In-Store Experience: The Solution to Retail Media's Growth Problem
Retail media is delivering exactly what it was designed to do.
And that may be the problem.
Across grocery and CPG, only about 10%-25% of purchases are new-to-brand. The rest are driven by shoppers who already know what they want.
At the same time, retail media continues to perform: High conversion rates, strong return on ad spend and closed-loop attribution.
Retail media is incredibly effective at capturing demand. But growth comes from creating it.
The Growth Gap Hiding in Plain Sight
Retail media operates at the moment of decision when a shopper is searching, comparing or ready to buy. That's why it works.
But in habitual categories like grocery, most decisions are predetermined. Media in that moment doesn't create new choice, it reinforces existing ones.
So, while performance looks strong, incrementality is often limited.
Highly efficient? Yes. Deeply incremental? Not by design.
Why Digital Alone Has Natural Limits
Digital retail environments are built for speed and familiarity: Search-led navigation, "Buy Again" shortcuts and personalized recommendations based on history.
These features are essential. They reduce friction. But they also reinforce familiarity. As McKinsey and Nielsen have both pointed out, personalization systems are designed to optimize for relevance, not exploration.
Digital retail media is highly effective at converting intent — but structurally limited in creating new demand.
In-Store Is Where Discovery Still Happens
Physical retail behaves differently. It is still the most influential commerce channel, with more than 60% of shoppers saying they discover new products in-store and more than 80% of purchases still happening there.
That distinction matters because discovery is what drives incrementality.
The Real Barrier to Growth Isn't Awareness; It's Confidence
Shoppers don't skip new products because they don't see them. They skip them because they're not sure.
Watch a shopper approach a new product. They pause. They hesitate. And then they default to what they know.
That hesitation is a growth barrier.
And confidence isn't built through impressions alone. It's built through experience: Tasting a product, feeling its quality and validating its value in the moment.
This is where physical retail has a unique commercial advantage. Experience turns uncertainty into action.
Where Retail Media Evolves
Retail media has unlocked enormous value by connecting media exposure directly to sales. But for brands looking to grow – not just compete – the bigger opportunity is clear:
Growth doesn’t come from being the easiest choice. It comes from becoming a new choice.
That requires more than visibility. It requires behavior change.
From Capturing Demand to Creating It
This is where experiential retail media extends the retail media model into a scalable growth engine.
But most experiences aren't designed for growth.
The most effective experiential platforms share a few defining characteristics: They operate at scale, they enable risk-free trial within the shopping journey and they capture identity and connect it to immediate and repeat purchases.
Platforms like Freeosk are defining this next phase by combining in-store product trial with digital infrastructure and retailer first-party data to make real-world discovery and incrementality measurable.
The result isn't just exposure. It's conversion from unfamiliar to trusted.
Where new demand is created.
The Next Phase of Retail Media
Retail media has proven it can measure outcomes with precision.
Now it has the opportunity to influence them more meaningfully:
- From capturing demand to creating demand;
- from optimizing conversion to driving discovery; and
- from short-term ROAS to long-term growth.
By integrating experiences that build confidence, encourage trial and change behavior, retail media can move beyond capturing value to creating it.
About the Author
Dilini Fernando is chief marketing officer at Freeosk, where she leads brand, retail and media strategy for the company’s Experiential Retail Media platform. With deep experience across CPG, retail and commerce marketing, she focuses on driving new-to-brand growth, customer lifetime value and measurable in-store impact.
