Criteo and Brandcrush team with Phuzion Media as they aim to make offline retail media shoppable

Criteo and its Brandcrush subsidiary have announced an image recognition tech powered partnership with Phuzion Media, allowing shoppers to find and buy products in-store and via print media using their mobile camera.

This eliminates the need for QR codes, watermarking, or any changes to the creative.   

“The Phuzion platform is the natural downstream extension to our media inventory management solution,” says Matt Hurle, Co-founder and Sales Director, Brandcrush.

“Together with Criteo, we handle the buying and selling of omnichannel retail media and Phuzion makes it shoppable and plugs the data gap. It’s a win for the retailer, brand, and consumer alike.”    

Phuzion works with UK retailers including Sainsbury’s/Argos, Very and Marks & Spencer, integrating into the their apps while also enabling access to non-app users via the mobile web.   

Michelle Heelas, Product Owner, New Customer Growth, Very, says: “We introduced scannable media on our AW22 Direct Mail Campaign targeting prospects, taking our traditional direct mail into the world of ‘phygital’ - removing barriers to shop, facilitating a frictionless journey to our Very site, increasing traffic and therefore conversion.”

“We also liked the increased accessibility of the onboarding journey this functionality provided as well as a greater understanding on what interaction happens in between the mailing landing on the doorstep to conversion, historically we have never had this insight with our offline channels.”   

Customer magazines, catalogues and printed direct mail have always been popular with consumers, but they have historically been one step removed from the direct access to purchase offered by the digital world, making impact on sales harder to measure.   

By combining Criteo’s digital retail media solutions, Brandcrush’s platform, and Phuzion’s offline media sales data, retailers can now see the end-to-end impact of every marketing touchpoint in the shopper path to purchase, with full-funnel reporting across both their on and offline media estate.   

“This partnership creates a full end-to-end data solution and is the next big unlock for retailers and brands,” says Stefano Biondi, Co-founder and Director, Phuzion Media.   

“Print display advertising and branded advertorial content in at-home media like customer magazines and catalogues is an incredibly important part of the mix. This new partnership makes retail media a full-funnel opportunity.”