Nearly four years ago, Walmart launched a new division called Walmart Data Ventures to capitalize on its customer and inventory data. Through this, it created the Walmart Luminate platform to help both the retailer and its suppliers understand how people shop and how products flow through its network.
Now the company has big plans to expand its data platform – and major consumer goods brands are testing it, excited about how they can use its findings.
Walmart Luminate allowed suppliers and brands to review information such as sales figures, inventory levels, purchasing habits data, and customer perception survey results. This year, the platform introduced a tool called Activation of informationwhich integrates with Walmart retail media networkWalmart Connect, to identify media strategies based on Walmart Luminate data.
Mark Hardy, vice president of Walmart Data Ventures, told Modern Retail that enabling insights is the first step toward what Walmart wants to do with Walmart Luminate in the future; that is, providing not only data points but also recommendations to suppliers and merchants, especially with the help of AI. As part of this vision for the future of the platform, Walmart will change the name of Walmart Luminate to Scintilla next year, which the company announced in October.
“When you hear about creating value from Walmart data, people immediately look to monetization and say, ‘So, you sell data?’ The answer is not really,” Hardy said. “What we’re doing is looking at how we can leverage Walmart’s data and create value from that, through products, being able to drive business. »
“Until now, all the data we had gave you an idea of, ‘How did I do it?’” Hardy said. “I could look at my sales, I could look at my customers, but after taking an action. Where we want to go is to be able to connect the dots for all of this data so that it provides recommendations on “What should I do?” »
Having a common set of data between the retailer, suppliers and ad network can be particularly effective for marketers, said Andrew Lipsman, independent analyst at Media, Ads + Commerce.
“I think I think of Luminate or Scintilla broadly as a marketing tool, and that goes from understanding marketing insights, things like market share of categories to different audiences or customer profiles that consume different products or categories” , Lipsman said. “And then that information can be leveraged to activate marketing or advertising strategies.”
Unlike Luminate, Scintilla will not be preceded by the name “Walmart”: the platform began expanding outside the United States, into Canada and Mexico this year, and the company needed a brand that would be relevant in markets where the company has different store names. .
The new name also ties into the goal of being able to provide recommendations using AI, Hardy said.
“(Scintilla) also means ‘a small amount,’ which reflects the general idea that big ideas can be born from the smallest ideas,” Hardy said. “So we thought it was a perfect alignment in terms of our value proposition and our heritage, as well as the future of our destination.”
Another example of this is a feature that will use AI to understand what is on the shelf and link that information to supply chain data, giving the business and suppliers a better idea of the need for move more inventory to the store.
“When we look at this, we don’t see it as a destination, but rather as a continuing journey,” Hardy said. “So we continue to add as we find opportunities to get better visibility into that product journey or the customer journey. We are constantly innovating and bringing new products to market that will add this perspective.
Walmart Luminate customers include the companies behind some of the biggest brands found in the aisles.
“Everyone is going through the same thing today and trying to find growth, and we need to use every tool possible to help us identify potential opportunities for growth and remain the leader,” said Jeffrey Hendrix, vice -president of customer service at Bimbo Bakeries (which includes brands such as Sara Lee, Thomas’ Bagels and Ball Park rolls). “Otherwise we’ll fall asleep at the wheel.”
Hendrix said the platform gives the company both new information and confirms what it already thinks. For example, Bimbo used survey data from Luminate to discover that new customers were more attracted to flavored bagels than plain bagels; this, in turn, helped Bimbo think more about how she could tweak her breakfast offering.
“These are areas that need to be explored to help providers like us determine where we can find growth,” Hendrix said.
Lipsman said Walmart and Kroger, which have a similar data platform called 84.51, are in a unique position because they have such large sales channels to monetize their data as a product for advertisers. “I don’t know if that will be the case for all retailers,” he said. “This will likely be primarily the domain of the larger players in the grocery industry and perhaps category leaders in some other retail segments.”
Kris McDermott, director of omnichannel marketing at Kimberly-Clark, said many consumer packaged goods companies first turned to Walmart Luminate because the retailer’s first-party data was unmatched.
McDermott said she believes this will set a new bar when it comes to the type of omnichannel intelligence brands expect from retailers. “There’s really nothing like it,” McDermott said.. “Obviously, Amazon has a huge amount of site data that it gives you, but the omnichannel world is much more complex, and trying to combine that with in-store availability and assortment information is really complicated ; This is therefore very clearly the bet that Walmart is making.
