Retail Media Switzerland: When Advertising Moves Closer to the Checkout Again
Retail media isn’t an entirely new concept, but it is a category with increasingly sophisticated possibilities. At the first Retail Media Switzerland conference held at Google in Zurich, it became clear just how closely advertising, data, AI, and sales are currently intertwined—and why it’s becoming more challenging for brands to keep track of everything.
An old way of thinking, taken to new heights
At its core, retail media is nothing more than a well-established marketing principle: Brands want to be visible where people shop. In the past, this was referred to as shelf space, secondary placement, promotional space, or flyers. Today, it’s called onsite, offsite, product feed, in-store screen, or commerce media.
So what’s new isn’t so much the concept as the technical and strategic precision. Retailers have data, platforms have reach, and brands have budgets—and retail media is increasingly bringing these three forces together in a systematic way. That is precisely what makes the topic so fascinating, but also so challenging.
After all, the more options that emerge, the more confusing the landscape becomes. For brands, the question is no longer just whether they should use retail media, but where, how, with what data, through which channels, and using what measurement methodology.
Retail Media Switzerland Provides Guidance
It was therefore fitting that Retail Media Switzerland chose Google on Europaallee, of all places, to host its first industry conference. More than 50 participants from the Swiss retail media community came together to address a topic that has long been gaining momentum internationally but is still seeking a common language, standards, and market understanding in Switzerland.
The efforts of the initiators—Eric Hall, Martin Radelfinger, and Sven Ruoss—are therefore more than just organizational trailblazing. They create a space where retailers, platforms, data providers, technology partners, agencies, and brands can begin to understand the same topic from different perspectives.
Sven Ruoss summed it up pragmatically right from the start: Retail media is the combination of media advertising and sales. This simplicity is important. After all, the category can quickly seem technical, but at its core it’s surprisingly tangible: Advertising should be brought closer to the purchasing decision and better demonstrate what it actually achieves.
Google Shows Where Retail Media Is Headed
Roxanne van Duijn from Google provided insight into international trends. Her masterclass made it clear that retail media goes beyond sponsored products on retailer websites.
The next wave of growth will take place in the offsite space. Retailers are using their first-party data to deliver brand messaging outside their own platforms—for example, on Google, Meta, TikTok, or the open web. While the data doesn’t simply leave the company, it does increase the relevance of the campaigns.
This is particularly interesting for brands because many of them have very little comparable first-party data of their own. Those who do not sell directly to consumers rely on their relationships with retailers.
Van Duijn also emphasized the importance of AI. Product data feeds, clean attribute tagging, and structured information are becoming strategic assets in the age of AI overviews and longer search queries. Anyone who wants to be visible in AI-driven purchasing processes in the future must not only be creative but also machine-readable.
A look at Walmart ultimately revealed just how big this can get. Around 140 AI agents are set to automate processes there—from media planning to creative production to reporting. This may still seem futuristic, but it’s a clear indication: Retail media isn’t getting any smaller—it’s becoming more operationally complex.
Mastercard Brings the Impact to the Ground
While Google outlined the future, Svenja Pieper and Frederick van der Lugt from Mastercard focused on measurability.
Her contribution was important because, without reliable metrics, retail media would quickly become just another buzzword. Mastercard demonstrated how transaction data and test-control groups can be used to determine a campaign’s actual additional revenue.
Approximately 190 billion transactions per year provide an impressive data set for this purpose. However, it is not just the volume of data that matters, but the methodology behind it. Mastercard did not ask who had seen the ads, but rather what actually changed in purchasing behavior afterward.
This marks a significant step toward maturity for retail media. It’s no longer just about reach, clicks, or visibility, but about incremental impact, changes to shopping carts, and reliable decision-making insights for brands and retailers.
EMSU is reminiscent of a physical retail store
Christian Beyer of EMSU shed light on in-store retail media, a perspective that is easily overlooked amid all the digital hype.
After all, retail media isn’t limited to websites, apps, or platforms. Physical stores are also increasingly becoming marketable media environments. Digital screens at the point of sale can showcase products right where purchasing decisions are made on the spot.
The examples Beyer presented made it clear that brick-and-mortar retail is not simply an analog counterpart to the digital world. It is itself becoming a data- and impact-driven space for communication.
This point is particularly relevant for Switzerland. In a market with strong retailers, short supply chains, and a high density of point-of-sale locations, in-store retail media is likely to have more potential than many marketing professionals have realized so far.
A simple idea, a complex playing field
The morning at Google showed one thing above all else: Retail Media is both simple and complicated.
The basic idea is simple. Advertising is moving closer to the point of sale. Retailers are making their touchpoints and data available to brands. Brands are gaining new opportunities to engage target audiences at a stage closer to the point of purchase. And everyone is hoping for better evidence of which measures actually work.
The situation is complicated by the multitude of channels, models, providers, data repositories, measurement methods, and technical interfaces. Onsite, offsite, in-store, commerce media, first-party data, product feeds, AI agents, SKU-level reporting: If you want to keep track of all this, you’ll need more than just a few buzzwords.
That is exactly why this first industry conference was important. It didn’t portray retail media as rocket science, but neither did it present it as a surefire success. Rather, it showed that an old marketing category is currently being redefined—with more data, more technology, closer ties to sales, and significantly greater strategic relevance.
Switzerland is beginning to get its act together
In Switzerland, retail media is still in its infancy. The offerings are fragmented, standards are lacking, and many market participants are only now working to define their role in the emerging ecosystem.
However, the launch of Retail Media Switzerland made it clear that a community is taking shape. This is crucial for the market’s development. After all, retail media requires not only platforms and data, but also a shared understanding, comparability, and trust.
In the end, what stuck with me wasn’t so much a technical detail as an image: advertising is making a comeback at the checkout. But today, the checkout is no longer just a physical location in the store. It’s a data point, a screen, a feed, a search query, an AI agent—and perhaps the place where marketing finally has to demonstrate more precisely what it can do.
