#retail-media

#retail-media

The holiday season has always been retail's make-or-break time to shine, but the stakes are particularly high in 2025. It's shaping up to be one of the most unpredictable yet a s economic uncertainty lingers due to persistent inflation and the potential ripple effect of tariffs. For brands, this creates a perfect storm of pressure; it's no longer enough to capture attention with festive creative or gain ground by flooding channels with holiday messaging.

If you still think retail media begins and ends with sponsored search, Walmart would like a word. On stage at ANA Masters of Marketing 2025, Walmart Connect's Ryan Mayward lined up Omnicom Media Group's Megan Pagliuca and Vizio's Adam Townsend to make the case that commerce media has gone properly full-funnel - stretching from the Walmart app and store screens to CTV, the open web and even influencer programs.

But retail media ads are effective they appear in such long lists of products, Shields argues. If purchase suggestions become tailored by AI chatbots, doesn't that mean fewer opportunities for consumers to see ads for alternatives? Besides, Shields says, the idea of an impartial AI shopping assistant feels incompatible with the Walmart deal. Will Walmart be ChatGPT's preferred retailer, for example, even if its prices are higher?

American Express announced the launch of Amex Ads. The platform will allow brands to tap into its extensive trove of first-party customer data, with the opportunity of targeting audiences of up to 34 million US cardholders. Duolingo also joined the party, with the launch of a direct ad sales platform which allows advertisers to buy premium in-app inventory and custom ad formats.

What we've learned about retail signals is that they tell us so much more about a consumer around their interests and their lifestyle than any other signal can," says Molly Ryan, agency partnership director, Kroger Precision Marketing. Retail data has become a key ingredient in building precise, performant audiences - but for many brands, the complexity of programmatic activation has been a barrier. KPM's new managed-service offering is designed to make programmatic channels like CTV and streaming audio more accessible, particularly for mid-tier advertisers.

Love's Media Group offering creates a unified advertising platform that encompasses its loyalty and mobile presence, in-store media and pump screens in the forecourt across its 664 locations in 42 states. The platform's focus on professional drivers, which are "a high-frequency audience that traditional digital advertising struggles to access," gives it a point of differentiation in the increasingly crowded retail media space, Love's said.

The payment giant unveiled PayPal Ads Manager, a zero-cost tool that enables millions of small merchants to monetize their existing store traffic by displaying relevant advertisements on their websites. This strategic move positions PayPal to capture a portion of the lucrative retail media advertising market while providing its merchant partners with an entirely new revenue stream, generating immediate enthusiasm among investors and pushing the stock from its previous close of $71.29 to over $74 during intraday trading.

Kantar's head of shopper and category insights says people still love stores, carts and the joy of finding something new, but discovery, conversion and delivery can now happen in a blink. "Someone can become acquainted with a brand, convert it and have it delivered to their house. That's... a subterfuge for classic path to purchase." In her view, the job for retailers and brands is to meet that reality, not pine for the old map.

Retail media has rapidly evolved into a key marketing channel. It is reshaping how brands connect with customers using data and insight, and in doing so, it has built a market now worth over £1bn in the UK alone. This growth hasn't happened by accident as, put simply, retail media can do what other channels can't - notably closing the loop on in-store sales.

Walking through the halls of DMEXCO this year, one thing was striking: DOOH was not just present, it was everywhere. Panels, research sessions, and discussions with agencies all pointed in the same direction, out-of-home has firmly entered the digital mainstream. Even major players such as Ströer and WallDecaux dedicated an entire DOOH Summit to share insights and underline the medium's growing importance.

"I think the biggest change is the lack of rigidity, which I think is a good thing in that sort of classic funnel marketers always like to talk about. What we're seeing, or have seen over the last few years, is that channels can play any role. And that's brilliant from a planning point of view, because it gives us creativity. It gives us flexibility to kind of do more interesting things, rather than the sort of classic broadcast-to-narrowcast targeting that we used to do."

