Managing Director Sean Crawford spoke to The Drum's Kendra Barnett about the future of commerce media and why the travel and transportation sectors are poised to win.
“It’s really just commerce media,” Sean told The Drum when asked about the evolving retail media landscape, which includes recent noteworthy entries from the likes of Chase, PayPal, United Airlines, Marriot, Expedia, Uber and Lyft.
“It’s anything where a customer transacts with an institution or an organization … as long as you have a strong database that is … compliant [with privacy regulations], you have a good audience of endemic brands that you can target and you have a really strong base to build a network off the back of, which can then attract non-endemic [brands] as well," he said.
Why are these non-retailers getting in on commerce media, a space so-far dominated by retailers like Amazon and Walmart?
“Because retailers have [succeeded], you’ve now got the wider industry jumping on that bandwagon and going, ‘We have all this data … How can we work with partners to make our customer experience richer, while also ultimately making ourselves more profitable by selling that data?’” he told The Drum.
Not everyone entering this space will have success, Sean say, adding: "[Commerce] media has to be additive, it has to be something that enhances the customer experience. And that can be done really well in the travel space with a partnership model between things that make sense when you’re in that travel mindset."
About Sean Crawford
Sean Crawford is the Managing Director of Threefold and the driving force and face behind Threefold’s North American expansion, which began in 2023 and has already seen the agency sign its first major US client.
Sean was recently awarded the 40-under-40 award from the Path to Purchase Institute, which honors the next generation of leaders in omnichannel marketing. As a retail media thought leader, Sean has presented at numerous industry events in the UK and North America and has been published by the industry press, where he has been called on to share his decade-plus of experience as a retail media pioneer.
About Threefold
Founded in 2008, Threefold is the world's leading Retail Media Network (RMN) specialist, headquartered in both New York and London. As part of the SMG agency network, which employs nearly 400 retail media experts, Threefold's primary mission is to unlock incremental brand and supplier budgets, curate media campaigns that supercharge sales and elevate its retail partners into top-tier omnichannel media owners, spanning in-store, off-site and online.
Threefold's services include the leading Retail Media Operating System Plan-Apps, consultancy and a white-label in-house solution that has seen the agency build, run and operate over 10 Retail Media Networks to date. In the UK, Threefold runs and operates Walgreens' Boots Media Group, ASDA’s LS Eleven Media Services, Co-op Media Network, Morrisons Media Group and retail media for The Very Group.
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