“There’s been a lot of retail media networks created from every retailer under the sun, and we see a huge desire to put more money to work in media that’s enabled by retail data,” said John Shea, founder and CEO of ecommerce agency Momentum Commerce. “It gets challenging — Belk is a regional department store player.”
Big and midsize advertisers largely assign their retail media spend to between five and eight platforms, with Amazon getting the biggest share of budgets, said Russ Dieringer, founder and CEO of ecommerce analyst and research firm Stratably.
“If anything, I’d guess brands selling into Belk might shift some of their existing activation money to test it out,” Dieringer said. “Since it requires people and money to expand to more networks, simply launching a new network does not mean ad dollars start to flow to it.”
Ross Walker, retail media team lead at ad agency Acadia, agreed that Belk doesn’t hold “a unique position or a huge audience” for advertisers. He said the retailer’s move into advertising could be part of a strategy to revive Belk’s revenue under private equity owner Sycamore. Sycamore acquired Belk in 2015 and recently reduced its outstanding debt by more than $950 million.
“This is part of the play that the PE firm is running out,” Walker said.
Still, he said Belk may be a good ad platform for brands that heavily sell products in Southern U.S. states.
For example, a brand may sell more white jeans in Florida than in the Pacific Northwest, noted Elizabeth Marsten, vp of commerce media at Tinuiti. “It does make sense if you’re a brand that sells regionally,” she added.
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