In recent years, retail media has become the darling of the marketing world, with many brands and retailers pinning high hopes on ‘in-store retail media’, believing it has the opportunity to influence a wide range of consumers like broadcasting. But why hasn’t in-store retail media truly unleashed its potential yet? This question puzzles marketers, brand owners, and retail channels.
The biggest obstacles come from ‘insufficient infrastructure’ and ‘the pursuit of perfect attribution’, causing many businesses to hesitate. On one hand, there is a lack of unified standards in operation, the buying and managing processes are complex, and even measuring effectiveness is challenging. Brands struggle to know who has the authority over in-store marketing, leading to fragmentation and confusion, which in turn makes brands reluctant to invest resources.
According to a recent report from eMarketer, in-store retail media is expected to exceed $1 billion in advertising spending by 2029, but actually only represents a small portion of the retail media pie.
Benoit Vatere, Chief Media Officer of Liquid Death, shared at IAB’s Connected Commerce Summit that only giants like Amazon, capable of integrating technology into stores, currently have a clear advantage in this game. For example, they can use their own demand-side platform (DSP) to track consumer shopping journeys in Whole Foods. He further predicts that Walmart will soon follow suit, and other retailers will inevitably invest in this wave of upgrades.
As online ad spaces become increasingly saturated, retailers are more eager to leverage the value of their physical stores. For brands, in-store environments allow direct communication with consumers, reducing disruptions compared to online ads, making impressions cleaner and easier to remember. Chelsey Alexander, founder and CEO of Open Gate Consulting, believes that with consumers facing information overload daily, in-store environments present an excellent opportunity to cut the noise and rebuild connections.
However, there are still numerous challenges to implementing in-store retail media. The first is ‘unclear responsibilities’: marketing departments often lack a leader to drive this strategy, and some traditional CMOs are even resistant to in-store marketing concepts, leading to a lack of clear decision-makers within organizations. Jordan Witmer, Managing Director at Salt Media, candidly states that whenever discussions about who is responsible for media, creative, agencies, and budget allocation arise, various pulls and pushes begin, but the most important question—’Does this actually work?’—is pushed to the back.
As a result, some brands are restructuring their organizations, such as Liquid Death being led by their Chief Media Officer for retail media strategy; more and more companies are replacing their Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) with Chief Growth Officers (CGOs), reflecting the increasing importance of media strategies within companies.
Now many retail giants have begun to invest significant resources in expanding in-store media technology. For example, setting up interactive screens, AR, and virtual reality, incorporating touch interactions, hoping to provide consumers with more unique experiences while they shop. According to Deloitte’s 2025 retail outlook for the US, up to 80% of shopping behavior still occurs in physical stores, with one-third of retail executives believing that ‘enhancing in-store consumer experiences’ is key to this year’s growth.
But all technological investments must return to the core intent: genuinely enhancing the consumer experience and reducing shopping friction to drive brand sales. Evan Hovorka, Vice President of Product and Innovation at Albertsons Media Collective, reminds us that screens and displays are not the end goal, but should ‘be close to the consumer context’, such as setting up recipe screens in the avocado section, which is the best entry point for media.
Who will stand out in this in-store retail media revolution? The answer is not just ‘the most advanced technology’ but rather who can construct an orderly, clear, and consumer-centric strategic matrix that truly bridges the physical and digital worlds. Marketers, brand owners, and retail channels must re-evaluate their roles and face the market’s essence that consumers will determine everything.
