What Walmart’s Vizio acquisition could mean for retail media — and the ripple effects that may hit industry data

Walmart’s rumored plan to acquire Vizio went from theoretical to reality this week, with the retail giant set to pay $2.3 billion for the smart TV manufacturer. The move will bolster Walmart’s retail media offering, Walmart Connect, adding streaming capabilities that will help it attract more brand marketing ad dollars. The deal will also allow Walmart to add to its existing data at a time when the rapid growth of retail media has made the space more competitive and Amazon continues its effort to get a bigger slice of the market.

Marketers and ad buyers see the Walmart-Vizio match-up as a way for the retailer to bridge the gap between brand and retail ad dollars as well as boost Walmart Connect’s distribution and scale by bringing it into new homes. Vizio collects data from 23 million opted-in devices, and 18 million of those are through SmartCast, the company’s smart TV operating system. The potential for Walmart Connect to enhance targeting and measurement capabilities by using Vizio’s ACR (automatic content recognition) data is appealing, according to buyers, but it’s unclear how the companies will combine data efforts or what will happen to Vizio’s existing partnerships. 

“Vizio has a ridiculous platform of information and Walmart has their ridiculous arsenal of information, meaning data, so marrying those things together, obviously gives some opportunity,” said Jennifer Kohl, chief media officer at VML, adding that the growth of streaming viewership and the potential ad dollars makes it easy to see why Walmart would want to find a way into streaming, especially as Amazon has made headway there with advertisers recently. “They’re all doing it because advertising dollars are being handed out,” Kohl said.

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