Unlimitail's Alexis Marcombe on Cracking In-Store Measurement, aka Retail Media's Next Frontier | Live from Paris
Live from the Vusion podcast studio at NRF Retail's Big Show Europe in Paris, Ben Miller sits down with Alexis Marcombe, CEO of Unlimitail, the retail media joint venture between Carrefour and Publicis.
Alexis explains how Unlimitail built an open, cross-border retail media alliance now spanning 40+ retailers and 21 countries, why in-store measurement remains the industry's biggest unsolved problem despite 70-98% of European sales still happening in physical stores, and why Unlimitail plugs into partners' existing tech stacks rather than forcing its own. He closes with a bold prediction for 2027: a massive RFP that could reshape in-store retail media across Europe.
In this episode:
- Inside Unlimitail: an open retail media alliance spanning 40+ retailers and 21 countries
- How CPG brands work with Unlimitail to solve specific sales problems
- Why in-store measurement is retail media's biggest unsolved challenge
- Balancing advertiser demand for performance with the case for brand-building
- A 2027 prediction: the massive RFP that could reshape in-store retail media in Europe
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Transcript
Hello everyone, this is Omnitalk Retail.
Speaker A:I'm Ben Miller and coming to you live from the Vuzion podcast studio at NRF's retails big show Europe in Paris.
Speaker A:And joining me now is Alexei Marcom, CEO of Unlimited.
Speaker A:Welcome to Omnitalk Alexei.
Speaker B:Thank you for receiving me.
Speaker A:You're most welcome.
Speaker A:Okay, look for listeners who aren't familiar with Unlimital, who are you?
Speaker B:First, I'm the CEO of Unlimited.
Speaker B:And Unlimited is a joint venture between Carrefour and Publicis and the idea is to offer to retailers and brands an ability to operate retail media at scale in Europe.
Speaker B:Because as you know, Europe is far different from the US it's 27 countries, as many languages as we have, some countries, different retailers and so, so it can easily become a nightmare.
Speaker B:So the idea is to is everything so that retail media become a dream.
Speaker A:For everyone selling the retail media dream.
Speaker A:So Alexa, this is our first retail media conversation today.
Speaker A:So I'm really excited to get deep into this, but let's start with a little bit more on unlimited.
Speaker A:Obviously you're very closely associated with Cafour, where the joint venture grow out of, but when you launch, you launch with 13 partners and you've grown since then.
Speaker A:So talk me through about some of the other retailers that are involved and also how do you make that work?
Speaker A:I mean it's not Cathode's retail media network, it's something very different.
Speaker A:So describe that.
Speaker B:Yeah, of course not.
Speaker B:The idea in fact is very simple.
Speaker B:Retail media in Europe as for a retailer, is an opportunity, no doubt, but the cost to operate is incredibly high.
Speaker B:So there are very few retailers that can operate by themselves and make it profitable.
Speaker B:So the idea was to offer to other retailers an ability to operate their retail media, whether by offering them and provide them with technology or the services, meaning operation or commercialization.
Speaker B:So the idea was to offer to retailers an ability to operate and for brands a network that were big enough to make it appealing to them.
Speaker B:So that really was the idea.
Speaker B:And the idea was to offer a cross border offer to brands so that they can operate in multi country.
Speaker B:So that's why today we operate this retail media for more than 40 retailers.
Speaker B:Yeah, 40 retailers.
Speaker B:125 Websites are equipped with our technology in 21 countries.
Speaker B:So that's really the idea.
Speaker B:And by the end of the year, my main shareholder will represent less than 25% of the business that we are generating online in retail media.
Speaker B:So the idea is really an open alliance and not just operate the retail media for just one retailer.
Speaker A:Okay, so Talk to me from a CPG perspective.
Speaker A:So one of the things we often hear from the cpgs is that retail needs are very fragmented.
Speaker A:You're obviously trying to counter that.
