When and how did Auchan Romania’s retail media project start, and where does this fit in Auchan's overall business strategy?
Tiberiu Dănețiu: The Romanian retail media market has started to grow in recent years, reflecting global trends. Just like other innovations that we have accomplished over the years, many of them even inspiring the entire retail sector, retail media initiatives have followed the same path of innovation, with Auchan being the initiator of the retail media market in Romania.
Since 2015, we have been strategically exploring the potential of retail media, pioneering this vision in the romanian retail market nearly a decade ago. In 2017, we had our first significant project, equipping a store with a network of connected digital screens, ready to communicate advertising for brands. Building on this foundation, we launched Auchan Retail Media in 2021, establishing ourselves as a first mover in the retail media landscape. Today, we have a complete, high-performance retail media and data insights ecosystem that supports brands in communicating and engaging with their customers through highly targeted, measurable and effective advertising solutions.
The Auchan Retail Media & Data Insights vision aligns perfectly with our overall business strategy by being customer-focused, by enhancing the shopping experience through personalized and relevant advertising content, by focusing on innovation and digitalization, by developing advanced media solutions, and by strategically partnering with brands, providing them with effective, measurable and impactful tools to maximize their visibility and results.
What exactly does Auchan's Retail Media service entail, and how does your omnichannel approach differentiate you from traditional advertising solutions?
We’ve created a 360 ecosystem of media, physical and digital channels in an omnichannel approach, through which brands can communicate with their target audience in a much more effective way, both in the short term for sales activation, but also in the long term for image building, as well as a series of data insights services related to buyers, sales, etc.
Auchan Retail Media & Data Insights delivers tangible value to all stakeholders. Brands benefit from enhanced communication capabilities, enabling them to engage consumers with highly relevant messaging throughout the shopper journey. Consumers receive pertinent information tailored to their individual needs and preferences, fostering a more personalized and satisfying shopping experience. For Auchan, this translates into improved customer retention and enhanced brand loyalty, driving sustainable growth and reinforcing our commitment to customer-centricity.
We have a long-standing expertise that we have built, developed and tested over the last few years, and we have practically revolutionized the way we communicate and interact with consumers, giving brands the possibility to run integrated campaigns.
Auchan Retail Media & Data Insights distinguishes itself by providing marketers, advertising and media agencies, and trademarketing specialists with a comprehensive ecosystem. This ecosystem offers unparalleled insights into the profiles, behaviors, preferences, habits, and intentions of their brands' buyers, as well as those within the relevant product category. Furthermore, it delivers the most effective, data-driven media system for targeted communication and activation.
Can you explain how the different media channels, both physical and digital, function within your retail media ecosystem?
Auchan Retail Media & Data Insights provides brands with an extraordinary mix, which includes both integrated campaigns, including total or selective instore retail media through connected TV screens - we currently have about 1,000 TV screens in 30 stores, instore radio, digital screens on shelves, innovative solutions such as robots, digital promoters or conventional POSMs (gates, trolleys, shelf displays, etc. ), along with on-site digital advertising - search, sponsored products, banners and CRM (newsletters, sms, push notifications) as well as off-site campaigns outside the Auchan ecosystem, on social networks, all for a successful communication, with ROAS and ROI highly superior to other communication media.
Beyond Auchan's traditional suppliers, which industries or types of businesses are you targeting with your retail media services, and why?
Our ecosystem currently serves over 200 companies across diverse sectors, including FMCG, non-food, non-retail, automotive, pharma, telecommunications and more. The broad applicability of Auchan Retail Media stems from its ability to benefit any player across various sectors.
What benefits do companies gain when utilizing Auchan's Retail Media & Data Insights solutions compared to other media or advertising alternatives?
Key benefits that brands gain by leveraging the power of Auchan Retail Media & Data Insights:
In addition, our Auchan Retail Media & Data Insights teams, together with our partner agency, provide full support and training for data analysis, campaign creation and implementation, and results measurement.
Could you share some details on how you measure the effectiveness of campaigns run through your retail media service, particularly in terms of Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and Return on Investment (ROI)?
To further demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, I will share the results of two recent internal case studies.
From March 4th to 17th, 2025, an omnichannel digital campaign was implemented utilizing Auchan Instore TV, auchan.ro banners and carousels, sponsored product listings on auchan.ro, targeted CRM newsletters, CRM-embedded sponsored product/banners, push notifications, and SMS. This campaign, designed for a wine brand introduced to the market the previous year, capitalized on the strengths of Auchan Retail Media & Data Insights to drive brand awareness. The campaign successfully elevated brand awareness from 20% to 48%, aligning with the stated objective, and generated notable gains in sales performance.
During the period of March 3rd to 16th, 2025, a campaign for a leading cosmetics brand resulted in a 10% incremental sales increase, exceeding category growth, when compared to the corresponding period in the prior year. This outcome represents a successful achievement for an established brand within the market.
What kind of audience reach can brands expect when advertising through Auchan's retail media channels?
The Auchan Retail Media & Data Insights ecosystem enables brands to engage with highly targeted audiences based on shopping behavior and social demographics.
Our customer data, enriched by the fact that over half of our daily sales are transacted via our loyalty program, provides unparalleled insights, with high acurracy of targeting and precision, into customer preferences and purchasing behaviors.
How do the data insights you offer about customer behavior, purchasing patterns, and sales trends enhance the effectiveness of advertising campaigns for your clients?
A key element of the Auchan Retail Media ecosystem is the Data Insights component, which strategically aligns data analytics, intelligence, and programmatic solutions to ensure optimal relevance and efficiency. This allows brands to enhance their return on advertising spend and achieve increased sales through data-informed decision-making. The detailed insights into customer profiles, purchasing behaviors, and loyalty levels provided by this component facilitate the development of precisely targeted communication and engagement strategies.
All these huge volumes of anonymized, individual-level, primary purchase data are aggregated and analyzed to understand buying and consumption behaviors, shopper preferences, buyer intent for their brands and their category, predictions for future behaviors based on Data Intelligence and AI, brand loyalty and how it evolves, effectiveness of activation actions, and more.
Looking ahead, what are your future plans for Auchan's Retail Media services, and are there any new channels or innovations you plan to introduce in the near future?
Our strategic roadmap includes the continued growth, development, and innovation of the Auchan Retail Media ecosystem, also through the expansion of our digital advertising capabilities, the integration of programmatic advertising solutions with a focus on personalization, and the strategic implementation of AI, further solidifying our market leadership.
I believe the next phase involves standardizing and integrating communication and activation ecosystems across advertisers, brands, and media agencies. This initiative will further establish retail media as a significant and effective component of the broader advertising landscape.
For more information, contact retailmedia@auchan.ro.
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*This interview was edited by Romania Insider for Auchan Romania.
