So This Happened…9th April 2025
AI regulation is ‘inevitable.’ Are CX leaders ready?
Why It Matters:
The retail media and commerce landscape is being transformed by AI-powered personalisation, shoppable content, and interactive experiences. However, we inevitably face an important inflection point as consumer and privacy focused regulatory frameworks emerge globally.
We are familiar with how vocal the EU is in defending privacy, and raising concerns around misuse of AI, with the EU having already passed the AI Act in 2024, with enforcement deadlines through 2027 - classifying AI applications by risk levels and establishing clear requirements for each.
But where will the US go in the currently environment? While Virginia Governor Glenn Young has recently vetoed a bill regulating "high-risk" AI consumer applications, experts agree that regulation will come regardless, and much like with GDPR, brands should future-proof their strategy. Given that retail media networks and commerce platforms impact the consumer's right to privacy, as well as directly impacting their wallets, retail media networks and commerce platforms are at the heart of consumer and privacy concerns and brands would be well placed to remember that.
These regulations will directly impact how consumer data is leveraged for personalised experiences to trigger targeted contextual transactions. With 80% of European consumers and 78% of US consumers wanting transparency about AI usage, brands must prioritise responsible AI governance, while still innovating.The stakes are particularly high in commerce, where AI increasingly powers recommendation engines, shoppable TV experiences, and retail media targeting.
According to Winterberry Group, connected commerce spending is projected to reach $112.6 billion in 2025, with personalisation driving much of this growth. Retailers leveraging first-party data for AI-powered retail media campaigns should take note of these developments and understand that regulatory controls on privacy and usage of data is inevitable to secure consumer trust.
Companies that have successfully deployed AI have maintained customer trust by prioritising transparency and focusing on value creation rather than just cost savings. As the regulatory landscape evolves, retail media networks and commerce platforms that prioritise responsible AI governance frameworks that allow for continued innovation, while at the same time protecting consumers from potential risks like bias and discrimination, will win. This will secure sustainable customer trust in an increasingly AI-driven shopping environment.
ITV extends targeted advertising capabilities
Why It Matters:
ITV's recent announcement launching Proximity Shopper and updating its Retail Match solution show a pivotal development in the rapidly evolving retail media and connected TV landscape, illustrating how traditional broadcasters are capable of adapting to the targeted commerce-driven future of advertising.
This announcement is particularly timely in the UK because of the recent drive by brands to direct spend towards media that can deliver measurable attribution and impact, hence the rise of retail media spend away from traditional linear TV.
ITV has launched two significant enhancements to its addressable advertising platform Planet V: the new Proximity Shopper offering, providing location-based targeting using point-of-sale data from Circana, and major improvements to its Retail Match attribution service that connects ITV viewership with Tesco and Boots customer data.
This development comes at an important time in the retail media evolution. According to Winterberry Group, connected commerce spending is forecast to reach $112.6 billion in 2025, growing at an impressive 18.7% CAGR since 2021. This integration of retail data with television advertising capabilities moves the linear TV industry toward more precise targeting and closed-loop measurement.
ITV's approach mirrors the broader convergence of retail media and CTV that we are seeing globally. Recent research shows that 51% of global consumers say they would prefer to shop from retailers with integrated media experiences, and 62% intend to shop more through media platforms in the future.
What makes this announcement particularly important is how ITV has automated Tesco audience segments within Planet V, enabling "always-on" access to valuable consumer categories like ice cream purchasers, vegans, and health and beauty shoppers. This self-service functionality allows FMCG advertisers to quickly deploy tactical campaigns based on actual purchase behaviour.
For brands like Who Gives a Crap and Bahlsen who have already trialled these solutions, these capabilities provide a powerful way to connect TV advertising directly to sales outcomes, in a direct response to fulfilling the now expanded brand metrics for media spend.
The new effectiveness measurement suite goes beyond immediate impact to track longer-term metrics like repeat purchases and customer lifetime value. As retailers increasingly become media companies and media companies integrate commerce capabilities with content weaving both ecosystems together, ITV's enhancements reflect the direction of travel for traditional broadcasters if they are to compete in the media, and inevitably the retail media ecosystem.
