In this episode of Unlocking Retail Media, Kevel CEO James Avery talks with Sean Cheyney, EVP of Global Business Development at QSIC, about turning in-store audio into a real, measurable retail media channel and why 2026 marks a turning point for the physical store.
Seventy-five percent of commerce still happens in physical stores, yet retail media investment has been almost entirely focused on digital. In this episode of Unlocking Retail Media, Avery sat down with Sean Cheyney, a retail media veteran who cut his teeth at Triad Retail Media before leading global business development at QSIC, to discuss how in-store audio is solving two of the biggest pain points retailers face in physical retail media: creative production and measurement.
Here are the five biggest takeaways from their conversation.
Takeaway #1: The Retailers Who Swore Off Advertising Are Now Leading It
Cheyney has watched retail media grow from a concept few recognized to a multi-billion dollar industry. When he joined Triad thirteen years ago, the term "retail media" wasn't widely used. "Monetization" was more the language of the day. Back then, convincing retailers to accept supplier advertising was an uphill battle.
"I would go to a trade show and talk to a retailer, and they would swear up and down ‘we will never put advertising for anybody, even our suppliers, across our website, our app, our email, in our store. We will never do that.’ And then these are the retailers that today are some of the biggest players in retail media. — Sean Cheyney, EVP, Global Business Development, QSIC
What changed? Money. Once retail media teams began demonstrating real revenue potential, the internal resistance softened. Cheyney notes that the retailers succeeding today are the ones where media teams positioned themselves as execution partners to merchandising, rather than competitors. "Let us be your execution arm," became the productive framing, and it worked.
Takeaway #2: In-Store and Online Were Siloed From the Start — And That's Finally Changing
Historically, the separation between online retail media teams and in-store merchandising wasn't accidental, it was structural. Cheyney traces it back to how retailers, beginning with Walmart, stood up entirely separate digital teams, siloed away from the people managing trade dollars and in-store co-op funds for decades.
"The merchant team was just holding on and trying to protect their shelf space, even if that shelf space was digital," Cheyney explained. In Europe, by contrast, teams never split in the first place. Cheyney noted that European retailers find the American organizational divide baffling: "They look at what's happening in the US and say, what are you talking about? Our teams have been working as a cohesive group for decades."
The gap is narrowing in the US, but it hasn't closed. The retailers making the most progress are the ones treating retail media and merchandising as partners with shared goals, not separate P&Ls.
Takeaway #3: In-Store Audio Solves the Two Pain Points Every Retailer Mentions
When Cheyney speaks with retailers around the world about in-store retail media, two pain points come up every single time: creative and measurement.
On the creative side, producing, editing, and localizing audio ads at scale has historically been expensive and slow. QSIC's approach uses AI to solve this. Voice talent is trained, and the system generates customized ads down to the individual store level in minutes. Variables like city name, price, or local language can be inserted automatically, much like merge fields in email. "You can create thousands of ads just in the touch of a button," Cheyney said.
In terms of measurement, the problem has been even more fundamental. As Cheyney put it, most retailers, when asked how their in-store measurement is going, respond: "We know an ad plays. And that's about it." To solve this QSIC built closed-loop measurement that goes far beyond ad delivery, including incremental ROAS, store-level performance reporting, and control-and-holdout testing. "If you would've asked me that question a year before I joined QSIC, I would've said it's not even possible," Cheyney admitted.
Takeaway #4: Audio Reaches a Sense That In-Store Media Has Left Untapped
Physical stores are increasingly cluttered with visual media competing for shopper attention; screens on coolers, digital end caps, signage along aisles. Audio, by contrast, operates on a completely different sensory channel that nobody else is using.
"Brands and agencies are always looking for ways to break through the noise," Cheyney noted. "This [In-store audio] becomes a way to appeal to a sense that hasn't been used before."
For brands that feel they've already saturated digital channels, sponsored products, banner ads, email, programmatic, in-store audio represents genuinely incremental reach. And critically, 85 to 90 percent of transactions still occur in physical stores, meaning that's where brands need to be present. QSIC recommends keeping ad time light: roughly four to four-and-a-half minutes per hour, so the dominant experience remains music and store atmosphere rather than a continuous ad loop.
The measurement closes the loop in a way that's uniquely suited to audio. Because an ad plays to everyone in the store during a defined time window, attribution doesn't depend on eye-tracking or screen proximity. Combined with POS data ingestion and holdout groups, QSIC can isolate the true lift an audio ad produces. Not just the units sold, but the incremental units sold above what would have happened anyway.
Takeaway #5: 2026 Is the Year In-Store Audio Becomes a Retail Media Channel
Cheyney drew a clear parallel between where in-store screens were a year ago and where in-store audio stands today. "2025 was the year that retailers began doing pilots with in-store screens," he said. "2026 is going to be the same thing for in-store audio."
His prediction:
- 2026: Retailers globally, particularly in North America and Europe, begin integrating audio as a formal channel within their retail media programs
- 2027: Full-scale rollouts follow, with audio treated as a standard line item in omnichannel campaign planning
The omnichannel vision Cheyney describes isn't theoretical. He pointed to Nectar 360, the retail media arm of Sainsbury's in the UK, which presented a Pepsi campaign at a Retail Media X conference that spanned stadium wraps, in-store screens, and multiple digital channels simultaneously. "It was wildly successful," Cheyney said. "And this is how they do things in Europe. They start with the goal and work backwards to the channels."
That model, strategy first, channel mix second, is increasingly what brand planning should look like. Retail media teams that can bring a "big idea" to a brand, one that spans in-store audio alongside onsite and offsite digital, are the ones that will win larger budget allocations.
The Physical Store Is Retail Media's Next Frontier
The conversation with Sean Cheyney makes one thing clear: the physical store has been underserved by retail media innovation for too long. While digital channels matured rapidly, in-store media stayed stuck in an era of unmeasured trade spending and looping background music. That's beginning to change.
For retailers, the path forward requires treating in-store audio not as a vendor amenity but as a performance channel. One that can deliver closed-loop measurement, store-level attribution, and incremental ROAS alongside the digital channels already in their media mix. For brands, it means recognizing that the 75 percent of commerce happening in stores deserves the same rigor and accountability as any programmatic campaign.
The retailers who move early to integrate measurable in-store audio into their retail media offerings will have a differentiated product to bring to brand partners and a channel that no amount of digital saturation can replicate.
Listen to the Full Conversation on Unlocking Retail Media
For more insights like these, tune in to the full episode of Unlocking Retail Media, the podcast where Kevel CEO James Avery sits down with industry leaders and innovators shaping the future of retail advertising.
Listen to this episode with Sean Cheyney here.
