Retail media is booming — but maturity isn’t evenly distributed. Lachlan joins Commerce Media Matters to cut through the hype and grey areas: misaligned incentives, messy data expectations, the “too many screens” problem, offsite extensions, and why we need better briefs, not more buzzwords. From IAB council work to hands-on network builds, he shares a pragmatic view on how retailers, brands, media agencies and tech partners can make retail and commerce media actually work together.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• First-party data as the real product: How data has become the new currency of media, and why retailers must treat it as an asset that powers smarter targeting, better measurement, and more meaningful customer relationships.
• Where everyone’s misaligned (and how to fix it): Retailers, brands, and agencies are still figuring out how to work together. From budget confusion to long-standing silos, Lachlan explains why they’ve been operating in different swim lanes, and what needs to change to bring everyone into alignment.
• Offsite done right: Why retailers can’t rely on onsite media alone and how using offsite channels can extend reach from a small share of e-commerce shoppers to almost their entire audience.
• Incrementality without the buzzword bingo: Why “incremental” is meaningless without context and why brands need to clarify what kind of Incrementality they’re chasing.
• Retail media vs. commerce media: Lachlan’s take on the two: retail media goes deeper with product-level insights, while commerce media goes wider, using more data sources for scale, explaining why both are essential to a connected media strategy.
• The realities of data sharing: Retailers can’t share everything. Understanding what’s commercially sensitive, what can be shared, and where the boundaries lie is key to building stronger partnerships.

About the hosts:

• Nick Morgan: Nick is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and eCommerce. He founded Vudoo in 2018, a platform that enables in-stream content commerce across articles, videos, and images. Nick's work transforms every ad impression into a potential shop front, offering a seamless eCommerce experience.

• Paul Blackburn: Paul is a digital media innovator with over 20 years of experience. At News Corp Australia, he launched the "Intent Connect" data platform and led innovation in shoppable video and the "Total Commerce" framework. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Vudoo, he helps brands, publishers, and agencies unlock new ways to monetise content through immersive, commerce-enabled experiences.
  
  

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