The Future In-Store

“The magic of retail media is in the relationship between the retailer and its brand partners,” says Tom Limongello, Co-Founder of Nextipedia and co-host of The Middlemen podcast.

“And so when you look at ways that that works, that to me is an indicator of where the future is.”

Tom joins host James Kotecki to share what he’s learned interviewing retailers and industry leaders on The Middlemen, from how to define retail and commerce media to why in-store rolls out slowly.

https://theloomaproject.com/

Great quotes from Tom Limongello:

“This is not the same as putting some audiences in LiveRamp or announcing a partnership with The Trade Desk. This is, I need to re-architect the electricity in our stores.”

“We’re not going to take an online video or a TV spot and stick it in the store.”

“If you can’t make it work with your endemics, the non-endemic thing is not really going to happen.”

“You can’t have memes if people don’t all understand what the underlying media is.”

On naming his podcast The Middlemen: “I wanted it to be a chance to resurrect the lowly status of a tech provider.”

"Commerce and retail media is becoming the underlying fabric of the entire media ecosystem,” says Jason Colon, Executive Vice President, Commerce Media at Horizon Commerce. 

“These are data signals that can power any experience, any impression across any media format."

Jason joins host James Kotecki to explain the three conditions his team requires before recommending an in-store activation: a meaningful consumer moment, the operational logistics to support it, and credible measurement.

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Quotes from the episode:

"I don't think the utopia is a store where every screen recognizes me by name and understands everything about me and then tries to personalize the messaging or the experience I'm having in an aisle. I think the more useful and more practical future is where in-store becomes part of this connected brand and commerce system."

"The language we use sometimes can create this false sense of silos or segmentation within the space."

"We don't need digital signage when someone is trying to buy berries in a grocery aisle. They're looking to see if those berries are fresh, what the expiration date is."

"Attention is not the same as value. I think oftentimes retail media optimizes for exposure and attention. CX optimizes for usefulness."

That's Arthur Fullerton, Global Chief Technology Officer at Havas CX.

Arthur joins host James Kotecki to explore in-store retail media from the customer experience perspective, in a world of fewer human workers in stores.

https://theloomaproject.com

Great quotes from this episode include:

• "The opportunity now is to incorporate intelligence and personalization into the experience to make it even more amenable to people."

• "If we're going to automate everything, how do we ensure that the consumer feels like they're being taken care of?"

• "A lot of clients and consumers assume that the technology creates the experience, but it just really enables the experience."

• “...technology should reduce friction, increase relevance, and really ultimately create measurable value... If it's not improving the journey or the business outcomes, it's probably performative. It's probably theater."

• "[AI] should make the store feel smart but not cold."

• "The lesson isn't to make the grocery feel luxury. It's to make every physical interaction intentional and thoughtful."

"You think digital's messy? Physical's even more messy." 

That's how Collin Colburn, Vice President of Commerce and Retail Media at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), sums up the challenge of building retail media in the physical store.

The potential is obvious — 80%+ of retail purchases still happen in brick and mortar — but as Collin tells host James Kotecki, in-store has been "stubbornly stuck in pilot mode for too long." He explains why the real world is a hard place to build retail media - and also why it’s so promising. 

Colburn draws on a decade tracking the industry from his early days starting Forrester's retail media research practice.

https://theloomaproject.com/

Great quotes include:

• "We cannot replicate measurement in the store from what we’ve done in digital. The physical environment does not lend itself well to the way in which we've built measurement on websites."

• "Retail media has been promised to be this closed loop, outcomes driven system. So we should have a higher bar than a lot of other forms of digital media."

• "We really have a gap between retail and media. . . . And that gap shows up in the way that we criticize [measurement] frameworks.”

• On the idea of "build it and they will come" for retail media: "For most retailers, they ain't coming at the pace and volume that a lot of the major consultancies pitch them on it coming at. Many of them are saying ‘Where’s my $1 billion advertising business?’”

• "On the retailer side, I actually think it's more about the unsexy work that now needs to happen of operational excellence. No one wants to talk about org charts or the structural incentives that exist within a retail media network . . . but that's the next phase of real maturity."

