“Retail innovation, design and décor” sounds like an odd combination, although the décor in question has to do with store fixtures, not curtain swags. In any case,that’s what Retail Fluent does. They’ve just added retail media networks to the list, including in-store screens, programmatic ad sales, and audience measurement. And if you do want a drop valance in ruffled muslin, they can probably get you that too.
The only real question about the retail media network at BJ’s Wholesale Club is why it took so long to get started. The answer may be they didn’t want to build it for themselves, since they just announced their program will use Microsoft PromoteIQ, a comprehensive retail media platform that Microsoft bought in 2019. Props to Microsoft for making that deal before retail media networks were cool.
We have a full pouch of stories about Australian companies but our Emerging Markets editor has threatened bodily harm if I poach them. I can sneak in Aussie-born ecommerce personalization vendor Rokt, because it’s now based in New York. They’ve completed a secondary funding at a valuation of $2.4 billion, one year after a $325 million Series E at $1.95 billion. Not bad in a down year for tech stocks.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.