Rokt × Rakuten × Mercari: Why "Digital" Retail Media Now?

On Friday, July 25, three companies leading the e-commerce space globally gathered for the conference " Rokt, Rakuten, and Mercari Co-hosted: Digital Retail Media Conference 2025 " was held.

This article covers the conference participation of Rakuten Group , Mercari 's Daiei Akahoshi, and Rokt ・Ken Mishima as panelists, Dentsu Digital Inc. ・Kenji Chiba as moderator, to discuss the current state and potential of digital retail media.

Panelists:
Shunsuke Hata, Vice General Manager, Account Innovation Office, Marketplace Business, Rakuten Group
Daiki Akahoshi, Head of Ads Business, Mercari
Ken Mishima, Rokt Head of Japan, Vice President

Moderator:
Kenji Chiba, Head of Commerce & Promotion Division, Dentsu Digital Inc.

Retail Media Leveraging Digital Strengths

Chiba: We're currently at the venue for the "Digital Retail Media Conference 2025," which starts in two hours. I find it symbolic that "Digital" precedes "Retail Media." I understand this signifies a focus on approaches from a digital perspective, as opposed to conventional retail media. What are your thoughts?

Hata: The term "retail media" is becoming more common in Japan too. However, when speaking with manufacturers and brand representatives, they often strongly associate it with offline imagery, like signage installed within stores.

In the U.S., however, the image of retail media differs significantly from Japan's. Due to the large share of online sales in the market, driven by e-commerce platforms like Amazon, the perception of retail media is dominated by online.

By explicitly labeling this conference "Digital," we want attendees to recognize that digital retail media exists beyond offline channels and that it offers unique value specific to the online space.

Mishima: The shopping behavior, or user journey, is completely different between offline and online. In a store, you might stand in front of a shelf and think, or walk around the store looking at products in various categories... But online, you first search by category, then dive deeper into products, compare various options, and decide on one... The shopping funnel gets deeper.

This means the role of retail media also changes between offline and online. Taking digital signage in stores as a typical offline example, its role leans more towards brand marketing. It approaches customers early in the funnel or journey.

Online, however, you know what customers are searching for and where they are in the shopping funnel. This fundamentally changes what you can show them, when you can show it, and the precision of those displays.

Offline is fundamentally about awareness—getting noticed and seen—while online takes a direct approach: "Please buy this product, please touch it." This directness significantly impacts purchase decisions, which is a defining characteristic of digital retail media.

  Hata: Regardless of online or offline, one value of retail media is its ability to "capture the user's shopping mode and communicate accordingly." Additionally, the online advantage lies in tracking results and accumulating data. In that sense, I believe there is value in communicating the characteristics of retail media specialized in digital, as we are doing now.

Chiba: I now clearly understand that digital retail media has distinct characteristics, roles, and benefits compared to so-called offline retail media.

Next, I'd like to hear about your approaches to retail media. Mercari launched " Mercari Ads ".

(※) An ad delivery service provided by Mercari. It's a pay-per-click advertising model that allows ads tailored to search keywords to be displayed on Mercari's search results pages.

Akahoshi: I believe any service operator with a certain user base would consider advertising. Within Mercari, this option was always on the table. At the same time, we were constantly exploring what kind of advertising business would suit Mercari—specifically, what form an advertising business operating on a unique C2C marketplace, rather than B2C, should take. We've finally begun to see what this form might look like, leading us to announce it publicly. Globally, I don't believe any other platform of this scale is doing something similar. I think it's become something very unique.

Chiba: Does Mercari internally view this as retail media?

Akahoshi: Initially, I don't think we had a very clear image of retail media internally. However, as GMV(※) grew, creating second and third revenue pillars became a critical challenge for the company, and Mercari Ads emerged as one candidate. With retail media trending recently, we've seen significant interest from many advertisers and ad agencies.

※Abbreviation for "Gross Merchandise Value," translated in Japanese as "総流通取引額." It is used as an indicator of total sales of goods and services on e-commerce sites and platform businesses.

Aiming to Integrate Sales Promotion and Brand Marketing

Chiba: Clients typically have separate advertising and sales promotion budgets. For retail media, it's often allocated from the sales promotion budget. However, I've noticed a growing trend of allocating it from the advertising budget lately. For Mercari Ads, which budget do you anticipate it being allocated from?

Akahoshi: Since Mercari has just launched its advertising business, I think it's best to start by assuming it comes from the advertising budget. That said, as the e-commerce platform grows and we can properly analyze the conversion between advertising spend and sales, there may no longer be a strict need to separate advertising and sales promotion expenses. Currently, Japan's e-commerce penetration rate is around 10%, but as this increases, this distinction will likely become even less clear.

Chiba: How does Rakuten approach advertising budgets versus sales promotion budgets?

Hata: Rakuten Ichiba has a strong image as a "place to buy," so the budgets we typically discuss with manufacturers and large corporations are mostly what you'd call sales budgets. That is, e-commerce sales budgets.

On the other hand, we aim to respond to brand budgets and advertising budgets by creating solid value through the utilization of Rakuten Ichiba and Rakuten Group media. As sales promotion and brand marketing increasingly merge, the value of players like us should continue to rise.

