Advertise on podcast: Unlocking Retail Media

James Avery sits down with Matthew Fantazier, VP of Retail Data Partnerships at The Trade Desk, to unpack the first-of-its-kind three-way partnership between The Trade Desk, Dollar General, and Kevel that brings onsite retail media into the same programmatic workflow as offsite. Matt spent 19 years on the advertiser side at J&J and Kenvue before moving to The Trade Desk, and he brings that buyer's perspective to why fragmentation has become the industry's core problem: brands are managing 300+ retail media networks which makes frequency control, optimization, and consistent attribution nearly impossible. The conversation covers what actually unlocks brand and agency budgets (make it simple, then lean into what only you can offer), why commerce data's deterministic view of real purchase behavior is only valuable if activated intentionally, and why incrementality, new-to-brand, and category share matter more than ROAS as a measure of whether a brand is winning. Matt and James also dig into how CTV fits into a connected funnel, why store-level and regional share data can reshape a messaging strategy, and Matt's prediction that "retail media" will be an archaic term within five years, replaced by retail data, retail inventory, and retail measurement inside a single unified media plan. If you're running a retail media network and trying to understand where you fit in the broader media ecosystem, this episode is essential listening.

James Avery sits down with Art Sebastian, founder of NexChapter and a 30-year retail industry veteran who has built and operated retail media programs from every angle: the merchant floor, the brand side at Kraft Foods, e-commerce at Meijer, data strategy at IRI, and most recently as the architect of Casey's Access, the retail media network for Casey's General Stores, a Fortune 500 convenience and fuel operator with nearly 3,000 locations across 20 states. Art breaks down what it actually takes to build a retail media network that drives real results, including why first-party data infrastructure has to come before monetization, how Casey's tied together fuel pump screens, in-store audio, app targeting, and CRM into a true omni-channel offering, and why closed-loop attribution at the pump level is more achievable than most retailers think. The conversation also covers the organizational dynamics that trip up even well-resourced retailers (marketing vs. merchandising alignment is the real bottleneck, not technology), how to structure a retail media team at different stages of scale, what CPG brands actually want when they say they want "incrementality," and why the JBP is the most underutilized tool for unlocking brand budgets beyond trade dollars. James and Art also dig into the agentic commerce opportunity, why even convenience retailers need to get their product data AI-ready now, and where retail media is headed over the next three to five years. If you're building a retail media network, advising one, or trying to understand what separates programs that scale from programs that stall, this episode is essential listening.

James Avery sits down with Andrew Connell, Chief Growth Officer at dunnhumby, to unpack one of the most ambitious structural moves in retail media right now: the dunnhumby network alliance. Built in partnership with Kevel and anchored by Tesco, the alliance brings together competing retailers including Waitrose, John Lewis, B&Q, and Screwfix into a single platform for shared audiences, unified campaign execution, and closed-loop measurement across multiple retailers at once. Andrew and James dig into why brand fragmentation is reaching a breaking point (CPGs are now rebuilding their retail media strategy up to 20 times for different networks), why retailers who don't act risk ceding their data advantage to Amazon, Google, or The Trade Desk, and how the network alliance gives mid-size grocers a path to compete for brand and performance dollars they're not capturing today. The conversation also covers the untapped potential of cross-category retail journeys, how EV charging stations are becoming the next frontier of in-store media, why property portals like Zillow could be the perfect non-endemic retail media partner, and how the model is already drawing interest from retailers in the US, Europe, Australasia, and the Middle East. If you're a retailer trying to figure out where retail media goes after the JBP, this episode is essential listening.

James Avery sits down with David Glaza, founder and CEO of DIGITS Agency, one of the fastest-growing retail media agencies in the country. David brings a rare insider perspective on what it actually takes to make retail media work across CPG brands, beverage and alcohol companies, and a centralized network of six regional grocers. The conversation covers what the best brands are doing right (spoiler: it's the small, nimble ones running media in lockstep with weekly sales), the mistakes that keep costing mid-size brands at Target, from launching without budget to letting national teams make decisions that need local context, and the concept of "investment-grade media" and why it's the key to unlocking brand dollars beyond the JBP. David and James also dig into the underserved regional grocery opportunity, how DIGITS is aggregating spend across multiple regional networks to give national CPGs a scalable path into local retail, the future of in-store and CTV media, and the rapidly evolving alcohol retail media landscape through DIGITS' Cheers Network. If you're a brand, agency, or regional grocer trying to figure out how to make retail media work in the real world and not just in theory, this is a must-listen.

