Ad Campaigns
Criteo acquires Brandcrush to accelerate offline retail media solutions
Mumbai: Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ: CRTO), the commerce media company, has announced its acquisition of Brandcrush, an Australia-based company whose platform enables the buying and selling of omnichannel retail media, including offline media channels. With this acquisition, Criteo will be able to provide a holistic omnichannel monetization solution globally for retailers to manage their entire media inventory across both ecommerce and physical retail while enabling brands and agencies to seamlessly discover and purchase omnichannel media from leading retailers.
Additionally, the acquisition expands Criteo’s client footprint and capabilities in the rapidly growing Asia-Pacific retail media market, strengthening Criteo’s global leadership in retail media.
Retail media has become a multi-billion-dollar revenue opportunity for retailers, but many either rely on antiquated processes such as emails and spreadsheets to manage the packaging, availability, and purchasing of their media inventory or are forced to adapt their legacy Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to fulfill the unique needs of their retail media operations. With Brandcrush, retailers can now leverage a purpose-built solution for retail media orders, inventory, and supplier management across all media channels. Moreover, by enabling the self-service discovery and booking of shopper media, retailers can drive incremental revenue without increasing overhead costs.
“As marketers continue to invest in retail media, offline is emerging as the new frontier – and brands and agencies must be able to effectively plan, execute, and measure their campaigns in an integrated way,” said Global Enterprise Criteo general manager Sherry Smith. “Brandcrush directly addresses the current market need for consolidated offline and online advertising management, and our combined solutions will make omnichannel retail media strategies a reality, empowering retailers to own their entire retail media ecosystems.”
The Brandcrush platform provides 360° media asset management and activation, ranging from in store activations such as digital screens, point-of-sale displays, and sampling to out-of-store activations like inbox sampling and inserts, and online activations such as digital circulars, email, and social. Combined with Criteo’s first-class retail media solutions, including sponsored ads, on-site display, and off-site ads, advertisers can now scale their campaigns across the entire omnichannel retail media environment.
“By combining forces, we’re bringing together our platform with Criteo’s best-in-class retail media technology to create the most effective monetization platform for retailers,” said Teresa Aprile, co founder & CEO at Brandcrush. “With Criteo’s retail media client footprint of 175+ retailers and nearly 1,800 brands – unlike any others in the industry – we’re also tapping into their unique scale to truly harness the power of omnichannel across the entire advertising ecosystem.”
Brandcrush’s platform is available globally and is currently undergoing integration with Criteo’s retail media solutions to provide a truly seamless and superior experience for retailers and their advertisers. Brandcrush will also continue to support integrations with financial, digital, audio, and commerce platform partners in retailer’s ecosystems.
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