Mishima: When considering advertising as "awareness" and sales promotion as "comparison" and "purchase" from a funnel perspective, I believe we can commit to results regardless of which funnel segment the client belongs to. From this viewpoint, I don't think we need to be overly concerned about whether it's advertising spend or sales promotion spend.

Chiba: So the key is to maximize the value of capturing users' shopping modes and aim for the integration of sales promotion and brand marketing.

Chiba: Are there any key points you feel could be a breakthrough to further grow our business or provide richer experiences for consumers?

Hata: Rakuten Ichiba takes pride in having achieved a certain level of success in initiatives aimed at conversion.

While initiatives involving marketing and brand budgets are gradually increasing, the number of projects remains limited. Expanding our efforts in this area would allow us to provide customers with a better shopping experience and grow our business, making it a key area we want to break through.

Only about 5% of Rakuten Ichiba users shop exclusively for specific brands. Most visit with a "let's just check it out" mindset, moving seamlessly through the funnel from awareness to understanding, consideration, and purchase. That's precisely why we believe branding approaches are effective on Rakuten Ichiba. It becomes truly interesting when more manufacturers decide to tackle the upper funnel together with Rakuten Ichiba.

Akahoshi: For us in the digital world, data-driven marketing is second nature, ingrained in our DNA. While Mercari's primary market is secondary distribution, we hold a wealth of first-party data.

On the other hand, it seems there are still quite a few manufacturers, advertisers, and business owners who hesitate to fully leverage data for decision-making and marketing. So, I feel we first need to bridge the gap in understanding about marketing that exists between us and our clients.

Mishima: Online marketing moves at a fast pace, right? And it's easy to understand. That naturally speeds up the decision-making process too.

Hata: What Mr. Akahoshi mentioned offers great insight. Our goal is also to position ourselves as an integrated marketing platform. Even in the initial stage of marketing—product development—our first-party data undoubtedly holds significant value.

We can collaborate with manufacturers on product development based on target audience data, conduct test marketing on Rakuten Ichiba, and then dig deep into why certain users responded or didn't respond. Based on that, we refine the product, formulate a sales strategy, and drive sales... By embracing the entire marketing process, we believe we can run alongside manufacturers. We see this less as a challenge and more as an opportunity.

Chiba: For Rakuten specifically, being able to provide all of this as a one-stop solution is a real strength.

Expanding Possibilities Through Collaboration with the Dentsu Group

Chiba: Rokt has achieved success with its unique service offerings, but are there any challenges?

Mishima: We face several challenges, but two are significant. One is how to simplify implementation for e-commerce businesses we provide solutions to for launching advertising initiatives.

The other is the difficulty in convincing e-commerce businesses that "retail media is a new channel in the user journey" and "running an advertising business can help acquire users."

Neither is simple. Many e-commerce businesses that have never run their own advertising operations see product sales as their primary revenue source, so they often haven't even considered advertising. This creates an initial hurdle: identifying the right department or person to engage with.

Hata: Who you talk to is definitely important.

Chiba: It might be best to speak with someone in a position like a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) who oversees all marketing.

Hata: Isn't it true that Mercari's ad business wouldn't have progressed without Akahoshi-san? Wasn't it precisely because someone like Akahoshi-san championed ad revenue that things moved forward?

Akahoshi: This industry tends to be GMV-centric. So even if you say, "Let's start an advertising business," the response often becomes, "Will that actually increase GMV?" I think there's probably a significant mismatch there.

Considering the value Rokt can provide, ultimately, shouldn't we be talking to the company's CFO (Chief Financial Officer)? Rather than focusing on GMV, I think it's better to discuss the P&L (Profit and Loss Statement).

Hata: Since it's a completely new field, finding the key person on the other side is tough, right?

Chiba: That's precisely where I see the value of the Dentsu Group. Because I believe one of the Group's strengths is its ability to "translate and effectively convey the message to the other party," and we have the organizational structure and talent to handle it.

Mishima: From Rokt's perspective, that's exactly what we're counting on. While Rokt has the product, we've felt a challenge in not being able to articulate things clearly in our communication with clients.

When talking to clients, it would be incredibly helpful if you could leverage the Dentsu Group's insights to untangle the situation from a stakeholder perspective – whether it's better to approach the marketing team or the finance organization.

Akahoshi: At Mercari, we want to collaborate with the Dentsu Group not only in advertising but also in data utilization. If we can use Mercari's data to support manufacturers' product development or pricing strategies, it could benefit not just marketing but society as a whole.

Hata: We recognize that while our strength as an e-commerce platform lies in sales promotion, Dentsu Group's strength is in the upper funnel. We hope to collaborate in that area.

Specifically, I believe we can achieve high-quality outputs by leveraging Dentsu Group's expertise on how to utilize our data and how to effectively implement the PDCA cycle.

AI utilization is also a theme we're focusing on. Since the Dentsu Group's AI development is specialized for advertising and marketing, we expect that effectively integrating it with our data could provide better experiences for customers and manufacturers.

Chiba: I am truly grateful to hear everyone's voices expressing the potential and expectations for collaboration with the Dentsu Group.

Through our discussion, I gained a sense of the current state and potential of digital retail media. At the same time, I recognize the challenges we must overcome. I look forward to collaborating with all of you in this new field of digital retail media, and the Dentsu Group aims to be a partner that meets your expectations.

Thank you for joining us today.