Cleveland (December 6, 2023) – Ideal™ by Design House announces a groundbreaking achievement as they surpass the milestone of 10,000 stores participating in their revolutionary Ideal™ digital circular. This comprehensive digital network spans across multiple grocery and hardware chains, revolutionizing digital advertising strategies and paving the way for enhanced customer engagement.
The Ideal digital circular has evolved into an extensive network, serving national and regional chains, including Coborn’s, Gelson’s, Kessler’s, Strack & Van Til, and ShopRite. The Ideal™ platform also serves the independent grocery community for IGA, MDI, UNFI, AWG and Allegiance Retail Services, among others. With a keen focus on innovation and customer-centric solutions, this achievement marks a significant milestone in the realm of digital advertising.
"We are thrilled to have reached this momentous milestone," said David Gordon, CEO of Design House. Adam Zimmerman, Co-Founder and EVP of Design House stated, "This milestone underscores our commitment to redefining digital advertising landscapes and empowering Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies with an unparalleled opportunity to fortify their digital strategies."
The Ideal digital circular doesn't just signify an impressive number of store participation, it symbolizes a shift towards more efficient and impactful digital marketing solutions and an effective alternative to costly print circulars. The platform's reach across diverse sectors of direct marketing offers retailers an unmatched opportunity to solidify their digital footprint and connect with their target audiences in dynamic ways.
The significance of this achievement lies not only in the sheer size of the retail network but also in the depth of access it provides. CPGs partnering with Ideal’s Retail Media Network, gain an extraordinary opportunity to refine their digital marketing strategies, leveraging the vast network of 10,000 stores and access to 50 million U.S. households to engage consumers in innovative and impactful ways.
With this accomplishment, Ideal reaffirms its dedication to innovation, customer-centricity, and elevating the digital advertising experience for both retailers and CPG companies.
To learn more about the Ideal digital marketing platform, please contact Adam Zimmerman at Adam@DesignHouse.Design.
About Ideal™ by Design House
Ideal™ by Design House is revolutionizing the digital circular industry by elevating customer experience for grocers and retailers. Our leading-edge Ideal™ platform integrates dynamic digital circulars with an intelligent, omni-channel distribution system that engages retailers’ customers and their competitors’ customers. Advanced analytics measure store traffic driven from the circular and computes cost per visit to accurately demonstrate ROI on retailers’ marketing programs. Design House’s marketplace tool enables an immersive retail media network and data-driven CPG investment in the digital circular platform.
Learn more at DesignHouse.Design, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Ideal’s hyperlocal dynamic media integrated with Birdzi’s customer loyalty data allows shoppers to better connect with Strack & Van Til’s 22 stores
Cleveland, (September 14, 2023) – Ideal™ by Design House announces a new marketing concept to support Strack & Van Til’s 22 neighborhood stores with dynamic, digital circulars personalized to each customer’s purchase behavior. This one-of-a-kind process was developed in conjunction with Birdzi, provider of one-to-one personalization, advanced analytics and loyalty for Strack and Van Til, and other grocery retailers.
“Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, which is the reason we’ve partnered with Ideal and Birdzi to make our circulars personalized and mobile friendly in providing customer-specific advertising,” says Michael Tyson, Chief Marketing & Merchandising Officer at Strack & Van Til. “By integrating Birdzi’s rewards and loyalty program, shoppers get customized ‘for you pages,’ personalized digital coupons and member exclusives. Ideal makes it easier for customers to shop and save in-store, order online and pickup at curbside or get groceries delivered.”
Ideal’s digital platform enhances customer experience with impactful, educational content, including helpful recipes, video how-to’s, brand stories, QR codes with information about ingredients, shopping lists and more. Birdzi’s loyalty program leverages POS’s data, to allow Strack & Van Til to create a shopping experience, personalized for each customer. Design House’s Ideal product uses their patented process to deliver targeted content in an efficient manner that is simple to support.
