What kind of retail experiences do GenZ and GenA value?
I don't think GenZ values a retail media in particular. I believe, like any young generation, they are attracted to the fashion and beauty sectors, just as other generations were attracted to these sectors when they were young, and therefore their consumption is more focused there. This, combined with the fact that for them, online shopping is something that is part of their DNA, makes any retailer that is also a marketplace tremendously attractive to them because of the breadth of offerings they have access to.
How can brick and mortar locations evolve so that they remain relevant in a digital world?
With its strength, which is tangibility. We like to touch, we like to smell, we like to taste, we like to talk to other people, and look into their eyes; face-to-face experiences will always have an incalculable value because humans thrive on physical and social experiences. Going to a store is not just about experiencing what happens in the store; it's also about what happens before and after the purchase itself. Because online shopping is not leisure; physical shopping is part of our way of understanding leisure. Online shopping is generally an individual act, while physical shopping, on the other hand, is mostly done in groups.