John Lewis Partnership (JLP) is tackling the challenge of finding customers in an increasingly fragmented market by treating its retail media offering not as an advertising channel, but as an extension of its customer data strategy.

Working with Epsilon, JLP is allowing brands to extend campaigns beyond the John Lewis and Waitrose websites into offsite environments including CTV, streaming services, online video and display advertising.

At the same time, its partnership with retail media technology provider Kevel is strengthening onsite capabilities through AI-powered targeting, self-service campaign management and closed-loop measurement that links digital advertising to purchases made both online and in-store.

Taken together, the two partnerships reflect one of the central themes in retail media: consumers increasingly expect brands to recognise them consistently across different environments. RetailX consumer survey results show that more than 70% of consumers believe good personalisation means a brand gets it right consistently rather than only occasionally, while more than half believe loyalty memberships result in more relevant communications. Customers are signalling that they value recognition – but only when it delivers genuinely useful experiences rather than repetitive advertising.

With millions of customers shopping across both John Lewis and Waitrose, supported by extensive loyalty data and purchase histories, JLP can begin to understand customer behaviour across very different purchase journeys. Grocery shopping typically involves frequent, habitual purchasing decisions, while purchases through John Lewis often involve longer periods of consideration and research. Combining those behavioural signals creates a more complete picture of customer intent than either business could generate independently.

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