The vast majority of the advertising that gets celebrated, talked about, debated and discussed in the industry tends to look like this.
CHAPTER 1
DEFINING RETAIL MEDIA, THE REASONS FOR ITS METEORIC RISE, AND IPSOS’ EXPERIMENT
Retail Media
170
TV
162
44
118
2025 Global Media Spend ($B)
Merged Best Estimate across multiple sources: GroupM/WPP Media TYNY, MAGNA, WARC, Zenith/Publicis
Leveraging verified customer purchase history provides a precise, privacy-safe targeting alternative to dying third-party cookies.
First-party data
Retailers can directly connect an ad exposure to an online or loyalty-card transaction, providing clean attribution.
Closed-loop measurement
Proximity to purchase
Serving ads to consumers while they are actively browsing digital shelves allows brands to influence immediate purchase decisions.
So, you can see why these benefits are driving rapid growth in this channel, but there’s a problem here that the industry is sleepwalking into — a pure performance trap.
You often see this chart about the growth in the ad industry, but all of that growth is being driven by a massive shift of dollars into paid search and retail media. And right now, these channels are not really above-the-line advertising as we once knew it. They’re really the digital version of distribution and physical availability — the equivalent of gaining shelf space, end caps with shelf talkers, placing products in the check-out line to influence you when you’re worn thin and your kid is asking for a candy bar.
And so, if you re-categorize these channels to where they belong — below-the-line — then true advertising spend is not even keeping pace with the rate of inflation. And that has major implications for the entire ad industry and for brand building overall.
To scientifically isolate the impact of the retail environment and evaluate the true value of creative quality, Ipsos deployed its Creative|Spark methodology to conduct an expansive, controlled experiment.
We analyzed 25 ads across 19 brands and 8 categories, capturing the behavior of 21,152 simulated shopping experiences in the U.S. By testing the exact same creative assets across two controlled environments — a simulated Amazon or Walmart.com shopping feed versus a standard programmatic website placement — we successfully isolated the contextual impact of the retailer site on memory encoding, brand linkage, behavior change, and long-term brand equity.
The Ipsos experiment
The ad’s ability to capture attention and leave a lasting mental impression.
Memory Encoding
Brand Linkage
Evaluates whether the creative successfully nudges the viewer’s immediate intent, increasing the likelihood that they will choose, buy or interact with the brand in the near future. Performance here is indicative of sales lift.
Behavior Change
Measures the ad’s ability to deepen the consumer’s relationship with the brand, influencing how they feel about it over time. Strong performance here alters long-term brand equity and secures future market share.
Brand Closeness
HOW RETAIL CONTEXT IMPACTS CREATIVE EFFECTIVENESS
CHAPTER 2
Turns out, a lot different.
You might assume the content surrounding an ad on a retailer site would be less obtrusive than your average web content, but the data show that the retail on-site environments present a higher hurdle for creative to cut through. The context is unique in that it’s filled with other brands — often competitors. So, an ad that’s just a product with a buy-now button blends in with the rest of the site.
Seriously… can you spot the actual ads here?
How different does creative perform in a digital retail environment?
Onsite (e.g., retail site)
Offsite (e.g., website)
-47%
Memory Encoding
The ad’s ability to capture attention and encode a memory in the mind.
Average range
29%
of the VIDEO ADS tested performed the same* across all 3 platforms
of the DISPLAY ADS tested performed the same* across all 3 platforms
64%
Eight O' Clock
Average 100
Memory Encoding
+130%
Linear
CTV
Brand Linkage
+47%
Shift in Brand Choice
+20%
Shift in Brand Closeness
+14%
25 ads, mixed categories, tested across Walmart and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. N= 8,400 Display ad interviews, N=6,600 Video ad interviews; U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
Display
Video
THE FULL-FUNNEL IMPACT OF HIGH-QUALITY CREATIVE
CHAPTER 3
Out of Market
In Market
Memory Encoding
+14%
Brand
Linkage
+10%
+24%
Shift in Brand Choice
But the reality is, advertising dollars are going here — into retail media — where right now, creativity mostly goes to die.
