Retail media has become one of the fastest-growing forces in advertising, yet measurement has struggled to keep pace. The funnel is fragmenting, shoppers move across digital and physical touchpoints in no predictable order, and proving the true value of a media dollar has become one of the industry's hardest problems. At Cannes Lions 2026, Parbinder Dhariwal, VP, general manager at CVS Media Exchange (CMX), sat down with Circana to share how retailers are confronting this challenge head-on, why in-store behavior still drives the majority of transactions, and what it actually takes to measure impact beyond any single retailer's walls. 

The throughline of the conversation is direct. When media is everywhere, real performance matters more than ever, and measurement becomes the deciding factor in confidence and business outcomes. 

The funnel is no longer linear 

The purchase funnel has not simply compressed. According to Dhariwal, it has been largely set aside. 

"I think the funnel has somewhat almost been disregarded now. It's a non-linear way in which the consumer is engaging with fragmented media, because media is everywhere today." 

Parbinder Dhariwal, VP, general manager at CVS Media Exchange

Shoppers discover products in a social feed, research on their phones, and buy in a store aisle, often in an order no marketer scripted. A customer might see something they never knew they wanted, then purchase it minutes later. Discovery and commerce now blend across digital and physical touchpoints, and each touchpoint carries its own signals. 

For brands, that shift changes the core question. It is no longer "where does the customer sit in the funnel?" It is "how do we reach the right customer, in the right moment, with the right message, wherever they show up?" That includes the shopper who arrives already knowing what they want, and the shopper who only ever engages physically. 

Fragmentation of media is fragmentation of measurement 

If media is scattered across dozens of surfaces, measurement scatters with it. This is the anchor idea of the entire discussion. 

"Fragmentation of media is fragmentation of measurement. And that's what we're seeing in the marketplace." 

The problem is straightforward to describe and hard to solve. A brand may run media inside a retailer's ecosystem, but the resulting purchase can happen somewhere else entirely, across a different channel or a different store. A retailer can measure activity inside its own environment with confidence. What it cannot see alone is the impact that lands outside of its four walls. 

That gap is where independent, cross-retailer measurement becomes essential. Most retailers have deep visibility into their own ecosystems, but understanding consumer behavior across the broader market often requires additional measurement approaches. Understanding the true impact of a media dollar requires visibility into shopping behavior across the entire market, not just within one environment. That kind of consistent, census-level view is what the industry needs to turn fragmented signals into comparable, credible results across channels and retailers. 

Watch the full interview below. 

Why in-store still carries the behavior 

For all the attention on digital discovery, the physical store remains where most transactions actually close. The data underscores the continued importance of the physical store. 

• About 94% of customers who enter a CVS Pharmacy store leave with a purchase.¹ 

• Roughly two-thirds of customers are not relying on only a digital relationship with the brand. They interact with CVS Pharmacy primarily in physical stores.² 

¹ CVS Internal Data: Understanding the CVS In-store Experience Research Study, March 2025. 

² CVS Internal Data: CVS Retail Playbook, June 2023 

That second figure reframes the strategy. Brands have been trained to drive digital engagement toward digital conversion. But a large share of real shoppers never enter that loop. They simply walk in and buy. 

The implication is clear. Reaching the digitally enabled shopper is necessary but not sufficient. Brands also have to reach the physical-only shopper, and to do that they need measurement that captures in-store behavior with the same rigor applied online. 

Standards and trust 

Measuring across digital and physical surfaces only earns brand confidence if it holds to a consistent standard. CMX works toward IAB measurement standards across both its digital and in-store inventory, with a stated priority on transparency. 

The logic is practical. A retailer can measure its own environment, but it has to demonstrate that it measures fairly and consistently. Standards are the foundation of trust between retailers and brands, because they make results comparable and defensible rather than self-reported and opaque. 

Transparency alone is not enough. Transparency held to a high, shared standard is what allows a brand to believe a retailer's numbers and act on them. 

The number that reframes retail media

Here is the statistic that reshapes how brands should value a retail media investment. 

