CANNES — For many modern agencies trying to prove their worth, the ultimate challenge lies in connecting the dots between a consumer seeing an ad and making a purchase.
In that quest, manyare increasingly looking to retail media networks, which hold the first-party purchase data necessary to verify whether a campaign truly influenced a sale.
This is the assessment of Julian Mintz, VP, ad sales at Albertsons Media Collective, who believes retail media’s core asset is its ability to help marketers finally achieve their “holy grail”.
From media buyer to data partner
The relationship between agencies and retail media networks (RMNs) is undergoing a significant transformation. According to Mintz, the focus is moving beyond simple ad placements toward more profound strategic alliances built on data fidelity and shared measurement goals.
“They’re always going to look for impactful media that can help drive results,” he said. “But more and more they’re engaging in true partnership, around transparency, around measurement.”
To that end, Albertsons has previously introduced a preliminary framework for standardizing industry metrics to improve transparency.
“In order to create the type of value that we know they can for their brands, bringing more assets to the table to power that media planning has been critical. So that’s why you see them investing in data assets and technology assets to really act like a full stack platform,” Mintz explained.
Connecting the full funnel
For Mintz, Albertson’s Media Collective is itself looking to collapse the funnel and prove value.
Mintz posed a hypothetical that illustrates the goal: “How does an ad that shows up on TV in a sporting event tie in to sponsored search on our website to actually help drive sale of a product?”
RMNs are expanding into off-site channels, including connected TV. Albertsons recently launched its own “Collective TV” service to deliver shoppable ads across CTV inventory, and in April introduced shoppable video ads in partnership with Criteo. This trend is gaining significant traction, with one eMarketer forecast projecting off-site retail media ad spend will grow 42.1% in 2025.
Breaking down these functional barriers is a primary motivation for RMNs and their partners, Mintz stated. “Right now, frankly, oftentimes they exist in silos. Everybody’s very motivated to break down those silos. That’s a lot of the conversations that we’re having here at Cannes and elsewhere,” he said.
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