CHAPTER 1:
INTRO
CHAPTER 2:
The Rise of the $170 Billion Creative Wasteland
Copy-Paste is Not a Strategy
CHAPTER 3:
Beyond the "Buy Now" Button
CHAPTER 4:
It's Not Brand VERSUS Performance
CHAPTER 5:
The Unseen Halo Effect
CHAPTER 6:
Choosing Creativity Over Clicks
This rapid degradation of creative quality in the industry's fastest growing channel gives us serious pause.
At Ipsos, we have spent decades tracking how creative excellence drives long-term business returns. To understand if retail media is truly a creative dead-end – or an untapped canvas – we leaned into our own craft of intentional research to unpack:
How different does creative perform in a digital retail environment?
Can advertising in retailer environments have an impact beyond the immediate click and conversion we’re all chasing?
What does high quality creative look like in retail digital media?
How does measurement need to evolve to ensure we make the right creative choices for brand building outcomes?
Ipsos Research Scope: On-site Retail Media
Retail Digital Media is the practice of brands purchasing digital advertising space directly from a retailer, powered by the retailer’s exclusive, first-party shopper data. These retailer platforms are often referred to as “Retail Media Networks” or “RMN”, for short. Advertising in Retail Digital Media can either be placed “on-site” (inside the retailer’s digital ecosystem) or “off-site” (social media, open web, connected TV, in store, etc.). This research is focused on understanding how creative works on-site in the retailer’s web/mobile app environment.
Retail sites present a high hurdle for advertising to cut through.
What we found
To build brand and create future demand, you need high quality creative.
While the average ad can convert someone who is close to purchase & likely to buy your brand anyway, high quality creative is +21% more effective among those who are not currently in market.
In several cases, relying on ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) alone pointed toward weaker creative assets. Chasing higher ROAS could cause us to ignore the halo effect of high quality creative on brand building.
Current closed-loop measurement systems sell the channel short.
The impact of creative quality in retail media is real and the payoff is larger than the industry has credited. Retail media can drive upper-funnel growth, but only if we allow creative to do its job and only if we are looking for it with the right measurement signals.
The industry is sleepwalking into a dangerous trap, moving capital closer and closer to the point of purchase at the expense of creating future demand.
Creativity is how brands reclaim their future. In a world obsessed with short term, creativity is the only force that compounds over time. It’s the only thing that leaves an enduring trace. It’s the only thing that turns a blank space into a brand space.
Leverage this research to make the definitive business case for creativity in retail media within your own organizations. Because “Creativity Over Clicks” is not just the name of this report; it’s a choice that the industry needs to make.
What this means
To understand why this conversation is critical right now, we have to follow the money. Global media spend in 2025 highlights a staggering shift: retail media has officially surpassed the entire television ecosystem (TV + CTV combined). Despite this massive influx of capital, the channel remains a creative wasteland. The vast majority of dollars are poured into standard sponsored listings or basic product shots paired with a “buy now” button.
Retail media is now worth more than TV + CTV combined
The meteoric rise of RMN is driven by a highly compelling "Holy Trinity" value proposition that seemingly solves modern marketing’s biggest measurement hurdles:
What does retail media promise?
There’s a sneaky fourth “benefit” that’s talked about less — what many in the industry quietly refer to as “the
retailer tax.”
If you’re a large, established brand, shoveling more money into RMNs protects your physical shelf space and also your digital keywords from competition. Increasing spend here has compounding effects. It allows you to play defense and offense at the same time.
The Silent Fourth Driver - The "Retailer Tax"
Merged Best Estimate across multiple sources: GroupM/WPP Media TYNY, MAGNA, WARC, Zenith/Publicis
There's real innovation happening in retail media — and we applaud the retailers pioneering it.
Offerings are moving beyond traditional paid search placements to real display ads, some platforms bringing video to search, in-store digital screens, and increased numbers of placements shifting off-site. And with many of these retailer networks investing in Connected TV platforms, content, and influencer partnerships, retail media is rapidly evolving from a static digital shelf into a dynamic creative canvas.
