It’s the return of the Retail Media Therapy podcast Celebrity Deathmatch Live edition – this time, live from NRF in New York.

The Retail Media Therapy podcast Celebrity Deathmatch is brought to you by Grace & Co - the marketing and commerce consultancy, alongside event sponsors QSIC and Zitcha.

It's a rowdy Oxford style debate with 3 rounds, where one of our fighters will be for the motion and one will be against the motion – they have to make their point and trash their opposing fighter.

Our fighters are: 

Colin ‘The Crusher’ Lewis

Of Retail Media Therapy Podcast and consultant at Grace & Co

Claire ‘Whiplash’ Wyatt 

from The Trade Desk

Kiri ‘The Killer’ Masters 

Host of the Retail Media Breakfast Club

Sarah ‘The Mauler’ Marzano 

from EMarketer

Your judges are:

Steve Biddle from Zitcha

Mark Walkin from QSIC

And your host is:

Viv Craske 

host of the Retail Media Therapy Podcast and consultant at Grace & Co

Are you ready to do battle?

Round 1 - Colin vs Claire

USA Vs the rest of the world. The USA sucks at Retail Media

Round 2 - Sarah vs Kiri

Agentic commerce: friend or foe to retail media?

The Grand Final - TBC vs TBC

Apocalypse Now: is retail media doomed?

Join the rowdiest, most debauched and most brutally honest event at NRF, and see who wins the debates and survives the insults.

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Welcome to EP33 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 of Retail Media Therapy, the focus is on the intricacies of building a successful retail media sales team and effective strategies for maximizing revenue. The discussion reveals:

• The importance of mastering the basics

• Creating compelling sales presentations,

• The benefits of selling media packages to manage margins and simplify decision-making for clients.

The conversation also covers the critical role of sales team management, including motivation, tiering clients, and the crucial distinction between hunters and farmers in sales roles.

Stay tuned for the next episode, which will shift the focus to the buy side and the navigation of JBPs by CPGs and suppliers.

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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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