Speaker A:So how does a CPG create an agreement with unlimited?
Speaker A:And what does that look like?
Speaker B:It is simple.
Speaker B:Let's assume that you are selling beauty products, sodas, whatever you want.
Speaker B:In fact, the idea is to come to us so that we can understand what your issue is.
Speaker B:And to do this, we analyze your transactional data to determine who you need to talk to.
Speaker B:What is the issue that you need to solve in priority?
Speaker B:Do you have an issue with, let's say, women with two kids?
Speaker B:Do you have an issue with your pricing, with your promotion, with the competitors that just launch a new product or.
Speaker B:So then we understand what the issue is and then we bring the solution so that we can increase your sales with the retailer we are working with.
Speaker B:And we adapt it, of course, by retailers and by channel.
Speaker A:Right, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker A:That makes sense.
Speaker A:So look, you and I, we had the opportunity to speak about retail media many times.
Speaker A:So when you step back and you look at retail media in Europe right now, what do you think is the biggest challenge, the biggest trend is happening?
Speaker A:And then what is unlimited doing about that?
Speaker B:So the first barrier that everyone tries to overpass is still measurement.
Speaker B:Measurement.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's still measurement when you take it in the right way, meaning in omnichannel way.
Speaker B:Measuring on site is easy.
Speaker B:Measuring off site is quite easy.
Speaker B:Measuring on site plus off site is something that we are very few to manage.
Speaker B:Measuring on site, off site and in store is something that we are the only one to manage today at scale, with a strong level of accuracy.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:Because.
Speaker B:And why it's so important?
Speaker B:It's so important because in Europe you still have, considering the size of the category in which you operate, 70 to 98% of your sales that are still in stores.
Speaker B:So if you do not measure in store, you do not measure anything.
Speaker B:And that's of course hard to do because it means an ability and some, let's say, expertise to manage this kind of data.
Speaker B:And the fact that we begin to do it more than 10 years ago, give us an unparalleled expertise on this, which we bring to our partner today.
Speaker A:Okay, let's really dive into that.
Speaker A:Alexei.
Speaker A:So two things.
Speaker A:So number one, just level setting, what is the in store proposition for unlimited retail media?
Speaker A:And then secondly, how would you go about measuring that in store impact?
Speaker B:So there are many ways to do it.
Speaker B:First thing is that we have the transaction Transaction give us an ability to measure whether by store and by sampling them in a very easy way, a B test.
Speaker B:But more than this we have the loyalty card which allows us to determine precisely who has been addressed and whether they get it or not.
Speaker B:And then we have lots of sensors that we can also use to measure the performance of the campaign.
Speaker B:So there are many ways to do it.
Speaker B:The point is to combine it, to have it at scale for all the stores we operate in.
Speaker A:So what kind of, if you are a, if you're a media buyer and you're thinking about in store, what are the sort of in store activations that you're currently offering?
Speaker B:In fact every piece of activation, whether it is a simple Kakemono Warbler or whatever you want or DOH kind of E paper whatever you want.
Speaker B:So we have everything today that we operate in our store and as you know we are launching now a new RFP to improve the way we manage our stores operation for Carrefour first and then for other retailers that we will soon announce.
Speaker A:Okay, let's go on.
Speaker A:When you're talking to advertisers, what's their priority in retail media right now?
Speaker A:Is it, is it still conversion or how important is the awareness, the brand building element to that?
Speaker B:My dream is that they come to awareness and branding reality that they are still looking for conversion.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:Because we can measure.
Speaker B:So the point is not what do they want because they are more than right than asking for performance today.
Speaker B:Branding is also a lever to deliver performance.
Speaker B:What we do and that makes a success of retail media is our ability to measure the efficiency of anything we do.
Speaker B:So we take it by this way.
Speaker B:It doesn't mean that for any piece of campaign we ask for a return on that spend of 5, 6, 7 or whatever you want.