This newfound room to play triggered fundamental questions that today’s legacy attribution metrics are structurally blind to. We set out to understand: How much does creative quality matter in retail media? Can it only make us “add to cart” or is it capable of brand building?
There is hope
How tightly the creative content is tied to the brand.
It’s cinematic. The craft and production value are exceptional. The 30, 60, sometimes 90-second run times allow for emotional storytelling, celebrity, cultural connection, and relatively complex brand messaging.
It’s beautiful and thoughtful work. Some of the best are even delightful and entertaining for a viewer who is otherwise an unwilling participant.
This work is something to be proud of.
These feeds are cluttered. The creative is basic. It’s cold, utilitarian, and formulaic – a product shot, a headline if you’re lucky, and a “buy now” button. Best case, its forgettable. Worst case, it’s annoying. Let’s be honest—this is not the type of work that’s winning an award anytime soon.
When shoppers are on a website or scrolling social, they’re often in more of a passive, leisurely entertainment mode. Ads are getting in the way of what they want to view. In a retailer environment, they are more likely to be in a mission-based mindset. While creative that can grab attention has the potential to capture an impulse purchase (“Let’s try this! Why not?”), shoppers may be more prone to ignoring ads to stay on task (“Leave me alone, I need to get my shopping done!”).
The result is that the same creative is dramatically harder to remember inside a retail environment. We see a massive 47% drop off for ads served onsite vs. offsite.
Shoppers are in different mindsets on retailer sites
25 ads, mixed categories, tested across offsite and onsite (i.e., Walmart.com and Amazon) simulated environments via Creative|Spark. N=3,750 offsite interviews; N=15,000 for onsite interviews; U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
To add another layer of complexity, the same creative performed differently across Amazon, Walmart, and off-site environments.
Winning in RMN is not as easy as selecting your best performing digital assets and porting them over. These aren’t interchangeable placements and the difference in context means that each is its own creative canvas.
Different by design
*Same performance means landing within the same Creative Effectiveness Index (CEI) tertile in the Ipsos Spark database. CEI is an Ipsos measure validated to short-term sales lift in market.
25 ads, mixed categories, tested across offsite (e.g., website) and onsite (i.e., Walmart.com and Amazon) simulated environments via Creative|Spark. N=3,752 offsite environment interviews; N=7,500 Walmart.com interviews; N=7,500 Amazon interviews, N= 10,502 Display ad interviews, N=8,250 Video ad interviews; U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
In this preliminary round of research, we found no discernable pattern in performance from one retailer site to the other.
To illustrate with a few examples, the Eight O’Clock display ad delivered strong creative quality on Amazon, but didn’t translate on Walmart. The KIND video was one of the top performers in the Walmart environment of the entire study, but doesn’t even hit the average threshold on Amazon.
With brands anticipating expanding from an average of six retail media networks to eight by the end of 2026*, and many major brands working with upwards of 30 networks, that’s potential for a significant amount of wasted spend if assets are not appropriately tailored.
25 ads, mixed categories, tested across Walmart.com and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. Each ad had N=300 Walmart.com interviews and N=300 Amazon interviews, U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
*Skai x Stratably, 2026 State of Retail Media Study, n=143
Videos are significantly more likely to deliver a branded impression and to drive brand outcomes in an RMN environment vs. display. Within many marketing organizations, these premium formats face internal resistance because the limited metrics available to determine return on investment spread belief that less expensive display ads work just as well.
When we give creative room to breathe, it actively builds future demand
It can… if the creative is good.
While the average ad can convert someone who is close to purchase, only high-quality creative can move people who are out of market towards consideration in the future.
Can advertising in retailer environments have an impact beyond the immediate click and conversion we're all chasing?
Put simply: targeting people in-market helps your ads work harder. Our data confirms the foundational promise of retail media targeting: matching assets with actively “in-market” category shoppers yields a significantly higher baseline performance. When comparing shoppers ready to buy the category right now versus those who were out-of-market, we find a 14% performance gap in memory encoding, a 10% variance in brand linkage, and a 24% difference in immediate brand choice shift.
