CANNES – The Trade Desk is betting that retail media’s future depends on traditionally separate divisions within retailers learning to work together toward common goals.
“We are so excited about the ‘One Retail’ vision that we have at The Trade Desk,” Jill Smith, the ad tech platform’s VP Business Development, Retail, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. “This vision is centered around the next wave of retail media, and that is around the retail media divisions and the retail brand marketing divisions working more intentionally together to drive growth for brands and for the retailers.”
This collaborative approach represents a shift from the siloed operations that have traditionally separated retail media from brand marketing within major retailers.
Open commerce meets open internet
The Trade Desk’s long-standing advocacy for the open internet extends naturally to retail media through what Smith calls “open commerce.”
“About 75% of a user’s time is spent in the open internet,” Smith said. “You think personally or yourself, your time watching Roku, your time watching Netflix, your time watching Peacock, listening to Spotify. That’s all the open internet.”
The aim is to make all of these environments commerce-enabled in ways that complement the content experience. “Our goal is to make all of that commerce enabled in a way that complements that experience while a user is consuming amazing premium content,” she said.
Creative commerce strategy
When working with retailers, The Trade Desk starts with fundamental business objectives rather than jumping straight to tactics. These objectives might include growing a category or regaining lost households.
“It’s important for us to start with that at the top,” Smith noted. “And then we formulate what is the best creative commerce way to center around that objective.”
The approach spans multiple channels — from CTV to audio, podcasts, and display. The Trade Desk’s technology helps identify which channels will move the needle most effectively based on specific KPIs.
Full-funnel meets friction removal
Smith acknowledged that “full-funnel” has become one this year’s most frequently mentioned terms at Cannes, alongside AI. But she sees it connecting to another important trend: removing friction from the consumer journey.
“I’m hearing [about] removing friction. How do those worlds come together? How do you convert faster?” she said.
The growth of CTV creates new opportunities to personalize experiences while maintaining privacy. This personalization can accelerate conversion and leverage full-funnel approaches more effectively.
Breaking down the walls
The traditional separation between performance marketing and brand building appears to be eroding in retail media. By using privacy-safe personalization through CTV and other channels, retailers can create experiences that serve both objectives simultaneously.
“At the end of the day, we need to all siloed divisions work together to work toward that common objective,” Smith concluded.
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