The Agencies Are Coming — Jason O'Toole, Dentsu

Jason O'Toole spent most of his career on the brand side, most recently running media and connected commerce at Gildan, where he managed retail media, social commerce, affiliate and digital shelf as one practice. Two months ago he moved to Dentsu as EVP, Head of Commerce and Retail Media Activation, to build the holding company's buy-side retail media practice. He joins Tom Limongello and Todd Sawicki to talk about what it means when the big agencies finally show up in retail media. Jason explains how Dentsu is organized, with activation teams embedded in its agencies, a practice team planning for what's next, and a separate sell-side group that helps retailers build their networks. He shares advice for retailers learning to work with agencies, why trust is what unlocks clean room and retail data access, and how "persona threading" can carry a shopper from upper-funnel brand media through DSP remarketing to the product page. The conversation also covers the faster growth of non-endemic advertisers, why retailers will have to keep earning attention, and why Jason calls in-store media the industry's lowest-hanging fruit, from digital end caps to apps and AI assistants used mid-aisle. The takeaway for retail media networks: agency buyers bring non-endemic budgets, but they also bring higher expectations for data, tooling and measurement. Chapters: 0:00 Todd's Cold, Tom's Red-Eye from Groceryshop 0:46 Meet Jason O'Toole 2:31 The Agencies Are Coming 5:07 Welcome to the Podcast 5:54 Jason's Brand-Side Journey 7:32 Why Move to the Agency Side 9:06 How Dentsu Is Organized 12:48 Retailers Working with Agencies 18:02 Trust and Data Access 22:25 Persona Threading and the Full Funnel 30:57 Non-Endemic Growth and Attention 33:23 The In-Store Media Opportunity 36:50 Apps and AI in In-Store Shopping 40:16 Retail Media Innovation Examples 41:27 Wrap-Up and Next Events