“Strack & Van Til is consistently voted best in the region by loyal customers because they’re committed to delivering value every day on the finest quality groceries,” says Adam Zimmerman, Co-Founder at Ideal. “By integrating Birdzi Loyalty and Ideal digital services, they have the ability to deliver “One to One” circulars and promotional messages to their customers. This combined platform provides Strack & Van Til advanced analytics to measure store traffic driven from their loyalty program and circular distribution not available in any other application.”
To learn more about the leading-edge solution from Ideal and Birdzi to support Strack & Van Til’s neighborhood stores, email Contact@DesignHouse.Design.
About Strack & Van Til
At the heart of every great community is a great neighborhood grocer. Since 1960 Strack & Van Til has been serving the neighborhoods of Northwest Indiana and Chicago with a friendly smile, helpful service and the finest quality groceries, perishables and freshly prepared foods available. Its goal is to deliver nothing short of complete satisfaction every time a customer comes to visit. Strack & Van Til now operates more than 20 stores across the region under the Strack & Van Til brand and a Town and Country in Valparaiso. Learn more at StrackAndVanTil.com.
About Birdzi
Birdzi is an innovative provider of end-to-end personalized digital customer engagement solutions for grocery retailers. Its platform helps regional retailers leapfrog their largest competitors by driving contextually relevant engagement across every touchpoint, inside and outside the store. Birdzi's AI-powered personalization platform delivers real-time, personalized offers to individual shoppers to grow basket size, increase the frequency of shopping trips, and improve customer retention. Birdzi's solutions are used in hundreds of grocery stores, driving millions of relevant offers to consumers each month. For more information, visit: www.birdzi.com.
100+ retailers are already boosting shopper experience and engagement with “just for me” coupons, instantly redeemable on the Ideal marketing platform
New York City (February 24, 2023) – AppCard, the leading data-driven personalization engine and digital coupons platform provider for independent grocers, announces a new partnership with Ideal™ by DesignHouse. The new AppCard integration allows shoppers to clip coupons while browsing the grocer’s digital circular powered by Ideal without opening a separate app or webpage. In addition, shoppers can enroll in the grocer’s AppCard-powered rewards and loyalty program directly from Ideal’s marketing platform.
“Our new partnership helps independent grocers stay ahead of the competition with Ideal’s dynamic, digital circular and our intelligent customer loyalty program,” said Yair Goldfinger, AppCard’s Co-Founder and CEO. “Already, more than 100 retailers are curating a more intuitive shopper experience by giving shoppers the ability to see coupons and clip them all in the same place. The AppCard-powered coupons are built on a proprietary AI and machine learning algorithm. We integrate shoppers’ purchase history, loyalty data and unique buying cycles to deliver the right message, to the right customer, at the right time.”
With Ideal’s revolutionary digital circular and omni-channel distribution system, grocers reach target audiences within the retailers’ geographic range. The marketing platform spotlights videos, recipes, shopping lists, translations, sharing capabilities, behind-the-scenes storytelling and more. The hyperlocal, dynamic media allow shoppers to better connect and take advantage of promotions, enhancing customer experience.
“Through our technology integration with AppCard, grocers serve up ‘just for me,’ highly personalized deals and coupons within the Ideal digital circular,” said Adam Zimmerman, Co-Founder of Ideal by Design House. “These customized recommendations allow retailers to communicate with shoppers on a one-to-one basis, increasing customer satisfaction and earning true loyalty. Grocers benefit from preventing churn, bringing back customers and creating time-restricted offers that speed up slow days and hours.”
“This new solution from AppCard and Ideal puts our independent retailers at a level playing field with big-box stores,” said Nick Carlino, EVP of Sales & Merchandising at MDI. “We’re offering relevant coupons and incentives that encourage a specific behavior and make our customers feel valued. Best of all, the advanced analytics allow us to measure store traffic driven from the circular and computes cost per visit to accurately demonstrate the return on investment on each store’s marketing programs.”
