Good morning from Retail Media Age HQ,
On Wednesday I enjoyed attending the IAB UK’s Growth Summit at CodeNode, Moorgate, where I had the chance to catch up with various excellent people from around the industry and take in a jam-packed morning/early afternoon of thought-provoking talks.
One theme of the day emerged very quickly, beginning with IAB UK Head of Retail Media Olivia McCullagh’s opening keynote, where she posed the question of whether retail media should “still be called ‘retail media’”. “Is it media? … Is it commerce media? Why don’t we make a decision?”
The question of how to refer to retail media has been a quasi-controversial debate since Retail Media Age was founded (and obviously, before that as well). LiveRamp’s Alexia Nakad wrote, “Retail Media Age? More like Commerce Media Age” in June of last year, arguing that “retail media is just one vertical under the broader umbrella of “commerce media.”” I gave a sidelong acknowledgement to the discussion in a footnote to my first editorial column for RMA:
“I know there have been capital-D Debates about “retail media” versus “commerce media”, and while Retail Media Age is our name, our focus includes everything under commerce media.”
But part of me is still impressed that this debate keeps going. Though, I’ve been around the marketing and ad industry long enough to know exactly how much marketers love to niggle over terminology (and honestly, to invent new terms for concepts that may not actually need one).
It’s a way of setting out your stall: “I think this phenomenon is important, and so I’m going to give it a dedicated name.” (Or, “I’m going to use this name someone else came up with that I think is fitting.”) Towards the tail end of my time at Econsultancy, I spoke to search experts about whether optimising for AI-powered search should be called ‘AEO’ or ‘GEO’ (or plain ‘SEO’, or something else). Many people hold strong opinions on that question, while others equally strongly hold that the name isn’t what matters.
I originally set out to make my column today a bit of a provocative take on the ‘retail media’ versus ‘commerce media’ question (for the most part, I’m in Camp Retail Media, for reasons I’ll get to in a second). But I was intrigued by how often this subject popped up as the Growth Summit went on – and in how many different forms.
Richard Nunn, former CEO of United Airlines MileagePlus, argued that “Retail media is just the beginning; the real opportunity is commerce media”. On a panel about retail media’s ‘fit’ in 2026, Matthew Higgins at dentsu made the point that, “We do ourselves a disservice by referring to it as ‘retail media’, because that makes it separate to the rest of media’.” He joked that “maybe media should come first” in the term ‘retail media’, which gave everyone a good laugh over the idea of ‘media retail’.
Arla Foods’ Rob Edwards went on to argue that, “The future of retail media is the removal of the word ‘retail’”, a point that was echoed by the7stars’ Jonny Harrison.
My hot take on the ‘retail media’ versus ‘commerce media’ showdown is that the term ‘retail media’ has salience and is already widely adopted and understood – you could point to the name of IAB UK’s event being the Retail Media Growth Summit as evidence of that. To the idea that commerce media is a wider umbrella under which retail media sits, I would argue that as retail/commerce media is already a specific subset of advertising, there’s no need to split things further.
While as a writer, I’m generally a fan of precise expression, I also think that ‘retail media’ is a broad church that can take in other verticals without us needing to nitpick about what’s ‘retail’ and what’s actually ‘commerce’.
I do think the arguments that ‘retail media’ may someday drop the ‘retail’ are onto something. As retail media broadens its scope and its data informs ads everywhere from radio to connected TV, the boundaries between retail media and general advertising are increasingly blurry. Certainly, consumers won’t be distinguishing between the two.
But of course, if a dedicated term for retail media didn’t exist, it would be a lot harder for me to edit a dedicated publication on the subject – and for any of us to come together and discuss this phenomenon at events like the Growth Summit, in columns, or in strategy meetings. Ultimately, it’s great to have a name; but it may not matter that much what it is – as long as we can all understand each other as we use it.
Read more viewpoints from Retail Media Age’s editorial staff and expert commentators in our RMA columns.
