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What. A. Year. ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ When 2024 began, we knew it would be big—but we didn’t realize just how big. As we wrap up, let’s take a moment to look back! ⏪ 🥾 We kicked off January at STRATACACHE x National Retail Federation: Retail’s Big Show, where Partnership Director Amber Roberts and Chief Commercial Officer Lee LeFeuvre joined Co-op's Dean Harris to share insights from SMG and Co-op Media Network. 🇨🇦 February took us to California for LiveRamp's RampUp and Toronto for the first-ever Retail Media Summit Canada, where Managing Director Sean Crawford took the stage. 🎰 In March, we headed to Las Vegas for ShopTalk and hosted our first VIP Retail Media Dinner Series in partnership with Qsic and Particular Audience. April saw CEO Samuel Knights join Ray Balberman and Co-op’s Rachel Halter in New York at the Ascendant Network Spring Retail Media Boot Camp, while Amber shared insights on building Retail Media Networks at Skai's ShopAble. 🚂 We were full steam ahead in June. At Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Sean shared insights on measurement and in-store digitization at the Microsoft Beach Club. We also sponsored the Path to Purchase Institute's Retail Media Summit in Chicago, where Sam joined Stuart Michell (WHSmith North America), Ollie Shayer (Boots UK, Boots Media Group), and Robin Neufeld on stage. Later, we hosted the Official After Party with LiveRamp and another VIP Dinner with Microsoft and Broadsign. ☀️ July brought the North American team to Manchester, UK, for SMG’s Summer Conference, fostering company-wide collaboration. In September, Sean spoke at the Fall Retail Media Boot Camp in Palo Alto with WHSmith’s Robert Cummins, focusing on building a store-first Retail Media Network in a digital world. 🇬🇧 October brought SMG’s flagship event, the Retail Media Summit UK, back for its second year, fostering vital, global industry debates. What a day! The month ended with another trip to Las Vegas for Groceryshop, where retail media stole the spotlight in the evolving grocery space. 🍁 November was packed. Amber presented 20 Lessons to Succeed in a Fragmented Retail Media Ecosystem at P2PI LIVE, Justin Sparks spoke at Dataxis’ Retail Media Days in New York, and Sean attended the first-ever Retail Media Boot Camp Europe in London, hosted in partnership with SMG, where Bianca Hall and Helen Johnson took the stage. ❄️ Finally, December wrapped up with the North America team traveling to a chilly London for SMG’s Winter Conference. There, we celebrated a year of growth, sharing updates from our team, which now exceeds 450 retail media experts worldwide! Thank you for being on this journey with us. We’re excited to see what’s ahead in 2025 and beyond! More to share soon! 🔜 Happy Holidays from your friends at SMG x Threefold. 💛

As we prepare to log off for Christmas, we find ourselves reflecting on the inspiring words shared by Hannah Cockroft OBE, PLY, DL—9x Paralympic Champion and 16x World Champion 🤯🥇—at our end-of-year conference: "𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹. 𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗼𝗻'𝘁." Hannah's journey is a powerful testament to resilience, determination, and the strength that comes from believing in yourself. Our wish for the year ahead is simple: that each of us, in our own way, continues to—or perhaps starts to—believe in ourselves a little more. Because when we do, amazing things can happen. From all of us, we wish you a joyful Christmas and a Happy New Year filled with possibility. ✨ Matthew Lee | Joel Hopwood | Samuel Knights | Emma Dean | Katie Streeter Hurle | Mark Sweatman | Lee LeFeuvre | David Bromfield | Sean Crawford | {Capture} | Plan-Apps | Boots Media Group | Co-op Media Network | Morrisons Media Group | Very Media Group | LS Eleven Media Services

2024 wrapped! 🚀 This year, we stuck to the Plan and App-solutely smashed it! Here’s to another year of planning, innovating and caffeinating in 2025. 🎉 To our amazing team, incredible partners and valued clients – thank you for being part of our journey this year. Wishing you all a joyful Christmas and a New Year filled with success, happiness and a touch of magic. 🎄✨ #2024Wrapped #StickingToThePLANandAPPSolutelySmashingIt

Tune in to this #RetailMediaThursday episode where Justin Sparks from Threefold and SMG dives into the fast-evolving world of retail media, sharing trends and strategies you can’t afford to miss. Here is a little teaser: ✨ Key trends shaping RMNs: - Networks must stand out as buyer choices grow. - Demand for in-store media is rising—Europe is 2-3 years ahead of the U.S. 💡 Biggest hurdles for RMNs: - Losing talent to larger networks and adapting to being media businesses. - Why copying Amazon or Walmart isn’t the answer. 🔮 2025 predictions: - Expect consolidation as networks race to keep up. Watch the full episode to get the full picture of what’s next for retail media: https://okt.to/P9H7FB

