The 2021 Tinuiti Live Commerce Recap: How to Conquer the New World of Connected Retail

Nii Ahene | Chief Strategy Officer, Tinuiti

Petriello also gave a sneak peek into the value of Amazon Posts and how brands can leverage this latest feature to improve brand awareness.
Topics covered: Hughes notes that the underlying change to all of this is that:
Kaseeska explained what makes Amazon’s DSP so powerful for all brands:

Hughes wraps up his keynote by explaining the emotional engagement ladder, a must-watch walkthrough!

BigCommerce’s VP, GM of Omnichannel discusses how Commerce platforms are partnering with Ads, Marketplace and Social Commerce platforms such as Google, Facebook, TikTok, Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, as well as listing, advertising, operations, and fulfillment partners to help merchants (small, medium and enterprise) develop their solution architecture that drives revenue growth, increasing channel performance, by delivering on shopper expectations, across channels.
Topics covered:
When covering how important it is to test and learn along the way, Wasserman shared Sony’s approach.
Futterman explains ViacomCBS is achieving these goals by offering premium content, consumer choice, and recently, EyeQ Video.

Beyond the Technology: Consumer Connection in a Digital Environment

Topics covered include:
“This partnership empowers marketers to deliver more relevant ad experiences to connect with your customers at every step on their path to purchase, and accountable results so you can close the loop on media spend and sales at Walmart stores online. Walmart DSP will allow advertisers to leverage their brands’ first-party data, and combine it with Walmart first-party data and select third-party data, to build specific audience segments to deliver hyper-relevant messaging to their customers.” This session began with a look into how Walmart is leveraging their omnichannel ad solutions to reach the right customer at the right time in their journey, and stand out in a rapidly advancing—and increasingly competitive—retail media landscape.
“We often get the question: “Is OTT right for my brand; should my brand try OTT?” That question has now shifted to: “How is my brand going to make OTT and the streaming landscape work for us?” There is no world where the channel isn’t right for the brand anymore. The consumer has evolved how they consume media, and we as marketers have to evolve along with our consumers.”
In this session, Ex-Amazonian and Tinuiti’s SVP Retail Operations, Phil Stolt shares four pillars to Amazon success including foundational operations, inventory management, and more. Stolt explains the specific pillars Tinuiti focuses on for full end-to-end channel management vs. an a-la-carte approach. While advertising and marketing are crucial parts of a successful Amazon strategy, they aren’t the only aspects businesses should focus on. Stolt covers why companies need to also put a strong focus on the backend of their Amazon businesses.
Hopkins explores the advantages of running Amazon’s OTT offering to bridge the gap between awareness and consideration by providing the right creative asset at the right time.
David Futterman| VP, Digital Ad Sales – Performance Media, ViacomCBS

Thought leaders and top performance-based brands gathered on Thursday for Tinuiti’s Live virtual event. If you were not able to attend, “Tinuiti Live Commerce” is a half-day, complimentary online event designed to help marketers conquer the new world of retail commerce by charting out the bigger picture and connecting all the dots.
Example of Amazon Posts

Exceed customer expectations, not just reaching customer satisfaction, but striving for delight, engagement and empowerment
Connect with authenticity. Consumers want “realness;” we need to give people a story they can share
Get personal with your shopper. You are up against every personal experience they’ve had with other brands; we need to use the data we have to get more personal with consumers and make them feel they belong to the brand and service
Emotional engagement; “you have to make someone feel something.”

“Ensure you have defined a purpose and goal prior to investing in a new-to-you platform. This is of the utmost importance as different marketplaces may play different roles in your overall strategy.”

The Myth of Performance Marketing and The New Challenger Brand Playbook for Driving Enduring Growth

– Nancy-lee McLaughlin | Senior Director, Search & Enterprise, Tinuiti

To wrap up the session, McLaughlin sits down with Sony’s Maya Wasserman to discuss their recipe for testing marketplaces which includes evaluating market share, setting KPIs, the importance of in-store and online connectedness, and so much more.
Suzanne Skop | Head of Agency Partnerships, Instacart

Math began his dive into video landscape dynamics with some definitions, explaining how streaming video services are distinguished between SVOD (subscription video on demand), TVOD (transactional video on demand), and AVOD (ad-supported video on demand). Those ad-supported services include some of the most recognizable names in streaming, including Hulu, Sling, and Roku, just to name a few.

—Scott Spaulding, Head of Agency & Ad-Tech Partnerships, Walmart Connect
Math, Caimano, and Futterman bring their expertise to the table to explain the current and evolving state of the streaming space, a bit of history on how we got here, what we’re doing in this space today (and how)—and importantly—why streaming advertising is too important to ignore.

The balance between creating future demand vs. harvesting existing demand
The importance of creative when building your brand’s voice
How to leverage retail media platforms as a way to build future demand and to capture existing demand
Putting scoreboards in place to measure BOTH future demand and demand capture

Math, Caimano, and Futterman bring their expertise to the table to explain the current and evolving state of the streaming space, a bit of history on how we got here, what we’re doing in this space today (and how)—and importantly—why streaming advertising is too important to ignore.