By offering more precise targeting and robust attribution, ITV has the aspirations to build value in its TV revenue and ecosystem by enabling brands to better understand the full impact of their TV investments, while creating new revenue opportunities for itself in the growing retail media landscape.
Project Lantern in the UK, which released its RFI last week, is another industry initiative through which broadcasters (including Sky, ITV, C4, and C5) are seeking to develop tools to build a multi-outcome measurement product, with the objective for linear TV to build value attribution in its measurement system, grow its share of the retail media spend, and compete for spend with Retail Media Networks.
The Home Depot adds another acronym - 'ROMO' - in next phase of negotiating retail media network measurement
AdWeek
Why It Matters:
Home Depot's introduction of ROMO (Return on Marketing Objectives) provides a valuable insight into how Retail Media Networks and Brands are valuing and measuring media spend.
Where traditional retail media networks focused predominantly on lower-funnel performance metrics, with Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) serving as the gold standard this goes beyond on-site placements to include off-site channels and CTV advertising.
Home Depot's ROMO (rather than ROAS) framework addresses a persistent pain point in the retail media ecosystem. Nearly 65% of marketers have expressed frustration with inconsistent measurement across different retail media networks, making it difficult to compare performance and justify increased investment.
We talk about this a lot here in So This Happened...By incorporating metrics like brand awareness, customer engagement, retention, and market share growth, ROMO demands a more holistic view of campaign efficacy.
This shift mirrors broader industry trends we're seeing in connected commerce. As the lines between content and commerce continue to blur, with shoppable video experiences and interactive CTV ads gaining traction, measurement is being asked to evolve accordingly. Home Depot's approach acknowledges that the customer journey spans multiple touchpoints and that a sale attributed to a retail media ad might have been influenced by earlier brand-building activities.
For brands this is about adapting a more complex measurement frameworks and focusing on full impact of their retail media investments beyond immediate conversion. As Home Depot expands its off-site partnerships with Meta, Google, Pinterest, and Yahoo, ROMO is seeking to provide a framework that can unite performance across these diverse channels. Evidence of the evolution from a purely performancoe-driven channel to one that spans the entire marketing funnel.
Will this ROMO metrics become the go to standard for Brands?
Vimeo Wants to Let Every Creator Launch Their Own Netflix
The Hollywood Reporter
Why It Matters:
Vimeo's recent introduction of Vimeo Streaming, with its specific ability to enable content commerce and shoppable content experiences, aligns with the growth in Social Commerce and Retail / content commerce generally.
The core innovation of Vimeo Streaming— enabling creators to launch their own subscription streaming services without the algorithm concerns of YouTube or revenue issues with TikTok and Instagram — mirrors the democratisation happening across retail media that was initially seen in social commerce.
Just as retailers of all sizes can now build their own media networks to monetise audience attention, and social platforms have been building their own influencer led marketplaces, Vimeo is positioning individual creators to build direct commercial relationships with their audiences.
We are told that 62% of consumers intend to shop more through content platforms such as TikTok in the future, highlighting the growing convergence of content and commerce. Vimeo's inclusion of tiered membership options, merchandise integration, and live event access creates what is essentially a mini-retail media ecosystem for each creator.
This multi-revenue approach mirrors how advanced retail media networks are expanding beyond traditional ad placements to include multiple monetisation channels. The timing is strategic as well. Vimeo is targeting the same pain point that has driven retailers to develop their own media networks — the desire for more control over monetisation and direct relationships with audiences.
Particularly interesting from a commerce perspective are the AI-powered translations that enable global reach. This feature addresses a key challenge in both content commerce and retail media: scaling personalised experiences across diverse markets and audiences. With 55% of gamers reporting that digital items are as important as physical ones, the ability to monetise content globally represents a significant opportunity.
When CEO Sam Reich notes that "subscription business is far and away our biggest revenue driver," he's confirming what many retail media networks are discovering—that direct audience relationships can be more valuable than traditional advertising models. As the boundaries between content platforms, commerce destinations, and media networks continue to dissolve, Vimeo's approach to empowering creators with commerce capabilities could provide valuable lessons for retail media's evolution toward more content-centric business models and an ongoing opportunity for brands to connect directly with their consumers.
