Riding Ads’ Third Wave: Microsoft’s Vision for Revolutionizing Retail Media

MIAMI — The digital advertising landscape is witnessing a seismic shift with retail media rapidly emerging as its most dynamic frontier.

“Retail media is the third wave of digital advertising,” asserts Lynne Kjolso, VP, Global Partner & Retail Media at Microsoft.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, She paints a picture of an industry on the cusp of transformation, driven by technological innovation and a strategic focus on omnichannel solutions.

Microsoft is the latest making a foray into retail media. “We offer a very robust onsite private marketplace solution for retailers,” Kjolso says, highlighting the acquisition of Promote IQ in 2019 as a pivotal moment for the company.

The integration of Promote IQ with Xandr advertising technology marks Microsoft’s offering of an end-to-end omnichannel solution that powers not just onsite but also offsite media buying for retailers.

“We have a Microsoft advertising network for retail where we aggregate retailer supply and bring in a ton of demand for a robust marketplace,” Kjolso explains.

“It’s an opportunity for retailers to take some of their unfilled demand and bring that into our system,” Kjolso explains. The aim is to create a comprehensive marketplace, bringing together shopper marketing demand, brands, and Microsoft’s advertiser base to offer incremental demand and increased monetization opportunities for retailers.

Microsoft’s approach is inclusive, catering to the needs of “tier one” retailers while also extending its services to tiers two and three.

“As those tier ones mature, our approaches need to get more modular,” Kjolso acknowledges, underlining the need for adaptability in a rapidly evolving market.

Kjolso also touts Microsoft’s Retail Media Creative Studio which “auto generates complete banner campaigns from one product URL,” a tool seen as beneficial for brands without the resources of their larger counterparts.

Kjolso speaks to Microsoft’s strategic investments. “We are working with the Xandr technology as well, with invest and curate, and we have been investing a lot in measurement partnerships,” she states. The partnership with LiveRamp and their clean room powered by Habu highlights Microsoft’s interest in leveraging first-party data in a privacy-conscious manner.

You’re watching ‘Anything Is Possible: The Rising Tide of Programmatic Streaming,’ a Beet.TV Leadership Series at POSSIBLE 2024, presented by Index Exchange. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.