Bas Komen – Albert Heijn

AH Retail Media Services (AHRMS) is a division of Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket formula in the Netherlands, part of the global Ahold Delhaize group. AHRMS specialises in providing advertising and media services that enable brands to reach millions of shoppers daily across various stages of the shopper journey, from orientation to consideration to purchase.

In this interview, Bas Komen, Director of Sales & Marketing at AH Retail Media Services, talks about the role of retail media for brand growth, and Albert Heijn’s strategy for building brands and activating sales both in the online and offline environment. The conversation touches on the effectiveness of 360-degree campaigns, including using data and analytics to finetune and tailor those campaigns and also the potential for smaller brands to leverage retail media for brand growth and sales activation.

Sales activation for brand growth

The AHRMS team’s mission is ultimately to help brands grow and activate sales on the shop floor, both offline in the physical store, and online in the app and website. “Activating brand growth and sales activation go hand-in-hand, according to Bas. “A recognisable, strong brand is a requirement to boost sales.” he continues.

Sales activations such as in-store price promotions are perfect activation mechanisms to boost short-term sales. Still, if a shopper doesn’t know the brand before entering the store, a certain brand salience needs to be generated before purchasing, Bas emphasises.

“This conversion journey doesn’t have to be long. Brand awareness and consideration can be achieved through for example in-store trials, more related to brand building than to sales. For example, a consumer might buy a new Coca-Cola flavour within 10 minutes from being unaware of the new flavour to having tried it and liked it, if there is a product demonstration in the store. Brands need to build their brand proposition first, to be considered by their audience. After that, you’ll enter the conversion phase.”

“Brands need to build their brand proposition first, to be considered by their audience. After that, you’ll enter the conversion phase.”

Data-driven promotion strategies

“With the extensive loyalty program of Albert Heijn, we are able to gather insights into our customers’ shopping behaviour. This data allows us to develop effective retail media strategies for brands and advertisers to target the most relevant audiences at the right time, based on data analysis,” Bas says.

Working with AHRMS to develop a campaign starts with formulating the main objective of the campaign. “Is it a sales or brand objective, or a combination of both?” Also the type of product matters: is it a well-known product for which you want to increase rotation, or is it brand awareness sagging and you need help to boost it? “We have valuable data insights from more than ten years, helping us to make the most efficient media plan for the advertiser,” Bas highlights.

Some retail media assets are ultimately strong for building brand awareness. For example, audiovisual elements at the store entrance. This is where the shopper journey starts. During the shopping journey, shoppers are exposed to more emotional advertising. The closer they come to the product aisle (moment of purchase), the more rational and sales activation-driven the communication will be. Even in a pre-store environment shoppers can be inspired through e.g. the AH app and Allerhande magazine.

“‘What’s for dinner’ is probably one of the most common questions in any household. This all allows us to help brands both create awareness and generate sales.”

Examples of other touchpoints in-store include demonstrations to experience the product, banners, floor stickers, and wobblers popping out from the shelf. Retail Media is not only for brands with big activation budgets. Also for brands with lower budgets, there are multiple options to realise retail media campaigns with great impact.

As Bas puts it; “Smaller brands with a limited number of products on the shelf often don’t have the budget to deploy a national television campaign or social and retail media campaign in combination. However, there are many great possibilities with self-service retail media, for example with sponsored products or display banners in the app or on the website. An environment where our shoppers search for inspiration, make their online shopping lists and make purchases.”

Around a third of the people at AHRMS work with data and analytics, measuring all the touchpoints’ impact on top-of-mind awareness, aided awareness, spontaneous awareness, and various other brand KPIs. Additionally, the touchpoints’ efficiency and effectiveness are measured. Therefore, AHRMS can create effective retail media plans for their clients wanting to build and grow their brands in-store.

“From the data, we learn more and more, our campaign data is in digital dashboards, allowing for quicker and more accurate category insights to come to the best media advice.” Not only are the insights digitally disclosed but as purchasing becomes more digital, making grocery shopping easier is also something AHRMS is working towards.

“Brands with a limited number of products on the shelf have many possibilities with self-service media, for example with sponsored products or display banners in the app or on the website.”

Retail media in the total media mix

Nevertheless, retail media is not a stand-alone solution for building brands. AHRMS is doing a lot of research to understand the effect of retail media versus traditional brand-building media within the total media mix. What has been proven already is that retail media adds a unique and additional reach within certain target groups.

However, AHRMS emphasises the strong role of retail media in the total media mix. ”We see that retail media consistently adds unique and additional reach within certain target groups. That’s important for brand building. These kinds of studies also help us build benchmarks for campaign effectiveness within specific product categories. We closely work together with media agencies to include retail media strongly to the total media mix. It is a process of testing and learning, to optimise campaign results.”

Furthermore, also brands that are not sold in Albert Heijn stores can take advantage of retail media. Bas mentions car brands and insurance companies as examples of this; “Naturally, you’d think when someone comes online or offline into an Albert Heijn store, they are focused on groceries. Of course. However, we see Retail Media being powerful in leveraging brand objectives, not only for FMCG brands but also for brands not directly related to the products on the store shelves. It is a brand awareness booster, and the potential is limitless.”

“We see Retail Media being powerful in leveraging brand objectives, not only for FMCG brands but also for brands not directly related to the products on the shelves. It is a brand awareness booster, and the potential is limitless.”