Iceland Foods will “accelerate” its retail media push, through a new partnership with consultancy GIG Retail.
As revealed exclusively by The Grocer, Iceland launched its first-ever dedicated retail media team earlier this year, promoting former buyer Adam Smith to head of retail media to lead the creation of a new “end-to-end” retail media function for stores, brands and online.
Iceland plans to add thousands of digital screens to Iceland and Food Warehouse stores by the end of the year. It has created its own “purpose-built platform” to manage the proposition, which allows for real-time inventory management as well as analytics to help suppliers measure the success of campaigns.
The new partnership with Leeds-based GIG marks a “significant step” in helping Iceland enhance the offer for suppliers. The consultancy specialises in retail media planning, helping to simplify the onboarding of new suppliers, as well as creating a more simplified activation process.
GIG will also facilitate another crucial element of Iceland’s ambitions, by enabling it to onboard non-endemic brands to launch campaigns for Iceland customers. The first – a campaign with Smart Energy GB – is already live on the Iceland website, pushing pre-pay smart meters to Iceland shoppers.
“We are excited to be partnering with GIG Retail to further our retail media capabilities,” Smith said. “The partnership will deliver strong results for our suppliers, with new ways of working and embracing new approaches set to deliver the strongest retail media network of any UK retailer.”
Iceland has also confirmed a new partnership with digital signage manufacturer Stratacache as it looks to add more screens to stores.
With the potential to reach nine million customers, combined with its online business, Iceland Retail Media claims it will offer “one of the most extensive, full-funnel retail media portfolios in the market” once its network is fully live.
In a push to onboard more suppliers, Iceland is set to host a retail media conference on 13 May.
Iceland previously ‘behind the curve’ on retail media
Iceland is the latest retailer to begin enhancing its retail media offer, which spans its website, in-store signage and external activations with suppliers, for example on its fleet of delivery trucks. Tesco boss Ken Murphy has predicted that spending on retail media could overtake television by the end of 2025.
In an exclusive interview with The Grocer in April, Iceland CEO Tarsem Dhaliwal admitted that Iceland was “behind the curve” in terms of investing into its retail media offer.
Despite first adding digital screens to its newer stores in 2016, it was done as a way of helping shop managers save time by minimising the amount of paper posters, Dhaliwal said.
“We don’t want to be sat there while everyone else is making money from it,” Dhaliwal said.
“We will go down this route. We’re not going to prostitute ourselves, we’ll do what’s right for the business and what’s right for our suppliers and customers. But we’re not going to suddenly start selling funeral undertaking services on digital screens,” he said.
“There is income to be had and we want part of it.”
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