Unlocking Retail Media

This episode of Unlocking Retail Media  features Frank Mulcahy, Head of Chewy Ads, to talk about what it actually means to run a retail media network like a media company. Frank came to retail media from the ad side and he's spent more than 20 years in digital advertising at Lycos, Yahoo, and Microsoft. He then built Wayfair’s retail media network from scratch in 2016, and, finally, joined Chewy in 2022. Frank explains why his biggest early mistake was hiring traditional digital ad salespeople into an environment where the merchant owns the account. He also explains why some of his best sellers have come out of the merchant organization, and why retailers without media DNA aren’t prepared for holding company JBPs and 120-question agency scorecards. This conversation also covers how Chewy Ads spent its first 18 months earning trust. Frank describes how the Chewy Marketing Cloud clean room and Chewy Max objective-based buying serve vendors ranging from multinational CPGs to treat makers working out of a garage. Frank and James also dig into why specialty retailers now compete with Google, Meta, the open web, and linear TV, not just Amazon and Walmart. If you’re building or scaling a retail media network and want a seasoned operator’s view of the people, product, and measurement decisions that matter, you're in the right place.

James Avery sits down with Matthew Fantazier, VP of Retail Data Partnerships at The Trade Desk, to unpack the first-of-its-kind three-way partnership between The Trade Desk, Dollar General, and Kevel that brings onsite retail media into the same programmatic workflow as offsite. Matt spent 19 years on the advertiser side at J&J and Kenvue before moving to The Trade Desk, and he brings that buyer's perspective to why fragmentation has become the industry's core problem: brands are managing 300+ retail media networks which makes frequency control, optimization, and consistent attribution nearly impossible. The conversation covers what actually unlocks brand and agency budgets (make it simple, then lean into what only you can offer), why commerce data's deterministic view of real purchase behavior is only valuable if activated intentionally, and why incrementality, new-to-brand, and category share matter more than ROAS as a measure of whether a brand is winning. Matt and James also dig into how CTV fits into a connected funnel, why store-level and regional share data can reshape a messaging strategy, and Matt's prediction that "retail media" will be an archaic term within five years, replaced by retail data, retail inventory, and retail measurement inside a single unified media plan. If you're running a retail media network and trying to understand where you fit in the broader media ecosystem, this episode is essential listening.

James Avery sits down with Art Sebastian, founder of NexChapter and a 30-year retail industry veteran who has built and operated retail media programs from every angle: the merchant floor, the brand side at Kraft Foods, e-commerce at Meijer, data strategy at IRI, and most recently as the architect of Casey's Access, the retail media network for Casey's General Stores, a Fortune 500 convenience and fuel operator with nearly 3,000 locations across 20 states. Art breaks down what it actually takes to build a retail media network that drives real results, including why first-party data infrastructure has to come before monetization, how Casey's tied together fuel pump screens, in-store audio, app targeting, and CRM into a true omni-channel offering, and why closed-loop attribution at the pump level is more achievable than most retailers think. The conversation also covers the organizational dynamics that trip up even well-resourced retailers (marketing vs. merchandising alignment is the real bottleneck, not technology), how to structure a retail media team at different stages of scale, what CPG brands actually want when they say they want "incrementality," and why the JBP is the most underutilized tool for unlocking brand budgets beyond trade dollars. James and Art also dig into the agentic commerce opportunity, why even convenience retailers need to get their product data AI-ready now, and where retail media is headed over the next three to five years. If you're building a retail media network, advising one, or trying to understand what separates programs that scale from programs that stall, this episode is essential listening.

James Avery sits down with Andrew Connell, Chief Growth Officer at dunnhumby, to unpack one of the most ambitious structural moves in retail media right now: the dunnhumby network alliance. Built in partnership with Kevel and anchored by Tesco, the alliance brings together competing retailers including Waitrose, John Lewis, B&Q, and Screwfix into a single platform for shared audiences, unified campaign execution, and closed-loop measurement across multiple retailers at once. Andrew and James dig into why brand fragmentation is reaching a breaking point (CPGs are now rebuilding their retail media strategy up to 20 times for different networks), why retailers who don't act risk ceding their data advantage to Amazon, Google, or The Trade Desk, and how the network alliance gives mid-size grocers a path to compete for brand and performance dollars they're not capturing today. The conversation also covers the untapped potential of cross-category retail journeys, how EV charging stations are becoming the next frontier of in-store media, why property portals like Zillow could be the perfect non-endemic retail media partner, and how the model is already drawing interest from retailers in the US, Europe, Australasia, and the Middle East. If you're a retailer trying to figure out where retail media goes after the JBP, this episode is essential listening.