Tesco, B&Q, John Lewis and Waitrose are taking part in a series of pilots for a new dunnhumby retail media alliance designed to make it easier for brands to run campaigns across multiple retailers.
The dunnhumby network alliance has been launched to tackle fragmentation across retail media, one of the sector’s biggest barriers to scale.
The new offer will give brands and agencies a single route to activate campaigns across multiple retailers, audience providers and media owners, without having to rebuild plans and workflows for each individual network.
Dunnhumby said the alliance will connect audiences, media campaigns, performance insight and measurement through one solution, powered by its media intelligence and built in partnership with technology company Kevel.
The pilots will begin this summer across categories including household and DIY, health and beauty, and grocery.
More retailers are expected to join the alliance in future.
The move comes as retail media continues to grow rapidly, with retailers investing in their own networks and brands increasingly looking to use first-party shopping data to reach customers more effectively.
However, the sector has been held back by disconnected systems, inconsistent measurement and the complexity of planning campaigns across separate retailer platforms.
Dunnhumby said its network alliance will allow brands to access audiences and inventory across a range of retailers and media owners through a more coordinated model.
For retailers, the alliance is designed to open up broader advertiser demand and make inventory easier to scale, while allowing each business to retain control of its own media operation.
Publishers will also be able to access retail media budgets through retailer data-enabled audiences.
Dunnhumby chief executive Josh Bottomley said brands were demanding greater scale and transparency from retail media, but that fragmentation had slowed the market’s progress.
“Brands are demanding scale, consistency and transparency, but fragmentation has held the market back,” he said.
“This ground-breaking alliance is made possible through dunnhumby’s unique position in the market, bringing the industry together under a shared framework, making it easier for brands to activate, measure and grow through retail media.”
The alliance will initially focus on existing retailer audiences and inventory, with plans to expand into richer audience and inventory opportunities.
Dunnhumby said the pilots will help build a proven operating model, measurement framework and retailer workflows for future growth.
The business said the model had been designed to be open and collaborative, connecting retail purchase data with publisher reach while giving retailers shared standards for activation, measurement and reporting.
It added that shoppers should benefit from more relevant product discovery across trusted retail and publisher environments, with advertising better aligned to shopping intent and less duplication across disconnected channels.
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