Walmart vs Amazon: Battle for Your Smart TV Shopping Experience

The retail media landscape is transforming dramatically as major players make strategic moves to control the space where viewing meets buying. Walmart's recent $2.3 billion acquisition of Vizio has created a powerful new ecosystem that combines the retailer's extensive shopper data with Vizio's SmartCast operating system and its 18 million active accounts. This bold move enables advertisers to create truly shoppable TV experiences where consumers can make purchases directly through their remote controls while watching advertisements.

Meanwhile, Amazon has taken a different approach by forging an exclusive partnership with Roku that provides access to approximately 80 million smart TV households. This collaboration allows advertisers to place ads across both Roku's channel and Amazon's Fire TV platform, with all purchase activity flowing through Amazon's established e-commerce infrastructure. The contrasting strategies highlight fascinating differences in how these retail giants approach the integration of media and commerce.

What's particularly intriguing is how these developments signal a fundamental shift in the consumer purchase journey. Walmart seems to be playing a long game, building comprehensive ownership and integration between viewing and purchasing experiences, providing advertisers with exceptional visibility into conversion pathways. Amazon's partnership approach delivers massive scale without requiring the significant capital investment of an acquisition. Both strategies point to a future where other retail media networks will need to develop their own approaches to smart TV integration or risk being left behind in this rapidly evolving landscape. Which approach will ultimately prove more successful? The answer may reshape how we all shop from our living rooms for years to come.

Looking to reach customers at the moment when consideration turns to purchase? The smart TV in your customers' living rooms is becoming retail media's most powerful new frontier. Explore how your brand can leverage these emerging platforms.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 (00:02):
Well, hello everyone, I'm Scott Benedict.
One of the developments in ourindustry that I've been watching
with a lot of interest recentlyhas been the evolution in the
retail media space and, morespecifically, the increased
leverage of smart TV platformsas a touchpoint in retail media

(00:23):
campaigns, has a touch point inretail media campaigns and
there's been some reallyinteresting events take place
here in the last six months inthat space.
Now, if you haven't heard, lastfall or late last year, walmart
closed on a $2.3 billionacquisition of Vizio and that
brought Vizio's SmartCastoperating system on its smart

(00:45):
TVs and about 18 million activeaccounts into Walmart Connect's
inventory of connected TVinventory and married Walmart
shopper data with Vizio's reachof their smart TV platform, the
smart cast platform.
That really providesadvertisers an opportunity to

(01:07):
build shoppable TV ads.
That allows purchases to takeplace via a TV remote, and some
of those test programs arealready out there and visible to
shoppers and it's really beenan interesting new way to reach
shoppers right at the point inwhich they're watching an ad and
contemplating a purchase.
Now, more recently here in justthe last few weeks, amazon and

(01:32):
smart TV platform Roku haveannounced an exclusive
partnership that grants Amazon'sad platform access to about 80
million smart TV householdsthrough Roku's platform, and
that's going to be aninteresting thing to watch,
because now advertisers can notonly buy ads on Roku's channel

(01:57):
but also on Amazon's Fire TV,and all of those purchases
obviously lead to Amazon'spurchase platform.
So different approaches in bothcases.
Walmart, in their case, actuallydid an acquisition with Vizio,
whereas Amazon's approach wasthat of a partnership with Roku,

(02:19):
and so different ways ofaccomplishing the same goal have
been different between the twocompanies.
Now the implications of allthis is that it looks like
Walmart is playing a long gameand building full integration
between viewing and purchase ona platform that they own, and
it's really ideal for connectingall the dots for advertisers

(02:43):
through to a purchase conversion, and so there's great
visibility there for advertisers.
But there's also a lot ofregulatory potential
opportunities there that we'llhave to continue to watch.
Amazon, by contrast, has usedthe partnership approach and
delivers a pretty massive scalein their program and doesn't

(03:05):
require as much of an investmenton their part.
But it will be interesting tosee which of these approaches
turns out to be the mostsuccessful.
My guess is is for variousreasons, they'll both be very
successful and, if anything, itwill point to other retail media
platforms that need to developtheir own strategy for

(03:26):
exploiting smart TVs and digitalshopping platforms in a new and
different ways.
That's what I've been readingand thinking about.
I'm Scott Benedict.