CANNES — Retail media has become a cornerstone of modern advertising, but delivering a truly seamless experience for both brands and shoppers remains elusive, says Stephen Howard-Sarin, managing director of retail media at ad-tech company Criteo.
“A seamless experience for brands and shoppers is hard to get,” Howard-Sarin said in an interview with Jon Watts, managing director of the Coalition for Innovation in Media Measurement, during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. “Every retail media network is attempting to surround the customer on all their points in the shopping journey… but for brands, seamless is out of reach right now. There’s a lot of complexity.”
As retail media evolves, technology providers like Criteo are stepping in to help brands better navigate this fragmented environment, from in-store screens to mobile apps, websites and off-site placements.
“All of that requires technology,” Howard-Sarin emphasized, noting that APIs, self-serve platforms and streamlined buying mechanics are essential to improving the advertiser experience.
Balancing short-term growth, long-term capabilities
Retailers building out their retail media networks (RMNs) face a constant push-pull between rapid revenue growth and sustainable infrastructure development.
“For most retailers, building an RMN is a talent problem, a technology problem, and a little bit of a culture problem,” Howard-Sarin explained. Pressures to deliver immediate ad revenue often compete with the slower, more complex work of developing scalable operations and high-quality shopper experiences.
Howard-Sarin added that many retailers grapple with fundamental questions: “What kind of organization can I build? What sort of partnerships, especially on tech, do I need? Do I have to be both a sales and a delivery organization?”
Rise of new formats to enhance product storytelling
While much of retail media today revolves around familiar formats like sponsored product ads, Howard-Sarin highlighted a growing need for richer, more engaging content to tell brand stories and differentiate products.
“The box is doing all the work for you… but if you want people to know what’s in that box and why it’s different than the one next to it, you need all these other formats,” he said.
Video, in particular, is playing a critical role both on and off retailer platforms.
“Video is king in terms of communicating features and benefits, showing a product in use, connecting with the consumer,” he noted. Short-form content within retail environments helps reinforce product attributes, while longer-form storytelling off-site builds brand awareness.
Howard-Sarin stressed that consistency across these touchpoints is key: “This pull-in of formats, starting all the way out with social video, all the way into programmatic off-site, all the way into on-site richer experiences — they all need to line up.”
As retail media networks mature, Howard-Sarin says collaboration between technology providers and retailers will be essential to solving complexity, unlocking growth, and eventually, delivering the seamless brand experience both shoppers and advertisers expect.
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