A look back at this year’s Golden Quarter 🌟 The Golden Quarter is our most important (and busy!) time, and this year, we’ve delivered more than ever before for both our customers and partner brands✨💡 Through meticulous planning and razor-sharp audience insights, we’ve crafted integrated campaigns that capture every important moment. From inspiration to action, our approach has been all about creativity, innovation, and connecting with what truly matters to our audience. Take a walk with us through this year’s Golden Quarter and see how we made it all happen. Retail Media | Golden Quarter The Very Group | SMG

I recently had the opportunity to share our thoughts at SMG with the Path to Purchase Institute on Retail Media Networks and the industry's need to invest in and develop talent in order to continue to compete for ad dollars. https://lnkd.in/djKwS7VY A few thoughts for the industry that we touch on: 👩💼 People are what fuel an organization ... but is there enough talent to sustain the Retail Media industry's growth? 🏗️ Are we asking the right question? Shouldn't we be asking if RMNs can build everything on their own, vs should they? RMNs can build and partner to hit their growth targets. 🛒 How do we accelerate the RMN and Merchant leads working in concert? Brands and their agencies want a single front-door. 📈 Is there a clear path to profitability and contributing as a profit pool back into the business? That is the benchmark retailer boards will measure against. Please take a read. Leave a comment below and let me know what you think! #RetailMedia #Talent #RMNs

As the year comes to a close we’re taking time to look back on our achievements – and what better way to do it than with BMG Wrapped? 💫

I'm very excited to be starting 2025 with a 💥 , heading back to Vegas for my first CES in followed very closely by NRF in New York with SMG and Threefold. It's always a great time to meet friends and to make new contacts and so if you're at either event let me know. #retailmedia #marketing

I am getting on my soapbox one last time before the new year – I couldn’t help myself. I’m increasingly seeing a narrative in the industry which is positioning retail media as a challenger to traditional advertising, or perhaps even a threat to the lessons the industry has learned on advertising effectiveness. This seems to have accelerated as more data has been published on the sources of retail media investment growth, which are predominantly coming from Linear TV and digital advertising (search & display) budgets. I think this conversation is emerging from a genuine misunderstanding of what retail media is. It’s still being referred to as on-site only, essentially demoting it to being search ads on retailer websites. If this was true, I’d agree that moving your Linear TV spend simply into on-site search would be a pretty bad strategy. However, that’s just not what retail media is. Retail media is any media that is owned or operated by a retailer, or that uses retailer data in its activation. That means retail media is also in-store advertising, connected TV, digital OOH, experiential and so on. This means that in many cases retail media IS traditional media. It’s often the same media we have always used, however it’s now being planned or measured in different ways, or being bought from a new source. And it often means that 'traditional advertising' is far better connected to a point-of-purchase, helping it to better deliver on both brand-building and sales-driving goals. I really do believe that retail media can positively amplify 'non-retail media', and that retailer data can be used very effectively to sharpen ATL (without compromising scale). It can also be used to close the loop on measurement, and achieve this at a 1-2-1 customer level. Retail media is disrupting many long-standing classifications of advertising. Therefore, what we need is to continue education in the industry (away from a highly restricted notion that retail media is a bit of tactical on-site search). We also need a tonne of new thought on how we treat it in the wider media plan. Let’s have that conversation next year instead. Over and out! Samuel Knights Emma Dean Lee LeFeuvre David Bromfield Helen Johnson Rosie Houston Sean Crawford Marcus Ingleby Kat Jones Mark Sweatman Matthew Lee Georgina O'Grady SMG #retailmedia #commercemedia

"In a world where Retail Media is fast becoming 'media', it's really important that we balance our short-term and long-term goals", says Bianca Hall, Senior Insight Director at SMG. Back in October at our Retail Media Summit UK event, Bianca delivered a powerful session centred around the short-term ROI obsession. What were the top 3 takeaways? 📈 Despite measurement making huge strides over the last few years, ROI always steals the show as it's consistent, comparable, and commercial. 💡Retail media is doing a lot more than delivering short-term ROI - it has a lot of potential to drive brand-building metrics in the long-term. 🚶An effective measurement strategy can be created using the crawl, walk, run analogy. Crawl - build a bank of short-term ROI evaluations. Walk - incorporate first-party data learnings. Run - create an omnichannel test and learn strategy. Make sure to catch up on the full episode here - https://lnkd.in/eTVUZByM Data & Measurement I First-Party Data I Path to Purchase Institute