Decadian shifts in retail

100x the ad money chasing 6x the income with 12x the ads. Thinking about ad performance leads to questions about a decadian shift in retail as sectors converge on the consumer?

In prepping for our upcoming Autumn Festival of events, in particular the Retail Media Executive Brief and our new Data Analytics and AI events, I’ve been thinking about the growth vectors of digital marketing. Two strands of thought emerge. Firstly, when everyone has optimised the efficiency of their digital marketing across so many channels and segments, has the efficacy increased? Where is there scope for standout performance? The second is that every industry - travel, finserv, entertainment, retail, brands, health - are all embracing their customers’ ‘whole lives’ and so increasingly there is overlapping marketing. Less about our products and sectors, and more and more about the consumer's life, values and experience. What does this mean for sectors, differentiation and collaboration?

How Perplexity sees ‘decadian’ from a space-travel perspective. © iJindal’s conversation with AI.

Promotion and marketing performance

We’re seeing an unprecedented shift in retail as the once-new ‘digital commerce’ is being overtaken by meta-digital commerce. In parallel, the definition of “retail” is being tested as we talk D2C, customer experience, marketplaces, brands selling direct - it’s as if our previous terms have been stretched beyond breaking. More and more sectors are learning from retail’s experience “at the basket” and in transactional activity - leisure, hospitality, streaming and CTV. In short, the silos and sectors are merging at the customer interface.

Promotion outstrips disposable income

This is no news at all to the customer since she has been the focal point of all advertising and promotion for decades.

I looked briefly with Perplexity at:

• The growth in household disposable income over the last 50 years (per ONS via Statista is £7,509 (1977) to £40,916 (2023). I haven’t adjusted for inflation.

• The growth in UK advertising spend goes from c£500mn in 1970 (per campaignlive.co.uk¹) to £42bn in 2024 (AA/WARC)²

• The growth in the number of adverts and promotional messages per day, from 500~1600 in 1970 to 6,000~10,000 today³. Estimates vary over how many we notice - an estimate is that all but 2% are ignored or recognised subliminally.

So, there is a growth in money, an increase in the ad money chasing that money, and an explosion in the individual messages, images, and ideas used to connect the former (consumer cash) with the retailer via the mechanism of advertising promotion.

I don’t think we can deduce much beyond:

100x the marketing money is chasing 6x the disposable income, using 12x the ad interruptions.

Other facts are available, and I’d appreciate any pointers to better data so that our research team can do a proper dive. We’ll be returning to this broad brush with more vigour so I’d love to get your perspective.

Decadian view

I was a bit casual in throwing in the term ‘decadian’. It came from a newsletter I used to read that viewed the news as if you were sending an update letter to a deep space colony, and it took a decade to arrive. It was the opposite of the 24-hour news cycle and looked at the important and impactful rather than the immediate - with space to consider how the very idea of what’s important and impactful changes over time.

Decadian Shifts in Retail: From Post Suburbia to Post-Sector Customer

The history of retail is the unfolding narrative of towns, technologies, lifestyles, and aspirations. With each decade since World War II, retail has done more than merely keep pace with consumers—it has anticipated, created, and ultimately redefined what it means to buy, to sell, and to belong.

As we approach 2030, a new wave of change crests on the horizon: retail’s boundaries, once rigid and sector-based, are dissolving. The “post-sector customer” emerges as the central protagonist, whose value is considered continuously, not just at the checkout. But how did we arrive at this new era? Let’s chart eight decades of transformation—“decadian shifts” that have set the stage for a truly customer-centric, borderless economic model.

1950s: Advertising & Suburbanization - The Foundation Layer

After the war, residential and commercial life moved to the suburbs. Retail’s great format innovation—the supermarket—thrived here, using mass media (TV and radio) to reach a booming population. At the same time, the rise of private cars turned shopping into a leisure pursuit. Self-service became the gold standard (freedom!), and brands began to court “the customer” at scale. The decade’s transformation: shopping became both a destination and a ritual.

1960s: Shopping Centres & Credit - Choice Goes Mainstream

The mall and shopping centre grew as modern social and commercial hubs in the US, fulfilling the promise of a modern, suburban landscape. Although the UK’s first shopping centre, Brent Cross, didn’t open until 1976 the growth of car ownership was changing the higher street. At the same time, the credit card unlocked new purchasing power and closed the austerity overhang from the second world war. The sixties were swinging and - a decade after the US - Britain’s first credit card arrived in 1966 (Barclaycard), with Access launching in 1972⁴. Choice and credit became the default expectations for consumers. The modern “shopping trip” was born.

1970s: Logistics Revolution - Efficiency and supply chain to the fore

Retail was reorganised for efficiency and scale. Distribution centres, containerization, and new supply chain strategies transformed grocers and discounters alike. Pioneers such as Walmart in the US, and the UK grocers applied just-in-time practices, setting new productivity standards and enabling foreign sourcing for the first time at scale. The customer would have seen extended ranges, cold-chain, hard goods, gardening, etc all improved by the operational heft. Price and availability became twin pillars of retail success.

1980s: Digital Operations - The computers arrive

The adoption of computers and the barcode upended the cash register and manual pricing. Point-of-sale (POS) systems and early inventory management tools not only improved accuracy but they quietly generated the structured data that would power loyalty, promotions, and analytics for decades to come. The era of operational data visibility began, even if it was less tractable than currently.

