As it gains in technical sophistication, retail stumbles upon a blind spot. He knows better and better how to target a shopper, without always understanding what purchasing experience he is targeting.
THE retail media has established itself as one of the most powerful growth levers in modern commerce. But as it gains in technical sophistication, it comes up against a persistent blind spot: it knows better and better how to target a shopper, without always understanding what purchasing experience it is aimed at. However, behind each profile lies a history of consumption, habits formed, reflexes constructed, a relationship with the brand and advertising which cannot be reduced to an age criterion. This is what transactional data can now reveal.
Beyond age, a purchasing experience
Retail media, like digital marketing as a whole, has become accustomed to segmenting its audiences according to generational criteria. We create cohorts – Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z – which we then address individually with a strong credo: the right message, at the right time, to the right shopper. A classic and almost “lazy” segmentation, which stops at the date of birth of individuals.
However, the generation of belonging tells us much more. What really matters is how shoppers buy. And for the most part, they have gotten into the habit of buying.
A Baby Boomer who has been shopping in the same hypermarket for fifteen years, loyal to its brands and its departments, does not have the same relationship with the act of purchasing as a Millennial who enters working life, discovers the autonomy of consumption and builds his choices between price, practicality and values. Even less than Gen Z who grew up with digital commerce as a natural horizon – price comparison, online reviews and next day delivery as implicit standards.
Three generations. Three distinct purchasing logics. And yet, one and the same sales channel to address them.
The consumption experience – in the sense of learning and habits accumulated over time – is a parameter that is too often neglected in the construction of a retail media strategy. Because it is precisely these ways of buying that reveal the relationship that each generation has with brands, and its sensitivity to advertising.
The relationship with advertising: a question of habit as much as age
The relationship with advertising varies from one generation to another – but not only for reasons of age. It is above all a question of habit: habituation to the medium, to the formats, to the methods of solicitation, to the acceptable frequency of contact.
A shopper who discovered the Internet as an adult had to get to grips with digital advertising. He has learned to tolerate it, sometimes to appreciate it when it proves relevant, but he remains vigilant against any form of intrusion. A shopper who grew up with a smartphone in his pocket has internalized the codes of targeted advertising since adolescence: he masters its mechanics, detects it immediately, and rejects it without hesitation as soon as it sounds false or forced.
It’s not just a behavioral nuance, it’s a strategic parameter. The frequency of exposure tolerated, the format deemed acceptable, the level of personalization perceived as useful rather than intrusive: all of this is generational. And all of this is measurable.
The objective for brands and retailers remains the same: that communication is not experienced as an interruption, but as a service. Something that enriches the shopping experience rather than distracting from it. This is exactly where retail media has a card to play – provided it moves away from a purely transactional vision of activation.
The opportunity for transactional data
If the gaps between generations become polarized, an unprecedented opportunity opens up for brands: access to transactional data, and its activation for finer personalization.
Transactional data – that which records what shoppers actually buy, how often, in what context, with what regularity – is of a richness that declarative or socio-demographic data cannot match. It doesn’t say what consumers think they are doing. She says what they do, week after week.
Used on a scale and over time, this data reveals much more than average baskets. It makes it possible to distinguish the routine shopper from the opportunistic shopper, to understand what signal each profile responds to, and to anticipate moments of switching to a competing brand. Crossed with a generational reading, it gives brands the means to personalize not only the offer, but the relationship itself.
It is this combination, between behavioral depth and generational reading, which allows retail media to move from an activation tool to a brand preference building tool. No longer simply trigger a purchase, but establish a lasting relationship with each generation of shoppers, on their own terms.
The retail media that will prevail in the coming years will not be the one that distributes the best or that segments. It will be the one who understands who he is really talking to.
