Retail group Carrefour and communications group Publicis have presented their joint venture Unlimitail, through which they intend to exploit retail media together in Europe and South America. Thirteen partners have already joined the ambitious platform.
Advanced technologies
Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard had already announced it six months ago, but only yesterday Unlimitail was officially launched. The new collaboration was created to meet the growing demand for retail media in continental Europe and in Brazil and Argentina. The new platform combines Publicis’ most advanced technologies with Carrefour Links’ deep knowledge in retail media, the press release states.
“With Unlimitail, we want to create a European giant in retail media, and one that has every chance of winning, because it already has the best technologies on the market. It is a project that goes far beyond Carrefour and Publicis, and we hope to rally as many partners as possible”, Bompard added.
Chasing Amazon
Indeed, Unlimitail has already brought thirteen partners on board, accounting for more than 120 million customers and 1.5 billion page views per month worldwide. They include Kingfisher France, Groupe Galeries Lafayette, Rakuten France, Showroomprive Group, ÏDKIDS, LuisaViaRoma, MyOrigines, Bringo, Maquillalia, Juguetilandia, Public and two Carrefour franchise partners in Morocco (LabelVie) and Israel (Electra Consumer Products).
Retail media allow advertisers to directly target shoppers with personalised promotions, gamification and couponing, among other things, based on valuable data on buying behaviour. It is a fast-growing industry that is expected to become larger than the television advertising market in the United States already in the next two years. Other retailers are also investing heavily in retail media: just recently, Ahold Delhaize announced that it already derives half a billion euros from advertising revenue and data. The biggest player in retail media worldwide is Amazon, by a wide margin.
