SPAR International and Footprints AI collaborate to increase consumer connections using new platform
Bucharest,20 October 2026 – Footprints AI and SPAR International have announced a strategic partnership to develop a robust media marketplace to support independently operated food retail. The platform would be available to all SPAR licensees, enabling SPAR country organisations to access a single platform to plan, buy, optimise, and measure retail media campaigns, with the same simplicity, precision, and sales tracking as digital advertising.
Retail media has become one of the fastest-growing advertising channels because it connects media spend to real shopping behaviour. But its infrastructure has not kept pace with demand: hundreds of isolated networks with separate buying processes, incompatible reporting, and no comparable measurement. Advertisers seeking multi-market scale pay for that fragmentation in overhead, friction, and unprovable return on investment.
SPAR is well structured for the Footprints AI platform layer being introduced through this partnership. The SPAR network is a voluntary retail group of independently owned and operated wholesalers and retailers – local entrepreneurs who know their customers – connected internationally. That structure is exactly what this international marketplace requires: locally built retail media, bought and measured globally.
The partnership provides solutions through a single platform layer, not another network, which, in addition to bringing independent retailers a ready-made solution, also respects all privacy and data legislation, ensuring no impingement on shoppers’ privacy. The platform offers retailers new revenue streams by connecting suppliers with consumers through store-level advertising. The platform also enables local, regional, national, or international campaign execution, with retailers benefiting from standardised reach measurements for each campaign.
Footprints AI’s software sits on top of SPAR country organisations’ existing physical and digital retail infrastructure (stores, screens, instore radio, e-commerce, mobile apps, and POS data) and connects it into one advertiser-facing marketplace, while ensuring each SPAR organisation keeps full control of its own data, assets, and commercial model. Two capabilities set this marketplace apart from retail media networks built to date:
• Predictive audience targeting. Footprints AI forecasts what each shopper is most likely to buy in the next one, seven and 30days, and uses that data to build audiences and optimise campaigns across instore screens, instore radio, e-commerce, mobile apps, and off-site channels– according to each retailer’s data and consent model.
• Instore measurement and behavioural analytics. Footprints AI combines real-time instore shopper signals, screen and radio play-out data, POS transactions, shopping-trip activity, app behaviour, and exposed-shopper audiences to connect media exposure with predicted demand and measured sales outcomes. Based on the Footprints AI benchmark across more than7,000 retail media campaigns, the platform has proven 98%+ accuracy in demand forecasting and media-to-sales attribution, giving advertisers and agencies a clearer way to measure exposed shoppers, post-exposure behaviour, sales uplift, and SKU/store impact across connected retail media environments.
“Retail media has reached a point where brands and agencies no longer need an isolated network. They need a marketplace that can scale outcomes. The first phase of retail media was about individual retailers monetising their own assets. The next phase is global marketplace infrastructure: advertisers get a more consistent way to plan, buy, optimise, and measure retail media across markets, while local retailers keep control of their data, assets, and commercial model. That is the shift we are building with SPAR.”, said Dan Marc, CEO, Footprints AI.
“Retail media is an important growth platform in modern retail. At SPAR our ambition is to connect the strength of our global SPAR network with the power of local retail entrepreneurship, creating a scalable platform that delivers value for customers, retailers and brand partners alike. By combining our vast physical presence, shopper relationships and data capabilities with advanced retail media technology, we are evolving our SPAR network into a connected commercial ecosystem that enables brands to engage consumers more effectively across markets while generating new revenue opportunities for SPAR country organisations.”, said Tobias Wasmuht, CEO, SPAR International.
The platform is based on proven infrastructure. Footprints AI operates the largest and fastest-growing federated retail media marketplace in Central and Eastern Europe, where campaigns for global brands including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Heineken have delivered measured incremental sales uplift through the same predictive targeting and closed-loop measurement now being deployed to multiple markets within the SPAR network. The platform will expand as additional SPAR country organisations connect their local audiences, channels, and measurement capabilities.
About Footprints AI
Footprints AI runs the largest federated retail media marketplace in Central and Eastern Europe, with live operations in Latin America and Central Asia. Its platform connects more than 10,000 stores and 55million shoppers, letting retailers earn from their stores, screens, apps and sales data while keeping full control of them, and letting brands and agencies plan, buy and measure campaigns on real shopping behaviour. To date it has runover 7,000 campaigns for 650+ brands and 70 media agencies. The goal is one global marketplace for physical retail: any retailer can join, any advertiser can buy and measure in one place, and nobody deals with hundreds of disconnected networks again. Headquartered in Bucharest.
Website: www.footprints-ai.com
About WMG Product & Services
WMG Product & Services provides strategic and technology solutions focused on sustainable growth and organizational transformation. The company develops digital ecosystems spanning platforms, data, monetization, marketing, growth and AdTech solutions, bringing together strategy, expertise and responsibility for delivery. WMG Product & Services is part of WMG (Wireless Media Group), headquartered in Belgrade, and in partnership with Footprints AI provides the technology solution for building and launching retail media networks.
Website: wm.group
Media contact
Footprints AI: Dan Marc,CEO – [email protected]
SPAR International (queriesabout SPAR markets or how SPAR works): [email protected]
