Walmart Plans Big Push To Challenge Amazon On Advertising
The world’s biggest retailer Walmart said on Thursday that it plans to enlarge its advertising business, providing more space for advertisements at U.S stores and offering its huge pile of shopper data to brands, aiming to challenge strong rival Amazon as a media powerhouse.
The endeavor is vital for Walmart’s belligerent plan to increase its advertising business more than 10 fold within the next few years.
According to Reuters’ report, Walmart’s annual advertising revenue was expected to be almost $1 billion in 2020.
After a long time of stammering progress, Walmart has expanded its advertising business, even buying a 7.5 percent share in social media app TikTok remains unfinished.
Walmart refocused its advertising policy at the start of 2019, cut loose of its advertising parents, and started an in-house business named Walmart Media Group, which will be changed to Walmart Connect, according to the company.
Chief customer officer of Walmart, Janey Whiteside, said that “It is the time for us to dig in and pivot the business from one which was really emphasized on search and display with our top suppliers.” He added, “We aim to move forward with that, taking advantage of our physical properties, and develop strategies to aid the advertisers in making excellent use of their dollars.”
We will build the latest advertising network in collaboration with Trade Desk advertising company, said Walmart. It will enable various brands to utilize Walmart’s ample shopper data to create more effective advertisements, even on websites owned by companies other than Walmart.
While using Walmart’s shopping behavior data, advertisers and brands will be able to target audiences of preference and make advertisements accordingly. It will also enable advertisers to monitor real-time users’ actions on advertisements, sales inside Walmart stores, and develop different advertising campaigns, told Whiteside.
Precisely calculating whether an advertisement generated any purchase has been a technological challenge for the long-term. Walmart is gambling that giving brands access to its data on advertisements over streaming video will attract more advertising revenue.
Whiteside said it will leverage its brick-and-motor stores to compete with the rival, online retailer Amazon, and will sell advertisements on more than 180,000 screens inside over 4,500 U.S stores, plus on self-checkout kiosks, screens, and TVs.
“Walmart has exceptional data source that it can bring to efforts,” Whiteside said and added, “Who else can actually inform you if a consumer view something on an online advertisement and then after a week bought it physically in the store?”
