Retail Media Meets CTV: The New Power Pair

So, so our, our kind of topic for today is retail media and connected TV, so we're gonna really dig into, um, what we would, what we're calling at IB Europe, the new power pair, retail media meets CTV.

And, um, this is personally really exciting for me to do this podcast 'cause I actually lead both of those, um, content development areas at IB Europe, and I'm slowly but surely seeing the, the two merge in various different ways.

Um, and it's really exciting to be able to speak to both of you about that today.

So let's just start with a bit of, a bit of scene setting.

So retail media and connected TV, both major growth areas in digital advertising.

If you look at our latest ADX benchmark report, both of those are standout growth areas.

Um, retail media, over 22%, for example.

Why now are we seeing these two worlds come together? What is it about them that, uh...

Is it the growth? Is it something else? What's making those two environments come together and also so powerful for brands and advertisers? Rahul, maybe if we, if we start with you.

Yeah, I think the overall, uh, w- what used to be called addressability on TV, right, uh, has really, uh, shifted a bunch of gears up into really what is performance advertising.

Again, I think retail media and CTV or TV have exist- have always had, uh, uh, some level of overlap.

From the point of view of the market we play in, where we are seeing a lot of growth and success across the market is the lower funnel conversions, right? Which is being able to what is called offsite extension on retail, uh, media networks, bring it to CTV, show the product or the ad to the right user at the right time for the right price, and being able to get the user to go back to the, uh, retail media network and convert, and be able to optimize for it.

And I think that approach has really taken off in the last couple of years, uh, with, uh, the advancement of machine learning.

What used to be called machine learning, now called AI, right? And I think that has just allowed us to be able to operate with a lot more information.

At least that's, that's my view.

Jason, how does that resonate with you, and, and h- how are you, what feedback are you getting from your clients about the, the opportunity of these two, two, um, big growth areas?

areas?Yeah, I mean, from a, from an industry perspective, it's just a natural collision of, of two most important trends in, um, in our industry.

I mean, our this year, next year, um, June 2026, um, forecast, the global commerce advertising is projected to reach 199.6 billion in 2026.

And, and retail media accounts for 97% of that number, so 194.7 billion.

I know IAB has their own numbers.

I know they calculate it, um, slightly, um, differently.

But we all know the growth rates on, um, CTV, and we all know the growth rates on, um, retail media.

And they're more often than not, you know, the, the, the fastest, um, the fastest-growing.

I think at the same time, CTV device penetration in Europe has, has reached, like, a, a saturation point.

I think 88% in the UK, uh, and up to 95% in Spain.