The Canadian retail ecosystem is experiencing a profound transformation, driven by shifting consumer behaviours, evolving technological capabilities, and an emphasis on connecting advertising with commerce. Retail media networks (RMNs) and shoppable ad formats have emerged as powerful tools, enabling brands to bridge the traditional divide between shopper marketing and brand advertising. This brief overview highlights key investment trends, the expectations brands have from retail media partners, and how brand and shopper marketing budgets and teams are becoming more integrated.
The Evolution of Consumer Behaviour
The consumer journey is no longer linear. With the rise of digital and omnichannel experiences, shopping behaviours are more fragmented than ever. Some key shifts and observations around customer journeys include:
Fluid Purchase Lifecycles: The traditional funnel of discovery, engagement, and purchase is being replaced by non-linear, ongoing connections. Influencers and social media play a critical role, with nearly half of social media users relying on influencers during their purchase journey. This shift means brands must engage customers across multiple touchpoints, maintain continuous interaction, and leverage data to personalize experiences.
Immediate Conversions: 12% of consumers report making an instant purchase after discovering products via influencers, meaning that brands must adopt digital-first strategies, align their marketing efforts with evolving consumer behaviours, and be ready for immediate conversions.
These behaviours underline the importance of integrating advertising with commerce to meet consumers at their specific moment of need.
Canadian Retail Media Networks: An Era of Extreme Growth is Forecasted
Retail Media Networks (RMNs) are revolutionizing the advertising industry by allowing brands to leverage first-party shopper data. This shift enables brands to enhance media effectiveness by closing the gap between advertising and commerce, offering opportunities for more integrated planning and seamless execution. As a result, investments in RMNs are growing rapidly, with $1 out of every $7 spent on Canadian media now allocated to these networks. RMN spending in Canada is projected to increase by 353% by 2028, reaching a total of $6.85 billion, highlighting the growing importance and potential of this advertising model.
Shoppable Advertising: Innovating Consumer Experiences
Shoppable ads are effectively bridging the gap between awareness and action by offering direct-to-purchase opportunities. Platforms like Connected TV (CTV) and social media allow consumers to make purchases without ever leaving the ad experience, streamlining the path from discovery to transaction. Additionally, interactive features such as QR codes and gamified ad formats are transforming how consumers engage with ads, making the experience more dynamic and impactful. These innovations are reshaping the advertising landscape, providing brands with powerful tools to drive immediate consumer action.
What Canadian Brands Are Looking to Achieve Via Retail Media Partners
Canadian brands are increasingly looking for retail media partners who can help bridge the gap between shopper and brand marketing efforts. Historically, the divide between these two has led to inefficiencies and fragmented consumer experiences. With the rise of connected commerce, brands now seek partners who can provide:
Holistic Planning: Creating unified media strategies that integrate retailer and consumer touchpoints for a seamless experience.
Integrated Execution: Ensuring continuity across platforms and campaigns by leveraging connected creative executions.
Consolidated Measurement: Using advanced analytics to link everyday media KPIs to broader business objectives, ensuring alignment and effectiveness.
Additionally, brands are looking for partners who can go beyond traditional on-site activation and merchandizing. As younger consumers become more comfortable with commerce-enabled solutions, brands must take advantage of emerging opportunities like:
Social Commerce: Platforms that blend influencer content with direct buying options are rapidly gaining popularity.
Connected TV Opportunities: Ads with built-in shopping features allow consumers to take immediate action, shortening the purchase cycle and enhancing the shopping experience.
By partnering with retail media networks that offer these capabilities, brands can better meet consumer needs and drive more effective marketing outcomes.
To evolve towards a more connected, efficient, and data-driven management, brands must transition from a disconnected approach to a connected one. Here is the distinction between these two approaches:
In a disconnected approach, brands have a limited view of consumers, fragmented teams and budgets, reactive management based on correlations, and rely on retailers as "clients" to distribute their products.
In a connected approach, they adopt a comprehensive understanding of consumers, coordinated and proactive management enabled by real-time data, causal analyses demonstrating the value of investments, and collaborate with retailers as strategic partners.
This shows that transitioning from a disconnected to a connected approach allows brands to optimize their performance, better understand their consumers, and strengthen their collaboration with retailers by leveraging robust data and coordinated strategies.
In conclusion, Canadian brands are eagerly waiting for the Canadian retail media landscape to mature. Their future marketing spends and goals are going to be connected to the space with the signals coming from retail media being a core part of their measurement frameworks. Retail partners that can take a holistic approach where both on-site and off-site formats and opportunities can be created via co-engineering will outpace the field of entrants in the Canadian space.
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