To learn more about the new agreement with AppCard and Ideal by Design House, email Grocery@AppCard.com or Contact@DesignHouse.Design.
About AppCard
AppCard is the leading data-driven, marketing personalization, shopper analytics, loyalty, and digital coupons provider to independent groceries. Using machine learning and AI, AppCard’s premise is the ability to make data actionable and deliver the right offer to the right shopper at the right time. AppCard processes more than one billion transactions annually and reach over tens of millions of US households. For more information, visit www.appcard.com.
About Ideal™ by Design House
Ideal™ by Design House is revolutionizing the digital circular industry by elevating customer experience for grocers and retailers. Our leading-edge Ideal™ platform integrates dynamic digital circulars with an intelligent, omni-channel distribution system that engages retailers’ customers and their competitors’ customers. Advanced analytics measure store traffic driven from the circular and computes cost per visit to accurately demonstrate ROI on retailers’ marketing programs. Ideal’s marketplace tool enables an immersive retail media network and data-driven CPG investment in the digital circular platform. Learn more at DesignHouse.Design, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Already IGA and Ideal have one of the largest media properties in the United States, and we have proven that brand and shopper marketing teams at big brands want to invest in our stores.
John Ross, President and CEO of IGA
Ideal™ by Design House announces a marketing agreement with the Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA) to provide an industry-first on-platform and off-platform retail media network specially designed for independent retailers. This new CPG-funded network is not limited to the IGA family of stores, it’s available to all independent retailers at no cost.
The Ideal™ revolutionary retail media network will combine thousands of stores on a single retail media platform, rivaling any other national retailer. Combined, independent grocers’ collected media weight will make the Ideal™ Retail Media Network one of the most efficient media buys in all of retail.
“When brands go to invest their media dollars, there is no reason for independent retailers to be left out,” says John Ross, President and CEO of IGA. “Already IGA and Ideal have one of the largest media properties in the United States, and we have proven that brand and shopper marketing teams at big brands want to invest in our stores. The Ideal™ network takes it to a whole new level, combining the negotiating power of thousands more independents to challenge anything national grocery chains offer.”
Ideal™’s retail media network offers on-platform and off-platform ad placements. CPG manufacturers’ ads are co-branded with consumers’ favorite neighborhood stores, leveraging shoppers’ loyalty across multiple retailers. CPGs get advanced measurement capabilities and reporting on in-store traffic, return on ad spend (ROAS), basket size, category growth, etc.
The omni-channel distribution system is more than just offers. Using the best of digital media technology, Ideal™ integrates savings, informational videos, sweepstakes, recipes, nutritional tips, and more to lift grocery shopper engagement, store traffic, and sales.
“Ideal™ helps CPGs focus on their target retail audiences with off-site, co-branded programmatic display campaigns, while driving traffic to rich on-platform content within branded local digital circulars,” said Adam Zimmerman, Partner, and SVP at Ideal™. “Consumers are always looking to be smarter about the food they buy for their family. This technology allows us to serve their needs at all stages of the shopper journey by integrating rich media and promotions into a single mobile platform. And best of all, both CPGs and retailers see the results with detailed analytics, following the customer journey from initial impression through in-store transactions.”
CPGs can choose a target audience across multiple retailers on the robust advertising platform. Co-branded ads attract shoppers to the media-rich digital circulars, which drives traffic to the stores. Ideal™ measures traffic from first impression all the way to the in-store purchase, giving CPGs visibility of the entire ecosystem.
To learn more about the new agreement with IGA and Ideal™, Email: contact@DesignHouse.Design.
