Tesco Media has fully launched premium video ad placements within its website and app after a period of trialling the placements with select partners, including Diageo and PepsiCo.
Tesco had previously shared news of its foray into video at Tesco Media Upfront 2025 in October, stating that the format would let advertisers “extend brand storytelling at a key moment of influence” while enabling them to “connect awareness campaigns directly to purchasing decisions”.
Comments from Tesco Media’s Managing Director Tash Whitmey indicated that Tesco intends the format to deliver both upper-funnel brand-building and lower-funnel performance. Whitmey said, “[C]ampaigns are most effective when they deliver both, yet achieving that balance has often proved difficult, when many digital environments still separate storytelling from shoppable moments.”
PepsiCo’s Emma Cathie-Harris added that the company sees video placements as an opportunity to support new product development (NPD) launches, which will benefit from brand storytelling, as well as a way to amplify core brands.
More discussion has started to circulate around the potential of video in retail media, but the format is still relatively uncommon. In the US, Walmart currently offers Sponsored Videos – five- to 45-second video spots that appear as shoppers scroll through search results – and Criteo added shoppable video formats to its on-site media mix in April 2025.
The retail media platform reported positive results for partner Albertsons Media Collective during testing, with Onsite Video Ads and Sponsored Product Ads combined delivering a 280% increase in click-through rates and a 460% lift in sales.
Video advertising would be more resource-intensive as a format for brands to create, but potentially worthwhile if it delivers consistent results. During a panel at Advertising Week Europe in which panellists discussed how to achieve results along the full funnel, Rachel Morgan-Jones, Head of Media and Digital Planning UK at Diageo, shared that the organisation had had success with ads that combine elements of brand and performance.
“Where we can, collapsing the funnel but having ads that are doing two very distinct jobs works best for us,” she stated.
As video in retail media takes off, it may serve as a crucial step towards aligning brand and performance efforts for advertisers – as well as a step along the path of retail media’s full-funnel evolution.
Read more: Inside Tesco Media’s evolution: retail media, creative formats and customer-centric innovation
