The Secret Sauce in Retail Media? Creative That Works at Shopper Speed

7 Jul

The Case for Better Creative

Retail Media is improving fast. Targeting is sharper. Measurement is stronger. Dashboards are more sophisticated. But better measurement does not make Creative more persuasive.

Retail Media performance does not just depend on where the message appears, however well it is targeted. It depends on how effective the message is at influencing shopper behaviour.

Creative is one of Retail Media’s biggest performance multipliers.

Retail Media provides the opportunity to be seen.

Creative decides what the opportunity becomes.

What Do We Mean by Creative?

In marketing communication terms, Creative turns strategy into action. Something that people notice, remember and ultimately respond to.

In Retail Media, Creative must do all of that, but within tougher constraints.

It must work at key touchpoints on the shopper journey. Sometimes with a shopper who has their own priorities and pressures, focused on their own mission to complete their shopping trip as quickly as possible and get on with their busy lives.

This makes the task to be done more challenging.

Retail Media Has Grown Up.

Creative needs to be in the room.

IAB frames Retail Media as the discipline around retailer-owned media, data and in-store opportunities. Retail Media campaigns can support brand awareness, sales growth and new product discovery.

Retail Media has moved from trade-led activity into a more structured, measurable and increasingly professional media discipline.

That is a major step forward.

But it also creates a risk. As Retail Media becomes more structured, it can start treating the media space as the product.

It isn’t.

A screen is not a strategy. An aisle-fin is not an idea. A sponsored aisle or entrance takeover display is not necessarily persuasive.

The real product is not the media space. it is the opportunity to influence shopper behaviour.

As with any marketing communication, without effective Creative, Retail Media can become expensive wallpaper.

The evidence in favour of Retail Media is getting harder to ignore.

IAB (Europe’s Attitudes to Retail Media Report, July 2025) reports that the share of respondents prioritising “reaching shoppers at the point of sale” rose from 74% in 2024 to 79% in 2025.

SMG’s (The Advertising Effectiveness of In-Store Retail Media, October 2025) analysis of more than 12,500 in-store campaigns found that, across all touchpoints, in-store ads delivered an average sales lift of 28.3% for the advertised SKU and 12.0% for the overall brand.

The same report is clear that all in-store Retail Media can be effective, but not all in-store Retail Media is equal. Store type, visibility, zone, format and proximity all matter.

That is the evidence.

The inference is this: if Retail Media works because it combines data, context, proximity and measurement, then Creative quality becomes even more important, not less.

Because the closer you get to the moment of choice, the less time the shopper is willing to give you, the greater the challenge in influencing their behaviour.

Learnings from Marketing Effectiveness

The wider marketing effectiveness evidence has been telling us for years that Creative is not a soft input.

Effie & System1’s report, The Creative Dividend: Advertising That Pays Back, highlights Paul Dyson’s 2023 modelling, which shows that Creative quality is the largest single profit multiplier marketers can influence, increasing profitability by up to twelve times.

The same Effie & System1 work links Creative quality and media support across 1,265 campaigns, showing that together they explain 60.1% of reported campaign business results.

This is important for Retail Media because Creative and Retail Media should not be treated as separate decisions. Media creates the chance to be seen. Creative helps turn that chance into memory, meaning and action.

System1 and IPA’s Compound Creativity work makes another important point: consistency compounds effectiveness. Their research links consistent Creative foundations, cross-channel consistency, distinctive brand assets and sustained Creative commitment with stronger brand and business outcomes.

For Retail Media, this creates an important planning principle: be consistent in brand codes, but flexible in shopper context.

The work should feel unmistakably like the brand, but it should also flex to the touchpoint, the shopper mission and the decision moment.

The best Creative people know how to simplify complexity, build memory, create salience, use distinctive assets, make a benefit feel motivating and make a behaviour feel easy.

Creative is where the commercial argument becomes human. That is valuable in any channel. In Retail Media, it is priceless because shoppers are making decisions at speed.

