Retail media: The next walled gardens?
Can retail media avoid the traps that have befuddled the digital media ecosystem? Involved Media’s Dan Hojnik argues there is a real opportunity for the sector to come together now and learn from the mistakes of the past.
It’s no secret that in the space of just a few years retail media has become a dominant force in the Australian advertising landscape.
The rapid expansion of the space has clearly been driven by the supermarket duopoly in the form of Cartology (Woolworths) and Coles 360. But the new year has already witnessed an explosion in the space, with Bunnings, Officeworks via Ooh Media’s Reo, and now Petbarn also via Reo all announcing they are building their own ad networks.
This opens up fresh opportunities for brands to engage consumers at the moment of purchase. However, as retailers develop their media businesses, the industry must ask: Are we merely swapping one set of closed ecosystems for another?
Retail media’s rapid growth is undeniable. In the US, projections indicate it will generate $67.82 billion in 2025, nearly doubling to $129.93 billion by 2028. Australia is following suit, with both large-scale and niche players carving out their space. The question now is whether retail media will evolve into a transparent and accountable ecosystem, or if it will fall into precisely the same pitfalls as the walled gardens of digital media’s past.
Learning from our previous mistakes
The digital advertising boom, led by Facebook and Google, provided brands and agencies with powerful targeting capabilities but came with a trade off: limited transparency. These walled gardens controlled access to data, restricted measurement capabilities, and made it difficult for brands to track true performance across multiple channels.
Retail media has the potential to avoid these mistakes if the industry works together and acts now. Establishing a common currency for measurement is crucial. Without standardized metrics, brands cannot effectively compare retail media performance with other channels, resulting in inefficiencies and wasted investment.
Larger, less agile retailers risk over-investing in retail media products that are built for today’s needs but may struggle to adapt to the rapidly evolving media landscape. Unlike nimble digital native platforms, traditional retailers are not structured to pivot quickly. Their challenge will be ensuring their retail media offerings remain flexible enough to evolve alongside shifting consumer behaviour and advertiser demands.
Retailers must prioritise transparency over control
Retailers hold the key to whether retail media becomes a long-term success or another closed-loop system that eventually frustrates brands once the “shiny and new” effect wears off.
The best retail media networks will be those that prioritise transparency in performance reporting, clear ROI measurement and fair value exchanges between brands and consumers.
Ooh Media’s representation of Officeworks and Petbarn through their retail media division Reo signals an interesting development in the market. Unlike self-contained ecosystems, these partnerships offer advertisers broader media integration beyond just retailer-owned channels. This type of collaboration could, and potentially should, set a precedent for more open and interconnected retail media solutions rather than isolated walled gardens.
A key challenge is ensuring that retail media networks respect the threshold between valuable, data-driven retail media solutions and consumer intrusion. While shoppers trust retailers with their data, this trust is fragile. If consumers feel that their data is being exploited for excessive targeting rather than used to enhance their experience, the backlash will be swift. The retailers that get this right, offering meaningful personalisation rather than intrusive advertising, will be the ones that thrive.
Retail media must pull in the same direction
For retail media to reach its full potential, the industry, including retailers, brands, agencies, and measurement providers, must work together. Retail media should not operate in isolation but as part of a total communications ecosystem, with clear alignment on how it fits within omnichannel marketing strategies.
Australia has a unique opportunity in this space. As my colleagues in the US often put it, “Australia is an incubator market for marketing effectiveness”. Local retailers should lean into this strength by demonstrating their value with transparent, evidence-based measurement rather than relying on self-reported metrics.
A significant opportunity also exists for grassroots retail media aggregation solutions to lead the way in accountability and measurement. Emerging platforms such as “Australia’s first pet focused media channel” Fur Media are innovating with new approaches by aggregating smaller retail networks and prioritising clear, independent reporting. These businesses could challenge the status quo by offering brands a more accountable and standardised way to invest in retail media, setting a benchmark for the larger players to follow.
And finally, let’s blow up the black boxes
If retail media is to avoid becoming just another walled garden, it must be held to the same standards as other media channels. Advertisers cannot accept another wave of black-box measurement, where data is selectively shared, performance is difficult, if not impossible, to validate and ultimately marketers become reluctant to trust what they are buying and whether it is value for money.
Instead, the industry can and should demand:
- Independent third-party verification of campaign performance
- Consistent measurement standards across all retail media networks
- Clear attribution models that link media spend to real business outcomes
If we get this right, retail media has the potential to become one of the most powerful marketing tools of the next decade. It offers unmatched targeting capabilities, closed-loop attribution, and the ability to reach consumers at the point of purchase, but only if it is executed with transparency and accountability.
If we get it wrong, if transparency is not prioritised, if measurement remains fragmented, and if advertisers are forced into another walled garden system, then we risk repeating the same mistakes that have plagued digital advertising for years.
The path forward is clear—now, it’s on the industry to take action.
Dan Hojnik is the general manager of leading independent media agency Involved Media
I would also be wary of someone that spreads fear when they stand to make money off the solution.
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