About IGA
The Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA) is the world’s largest voluntary supermarket network with aggregate worldwide retail sales of more than $40 billion per year. The Alliance includes over 6,000 Hometown Proud supermarkets worldwide, supported by dozens of distribution centers and major manufacturers, vendors and suppliers encompassing everything from grocery to equipment items. IGA has stores in 43 of the United States and more than 30 countries, commonwealths, and territories. For more information about IGA, visit the IGA consumer website at http://www.iga.com, or the business site at IGA.com/corporate.
About Ideal™ by Design House
Ideal™ by Design House is revolutionizing the digital circular industry by elevating customer experience for grocers and retailers. Our leading-edge Ideal™ platform integrates dynamic digital circulars with an intelligent, omni-channel distribution system that engages retailers’ customers and their competitors’ customers. Advanced analytics measure store traffic driven from the circular and computes cost per visit to accurately demonstrate ROI on retailers’ marketing programs. Ideal’s marketplace tool enables an immersive retail media network and data-driven CPG investment in the digital circular platform. Learn more at DesignHouse.Design, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Regional grocers, Coborn’s and Hornbacher’s, saw improvements in digital engagement after completing phase one of the joint integration
Birdzi, the supermarket industry’s most comprehensive customer intelligence and engagement ecosystem, today announced a new partnership with Ideal by Design House. Together, the two solution providers are revolutionizing the weekly ad circular for grocers. After completing phase one of the integration and implementing the Birdzi and Design House collaboration in 12 stores, the retailer is expanding the project to all Coborn’s and Hornbacher’s locations.
Birdzi and Design House are dedicated to ensuring regional grocers keep up with ever-changing customer demands. One of the most prominent changes in the industry is the decreasing popularity of print ad circulars. This is due to increasing production costs for grocers and the further digitization of the shopping experience in other retail segments.
As a result, Ideal by Design House offers grocers an interactive digital circular designed to reach targeted audiences within the retailer’s geographic area. The outreach, driven by media buys, delivers measurable in-store traffic improvements. Ideal by Design House ensures that the digital circular has all the benefits of a print circular, plus videos, shopping lists, recipes, coupons and sharing capabilities – all based on the most accurate analytic and visitation data available.
Similarly, Birdzi empowers grocers to personalize the deals within the digital circular through customer intelligence and detailed analytics. With Birdzi’s VISPER 2.0 solution, the entire deal is created for an individual customer – from the chosen product and the discount itself to the fonts and overall presentation.
“At a time where inflation is impacting customer’s financial certainty, it’s important for retailers to increase the reach of personalized offers,” said Shekar Raman, CEO and co-founder, Birdzi. “Our partnership with Design House is about meeting shoppers where they are and bringing personalization to the touchpoints they frequently use – like mobile apps – to simplify the shopping experience, encourage loyalty and drive digital engagement.”
Coborn’s, a long-time customer of Birdzi, has already experienced notable improvements in customer loyalty after implementing VISPER 2.0 in August 2022. Now, Coborn’s and Hornbacher’s will display the Ideal by Design House circular on the mobile and web app, both powered by previous Birdzi integrations. The circular will contain personalized deals and promotions generated by VISPER 2.0.
“Coborn’s has developed an intelligent approach for their print to digital transformation,” said Adam Zimmerman, partner and senior vice president, Design House. “The Ideal by Design House platform is their first step, but they’ve created a seismic shift by enhancing this partnership with Birdzi. Adding personalization to an already engaging platform moves them so far down the field, it’s hard to imagine their competition ever catching up.”
To learn more about how Birdzi and Design House are revolutionizing the weekly ad circular, visit www.birdzi.com.
About Birdzi
Birdzi was founded with a vision to make the shopping experience “Smart, Personal and Seamless” for the shopper, while empowering retailers and brands to easily and intelligently connect with the shopper at the right time and place with the right message. For more information, visit: www.birdzi.com.
About Ideal by Design House
Ideal by Design House has revolutionized the digital circular industry. They have built the most advanced customer experience, connected to an intelligent distribution system targeting your customers and your competitors’ customers. Analytics measure store traffic driven from your circular and compute cost/visit. Their retail media network enables sophisticated CPG investment in your digital circular platform. To learn more, visit https://designhouse.design/.
