It’s 2026. New budgets. New pressure. New expectations.

And before diving headfirst into the chaos, we’re hitting pause with a rewind.

In this special episode, hosts Nick Morgan and Paul Blackburn look back at some of the most influential conversations from Commerce Media Matters — the ideas, debates, and perspectives that will matter even more in the year ahead.

From the explosive growth of commerce and retail media, to the realities of trust, privacy, and governance, to global shifts in how creativity and commerce collide — this episode is your warm-up lap for 2026.

If you’re building decks, shaping strategies, or gearing up for planning conversations, consider this required listening.

Featuring highlights from conversations with:

• Jason Westcott (Global Head of Commerce Solutions, WPP): On the scale and maturity of commerce and retail media, why it’s now core to the media mix, and what needs to change as it continues to grow.
• Gai Le Roy (CEO, IAB Australia): On trust, privacy, and governance, and why strong frameworks are critical to building confidence and scaling responsibly.
• Kiri Masters (Journalist and podcaster of Retail Media Breakfast Club): Bringing a global, practical lens to how fast the space is evolving — and why learning, openness, and collaboration still matter.
• Colin Lewis (Co-founder of Retail Media Works): Challenging the industry on creativity, effectiveness, and differentiation, and why commerce media needs its own language, thinking, and execution.

About the hosts:

• Nick Morgan: Nick is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and eCommerce. He founded Vudoo in 2018, a platform that enables in-stream content commerce across articles, videos, and images. Nick's work transforms every ad impression into a potential shop front, offering a seamless eCommerce experience.

• Paul Blackburn: Paul is a digital media innovator with over 20 years of experience. At News Corp Australia, he launched the "Intent Connect" data platform and led innovation in shoppable video and the "Total Commerce" framework. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Vudoo, he helps brands, publishers, and agencies unlock new ways to monetise content through immersive, commerce-enabled experiences.
  
  

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Retail media is booming — but maturity isn’t evenly distributed. Lachlan joins Commerce Media Matters to cut through the hype and grey areas: misaligned incentives, messy data expectations, the “too many screens” problem, offsite extensions, and why we need better briefs, not more buzzwords. From IAB council work to hands-on network builds, he shares a pragmatic view on how retailers, brands, media agencies and tech partners can make retail and commerce media actually work together.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• First-party data as the real product: How data has become the new currency of media, and why retailers must treat it as an asset that powers smarter targeting, better measurement, and more meaningful customer relationships.
• Where everyone’s misaligned (and how to fix it): Retailers, brands, and agencies are still figuring out how to work together. From budget confusion to long-standing silos, Lachlan explains why they’ve been operating in different swim lanes, and what needs to change to bring everyone into alignment.
• Offsite done right: Why retailers can’t rely on onsite media alone and how using offsite channels can extend reach from a small share of e-commerce shoppers to almost their entire audience.
• Incrementality without the buzzword bingo: Why “incremental” is meaningless without context and why brands need to clarify what kind of Incrementality they’re chasing.
• Retail media vs. commerce media: Lachlan’s take on the two: retail media goes deeper with product-level insights, while commerce media goes wider, using more data sources for scale, explaining why both are essential to a connected media strategy.
• The realities of data sharing: Retailers can’t share everything. Understanding what’s commercially sensitive, what can be shared, and where the boundaries lie is key to building stronger partnerships.

About the hosts:

• Nick Morgan: Nick is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and eCommerce. He founded Vudoo in 2018, a platform that enables in-stream content commerce across articles, videos, and images. Nick's work transforms every ad impression into a potential shop front, offering a seamless eCommerce experience.

• Paul Blackburn: Paul is a digital media innovator with over 20 years of experience. At News Corp Australia, he launched the "Intent Connect" data platform and led innovation in shoppable video and the "Total Commerce" framework. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Vudoo, he helps brands, publishers, and agencies unlock new ways to monetise content through immersive, commerce-enabled experiences.
  
