Retail Media: The Untapped Powerhouse of Brand Building

Retail media has an increasingly relevant role further up the brand health funnel for many marketers. There is significant industry discussion and focus on upper-funnel campaigns run by retail media networks and powered by retailer's first-party data. However, compared to conversion metrics and even consideration, there is a surprising lack of data measuring how well retail media can impact brand awareness and equity at the top of the funnel.

This lack of data has been driven partly by available methodologies and partly by timeframes – with many brands tracking brand health once or twice a year across all marketing activities or conducting brand uplift studies on a single campaign in a single media channel. Against this backdrop, SMG and the Path to Purchase Institute teamed with marketing effectiveness consultancy MESH Experience to shine a light on this specific topic and field a comprehensive study covering more than 16,000 consumer experiences across multiple categories and retail channels.

SMG and P2PI asked Fiona Blades, MESH Experience's president and chief experience office, to share the research findings that have convinced her that retail media is an untapped powerhouse for brand building.