Your Next Media Business Is Already Sitting in Your Stores

By Augusto Vilarelle, Executive Vice President, LATAM, ideaHelix
Augusto leads ideaHelix across Latin America and heads our Media practice. He brings 25+ years of experience in large-scale Communications and Media transformation, including senior roles at Salesforce, Vlocity, Netcracker and HP.  LinkedIn

Retailers Are Becoming Media Companies. Whether They Realise It or Not.

I’ve spent more than 25 years working on communications and media transformations across Latin America. And something interesting is happening.

Some of the region’s most exciting media companies aren’t media companies at all.

They’re retailers.

Think about it. Retailers already have the stores, the screens, the shelf space, the websites and the WhatsApp channels. More importantly, they have something advertisers really want: first-party data showing what customers actually buy.

That’s valuable media inventory. And brands are willing to pay to reach shoppers when they’re ready to buy.

The opportunity is enormous. Global retail media spend is forecast to exceed $200 billion this year, with Latin America expected to more than double by 2029.

But here’s the problem.

Most retailers are already selling advertising. Very few are running it like a media business.

The Spreadsheet Trap

I’ve seen this story play out many times.

A retailer starts selling advertising space. A few screens here, some shelf space there. Maybe a digital campaign or two.

Business grows. But the processes don’t.

One spreadsheet tracks placements. Another handles pricing. Contracts sit in the ERP. Salespeople can’t see what’s available before they quote. And someone is still reconciling invoices by hand.

Sound familiar?

This isn’t just an IT problem. It’s a revenue problem.

Every slow quote is a potential lost deal. Every double booking damages a brand relationship. Every manual process eats into margin.

And hiring more salespeople doesn’t solve it. It just creates more spreadsheets.

If you’re selling media, you need to operate like a media company.

Why Salesforce Media Cloud Changes the Game

I’ve seen both sides of this evolution.

At Vlocity and later Salesforce, media monetization meant managed packages, significant customization and complex implementations.

That’s changing.

With Media Cloud on Salesforce Core, around 70% of what a retail media business needs is now available out of the box.

One data model. Native AI with headless capabilities. Far less custom development.

And if you’re already using Salesforce, you’re extending a platform you own rather than introducing another disconnected system.

That changes the economics. And, just as importantly, it changes how quickly you can get to market.

Three Things You Have to Get Right

In my experience, three things determine whether a retail media business can scale.

1. Get your catalog right.

Your advertising products are your business model. Screens, shelf space, in-store displays, digital placements, print and rental space.

Model them properly in Product Catalog Manager and everything downstream gets easier: pricing, quoting, booking and reporting.

Get the catalog wrong and you’ll be fixing problems for years.

2. Make inventory visible.

Your sales team needs to know exactly what’s available, where and when.

Not yesterday’s availability. Not what’s in someone’s spreadsheet.

Live inventory, down to the store, section and individual advertising asset.

Otherwise, you’re selling something you can’t be sure you can deliver.

3. Don’t rip out what already works.

You don’t need to replace your ERP or rebuild your back office.

Let Media Cloud manage the sales process. Keep your existing systems where they make sense. Connect them properly.

Simplify first. Integrate where needed. Customize only when necessary.

El Rosado: From Spreadsheets to a Media Business in 16 Weeks

Let me give you a real example.

El Rosado operates 241 supermarkets and retail stores across Ecuador. They recognised that their store network represented a major advertising opportunity.

But their processes hadn’t caught up with their ambition.

Media inventory was tracked outside any central system. Contracts lived in ERP. There was no CRM. And pricing across CPM, CPC and flat-rate models was calculated manually.

They wanted to change that. And they wanted to move fast.

We worked with El Rosado to deploy Media Cloud in a greenfield environment, covering the complete Lead-to-Contract process.

Our approach was straightforward: use what’s available out of the box, keep customization to a minimum, and get the sales team quoting as quickly as possible.

In just 16 weeks, from kickoff to MVP go-live, we delivered:

• 193 advertising products configured in Product Catalog Manager
• 241 stores with live inventory visibility at store, section and asset level
• 3,528 bookable advertising spaces, reservable directly from Salesforce Opportunities
• Media Planner with campaign line items and standardized CPM, CPC and flat-rate pricing
• Formal PDF quotes and SAP integration, keeping SAP as the system of record

That’s a complete new sales operation, built around the way El Rosado actually sells advertising.

And it’s only the beginning.

The platform is ready to support agency self-service, ad server integration, print and out-of-home advertising in the future.

“We wanted to scale our retail media business with Salesforce. ideaHelix brought deep Media Cloud expertise, moved at our speed, and got our sales team quoting on a new Salesforce org in just 16 weeks.”

Angel Bonilla, Project Manager, Grupo El Rosado

Read the full El Rosado case study

Speed Matters. Especially When You’re Selling Media.

Here’s something I always tell customers.

Every week your media inventory isn’t available to sell is a week of revenue you can’t get back.

That’s why speed matters.

At El Rosado, two things made the difference.

First, we were disciplined about scope. We used out-of-the-box Salesforce capabilities wherever possible and customized only when the business genuinely needed it.

Second, we used an AI-native delivery approach. Claude-based agents, reusable skills and templates helped our teams move faster through configuration, migration and testing.

Our experienced Salesforce Industry architects still made the decisions. AI helped remove repetitive work.

And we took what we learned and built it into a repeatable 15-week Media Cloud Fast Track.

It’s a practical approach: simplify before you build, use the platform properly, and focus on getting your sales team selling.

Not another multi-year transformation. A working business capability that can grow with you.

“In retail media, speed matters. Every week your inventory isn’t available to sell is revenue you can’t get back. With Salesforce Media Cloud and our Fast Track approach, we’re helping retailers get to market in months, not years.”

Augusto Vilarelle, EVP, LATAM, ideaHelix

Your Media Business Is Already There. Let’s Put It to Work.

I believe almost every major retailer in Latin America is sitting on an untapped media opportunity.

The stores are there. The customers are there. The advertising space is there.

What’s often missing is the ability to package, price, sell and manage it at scale.

And that doesn’t have to take years.

Get the catalog right. Make inventory visible. Give your sales team one platform. Then scale.

If you’re looking at how to grow your retail media business, I’d be happy to show you what we built for El Rosado and how our 15-week Fast Track could work for you.

Contact ideaHelix or email me directly at augusto.vilarelleg@ideahelix.com.