The Brazilian Retail Media market – advertising networks supported by retailers’ assets – is experiencing a growth boom. The market reached R$3.8 billion last year, a 42.3% jump compared to 2023 – advancing at a pace double the global average of 20.3%. Although it represents about 0.6% of the global market, Brazil currently has the highest expansion rate in the world in this category.
And this movement is happening precisely because retailers and the industry are embracing this trend quickly – so much so that expectations are that this media channel will end 2025 with significant growth compared to 2024. This shows that the national retail sector is determined to become a protagonist in digital advertising, riding the ‘third wave’ of online media – as retail media networks have been called. In other words, there is a growing consensus that retailers will become advertising powerhouses, playing a central role in connecting brands and consumers.
At least 64% of major Brazilian brands already work with retail media, according to the 2024 Retail Media Insights survey. On the retailer side, 55% say they already operate their own media network – from supermarkets to pharmacies and marketplaces, various segments are creating structures to monetize their audiences.
The Segmentation Power of Retail
Behind the rise of retail media networks is a retailer’s valuable asset: first-party data about their consumers. Unlike other channels, retail holds rich information about purchasing behavior – transaction history, viewed items, visit frequency, preferences, and even loyalty program data. This information allows for extremely precise audience segmentation. Retailers can leverage their customers’ purchasing insights to offer hyper-targeted advertising solutions, reaching the right consumer with the right message at the most opportune moment.
This segmentation capability based on proprietary data gains strategic importance in a context of greater restrictions on third-party cookies and demands for privacy. Retailers, acting as ‘audience owners,’ can deliver qualified and intent-driven audiences to brands, something hard to find in other media at the same scale.
For example, a pharmacy chain can segment vitamin ads only for customers who recently purchased health products, or an online supermarket can promote organic foods to consumers looking for fitness items. The intelligent use of purchase history, searches, and demographic profiles makes ads much more relevant to consumers, boosting sales and brand loyalty. Studies highlight that retail media offers precisely this possibility of mass personalization, combining reach with tailored content for each customer.
Moreover, the quality of retail data enables more robust performance metrics. Since retail media networks operate within the retailer’s own systems, it’s possible to directly attribute a campaign’s results to sales, closing the full measurement cycle. This ‘closed-loop’ attribution – connecting ad impressions to checkout transactions – is a major differentiator. The richness of purchase data and the ability to directly attribute return on investment make retail media a highly valued strategy for brands.
For advertisers, this means investing in the retail channel is not a leap in the dark: on the contrary, sales results can be proven quickly and accurately, facilitating investment justification and near-real-time campaign optimization.
Integration Between Digital and Offline: Direct Impact at POS
An important aspect of retail media networks is the integration between online and offline worlds. Some of the largest retailers operating in Brazil have a huge customer base both online and offline. This allows these companies to combine channels uniquely to engage consumers at multiple touchpoints during their purchasing journey.
Another example: a customer might be impacted by a product banner in a supermarket’s mobile app and, upon visiting the physical store, encounter a personalized offer on a digital screen at the shelf or near the checkout. This online-offline synergy brings the advertising message to the ‘last mile’ of the decision-making process, literally when the consumer has the product in hand. No wonder experts see retail media as a way to influence consumer choice at the critical moment of purchase – a potential previously limited to traditional POS materials.
Inside stores, in-store digital media is gaining ground as an extension of retail networks. Smart screens, interactive kiosks, electronic shelf labels (ESLs), and even shopping cart monitors become advertising inventory. Retailers can strategically position these screens near checkouts or high-traffic aisles to stimulate last-minute purchases.
Logically, from an operational standpoint, integrating online and offline requires technological measurement efforts: unifying both mediums. This has still been a challenge for retailers, whose solution has been increasingly refined loyalty campaign personalization. Even if technological issues remain, the direction is clear: the future of retail media lies in offering a cohesive omnichannel experience, where it hardly matters whether the interaction happened in the virtual or physical world – both environments complement each other to engage consumers and generate results for brands.
Paradigm Shift: From Sales Channel to Media Channel
The emergence of Retail Media Networks represents a paradigm shift in how the role of retail in the marketing mix is viewed. Historically, retailers were seen only as distribution channels and points of sale, while brand-building and advertising were handled by traditional media outlets or, more recently, digital platforms. With the shift to retail media, this separation dissolves: retail now also serves as a mass communication vehicle, competing for advertising budgets that previously went to other media.
In practice, major retail chains have become true publishers, monetizing their websites, apps, and stores just as a news portal lives off ads or a TV station sells commercial space.
For advertising brands, this represents a reconfiguration of strategies. A portion of the investment previously allocated to trade marketing actions at physical points of sale now shifts to media actions on the retailer’s digital properties. Another portion, which would go to generic mass media, can now be allocated more precisely via retail media, reaching shoppers exactly at the ‘moment of truth’ in purchasing.
This convergence merges marketing and trade, requiring managers to think holistically: selling and communicating have become facets of the same consumer journey. As a result, major global advertisers are already reorganizing teams and budgets to accommodate this new pillar. Some call this movement the ‘mediafication’ of retail – meaning retail is no longer just about distribution but also becoming media.
If supermarkets, pharmacies, and department stores were once just stages for other media strategies, they now have their own spotlight. This model redefines not only investment flows but also demands new approaches from all market players. Brands need to be more data-driven and performance-oriented, agencies must incorporate new knowledge and skills, and retailers take on responsibilities as media companies, ensuring consumer experience also in terms of content and ad relevance.
The advertising ecosystem expands and becomes more complex – yet, at the heart of this transformation, there is a clear logic: those closest to the consumer in the purchasing journey gain voice and value in the media game. Retail, with its own platforms, has proven to be in the right place at the right time to capitalize on this dynamic. It’s up to the other market players to adapt to this new paradigm, integrating retail media into their strategies to avoid falling behind in this evolution that, by all indications, is here to stay.
