Retail media and brand marketing teams have been on a collision course for a lon
By Jasonlandro · June 9, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Retail media and brand marketing teams have been on a collision course for a long time. We’re now in the final phase before they come together.
When retail media came into the fold around the 2010s, it was purely bottom funnel
Brand marketing looked down on retail media as this gimmicky sales tool focused on bottom funnel
As a result, brand marketing teams didn’t pay much attention
The landscape started to evolve as retailers like Amazon developed serious advertising capabilities, starting with their DSP
There was a shift around 2020 where retail media started commanding much more budget and expanding to full funnel
Brands realized the power of the audience data on RMNs to precisely target relevant shoppers and leaned in
With all change, most people are resistant at first
On the agency side, it was interesting to see the disharmony between eretail sales & marketing teams versus their brand marketing teams when it came to how to leverage RMNs to drive full-funnel marketing
The teams were (and still are) often so segregated that they almost seemed to be competing with one another
Obviously, brand marketing teams were still pretty hesitant, if not resistant, to leaning into retail media
Amazon shook the foundation when it quickly scaled video advertising between its 1st party properties, Prime Video, and other 3rd party exchanges in just a few years
That was a huge bridge between digital media, retail media, and linear TV
In other words, you no longer had to segregate the three, you could do all three through one platform, at least to a degree
Now there is no question that retail media can be a major driver of brand growth and sales
However, there still seems to be friction between retail media and brand marketing at a lot of companies, even though it’s waning.
In my opinion, this is because most companies still don’t properly structure their teams AND incentivize them to work together
All media should be centralized to a degree because it should all work together to achieve the same goals
A lot of companies still completely segregate retail media from brand marketing, which I think is a mistake
For example, if a consumer sees a streaming TV ad in the US, what are the chances the consumer ultimately buys the product on Amazon: really high
Which is why the two should be coordinated, at least
In addition, too many orgs don’t incentivize their teams/departments to work together to maximize sales and brand growth
Instead, the departments are solely responsible for growing specific channels or hitting certain brand objectives
That leads to people prioritizing what’s best for their department over what’s best for the company because they don’t have an incentive to work with other departments
These types of problems have been solved in other industries
But e-commerce is so new relative to other industries
I think the companies that solve these challenges faster will have a significant advantage over their competitors