What you need to know:

• Australia’s retailers are eyeing the likes of Woolworths, Chemist Warehouse and Appliances Online and the fat margins they can make from selling ads across their properties.
• Experts forecast a $1bn-plus Australian retailer media market by 2025.
• Consultants think retailers will ultimately be first on the media plan.
• The transfer of budgets and proliferation of direct deals will have major implications for brands, media owners and agencies.
• Mi3, supported by Resolution Digital, has produced a full 28-page retailer media market analysis that outlines what's in store. Download it here.

Baskets case

Retailer media – where retailers sell ads to brands across their own websites and other communications channels and provide a direct link to sales – is ripping into US publishers and flipping the pecking order. Retailers are now first on the media plan.

Australia may be next. Agencies and consultants predict a wave of new market entrants in the next 12 months, with major ramifications for marketers, media owners, and agencies themselves. Some forecast a $1bn-plus retailer media market within three years, with Facebook and Google also likely to see digital ad revenues eroded as a result.

Which budgets retailer media will take is a live issue. Mi3, supported by Resolution Digital, has produced a deep dive in a bid to answer that question and scope the challenges and opportunities ahead for Australia's marketers, media owners and agencies.

Download the 28-page report here.

Retailers mobilising

“This will be the money you plan first. It will take more money from the market,” said Tumbleturn Media Managing Partner, Jen Davidson. “The key [for all other media owners] will be making sure it doesn’t take too much of the pie.”

The market is starting to move, according to Mohammad Heidari Far, General Manager at Omnicom-owned Resolution Digital.

“Almost all retailers across all verticals are thinking about [building retailer media capability]. This is not necessarily just CPG or FMCG, but consumer electronics, home and garden, apparel and even fashion,” he said.

Heidari Far thinks the likes of Bunnings could have a substantial media business, and reckons owner Wesfarmers could make significant margin by taking a group-wide approach to selling ads across its properties.

Value transfer

PwC Partner Justin Papps agrees the implications for media owners and intermediaries could prove disruptive.

“We're seeing more and more advertisers or product owners looking to do direct deals with the retailers,” he said. “There is no doubt that retailer media is growing in significance and revenue. The question we continue to look at is where the money will come from.”

Brands are backing the shift because it is driving results.

“Retailers are essentially on a big data gold mine,” said Olivia Dickinson, Chobani’s General Manager of Growth, “and I think we're just seeing them get started.”

Mi3, supported by Resolution Digital, has taken a deep dive into Australia’s retailer media market, outlining the size of the prize, how much individual retailers could make, their strategies, where the money might come from and the broader implications, opportunities and threats for brands, media owners and agencies.

The free 28-page report includes input from experts at: Cartology, Chobani, Citrus Ad, Dentsu, GroupM, Initiative, JCDecaux, MediaVillage, Mindshare, News Corp, OMG, oOh!Media, Publicis, PwC, Resolution Digital, Seven, Sonder, Tumbleturn Media, 10ViacomCBS, 303MullenLowe, Winning Group and more.

To find out what’s in store, click here to download the report.