James Avery sits down with Matt "Vig" Vignieri, Chief Growth Officer at Skai, the AI-powered omnichannel marketing platform helping the world's biggest CPG brands manage campaigns simultaneously across 200+ retail media networks from a single command center. Vig breaks down why siloed brand teams and fragmented budgets are leaving real performance on the table, how Skai's Data Hub is solving the cross-network measurement and data harmonization problem, and why JBPs are becoming the baseline "membership fee" while performance dollars are where the real growth happens. The conversation also covers incrementality, why there's still no universal standard, why brands keep spending anyway, and what it'll actually take to get there. Plus a real look at agentic commerce: how Skai's AI agent Celeste and the newly announced Skai Studio are building toward an agent-native operating system for marketing, and why the human will always be behind the curtain, at least for now. If you're running a retail media network and want to know what brands actually need from you to unlock more budget, this episode is essential listening.

James Avery sits down with Elizabeth Neubauer-Donovan, EVP and Global Head of Retail and Commerce Media Networks at Acxiom — a 60-year-old data and identity company now operating inside the world's largest global ad agency, Omnicom. Elizabeth brings a rare vantage point: she sits squarely between brands, retailers, agencies, and the data layer, giving her a uniquely clear view of what's actually working in retail and commerce media right now. The conversation covers what brands are truly demanding from media networks (spoiler: it starts with clean first-party data), how to tell the difference between a retail media network and a commerce media network and why it matters, the evolving role of agencies as orchestrators rather than just media buyers, why stakeholder alignment from the top down is the single most important factor for retail media success, and where the industry is headed — from network collaborations and offsite expansion to experiential targeting, social integration, and a projected $170 billion market. If you're building, running, or funding a retail or commerce media network, this episode is essential listening.

In this special live episode of Unlocking Retail Media, recorded on stage at the Retail Media FC Summit in São Paulo, Brazil, James Avery sits down with Sam James, VP of Ads at iFood — the dominant food and grocery delivery platform commanding roughly 80% market share in Brazil. Sam breaks down how iFood scaled from basic seller ads to a full-funnel retail media powerhouse, why Brazil is the fastest-growing retail media market globally, and how iFood's fragmented retail landscape is actually creating a massive consolidation opportunity. The conversation covers iFood's offsite media expansion through its acquisition of AI-native ad tech company Advolve, a groundbreaking co-bidding model where iFood matches brand ad spend to drive closed-loop ROAS, the untapped potential of data-driven product sampling, and how AI agents are reshaping the entire ads operation — including a live Databricks-Claude integration that turns week-long analyses into 20-minute insights. Whether you're building a retail media network, a CPG brand navigating LATAM, or an agency trying to capture emerging commerce media budgets, this episode is packed with actionable strategy from one of the most innovative retail media stories in the world.

James Avery sits down with Grant Steadman, retail expert and former President of North America at dunnhumby, to explore the profound impact of Artificial Intelligence and generative shopping on the commerce landscape. Drawing on his extensive 16-year tenure at dunnhumby—the data science pioneer behind Tesco's Clubcard and early loyalty frameworks—Grant offers a rare look at the data-led history of the industry before bridging it directly into the modern era of agentic commerce. They break down exclusive findings from Astra Works AI’s Agentic Commerce Capability Index, outlining how market leaders like Amazon (Rufus) and Walmart (Sparky) are rewriting the rules of consumer discovery. Grant explains why the transition to AI assistants is not an overnight replacement for physical grocery store aisles or traditional e-commerce portals, but a powerful new channel requiring retailers to urgently address the organizational, technical, and change-management challenges of an AI transformation. From moving away from basic keyword-based search to navigating how brand signals are shared across large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, this episode serves as a strategic roadmap for networks aiming to scale their intelligence layers and protect their data moats.

