Fix the Content Supply Chain, Fix Retail Media
Brands seek an improved operating model for content, one that removes needless friction, protects their creative and ensures results. Needed: A trained and calculated content supply chain to deliver content with purpose and precision for each network partner
RETAIL MEDIA HAS SCALED faster than the content supply chain that supports it — and brands are overwhelmed.
Consider that nearly every leading retailer (Walmart, Amazon, 7-Eleven, Kroger, etc.) runs a retail media network (RMN), with each asking its brand partners for custom content, designed specifically for their network’s formatting and standards. Then, add into the mix that each retailer defines retail media differently. Endcap displays, circulars, e-content, social shopping and seemingly anything that moves a shopper toward a purchase can be considered retail media.
Long-tail retailers depend on CPG support, or their networks lose ground
Shopper marketers have always adapted to the needs of their retailer partners, and media networks are no different, but meeting demand with effective and measurable content across networks is a new challenge. Brands know how to build a plan. But keeping content current for Walmart, Amazon, an array of grocers and their banners is a full-time discipline.
To meet the demands, brands are seeking an improved operating model for content, one that removes needless friction, protects their creative and delivers results. They need a trained and calculated content supply chain. The answer isn’t simply more content; it’s delivering content with purpose and precision for each network partner.
Three disciplines for RMN content that performs
EMARKETER reports spending on retail media networks is up nearly 18% in 2026 (totaling more than $71 billion). That investment will only increase, and brands will be called on to support and sustain these networks.
AI-powered content solutions can support CPGs to create offers, ads and material at scale. AI-powered content can help fill network requests and meet the unique formats, rules and requirements set by each network. But scale is a capability. Effectiveness is the goal. Brands need an operating model that puts their expertise to work and delivers content that performs.
When it comes to guiding content creation for RMNs, three disciplines matter:
1. Know when speed matters and when it doesn’t
Not every part of a modern, AI-powered content supply chain needs to become agentic. Some parts benefit from full automation; others depend on a marketer’s judgment.
For instance, resizing one image to 20 different network requirements can slow the execution of a campaign. AI-powered content systems can read each network’s spec, adapt the creative to fit and check it against that network’s rules before it’s submitted. This happens in minutes, not days. This helps remove friction from the content supply chain.
Decisions about which ads should target which shoppers, at what times and down what aisles, are not so easy. Those decisions depend on a marketer’s experience and judgment, and removing friction from routine steps ultimately frees teams to focus on more challenging problems. So go fast where speed creates value and go slow where judgment creates value.
2. Let people orchestrate, not just approve
With dozens of RMNs in play, brands are bound to fall behind, even with support from AI. The usual fix, a content studio model that sends production offshore or nearshore, helps but has limits, and the speed of retail doesn’t allow for those lag times. Brands need to be able to act and react to what the retail merchant needs right away, not next week or next quarter.
AI-powered content systems can help remove the lag. Importantly, they shouldn’t remove the people who decide what’s worth creating. Human judgment starts well before final approval: shaping the idea, defining the shopper, knowing the retailer inside and out, orchestrating and ensuring creative is on-brand and in the right direction.
Before work goes live, brand teams, or the production partners working alongside them, need to review AI-powered creative and ask the important questions: Does the content capture the interest of the retailer’s target shopper? Does it build shopper loyalty? Does it get new users to try the brand? Is the content engaging and working towards the brand’s goals?
The goal of a modern content model isn’t full automation; it’s removing friction where it doesn’t add value while protecting the decisions where people do.
3. Make measurement part of the supply chain
Sponsored products make attribution easy, demonstrating a direct line of attribution to the sale. Most retail media is not that clean, and it’s growing to encompass display, video, off-site placements and in-store screens. Proving its worth is only getting more difficult.
For instance, a regional grocer can put screens in every store, and a snack brand can model and predict the impact their content will have on sales and consumer engagement, but neither can directly prove the sales were incremental. Why does that matter? When that snack brand can’t show its return, it doesn’t get the budget for more RMN content with that grocer, and long-tail retailers depend on CPG support, or their networks lose ground.
CPGs need to treat measurement as a stage of the content supply chain. After every campaign flight, review how the content performed, learn from the results and adjust for the next launch. It’s part of the content cycle and helps support a call on budget. Tracking which creative ran on which network, for which audience, is what makes the answers specific. Measurement is how brands learn whether content deserved to exist. It should change what gets made next, not just describe what already ran.
From more content to more effective content
As RMNs expand and evolve, brands have their work cut out for them. Retailers like Lowe’s are partnering with Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, DoorDash and others to grow media beyond the store. More networks and partnerships mean more placements and opportunities for brands to fill.
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AI-powered content makes this scale possible. A disciplined operating enables effective content; it allows humans to know where to move fast, where judgment matters most and how results shape what gets made next. That’s how brands meet the demand and help support RMNs in the long term.
As network content becomes a real point of discussion inside joint business planning meetings, retailers will push brands toward helping to fund the long tail. CPGs armed with a content plan that delivers fast, compliant and custom materials, and can show what’s working, sit in a strong position during those talks.
Scale is a capability, but effectiveness is still the end goal.
Brandon (BV) Viveiros is chief commerce officer at AdFury, helping brands and agencies apply AI to the real-world challenges of retail media, commerce and content production. He comes from 12 years at Saatchi & Saatchi X — the last two as SVP of commerce and media, working with some of the world’s most recognized brands. Viveiros is also an adjunct lecturer at the University of Arkansas and the host of Retail Media Vibes, a podcast exploring the ideas and people shaping shopping, media, technology, and culture.
