Retail media is now a cornerstone of both the retail and advertising businesses and features heavily in events worldwide across both specialties. And Retail Media X is always there to bring you the key news, thoughts and insights from the key players at these events. We are on tour so you don’t have to be.
Highlights so far include:
• A marketplace masterclass with Secret Sales
• How to build a retail media network with Superdrug
• Data and democratisation at Douglas
• Measurement and incrementality with Yara Daher
• A live interview with Lowe at Cannes Lions
• Mirakl mornings with experts from Mirakl, Boston Consulting, Forrester and Rakuten
• The future of retail media with Andrew Lipsman
This is the thinking behind the Retail Media Podcast in association with Mirakl: a 10-part series detailing the journey from Retail to Media. Starting at NRF’s Big Retail show, this series traversed to the festival of digital media that is Cannes Lions, with engaging and informative conversations in between. We are likely to be at a festival near you in the second half of the year, so stay tuned.
Either way, global retail media guru Colin Lewis has been joined by special guests each episode to discuss the rapidly growing ecosystem of retail media, and its power to not only reach substantial target audiences but also help brands build and maintain loyalty – and each week we shall be review the podcasts so far and doing all we can to encourage you to grab a coffee and have a listen.
So, what have we learned so far? A perfect snapshot of the state of the industry is in this special episode where Colin Lewis collates the key lessons from Cannes Lions speaking with guests from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Forrester, Rakuten and Symbiosys.
Recorded live at Mirakl Mornings event in Cabana 13 on Majestic Beach, Cannes, this episode features exclusive interviews conducted by Colin as well as soundbites from each of the speakers’ presentations.
Hear from Bashar Kachachi, founder and CEO of Symbiosys; Kristina Raptovaia head of partnerships & advertising, Retail Media Lead at Rakuten France; Daniel Gospodinov, partner, EMEA Retail Media Lead at BCG; and Nikhil Lai principal analyst, performance marketing for Forrester.
Naturally, data is the engine of retail media, whatever sector you are looking at and Heike Schneider, Lena Schütze and Nesma Abdel-Hamid – the health and beauty giant Douglas’s marketing solutions dream team – use their podcast to outline just how important it is not only to be on top of your data but to constantly evolve and develop what data you collect and how you deploy it across retail media.
The development of data strategies forms a key part of how both Secret Sales and Superdrug have evolved and developed their retail media offerings. In this episode, Paul Stafford, Head of Retail Media at Superdrug covers the internal complexities of establishing a new business unit within a large organisation, highlighting the need to engage various teams like finance, legal, IT, and HR, and crucially, bring trading teams on board.
It also explores the external facing challenges, including selecting ad tech partners, building a sales proposition, and understanding the diverse needs and structures of brand suppliers and media agencies. Stafford emphasises the importance of viewing retail media as a form of change management that requires tailoring approaches to different partners and constantly evolving the offering, including considering future expansions like marketplace and in-store screens.
Meanwhile, Ekow Mensah, VP Retail Media at Secret Sales joins Colin Lewis to cover the necessity of aligning retail media strategy with a company’s overall trade and product teams, rather than operating in isolation, likening it to building a “second business within the business”.
Mensah shares his extensive experience, including launching eBay’s international sponsored advertising product, and details the strategic approach to building a retail media business at Secret Sales, an off-price fashion and beauty marketplace.
A key focus is the importance of understanding seller needs, differentiating communication based on whether you’re dealing with large brands or smaller owner-operators, and crucially, analysing data to demonstrate the tangible impact of advertising on GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) and margin contribution. Mensah also highlights the significance of seasonality.
Of course, retail media counts for little if you can’t measure its impact and in this episode Colin Lewis and Yara Daher delving into the evolution of retail media. Yara, an early figure in the field from her time at Hooklogic, shares how the industry began with sponsored products on retail sites and the challenges of convincing traditional retailers to adopt this new approach and attract media agency budgets.
The conversation then shifts to the current state of retail media, highlighting the need for the industry to “grow up” through standardisation and breaking down silos, before focusing on the critical topic of measurement and incrementality, as defined by the IAB Europe’s measurement funnel.
