17 December 2021
To say that 2021 was a year of change would be an understatement.
The impact of the pandemic has been transformative as brands, companies and customers alike have had to adapt, re-adapt and re-adapt again.
In what has been a pivotal year for innovation at Cartology, Countdown’s New Zealand retail media business launched, giving brands the opportunity to meet the +3million customers shopping with Countdown each week.
Back across the ditch, our product suite continues to evolve. New developments in the product space include our off-network YouTube offering, as well as new targeting and integration products.
In order to move forward with our reporting, we had to first look back. We listened to our partners about the importance of closed loop measurement and we were able to better understand the improvements you wanted to see. With a clear, staged roadmap we continued to evolve our reporting capability and metrics to better measure effectiveness and prove campaign outcomes.
Our first release delivered faster, omnichannel reporting and an increase from six to 30+ metrics. This was the accuracy we needed to start with to tell suppliers “how their campaigns were delivered”. The next release in November addressed the key questions our clients wanted to know; ‘Is that good?” With new benchmarking, sales overnight and customers over time reporting capabilities, we unlocked the insights needed to tell a deeper story about campaign performance.
Responding to the way our customers’ shopping behaviours are changing, Cartology Promoted Products rolled into App inventory, and we created new opportunities to target logged-in customers through Cartology customer segments across category and search display.
Most recently, we have amplified our research and data capabilities, resulting in fascinating insights into new customer behaviours that are here to stay, with the first Cartology Customer Playbook - a guide to driving customer powered growth in the new omnichannel environment. With three quarters of Australians changing their shopping behaviour, the playbook was a pivotal piece of research into our customers, their views on the grocery shopping experience and how their behaviours will continue to evolve.
While these new innovations vary in purpose, they are all grounded in customer insight.
We saw more sophisticated use of our platform in 2021. It was a delight to recognise some of these campaigns in the inaugural Cartology Campaign of the Year category at the Woolworths Supplier of the Year event in November.
The high calibre of entries gave the judging panel ample food for thought, with Reckitt Health’s ‘Bat. Bowl. Dettol taking out top honours for its exceptional execution and campaign success. Leveraging customer insight to determine channel selection, the omnichannel campaign focussed on key touchpoints in the customer journey including dynamic digital display, catalogue, eDM takeover and online branded shop. The campaign saw a record uplift in sales for Dettol products, with over 50 per cent of sales driven by new-to-brand customers.
The four finalists’ campaigns demonstrated an incredible use of customer insight, strategic use of the Cartology platform and of course, real customer impact, because as we know, unless it ends in a customer - does any of it matter? A huge congratulations again to all of our finalists: Asahi beverages - Gatorade, Boundary Bend/ Cobram Estate and Ben and Jerry’s.
One of Cartology’s greatest assets is our rich, data-led insight into customer behaviour, activated to help brands grow. Ecommerce has continued on a strong trajectory as customers navigated through new norms and categories relating to personal care and home, health and beauty, diet and sports nutrition products have seen strong growth as customer needs shift.
It has been said, ‘without challenge there is no growth’. It has been a pleasure to reflect on a year of learning, partnership and constant improvement.
To all of our partners, a sincere thank you on behalf of all of us at Cartology for your invaluable support this year.
Wishing you a safe and Merry Christmas. We look forward to partnering with you in 2022 and together, achieving real customer impact in the moments that matter most.
