Beyond the basket: commerce media is rewriting the rules of marketing

Identity is the new infrastructure

Experian GM Kimberly Gilberti argued that the fundamentals of commerce media aren’t so different from what marketers have always needed – just better executed.

“You begin with quality first-party data, enrich it, turn it into actionable audiences, activate where those consumers actually are – and then prove the outcome,” she said. “A lot of people think identity is just a list of IDs, but its real power is connecting those signals to who the consumer is offline. That’s where you unlock value across channels.”

The message: commerce media isn’t about more identifiers, it’s about richer context and better outcomes.

Trust + scale = a bank becomes a media owner

At Chase Media Solutions, the pitch is clear. “We serve 85 million customers, but the differentiator is the trusted, intimate relationship we have with them,” said Lauren Griewski. “We see the full picture of spending, which allows us to personalize offers in a way that both respects privacy and drives performance.”

That trust translated into hard results. “In year one, Chase Media drove $12.2bn in consumer spend. We only charge marketers when a purchase or booking happens. Outcomes are the currency.”

Her bigger point was collaboration: “The opportunity in such a fragmented space is to partner – to connect where one network’s data stops and another’s begins. That’s how we add more value to consumers and advertisers alike.”

Airlines: turning seatbacks into shoppable screens

United Airlines’ Mike Petrella described how in-flight entertainment is becoming in-flight commerce. “Today, your seatback and mine are the same. Tomorrow they’ll be personalized – mine will surface foodie spots, sports, concerts – because that’s who I am.”

With high-speed connectivity via Starlink, those screens are being reimagined. “Our in-flight map is the most used feature. What if it became content and commerce? Flying to San Francisco – are the Giants in town, who’s playing downtown? Why not discover and book that mid-flight?”

For Petrella, the future is about experience. “Commerce media has to elevate the journey. If you can’t measure, execute and repeat at scale, the network won’t survive.”

B2B: the stealth growth engine

Intuit’s Dave Raggio argued that small businesses – those with one to 100 employees – are an overlooked audience hiding in plain sight. “Third-party data is often stale or modelled. We provide the horizontal layer that makes SMBs visible at scale,” he said. “Half our customers are using us to connect programmatic data to TV. It makes sense – they want every dollar to work harder.”

For brands, the opportunity is clear. CPGs, logistics firms and beverage companies are discovering new demand from SMB buyers who don’t show up in traditional consumer targeting but represent profitable, scalable segments. “We’ve seen major telecoms and logistics players beat benchmarks many times over when they reach this audience,” Raggio noted.

Where it’s heading

Asked whether commerce media will eventually just be called “media,” Gilberti predicted the lines will blur as first-party data and outcome-based buying become universal. Raggio warned that “consolidation is inevitable – unique data is great, but if it doesn’t scale, there’s not a lot there.” Griewski added that partnership will define the winners: “Stop looking at each other as competitors and start acting like co-builders of a connected ecosystem.”

All agreed that AI will accelerate the trend, not replace the fundamentals. As Griewski put it: “Let’s keep educating ourselves about AI, but let’s not lose sight of what’s already working – permissioned signals, personalization and closed-loop results.”

What it means for marketers (and why this is a fundamental shift)

1. Plan audience-first, channel-agnostic. Your best shoppers may be watching in-flight maps, reconciling books or checking their banking app – not walking a store aisle. Build journeys accordingly.

2. Invest in identity and outcomes. If you can’t connect people and prove results, you won’t scale – nor survive consolidation.

3. Demand interoperability. Fragmentation is the tax on growth. Push for clean-room-ready, privacy-safe pipes that let you buy once and measure everywhere.

4. Expand your total available market. B2B – and specifically SMB – can be a profit engine for “consumer” brands. Commerce media finally makes that reachable at scale.

5. Build trust into the UX. Trusted environments convert. If consumers won’t invite you in, you don’t have a channel – you have a churn problem.

6. Pilot AI with purpose. Use it to accelerate creative and optimisation today; seed future agentic systems by ensuring your data and content are in the training loop.

The last word

If retail media was a lucrative edge case, commerce media is the core case – a design principle for how marketing will work across sectors, screens and store-less moments. As Petrella put it, the winners will “elevate the experience and raise the benchmark.” As Griewski reminded us, outcomes and trust are the currency. And as Gilberti and Raggio made clear, identity and interoperability will decide who scales when the dust settles.