Gadiza Saaidi, Benelux

Gadiza Saaidi, Retail Media Lead for Unilever Benelux joins Paul Skeldon to share her extensive 15-year perspective on building and scaling retail media. Drawing from her experience establishing the Albert Heijn Retail Media Network in the Netherlands, Gadiza breaks down the internal and external realities of launching a network, the necessity of full-funnel channel alignment, and why the industry must shift from a "plug-and-play" mindset to long-term capability building.

Discussion points:

• The "Startup" Struggle: Why building a retail media network requires acting like a media startup inside a traditional grocery business, and how to create a shared internal language across disjointed departments.
• The Omnichannel Reality: Moving away from treating on-site, off-site, and in-store as separate siloed channels, and starting every campaign with a single, unified "screen-to-shelf" briefing.
• The Four Pillars of Retail Media: A breakdown of Haditsi’s strategic model—Data, Context, Scale, and Measurement—designed to connect brand, media, and trade budgets into a singular growth conversation.
• Common Brand Misconceptions: Debunking the idea that retail media is an automatic "budget in, ROAS out" performance tool, and tackling the complexities of cross-channel first-party data measurement.
• Simplifying Through Experience: How immersive "Retail Media Tours" in the Netherlands help advertisers demystify the customer journey, and what it means to act as an integrated gatekeeper for giant FMCG portfolios like Unilever