Targeting 'in-market' shoppers secures the final mile
25 ads, mixed categories, tested across Walmart and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. N= 10,433 In-Market interviews (intending to buy the category right now), N=5,415 Out of Market interviews (not intending to buy the category right now, but are open to buying in the future), U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
Out of Market
In Market
When measuring long-term brand equity impacts, the in-market advantage entirely disappears. This matters because the vast majority of consumers are not in-market to buy your category, online, right now. For many CPG categories, less than 25% of total sales happen online. Over-indexing on the immediate transaction ignores future demand and fails to influence the offline majority.
The performance efficiency disappears the moment we look at brand building
Shift in Brand Closeness
25 ads, mixed categories, tested across Walmart and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. N= 10,433 In-Market interviews (intending to buy the category right now), N=5,415 Out of Market interviews (not intending to buy the category right now, but are open to buying in the future), U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
If we double-click into the in-market group, we can segment them into two distinct mindsets: Decided Shoppers (who enter the platform with a single brand in mind) and Undecided Shoppers (who are considering a variety of brands). The research clearly demonstrates that incremental sales growth does not come from converting loyalists who have already made up their minds. Instead, the real battleground — and the highest point of leverage for an ad — is capturing the undecided category shoppers who are actively weighing their options at the digital shelf.
Most 'incremental sales' will come from undecided shoppers
Average Behavior Change Lift
+9pt
+6pt
Undecided
Out of Market
Decided
25 ads, mixed categories, tested across Walmart and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. N= 3,112 Decided interviews (intending to buy a single brand right now), N=7,321 Undecided interviews (intending to buy from a set of brands right now); N=5,415 Out of Market interviews (not intending to buy the category right now, but are open to buying in the future), U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
Low Creative Quality (Brand Attention <100)
High Creative Quality (Brand Attention >100)
Decided
Undecided
+12%
Out of Market
+21%
In this study, Ipsos evaluates creative quality based on Brand Attention – an ad’s verified ability to break through retail clutter and leave a lasting mental impression explicitly linked to the brand. Brand Attention serves as our proxy for creative quality because it proves an asset has the intentional craft required to leave a branded memory.
For decided shoppers, the caliber of the ad doesn’t register a statistical difference — they are already on a fixed conversion path. However, for undecided shoppers, high creative quality drives a 12% lift in short-term choice and for consumers out-of-market, superior creative quality unlocks a 21% performance premium over low-quality ads.
Creative quality matters more with those further from purchase
Average Behavior Change Lift
25 ads, mixed categories, tested across Walmart and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. N= 3,112 Decided interviews (intending to buy a single brand right now), N=7,321 Undecided interviews (intending to buy from a set of brands right now); N=5,415 Out of Market interviews (not intending to buy the category right now, but are open to buying in the future), U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
Super Bowl Study: 152 ads from 2020-2025, tested via Creative|Spark. Total Sample 22,680 interviews, U.S., Men & Women, A18-65 . Retail Media Study: 25 ads, mixed categories, tested across Walmart and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. Total Sample 15,000 interviews, U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
Retail Media Ads (RMN)
RMN Ads have a Super Bowl-sized Quality Gap & Similar Volatility
We expect the Super Bowl ads to vary in creative quality. Every year, multi-million-dollar bets land everywhere from legendary cultural moments to absolute flops. The data show that retail media ads share this exact same dynamic. The spread between the best and worst RMN ads on Creative Effectiveness is virtually identical to the past five years of Super Bowl commercials.
If you think retail media is just "functional" shelf-space where creative quality doesn't fluctuate like traditional media, the data say otherwise. The risk of airing a dud — and the upside of a home run — is just as high in RMNs as it is on advertising’s biggest stage. With brands sinking as much money into retail media as in the entire TV ecosystem, ensuring high quality creative is the path for brands to gain a competitive advantage. If you want to build brand, creative quality cannot continue to be ignored in this channel.
You wouldn't gamble on the Super Bowl. Why risk running poor creative in RMN?
