Welcome to EP32 of the Retail Media Therapy podcast with Viv Craske and Colin Lewis. Retail Media Therapy comes from Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy.

In this special Crystal Ball Predictions for 2026 episode, Grace & Co team Michael Islip and Lucy Bugler join us to discuss:

Reflecting on 2025: Realities and Surprises

• Amazon DSP's integration of the connected TV world

• Criteo ads in Google 360.

• Slower-than-expected influx of brand budgets

• Consolidation in retail media

Predictions for 2026

Colin Lewis aka "Madam Zelda" turns the crystal ball towards the future.

• The myth of a singular, comprehensive AI solution.

• AI's integration into agencies involves strategic application rather than mass replacement.

• Creativity in retail media campaigns.

• Will Google become a major player in retail media, via AI search?

Wild and Crazy Predictions

• Could Tesco purchase ITV?

• The unlikely but exciting prospect of an Amazon and Walmart merger

• Will retai media hasten the Dead Internet Theory and agents click on retail media ads for rewards?

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Welcome to EP31 of the Retail Media Therapy podcast with Viv Craske and Colin Lewis. Retail Media Therapy comes from Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy.

In this special holiday episode, we ask the BIG questions:

• Who’s on Santa’s naughty list in Retail Media?

• What do you get the retail media network that has everything (hello Amazon and Walmart)

• Are Colin and Viv being fired?

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Welcome to EP30 of the Retail Media Therapy podcast with Viv Craske and Colin Lewis. Retail Media Therapy comes from Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy.

In this episode:

• Is Walmart really a retailer anymore and should your board stop thinking like a retailer?

• We deep dive into the huge value of in store screens and how each screen location needs to be considered differently to give suppliers the best opportunities.

• The latest from the Ascendant network event in London

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Welcome to EP29 of the Retail Media Therapy podcast with Viv Craske and Colin Lewis. Retail Media Therapy comes from Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy.

In this episode:

• The Incrementality Myth

• Winning With Media Agencies

The podcast unpacks why the retail media industry has become overly fixated on incrementality, arguing that while measurement matters, it shouldn’t overshadow broader brand objectives or practical decision-making. We then dives into how retail media networks can effectively work with agencies to unlock brand budgets, emphasizing the need for a clear USP, clean audience data, and a long-term engagement strategy.

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Welcome to EP28 of the Retail Media Therapy podcast with Viv Craske and Colin Lewis. Retail Media Therapy comes from Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy.

In this episode:

• Atlas Vs Google – Is the browser from ChatGPT a Google Ads killer?

• Amazon no longer want to own shopping, they want to own advertising. That's the claim Viv makes as Colin explains what AWS RTB Fabric is

• Media Upfronts are appearing more and more in the retail media world - what are they and why does every Hot Shot Retail Media Network need one?

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Welcome to EP27 of the Retail Media Therapy podcast with Viv Craske and Colin Lewis. Retail Media Therapy comes from Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy.

This episode:

OpenAI announces Instant Checkout partners – is it friend or foe to retail media networks?

The Trade Desk’s online gamble – partnering with Koddi and GoPuff to make Sponsored Products available on its platform.

On The Couch: Are you doing Sponsored Search right? JamesTaylor, CEO, Particular Audience – an AI-native retail media and personalisation company – joins us to discuss the nerdy world of relevance gradients and getting the balance between organic products and sponsored ads right for shoppers.

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Welcome to EP26 of the Retail Media Therapy podcast with Viv Craske and Colin Lewis. Retail Media Therapy comes from Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy.

It's the episode where Colin calls Viv sexy and Viv makes a £5,000 bet over Criteo and Google.

There's also talk of advertisers using Amazon DSP will have direct access to Netflix’s premium ad inventory, as well as Disney, HBO, Hulu etc and why Amazon DSP is the No.1 place to buy TV now.

There's an interesting UK story of Snappy Shopper - first UK quick commerce platform fully integrated with Google Shopping, giving local convenience stores the same digital shelf space as the biggest online players.

And we talk about Google and Criteo, who have announced a new partnership allowing advertisers to buy Criteo powered sponsored products directly in Google's SA360 platform... and is this really a prelude to Google making an acquisition offer for Criteo.

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Retail Media Therapy is brought to you by Grace & Co, the marketing and commerce consultancy.

This episode s an AI Special.

Our 2 big AI topics are;

1) WPP’s view of creative agencies in an AI world: what it means for retail media

Join Colin, Viv and our guest, Matthew Kershaw, a former Ad Agency man turned AI consultant to discuss WPP’s new white paper and the ad agency's a vision of what an AI-powered agency will look like. We discuss:

● Data 

● Creativity at scale 

● New models of value and why people still matter

2) AI search & LLMs

In our 101 introductory session on all things agentic, LLM and AI search, we look at how retail media networks and advertisers need to be thinking about getting found in AI search engines and chatbots.

• How your brand can be found by AI Search and LLM shopping chatbots as regular search is changing (Hello ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude etc)

• How to make sure you are SEO’d well on Bing. (Popular LLMs ChatGPT and Microsoft Co-Pilot pull info from Bing) and why this matters in your organic and paid SEO strategy.

So strap in for this epic AI podcast special....

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Welcome to EP24 of the Retail Media Therapy podcast with Viv Craske and Colin Lewis. Retail Media Therapy comes from Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy.

Happy birthday to us! 

The Retail Media Therapy podcast is 1 year old.

So Colin and I take a moment to reflect on the huge changes that have happened in retail media since July 2024.

This episode, we talk about:

• Huge grows of RMNs - RM has gone from a quirky side note to the main event. 

• Less retailers look only to Amazon and Walmart - more are looking to adtech, capability and innovation, and not just at the big bucks.

• Next phase of growth: Less walled gardens and more a realisation that growth comes from partners and the long tail of advertisers.

• Screens are everywhere and make the High Street/Main Street come alive

• Creativity as a THING in retail media and a huge opportunity (and frustration for some) 

And finally, we look ahead into 2026 and ask, what does the retail media crystal ball see…

• Perplexity, OpenAI etc - at least one AI search platform will launch an ad network

• Collaboration and consolidation - think about your partnership strategy with agencies, CTV, content platforms, etc

• Really understanding 1st Insights - the value of retailer data -> Data and tech strategy

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Welcome to EP23 of the Retail Media Therapy podcast with Viv Craske and Colin Lewis. Retail Media Therapy comes from Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy.

This episode, we talk about:

Cindy Rose, the ex-Microsoft COO and now WPP's new CEO, and we ask are the global advertising agencies about tech not creativity?

Linda Yaccarino has stepped down as CEO of X. And it got us thinking, where is Twitter/X in the retail media conversation?

Ocado comes clean about it's latest clean room innovation. We chat to Jack Johnson, Head of Retail Media & Data, Ocado Retail and Joe Root, Co-founder of Permutive. We probe their new partnership and ask: 'What's Ocado Retail doing, partnering with publishes such as News UK, The Independent and Immediate Media?'

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