Retail Media Age Editor-in-Chief Justin Pearse sat down with Stacy Gratz, Sales and Marketing Director, and Alena Rossini, Head of Corporate Strategy at Tesco Media, to explore the journey of Tesco Media, how data and creative innovation are shaping the future of retail media, and what lies ahead for the UK’s most mature retail media network.
Can you tell us about the Tesco Media journey so far and how your proposition has evolved?
Alena Rossini: Tesco has been working with brands for decades, but retail media as it’s understood today really took shape with digitalisation. We’ve carved out Tesco Media as an independent business unit, focused on advertiser needs, while staying connected to Tesco’s core operations. That allows us to innovate across a wide set of channels and create a cohesive experience for both brands and shoppers.
Stacy Gratz: We’ve actually been doing retail media for more than 20 years. What’s changed in recent years is the digitisation of the space and the formalisation of our offer. We’ve built significant off-site partnerships with major media owners, grown our on-site capabilities, and we’re digitising the in-store environment as well.
What trends in consumer behaviour are driving the growth of retail media?
Alena Rossini: Clubcard has just celebrated its 30th anniversary, so insights aren’t new to us. But what has changed is how brands are realising the value of that data. They’re using it to not just understand shopper behaviour, but also to plan who they reach and how. The shopping journey is more blended between online and in-store, but the biggest shift is in access to insights and how we translate that into action with advertisers.
Stacy Gratz: We’ve got 24 million Clubcard users, so we’re incredibly representative of the UK market. That means, if you’re a media planner, the insights we provide don’t just inform your Tesco plan, they can inform your entire UK campaign. That level of insight gives our partners a huge advantage.
Can you talk about your partnerships with media agencies like GroupM and what they look for from you?
Stacy Gratz: I can’t go into too much detail about the structure, but broadly speaking, agencies want to be able to tell their clients as much as possible about their customers. They want to know the right channels and right moments.
Thanks to the insights we hold, we can help agencies add value across the board. We’re also working with them on new formats and innovations, and measurement is a big area of focus too. Those are the key pillars of these partnerships.
Measurement is a hot topic in retail media. How are you approaching it?
Alena Rossini: We’re confident that we drive value for brands, but it’s also true that measurement across retail media is still evolving. There are challenges with fragmentation and standardisation. We’re good at the standard metrics like ROI by channel, but the real ambition is to get to omnichannel incrementality.
That’s about access to data, data sharing, and building internal capabilities. We’re investing heavily in this space and testing different methodologies depending on the campaign.
Creativity in retail media has arguably lagged behind. Is that changing?
Stacy Gratz: Absolutely. We’ve launched several new formats this year. We’ve done store wraps, like at Wembley for Christmas, and created a store-within-a-store concept, which brands can sponsor. For example, Coca-Cola wrapped some of our delivery vans with their iconic Christmas branding.
We’re also working on special builds with JCDecaux screens and testing video. Plus, we’re creating content partnerships with brands like Birra Moretti through food and recipe platforms. These are all part of creating brand fame in a retail environment.
Alena Rossini: What’s important is that brands aren’t just asking us to create formats. They’re coming to us wanting to co-create. That shift toward partnership and co-creation is a really exciting evolution in the market.
How do you ensure that creativity doesn’t compromise the customer experience?
Stacy Gratz: That’s non-negotiable for us. Tesco has a customer team that we work with closely. They review every creative proposal to ensure it enhances rather than disrupts the shopping experience. We’re running video trials now, and if anything were to negatively affect the shopper, we simply wouldn’t move forward with it.
What role does brand versus performance play in your approach?
Stacy Gratz: We’ve got a full funnel approach, from brand awareness to performance formats like search and CRM. I sometimes joke about hating the phrase “marketing funnel”, but it’s true that we have a model that supports every stage.
There’s always a risk of brands falling into what we call the “ROAS trap”, focusing too much on short-term return. That’s why we’re also working on new brand metrics to show the full value.
Alena Rossini: We’re increasingly seeing that it’s not performance versus brand, but performance plus brand. They amplify each other. In a fragmented world, the key is connecting all the touchpoints, not separating them.
Out-of-home and in-store screens are becoming more sophisticated. How are you incorporating these into your offer?
Stacy Gratz: We’ve massively grown our screen network, both outside the store with JCDecaux and inside with our own digital screens. They’re at gondola ends and at key points like Scan As You Shop. It’s all part of building a connected store. Someone on Alena’s team is focused full-time on defining what the future connected store looks like. It’s a high-attention, high-reach space and very attractive to advertisers.
How are you helping agencies use Tesco data to supercharge campaigns in other channels like CTV?
Stacy Gratz: We’ve got off-site partnerships with Meta, Pinterest, broadcasters, and platforms like The Trade Desk. Brands can take our audiences and apply them to their linear, CTV, or digital video buys. It’s already well-established in the US, and we’re seeing strong growth here too. It lets advertisers create smarter campaigns across the whole media plan.
Retail media requires new types of talent and team structures. What changes have you made internally?
Stacy Gratz: When I joined three years ago, we started transforming the team. You need people who understand both traditional shopper marketing and programmatic media. That combination doesn’t exist in one person, so we’ve brought in talent from Meta, Amazon, and agencies, and blended them with retail experts.
We also created an interfaces team that connects Tesco Media with Tesco’s core teams, like category, legal, and privacy. That’s helped us function as a proper media business inside a retailer.
Alena Rossini: The structure itself is fairly traditional, but the key difference is the mix of skill sets. The diversity of backgrounds across retail, data, and media gives us a unique perspective. And of course, the support of Dunnhumby’s data and analytics capabilities plays a crucial role too.
As retail becomes more of a media business, do you see tensions emerging with the core retail operation?
Alena Rossini: Those tensions tend to appear early on, during the innovation phase. But as things mature, it becomes more about optimising existing formats and building bigger brand engagements. That naturally reduces tension. Retail media is no longer a bolt-on, it’s becoming central to Tesco’s strategy.
What are you most excited about for the rest of the year?
Stacy Gratz: I’m excited about video, but also the evolution of how we work with clients. We’re not just the last line on a media plan anymore. We’re in the room with media directors, performance teams, and planners, having meaningful conversations. We’re launching instore activations, exclusive product campaigns, and the results are really powerful. It’s been a career highlight.
Alena Rossini: I’m excited about the continued integration with Tesco. The way Tesco talks about retail media has shifted, and it’s becoming more strategic. That’s leading to more investment in tech and transformation, which will positively impact how we engage with the wider industry.
