Unlocking Retail Media

About Unlocking Retail Media

Unlocking Retail Media is the essential podcast for leaders and marketers navigating the rapidly evolving world of retail advertising. We move beyond day-to-day operations to explore the strategic future of the industry, covering major investment trends, the shift to hybrid marketplace models, and the existential disruption posed by Agentic Commerce. Host James Avery brings in top industry veterans and visionary founders to analyze how ground-breaking technology is transforming customer journeys, influencing product catalogs, and forcing retailers to rethink on-site, in-store, and digital media strategies to remain competitive in the modern age.

Publisher

Kevel

Category

business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

12 Nov 2025

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

25 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Oct 2026

   A Market Without Amazon: Why Brazil's Retail Media Landscape Looks Different with Herik Mourão

2. 

   23 Sept 2026

   Your Share, Not Your Sales: Rethinking Retail Media Measurement with Matthew Fantazier

   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.

3. 

   9 Sept 2026

   Building a Retail Media Network From Scratch with Art Sebastian

   James Avery sits down with Art Sebastian (https://www.linkedin.com/in/artsebastian/), founder of NexChapter (https://www.nexchapter.com/) 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.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Spotify

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.