1990s: Consolidation & Data - Personalization and Power

Big got bigger through mergers and acquisitions. Retailers deployed loyalty cards and programs to personalise offers, finally connecting the dots between transaction and shopper. The 1960s Green Shield Stamps has a successor in the DunnHumby-powered Tesco Clubcard (launched in 1995). Across the world, owners of data and footfall realised that they needed both scale and intimacy—the ability to “know the customer” at increasing distances.

2000s: Internet Commerce - From Storefront to Anyfront

Although web pioneers were selling in the 1990s, the 2000s introduced what I’d call the ‘working web’ (where customers were surprised if a website broke, rather than if it worked!). E-commerce became normal for a generation, and digitally native brands reshaped expectations for convenience, price, and customer service. Secure payments, real-time tracking, and the slow extinction of channel boundaries set the stage for a platform-driven world.

2010s: Mobile & Omnichannel - Retail in Your Pocket

Smartphones democratised access to information and purchasing. Shopping became “anytime, anywhere,” and omnichannel strategies (blending physical and digital) became our definition of “winning”. The mobile become the ‘remote control for the business’, with increasing capability under the customer’s thumb. Retailers that could blur the lines—offering click-and-collect, seamless delivery, and cross-channel loyalty—thrived. App-based interactions and mobile-first thinking became strategic imperatives, with the words “mobile strategy” a vital part of any self-respecting Annual Report.

In many ways this was ‘peak ecommerce’: all channels could integrate (or at least inter-operate), the customer had visibility and control, and digital marketing effectiveness was at a peak. However, what looked like a peak of achievement was in fact a turning point, a change of direction…

2020s: The customer’s decade (plus AI & Sustainability)

Artificial intelligence is now at the core of everything from inventory to marketing. It went from “coming soon” to “already everywhere” in a blink, eclipsing the slugging ‘ecommerce’ revolution and ‘mobile’ upending. AI has been less an ‘acceleration of digital’ and more a topic change in the conversation.

For the consumer, marketplaces, particularly Amazon, aggregate vast product ranges, enable small-brand access, and shape consumer journeys from search to doorstep. Commerce has never been more accessible and boringly reliable.

At the same time, attention to sustainability, circular commerce, and climate impact is realigning priorities—not just what we buy but why. However, the consumer’s words don’t match their deeds, with spending still gravitating to the Shein/Temu discount and fast outlets the burden of developing sustainable business is still biased towards the retailers. This is a whole post on its own so I’ll not dive in here.

These are both side points, however, since both are “bridges” that link across 50 years of commercial silos. Back to my earlier point about retail media, data quality and technology platforms (especially for ad creation, placement and tracking): retailers are no longer the only people doing promotional marketing. In the 20th century, brands did “above the line” (awareness and demand-generation) and retailers did tactical sales and promotional marketing (get and close the transaction). Not only has this distinction eroded, but so have other sectors learned from retail (and vice versa), while the ability for a retailer to collaborate with a credit card company (for in-statement marketing), a petrol station (videos at the pump) or travel and entertainment ties ups, so too are retailers borrowing business models across sectors: subscriptions, drops, pop-ups, activations…

This decade is going to see a concerted attack on the consumer’s attention and her wallet. Similar, excellent and effective approaches, well-funded and in collaboration, will become the norm, with more money and skill chasing the same amount of cash.

This will change business models. A third of Walmart’s profits now come from selling ads,⁵ and so retailing might soon be the cost of supporting an ad business ;)

I expect the 2020s to be the decade in which we stop talking about sectors and last-century business models, and instead look at the customer with ‘commercial intent’ - whether we are retailers, brands, healthcare services, travel, entertainment or food.

2020s - the customer decade.

More, obviously, to come on this. Do you agree? If not, what would you call the ‘20s?

Tsonduku

Tsundoku (積ん読) is the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them.  

In no particular order, these all start a journey…

1. If you are stuck at London Heathrow Airport thanks to another NATS failure/recovery then keep an ear open for some specially-commissioned sounds. Music for Heathrow will play throughout the summer. Not a rendition of howling, delayed travellers but rather airport sounds like baggage belts, boarding calls and aircraft, and is inspired by Brian Eno's Music for Airports. The composer is Jordan Rakei - https://www.jordanrakei.com

2. “Pure, unconditional love” - people who marry their chatbots. Nuanced and a bit unexpected - not the snide hatched job I expected. Worth reading while holding on to questions of therapeutic value, ownership of relationship data and the permanence of digital instantiations - https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jul/12/i-felt-pure-unconditional-love-the-people-who-marry-their-ai-chatbots

Endmatter

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have any feedback, suggestions for topics, or even contributions. In between newsletters, there is LinkedIn and Instagram, and of course, the RetailCraft podcast and RetailX analysis.

A la prochaine.

1. Fantastic article and historical sweep here: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/follow-money-evolution-media/1496285

2. https://adassoc.org.uk/our-work/uk-advertising-records-42-6bn-spend-in-2024/

3. https://www.digitalsilk.com/digital-trends/how-many-ads-do-we-see-a-day/

4. https://www.natwestgroup.com/heritage/history-100/objects-by-theme/serving-our-customers/credit-card-advert-1972.html

5. https://www.modernretail.co/marketing/almost-a-third-of-walmarts-profit-now-comes-from-selling-ads/