Retail Media: Advertima and Publicis Media Collaborate

June 3, 2025 by guest author, Florian Rotberg

Accurate and ideally real-time audience data is crucial for programmatic media buying. In the Gulf region, in particular, obtaining reliable data remains a challenge. Publicis, the world’s largest advertising group, has formed a partnership with Advertima, instore data experts from Switzerland, for the Middle East.

Their newly devloped joint offering aims to enable media buyers to activate consistent audience segments in real time across both online and physical environments. This aims to bridge the gap between in-store, onsite, and offsite retail media.

Traditionally, acquiring reliable outdoor and instore audience data has been difficult in the advertising markets of countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the smaller markets of Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. While online audience data is readily available, there has been a notable absence of instore and outdoor data. Relying solely on mobile tracking yields imprecise data, as many consumers there carry multiple mobile phones. Additionally, privacy concerns in Gulf societies are more pronounced compared to Europe or North America.

Publicis and Advertima have joined forces to address these issues. Advertima provides real-time audience capture, segmentation, and activation technology to Publicis agencies. This collaboration allows for seamless planning and purchasing of campaigns across instore and DooH networks. The big advantage of this partnership is that the audience data follows the same taxonomies that media buyers already use in onsite and offsite retail media channels.

Advertima’s AI, based on computer vision technology, segments instore shoppers in real time using visual, contextual, and affinity attributes. Adhering to privacy-by-design principles, it does not require shopper IDs and aligns these segments with online audience definitions, enabling real-time, cross-channel activation based on coordinated audience segments.

For media buyers, whether programmatic or via direct deals, the joint offering facilitates unified planning, execution, and measurement of campaigns spanning multiple retail media networks and channels.

invidis Comment

Data is the new oil – there is possibly no more suitable region than the Middle East for this comparison. While the media markets in the region are often dominated by only a few media owners setting their own pace and standards, it’s the media agencies’ responsibility to create convertible media currencies for cross media campaign planning.

A combined currency for retail media, DooH, and mobile can be a winning combination – especially in the Gulf region. Instore real-time data is a dream come true for media buyers, but it comes with a (considerable) price-tag. Costs, which most retailers in Europe and North America are not (yet) willing to bear. But the Middle East seems to be a lucrative oasis for audience measurement.