A transparency message for retail media; Unmade Index falls some more; Compass Melbourne panel revealed
Welcome to a midweek edition of Unmade.
In today’s retail media-led edition, the IAB’s retail media chair Lachlan Brahe says the industry is getting the message from brands about transparency.
Plus, as tickets sell out for tonight’s Compass Hobart, we have news of the full lineup for Compass Melbourne. And the Unmade Index drops to a lower low.
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:
Complimentary tickets to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn (2025), REmade (2025), Unlock (2025), and Compass (November);
Member-only content and our paywalled archives;
Your own copy of Media Unmade.
Christian O’Connell, Kimberlee Wells, Nomfundo Msomi and Thomas Dobson on Compass Melbourne lineup
As Unmade’s Compass roadshow kicks off in Hobart tonight, our full six-state speaker lineup is now complete.
We can today announce the full lineup for Compass Melbourne on Wednesday, November 20.
The panel features Gold FM’s breakfast host Christian O’Connell; Kimberlee Wells, CEO of TBWA Melbourne; Thomas Dobson, acting chief marketing officer of NAB; and Nomfundo Msomi, executive brand strategy director for CHEP Network.
It will be the third outing for Compass in Melbourne. This year it will be held at The Garden State Hotel from 5pm. Tickets are free for Unmade’s paying members, and on sale for $199.
Along with networking drinks, the reflections and projections event features a panel discussion of the key moments of 2024, and a look forward to 2025. The discussion, moderated by Unmade’s Tim Burrowes, will also be shared as a podcast.
Tickets for tonight’s Hobart edition of Compass are now sold out. Brisbane (November 12); Sydney (November 13); Perth (November 18); Adelaide (November 19) and Melbourne (November 20) are all on sale via this link.
As retail media grows, the market wants more transparency
In this guest post, Lachlan Brahe, chair of the IAB Retail Media Council and GM of retail media at Cashrewards, says the market wants more transparency and more opportunities at point of sale.
The IAB’s publication of the Retail Media State of the Nation report provides insights into the growth of the retail media sector and the factors the industry needs to address to deliver further success for brands and marketers in the future.
The report surveyed 134 advertising investment decision-makers and influencers working in media agencies, agency trading desks, creative agencies, and brand marketing teams. The results have been compared to a similar survey conducted 18 months earlier in February 2023.
Analysing stakeholder feedback provides fertile territory for the IAB Retail Media Council to establish the necessary steps for continued industry growth, thought leadership, education and training.
Below are three key insights from the report that cover the current wave of growth and important factors to address for marketers moving forward.
1. Retail media adoption in Australia is still in its early stages
In Australia, retail media is now an $850 million market and is forecast to reach $3bn by 2027. This is still relatively small compared to the maturity of the US retail media market, which is forecast to surpass the $100 bn mark by 2027 (up from $30 billion in 2019)
Given Australia's tendency to follow the US, the trend for continued investment in the sector is predicted to continue over the next few years. A total of 37% of retail media investors surveyed in the report spent a significant amount of their media and marketing budget on retail media in 2024 – up from 26% in 2023.
2. Brands want the ability to reach shoppers at the point of sale
The report identified that the most important driver of investment for agencies and marketers is the ability to reach shoppers at the point of purchase, followed by the opportunity to leverage the benefits of retailer first-party data.
In considering retail media activities, buyers are using data to inform their planning as part of their holistic planning mix. Up to 60% of retail media investment is being diverted from traditional and social media channels, with 40% of advertisers securing new budgets for retail media – up from 31% in 2023.
3. The need for increased transparency on shopper data:
As advertising expenditure in retail media grows and more players enter the market, suppliers and agencies need confidence that their investment is effective, and that reporting metrics are standardised.
Measurement-related requirements have increased over the last year, with 69% of advertisers indicating that return on ad spend (ROAS) was now one of their top priorities. Barriers to retail media investment included measurement and reporting (45%), followed by complexity in the relationship between brands and retailers (41%), the cost of partnering (34%) and attribution capabilities (34%).
Principles and guidance
The IAB Australia’s Retail Media Council has released a new collaborative resource: Australian Retail Media Measurement Principles and Guidance.
The guide leverages work carried out by IAB US and IAB Europe and provides information on current market practices and potential solutions under five core principles:
Transparency and consistency;
Accountability and reliability;
Shopper-centric;
Privacy and security ;
Compliance with industry standards and best practices
The guide also provides a checklist for what retailers should do and what brands should ask.
Conversation and collaboration are integral to the continued growth of retail media in Australia. This breadth of input is vital to educate the market and to increase confidence and clarity in retail media. For retail media organisations to maintain trust and credibility within the industry, they must use robust measurement methodologies and technologies, providing clear and comprehensive definitions for each measurement aspect.
Download the IAB report: Retail Media State of the Nation 2024.
Unmade Index falls to a second low in two days
After hitting an all time low on Monday, the Unmade Index sank another 0.6% on Tuesday, falling to 432.2 points.
Australia’s two major audio companies had the worst of it. ARN Media lost 5.3% and Southern Cross Austereo fell 1.9%.
Nine lost another 0.4% as it prepares for what may be a fractious AGM tomorrow.
Time to leave you to your Wednesday. Unless there’s major news, we’ll take a publishing break tomorrow while we focus on Compass Hobart. We’ll be back with an audio-led edition on Friday in which I talk to Joe Aston about his book on Qantas and the furore it’s created. It’s a pretty good chat.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media
