Retail Media Networks Should Not Mark Their Own Homework: GfK’s Bhaumik

In the new era of retail media networks, ecommerce operators have become a fast-growing new category of ad inventory for brands. But who should those brands trust when it comes to measuring effectiveness? In this video interview with Beet.TV, Ishan Bhaumik, Global Vice President, GfK, says, just as in other media categories, advertisers shouldn’t leave it to the publisher. The Importance of Independent Measurement Bhaumik emphasizes the importance of independent measurement, saying that “people can’t grade their own homework”. Companies like Meta, Amazon, and TikTok may claim they have a great return on investment, but having an independent advisor for measurement research is vital to maintain trust in the numbers, he suggests. Bhaumik acknowledged that there would be a learning curve for retailers to embrace external measurement, but he is confident in the abilities of marketing science experts, “the people that are hands-on keyboards and the people that are operators and then the science folks and the research folks”. GfK is a market research company, with a range of products aimed at retail and media verticals. World's largest furniture retailer @IKEA has been a GfK partner for years. Learn how they masterfully decode the customer journey to improve their business results. Read about their success here: https://t.co/wEblx78wkY#GrowthfromKnowledge pic.twitter.com/55YFM4V5G0 — GfK (@GfK) March 3, 2023 Retail explosion The retail media market is growing rapidly, with Emarketer predicting retail media ad spend will surpass linear TV by 2025. In discussing consumer behavior, Bhaumik mentioned that retail media networks can help with both performance and top-of-funnel branding efforts: “We found out in our research that people think of (retail media mostly for) performance, but it actually helps top-of-funnel stuff, too.” He also highlighted the resurgence of marketing science in measuring branding, such as price elasticity change over time. The Future of Retail Media Networks Bhaumik sees parallels between the trends in advanced TV, like streaming and CTV, and retail media networks. “The streaming TV and CTV macro trends that are pushing that particular part of the market are also pushing retail media networks,” he explained. This includes the increased need for attribution, privacy concerns, and the aspect of fraud. Furthermore, Bhaumik pointed out the importance of deduplicated reach for marketers. “People are wanting deduplicated reach from linear TV, so they’re going to CTV,” he says. “This is also why folks are going to retail media networks, because you think it’s hard to reach someone that hasn’t watched linear TV. Well, some folks aren’t even watching streaming TV, but they’re definitely going in stores.” You are watching ‘Inside Commerce: Retail Media & What’s Next? Reports from ShopTalk 2023,’ a Beet.TV Leadership Series presented by Criteo. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.