Carrefour Group and Publicis Groupe have launched a joint-venture, named Unlimitail, to address the retail media market in Continental Europe, Brazil and Argentina.
The launch of the company, which combines technologies such as ‘CitrusAd powered by Epsilon’, with Carrefour’s retail media knowledge and expertise, comes six months after the initiative was announced.
At the same time, retail media continues to experience a boom in the U.S and within the next two years is expected to overtake TV advertising spend for U.S. consumer packaged goods companies.
The new venture said it is aiming to bring to Europe and Latin America the same scale, connectivity and consistency that is enabling such growth in the U.S. While representing 85% of the ecommerce market in those territories, traditional retailers reportedly only attract 15% of retail media investments from brands.
Alexandre Bompard, CEO and President of Carrefour Group said: “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’s a project that goes far beyond Carrefour and Publicis, and we hope to rally as many partners as possible.”
As part of its offering Unlimitail will provide off-the-shelf monetization solutions to retailers including technology for inventory creation on the retailer’s ecommerce website.
Other features include the full commercialisation of media and data solutions for retailers and merchants to improve consumer demand, off-the-shelf Advertising Operations (AdOps) services to optimise campaigns in real time and yield inventories, and a range of consulting services.
Arthur Sadoun, CEO and Chairman of Publicis Groupe added: “Our ambition with our new partners and the ones that will soon follow is to create a leading platform in retail media as simple as the open web. A platform driving scale, connectivity, and consistency in a media that is an increasingly crucial pillar of any brand’s business strategy. It is a critical milestone o help marketers take back control of their customer relationships, accelerate their readiness for a cookie-less world and deliver a successful media ROI, particularly in CPG.”
According to the firms, Unlimitail has already converted its first 13 retail partners including Kingfisher France, Groupe Galeries Lafayette, Rakuten France, Showroomprive Group, ÏDKIDS and LuisaViaRoma.
Unlimitail also announced its first five media partners. These partnerships include Le Figaro, an expert in content creation and distribution; JCDecaux, M6, France Télévisions, and Brut, platform for engaging content.
