How The Warehouse Group and Zitcha Built New Zealand’s Leading Retail Media Network

The Challenge

“We were initially looking for support in automating a lot of our processes. Five years ago, when the relationship started, we were trying to plan how to capitalise on the rise of retail media. The Warehouse Group had been executing retail media for decades (40+ years), it was just called something else. And as a result, it was a very manual process, so there were a lot of hours and internal resources dedicated to Excel Spreadsheets - it wasn’t very efficient. We needed an automation platform, technology to provide a platform for our business of the future.

Through due diligence, we spoke with the top international players, and outlined what we were after. Despite other multi-national platforms being capable of servicing our ‘current’ automation needs, predominantly on-site, none seemed to match our ambitions of creating something truly unique. This is where ANZ organisations usually win out, given their willingness to value your business beyond being another stat on the P&L. And thanks to a kind introduction by a mutual connection at Meta, we chose to build that together with Zitcha.” 

The Solution

“When we first started, we wanted a self-service ads platform for our suppliers to place inventory, putting banners and sponsored products on our site. And if that was all we ever wanted to do, then we probably could have gone with an off-the-shelf provider. 

But we also knew that we wanted to execute a full funnel operation, as much as possible. We'd always done a full funnel service for our clients, and so we were after an easy and frictionless option for clients to automate those same processes. While the current requirement was effective self-service execution, we wanted to ensure off-site needs (e.g. self-service into social channels), we wanted to have the Google stack integrated, we needed to get to programmatic, and our desire was to graduate to including in-store as well. 

We can’t predict what’s next in Retail Media, but we’re confident that with Zitcha, we can work together to evolve and solve the future. One recent example was automating a new network of digital screens into our offering. This would typically be very manual, and while this would not be a part of everyone else’s CX, we knew it would create enormous benefit for our clients. “

The Results

Together with Zitcha, we’re going on this journey, and I don’t think the destination will always be attainable. So we’re in a constant state of transformation, partly through design, and also because we operate in one of the most dynamic marketing and media environments globally.

We’ve been able to onboard our on-site, off-site and in-store in one place through Zitcha. It’s not all self-service yet, but fully enabling that capability for those that want it is not far away now. For endemic brands, it’s now closed-loop reporting, which is massively beneficial. Performance of ad unit,s etc. And now we’re pushing into areas of measurement attribution and use of first-party data.

"We’re moving into the future faster than anybody else."

Alex Lawson, Head of Strategy and Marketing at Market Media

So it’s an always-evolving dynamic relationship between Zitcha. For those dealing with non-automated Retail Media Networks, you’re reliant on other people doing what you asked for - with Zitcha, we can offer clients a level of control; whether they opt for a hand-held approach or given free reign, which is powerful. It doesn’t matter whether your account person is on holiday or you’re at a conference in Las Vegas at 3 am, making campaign changes in real-time offers greater flexibility for clients. 

The platform allows us to collate all the data in one place, campaigns and proof of posts etc, suppliers can see real-time data regardless of whether they're doing it self-serve or not. As soon as that campaign goes live, they can go in and view performance and keep track of it. There’s no sugarcoating here. It’s all very transparent and ultimately leads to an improved level of trust with clients. 

There’s still a collective issue we and others in the industry are trying to solve around measurement and efficacy attribution. We’re not there yet, but together I know we’ll continue to pioneer in these new areas, together with other collaborators like the  IAB, Meta, ZItcha etc, in this space.