Beyond the retail media hype: How brands are undermining their success
After five years at the forefront of retail media with Cartology, Jodie Koning has seen the industry evolve at an astonishing pace.
Retail media has gone from a peripheral curiosity to one of the fastest-growing and most influential media channels in Australia. Yet for all its potential, one uncomfortable truth remains.
Many brands are still getting in their own way.
Retail media isn’t a silver bullet; it’s a powerful accelerant. But like any high-octane fuel, it demands a finely tuned engine and a skilled driver. Too often, I’ve seen brands stumble at the starting line, tripped up by fundamental missteps that undermine their investment and leave them questioning the channel’s efficacy. Marketers need to stop treating it like a box to tick or a ‘pay to play’ scheme and start treating it like the powerful, integrated, customer centric channel it can be.
As I step out of Cartology and into this new chapter – helping brands and agencies thrive in retail media, I want to shed light on some critical areas to get right, offering insights that I believe will empower brands to truly succeed in the retail media space.
The objective obscurity: Are you solving a problem, or just spending a budget?
This is perhaps the most significant hurdle. Many brands plunge into retail media with a nebulous sense of purpose, driven more by a fear of missing out than a clear strategic imperative. I’ve sat through countless meetings where objectives are either too numerous to be actionable, or so vague they offer no real north star. Starting this way will almost certainly lead to disappointment around return on investment.
Consider this: what customer problem are you genuinely trying to solve with your retail media investment?
Do you have the data to back up that assumption and if not, have you specifically asked for it? Far too often, the answer is a resounding silence. There’s a ferocious appetite to acquire new customers, yet many FMCG brands are haemorrhaging existing ones. It’s a leaky bucket scenario – you pour in new customers at the top, while a significant portion trickles out the bottom.
My challenge to you is this: before you even think about creative or channels, pause and ask yourself if your retail media strategy is truly addressing a customer challenge. Maybe you are launching a new product, so finding new customers is legitimate, but are you clear about where you are sourcing them from? Perhaps it’s customer retention or is it more akin to Mutti’s campaign that won them Cartology’s Campaign of the Year – customers are unsure which product to use, when? It has to start with what the data is telling you and if you don’t have the data, ask your retail media partner – they have access to a treasure trove of insights waiting to be unleashed.
Jodie Koning
Siloed structures and the phantom funnel
Too many FMCG businesses are still not structurally set up for retail media success. Silos persist. There are debates over which team owns the budget, whose KPIs matter most, and whether a particular retail media buy is “brand” or “performance.”
Here’s a radical idea: Customers don’t care.
Effective retail media transcends the funnel. It influences awareness, nudges consideration, and drives conversion—all within the omnichannel retail environment. The best campaigns I’ve seen connect the dots across shopper marketing, brand, digital, and ecom, rallying around a shared customer outcome, not a budget code. When teams collaborate and blur the lines, the true power of retail media is undeniable.
What do customers care about? It’s simple really – relevant, timely messages that add value to their experience. Until internal structures or ways of working mirror that seamless experience, many brands will continue to under-leverage one of the most direct lines they have to their customers.
Retail media as a channel, not a checklist item
Finally, a critical missing piece for many brands is the integration of retail media as a legitimate strategic channel within their overall media mix. Far too often, it’s treated as an afterthought, a standalone add-on, or worse, a simple “tick the box” exercise. I’ve seen campaigns where a solitary bus stop ad or a single front-of-store screen is deemed sufficient to “do retail media.” With all due respect, that’s not just insufficient; it’s slightly delusional.
There’s no magic formula yet for seamless integration of your traditional marketing activity and retail media, but my instincts tell me it’s not dissimilar to the channel planning we’ve embraced for years. It begins, as always, with strategy and clear objectives. Understand the unique role each touchpoint plays in your total media mix.
It’s about orchestrating a cohesive symphony of messages, influencing customers at the right time, in the right place, with the right information to get the job done. It’s about disciplined planning, creative integration, and continuous optimisation, just as you would with any other established media channel.
Cartology
The basics are your breakthrough
During my five years at Cartology, I had countless brands tell me, “retail media doesn’t work.” As a judge of Cartology’s Campaign of the Year, I can tell you unequivocally: It truly does work, when you get the basics right.
No more unclear, unsupported objectives. No more buying one channel and thinking you’ve conquered retail media. It’s time to deploy the same rigorous disciplines you apply to the rest of your marketing strategy. Be precise with your objectives, unify your internal teams around customer outcomes, and integrate retail media thoughtfully into your broader media mix. Do this, and I promise you, you will not only see a profound shift in your results, but you will also unlock the immense power that retail media truly holds for your brand.
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