Retail Media Breakfast Club
10 minutes of expert insights every weekday. Your morning ritual for staying ahead in retail media.
10
The Retail Media Doom Loop: 2026 Edition
<p>I’m revisiting one of my most popular episodes from last year: the retail media doom loop. The basic idea is pretty simple — a retailer sees the ad revenue being generated by Amazon and Walmart, launches a retail media network, and quickly grows by moving existing trade and shopper marketing dollars onto a media line. But what happens when that easy growth runs out?</p><p>In this episode, I look at what the latest data and conversations with retail media leaders suggest about where the industry is actually headed in 2026 and beyond. I dig into why sponsored search and...
Trust in AI Shopping: Two New Studies
<p>AI is becoming part of how we shop, but how much do consumers actually trust what an AI assistant recommends? In this episode, I’m digging into two new research studies — one from Acosta Group, and one I conducted with Bazaarvoice — to explore what shoppers really think about AI-powered shopping recommendations, advertising, brand discovery, and trust.</p><p>I’ll walk through what happens when shoppers encounter ads inside AI tools, why consumers are increasingly taking a “trust but verify” approach, and how AI is changing the way people research products both online and inside physical stores. I’ll also look at w...
Retail Media Is a Creative Wasteland. So What.
<p>Retail media is a creative wasteland. That’s the catchy line coming out of Ipsos’ new Creativity Over Clicks research. And honestly, my first reaction was to get my hackles up. But once I slowed down and looked at what the data was actually saying, I realized the report was confirming something many retail media practitioners have known for a long time: the creative looks the way it does for some very rational reasons.</p><p>In this episode, I unpack what Ipsos’ research tells us about retail media creative, shopper mindset, measurement, and the tension between brand building and bo...
Trip Report: Retail & Commerce Media Activations in Poland
<p>I recently spent a week in Poland on a family trip, and while I didn't have nearly as much time for retail media recon as I would have liked, I came away with a few observations that I found genuinely fascinating. From the country's enormous network of parcel lockers being turned into advertising surfaces, to the surprising density of Żabka convenience stores, there is a lot happening in Polish retail and commerce media.</p><p>In this episode, I walk through four things that caught my attention on the ground: the emergence of parcel lockers as an out-of-home media n...
Are RMNs Finally Getting The Hang of This Collaboration Thing?
<p>Are retail media networks finally getting the hang of collaboration? This week, two major announcements have me thinking about the transition from parallel play to collaborative play in retail media. Best Buy is expanding its partnership with Amazon to sell Fire TV ad inventory, while Instacart and Gopuff are teaming up on both delivery and advertising technology. And these aren’t just interesting partnerships on paper: they could change how brands buy, target, and measure retail media campaigns.</p><p>In this episode, I’m breaking down what each company gets out of these deals, why Best Buy’s audien...
Shoppers Think That AI's Answers Are For Sale
<p>We’ve struck a pretty clear deal with advertisers: we tolerate ads in exchange for free or subsidized services. But what happens when those ads show up inside AI assistants that we’re increasingly relying on to help us shop? New research from Bazaarvoice, which I co-authored, reveals that consumers are already questioning whether AI recommendations are truly independent. And that raises some important questions for brands and retail media advertisers.</p><p>In this episode, a recap of my recent article for The Drum, I dig into what shoppers actually think about advertising in AI, why sponsored placements aren...
44% of US RMNs Are Led By Women
<p>I've got some really good news to share on today's Retail Media Breakfast Club. Despite some of the things that can leave me feeling a little disheartened about the retail media industry, I recently discovered something genuinely exciting: 44% of US retail media networks are led by women. That's substantially higher than the representation of women in VP and SVP roles reported in recent McKinsey research.</p><p>I put together a database of named P&L leaders across the NRF's 2026 Top 100 US retailers, and I'm sharing what I found, along with a few theories about why retail media might...
Rocks, Pebbles, Sand: Retail Media Eras (Part 2 of 2)
<p>Why do good retailers make bad ad tech decisions? In part two of my series on the different eras of retail media, I’m expanding on my recent article for The Drum, and exploring why choosing the right technology is only part of the equation. The bigger question is: What role does your retail media network actually play in the media plan?<br><br></p><p>Drawing on insights from Co-op Media Network’s Dean Harris and Ace Hardware’s Molly Hjelm, I look at the different end states for retail media networks, from scaled walled gardens to specialist player...
Retail Media's Four Eras (Part 1 of 2)
<p>Retail media technology has already gone through several major reinventions. From retailers building their own ad tech stacks, to point solutions, cloud-based composable technology, and now AI-ready data infrastructure.</p><p>In this episode, I’m recapping my recent article for The Drum, and exploring the four eras of retail media tech. More importantly, why these eras aren’t necessarily sequential. Across retail media networks today, you can find very different technology architectures operating at the same time, and I dig into what led up to this moment. </p><p>Tomorrow, in part two, I’ll look at another framewo...
What It Now Takes For a Shopper To Switch Brands, Using AI
<p>Most shoppers are now using AI tools to shop, and they’re increasingly discovering new brands and products inside a chat window. That raises a practical question for anyone buying or selling commerce media: what does it actually take to get a shopper to switch to a brand they’ve never heard of when an AI assistant recommends it?</p><p>In this episode, I’m sharing highlights from the new consumer study I collaborated on with Bazaarvoice, What Is a Brand Worth When AI Does the Shopping? We looked at price sensitivity, brand familiarity, consumer trust, product reviews, catego...
