Retail Media Breakfast Club

Why Do Brand Marketers Love To Hate On Retail Media?

There’s a new beef in marketing, and this one hits close to home: can retail media actually build brands, or is it really just trade promotion with a fancy name and a das

Retail Media Isn’t a Cart.

Today, I’m digging into a question that has been coming up more and more as retail media expands into a broader commerce media ecosystem: does commerce media really need

FTC v Amazon: Nothing Changes

By now, you’ve probably read plenty of coverage about the FTC’s case against Amazon’s ad auction (last week I shared an article on The Drum). But the question I’m more in

The UK Takes A Run At Retail Media Aggregation

Retail media has a fragmentation problem. We have better dashboards, better reporting, and better measurement than we did a few years ago. But media buyers are still bein

Trip Report: Retail & Commerce Media Activations in Australia

After living outside Australia for around 15 years, I’m experiencing retail and shopping here with fresh eyes. And one thing that has really caught my attention is just h

Ace Hardware's RMN Upfront Home Run

Last Thursday, Ace Hardware took over Wrigley Field in Chicago for the first upfront from Redvest Media, its roughly year-old retail media network. I wasn’t there myself,

Is Retail Media Kidding Itself?

Are retail media networks trying too hard to become media companies? In this episode, I’m sharing a thought-provoking piece from Mike Shields of Next in Media that asks w

Here’s where Amazon is spending its own advertising budget

Amazon already captures roughly 40% of every dollar spent online in the US, yet it continues to grow at an impressive pace. So I wanted to look at a question we don't hea

The Revenge Of The Catalog Team (Amazon Sponsored Prompts, Part 2)

Advertising has always been the glamorous side of ecommerce, while product catalog maintenance, reviews, inventory, and other operational work have often been underfunded

This Agency Abandoned MTA, Here's Why

There’s a particular kind of vertigo that comes from watching a podcast you started get better without you. I launched the Ecommerce Braintrust podcast back in 2017, and

Billed For The Ad Before The Ad Exists: Amazon Sponsored Prompts

When Amazon unveiled Sponsored Prompts at Unboxed, I initially dismissed them as a clever but relatively minor addition to Alexa Shopping. But after digging into Andrew B

The 'Effort Heuristic' In Retail Media

What makes one retail media network stand out when so many seem to promise the same thing? In this episode, I explore a fascinating psychology concept called the 'effort

I Downloaded The Data Amazon Has On Me. It’s Not Just Shopping.

I finally did something I'd been meaning to do for a while: I requested the full Amazon Ads Consumer File to see exactly what Amazon knows about me. While I expected a fe

Will Agentic Media Buying Be The End Of Us All?

I've been wrestling with a question that's becoming impossible to ignore: will agentic media buying fundamentally reshape retail media, or even eliminate parts of today's

What If You Ordered Lunch Like You Bought Retail Media

What if ordering lunch sounded like the way many brands buy retail media? That was the inspiration behind my latest comedy skit... but beneath the joke is a serious quest

'Nobody Wakes Up Wanting To Chat With A Retailer'

We've spent the last year watching retailers race to launch AI shopping assistants, but I think we're asking the wrong question. Instead of obsessing over who has the sma

AI Agents in Retail Media: Why Media Buyers Aren’t Ready for the Agentic Revolution

AI agents are suddenly everywhere in retail media. Platforms, agencies, and retailers are all promising to automate media planning, buying, optimization, and reporting. B

AI Slop Is Flooding Retail Media — Why Human Judgment Matters More Than Ever

When I launched my first podcast back in 2017, I worried I'd already missed the opportunity. Nine years later, I'm asking a different question altogether: does the format

Retail Media Fact vs Fiction: AI, Marketplaces & the Biggest Growth Opportunities Ahead

Today I'm sharing highlights from a lively panel discussion I joined at Cannes, hosted by The CPG Guys and sponsored by Sensor Tower. Alongside fellow retail media analys

11% of Consumers Think They've Already Shopped with AI — Here's Why That Changes Everything

This week, I'm sharing snippets of a conversation from The Watson Weekly, one of my favorite podcasts, where host Rick Watson sat down with Holden Bale, Global Chief Stra