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For the past five years, retail media has been one of the most talked-about developments in advertising.
And yet, for all the excitement, scepticism is creeping in.
Yes, it’s growing. Yes, it’s generating meaningful revenue. Yes, it can deliver strong outcomes.
But will it really reshape advertising?
It will.
The current slowdown isn’t a failure of retail media. It’s a failure of the systems around it. The infrastructure that allocates advertising budgets was built for a different era.
Retail media isn’t broken. It’s early.
According to Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, brands grow through:
Retail media can deliver both.
In fact, it’s uniquely positioned to do so across multiple formats. When retailers move beyond inventory into audience provision, retail media starts to look like all media.
CTV, social, even DOOH — when powered by retailer audiences, it becomes retail media.
So the question isn’t whether retail media can build brands.
It’s whether the systems that allocate budgets are designed to buy it.
Most large budgets are allocated using planning tools built around:
Retail media often sits outside these systems.
Instead of one large buy, planners must coordinate across multiple retailers, each with different formats, reporting, and measurement.
That creates friction.
For a £10m campaign, a £250k retail media activation can feel disproportionately complex.
Retail media doesn’t struggle because it lacks effectiveness.
It struggles because it introduces complexity into systems built for scale.
That is changing.
AI-driven planning platforms are beginning to integrate retail media, especially as standards emerge through organisations like the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Many Retail Media Networks still behave like commercial teams monetising supplier relationships.
But media doesn’t scale that way.
True media businesses:
Retailers are transitioning from trade income models to full media propositions.
That requires:
And it takes time.
Inside brands, budgets are fragmented:
Retail media sits awkwardly between them.
Each team has different KPIs, different frameworks, and different incentives.
There’s also a measurement mismatch:
That creates bias.
But leading brands are starting to adapt.
Retail media isn’t unique in this pattern.
We’ve seen it before:
Each followed the same cycle:
The issue is rarely the technology.
It’s the institutions around it.
Retail media will become more central to advertising.
AI will accelerate this.
The winners will be those who adapt fastest:
The key success factor won’t just be technology.
It will be organisational design.
Retail media isn’t overhyped.
It’s under-integrated.
History tells us what happens next.
When technology collides with institutional inertia, the technology wins.
Eventually.
The question is simple:
Are you ready for when it does?