SEL. Stop. Engage. Land.

At ReAction we regularly use a simple framework for shopper activations: SEL or Stop Engage Land.

STOP – Does it grab shoppers’ attention?

Are they likely to even notice it within the cluttered retail environment? Will the Creative assets pop out, whether online or in-store?

The retail environment is full of clutter and noise. Pack, prices, offers, signage, screens, fixtures and POS items are all fighting for shoppers’ attention. If the work doesn’t break through, everything else is incidental.

Stopping power is about being distinctive, easily recognisable and relevant enough to cut through shopper autopilot.

ENGAGE – Is it easily understood by shoppers?

Is the language and phrasing crystal clear to your shopper audience? Can they easily decode and understand what you are trying to say?

This is a significant hurdle for Retail Media. If the shopper doesn’t think that they are being spoken to they’ll keep moving.

Good Retail Media Creative is grounded in real shopper behaviour understanding. What the shopper wants, at that moment in time.

A New Year’s health message in January works as it fits shoppers’ seasonal mindsets.

A family meal solution works if it provides a simple relevant solution that delivers against being tasty, affordable and ‘good for them’.

A premium trade-up works when it nudges shoppers to spend a little more because it feels worth it.

LAND – Is there a reason to act?

Retail Media needs to make the next steps crystal clear for the shopper, at whichever phase of the shopper journey that it shows up.

What is the reason to act now? What is the benefit to acting now? What barrier is being removed? Are we asking the shopper to try, switch, trade up, add an incremental item, choose a bundle or reappraise the product/category?

If the ask is not clear, then the outcome will not be either.

Different Retail Media Moments Need Different Creative Thinking

Retail media networks have proved they can deliver results for brands. Creative effectiveness shows Creative quality multiplies media impact.

Behavioural science helps explain why and how shoppers decode cues, context and value at speed.

Within the Retail Media landscape, a campaign asset that works in one channel or moment on the shopper decision journey, may not work in another.

Retail Media is not about matching luggage.

Put another way, it is not about lifting creative straight from an ATL campaign into a RM environment.

Retail design practice shows the value of a clear communication hierarchy. Strong store communication is not about adding more signs, it is about minimising visual clutter. Creating a clear hierarchy that helps shoppers easily find what they are looking for on one hand, while also exploring and purchasing with confidence.

Retail Media should apply the same discipline.

What This Means for Brands

The ask should start with: ‘What shopper behaviour are we trying to positively influence? Why?’

What is the role of the format? Is it building salience, grabbing shoppers’ attention, driving trial, reinforcing value or nudging the sale?

The planning principle is simple: keep the brand codes consistent but adapt the Creative job to the shopper moment. Creative needs to be involved at an early enough stage to shape the work, not at the last minute to repurpose it.

In-store Creative must work in and around the physical store, from trolley bays and six-sheet posters to large-format posters within the store, along with fixtures, floor layout, within the category context, each of which shape what shoppers see.

On-site digital Creative must work across the retailer’s website and app, in which the shopper is more likely to be in a shopping mindset.

Off-site digital Creatives must earn attention in fast-moving, low-attention digital spaces, such as email, social, and any data-matching collaborations with other publishers including search networks, display networks and VOD.

What This Means for Retailers

As with all shopper and category initiatives, retailers should collaborate with advertisers to ensure that Retail Media delivers a win-win for both sides.

Sharing shopper insights, clarifying category context, defining the role of each media format, and high quality closed-loop reporting will raise the floor on retail media impact.

This will move both sides beyond the fundamentals of Retail Media file specifications, into a shopper centric Retail Media activation.

Creative is the Secret Sauce

Retail Media has all the ingredients to drive growth. But ingredients are not the meal.

Creative is the secret sauce because it’s how Retail Media can optimise the opportunity to influence shopper behaviour. Data, research and insight can help sharpen the creative brief.

The winners will be the retailers, brands and agencies that put sharper, more shopper-centric Creative into the space.