Retail media is reaching an inflection level.
Two years in the past on the Cannes Lions pageant, it appeared like each firm with a loyalty program was launching an promoting enterprise. This yr, firms have to show that their advert companies are working.
Regardless of commerce media’s development over the previous couple of years, the {industry} is now on the protection. After preliminary checks with dozens of retail media networks, entrepreneurs have spent the final yr elevating questions on retail media’s premium pricing and inconsistent measurement. And financial uncertainty, largely due to tariffs and the Trump Administration’s shifting panorama, is placing all this right into a stress cooker.
“Manufacturers are going to carry again, maintain again, maintain again—after which wish to flip one thing in 24 hours or much less,” stated one retail media supply. “Retailers will win if they will lead with that theme: Flexibility, after which constancy of measurement.”
Going into the second half of 2025, advertisers need higher measurement and the power to rapidly activate and off adverts to maintain up with modifications to tariffs, the supply added.
Nonetheless, retail media is rising at greater than 15% year-over-year, making the class a uncommon development space for the advert {industry}. It’s anticipated to hit $169 billion in world advert spend this yr, in response to Emarketer. The Cannes Lions pageant is even introducing a devoted subcategory within the Media Lions and Artistic Commerce Lions this yr to award advertisers which have efficiently used retail media to have interaction customers and improve model relevance.
“Over the previous couple of years, we’ve seen a rising prominence in retail media within the Competition and throughout the {industry},” stated Marian Brannelly, awards director for Cannes Lions. In response to WARC Media’s world advert spend forecast, she famous, retail media spend is predicted to overhaul linear TV spend by 2026.
The brand new subcategory “will acknowledge work that strategically harnesses retailer-owned channels to have interaction customers at essential decision-making moments, utilizing focused insights to boost model relevance and drive measurable enterprise outcomes,” Brannelly stated.
The place commerce media is headed
Relying on who you speak to, commerce media’s inflection level both appears to be like like a reckoning or just a honing of methods and instruments.
Many manufacturers are already offered on the idea. Now, advertisers wish to hear how the lofty visions that commerce media has promised interprets to outcomes, stated Lauren Wiener, managing director, senior companion, and world head of selling observe at Boston Consulting Group.
Which means constructing out extra detailed and well timed measurement, higher attribution instruments, and partnerships that simplify the entire ad-buying course of.
“You’re going to see loads about cross-industry information collaboration via clear rooms,” Wiener stated. “That’s what the tech firms are going to be speaking about. That’s what the businesses are going to be speaking about. They’re empowering the holy grail partnerships.”