  

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In this episode of Commerce Media Matters, Nick and Paul sit down with Kelly Wearmouth, a leader in the world of adtech and retail media. Her career has taken her from working with global brands like Unilever and Microsoft to helping shape Amazon’s advertising business. Now, as Managing Director at Mars United Commerce, she’s driving connected commerce and helping brands rethink how they reach consumers. Kelly shares her journey through adtech, insights on the evolving commerce media landscape, and strategies for brands to stay ahead.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Convergence from opposite ends: Traditional retailers are evolving in-store screens into broader digital capabilities, while digital-first retailers are expanding into physical environments, merging into one connected ecosystem.
• Friction is the silent killer: Removing every click, step, and barrier from sampling, browsing, and checkout can turn moments of inspiration into measurable momentum.
• B2B can be commerce-creative, too: Distributor networks and trade enablement demand new thinking, new training, and new activation layers beyond traditional media.
• Sensory overload: Too much in-store media risks overwhelming shoppers, and why retailers will need to curate their environments as inventory grows.
• Connected creative is a work in progress: The industry is still learning how to pull creative consistently across every touchpoint — and to bring contextual relevance to retailer data beyond ROAS.
• Consolidation is inevitable: As retail media networks fragment, shared infrastructure and marketplace partnerships will streamline access, measurement, and scale.

About the hosts:

• Nick Morgan: Nick is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and eCommerce. He founded Vudoo in 2018, a platform that enables in-stream content commerce across articles, videos, and images. Nick's work transforms every ad impression into a potential shop front, offering a seamless eCommerce experience.

• Paul Blackburn: Paul is a digital media innovator with over 20 years of experience. At News Corp Australia, he launched the "Intent Connect" data platform and led innovation in shoppable video and the "Total Commerce" framework. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Vudoo, he helps brands, publishers, and agencies unlock new ways to monetise content through immersive, commerce-enabled experiences.
  
  

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If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Commerce Media Matters and leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform!

Recorded live at SXSW Sydney, this special crossover between Commerce Media Matters and Mind the Model podcast brings together Paul Blackburn, Nathan Guerra, and Emily Crone for a conversation about the collision of AI, commerce, and creativity.

From agentic shopping and retail media’s next evolution to copyright, deepfakes, and data power plays, the trio unpack how AI is reshaping the way we buy, sell, and tell stories. It’s equal parts thought-provoking, entertaining, and a little bit alarming — covering everything from ChatGPT’s commerce integration to the future of brand trust in an AI-driven era.

What you’ll learn from this episode

• AI-generated video’s double edge: powerful creative potential, but growing risks around trust, authenticity, and verification.
• Why premium content is more impactful than ever: how trust will become a competitive advantage in the AI era.
• The looming question of copyright and compensation: exploring how credit and references for original content could work with AI.
• Ad-funded AI models on the horizon: with rising compute costs, sustainable AI will hinge on advertising and commerce integrations, reshaping how brands, agencies, and creators show up.
• The future of shopping goes conversational: unpacking what agentic commerce really means for brands, retailers, and media owners.
• Data ownership and transparency in the AI era: who stands to gain as LLMs rewrite the rules of first-party ecosystems.

About the hosts:

• Nick Morgan: Nick is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and eCommerce. He founded Vudoo in 2018, a platform that enables in-stream content commerce across articles, videos, and images. Nick's work transforms every ad impression into a potential shop front, offering a seamless eCommerce experience.

• Paul Blackburn: Paul is a digital media innovator with over 20 years of experience. At News Corp Australia, he launched the "Intent Connect" data platform and led innovation in shoppable video and the "Total Commerce" framework. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Vudoo, he helps brands, publishers, and agencies unlock new ways to monetise content through immersive, commerce-enabled experiences.
  
  

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If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Commerce Media Matters and leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform!

