Ad Campaigns
GroupM and Criteo partner to drive commerce media innovation in APAC
Mumbai: Criteo the commerce media company, and GroupM, WPP’s media investment group has announced the first partnership in Asia Pacific (APAC) to strengthen omnichannel commerce media capabilities for GroupM clients in the region.
The partnership brings together product sales data and the proprietary media solutions of GroupM, with privacy-safe commerce audiences and proximity-based insights provided by Criteo. Criteo’s insights technology will further enhance media planning, budget allocation, and best-in-class activation, enabling new levels of relevance, optimisation, and conversion for GroupM clients across all channels.
“The innovation in commerce that will be made possible through this collaboration with Criteo is a significant and hugely exciting development for advertisers in APAC, and for our industry as a whole,” said GroupM APAC chief investment officer Anita Munro. “Combining Criteo’s commerce media capabilities with our own not only strengthens our commerce offering in the region, but also allows us to set a new standard for what’s possible in advertising by bringing products, media, clients and consumers closer than ever before.”
The partnership between Criteo and GroupM will also expand access for GroupM’s clients to Criteo’s holistic omnichannel monetization solution. This solution allows retailers to manage their entire media inventory across both e-commerce and physical retail while enabling brands and agencies to seamlessly discover and purchase omnichannel media from leading retailers. Tools available to GroupM clients include 360° media asset activation, ranging from in-store activations such as point-of-sale displays to out-of-store activations like inbox sampling, and online activations such as email and social.
“Together with GroupM, we are honored to usher in the next era of omnichannel marketing in the region,” said Criteo MD enterprise APAC Taranjeet Singh. “This partnership represents a union of industry leadership, and we are optimistic that it will drive greater integration across omnichannel campaigns and elevate success for brands and advertisers.”
As commerce media continues to accelerate, Criteo and GroupM plan to evolve the partnership by looking at strategic opportunities across media-buying capabilities and insights to drive predictive decision-making. Further collaborative efforts to develop best practices in the area aim to unlock many exciting possibilities.
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.
