Observed Signal · Sep 8, 2026 · Documentary Series · Source: The Drum · Impact: 3/5 · Sentiment: Positive
All Media is Commerce Media: The Infinite Storefront
The Drum's documentary series explores the convergence of brand, media, and commerce, arguing that retail media is evolving into 'commerce media' across all channels. Industry leaders from The Trade Desk, DoorDash, dentsu, Albertsons Media Collective, Roku, Cint, Roundel, and Mars Pet Nutrition discuss how shopping is expanding beyond retail sites to social, TV, hotels, and airlines. The shift is driven by first-party data, attribution, and the ability to connect media investment directly to sales. However, measuring across fragmented touchpoints remains a challenge. The episode highlights the breakdown of silos between awareness and conversion, positioning commerce media as the future of all advertising.
Highlights the expansion of retail media into broader commerce media across all channels, indicating a significant industry trend with implications for measurement and strategy.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- The Trade Desk's Jeff Daniel states that awareness to purchase can happen 'in the blink of an eye'.
- DoorDash's Dan Ackerman says commerce media is taking retail media 'to the next level'.
- Roku's Anna Miller predicts shopping from TVs in unprecedented ways within two years.
- Mars Pet Nutrition invests a significant percentage of its paid marketing budget in retail media.
- The Drum released episode two of its documentary series 'All Media Is Commerce Media'.
Connected Companies & Entities
8 Entities mapped“Jeff Daniel, general manager, commerce data partnerships, The Trade Desk, discusses the shift from awareness to purchase.”
“Dan Ackerman, vice-president of enterprise advertising sales, DoorDash, discusses commerce media.”
“Tony Rogers, senior vice-president and CMO at Dollar General, comments on retail media's appeal.”
“Kavita Cariapa, head of commerce media at dentsu, argues all media is commerce media.”
“Julian Mintz, vice-president of ad sales at Albertsons Media Collective, mentions creators as a growing channel.”
“Anna Miller, head of ad measurement and research at Roku, predicts shopping from TVs.”
“Laura Manning, senior vice-president, global measurement at Cint, discusses measurement challenges.”
“Natalia Ball, global chief growth officer at Mars Pet Nutrition, discusses investing in retail media.”
Ontology Mapping & Concepts
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
Retail Media's Reckoning: Who Holds the Power?
The Drum’s Current Accountability episode argues retail media has entered a new phase: the rapid, easy growth is over and power is fragmenting among retailers, platforms and brands. Industry leaders warn many retail media networks are reaching onsite saturation, AI is reshaping product discovery (threatening retailer-dependent traffic), and networks must prove differentiation to capture brand budgets. Measurement and speed-to-action remain urgent problems—executives cite the need for objective cross-network measurement and a damaging "data-to-action" delay. Several companies describe efforts to unite brand and commerce media (connected commerce) to own the funnel end-to-end. The episode frames future growth as contingent on accountability, adaptability and rethinking where value is created across the commerce-media ecosystem.
Commerce Media Expands Beyond Retail
The Trade Desk’s Jeff Daniel argues that commerce media is moving beyond traditional retail players as airlines, hotels, banks and other customer-facing businesses adopt retail-media principles using first-party data. Successful commerce media networks are shifting from pure inventory sales to consultative, full-funnel partners offering interoperable measurement and activation across onsite, owned channels and the open web. The piece highlights retailers’ advantage in direct purchase insight, cites Dollar General as an example of collaborative practice with advertisers and agencies, and describes The Trade Desk’s role as a connector that helps brands activate retailer data programmatically while providing measurement of business outcomes. The article frames the trend as an industry evolution driven by first-party data, measurement flexibility and organizational change within companies running commerce media businesses.
Discovery Collapses Funnel; Machines Decide Purchases
The Drum has released the first episode of its three-part documentary series All Media Is Commerce Media — The New Shop Window — which examines how product discovery is changing as social platforms, conversational search and AI assistants shorten the path from discovery to purchase. Industry leaders from TikTok, Google, Albertsons, Philips, Circana, Kroger Precision Marketing and Mirakl feature in the film, sharing data and viewpoints: TikTok searches are up 40% year-on-year, social discovery is driving a large share of purchases, and search queries are lengthening in the AI era. The episode argues marketers must optimise for both humans and machines — improving metadata, product information and formats that allow algorithms and AI agents to surface and transact on behalf of shoppers.
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