Nick Morgan and Paul Blackburn welcome strategist, writer, and retail-media advisor Colin Lewis for a rapid-fire tour through creativity in retail media, why “conversion everywhere” should be your mantra, and how AI & LLMs are reshaping search and shoppability. Drawing on decades of experience in strategy, teaching, and marketing leadership, Colin makes the case that innovation is everywhere—and that retail media is its own channel with its own language.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Creativity is a mindset, not a media format: True innovation in retail media lies in rethinking how networks are structured, scaled, and sold—not just how ads look on screen.
• Think like a media company, not a retailer: To scale, retailers must think like media companies: get C-suite buy-in, hire media sales, align trade, ecomm, ops, and stores, and manage change.
• The Era of Conversion Everywhere: Shoppable formats reduce the distance from inspiration to purchase across on-site, off-site, and in-store, without sacrificing brand building.
• AI’s next frontier: LLM optimisation will upend “search” habits; brands need brilliant basics plus new skills to be searchable by LLMs.
• Mind the Fab Four: Brand, Trade, Shopper, and Digital often operate in silos; retail media forces new ways of working.
• From co-op to accountable media: Expect trade/coop budgets to fold into retail media with demands for ROAS, incrementality, and closed-loop outcomes.

About the hosts:

• Nick Morgan: Nick is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and eCommerce. He founded Vudoo in 2018, a platform that enables in-stream content commerce across articles, videos, and images. Nick's work transforms every ad impression into a potential shop front, offering a seamless eCommerce experience.

• Paul Blackburn: Paul is a digital media innovator with over 20 years of experience. At News Corp Australia, he launched the "Intent Connect" data platform and led innovation in shoppable video and the "Total Commerce" framework. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Vudoo, he helps brands, publishers, and agencies unlock new ways to monetise content through immersive, commerce-enabled experiences.
  
  

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If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Commerce Media Matters and leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform!

Commerce Media Matters hosts Nick Morgan and Paul Blackburn welcome Kiri Masters onto the podcast to chat about all things retail media – or is it commerce media these days?

That topic is the underlying debate of this episode, as IAB recently consolidated the definition and categorisation of commerce media.

As a retail media pioneer, and fellow podcaster with her Retail Media Breakfast Club show, Kiri offers her expert insight into this new framework and challenges some preconceptions.

These include questioning the relevance of ROAS as a success metric and whether retail media networks have reached a saturation point. As Kiri points out, these topics are not “zero-sum” and require nuance to unpack, rather than absolute statements.

Agentic AI is also discussed, with varying degrees of caution for its potential impact. Kiri recognises it could be as much a friend as it is a foe; Nick sees it in the midst of the hype cycle, while Paul thinks it still has opportunities to bring benefits.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Data defines commerce media: While opinions may differ over defining commerce media, the unifying factor is that it’s data-driven to achieve outcomes.
• Retail media’s continued rise and evolution: Retail media is no longer a niche for marketers – by extension, commerce media will become a standard “hygiene” factor for campaigns.
• Measurement beyond ROAS: defining retail media success through ROAS is flawed, as it doesn’t account for other campaign objectives, such as brand uplift.
• Agentic AI’s existential threat to retail media: AI and LLM platforms could potentially remove the exclusive advantage retailers have with their first-party data, and reduce monetisation opportunities.

About the hosts:

• Nick Morgan: Nick is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and eCommerce. He founded Vudoo in 2018, a platform that enables in-stream content commerce across articles, videos, and images. Nick's work transforms every ad impression into a potential shop front, offering a seamless eCommerce experience.

• Paul Blackburn: Paul is a digital media innovator with over 20 years of experience. At News Corp Australia, he launched the "Intent Connect" data platform and led innovation in shoppable video and the "Total Commerce" framework. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Vudoo, he helps brands, publishers, and agencies unlock new ways to monetise content through immersive, commerce-enabled experiences.
  
  

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If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Commerce Media Matters and leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform!

Our Commerce Media Matters hosts, Nick Morgan and Paul Blackburn, take a look back on the biggest commerce media moments of 2025 so far.