You search for toothpaste online. While browsing a retailer's app or checking your email, you see an ad for toothpaste. After that, you return to the site and make the purchase. The retailer now knows what you browsed, what you bought, and which ad you saw before checking out. It connects your initial search, your ad exposure, and your final purchase. This insight is then packaged and sold to toothpaste suppliers. That is retail media in action.

IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem, is delighted to announce that Albert Heijn has become the first retail media network (RMN) to be certified under the IAB Europe Retail Media Certification Programme. The certification follows the successful completion of a pilot audit conducted by ABC, one of the independent auditors participating in the programme.

A2Z Cust2Mate () Solutions announced a new milestone in its retail media journey through a advertising agreement with Toys "R" Us Israel and The Red Pirate, two leading toy retail chains. For the first time, these household names will connect directly with shoppers through Cust2Mate's smart carts-turning everyday grocery trips into interactive retail media experiences. The campaigns will run across up to 5,000 smart carts currently rolling out in Yochananof, delivering dynamic image, animation, and video ads designed to spark shopper engagement.

On this week's Modern Retail Podcast, senior reporter Melissa Daniels is joined by executive editor Anna Hensel. First, they discuss Affirm's new rollout with Apple Pay to provide its buy-now, pay-later services in-store. Then they unpack the trend of paper coupons making a comeback in some retail environments, with Kroger announcing it has been bringing back paper coupons to help appeal to value-minded shoppers or those who aren't comfortable with more digital savings programs.

Loredo is in an interesting position - by which I mean the "senior director of media" title. Loredo is a marketer. He spends Shipt's own budgets to attract new paying customers and larger order volumes. But there's also the revenue-generating retail media side of the business, called Shipt Media, which is the platform for retailers and products to promote themselves within the Shipt marketplace.

Retail media promises billions in new revenue, but for grocers, the real test is whether their data can deliver. By 2025, RMN revenue is projected to hit $176.9 billion globally, overtaking combined TV and streaming revenues and accounting for 15.9% of total ad spend ( GroupM, This Year Next Year 2024 ). For grocery retailers running on razor-thin margins, this feels like salvation.

We do believe that there's a lot of runway for opportunity here; we're going to continue to invest in the channels where we see the most growth - this is not going away,

The offering, Front Row Connection, is powered by Epsilon Retail Media and comes as the retail media network space continues to evolve and mature. Front Row Connection looks to put brands on the digital shelf of DSW's website to help them connect with consumers and grow loyalty. The network offers high-impact placements like sponsored product ads and banners - table stakes for retail media networks - and is designed for both consumer discoverability and marketing performance.

Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as both a tailwind and a potential risk for The Trade Desk. On the one hand, the company has invested heavily in AI to enhance its platform. On the other hand, AI-powered search and content shifts could shrink the very pool of ad inventory that The Trade Desk depends on. For investors, the key question is whether AI ultimately tilts toward being an opportunity or a threat.

There's rarely a dull moment in platform land but even by those standards, this year has been unusually turbulent. A new administration in Washington, rising competition, regulatory pressure and economic uncertainty have all collided to reshape the platform landscape. The Result is a new, more fragile equilibrium for the companies that once seemed untouchable.

We don't see retail media as just a shakedown of our suppliers to pad our margins so we can fund our attempts to compete with Amazon, Monahan said. All those dynamics are real, but the offer that we have is about driving collective growth, [including] category growth [and] real, incremental sales growth.

While retailers rush to launch new ad formats and in-store screens, brands have a simpler request: prove that their advertising works. With Circana's acquisition of Nielsen's Marketing Mix Modeling business in August and NCSolutions in June, the company is positioning itself as the independent arbiter retail media desperately needs. Leading this charge is Cara Pratt, just 90 days into her role as President of Global Retail and Media, who brings the unique perspective of having built Kroger's retail media network from the inside.

For full-year 2025, revenue is projected to rise +17.4% YoY, while EPS is expected to grow just +5.1% YoY, indicating limited operating leverage.