ghts and creative services into one operation, overseen by director of platform media and services Joshua Nunan. On the surface, it is a practical response to brands wanting faster campaigns and greater access to customers already in a buying frame of mind. But it also poses a question facing Australian retail: how many media networks can the market support, and which retailers have enough data, traffic and trust to make them worthwhile? “The next chapter will not be won by who sells the most advertising space,” Nunan told Inside Retail. “It’s going to be won by who makes advertising and commerce most useful.” The ambition, he said, is to turn The Iconic’s audience, data and creative capabilities into “one connected growth engine”.Retail media is, in essence, advertising sold by a retailer and displayed on its shopfloor monitors or digital space on its website or apps. Retailers, though, have a major advantage over traditional publishers and broadcasters because they have access to customer shopping data, allowing campaigns to be more effectively targeted. IAB research has reported supermarkets remain the most used retail-media partner category. When Woolworths introduced its retail media arm, Cartology, in 2019 and Coles rebranded its retail media into Coles 360 in 2022, the duo’s extraordinary transaction volumes and substantial loyalty datasets gave grocery retailers an early advantage. Their advertising businesses also continued producing double-digit growth, Cartology’s revenue rose 19.5 per cent in the 2025 financial year and Coles 360’s rose 13.5 per cent.  Now fashion and department stores are assembling their own arsenals. David Jones launched Amplify in 2023 and claimed it can reach more than three million active rewards members, alongside an audience creating 65 million annual store visits and 100 million digital visits. Myer followed early this month with a network powered by Myer one data, using Mirakl Ads to serve sponsored products and campaigns across its website.  What can fashion retailers offer that supermarkets cannot?  Fashion retailers may not match supermarkets for the frequency of the weekly shop, but they can offer advertisers a more expressive picture of the customer. Browsing and purchase data can reveal anything from style, beauty preferences, brand affinities, spending habits and aspirational interests, making the audience valuable to businesses far beyond just fashion. More than 290 brands have used The Iconic’s self-service website, which allows advertisers to launch and manage campaigns without maintaining a large internal media team. “Partners are literally seeing exactly where their investment is,” Nuunan said. Retailers, he added, want clear real-time proof of value, so they’re asking for transparent performance data that shows what is working in terms of visibility, engagement and conversion.  The Iconic hopes that the combination will distinguish it in a rather crowded field, where advertisers must decide which retailer audiences deserve a place in already fragmented media plans. Nunan is also widening the market beyond companies that sell. Uber, Disney and Paramount have advertised on The Iconic, attracting customers already browsing in what he calls a “state of active discovery”. “This is a beautiful moment to meet them,” he said.Retail media may be enjoying a rush of investment, but its rapid proliferation also questions how many retailers possess the scale, data and customer trust to make their networks genuinely useful. “Retail is hard now,” Nunan explained. “People are time poor, and that’s not only the people who work in retail; it’s the customers that shop retail, and it’s also the partners that deal with retailers.” As more networks compete for the same brand budgets, customer traffic alone will be insufficient, and retailers may need to consider dependable first-party data and an audience distinct enough to justify another advertising account.  Nunan believes Australia can learn from the more developed US and European markets, avoiding formats that congest the shopping journey or compromise trust. “It’s not about ad volume,” he said. “It’s about customer value first and foremost, we’ll be always really thinking about customer value, then take all these insights and signals and make them useful for our partners.”  Supermarkets proved retailers could become powerful media proprietors and The Iconic, Myer and David Jones must now prove that fashion’s more episodic, imaginative form of shopping can sustain an advertising industry of its own.