In this extract from Ragtrader's Technology Report 2025, David Jones CMO James Holloman shows just how lucrative its retail media arm has become.
Over a thousand advertising campaigns have been run across David Jones’ touchpoints since the department store launched its retail media arm Amplify in early 2024. That’s everything from digital advertising moments to fully integrated marketing campaigns running across 30,000 placement opportunities, both in-store, online and even the Jones print magazine.
And the team has only just gotten started.
David Jones’s chief marketing officer, James Holloman, says much of this growth has come through over the last year, driven by him and a dedicated team of two who run the arm, with help from another 15 people stretched across the overall marketing department.
The Amplify arm forms part of a $250 million investment by David Jones’ new owner, Anchorage Capital Partners, making up the department store’s Vision 2025 strategy. This investment also includes several store revamps (with new huge digital billboards and experiential touchpoints), the launch of a shopping app in December 2024, and, just recently, the complete overhaul of its loyalty program. Ahead of Christmas 2025, David Jones will also upgrade its website to a headless platform.
For Holloman, all these channel investments mean one thing: elevated media placements and stronger first-party data.
“The overall business transformation for David Jones will accelerate our retail media arm and just make it fully integrated and seamless into the entire customer experience,” he says.
On top of this, the Australian retail media space is quite lucrative right now, with the market valued at $2.6 billion in 2024, according to Sonder. This is expected to pass $3 billion by 2027.
Of course, many pundits say it is difficult to quantify this number, and Holloman may just have the reason why. He says retail media should just be considered as media.
“Retail media is probably less about retail competition than it is about media competition,” he says. “So it's really disrupting the media industry.”
Looking at it that way, it’s clear just how lucrative retail media could be. Recent estimates from IPG’s MAGNA and published by AdNews show advertising spend in Australia is projected to lift by 5.4 per cent in 2025.
Digital media will continue to grow, with revenue up 6.7 per cent to $23 billion, and increasing share to 77 per cent of total ad sales.
Within digital, search will grow 3.5 per cent to $10.8 billion, social media will climb 14.3 per cent to $8.7 billion, and digital video by 1 per cent to $2.3 billion.
Meanwhile, traditional media owners – TV, radio and print – should see a revenue rise of 1.1 per cent of $6.9 billion. This includes a 10 per cent surge in out-of-home advertising to $1.5 billion.
For David Jones, which recorded relatively flat sales growth to $2.19 billion in FY24 according to ASIC filings, tapping the media space means tapping a new revenue stream, offsetting overall struggles in the department store market.
This means leveraging David Jones’ premium and luxury space. Holloman says David Jones Amplify is the only retail media network currently in the premium and luxury customer space in Australia. Other major players include Amazon, Coles and Woolworths. Through its various channels, the department store can see whether a customer buys luxury or skincare or even premium food. Holloman says this is not just claimed behaviour, such as somebody following or liking certain categories. It's actual shoppers.
David Jones also boasts more than 50 million store visits annually, with more than 100 million visits via its online website. This recently jumped month-on-month in August.
On top of this, the store also has over 3 million active EDM subscribers. Match that with around 3.8 million loyalty program members, and David Jones Amplify is way more than a lucrative side hustle.
And it’s tapping big and small. Over the last year, the media arm launched campaigns with the Yellowstone TV show on Stan, the Emily in Paris show on Netflix and the Downton Abby show with Universal.
“We've also done a campaign with Destination Canada, where we've done experiential in store. I think it could stretch even further to experiential dinners with key customers or other types of interaction; whatever is appropriate for that particular advertiser.”
Looking ahead, Holloman thinks the next challenge for the media industry is how do they buy retail media networks in a simplistic fashion or a fashion that is scalable – like they buy print, TV, radio and digital.
But the trick for those diving into retail media is measuring impact. In digital advertising, return on ad spend (ROAS) is a key measurement, covering clicks and purchases. But physical billboards can’t be clicked.
David Jones has circumvented this by adding AI cameras to a selection of billboards, which count traffic, billboard views and dwell time. In the measurement piece, David Jones worked with Criteo, which is plugged into its website.
“The next big evolution of retail media is retailers turning into media owners and having a different mindset,” Holloman concludes. “And you need people from media and marketing to talk the language of retail, media and marketing, and not necessarily the language of retail.”
Following that, Holloman believes the next shift will be retail media players having tools and visibility of how to book, place and report retail media networks so they can understand how to navigate clients through all the new emerging offerings.
Read more in Ragtrader's FREE Technology Report 2025 HERE. This report is powered by Checkpoint Systems.