James Avery sits down with Austin Leonard, VP and General Manager of DG Media Network, to break down how Dollar General is transforming America’s general store into a retail media juggernaut. With more than 21,000 physical locations deeply embedded in rural and suburban communities, Dollar General reaches a critical shopper base that traditional digital platforms often miss. Austin shares the inside story of building the network from a strong foundation of traditional shopper marketing and offsite tactics to a rapidly growing, omnichannel digital business driven by a massive rollout of same-day delivery. The conversation covers DG Media Network's pioneering first-of-its-kind partnership with The Trade Desk to seamlessly unify onsite and offsite programmatic buying, their major expansion into AI-powered in-store audio with QSIC, and why providing outcome-based measurement and true incrementality is the ultimate key to unlocking national media dollars. Austin challenges the industry's default playbooks, explaining why successful retail networks must ditch copy-paste roadmaps, start directly with customer behavior, and scale specialized tools that protect both the shopper experience and brand yield.

James Avery sits down with Andrew Lipsman, independent analyst and former eMarketer principal, to challenge the industry's dangerous obsession with "magical black boxes" and short-term KPIs. Andrew explains why ROAS is a fundamentally flawed metric that often rewards "cookie stuffing" and branded search rather than true business growth, urging brands and retailers to graduate toward incrementality (iROAS) and market share. The conversation dives into the "nightmare" of over-optimization, the cautionary tale of Nike’s recent brand erosion, and why the future of retail media lies in upper-funnel high-quality channels like performance TV and digitized in-store media. Whether you are a retailer building a network or a brand marketer looking to avoid the "AI hand-wave," this episode provides a blunt, data-driven reality check on what actually drives long-term advertising effectiveness.

James Avery sits down with Paulo Cunha, Kevel’s VP of Product, to explore the historical convergence of data infrastructure and ad tech. Drawing from his journey as the founder of Shift Forward (later Velocity), Paulo recounts the early days of building foundational first-party data tools in Europe and how his team’s expertise in real-time segmentation and forecasting became the backbone of Kevel’s audience product. The conversation dives into the strategic nuances of the European market, the "API-first" mandate, and why the cultural alignment between their two engineering-heavy organizations led to an incredibly successful post-acquisition integration. Paulo also provides a unique lens on GDPR as a competitive advantage and how global retailers can leverage rapid, first-party data activation to outpace traditional marketing cycles and drive higher yield.

James Avery welcomes Sean Cheyney, EVP of Global Business Development at QSIC, to discuss the untapped potential of the physical store as a high-performance media channel. Drawing on his deep background at Triad and CitrusAd, Sean explains how modern AI-driven in-store audio is solving legacy pain points by providing closed-loop measurement, incremental ROAS, and hyper-localized creative that can be deployed in minutes. The conversation highlights the "omnichannel" future where audio, digital screens, and on-site media work together to surround the consumer, and Sean makes a bold prediction that 2026 will be the breakout year for retailers globally to integrate audio into their retail media programs

James Avery sits down with Michael Schuh, Global Head of Media at dunnhumby, to explore the evolution of one of the most sophisticated retail media ecosystems in the world. Drawing on his extensive experience building Kroger Precision Marketing, Michael discusses the shift from off-site and loyalty-driven data to the current surge in digitized in-store media. The conversation delves into the strategic necessity of maintaining a "customer-first" focus, the role of measurement standards in building brand trust, and why retailers must move beyond the "noise" of the industry to build bespoke solutions that align with their unique core value propositions. Michael also provides a forward-looking perspective on the impact of agentic commerce and how physical stores can serve as a "competitive moat" for retailers in an increasingly AI-driven landscape.

James Avery is joined by Melissa Burdick, Co-founder and President of Pacvue, to discuss the complex, multi-touchpoint journey of the modern consumer. Melissa breaks down the three pillars of commerce media: discovery, retail media, and the emerging world of agentic commerce. She also explains why brands are shifting their focus from basic ROAS to sophisticated incrementality (iROAS) models. The conversation highlights the technical necessity of an "API-first" strategy for retailers to attract top-tier brand spend and explores how tools like Amazon’s Rufus and AI-powered assistants are reshaping discovery and increasing basket sizes.