Hello from Retail Media Age HQ,
Last week, the news went out that Tesco Media would be launching premium video placements on the Tesco website and app after a period of trialling them with brand partners, including PepsiCo and Diageo.
This wasn’t in fact the first news of Tesco’s video venture, as they’d originally shared the announcement back in 2024 at Tesco Media Upfront, with premium formats announced at 2025’s Upfront. Tesco also discussed their trials with video in an interview with RMA published last July. It’s a great read, by the way – a double-header interview with Tesco Sales and Marketing Director Stacey Gratz and Head of Corporate Strategy at Tesco Media Alena Rossini – and one of the subjects they touched on was creativity in retail media and the new creative formats that are emerging (such as video).
Gratz and Rossini also talk about Tesco’s whole-funnel approach to retail media, with Rossini saying, “We’re increasingly seeing that it’s not performance versus brand, but performance plus brand”, and that focus really came through in the announcement about moving into video as well.
Video is notably a very strong brand storytelling format, whereas retail media typically sits close to the bottom of the funnel (though there are of course moves to change that). With the introduction of video ads, Tesco is looking to introduce brand-building opportunities into its retail media proposition while still nailing performance – Managing Director Tash Whitmey said that “campaigns are most effective when they deliver both, yet achieving that balance has often proved difficult”.
It does seem like a bit of a no-brainer in many ways to bring video into the retail media equation, as long as it doesn’t add an undue resource load onto the website and slow down performance – or prove to be too busy and visually irritating for the browsing shopper.
That last one is the main risk that I can think of (assuming that videos would be set to autoplay), though it’s always a balance with the other elements on a page. Justin Pearse, RMA’s editor-in-chief, did directly ask Tesco about their approach to making sure creative doesn’t interfere with customer experience, and Gratz replied, “That’s non-negotiable for us.” It’s all part of the effectiveness equation, after all.
What was interesting to me as I researched our news piece on Tesco’s launch is that video isn’t yet common in retail media, even though you’ll find several posts proclaiming how ‘key’ and ‘essential’ it is. Given how huge video is as a medium, this seems like a surprising untapped vein, although Tesco is a major player to have adopted the format and could be followed by others.
With the alignment of CTV and retail media, it’s possible that many consider that to tick the ‘video storytelling’ box without needing to bring video directly onto the shopping website or app, although I would argue there’s a lot of richness you can add even with just a few seconds of motion.
Also, if you feel like the rapid evolution of platforms and formats is a lot to keep on top of, the good news is we’ve got an event for that! Retail Media Age is bringing PitchLab, the enormously successful ‘Dragons Den’ style event from New Digital Age, to you on 4th June. This event is the perfect opportunity for retailers and agencies who want to get a better sense of the tech out there to hear pared-down, to-the-point pitches from tech and solutions providers – and for those providers to demonstrate what their solution can really do.
If you’re interested, make your way over to the event page!
Read more from Retail Media Age’s editorial staff and expert commentators in our RMA columns.