Stop treating RMN creative like a safe bet
Floor: 12.0
Ceiling: 204.1
Creative Volatility (STD Dev) 49.4
Super Bowl Ads (Past 5 Years)
Floor: 9.1
Ceiling: 222.3
Creative Volatility (STD Dev) 49.6
0
75
150
225
Creative Effect Index
STRONG PERFORMANCE MEDIA IS BRAND MEDIA
CHAPTER 4
It looks like good “brand advertising”.
Too often, advertisers treat the line between brand-building and performance marketing as a binary choice. They improperly assign rigid, limiting assumptions to how creative is allowed to show up and look depending on objective and by channel.
A large driver of this dynamic is the measurement offered within the channel. If all I can get a read on is lower funnel metrics – and that’s how my goals are set – then of course creative choices are going to be geared towards showcasing an immediate call-to-action over implementing brand building best practices.
What does high quality creative look like in RMN?
Typical Performance Mindset
Objective: Immediate conversion; short-term sales spikes Strategy: Purely rational, feature, price driven Creative: Hyper product-centric; basic product shots Learning Plan: Minimal / non-existent creative research
Typical Brand Mindset
Objective: Long-term equity; sustained market share Strategy: Emotional resonance, human connection Creative: Distinctive brand assets, storytelling Learning Plan: Robust learning plans that enable creative bravery
What we found in this research is that the most effective creative — the ads that drove short term choice AND built brand with those out of market — employed tactics that are usually banished from performance marketing:
But the reality is, high performance retail media is brand media
Leverages distinctive brand assets – ideally beyond the pack / logo
Connected to the brand’s broader omnichannel campaign
Simple storytelling
Simple stories win, even in small spaces. You don’t need a 30 second TV spot to tell a story. Even within tight digital banners and 6 second videos, micro-narratives outperform.
Simple storytelling
Fiji Water showcases stunning visuals and a cinematic approach to help the ad stand out and “stop-the-scroll”.
This Extra ad is visually bold with upbeat music and dynamic graphics that immediately grab attention. The ad shows a diverse group of girls in a locker room to create a simple, but powerful moment that many people can relate to.
Retail Media Study: 25 ads, mixed categories, tested across Walmart and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. Total Sample 15,000 interviews, U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
Use of Distinctive Brand Assets with the Ad – Phase 1 Pilot (N=25)
Number of brand assets leveraged (High quality = 5, Low quality = 3)
Ads with higher-quality creative used more distinctive brand assets on average vs. lower-quality creative. Top performing creative are more likely to leverage unique colors, package shapes, or memorable slogans that make the brand instantly recognizable. Distinctive characters and music, which are some of the most powerful assets brands can own, are rarely deployed in digital advertising, including retail media. Not tapping into the brand’s most unique assets more often in these environments is a major missed opportunity to build mental availability and reinforce those distinctive connections.
2. Distinctive brand assets
Lower Creative Quality (Brand Attention Under 100)
High Creative Quality (Brand Attention Over 100)
This ad is a masterclass in deploying distinctive brand assets everywhere. The data shows us that taste, texture, and scent assets are our second-most powerful tools, driving nearly two and a half times more brand attention. Because Cheez-It leaned into its iconic brand world rather than just a generic product shot, this creative successfully cut through the noise on Walmart.com. It not only drove immediate sales, but actually raised awareness for lesser-known flavor extensions, proving that when we commit to creativity, even the most transactional environments can build lasting brand love.
Gülen Bengi, Lead CMO, Mars & CGO, Mars Snacking
Don’t force the consumer to do the connective tissue work – maintain the creative thread. Just because an RMN ad is handled by a different agency, shopper team, or budget, doesn’t mean it should be divorced from the broader, overarching brand campaign.
The vast majority of ads in RMN have no obvious connection to an overall brand campaign. Can you tell which brands these belong to?
3. Connected to the broader omnichannel campaign
In this landscape, retail media is an ever-growing, vital creative canvas that isn't just effective at the final touchpoint; it can play a role at any stage. When we create a sequence of fantastic touchpoints that build on each other, we cannot end that chain with a generic $2.99 ‘buy now’ offer on a blank white page.
We need to continue the creativity through the very end.
