DIGITAL ROUNDUP

Walmart acquires Vibe.co to accelerate CTV offering

Walmart are in the mood for adtech, with this latest acquisition coming alongside further partnership expansions for Walmart Connect.

Vibe.co have been making a lot of noise in the SMB CTV market, particularly out of the US despite being a French originated company. They've successfully positioned themselves in a competitive marketplace with some bold marketing plays, making access to some premium TV inventory available for advertisers who previously lacked the budget or specialised media teams to deliver it. You could argue their direct competition has already moved via M&A, including TvScientific to Pinterest and the rumblings of the future of MNTN.

My take is that this is the vital activation layer for Walmart’s connected TV ambitions. By bolting Vibe.co’s UX onto its recent $2.3 billion Vizio acquisition, Walmart is building a closed-loop commerce media powerhouse. Crucially, they can now tie that CTV ad exposure directly to real-world Walmart transactions, to compete against the likes of Amazon on the commerce side and Prime Video specifically, which remains harder to gain direct access to without a DSP seat.

The valuation is indeed interesting, widely reported to be over the billion mark—specifically circling $1.4 billion. That is not to say Vibe.co has had been the saving grace of the CTV ecosystem. There has been plenty of smoke & mirrors, particularly in how it actually accesses resold inventory and how much of it is actually considered premium. Whilst Walmart historically have been very cosy with TheTradeDesk for its adtech ambitions, these moves alongside the availability of Walmart Connect most recently to Google DV360 alongside other non-TTD DSPs shows that they are moving to the dual model. For US brands this may be somewhat interesting but for most mature brands that are not SMBs, there is likely more efficiently to be gained in a CTV world from working with the core players at this point in time.