Next In Media spoke with Ryan Mayward, SVP of Retail Media Sales for Walmart Connect, about the company's expansion of its retail media capabilities beyond its own platforms. Walmart Connect is focusing on off-platform strategies through partnerships in CTV (NBC Universal, Disney, Paramount Plus), social media (Meta, TikTok, Pinterest), and new integrations like Vizio.

💡Takeaways:

• 🌐 Off-Platform Retail Media Expansion: Walmart Connect is significantly expanding its retail media capabilities beyond its owned platforms, focusing on reaching Walmart customers wherever they consume content, including CTV and social media, to drive sales outcomes.
• 📊 Full-Funnel Measurement and Consideration Metrics: The focus is moving towards understanding how each touchpoint contributes to overall sales, emphasizing "consideration" metrics like attributed visits to product detail pages or brand shops, which are effectively driven by offsite media like CTV and social.
• 📺 Strategic CTV Integrations: Walmart Connect is actively integrating with major CTV players like NBC Universal, Disney, and Paramount Plus to reach Walmart audiences and measure sales outcomes.
• 🤝 Social Media Partnerships for Sales Outcomes: Walmart Connect has integrated with top social platforms such as Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest, observing strong results in reaching Walmart customers and measuring sales outcomes from content consumption and live experiences on these platforms.
• 💡 AI-Enabled Creative Tools for Advertisers: Walmart Connect is developing AI-enabled creative tools, starting with display and moving into video, to lower the barrier to entry for smaller and medium-sized brands, making it easier for them to advertise on platforms like TV.
• 📈 Expansion to Non-Endemic Brands: Beyond brands selling products in Walmart stores, Walmart Connect is increasingly working with non-endemic advertisers from sectors like financial services, travel, quick-serve restaurants, and automotive, signaling a broader market play in retail media.

🎙 Guest: Ryan Mayward

🎤 Host: Mike Shields

🎬 Producer: FEL Creative

Next in Media and Sean Downey of Google discuss YouTube's evolving role in connecting brands with creators, highlighting new platforms like Brand Connect and "Peak Points" to foster authentic partnerships and drive full-funnel outcomes for advertisers. They also touch on YouTube's expansion into live events like the NFL's global broadcast and the growing potential of shoppable content across all formats.

💡Takeaways:

• 🤝 Creator-Brand Connection: There's a growing emphasis on connecting brands with authentic creators to leverage the creator's voice and trusted relationship with their audience for brand messaging.
• 📈 Trust in Creators: A significant insight is that 98% of users trust YouTube creators more than any other platform or even the brand itself when seeking recommendations.
• 🔄 Full-Funnel Approach on YouTube: YouTube serves as a comprehensive platform where consumers engage in searching, streaming, scrolling (especially with Shorts), and shopping.
• 🔗 AI-Powered Connections & Advertising: Technology, particularly AI, is crucial for scaling connections between brands and creators and for optimizing ad placement to reach the right audience.
• 💡 Authentic Storytelling: The most effective brand integrations with creators are not scripted but allow the creator to authentically incorporate the brand message into their voice and content.
• ⏱️ Real-time Trending Content: Brands are looking to tap into trending moments and creators who are currently "popping".
• 🏈 Beyond In-Game Ads for Live Events: For live events like the NFL, the strategy extends beyond traditional in-game ad units to encompass the surrounding cultural and content moments.

🎙 Guest: Sean Downey

🎤 Host: Mike Shields

📺 Sponsor: VuePlanner

🎬 Producer: FEL Creative

Next in Media spoke with Dr. Mark Grether SVP & General Manager, PayPal Ads, on why he thinks the company's 'transaction graph' may be even more powerful than some retailers' data for advertising, and why there's nothing to worry about with a company that has so many people's banking information to use that data for ad targeting.

💡Takeaways:

• 🌐 The Power of Transaction Graphs: PayPal's advertising strategy is built on its "transaction graph," which captures consumer spending across 30 million merchants globally, offering a much broader and deeper understanding of purchase behavior than single-retailer data.
• 🔗 Cross-Retailer Attribution: Unlike traditional retail media that operates in silos, PayPal can provide closed-loop attribution across all merchants where a brand's products are sold.
• 🛍️ Beyond Single-Category Insights: PayPal's transaction graph enables connections across diverse spending categories (e.g., sporting goods, groceries, travel).
• 🔒 Trust and Data Security in Advertising: Despite handling sensitive financial data, PayPal emphasizes that trust and data safety are central to its advertising business.
• 🤝 Agency Collaboration: Advertising agencies are actively "leaning in" to PayPal advertising because of its ability to offer a cross-media view and help optimize and plan campaigns across many outlets in their ecosystem.
• 📈 Evolution to Offsite and Full-Funnel: PayPal is naturally expanding into "offsite" ads and full-funnel marketing due to its existing transaction data across numerous merchants.

🎙 Guest: Dr. Mark Grether

🎤 Host: Mike Shields

📺 Sponsor: Rembrand

🎬 Producer: FEL Creative