Gülen Bengi, Lead CMO, Mars & CGO, Mars Snacking
Of all 25 ads tested in this study, the top performer was a 15-second video from M&M’S. This ad is “brand-formance” at its finest. The ad gains attention through the very elements that make you want to buy now AND later. As a result, this ad vastly outperformed benchmarks on both short-term behavior change and long-term equity
building potential.
The top performing ad in our study puts all the pieces together
HOW TO EVOLVE MEASUREMENT TO OPTIMIZE FOR THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT
CHAPTER 5
Don’t get tunnel vision by relying on ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) and closed-loop as your only signal. By measuring creative quality, you open a window to understanding the broader impact your creative has.
Standard retail network tracking relies on narrow attribution windows. As a result, brands are constantly optimizing for the conversion of people who were already going to buy anyway, remaining completely blind to the multiplier happening upstream.
How does measurement need to evolve to ensure we make the right creative choices for brand building outcomes?
This Folgers result highlights the danger of relying on standard performance tracking. When looking through a traditional lens, the ad showed solid, expected ability to reinforce the brand among consumers who were actively looking to buy soon.
But when we expand the window to those open to buying in the future, the ad sees 1.8x stronger persuasion ability among upper-funnel consumers compared to lower-funnel immediate buyers. If the brand optimized its retail media spend based purely on immediate, lower funnel transaction data, it would completely undervalue this video asset.
Let's look at a few real-world examples...
Among those who said they are...
Average Behavior Change Shifts
Open to buying in the future
May purchase again
Looking to buy soon
+13.2
+9.2
+7.5
1.8X
Stronger persuasion ability among upper funnel consumers vs. lower
25 ads, mixed categories, tested across Walmart and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. N= 436 “Looking to buy soon” interviews (intending to buy a category right now), N=113 “May purchase again” interviews (buy the category regularly, but won’t be buying it for a while); N=51 “Open to buying” interviews (have never bought the category, but are open to it in the future), U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
*Creative Effectiveness Index (CEI) = Short Term Impact validated to sales lift in market
**Equity Effect Index (EEI) = Long Term Impact validated to Brand Desire (as measured in Ipsos Brand Health Tracking)
Ads tested across Walmart and Amazon simulated environments via Creative|Spark. N=1,000 interviews per ad, U.S., Men & Women, A18-65
Ad blinded for client confidentiality
The Brand Builder
When Ipsos investigated whether platform metrics like Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) were correlated with our ad effectiveness KPIs, we found that relying on ROAS alone consistently points us toward weaker creative assets.
In this example, if the marketing team had optimized retail media allocations purely on immediate click attribution, standard optimization logic would have shifted budget away from the 300x250 unit and funnel it into the skyscraper format. In doing so, the team would have been opting out of a +64 point lift in brand building potential just to chase a short-term metrics illusion.
The Efficiency Illusion
300x250
160x600
Ad blinded for client confidentiality
Significantly below average
ROAS
153
Long term brand building potential (Ipsos**)
149
Sales Lift Potential (Ipsos*)
Result
KPI
Average
ROAS
89
Long term brand building potential (Ipsos**)
87
Sales Lift Potential (Ipsos*)
Result
KPI
ELEVATING RETAIL MEDIA FROM A DISTRIBUTION TACTIC TO A BRAND CANVAS
CHAPTER 6
To prevent retail media from permanently hardening into a below-the-line distribution tactic, both sides of the ecosystem must shift how they evaluate success. Retail media can act as a powerful vehicle for true advertising, but only if we stop measuring it exclusively as a digital endcap. Today, 54% of advertisers actively name better measurement as a critical requirement to justify spending their next dollar.*
A call-to-action for the marketplace
Gülen Bengi, Lead CMO, Mars & CGO, Mars Snacking
We can only liberate creativity if we measure its true impact on business results. Today, we are cracking the code of measurement in a world where 50% of brand building is unpaid, creativity can come from anywhere, and purchase decisions are the result of a sequence of fragmented events rather than just a single ad. To make measurement truly decision-grade, we have to look past the final click and understand exactly which creative work starts the decision chain, which enhances it, and which ultimately converts – helping us answer the ultimate question: how do I spend my next dollar?