Amazon’s new AI agent will shop third-party sites for you
Why It Matters:
Amazon's test of "Buy for Me," an AI shopping agent that can purchase products from third-party websites, represents a significant acceleration of its Amazon Anywhere strategy and capability in the retail media landscape with far-reaching implications for commerce, content discovery, and the competitive dynamics between platforms.
Whilst this move places Amazon at the cutting edge of the agentic AI revolution in retail, aligning with Google, OpenAI, and Perplexity in developing AI systems that can autonomously navigate websites and complete purchases, it does so with a MAJOR difference, and this is what sets Amazon's approach apart: its integration with the company's massive e-commerce infrastructure and its willingness to handle sensitive payment information ON BEHALF OF ITS CUSTOMERS.
Yes, you read that correctly. Amazon has your credit card detail and will be able to shop on your behalf on third party sites!
Remember that Amazon already commands approximately 35% of consumer product searches according to recent industry data, making it the primary inspiration and search channel for many shoppers. With "Buy for Me," Amazon could potentially insert itself as an intermediary in transactions occurring on competitors' websites, capturing valuable attribution data and expanding its retail media network's reach beyond its own properties, significantly expanding its access and reach into consumer product search and purchase data.
For brands and retailers operating their own retail media networks, this means that Amazon would have the means to tap into to their own retail media and consumer data and consolidate its position as the dominant discovery and transaction layer across the entire e-commerce landscape. Some independent retailers may be tempted by the scale opportunity that Amazon's network represents, but that has to be balanced against the consequence of Amazon's capabilities and ownership of key consumer purchase data beyond its own walled garden across the whole ecosystem.
The timing aligns with broader industry trends toward content commerce's "compressed commerce" – the shortening of the path from inspiration to purchase. According to Future Shopper research, 63% of global consumers want to get from inspiration to purchase as quickly as possible. Amazon's AI shopping agent addresses this desire by eliminating friction across fragmented commerce channels.
However, security concerns remain significant on the purchases. Would you trust Amazon to handle automatic purchases on your behalf, relying only on encryption of your credit card details?
This stands in contrast to competitors like OpenAI and Google, which still require manual input of payment details. How does this sit within the content commerce trends that we talk about in So This happens?
It confirms the movement and increasing importance of universal commerce layers that operate across multiple retailer environments. These are driven by the Brands increasing demand for advanced attribution models that can track customer journeys spanning multiple platforms. The potential for AI to fundamentally reshape how consumers discover and purchase products (as is witnessed in the evolution of social commerce) is exciting, however, it is not benign and has serious implications.
As retail media networks evolve beyond traditional advertising to include commerce enablement, does Amazon's "Buy for Me" represent a significant overreach in ownership and control of data in the way it is integrating discovery, decision-making, and transaction into a unified AI-powered experience?
For brands and retailers invested in retail media, this development demands close attention and potentially strategic recalibration as the boundaries between different commerce platforms continue to blur.
Amazon's new "Buy for Me" AI shopping agent represents a seismic shift in their Amazon Anywhere ambitions and the retail media landscape. It actively reshapes how consumers discover and purchase products across the entire internet. By enabling seamless purchases from third-party sites without leaving the Amazon app, this innovation could dramatically expand Amazon's role from marketplace to universal (the word master of the universe comes to mind) shopping intermediary.
Beware- this is not benign. Launched by stealth on its own blog, this development carries significant implications—Amazon could potentially insert itself into the customer journey even on competitors' sites, capturing valuable attribution data and extending its advertising reach to every shopping site everywhere. Think of the consequences for independent retailers and on retail media spend!
Beyond that - and consumers beware - its agentic AI claims the ability to purchase from the customers own credit card on its behalf. Watch out parents, this takes purchasing without active consent and control to a new level. Your kids could have a field day outside of the Amazon App on any site with purchase capability.
With connected commerce spending projected to reach $112.6 billion in 2025 and 63% of consumers wanting compression between inspiration and purchase, Amazon's move addresses growing consumer demand for frictionless shopping experiences across fragmented commerce channels. This development may accelerate the retail media arms race, forcing other networks to develop similar capabilities or risk losing market share to Amazon's expanding commerce ecosystem.