"If you know the cart, you know the heart," says Christine Foster, Group Vice President of Commercial Strategy and Operations at Kroger Precision Marketing.

She believes grocery shopping is uniquely personal — and that creates both an opportunity and a responsibility for retailers using that data.

Christine joins host James Kotecki to share Kroger's vision for in-store retail media that inspires, not just sells.

https://theloomaproject.com/

Topics include:

• Why Kroger doesn’t want to be “Times Square” with in-store screens

• The "near-endemic" opportunity for brands

• Agent Monday: Kroger's AI-powered tool for automated weekly sales analysis

• Kroger Precision Marketing’s data science foundation

"I always say that the perks program is cultural in our markets," says Heather Feather, Senior Director for Digital, E-commerce, and Retail Media at Giant Eagle.

That deep loyalty engagement across 4 million households — which yields a 90%+ in-store scan rate — is the engine behind Leap, Giant Eagle's retail media network. With 95 years of community roots and a loyalty program customers plan their lives around, Giant Eagle brings a unique perspective to the retail media conversation.

Heather joins host James Kotecki to discuss

• The omni-channel customer journey: from digital discovery to in-store reinforcement to checkout measurement

• Bringing merchandising and marketing together

• Expanding retail media in health, beauty & wellness

• Building Leap with integrated partners

• Community connection — from storm relief to the NFL Draft to HBO’s “The Pitt”

Learn more about Looma:

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"Bananas are the number one selling item in grocery," says Bobby Watts, SVP of Ad Retail Media, Digital Merch, and Marketing at Ahold Delhaize USA.

"But selling media and working with advertisers and working with our partners is different than selling groceries."

Bobby joins host James Kotecki to discuss Edge, Ahold Delhaize USA's new ad tech platform built in collaboration with European counterparts.

https://theloomaproject.com/

Topics include:

• Why Europe is a leader in digital screen adoption

• The strategic screen placement at entry points, ‘front racetrack,’ and pharmacy

• How agentic AI tools will transform media planning in 2026

• The "connected store" vision beyond digital screens

“That connection with consumers we're seeing across the industry - it's no longer about impressions, it's really about engagement.”

Sometimes the customer journey is literally a trip in a car on the way to a store. Uber Advertising’s Jess Shuraleff connects ridesharing to retail on the latest episode of The Future In-Store.

https://theloomaproject.com/

Topics include:

• Engagement throughout the journey that drives conversion - whether in-app or in-store

• The "Gen Uber" consumers demanding surprise and delight moments

• The surprising percentage of riders who keep the sound up for ads in Ubers

• The misconception that mobility media solutions are only for endemic brands

• Why driverless vehicles could create even more engagement opportunities

“Counterintuitively,” says Swiftly co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Sean Turner, “brick and mortar stores have a superpower when it comes to driving digital engagement.”

https://theloomaproject.com/

Turner joins host James Kotecki to explore topics including:

Topics include:

• The "magical attachment" we have to our favorite grocery store

• The technology gap: competing against retailers with thousands of engineers

• Why legacy systems burden large retailers more than regional players

• How platforms can beat custom-built technology

• Why national brands are better off reaching consumers through regional and independent grocers

• How scaling retail operations is like flying a plane

"There's been a lot of pushes to take a screen and slap it everywhere, and I think there's a lot of risk in doing that," says Looma VP of Product Denny Cmiel.

"You end up with kind of an experience that doesn't feel like it was designed to be there. It feels like it was stitched on or kind of stuck on as a Band-Aid."

Denny joins host James Kotecki to share Looma’s product philosophy for screens that are actually in the right place.

https://theloomaproject.com/

Topics include:

• The Looma mantra "it's not the screens, it's what you put on them" that guides product development

• How "Project Nightcap" expanded from cocktail recommendations to mattress selection

• Why AI serves as an "efficiency machine" and "sounding board" rather than decision maker

• The misconception that in-store screens necessarily reach shoppers at the point of decision

• The balance between standardization and customization for individual store locations