#retail-media

#retail-media

L'Oréal's Laetitia Raoust discusses the marketing tensions that keep her awake at night, including the challenges of influencer advocacy and the complexities of retail media.

The outlook for 2026 I'm watching 2026 with equal parts optimism and urgency. Optimism because consumer demand is still there. Retail sales have remained resilient in recent data. Urgency because the operating environment is only getting tighter. Coming out of FY2025, large retailers demonstrated resilience amid inflation pressure, shifting consumer behavior, and global supply-chain complexity. Walmart raised its outlook and leaned further into a model that blends physical stores, e-commerce scale, and execution discipline.

LONDON-(BUSINESS WIRE)-THG PLC, today announces a strategic partnership with global advertising technology leader, The Trade Desk. For the first time, media buyers (advertisers and agencies) can access THG's segments from Cult Beauty and LOOKFANTASTIC via self-serve across the entire digital ecosystem on The Trade Desk's media-buying Kokai platform.

People who enter phrases such as best flowers for Valentine's Day, might see ads from an Albertsons banner in their area. Albertsons' participation in the pilot program follows other steps the company has taken to integrate agentic and generative AI tools into its operations. Albertsons said its retail media unit, Albertsons Media Collective, will be looking to help brands reach shoppers through ChatGPT as the pilot program progresses.

Retail media is evolving from clicks and carts to conversations and context. As generative and conversational AI reshape how people discover products across the answer ecosystem, retail media leaders are facing new challenges - and new opportunities. They sit at a rare intersection. They have first-party data, frequent customer relationships, and real-world transactions. The question isn't whether retail media will keep growing. It's how it evolves without losing performance, trust, or relevance.

Retail media networks shouldn't sell 'awareness' or 'impressions' or 'conversion,' Gray wrote on the social media platform in October. 'They should sell reach, context, salience and physical availability because these are the things that deliver brand growth.'

Kevel, the leading retail media technology provider, today (28th January, 2026) announced its steadfast commitment to the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region with its expansion into Australia and the appointment of Chris Woodworth as regional director, APAC. The expansion marks a strategic step in Kevel's global growth as retail and commerce media enter a more execution-driven phase. Across Australia and APAC, retailers and commerce partners are moving beyond experimentation and reassessing the infrastructure required to scale media programs with consistency, transparency, and long-term control.

Procter & Gamble is emphasizing its strengths in data and artificial intelligence as the packaged goods giant contends with a fragmented "new media reality," executives said on a call discussing earnings earlier this week. The owner of brands like Tide and Downy is working to redefine its brand-building framework to deliver more relevant marketing and better capitalize on emergent channels like retail media that are rewriting the CPG advertising playbook.

Amazon last January launched a Retail Ad Service that allows outside retailers to tap into the e-commerce giant's ad tech to run and manage campaigns while helping advertisers to discover new media networks via Amazon Ads.

On Tuesday, Walmart execs said they would put ads in Sparky, its AI shopping agent, as well as provide generative AI-powered performance insights and creative. There's also Marty, Walmart's agentic advertising assistant, in beta for sponsored search campaigns to help with billing and bidding, with plans to make it available widely later this year. The announcements come on the heels of Walmart's tests last year with Sparky and Marty.

Retail media advertising's popularity has surged over the past few years, with many retailers increasing their investments in this space as others venture into retail media for the first time. There are now more than 200 retail media networks in various states of growth or stasis, according to data from Mimbi. However, while retail media remains one of the fastest-growing areas of advertising, maintaining that growth is becoming harder to achieve.

Criteo is betting that ChatGPT-style agents will become a major source of product discovery. Through experiments with LLMs, it wants to use its commerce data infrastructure to power recommendations that sit behind them. The company, historically associated with ad retargeting, is attempting to reposition itself for an AI-driven commerce era, and its latest demos suggest the company now sees large language models - not just retailers or demand-side platforms - as the next major distribution channel for advertising.

Black Friday has been one of the UK's biggest yearly shopping events for well over a decade now, long-cemented into advertisers' calendars. This year, UK shoppers are expected to spend £9.52bn over the four-day Black Friday weekend, over half of which is projected to be spent online. Challenges continue to rear their heads, as the ad landscape becomes more complex, fragmented, and AI-powered.

For one, TJX has a few fortuitous tailwinds. Manufacturers over-acquired raw goods earlier this year to stock up for tariff-related price increases. That's ideal for TJX, which buys products cheaply when other companies overproduce. But, also, TJX is not a retail media player whatsoever and cares way more about in-store sales than it does about ecommerce. In-person is simply a more exciting shopping experience, CEO Ernie Herrman told investors during the company's quarterly earnings call last week.

If we look at the way consumer purchase behavior was back in the day, it was: You see an ad, you go to the store, you make a purchase," said Bryant. "Now, it's not as linear, and marketers really need to think about things more fluidly. Consumers also aren't waking up in the morning and thinking, 'today I'm [exclusively] a digital shopper.'

Walmart makes money from ads through its Walmart Connect platform through: Online ads: Brands pay for sponsored products, search placements, and display ads on Walmart.com and the app. In-store ads: Brands pay for shelf space, endcaps, and digital signage inside stores. Targeted advertising: Walmart uses shopper data to help brands reach specific customers, allowing it to charge a premium. Revenue model: Mostly pay-per-click (CPC) or pay-per-impression (CPM), similar to Amazon's retail media network.

Skai, the leading omnichannel advertising platform for commerce media, and Kevel, creator of The Retail Media Cloud®, today (6th November, 2025) announced a strategic partnership to give advertisers expanded access to high-growth retail media networks. With Skai and Kevel's strong API-based approach, this partnership will enable retailers to seamlessly scale their monetisation strategies with transparent control over demand sources and performance. This partnership ensures advertisers can continue reaching valuable audiences across the retail landscape through a single, integrated platform.