When marketers think about retail media, the first association is obvious: endemic brands. The dog food on the supermarket shelf. The headphones in the electronics aisle. The stationery packs for back-to-school.
It’s intuitive that brands selling through a retailer want to connect with customers who are already shopping for them.
But here’s the overlooked truth: retail media isn’t just about endemic products. It’s about attention. And attention, in a trusted, context-rich. environment, has enormous value for non-endemic brands, those who don’t have a product on the shelf or online.
Globally, and here in NZ, we’re seeing early signs of a shift. Walmart in the US has started to open its door to non-endemics. with categories like financial services and streaming platforms taking advantage. In Turkey, creative non-endemic activations are becoming part of the retail ecosystem and here in NZ, we’ve had the doors open to non-endemic for the last 12 months.
Retail media isn’t just another channel. It’s a new frontier for how brands of all kinds connect with people.
– Colin Lewis,
Global Retail Media expert – Grace & Co
The mental leap is simple but profound: retail media is not just about adding to the basket, it’s also a brand-building environment.
The average Kiwi shopper spends 25 minutes in-store (Source, The Warehouse average dwell time) Retailers have carefully structured environments to provide maximum shopper engagement and attention. They’re browsing, considering, and making decisions, mindsets primed for purchase and influence from brands which is fundamentally different to the fragmented, low-attention world of social media or display ads. A perfect environment for building brand awareness and engagement.
But it's not just attention, retail media can provide a huge range of benefits to non-endemic brands
- Scale and trust: Retailers like The Warehouse Group see over 7 million customers every month. That isn’t just reach; it’s reach embedded in trust.
- Brand-building: For non-endemics, retail isn’t about the last click or transaction. It’s about positioning your brand where people live their lives – in the places they shop, discover, and solve problems.
- Physical + digital ecosystems: Few environments can match the blend of in-store presence, digital platforms, loyalty programs, and data-rich insights.
Retail Media also offer the non-endemic brand opportunities to connect relevant messages with endemic products. A Noel Leeming customer might be researching a new coffee machine, but that same environment speaks to energy savings, a Warehouse Stationery customer could be stocking up on pens and paper, but they’re also likely running a small business that needs accounting software, insurance, or courier solutions. A Warehouse shopper might be filling a trolley with household cleaning products, but they’re also parents, homeowners, students, workers. Perfect moments for a bank, fuel company, or family entertainment brand to show up with relevance.
The next wave of retail media growth won’t come from endemics fighting for share. It will come from non-endemics who realise the value of being part of the retail experience.
– Colin Lewis,
Global Retail Media expert – Grace & Co
Non-endemics often spend millions trying to intercept these audiences through outdoor, radio, or programmatic. Yet retail offers direct, contextual access – with the added credibility of being inside a trusted shopping environment. As Pentaleap’s Roger Dunn states “If you want to reach people in their everyday lives, retail is no longer the back door. It’s the front window.”
For non-endemics to really take advantage of retail media it requires a flip to the brand marketer and agency mindset. Retail media is often boxed under shopper or trade budgets. For non-endemics, the opportunity sits in brand-building, yet structurally it doesn’t always find its way onto the plan. Those that change that the fastest will take the biggest gains from early adoption and the advantage of relatively empty playing field.
Banks, telcos, energy providers, tourism operators, streaming services, your customers are already walking through our doors every day. Retail media for non-endemics isn’t about selling more dog food or laptops. It’s about building relevance, trust, and cultural connection at scale.
So if your customer is in the aisle, on the app, or at the checkout – and you’re not – what’s the cost of absence?
BROOKE RAU
Brooke is the Head of Partnerships – Agency for Market Media. She is focused on maximising impact for Market Media's agency partners and working with non-endemic brands to help them drive effectiveness from the evolving retail media landscape.