Jenna Gibson
Ketner Group Communications (for Birdzi)
jenna.gibson@ketnergroup.com
Ideal’s performance dashboard measures the entire ecosystem, showing our customers and CPG partners how ad costs are being optimized and the return on investment for each campaign
Nick Carlino, Executive Vice President of Sales & Merchandising at MDI.
Ideal™ by Design House announces a marketing agreement with Merchants Distributors LLC (MDI), a leading wholesale food distributor that services independent grocers. The new agreement allows the over 600 grocery stores in 12 states that are serviced by MDI to access Ideal’s Retail Media Network and upgrade to dynamic digital circulars.
The Ideal Retail Media Network allows consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to choose their target audience and attract attention to promotional content along with video, animation and recipes within a local retailer’s digital circular, then drive traffic to the store. CPGs get analytics showing the success of the distribution system, engagement on circular, visits to store, cost per visit and lift in sales. MDI’s retail customers are benefiting from 250,000 measurable store visits per week driven by CPG campaigns.
“Ideal’s performance dashboard measures the entire ecosystem, showing our customers and CPG partners how ad costs are being optimized and the return on investment for each campaign,” said Nick Carlino, Executive Vice President of Sales & Merchandising at MDI. “Our CPG partners’ special offers get on-platform and off-platform positioning, gaining access to all shoppers from all stores within our 600-store footprint across 12 states.”
The Ideal platform integrates dynamic digital circulars with an intelligent, omni-channel distribution system that engages retailers’ customers. Consumers create shopping lists, view recipes, watch videos, change language and share content. The convenient, 24/7 access to information and promotions has been shown to elevate customer experience and loyalty.
“MDI is continuously innovating to give their independent grocers a competitive advantage,” said David Gordon, President and Founder of Design House. “Ideal’s marketing platform makes it simple and fast for stores to modernize their print programs into a digital circular. Our clients tell us they’re moving away from print because newspapers and their distribution channels are shutting down and leaving them no choice. With Ideal, shopping is easy and fun, resulting in greater sales and brand awareness for retailers and CPGs.”
To learn more about the new agreement with MDI and Ideal, email Contact@DesignHouse.Design.
About MDI
MDI is a leading wholesale food distributor that services independent grocers across the East Coast. Based in Hickory, North Carolina, and founded in 1931, MDI provides expertise, infrastructure, and scale so that grocers can thrive and grow. With an assortment of over 40,000 food and nonfood items, MDI supplies more than 600 grocery stores in 12 states and exports a variety of products to retailers and distributors operating in 36 countries. MDI is a subsidiary of Alex Lee, Inc. Learn more at MDI.com.
About Ideal™ by Design House
Ideal™ by Design House is revolutionizing the digital circular industry by elevating customer experience for grocers and retailers. Our leading-edge Ideal™ platform integrates dynamic digital circulars with an intelligent, omni-channel distribution system that engages retailers’ customers and their competitors’ customers. Advanced analytics measure store traffic driven from the circular and computes cost per visit to accurately demonstrate ROI on retailers’ marketing programs. Design House’s marketplace tool enables an immersive retail media network and data-driven CPG investment in the digital circular platform. Learn more at DesignHouse.Design, LinkedIn and Facebook.
“The onboarding process with Design House was very easy. I can’t say enough about the team. They have been very open to suggestions and are always very responsive to concerns.”
Brian Downing, Pricing Director, Hansen's
CHALLENGE
During COVID-19 disruptions to manufacturing and distribution, Hansen’s IGA was forced to cut out print advertising.
SOLUTION
The Independent Grocers Alliance introduced the Hansen’s team to Ideal™, a leading-edge platform that integrates dynamic digital circulars with an intelligent, omni-channel distribution system.
