Kroger is betting that organizational alignment and retail intelligence will transform how brands approach growth strategies, moving beyond siloed advertising campaigns to create sustainable, category-expanding partnerships.

"It's more than most publishers or most in kind of a media-focused world are gonna be focused on, you know, the next impression," said Christine Foster, group vice president of commercial strategy and operations at Kroger Precision Marketing, in a conversation at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. "For us, it really is about that next sale."

About a year ago, Kroger restructured its retail media operations by bringing consumer insights, loyalty marketing, and retail media together under the Kroger Precision Marketing umbrella. The organization now also integrates with merchandising, creating what Foster describes as a "one seamless experience" for brand partners.

Why organizational structure matters for retail media

The restructuring addresses a critical challenge facing retail media networks: disconnected strategies that fail to match how consumers actually shop. Foster explained that brands need holistic strategies, connected technology stacks, and unified teams working together—something that siloed organizations struggle to deliver.

The integration enables Kroger to have more comprehensive conversations with brands, spanning product innovation, merchandising strategy, weekly promotions, and media amplification. "What's good for the brand is good for us," Foster said, emphasizing that the goal is maximizing impact across the total ecosystem.

This approach reflects a broader industry shift. As retail media matures, networks are recognizing that selling individual advertising campaigns isn't enough—they need to demonstrate how media drives actual product sales repeatedly and at scale.

Retail intelligence as the foundation for planning

Kroger sees millions of customer interactions and transactions, positioning retailers as uniquely equipped to help brands understand the entire consumer journey and activate strategies in near real time. This accountability distinguishes retail media from traditional publisher relationships.

Over 1,000 brands actively use Kroger's retail purchase signal platform called Stratum, which serves as a single source of truth where brands and merchants collaborate on innovation, review week-over-week results, and plan marketing activations.

The platform recently added an AI-powered feature called Agent Monday that sends brands a Monday morning email summarizing the previous week's performance and recommending next steps. "This saves brands hours of time when they log in on a Monday morning, figuring out where to start," Foster said. The tool helps brands avoid analysis paralysis while still allowing them to dive deeper into the data.

What separates effective data users from those struggling

Brands that successfully leverage retail intelligence start by establishing one source of truth that merchandising and retail media teams both use. This foundation enables better decision-making across the organization.

Foster noted that Agent Monday has sparked new types of marketing and media activations because it surfaces insights that sales teams and marketers might never have looked for otherwise. "It's one thing to have data, it's another thing to action on data, and we wanna make that as easy as possible for the brands on our shelves," she said.

Connecting culture and commerce through creator partnerships

Kroger recently announced a partnership with TikTok that enables brands to activate purchase signals directly within TikTok's advertising platform. The integration allows brands to use Kroger's audience data in channels they're already buying, making activation easier while accelerating the sales flywheel.

The move reflects an industry shift toward connecting inspiration and transaction. "The funnel is dead," Foster said. "It's about reaching customers in whatever part of that inspiration to transaction journey they are on."

Data supports the business case for creator-driven commerce:

- 68% of purchase signals are tied to social media, according to Kroger survey data

- 46% of shoppers who discover products through social say those items become part of their routine purchases

Foster argued that retail purchase signal data directly addresses the misconception that creator marketing is too difficult to measure. "Brands can now look at the CFO and say, 'Here's where all of this worked together in a way that we've never been able to do in the past as media and marketers,'" she said.

Transactions as the new currency of digital advertising

The partnership with TikTok exemplifies a broader trend: retail sales signals becoming the foundation for how media is transacted and how identities are determined. Foster believes this shift will make the industry more productive, reduce waste, and drive more sales.

For brands, this means retail media strategies can no longer focus solely on on-site placements like search and display ads on commerce websites. "If you've only been focused on the on-site piece of a retail media strategy, you're missing out on probably 80%," Foster said.

The key is integrating the full consumer journey with retail partners, moving from insight to action more effectively. Retailers can help brands execute this integration better than anyone else because they have direct visibility into purchase behavior.

Listen to the full conversation.

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