In-store retail media is no longer a “does it work?” question. It’s a “can you operate it?” question. At NRF, leaders from CVS, Loblaw, and STRATACACHE made it clear: the next phase of retail media growth won’t be won with more screens, but with better pilots, stronger measurement, disciplined creative, and cross-functional execution inside the store.
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For CVS Health’s Sarah Reynolds, going “all in” never meant blanketing stores with screens. It meant redefining the store as a channel, without breaking its core function.
Customers come into CVS on a mission. Pick up a prescription. Get a flu shot. Grab essentials. In-store media has to support that mission, not interrupt it. That framing shaped every decision, from screen placement to content length.
Loblaw’s Robyn Sullivan echoed the same philosophy. Screens aren’t a revenue tactic; they’re a customer utility. Discovery, efficiency, and value come first. Monetization follows.
Kristen DiCorleto of CVS Media Exchange described a disciplined pilot approach. No rollout happens without brand partners aligned on shared learning objectives. Every test includes control stores. Measurement is baked in from day one.
CVS partnered with the IAB to establish in-store measurement standards, allowing them to attribute incremental sales and ROAS using loyalty data tied to screen exposure by time and location.
The result? In-store stops being “upper funnel” guesswork and becomes accountable media.
Installing screens isn’t like launching a digital ad unit. It’s closer to store renovation.
Permits. Power access. Overnight work. Store ops approval. IT vetoes. Reynolds described how CVS ultimately deployed thousands of screens on a private LTE network simply to avoid internal infrastructure blockers.
That decision wasn’t elegant, but it was decisive. And it highlights a core reality: execution speed often matters more than architectural perfection.
One of the most surprising insights came from pharmacy waiting-area screens. Initially sold as patient reach, these placements proved even more valuable as point-of-care education for pharmacists and clinicians who see the content all day.
That discovery reshaped how CVS sells in-store inventory to pharmaceutical brands and how those brands design creative.
In-store media doesn’t just reach shoppers. It reaches store decision-makers too.
Early on, CVS allowed brands to reuse the same creative across channels. That mistake was expensive.
Different in-store moments require different creative strategies. Entry screens drive awareness. Shelf-adjacent screens drive conversion. Waiting areas support education. Resizing assets isn’t enough.
CMX now provides brands with detailed creative guidance explaining why certain formats work, not just how to build them.
Loblaw’s condiment launch and CVS’s Dove campaign showed what effective orchestration looks like. Not saturation, but sequencing.
Off-site media primes the shopper. In-store screens reinforce. Shelf placement closes. Loyalty and receipt offers seal the deal.
Multi-touch attribution allows retailers to quantify how much value each channel contributes—critical for convincing brands that in-store belongs in the mix.
The hardest part of scale isn’t technology. It’s alignment.
Store ops, IT, merchants, pharmacy teams, media sales – everyone has different incentives. Scaling requires education, transparency, and shared success metrics.
As Russell Young put it, the era of siloed media teams “just putting screens in stores” is over. In-store retail media demands cross-functional ownership or it fails.
In-store retail media is no longer experimental, but it’s not plug-and-play either.
Retailers who succeed will be the ones who:
The great scale-up isn’t about more screens. It’s about operational maturity.
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