☀️ What a brilliant day at the Criteo Commerce Media Summit 2025 — a packed agenda, powerful insights, and plenty of inspiration.
🏋️From the challenges of internal alignment to the nuances of luxury retail, the speakers didn’t shy away from complexity — they embraced it.
Some standout moments:
1️⃣Katie King, MBA kicked things off with a session on AI. A highlight? When DALL·E 2 (image generation AI) was asked to create images like “ketchup scuba diving” and “ketchup in outer space” the results often resembled Heinz bottles — a perfect example of how strong branding is understood even by AI.
2️⃣ Simon Piper (Skai) reminded us that “money goes where money grows.” Delivering real value is key in retail media.
3️⃣ Jon Beill (Asda - LS11) and Rebecca Dixon (THG) highlighted the importance of internal alignment and keeping stakeholders consistently informed of progress.
4️⃣ Paul Wright 🌻 (Uber) shared that “internal education is key.”
It was especially interesting to explore retail media in luxury — where content and culture meet commerce.
Ocado Ads Ben O'Mahoney joined other industry experts Tim Conley (Criteo), Lauren Dick (Mail Metro Media) and Sarah Barker (KINESSO) to discuss curation.
My personal highlight came during the panel on standardisation, moderated by Marie-Clare Puffett (IAB). Ian Black (Publicis Media) hit the nail on the head: standardisation does not mean uniformity. RMNs have their own unique strengths — standardisation should set quality thresholds, not erase differentiation across verticals.
Also great to hear from Melanie Zimmermann (Criteo) on her experience building the Macy's RMN.
All in all, a fantastic event. Huge thanks to Criteo and everyone involved for a thought-provoking day. Looking forward to what’s next!
Nicole Kivel I Andy Stephen I Jill Orr I Jasmine Poke I Jessica Doulton I Sam Benkel I Stephen Mader I Alex Prouhet I Andy Ferrer I Paul Smith I Tom Priestman