Speaker B:The point is to be able that sometimes we have reached the right person and that the action that were expected has been executed or not.
Speaker B:And if not, it's also something that we can exploit to improve the next campaign.
Speaker B:So the point is to work much more in, let's say a lifetime value proposition both for brand and retailers that just running campaign that will deliver at some point a return on that spend.
Speaker B:We are kind of programmed because we exploit every touch point to improve the next action.
Speaker A:Yeah, so it's this continuing battle to get beyond the one dimension of return on ad spend.
Speaker A:Yeah, I got it, I got it, I got it.
Speaker A:So Alexey, we talked a lot about measurement, a lot about delivery.
Speaker A:All that requires the platforms, the engineering.
Speaker A:So how, how important is that for you and how are you going about making sure that your platforms meet advertisers and retailers needs first?
Speaker B:We have no choice than providing our partner with the best platform.
Speaker B:If not, they stop working with us.
Speaker B:So this is not an option.
Speaker B:Today what we have announced in the Lions in Cannes is that we work with more than 15 tech partners.
Speaker B:Our job is to aggregate everything so that every piece of tech makes sense in a business, business wise for both brands or retailers.
Speaker B:For instance, we work with Snowflake as a clean room.
Speaker B:But we still work with Mediarhythmics and Liveramps as a CDP.
Speaker B:We work with NielsenIQ to process insight and measurement.
Speaker B:We will work with Infosem for connecting to some other.
Speaker B:So our job is to make sure that we always bring to our client, whether they are retailer, brand or an agency, the solutions they are working with so that we can stick to what they do.
Speaker B:I'm humble enough to know that I don't know everything and that my job is to connect to the ecosystem of my partner.
Speaker B:So that's Z80.
Speaker A:Really different approach to be building out your own platform.
Speaker B:We build our own platform because without it we would not bring value.
Speaker B:But my own platform has to be able to connect to the platform of my client.
Speaker B:I'm not Amazon, I will not be.
Speaker B:So I do not come to my client and say hey, you must use my dsp.
Speaker B:Hey, you must use my clean room.
Speaker B:You must use no, please work with me.
Speaker B:I'll be happy to do so and to help.
Speaker A:Okay, I love that.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:Okay, let's wrap up.
Speaker A:One final question.
Speaker A: is going to be next year, in: Speaker B:With absolutely no humility, the tender than we have for our own in store operation.
Speaker B:This is from far the largest tender in Europe in four years.
Speaker B:And it will definitely change the way the landscape of retail media in Europe because we are talking about a lot of money that will be generated through this new offering.
Speaker A:So what are you looking for from this tender?
Speaker A:What is it going to enable?
Speaker B:The idea is to leverage in store business.
Speaker B:If you come to in store, this is the next frontier of retail media.
Speaker B:And maybe I will surprise you, but Europe is ahead the US on this because we operate this kind of business for more than 40 years.
Speaker B:Because to be clear, we had so small e commerce business that we had no alternative than finding something else.
Speaker B:And this something else was there were stores.
Speaker B:So we have initiated lots of things into our store.
Speaker B:But when I see the retail media turnover that we generate for our retailers compared to their gmv.
Speaker B:And if I take this ratio in store, it's five times lower.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Because of the measurement.
Speaker B:Yes, because there are very few retailers able to measure in the right way what they are doing in store.
Speaker B:As we have overpassed this frontier, now we can increase the potential of the in store retail media.
Speaker B:That's what we are doing now by equipping a lot more our stores with addressable assets, DoH, E Ink and so on.
Speaker A:We are going to have to get you back Alexey next year so you can give us the actual detail of how all this has gone.
Speaker A:But for now we really interesting.
Speaker A:Alexei, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker B:Thank you for hosting me.
Speaker A:Oh, you're welcome.
Speaker A:And thanks to the team at Vuzion and NRF's big show Europe for making the coverage of this show possible.
Speaker A:Stay tuned for more.