How to best leverage Amazon’s Posts, Stores, followers, and their latest Customer Engagement Tool in your overall brand strategy.
How brands can leverage Amazon’s Marketing Cloud to revolutionize their measurement capabilities
What the Sizmek Ad Suite platform means for the future of display advertising

Amazon DSP landscape, and the advantages of Amazon’s Display offering, including: precise targeting across devices and formats, Amazon’s exclusive 1P insights, robust and readily available analytics/reports, and more
How you can curate an audience plan designed to target your ideal buyers using Amazon’s 1P behavioral data
Amazon OTT advantages, measurement capabilities, and best practices for brands
Fire TV Audience (high-intent buyers) and Growth
Tinuiti’s granular, audience-first approach to Amazon OTT, tapping into the 120 million people streaming Amazon content monthly to grow brand awareness, and drive new-to-brand customers
Tinuiti’s audience guaranteed OTT CPM rate
Tinuiti DSP management benefits

The 360° Growth Approach to Achieve Long-Term Amazon Sales Growth

Pillars to a successful Amazon strategy (advertising & marketing, content & creative, technology, and strategic operations)
Foundational Amazon operations (staying in stock, retail readiness, choosing products to list, and more)
Advanced Amazon channel strategy (catalog management, account health, planning, P/O shipments, and operational compliance)
Merchandising, fulfillment strategies, vendor term negotiations, pricing strategies, and more

An in-depth look at what Sponsored Display is and what benefits it offers businesses
Tips on how to effectively use Sponsored Display within Amazon (+ real examples)
Specific metrics for success advertisers should consider when using Sponsored Display
The differences between Sponsored Display and Sponsored DSP and their unique capabilities

How Commerce platforms partner with Ads, Marketplace and Social Commerce platforms.
How Commerce platforms partner with listing, advertising, operations, and fulfillment partners.
How to drive revenue growth, increasing channel performance, by delivering on shopper expectations, across channels.

Future of Retail Media

Hughes notes that, particularly following a very isolating pandemic, consumers are yearning for attachment, and “we need to own the space of connection.” Referencing a quote from Lauren Bacall, he explains why standing still in a rapidly changing world is the same as moving backwards; brands can’t afford to continue doing business as they’ve historically done and expect the same results—they have to take action.
Denny’s keynote session highlights an easy-to-follow playbook covering four principles that challenger brands are using to capture existing demand and to reach new customers for long-term success.

Expansion (and more expansion likely to come), particularly for programmatic offerings, but also new ad types and additional networks
Understanding attribution across different channels
The tension between digital expectation timelines, and slower-moving brick-and-mortar realities
Today’s shopping experience, including current/shifting consumer expectations (ie. buying online from a local retailer and having it delivered that day, and curbside pickup)
The importance of product information and assortment, curating reviews, social and OTT, branding and messaging, and more
The connections—and disconnections—of retail media today, and what future connections and changes are necessary for a more streamlined, uniform process
How to factor lower-funnel advertising initiatives into your plan to reach customers that are ready to make a purchase on apps like Instacart, Shipt, and Gopuff

Topics covered:

Tinuiti’s Nii Ahene and Amazon Advertising’s Aby Angilivelil explore anything and everything you’d want to know about Sponsored Display and Amazon DSP during this Q&A session. Angilivelil covers real-world examples of products and how advertisers can utilize Sponsored Display and DSP to further target potential customers. When asked how an advertiser would use Sponsored Display as part of their strategy, Angilivelil highlighted that…

Closing Remarks + Hot Takes

“If you’re an advertiser selling your products on Amazon, you’re likely looking to build your business and your brand on Amazon, and Sponsored Display allows you to do both. Sponsored Display compliments Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands. You can help inspire shoppers to consider your brand on the Amazon homepage, consider buying multiple products from your brand on Amazon pages, or discover your brand off Amazon.”
“OTT ads are compelling, they’re eye-catching, and they allow advertisers the ability to scale their reach, and really showcase their brand. OTT ads are full-screen with sound, non-skippable, and have an average completion rate of 97%.”
Does that mean that no one is watching traditional TV these days? Not exactly. In fact, traditional TV still takes the lead when considering all media in time spent. But that number alone doesn’t tell a full picture, because older adults typically spend the most time watching traditional TV. If you only consider the total watching hours—and not who is doing the watching—you minimize how important streaming advertising is for reaching younger audiences.

Hot Take: Brand Building on Amazon

Topics covered:

Hot Take: Netflix with Ads?!

“The simplest way to look at this is Posts are Amazon’s version of Instagram. What’s changed about posts and what can make them even more valuable moving forward is that they can now be scheduled to support product launches, brand campaigns, and other social initiatives. So, instead of saying I have to set up a post and launch right now – you can build posts and set them to run in the future,” Petriello says.