Retail media is moving so fast that it’s easy to lose the plot, so I stitched together the strongest moments from recent conversations with Emma Curry, Aaron Campbell, Lindsay Hamm, Sarah Gillmer, and Toby Willse. The throughline is simple: new tools like AI and new channels like connected TV are powerful, but they only work when shoppers trust the message and teams inside the business stop working at cross purposes.
We dig into AI influencers and why they’re tempting for brands that want speed, brand safety, and consistent talking points. Then we get practical about influencer marketing in the retail media ecosystem: how to create evergreen creator content, build the right mix of video and still assets, and extend social creative into retailer placements. One of my favorite examples crosses into the physical store, proving omnichannel is real when creators show up beyond the feed.
From there, we zoom out to shopper psychology in the attention economy: multitasking, media overload, and the fight for meaning. That’s where nostalgia marketing, the analog comeback, and even “traditional media” re-enter the chat, not as throwbacks but as intentional ways to earn focus. We also hit the big retail media themes of 2025: full-funnel planning, measurement progress, and where CTV fits when conversion isn’t the only job to be done.
We close with the operational truth: retail media networks and platforms don’t fix silos on their own. Align brand teams, commerce teams, and sales teams, automate the repetitive work with AI, and let humans do the strategy and storytelling. Subscribe for more Retail Media Vibes, share this recap with a teammate, and leave a review with the one idea you’re going to try next.
More About this Episode
The Attention Economy: Why Trust is the New Currency in Retail Media
Retail media is moving at such a breakneck speed that it is incredibly easy to lose the plot. We are constantly bombarded with new tools, new platforms, and new metrics, but if we don't take a moment to step back and look at the throughline, we risk wasting massive budgets on noise. I recently sat down with some of the sharpest minds in the space, Emma Curry, Aaron Campbell, Lindsay Hamm, Sarah Gillmer, and Toby Willse, to stitch together the reality of where we are headed. The consensus is clear: while AI and connected TV are transformative, they are essentially useless if we lose the shopper’s trust or if our internal teams continue to work at cross purposes.
We are currently navigating a landscape where the traditional boundaries of commerce and entertainment have completely dissolved. It is no longer enough to just "buy an ad." We have to earn a seat at the table in the shopper's mind. To do that, we need to understand the intersection of high-tech automation and high-touch storytelling.
The Rise of the AI Influencer: Speed vs. Soul
One of the most provocative shifts we are seeing is the emergence of AI influencers. For a brand, the temptation is obvious. AI creators offer total brand safety, perfect consistency in talking points, and the ability to scale content at a speed no human can match. You don't have to worry about a "hot mic" moment or a creator missing a deadline.
However, we have to ask ourselves: what happens to trust when the "person" recommending a product doesn't actually have a pulse? Influencer marketing in the retail media ecosystem works because of the perceived authentic connection between the creator and the audience. As we integrate these AI tools, we have to be careful not to "rot the brain" of our marketing strategy by stripping away the humanity that drives conversion. The goal should be using AI to handle the repetitive, administrative heavy lifting, allowing human creators to focus on the nuance and storytelling that actually resonates with a shopper.
Practical Omnichannel: Extending the Creator Feed
When we talk about influencer marketing today, we have to move past the idea of a one-off social post. The most successful brands are building evergreen creator content that lives across the entire retail media funnel. This means taking social-first creative and extending it into retailer placements, on-site banners, and even into the physical store.
I love the examples where we see creators showing up beyond the phone screen. When a shopper sees a familiar face from their feed reflected on an in-store display or a Walmart TV screen, the omnichannel experience becomes a reality. It bridges the gap between the digital discovery phase and the physical point of purchase. To make this work, marketers need a healthy mix of video and still assets that can be sliced and diced for different platforms. It is about building a cohesive visual language that follows the shopper without being intrusive.
Shopper Psychology and the Fight for Meaning
We are living in an era of extreme media overload. Shoppers are multitasking, scrolling through multiple screens, and being hit with thousands of brand impressions every day. This has led to a massive attention deficit. In this environment, "louder" is rarely "better."
We are seeing a fascinating counter-trend: the analog comeback and nostalgia marketing. Consumers are starting to tune out high-gloss, hyper-digital ads in favor of things that feel grounded and intentional. Traditional media is re-entering the chat, not as a relic of the past, but as a deliberate way to earn focus. Whether it is a physical catalog, a well-placed in-store song, or a campaign that taps into a collective memory, these tactics work because they offer a break from the digital noise. They provide a sense of meaning in an economy that feels increasingly hollow.
Full-Funnel Planning and the CTV Puzzle
As we look toward 2026, the big theme is full-funnel integration. Retail media has historically been seen as a "bottom of the funnel" play, the last click before the buy button. But with the explosion of Connected TV (CTV), retail media is moving upstream.
The challenge with CTV is that it doesn't always perform like a search ad. Conversion isn't the only job to be done. CTV is about brand building and demand generation using the incredible first-party data that retailers possess. We are finally getting to a place where measurement can bridge that gap, showing how a high-impact video ad on a streaming service eventually leads to a cart addition three days later. But to unlock this, teams have to stop looking at CTV in a vacuum. It must be a coordinated part of a larger strategy that includes on-site search and in-store activations.
The Operational Truth: Breaking the Silos
You can have the most advanced AI and the biggest CTV budget in the world, but it won't fix a broken internal culture. The biggest hurdle to scaling retail media isn't technology; it is the silos inside the business. Too often, the brand team, the commerce team, and the sales team are working toward different KPIs, sometimes even competing for the same budget.
Retail media networks and platforms are just tools. They don't magically align a business. Real progress happens when leadership forces these teams to sit at the same table and agree on a unified version of the truth. We need to automate repetitive work, the bid adjustments, the reporting, the basic asset resizing, with AI so that our human talent can spend their time on strategy.
Final Thoughts for the 2026 Landscape
The retail media vibes for the coming year are all about intentionality. We have spent the last few years "moving fast and breaking things," but the next phase is about building structures that last. It is about earning attention, not just buying impressions. It is about using data to be helpful, not just haunting a shopper across the internet.
If you are a marketer in this space, my advice is simple: protect the shopper’s trust at all costs. Don't let technology outpace the human connection. Align your teams, simplify your tech stack, and focus on the stories that actually matter to the person on the other side of the screen. The ride is only getting faster, so make sure you have a solid foundation before you hit the gas.
