EXCLUSIVE Q&A: Lowe’s Media Network focuses on growth, innovation
Lowe’s Companies Inc. is rolling out new solutions, capabilities and channels as it pursues aggressive growth.
Chain Store Age recently had a discussion with Jen Wilson, chief marketing officer of Lowe’s, about the home improvement giant’s efforts to expand the reach and functionality of its retail media network offering known as Lowe’s Media Network. It was initially launched in October 2021 and then revamped and rebranded in August 2024.
What are some of the new channels Lowe’s Media Network is entering?
We are excited about our creator network, which we launched in June, and that's one of our biggest channel opportunities that we will give access to for all of our advertisers. It has already started and has quickly climbed to 26,000 creators. Our ambition is to get to 50,000 creators.
The original goal was to get to 50,000 creators in two to three years, and we're already halfway there in a very short period of time. It features a blend of homeowner/DIY creators and professional creators.
Advertisers can partner with these creators, either to build custom content or to leverage our affiliate programming, inclusive of things like commissions and free samples.
Lowe’s Media Network is also rolling out connected TV and online video. We are moving into some beta tests in-store as well, so we will test ads on digital screens and at self-checkout.
We are also upskilling our go-to-market on paid search. This will be a great opportunity for Lowe's to explore more of the brand’s horizontal role in paid search, and for our advertisers to go deeper with their catalogs vertically with their investments.
Finally, one of our hottest properties is advertiser access to our sports investments. This is an opportunity for advertisers to have access to dedicated audiences who are highly engaged in watching live sports for a fraction of the expense of a partnership with a major sports league.
[READ MORE: Lowe’s teams with soccer great Lionel Messi in loyalty promotion]
The two hottest channels that we've heard about from our advertisers in the upfront has been our creator network and the access to sports.
How is Lowe’s Media Network using automation to enhance the reporting and the data you provide advertisers?
We have an aggressive technology roadmap, with new releases planned every month to give advertisers access to new tools. Our first release is our automated measurement dashboard, where our advertisers can see metrics like click-through-rates and customer lifetime value and then be able to make adjustments in their partnership with us.
The vision is to move that into a state where we're able to allow the vendors to self-serve and be able to make changes without us, and then to introduce AI agents to support our advertisers. We are also working on automating our customer data while keeping it proprietary and under the safest of measures to create a customer insights GPT tool.
For example, if I'm a gardening product vendor and I see there's an audience who's shopping at Lowe's in the spring but not returning in the fall to purchase my products, I could very quickly see that's an audience size of 7 million customers who should be buying my products in the fall, because fall is a great time to be planting in your yard.
I could then make sure that I could retarget those customers. Right now, we're starting at the phase of real-time measurement and reporting; but ultimately, we want to grow that into a suite of products that we include all in one central hub.
How has the leadership team been expanded?
Mari Kokka is the new VP and GM of Lowe’s Media Network. Mari comes to us most recently from Sam's Club, where she was worked on the monetization and operations team. Prior to that, she was at Walmart Connect, and before that eBay. We are thrilled to have someone who's so steeped with media retail network experience.
Underneath her is a stable of strong leaders like John Storms, who's going to be leading our new strategy and go-to-market team, and Susan Bagley who's also leading our sales team. We have plans to accelerate the growth over the next three years.
How is Lowe’s connecting your retail media network to your loyalty programs?
Lowe’s consumer and pro loyalty programs enrich our data and enable us to give our advertisers access to really unique insights. If I’m a paint vendor and I can see within a two-hour window what audiences just purchased a paint sample, that is a highly interesting trigger point for me as a paint vendor.
I may want to offer those customers a $5 coupon so that they can come back to the store and buy their gallons of paint. Letting advertisers see that data in real-time and then monetize those opportunities is one way that we're leveraging our loyalty ecosystem.
The second way that we're giving advertisers access to our loyalty ecosystem is through our programming. For our pro loyalty program, we host member events once a quarter, and advertisers can participate in those events with things like special offers, in-store demos, or hosted lunches to help build one-to-one relationships with our best customers during the year.
Another example is for our MyLowe's Rewards consumer program we have kids and family programming, like workshops, and those are opportunities for advertisers to showcase their products and curate experiences for our best customers.
A lot of these new experiences are very appetizing to our advertisers, in part because we see in our research that the Gen Z and millennial generations want experiences. They've grown up with experiences, and that's what they want from retailers. We want to be able to curate these experiences that make people loyal to Lowe's and our advertisers.
