Catalina launches personalized circular deals

Digital media company Catalina is launching a new solution that personalizes the deals found in weekly retail ad circulars.

The program, called My Favorite Deals, is designed to increase ROI in a major area of marketing spend for U.S. retailers.

“One-size-fits-all ad circulars are not the most effective way to maximize sales lift and shopper loyalty, especially at a time of rampant decline in newspaper circulation and readership,” said Todd Morris, President of Catalina U.S. “Catalina has found that 66 percent or more of weekly shoppers don’t buy a single item from a typical retail ad circular. My Favorite Deals delights customers by cutting through the clutter of hundreds of irrelevant advertised items to call out what’s really important to each shopper.”

Retailers spent an estimated $5.84 billion on newspaper circulars alone in 2014, according to Borrell Associates. Meanwhile, newspaper readership has declined precipitously. In 2012, just 23 percent of Americans said they had read a print newspaper yesterday, compared to 41 percent a decade earlier, according to Pew Research.

Catalina research has found that two-thirds or more of shoppers typically do not buy a single item from a traditional ad circular. My Favorite Deals is powered by Catalina’s dynamic personalization engine. As shoppers checkout at point of sale, My Favorite Deals sorts, in real-time, through hundreds of items to be included in the next week’s ad circular finding the five that are most relevant to each consumer. The deals are identified, printed and handed to the shopper. Catalina scores deals based on both their value and their relevance to each shopper’s purchase history.

My Favorite Deals also personalizes and promotes advertised items across omnichannel touch points, including online, mobile and email. My Favorite Deals reaches every shopper in the store through a combination of Catalina’s in-store Media Hub and other digital channels. Catalina’s point of sale ads and offers are read by 80 percent of the shoppers who receive them.