Catalina's New Chief Product Officer Personifies Company Commitment to Innovation

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Feb. 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Catalina, the market leader in shopper intelligence and personalized digital media that converts shoppers into buyers, is launching Catalina ID Graph following a highly successful pilot with several major retailers and CPG manufacturers. This breakthrough offering, conceived and nurtured by a team led by Catalina's relatively new Chief Product Officer and Head of Innovation Kevin Hunter, finally connects the dots between the digital ads shoppers see and the items they actually buy in-store.

Hunter was promoted to his current role in Oct. 2018, shortly after Catalina CEO Jerry Sokol joined the company and double-downed on Catalina's commitment to develop and deliver innovative marketing solutions to its customers, whether in-store or digitally.  Catalina ID Graph and  the company's recently introduced Multi-Touch AttributR™ are two of Hunter's early contributions.

Specifically, Catalina ID Graph is a major boon for brands and retailers who need to improve the effectiveness of their digital media dollars in targeting the right audience, individually personalizing media messages, and measuring buyer behavior in-store down to the item level.

"Catalina ID Graph maps 168 million loyalty-based identifiers to 389 million digital devices, including cookies," explained Hunter. "This direct mapping of shoppers' store card IDs to their digital devices lets advertisers precisely reach their ideal targets by drawing upon up to two years of in-store purchase history and then pointedly delivering highly relevant messages directly to the mobile and desktop devices associated with those ID's. As a result, ad performance can be measured at the UPC level based on in-store sales."

This combination of actual 1:1 purchase-based audience targeting, device identity resolution and ad delivery with real-time 1:1 attribution of in-store sales solves a major challenge for CPG advertisers who previously could not connect their digital shopper data and media spend with actual sales results at retail.

"While Kevin has only been at Catalina for 18 months, he exemplifies our commitment to transformation and innovation," said Sokol. "He is a true visionary, with a keen sense for evolving market and consumer trends. And he is skilled at rallying teams throughout the organization when it comes to driving our global product development, from concept to commercialization. His focus on solving customer challenges and transforming the in-store experience for buyers is smart, strategic and creative. Catalina ID Graph is an excellent example of that."

Added Hunter, "It's an exciting and stimulating time to be part of Catalina. Groundbreaking, really. Working with us, advertisers can now connect to live, real-time data to reach specific shoppers online, across multiple devices, based on the products and ingredients they buy in-store -- and then track and measure their response to digital ads in real-time. We're excited to be combining scaled insights with 1:1 personalized audiences, media delivery and real-time measurement to enable CPG manufacturers and retailers to more precisely personalize, deliver and measure their advertising and promotional programs."

Catalina ID Graph's 1:1 digital-to-store matching capability can be used as part of Catalina-delivered advertising and promotions, or with digital campaigns using independent, third-party, DSP trading desks and data management platforms.

Hunter is the co-inventor of 28 granted and 15 pending patents and the winner of an Emmy® Engineering Award for his Sprint TV, a groundbreaking mobile television product he led. He brings 20+ years of broad global experience to Catalina spanning strategy, business development and product leadership. He also currently serves on the board of directors of Nielsen Catalina Solutions. 

Prior work experience includes years spent at companies like Qualcomm as head of strategy and product for its Retail Solutions division. He was also a co-founder and COO of Gimbal, a location and proximity intelligence company, served as president and head of the Americas for retail IoT analytics company Walkbase, and was president of inMarket, an ad market focused on location and mobile-based inventory.

About Catalina
Catalina's personalized digital media drives lift and loyalty for the world's leading CPG retailers and brands. Catalina personalizes the consumer's path to purchase through mobile, online and in-store networks powered by the greatest shopper database in the world. Catalina is based in St. Petersburg, FL, with operations in the United States, Europe, Japan and Latin America. To learn more, please visit www.Catalina.com or follow us on Twitter @Catalina.

Catalina ID Graphing – Fueling Further Innovation - ADDENDUM

Catalina ID Graphing powers a wide variety of game-changing solutions for brands and retailers:

Real-time Multi Touch Attribution – Enables real-time, 1:1 measurement of any digital media based on item-level and in-store sales, tracking individual buyer behavior at the ID level.

Real-Time Shopper Responsive Omni-Channel Media – Enables intelligent media that responds to how shoppers engage digitally and then purchase items in-store, allowing automated coordination and suppression of ad impressions to more efficiently move shoppers through the purchase funnel from trial to repeat.

Brand-to-Consumer Direct Digital Offers with Seamless Redemption – Enables brands to deliver value directly to the right buyers using precision-targeted, paid digital media to deliver 1:1 digital offers, with simple redemption using the shopper's store card.

Personalized Trade Marketing – Personalizes digital media and delivers value-added trade promotions to specific shoppers based on their individual purchase preferences at a retailer-specific level.

SOURCE Catalina