Article on Inside FMCG Feb 10th 2025 https://insidefmcg.com.au/2025/02/10/integrated-media-planning-a-powerful-strategy-for-driving-growth/

Coles 360 is bridging the gap between trade teams and brand marketers by taking a partnership approach to working with suppliers’ media agencies. This innovative approach seeks to eliminate traditional silos and enhance collaboration across the media planning process.

Brand and trade teams can now develop joint campaigns that ensure their advertising appears consistently across traditional brand touchpoints all the way to the point of purchase through trade assets.

“Aligning trade and brand marketing campaigns is a powerful strategy for driving growth and maximising return on investment for brands,” explains Bethanie Blanchard, head of strategy and planning at Coles 360.

“The customer doesn’t understand above and below the line – they just see brand communications. So, we’ve always pushed against this idea that retail media is a strictly below-the-line pursuit. The difference now is that we have a dedicated agency team to better facilitate integrated planning.”

Unlocking retail media for brand marketing

“There is no longer a need for trade and marketing teams to approach Coles 360 separately,” explains Chris Scudder, Head of Agency at Coles 360.

“Our approach is designed to support media agencies at every step of their transition toward ‘total planning,’ helping them navigate and thrive in this new landscape. And ultimately provide better media planning for their brands & our suppliers.”

Coles 360 has noticed a growing interest from traditional media agencies in the growing retail media space.

“Agencies are evolving their models to remain competitive in the market and ensure profitability as retail media continues to grow. Integrated planning will increasingly be led by agencies, making them central to this shift,” says Scudder.

As Kristiaan Kroon, COO at OMG, Australia’s largest retail media and commerce buying agency, said recently: “Brands are rapidly increasing their focus on understanding incremental ROAS through connected measurement of trade and brand budgets. The smartest brands and retailers will also use this as an opportunity to apply retail insights to higher funnel reach goals, further enhancing incremental ROAS performance using insights and measurement available through sophisticated partners like Coles 360.”

Brand teams to benefit from rich retail media insights

Brands and agencies will now have a clearer view of the impact of different retail media forms on consumer purchasing decisions. Previously, many people had stopped viewing this information at the retailer’s front door.

“If you are doing all this powerful branding work above the line, you want to ensure that when the customer enters the supermarket, they leave having bought your brand because there are so many things that can put them off course,” said Blanchard.

“We can determine whether the in-store ads, radio, point of sale or the digital home page will have the greatest impact.

“That’s the power of our planning at Coles 360. We ensure that we’ve got the right channels that are going to hit the right customers to hit the right objective. And that is all backed up by data and insights, which we bring to the table,” said Blanchard.