Good afternoon from Retail Media Age HQ,
One of the highlights of my week was attending several talks at the always-excellent Retail Technology Show, where I enjoyed listening to Dean Kramer, Chief Services Officer at Currys, talk about the organisation’s approach to data and customer behaviour; Jamie Kristow, CEO at Cotswold Outdoor Group, talk about building the group’s retail media network from scratch; and Anthony Houghton, Group CEO at Holland & Barrett, talk about the retailer’s ongoing transformation and how they are innovating on the store experience in particular.
I was struck by how Kramer dubbed the retailer’s approach to sustainability and refurbishing parts as a “return on integrity”; as well as his admission that Currys is far from where it would like to be in terms of the single customer view, saying that the group has “amazing” data on customers but that they aren’t in a place to fully equip their teams with those insights yet.
Currys is also considering its visibility in AI tools and overviews, although Kramer said that whether or not this will evolve into fully-blown AI-driven shopping “is a bit of an unknown for us”, calling it a “bit of a slow burn” – although the retailer is keen to be present wherever customers are.
In some ways, this is a sentiment I also saw reflected in a recent study from dunnhumby that I wrote about for RMA, which found that among various retail innovations, fully automated agentic shopping had the most negative sentiment associated with it, with close to half (49%) of respondents feeling it was intrusive or unnecessary (although a little under a third, or 29%, of respondents were in favour).
Later on, hearing the full tale of how Cotswold Outdoor came to build a retail media network was fascinating, and while you’ll be able to read the full detail of the retailer’s journey in my eventual write-up, I particularly enjoyed hearing about how Cotswold managed to tap into longer ‘dwell points’ in stores – hiking boot fittings, ski boot fittings – and implement in-store screens in key locations to drive an uplift in sales.
On Thursday, I then had the pleasure of bringing together the Retail Media Age editorial advisory board for its first meeting since I stepped into the role of editor, and I want to thank everyone who joined the meeting (amid ongoing travel disruption in London!) for such a fascinating, open and informative discussion on many of the challenges they and their organisations are facing in the retail media space and what RMA can do to inform and support our community.
I’ll also be writing up the highlights of that discussion, but in particular I enjoyed the conversations about how our board members perceive customer shopping behaviour in their different verticals, as well as the pressures they see brands – and to an extent agencies – experiencing.
Finally, I enjoyed a lively and insightful panel at New Digital Age’s Marketing the Marketers event – followed by a really excellent lunch with equally excellent conversation – where the topic of the hour was ‘Navigating the summer of digital events’. This was also a point that came up during the board discussion, as it’s not always apparent – especially to new entrants into a space like retail media – how to approach and make the most of events like ShopTalk, Retail Technology Show, Cannes, MADfest, and more.
The panellists at Marketing the Marketers had some really valuable insight to share (I was taking notes frantically), and I especially appreciated the deep dive into whether an event like Cannes is always a must-attend and what to do to capture the conversations and developments for anyone who can’t be present.
One excellent point came from Dominic Tillson, Founder and CEO at DST, who pointed out that marketers may want to flip the cost (and benefit) conversation on its head and consider the cost of not being present at events to forge connections, learn, and of course be in the same room as competitors.
I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that one very valuable room to be in to have conversations and forge connections is of course the Retail Media Age lunch – taking place on 16th July 2026 in Manchester or in London on 10th September 2026.
Read more from Retail Media Age’s editorial staff and expert commentators in our RMA columns.
