The arms race between the two largest retailers in America has now moved, perhaps inevitably, to the television set in your living room.

Walmart announced that it intends to acquire Vibe.co, a self-service platform that allows advertisers to buy streaming television commercials. The deal represents the latest in a series of moves by the Bentonville, Ark., retailer to expand Walmart Connect, its advertising division, into territory long dominated by Amazon.

Vibe.co, which was founded in 2021 and has raised more than $70 million in venture capital, positions itself as a tool for smaller advertisers seeking to buy streaming inventory without the complexity — or the cost — traditionally associated with television advertising. (Whether those smaller advertisers will find Walmart's embrace as welcoming as a venture-backed start-up's remains to be seen.)

The acquisition follows Walmart's purchase last year of Vizio, the smart television manufacturer, a deal that gave the retailer direct access to millions of screens and, more importantly, to the viewing data flowing through them. Together, the moves suggest that Walmart is assembling the components of an advertising business that can do what Amazon's has done for years: show brands that the commercials they buy actually result in products leaving shelves, whether physical or digital.

For Walmart, which has spent decades competing with Amazon on price, selection and delivery speed, advertising has emerged as a new front in an old war. Amazon's advertising business generated more than $46 billion last year, a figure that has made even the most sanguine retail executives take notice.

The streaming television advertising market, once the province of networks and their upfront negotiations, is now being carved up by companies whose core business involves selling paper towels and dog food. Stuart Elliott, the columnist who once occupied this space, might have noted that the phrase "brought to you by" has taken on an unexpectedly literal meaning.

Original story published in Adweek: "Walmart Is Acquiring Another Streaming Company as It Looks to Challenge Amazon"