After living outside of Australia for so long, I'm experiencing retail and shopping like a newcomer again. I've been keeping my eyes peeled in particular for in-store retail media experiences in particular. But really I didn't need to be paying that much attention – it seems to be absolutely everywhere here.
Today I'm sharing my first Retail Media Trip Report, which happens to be in my hometown. In a couple of weeks I'm going to Poland for the first time, and I'll be writing that up too. (Please send me tips!)
The point here is not to proclaim that any one country or region is doing this "better." At worst, that's terribly patronizing. At best, it doesn't account for so many social, economic, and geographic differences around the world. But I do want to share these experiences as a way of expanding our minds about what is possible in the world of retail media. Some RMN inspo, if you will.
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Market context:
- Australia's population is ~27 million.
- Retail media here was worth just over $2 billion AUD in FY25, and is forecast to reach ~$4 billion AUD by 2030 — growing 15–20% a year.
- ~85–90% of Australian retail sales happen in physical stores.
1. Commonwealth Bank — "CommBank Connect"
What I saw:
- An in-branch digital screen running ads for a car brand
- In-branch Brighter magazine carrying a car ad.
The stats:
- Australia's largest retail bank launched its owned media network, CommBank Connect, in November 2024, selling ads across in-branch screens, ATMs, its app and its magazine.
- CBA is rolling out 2,000+ digital screens across the branch network.
- Targeting draws on de-identified transaction data from ~7 million Australians, plus a loyalty program of 9 million. Advertisers can reach audiences by real spending behavior.
2. Coles — "Coles 360"
What I saw: Large digital video screens at the store entrance running ads.
The stats:
- Coles is one of Australia's two dominant supermarket chains.
- ~600 front-of-store screens are moving onto Broadsign, bringing programmatic scheduling, day-parting and store-level targeting to the entrance.
- Audience segmentation on the entry screens draws on flybuys — a loyalty program with 9M+ members reaching 80%+ of Australian households.
- In-store screens are in >850 stores; its Coles 360Impact tool (powered by Circana) ties in-store exposure to sales lift.
3. JB Hi-Fi — a retail media network in transition
Australia's largest consumer-electronics retailer.
What I saw: digital displays in-store — running on JB's own SONIQ house-brand TVs.
What's happening behind the scenes:
- The screens I saw are store-operated hardware (repurposed consumer TVs). This is the hallmark of the pre-network phase: content running on existing screens, not yet biddable, targeted or measurable.
- In April 2026 JB Hi-Fi launched a formal in-store retail media network across 200+ stores, powered by Broadsign — programmatic ad-serving, central campaign management and measurement.
- This is the transition most retailers are living through right now: physical screen inventory already exists; the media network is the layer that makes it sellable and measurable.
4. David Jones — "Amplify"
Australia's premier upscale department store.
What I saw: In-store screens at the store entrance and beauty hall. Amplify is the only retail media network in Australia's premium/luxury segment — the reason a bank and a fragrance house buy the same screens.
The stats:
- 1,000+ campaigns since launching in early 2024, across 30,000 placement opportunities in-store, online and in print.
- Audience: 50M+ annual store visits, 3.8M loyalty members.
- AI cameras on select screens track views and dwell time.
5. Australia Post
The national postal service.
What I saw: A parcel-pickup locker fully wrapped with an ad for Vinted, the second-hand marketplace app that recently launched in Australia. Not digital, but a notable activation.
The stats:
- The Vinted locker wrap wasn't a one-off stunt — Australia Post is treating its physical network as a media channel. The wrap ran for Vinted's Australian launch in July 2026.
- It has since launched an in-store screen advertising network, starting with a trial across 60 locations.
- The footprint behind it is huge for a country of 27M: ~4,100 post offices with more than half in regional or rural areas, and a parcel-locker network across 1,000+ locker banks — the surface that Vinted wrap lived on.
6. DOOH at the mall
An upscale shopping centre in Perth, co-owned by commercial property group Hawaiian.
What I saw:
Dozens of digital screens throughout the mall along pedestrian footways, hung from the ceiling, installed on walls and outside of flagship stores.
This mall's out-of-home rights sit with oOh!media — the whole environment operates as one coordinated media network.
The stats:
- oOh!media operates Australia's largest retail out-of-home network, reaching ~43% of all footfall in the country and covering venues that capture ~46c of every retail dollar spent in shopping centres.
- Premium audience: 120+ mostly fashion and luxury retailers serving affluent suburbs
- A local mall plugged into a national system: a single screen here connects into a data-targeted network spanning the country.
The outgoing Managing Director of Unified Retail Media at Epsilon, Adam Skinner, wrote a farewell post on LinkedIn last week, recounting the various eras he has lived through in his retail media career starting at the early days of CitrusAd. It's an interesting read overall, but this line stuck out to me as I was preparing this piece:
"Retail media does not look the same in Sydney, London, Bangalore, Tokyo, Seoul or Paris, no matter how badly a roadmap would like it to. Every one of those markets has its own structure, its own buyer behavior, its own relationship between brand and retailer - and the differences aren't cosmetic, they go all the way down to the economics."
Suffice to say, there's no roadmap here, but it's helpful to get some outside perspective. I hope this got your gears turning, if it does, I'll crack on with this format.