Grocers often hesitate to move away from print circulars because of the processes already in place for their buyers, merchandisers and CPG partners.
With Ideal, grocers keep their current processes and continue using print circulars. They’re simply switching the distribution system.
RESULTS
Hansen’s Pricing Director, Brian Downing, said, “In October 2020, we began working with Design House’s Ideal, digital circular plus distribution platform. Even with the additional cost for the digital media ad buy, we are saving approximately 25% in total advertising costs.”
Ideal’s AI Media Learning allows hyperlocal, store-specific branding and content. The AI is always optimizing for the lowest cost per visit—often resulting in less than $2/visit.
Easy Digital Upgrades
The intuitive, user-friendly system includes a portal for self-service uploads.
Brian continues, “Having the autonomy to upload our own ads has been extremely helpful for us. We’re always pushing our deadlines up to the eleventh hour so we can get our ad just right. For example, if we get a hot buy on strawberries tomorrow, we can have that in our ad in minutes. Previously that would have been impossible to promote in a printed flyer.”
“The younger generation does not get their information or news from print, they use their mobile devices. The customers find the digital ad easy to read and it works on most mobile devices.”
-Marc Galland, Owner, Pick-Rite Thriftway
CHALLENGE
With shifting consumer media preferences and buying habits, Pick-Rite Thriftway needed to ensure they were reaching all of their customer base.
SOLUTION
Pick-Rite Thriftway worked with the marketing team at Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA) to upgrade their print circulars using Ideal™, a dynamic ad platform combined with an intelligent, omni-channel distribution system.
The owner of Pick-Rite Thriftway, Marc Galland, says, “The younger generation does not get their information or news from print, they use their mobile devices. So, to attract them we need to be where they are. The customers find the digital ad easy to read and it works on most mobile devices.”
RESULTS
In addition to attracting younger consumers, Pick-Rite Thriftway reduced 30% of their ad budget by using Ideal digital circulars and eliminating the high costs of print ads.
Marc says, “Our advertising expense is about 70% of what it was with inserting print in the newspaper. We have used the rest of the budget for special events.”
With Ideal, consumers spend an average 5:32 reading the digital circular and 27% of those reading the engaging content visit the store.
Store visits driven from digital circulars are tracked and compiled into custom reports. Pick-Rite Thriftway was able to see circular views, store visits and cost per visit to accurately measure ROI on their marketing programs.
“I’ve been in the grocery business for over 55 years and have been involved in writing ads for over 45 of those years. The folks at Design House are without a doubt the best I’ve ever worked with.”
- Larry Williams, General Manager, McKim’s
CHALLENGE
McKim’s IGA was at a crossroads when their local newspaper shut down and couldn’t print their weekly circulars.
SOLUTION
Using the network of resources at Independent Grocers Alliance, the McKim’s team began working with Ideal™, a leading-edge platform that integrates dynamic digital circulars with an intelligent, omni-channel distribution system.
Ideal provides advanced analytics to measure store traffic driven from the circular and computes cost per visit to accurately demonstrate ROI on each store’s marketing programs.
RESULTS
McKim’s General Manager Larry Williams says, “Almost to the week, we started to see an increase in sales.”
The new digital circular allowed hyperlocal branding and customer engagement. Ideal’s algorithm served up McKim’s sale items and special features to their customers, as well as their competitors’ customers to drive more traffic and grow basket size.
“Customers who had been visiting us strictly for convenience, started to use us for more of their primary shopping,” says Larry.
McKim’s new digital circulars—powered by Ideal— enhanced customer experience by making it simple for consumers to create shopping lists, look up recipes, find deals and redeem coupons.
Installing Ideal and integrating into McKim’s advertising and marketing process was straightforward and streamlined.
Larry says, “I’ve been in the grocery business for over 55 years and have been involved in writing ads for over 45 of those years. The folks at Design House are without a doubt the best I’ve ever worked with."