"In early testing, we're seeing, on average, 60% of the incremental impact of a CMX dollar invested that's happening outside of a CVS Pharmacy location." 

Parbinder Dhariwal, VP, general manager at CVS Media Exchange

Let’s unpack that. A significant amount of incremental impact from a CMX media dollar can occur beyond CVS itself. A single retailer, looking only at its own environment, would never see it. Worse, it might undercount the true return and lead brands to misjudge where their money works hardest. 

This is precisely why cross-retailer measurement matters as an industry standard. A customer of CVS is also a customer of many other retailers. Their behavior spans the whole market, so the impact of media aimed at them spans the whole market too. Capturing that full picture requires an independent view built on census-level coverage across retailers, not just a single network's self-reported data. 

Circana's roughly 92% U.S. POS census exists to answer this exact question. It measures total incremental impact across retailers, not just inside one, and that allows the industry to educate the market on the real, total ROI of a retail media dollar. The story shifts from "what did this drive for one retailer?" to "what did this drive for the brand and the category overall?" 

From reporting to a business decision engine 

Measurement that only tells you what already happened is a diagnostic. Useful, but backward-looking. Dhariwal's point is that the category has to move further. 

"Measurement has to move from reporting, that diagnostic, into a business decision engine." 

Parbinder Dhariwal, VP, general manager at CVS Media Exchange

The obstacle is inconsistency. Results vary from retailer to retailer and from channel to channel, which makes it difficult to plan, compare, and optimize with confidence. When measurement is consistent and independent, it stops being a report card and starts guiding the next decision: where to invest, what to expect, and how to grow. 

That consistency also eases organizational tension. Common understanding of a dollar's value reduces the friction over how budgets move and who gets credit. As Dhariwal put it, the shared purpose is simple: helping brands grow. 

"What we're trying to do in this industry is helping brands grow. That's why we're in this industry." 

Breaking down silos and building in-store retail media 

Growth also depends on how a retailer organizes itself internally. CVS Media Exchange approaches this as a tripod, bringing marketing, merchandising, and retail media together rather than letting them operate in isolation. 

The mechanism is shared programming. Tentpole initiatives give marketing, merchandising, and retail media teams a common goal and a common measure of success. That structure drives maximum impact and shared ROI, and it steadily breaks down long-standing silos. 

The in-store build follows the same discipline. CMX maps different messages to different moments in the store, applying what Dhariwal calls "positive friction" to aid product discovery. 

• Front-entrance screen: a roughly 15-second ad to capture attention at the entrance. 

• Waiting-area screens: a roughly 15-second message for shoppers with dwell time, including educational product prompts. 

• Checkout ads: testing new, high-impact placements across 3,900 stores nationwide — these ads drive consideration and foster long-term brand loyalty. 

• Audio: paired with screens and Checkout Ads to reinforce the message at scale. 

"It's not a one-size-fits-all in this environment." 

Parbinder Dhariwal, VP, general manager at CVS Media Exchange

Each ad product serves a distinct customer phase. The strategy is not to blanket the store, but to match message to moment. And every one of these surfaces produces signals that need to be measured against total-market outcomes, not just in-store activity, to prove their real worth. 

The takeaway 

The funnel is non-linear, media is fragmented, and retail media networks are seeing outsized impact outside the retailer’s own walls. Those three realities point to a single conclusion: retail media only becomes credible and consistent when measured across the entire market by an independent authority. That cross-retailer truth set is what turns measurement from a backward-looking report into a forward-looking decision engine. 

Watch the full interview with Parbinder Dhariwal to hear how the industry is confronting retail media's measurement fragmentation problem and what it takes to prove true, total-market impact. Then explore Circana's retail media measurement solutions to see how census-level, cross-retailer measurement reveals the real ROI of every media dollar. 

¹ CVS Internal Data: Understanding the CVS In-store Experience Research Study, March 2025 

² CVS Internal Data: CVS Retail Playbook, June 2023