With Paul moving from publisher world to startup life at Vudoo, he brings insights from both sides of the industry. Nick puts him in the hot seat to unpack what went down on the Croisette during Cannes Lions – from standout creative moments to commerce media’s growing influence on the global stage.

They discuss the year’s big picture trends, laying out what they expect to see from retailers and marketers in the months and years ahead. Again, underpinning these changes is the continued importance of creativity: from the actual content itself to implementing new tools and strategies.

Data, AI, TikTok, and targeting – all the hot topics are in this episode. And they’ll definitely be discussed in every industry event for a while yet.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Creativity at Cannes and beyond: Creativity is the way to elevate brand messaging in retail and commerce media strategies, which can be unlocked with new tools like AI.
• Retail media’s continued rise and evolution: Retail media is no longer a niche for marketers – by extension, commerce media will become a standard “hygiene” factor for campaigns.
• Resetting targeting: marketers have access to a wealth of data and tools, but understanding the context in which to target is most important. Overtargeting can actually cause datapoints to conflict.
• New roles for agencies: While agencies at large are facing change and challenges, they still play vital roles in executing commerce media strategies.
• AI and SEO disruption: AI platforms have fundamentally changed the way consumers search and shop, requiring marketers to adapt by showing up closer to the point of purchase.

About the hosts:

• Nick Morgan: Nick is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and eCommerce. He founded Vudoo in 2018, a platform that enables in-stream content commerce across articles, videos, and images. Nick's work transforms every ad impression into a potential shop front, offering a seamless eCommerce experience.

• Paul Blackburn: Paul is a digital media innovator with over 20 years of experience. At News Corp Australia, he launched the "Intent Connect" data platform and led innovation in shoppable video and the "Total Commerce" framework. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Vudoo, he helps brands, publishers, and agencies unlock new ways to monetise content through immersive, commerce-enabled experiences.
  
  

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If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Commerce Media Matters and leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform!

Alex Brownsell, Head of Content at WARC Media & Digital Commerce, enters the Commerce Media Matters booth to unpack the trends he’s observed and the industry directions he’s forecasted.

From the rise of “commerce everywhere” to the ongoing frustrations around measurement and standardisation, one hot topic keeps showing up: the never-ending debate between brand and performance. Has the line finally blurred for good?

As these trends play out, Alex believes that the industry still needs to solve some bigger challenges as the overarching commerce media phenomenon takes place. From budget shifts to new channels and measurement standards – especially data – there is still a lot of work to do.

Be all ears for Alex’s findings to learn the A to Z and CTV of commerce media to prepare for the future of the industry.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Where WARC Media sees global advertising and commerce shifts: the biggest growth is happening where media and commerce intersect, especially in retail, CTV, and social.
• Performance outcomes underlying commerce media: in times of economic uncertainty, tangible results – like commerce – still rule the roost.
• Commerce can happen anywhere and everywhere: new channels and technologies combined with the commerce media approach are unlocking opportunities previously unavailable.
• The growing need to value content quality and premium environments: there’s increasing pressure to prioritise premium environments as the industry moves beyond blanket CPM buying.
• The role of AI in reshaping performance and brand marketing: how AI is speeding up performance marketing while raising new challenges around creativity, transparency, and long-term brand growth.

About the hosts:

• Nick Morgan: Nick is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and eCommerce. He founded Vudoo in 2018, a platform that enables in-stream content commerce across articles, videos, and images. Nick's work transforms every ad impression into a potential shop front, offering a seamless eCommerce experience.

• Paul Blackburn: Paul is a digital media innovator with over 20 years of experience. At News Corp Australia, he launched the "Intent Connect" data platform and led innovation in shoppable video and the "Total Commerce" framework. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Vudoo, he helps brands, publishers, and agencies unlock new ways to monetise content through immersive, commerce-enabled experiences.
  
  

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Commerce Media Matters and leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform!