Albertsons Debuts Retail Media Standardization Framework

• While retail media is booming, the lack of standardization has produced an unnecessarily complex, inefficient and costly ecosystem.
• Albertsons Media Collective’s first version of the framework concentrates on four areas: product characteristics, performance measurement, third-party verification and capabilities.
• The Retail Media Standardization effort is open to industry stakeholders to join this initiative, Albertsons said.

Albertsons Media Collective, the retail media arm for Albertsons Cos., released a preliminary framework to standardize methodologies, terminology and disclosures across retail media networks, which is available in a new whitepaper. 

“While retail media is booming, the lack of standardization has produced an unnecessarily complex, inefficient and costly ecosystem,” said Kristi Argyilan, senior vice president of Retail Media for Albertsons, in a press release. “For retail media to achieve its full promise, we must tackle the issue of standardization head on. To ensure the survival of this industry, we must come together toward a greater goal. We believe this framework will serve as a starting point for creating a unified approach to retail media standardization. Setting a new gold standard is the first stepping stone to revolutionizing how advertisers, agencies and retail media networks work together.”

As retail media continues to proliferate, advertisers and agencies must dedicate significant resources to producing varying ad formats, as well as transact, measure and integrate insights from each platform. This has led to advertisers experiencing difficulties in cross-platform comparison, limited transparency and inconsistent reporting.

The first version of the framework introduced by Albertsons Media Collective concentrates on four areas: 

• Product characteristics. 
• Performance measurement. 
• Third-party verification. 
• Capabilities. 

The framework will be finalized after pressure-testing industry-wide priorities and ensuring executional feasibility. Guided by an advisory group, the framework will also expand and evolve further to support key initiatives by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

“At Unilever, we are supportive of this workstream as we believe it’s essential for the industry to come together to tackle standardization when it comes to attribution, measurement, frequency of reporting and transparency,” said Aaron Sobol, Unilever’s head of U.S. media investment and partnerships, in the release. “We continue to be an advocate for industry wide solutions.”