While the in-store shopping experience has long been an undisputed strength of Advantage Solutions, a new alliance with leading retail technology provider Swiftly marks another big step for the company into off-site and on-platform digital advertising.
Advantage and Seattle-based Swiftly today announced a strategic alliance that expands Advantage’s omnichannel capabilities and allows retailers to own the digital relationship with their shoppers through the integration of Swifty’s innovative retail tech solutions.
By combining Advantage’s in-store expertise, direct relationships with retailers and unparalleled workforce with Swiftly’s ability to reach shoppers digitally with targeted promotions, rebates and ads, the two companies aim to help brands and retailers create a more connected and cohesive shopping experience across the path to purchase.
Through the collaboration, brands can now execute comprehensive campaigns across the entire marketing funnel—from driving digital awareness and raising consideration along the shopper journey to converting purchases in-store—while gaining comprehensive analytics from closed-loop, first-party data to measure campaign success. All can now be achieved more efficiently and through a single point of contact, says Brian McRoskey, Advantage’s Chief Growth Officer.
“Advantage has the expertise, direct relationships with retailers and the workforce to provide an exceptional in-store experience. We knew we needed a best-in-class tech platform to offer an even more robust suite of services to our retailer and CPG clients, which made teaming with Swiftly an obvious choice,” McRoskey said, in a release.
“This alliance will allow us to offer our customers scalable and targeted solutions that can be embedded quickly and seamlessly to put brands in front of new audiences, drive people to stores and ultimately convert more shoppers into buyers.”
Under terms of the deal, Advantage is making an equity investment in Swiftly, a Seattle-based provider of technology and retail media solutions for retailers worldwide.
The investment is Advantage’s latest step to modernize and augment its technology to remain on the cutting edge of commerce and offer retailers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers data-driven solutions that can be quickly deployed and optimized to turn insights into action, McRoskey says.
By giving brands and retailers new insights into how to better serve their shoppers, the collaboration addresses a significant need in the retail media ecosystem. The agreement is designed to enable brands to create customized marketing and promotional campaigns that reach more shoppers across multiple platforms and touchpoints, ultimately accelerating sales and building loyalty for retailers.
With Advantage serving more than 100,000 retail locations across North America, the alliance unlocks more opportunities for retailers, brands and shoppers alike, says Henry Kim, Swiftly co-founder and CEO.
“After considering several players in this space, we chose to team with Advantage because of their outstanding reputation, extensive reach and considerable size,” Kim said, in a release. “More importantly, we share a common mission of helping retailers thrive in today’s highly competitive environment. Both our organizations operate at the intersection of retailers and CPG brands, viewing success through the lens of our retailers; their success is our success.”
Michael Taylor, Advantage’s Chief Operating Officer for retailer services, says the new collaboration “strengthens the shopping experience for the consumer. The secret to attracting and retaining shoppers is all about meeting the consumer where they are. Providing an elevated digital experience that matches what they see in the store helps them discover new products and provides them with more reasons to come back.”