We can elevate retail media back to a true above-the-line brand building canvas if we measure its impact on long-term consumer relationships, not just final-mile conversions. Ipsos provides a cohesive framework designed to answer marketing’s ultimate question: How do I spend my next dollar?
From choice to reality: how Ipsos enables creativity over clicks
Early-stage screening & visual audits
We partner across the industry to optimize retail media assets along the creative development journey:
Quickly filter and choose the strongest key visuals, product messaging, and distinctive brand assets before launch. Create brand guidelines and briefs informed by what assets will create brand attention in a retailer environment.
Utilizing targeted Creative Audits, we can address specific creative questions around layout effectiveness, mapping campaign cohesion across omnichannel touchpoints, and creating definitive playbooks to push for higher creative allowances or democratize best practices.
Platform & Campaign Analytics
We embed creative effectiveness measurement directly into platform ad sales menus and measurement ecosystems, allowing ad networks to move beyond basic attribution and scientifically prove that premium placements drive differential business results and long-term brand equity alongside short-term sales.
Retailer Menu Integration
Test on-site, off-site, or in-store ads directly within interactive, simulated environments to evaluate true behavioral changes, branded memory encoding, and impact across both in-market and out-of-market consumers.
Interactive context testing
Contributors
Lisa Zielinski
Senior Vice President, U.S. Creative Excellence, Ipsos
President, U.S. Creative Excellence, Ipsos
Pedr Howard
Vice President, U.S. Creative Excellence, Ipsos
Amanda Tobias
Vice President, U.S. Creative Excellence, Ipsos
Sherry Dickerson
Vice President, U.S. Creative Excellence, Ipsos
Sarah Maddox
Authors
Research Leads
Get in touch
Lisa.Zielinski@Ipsos.com
However, this efficiency advantage exposes a critical strategic nuance: these shoppers are naturally highly responsive because they enter the platform with existing brand memories and pre-established intent. While targeting precision excels at closing the final mile with consumers who are already inclined to buy, evaluating a channel only by these high-intent conversions creates dangerous blind spots, mistaking simple demand harvesting for true future demand creation.
Don't confuse demand harvesting with demand creation
Merged Best Estimate across multiple sources: GroupM/WPP Media TYNY, MAGNA, WARC, Zenith/Publicis
High-performance retail media is brand media, capable of planting the seeds for future demand far beyond the immediate digital cart. Today’s closed-loop, hyper-focused ROI metrics are blind to this dynamic. Because standard retail network tracking relies on narrow attribution and immediate clicks, brands are constantly optimizing for the conversion of people who were already going to buy anyway. They can’t even see the 21% multiplier happening upstream.
This is the unseen halo effect of retail media
*Skai x Stratably, 2026 State of Retail Media Study, n=162
RECLAIMING RETAIL MEDIA FOR BRAND BUILDING
Ads were 47% less likely to be remembered in a retailer site vs. a programmatic placement.
KIND
Walmart
Amazon
For Brand Advertisers
Widen your attribution window and leverage high-quality creative to engage out-of-market audiences upstream. Bring your creative agencies into the retail media loop early to safeguard the creative control required to deliver impactful work rather than passively accepting sterile templates.
Showcase the full funnel potential of your platform by evolving your measurement signals. Measuring ROAS alone is no longer a differentiator and it actively sells your platform short. Embed tools directly into your ad menus that help brands build better ads that are fit for your platform “canvas.” Prove your ecosystem can scale long-term brand equity alongside short-term conversions.
For Retailers & Platforms
Attention Drivers
Bright yellow background stands out in feed
Simple, easy to follow story with the brand as the star.
Use of character/mascot - the most effective distinctive brand assets at driving brand attention*
Use of humor as the character questions, “Wait – there’s a peanut inside me?”
Buy Now Drivers
Ease of product recognition
Hedonic appeal of the close-up on the peanut and chocolate makes you crave the product immediately
Consistency with omnichannel campaign builds synergies to raise boats across all touchpoints
Future Demand Drivers
Use of distinctive assets builds memory structures
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