• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 21, 2022

Crealytics, which has a history in performance, has expanded its retail media capabilities and leadership team.

On Thursday the company announced the appointments of Lars Djuvik to chief sales officer, and Mark Schwartz to chief marketing officer. 

Schwartz, until 18 years old, thought he would become an actor, but them found business and marketing in college.

“We see a convergence between performance and retail media,” Schwartz said. “It gets most interesting when talking about retail media.”

The change comes on the heels of a surge in retail media spend in the U.S.

Retail media ad spend rose 53.4% to $31.49 billion last year, following a comparable growth rate in 2020.

Crealytics is focused on providing solutions that help retailers own the technology at the foundation of retail media, maximize revenue, and act as the agencies capable of guiding their advertisers to the best possible results.

The company has worked with a large office-supply company and clients including as Dr. Martins and Eileen Fisher to build a presence on the web and in stores through solutions and services.

Schwartz expects major retailers like Walmart and Target in the future, if they are not already, to turn into mini versions of Amazon, putting together campaigns for brands across multiple channels, along with reporting and transparency. He calls it the convergence of performance and retail media.

“This becomes important as third-party data gets deprecated,” he said. “Now we have these retailers that can provide first-party data about the brands’ customers. They are buying media across the funnel without using an intermediary to do it.”

When this happens the retailer and the brand will have one point of contact, he said, along with one budget. The retailer becomes the media partner for the brand.

“Crealytics is a relative newcomer in retail media,” Schwartz said. “It’s inconceivable that some of these retailers are paying a massive retail media tax from vendors without understanding where the money goes. … We want them to understand there are alternatives.”

Schwartz served Crealytics as chief revenue officer for more than six years, leading the company’s new business and client development.

Djuvik comes to Crealytics from Freeosk, where he served as senior vice president of retail partnerships.

Prior to that, he held top posts at shopkick and Specific Media.

With 25 years of sales leadership experience, Djuvik is recognized for helping retail media, shopper, ecommerce, social media, and digital advertising-focused technology companies surpass growth milestones.