Ian Jindal is the Founder of RetailX, which organises the global Retail MediaX event series; he also founded Internet Retailing and served as Editor-in-Chief for close to 20 years before transitioning to Editor-at-Large in 2025. He has also held roles at the BBC, Bazaarvoice, and Littlewoods Shop Direct Group (now The Very Group).
Ahead of Retail MediaX Europe in London on 14th May, Retail Media Age Editor Rebecca Sentance picked his brains about where retail media came from and where it’s headed; the major emerging opportunities; and how brands and retailers can unlock its full potential.
Given your experience in this space, it would be great to get your perspective on firstly, where retail media has come from and secondly, where you see it heading?
Retail media has been around for 15 years; it’s just that it’s only recently appeared on the agenda of retailers.
It’s exciting for the retail sector because it effectively looks like a tsunami of fresh, free revenue – but for brands, it’s just the latest in a series of steps in digitalising and ‘performancifying’ – if that’s a word – their spend.
And so what you have coming together now is that thanks to data portability, the capacity to process more data, and opening up of management platforms, the whole thrust of performance marketing is now taking brand spend in its stride.
It’s the ongoing march of digital performance marketing across all channels – and as each channel becomes more open and more tractable to digital data transparency and performance tracking, then you can have an economic conversation around it.
Do you think there are any particular sticking points that keep brands – or retailers – from benefiting from the full potential of retail media?
I’d put it as three things: process, pricing, and data.
With the best will in the world, most retailers are sub-scale in the retail media world – online and offline. They are struggling to be sizeable enough – but the flip side of that is that they’re very niche and they’re very close to the customer. So, if you can then say, ‘I may be small, but I’m worth the effort’ – brands will spend on marketing.
So, getting the data into the agencies’ systems to buy, sell, trade ads is vital – but retailers aren’t good enough at that yet. There are too many ad exchanges, too many SSPs, too many DSPs – it’s just not worth it. So, that’s the process side – retailers have to get better data that’s valuable.
Then they have to give it in a way that allows it to be sold cheaply. And lastly, but not least – the value of that data isn’t yet proven.
If you’re looking at data readiness, data management, anything to do with data, we need to improve anything to do with the processes of buying, reporting, and transparency. Thirdly, the business case hasn’t settled down yet for retail media.
The value to the person getting the revenue is pretty clear – but the value to the brand isn’t entirely clear yet; and agencies have questions. Being an agency is a very low-margin business – so they don’t have time to mess around.
The question is, “Am I really making enough from this to make it worth my time?”
So, you’re saying that brands still need to be convinced that the investment in retail media is going to pay off?
If you look at it from a brand perspective, brands want to know: Is this big enough to care about? Do I even have the time to talk to you? Is it a pain to manage doing business with you? Also, thanks for all those numbers – but a, do they matter, and b, can I believe them? Is it worth it?
Is that true in every case? No, some people are happy; some people can connect the dots. But I think, overall, if you put brands, purveyors of retail media from a retail perspective, and an agency together, they will all say that they love each other – that it’s an exciting area; but that the data, the process, and the value extraction are not yet mature.
Where do you see the biggest opportunity areas emerging within retail media in the near future?
I would say that these are all optimisation vectors: they’re agreed as problems, everyone’s trying to solve them, and the pace of change and improvement is enormously high.
Will it be solved? Yes – but I think the bigger questions in retail media are: we’re all in a ‘blinded by growth opportunity’ phase. Email marketing volume is very high; ad volume is very high – if you talk to a TV viewer and ask them what they think about the in-play ad overlays during the Six Nations Rugby, if you find me anyone who likes it, I will eat my hat.
So, I think the joy of retail media – the relevance, the focus, the inspiring aspect – holding onto that as it becomes mature and efficient is going to be a challenge.
Another thing is that with most people’s data now in the cloud, it means that with the click of a few buttons, it’s very easy for smaller brands and SMEs to get on the bandwagon; and it’s much easier for traditional retailers who are no longer hidebound by legacy systems to make the most of it. And I think all of that technical capability is pointing to a smoother, faster, better world.
It’s also important to remember that every improvement in retail media also benefits the other existing digital marketing capabilities – they’re not separate any more. Anything you can do in performance marketing, we’re saying, ‘I want to do this in retail media, in addressable TV, et cetera’ – and everything we learn in retail media, we’re integrating within other media channels as well.
What advice would you give to brands that are exploring opportunities in retail media?
My advice would be: listen to the agency about new opportunities, channels, buying segments, et cetera – just to keep abreast of what’s coming online. If your agency is offering it, then they can offer it to everybody else; you want to keep up to date.
Secondly, I’d be looking at innovation and opportunities to experiment – I’d dedicate a little budget to learn to partner across these new channels; how integrated should I be; how extensive should I be; what’s the value of these segments?
And the third thing I’d be looking to do is to try and bring my teams together so I don’t have trade, creative, performance marketing all vying for budget. Ultimately there is one customer and these are facets of behaviour – and different reflections of performance. So, I’d bring those together into a holistic year-round view of the customer.
With online ads, you’re dealing with half a second – whereas with out-of-home creative you might be looking at a three-month campaign; and with TV it might be a one-year rolling shift in attitude. So, you’re already used to all of these different metrics, different timescales – and I would just work on incorporating retail media into a rounded customer view.
Any last thoughts to leave us with?
I am enthused and inspired – but not surprised – at the openness and sharing among the early pioneers in this industry as it forms. It says a lot about people’s character and their brand values that we can run an event like Retail MediaX where people are so willing to give and share openly.
I think it’s because real experts know that saying something is easy – but doing it at scale and profitably is very hard; so, they’re curious about approaches, ideas, and partnerships – and that’s what we’re seeing at the event. I’m also looking forward to celebrating all the people who are building this new industry at the Awards after the event.
The Retail MediaX Europe commerce media festival takes place at Convene London on 14th May followed by the RMX Awards Dinner. Find out more and register on the Retail MediaX site. Agencies and tech suppliers can get 25% off a ticket with the discount code RMAMP25, exclusively for Retail Media Age readers.
