Then there is the question of where the money comes from. The ANA asked that in 2024, and only 10% of marketers said retail media funding was incremental. So it’s coming from somewhere else. Some of it comes from trade spend, arguably an understandable and overdue update. But a lot of the new retail media investment is now coming directly out of brand-building budgets. Retailers know this, which is why they are increasingly reframing the investment up the funnel from purchase and toward the lofty, slushier world of awareness.
Attributing sales to people already inside your store, arriving ready to purchase your partner brands, is the single most flattering metric in marketing. Everything we know about growth, from Ehrenberg-Bass to Binet and Field, says it really comes from building mental availability among people who are not shopping your category today. Retail media, by its very definition and operation, reaches the ones who are.
What retail media is not
After a disastrous decade of over-investment in performance marketing, American brands should be massively upping their brand-building efforts. Not stripping this budget for retail media requirements under the vague allusion that this is “brand building.”
None of which means they can or should walk away. Walmart is where America buys things. Ignoring its media is as dumb as ignoring its shelves. But treat its retail media requests for what they are: a bottom-of-the-funnel, defensive investment that locks in your distribution. And the correct updated destination for trade promotions.
But don’t think—for one moment—that it’s brand building.
