We spoke to Jack Johnson, Head of Retail Media and Data at Ocado Retail Ltd, to discuss how the launch of Ocado Ads is built on 25 years’ experience, allowing the company to be “loud and proud” about both its heritage and new services it can bring, particularly when it comes to data-powered ad targeting.
Ocado Ads launched a little over a year ago – what was the thinking behind the launch, and how does it work?
Ocado has had a retail media business since the invention of Ocado 25 years ago. So, retail media is nothing new. And I would argue that Ocado was doing digital retail media before any other large UK grocer. We’ve got a load of legacy and history within this space.
What was becoming clear, though, is that the space was becoming very competitive and, for us to be able to talk about the USPs of our audience and our operating model and how we want to show up to brands, we needed a vehicle to be able to talk about those USPs. That’s why we launched Ocado ads, not least as a way of being loud and proud of the value that we’ve been working with brands for years on, but actually give us a platform to be able to launch the new and exciting ways that we’re helping brands grow.
This takes a couple of forms. The new ways that we can connect customers offsite is one. So, thinking about platforms like Meta, Pinterest, the open web, but also thinking about how we’re going to be launching new self-serve capabilities through our data partnerships as well. So, we launched it to be both to be loud and proud about the past and then also to talk about the future, and to give brands a really unique look into how we want to be growing our business over time.
As part of the launch, we launched our ads manager platform, which is a single, unified, booking platform, powered by Zitcha. So, it was a real new dawn for us as a business to actually think about it as a platform for this new stuff that we were looking to bring to market as well.
This year, we’ve launched some new partnerships. One is Permutive. The other is that we’ve become the first UK grocer to partner with WPP Media on their new open intelligence platform. That’s a new AI-powered platform where WPP media planners will be accessing grocery first-party data to power offsite activations. And Ocado was the first grocery retailer to partner with them. So again, Ocado ads just gave us that platform and that brand identity to be able to launch these new things throughout the year.
You mentioned Permutive. What does the collaboration mean for you and the publishers involved?
It’s an exciting and unique data partnership that we have whereby any publisher will be able to leverage Ocado audiences when answering and responding to briefs from brands. So, if a brand comes to BBC Good Food and wants to pull together a campaign for vegan – or to hit vegan customers to hit their brand objectives – they would be able to use signals from Ocado on those publisher networks without having to come to us directly. We’ve got that partnership with Permutive, where that data would be readily available. So, that just means that we’re liberating out the power of customer first-party data into more parts of the advertising ecosystem. Rather than having an advertiser come to us directly to do any managed service operation, we are liberating out and enabling self-serve capabilities across the market via this partnership with Permutive. We think it’s exciting, and it gives a further edge to these open web publishers, where they can deliver much more targeted ads.
With partnerships like this, how big a part of the plan is offsite going to play in your future?
It’s becoming an increasingly important part of it. It’s not the majority of our business – and I think onsite, and how we advertise to customers, will always be a primary concern within our owned and operated assets.
Where this becomes interesting is around how we can enrich existing media workflows with this additional first-party data. We often forget this when it comes to what we consider offsite platforms, but it’s a user gaining and experiencing an ad within their digital ecosystem. If that can be more tailored, if that can be better personalised, that’s good for brands, because the customers will receive better experiences. But it’s good for individuals and users of these platforms as well, because they will be getting more personalised experiences.
It’s a smaller part of our business, but it’s growing very fast. It’s something we want to experiment more and more with.
Aside from offsite, what is the future for Ocado Ads? And how do you see the wider retail media landscape developing in the next 12 or so months?
In terms of the future, we’ve recently re-platformed onto a new ecommerce app. That’s going to give us new ways to advertise to customers – whether that’s new assets or new ways in which we want to surface content to our customers. There are loads of opportunities that re-platforming will give us.
The second is around more data partnerships and an acceleration of these data partnerships. I’ve spoken about Permutive and WPP media. But we’ve also got partnerships with the likes of The Trade Desk as well. We’re going to think about more data partnerships that can liberate out that first-party data into existing media workflows.
The third area, which I think we will start to see a lot more of, is consolidation on the technology or vendor side. There are a lot of players, and they’re not all going to win, so I think there are going to be more partnerships and more consolidation in terms of the technology partners that are powering a lot of these retail media networks.
Those are the three things that are front of mind.
We operate in a very crowded space, and what Ocado Ads wants to be famous for is bringing the same disruptor mindset that the Ocado grocery business took to the grocery industry 25 years ago. And there are a few things that we want to be really famous for.
One is being the champions of self-serve. We’re passionate about having flexible ways for brands to engage with us. The second is to be the home of test and learn. So, to be the go-to partner for ecommerce insights. And then the third one is around retail audiences for activation. So, this idea around signals through people’s grocery habits being a great signal to be able to deliver tailored ads across the digital ecosystem, not just within an onsite environment.
Our guiding principle is customer-first brand growth. That’s what we want to deliver. We’re the fastest -growing retailer in the UK, but we want to do that in a customer-first way, which is advertising that is aligned with the needs of the customer, or is there to enrich and enhance the customer experience and not detract from it. That’s the mantra that we live and breathe with Ocado Ads.
