Retail media is the shiny new idol on the ad altar. Everyone’s tithing, but no one’s asking whether the miracles are real.

Let’s be blunt: retail media is riding the hype cycle like it’s a Peloton class at CES. Analysts scream $80 billion by 2027! Brands pretend they’re monks kneeling before the altar of “closed-loop attribution.” And investors? They’re chanting “growth, growth, growth” like it’s the only psalm they know.

Here’s the unholy truth: most of that “growth” is less about retail media’s magic and more about creative accounting. Think of it as Wall Street’s favorite party trick: call the same dollar three different things and suddenly you’ve tripled revenue.

Retailers are selling you the dream: every ad tied to a receipt. Pure accountability. Nirvana for CFOs who only believe in spreadsheets.

But here’s the catch: Walmart, Target, Kroger—they’re all grading their own homework in crayon. They hand you a report card full of A-pluses and you smile, while quietly ignoring the fact that the kid never showed up to class.

Marketers are complicit. They love dashboards that make their jobs look instantly effective. “See, boss? I spent a buck and made five back!” Except that’s often a Potemkin village—a facade hiding the fact that much of the “lift” would’ve happened with or without the campaign.

You want to know where consumers actually discover new products? The store aisle. Not TikTok. Not the end of a YouTube pre-roll. The literal place where someone grabs a sample, smells the detergent, or hears that sizzle from a live demo.

Data says it: consumers rank samples and demos as the #2 most influential in-store ad format, right behind price promos. Marketers, in their infinite dashboard worship, ranked it sixth. That disconnect is why in-store budgets still look like an afterthought while digital ROAS gets inflated like a biotech IPO.

And the sensory science is brutal: you’re 100x more likely to remember what you smell than what you see. Retailers who combine QR codes and loyalty hooks with taste + touch + scent are literally printing memory equity. Yet most marketers are too busy watching their ROAS tickers like day traders on Adderall.

So here’s the uncomfortable setup: retail media’s rocket ship is fueled by bad attribution. Sales are being counted twice, cannibalized from competitors, or passed around between budgets like a blunt at Coachella.

You’re not buying growth—you’re buying the illusion of growth.

And if you’re reading this thinking, “That can’t be my brand”—it probably is.

⚠️ Next in ADOTAT+: We run the numbers the RMNs don’t want you to see. The dirty math behind double-counting, closed-loop hocus-pocus, and how a 5x ROAS on paper usually looks more like 1.2x once you peel back the layers.

👉 If you want to stop praying at the altar and start demanding receipts that actually matter, you’ll need to read Part II inside ADOTAT+.