Yesterday at Groceryshop, Rethink Retail and Media in Retail hosted a Retail Med
By Drewcashmore · September 24, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Yesterday at Groceryshop, Rethink Retail and Media in Retail hosted a Retail Media Delegation event with brands and retail media leaders across the country.
I got to sit down with DG Media Network's Austin Leonard to chat about the state of our industry and what he's excited about for the year ahead. And Jeremy Goldman, Shahar Gerbi and Brendan Witcher shared what was happening at Groceryshop around retail media.
Beyond the spectacular scale and unique reach of Dollar General, we chatted about a retraining of the market against differentiated types of media businesses that incredible leaders like Mark Williamson, Bobby Watts, and Austin are building.
Retail media is seemingly moving away PLAs as the core of the offering, and, as Bobby put it, moving toward a rethinking of measurement against real growth.
But what I took away from the talk was a reality that ad tech and martech was not purpose built for retail and all of its nuances and intricacies. That is a bug that purpose-built retail media platforms are overcoming, but it makes it really hard for retailers to operate their businesses, and for brands to buy.
Lauren Livak Gilbert from The Digital Shelf Institute said to me this week that the hardest part of these communities is maintaining engagement. And I'm so grateful for the Rethink Retail, Shahar Gerbi, Marie Chevrier Schwartz, Mikayla Hyman Jillian Pendrock Schuster, Jeremy Goldman as well as all of our attendees for continuing to to shape the next phase of retail and commerce media.
To learn more and get involved, link in the notes!